From: Joseph Bast To: Jim Lakely Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2017 1:31 PM Subject: Follow-up on second Red Team briefing Friends, On September 28, The Heartland Institute hosted a meeting of about 40 climate scientists, economists, lawyers, and other experts to discuss the possible creation by the Trump administration of a Red Team – Blue Team exercise on climate change. My notes from that meeting appear below. This was the second “Red Team briefing” hosted by Heartland on this topic. The first took place on June 14 in Washington DC, and a third and perhaps final meeting is planned for Houston on November 8, the day before Heartland’s America First Energy Conference. The invitation list consists of around 150 climate experts I assembled and sent to folks at EPA in response to their request for recommendations. Folks who attended the second briefing have already seen the notes below. I meant to send them to everyone else, but forgot. Sorry about that. Those of you who have not attended a briefing yet will receive an invitation shortly to attend the meeting on November 8. Thank you for your time and efforts on this important topic, and I hope to see many of you in Houston. Joe Joseph Bast Chief Executive Officer The Heartland Institute 3939 N. Wilke Road Arlington Heights, IL 60004 Phone 312/377-4000 Email jbast@heartland.org Web site http://www.heartland.org Support Heartland today! CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message (and any associated files) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential, subject to copyright, or constitutes a trade secret. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, copying, or distribution of this message, or files associated with this message, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Friends, Here are my thoughts about the meeting and some highlights, as they appeared in my notes, tracking the order of presentations: * EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposal for a Red Team-Blue Team exercise is vague, probably would not be effective, and is unlikely to come about. More likely to occur is a similar exercise directed by the head of another department (NASA, NOAA, or OSTP) with more interest than Pruitt has shown in the scientific debate and more likely to stick around to see the results. It could be a structured debate ala the APS meeting chaired by Steve Koonin, or a series of white papers on key issues with responses and replies to responses. It could be a presidential commission, ala the President’s Council on Bioethics, which enabled Bush II to pivot away from Clinton’s pro-abortion stem cell research agenda. * David Schnare described how policy can be changed from “inside the swamp” via seven “legal points of entry” such as legal challenges under the Information Quality Act and violations of peer review. Former Congr. Tim Huelskamp said that the debate is “political and not scientific,” and that Congressmen, administration officials, and Trump himself are making decisions based on what their campaign donors, trusted advisors, or staff are telling them. In terms of actually changing public policy, Schanre and Huelskamp both were saying the scientific debate matters less than most people in the room were willing to admit. * David Legates offered two iconic graphs that we can use to compete with the Hockey Stick: the first showing plant productivity and crop yields RISE in the presence of higher CO2 and warmer temperatures, ensuring a Greening Earth; and the second showing how computer models “run hot” and so fail to match observations and cannot produce reliable forecasts. Two examples of those two graphs appear below. (The first is from http://agronwww.agron.iastate.edu/courses/Agron541/classes/541/lesson03a/3a.4.html; the second is from https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/commentsnhtsapjm.pdf. GDD in the first graph stands for “growing degree days” and are a linear approximation of the growth of the crop. That same source has a good graph of photosynthesis and temperature.) * Harry MacDougald explained why judges often reject science arguments, preferring to rule on procedural matters rather rthan substantive matters, and so lawyers often avoid science arguments in court. But Harry believes our science arguments are much stronger than most lawyers believe, and they must be included in litigation to overcome the initial presumption held by many judges that the science is settled and EPA and other regulators are “doing the right thing.” * Jim Lakely’s presentation on “communication” summarized survey data on what Americans say they believe and care about and focus group data on what messages seem to work best, and ended with tips on talking to reporters. Lakely stressed that surveys show we are winning the public opinion battle, since most Americans don’t believe global warming is a problem that merits the attention being given to it by the media and politicians. Environmental advocacy groups quickly lose credibility when their massive funding is pointed out. The best messages are positive: CO2 increases crop yields, the earth is greening. * How to effectively market our ideas was a theme of many presentations, many remarks during the panels, and conversation over meals. Among the ideas I heard offered, we should… * be briefing news reporters and news readers at Fox News. * reach the President by tweeting on the issue. * hold more congressional hearings. * simplify the issue by focusing on one or only a few arguments and images. * identify a few good spokespersons and focus on promoting them. * stop chasing the other side’s latest argument and focus instead on the benefits of CO2. * focus on the “tuning scandal” that discredits the models. * turn debate from referring to median temperatures to high temperatures, which show no trend. * find independent funding for Roy Spencer, David Schnare, Willie