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 |
Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation
The U.S. "National Assessment"; the impacts and adaptation chapter of the U.S. National Communication required by Article 12 of the U.N. Climate Convention; and other major assessments.
Flawed communications in U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Two major federal climate science reports – one on climate change-induced extreme weather, the other on increasing difficulties in dealing with climate impacts on federal lands -- were released last week with two nearly opposite communication strategies. The ad hoc manner in which communication with the media and the public is currently handled in the Climate Change Science Program and its 13 participating agencies is highly dysfunctional and in need of a complete overhaul to meet the informational needs of society in addressing and preparing for global climatic disruption.
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Bush administration has run out the clock on climate change assessment and action
Posted on Friday, May 30, 2008
ABC World News reported on May 29: Today, the White House finally released an overdue report on the comprehensive impact of global warming on the United States. It is the first such report from the Bush administration since it took office more than seven years ago. Rick Piltz...and other administration critics charge the White House delayed this report for years and is taking credit for it now while passing any decisions about action to the next president. “Here we have an administration that has one foot out the door. They have run out the clock on taking any really meaningful action on climate change.” Piltz said....Piltz points out that the scientific community has been articulating these findings for years and says that the subsequent action on the report is what will count. “This is something that has been well understood in the scientific community and the government for some time now,” Piltz said. “Even after we lift the hand of censorship off this climate science communication, we still need the political leaders to embrace it and learn from it and act on it.”
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Government report provides strong evidence U.S. endangered by climate change impacts
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2008
On May 27 the U.S. Government released a report, The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in The United States, with strong conclusions that ought to suffice to establish an “endangerment” finding under which EPA would regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
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New climate report counters Bush administration record of denial, disinformation, cover-up and delay
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2008
A report released May 29 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States, summarizes evidence of global climate disruption, the harmful impacts it is already having on society and the environment, and future projections of potential damages. The report, years overdue under a requirement of law, was produced only in response to an August 2007 federal court order that an assessment be produced by May 31, 2008. After seven years of denial, disinformation, cover-up, and delay, in its waning months, the Bush administration is finally beginning to allow the publication of reports that acknowledge scientific reality on the impacts of climate change.
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CDC House hearing witness Frumkin submits CDC Director Gerberding’s previously censored testimony
Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008
At an April 9 House committee hearing, witness Howard Frumkin of the federal Centers for Disease Control submitted the testimony on health effects of climate change that the White House had redacted from CDC Director Julie Gerberding’s Senate testimony in October 2007. What led the censors at the White House Office of Management and Budget and Council on Environmental Quality to let the testimony go forward this time? See Details for the Frumkin testimony and our analysis.
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American Public Health Association and World Health Organization: Climate change threatens health
Posted on Friday, April 11, 2008
Serious public health threats associated with global climatic disruption have been the focus of the World Health Organization April 7 “World Health Day”, the American Public Health Association April 7-13 National Public Health Week, and an April 9 Congressional hearing. This is what the White House didn’t want Centers for Disease Control director Gerberding to include in her Senate testimony last October.
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GAP press release on stealth release of climate change transportation impacts report
Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008
A March 14 news release by the Government Accountability Project leads with: “This past Wednesday, March 12, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program quietly released a major assessment report on the likely impacts of global climate disruption on a wide range of transportation infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region. This report release was buried by the DOT, and officials have been blocking journalists from speaking with the report’s lead author.”
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Stealth release of major federal study of Gulf Coast climate change transportation impacts
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008
On March 12 the U.S. government released a major assessment report on the likely impacts of global climate disruption on a wide range of transportation systems and infrastructure in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. The report was released in a way that was clearly intended to minimize public attention to it, and our media sources say the Department of Transportation is blocking journalists from talking with the lead author at the agency about the findings in the report. Why? Read on....
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US State Dept. request for comments on the future of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Posted on Saturday, February 09, 2008
“The U.S. State Department, in its role as coordinator for the U.S. Government’s role in the IPCC, requests public comment on the activities and process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to facilitate the U.S. Government’s effort to assess and enhance the IPCC’s high-level of scientific credibility and relevance for the evolving needs of decisionmakers.” We have some questions for consideration.
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R.I.P Bert Bolin
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Bert Bolin, Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has died at age 82. Dr. Bolin played a key role in communicating the dangers of climate change and served as the first chairman of the IPCC from 1988 to 1998. We deeply appreciated his leadership in making the IPCC into the indispensable organization that it has become. See AP article here.
Non-native jellyfish wipe out salmon fishery in Northern Ireland – another warning sign?
Posted on Sunday, December 02, 2007
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a massive bloom of “mauve stinger” jellyfish, in a dense pack covering 10 square miles 35 feet deep, thousands of miles north of their preferred ocean habitat, feasted on about a half a million pounds of gourmet, organic salmon being raised in pens off the coast of northern Ireland and slated for market during the upcoming holiday season. All indications are that climate change played a key role in the fatal intrusion. The incident raises important questions for the US climate science programs and our overall level of climate change preparedness.
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Webcast and Written Testimony from Senate Hearing on U.S. Global Change Research Program
Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007
On November 14, 2007, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing on “A Time for Change: Improving the Federal Climate Change Research and Information Program.” We provide links to an archived Webcast and to the written statements of the witnesses; soon we’ll have more to say about this interesting hearing. Stay tuned.
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IPCC meets on 2007 Synthesis Report amidst concerns about climate change and political pressure
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, is meeting in Valencia, Spain, this week to complete action on the IPCC Synthesis Report, the fourth and final volume of the comprehensive IPCC 2007 scientific assessment of climate change. We expect government representatives will engage once again in the kind of politically motivated interventions that have appeared to characterize negotiations on previous IPCC policymaker summaries this year—as we documented with the scientists’ “Final Draft” Summary for Policymakers on the climate change impacts assessment report before it was altered during editing negotiations with government representatives.
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Chris Mooney on the National Assessment scandal in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Posted on Thursday, November 08, 2007
The November-December issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists features an excellent article by journalist Chris Mooney—“An Inconvenient Assessment”—on the scandalous treatment of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts by the Bush administration, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and the global warming denial machine. ("Seven years ago, scientists published a pioneering study to help Americans understand the implications of climate change. Here’s why you’ve never heard of it.") Highly recommended, and not just because we are quoted and cited in it.
Former Director of Climate Program Office: “Administration should be held to a higher standard”
Posted on Sunday, September 02, 2007
The director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Office until March 2006 calls for a “full soup-to-nuts national assessment” of climate change impacts.
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