A New Pollutant Category Appears ( PM_2,5) And Lowers Americans' Life Expectancy

Map of age-adjusted incidence of stroke deaths due to air pollution in U.S. (From Eos: Space & Science News, p. 5, April, 2019)
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The blaring WSJ headline ('Heart Disease Roars Back', p. A1, June 22-23)  noted how life expectancy is being adversely affected for middle age Americans, largely because of increased cardiac deaths.  This was traced to pervasive obesity and overweight, noting 40 percent of Americans over 20 are now obese (BMI > 30) and another 32 percent overweight.

But another article  ('Stroke Deaths Rise, Life Expectancy Falls With Polluted Air',  Eos: Space & Science News,)may be telling another less known side of the story.  That is that "people living im regions with a high level of fine-grained air pollutants have shorter life expectancies and increased incidence of stroke."

Among the prime culprits which hasn't received a lot of media attention is a category of fine -scale particulates denoted PM  2,  5   - a main cause of hazy or smog-filled air..  According to the Eos paper, researcher Longjian Liu - an associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Drexel University - found that 51 percent of the counties surveyed (see map)  had annual average PM  2,  5  levels that exceeded the EPA's air quality standard limit (12 micrograms per cubic meter).  The graphic below gives an idea about the scale of these particles:


And the genesis of these particles?

"Fine particles (PM_2.5) are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, and can only be seen with an electron microscope. Fine particles are produced from all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes"

Liu's team gathered county data on reported stroke occurrence, overall life expectancy, poverty rate, rural population percentage as well as the number of primary care physicians per 1,000 residents from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  When the researchers compared  PM  2,  5   levels with health and demographic data they found that higher annual levels  of PM  2,  5   were significantly correlated with both stroke mortality rate and life expectancy in men and women.

In other words, those populations that breathe polluted air experience higher rates of death from stroke and have shorter life expectancies. Interestingly, the devastating effects of poor air quaity hit hardest in counties with a higher percentage of people living below the poverty line - and with fewer physicians per capita.

When the team mapped out which regions experienced the strongest effects, it found those living in southern states had the highest rates of stroke deaths and the lowest life expectancies due to  high  PM  2,  5  levels, followed by those living in the midwest.

Following on the heels of the Liu team findings in Eos, The Denver Post highlighted the broader picture of how air quality is eroding  (again through an increase in PM  2,  5) throughout the nation ('Air Quality Slipping In The U.S.', June 20, p. 21 A), noting:

"Over the last two years, the nation had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data shows....There were 15 percent more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, when the fewest number of days were recorded since 1980."

In other words, since the advent of the Trump infestation and its attendant swamp creatures, i.e. in the EPA, air pollution has significantly increased, as health has deteriorated. Also no surprise that the Liar-in Chief claimed the opposite, as the article goes on to note. When Trump - in the UK earlier this month bragged: "We have the cleanest air in the world in the United States and it's gotten better since I'm president."

Well, yeah, and if you believe that you will also believe Trump is the greatest president since George Washington, as opposed to the most derelict maggot ever to foul the White House.  Not to mention who lies like he breathes.  And we can thank the contributors to the Post's AP article for skewering his malarkey (ibid.):

"There were noticeably more polluted air days each year in Trump's first two years in office than any of the four years before "

Adding:

"Five hundred and thirty -two American metro areas reported a total of 4, 134 days in 2018 when the official air quality index passed 100, which means it became unhealthy for people with heart and lung disease, the elderly and the very young.....the worst of the bad air days jumped even more. On average in 2017 and 2018 there were nearly 140 times when a city's air pollution reached the worst two categories: 'very unhealthy' and 'hazardous'"

So Trump's occupation of the seat of power has not only poisoned our mental health but our physical health as well.

