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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 |
Climate Science Watch
Talks and reports by Climate Science Watch, and news about us
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.
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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.
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“Why Is There No US Climate Policy?”
Posted on Thursday, November 05, 2009
The US does not have a climate change policy—none that can be articulated specifically and that represents the agreed position of the governing institutions. President Obama’s internationalist statements to the UN and the G8 about the potentially devastating impacts of global climatic disruption notwithstanding, US politics for the most part treats climate change as a domestic energy policy issue. In the effort to cobble together a working congressional majority on climate policy, the effects of climate science denialism combine with a complex set of trade-offs among parochial political concerns and economic special interests to delay the necessary decision-making. The US will go to the climate summit in Copenhagen with little in the way of real commitments to put on the table, because the US political process and US public opinion have been too self-absorbed to focus on multilateral action. The world must understand that, behind Obama’s speeches, there is a political struggle and a complex institutional terrain, which constrain him even as he seeks to lead it. Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz discusses these and other issues in an article for the online journal Eurozine, “Why Is There No US Climate Policy?”
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CSW recommendations for Senate climate bill on preparedness, research, & climate services
Posted on Monday, September 28, 2009
Calling for “a comprehensive, proactive national planning and preparedness strategy for limiting and adapting to the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of climate change,” Climate Science Watch transmitted on September 4 a set of detailed recommendations to three Senate committee chairmen who have been developing climate and clean energy legislation. The recommendations focus on the components of legislation that should address climate change preparedness and adaptation, a prospective National Climate Service, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. We call for the establishment of a National Center for Climate Change Preparedness, which would serve as a coordinating entity and point of entry to the federal government for states and local communities facing a set of wide-ranging impacts, to allow full and equitable access to federal expertise and resources across multiple agencies and departments. See Details for a summary of our recommendations, our letter to Senators, and a discussion of the recommendations.
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Video of Al Franken interview with climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz, 2005
Posted on Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Al Franken, who has been declared the winner in the Minnesota U.S. Senate election, interviewed Rick Piltz on Air America Radio and the Sundance Channel on July 7, 2005. Piltz, now director of Climate Science Watch, talks about Bush White House political interference with federal climate science communication.
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President Obama should lead in talking about the consequences of inaction on climate change
Posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009
We talked with Grist, The Daily Climate, and KPFA-FM in Berkeley, CA about the June 16 release of Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States and the role of the White House under two administrations.
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A wittle wiki—wif weawy wundaful wideos wegawding whistleblowah Wick (ah, Rick Piltz, that is)
Posted on Sunday, May 17, 2009
In the category of “how quickly things change,” haven’t we all wondered what we would do without cell phones, texting, IM’ing, Google, Wikipedia, Ebay, and Craigslist? How did we ever manage to function without these, such a short time ago? Aside from Google (which is second only to oxygen in my view), Wikis are my favorite electronic vice. The woyld of wikis is just awwiving. One wittle little wiki caught our attention, since it’s about Wick…I mean, er, Rick, as in Piltz, the Director and Founder of CSW and this blog. This wiki is called “viswiki” implying visuals (and some audio too, if we’re weawy wucky) ... oops…. and has some weawy really interesting cwips clips from Piltz’s awway array of footage, including an insightful interview with the Senator-in-Permanant-Waiting and comedian-turned-news-commentator-turned-politician, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN).
** PWEEZE, CWIK on dis WINK **
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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’s Revenge”
Posted on Monday, March 16, 2009
“The gust of wind that surged through Washington D.C. earlier this month was not a warm front moving in,” writes William S. Becker, director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, in the March 15 Environmentalist (“Whistleblower’s Revenge”). “It was the collective sigh of relief when President Barack Obama issued a memorandum that will protect the work of the 100,000 scientists and engineers in the U.S. government. But it’s likely that no one felt a greater sense of relief or vindication—than Rick Piltz.”
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National Call to Action on Global Warming reflects rising expectations under President Obama
Posted on Saturday, March 07, 2009
On March 5 a coalition of 53 environmental and other groups issued a “National Call to Action on Global Warming” that calls on President Obama and Congress to enact strong climate change legislation to meet “science-based pollution reduction targets” with effective steps to reduce the risk of catastrophic global warming, address climate justice issues, accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, and plan for a warming world. For their reporting, we talked with The Daily Green about how the previous occupants of the White House used a predatory relationship with scientific uncertainty to justify opposition to regulating emissions of greenhouse gases. That was then…
Climate change in Vanity Fair’s Oral History of the Bush White House
Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009
“Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House,” in the February 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, is a 20,000-word article that draws on interviews with more than 40 individuals, including Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz.
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Several of our favorite journalists won major prizes in 2008 for reporting on climate change
Posted on Saturday, January 03, 2009
Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press, and Peter Bull of the Center for Investigative Reporting—reporters who have covered stories to which we contributed—have been honored for excellence in environmental journalism for their work on global climate change. All have done stories on the global warming disinformation campaign.
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Earthbeat interview: Looking ahead on climate science integrity
Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
In an election day radio interview, CSW director Rick Piltz talked about climate science integrity issues and looked ahead to what’s needed from the next administration. See Details for text of Q&A.
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New GAP whistleblower series debuts on Free Speech TV with panel on scientific integrity
Posted on Sunday, October 19, 2008
“Whistle Where You Work,” a series dedicated to whistleblowers and occupational free speech, accountability and transparency issues, produced by the Government Accountability Project, has begun airing on the Free Speech TV network. We are interviewed on one of the first programs, which looks at the assault on scientific integrity by the Bush administration and asks, will the new administration advance scientific freedoms?
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Sierra: On staffing to restore integrity to the environmental and public lands agencies
Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
“Profiles in Courage,” an article in the September/October issue of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, says “When it comes time to staff the environmental agencies, the next president could do worse than pick from those who stood up for public health and lands at the expense of their own careers.”
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