Comments on: Poll: Global Warming Worries Grow

But CBS/NY Times Survey Suggests Environment Won't Be Major Issue In 2008 Campaign

[frankly6]

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing %u201Creports%u201D designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed. The think tanks provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who calls global warming %u201Ca hoax.%u201D

This concerted effort reflects the shared convictions of free-market, and thus antiregulatory, conservatives. But there%u2019s another factor at play. In addition to being supported by like-minded individuals and ideologically sympathetic foundations, these groups are funded by ExxonMobil, the world%u2019s largest oil company. Mother Jones has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a small group of %u201Cskeptic%u201D scientists who continue to do so.

[onlyfacts]

Compliant media? When has CBS ever posted an anti-Anthropogenic Global Warming piece? Attack the message, not the messenger. Have they initiated *** science? Sure, but debate the SCIENCE.

[frankly6]

According to a new survey, hundreds of government scientists say they have perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases such as %u201Cclimate change%u201D and %u201Cglobal warming%u201D from their reports and public statements. One of those scientists -- NASA climatologist Drew Shindell %u2013 testified Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform. [includes rush transcript] The Bush administration was accused on Tuesday of misleading the public over the threat of global warming and of interfering with the work of government scientists studying climate change. According to a new survey, hundreds of government scientists said they have perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate phrases such as "climate change" and %u201Cglobal warming" from their reports and public statements. One-third of the scientists surveyed also said officials at their agencies have made statements on climate change that misrepresented their findings.

One of those scientists -- NASA climatologist Drew Shindell %u2013 testified on Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform. Dr. Shindell has worked as a researcher at NASA%u2019s Goddard Institute for Space Studies since 1995.

[frankly6]

Global Warming Denial


Exxon jumped in to support these efforts early on, as part of a more general assault on government regulation and action. As the scientific consensus around global warming began to solidify, it began funding a series of studies and spokespeople to insist that mainstream scientific opinion was sharply divided. Between 1998 and 2005 the company has invested over $16 million in challenging the overwhelming consensus among climatologists, spreading the resources among at least 43 different institutions to give the appearance of a broad chorus of dissent. Whether the Heartland Institute, the Alliance for Climate Strategies, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, or the Competitive Enterprise Institute and George Marshall Institute, they all got major Exxon support for their role in arguing that no global warming crisis existed. Until recently, the efforts to sow doubt have worked, with the help of a compliant media and the Bush presidency. And though a number of other energy companies also participated, ExxonMobil was the critical initiator and remained firmly denying the crisis even as other oil companies, like BP Amoco and Shell, acknowledged the gravity of the threat.

[onlyfacts]

Ffrankly6
So, I bet you believe 9/11 was a govt consipracy.

Ever go outside your comfort zone? BuzzFlash? Really? You are really a left wing extremist.

[frankly6]

The Bush Administration's scientific oversight was defended by Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney's previous job was lobbying for the oil industry. Bush's stance on Global Warming was supported by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dr. Spencer admitted under questioning by Rep. Henry Waxman that he believes that Intelligent Design and Creationism are just as scientifically valid as Evolution and the Big Bang.

"There is little doubt that the Administration%u2019s downplaying of evidence about global warming has had some effect on public perception of the climate change issue," Dr. Hansen said. "The impact is to confuse the public about the reality of global warming, and about whether that warming can be reliably attributed to human-made greenhouse gases."

Hansen noted that the official mission statement of NASA had been quietly amended last year to eliminate the directive "to understand and defend our home planet." The New York Times wrote last year that the revision would make terrestrial issues - like climate change - less likely to be studied.

[frankly6]

George Deutsch, a former NASA Public Affairs Officer [PAO], testified that NASA had standard practices for keeping scientists in check. "Among those practices were that PAOs should listen to interviews as they%u2019re being conducted, that superiors can do interviews in someone%u2019s stead (known as the 'right of first refusal'), and that NASA employees should report interview requests to the Public Affairs office. In fact, one of my duties was to send out a daily email to senior NASA Public Affairs personnel known as 'On The Record,' in which I detailed the day%u2019s media requests.