Soon, Craig Idso, David Legates, etc. * push Pruitt to start a proceeding for reconsideration of the Endangerment Finding… he won’t do it without pressure. * we need to be able to say “EPA is reconsidering whether CO2 is a pollutant.” * use the White House Petition process – 100,000 signatures and the administration will issue a statement on why it isn’t reconsidering the Endangerment Finding. * get good people onto EPA advisory boards and into the administration. * respond to the Climate Science Special Report. * conduct a new survey of scientists to refute the 97% consensus claims. * sue a company for not increasing CO2 emissions, force a court to consider the evidence on CO2 benefits. * read The Business of America is Lobbying to understand the tactics of those we are really up against. * never use the phrases “windmill farms,” “all of the above,” “carbon pollution,” “social cost of carbon,” or “air pollution.” * use “industrial windmills,” “reliable and affordable,” “carbon dioxide emissions,” “benefits and costs of fossil fuels,” and “air quality.” * emphasize that we are pro-science and pro-environment… and the other side is not. * always think about what is most important to your audience… when giving a speech, start by commenting on the Cubs. * when being interviewed, deliver your headlines first, don’t let the reporter lead you astray or cut you off. * prepare to answer the “what if you are wrong?” question with “what if you are wrong? How much damage will you have caused by costing the average household $4,000 a year for nothing?” * fundamentally challenge, reform, or replace the National Academy of Sciences, the source of much pseudoscience. * stop funding “more research” as a substitute for “stricter regulation,” a trade Republicans made repeatedly and has now produced a massive government-research complex that can be counted on to always support “stricter regulation.” * clearly distinguish “safe” – a policy concept – from “risk” – a scientific concept, and keep scientists from pontificating on the former and advocates from misrepresenting the latter. * pursue a systematic campaign under the Information Quality Act outlined by Richard Belzer and David Schnare. * document instances where EPA etc. fail to cite research findings that contradict their agenda, e.g., James Enstrom and Stan Young on PM2.5. * mention John Beal every chance we get… wasn’t he responsible for the Endangerment Finding? Is he still in jail? * insist EPA et al. use 7% as the discount rate in their estimates of the social cost of carbon. * tell EPA to tell the courts “the SCC cannot be objectively measured. CO2 may be a net benefit.” * doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would increase plant productivity by 35%. * any SCC calculation that doesn’t include the benefits of CO2 should be rejected out of hand. * thinking we can forecast anything 100, 200, and even 300 years into the future is pure lunacy. * the cost of government failure exceeds the “market failure” supposedly captured by the SCC, so every dollar raised by a “carbon tax” will produce more social harm than good. (If you don’t see your suggestions in the list above, send them to me and I’ll work them into my next email to the group.) A few other issues came up, here are my opinions on them: * Maybe 90% of global warming alarmists sincerely believe man-made CO2 is causing a climate catastrophe, but the 10% who are the loudest and most often quoted are not. They are players pretending to be referees, “progressives” (socialists or communists) pretending to be scientists, reporters, and experts. That 10% needs to be outed and desmocked… at websites like leftexposed.org and without offending the remaining 90%, who are just deluded. * Many people said “we need a PR plan” or a “single strategy,” otherwise we will continue to lose the battle with AGW alarmists. I (Joe Bast) observed that (a) we aren’t losing, in fact we are winning the global warming war as shown by public opinion polls, election results, scientific journals, and the agenda of the President of the United States, (b) Heartland, CEI, and other organizations and individuals in the room do have plans and strategies, (c) a marketing plan is much more than agreeing (with you) on a few slogans or spokespersons, and (d) adopting a single strategy is unrealistic and unlikely to be effective. We can always do better, and will, but we should not stop doing what is working. * The briefing revealed that Heartland, CEI, Cato, Heritage, and other groups have done a poor job communicating their STRATEGIES to people in the room. More transparency is needed. We tend to hide, or at least not advertise, our playbooks for fear the other side will use them to launch counter-offenses, which we are sure would be far better funded and more warmly received by the media than our own efforts. But we ought to find a way to communicate our plans to our friends. * And finally… several people reported new friendships, partnerships, and plans for future collaboration came out of the meeting, and that is what we all hoped to achieve. Thank you all once again for attending, I hope to see some of you in Houston on November 9, and sometime in the coming years Diane and I hope to show up on your doorstep asking to spend a night or two on your livingroom couch. Joe Joseph Bast Chief Executive Officer The Heartland Institute 3939 N. Wilke Road Arlington Heights, IL 60004 Phone 312/377-4000 Email jbast@heartland.org Web site http://www.heartland.org Support Heartland today! CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message (and any associated files) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential, subject to copyright, or constitutes a trade secret. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, copying, or distribution of this message, or files associated with this message, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer.