by Christine Hall
04 May 2011

from BigSkyBusiness Website

The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless.

That’s the finding of a new peer-reviewed report by a former EPA whistleblower.

Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, was a career environmental economist at EPA when CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute) broke the story of his negative report on the agency’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases in June, 2009. Dr. Carlin’s supervisor had ordered him to keep quiet about the report and to stop working on global warming issues.

EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly-publicized embarrassment to the agency, given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s supposed commitment to transparency.

Dr. Carlin’s new study, A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change, is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

It finds that fossil fuel use has little impact on atmospheric CO² levels.

Moreover, the claim that atmospheric CO² has a strong positive feedback effect on temperature is contradicted on several grounds, ranging from low atmospheric sensitivity to volcanic eruptions, to the lack of ocean heating and the absence of a predicted tropical “hot spot.”

However, most economic analyses of greenhouse gas emission controls, such as those being imposed by EPA, have been conducted with no consideration of the questionable nature of the underlying science.

For that reason, according to Dr. Carlin,

the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO² emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports.

Sam Kazman, CEI General Counsel, stated,

“One of the major criticisms of Dr. Carlin’s EPA report was that it was not peer-reviewed, even though peer-review was neither customary for internal agency assessments, nor was it possible due to the time constraints imposed on Dr. Carlin by the agency.

 

For that reason, we are glad to see this expanded version of Dr. Carlin’s report now appear as a peer-reviewed study.”

A year ago, CEI challenged the Administration’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases, based upon the withholding of information from the process.

CEI asserted that the EPA,

“put under wraps and concealed” ….”a significant internal critique of the EPA’s position” by a “senior official.”

They revealed to the public four internal EPA emails that showed the agency deliberately skewed the process by ordering Dr. Carlin not to reveal his findings.

Not only did the emails specifically direct Dr. Carlin not to discuss or release his findings to anyone, but they spelled out the reason why - because,

“your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.” (Al McGartland, PdD, Director National Center for Environmental Economics, US EPA).

“Dr. Carlin’s study was barred from being circulated within EPA, it was never disclosed to the public, and it was not placed in the docket of this proceeding,” claimed the CEI.

In his newly released study, Dr. Carlin says that the reason that the economic benefits of reducing CO² emissions may be considerably less than those estimated by most economists is because the climate sensitivity factor is much lower than assumed by the United Nations.

“Feedback is negative rather than positive and the effects of CO² emissions reductions on atmospheric CO² appear to be short rather than long lasting,” he writes.

He also reported,

“The costs of CO² emissions reductions are very much higher than usually estimated because of technological and implementation problems recently identified.

 

Attempts to decrease these costs by a greatly expanded government funded research program to encourage technological innovation are both expensive and may or may not prove successful in reducing the technological problems.”

And, because of “very modest benefits,” CO² emissions reductions are economically unattractive and “unlikely to economically justify the much higher costs.”

And, further,

“The risk of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming appears to be so low that it is not currently worth doing anything to try to control it, including geoengineering.”

Read the full report: "A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change".