By John Siciliano and Josh Seigel

September 15, 2017 - The Trump administration is looking to create a "red team" to challenge the accepted science on climate change and the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the Earth's temperature, but there is no timeline on when that exercise will occur even though it is "very important," according to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt.

The EPA administrator has proposed a red team-blue team process that he says will open up a dialogue over the science behind global warming to see what is true and what is not.

"The red team-blue team is still being evaluated," Pruitt said. "I think it's very, very important. I think the American people deserve an open, honest dialogue about what do we know, what don't we know with respect to CO2 and its impact."

The critics: The Trump administration has been criticized by environmentalists and others for ignoring the effects of manmade global warming in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. Although climate scientists are careful not to equate weather with global warming, they say the intensity of the storms is a result of a warmer planet.

Put science to the test: The Trump administration feels a need to put climate change to the test. The red team/blue team process Pruitt wants to set up has been widely used by the military to test assumptions about an enemy's wartime capability. A red team would challenge the assumptions of the blue team.

In the case of climate change, the red team would be made up of skeptics, who would challenge the science held by the majority of climate scientists who say human activity is causing the Earth's temperature to rise and will have disastrous consequences unless abated.