Comment on Endangerment Proposal 75%

6/15/2009, 12:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Slippery Slope, Pessimism Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 50.7% saturation with 214 hits. Analysis detected 1,113 faulty-reasoning hits from 422 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 66.9% and a BS Rank of 75% (5,530 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 74.70% of the article peer group.

From the Executive Summary: 
This comment is divided into two main parts. 
The first part addresses the scientific basis of the Endangerment Proposal as discussed in EPA’s proposed rule and the related Technical Support Document (TSD). 
The second part addresses the legal basis and regulatory implications of the Endangerment Proposal, drawing upon EPA’s July 2008 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Regulating Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act. 
CEI advises EPA not to adopt its Endangerment Proposal as a final rule. 
The science presented in the proposal and TSD is highly selective, ignoring the research, arguments, and assessments of so-called climate skeptics. 
EPA may regard the skeptics as quibblers or worse, but ignoring an argument does not refute it. 
Absent a serious consideration of opposing viewpoints, the public cannot have confidence in EPA’s conclusions. 
To state the problem another way, §202 of the CAA requires the Administrator to exercise her “judgment.” 
Yet in every instance, the Endangerment Proposal and TSD simply defer to the judgment of the self-proclaimed scientific “consensus” represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. 
Climate Science Change Program (CSCP). 
Most critically, EPA does not apply its judgment to the core scientific issue—climate sensitivity. 
If climate sensitivity is low, as investigations by Dr. 
Richard Linden (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dr. 
William Gray (Colorado State University), and Dr. 
Roy Spencer (University of Alabama Huntsville) suggest, then 21st century warming is likely to be below the low-end (1.8ºC) IPCC “best estimate,” and endangerment of public health and welfare is not “reasonably anticipated.” 
Statutory and constitutional reasons also counsel EPA not to finalize the Endangerment Proposal. 
An endangerment finding will trigger a regulatory cascade with potentially devastating economic impacts that Congress never intended or approved when it enacted §202. 
Regulatory litigation rather than legislative deliberation will determine the direction of public policy and the extent of the burdens imposed on the private sector, vitiating our democratic system. 
We could end up with a Mega-Kyoto system without the people’s elected representatives ever casting a vote. 
Moreover, the only way EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the CAA without risk of administrative chaos and economic disaster is to flout statutory language, play lawmaker, and effectively “amend” the statute, violating the separation of powers. 
Such measures include subjecting tens of thousands of previously unregulated buildings and facilities to Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting requirements, and establishing National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for greenhouse gases that even outright de-industrialization would be insufficient to attain. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 5.0%The Daily Caller: 5.0%Confirmation Bias5.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.7%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 10.0%The Daily Caller: 2.7%Availability Heuristic10.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 3.3%The Daily Caller: 3.3%Overconfidence Bias3.3%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 10.4%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 4.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Loss Aversion4.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 2.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 29.6%The Daily Caller: 2.5%Pessimism Bias29.6%This article: 50.7%The Daily Caller: 8.2%Negativity Bias50.7%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.8%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 4.0%The Daily Caller: 1.1%Ad Hominem4.0%This article: 5.0%The Daily Caller: 1.3%Straw Man5.0%This article: 29.4%The Daily Caller: 4.6%Appeal to Authority29.4%This article: 19.7%The Daily Caller: 2.9%False Dilemma19.7%This article: 30.8%The Daily Caller: 2.4%Slippery Slope30.8%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 3.3%The Daily Caller: 6.3%Hasty Generalization3.3%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.0%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 4.0%The Daily Caller: 5.7%Appeal to Emotion4.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 2.1%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 5.5%The Daily Caller: 3.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)5.5%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 9.0%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Burden of Proof9.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.5%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 15.4%The Daily Caller: 1.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)15.4%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 8.8%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Special Pleading8.8%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 2.2%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.8%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 22.3%The Daily Caller: 8.5%Biased Writer Voice22.3%This article: 4.0%The Daily Caller: 3.6%Indoctrination4.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 5.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

422 words analyzed.

Speakers

5speakers15%attributed speech357writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 4 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 0.0% coverageCEI • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 100.0% coverageClimate Science Change Program (CSCP) • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageRichard Linden • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWilliam Gray • 7 words • 0.0% coverageRoy Spencer • 33 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 37 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 42 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Roy Spencer

100%flagged-word coverage
33 attributed words51% of attributed speech83% writer coverage
0%15.0%30.0%Biased Writer Voice-26.3 ptsWriter: 26.3%Roy Spencer: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-4.8 ptsWriter: 4.8%Roy Spencer: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.