Welcome to the commentary magazine podcast today is Tuesday, May 28th, 2019.

I'm John Puthore. It's the editor of commentary magazine with me as always senior editor Abe Greenwald.

Hi, Abe. Hi, John. Associate editor in all wroth man. I know. Hi, John. And in Washington,

senior writer, Christine Rose and high Christine. Hi, John. So I we are pulling back a little bit to

examine the foundations and precepts of a story in the New York Times that reports on the

supposed war on climate change being waged by the Trump administration. And what I want to do here

is not take up the question of how severe is climate change or is it happening or something like

that. I just want to take up what the climate change, the world of climate change science claims is

is its role and its necessary project as relates to federal funding and the federal government's

relation to climate change. And I'm going to read some from the New York Times story in question. And then I will

ask my colleagues here to examine the logic behind what is being said here. Okay. Parts of the federal

government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science

studies reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the

earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat trapping

carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels. So it says here, James Riley, a former astronaut and

petroleum geologist has ordered as head of the house as head of the United States Geological Survey has ordered

that scientific assessments produced by his office use only computer generated climate models that project the

impact of climate change through 2040 rather than through the end of the century as had been done previously.

Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt

after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050 from that point until the end of the

century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions. Okay.

Abe, let me just start here with the following. So according to this, the head of the United States Geological Survey

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