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

Congress: Legislation and Oversight

An exchange on climate and energy legislation: must it include a carbon constraint?

Posted on Saturday, July 17, 2010

Andy Revkin’s concern that battles over emissions restrictions are a losing political game in the Senate climate and clean energy debate, and a distraction from a more immediate need to initiate a ‘sustained energy quest’ (DotEarth blog, New York Times, July 14), prompted us to join an exchange of comments on whether an ‘energy-only’ Senate bill would be an adequate first legislative step.

Murkowski Resolution a rejection of broad scientific understanding of climate change threat

Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010

On June 10, the Senate voted down Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution to strip EPA of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The vote, 53-47, united all 41 Republicans in the chamber in support of Murkowski along with six Democrats: Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Mark Pryor (AR), Ben Nelson (ND), Evan Bayh (IN), and Jay Rockefeller (WV). While many lawmakers defended the resolution as not a rejection of the science underlying EPA’s endangerment finding but of EPA as the proper authority for regulating greenhouse gases, its passage would, in fact, have set a precedent of overturning a robust scientific assessment to avoid uncomfortable policy implications.

Reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment: Letter to Congress from 90 organizations

Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2010

Climate Science Watch and the Government Accountability Project have joined with 88 other organizations to call for the restoration and funding of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. OTA produced 750 reports on a wide range of complex scientific and technological issues before it was de-funded in 1995 in the “Contract with America” period of Newt Gingrich’s ascendancy as Speaker of the House.

Climate scientists tell House committee: We know the risk, now it’s up to policymakers to act

Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on May 20 to examine the intersection between climate science and the political process. Ralph Cicerone, Mario Molina, Stephen Schneider, Ben Santer, and William Happer testified. The committee also heard testimony about the recent rise in vitriolic attacks on climate science and scientists. The Republican members made opening statements that attacked some more, then walked out on the hearing without even listening to the testimony, or asking a single question. See Details for our report from the hearing.

At House hearing, prominent scientists reaffirm climate science’s broad knowledge, urgency to act

Posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010

We attended a May 6 hearing at which the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming heard from a panel of scientists and one policy adviser on the scientific foundations of climate change, in light of continued attacks on the integrity of climate science and scientists. The witnesses were IPCC authors James McCarthy, Chris Field, and James Hurrell, ‘Oxburgh inquiry’ panel member Lisa Graumlich, and ‘Lord’ Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

Ocean acidification: Senate hearing, National Academies report call attention to growing concerns

Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010

An April 22 hearing held by the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard examined the economic and environmental impacts of ocean acidification. The hearing coincided with both the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and the release of a prepublication summary of a new National Research Council report, Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean.

Avatar director James Cameron calls out lawmakers for reluctance to talk in terms of climate change

Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010

After speaking last week with lawmakers in Washington, ‘Avatar’ director James Cameron reportedly came away with the sense that they believe an energy and climate bill “will be a nonstarter if even it includes the word ‘climate change’ or ‘sustainability.’” Have the fossil fuel interests and the influence of the global warming denial machine on public opinion made Washington wary about telling the truth in talking about the problem? If so, “It completely ignores the elephant in the room that we’re all dealing with,” he told the LA Times.

Markey presses coal CEOs on climate change denialism, future of the industry in a low carbon economy

Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010

Three executives from the largest coal companies in the U.S. appeared April 14 before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, defending their industry against greenhouse gas regulation and championing its role in a new energy economy. While committee Republicans matched their complaints about President Obama’s “war on coal,” Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) pressed the executives to affirm their positions on climate science and to stop supporting the spread of misinformation about climate change.

EPA takes heat over Endangerment Finding for greenhouses gases at House Science Committee hearing

Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010

Dr. Paul Anastas, EPA Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, faced pointed global warming “skeptic” questions from House Science and Technology Committee members on the science behind the EPA Endangerment Finding, which requires the agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

UK Guardian: “US Senate’s top climate sceptic accused of waging ‘McCarthyite witch-hunt’”

Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010

The Guardian covered the story of Senator Inhofe’s new prosecutorial approach to climate science. “A spokesman for Inhofe rejected the charges of a witch-hunt,” the British national daily newspaper reported. “But he said a criminal investigation was warranted and that it should not necessarily be limited to the 17 ‘key players’.”

