ClimateScienceWatch

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

Climate Science Watch Weekly Update – July 13, 2010

Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Policy-focused reconstruction financing to rebuild the country; NY Times: Putting “the manufactured controversy known as Climategate behind us”; NASA: first half of 2010 set global temperature record; Giant ice sculpture to be unveiled outside U.S. Senate July 15; U.S. Climate Change Adaptation Task Force public outreach meeting. Taking notice of some current developments.

Interview with Stephen Schneider on climate science expert credibility study

Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010

Climate Science Watch talked with Stanford University Prof. Stephen Schneider about his co-authored article, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Schneider discussed the rationale and implications of the study and responded to several criticisms that have been raised. See Details for video and text from the interview.

UPDATE July 19: Stephen Schneider, 1945 - July 19, 2010, R.I.P.

Turning the tables: Virginia AG Cuccinelli under investigation for climate probe by Greenpeace

Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Greenpeace has filed a Freedom of Information request with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office asking for records of his communications with climate change ‘skeptics’ and ‘conservative’ organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the Cato Institute. Greenpeace is seeking to expose some of the inner workings of the network of denialists who are attempting to discredit the work of certain climate scientists and stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, SolveClimate reports.

Leading US climate scientists are being subjected to a barrage of right-wing lunatic hate mail

Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010

The UK Guardian reported July 5 on how some of the leading US climate scientists are being subjected to a “vitriolic campaign” of hate mail, some of it quite menacing. US authorities appear to be doing little about it, in part because the hate speech put out by popular right-wing commentators and the bizarre and sometimes vicious e-mail they seem to inspire among some of their followers is protected under US law. The Guardian quotes Stephen Schneider, Kevin Trenberth, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt in the U.S. and several scientists in the U.K. Schneider is quoted as saying he has “observed an ‘immediate, noticeable rise’ in emails whenever climate scientists were attacked by prominent right-wing US commentators, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.” Michael Mann, too, notes that “the emails come in bursts, and do seem to be timed with high-profile attack pieces on talk radio and other fringe media outlets.” Thus the toxic, degenerating situation in the US. We have an aggressive disinformation campaign aimed at intimidating the climate science community—in part by singling out for attack some of those who have made the effort to communicate essential climate science findings to policymakers and their fellow citizens.

Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists

Posted on Thursday, July 01, 2010

Climate Science Watch interviewed Michael Mann on the release of the Penn State University “Final Investigation Report” on allegations of misconduct levied against Dr. Mann late last year by climate change ‘skeptics’ and denialists. The report concluded that there is “no substance” to the allegations. We also asked Dr. Mann about ongoing attacks on the credibility of climate science and on the integrity of climate scientists, and about his recent comments about the iconic ‘hockey stick’ graph of the global temperature record. See Details for video and transcript.

AAAS initiative, Chris Mooney paper ask: do scientists understand the public?

Posted on Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (two AAAS’s) hosted a seminar in Washington DC on June 29 to unveil a new initiative to understand the knowledge gap between scientists and the public, and how it relates to associated public policy conflicts. Science writer Chris Mooney began by saying, “The study is driven by a sense that there is something not quite right, not quite healthy, about the relationship between scientists and the public.”

Climate Science Watch Weekly Update, June 29

Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A brief update on events, hearings, and legislative developments that we’ll be tracking and writing about this week.

IPCC, key target of war on climate science, announces 831 experts to author Fifth Assessment Report

Posted on Friday, June 25, 2010

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has announced its selection of 831 authors and review editors for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report to be published in 2013-2014. In light of the denial machine’s war on climate science, which seeks to delegitimize the IPCC and lay a predicate for rejecting any unwelcome conclusions of the forthcoming reports, we expect they will find a way to challenge the author selection and subsequent steps of the IPCC process.

Ocean Acidification in litigation, legislation, and research – What’s the status?

Posted on Friday, June 25, 2010

On June 23 CSW attended a panel on Ocean Acidification: Managing the Marine Impacts of Climate Change, at which experts from the scientific, nongovernmental and regulatory communities imparted a greater understanding of the science of ocean acidification, the enormity of the problem, and current action being taken to address the causes and effects of it.

Climate Science Watch Weekly Update, June 22

Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A brief summary of some of the things we are tracking and writing about this week—UPDATED 6/23

New study finds striking level of agreement among climate experts on anthropogenic climate change

Posted on Monday, June 21, 2010

“Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that 97-98% of climate researchers examined who are most actively publishing in the field support the IPCC conclusions, i.e., are convinced by the evidence for human-caused climate change, and that the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of researchers questioning the findings is significantly below that of convinced researchers. The authors of this first-of-its-kind study used metrics of climate-specific expertise and overall scientific prominence to examine expert credibility among scientists who agree with or question the primary conclusions of the IPCC.

Murkowski Resolution a rejection of broad scientific understanding of climate change threat

Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010

On June 10, the Senate voted down Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution to strip EPA of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The vote, 53-47, united all 41 Republicans in the chamber in support of Murkowski along with six Democrats: Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Mark Pryor (AR), Ben Nelson (ND), Evan Bayh (IN), and Jay Rockefeller (WV). While many lawmakers defended the resolution as not a rejection of the science underlying EPA’s endangerment finding but of EPA as the proper authority for regulating greenhouse gases, its passage would, in fact, have set a precedent of overturning a robust scientific assessment to avoid uncomfortable policy implications.

Climate change preparedness - what about the risks that may come with adaptation and mitigation?

Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2010

On June 10 CSW was at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, attending a roundtable discussion titled The Conflict Potential of Climate Mitigation and Adaptation. Discussion of climate change policy thus far has focused on what climate change impacts will look like (globally and regionally), and how we can prevent impacts from becoming severe through emissions cuts (mitigation) and seek to prepare for impacts we cannot avoid (adaptation). We haven’t yet started seriously assessing the associated security risks and conflict potential that may arise from adopting and implementing mitigation and adaptation plans. Taking this next step was the main focus of this roundtable discussion.

Record Rains Pummel Oklahoma City as State’s Senator Inhofe Continues to Deny Climate Change Science

Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Just days after Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) said he could not find one conclusion of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “has now not been refuted,” Oklahoma City yesterday (14 June 2010) experienced its heaviest rain in history. In 2007, the IPCC concluded that “the frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most land areas, consistent with warming and observed increase of atmospheric water vapor.” It furthermore warned that it was “very likely” that the trend would continue during this century. [Re-posted from World Wildlife Fund Climate Blog posting of 15 June 2010]

Climate Science Watch Weekly Update, 6/14

Posted on Monday, June 14, 2010

A brief summary of events we are attending, keeping track of, and writing about this week.

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