‘Zombie arguments’: Experts reject Trump’s climate report as ‘mockery of science’ for denying global warming

Climate experts in the US have rejected a report released by the Trump administration in July, seeking to overturn the legality of federal regulations of greenhouse gas emissions.

Around 85 scientists wrote a 440-page rebuttal to the government’s report, accusing it of taking the word of some contrarians who based their conclusions on discredited studies, bypassed peer review and misinterpreted evidence.

Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said, according to a report by The Business Times, “This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias.”

What does the federal report say?

The federal report, titled A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate and published by the Department of Energy, made a number of startling claims.

These include claims that extreme weather events linked to emissions are not increasing, US temperatures are not rising, higher atmospheric carbon dioxide could benefit agriculture, and solar activity might account for warming trends.

The DOE report has soft-pedalled the threat of ocean acidification, claiming “life in the oceans evolved when the oceans were mildly acidic”.

What does the rebuttal say?

Ted Amur, a climate scientist at Aon Impact Forecasting, said that the Trump administration is bringing back “zombie arguments.”

The DOE report seeks the revival of the tobacco industry’s tactics. Regarding this, Amur said, “Just as the tobacco industry funded scientists to question the harms of smoking, the fossil fuel industry engaged in a coordinated campaign throughout the 1990s to fund scientists willing to argue that it was the Sun, and not humans, causing the climate change observed up to that point.”

Ecologist Pamela McElwee of Rutgers University criticised the report for largely overlooking the effects on biodiversity, despite their significant social and economic impacts.

She said, “US coral reefs alone provide an estimated US$1.8 billion in coastal protection from storms and floods annually.”