March 21, 2007

James Hansen Testifies to Climate Science Meddling

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The Bush administration once again faces charges from James Hansen, a foremost climate scientist, of interfering with science in order to downplay global warming. Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and was one of the first experts to warn of the threat of climate change.

The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, during its second hearing on Monday, released a memo stating that documents “appear to portray a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change.” From New Scientist:

In written testimony, Hansen said: “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.”

The committee also heard a former White House aide attempting to defend his editing of government reports on climate change. Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality from 2001 to 2005, said editing was part of the normal review process between agencies.

Right. Just for the record, before he joined the White House, Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute and now works for ExxonMobil.

The committee [first] heard of this top-down pressure on climate scientists during the first hearing in January. Former government scientist Rick Piltz said that Cooney had tried to downplay the consequences of climate change in government documents.

In a 10-year policy plan, Cooney and Brian Hannegan, also at CEQ, made at least 181 edits to emphasize scientific uncertainty regarding the effects of climate change and 113 changes to minimize the importance of human contributions to global warming, according to the committee’s memo.

For example, Cooney replaced “will” with “may” in the sentence: “Warming temperatures will also affect Arctic land areas.” He also deleted this sentence: “Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.”

Do these guys really think they’re going to escape the mayhem? Or are they all believers of that latter-day oxymoron, Intelligent Design?

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