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.

Polar Bears, Pt 2: “Habitat loss and inadequate regulatory mechanisms to address sea ice recession”

Posted on Friday, December 29, 2006

In support of its December 27 announcement of a proposed rule under the Endangered Species Act to list the Polar Bear as threatened throughout its range, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a document for public review and comment. The document uses climate science findings on observed and projected Arctic sea ice loss and its relationship to global warming. The bottom line finding: “We have determined that the polar bear is threatened by habitat loss and inadequate regulatory mechanisms to address sea ice recession.” The proposed rule has made it through the Administration’s process so far without being blocked, bringing the link between climate change impacts and endangered species into a high-profile regulatory proceeding.

Interior Dept. proposal to list polar bear as threatened due to loss of sea ice

Posted on Thursday, December 28, 2006

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on December 27 that it is proposing formally to list the polar bear as “threatened” with extinction, because rising Arctic temperature is causing the loss of sea ice, on which polar bears depend for hunting. The proposal, now being published for public review and comment, results from a scientifically based analysis conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was announced just in time to meet a deadline stemming from the settlement of a lawsuit brought against the administration by three environmental groups, who challenged Interior’s dilatory response to their initial petition almost 2 years ago.

24 House members call for new National Climate Impacts Assessment

Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006

On December 11, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), and 22 House co-signers sent a letter to William Brennan of NOAA, the Acting Director of the Climate Change Science Program, in which they say: “The failure of the CCSP to produce a National Assessment report within the time frame required by law has made it more difficult for Congress to develop a comprehensive policy response to the challenge of global climate change.” The Members are on the right track here. The National Climate Impacts Assessment is a key issue for oversight of the CCSP in the new Congress, and one we have been raising for some time.

Four noteworthy articles on climate change in the Washington Post

Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2006

Climate in the Court (November 26, Editorial). “On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in...a challenge by states and environmental groups to the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gases as pollution.”

Science a la Joe Camel (November 26, Sunday Outlook section). “It’s bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.”

On the Move to Outrun Climate Change: Self-Preservation Forcing Wild Species, Businesses, Planning Officials to Act (November 26, National News, p. A3)

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change (November 25, front page). “While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nations largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.”

Michael MacCracken’s 2002 letter to the ExxonMobil board of directors

Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2006

ExxonMobil had attacked the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and had called on the incoming Bush administration to purge four specific individuals involved in climate change activities. In September 2002, in his final week in the U.S. Global Change Research Program Office, National Assessment coordinator Michael MacCracken, one of the “ExxonMobil Four,” sent a letter to each member of the ExxonMobil board of directors. With ExxonMobil’s global warming denial campaign behavior and the Bush administration’s suppression of the National Assessment process coming under greater critical scrutiny, Dr. MacCracken has authorized us to post his letter as part of the record.

Press coverage and comment on the National Assessment lawsuit

Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006

The suit filed in federal court on November 14 by the Center for Biological Diversity et al. to require the production of a second National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts (see our November 14 post) was reported by the Associated Press ("White House Sued Over Global Warming"), the San Francisco Chronicle ("White House sued for not doing report on warming"), and others. “The Bush administration has failed to comply with the law,’’ said attorney Julie Teel of the Center for Biological Diversity, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “I think the administration’s afraid to release this information because it makes climate change real for people.’’ The NOAA press office responded on behalf of the government, with the official party line that offers 21 topical reports as an alternative to an integrative, independent assessment.

Sen. Kerry statement in support of lawsuit on National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts

Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Senator Kerry issued a statement on November 14 supporting a lawsuit filed by conservation advocates—the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth—calling for the administration to issue an overdue National Assessment on the impacts of climate change on the United States. Climate Science Watch encourages Congressional interest and oversight on this issue, to undo almost six years of allowing the administration to suppress the National Assessment process, and almost six years of allowing the first National Assessment to be slandered by the global warming denial machine without a principled defense by the leadership of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

Conservation groups file suit against Bush administration to compel second National Assessment

Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Center for Biological Diversity, along with other conservation groups, filed suit November 14 in federal district court for the Northern District of California against the Bush administration for refusing to conduct a second U.S. National Climate Change Impacts Assessment. The suit contends that such an integrated scientific assessment, due in November of 2004, is required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The suit names Dr. William Brennan, acting director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and Dr. John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as defendants. We have repeatedly and strongly criticized the Bush administration for officially suppressing the National Assessment process, and the leadership of the Climate Change Science Program for their silence on this central climate science scandal of the administration.

A look at EPA’s new climate change Web site, unveiled after 4 years of suppression

Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006

On October 19, EPA announced the activation of the agency’s revamped climate change Web site, which (although the EPA news release doesn’t mention this) had been essentially moribund for the past four years. Political pressure silenced the EPA Web site in 2002. A look at the new site reveals limitations that point to continuing political interference with climate change communication at EPA.

The “Vanishing” National Climate Change Assessment, Part 1: The Administration

Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006

An October 3 story in Greenwire on the continuing controversy over the administration’s actions to bury the first National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as saying: “To the extent that it has vanished, we have succeeded.” Here we clarify a few points about the actions of the administration to make the National Assessment “vanish”.

The unfinished business of the National Climate Change Assessment scandal

Posted on Wednesday, October 04, 2006

On October 3, the Greenwire daily news report on environmental and energy policy featured in its #1 position a story on the continuing controversy over the administration’s decision to kill the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts process and suppress official use of the first National Assessment reports issued in 2000-2001. The article quotes Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz as calling this “the central climate science scandal of the Bush administration.”

Where is the U.S. Climate Action Report required under the climate treaty?

Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006

The fourth U.S. Climate Action Report, required to fulfill a climate treaty commitment, was due no later than January 1, 2006. A public review draft of the report announced by the State Department as upcoming in the summer of 2005 is now more than a year overdue. What has happened to this missing-in-action report? Has it been held up at the political level of the Administration? Climate Science Watch calls for the fourth Climate Action Report to be submitted expeditiously for public review. We call on the Administration and the leadership of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to ensure that the report contains an honest discussion of U.S. vulnerability to climate change impacts. [Editor’s Note: See also the 30 July 2007 posting, Bush Administration submits evasive Climate Action Report to the UN.]

Sen. Kerry calls for new National Climate Change Assessment

Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006

[The Climate Science Watch blog returns to action after an August hiatus.]
In a letter to Bush administration officials Sen. John Kerry has called for the production of the now-overdue second National Climate Change Assessment. The administration politically suppressed official use of the first National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, a seminal major work, and has killed the process that could have produced an updated assessment.

Toward a Second U.S. National Climate Change Assessment

Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Article by Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch. “A second U.S. National Climate Change Assessment should be undertaken, based on advances since the 1990s in understanding the climate system and potential ecological and societal impacts of climate change in the United States. The new National Assessment should be developed as part of a process that institutionalizes a national climate change impacts assessment capability, i.e., an ongoing dialogue between scientists, policy-makers, and other stakeholders, with periodically updated, scientifically-based assessments.”

Censorship and Secrecy: Politicizing the Climate Change Science Program

Posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Censorship and Secrecy: Politicizing the Climate Change Science Program. Prepared by Rick Piltz, former Senior Associate with the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Office, to explain his March 2, 2005 resignation. “This administration has acted to impede honest communication of the state of climate science and the implications for society of global climate change. Politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest.”

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