"As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency." In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."
Over? Not so much. Just ask Alan Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency. Of course, that won't do you a lot of good, as he's been muzzled: Around the time that his agency was preparing to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant, he had the utter temerity to present a 98-page paper
arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.
The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." (Emphasis added.)
Following the exchange, Carlin has been systematically trashed by the Obama administration. He's been labeled a "denier", his qualifications have been impugned, and the administration has floated the claim that Carlin's report was essentially a product of pseudo-science. In view of the fact that Carlin's report prominently referenced the work of peer-reviewed scientific publications, the latter claim is a particularly hard sell. More telling are the repeated references to Carlin as a "denier"; which clearly imputes religious overtones into the dispute. Coming from an administration whose leader clearly stated that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over", the obvious insertion of ideology is particularly disturbing.
Mr. Carlin is instead an explanation for why the science debate is little reported in this country. The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign. The global-warming crowd likes to deride skeptics as the equivalent of the Catholic Church refusing to accept the Copernican theory. The irony is that, today, it is those who dare critique the new religion of human-induced climate change who face the Inquisition.
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