Is it Game Over on the climate front?

[B. W.]

You talk about cold weather but I still feel your burn man. There is not only the animation that runs too fast for you.

Hmmm, I must have hit a nerve.

[Genava]

New Emails Reveal that the Trump Administration Manipulated Wildfire Science to Promote Logging

The director of the US Geological Survey asked scientists to “gin up” emissions figures for him.

This piece was originally published in the Guardian and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.

Political appointees at the Interior Department have sought to play up climate pollution from California wildfires while downplaying emissions from fossil fuels as a way of promoting more logging in the nation’s forests, internal emails obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The messaging plan was crafted in support of Donald Trump’s pro-industry arguments for harvesting more timber in California, which he says would thin forests and prevent fires—a point experts refute.

The emails show officials seeking to estimate the carbon emissions from devastating 2018 fires in California so they could compare them to the carbon footprint of the state’s electricity sector and then publish statements encouraging cutting down trees.

The records offer a look behind the scenes at how Trump and his appointees have tried to craft a narrative that forest protection efforts are responsible for wildfires, including in California, even as science shows fires are becoming more intense largely because of climate change.

James Reilly, a former petroleum geologist and astronaut who iHe also said the numbers would make a “decent sound bite,” and acknowledged that wildfire emissions estimates could vary based on what kind of trees were burning but picked the ones that he said would make “a good story.”

Scientists who reviewed the exchanges said that at best Reilly used unfortunate language and the department cherry-picked data to help achieve their pro-industry policy goals; at worst he and others exploited a disaster and manipulated the data.

The emails add to concerns that the Trump administration is doing industry’s bidding rather than pursuing the public interest. Across agencies, top positions are filled by former lobbyists, and dozens of investigative reports have revealed agencies working closely with major industries to ease pollution, public health and safety regulations.

A USGS spokesperson said Reilly’s emails were “intended to instruct the subject matter expert to do the calculations as quickly as possible based on the best available data at the time and provide results in clear understandable language that the Secretary could use to effectively communicate to a variety of audiences.” The agency added that it “stands by the integrity of its science.”

When forests burn, they do emit greenhouse gases. But one expert said the numbers the interior department put forth are significant overestimates. They say logging wouldn’t necessarily help prevent or lessen wildfires. On the contrary, logging could negate the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide humans are emitting at record rates.

Chad Hanson, a California-based forest ecologist who co-founded the John Muir Project and a lawyer who has opposed logging after fires, called the strategizing revealed in the emails a “blatant political manipulation of science.”

Mark Harmon, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, said while it’s normal for the department to want to quantify emissions from fires, it’s unclear whether they began the process with a particular figure in mind.”

Gin-up is an unfortunate phrase to be sure, but it might have been a very imprecise way to ask for an estimate. It certainly does not inspire confidence,” Harmon said.

He said the resulting quotes from top officials and press releases from the department are “about what you would expect from agencies trying to justify actions they already decided to take with minimal analysis.”

Harmon added that “the effect of logging on fires is highly variable,” depending on how it is done and the weather conditions.

Not long after the interior department came up with its carbon emission estimates from the 2018 California wildfires, Trump issued an executive order instructing federal land managers to significantly increase the amount of timber they harvest. This fall, he also proposed allowing logging in Alaska’s Tongass national forest, the largest intact temperate rainforest in North America.

Trump has also tweeted multiple times about wildfires, saying they are caused by bad land management or environmental laws that make water unavailable.

Monica Turner, a fire ecology scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said “it is climate that is responsible for the size and severity of these fires.”

An Interior department spokesperson said the department’s role is to follow the laws and use the best science and that it continues “to work to best understand and address the impacts of an ever-changing climate.”

Agency officials started emphasizing wildfire emissions data as a talking point as early as August 2018.

In an email chain that month, Reilly was asked by interior’s former deputy chief of staff Downey Magallanes to sign off on a statement that fires in 2018 had emitted 95.6 million tons of CO2.

“Interesting statistics,” Reilly responded, noting that emissions would vary based on the types of trees on the land. “…We assumed woodlands mix since we don’t currently have details on the overall land cover types involved. Any variance to the fuel type will still leave it in the range to make the comparison, however. I’ll use this one if you don’t object. Makes a good story.”