The aggregate fouling of our atmosphere  - thanks to the Trumpkins lowering standards and regulations - has spawned a blight not seen for decades. Not only novel pollutants like  PM  2,  5   but  SO 2  and mercury from coal -fired plants - and more to come after Trump's EPA rolling back rules governing emissions (e.g. ('EPA Rescinds Obama Power Plant Rules', WSJ, June 20, p. A4).   

EPA inspections alone have plunged from 21, 300 per yr. at the height of  Obama's tenure, to only 10, 600 last year- owing to staffing cuts. (WSJ, 'Trump Pulls Back Rules Enforcement', p. A4, today).  As one soon-to-be downsized EPA scientist (Felicia Clarke) was quoted in the piece: "We're giving a green light to bad actors."

 For those seriously considering putting Trump back into office again for 4 more years, think of whether your lung - or heart - will be able to tolerate this imp's deregulation, even if you want no part of "socialism". And what about your kids' lungs, and health?  Is it really worth a marginal 401(k) gain to enable the Trump retinue of rats to have a 4-yr. replay?

The tally of our poisoned air says 'no' even as our poisoned minds may no longer be able to discern the full spectrum of Trump's toxins.

Supreme Swamp Maggot Scotty Resigns, But No One Should Rejoice

Arguably, the most odious maggot in the history of political swamps and pestilences- Scott Pruitt-  resigned today, some say  after being confronted by wife and mother Kristin Mink and being asked to resign three days ago. Mink, a schoolteacher and mother of a 2-year-old son, set social media ablaze after she posted a video of her calmly asking Pruitt to resign while he was eating lunch at a Washington restaurant, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a5AFsj1ZeY.


Confronting the EPA abomination seated at his table, she spoke with clarity and purpose, meriting praise and admiration for her public confrontation of Pruitt, saying:

"This is my son. He loves animals. He loves clean water. Meanwhile, you're slashing strong fuel standards for cars and trucks, for the benefit of big corporations. We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, somebody who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children. I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out."

Her concerns were totally valid, given up to last month Swampy Scotty had moved to limit the EPA's ability to block permits issued to mining companies to dump toxic waste into waterways. Contrary to a WSJ editorial that the "EPA is the Holy Sepulchre of progressive politics", it is actually the last bastion to prevent massive degradation of our life quality vis-a-vis air, soil and water. Without which our health problems and expenses will explode.

As for Pruitt's scandals, there were no less than 12 separate, ongoing ethics investigations, including for:

- Renting a DC apartment for $50 a night from an energy lobbyist

- Directing EPA staff to waste time by trying to get his wife a job at Chick-Fil-A

- Wasting over $100,000 of taxpayer money for first class air fares to spare his sorry ass from having to take criticisms from irate passengers in coach

-- Pissing away another $3 million for a 20-person security detail, prompting the question: WTF is he afraid of, getting toxic waste tossed in his fruity face?

- Using lights and sirens to help get him to dinner engagements faster

- Ordering EPA staff to run personal errands, like picking up his dry cleaning and trying to nab a used Trump hotel mattress, and then find his favorite moisturizer from Ritz -Carlton. (Hey, Scotty, how about some nice Agent orange derivative, say 2,4 -D?)

- Using $43,000 for a private, secure phone booth in his office.

- Getting staff to scrub his official schedule of anything that might look bad before any formal visits by outside hotshots.

The WSJ's insistence these were minor missteps, exaggerated by "a green lobby and collaborators in the press corps" merely reinforces the POV that the Journal's editorial wonks are living in a world of their own.


Did Pruitt express any apologies upon turning in his notice? Hell no, because no unreconstructed maggot ever does. Instead this piece of ambulatory toxic waste actually infused several references to his deity while lavishing praise upon Dotard, e.g. "I believe you are serving as president today because of God's providence".

Leave it to a degenerate asshole like Pruitt to invoke "divine providence" when the actual agency was the "bottom half of the IQ curve" that put Trump into office.  This according to Harvard lecturer Harvey Mansfield (WSJ,  Weekend Interview, March 31).

