WASHINGTON (AP) — Evidence that climate change harms public health is “beyond scientific dispute,” the independent National Academy of Sciences said Wednesday in response to the Trump administration's efforts to revoke a landmark U.S. government finding to that effect that underpins key environmental regulations.
The NAS, a non-governmental nonprofit set up to advise the government on science, said human activity is releasing greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, increasing extreme temperatures and changing the oceans, all dangerous developments for the health and welfare of the United States public. Evidence to that effect has only grown stronger since 2009, the group said.
In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking what's known as the 2009 “endangerment” finding, the concept that climate change is a threat. Overturning it could pave the way for cutting a range of rules that limit pollution from cars, power plants and other sources.
“EPA’s 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence,” the NAS said. Science that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 has now been resolved, it said, and new risks have been found, too.
The NAS was established in 1863 under President Abraham Lincoln and has played a significant public role in scientific policy for more than a century, including consulting on the Clean Air Act.
“The importance of getting the science right weighed heavily on the committee’s deliberations, given the potential significant implications of a changing climate and of the actions proposed to address it,” NAS committee chair and former Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman wrote in the preface to Wednesday's report.
“Unlike earthquakes and volcanoes, over which we have no control, responding to the potential harm to human health and welfare from changes in the climate is actionable now,” Tilghman wrote.
Under President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy has suggested that climate models used by scientists to predict warming have overreached, that long-term trends for disasters generally don’t show much change and that climate has little impact on the economy. The DOE also said there are advantages to a world with more carbon, like increased plant growth.
On Wednesday, the National Academy had a series of scientists explain their findings in a webcast.
Addressing the administration's assertion that U.S. wildfires aren't more common recently than they were in the 1980s, the NAS provided evidence that climate change has worsened them. Earlier springs; longer, dry summers; and cumulative drought have lengthened the fire window and raised the probability of large, fast-spreading fires, especially in the West, the NAS report said.
And while Trump's Department of Energy attributes rising sea levels in part to sinking land and other factors, it relied on only a few tidal stations to inform its analysis, said NAS co-author Charles Driscoll, a Syracuse engineering professor.
Data from all the stations, plus from satellites, shows “very, very strong” evidence that the rise in sea levels is accelerating, Driscoll said.
In a statement, EPA said the endangerment finding was used by the Obama and Biden administrations to justify “trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations” and that many of the “extremely pessimistic predictions and assumptions EPA relied upon have not materialized as expected.”
The Trump administration's work has already been met by strong pushback from the scientific community, including dozens of experts who responded to a survey from The Associated Press. The vast majority of respondents were highly critical of science the administration put forward as it argued to revoke the endangerment finding. Many described it as filled with errors, bias and distortion.
Paul Higgins, an associate executive director of the American Meteorological Society, said the NAS's work is trustworthy in part because of the rigorous scientific process it uses.
“The National Academy of Sciences is the premier scientific organization in the United States,” said Paulina Jaramillo, a Carnegie Mellon University professor of engineering and public policy. “In contrast, the DOE report was authored by five scientists known to be climate skeptics."
Other mainstream groups have also criticized the administration’s work. A group of 85 climate experts found it “full of errors, and not fit to inform policy making.” Environmental groups are already challenging the administration’s documents in court.
A White House spokesperson previously told The Associated Press that the Trump administration “is producing Gold Standard Science research driven by verifiable data” and that the endangerment finding had long been misused to justify expensive regulations “that have jeopardized our economic and national security.”
The Trump administration maintains that while climate change is real, its future effects are unclear and likely weaker than projected by many mainstream scientists. The administration also contends that U.S. cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which largely come from burning fuels like oil and coal, would mean little globally.
The authors of the Department of Energy report said in August that any errors found in the work would be corrected and that the report is not meant to be a comprehensive review of climate science. They said the report was intended to focus on topics that have been “underreported or overlooked in media and political discussions.”
The National Academy of Sciences said in its report released Wednesday that harm to Americans from climate change is real. People are exposed to more extreme heat, air pollution and extreme weather events, just to name a sampling of the threats, NAS said. And it said the science of climate change reveals the potential for a frightening future.
“The United States faces a future in which climate-induced harm continues to worsen and today's extremes become tomorrow's norms,” the NAS said.
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed.
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