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 |
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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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“Out of Balance: ExxonMobil’s Impact on Climate Change” documentary released
Posted on Monday, October 23, 2006
Joe Public Films has released its fourth documentary, "Out of Balance: ExxonMobil's Impact on Climate Change". This hour-long movie focuses primarily on ExxonMobil's support of climate change "skeptics" and its influence on the Bush administration. It includes interviews with scientists including R.K. Pachauri (IPCC chair), Robert Watson (World Bank senior scientist), Michael Oppenheimer (Princeton); authors including Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Ross Gelbspan; environmental advocates from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Exxpose Exxon, Greenpeace, and other organizations; and Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz.
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A look at EPA’s new climate change Web site, unveiled after 4 years of suppression
Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006
On October 19, EPA announced the activation of the agency’s revamped climate change Web site, which (although the EPA news release doesn’t mention this) had been essentially moribund for the past four years. Political pressure silenced the EPA Web site in 2002. A look at the new site reveals limitations that point to continuing political interference with climate change communication at EPA.
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Briefly noted: Holdren interview, Northeast Climate Impacts, BBC Climate of Fear transcript
Posted on Thursday, October 19, 2006
Interview on climate change with Prof. John Holdren, Harvard University, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (video, 6 minutes) (Windows Media)) (RealVideo))
Union of Concerned Scientists, Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast—A report of the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment
BBC Panorama, “Global Warming: Bush’s Climate of Fear”—transcript of program first aired June 4, 2006.
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House Science Committee ranking member seeks answers on Commerce Dept. cover-up of hurricane report
Posted on Tuesday, October 10, 2006
House Science Committee ranking member Bart Gordon (D-TN) has initiated an inquiry relating to a “FAQ” fact sheet on “Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate” that was developed by NOAA scientists. The science journal Nature reported on September 26 that the document “has been blocked by officials at the US Department of Commerce.” NOAA administrator Lautenbacher told Nature that it was simply an internal exercise designed to get researchers to respect each other’s points of view. However, Rep. Gordon released an internal NOAA e-mail that directly contradicts that statement and has sent investigative correspondence to Lautenbacher that asks for a response this week.
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Briefly Noted—Climate science and government accountability
Posted on Monday, October 09, 2006
“Heed This Warning” (Washington Post, September 28, 2006)
“Beneath its dry scientific lingo, a new analysis of global climate change by a group of NASA scientists is terrifying....Most of all, it will require an end to denial...”
“Land’s End Founder Comer Dies at 78” (AP, Oct. 5, 2006)
”Gary Comer Profile: An Entrepreneur Does Climate Science” (Science, Feb. 24, 2006, subscription; see Details)
“Accountability determined to strike in U.S.” (Tom Toles, Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2006)
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The “Vanishing” National Climate Change Assessment, Part 1: The Administration
Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006
An October 3 story in Greenwire on the continuing controversy over the administration’s actions to bury the first National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as saying: “To the extent that it has vanished, we have succeeded.” Here we clarify a few points about the actions of the administration to make the National Assessment “vanish”.
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The unfinished business of the National Climate Change Assessment scandal
Posted on Wednesday, October 04, 2006
On October 3, the Greenwire daily news report on environmental and energy policy featured in its #1 position a story on the continuing controversy over the administration’s decision to kill the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts process and suppress official use of the first National Assessment reports issued in 2000-2001. The article quotes Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz as calling this “the central climate science scandal of the Bush administration.”
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Pat Michaels, Virginia “State Climatologist”? A critical perspective on the issues
Posted on Sunday, October 01, 2006
The Washington Post ran an article on September 17 on the controversy over whether Pat Michaels, long-time voice of the global warming denial machine, was entitled to continue to identify himself as the Virginia State Climatologist. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine doesn’t want Michaels appearing to speak for the state on global warming issues. This guest contribution provides a critical perspective that goes beyond what was developed in the Post’s coverage—about the legitimacy of Michaels’ designation as state climatologist, about Michaels’ funding sources and think tank affiliation, and about the meaning of “climatologist” in the contemporary scientific context.
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