Scott Pruitt's 'red team-blue team' debate prep largely left out mainstream climate scientists
By Dino Grandoni May 10 at 6:45 AM
When Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt wanted to set up opposing teams to debate the science of climate change, his staff sought advice primarily from well-known climate doubters at conservative think tanks.
Those largely left out: Researchers, both inside and outside the agency, who study climate change for a living.
A new cache of emails show Pruitt’s schedulers, press aides and other political appointees collecting information from outside conservative advocates who have worked for years at the fringes of mainstream climate science in preparations for the “red team-blue team” exercise, I reported Wednesday.
In interviews with news outlets, Pruitt had pitched the two-side, military-style exercise as a way to suss out the truth of scientific claims that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities are pumping greenhouse gases into the air and are warming the planet.
Yet multiple scientific assessments at home and abroad have concluded man-made climate change is real and poses substantial risk. Many within the climate science community countered that staging such an exercise was unnecessary because scientists have plenty of forums, such as academic journals and scientific conferences, where ideas are debated.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/05/10/the-energy-202-scott-pruitt-s-red-team-blue-team-debate-prep-largely-left-out-mainstream-climate-scientists/5af35f8530fb042588799424