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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 |
Jim Hansen rallies for monkey-wrench activist Tim DeChristopher at his arraignment today in Utah
Posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009
NASA climate scientist James Hansen is in Utah today to speak at a rally in support of University of Utah economics student Tim DeChristopher as he faces arraignment at 11:45 am MDT (1:45 pm EDT) in Salt Lake City. DeChristopher was charged with two felony counts, each carrying up to five years in prison and a possible $750,000 fine, after he intervened in an oil lease auction held by the Bureau of Land Management in December 2008 by bidding on parcels he knew he could not afford (see our April 15 post). The sales were later canceled by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who questioned BLM’s handling of the sale in the last days of the Bush administration. Hansen will argue that this creative act of nonviolent civil disobedience was a legitimate act of moral protest, justified by the urgent need to rapidly curtail CO2 emissions primarily from coal and oil combustion. The outcome of the arraignment will be posted later today on DeChristopher’s website.
Update: DeChristopher plead “not guilty” to two felonies at his April 28 arraignment; the trial date is set for July 6, 2009.
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White House science & budget offices must lead in revitalizing federal climate research
Posted on Monday, April 27, 2009
Stronger leadership from the White House and Congress is urgently needed to revitalize and reform the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), to ensure that we have the scientific underpinnings for dealing effectively with the growing climate change threat. This 20-year-old, $1.8 billion program is now suffering from leadership neglect, parochialism within the participating agencies, and a slow recovery from the insults and injuries of a two-term, Bush-Cheney administration that talked up the need for science but then walked all over the people who were making honorable contributions to our understanding of Earth’s highly complex climate system and how human activity is interfering with natural processes. (For example, by censoring communications and cutting budgets at a time they needed to be growing.) We’re now left with a dysfunctional family of research programs and initiatives, all competing with one another for funding and recognition. While the White House is necessarily focused on cap-and-trade, green jobs, and renewable energy, we wonder, who is steering the multiagency climate science ship? It obviously needs a rudder, sails, and a crew and captain; it should not be left to drift. Part of the formula that worked in the past was an alliance between OSTP and OMB, and a 1990 law specifying product and process. Is this the right formula to get us back on course? We argue, cautiously, that it is—with some adjustments.
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New climate working groups in Senate Environment Committee must address preparedness, adaptation
Posted on Thursday, April 23, 2009
Yesterday Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), announced that she has established five committee working groups to tackle various aspects of a new and improved version of the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill considered last year. We offer some early input on the topics they will cover and approaches we would like to see them take, and encourage this Committee to reach out to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to coordinate and cooperate on overlapping areas of jurisdiction, especially as regards climate change impacts and adaptation and overall preparedness for climate disruption.
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“The concept is so broad that it may not make sense to place a climate service inside NOAA.”
Posted on Tuesday, April 21, 2009
“You need a program that is broader than just expanding the NOAA National Weather Service to do climate forecasts,” we told Congressional Quarterly. “You need to be looking at agriculture, food security, forests, water resources, transportation infrastructure, coastal infrastructure, wetlands.” The periodic national climate change vulnerability assessment that would be required by the Waxman-Markey climate bill is a great idea, we said, but assigning the project to NOAA would circumvent the existing federal Climate Change Science Program, which sponsored the first National Assessment and brings together a wider array of resources.
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John Marburger’s Bromley Lecture: Illumination or whitewash?
Posted on Sunday, April 19, 2009
An upcoming April 29 lecture at George Washington University by former White House Science Advisor John Marburger could be an opportunity for him to come clean about his role in enabling the Bush administration to corrupt the science-policy relationship. Otherwise, the audience should be prepared to throw a few shoes.
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Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize to whistleblower Thomas Tamm for exposing secret wiretapping program
Posted on Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm will be awarded The 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on April 16. Tamm courageously exposed the existence of the government’s secret warrantless wiretapping program to the New York Times. This year’s 6th annual Ridenhour Prizes also will go to Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist; Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals; and reporter Nick Turse, author of “A My Lai a Month.”
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Should Utah student activist Tim DeChristopher go to jail for nonviolent monkey-wrench tactics?
Posted on Wednesday, April 15, 2009
On Friday December 19, 2008, University of Utah economics student and environmental activist Tim DeChristopher, 27, made a spur-of-the-moment decision to disrupt a controversial Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil lease auction by bidding on parcels of land near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, bidding on land he knew he could not afford, driving up prices, and winning about 22,500 acres worth $1.8 million. He was summarily arrested for this monkey-wrench variety of civil disobedience and has said he is willing to risk jail time as a result of his actions. One of the Obama administration’s first actions was to cancel the questionable sale, making his purchases moot, but now DeChristopher has been indicted on two felony counts and faces up to 10 years in prison. Will justice be served by turning DeChristopher into a criminal?
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EPA climate endangerment finding clears White House review
Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The U.S. EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas endangerment finding cleared the White House review process on April 13, paving the way for an official announcement detailing the threats posed by global warming to both public health and welfare, the New York Times and Greenwire reported today. This action by the White House to back EPA is a key step in undoing the Bush-Cheney legacy on climate science and policy.
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Provisions in the Waxman-Markey draft bill get us closer to ensuring climate policy is science-based
Posted on Friday, April 10, 2009
The Waxman-Markey discussion draft climate bill includes a provision calling on the National Academy of Sciences to perform periodic studies of emerging and projected climate change impacts to determine whether or not greenhouse gas emissions-reduction targets need to be adjusted. While it is essential that climate change policies be based on good science, these provisions take much of what is, or should be, taking place under the Climate Change Science Program and to a lesser extent the Climate Change Technology Program and hand them over to the National Academy of Sciences. Revitalizing and reforming these two programs would go a long way toward meeting the laudable goals and objectives outlined in the draft bill.
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“The Denial Machine” – Index on Censorship reviews the Bush record on climate science
Posted on Monday, April 06, 2009
In “The Denial Machine,” Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz reviews eight years of the climate change disinformation campaign in the Bush administration for a special end-of-2008 issue of Index on Censorship devoted to examining the Bush legacy on human rights, secrecy, and censorship.
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Whistleblower TV now available online
Posted on Monday, April 06, 2009
“Whistle Where You Work,“ produced by the Government Accountability Project, is a multimedia program focusing on issues of accountability. All episodes of the 30-minute program may now be viewed online. In “The Assault on Scientific Integrity,” part of Episode #4 in the series, GAP Executive Director Mark Cohen interviewed Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch during the fall 2008 election campaign.
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Comments on the adaptation provisions in the Waxman-Markey draft climate legislation
Posted on Sunday, April 05, 2009
Of all the climate change bills introduced in Congress during the last decade, the Waxman-Markey “discussion draft” bill released March 31—the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009”— has some of the most sophisticated, well thought-out legislative proposals on adaptation we have seen thus far. A companion piece to this post summarizes the provisions under Title IV of the bill, creating a domestic and an international adaptation program. Here we offer comments intended to inform the policy discussion going forward. The bill gets high marks for understanding what it will take to raise the level of US preparedness for climate disruption, but we have concerns about its prescribed management structure (see Details).
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A summary of the adaptation provisions in the Waxman-Markey draft climate legislation
Posted on Sunday, April 05, 2009
The energy and climate policy community is all abuzz over the comprehensive climate change and energy policy proposal released last week by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), Chair of this Committee’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee. The 648-page “discussion draft” of a comprehensive bill, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. Here we summarize the portion of the bill that addresses climate change impacts assessments and adaptation strategies, covered under Subtitle E of Title IV (see Details); a companion post provides our commentary and recommends some changes.
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