Competitive Enterprise Institute releases internal EPA document criticizing proposed finding on GHG emissions
Prior posts have noted the development by EPA of its finding, as required by the CAA, that CO2 poses a danger to public health and welfare, and its submittal to and approval by the White House. Critics have noted that there was dissent within EPA, and have now released said document. The document was apparently compiled by Alan Carlin, a senior operations research analyst at EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics; the release includes e-mails to Carlin telling him to not forward his comments to EPA management because his views ran counter to EPA's position on the issue.
Mr. Carlin's criticisms appear to be directed mainly at the IPCC, and suggest that the problem is nowhere near as bad as the IPCC suggested it might be in its report of several years ago. Given the numerous studies reported in prior posts on the apparently adverse effects of global warming and its trends, it seems unlikely that the comments of Mr. Carlin, however well meaning, carry any credibility whatsoever in terms of addressing the fundamental problem that evidence of adverse effects are showing up throughout the biosphere. One can certainly argue about the curve on the trend line or the validity of climate models, some of which are fairly primitive (to be polite), but the overall impact seems to be, unfortunately, rather apparent. I am personally skeptical that cap-and-trade will be that effective; experience suggests it will be too easy to game the system. That does not mean, however, that emission controls and a carbon tax, combined with incentives for the development of non-carbon power sources, could not be effective and at least slow the trend. Policy needs to consider the truly long-term because reordering the energy sector of the economy will take many decades.