Last evening, I watched a Frontline program on PBS: How the War on EPA was Waged. Below is the trailer, the full hour program is War on the EPA.
At the PBS website are numerous articles lamenting the change in the EPA under the Trump administration. The Frontline themes were already being aired by Democrat senators in the confirmation hearings.
Supposition: EPA exists as a branch of the Environmental Movement.
As is well documented, the EPA since its formation has many achievements in projects addressing pollution of the air and water in the US. Over decades, the agency staffed up with people dedicated to cleaning up and protecting the environment.
But with most of the successes behind them, environmentalists bought into the global warming notion and anti-fossil fuel activism. EPA personnel were predisposed to join in and help lead the charge.
The Frontline documentary described how the skeptical Trump administration confronted the EPA swamp, densely populated by warmists. Of course, the producers show no awareness that the opinions are relative and not absolute, or that fears concerning CO2 emissions are uncertain and debatable.
The video does show Pruitt exposing the false environmentalist dichotomy: “It is not true that if you are for development, you are against the environment, or that if you are for the environment, you are against development.” Then Frontline extensively quotes journalists and former employees, including Pruitt’s predecessor, all of whom take exactly that antagonistic position.
Supposition: Deniers are paid shills for energy capitalists.
Early on, Gina McCarthy talks about all the pushback from industry when she began work on the Clean Power Plan. To illustrate this, the video includes some totally insipid commercials (parodies really) claimed to be industry-sponsored promotion against the EPA agenda.
The presentation seeks continually to link denial of a climate crisis to funding from businessmen promoting their enterprises. In one telling interview, an industrialist says that Sierra Club is lobbying for their agenda, so we have to do the same. Other than that slip, Frontline ignores how Big Green slush funds and NGOs drove EPA actions in the past, even while showing comments from them, for example, NRDC (National Resources Defense Council).
Supposition: EPA now pursues only industrial interests.
Overriding all is the notion that Scott Pruitt has engineered a hostile takeover of the agency, and that only industrial interests matter to him. This provides the explanation why employees and scientific advisors (all committed to “fight climate change”) are not consulted, not appreciated, and uninformed of agency plans. Of course, they are unhappy and disgusted and speak out about the betrayal of their cause.
Tonight’s new FRONTLINE documentary, War on the EPA, tells the inside story of how this and other environmental policy rollbacks happened; how Scott Pruitt went from suing the Environmental Protection Agency 14 times to now running it; and how the anti-regulatory and anti-climate change science movements in America reached this moment of triumph.
“It was eight years of pure hell under the democrat party and Obama,” Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., tells FRONTLINE in the above excerpt from War on the EPA. “But we won! It’s a wonderful victory.”
So it goes with draining the swamp.
Entitled bureaucrats rise up to defend their nest.
Footnote 1:
In Ottawa, the problem is somewhat different. There we have an infestation of bureaucrabs. The term refers to a creature that appears to be making progress, but on closer inspection is moving sideways.
There is also a rumor that increasingly in Ottawa lawyers are being used for scientific experiments instead of rats. There appear to be three reasons for this:
- There are more lawyers than rats in Ottawa.
- People sometimes get emotionally attached to a rat.
- There are some things the rats won’t do.
Footnote 2:
For a scientific analysis of how government works, we have a paper reprinted below at Science Matters
The IPCC produced alarmist messages based on
grossly inaccurate climate models that are consistently biased
in one direction . No one denies climate changes , it’s been warming as we exit the most current ice age and humans must have some
impacts . Humans are not causing the earth to have a fever as non -scientists in the global warming fear industry claim and humans are not about to alter the direction of climate cycles no matter
how much alarmist propaganda gets spewed out by salesman like Al Gore .
Sonnyhill said it in reference to Maurice Strong . The UN created
scary global warming to further the UN ‘s globalization agenda .
There just happened to be billions in tax payer money available to con artist in the corporate welfare game to be gamed as well .
The scary global warming industry was a convenient conversion
of interests designed to create a cause to justify the rip off tax payers .
The models relied on to underpin the hoax have been proven to
grossly over estimate the effects of CO2 (plant food ) which historically has been naturally higher without the green guilt
of human causes .
