Steven Koonin: A ‘Red Team’ Exercise Would Strengthen Climate Science

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

Put the ‘consensus’ to a test, and improve public understanding, through an open, adversarial process.

Tomorrow’s March for Science will draw many thousands in support of evidence-based policy making and against the politicization of science. A concrete step toward those worthy goals would be to convene a “Red Team/Blue Team” process for climate science, one of the most important and contentious issues of our age.

The national-security community pioneered the “Red Team” methodology to test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduce—or at least understand—uncertainties. The process is now considered a best practice in high-consequence situations such as intelligence assessments, spacecraft design and major industrial operations. It is very different and more rigorous than traditional peer review, which is usually confidential and always adjudicated, rather than public and moderated.

The public is largely unaware of the intense debates within climate science. At a recent national laboratory meeting, I observed more than 100 active government and university researchers challenge one another as they strove to separate human impacts from the climate’s natural variability. At issue were not nuances but fundamental aspects of our understanding, such as the apparent—and unexpected—slowing of global sea-level rise over the past two decades.

Summaries of scientific assessments meant to inform decision makers, such as the United Nations’ Summary for Policymakers, largely fail to capture this vibrant and developing science. Consensus statements necessarily conceal judgment calls and debates and so feed the “settled,” “hoax” and “don’t know” memes that plague the political dialogue around climate change. We scientists must better portray not only our certainties but also our uncertainties, and even things we may never know. Not doing so is an advisory malpractice that usurps society’s right to make choices fully informed by risk, economics and values. Moving from oracular consensus statements to an open adversarial process would shine much-needed light on the scientific debates.

Given the importance of climate projections to policy, it is remarkable that they have not been subject to a Red Team exercise. Here’s how it might work: The focus would be a published scientific report meant to inform policy such as the U.N.’s Summary for Policymakers or the U.S. Government’s National Climate Assessment. A Red Team of scientists would write a critique of that document and a Blue Team would rebut that critique. Further exchanges of documents would ensue to the point of diminishing returns. A commission would coordinate and moderate the process and then hold hearings to highlight points of agreement and disagreement, as well as steps that might resolve the latter. The process would unfold in full public view: the initial report, the exchanged documents and the hearings.

A Red/Blue exercise would have many benefits. It would produce a traceable public record that would allow the public and decision makers a better understanding of certainties and uncertainties. It would more firmly establish points of agreement and identify urgent research needs. Most important, it would put science front and center in policy discussions, while publicly demonstrating scientific reasoning and argument. The inherent tension of a professional adversarial process would enhance public interest, offering many opportunities to show laymen how science actually works. (In 2014 I conducted a workshop along these lines for the American Physical Society.)

Congress or the executive branch should convene a climate science Red/Blue exercise as a step toward resolving, or at least illuminating, differing perceptions of climate science. While the Red and Blue Teams should be knowledgeable and avowedly opinionated scientists, the commission should have a balanced membership of prominent individuals with technical credentials, led by co-chairmen who are forceful, knowledgeable and independent of the climate-science community. The Rogers Commission for the Challenger disaster in 1986, the Energy Department’s Huizenga/Ramsey Review of Cold Fusion in 1989, and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission of the late 1990s are models for the kind of fact-based rigor and transparency needed.

The outcome of a Red/Blue exercise for climate science is not preordained, which makes such a process all the more valuable. It could reveal the current consensus as weaker than claimed. Alternatively, the consensus could emerge strengthened if Red Team criticisms were countered effectively. But whatever the outcome, we scientists would have better fulfilled our responsibilities to society, and climate policy discussions would be better informed. For those reasons, all who march to advocate policy making based upon transparent apolitical science should support a climate science Red Team exercise.

Mr. Koonin, a theoretical physicist, is director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. He served as undersecretary of energy for science during President Obama’s first term.

The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2017

see also Red Teams Can Save Climate Science From Itself

Global Warming Policy Foundation — Prominent climate scientists tell  US Congressional committee that climate science isn’t working, but can be saved by a “red team” approach.

A group of prominent US climate experts have told a Congressional committee hearing that climate science is dysfunctional, beset by bias and groupthink, and is using a profoundly unscientific approach. Speaking before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Professor John Christy told representatives that “consensus science”, as practiced by much of mainstream climatology, was “not science” at all, while Professor Judith Curry explained that “self-deception” had got the better of far too many climatologists.

Both concluded that there had been a wholesale failure to use the scientific method in climatology, something that could only be put right by the introduction of official “red teams” – groups of eminent scientists, who would be asked to challenge and provide dissenting opinions on official climate assessments.

