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 |
Review of “Everything’s Cool” in the New York Times
Posted on Saturday, November 24, 2007
Stephen Holden of the New York Times reviewed the new global warming documentary, “Everything’s Cool,” which opened in New York and Los Angeles on November 23.
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Everything’s Cool global warming film opens for a one-week run in New York and LA Nov. 23-29
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Everything’s Cool, a feature-length documentary film about ‘global warming messengers,’ will screen at the Cinema Village in New York City and at the Laemmle Grande 4-Plex in downtown Los Angeles November 23-29. Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz and the filmmakers will do a Q&A session at the 7 p.m. screening on Friday, November 23, in New York.
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Webcast and Written Testimony from Senate Hearing on U.S. Global Change Research Program
Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007
On November 14, 2007, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing on “A Time for Change: Improving the Federal Climate Change Research and Information Program.” We provide links to an archived Webcast and to the written statements of the witnesses; soon we’ll have more to say about this interesting hearing. Stay tuned.
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Senate hearing on federal climate research program will hear from OSTP director Marburger
Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a full committee hearing November 14 on “A Time for Change: Improving the Federal Climate Change Research and Information Program.” We have a couple of questions for witness Dr. John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
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Kerry-Snowe global change research bill focuses on climate impacts assessment and communication
Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007
On November 5, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced S. 2307, the Global Change Research Improvement Act of 2007. The bill would amend and update the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the authorizing statute for the multiagency climate and global change research program. Climate Science Watch is keeping a close eye on this bill as it is considered in the legislative process.
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IPCC meets on 2007 Synthesis Report amidst concerns about climate change and political pressure
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, is meeting in Valencia, Spain, this week to complete action on the IPCC Synthesis Report, the fourth and final volume of the comprehensive IPCC 2007 scientific assessment of climate change. We expect government representatives will engage once again in the kind of politically motivated interventions that have appeared to characterize negotiations on previous IPCC policymaker summaries this year—as we documented with the scientists’ “Final Draft” Summary for Policymakers on the climate change impacts assessment report before it was altered during editing negotiations with government representatives.
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R.I.P. John Firor—scientist, author, former director of NCAR
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007
The New York Times reported on November 12: “John Firor, an environmental scholar and former director of the National Center of Atmospheric Research who was an early voice linking climate change and human activity, died last Monday in Pullman, Wash. He was 80.”
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Accounting for an evolutionary shift in U.S. newspaper coverage of anthropogenic climate change
Posted on Saturday, November 10, 2007
An analysis by a scholar at Oxford University of coverage of climate change in leading U.S. newspapers during the period 2003-2006 reveals an evolutionary shift in 2005 to reporting that more closely reflected the scientific consensus on attribution of climate change. Leading U.S. newspapers shifted almost completely away from misleading reporting that “balanced” the scientific view that human activity is a significant cause of climate change with the view that human influence is negligible (from 61% anthropogenic and 37% “balanced” in 2003 to 97% anthropogenic and 3%"balanced" in 2006). The article posits several factors that may account for why this shift in U.S. reporting took place.
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Chris Mooney on the National Assessment scandal in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Posted on Thursday, November 08, 2007
The November-December issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists features an excellent article by journalist Chris Mooney—“An Inconvenient Assessment”—on the scandalous treatment of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts by the Bush administration, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and the global warming denial machine. ("Seven years ago, scientists published a pioneering study to help Americans understand the implications of climate change. Here’s why you’ve never heard of it.") Highly recommended, and not just because we are quoted and cited in it.
Legal deadline today for White House to issue federal science communication principles
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007
President Bush on 9 August 2007 signed into law the America Competes Act, including a provision that requires the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to "develop and issue an overarching set of principles to ensure the communication and open exchange of data and results" from Federal scientists and to "prevent the intentional or unintentional suppression or distortion of such research findings." The principles are due "no later than than 90 days" after the law was enacted, i.e. no later than today, 7 November 2007. Will the White House comply with the law by meeting today's deadline?
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“Out of Balance” awarded best environmental feature film at Artivist Film Festival in Hollywood
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Out of Balance: ExxonMobil’s Impact on Climate Change will be awarded Best Feature Film in the Environmental Preservation category at the 4th annual Artivist Film Festival on November 11 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA. This hour-long movie focuses primarily on ExxonMobil’s support of the global warming disinformation campaign and its influence on the Bush administration. It includes interviews with scientists including R.K. Pachauri (IPCC chair), Robert Watson (former IPCC chair), and 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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Senate subcommittee approves cap-and-trade bill – New climate assessment and adaptation provisions
Posted on Friday, November 02, 2007
This week a subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved by a narrow margin the first major “cap-and-trade” climate change bill to be considered formally in the 110th Congress. In addition to establishing a framework for capping carbon emissions and trading carbon credits, the bill includes provisions for scientific assessment, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change. However, there appears to be a disconnect between Congress and the federal Climate Change Science Program.
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Screw-up at House Judiciary Committee sends whistleblower e-mail addresses to Cheney
Posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007
The Washington Post reported on October 31 that “the House Judiciary Committee, after promising strict confidentiality, inadvertently sent the e-mail addresses of Justice Department whistle-blowers out to all those who have used a special tip line.” Vice President Cheney’s office got all 150 of the e-mail addresses. The Committee’s failure to design an effective system for dealing with confidential information strikes at the heart of one of the key reasons people hesitate to become whistleblowers—that they won’t be protected.
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“The War on Whistleblowers”
Posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007
An excellent November 1 article in Salon details the current degenerate state of federal whistleblower protections. Whistleblowers cannot rely on their legal rights for an official victory, no matter how valid their charges nor how important the issues. The article points to the need for legislative reform and also suggests to us that, in addition to legal counsel, whistleblowers with strong cases should have the support of skilled, aggressive public interest advocacy, the media spotlight, and political pressure in order to get favorable results.
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