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 |
“The Denial Machine” airs on CBC-TV
Posted on Friday, November 17, 2006
On November 15 “the fifth estate,” Canada’s leading investigative public affairs program, aired “The Denial Machine” (Webcast here). CBC says: “The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences.” In an interview on the program, Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz says: “This is a political operation to deny the seriousness of the problem in order to control the direction of policy. So I call it ‘the denial machine’ because I think it’s a more accurate description of what’s going on in this town right now.”
See Details
IPCC Chair Pachauri on the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report
Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006
At the annual conference of the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol, being held in Nairobi the past two weeks, Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, gave an interview on the forthcoming IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the comprehensive and most authoritative scientific assessment of the currrent state of knowledge. Dr. Pachauri said the IPCC report “might provide just the right impetus to get the negotiations going in a more purposeful way....There’s much stronger evidence now of human actions on the change in climate that’s taken place,” Pachauri told The Associated Press. In our November 7 post we wrote on “Anticipating the denialist attack on authors of the IPCC climate change assessment.” Watch out, Dr. Pachauri.
Press coverage and comment on the National Assessment lawsuit
Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006
The suit filed in federal court on November 14 by the Center for Biological Diversity et al. to require the production of a second National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts (see our November 14 post) was reported by the Associated Press ("White House Sued Over Global Warming"), the San Francisco Chronicle ("White House sued for not doing report on warming"), and others. “The Bush administration has failed to comply with the law,’’ said attorney Julie Teel of the Center for Biological Diversity, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “I think the administration’s afraid to release this information because it makes climate change real for people.’’ The NOAA press office responded on behalf of the government, with the official party line that offers 21 topical reports as an alternative to an integrative, independent assessment.
See Details
Sen. Kerry statement in support of lawsuit on National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts
Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Senator Kerry issued a statement on November 14 supporting a lawsuit filed by conservation advocates—the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth—calling for the administration to issue an overdue National Assessment on the impacts of climate change on the United States. Climate Science Watch encourages Congressional interest and oversight on this issue, to undo almost six years of allowing the administration to suppress the National Assessment process, and almost six years of allowing the first National Assessment to be slandered by the global warming denial machine without a principled defense by the leadership of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
See Details
Conservation groups file suit against Bush administration to compel second National Assessment
Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006
The Center for Biological Diversity, along with other conservation groups, filed suit November 14 in federal district court for the Northern District of California against the Bush administration for refusing to conduct a second U.S. National Climate Change Impacts Assessment. The suit contends that such an integrated scientific assessment, due in November of 2004, is required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The suit names Dr. William Brennan, acting director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and Dr. John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as defendants. We have repeatedly and strongly criticized the Bush administration for officially suppressing the National Assessment process, and the leadership of the Climate Change Science Program for their silence on this central climate science scandal of the administration.
See Details
“Science Fiction”—PBS “America’s Investigative Reports” program on science reporter Paul Thacker
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006
The next episode of the PBS “America’s Investigative Reports” program, titled “Science Fiction,” will feature investigative science reporter Paul Thacker, who has published significant stories on global warming deniers and censorship of climate science. Paul published a good interview with CSW director Rick Piltz in June 2005 in Environmental Science & Technology, a publication for which he worked as Associate Editor until recently forced out of his position. The program airs in the Washington, DC, area on Friday, November 10 and Monday, November 13.
See Details
Anticipating the denialist attack on authors of the IPCC climate change assessment
Posted on Monday, November 06, 2006
We are witnessing the development of an unmistakable effort by the global warming denial machine and some of the contrarian scientists to create controversy in order to discredit the authors and findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in advance of publication starting in early 2007 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. New Scientist news service reports on scientists’ concerns in a November 4 article, “Climate change special: State of denial.” Climate Science Watch calls on policymakers and journalists to maintain critical perspective and not be diverted by spun-up controversy from focusing on this comprehensive and authoritative mainstream scientific assessment of climate change.