Ordinarily, Pruitt's resignation would be cause for jubilation but not in this case, as we learned he was replaced by coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler. This means the fight continues until we can disinfect our government of every last maggot, parasite and vermin now permeating it. That means starting at the top with Trump, aka Dotard Donnie.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/samuel-vargo/79999/the-king-of-the-swamp-lizards-crawls-into-the-mud-and-muck-for-good-goodbye-mooch

And:

How the New Acting E.P.A. Chief Differs From Scott Pruitt

Excerpt:

"Many worry Wheeler will be more effective at implementing Trump’s anti-environmental agenda than Pruitt was,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser, in the wake of the departure"

Soft Soaping The Deadly Chemical Inventory: Trump's Motto Ought To Be "Make America Sick Again"

Yep, sick from everything from salmonella because of rodent feces found in eggs shipped out without regulatory oversight (e.g. 'Egg Recall Stems From Infested Facilities', WSJ, April 21, p. B2) to multiple cancers, including breast, prostate, and the liver cancer that took out  my youngest bro. Trump, aka Dotard, basically wants to gut all essential citizen protections so all the federal agencies charged with regulatory responsibility - say over our food, air and water - can just hit the snooze button while the rest of us get sick. Oh, and at the same time he wants to gut the only available health care so when we DO get salmonella, or breast or prostate cancer, we can't afford to deal with it.

And nowhere is this deplorable approach more pronounced than at Scott Pruitt's EPA. Recall this is the same guy who as Oklahoma’s attorney general described himself as “a leading advocate against the E.P.A.’s activist agenda.”. Barely two months ago this maggot-   who is up to his neck in 12 separate ethics investigations (including getting an aide to try and chase down an old Trump mattress and Ritz Carlton lotion) - said in an interview published in The Daily Caller lthat he would no longer allow the EPA to use studies that include nonpublic scientific data to develop rules to safeguard public health and prevent pollution.

Opponents of the agency and of mainstream climate science had labeled these studies “secret science.” But that is pure, unadulterated balderdash and twaddle.   Peer review ensures that the analytic methodologies underlying studies funded by the agency.  It is the optimum way to learn which chemicals and practices will kill you, give you prostate cancer, or just make you sick as a dog.

Thus, some of those studies, particularly that determine the effects of exposure to chemicals and pollution on health, rely on medical records that by law are confidential because of patient privacy policies. These studies summarize the analysis of raw data and draw conclusions based on that analysis. Other government agencies also use studies like these to develop policy and regulations, and to buttress and defend rules against legal challenges. They are, in fact, essential to making sound public policy.  We ignore them - like Pruitt wants to do - at our own risk.

This doesn't even touch on the studies Pruitt has had terminated such as one last August, by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine into links between surface mining and health. Specifically, the health complications and illnesses that arise form exposure to cola dust in the air and in drinking water.

According to Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NY Times, June 10, p. 18):

"We never got a clear reason why it was cancelled."

Well, it's fairly easy to figure out: Pruitt, in debt to the fossil fuel industry for its many campaign donations, rejected any findings that tied inhalation of coal dust, or drinking it - once dissolved in water -  to any brain, lung, liver or prostate cancers. 

But hold strain, the sicknesses may just be getting underway.  According to the latest news (NY Times, June 10, p. 1) the Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show.

To get a perspective here, under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics.

But under pressure from Pruitt, and as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has been ordered to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ present  in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.

Instead - in a "softball" approach,  the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere.  In other words you will actually have to make direct contact with the carbon tetrachloride or 2, 4 dinitrophenylhydrazine to ascertain that it actually killed or poisoned you. 

The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them. Fracking companies,  like many here in Colorado, . can then toss out as many drums of hydrogen cyanide as they want with impunity, and no one will be the wiser.  Until people get sick - and maybe not even then.

Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who retired last year after nearly four decades at the E.P.A., where she ran the toxic chemical unit during her last year. said flatly (ibid.):

“It is ridiculous! You can’t determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.”

We know, but the problem is Scott Pruitt won't hear of it.  He'd rather see 100 million sick of asthma, lung cancer, you name it - than lift a finger. Especially when he has special hotel brand lotions to chase down.

But again, we've barely touched the tip of the toxic "iceberg".  For example, while the nation's attention had been focused on the lead in Flint's water supply, few attended to Pruitt's EPA..  It turns out Pruitt has done next to nothing to address the nationwide problem of drinking water contamination. For example, he blocked the release of a study showing that toxic chemicals are contaminating water supplies across the nation.

Among the very real effects of this contamination are: an array of cancers (e.g. esophagus, lungs, prostate, breasts, etc., low birth weight, and thyroid disruption.   Yet the EPA, with Pruitt's consent, sits on a critical report from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry asserting the information will "cause a public relations nightmare."

So what? Ever head the phrase, 'Let justice be done or the heavens fall'?

Here in south central Colorado we've been alerted to the presence of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in our drinking water. This was via recently released EPA emails documenting the agency decision - again under Pruitt - to suppress the truth about PFAs. Dealing with painful or embarrassing prostate cancer treatments, or the horrific effects of chemo to treat breast cancer?  It may well be because you were one of the 60,000 El Paso County residents who ingested PFAS. 

For as long as records show, the "safe" level for PFAS in drinking water had been identified at 12 parts per trillion.   This is compared to the current EPA safe level of 70 parts per trillion, or nearly six times more.  

On the larger scale, over 6 million people across the nation are drinking PFAS- contaminated water.  This, even as we learned (NYTimes, June 9, p. 1) that the Trump Justice Dept. wants to roll back allowance for pre-existing conditions in the ACA. They reckon it's the best way to gut this health insurance program - if they can't repeal it.

If you get cancer in the next few years, perhaps inoperable (like my youngest brother) - or requiring regular chemo as well as radiation, which you will no longer be able to afford, thank Trump.  Oh, and his toxic lap dog, Scott Pruitt.

Yes, Slimeball Scott Pruitt Needs To Be Tossed Under The Bus - Then Rolled Over

I am not going to mince words, given I am not given to doing so, or as Janice puts it "talking through the flowers."  Scott Pruitt, current head of the EPA,  is a degenerate termite emblematic of everything now wrong with the reprehensible Trump administration - including rolling back numerous citizen protections (called "regulations")  and the tax payer waste of sending thousands of troops to the southern border. (We were informed via the news last night, they will be there to "advise"  the Border Patrol. Presumably they will be playing tiddly winks or checkers in between.)

As I've written in previous posts, these wretched despicables  Trump has appointed are wrecking everything it's taken decades to put into place, including civil rights, voter rights, food quality as well as undermining air and water protections. At the root of much of this, especially the latter, is the arsonist Pruitt -  put in charge of the EPA.  He needs to have his ass tossed now under the nearest bus, and the faster the better. Also, let it roll over him so he isn't "reincarnated" for any other posts, such as AG.

As it is, even if the Trump "America First"  nationalist, fascist virus is finally extinguished by 2020, it will likely take decades to rebuild what's been ravaged. That's how it is with human termites - such as Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Ryan Zinke, John Bolton   and the rest of the motley crew of simpletons, sociopaths and grifters -  who've been unleashed on a vulnerable nation.   By "the lower half of the I.Q. range" in the words of one WSJ reviewer last week.

Pruitt's ravaging of the EPA and the quality of our air, water would be bad enough. To recount for those who forget:

1) He plans to eliminate the emission standards put into place by Obama, leaving us to deal with megatons more yearly carbon deposition and greenhouse warming. This misbegotten stance puts Pruitt at odds with the actual scientists of the EPA, who have clearly stated on its original  website  (before Pruitt had it removed to "edit") that carbon dioxide is the “primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change”. This finding is backed by NASA, which calls CO2 “the most important long-lived ‘forcing’ of climate change”. 


