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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 |
General
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.
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Andy Revkin’s Last Day at The New York Times: December 21
Posted on Monday, December 14, 2009
“Science writer Andrew C. Revkin, the individual journalist most identified with reporting on climate change, is leaving The New York Times,” the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media reports. “His last day will be December 21.”
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Climate change: Kids get it, Rush Limbaugh and other denialists don’t
Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2009
In a new video from the World Wildlife Fund, the children of WWF staff talk about the consequences of climate change, the importance of taking action and the need for U.S. leadership in reaching an international agreement at the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rush Limbaugh responded to the video with predictable denialist vitriol.
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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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Most US media coverage of UN Climate Summit underplayed message of why the need for action is urgent
Posted on Thursday, September 24, 2009
In his September 22 speech at the UN Climate Summit in New York, President Obama said more than we’re used to hearing him say about the threat posed by global climate disruption. How much of this aspect of the speech, the President’s clearest statement on the urgency of the problem, was covered in the US news media? Not much. His speech at the UN Climate Summit should be just a first step in beginning to develop that discourse.
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Pay now, or pay more later… global climate adaptation price tag climbs, says new report
Posted on Monday, August 31, 2009
The financial costs of supporting the global population in a climate-disrupted world were significantly underestimated in a series of 2007 background papers for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other key reports, according to an independent critique headed by Martin Parry, the eminent scientist who headed the 2007 IPCC assessment report on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation. The amount of money developed countries are willing to put on the table to help less developed, and typically more vulnerable, nations cope with and attempt to “adapt” to climate change impacts is one of the main factors that could make or break the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen. It’s time to assess the true costs and to be realistic about the consequences of inaction.
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Just out: “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future”
Posted on Sunday, July 12, 2009
Chris Mooney, journalist and author of the classic book The Republican War on Science, and co-author Sheril Kirshenbaum have a new book out on the steadily widening disconnect between the science community and mainstream American society. Mooney and Kirshenbaum ”explain how religious ideologues, a weak educational system, science-phobic politicians, and the corporate media have all collaborated to create this dangerous state of affairs – and how hyperspecialized scientists have thus far failed to counter it.”
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Remembering Jack Eddy, 1931-2009, R.I.P.
Posted on Sunday, June 28, 2009
John A. Eddy, a solar astronomer famed for his studies of irregular variations in solar activity and their connections with Earth’s climate, died on June 10, 2009. What was not captured in the obituaries we have seen was Dr. Eddy’s significance as one of the early leading lights in developing the interdisciplinary study of climate and global change research, and his role as a champion of bridging the gap between scientific research and public understanding. Here we present some notes written in remembrance by a few of his many colleagues and associates.
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Climate Science Watch joins the e-fray: we post on Daily Kos, and Tweet on Twitter… what’s next?
Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Our new “tweet” handle is ClimateSciWatch. (If you follow us, we’ll follow you.) Our posts are auto-fed to make new “tweets.” We just discovered that the US Global Change Research Program twitters about the new Impacts report: ClimateChangeUS, with the byline, “The U.S. Global Change Research Program presents a new and extensive evaluation of climate change impacts in the U.S. at the regional level.” Most of the entries are photos, or, in the vernacular, “twit pics,” of the June 16 briefing and various meetings. On Daily Kos, you can find us at climate science watch, but we post there only occasionally.
Tweet ya later!
Check out “Earth 2100” tonight on ABC, a two-hour special showing us our climate future
Posted on Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Could this be the final century of our civilization? This provocative question is explored in a new TV special that takes the viewer on a journey into the future, the year 2100 to be exact, airing tonight, on ABC, from 9-11 pm EDT. “Earth 2100” centers on “Lucy,” a fictional character born on this day, June 2, 2009, looking back on the 21st century as a 91-year-old woman living in a world where humans failed to bring down CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to avoid serious consequences. This is “door number 1”—then we are offered “door number 2” —an alternative scenario, one we can look forward to only if we tackle and conquer the task of bringing down emissions to avert catastrophe and suffering. See details for previews.
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Earth Hour on March 28 at 8:30 pm: Will the U.S. Government be Asleep at the Switch?
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009
In case you have not heard, Earth Hour is at 8:30 pm on Saturday 28 March. Participants flick their light switches off for an hour in a coordinated and unified symbolic statement of concern for climate change and call for action. As of March 19, more than 1,800 cities are participating worldwide, including 155 U.S. towns, cities, counties and states. But so far, the U.S. government is entirely disengaged. Will it be asleep at the switch for Earth Hour?
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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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Happy Holidays
Posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year from the Climate Science Watch team. May the holiday season bring you peace and joy. Thanks to all the thousands of “unique visitors” (a webstats term) to this site. Stay tuned—we’ll be posting again right after Christmas.
Congratulations to independent media host Amy Goodman, recipient of the “Right Livelihood Award”
Posted on Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Independent media advocate, broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, and author Amy Goodman joined three other women from around the world yesterday in Stockholm, Sweden to receive the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” given for personal courage and social transformation.
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