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 |
EPA unions charge Administrator Johnson violates agency’s Principles of Scientific Integrity
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Four unions representing most of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientists, attorneys, and other specialists, citing what they consider to be repeated instances of broken pledges or bad faith on multiple issues by Administrator Stephen Johnson—including refusal to enforce the agency’s Principles of Scientific Integrity on the California greenhouse gas waiver decision and other environmental issues—served notice in a February 29 letter that was released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that they will secede from the agency’s labor-management cooperative forum.
Former IPCC chairman Robert Watson says world leaders “squandered” last 10 years on climate change
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
World leaders wasted a decade debating whether global warming is happening, and now need to act quickly to limit its effects, former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman Robert Watson said at the Oceanology International conference in London March 11. Watson, now chief scientific aviser at the UK environment ministry, said “If we don’t want to be faced with sea level rise for thousands of years, we have to act now to reduce CO2.’’ (Bloomberg, March 11)
Climate change, disinformation, and the failure of preparedness
Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2008
“The aftermath in Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—failure of preparedness—and we’re doing the same thing on climate change, it’s just a more slow-rolling disaster.” CSW director Rick Piltz talks with the North Adams (MA) Transcript.
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Sen. McCain’s mockery of a significant federal scientific grizzly bear study
Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008
The Washington Post’s March 10 front page story, “McCain Sees Pork Where Scientists See Success—Candidate Criticizes Ambitious Bear Study,” illustrates two things to us once more: (1) the Senator is not always careful about how he uses, or misuses, scientific research; and (2) a complete rejection of appropriations earmarks makes no more sense than the politically cynical use of them.
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Environmental groups sue Bush administration to force polar bear protection
Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008
Today the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Bush administration for missing its legal deadline for issuing a final decision on whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming. Faced with overwhelming scientific evidence, the Bush administration continues illegally to delay listing.
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Water Utility Climate Alliance calls on federal climate research to aid with impacts preparedness
Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008
An alliance of eight major water utilities that provide drinking water to 36 million people is calling on the US Climate Change Science Program and the science community to aid in assessing and managing risks to water infrastructure and supply from impacts of warming, diminishing snowpack, bigger storms, drought, rising sea level, and potential abrupt climate change. Climate Science Watch has called attention to water issues as a high near-term priority in linking the federal climate research program to decisionmaking intelligence and preparedness needs.
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Review of the Summary of Revised Research Plan for the US Climate Change Science Program
Posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Climate Science Watch and the Center for Biological Diversity formally submitted sets of critical public review comments on the draft summary of a revised research plan for the US Climate Change Science Program. CCSP’s issuing of a revised plan for the federal research program is pursuant to a federal court order in the Center for Biological Diversity et al. lawsuit against the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the leadership of the program.
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John Holdren: US public opinion is near a tipping point on climate change despite deniers’ strategy
Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008
In a February 18 interview at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Harvard Prof. John Holdren, outgoing AAAS board chairman, said “I really think we’re close to a political tipping point in the United States on the climate change issue….I think the deniers are finally losing the battle and the discussion is now moving to solutions.”
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Harvard Prof. John Holdren on “Global Climate Disruption: What do we know, what should we do?””
Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008
“Global warming is a misnomer. It implies something gradual, uniform, and benign. What we’re experiencing is none of these,” says Prof. John Holdren, recently president and board chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “We are already experiencing ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference’ with the climate system,” Holdren said. “The question we have now is whether we can avoid catastrophic interference.”
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Major corporations seek green image on climate policy but fund coal lobby front group
Posted on Friday, February 22, 2008
Major U.S. corporations that are part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which has called for strong legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also have funded a coal-industry front organization that is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to undermine support for such legislation. The front group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, has sponsored CNN presidential candidate debates at which no questions were asked about global warming. Corporate greenwashing? Media sellout?
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House Science Committee chairman questions White House delay on federal science integrity principles
Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2008
In the more than six months since the enactment of a law requiring the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop principles of science communication integrity for the federal agencies to implement, and more than three months after the statutory deadline for issuing the principles, the White House continues to be tangled up in its own internal political processes rather than being in compliance with a straightforward statutory requirement.
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AAAS honors climate scientists James Hansen and Robert Watson
Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008
On February 16, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its annual meeting in Boston, honored Jim Hansen of NASA with the AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, and former IPCC chairman Bob Watson with the AAAS International Scientific Cooperation Award. Both have been targets of the Bush administration’s politicization of climate science.
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“Scientific Freedom and the Public Good” – Statement to the next president
Posted on Friday, February 15, 2008
On February 14 a group of prominent scientists, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, released a statement – “Scientific Freedom and the Public Good”—calling for the next president to put an end to political interference in science and create changes that would allow federal science to flourish. We support the UCS Restoring Scientific Integrity Network.
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Why hasn’t White House science director issued required science communication integrity principles?
Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008
When White House science Director John Marburger testifies before the House Science and Technology Committee on February 14 at a hearing on funding for the America COMPETES Act, the Committee should ask him why he has not issued the federal science communication integrity principles required by the Act.
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New Harper government policy muzzles communication by Environment Canada government scientists
Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008
“The concept of free speech is non-existent at Environment Canada,” says Canadian university climate scientist Andrew Weaver. The National Post (Canada) reported that Environment Canada recently instituted media message control rules for government scientists in an action that appears worthy of some of what was documented earlier under the Bush-Cheney administration. The Post reports that the policy of requiring that the content of all responses to media inquiries be controlled through public relations officials in Ottawa is infuriating scientists, who had long been encouraged to discuss their work with the media and the public.