Reilly, who was confirmed to his position in April 2018, later asked career scientists at the agency for updated numbers, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

“I need to get a number for total CO2 releases for the recent CA fires and a comparison against emissions for all energy in US … Tasker from the boss; back to me ASAP,” he said on October 10, 2018. His boss at the time was the former interior secretary Ryan Zinke.

The job fell to Doug Beard, the director of the National Climate Adaptation Science Center, and Bradley Reed, an associate program coordinator in the Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program, who responded with numbers from his team that afternoon.

In November 2018, Reilly once again asked for the same estimates of carbon dioxide generated by two devastating fires that fall in California—the Camp and Woolsey fires.

“The Secretary likes to have this kind of information when he speaks with the media,” Reilly said in a 16 November email to David Applegate, the associate director for natural hazards.

Applegate directed Beard to get the numbers, and Reilly chimed in, asking Beard: “Can you have [the scientists] gin up an estimate on the total CO2 equivalent releases are so far for the current 2 fires in CA?” He said he wanted to compare the figures to the carbon pollution caused by transportation in California.

“That would make a decent sound bite the Sec could use to put some perspective on it,” said Reilly.

Just a week earlier, the ferocious Camp fire had destroyed Paradise, California, killing dozens and becoming the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history. The scenes detailed were horrific.

Conservatives have insisted that the wildfires are happening because environmentalists have overzealously encouraged the conservation of forests. Trump has battled with California—the face of the American progressive movement he opposes—over a multitude of other issues, including the state’s longstanding climate policy of requiring new cars to go farther on less fuel.

The new emails show communications staffers and political appointees using government scientists as foot soldiers in those battles.

Now, under the leadership of the former lobbyist David Bernhardt, the agency has sought to remove consideration of climate change from many of its decisions, while expanding oil and gas drilling on federal land. Multiple whistleblowers have accused the department of stifling climate science.

Bernhardt in a May 2019 hearing told lawmakers there are no laws obligating him to combat climate change.

After Reilly asked his staff to calculate the wildfire emissions numbers in November, an interior spokeswoman emailed him asking for the same information so she could put out a statement from Zinke. A few days later, the agency published a press release on Zinke’s behalf, with the title “New Analysis Shows 2018 California Wildfires Emitted as Much Carbon Dioxide as an Entire Year’s Worth of Electricity.”

“There’s too much dead and dying timber in the forest, which fuels these catastrophic fires,” Zinke said. “Proper management of our forests, to include small prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, and other techniques, will improve forest health and reduce the risk of wildfires, while also helping curb the carbon emissions.”

Hanson, the forest and fire ecologist, said that in addition to using the government data for political purposes, the department numbers overstated the carbon emissions from forest fires while downplaying emissions from fossil fuels.

He said that the carbon emissions numbers generated by USGS and released to the public were an “overestimate” that “can’t be squared with empirical data” from field studies of post-wildfire burn sites in California. Other scientists the Guardian spoke with did not dispute the government’s data, but did find fault with the way it was presented to the public.”

The comparison of fire to electrical emissions [in California] was not explained or justified,” said Harmon, the Oregon State University scientist. “Picking other sectors would have left an entirely different image in the reader’s mind…If the comparison had been made nationally it would have been found that fire related emissions of carbon dioxide were equivalent to 1.7 percent of fossil fuel related emissions. So it is hard to escape the conclusion that some cherry picking was going on.”

Jayson O’Neill, the deputy director of the Western Values Project, said the emails are another example of the administration “trying to find ways to tell a story to achieve industry goals.”

“As wildfire experts have repeatedly explained, you can’t log or even ‘rake’ our way out of this mess,” O’Neill said.

“The Trump administration and the interior department are pushing mystical theories that are false in order to justify gutting public land protections to advance their pro-industry and lobbyist dominated agenda.”

https://www.motherjones.com/environm...omote-logging/

[Genava]

NOAA Leaders Privately Disowned Agency’s Rebuke of Scientists Who Contradicted Trump

Newly released emails show officials at NOAA told the agency’s scientists it did “not approve or support” a controversial agency statement issued after the president falsely said that Alabama was at risk from Hurricane Dorian.

WASHINGTON — Senior officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration privately disavowed an unsigned statement issued by the agency last year that rebuked its own weather forecasters for contradicting President Trump’s false warnings that Hurricane Dorian would most likely hit Alabama, new documents show.

