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 |
60 Minutes “Rewriting the Science” global warming story re-airs this Sunday, July 30
Posted on Thursday, July 27, 2006
FYI, summer re-run time: The CBS 60 Minutes segment, which first aired on March 19, 2006, includes interviews with James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences; and CSW Director Rick Piltz. The full hour-long program also will include a segment on “Bin Laden’s Bodyguard” and a profile by Ed Bradley of the rock group U2.
House Government Reform Committee calls for White House CEQ climate change documents
Posted on Monday, July 24, 2006
In a July 20 letter to the Chairman of the the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) requested CEQ provide the Committee with various types of “documents that would shed light on interactions between CEQ and other government agencies and outside parties relating to the Administration’s position and public communications on climate science.” The letter refers to former CEQ Chief of Staff Philip Cooney and asks for documentation of his activities related to climate change.
See Details
Changing the mission: NASA Climate Change Science Program budget has been cut by 22% since 2004
Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006
Removing “understand and protect our home planet” from the NASA mission statement this year was not just a matter of semantics. The administration has been slashing its support for the agency’s Earth Science activities, including observations and research on climate and global environmental change. The President’s 2007 budget request for NASA’s Climate Change Science Program activities is 22% below the Fiscal Year 2004 spending level—more like 30% adjusting for inflation—a staggering cutback.
See Details
Calling Orwell: Understanding and protecting planet Earth disappears from NASA mission statement
Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006
NASA has deleted from its mission statement what had previously been its opening phrase: “To understand and protect our home planet.” This particular example of Orwellian behavior by administration officials was called to our attention by Jim Hansen of NASA and was reported in today’s (July 22) New York Times.
See Details
Gore as Science Educator: Climate Scientist Michael MacCracken’s Assessment
Posted on Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Associated Press reported (archived) on June 27 that all 19 climate scientists who had seen “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, and answered questions from the AP, had concluded that Gore had mostly explained the science correctly. The most illuminating assessment of Gore’s science education effort that we have seen is in the thoughtful response to the AP questions by Dr. Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute in Washington, DC—posted here.
See Details
Jim Hansen on the global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”
Posted on Saturday, July 15, 2006
The current (July 13) issue of the New York Review of Books carries a review article on climate change by Jim Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in which he praises An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary and book on global warming, as a “scientifically accurate” and “coherent account of a complex topic that Americans desperately need to understand.”
See Details
The State Department’s disappearing Climate Change web page
Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006
The U.S. State Department’s “USINFO” web site, maintained by the department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, provides current information on a variety of topics, each with its own home page, including a “Climate Change” page—until the page was “retired” last week, without explanation. We note that the next-to-last posting before the Climate Change information category disappeared was the item “Global Warming Topped Natural Cycles in Fueling 2005 Hurricanes.”
See Details
Hurricanes and global warming: A credibility challenge for the Climate Change Science Program
Posted on Wednesday, July 05, 2006
New research linking global warming and recent enhanced North Atlantic hurricane activity was funded by the National Science Foundation, a major participating agency in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. Last year NOAA put out misleading, one-sided information about the state of knowledge on the connection between global warming and increased hurricane intensity. That cannot be allowed to happen again this year. Climate Science Watch challenges the CCSP leadership to insist on credible government communications on this subject.
See Details
Hurricanes and the Gulf Coast: Climate Change and Sustainable Rebuilding
Posted on Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A June 2006 report from an interdisciplinary conference of experts convened by the American Geophysical Union to discuss what scientists know about the present and projected environment in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas affected by the hurricanes of 2005 concluded: “There are strong theoretical reasons to expect that warming of the oceans already has led to more intense hurricanes and will continue to affect tropical storm characteristics. Planning should take into account the strong probability of more frequent and more intense hurricanes.”
See Details
New research linking human-induced global warming to enhanced hurricane activity
Posted on Saturday, July 01, 2006
Two new studies by leading climate scientists quantify a connection between human-induced global warming and recent enhanced North Atlantic hurricane activity. The studies conclude that natural variability plays only a minor role. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, a participating agency in the federal Climate Change Science Program. How will administration officials and federal scientists deal with these studies this year in their public statements about hurricanes and climate change?
See Details
Remarks on Accepting The Ridenhour Prize
Posted on Saturday, July 01, 2006
Remarks by Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz on accepting the Ron Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on April 4, 2006.
See Details