Major Federal Climate Change Report Leaked

A report on climate change from scientists at 13 federal agencies has been leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post—and it's firmly at odds with President Trump and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt's stated positions on the issue. The draft seen by the Times warns that there's very strong evidence of drastic temperature rises since 1980, and "many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities," especially greenhouse-gas emissions, "are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change." The report's authors have been waiting for permission from the Trump administration to release it, and some of them say they're worried the government will suppress the report.

The climate science report dismisses talk of a climate change "hiatus" and cites increasing evidence that warming can be linked to major weather events. The climate science report is part of the National Climate Assessment, which is supposed to be released every four years, though it has only appeared three times since 1990. "The current situation will provide an acid test of whether the Trump administration is open to hearing the scientific truth about climate change or is so much in the thrall of fossil fuel interests that they are fixated on hiding the reality from the public," Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer tells the Post. Gizmodo describes the leak as a "clear middle finger" to Trump and Pruitt, though it is one that could cause "an ill-advised act of revenge." (More climate change stories.)