Emails obtained under public records laws show top leaders scrambling to do damage control in the days after Mr. Trump appeared in the Oval Office on Sept. 4 with an altered map of Hurricane Dorian’s path, and forecasters in the Birmingham, Ala., office of the National Weather Service then contradicted him by assuring the public they were safe.

Multiple people familiar with the matter have said the White House pressured NOAA to “clarify” that forecast. On Sept. 6, the agency’s communications office issued an unsigned statement suggesting that the president was right all along, and that Alabama forecasters had acted improperly by suggesting otherwise.

“The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time,” NOAA said in the statement.

The backlash from the government’s own scientists was fast and furious, according to internal emails.

In response to one angry scientist, both Neil Jacobs, then the acting director of NOAA, and Tim Gallaudet, a retired Navy admiral who is assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere at NOAA, emailed responses privately walking back the statement.

Mr. Jacobs wrote that “the forecast office did the right thing to calm the nerves of citizens.”

And Mr. Gallaudet, in the clearest indication yet that the statement rebuking National Weather Service scientists came from political overseers, assured the scientist that Mr. Jacobs’s reply served as “a sincere acknowledgment of a news release we did not approve or support.”

NOAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about that email.

Mr. Jacobs was copied on that email, as were other senior Trump administration political appointees like Stuart Levenbach, who at the time was chief of staff at NOAA. Both NOAA and the National Weather Service operate under the Commerce Department. Several people familiar with the matter told The New York Times that Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, ordered NOAA to rebut the forecasters’ contradiction of Mr. Trump or face firings. Mr. Ross has denied that he threatened to fire anyone in connection with the incident.

In a separate email to a colleague, Mr. Gallaudet confided he was close to quitting.

“I’m having a hard time not departing the pattern right now,” he wrote to John D. Murphy, the chief operating officer at the National Weather Service, using aviation lingo to describe his desire to leave.

“Hang in there, sir,” Mr. Murphy replied and suggested the agency needed strong leadership to counteract the creeping political influence on science. “Is this battle to die for or better to stay and fight for what’s right. It’s latter for me … we can do more in pattern.”

The stress the White House moves placed on rank-and-file NOAA employees was evident in the reaction of Dennis Feltgen, a normally unflappable spokesman for the agency’s National Hurricane Center. In response to an inquiry by the news media about the president’s altered map, he wrote a one-word email to higher-ups: “HELP!!!”

The documents released Friday under the Freedom of Information Act offer the clearest picture to date of the turmoil brought about by Mr. Trump’s initial remark and subsequent false statements about the path of Hurricane Dorian, as well as his decision to trot out a map in the Oval Office that appeared to have been altered with a black marker to suggest Alabama was in the potential path of the storm.

The emails show top NOAA officials knew full well that the map Mr. Trump presented had been altered, even as days later the agency issued an unsigned statement essentially chastising the Birmingham forecasters for having contradicted the president.

“The chart shown in the briefing is old and doctored to extend the cone to Alabama,” Corey Pieper in NOAA’s press office told colleagues on Sept. 4, as the agency received a barrage of requests from the news media to understand the source of Mr. Trump’s comments.

“Are you sure it was doctored? Was Alabama never in the cone to that extent?” asked Susan Buchanan, another communications officer.

“Yes, that was doctored,” Mr. Pieper replied.

Two days later, after Mr. Trump had continued to insist on Twitter that he was right about Alabama lying in Hurricane Dorian’s path, NOAA issued its unsigned statement rebuking Birmingham forecasters. Staff hit back immediately.

“You are not going to believe this BULL,” Maureen O’Leary, a longtime public affairs specialist at NOAA, wrote to a colleague. She followed up, relaying some of the most choice public comments she was finding including, “Should I call the White House for my weather forecasts from now on?”, adding an expletive.

Others made their concerns about the situation known to those higher in the chain of command.

“This statement is deeply upsetting to NOAA employees that have worked the hurricane and not fully accurate based on the timeline in question,” Alek Krautmann, who works with NOAA’s satellite and information service office, told communications officials.

Craig McLean, NOAA’s acting chief scientist who later filed a complaint with the agency alleging the unsigned statement violated its scientific-integrity policy, took his concerns straight to the top.

