The fast-tracked update of the 2009 EPA Endangerment finding from the National Academies for Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), has now been released.
Unsurprisingly, it has come out strongly in favor of strengthening the conclusions of the 2009 finding. Specifically the conclude that:
- Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities are increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. … Multiple lines of evidence show that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the primary driver of the observed long-term warming trend. No known natural drivers, such as incoming solar radiation or volcanic emissions, can explain observed changes.
- Improved observations confirm unequivocally that greenhouse gas emissions are warming Earth’s surface and changing Earth’s climate. Longer records, improved and more robust observational networks, and analytical and methodological advances have strengthened detection of observed changes and their attribution to elevated levels of greenhouse gases. Trends observed include increases in hot extremes and extreme single-day precipitation events, declines in cold extremes, regional shifts in annual precipitation, warming of the Earth’s oceans, a decrease in ocean pH, rising sea levels, and an increase in wildfire severity.
- Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States. Climate change intensifies risks to humans from exposures to extreme heat, ground-level ozone, airborne particulate matter, extreme weather events, and airborne allergens, affecting incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other diseases. Climate change has increased exposure to pollutants from wildfire smoke and dust, which has been linked to adverse health effects. The increasing severity of some extreme events has contributed to injury, illness, and death in affected communities. Health impacts related to climate-sensitive infectious diseases — such as those carried by insects and contaminated water — have increased. … Even as non-climate factors, including adaptation measures, can help people cope with harmful impacts of climate change, they cannot remove the risk of harm.
- Changes in climate resulting from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases harm the welfare of people in the United States. Climate-driven changes in temperature and precipitation extremes and variability are leading to negative impacts on agricultural crops and livestock, even as technological and other changes have increased agricultural production. Climate change, including increases in climate variability and wildfires, is changing the composition and function of forest and grassland ecosystems. Climate-related changes in water availability and quality vary across regions in the United States with some regions showing a decline. Climate-related changes in the chemistry and the heat content of the ocean are having negative effects on calcifying organisms and contributing to increases in harmful algal blooms. …
- Continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will lead to more climate changes in the United States, with the severity of expected change increasing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted. …
It’s worth pausing to understand why this is unsurprising. It’s because the evidence for change, for attribution of that change, for model skill, for impacts, and, yes, for harm, is massively greater than it was in 2009. An additional 15 years of observations both in situ, and from satellites. In 2009, Terra/Aqua/Aura had only been observing for a few years. The GRACE records of ice mass loss, ocean mass gain and groundwater depletion were only a few years long. Now it is over two decades. The Argo floats had only just started to be widespread enough to reduce the error on ocean heat content estimates. The key papers on the attribution of single events only started to appear in 2011. The climate model projections available in 2009 were from the CMIP3 ensemble – a group of models that, impressively, continues to successfully predict the global mean temperatures, but which are significantly less skillful compared to current models (CMIP6, or even better, the models being prepped from CMIP7).
2009 was before Harvey, Ida, Florence, Sandy, Irene – events which, while not ’caused’ by climate change, had impacts in the US (via rainfall amounts, intensity, and storm surge) that were very likely enhanced by it.
Rather than the situation being more uncertain than in 2009, we are far more confident in the basics than we were, and where there continue to be uncertainties and (sometimes vibrant) disagreements, these are generally about second order details, or at the cutting-edge intersections between climate and society.
Admittedly, this report was written at an express pace, dictated by the EPA’s actions and deadline and the DOE’s attempt at an end-run around the need for a proper assessment. The chutzpah of the EPA’s supporters complaining that this was done too quickly when they themselves cancelled the National Climate Assessment, set up an illegal FACA-violating ad hoc committee instead and had them report on a ridiculously short timeline with woefully insufficient expertise, is impressive. But even given the short turnaround time, this is an impressive document – mainly because the NASEM can confidently draw on a very broad range of experts and be sure that they are on top of their field.
It’s important to note that this kind of task, impartially advising the government on scientific matters, is exactly what the NASEM was set up to do in 1863. They self-commissioned this report, instead of being asked to do so by the EPA or any of the other relevant agencies, and that is an act of bravery in itself.
Chapeau.
This “update of the 2009 EPA Endangerment finding from the National Academies for Science, Engineering and Mathematics” is at least an attempt at speaking scientific truth to power, much needed given the undermining of the “Endangerment” finding in question by, well…never mind. But, to write way off topic, I am eagerly anticipating the book “Sophie’s Planet” by James Hansen, former director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. I recently learned Hansen’s granddaughter Sophie, who I assume is the “Sophie” referred to in the title of “Sophie’s Planet, is a climate “activist” of a sort, somehow associated with “Our Children’s Trust.” New climate related court proceedings are discussed on the “Ourchildrenstrust” website below.
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/sophie
https://ourchildrenstrust.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/ourchildrenstrust/event.jsp?event=907&
Chapeau indeed! It was a pleasure to watch yesterday their webcast on the release of the report and to have a moment of renewed hope that we will overcome this period of obscurantism.
