fulks, gordon
multonah
The Defendants’ deception campaign was vigorously executed in Oregon and targeted to mislead the Plaintiff and its residents. 480. Gordon Fulks is a prolific anthropogenic climate change denier and is a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, which as described above, provides a medium through which Defendants have propagated false and misleading denials and downplays of the causal relationship between carbon pollution and extreme climate change. At the behest of benefactors that included Fossil Fuel Defendants, Fulks has published editorials in the Oregonian that deny the existence of any scientific consensus that carbon pollution causes warming of the planet.340
He writes, “The many objections from real scientists will be countered with fictitious claims of ‘consensus.’ (Should that, too, be questioned — based on studies that show widely divergent scientific opinions — the political formula calls for stonewalling.) Never mind that science proceeds from openly discussed logic and evidence. The scientifically illiterate will not understand and can be easily fooled with unsupportable claims that each succeeding year is the ‘warmest ever.’”
sab off bs
Gordon Fulks and Associates Gordon J. Fulks, PhD is an experimental astrophysicistwho has worked on a wide variety of important science, from the basic science of galactic cosmic ray propagation through the spiral magnetic fields of the heliosphere to the applied science of nuclear weapon effects to the evaluation of many scientific scares using the concept of 'acceptable risk.' Dr. Fulks has done extensive work on the climate issue and is considered a national expert. He has a BS, MS, and PhD, all from the University of Chicago, and all in physics. In a paper published in 1975, he correctly predicted that the heliosphere, filled by the solar wind, stretched beyond the farthest planet, a view substantially at odds with opinion at the time. The greatest reward for a scientist is to be proven correct, and NASA spacecraft did just that decades later. In his work for Mission Research Corporation, Dr. Fulks studiednuclear weapon effects, under contract to Defense Nuclear Agency. He also worked on hardening of various systems and facilities against electromagnetic attacks. When the threat environment changed at the end of the Cold War, Dr. Fulks worked on hardening US Embassies against physical and electromagnetic attacks. This included the US Embassy in Moscow during the period when Reagan was negotiating with Gorbachev. After the demise of the Soviet Union, Dr. Fulks began consulting for businesses and government agencies concerned about a proliferating number of scientific scares. He has researched the climate paradigm and helped to educate many as to what is real and what is not. He has alsoreviewed epidemiological studies on diesel particulates for the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District and is thoroughly familiar with the Linear No Threshold controversy. All his efforts in recent years have been pro bono
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The skeptics who could snag science adviser slots
Scott Waldman, E&E News reporter
Climatewire: Thursday, September 14, 2017
Climate skeptics may soon join a key science advisory panel at U.S. EPA.
A number of people who reject the findings of mainstream climate science are being considered by the Trump administration for spots on EPA's Science Advisory Board, a voluntary but influential panel that reviews science used in environmental regulations.
At least one nominee hopes to use a position on the board to challenge the science undergirding many environmental regulations. One has said in a statement that the world must "abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade." Another compared people concerned about climate change to "Aztecs who believed they could make rain by cutting out beating hearts."
EPA has submitted 132 names for public comment as possible members of the panel. About a dozen of them have made comments rejecting mainstream climate science. Many have connections to the fossil fuel industry or conservative think tanks, and some have received funding to attack the findings of mainstream scientists that humans are warming the globe at an unprecedented pace through the burning of fossil fuels.
The selection of any of those researchers would be the beginning of a very different advisory board that would bear the hallmark of the Trump administration's position on climate change, said Steve Milloy, an attorney and longtime EPA foe who worked on President Trump's transition team for the agency.
"Had some other Republican won the presidency and a swamp creature taken over the EPA, this would not be happening," he said, "but thank God for Scott Pruitt that he's got the courage to do this."
The Heartland Institute — a Chicago-based free-market think tank that pushes alternative climate science — nominated many of the current prospects.
Heartland Institute spokesman Jim Lakely said in an email: "We applaud any effort by Administrator Pruitt to bring qualified non-alarmist scientists onto the EPA's advisory boards. There is a vigorous debate over the causes and consequences of climate change, and it's vital that EPA acknowledge that fact and have a more balanced approach to the agency's rule-making."
The long list of nominees — identified by EPA staff members who oversee the advisory board — also includes mainstream climate scientists who have extensive experience working with the United Nations and EPA on climate change. Former top Obama EPA science official Paul Anastas made the list.
The deadline for public comment is set to expire Sept. 28. After that, EPA boss Pruitt will have final approval on the candidates. The board has 48 member slots, 15 of which expire at the end of the month. It's not clear how many positions will be filled.
