Did Smithsonian Alter Climate Change Show?

Ex-Administrator Says Museum Toned Down Global Warming Text Due To Fear Of Political Heat

(CBS/AP)  The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the U.S. museum.

Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered "to show that global warming could go either way," Sullivan said.

"It just became tooth-pulling to get solid science out without toning it down," said Sullivan, who resigned last fall after 16 years at the museum. He said he left after higher-ups tried to reassign him.

Smithsonian officials denied that political concerns influenced the exhibit, saying the changes were made for reasons of objectivity. Some scientists who consulted on the project said nothing major was omitted.

Sullivan said that to his knowledge, no one in the Bush administration pressured the Smithsonian, whose $1.1 billion budget is mostly taxpayer-funded.

Rather, he said, Smithsonian leaders acted on their own. "The obsession with getting the next allocation and appropriation was so intense that anything that might upset the Congress or the White House was being looked at very carefully," he said.

The White House had no immediate comment Monday.

In recent months, the White House has been accused of trying to muzzle scientists researching global warming at NASA and other agencies.

The exhibit, "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely," based partly on a report by federal scientists, opened in April 2006 — six months late, because of the Smithsonian's review — and closed in November, but its content remains available online. Among other things, it highlighted the Arctic's shrinking ice and snow and concerns about the effect on people and wildlife.

This is not the first time the Smithsonian has been accused of taking politics into consideration.

The congressionally chartered institution scaled down a 1995 exhibit of the restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after veterans complained it focused too much on the damage and deaths. Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.

Sullivan said the changes in the climate-change exhibit were requested by executives who included then-museum Director Cristian Samper and his boss, former Undersecretary for Science David Evans. He said several scientists whose work was used in the exhibit objected to the changes.

Samper, now acting Smithsonian secretary, said he was not aware of scientists' objections, and he emphasized there was no political pressure to change the script. "Our role as a museum is to present the facts but not advocate a particular point of view," Samper said in an e-mail.

Evans refused to comment.

Some curators and scientists involved in the project said they believed nothing important was omitted. But they also said it was apparent that science was not the only concern.

"I remember them telling me there was an attempt to make sure there was nothing in there that would be upsetting to any politicians," said John Calder, a lead climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who consulted on the project. "They're not stupid. They don't want to upset the people who pay them."

One consultant, University of Maryland scientist Louis Codispoti, said he would have been less cautious. "I've been going to the Arctic since 1963, and I find some of the changes alarming," he said.

Randall Kremer, a spokesman for the natural history museum, said atmospheric science was outside the Smithsonian's expertise, so the museum avoided the issue of what is causing the Arctic changes.

Speaking to a Washington Post reporter at the time of the exhibit's opening last year, exhibit designer Barbara Stauffer said the reason more discussion about humans' role in climate change wasn't included was because "I think it undermines what we do in the exhibit if we start pointing fingers."

[weareone2]

Scientists have already said that warming from the sun is NOT sufficient to account for much of the warming of earth.
It is a fact of physics that certain gases have a greenhouse effect.
It is a fact of physics that human activity is increasing the amount of these gases.
At least one scientist who has studied the record of the past has concluded that without the manmade increase in greenhouse gases over the last few thousand years, we would indeed be going into an ice age.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=14281
This shows how strong an effect we have had already. So it might have had a positive effect up to a point, but that doesn't mean that continued warming will be positive. If you have hypothermia, you need a certain amount of warming, but that doesn't mean that being boiled would be healthy! Look at Venus, with its runaway greenhouse effect.

[yory-2009]

I realize that sometimes people try to pull the wool over me eyes to further their agenda. But, as far a global warming goes, why wouldn't we do what we can slow the progress if it's even remotely something to worry about. Is it because people are too busy or too lazy? I do what I can to help, why wouldn't everyday americans do the same? We have everything to gain.

[kaiyo4u]

I find all this very interesting in the fact that NO ONE reporting global warming includes the fact that the sun has indeed increased it's output.

They are currently finding warming in planets far past ours and yet the media continues to whip the sheep into a frenzy about how it is ALL our fault...

Come on people, research involves using ALL the facts when submitting a report, not just those to prove your point. That kind of reporting is very biased and incredibly ignorant. It just shows the mentality of those who corroborate to install false facts.

I remember distinctly in the 70's when some of the very same scientists were preaching the next ice age....

They don't include all the facts and they should not opine about what they know until they include all the facts... period!

[emma915]

George Bush isn't a president. He's a Crime Boss!

[zykracosmos]

It's still amusing to me how rightwingers cling to a view that's been handed to them by the GOP to protect the fossil fuel industry's profits. Exxon still spends millions each year on disinformation campaigns and lobbying the government to water down global warming science it funds. What is most interesting to me is how fools such as the wackos on display in this blog still allow themselves to be used and abused and readily absorb the propaganda Big Oil is steadily feeding them. Global Warming is not a political viewpoint- it's science. Rightwingers look extra stupid trying to stir a debate on an issue that has already achieved scientific consensus. This is not a case of left versus right. It is smart versus stupid. Informed versus ignorant. And the fossil fuel industries are betting that with enough money pushing their propaganda through Fox News, prostituted "scientists," and paid-off Republican congressmen, they can dillute the issue enough to prevent our economy from shifting to new resources and better technology.

[briannorwood]

Relax. In 18 months, Dumbya and his cadre of yes men will finally be purged from our government. Then we can start making some real progress on global warming.

[rlenham-2009]

Horror of horrors... a balanced presentation about global warming by the Smithsonian... there are many different scientific perspectives on the issue... I laugh at the arrogance of those who think that mere mortals can alter the climate of the globe by changing their lifestyles... perhaps the show could have been improved by running Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" alongside the BBC's "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

[rlenham-2009]

Horror of horrors... a balanced presentation about global warming by the Smithsonian... there are many different scientific perspectives on the issue... I laugh at the arrogance of those who think that mere mortals can alter the climate of the globe by changing their lifestyles... perhaps the show could have been improved by running Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" alongside the BBC's "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

[mgpm-2009]

I get so sick of hearing cons bemoan the "mainstream media." Please. Why don't you just say what you really mean, "We are right and the world is wrong?"

[strewthmate]

hey, how bout we put climate change to one side for a moment and concentrate on regime change in DC... not in 2008... NOW!!!

in the meantime google and check out the BBC Panorama doco from June 2006.

------------------

A US government whistleblower tells Panorama how scientific reports about global warming have been systematically changed and suppressed.

And Panorama reporter Hilary Andersson visits some of the first refugees of global warming who come from an island in Arctic Alaska which has been inhabited for 4,000 years ago but is now melting into the sea.

This programme was first broadcast on BBC One on Sunday, 4 June 2006 at 2215 BST on BBC One.