Climate Science Watch

Daily Mail touts McKitrick study using biased methods to question climate change

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

The Daily Mail (UK) has reported on a study by Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph in Canada that, yet again, resurrects the tired old “warming pause” meme. Climate Nexus notes that the study uses methods designed to show no trend; ignores a large body of contradictory scientific evidence; and was published in a journal known to be a “predatory publisher.” McKitrick, a well-known antagonist to mainstream climate scientists, is using bad analysis to reach a pre-determined conclusion. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming Denial Machine | 8 Comments

Michael Mann DC Appeals Court brief lays out defamation case and seeks to move toward trial

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

Superior Court of the District of Columbia

In a brief filed today in the DC Court of Appeals as part of his defamation lawsuit against the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michael Mann once again argued his case and requested that the Court proceed to adjudicate the merits of Defendants' appeal of the trial court's denial of their motion to dismiss. The stated intention of Dr. Mann's request is to expedite moving to trial on a case that has been long-delayed in procedural tangles. Continue reading →

Posted in Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists, Climate Litigation | 8 Comments

How does oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean fit in with Obama’s climate plan?

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

Source: Environmental Health Perspectives, National Institutes of Health

Royal Dutch Shell is seeking once again to gain U.S. government approval to move forward next year with drilling for oil off the coast of Alaska. What will the U.S. Interior Department's environmental impact statement conclude about this high-risk, potential oil spill disaster waiting to happen? How will it consider the climate impacts from burning the oil, vis-a-vis alternatives to this activity? Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Obama Administration | Leave a comment

White House won't use NEPA effectively on climate and clean energy -- Part 2

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Rick Piltz

Council on Environmental Quality Bldg on Jackson Place in Washington DC (Photo: Wikipedia)

Draft guidance to federal agencies on environmental impact assessment of proposed federal actions such as energy development permits, which the White House has allowed to languish for four years, could move the system toward analyzing specific proposed projects within a larger context of cumulative global warming impacts. The 2010 draft guidance on implementing the National Environmental Policy Act also called for a comparison of the emissions associated with proposed projects with the emissions associated with potential alternatives, such as renewable energy development, and with the alternative of no project development at all. Think of how such a big-picture approach to federal decisions could be applied vis-a-vis the relentless pressure today to step up U.S. permitting of new fossil fuel projects. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Obama Climate Plan | 1 Comment

White House won’t use NEPA effectively on climate and clean energy -- Part 1

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Rick Piltz

Council on Environmental Quality Bldg on Jackson Place in Washington DC (Photo: Wikipedia)

The White House won’t use the law on federal environmental impacts assessments as an effective tool for executive action on climate and clean energy projects. The Council on Environmental Quality has let four years go by without acting on proposed guidance to federal agencies on permitting of energy projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, rejecting appeals to take stronger action and leaving the playing field tilted in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading →

Posted in Obama Climate Plan | Leave a comment

On climate change and not saving the wolverine

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Rick Piltz

Photo: National Science Foundation

The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to deny protection to the American wolverine as a threatened species appears to be another case of the administration setting politically inconvenient science aside. The decision overrides a scientifically based recommendation by the agency’s own wildlife biologists and peer-review panels that the last 250-300 wolverines in the continental U.S. deserve this status because global warming threatens them with loss of snowpack habitat. Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Litigation, Obama Administration, Scientific Integrity | Leave a comment

EPA will review restrictive communication policy for science advisers

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

In response to a letter from science and journalism organizations criticizing the agency's restrictive policy on public communications by Science Advisory Board members, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy has asked the EPA Science Adviser to review the policy. Hopefully this will create an opportunity to raise a number of issues about a complex issue -- the relationship between EPA scientists, the media, and the public. Continue reading →

Posted in Scientific Integrity | Leave a comment

EPA's restrictive communications policy for science advisers

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

The Environmental Protection Agency continues its history of restrictive policy on public communication by agency scientists and science advisers. Seven science, journalism, and public interest organizations wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on August 12 calling on her to "clarify that members of the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the twenty other EPA science advisory committees have the right and are encouraged to speak to the public and the press about any scientific issues, including those before these committees, in a personal capacity without prior authorization from the agency." An earlier memorandum from the EPA Chief of Staff aims to restrict this right. Where is the EPA Scientific Integrity Official in this? Continue reading →

Posted in Obama Administration, Scientific Integrity | Leave a comment

Press groups file amici curiae brief in 'Mann v. Steyn' defamation lawsuit

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 26 other organizations filed an amici curiae brief on August 11 with the DC Court of Appeals in Michael Mann's defamation lawsuit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review (sometimes popularly referred to as 'Mann v. Steyn'). Prof. Mann is scheduled to file an appellate response brief on September 3. Continue reading →

Posted in Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists, Climate Litigation | 6 Comments

Climate and energy infrastructure: On cumulative impacts of multiple tar sands pipelines

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Climate Science Watch

U.S. permits for multiple proposed Canadian tar sands pipelines should be considered in light of an overall climate change strategy, rather than the current practice of considering each energy infrastructure proposal on a project-by-project basis. "The administration’s commitment to aggressive greenhouse gas reduction policies simply cannot be squared with a piecemeal approach to tar sands infrastructure permitting," say the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, 350.org, and other groups in an August 11 letter to Secretary of State Kerry. "The Department can only understand the true climate impacts of these pipelines by analyzing their cumulative growth-inducing effect on tar sands development." But what is the Obama administration's commitment, really, with respect to fossil fuel development and export?

Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Change Mitigation, Energy, Obama Climate Plan | Leave a comment