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Promoting integrity in the use of climate science in government |
Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for the integrity and effectiveness with which they use climate science and related research in government policymaking, toward the goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change. See Details |
A strategy session on the future of the US Global Change Research Program
Posted on Tuesday, February 05, 2008
A process for developing a set of recommendations to the next administration and Congress in January 2009 was kicked off on January 17 at a national conference on Climate Change: Science and Solutions, in Washington, DC. Climate Science Watch participated in and reports on the session, chaired by Dr. Robert Corell: “The US Global Change Research Program: What do we want from the next Administration?”
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CCSP Synthesis Reports are years behind schedule as program scrambles to meet court deadline
Posted on Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Geotimes reports: “Four years ago, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program agreed to prepare 21 reports on various topics related to climate change and its impacts by the end of September 2007. As of December, however, only four had been released. And now, Congress and many scientists are taking the program to task.” The program is not connecting with the real needs of society’s decisionmaking, CSW director Rick Piltz says in the article.
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“Everything’s Cool” global warming documentary TV premiere January 22-28 on the Sundance Channel
Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008
“Everything’s Cool”—a feature-length documentary film about the efforts of global warming citizen activists and educators, and about the dangerous chasm between scientific understanding and political action, will have its television premiere tonight January 22 at 9 P.M. on the Sundance Channel’s environmental series The Green. It will play tonight and through the week.
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CBS News to re-air “Rewriting the Science” and other 60 Minutes climate change stories on Jan. 20
Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008
On Sunday, January 20, CBS News Presents will re-air three climate change stories that were done by 60 Minutes during the past two years. These include a segment on the warming trend in the Arctic region, another on Antarctica, and a third, “Rewriting the Science,” on administration political interference with climate change communication. The latter includes interviews with Jim Hansen of NASA and CSW Director Rick Piltz.
House global warming committee hearing on administration’s delayed decision on polar bear protection
Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming announced that it will hold a hearing on January 17 on the future of the polar bear. On January 8 we noted that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had announced a politically suspicious delay in missing a statutory deadline for a ruling on threatened status protection for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Committee Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) will question members of the Bush Administration regarding the delay of a decision until after a controversial lease sale for oil drilling off of Alaska.
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“The US Global Change Research Program – What do we want from the next administration?”
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008
Dr. Robert Corell, Director of the Global Change Program at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, invites comments on “The US Global Change Research Program – What do we want from the next administration?” a scoping paper drafted for discussion on January 17 at a national conference on Climate Change: Science and Solutions, being held in Washington, DC. CSW Director Rick Piltz will participate on a panel that will lead a discussion of topics covered in the paper, and will call for changes in the federal climate and global change research program.
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New research finds escalating melt of Antarctic ice sheet
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008
NASA scientist Eric Rignot, lead author of the new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience: “Without doubt, Antarctica as a whole is now losing ice yearly, and each year it’s losing more....We believe it is related to global climate forcing.” “The new findings come as the Arctic is losing ice at a dramatic rate and glaciers are in retreat across the planet,” the Washington Post reported on January 14.
Climate Change Science Program acting director William Brennan to face Senate confirmation hearing
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008
On January 10 the President announced his intention to nominate Bill Brennan, current acting director of the Climate Change Science Program, to fill the position previously held by James Mahoney as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. This is a Senate-confirmed political appointment and offers the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation an opportunity to get his answers to questions about the problems and direction of the program before voting on confirmation.
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Fish and Wildlife Service suspicious delay of decision on polar bear threatened status
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2008
On January 7 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a politically suspicious delay in making a court-ordered ruling on “threatened” status protection for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. The administration could refuse to give the polar bear threatened status only by denying the science of global warming. Are administration officials politicizing the agency’s decision and its timing? One year ago, on January 8, 2007, we explained how Interior Secretary Kempthorne was misrepresenting the analysis of his own agency’s scientists of the threat to the polar bear from projected disappearance of sea ice habitat due to global warming.
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Call for public comments on revised U.S. climate science research plan
Posted on Sunday, January 06, 2008
A summary of a revised research plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program has been posted for public review and comment during January and February. Following our August 2007 victory in federal court in the Center for Biological Diversity et al. lawsuit against the Bush administration, the administration is scrambling to meet a court ordered deadline to produce by May 2008 a new federal research plan and a scientific assessment focusing on global change impacts—two documents that they previously had no intention of producing during this year.
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“Everything’s Cool” global warming documentary on DVD
Posted on Sunday, January 06, 2008
"Everything’s Cool”—a film about the efforts of global warming citizen activists and educators, and about America finally “getting” global warming in the face of the right-wing disinformation campaign and the dangerous chasm between scientific understanding and political action—is now available on DVD for home and community screenings.
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House-Senate conferees should report strong Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act bill
Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008
A January 3 editorial in the St. Petersburg (FL) Times, “Protect the Whistleblowers,” calling on Congress to strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act and override a presidential veto if necessary, leads with: “Were it not for the disclosures of Rick Piltz of the White House Climate Change Science Program, the public might never have known that Bush administration appointees, including an oil industry lobbyist, altered the conclusions of the country’s top scientists in order to subvert concern over global warming. Piltz is one of thousands of whistleblowers who help make our government more accountable.” But: “The Whistleblower Protection Act is no longer serving its initial purpose....According to the Government Accountability Project, a nonpartisan organization devoted to protecting whistleblowers, in the last 13 years whistleblowers have suffered a 2-to-183 losing streak before the one federal appellate court to which they may appeal.” See Details for full text and Piltz note.
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R.I.P Bert Bolin
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Bert Bolin, Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has died at age 82. Dr. Bolin played a key role in communicating the dangers of climate change and served as the first chairman of the IPCC from 1988 to 1998. We deeply appreciated his leadership in making the IPCC into the indispensable organization that it has become. See AP article here.
As California sues EPA on CO2 regulation, inside sources could help set the record straight
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008
California and 15 other states sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on January 2 for denying them a waiver needed under the Clean Air Act to put in place first-in-the-nation regulation of carbon emissions from new cars and trucks. A Congressional investigation has been initiated into EPA’s documents on its decision on the waiver. Climate Science Watch calls on inside sources to help set the record straight by providing information that may not be evident in formal documents, including information about White House political interference in agency decisionmaking under the statute.
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Coming Dec. 27: “Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen”
Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007
Here’s something we’ve pre-ordered for New Year’s reading: Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming, by climate science author Mark Bowen, “tells a chilling story of deliberate efforts by senior NASA managers, acting in concert with the Bush White House, to play up uncertainties and minimize dangers regarding global warming....A must-read not just for environmentalists but for all politically conscientious readers.” (Kirkus Reviews) The book, published by Dutton, is scheduled for release on December 27.
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