‘Zombie arguments’ have been brought back in US climate debate, scientists say

An increased frequency of heatwaves and wildfires have been a feature of northern summers. Photo / Getty Images

United States experts today denounced a Trump Administration climate report for reviving the tobacco-industry’s tactics to sow doubt around scientific consensus.

In a 440-page rebuttal, 85 scientists accused the Government of relying on a handful of contrarians who drew on discredited studies, misrepresented evidence, and bypassed peer review to reach pre-determined conclusions.

The Administration’s 150-page report, released on the Department of Energy’s website in late July, was intended to support its proposal to overturn the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” - the legal basis for numerous federal regulations of greenhouse gases.

“This report makes a mockery of science,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University and a co-author of the rebuttal.

“It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm-waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias.”

Entitled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate”, the DOE document made a series of startling and at times contradictory claims.

These include that extreme weather events linked to emissions are not increasing, US temperatures are not rising, higher atmospheric carbon dioxide would boost agriculture, and solar activity could explain warming trends.

‘Zombie arguments’

The rebuttal marshals experts from multiple disciplines to challenge each assertion.

“Just as the tobacco industry funded scientists to question the harms of smoking, the fossil fuel industry engaged in a co-ordinated campaign throughout the 1990s to fund scientists willing to argue that it was the sun, and not humans, causing the climate change observed up to that point,” said Ted Amur, a climate scientist at Aon Impact Forecasting, adding he was alarmed to see “zombie arguments” brought back.

The DOE report claimed that the “Dust Bowl” years of 1930–1936 - among America’s hottest summers - disproved the reality of human-caused warming.

The counter report said this was deeply misleading, since poor land management at the time had turned the Great Plains into a desert-like wasteland that amplified the heat.

On agriculture, the rebuttal notes that while elevated carbon dioxide can sometimes spur yields in isolation, rising heat and shifting rainfall patterns are expected to cause overall declines.

The DOE report also downplays the threat of ocean acidification, claiming “life in the oceans evolved when the oceans were mildly acidic” billions of years ago. The rebuttal counters this is “irrelevant” since complex life was not present during Earth’s early history.

Ecologist Pamela McElwee of Rutgers University faulted the report for largely ignoring impacts on biodiversity despite the outsized social and economic consequences.

“US coral reefs alone provide an estimated US$1.8 billion in coastal protection from storms and floods annually,” she said.

Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has gone far beyond the pro-fossil fuel agenda of his first term. Republicans recently passed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” gutting clean energy tax credits and opening sensitive areas to drilling.

The Trump Administration has also withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement and is pressing a fossil fuel agenda abroad - requiring the European Union to buy more US liquefied natural gas in a trade deal and pressuring the World Bank to scale back its climate focus, among other actions.

-Agence France-Presse