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Obama’s Science Czar Rails Against Using ‘Red Teams’ To Debate Global Warming

John Holdren, who argued in 1969 (with Paul Ehrlich) that the population bomb would destroy mankind.

President Barack Obama’s chief science adviser compared the Trump administration’s use of “red teams” to debate climate science to a “kangaroo court” meant to “create a sense of continuing uncertainty about the science of climate change.”

“But I suspect that most of the advocates of the scheme are disingenuous, aiming to get hand-picked non-experts from federal agencies to dispute the key findings of mainstream climate science and then assert that the verdict of this kangaroo court has equal standing with the findings of the most competent bodies in the national and international scientific communities,” former President Barack Obama’s science czar John Holdren wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed published Monday.

“The purpose of that, of course, would be to create a sense of continuing uncertainty about the science of climate change, as an underpinning of the Trump administration’s case for not addressing it. Sad,” Holdren wrote in his op-ed, railing against the “perversity of the climate science kangaroo court.”

The idea of using red teams gained traction with Trump administration officials this year after former Obama administration official Steve Koonin suggested the arrangement in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in April.

Koonin, a physicist and former top Department of Energy official, argued red teams could strengthen climate science by exposing its faults and uncertainties. The military and intelligence communities often pit red teams against blue teams to expose weaknesses in policies and strategies being pursued. It could work in a similar way for climate science, with a red team of researchers given the goal of finding pitfalls in blue team’s scientific argument.

“A Red/Blue exercise would have many benefits,” Koonin wrote in the WSJ. “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.”

Many climate scientists, however, say it has no place in their field. One group of prominent researchers even argued red team exercises amount to “dangerous attempts to elevate the status of minority opinions” that undercut mainstream science.

Holdren argued the scientific peer-review process already acts as a check on bad science, further arguing a red team exercise is a ‘right-wing’ plot against climate science.

“Climate science has been repeatedly ‘red-teamed,’ both by groups of avowed contrarians sponsored by right-wing groups and by the most qualified parts of the world’s scientific community,” Holdren wrote in his op-ed.

“The right wing’s ‘red team’ efforts have consistently been characterized by brazen cherry-picking, misrepresentation of the findings of others, recycling of long-discredited hypotheses, and the invention of new ones destined to be discredited,” Holdren wrote. “Almost none of this material has survived peer review to be published in the respectable professional literature.”

Despite this, Trump administration officials have begun looking for scientists to participate in a red-blue team exercise to test scientific claims about man-made global warming. Media reports suggest the Trump team is considering asking Koonin to lead the exercise.

The administration also sought recommendations for who should participate in the red team exercise from the Heartland Institute, which is known for its skepticism of man-made warming.

Read more at Daily Caller

Comments (6)

  • Avatar

    amirlach

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    It’s the complete “bomb” and lack of predictive skill that is “creating a sense of continuing uncertainty about the science of climate change.”

    Until you can actually quantify climate forces, you will be unable to make a model that skillfully predicts climate.

  • Avatar

    Spurwing Plover

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    Another crack-pot right up there with Bill Nye Paul Ehrlich and Jeremy Rifkin

  • Avatar

    Amber

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    Weren’t these the same jack asses that proposed mass sterilization ?
    Bugger off Holdren your ship has sailed . Thank God no one listened to you .

  • Avatar

    G

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    Anyone who proposes censorship of debate does not deserve to have the word “science” associated with their name. Period.

    Jackasses like this would usher in another Dark Age if allowed.

    • Avatar

      David Lewis

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      You are very right. I have a lot of education in both chemistry and biology. True scientists welcome debate because that is the way to the truth. Apparently those advocating the climate change agenda fear debate because it will lead to the truth.

  • Avatar

    Spurwing Plover

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    Paul Ehrliches popualtion bomb was a dud

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