Indur Goklany is a longtime Interior Department staffer who was elevated
by Team Trump into a top climate policy role soon after the great
orange buffoon Donald took office. The reasons for choosing him seem
evident enough: Goklany is a climate "skeptic" who won minor acclaim
with conservative climate change denial groups such as the
fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute
for the usual bog-standard suppositions. That “Well Actually maybe
scientists do not know what the evidence shows they know about the
climate,” “Well Actually maybe climate change will have upsides that you
eggheads have not considered,” and “Well Actually maybe tamping down on
pollution would be far more harmful to society than, you know,
worldwide ocean acidification, extinctions, and those other minor
unpleasantries.”
Unsurprisingly,
The New York Times is now reporting
that Goklany has been putting his mark on "at least nine" of the
agency's key scientific reports, muddying the agency’s scientific
messages in an effort to
both sides the fate of the planet.
As has been standard practice in the pro-extraction, oil-funded
climate denialist movement, the language Goklany has been ordering
scientists to include in agency reports revolves around claiming
scientific uncertainty where little actually exists. The end result of
this is to defraud the public—blunting government's own scientific
conclusions in an effort to stifle demands for stricter pollution
controls. The
Times reports that Goklany insisted climate
science "may be overestimating the rate of global warming." In fact,
newer climate studies have repeatedly found warming to be happening at a
faster rate than previous studies had predicted.
He also, said the
Times, ordered scientists to note that
increasing carbon dioxide levels “may increase plant water use
efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” This one is
trotted out only by the most dishonest of denialists; while it is
technically true that plant respiration may benefit slightly from higher
carbon dioxide levels (and heat), the effect is minuscule compared to
the effect of the planet's climate zones changing positions out from
under those same plants. If deserts are expanding into agricultural
areas and drought is dropping precipitation rates throughout this
nation's heartland, the
plus of those newly unusable lands having slightly longer growing seasons doesn't enter into it.
The short version is, once again, that we are screwed. The point of
Trump-style climate denialism is not to deny climate change is happening
outright but to instead insist that the science is far too "uncertain"
to justify action. As with a certain coronavirus in the news, the
premise is that while we cannot know what might happen, what we
do
know is that this is all the fault of people who want to bring the
stock markets down with unpleasant news rather than letting the
invisible hand of the markets decide what percentage of humanity needs
to die off in order to boost the financial portfolios of Dear Leader’s
friends and allies.
Read more: A Trump-elevated skeptic has been ordering Interior scientists to muddy department climate repo