2)In addition, he plans to nix another Obama era rule that limits power plant emissions, mainly mercury from coal -fired plants.  Coal  combustion is the single biggest contributor for mercury emission responsible for nearly 50 percent of atmospheric effluent in the U.S.  Pruitt's elimination of this rule will also allow much more SO2 (Sulphur dioxide) to be expelled resulting in much more respiratory distress for asthmatics and others.

3) Pruitt only recently rejected a proposed ban on chloropyrifos, a harmful pesticide already associated with cancers.   The EPA banned the chemical in 2000 on the basis that it was traced to brain defects in children.  One study by researchers at UC- Berkeley found that children born in proximity to a farm where the stuff has been used have lower IQs.

Don't forget this is the same maggot who back in March, 2017,  boasted openly on his linked-in page of "being a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda". Transl.:  He is quite happy to see your grand kids choke to death on fracking fumes, nitrogen oxides or mercury pumped from coal fired utilities, or the toxic residue left behind in a place because there aren't enough EPA personnel to do clean ups.   

The preceding predations on our national environmental integrity would be bad enough, but it's now been exposed that Pruitt the Parasite is exhausting millions of taxpayer dollars for his own benefit. While we can't necessarily kick his ass out, or demand Doturd do so  for destroying our national environment, we can demand he be kicked out for waste of our tax dollars.  What do I mean, specifically?

1) He's spent six months in D.C. using a condo co-owned by a lobbyist. In a  veritable sweetheart deal, he paid only 50 bucks a night when a typical rental for the same unit would run $5,000- 6,000 a month. Even at that, the little termite paid only for the days he actually crashed there. (Including one when first responders had to crash the door down, suspecting an emergency, but finding him "napping")

2) He's run up a taxpayer tab estimated at MILLIONS for an extravagant "security detail" that on occasion has run up to 30 personnel. Evidently, this putz is terrified of random tree huggers getting in his face  and yelling f-bombs at him for his destructive EPA policies. But rather than suck it up like a man he wants a phalanx of highly paid protectors.

See:  Pruitt's security detail cost taxpayers millions: report | TheHill

3) He's also run up more than $100,000 of taxpayer money on first and second class travel everywhere from Italy to New York City. He actually had the temerity to  defend these trips as a "security measure".  He clarified by saying the one time he tried to take coach he was set upon by  'evil' passengers who hurled f-bombs and other epithets at him.  Sticks and stones might break our bones, but so do bad words in Scotty's case. So, to protect himself, he's chosen top of the line travel accommodations where he can feel safe among the "elites" who won't curse or cast  nasty glares.

4) He's splurged on favored aides sometimes giving raises up to $55,000 each - presumably to whomever kisses his butt the best.  The one aide who complained about the waste and sliminess of the tactic, was demoted to a 'go-fer'.  

The sooner this slimy maggot vermin toad is kicked out, with nowhere else to go in this misbegotten administration, the better.   This is why we need to keep the pressure on him and Trump. Eventually, the latter - who's proclaimed himself a "stable genius" - will see that the Pruitt media circus is dwarfing his own, and act to boot him. One thing the Dotard can't tolerate is a competing ego sucking up all the media attention and oxygen.

Yes, the Trumpkin buffoons who love Pruitt will pout, but  then we instill in their fat heads we are doing it for them too. After all, once their food stamps and Medicaid are cut - compliments of Paul Ryan's new "clawback" plan - they will thank us for sparing them many more cases of leukemia, brain cancer,  liver failure and respiratory distress, not to mention cryptosporidium  infections. 

