Biology: EPA chief blows hot air in contradicting climate science – The Columbus Dispatch

President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

In 1971, he strengthened the Clean Air Act and extended the Clean Water Act, andhe banned the pesticide DDT the next year.

Nixon was a shrewd politician. He understood that hisRepublican Party had to embrace the environmental movement that was popular at the time.

Americans still support environmentalism and are even more dependent onenvironmental services than we were 50 years ago. Just ask residents of Toledo, Ohio, orFlint, Michigan, about their drinking water.

But Republican politicians have rejected Nixons insight that they should be on the right sideof Americans' relationship with the environment.

A prime example of this about-face recently came when the new EPA director, Scott Pruitt, appeared on CNBC.

Pruitt said: I think that measuring withprecision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and therestremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so, no, I would not agree that(human activity is) a primary contributor to the global warming that we see."

In environmental biology, measuring anything with precision is a challenge. We pursue our science because it has so many moving parts. We cant measure precisely many influences that we nonethelessknow shape the biological systems we study, especially those on which humans depend.

As for Pruitts claim of tremendous disagreement, hes simply wrong if hesreferring to the conclusions of biologists and other climate scientists. We might disagreeon the rate of future environmental responses to human-caused climate change, but not onits reality and growing effects.

Since the start of the industrial revolution, atmospheric levels of carbondioxide have risen exponentially because of fossil fuels. According to theAmerican Chemical Society, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide had never exceeded 280parts per million over the past 650,000 years.

When Pruitt spoke on CNBC, that level stood at 406 parts per million. No one disputes this.

Physicist Richard Feynman captured the essence of the interface between physics andbiology when he wrote that trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, theygo back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun, which wasbound in to convert the air into tree.

The air to whichFeynman refers is carbon dioxide, and we have released it for the past twocenturies like never before.

Pruitt cannot appeal the laws of nature to the courts or Congress.

Nor can he appeal Moores law that describes how new alternative energy technologiesbecome more efficient at an exponential rate. He also cant appeal Wrights law thatexplains how the costs of solar panels or wind turbines decrease with the quantity made.

These laws describe how the rates of change in technology favor the ongoing transition toalternative sources of energy and away from fossil fuels. This represents a classic case of creative destruction.

Effective public policies can provide retraining and other programs for displaced workers. That, however, requires recognition of our economic and environmental problems and the opportunities they present. Obstinate, unsupported denial by policymakers can't help that happen.

Steve Rissing is a biology professor at Ohio State University.

steverissing@hotmail.com

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Biology: EPA chief blows hot air in contradicting climate science - The Columbus Dispatch