Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Socialist-Independent from Vermont, went on a tear yesterday when he learned the EPA's new head Scott Pruitt said on CNN he didn't think CO2 was the predominant cause of climate change. Sanders told CNN's Wolf Blitzer it was "pathetic" to have an EPA administrator who held these views and called him a “denier.”

The debate was over, he thundered, and "90 percent of scientists" agree that human activity and CO2 emissions are causing problems around the world. He also railed that emissions were causing "devastating problems already in the U.S." and across the globe.

Sanders also said Pruitt was a "threat to the well-being" of everyone on Earth.

‘Very challenging’

But Pruitt said measuring with precision the impact human activity had on the climate was “very challenging” and there was "tremendous disagreement" on the degree of its influence. He said he didn't believe CO2 was the primary driver behind the one degree Celsius of global warming that's occurred since the planet exited the Little Ice Age in 1850.

If Sanders had been keeping up with the scientific literature, he'd know the atmosphere gets heated from multiple sources: some natural and some man-made.

Even the Washington Post weighed in and said scientists can’t measure how much warming occurs after CO2 is added to the atmosphere.

Many climate drivers

But the strongest greenhouse gas on Earth is water vapor, not CO2.

There are other climate drivers that are also entirely natural: the sun’s heat and magnetic variations, volcanic activity, oceanic currents, the planet’s tilt and wobble, methane from wetlands/animals, plate tectonics, elevation of land masses, albedo effect, flora and fauna, and atmospheric circulation.

Climate science is one of the most complicated fields that rely largely on global computer models (GCMs), projections, and far-flung scenarios that incorporate al the variables above and a few not listed.

To date, the GCMs the UN IPCC relies on have been running too hot and diverging further and further from observed data. That's a problem for those seeking more research and grant money.

Extreme weather alarmism

Sanders also stated there were devastating climate-related problems across the U.S. despite a dearth of evidence to back up those claims. A recent study showed that there was actually more extreme weather in the first half of the 20th century than the second half. Droughts, floods, precipitation (rain and snow), tornados and more are all within norms.

Sanders is pushing alarmism by linking naturally occurring weather events to global warming.

For example, as March rolled in with pleasant weather along the East Coast, a Wall Street Journal editor wrote, "Yet Trump & his administration still deny there's a problem." As did a host of other journalists. A few mild days in March is proof of weather, not climate change. It allows us to use less fuel to heat our homes, which incidentally lowers CO2 emissions.
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