EPA intends to form “red team” to debate climate science

Enlarge / US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. (credit: Gage Skidmore)

US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have been making some headlines for publicly rejecting the conclusions of climate science. But in between wrongly claiming that climate scientists just don't know how much of a contribution humans make to recent global warming (answer: roughly 100 percent), they have also been parroting a new line-that climate science needs a "red team" to take on the scientific consensus.

On Friday, E&E News reported that these aren't empty words. The EPA intends to "organize a specific process in which these individuals... provide back-and-forth critique of specific new reports on climate science," according to an administration official.

The "red team" concept refers to exercises in which one team is formed with the goal of shooting down the blue team's conclusions or pursuing off-the-wall ideas. Since people like Scott Pruitt assert that the cause of climate change is fundamentally unknown, they argue that it would be perfectly reasonable to gather up some scientists who think humans are the cause together with some who disagree and let them duke it out.

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