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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 |
Science-Policy Interaction
Successfully confronting the challenge of climate change will require a more functional relationship between scientists and policymakers, with greater accountability and integrity in the translation of research into effective response strategies.
Administration refusal to protect polar bear from greenhouse emissions “won’t hold up in court”
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The May 14 decision to list the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act “is a watershed event,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. But “The administration’s attempts to reduce protection to the polar bear from greenhouse gas emissions are illegal and won’t hold up in court.”
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How will the Interior Dept implement protection of polar bear as a threatened species?
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today announced that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing is based on the best available science, which shows that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. In making the announcement, Kempthorne said, “I am also announcing that this listing decision will be accompanied by administrative guidance and a rule that defines the scope of impact my decision will have...to make certain the ESA isn’t abused to make global warming policies.” What does this mean, and what devil is in the details of how this decision will be implemented?
Use law on environmental impact statements to assess global warming implications of federal actions
Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008
A new report by the Center for American Progress proposes that the next President issue an Executive Order requiring climate change to be included as a consideration under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). “Government responsibilities are jeopardized by the lack of information about the consequences of federal actions for the emission of greenhouse gases and adaptation to changing climatic conditions,” the report says. Existing federal and state environmental laws and regulations—especially NEPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act— provide the requisite legal authority to begin to mitigate and adapt to climate change. “It is not necessary to wait for new legislation to take action.”
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Judge orders Bush administration to stop delaying polar bear protection
Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A federal judge has found the Bush administration guilty of violating the Endangered Species Act and ordered the administration to issue a final listing decision for the polar bear by May 15, 2008. The administration is well beyond the legal deadline for a listing decision. The polar bear is threatened because global warming is causing its Arctic sea ice habitat to disappear. The Endangered Species Act requires the decision to be based solely on science. In September 2007 the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population would likely be extinct by 2050, including all polar bears within the United States.
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Interior Dept. announces further delay of months in decision on listing of polar bear as threatened
Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Department of the Interior has told a federal court that it needs until June 30 to complete its Endangered Species Act listing decision on the polar bear, which is already more than three months overdue. What will it take to get the administration to abide by federal legal deadlines and court rulings, and act on scientific evidence about the harmful impacts of climate change?
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Bush climate speech aligns with disinformation campaign on stonewalling courts and environmental law
Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008
Buried in President Bush’s mostly empty speech on climate change April 16 was a signal that the White House is likely to continue to stonewall on compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling on greenhouse gas regulation and clear requirements of the nation’s environmental laws. With this above-the-law posture he is adopting a position urged on him by the global warming disinformation campaign and its political allies.
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Will Bush acknowledge the harmful impacts of global climate disruption?
Posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Will there be a significant shift in the President’s approach to climate change when he gives another “Rose Garden speech” on April 16? Not unless we see administration political officials freely acknowledge scientific assessments of the harmful impacts of global climate disruption and begin to act on them. See Andy Revkin’s New York Times Dot Earth blog post ("Bush to State Climate Goals Wednesday"), a letter from the Competitive Enterprise Institute blaming the problem on climate change litigation and environmental laws that need to be “fixed” (comment #2), and our own comment (#14).
House Select Committee to examine aviation’s impact on global warming
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008
On April 2 the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing on the potential to curb aviation’s emissions of greenhouse gases and contribution to global warming. Climate Science Watch, following a CSW report issued in 2007, has criticized the administration’s failure to acknowledge aviation’s contribution to global warming in federal planning documents and has called for aviation emissions to be included in U.S. climate change policy and regulation.
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Waxman to EPA: Why is work on required greenhouse gas regulation being blocked?
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Since the Environmental Protection Agency informed the White House in December 2007 of its finding that carbon dioxide emissions are a danger to the United States and proposed significant cuts in motor vehicle emissions, the agency’s regulatory efforts have been halted. In a March 12 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman cites information provided to the Committee by seven senior EPA officials on how a major effort to comply with the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA has beeen blocked.
Nature editorial on EPA administrator’s “reckless disregard” for law and science on climate change
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Nature, the international weekly science journal, criticized U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson’s “reckless disregard for law, science or the agency’s own rules - or, it seems, the anguished protests of his own subordinates.” The March 6 editorial ("The EPA’s tailspin") focused on the Bush administration’s hostility to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA unions charge Administrator Johnson violates agency’s Principles of Scientific Integrity
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Four unions representing most of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientists, attorneys, and other specialists, citing what they consider to be repeated instances of broken pledges or bad faith on multiple issues by Administrator Stephen Johnson—including refusal to enforce the agency’s Principles of Scientific Integrity on the California greenhouse gas waiver decision and other environmental issues—served notice in a February 29 letter that was released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that they will secede from the agency’s labor-management cooperative forum.
Former IPCC chairman Robert Watson says world leaders “squandered” last 10 years on climate change
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
World leaders wasted a decade debating whether global warming is happening, and now need to act quickly to limit its effects, former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman Robert Watson said at the Oceanology International conference in London March 11. Watson, now chief scientific aviser at the UK environment ministry, said “If we don’t want to be faced with sea level rise for thousands of years, we have to act now to reduce CO2.’’ (Bloomberg, March 11)
Sen. McCain’s mockery of a significant federal scientific grizzly bear study
Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008
The Washington Post’s March 10 front page story, “McCain Sees Pork Where Scientists See Success—Candidate Criticizes Ambitious Bear Study,” illustrates two things to us once more: (1) the Senator is not always careful about how he uses, or misuses, scientific research; and (2) a complete rejection of appropriations earmarks makes no more sense than the politically cynical use of them.
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Environmental groups sue Bush administration to force polar bear protection
Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008
Today the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Bush administration for missing its legal deadline for issuing a final decision on whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming. Faced with overwhelming scientific evidence, the Bush administration continues illegally to delay listing.
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Water Utility Climate Alliance calls on federal climate research to aid with impacts preparedness
Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008
An alliance of eight major water utilities that provide drinking water to 36 million people is calling on the US Climate Change Science Program and the science community to aid in assessing and managing risks to water infrastructure and supply from impacts of warming, diminishing snowpack, bigger storms, drought, rising sea level, and potential abrupt climate change. Climate Science Watch has called attention to water issues as a high near-term priority in linking the federal climate research program to decisionmaking intelligence and preparedness needs.
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