The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Trump is creating an advisory council on climate change and national security.
In theory, this is a good idea: Reuters just reported on the creation of an international climate and security panel at the Hague to deal with the “imminent” threat of warming. And just in the years since Trump’s been in office, many high-ranking military officials have explained that “the effects of a changing climate are a national security issue,” in the words of a recent Department of Defense report.
It would seem, then, that the Pentagon’s warning was the wake-up call Trump needed to start facing reality.
But instead of putting any one of the thousands of qualified climate scientists or national security experts in charge of the project, the Post reports the panel will be led by William Happer, who is in no way a climate or security expert. We’ll remind you that Happer once said that climate science’s finding that carbon dioxide causes climate change is akin to the “demonization of poor Jews under Hitler.” That’s the sort of brilliant analysis that fossil fuel interests paid him for while he was at the George C. Marshall Institute, or now at his CO2 Coalition. Apparently, they’re cutting checks so often that Happer doesn’t even care who’s signing them.
Back in 2015, Happer was caught accepting a request from unnamed Middle Eastern oil and Indonesian coal businesses to produce a pro-fossil fuel report. Unfortunately for Happer, this was a Greenpeace sting. Happer asked for a payment of $250 an hour, and wanted it funneled through his CO2 Coalition organization so that the clear conflict of interest would be kept secret. Happer even admitted the report probably wouldn't pass peer-review; he proposed instead sharing it around with some of his pals and they could just call it peer-review.
In those emails, Happer also indicated that Peabody Coal payed him $8,000 (through a donation to the CO2 Coalition) to testify in a court case arguing what the social cost of carbon should be. (Doesn't seem he was worth the money, though--Peabody ended up losing that case.)
So it seems clear this council, which is tasked with examining the impact of climate change on national security, will only work to muddy the acknowledgment among national security experts that climate change acts as a catalyst for conflict.
In justifying this wild goose chase, the White House claimed that existing climate reports didn’t go through “rigorous independent and adversarial scientific peer review.” This, of course, is just a plain ol’ lie.
The National Climate Assessment and other reports go through a lengthy peer-review process. In contrast with how Happer’s reports tend to be reviewed by his fellow fossil-fuel funded peers, government reports are looked over by not only hundreds of scientists across different agencies, but also in the case of the NCA, thousands of members of the public.
Instead, with Happer in charge, the government’s going with a man who acknowledges his work can’t pass real peer review, and has already failed in the courts. Someone who has been debunked repeatedly, including in a 42 page point-by-point rebuttal in 2011, and more recently in podcast form.
So regardless of the final outcome, one thing’s for sure: if William’s in charge, the end product will be, at best, Happer-hazard.
Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories: