[Vision2020] Union of Concerned Scientists: The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

[Ted Moffett]

We hear often that there is a trend of censure in the scientific
community towards scientists who question the consensus among climate
scientists that human greenhouse gas emissions are dangerously warming the
climate.  While there may be truth in some cases to this claim, there are
also well documented and profound examples of the reverse: scientists who
present what they believe to be well founded and documented science on
climate change, showing human impacts are altering climate, have been
silenced and censored, with negative impacts to their professional work.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has collected examples of interference
in science on many issues, and there are many cases of censorship of climate
science listed, in *The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in
Science<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-guide-to-political.html>
:*
**
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-alphabetical.html#By_Issue_Area

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

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/global-warming-science.html

Reports and Research
Manipulation of Global Warming Science
------------------------------

Since taking office, the George W. Bush administration has consistently
sought to undermine the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists
that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases
are making a discernible contribution to global warming.1  Despite promises
by the president that "my Administration's climate change policy will be
science-based,"2 the past several years have seen widespread political
interference in the work of federal climate scientists, edits to official
scientific documents and a general attempt to foster uncertainty about
robust scientific conclusions.  This A-to-Z Guide to Political Interference
in Science<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-guide-to-political.html>documents
11 additional cases of interference in the field of climate
science.

After coming to office, the administration asked the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) to review the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) and provide further assessment of climate science's
"certainties and uncertainties."3  In 2001 the NAS panel rendered a strong
opinion affirming the conclusions of the IPCC and stating that "Greenhouse
gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human
activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures to rise."4

Also in 2001, President George W. Bush established the U.S. Climate Change
Research Initiative (CCRI). One of the initiative's two main priorities was
to study "areas of uncertainty" in global climate change science.5

In May 2002, President Bush expressed disdain for a State Department
report6to the United Nations that pointed to a clear human role in the
accumulation
of heat-trapping gases and detailed the likely negative consequences of
climate change; the president called it "a report put out by the
bureaucracy."7  In September 2002, the administration removed a section on
climate change from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) annual air
pollution report,8 even though the climate issue had been discussed in the
report in each of the preceding five years. (Manipulation of another EPA
report is described in the A-to-Z article "Dr is for EPA Draft Report on the
Environment<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/epa-draft-report.html>
").

The American Geophysical Union (AGU), the world's largest organization of
earth scientists, released a strong statement in 2003 describing
human-caused disruptions of Earth's climate.9  "Human activities are
increasingly altering the Earth's climate," the AGU statement declared. Yet
Bush administration spokespersons continued to contend that uncertainties in
climate science were too great to warrant mandatory action to slow
emissions.10

Scientists were also largely excluded from internal policy discussions
relating to climate change.  "This administration seems to want to make
environmental policy at the White House," an EPA scientist said. "I suppose
that is their right. But one has to ask: on the basis of what information is
this policy being promulgated? What views are being represented? Who is
involved in the decision making? What kind of credible expertise is being
brought to bear?"11  The Bush administration often "does not even invite the
EPA into the discussion" on climate change issues, the scientist said.

Dr. Rosina Bierbaum, a Clinton administration appointee to the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) who also served during the first year
of the Bush administration, also said that science was kept out of the
process of policymaking on the topic of climate change. From the start of
the Bush years, Bierbaum said, "The scientists [who] knew the most about
climate change at OSTP were not allowed to participate in deliberations on
the issue within the White House inner circle."12

Through such consistent tactics and a focus on uncertainty, the Bush
administration has avoided fashioning any policies that would significantly
reduce the threat implied by those findings.

The discussion may have changed with the February 2007 release of a report
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of hundreds
of scientists from 113 countries, which declared that "human-generated
greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over
the past half-century." *The New York Times* quoted Achim Steiner, executive
director of the United Nations Environment Program, as saying "Feb. 2 [2007]
will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether
humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet."13

The 2007 report *Atmosphere of
Pressure<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/atmosphere-of-pressure.html>
*, by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability
Project, extensively documents Bush administration efforts to manipulate the
work of federal climate scientists and exercise strict control over which
scientists are allowed to talk to the media and which scientific results are
communicated to the public.14

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

1. This page contains material excerpted from the 2004 UCS Report, Scientific
Integrity in Policymaking<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/reports-scientific-integrity-in-policy-making.html>.

2. White House, President's Statement on Climate
Change<http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010713-2.html>(July
13, 2001).
3. National Academy of Sciences, Commission on Geosciences, Environment and
Resources, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key
Questions<http://www.nap.edu/books/0309075742/html>,
2001.
4. Ibid.
5. U.S. Climate Change Science
Program<http://www.climatescience.gov/about/ccri.htm>.
2003. The Climate Change Research Initiative.  Washington, DC. Accessed
October 25, 2006.
6. US Climate Action Report, Department of State, May 2002.
7. K.Q. Seelye, "President Distances Himself from Global Warming Report," *New
York Times*, June 5, 2002.
8. Past EPA Air Trends Reports can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/reports.html; the 2001 report is the first
Summary Report that doesn't discuss climate change.
9. American Geophysical Union, Human Impacts on
Climate<http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html>,
December 2003.  Accessed March 13, 2007.
10. P. Dobriansky, "Only New Technology Can Halt Climate Change," *Financial
Times*, December 1, 2003.
11. Author interview with EPA scientist, name withheld on request, January
2004.
12. As quoted in N. Thompson, "Science friction: The growing—and
dangerous—divide between scientists and the
GOP,"<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.thompson.html>
*Washington Monthly*, July/August 2003.  Accessed March 13, 2007.
13. Rosenthal, E. and Revkin, A.C., Science Panel Calls Global Warming
"Unequivocal,"<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/science/earth/03climate.html?ex=1328158800&en=61f42312221df544&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss>
*New York Times*, February 2, 2007.  Accessed March 13, 2007.
14. Union of Concerned Scientists and Government Accountability Project.
2007. Atmosphere of
Pressure<http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/atmosphere-of-pressure.html>
.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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