(Deutsch quit last year after the New York Times revealed that he had lied about having a college degree on his resume and had tried to impose his personal religious views while at NASA. Hired when he was just 23, his only previous experience was an internship for the George W. Bush reelection campaign and an assistant position on the Presidential Inaugural Committee.)

[frankly6]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing Monday on the Bush Administration's control over scientific findings regarding climate change. The hearing centered around claims of censorship by Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now," Dr. Hansen testified. "Review and editing of scientific testimony by the White House OMB (Office of Management and Budget) seems to now be an accepted practice."

Dr. Hansen highlighted multiple instances when Administration officials had edited scientific findings and prohibited him from talking freely to the media. He also complained that NASA's Earth Science Research and Analysis budget was reduced retroactively by 20% last year, preventing the development of new technology and the effective use of existing surveying tools. "One way to avoid bad news: stop the measurements!" he said

[onlyfacts]

Now the Environmental News Service? Why not go to the NRA for gun control advice?

[frankly6]

The committee said it is particularly interested in the work of Phillip Cooney, the former chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, made dramatic changes to official reports on climate change to downplay scientific findings on the causes and impacts of global warming. He resigned in June 2005 after media reports of his role in editing scientific reports on climate change, and took a position with oil giant Exxon-Mobil.

New allegations of political interference in climate research also were reported Monday in the "Newark Star-Ledger."

NOAA scientists at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, including Knutson, told the paper that political appointees have blocked press releases and a position paper that reviewed global warming studies.

According to scientists interviewed for the story, the releases and the position paper included research linking global warming to stronger hurricanes, as well as predictions that continued warming would increase droughts and floods.

[frankly6]

The letter notes that political appointees at NOAA apparently barred NOAA scientist and weather expert Tom Knutson from speaking to reporters last year because he has published studies that links global warming to hurricane strength.

That allegation is supported by internal agency emails, released last week by Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that suggest political officials denied a request by CNBC for an interview with Knutson because he had projected an increase in hurricane strength due to global warming. In February, Knutson complained in an interview with the "Wall Street Journal" that he felt censored by the administration.

The letter also cites reports that NASA scientist James Hansen, a world-renowned expert on climate change, was prevented by political appointees from speaking to the media after delivering a lecture in which he concluded that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced in order to slow global warming.

In addition, it mentions an April article by the "Washington Post" that include interviews with NOAA scientists and contractors who disclosed that not only had administration officials criticized them for speaking on global warming policy, but had removed references to global warming from "their reports, news releases and conference Web sites."

[onlyfacts]

And now we go to Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

You are so useful in regurgitating other people's opinion. Do you have your own?

[frankly6]

A group of 14 senators has called for an investigation of allegations the Bush administration has repeatedly interfered with federal scientists who have tried to publish research or speak to the media about the reality and impacts of global warming. The senators sent letters Friday to the inspector generals of NASA and the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requesting formal investigations into the claims.



"These activities do a disservice to the American public and are delaying a rational and comprehensive response to the very grave and real threat of global warming," the letter said. "In light of these and other troubling reports, we respectfully request that your office conduct a full and thorough investigation into the suppression of science and censorship of scientists at these government agencies."


"We strongly believe that research paid for with taxpayer funds should be published, disseminated and debated, rather than suppressed because it does not support the stated positions of the administration," the letter said. "Unfortunately, this recent incident seems to be only the latest in a growing list of actions taken by this administration to conceal legitimate and scientifically sound findings that do not fit the President's stated ideological preferences."

[frankly6]

In 2005 the national science academies of the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action [12], and explicitly endorsed the IPCC consensus.

