Reality imitates satire; smoking, climate change, and EPA chief Scott Pruitt

Jim (seated) consults Sir Humphrey

Wishing, as I recall, to evade the scientific consensus on smoking and lung cancer, Yes Minister‘s Jim Hacker turned for advice to his Civil Servant Sir Humphrey Appleby. The conversaton went something like this (I would be glad of a link to the exact transcript):

Sir Humphrey: Say the scientists disagree. Say that more research is needed.

Jim: But I thought the science was settled …

Sir Humphrey: Those scientists are always disagreeing about something, and there is  always a need for more research.

Now this, from Science magazine’s online website:

Pruitt testifyimg (NBC)

Asked if CO2 is the “primary control knob for climate,” Pruitt said he wouldn’t agree with that assessment.

“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Pruitt said.

“We don’t know that yet. We need to continue the debate and to continue the review and analysis.”

Which, no doubt, is why the administration of which Pruitt is part is cutting the budget for climate science.

Global temperature, by NASA Goddard  via Wikipedia