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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
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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After Copenhagen, questions about U.S. commitment to climate change aid to developing countries
Posted on Friday, January 08, 2010
After building up expectations with the Copenhagen Accord of substantial new aid to developing countries, is the Obama administration already lowering them now that the action has shifted to the U.S. domestic scene? Under the Copenhagen Accord, “developed countries commit to a goal of mobilizing jointly” $100 billion a year by 2020 in “new and additional, predictable and adequate funding” to aid developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change. But on January 7, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “sidestepped the commitment when asked directly if the US portion would be additional,” ClimateWire reported.
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A New Year’s resolution for Obama: Figure out how to talk to the public about climate change
Posted on Thursday, December 31, 2009
In the U.S., public understanding of and support for climate science and its findings about the likely consequences of global climatic disruption is seriously underdeveloped, and even appears to have slipped during 2009. This may be due in part to the decision by President Obama and some of his strongest supporters to focus their message narrowly on the mantras of clean energy and green jobs, and their tactics narrowly on cap and trade legislation….
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David Michaels, author of Doubt Is Their Product on anti-regulatory assault on science, to head OSHA
Posted on Sunday, December 13, 2009
David Michaels, the author of Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, was confirmed December 3 to head the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Michaels has contributed to framing our understanding of the elected officials, corporate funders, “free market” groups, and contrarian scientists whose machinations drive the global warming disinformation campaign.
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History is made as US EPA finds heat-trapping gases endanger human health and welfare
Posted on Monday, December 07, 2009
Lisa Jackson, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, today issued the following Endangerment finding: “The Administrator finds that six greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.” The conclusion, based on sound science carefully developed under both Democratic and Republican leadership, clears the path for US regulation of CO2 emissions, regardless of what is negotiated in Copenhagen.
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On Obama, Copenhagen, and 9 Senate Democrats’ conditions for supporting a climate treaty and bill
Posted on Monday, December 07, 2009
Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz talked with KPFK-FM in Los Angeles about a letter to President Obama from nine Senate Democrats setting out conditions for supporting a US climate policy, and with Al Jazeera English TV in Washington, DC, about Obama’s participation in the Copenhagen climate conference.
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Obama will go to last day of Copenhagen conference; emerging accord on aid to developing countries
Posted on Friday, December 04, 2009
The White House announced that President Obama will participate at the end of the Copenhagen climate conference on December 18, seeking to conclude a productive accord on issues under negotiation. The December 4 announcement emphasized emissions reduction targets set by China and India and an emerging multilateral consensus on mobilizing $10 billion a year by 2012 “to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilized by the impacts of climate change. The United States will pay its fair share of that amount” and work to address the need for longer-term financing as “an investment in our common security, as no climate change accord can succeed if it does not help all countries reduce their emissions.”
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Obama, Copenhagen, and the need for straight talk on climate
Posted on Saturday, November 28, 2009
Al Jazeera English TV interviewed Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz on November 23 on what we should expect from President Obama in connection with the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference. We want him to go, we said. He should make a strong policy statement and say that he’ll fight for it. But the U.S. public has never heard any president talk to them with candor about the meaning of the climate change problem, and until that happens public opinion will be soft in how much it’s willing to support.
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President Obama will travel to Copenhagen on Dec. 9 to participate in the UN climate conference
Posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The White House announced today that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen on December 9 to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The White House press release says: “Based on the President’s work on climate change over the past 10 months—in the Major Economies Forum, the G20, bilateral discussions and multilateral consultations—and based on progress made in recent, constructive discussions with China and India’s Leaders, the President believes it is possible to reach a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen.” See Details for full text.
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