According to the article linked above and others I was able to find, Carlin was not tasked with this report but did it himself and approached people above him with it. So yes, if you're going to write and attempt to submit an unsolicited report, you'd better be able to speak authoritatively on the subject or else they'll go with the authorities.
Well, according to Carlin, he had never (for decades) been specifically tasked with much of anything, until he was recently reassigned to scut-work.
And it was at least indirectly solicited. The EPA passed around their assessment and asked for feedback. (Not that they were expecting any.) Carlin provided. Those he cited are definitely authoritative. The points, correct or incorrect, needed to be addressed.
It couldn't possibly be due to the hundreds of scientists who agree the earth is warming and that human activities may be having an impact.
I would agree. But I think the impact is not tremendously profound and has more to do with anthropogenic but non-CO2 causes such as land use and Arctic soot ("dirty snow"). Those causes might well be an underlying driver and would cost less than 1% of the cost of curbing CO2 to solve.
And there are hundreds (if not tens of thousands) who beg to disagree on the narrow issue of CO2. They are increasing in number. Regardless of the "level", the "trend" is toward skepticism, mainly because the data is not currently behaving in accordance with the expectations of IPCC or GISS models.
Bear in mind that very few dispute that the planet warmed ~ 0.7C since 1900 (and has warmed by that amount since the pit of the Little Ice Age, around 300 years back, for that matter).
Although I seriously question NOAA adjustment procedure . . . Raw USHCN1 data shows an average of +0.14C/century per station. With TOBS adjustment, it's +0.31C. With the very highly controversial FILNET+SHAP adjustment, it's +0.59C. Somehow, the final number winds up at +0.72C. This is for the US, but it closely reflects the global GHCN numbers.
What is in dispute is the IPCC contention that the 21st century will see an average of +3.5C warming, which would be around a +0.4C trend per decade. All four parts of the forcing equation appear to have been exaggerated.
Most important, the positive feedback from water vapor has not increased relative humidity in the upper troposphere or stratosphere, but has instead increased low level cloud cover, which has increased albedo(recently demonstrated by the AQUA satellite) Which means it is a negative feedback, not positive. And if that is true, the whole IPCC thesis is falsified.
And excess heat does not appear to be sinking into the ocean. Since reliable measurement (the ARGOS buoys), the ocean temperature trend is quite flat, even slightly negative.
If warming continues at the same rate as last century, the effects will be positive and will result in a considerable increase in biomass, esp. in the rain forests.
In any case, there is no emergency. therefore, careful deliberation and evaluation (in the true liberal tradition) is in order. Not to mention a cost-benefits assessment.
Open data, open source, and independent (as opposed merely to peer) review is overwhelmingly important.
The AGW skeptics and the AGW advocates need to get their heads together on this and find out what the heck is actually going on with this highly complex, mostly unexplored scientific field.