Please read and share this blog post and the report widely.
P.S. One typo in the first paragraph: M in NASEM stands for Medicine.
[Response: Fixed. Thanks!]
Sorry, I forgot to add: can we finally state that there is no doubt that human activity is causing climate change and its related consequences? We have to be stronger in counteracting the never ending false doubt raised by “The Merchants of Doubt”. I understand the need of scientific rigor in assigning probabilities to theories and conclusions, especially for complex systems, such as the Earth and the human society, but in order to prevent the collapse of the latter and the biosphere sustaining capacity of the former, we need to be more assertive and better communicators of the facts and the truth. Nothing helps us better know facts and truth than real science.
The truth is that those eight billion stakeholders need to eat. And fossil fuels provide the only realistic way to deliver them. The same is true for finishing the energy transition to renewables and EVs.
Ken Towe, if what you say were true, it would put mankind in an impossible position, like a man who has to chose wether he wants to be burned or drowned. Because burning all the remaining oil will destroy a lot of food production because of extreme weather: droughts, floods, heatwaves leading to destabilization of ecosystems, crops not being able to cope with the quikcly shifting weather extremes, attacks from insects etc., it’s already happening as we speak. The market and political dogmas can’t change the laws of nature. Your alternative isn’t going to happen, we won’t be able to burn the remaing oil without wreaking havoc. And either way we won’t have any more oil to consume in the not so far future (in less than fifty years, most oli will be gone, if we continue as now. Thus we have to gradually but fast reduce both our consumption of fossil fuels and our total energy consumption. And there’s lot of room for that. Just think of the enormous amounts of energy being thrown away on commercials etc., which most people simply hate, as I do, and for very good reasons.
Facts not in evidence. It would seem to me that one could expect a steady decline in use of fossil fuels as the energy and transportation system are modernized By your argument, we ought to still be lighting our homes with whale oil.
Sadly this will not get one tenth of the publicity from the media as the EPA and DOE report did.
I’ve made this point elsewhere, but this report presumably, like the late unlamented DOE ‘report, focussed only on endangerment to the US and presumably excluded the rest of the 7.9 billion of us in the rest of the world.
While there are no doubt plenty of US based deniers who wouldn’t care if Planet America was more or less OK whilst parts of the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket, many of us non-Americans would prefer it if the US included us prominently in endangerment findings.
Also unsurprisingly there were no recommendations offered as to what realistic and practical actions should be taken to address the endangerment findings. Isn’t this where the emphasis should now be placed?
Ken,
There’s no remedy possible for the CO2 that’s already been released into the air and ocean. What’s there is gonna remain for centuries, mired in a relentless cycle of diffusing back and forth between the ocean and atmosphere. No way to sequester even a fraction of this considering the number of tailpipes and smokestacks that put it out there in the first place.
About the only path forward is to not make it any worse, which is not quite as dire a situation, especially since we’re at the tail end of the world oil reserve supply. So just have to rely on the poor energy density of coal and natural gas to allow alternatives to take their place.
So the basic recommendation is to do nothing and let the oil industry flail away, while the entrepreneurs figure out the alternatives. This must really harsh your buzz.
My only quibble with your otherwise admirable summary is that you imply that we have still to wait for ‘the entrepreneurs to figure out the alternatives’. In China, it seems, they have already done this.
According to ‘China Energy Transition Review 2025’, on website Ember Energy:
‘China’s renewable energy industry is rapidly growing, with significant investments and capacity expansions. In 2024, China installed over 373 GW of renewable energy, contributing 86% of its new capacity, and the cumulative renewable energy capacity reached 1,889 GW, accounting for 56% of the country’s total energy capacity.
The sector accounted for 35% of total electricity generation in 2024, with solar and wind energy playing a crucial role.
China is also the largest investor in clean energy globally, spending $625 billion in 2024, which is 31% of the global total. The country aims to achieve 80% of its energy mix from non-fossil fuel sources by 2060.’
Paul…Do nothing? That will make it worse as we continue to add CO2 to the atmosphere. So we can expect a new record amount the next time Mauna Loa provides their annual update. With population increasing atmospheric CO2 could be well above 450 ppm.
On the other hand there is the alternative that we can use these natural resources to improve infrastructures to help us better survive and adapt to the projected extreme weather.. We will have to do that regardless.
Bottom line? No matter we do CO2 will continue to rise because starvation is not an option.
Ken, allow me to commend you on the use of two logical fallacies in the same comment! Kudos!
I speak of course of your use of strawmanning and false dichotomy–implying that there are only two options–business as usual and complete, immediate cessation of burning fossil fuels. I say again: No one who is responsible is suggesting this. The strategies actually being put forward are to implement the modernization of the global energy infrastructure gradually. Of course, gradually used to be a whole helluvalot longer back in the ’90s when the evidence for anthropogenic climate change was merely incontrovertible. We have since squandered 35 years of letting billionaires get ever richer off of the status quo while the rest of us have been becalmed in the economic doldrums that reach below the top 1% of the top 1%.