As a boy, I was always intrigued by the commercials for Trident chewing gum. To this day, I can remember the exact wording of part of the ad: “Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.”
Even then, two things stood out in my mind. One, that wasn’t an ad for Trident; it was an ad for sugar-free gum. And two: Who in the hell is that fifth dentist? Did he also recommend Pixie Stix as part of a balanced breakfast? 
Apparently Donald Trump found that doctor. And he’s appointed him head of what was once called the “The Federal Committee on Climate Security.” His name is William Happer, and apparently he took his own advice regarding sugared gums and Pixie Stix. Just check out his chompers. 
But I digress. I say once called Trump’s federal committee because it will no longer be called that. It will instead be called his “advisory committee.” And, in a rarity for the president, it was a canny, subtle shift.
You see, when Trump first called for a new federal advisory committee to offset the findings of the the congressionally-mandated report on climate change (www.globalchange.gov), he was hoping to lessen fears of the committee’s startling findings. The report, written by more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, said the effects of climate change would harm human health, damage infrastructure, limit water availability, and alter coastlines. Agriculture, tourism and fishing industries that depend on natural resources and favorable climate conditions would all be hit, it said. In all, the report concluded, global warming would reduce the U.S. economy by 10% ($1.93 trillion).
That’s bad news for any president who wants at least one more term (and maybe more: Trump publicly stated that “maybe we should try that” when he returned from a visit to China, which recently named Xi Jinping “president for life”).
So Trump launched a new contrarian federal committee, one that consisted of his hand-picked stooges. The problem with the first name, he discovered, is the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) (Pub.L. 92–463, 86 Stat. 770, enacted October 6, 1972). FACA is a federal law which governs the behavior of all federal advisory committees. In particular, it has special emphasis on open meetings, chartering, public involvement, and reporting.
The last thing Trump would want is public involvement or documentation of his naysayers’ research methodology. After all, a U.S.-led team of international scientists wrote last month in the journal Nature Climate Change that global warming had hit the “gold standard” of research. They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a “five-sigma” level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that the signal would appear if there were no warming.
And Trump’s going to appoint a federal advisory committee to argue against that? Not a chance. That would be like betting on the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters. So he switched the title to panel, which does not require any public reporting.
This is the art of subterfuge. Trump can’t disprove global warming. But with a federal “panel,” he can argue the science is debatable. That’s all the ammo his supporters need.
Already, he’s putting climate deniers in key governmental positions. Like Kelly Craft, the U.N. ambassador to Canada. In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she responded to a question on global warming by saying “I think both sides have their own results from their studies, and I appreciate and I respect both sides of the science.”
By the way, her husband, Joe Craft, is the billionaire president of Alliance Resource Partners, L.P., the third-largest coal producer in the eastern United States.
The GOP has done this before, most recently with Creationism to battle the science of evolution. In Texas, for instance, the state is considering a bill that would allow public school teachers to present alternative theories to subjects that “may cause controversy,” including climate change, evolution and the origins of life.
Texas needs a new bumper sticker: “Fuck you, Darwin and physics.” Expect some of those slackwits on Trump’s advisory panel.
We in the media, of course, will play along. Fox in particular, but even CNN and MSNBC are complicit in the deceit. Consider the networks’ debate format: One talking head is pro, while the opposing one is con. This format, either consciously or sub, gives the viewer the impression the scientific community is split 50/50. 
If the panel were truly representative of the facts, you’d have nine scientists debating one on the boob tube. And even that would be underestimating the true consensus.
Alas, consensus has never been part of Trump’s lexicon. For one, it’s multi-syllabic. And has truth ever been high on his priorities list?
If you find it all too much, relax. Just take some Valium, and crush it up into powder form. A Pixy Stick full should do you.
