US fudging of climate science – details revealed


The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held its second hearing this week in regards to charges that the White House has been interfering with federal climate science.

James Hansen, one of the first scientists to draw attention to climate change and to allege that members of the Bush administration were attempting to ‘silence’ scientists and suppress their findings, testified before the committee:

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.

Hansen’s testimony was followed by that of Phil Cooney, former chief of staff at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.  Cooney defended his editing of reports on global warming and downplayed accusations that scientists were pressured from above.   He now works for ExxonMobil, the oil giant, and corporate citizen of the year.

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

[NewScientist]

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Posted: March 22nd, 2007
at 8:19pm by Pheezatron


Categories: climate change,current events,fo' real?,news,not-so-green,policy,uh oh

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