Fisher on the NASEM Climate Report

“These are matters of public policy, not science alone. And in no case should a group of allegedly objective scientists attempt to shut down a public policy debate.” (-T. Fisher, below)

Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, has rapidly become a trusted voice in the sustainability debates of our time. He recently reported on social media:

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) just declared the [prior] EPA’s endangerment finding on greenhouse gases “beyond scientific dispute.”

While the endangerment finding is the legal foundation for many of EPA’s climate regulations, NASEM’s unsolicited report crosses an important line — from providing objective scientific advice to advocating for a specific policy.

Science can inform policy, but it cannot make policy for us.

The Fallacy of ‘Exxon Knew” (Part II)

Yesterday’s post, “‘Exxon Knew’ as Historical Fallacy“, provided historical context to weaken the claim that an internal Exxon study was demonstrative as to the future dangers of CO2-led global warming. Today’s post evaluates the rudimentary finding that (third bullet of the Exxon memo):

The present trend of fossil fuel consumption will cause dramatic envrionmental effects before the year 2050.

Nine years after the internal Exxon memo (1979), reporting on the James Hansen testimony that launched the climate debate, environmental reporter Philip Shabecoff provided specific forecasts of anthropogenic activity: 3–9°F and 1–4 feet by 2025–2050.

Mathematical models have predicted for some years now that a buildup of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and other gases emitted by human activities into the atmosphere would cause the earth’s surface to warm….

“Exxon Knew” as Historical Fallacy (Part I)

The following memorandum within the vast bowels of Exxon Corporation from 1979 has led to several fallacies that the memo represented company policy and was definitive at the time.

False and false. This memo from certain employees never made it to a company position for cause. Global cooling was the bigger concern back then, and the above memo did not investigate the SO₂ offset, much less the benefits from CO₂ fertilization and incremental warming. Peak Oil and Peak Gas was the intellectual/practical concern of this era.

Background Posts

MasterResource has opined on this subject is a series of posts, summarized here.

• A rebuttal to an op-ed by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, “The Forgotten Oil Ads that Told Us Climate Change was Nothing.”
• A critical review of Inside Climate News’s “Exxon: The Road Not Taken” (here and here)
• A three-part rejoinder of Big Oil vs The World by the BBC (Episode I; Episode II; Episode III)
• A rejoinder to Shell Knew (here)
• ‘ExxonKnew’: More Correction (Sept.

Comments: DOE Climate Science Study

Solar Books to Skip

Lisa Sachs (Columbia University): Assume, Don’t Debate, Premises

National Clean Energy Week: Re-education Please

Dessler “Unhinged” at CO2/Climate Optimism Report (“doomism” under siege)

Solar Bust: PosiGen Joins SunPower, Sunnova, Mosaic Solar

‘Climate Forward’ Conference in NYT asks for Questions (wake ahead?)