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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 |
Obama Administration
Sec. of State Clinton attributes Pakistan flooding, other extreme events in part to climate change
Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2010
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview on Pakistan TV, said “there is a linkage” between the recent spate of deadly natural disasters and climate change… “We are changing the climate of the world.” Notwithstanding the scientific complexities of attribution of patterns of meterological events to ongoing global climatic disruption, and how this relationship can be most appropriately framed in public communication, this is an interesting high-level Obama Administration statement. To what extent does Secretary Clinton’s statement suggest a commitment by the President to substantial follow-on policy responses, both to immediate events and to developing adaptive preparedness for anticipated consequences of climatic change over time?
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Whistleblower seeking to force shutdown of BP Atlantis oil rig, another potential Gulf disaster
Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010
Kenneth Abbott, a whistleblower from BP Atlantis, another Gulf of Mexico deepwater oil drilling rig, has been trying to expose critical safety lapses for years, but his efforts seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Food & Water Watch joined Abbott in filing a lawsuit in May seeking to force the federal government to shut down BP Atlantis until its safety is assured. They say this rig could turn into an even worse disaster than the Deepwater Horizon.
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NOAA Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook evasive on climate change
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010
NOAA’s 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook, which predicts a likelihood of 8-14 hurricanes and 3-7 major hurricanes, was drafted by the same NOAA meteorologists who presented the notorious Bush-era hurricane season wrap-up in 2005 after Katrina that explicitly denied any link between anthropogenic global warming and increased hurricane intensity and failed to mention research by NOAA scientists on projected future increases that suggested otherwise. This is an active area of research with much uncertainty. But if presenting a high-profile hurricane outlook that completely evades any reference to hurricanes and climate change is NOAA’s idea of how to provide “climate services” to the nation, then there is cause for concern.
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Text of remarks by Obama science adviser John Holdren to the National Climate Adaptation Summit
Posted on Friday, May 28, 2010
“Mitigation alone won’t work, because the climate is already changing, we’re already experiencing impacts….A mitigation only strategy would be insanity,” President Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren said in his remarks to the National Climate Adaptation Summit conference in Washington, DC, on May 27. “Changes in climate are already harming human well-being…. The harm is likely to grow to far larger levels if we fail to take aggressive action in this country and in concert with other nations on both mitigation and adaptation.” See Details for full text.
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James McCarthy and Tim Wirth: Time for Obama to Set the Record Straight on Climate Change
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010
“The president can, and should, say much more [about] the strong scientific evidence on human-induced climate change and its impacts on the United States, and the rapidly closing window for action,” say Harvard Prof. Jim McCarthy and UN Foundation President Tim Wirth, giving voice to what Climate Science Watch has argued repeatedly since before President Obama’s inauguration. The public interest requires that he “deliver a major speech on climate change to the American public,” they write in an April 20 article at Huffington Post. In countering the global warming denial machine, “Scientists do not have a bully pulpit. President Obama does – and the public desperately needs him to use it.” We also endorse the recommendation: “The president should bring together scientists and others with relevant expertise for a White House summit on climate science, the urgency of action, and the opportunity for timely solutions.”
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Draft of 5th U.S. Climate Action Report required by climate treaty posted for 28-day public review
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010
The U.S. government on April 7 issued the public review draft of its fifth “national communication” required under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). U.S. Climate Action Report 2010 is the first comprehensive statement so far from the Obama Administration on actions the U.S. is taking at all levels to address climate change. The U.S. is one of only four countries that has not yet submitted its report, which was due on January 1.
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U.S. National Climate Change Assessment strategic planning kicks off in Chicago meeting
Posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010
The National Climate Assessment Strategic Planning Meeting held in Chicago from February 24-25 was part of the initial planning phase for the reactivation of the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts. The first National Assessment was completed in 2000, but the Bush Administration suppressed its use by the federal government. Climate Science Watch attended the Chicago planning meeting.
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Federal Climate Change Adaptation Task Force progress report shows early steps on a long road
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Obama Administration officials have released a progress report of a federal interagency task force that was charged by the President in October 2009 with developing and implementing a national strategy for adapting to the impacts of global climate change. Much work has been initiated at the level of federal program managers in about 20 departments, agencies, and offices, to scope a wide range of climate change impacts issues and begin the process of determining the needs and capabilities of federal agencies to address them. We have called repeatedly for the development of a U.S. national climate change adaptive preparednesss strategy linking all levels of government, and applaud this current effort—while noting how far it still must travel before the nation’s need for climate change preparedness has been met.