At least it’s warming and like the 1970’s global cooling fraud , which was also supposed to be scientifically based , the scary global warming con game has run it’s course .
If we are going to blow $billions on some environmental cause let’s at least make it something real . Any continuation of the alarmist global warming nonsense is a disservice to science and a loss to other worthy projects .
The UN has become a malignant world crime organization; their agenda is imposition of world government through any means available. They have chosen climate change coupled with “sustainability” as one means to implement control.
To classify the UN’s pogrom against CO2 as a venal hoax is a gross understatement.
Kristi, if Global Warming is an existential threat, your side should have acted with honesty and clarity. Truth is the best. It is constant.
Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming then Climate Change, all of them political slogans from the unelected Club of Rome . Maurice Strong said that he’d be more effective outside of elected office. F*** democracy.
One would think that recent revelations of half-baked warming models deserve a full and public audit. I’m not holding my breath.
There are many valid arguments against the idea that AGW is a threat. I’ll list four.
The first is the massive amount to fraud to support the warmist view point. There is Climate Gate One, Climate Gate Two, and altering temperature data. This includes eliminating sensors from cooler locations so that the average becomes warmer, changing historical data, and changing current data. If AGW is a real threat, why do this? The unaltered data could stand on its own.
Second, the IPCC climate models are running hot as many alarmist are now admitting. In true science, when theory doesn’t match the data, the theory is altered until it is does. Refusing to alter the theories shows that AGW is a fraud.
Third is the persecution of those who oppose AGW. This is unheard of in true modern science. The Dilbert comic strip ran an episode critical of AGW. The author, Scott Adams, reported canceling of speaking engagements and a reduction of his income by one third. I have read many other examples. If AGW is a real threat, there would be no need to persecute those who oppose the climate change agenda.
Fourth, the climate models can not explain the current pause, they can’t explain the mini ice age, the roman warm period, or the medieval warm period. There are other models that come much closer to reality.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/new-study-by-german-physicists-concludes-we-can-expect-climate-cooling-for-next-50-years/
.
This model works for the mini ice age, the roman warm period, and the medieval warm period. It states that “CO2 plays only minor role for global climate” and predicts global cooling for the next 50 years.
“Of course, the producers show no awareness that the opinions are relative and not absolute, or that fears concerning CO2 emissions are uncertain and debatable.” This is an interesting comment. The first part can be applied to this whole article: that the views expressed here are not absolute, that is, they are not based on fact. That includes the second half of the sentence, which is just opinion. The whole article is, in turn, based on this opinion. As soon as you reject this opinion, as the vast majority of those who study climate change do, every point in the article takes on a different meaning. It becomes propaganda.
“The presentation seeks continually to link denial of a climate crisis to funding from businessmen promoting their enterprises.” The funding by industry is not just about lobbying, as implied by the comment about the Sierra Club. It is well-established that the fossil fuel industry spent millions on a propaganda campaign spanning decades to convince the public that the science of climate change is uncertain, despite the fact that Exxon’s own scientists confirmed the link between warming and CO2 in the late ’70s and early ’80s, which was then kept from shareholders and everyone else. The propaganda campaign was directed at the right, and included newspaper and radio advertisements (I’ve seen the original memos describing this), contributions to conservative think tanks, and funding research – Willie Soon alone received $1.2 million (and failed to disclose the conflict of interest).
I’ve seen every argument against the idea that AGW is a threat. Most are based on a belief that thousands of scientists are cooperating in a massive global conspiracy, lack of understanding of the science behind the models, or the ways climate change can and is affecting not just the environment but human health and the economy. It’s a shame that the media don’t explain this better – but to those who refuse to listen, no amount of education will have an effect.
I quit watching PBS years ago too many Pledge Breaks and junk science shows like NOVA and pushing the usial poppycock
Adios PBS . The climate models used to justify the con – job have been proven to over estimate warming by 200-300% . Where else in science can you be wrong by hundreds of percent and seek $$Billions from tax payers to pretend and solve a made up alarmist issue which if was true would provide as many benefits as drawbacks .
I thought PBS had a lot more brain power than to promote an overblown fraud .