Schooling Pruitt's Red Team about our planet and its climate

I wrote the following column mid December for the Four Corners Free Press out of Cortez, Colorado.  Since then it seems that the GOP doesn’t think much of Pruitt’s Red team Blue team idea and his challenge appears dead.  Still as I explained at Confronting Science Contrarians I believe Pruitt’s challenge is worth exploring, if only in outline.  Beginning with an observation and a pointed question:

Pruitt, questioning the unquestionable is fine. 

Now, will you, can you, pay attention to the answers you receive? 

Science’s Blue team educates Pruitt’s GOP Red team

https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2018/01/science-educates-pruitt-redteam.html

A rough outline for exploring the learning opportunities Pruitt's Red Team Blue Team challenge offers for exposing GOP's intellectual dishonesty.

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The following column was inspired by a lecture that Kevin Trenberth  gave at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado on November 9th, 2017.  Pruitt's "challenge" happened to jump into the headlines giving this story the hook that had been alluding me for weeks.  Worth noting is that most of what I write here at WUWT and at CSC is intended for readers up to speed on the science and the public dialogue - these columns for the FCFP force me to write for an audience preoccupied with other concerns, which produces a different sort of piece.

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January 2018 - Four Corners Free Press, Cortez, Colorado

Early in December U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told lawmakers he intended to organize a “Red team v Blue team” exercise to debate climate change science.

Pruitt is being willfully blind to the fact that the scientific aspects of global warming have already been thoroughly debated by experts. It’s expected that Pruitt will orchestrate a lawyerly winner-take-all debate. One that’s based on rhetorical trickery and a ruthless disregard for facts.

It’s a shame, since we Americans needs a constructive educational dialogue. A debate where honestly representing your opponent’s arguments and data is as important as honestly representing your own data. One where objective learning is the goal, and where truth matters.

Speaking of honestly representing the science, November 9th Dr. Kevin Trenberth (the distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and a lead author for IPCC’s Scientific Assessment in 1995, 2001, and 2007, a giant in the field of climate assessment), gave a talk at the Fort Lewis College Climate Symposium explaining what scientists have learned about our planet. It sounded to me like a potential Blue team opening statement.

Since, today climate scientists and the science itself is under attack like never before it’s critical for more citizens to become aware and engaged. That’s why I want to share what Trenberth explained to us, along with some additional science. Information that makes clear what an internally consistent understanding scientists have achieved.

Trenberth underscored that pretty much all scientists agree. As for the few outliers, they are driven by other causes, such as religious and political inclinations. He explained that: “… as a whole the data are of mixed quality and length. If you were to look at one little piece of it you might be able to be skeptical that climate change is happening, but when you put it all together there's no doubt whatsoever that this is happening.”

Exploring the Map vs Territory Problem - via the Brown Ocean Effect and Dr. Trenberth

I'm sharing this from the other blog I've started ConfrontingScienceContrarians.blogspot.com, it's part of my continuing struggle to understand the roots of the past decades worth of climate science communicators failure to sway public understanding, along with their failures in confronting alt-right juvenile liars and their childish distractions. 

On November 9th Dr. Trenberth visited our local Fort Lewis College and was the featured speaker at an afternoon climate change symposium.  

A Distinguished Senior Scientist (in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research), he is a cartographer if you will.  His entire being is about getting the science, the models, the map, as close to representing reality as resources and ability allow.  This dedication has made him among the best in his field of climate studies.  

As a self-taught Earth and climate science enthusiast I’ve been familiar with his work for decades and have learned a great deal from his articles and in past years talks on YouTube and I was glad to finally have the chance to see and hear him in person.

Although he gave an interesting talk reviewing many aspects of our warming climate system including hurricanes,