“What’s next? Climate science is a hoax?” he asked in an email sent to Mr. Jacobs and other top political appointees at NOAA and the Commerce Department. “Flabbergasted to leave our forecasters hanging in the political wind.” He signed off, “Embarrassed, Craig.”

Mr. Jacobs, who has since been nominated to formally lead the agency, spent several days afterward trying to calm the waters.

Gary Shigenaka, a NOAA marine biologist, emailed Mr. Jacobs urging him to address “this crisis of moral leadership our agency is facing” and asking for reassurance that “we are not mere pawns in an absurd game” pitting science against politics.

“You have no idea how hard I’m fighting to keep politics out of science,” Mr. Jacobs replied.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/c...ne-dorian.html

[B. W.]

And yet they don't know where the warm water underneath the antarctic glaciers is coming from. Maybe all that hot air has somehow found its way into those frigid polar subsurface oceans.

[MarchOfThePigs]

If you actually care about muh cloyment

you will support nuclear fusion/fission power.

There is no other option, other than mass starvation, and depopulation.

You cannot feed the entire planet on so-called "clean energy."

But you rarely see this from the Green Gangsters(TM.)

[swabian]

If you actually care about muh cloyment

you will support nuclear fusion/fission power.

Yes.

There is no other option, other than mass starvation, and depopulation.

You cannot feed the entire planet on so-called "clean energy."

You cannot feed them only on electricity either. Some principal equivalent of innovation in nourishment to the research on fusion reactors should be done.

But you rarely see this from the Green Gangsters(TM.)

You don't see anything from them but feeding the fears in the population and producing reactions that justify their politics. And since they have turned pro-migrant and rapid re-patriation they calculate that they can win and hold majorities by promoting immigration. It's hideous trickery, and people are falling for it.

[Genava]

you will support nuclear fusion/fission power.

Most climate scientists support nuclear:
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-nuclear-power
http://environmentalprogress.org/cli...ts-for-nuclear
https://sparkoffreedomfoundation.org...uce-emissions/

Edit: by the way
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...try-group-says
https://www.axios.com/nuclear-energy...e8ce17c9c.html
https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemme...nuclear-plants

[Stario]

For Australia (and probably rest of the world), Thorium reactors (a cleaner form of nuclear fission), would be the way to go. Since Australia has the worlds largest reserves of Thorium.
To my understanding Thorium reactors can also be used to consume existing nuclear waste as fuel source; this takes care of the waste problem.
AND Thorium is 3-4x more abundant than uranium -should keep the prices competitive with cheap natural gas/fossil fuels.

Carbon Pricing just means we will all be paying more $$$ for our Energy for the sake of keeping nuclear fission afloat...well BOOHOO!!! ( -‸-,)
AND PHUK the environment if i can't put food on the table because my power bill is through the roof.

[swabian]

For Australia (and probably rest of the world), Thorium reactors (a cleaner form of nuclear fission), would be the way to go. Since Australia has the worlds largest reserves of Thorium.
To my understanding Thorium reactors can also be used to consume existing nuclear waste as a fuel source; this takes care of the waste problem.
AND Thorium is 3-4x more abundant than uranium which should keep the prices competitive with other fossil fuels/sources of energy production.

Yes, that might be a way out. The only problem is that required Thorium isotope is not very stable.

[Stario]

Thorium exists in nature in the ²³²Th isotope & is relatively stable. One ton of Thorium is equivalent to about 200 tons of Uranium as far as energy production. According to Wikipedia mining Thorium is safer and more efficient than mining uranium for example.

[swabian]

hah! i'm all for trying. Everything is better than heating up the climate, seriously.

[Genava]

For Australia (and probably rest of the world), Thorium reactors (a cleaner form of nuclear fission), would be the way to go. Since Australia has the worlds largest reserves of Thorium.
To my understanding Thorium reactors can also be used to consume existing nuclear waste as fuel source; this takes care of the waste problem.
AND Thorium is 3-4x more abundant than uranium -should keep the prices competitive with cheap natural gas/fossil fuels.

The topic has been discussed here:
https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...r-power-plants

Magister Militum Flavius Aetius gave really good explanations. It is unlikely that Thorium is the miracle solution to decrease the price and make nuclear energy more competitive.

Carbon Pricing just means we will all be paying more $$$ for our Energy for the sake of keeping nuclear fission afloat...well BOOHOO!!! ( -‸-,)
AND PHUK the environment if i can't put food on the table because my power bill is through the roof.