Professor Christy said: “Congress needs a parallel, scientifically-based assessment of the state of climate science. Many important issues are left out of government-directed climate reports entirely; our policymakers need to see the entire range of findings regarding climate change”

The testimony of all four climatologists who spoke at the congressional hearings, including the dissenting views of Professor Michael Mann, are being republished by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the London-based think tank which seeks to enhance the public debates on climate science and policy.

Full Congressional testimonials

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 20, 2017 at 07:30PM

A “March for Science” on Lenin’s Birthday

via Defeat Climate Alarmism
https://defyccc.com

The morons who organized the “March for Science” listed the ‘United States’ and ‘USA’ as two different countries on their website:

They also put the United States at the end of the list, but we are used to that.  Of course, Bill Nye the Clown will participate, although he won’t be leading the march.  Expect fawning coverage by the fakestream media.

via Defeat Climate Alarmism https://defyccc.com

April 20, 2017 at 05:27PM

The Conversation: Business Schools Should Focus on Sustainability, Not Profit

via Watts Up With That?
http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

April 20, 2017 at 05:13PM

How the WSJ Gets It Wrong on Reconsideration of EPA’s GHG Endangerment Finding

via Carlin Economics and Science
http://ift.tt/1gVT2t3

On April 18, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial supporting EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s position against reconsidering the Endangerment Finding (EF) on Greenhouse Gases. The editorial makes six basic points:

1. WSJ: Finding has been upheld by the courts.

My comment: The issue is not whether the current EF was upheld, the issue is whether the courts will uphold a reassessment and revocation, which is clearly allowed by the Clean Air Act on the basis of new information (as in this case).

2. WSJ: Creating a legally bulletproof non-endangerment rule would consume a tremendous amount of EPA resources, especially at an agency with few political appointees and a career staff hostile to reform.

My comment: This is absurd. EPA can argue for and hire whatever size staff it needs to accomplish the goals it wants to pursue assuming approval by OMB. There is no more important goal under EPA’s jurisdiction for an Administration devoted to putting America first than vacating the EF, which makes it possible to resurrect a new EPA CO₂ regulatory effort at any time if not vacated. Imposing regulations on CO₂ would hurt the US by imposing costs and reducing the effectiveness of any effort to improve the US economy. Further, vacating the EF would immediately legally vacate all the Obama regulations based on it without any added effort by EPA, so would actually much reduce EPA’s resource needs.

3. Technical determinations about the state of the science are supposed to be entitled to judicial deference, but the reality is that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that would hear the case is packed with progressive judges. Climate change has become a theological conviction on the left, so Mr. Pruitt would almost certainly lose either with a three-judge panel or en banc.

If EPA vacates the EF, it should be entitled to judicial deference, just as it was when it promulgated the EF. I agree that given the majority of liberals on this Court, thanks to the Democrats’ efforts a few years ago to bring this about, could result in a sudden reversal of their previous position in favor of judicial deference. But that should not stop the Supreme Court from finding otherwise, as it did on the stay it issued on the so-called Clean Power Plan.

4. The Supreme Court’s appetite for such a case is also minimal, since it would run directly at the 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that prepared the way for the endangerment finding. Justice Anthony Kennedy was in that 5-4 majority.

Overturning the 2007 ruling is almost as important as vacating the EF. But hopefully the judges who authored the five votes involved have now realized just how unjustified that ruling was and the need for overturning it before it does still more damage to the US economy for negative environmental gains.

5. Mr. Pruitt has the discretion to interpret the Clean Air Act to achieve his favored policy outcomes, including to repeal legally tenuous central planning like CPP.

The great danger is that the Climate-industrial Complex (CIC) will push the resulting inconsistency between the EF and EPA’s attempts to avoid CO₂ regulation, as they are all but certain to do. What defenses would he possibly have with the current EF in place? EPA will be a sitting legal duck. Pruitt can interpret but the courts will decide.

6. Same Administration could restore endangerment too.

Yes, the EF could be restored but likely only in a two-term Presidency. That would be a major help in slowing down a future climate alarmist Administration and thus saving the US from the overwhelming disaster that climate alarmism will result in. Avoiding such an outcome should be Trump’s EPA priority one.

Not mentioned by the WSJ is that there is a desperate need to publicly explore the alarmist scientific case. Reconsidering the EF would provide a unique opportunity to do this. Letting the alarmist science continue to go unchallenged is a recipe for disaster. The alarmist science is not just scientifically weak, it has now been shown to be scientifically invalid. EPA needs to recognize this as soon as possible and not risk the disaster of new CIC-inspired CO₂ regulations the next time that the CIC regains political power.

via Carlin Economics and Science http://ift.tt/1gVT2t3

April 20, 2017 at 11:35AM