Contradiction abounds in White House thing on Climate Change

Okay this is being splashed all over the news media. The New York Times:

White House Panel Will Study Whether Climate Change Is a National Security Threat. It Includes a Climate Denialist.

CNN Politics:

Washington Post: Climate skeptic may lead WH panel to study climate change and national security

The Guardian:

White House climate change panel to include man who touted emissions

I suppose all of this is part of the ongoing squirm at the White House over issues of climate change. There was a report three months ago to the effect that climate change is real but we can't afford to do anything about it. Back then the Donald said he "didn't believe" the report issued in his name. Now they're going to try to study away the climate change problem. Apparently it's still a burr in their saddles, since the last set of denials wasn't enough to make the issue go away, which is what they wanted.

This fellow Happer, however, has said he thinks carbon dioxide is beneficial to humanity. That's not the same position as "climate change isn't happening." The original position of Svante Arrhenius, the individual who discovered the mathematical relationship between increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and increased average Earthly temperatures, was that climate change would be a good thing. Of course, Arrhenius thought that 120 years ago, whereas we today would be as nuts as Happer is if we thought it after so many parts per million of CO2 have entered the atmosphere over the time between Arrhenius and ourselves.

It's amusing, then, to think that the White House is itself, on its own initiative, keeping climate change alive as an issue. I guess they don't think it suffices to make stuff up.

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WoodsDweller's picture

It's about the campaign. Despite El Trumpo's efforts to wave his tiny hands and make the issue go away, it looks like climate change will be a significant issue in the 2020 campaign. There are no credible organizations backing up his "hoax" position, so he's assembling a blue-ribbon commission of the finest industry lobbyists and fascist oligarchs to validate his nonsense. He'll trot it out as the authoritative report, dismissing everything else as fake news. It won't work, but that's what they are going to try.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

k9disc's picture

It's getting hot, cold, and unpredictable. "It's called weather... /yawn"

And it's not entirely a slam shut case that CO2 is doing it (geomagnetic cycles and solar weather are potential culprits). So Climate Change and AGW/non-AGW is a completely emasculated, navel-gazing argument.

But the extinction of species, mass pollution, and decline of arable land is something that can't really be refuted and directly attacks the developers of these problems.

We need to be focused on extinction and destruction of land, IMO. Perhaps something like Developmental Extinction. The Developmental Extinction Rate... something that gets the focus on biota - something to identify with.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Cassiodorus's picture

@k9disc that shows how a 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 is not supposed to cause climate change. Sources?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama