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

Obama State of the Union evasive and inadequate on climate change and climate science

Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010

In his State of the Union address President Obama failed once again to give the American people some straight talk about global climate disruption. If Obama had been willing to devote even one minute to talking about climate change and its profound implications, he could have done much to lay the groundwork for a better public understanding of the problem and for meaningful policymaking – but he didn’t. He repeated his usual “clean energy clean energy clean energy” mantra (with “clean nuclear” and “clean coal” and offshore drilling also in the mix), but failed to explain to the American people why he supports comprehensive climate change legislation and why they should, too. And on climate science, if he had been willing to devote even a few sentences to holding his ground he could have done much to support a science community that is besieged by an aggressive political disinformation campaign, and could have struck a blow for scientific integrity in policymaking – but he didn’t. In the face of a nihilistic reaction from some in his Congressional audience, he quit and ran for the hills after a single sentence.

State of the Union a key opportunity for Obama to raise profile of climate change impacts

Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010

President Obama’s first State of the Union address tonight presents a key opportunity for him to speak directly to the nation about the risks of climate change. In the wake of vicious attacks on the climate science community and the failure to achieve a binding agreement at Copenhagen, and with climate and clean energy legislation floundering in the Senate, the need for a strong message from the President is more urgent than ever.

Climate change endangerment to human health: Where is the Obama Administration’s plan?

Posted on Saturday, January 23, 2010

While the public health community has made strides toward understanding the significant and complex threat to human health posed by climate change, a strategic federal program of research and decision support is not yet in evidence. Expediting the development, funding, and implementation of the needed action calls for leadership from the White House and the U.S. Global Change Research Program and should be reflected in the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Richard Somerville: A Response to Climate Change Denialism

Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010

Richard Somerville, a distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, issued a statement in response to a recent request to address claims recently made by climate change denialists. “Science…does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet,“ he says. “The first thing that the world needs to do if it is going to confront the challenge of climate change wisely is to learn about what science has discovered and accept it.” See Details for full text and related links.

Worldwide glacier melt a real concern; Himalaya controversy leaves questions about IPCC leadership

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010

The IPCC on January 20 officially acknowledged “poorly substantiated rates of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers.” The controversy over the erroneous paragraph in the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report should not overshadow the large body of evidence about anthropogenic climate change and its likely disruptive consequences, nor the overall IPCC synthesis conclusion that “Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability … in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.” But, as we said to ClimateWire, the IPCC should re-examine how it vets information when compiling future assessment reports. And, while the official IPCC mea culpa statement on January 20 is a necessary step in the right direction, it is not dispositive of questions this incident raises about the IPCC leadership and the organization’s public communications capabilities.

IPCC slips on the ice with statement about Himalayan glaciers

Posted on Tuesday, January 19, 2010

In a chapter on climate change impacts in Asia, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) relied on an error-riddled online article when it discussed the likely state of Himalayan glaciers in 2035. It did so despite questions raised by some reviewers. Details about the incident have come to light since early November when the Indian government published a report that contradicted the IPCC. The error and the IPCC’s initial response highlight the need to strengthen the IPCC review process, and its capacity to respond quickly and appropriately to such problems. Failure to do so may undermine public confidence in the IPCC and invite opportunistic attacks by those opposing meaningful action on climate change.

Will Obama’s FY2011 budget fund essential new climate change research priorities?

Posted on Monday, January 18, 2010

Will the President’s forthcoming Fiscal Year 2011 budget request for the U.S. Global Change Research Program demonstrate a commitment to essential new research priorities? The National Research Council identified key research needed for understanding and responding to the implications of climate change for extreme weather and climate events and disasters, sea level rise and melting ice, freshwater availability, agriculture and food security, human health, and managing ecosystems. The Bush Administration, driven by its politics of downplaying the reality of human-driven climate change and the seriousness of potential impacts of climatic disruption, failed to move the USGCRP to a focus on impacts and response strategy research. The Obama Administration science policy leadership should be moving expeditiously to demonstrate that it is undoing this damage and backing it up with new funding priorities, before another year goes by.

New Hansen analysis and global temperature data counter disinformers who say the planet is cooling

Posted on Saturday, January 16, 2010

A new analysis by James Hansen et al. concludes: “The bottom line is this: there is no global cooling trend.” The authors show how regional short-term temperature fluctuations help explain the “gullibility” with which some people have been “so readily convinced of a false conclusion” that the planet has stopped warming. The NOAA National Climatic Data Center’s annual summary posted on January 15 says: “The 2000-2009 decade is the warmest on record, with an average global surface temperature of 0.54 deg C (0.96 deg F) above the 20th century average. The years 2001 through 2008 each rank among the ten warmest years of the 130-year (1880-2009) record and 2009 was no exception.”

Revisiting Presidential Transition recommendations on climate change assessment and preparedness

Posted on Friday, January 15, 2010

As the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy brings Katharine Jacobs on board as assistant director for climate adaptation and assessment, we revisit recommendations we submitted in November 2008 to the Presidential Transition Team for OSTP, calling for the reactivation of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and the establishment of a National Center for Climate Change Preparedness. It looks like some of what we recommended may now be on a path to being implemented.

Condemnation of mountaintop removal coal mining: A good example of citizen-scientist action

Posted on Friday, January 15, 2010

An article in Science in which the authors conclude a review of the irredeemably damaging impacts of mountaintop removal mining with a call for policymakers to stop permitting this practice is a good example of prominent scientists using their expertise to play a much-needed role as citizens. There are many potential avenues for influential science citizenship, but the community needs to be creative and skillful about it.

Capitol Hill briefing draws needed attention to challenges of climate change impacts and adaptation

Posted on Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A January 8 Capitol Hill briefing by four leading analysts on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation reflected a growing awareness that scientific research and assessment per se don’t necessarily lead to effective action to enhance resilience to the impacts of global climatic disruption. The briefing began with the scientific foundation for understanding climate change impacts and moved to an insightful discussion of the challenges of putting adaptive preparedness into practice.

White House Science Office reactivating U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change

Posted on Sunday, January 10, 2010

Katharine Jacobs, who chairs the forthcoming National Academy of Sciences report on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, is moving to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to play a lead role on climate change assessment and adaptation. OSTP is taking the first steps to reactivate the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, nine years after the first National Assessment was issued, then later essentially suppressed by the Bush Administration.

Copenhagen post-mortem: Interview on Al Jazeera

Posted on Saturday, January 09, 2010

Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz talked with Al Jazeera English TV about the conclusion of the Copenhagen climate conference and where it leaves us.

After Copenhagen, questions about U.S. commitment to climate change aid to developing countries

Posted on Friday, January 08, 2010

After building up expectations with the Copenhagen Accord of substantial new aid to developing countries, is the Obama administration already lowering them now that the action has shifted to the U.S. domestic scene? Under the Copenhagen Accord, “developed countries commit to a goal of mobilizing jointly” $100 billion a year by 2020 in “new and additional, predictable and adequate funding” to aid developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change. But on January 7, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “sidestepped the commitment when asked directly if the US portion would be additional,” ClimateWire reported.

Ross Gelbspan: “In Conclusion…”

Posted on Saturday, January 02, 2010

“The truth is that, even assuming the wildest possible success of these initiatives—that humanity decided tomorrow to replace its coal and oil burning energy sources with non-carbon sources—it would still be too late to avert major climate disruptions,” says journalist-author Ross Gelbspan. “Despite this reality, the activists are still focusing on the causes—and not on the consequences—of the crisis. All these initiatives address only one part of the coming reality.” We share Gelbspan’s view, outlined in a recently posted video, that an essential part of the solution is “a coordinated global public-works program to rewire the world with clean energy.” We would add—in light of the potential future Gelbspan describes and scientific assessments project—that a coordinated strategy of adaptive preparedness that seeks to limit, if possible, the damage from global climatic disruption must be a major component of a comprehensive climate policy. See Details for the video and links to sources.

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