National Academies Go Preposterous on CO2 – Watts Up With That?

From CFACT

By David Wojick

You would think the National Academy of Sciences understands science, but you would be wrong. Their President just approved a report the conclusion of which is scientifically impossible!

The report is jointly from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine or NASEM. Titled “Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare” this squirrelly tome is a formal comment on EPA’s proposed repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. It is also a reply to the Energy Department’s recent report supporting this repeal. In both reports the focus is the adverse effects, if any, of our CO2 emissions.

The NASEM report’s preposterous conclusion is most clearly stated in the last paragraph of its lengthy Summary, to wit: “In summary, the committee concludes that the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is BEYOND SCIENTIFIC DISPUTE.” (Emphasis added)

Beyond scientific dispute? This fundamental claim is wildly false on two levels to the point of absurdity.

First of all it is a basic principle that nothing is ever beyond dispute in science. In fact many of the greatest advances involved challenging then overthrowing widely held beliefs. That is what made them great.

Second a belief cannot be beyond dispute if it is disputed and the alarmist claims made in the NASEM report are not just disputed, they are widely disputed. In some cases such as wildfires and floods there is a huge amount of written dispute.

In other cases the NASEM claims are based on single study speculation which is simply widely dismissed as silly. Here are some amusing examples: “….health impacts of climate change, including on mental health, nutrition, immune health, antimicrobial resistance, kidney disease, and negative pregnancy-related outcomes.”

I leave it to others to dispute the specific claims in this report. Skeptics publish amusing long lists of all the bad things speculated by climate alarmists. This report is just such a list so it will not be hard to dispute these specific claims.

It is worth noting that CFACT filed comments with NASEM when this report was proposed specifically pointing to the widespread debate on this topic. See those comments here.

The deeper issue is that this absurd report certifies that the National Academies can no longer be trusted to advise the Federal Government which was their original mission. The report gives this statement of mission:

“The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the practices of engineering to advising the nation. The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) was established in1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health issues. The three Academies work together as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent, OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS AND ADVICE to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions.” (Emphasis added)

Clearly NASEM is no longer fit for purpose. Ideally Congress should revoke its charter. At the least the President should issue an executive order instructing the federal agencies not to use NASEM. It has long been standard practice for agencies launching new programs to run them by NASEM for approval. This practice should stop.

Mind you this would not kill NASEM as I think they already get more funding from left wing foundations than from the Federal Government. What it would do is make clear that NASEM has become a left wing NGO that cannot be trusted to objectively analyze policy issues.

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