WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2007
Groups Say Scientists Pressured On Warming
Report: Dozens Of Government Scientists Say They Were Told To Play Down Threat
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(CBS/AP)
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The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report.
The questionnaire was sent by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private advocacy group. The report also was based on "firsthand experiences" described in interviews with the Government Accountability Project, which helps government whistleblowers, lawmakers were told.
The Democratic chairman of the House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he and the top Republican on his oversight committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but repeatedly been rebuffed.
"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," said Waxman, opening the hearing. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."
"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," Waxman said.
The top Republican on the committee criticized the survey (by the Union of Concerned Scientists) and told CBS News, "The survey is what I would call garbage because they pre-selected the number of people that they would survey—probably members who had been disgruntled."
The administration denies it's trying to mislead anyone about global warming, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.
A spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality said the accusation that the administration pressured scientists into downplaying the findings of their research are not true. She said the oversight committee has so far been given 10,000 pages of the documents they've requested and still more will be turned over.
Also Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., sought to gauge her colleague's sentiment on climate change. She opened a meeting where senators were to express their views on global warming in advance of a broader set of hearings on the issue.
Among those scheduled to make comments were two presidential hopefuls — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. Both lawmakers favor mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, something opposed by President Bush, who argues such requirements would threaten economic growth.
The intense interest about climate change comes as some 500 climate scientists gather in Paris this week to put the final touches on a United Nations report on how warming, as a result of a growing concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, is likely to affect sea levels.
They agree sea levels will rise, but not on how much. Whatever the report says when it comes out at week's end, it is likely to influence the climate debate in Congress.
At the Waxman hearing, the two advocacy groups said their research — based on the questionnaires, interviews and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — revealed "evidence of widespread interference in climate science in federal agencies."
The groups report described largely anonymous claims by scientists that their findings at times at been misrepresented, that they had been pressured to change findings and had been restricted on what they were allowed to say publicly.
NASA scientist Dr. Drew Shindell said that although he has had concerns about the public affairs policy at NASA in the past, he believes there is a new policy of openness at the space administration and he encourages other agencies who study climate change to adopt similar practices, CBS News reports.
Shindell's major complaint had to do with a press release that NASA issued to advertise a study he did. Initially he said it was titled, "Cool Antarctica May Warm Rapidly." But he says this was watered down by his superiors to read, "Scientists Predict Antarctic Climate Change." He said the new title was a "very milk toast title that didn't inspire any interest."
The Union of Concerned Scientists survey involved scientists across the government from NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency to the department's of Agriculture, Energy, Commerce, Defense and Interior. In all the government employees more than 2,000 scientists who spend at least some of their time on climate issues, the report said.
President Bush mentioned global warming in his recent State of the Union speech – the first time he's done that, CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss reports. But Democrats are ready to do something about it.
Boxer has offered the most aggressive bill, one that is touted as reducing these greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by mid-century.
Obama and McCain are sponsoring a bill along with Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who usually votes Democratic, that would cut emissions by two-thirds by 2050. Another bill, offered by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., would halt the growth of carbon emissions by 2030 and then is expected to lead to reductions.
All three would require mandatory caps on greenhouse gas releases from power plants, cars and other sources. They also would have various forms of an emissions trading system to reduce the economic cost.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From Politics
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 145 CommentsI could also lift text from books written by men and women with phd's who claim that humans were planted on Earth by aliens and bred as future food sources and slave labor.
Just because it's in a book or in the media does not make something true, lars008. You must look at the preponderance of evidence.
Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.
The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change by Henrik Svensmark, Nigel Calder
The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark%u2019s team mimicked the chemistry of earth%u2019s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets%u2014cloud seeds%u2014started floating through the chamber.
%u201CWe were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,%u201D says Svensmark.
The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun%u2019s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth%u2019s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth%u2019s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chilli
ng-Sta
rs-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/184046
8157
http://www.realclimate.org/
Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Paperback)
by Dennis T. Avery, S. Fred Singer
Singer and Avery note that most of the earth%u2019s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth%u2019s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.
Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth%u2019s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth%u2019s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can%u2019t accurately register cloud effects.
http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppa
ble-Global-Warming-Every-Years/dp/074255
1172
http://www.realclimate.org/
Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Paperback)
by Dennis T. Avery, S. Fred Singer
http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Glob
al-Warming-Every-Years/dp/0742551172
The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (Paperback)
by Henrik Svensmark (Author), Nigel Calder (Author)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chilli
ng-Stars-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/184046
8157
http://www.realclimate.org/
Ever seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"?
Conservatives are like the black knight.
Arthur: "I cut your arm off!"
Black Knight: "No you didn't."
Arthur: "Yes I did. It's right there."
Black Knight: "No you didn't..."
ad nausium.
You may be incorrectly refering to nuclear winter, which is what WOULD happen in an all out nuclear war, because the resultant clouds would blot out the sun's energy long enough to effect the weather.
Notice, Einstien, that a cloudy day does not cause a serious enough drop to constitute a nuclear winter. I point this out, because I suspect you may use it as an argument. Small minds and conservatives can't seem to grasp large concepts that encompass periods of time beyond tomorrow.
Man arguing with you must be fun. You pull up these very vague "factoids" you've heard, probably from some mental case like dittohead (who, by the way, actually stated on his radio show that even if the polar ice caps melt completely, it won't affect sea levels because of displacement theory - I won't explain it to you, but you're probably nodding your head thinking it sounds like good logic) and use that as "reasoning" to gamble the future of the planet just so you don't have to make any inconvenient changes in your life. It is the height of arrogance and WILLFUL ignorance. You obviously have not studied the data, because if you had, you would realize we are in the midst of an UNPRECIDENTED spike in global warming that is inconsitent with the cycles to which you refer, but don't understand.
Further, I bet you were one of those people whe really believed the scientific commmunity was split as to whether or not cigarettes cause cancer. In fact, I bet you still believe it.
The scientific community is actually split on global warming and how much humans have a play in it since is has been going on long before we were here.
As far as the possibility of stopping or slowing global warming it won't happen the Earth has cycles and will warm or cool according to those cycles.
Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars. These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars. But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data.
More study is needed to determine for sure what's going on [with Mars].
(linked picture references have been removed)
These are supposed to convince me that Mars is undergoing global warming too and Earth%u2019s has nothing to do with human activity? Nice try (NOT)!
The earth will always have increases and decreases in temperature it has been going on forever. Greenland was once green and grape were grown there, its to cold for that now. There is no way to stop the earths natural cycles. You are completly arrogant to think that you or anyone can control what happens to the earth and nature. Check out a little history for yourself. Democrats love scare tatics and this is simply what this is.
Ask a meterologist that is not getting any grant money to study global warming.
These guys want only to pad their wallets another year or two and generate HUGE profits for BIG oil and the terrorist exporting states.
Do some research you giants of intellect. Even a slight increase in the overall average global temps will have devestating effects.
But I suppose, as long as you get to keep all your precious money and your gas guzzlers, you will choose to be willfully ignorant - even at the potential tremedous cost to your children and grandchildren.
The greed, callousness and shortsightedness of the extreme right never ceases to amaze me.
And hey, if one of us is wrong, it'll be my side that erred on the side of compassion and caution.
Sure, bring it on.
Can it get any better than this? Yes it can and the answer is not MORE government...
Keep that in mind.
I never said the US was a bad place-in fact it is one of the best democracies in the world, but we could be better!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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