Do you think the administration is silencing evidence on global warming?

Question

as a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project suggest?

Answer 1

Absolutely true.

And that fact that other scientists have been able to get the word out is doesn't change that. The US government has been censoring the work of US government scientists.

The report coming out on Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control will provide yet more convincing evidence that global warming is real.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30183206.htm

The diehards here will ignore it, as they've ignored all proof. But a rapidly growing number of business and political leaders in the US are saying it's real and it's caused by us, and not a natural event. The global warming deniers here are just like the conspiracy people here who deny the moon landings happened.

""The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

"The overwhelming majority of atmospheric scientists around the world and our own National Academy of Sciences are in essential agreement on the facts of global warming and the significant contribution of human activity to that trend."

Russell E. Train, former environmental official under Presidents Nixon and Ford

"We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late. The science is clear. The global warming debate is over."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, Governor, California

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

John McCain, Republican, Senator, Arizona

"These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment - and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

President George Bush, Republican

Answer 2

Hmm, if that were true, or even possible, would we be having this discussion?

I have another scenario for the DAT people:

I call it The Pheonix Civilization --

It is vanity to think that the temperature of the Earth is something that humans have more than VERY minor control over. Glacier activity says, "Yes, we are warming." Particularly since we aren't living under the glaciers!

Two things that happen at the same time are not necessarily cause and effect. A small minority of scientists were fretting over global cooling just three decades ago, and a similar proportion are concerned about global warming now.

Here's the biggie: Anything, like the Koyoto Treaty, geared to protect developing countries but enforce restrictions on developed countries will move jobs to developing countries -- lots of jobs.

Add on a hike in the minimum wage, increased taxes, and increased social programs, and the US will crash fast and hard.

At that point, any economy that relies on the US will follow suit.

Life as we know it comes to a screaching halt. The 1930's will be looked on fondly as a time of plenty. City dwellers, who can't even think about subsistance farming, go splat PDQ. When food prices peak, the poorest start dying of starvation. The richest can't even keep up with the beggers who stream into their private homes hoping for work and food. The farmers can't get the fertilizers and replacement equipment that they need to feed the nations. Finally, the electrical companies can no longer pay to produce electricity because no one pays their bill, and the towns go dark.

Ultimately, the American Dream dies, and civiliztion starts building a new alpha state that will care for the other nations, give the strength of it's people to help maintain peace, and be the engine of the new republic, the new hope, the new dream. And then we zip past the technology we have now into a better, greater society that must again be pulled down into the ashes for daring to soar too close to the sun.

Oh, and is Rob Correll, the most concerned scientist of all, the guy who's running around with a photo showing a "hole" in the polar ice that is ACTUALLY just dense, clear ice that appears black because of it's visual depth? Because if he his, he's a liar or a fool. TIME did print a retraction on that caption, but some jerk is still running around with his spurrious proof of global warming.

It took a minute, but guess what?! Bobbie Correll IS INDEED the jerk running around claiming that the polar icecaps are melting! Look at his picture carefully kiddies. You definately SEE a hole, but like I said, that is CLEAR ICE! He's playing you for a fool.

Oh, and what on earth is a "federal scientist"? And why do they need advocates to tell the Dems that someone is shushing them?

Wouldn't the mere act of saying "We want to say this," negate any complaints that they aren't being allowed to say this? (By the mathematical property that something cannot be A and not A at the same time. )

Answer 3

Well, the Bush administration had an oil lobbyist edit a report on carbon dioxide emissions before releasing it (there was a news story on this tonight). That's a tiny bit like having the fox guard the henhouse.

Answer 4

Holden... For somebody that seems to have a fairly good grasp on science you sure are good at ignoring reality. Try reading the news...

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - Federal scientists have been pressured by the White House to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.

The hearing focused on allegations that White House officials for years have micromanaged the government's climate programs and has closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public.

"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies, including its views on climate.

Climate change also was a leading topic in the Senate, where presidential contenders for 2008 lined up at a hearing called by Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record). They expounded — and at times tried to outdo each other — on why they believed Congress must act to reduce heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

At the House hearing, two private advocacy groups produced a survey of 279 government climate scientists showing that many of them say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the climate threat. Their complaints ranged from a challenge to using the phrase "global warming" to raising uncertainty on issues on which most scientists basically agree, to keeping scientists from talking to the media.

The survey and separate interviews with scientists "has brought to light numerous ways in which U.S. federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years," Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the committee.

Grifo's group, along with the Government Accountability Project, which helps whistle-blowers, produced the report.

Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that climate scientists frequently have been dissuaded from talking to the media about their research, though NASA's restrictions have been eased.

Prior to the change, interview requests of climate scientists frequently were "routed through the White House" and then turned away or delayed, said Shindell. He described how a news release on his study forecasting a significant warming in Antarctica was "repeatedly delayed, altered and watered down" at the insistence of the White House.

Administration officials were not called to testify. In the past the White House has said it has only sought to inject balance into reports on climate change.
President Bush has acknowledged concerns about global warming, but he strongly opposes mandatory caps of greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that approach would be too costly.

Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado who was invited by GOP lawmakers, said "the reality is that science and politics are intermixed."

Pielke maintained that "scientific cherry picking" can be found on both sides of the climate debate. He took a swipe at the background memorandum Waxman had distributed and maintained that it exaggerated the scientific consensus over the impact of climate change on hurricanes.

Waxman and Davis agreed the administration had not been forthcoming in providing documents to the committee that would shed additional light on allegations of political interference in climate science.

"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," said Waxman, adding that he is "not trying to obtain state secrets."

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Get a clue Holden. You're obviously an intelligent person - but your Republican leanings distort your view of reality, which is pretty sad for somebody as smart as you.

Al Gore, buddy, they're labeled as hacks BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Answer 5

As I have heard much evidence, I'd say they are not silencing evidence.

Pretty simple.

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So Brooks b:

You think playing down is the same as silencing?

One can argue the otherside of any issue and that does not silence the opposing side. There is a plethra of warming evidence out there. Silencing has not been happening.

Answer 6

Yes, and every other global political, social, or environmental cause that everyone SHOULD be hearing about and acting upon...
Everything here, is just a matter of keeping people uninformed, so we can be their puppets, to keep them in place, and keep consuming more adn more, to make them richer and richer....

Answer 7

I think that the concept of human-initiated global warming is debatable, and those who are convinced we must take drastic action don't like debate.