The SAB, created in 1978, is tasked with "independent advice and peer review on the scientific and technical aspects of environmental issues to the EPA's Administrator." An EPA spokesman has said the agency wants industry to have a greater role than it has had previously in evaluating the science used by EPA to craft regulations.
Traditionally, most of the SAB members are from academia, though some have also come from industry and environmental groups.
The SAB is essential to the functioning of EPA because it is chartered by law to ensure the agency is using the best available science for regulations, said Peter Thorne, the board's current chairman and director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center at the University of Iowa. He said the SAB has a wide range of tasks that touch on almost every aspect of EPA's functioning. He said it's not just EPA that draws on its work — it's also state governments, nongovernmental organizations and private companies.
"The EPA Science Advisory Board needs to have people who are well-versed in the science that underlies the decisions that EPA makes, so if there are people who end up on the board who have views that are not grounded in solid science, then that is a problem," Thorne said.
Pruitt's prospects
Here are some of the skeptical nominees under consideration:
Joseph D'Aleo, a certified consultant meteorologist and co-founder of the Weather Channel: He has run climate skeptic websites and has appeared as a speaker at Heartland conferences. D'Aleo said his priority on the board would be attacking the endangerment finding, the legally binding document that holds that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases harm human health and must be regulated by the executive branch. He said he wants to challenge the finding because it could otherwise be used later to build back Obama-era environmental regulations.
Edwin Berry. edberry.com
"We're going to push for reconsideration, start from scratch and put together the best science," he said. "If CO2 is not a serious pollutant, let's focus the attention of the EPA on other issues."
Edwin Berry, a meteorologist and atmospheric scientist: He has funded his own climate research and says human carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change. He has compared those who believe in human-caused climate change to "Aztecs who believed they could make rain by cutting out beating hearts and rolling decapitated heads down temple steps." On his Twitter account, he has called Islam "a death cult" and has encouraged motorists to drive into protesters.
Berry, in an email to E&E News today, described his tweet as a joke and said he does not advocate violence.
"Clearly, my tween says to slowly drive to not hurt anyone," Berry said in the email, misspelling "tweet."
brn
Kevin Dayaratna. Heritage Foundation
Berry, who confirmed that he and a number of other skeptics were nominated by Heartland, said he wants to use his position on the board to show that humans barely contribute to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which he claimed are mostly driven by natural factors.
"Let's get over this whole thing about climate change being an important thing, because in fact we humans have a negligible impact on climate," he said. "And if we had the Paris Agreement and everything else, it wouldn't do any good anyway."
Alan Carlin, a retired EPA employee who is affiliated with Heartland: He fought the agency's crafting of the endangerment finding. Carlin, an economist, was at the center of a political firestorm under Obama after he produced a widely criticized 93-page report comprising cherry-picked scientific data and blog entries concluding that regulating carbon dioxide was "the worst mistake that EPA has ever made."
Kevin Dayaratna, a statistician at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His report was cited by Trump as a reason to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. It claimed that the agreement could shrink U.S. gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion within two decades (though Trump stated the impact as coming within a decade). The report was criticized by some as being misleading, because that amount is less than 1 percent of the aggregate GDP over that period and the report did not account for the cost of taking no climate change action. Dayaratna was invited to attend Trump's withdrawal announcement in June in the White House Rose Garden.
Craig Idso, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute: He has researched the benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide. His work has centered on highlighting how increased carbon dioxide will benefit plants.
Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a libertarian environmental think tank: His organization handed out leaflets at a climate protest this year in Washington, D.C., that said, "CO2 is not the 'control knob' of the climate." He also co-founded Climate Exit, or "Clexit," which criticized the science behind the Paris climate agreement and holds that spiking levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide benefit the Earth. "The world must abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade," the group stated in its founding statement. "Man does not and cannot control the climate."
Gordon Fulks, a physicist and adviser to the Cascade Policy Institute, an Oregon-based libertarian think tank: He has denied that net sea ice melt is occurring and that the Earth is warming. He has said those who express concern about climate change are like a "societal pathogen that virulently spreads misinformation in tiny packages like a virus."
Anthony Lupo, another founding member of Clexit: He has received support from the Heartland Institute and helped in the unsuccessful fight against the endangerment finding in court.
Leighton Steward, a former energy company executive and a founder of groups that promote the rise of carbon dioxide as a benefit: He has also encouraged the United States to drop out of the Paris climate accord and says that natural warming is raising the temperature of the Earth.
David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware: He has denied that human-caused climate change could have catastrophic consequences and has co-authored climate research claiming polar bears are not harmed by human-caused climate change that was quietly funded, at least in part, by Koch Industries Inc.