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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 |
Climate Change Preparedness
Unreleased aviation report projects more than doubling of CO2 emissions from 2000-2025
Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008
Greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are projected to trend sharply upwards, according to a suppressed report based on information contained in U.S., European, and UK government databases maintained by regulatory agencies (Environment News Service, May 7). The U.S. needs a strategic plan to limit aviation emissions associated with climate change.
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Ross Gelbspan review of new book on capitalism and the environmental crisis by Gus Speth
Posted on Sunday, April 27, 2008
“Contemporary capitalism and a habitable planet cannot coexist. That is the core message of The Bridge at the Edge of the World, by J. ‘Gus’ Speth, a prominent environmentalist who, in this book, has turned sharply critical of the U.S. environmental movement,” says Ross Gelbspan, writing in the April 27 Washington Post Book World.
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EPA releases draft strategy on response to climate change impacts on water resources
Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water has made available for comment a public review draft of the National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change. This draft document represents EPA’s “initial effort to identify potential impacts of climate change for clean water and drinking water programs and define actions to respond to these impacts.” Submit public comments by May 27. On May 8 the EPA Office of Water will host a Webcast to discuss and answer questions about this draft Strategy.
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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House subcommittee hearing April 1 on FEMA toxic trailers and mistreatment of CDC whistleblower
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008
Tomorrow (April 1) the House Science Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee will hold a hearing (“Toxic Trailers: Have the Centers for Disease Control Failed to Protect Public Health?”) to further investigate the belated discovery of high levels of formaldehyde in trailers that FEMA provided to displaced Katrina victims. The hearing (also webcast) will feature testimony by Dr. Christopher De Rosa, former toxicology director at the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, testifying after being unfairly demoted and placed on a termination track for fighting to tell the truth about formaldehyde’s toxicity. We applaud DeRosa’s public service, including his decision to be a whistleblower.
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FEMA’s toxic-trailer ineptitude in housing Katrina victims raises concern about climate preparedness
Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Better means for providing temporary living quarters for those whose homes are damaged or destroyed in natural disasters must be identified and implemented to avoid future mistakes and additional harm to victims of extreme weather events, projected to worsen with global climatic disruption. The Federal Energy Management Agency (FEMA) is facing accusations of negligence, dishonesty, and unaccountability in its task of providing safe, alternate housing for displaced victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and is the target of Congressional investigations and a class action lawsuit for dispatching formaldehyde-laden “toxic trailers.” We are calling for a “lessons learned” case analysis to inform future disaster recovery efforts as part of a National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative.
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“Homeland security will require readiness against climate change.”
Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2008
In his opinion article (archived) “Insecure About Climate Change” (Washington Post, March 22), Joshua W. Busby of the University of Texas at Austin presents ideas for action on risk reduction and adaptation, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and institutional changes in the U.S. government to prepare the U.S. to deal with the threat posed by global climatic disruption. Busby’s report, Climate Change and National Security, was published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative—Initial prospectus for review and comment
Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008
Climate Science Watch will call on the next President and Congress to undertake a National Climate Change Preparedness process to reduce the rate of global climatic disruption while improving our ability to adapt to its unavoidable impacts. We outline here our National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative prospectus for review and comment.
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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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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)
Climate change, disinformation, and the failure of preparedness
Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2008
"The aftermath in Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—failure of preparedness—and we’re doing the same thing on climate change, it’s just a more slow-rolling disaster.” CSW director Rick Piltz talks with the North Adams (MA) Transcript.
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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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For a National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative
Posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz put forward our proposal that the next administration undertake a National Climate Change Preparedness Initiative, at a national conference on “Climate Change: Science and Solutions,” in Washington, DC. He spoke on January 17 as part of a panel on the future of the the federal global change research program.
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