See Details
Bush: String leakers up by the thumbs, as we do with prisoners at Guantanamo
Posted on Monday, November 06, 2006
A new book may shed light on President George W. Bush’s true feelings toward whistleblowers, or at least toward those “leakers” who expose his administration’s alleged illegal and questionable activity. According to the former Canadian prime minister’s chief of staff, Mr. Bush explained how he would personally handle government leaks. Reportedly, Mr. Bush stated, “If I catch anyone who leaks in my government, I would like to string them up by the thumbs. The same way we do with prisoners in Guantanamo.” (From an Op-ed by Government Accountability Project President Louis Clark.)
See Details
State Dept. petitioned to issue missing and overdue Climate Action Report required by climate treaty
Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006
The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace petitioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on November 2 to issue the overdue U.S. Climate Action Report as required by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The deadline for the fourth U.S. Climate Action Report passed on January 1, 2006, 10 months ago. Now the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC will take place in Nairobi, Kenya from November 6-17 without required information from the U.S. See our September 18 entry, in which we called on the administration to release the report for public review and discussed the administration’s political sensitivities about the Impacts and Adaptation chapter of the report. [Editor’s Note: See also the 30 July 2007 posting, Bush Administration submits evasive Climate Action Report to the UN.]
See Details
NASA and Commerce Dept. Inspectors General investigating climate science censorship
Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006
Responding to a request by 14 senators, agency Inspectors General at NASA and the Commerce Department have begun investigations into whether political appointees have suppressed research findings and blocked public communication by federal climate researchers. See our numerous posts on censorship of government scientists.
See Details
Global warming and the media at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference
Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Podcast interviews on climate change with Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, environmental author Bill McKibben, and CSW Director Rick Piltz from the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists, held in Burlington, Vermont, last week. Also: Senator Inhofe’s PR hatchet man Marc Morano, communications director of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, faces off with Bill Blakemore of ABC News, Revkin, and journalism Prof. Dan Fagin of New York University.
See Details
Senators Snowe and Rockefeller to ExxonMobil: Stop funding denialists
Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006
In a welcome bipartisan action, on October 30 Senators John (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) called on the world’s largest oil company to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign. “We are persuaded that the climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally,” the senators said in a strongly-worded letter to ExxonMobil’s Chairman and CEO. The senators singled out the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Tech Central Station Web site among the dozens of interlocking front groups that have been beneficiaries of Exxon’s $19 million in funding of the global warming denialist agenda.
See Details
“The Denial Machine”—Canadian TV to air investigative documentary on global warming denialists
Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006
Canada’s premier investigative documentary program, the fifth estate, will first air “The Denial Machine” on CBC-TV on Wednesday, November 15, at 8:00 p.m. The program’s Web site promo says: “Call them sceptics, deniers, or naysayers. They are scientists that see themselves as keepers of the truth about global warming: that it is a theory only, not a scientific fact, some even call it a hoax. Who are they? They may be small in number, but they have rich and powerful allies—the oil industry and the U.S. government.” Among those interviewed for this program were White House CEQ Chairman James Connaughton, Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, Ross Gelbspan, Kert Davies, and Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz.
See Details
National Coalition Against Censorship free speech defender honor for Climate Science Watch
Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006
The National Coalition Against Censorship, an alliance of 50 national nonprofit organizations, held its annual celebration of free speech and its defenders on October 24, 2006, in New York City. NCAC honored Joe and Shirley Wershba, veteran journalists, writers and producers, whose credits include See it Now with Edward R. Murrrow, 60 Minutes, and The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; and Rick Piltz, Founder and Director of Climate Science Watch. NCAC has initiated The Knowledge Project: Censorship and Science, to address the clash between First Amendment principles of free expression and government suppression or distortion of scientific information.
See Details
Global warming civil disobedience protest at NOAA headquarters
Posted on Monday, October 23, 2006
A pair of environmentalists, protesting what they said are attempts to suppress evidence of global warming, were arrested October 23 after spending several hours perched on a ledge at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration building in Silver Spring, Maryland.
See Details