SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
In the midst of an unsettled and vigorous international debate regarding the existence of purported global warming and the role—if any—of human-emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) in contributing to that alleged warming, EPA concluded with near absolute certainty that temperatures in the second half of the twentieth century were “unusually” high because of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. 74 Fed. Reg. 66518 (2009). That sweeping conclusion was a critical component of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, and so was an impetus for the most significant and far-reaching regulatory program ever devised by a federal agency.
Amici urge the Court to grant petitioners’ request for certiorari because the three “lines of evidence” from the administrative record that EPA relied on do not support the conclusion that manmade greenhouse gas emissions have caused climate warming in the latter half of the twentiethcentury. Indeed, each line of evidence is demonstrably invalid.
EPA’s first line of evidence, its purported basic physical understanding of the effect of GHGs and other factors on climate, is invalid because it relies on the existence of an atmospheric “hot spot” or “fingerprint” that simply does not exist in the real world’s temperature data. Its second line of evidence, the assertion that temperatures around the globe rose to unusual and dangerously high levels over the last fifty years, is also demonstrably false using the best temperature data available. Likewise, EPA’s third line of evidence, involving computerized climate models, is also invalid. It can be shown that those models, premised on faulty assumptions, just do not produce forecasts that match up with the real world.
No specialized scientific education or previous experience with climate science is needed to see that those facts are true. Each of EPA’s lines of evidence requires that the most relevant and credible temperature data available show upward-sloping trends in temperature. That is true for the Hot Spot or GHG Fingerprint theory, the assertion that worldwide temperatures have been anomalous, and for actual data to conform to EPA’s model forecasts of rising global average surface temperature (GAST). In science, theories must be validated against the most credible evidence will be shown to be invalid via such easy to understand hypothesis testing.
EPA reached its invalid conclusions through a highly deficient process. EPA refused to examine “relevant data,” FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513 (2009) (quoting Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Assn. of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)), and made other procedural errors. EPA’s Endangerment Finding is not “rational,” but arbitrary and capricious. Fox, 556 U.S., at 516. Amici therefore respectfully request that this Court grant petitioners’ request for certiorari in this case.