Monthly Archives: September 2006

The White House is stonewalling the House Government Reform Committee on climate documents

The White House Council on Environmental Quality has been stonewalling a July 20 request from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Committee for documents relating to interactions between CEQ and other government agencies and outside parties … Continue reading

Posted in Congress: Legislation and Oversight | Leave a comment

Why the administration buried a NOAA scientists’ statement on hurricanes and climate

Officials at the Department of Commerce have been blocking the release of a new statement by federal climate scientists at NOAA on Atlantic hurricanes and climate. On September 27 a leaked copy of the statement was posted on the web … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Science Censorship, Science-Policy Interaction, U.S. Global Change Research Program | Leave a comment

Questions about White House nominee to replace Jim Mahoney at NOAA

The White House announced September 26 that the President intends to nominate corporate lawyer Jane Luxton to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and deputy administrator of NOAA.  If confirmed, Luxton would replace Jim Mahoney, who retired … Continue reading

Posted in U.S. Global Change Research Program | Leave a comment

New Hansen et al. study: Earth’s temperature within 1 degree C of highest in past million years

A new study, led by James Hansen of NASA and published on-line today (September 25) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that, because of a rapid global warming trend over the past 30 years, Earth is … Continue reading

Posted in Science-Policy Interaction | Leave a comment

Royal Society letter to ExxonMobil: Exemplary citizen-science for public accountability

U.S. climate scientists, the National Academy of Sciences, and other science institutions should think about the remarkable recent letter from the British Royal Society to ExxonMobil in terms of their own role as guardians of public accountability.  Shouldn’t ExxonMobil and … Continue reading

Posted in Global Warming Denial Machine | Leave a comment

UK science academy letter tells ExxonMobil to stop funding global warming denial machine

The UK Guardian reported on September 20 that a letter from the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, has called on ExxonMobil Corp. to stop funding dozens of organizations that have “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright … Continue reading

Posted in Global Warming Denial Machine | Leave a comment

Where is the U.S. Climate Action Report required under the climate treaty?

The fourth U.S. Climate Action Report, required to fulfill a climate treaty commitment, was due no later than January 1, 2006.  A public review draft of the report announced by the State Department as upcoming in the summer of 2005 … Continue reading

Posted in Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation, Science-Policy Interaction, U.S. Global Change Research Program | Leave a comment

“Stealth repeal” of Clean Water Act whistleblower protections could affect science reporting

Citing legal documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) showing how “the Bush administration has reversed two decades of precedent and declared that important whistleblower protections in the Clean Water Act do not apply to federal workers,” the … Continue reading

Posted in Whistleblowers | Leave a comment

Jim Hansen on “The Threat to the Planet”

Jim Hansen’s presentation (6.6 MB) this summer at the SOLAR 2006 Conference on Renewable Energy in Denver, which he has made available on his Columbia University Web site, integrates a wide range of scientific findings on global climate change with … Continue reading

Posted in Science-Policy Interaction | Leave a comment

“Ignoring whistleblowers is risky”

“There has never been a time in recent years when the federal government has so blatantly tried to stop crucial information from reaching citizens,” writes Louis Clark, President of the Government Accountability Project.  It takes whistleblowers and a small army … Continue reading

Posted in Whistleblowers | Leave a comment