Simpler Climate Models - A Boon To Climate Researchers - And Also a Way To Screen For Cranks and Nitwits

Clockwise from top left, a satellite view of Earth, a complex Earth system model depiction, a simpler aquaplanet configuration, and the simplest dynamical core. This hierarchy of models is now being supported by the Community Earth System Model project. Satellite image: NASA; design by B. Medeiros.

An ongoing problem with climate science modeling concerns: 1) the high level of complexity of most models, and 2) the intrusion of quacks and climate know- nothings. The latter set includes Steven Milloy with his "Junk science" site when he is the one peddling it (see e.g. 'The EPA Cleans Up Its Science', WSJ op-ed, March 27). I argue the two are connected because with the complexity of too many climate models, the opportunistic interjection of quacks and nitwits is almost assured. (Milloy himself is an attorney - not a climate researcher or even physical scientist).

Let's note here that thirty years ago,  the development of so-called Earth system models (ESMs) was still decades away. One of the earliest climate researchers to conceive of these advanced system models was Prof. Gunter Weller of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, e.g.

By late 1986  Weller had shown the abnormal heating of the Arctic to be some 5 - 7F greater than the continental U.S.  The ice cores available at Dr. Weller's  Atmospheric Physics lab were extracted from Arctic ice at depths corresponding with geological time frames dating back over 80,000 years. His results showed that the greatest ambient temperatures corresponded to the highest CO2 concentrations recorded in the ice cores.  What he envisaged was an advanced Earth model to integrate these results but the computers of the time were not up to the task.

Today, the .vast majority of computing  resources for climate modeling are dedicated to potential use in ESMs.  These are constructed to numerically simulate Earth’s climate with the greatest possible faithfulness, so are designed to include the most comprehensive range of physical, chemical, and biological processes that can be handled on today’s powerful computing systems. The problem is not all academic sites have such systems.. 

For reference, Isaac Held alerted the climate science community to a widening divide between simulating and understanding the climate system more than a decade ago. He noted that a gap had developed between idealized models, which can sometimes be thoroughly understood, and the complex, high-end models (such as ESMs) that comprehensively simulate the climate system but cannot be completely understood because of their complexity.

This gap is particularly problematic for many researchers and students, who often have to work with limited computational resources. Furthermore, simple climate models are key to educational activities in university classrooms and as part of graduate research: They provide an entry point that enables students to master modeling techniques and concepts before moving on to more complex methods.

The complexity of these ESMs arises from the need to generate the most accurate projections of climate change in the coming decades. These projections play a crucial role in the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; they also inform climate-related decision-making in a wide variety of sectors. It's important to recognize here that while ESMs may be good for simulating the climate system they may not be as valuable for understanding it.  This was Isaac Held's contention, and it was also Gunter Weller's major concern as early as 1986 when he himself was limited to numerical models based on FORTRAN code.

This computing resource bifurcation has motivated climate researchers to add a new set of tools within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project: a hierarchy of simpler models to foster better understanding.  An added benefit of such simpler models would be to more easily expose climate cranks like Milloy, as well as more familiar climate denier culprits such as Willie Soon- whose arguments ought to be more easily exposed for review and critique in the simpler context.

For example,  Milloy's WSJ op-ed was subsequently skewered in a follow- up WSJ letter by Brian Combs ('Getting the Science Right For EPA Regulators', WSJ,  Mar. 31- April 1, p. A14.)  Combs first noted Milloy's being only an attorney (like EPA arsonist Scott Pruitt) and also the spurious ploy of trying to tie mortality from (small) particulate pollution  to death certificates. Milloy stated in his WSJ  op-ed that "I found in 2012 I could get California death certificate data in electronic form" and it was :scrubbed of all personal identifying and private medical information".  He then claimed (ibid.): "Some of my colleagues used this data to prepare a 2017 study which found PM2.5 (dust and soot smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter) was not associated with death.."

