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’s global warming communication problem - 2. Censored websites
Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Selective censorship of media contacts is not the only means by which communication about global warming and climate change has been stifled at the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA’s main global warming website and its Global Change Research Program site look for the most part like they were frozen in 2002—about the time that the White House Council on Environmental Quality started more aggressively policing federal communications on global warming.
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EPA’s global warming communication problem - 1. Censored expertise
Posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2006
The New York Times reported on June 20 that EPA’s leading expert on the implications of sea level rise for U.S. coastal areas was prohibited from responding on the record to questions for an article on global warming and beaches. We know of two other reporters with major news publications who also recently encountered the same problem at EPA. The agency’s political watchdogs should be told to back off.
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Questions about the new Acting Director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Posted on Saturday, June 24, 2006
On June 19 the secretaries of commerce and energy designated Dr. Bill Brennan as the “acting director” of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The position of CCSP director has been vacant since the end of March. Scientists, congressional overseers, federal managers, and reporters should ask a number of questions about this appointment.
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Senate approves whistleblower rights breakthrough
Posted on Saturday, June 24, 2006
On June 22 the Senate acted to plug a government accountability loophole created less than one month ago, when the Supreme Courts Garcetti v. Ceballos decision canceled constitutional free speech rights for government workers carrying out their job duties.
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Lieberman calls on White House and NOAA to address climate science censorship allegations
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Raising the possibility of a concerted effort by the Administration to restrict openness on climate change research, Sen. Joe Lieberman today called on Dr. John Marburger III, White House Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to investigate and address allegations that federal agencies have sought to cover-up or edit scientific information related to climate change. Lieberman also wrote to Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the Administrator of NOAA, calling on him to take action on recent reports that NOAA officials have been discouraging agency scientists from sharing their findings on climate change.
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NASA acknowledges case of censoring Jim Hansen communication
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006
In a June 6 letter to Senators Collins (R-ME) and Lieberman (D-CT), NASA acknowledged that the agency had inappropriately restricted public communication by Dr. James Hansen by preventing him from responding to a media interview request. Sen. Lieberman’s response noted that new charges of suppressing climate science also have arisen at three other agencies.
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Refuting a Global Warming Denier
Posted on Sunday, June 11, 2006
Dr. Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Programs at the Climate Institute in Washington, DC, provides a set of comments detailing intellectual errors and misleading statements in a recent report on “Climate Change and Its Impacts” by Prof. David Legates, a favorite scientist of the global warming denial machine, that was published by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a “free market” oriented policy organization.
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Junketing Judges and Carbon Dioxide Decisions
Posted on Sunday, June 11, 2006
Two U.S. Court of Appeals judges who cast the deciding votes in a decision that the Clean Air Act does not require regulating carbon dioxide emissions had attended a global warming seminar at Yellowstone National Park sponsored by a free-market foundation and featuring presentations from companies with a clear financial interest in limiting regulation.
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BBC Panorama: Has the Bush administration covered up the findings of global warming scientists?
Posted on Wednesday, June 07, 2006
BBC-TV News Panorama (the longest-running public affairs television program in the world) aired “Bush’s Climate of Fear” on BBC One on Sunday, 4 June 2006, as part of their series “Climate Chaos” (archived webcast). This 40-minute documentary includes interviews with Robert Corell (Chair, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment), James Hansen (Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies), James Connaughton (Chair, White House Council on Environmental Quality), Thomas Knutson (NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), Jerry Mahlman (National Center for Atmospheric Research), Frank Luntz (Republican pollster and strategist) and Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz.
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Canada’s leading scientists: Evidence calls for going “far beyond” the Kyoto Protocol
Posted on Wednesday, June 07, 2006
The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) wrapped up its 40th annual Congress on June 1 and issued a strong statement on climate change science and policy. The statement says: “The scientific evidence dictates that in order to stabilize the climate, global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions need to go far beyond those mandated under [the] Kyoto Protocol.” The CMOS is Canada’s leading organization of atmospheric and oceanic scientists, including most of the climate scientists who work for the federal government. Their statement can reasonably be construed as a rejection of the policy of the current Tory leadership.
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NOAA, global warming, and hurricanes: CSW director interview
Posted on Sunday, June 04, 2006
Text from a May 30 live interview with Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz on the “Earthbeat” public affairs show on WPFW-FM radio in Washington, DC, as part of a program on hurricanes and global warming. Also interviewed was Dr. Judith Curry of Georgia Tech University, who met the following day with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to discuss the potential implications for Florida of research showing a global increase in hurricane intensity (AP: “Scientists say warming threatening Florida”).
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NOAA censors speech by science experts on endangered salmon
Posted on Sunday, June 04, 2006
The Washington Post reported May 31 that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has directed that questions about endangered salmon—which the agency is responsible for protecting—are to be answered only by headquarters, and then only by three officials, all political appointees. Scientists and other agency officials who actually work on the salmon studies aren’t supposed to answer reporters’ questions. In a June 3 editorial, “A Fishy Policy: The Bush administration’s big chill on speech isn’t limited to global warming,” the Post calls NOAA’s justification for the policy “Orwellian” and says: “You’d think the Bush administration would have learned its lesson with James Hansen and global warming. Apparently not.”