Sen. Inhofe inquisition seeking ways to criminalize and prosecute 17 leading climate scientists

Posted on Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Senator James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, has gone a step beyond promoting his long-notorious global warming denialist propaganda. He is now using the resources of the Senate committee to seek opportunities to criminalize the actions of 17 leading scientists who have been associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports. A report released by Inhofe’s staff on February 23 outlines this classic Joe McCarthyite witch-hunt: page after page of incorrect and misleading statements, a list of federal laws that allegedly may make scientists subject to prosecution by the U.S. Justice Department, and a list of names and affiliations of 17 “key players” in the “CRU Controversy” over stolen e-mails and their connections with IPCC reports.

Reps. Joe Barton and James Sensenbrenner carried global warming denier message to Copenhagen

Posted on Wednesday, December 23, 2009

“We don’t have an icecap in Texas,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said at a December 18 press briefing in Copenhagen. The “theory [of anthropogenic climate change] has never been independently analyzed by any scientific group.” Mr. Barton and some of his colleagues, including Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), showed the media in Copenhagen that the Congressional global warming denial machine may be scientifically clueless, but is still capable of waging a nasty political battle.

California’s Adaptation Strategy shows leadership that Senate climate bill should follow

Posted on Friday, December 11, 2009

The final version of the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy released last week puts forth a set of wide-ranging recommendations for managing and adapting to a set of difficult climate change impacts throughout the state. Meanwhile, a recent framework for climate legislation put forth by Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman does not address dealing with impacts at all. The US will put itself in a perilous position if California’s advice is not heeded: “To effectively address the challenges that a changing climate will bring, climate adaptation and mitigation…policies must complement each other, and efforts within and across sectors must be coordinated.”

Sensenbrenner IPCC witch-hunt: Attempt to blacklist climate scientists must be rejected

Posted on Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), ranking Republican on the House global warming committee, has sent a letter to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, calling for scientists whose names appear in the e-mails stolen from the U.K. Climatic Research Unit to be blacklisted from participating as contributors or reviewers of the forthcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Sensenbrenner is engaged in an outrageous McCarthyist jihad against the climate science community, making it abundantly clear that this controversy is not really about stolen e-mails, which have been misused and misinterpreted. Rather it is part of an aggressive campaign by the global warming denial machine to bully and intimidate the science community. Sensenbrenner shows no real interest in meaningful dialogue, nor in an honest examination of climate science findings. Denialists are throwing up a smokescreen of propaganda in an attempt to legitimize their refusal to come to grips with scientific evidence on global climatic disruption and its implications. This is a power play. Climate Science Watch calls on the IPCC to rebuff this attack. We call on the Obama Administration and in particular the President’s science adviser John Holdren to fully support the U.S. climate science community in this matter. We call on Sensenbrenner’s colleagues in Congress to chastise him for this censorious anti-scientist behavior. And we call on members of the science community to understand what the denial machine is up to and not allow themselves to be divided by innuendo about and attacks on scientists who have been singled out as immediate targets of a larger predatory attack on the community as a whole. Seeking an IPCC purge is just the next step. This attack, using guilt-by-association and demagogy, will go as far as it can to delegitimize the entire climate science and assessment enterprise if it is not exposed and thwarted. (See Details for the Sensenbrenner letter and press release.)

Rep. Sensenbrenner projects “fascism” and “fraud” onto scientists, is rebutted at hearing

Posted on Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) channeled the reckless spirit of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy in an effort to lead a December 3 House global warming committee hearing toward a witchhunt based on e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit in the U.K. Sensenbrenner essentially accused the climate scientists of “fascism” and suggested that a scientific assessment that included the CRU global temperature record among its many sources is part of “a massive international scientific fraud.” Witnesses John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, leading Administration science representatives, countered with cool reason. Committee chairman Ed Markey and Rep. Jay Inslee hit back harder.

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