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Why snowstorms freak out Washington, D.C.: How snow-plowing policy is made in the nation’s capital
Posted on Wednesday, February 10, 2010
“Obama announces that he wants to get the snow plowed, but that he wants bipartisan consensus and compromise instead of unilateral action, and that instead of him pushing a particular snow-plowing policy, he wants Congress to work out the details. The Republicans, seeing that Obama is for cleaning up the snow, decide that they must be against it. They negotiate the plan down to clearing half the snow and doing it very slowly. Then they still refuse to support it. Joe Lieberman expresses his intention to join Republicans in filibustering the plan if it comes to that. Eventually, the Republicans and Senate Democrats have whittled it down to a non-binding resolution expressing support for the idea of ‘somebody’ plowing the snow at some point in the future, and the Democrats have thrown in some tax cuts to get 60 votes. It finally passes, still getting zero Republican votes (other than Olympia Snowe, since it reminds her of her name). Republicans attribute this to Democrats’ hyper-partisanship and unwillingness to negotiate. At this point, it is July.” (h/t to Layne Longfellow and a poster on a social networking site)
A new low: 44% approve Obama’s job performance, 47% disapprove; 29% approval among independents
Posted on Tuesday, February 09, 2010
The Marist Poll of U.S. public opinion conducted February 1-3 finds fewer registered voters nationwide—44%—currently approve of President Obama’s perfromance as president than disapprove—47%. For the first time since he took office, a majority of Independents—57%—disapproves of how he is doing in the role. 54% of Americans nationwide say, in general, the country is headed in the wrong direction. Unless Obama and his Congressional majority begin soon to demonstrate some urgency in hammering out a coherent agenda with a coherent narrative, and show the public they can rise above endless processing and political impasse to execute effective policymaking, we can kiss the prospect of meaningful climate legislation (and much else) goodbye.
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Obama State of the Union evasive and inadequate on climate change and climate science
Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010
In his State of the Union address President Obama failed once again to give the American people some straight talk about global climate disruption. If Obama had been willing to devote even one minute to talking about climate change and its profound implications, he could have done much to lay the groundwork for a better public understanding of the problem and for meaningful policymaking – but he didn’t. He repeated his usual “clean energy clean energy clean energy” mantra (with “clean nuclear” and “clean coal” and offshore drilling also in the mix), but failed to explain to the American people why he supports comprehensive climate change legislation and why they should, too. And on climate science, if he had been willing to devote even a few sentences to holding his ground he could have done much to support a science community that is besieged by an aggressive political disinformation campaign, and could have struck a blow for scientific integrity in policymaking – but he didn’t. In the face of a nihilistic reaction from some in his Congressional audience, he quit and ran for the hills after a single sentence.
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State of the Union a key opportunity for Obama to raise profile of climate change impacts
Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010
President Obama’s first State of the Union address tonight presents a key opportunity for him to speak directly to the nation about the risks of climate change. In the wake of vicious attacks on the climate science community and the failure to achieve a binding agreement at Copenhagen, and with climate and clean energy legislation floundering in the Senate, the need for a strong message from the President is more urgent than ever.
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Revisiting Presidential Transition recommendations on climate change assessment and preparedness
Posted on Friday, January 15, 2010
As the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy brings Katharine Jacobs on board as assistant director for climate adaptation and assessment, we revisit recommendations we submitted in November 2008 to the Presidential Transition Team for OSTP, calling for the reactivation of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and the establishment of a National Center for Climate Change Preparedness. It looks like some of what we recommended may now be on a path to being implemented.
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White House Science Office reactivating U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change
Posted on Sunday, January 10, 2010
Katharine Jacobs, who chairs the forthcoming National Academy of Sciences report on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, is moving to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to play a lead role on climate change assessment and adaptation. OSTP is taking the first steps to reactivate the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, nine years after the first National Assessment was issued, then later essentially suppressed by the Bush Administration.
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Copenhagen post-mortem: Interview on Al Jazeera
Posted on Saturday, January 09, 2010
Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz talked with Al Jazeera English TV about the conclusion of the Copenhagen climate conference and where it leaves us.
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