But as Combs pointed out, the nature of the data for PM2.5 as well as on the death certificates was simply "too minimal  to draw any significant conclusion." So Milloy's efforts make about as much sense as trying to tie close Martian oppositions to increased UFO sightings on Earth.  Combs also noted the failure of Milloy to provide any reference for his study on his JunkScience.com website.  Hence, "readers can't evaluate its conclusions or  whether it was published in a peer-reviewed journal".  But clearly, if the data sets were too "minimal" to reach a satisfactory statistical conclusion, there's no way they'd be published in any serious climate journal.

Milloy boasts that the "best thing is if you d0n't believe the result you can get the same data for yourself and run your own analysis".   But why would anyone do that? Why extract the same low signal (high noise),  minimal data to replicate a meaningless result? Has Milloy ever heard of  the old computer saw:  "garbage in, garbage out"?  My lack of belief is tied to his inability to get a paper based on these results published in a proper climate  journal. It isn't contingent on replicating his same junk analysis and getting the same junk result.

But as I've stated time and time again, this is the hallmark of the classic climate crank: making bold or bald assertions with no citations or references from peer-reviewed papers in real climate science journals. This as opposed say to biased fluff appearing on the website of the conservative George C. Marshall Institute. Say from the likes of climate babblers  Will Happer, or Sallie Baliunas.  Happer himself is a "physicist "at Princeton  - which kind of destroyed my image of that venerable institution and its allegiance to academic quality. I mean what does it say about a place that happily entertains climate hacks?

Anyway, in the U.S. the CESM project is now the natural choice for building a solid hierarchy of climate models. The models,  made available under the CESM project,  are developed, maintained, and documented specifically to serve the entire community of climate scientists. That means that even climate frauds like Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas and Steve Milloy can take advantage of the resources - as can climate hack Will Happer at Princeton.

Quality assurance is also applicable to the CESM project. It has a wide user base given all released model versions are thoroughly tested and routinely ported to the latest machines available. This is an arduous task not easily accomplished by individual investigators in a typical university setting. Crucially, the CESM can be freely downloaded and used by anyone. Again, that includes climate contrarians like Will Happer, Steve Milloy, Steve Koonin and others.

In the meantime, the AGU personnel promoting wider participation (e.g. L. M. Polvani, A. C. Clement, B. Medeiros, J. J. Benedict, and I. R. Simpson)are requesting contributions to  work already underway for so-called single-column configurations, i.e.  of both  atmosphere and ocean models.   For those interested in cooperating in "filling up levels of the models' hierarchy" they recommend the following guiding principles for moving forward:

1) There should be a clearly demonstrated need for a simplified model.

2)The community members spearheading each effort need to pair up with one or more partners at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to collaborate in the model development.

3) Project leaders must assess the resources needed to develop the new simpler model and identify some avenue for funding the development. 

4) Developers of simpler models should submit scientific papers to the peer-reviewed literature, explaining the rationale for the usefulness of the new models and describing what novel understanding of the climate system is to be gained from using these simpler models.

Got that, Messrs. Milloy, Happer, Koonin et al?

The above cited Eos authors add:

"Ideally, these activities would be coordinated across the community to avoid duplication of efforts."

It would be terrific to see the likes of Milloy, Happer, Koonin et al cooperate in such a  CESM venture but I don't anticipate it any time soon. They are all too enthralled by the fake power embodied in their contrarian stance and the extra column space garnered in op-ed sections - like the WSJ's.

Which merely shows me that none of these pretenders is interested in doing serious climate science.

Update:  4/ 9:

In a letter ('Obama EPA Correct About Deadly PM2.5  Pollutants') published in the WSJ today, in response to Milloy's op-ed, Prof. William Barker (Univ. Of Rochester) responds:

"As a public health  scientist seeking a broader perspective, I consulted a January 2016 Journal of Thoracic Diseases review of over 50 peer-reviewed epidemiological and experimental studies - virtually all of which find significant evidence of increased mortality and of pathological lung damage associated with exposure to PM 2.5 particles."