[onlyfacts]

frankly6,

So, you are just going to repost the entire news article from CBS's 60 Minutes? Why not just post the link and quit spamming the board.

http://cbs5.com/minutes/sixtyminutes_story_079234356.html

[frankly6]

In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.[2]


"The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is very likely caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, ... . The phrase very likely translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame."[9]

"The report said that an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 more likely than not can be attributed to man-made global warming. The scientists said global warming's connection varies with storms in different parts of the world, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced."[10]

"On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. That could be augmented by an additional 4-8 inches if recent surprising polar ice sheet melt continues."[11]

[frankly6]

Cooney, the former oil industry lobbyist, became chief-of-staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Piltz says Cooney edited climate reports in his own hand. In one report, a line that said earth is undergoing rapid change becomes %u201Cmay be undergoing change.%u201D %u201CUncertainty%u201D becomes %u201Csignificant remaining uncertainty.%u201D One line that says energy production contributes to warming was just crossed out.

"He was obviously passing it through a political screen," says Piltz. "He would put in the word potential or may or weaken or delete text that had to do with the likely consequence of climate change, pump up uncertainty language throughout."

[frankly6]

Says Hansen, "I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can."

Dozens of federal agencies report science but much of it is edited at the White House before it is sent to Congress and the public. It appears climate science is edited with a heavy hand. Drafts of climate reports were co-written by Rick Piltz for the federal Climate Change Science Program. But Piltz says his work was edited by the White House to make global warming seem less threatening.

"The strategy of people with a political agenda to avoid this issue is to say there is so much to study way upstream here that we can%u2019t even being to discuss impacts and response strategies," says Piltz. "There%u2019s too much uncertainty. It's not the climate scientists that are saying that, its lawyers and politicians."

Piltz worked under the Clinton and Bush administrations. Each year, he helped write a report to Congress called "Our Changing Planet."

Piltz says he is responsible for editing the report and sending a review draft to the White House.

Asked what happens, Piltz says: "It comes back with a large number of edits, handwritten on the hard copy by the chief-of-staff of the Council on Environmental Quality."

Asked who the chief of staff is, Piltz says, "Phil Cooney."

Piltz says Cooney is not a scientist. "He's a lawyer. He was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, before going into the White House," he says.

[onlyfacts]

Already mentioned Hansen's 2005 article (my previous post). Debunked

I agree that humans are putting real polution in the air, and THAT needs to be stopped.

These are:
Methane - CH4
Chlorofluorocarbons - CFCs
Soot - Primarily from burning coal to produce electricity
NOx - Nitrous Oxides - from most forms of hydrocarbon fuel burning
SOx - Sulfur Oxides - from most forms of hydrocarbon fuel burning


If we disagree on the effects of CO2, at least the above should be eliminated as they have no redeamable value. Getting rid of these is a "no regrets" policy where it won't matter who is wrong on this debate.

[frankly6]

James Hansen's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is the source of respected but sobering research on warming. It recently announced 2005 was the warmest year on record. Hansen started at NASA more than 30 years ago, spending nearly all that time studying the earth. How important is his work? 60 Minutes asked someone at the top, Ralph Cicerone, president of the nation%u2019s leading institute of science, the National Academy of Sciences.

"I can't think of anybody who I would say is better than Hansen. You might argue that there's two or three others as good, but nobody better," says Cicerone.

And Cicerone, who%u2019s an atmospheric chemist, said the same thing every leading scientist told 60 Minutes.

"Climate change is really happening," says Cicerone.

Asked what is causing the changes, Cicernone says it's greenhouse gases: "Carbon dioxide and methane, and chlorofluorocarbons and a couple of others, which are all %u2014 the increases in their concentrations in the air are due to human activities. It's that simple."

But if it is that simple, why do some climate science reports look like they have been heavily edited at the White House? With science labeled "not sufficiently reliable." It%u2019s a tone of scientific uncertainty the president set in his first months in office after he pulled out of a global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.