Kentucky lawmakers hear climate-science skepticism from attorney general’s office

FRANKFORT — A litigator for the Kentucky attorney general disputed the role of carbon dioxide emissions in warming the world’s climate, despite near-total agreement among scientists that the clear gas is a major contributor to warming.

Speaking Thursday to state lawmakers, Vic Maddox, counsel on special litigation for Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman, cited the work of two physicists — William Happer and Richard Lindzen — who insist there is no climate emergency and have long disputed or questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. Maddox pointed to two recent publications — an eight-page article from June, published in an open-access archive maintained by Cornell University, and a two-page document from July.

According to Maddox, Happer and Lindzen contend that carbon dioxide has become a “weak greenhouse gas” because of the “saturation effect,” and that the more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere the “less of a warming effect it has.”

Maddox was among several witnesses appearing before the legislature’s Interim Joint Natural Resources and Energy Committee which was discussing the implications of new federal rules requiring coal-fired power plants and new natural gas-fired power plants to capture 90% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 if the plants intend to run beyond 2039. 

As of earlier this year, Kentucky generated more than 70% of its electricity from burning coal according to federal data, an outlier in the country as utilities have transitioned to cheaper alternatives such as natural gas or renewables. Coal is considered to be the “dirtiest” fossil fuel in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from burning it for electricity.

Coleman, along with other Republican state attorneys general and investor-owned utilities in Kentucky, is challenging the rule which he calls a “radical green agenda that would only leave Kentucky in the dark.”

Maddox, in explaining the AG’s legal efforts to block the Biden administration rule, said the EPA should consider the physicists’ conclusions about the role of carbon dioxide emissions.

“We think the EPA should consider it, and we think that as these cases go forward, there may be an opportunity to present this sort of material to the court for consideration,” Maddox said. “The question here is …is carbon dioxide really an important greenhouse gas at this point? Is it causing the problem that the EPA wants to solve, and will its elimination or reduction actually result in the result that it seeks?” 

Scientists have come to a near universal consensus that the Earth’s climate is getting warmer mostly because of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels that releases carbon dioxide emissions, those being a primary driver of global warming. Scientists have also refuted the theory, which dates back more than a century, that the atmosphere will warm at a much slower rate because it is already “saturated” with carbon dioxide. 

A climate scientist from the University of Washington, who reviewed the eight-page June document from Happer and Lindzen that Maddox cited, criticized the methodology of the document and the small number and quality of references in that document. He also said the document, which he characterized as “shoddy work,” wasn’t a peer-reviewed publication nor had it appeared in a scientific journal.

“The Cornell archive simply provides people with a place to self-publish, rather similar to some websites,” said Thomas Ackerman, a professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences. “There is a grain of truth to the absorption saturation argument, but the application here is wrong. It would take a lot of radiative transfer physics to explain that in detail, but, if that argument were true, a lot of us scientists would have figured that out a long time ago.”

“If this were a meaningful paper, it would be peer-reviewed and published,” Ackerman said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body at the United Nations of the world’s leading climate scientists, in its latest synthesis report found greenhouse gas emissions including carbon dioxide have “unequivocally” caused global warming with impacts to ecosystems on land and water, increases in extreme heat events and sea level rises likely attributed to climate change. 

When asked by the Lantern about Happer’s and Lindzen’s skepticism about climate change, Maddox didn’t directly address the question and claimed that models predicting climate change by the IPCC were inaccurate and “so inadequate that they can’t predict what has already happened.” 

Maddox referenced a book from Steven Koonin, another physicist who worked in the U.S. Department of Energy under President Barack Obama, in his criticisms of the IPCC. That book has been criticized as misleading, using strawman arguments to attack climate science or falsely asserting that climate science isn’t settled.

In a 2021 article in National Review, the physicists Lindzen and Happer criticized the Biden administration for signing onto the Paris climate accord and “joining in the crusade against a supposed ‘climate emergency.’ We use the word ‘crusade’ advisedly, since the frenzy over climate resembles the medieval crusades against foreign infidels and home-grown heretics. There is even a children’s climate crusade.”

The two physicists in that article insisted there is no climate emergency: “Nor will there be one. None of the lurid predictions — dangerously accelerating sea-level rise, increasingly extreme weather, more deadly forest fires, unprecedented warming, etc. — are any more accurate than the fire-and-brimstone sermons used to stoke fanaticism in medieval crusaders.”

Last year was the warmest since global records began in 1850 at 1.18 degrees Celsius (2.12 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th-century average of 13.9 degrees Celsius  (57.0 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The global annual temperature increased at an average rate of 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1850 and more than three times that rate since 1982, NOAA reports.

Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, a co-chair of the interim committee who has previously denied the science of climate change, asked in response to Maddox’s presentation if government leaders were willing to subject citizens to electricity rate increases “because of the so-called existential threat of climate change.” 

“The leaders in this country are really trying to force us to fuel switch, which would decrease the amount of coal,” Gooch said, mentioning that coal-fired power plants were being built abroad while the United States government is “rejecting” them. “It’s a real problem.” 

This story was updated with comments from a University of Washington climate scientist.