Discussion: Pruitt Is Reportedly Starting An EPA Initiative To Challenge Climate Science

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#41

Not at all. They will merely be conducting a “Red Team-Blue Team” exercise to engender healthy debate about whether we should believe science or what some Concerned Mother Just Knows must be true.

Similarly, the Department of Labor will be conducting Red v. Blue Team exercises on child labor, the DoJ will be conducting Red v. Blue Team exercises on whether human trafficking is really a bad thing and the Department of Energy will be conducing Red v. Blue Team exercises on three things: whether fast neutron radiation is really harmful to humans, whether coal can be used as a supplemental food source for the poor, and, uh, another thing.

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#42

You can get fake scientists to say anything you want.

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#43

“What the American people deserve, I think, is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2,” he said.

Scientists already do exactly that. It’s called…science. Christ, what a jackass.

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#45

Why in god’s name would Pruitt want the Best and Brightest? He is far more interested in the most morally flexible and most cheaply bribed.

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#46

That’s some video between the atonal Trump yelling into the mic and the camera zooming in on and leering on Melenia’s chest at the end. Jeez.

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#47

Then there’s this happy story:

Whatever combination of money and “liberal tears” tribalism is at the root of this sickness on the right, may all the Scott Pruitts in the world live to see their grandchildren curse them for what they’ve wrought.

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#48

Yeah but all those poor science folks are just trying to get rich off their false claims. If they knew what they were talking about they’d be rich already like the rich oil folks that have nothing to gain if they are lying and we keep buying and burning their oil.

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#49

I’m hoping my son likes me enough to forgo having children. Expanding my crabby outbursts beyond “Get off my lawn!” and “Leave that alone!” might prove taxing.

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#50

Reminded me of this, still one of the greatest tv moments ever:

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#51

Let none of us forget that Pruitt is not stupid or ignorant; he is simply carrying out the orders of his corporate overlords, like the Koch brothers. He’s just earning his paycheck…and making a mockery of his alleged job working for the American people. Just another snake in the grass, appointed by Trump and approved by his toadies in the Senate. He will find some willing tools to contest the facts supported by some 95% of the scientific community. “Teach the controversy” and all that rot.

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#52

Also, leeches will not be covered under Medicare but the use of garlic to stop werewolves and demons will be allowed. Foil hats optional (they are sold out on Amazon).

Trump assigned people to these positions with the express understanding they would destroy the agencies under their review. Why else put Rick Perry in charge of DOE? Perry promised to do away with the agency when he ran for president!

These ‘fake science’ flat-earthers need to climb to the top of the Capitol and test this ‘fake science’ developed by a hoity-toity Englishman:

32’/s/s

We’ll have a ‘conversation’ on ‘science’ once Pruitt, Perry, Spicer and Sanders are scraped off the sidewalk.

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#53

Interesting that you use “hacks” in reference to industry shills but remember that far, far away time(just a few years ago actually) when the computers at East Anglia University were hacked on the eve of the Copenhagen Climate Summit? Selectively released and altered bits of disinformation were used to discredit the research of the climate scientist community. My guess would be that the hackers were out of work Russian programmers hired by Exxon and the Russian government to cast doubt on the veracity of the overwhelming amount of evidence the climate scientists had amassed. Bring on your debate Pruitt. Will be interesting to see if they air it live. This could be a big turning point for a lot of people who get their information from right wing media bubble as Pruitt seems to. What a cosmic joke this entire administration is.

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#54

So, let me see if I understand this–the head of the EPA is starting an initiative to challenge climate change, and render his job obsolete? They’ll probably dust off the scientists and doctors the tobacco industry used to say cigarettes aren’t harmful to people. This will prove to be highly infuriating and insulting. So, right in Trump’s wheel house.

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#55

Hmm. The Koch brothers. Really? I think they already red teamed climate science.

https://thinkprogress.org/bombshell-koch-funded-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-on-the-high-end-and-essentially-all-due-to-be07aeadc3de

And here I thought Pruitt and the Kochs talked with each other. Did they forget to tell him?

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#56

What are the chances of that exact thing happening at Pruitt’s trumped up “debate”?

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#57

“What the American people deserve, I think, is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2,” he said.

Lying sack of shit. What do you think the last 20 years of climate science have been? Not peer reviewed? And, okay, let’s have red team, blue team (more accurately, smart team, dumb team). When the result is that you’re still fucking wrong, will you admit it? I doubt it.

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#58

Actually some of the propagandists for the Tobacco Institute did go to work for the newly created Petroleum Institute after the class action suit against the tobacco industry was won. One of the demands of the verdict was that the Tobacco Institute had to be disbanded because it had so infected the American people with lies about the safeness of ingesting tobacco. Millions died because of those lies and now we see those same people conjuring up conspiracy about climate change where none really exists.

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#59

And…??? They’ve DONE this Scott and ‘your side’ lost. Oh well, BY ALL MEANS let’s fund another initiative…it’s only MONEY and someone else’s at that. When you are show again to be an utter uneducated, stubborn buffoon THEN what?

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#60

Color of sky debate. Blue Team, Green Team.

Shape of Earth debate. Round Team, Flat Team.

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#61

Absolutely. This time around though, they learned from their mistakes. Half of the electorate is getting dumber, by design in my opinion, and they are easily swayed. Just like they learned from Nixon, which is why I don’t think Trump is going anywhere until 2020.

A philosopher named Isaac Asimov, in 1980, proved prophetic and captured the times we live in perfectly when he said…

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Conservatives have harnessed this anti-intellectualism and deepened the wound, and are exploiting it. The Trumpers will go along with any study Pruitt puts out.

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