God and Scott Pruitt

Career scientists – the best, the brightest and obviously the most qualified having received EPA grants in the past – who have spent their lives studying, researching and generating decades of data on climate change, have found themselves on the ash-heap of disposable voices, rendered irrelevant by a climate change denier-evangelical now running the Environmental Protection Agency. Those who follow his extreme evangelical teachings are in – interpreting the Bible, dealing with the aftermath of the Great Flood (remember, Noah?), such that God promised never to wreak such a major natural calamity on mankind again. PhDs are out. Science and even the Pope are simply wrong?

So here’s how newly appointed EPA head Scott Pruitt, the ex-Oklahoma Attorney General who thrived on suing the agency he now runs, explained to his gathered bureaucrats how he uses the Bible to guide his agency: “‘In the book of Joshua there is a story about Joshua leading the people of Israel into the promised land after Moses passed away,’ Pruitt said. ‘And Joshua says to the people of Israel choose this day whom you’re going to serve. And I would say to you this is sort of like the ‘Joshua Principle’ that as it relates to grants to this agency, you are going to have to choose either service on the committee to provide counsel to us in an independent fashion or you can choose grants, but you cannot do both.’

“What the ‘Joshua Principle’ means for the EPA is that scientists who receive agency grants for their research are now barred from serving on any of its independent advisory boards. This opens the door to more industry and political representation on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, the Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), and the Science Advisory Board (SAB). The EPA’s most ardent critics in past administrations cheered the directive, which was announced at a ‘Live Press Event’—though it was unclear that many reporters were invited to attend.” Mother Jones, October 31st.

As the bad data accelerates, as hard evidence tells us that we may well have passed a temperature-based tipping point where we can no longer achieve past temperature averages… just slow and stop that process with a harsh new “reset”… the new administration has direct all of the relevant federal agencies – Interior, Energy, NOAA, EPA, Commerce, etc. – to reverse course and promote an aggressive new use of fossil fuels. The long-term damage from this horrific disregard of facts will anger future generations who will be asked to bear the brunt of these wrong-headed policies. Notably absent from Pruitt’s initial statements to his new employees were respected scientists.

“Well-known climate change deniers Smith and Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) joined a parade of white men who gave speeches at the EPA headquarters heralding the new era of its scientific review. Pruitt’s new appointments to chair the EPA’s high-profile panels also spoke. The new chair of the Science Advisory Board [SAB] is Michael Honeycutt, a toxicologist who had once received industry support [effectively heavy industry and resource extraction companies] for a past failed bid to head SAB. Paul Gilman, a former EPA adviser who left the agency in 2004 for a waste-to-energy company Covanta Energy, will be in charge of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors. And the Clean Air Safety board will now be headed by Tony Cox, a private consultant who’s authored research saying the benefits of pollution reduction are overstated.” Mother Jones. 

Joshua don’t like no smart scientists, no how, it seems. A small minority are making horrible decisions for the vast majority of Americans. But for a brief moment, focused instead on a “tax reform” package aimed at obliterating heavily urbanized blue states with high real estate (hence mortgages) and state income taxes (by eliminating/severely limiting those deductions), avoiding another high level public battle, the Trump administration let a government report (mandated by federal statute: the Global Change Research Act or 1990) with a clear conclusion slip out:

“Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report [“Climate Change Special Report – Fourth National Climate Assessment, Vol I”] on Friday [11/3] that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization.

“Over the past 115 years global average temperatures have increased 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to record-breaking weather events and temperature extremes, the report says. The global, long-term warming trend is ‘unambiguous,’ it says, and there is ‘no convincing alternative explanation” that anything other than humans — the cars we drive, the power plants we operate, the forests we destroy — are to blame…

“The climate science report is part of a congressionally mandated review conducted every four years known as the National Climate Assessment. The product of hundreds of experts within the government and academia and peer-reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, it is considered the United States’ most definitive statement on climate change science…

“Despite the scientific consensus presented in the report, the Environmental Protection Agency has scrubbed references to climate change from its website and barred its scientists from presenting scientific reports on the subject.

“The E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, has said carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to warming. Rick Perry, the energy secretary, asserted Wednesday [11/1] that ‘the science is out’ on whether humans cause climate change.” New York Times, November 3^rd. Guess the government prefers the billions and billions of dollars of damage, the loss of life, livelihood and hope, that even beginning to accept reality. “Science is out,” but Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, Ryan Zinke, etc. (Interior) should be. Oh, remember when only the United States, Syria and Nicaragua were the only three nations not to sign the Paris climate change accord? Nicaragua signed. We now stand solidly with Syria… alone. When it talks like a duck, talks like a duck…

I’m Peter Dekom, and my notion of pure evil probably differs significantly from that of the President.