In most countries, energy represents a very small share of the household budget. You won't stop eating because you pay electricity at the price sold by nuclear industries.

[Stario]

In most countries, energy represents a very small share of the household budget. You won't stop eating because you pay electricity at the price sold by nuclear industries.

Yeah, my theory is this is because most developed countries have nuclear reactors. I remember free electricity living in a country with a dozen nuclear reactors- & when energy was NOT free it was still dirt cheap.
How many working nuclear reactors has Australia have??? Answer= 0. My last month power bill over 1k+ How much do u pay for your monthly power bill- I bet its a lot cheaper (because if u live in a developed country- other than Australia- I bet u have at least one nuclear reactor online contributing).
I know quite a few people that wont turn on their air-conditioning during 49-50 degree C heat wave cause they cant afford it- means they wont be able to pay the mortgage etc.
Power going off in the middle of the heat wave (means no air-conditioning) because the grid cant handle it- *1ng renewable energy bull. When a single Nuclear reactor could power every major city of Australia & its population of 25 million - ing Manila has nearly the same population as entire Australia yet we still manage to melt the grid on a regular basis.

Now slap on Carbon Pricing & things will get even more expensive...

ing greens scaremongering the commoners into windmills + solar panels (which have a life expectancy of around 20 years- what happens then ? do u replace every solar panel in the ing country??? u think there will be no costs involved).

[Common Soldier]

Most climate scientists support nuclear:
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-nuclear-power
http://environmentalprogress.org/cli...ts-for-nuclear
https://sparkoffreedomfoundation.org...uce-emissions/

Edit: by the way
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...try-group-says
https://www.axios.com/nuclear-energy...e8ce17c9c.html
https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemme...nuclear-plants

It won't matter what scientist think if the politicians who are implementing climate change policy oppose nuclear power. Leading presidential candidates Warren and Danders oppose nuclear power, and others favor only keeping existing nuclear plants but oppose to new onea, which is effectively equivalent tonphasng out nuclear.

The main obstacle to nuclear is cost of building and running the plants, often as a result of regulations and delays in construction. New fuels like Thorium are not going to solve that problem by themselvea. ?????

[Ludicus]

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no safe nuclear power.Fail-Safe Nuclear Power - MIT Technology Review



Safer, not safe.The reality is that this technology is safe, indeed, but only outside of some high-profile disasters.It's not completely safe.

[Genava]

Safer, not safe.The reality is that this technology is safe, indeed, but only outside of some high-profile disasters.It's not completely safe.

Still safer than hydroelectricity.

[Common Soldier]

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no safe nuclear power.Fail-Safe Nuclear Power - MIT Technology Review



Safer, not safe.The reality is that this technology is safe, indeed, but only outside of some high-profile disasters.It's not completely safe.

Nothing in life is completely safe. You could slip while getting out of the bath tub and break your neck.

The ironic thing is, if it hadn't been for the anti-nuclear action of many of the same people who are now thr most active against climate change, the US electric production would most likely be producing less CO2 today. US nuclear plants produce 20% of its electricity, and thr additional nuclear plants would almost certainly pushed it up.to 25%, likely 30%, more than solar's contributiion as perhaps as much as wind today.

[B. W.]

Now we find out that over 2500 articles supporting the man made global warming theory were based on a computer model RCP8.5 that used as its basis a 500% increase in the use of coal and had a probability outcome of 3%. Many of those articles were posted here in this thread to support the global warming theory.

2500 articles supporting a flawed theory and they had a probability outcome of 3%. Think about it!

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog..._scenario.html

[Phier]

Now we find out that over 2500 articles supporting the man made global warming theory were based on a computer model RCP8.5 that used as its basis a 500% increase in the use of coal and had a probability outcome of 3%. Many of those articles were posted here in this thread to support the global warming theory.

2500 articles supporting a flawed theory and they had a probability outcome of 3%. Think about it!

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog..._scenario.html

No its settled science you evil climate denier, and now that I called you that I don't have to defend my position for you have been labeled!

[B. W.]

No its settled science you evil climate denier, and now that I called you that I don't have to defend my position for you have been labeled!

I'm not worried. The men in green all live on the other side of the county. This is Texas and the counties are big.