IPCC Nobel Peace Prize certificate 2007
The Republican Study Committee, which represents 165 House Republicans, issued a proposal today to cut more than $2.5 trillion from the federal budget in the next 10 years – with the aim of balancing the federal budget entirely through budget cuts in non-military programs. Buried in the RSC plan is this line item: “Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.”
Declassified satellite images of the Bering Glacier / USGS Global Fiducials Library
Republican deficit demagoguery and aversion to supporting the climate science enterprise may jeopardize the future of the CIA Center on Climate Change and National Security, a small unit launched in 2009 with a directive to advise the federal government on the national security implications of climate change. Continue reading
The Pentagon / Flickr user Rudi Riet
After a spike in late 2009 propelled by the Copenhagen climate conference, mainstream media coverage of climate change dropped off steeply. One dimension of the issue, the intersection of climate change impacts and national security, has been increasingly accentuated in an attempt to give the issue greater immediacy. This perspective highlights the potential for climate change impacts to increase instability in volatile regions of the world, with major implications for U.S. resources, military readiness, and foreign aid. Yet this frame defines threats to human welfare in terms of U.S. national interest, potentially restricting how the American public connects U.S. energy usage with the global extent of the climate problem and envisions the U.S. role in addressing it. Can the national security perspective bring urgency to the climate and energy issue while broadening its scope beyond U.S. self interest? Continue reading
Climate Scientist Pieter Tans / Photo: NOAA
“We are facing a well-organized and well-funded campaign attacking our science and our integrity, spreading confusion and disinformation,” says Pieter P. Tans, a leading climate scientist at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Tans talked about the civic responsibility of scientists in his remarks on receiving the 2010 Roger Revelle Medal at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2010. Continue reading
This fourth in a four-part series on the White House Scientific Integrity guidelines memorandum issued December 17, 2010 provides links to primary sources, media coverage and response, and press releases and statements by nongovernmental organizations. Continue reading
On December 17, 2010, the White House issued scientific integrity guidelines that, among other things, could be used by federal agencies to require that government scientists have minders when giving interviews -- and now the White House refuses to be transparent about the process that produced these questionable guidelines. The available evidence indicates that the Office of Management and Budget played a very significant role in developing the guidelines, which were announced by Office of Science and Technology Policy director John Holdren in December 2010. We know Holdren as a scientist deeply committed to scientific integrity and transparency. And we know OMB as an agency with a decades-long record of corrupting science with politics and collusion with moneyed interests, and as an enforcer of Executive Branch secrecy. This third in a four-part series by environmental journalist Joseph A. Davis examines the problem. Continue reading
One of the five sections of OSTP Director John Holdren's December 17, 2010, scientific integrity guidelines for federal agencies covers Public Communications. Media policy is what most concerns journalists, and is one area in which the Bush administration engaged in a pattern of political interference with climate science communication. This second of a four-part series by environmental journalist Joseph A. Davis provides a critical examination of how the Public Communications section of the new guidelines does not nail down essential requirements for reforming federal agency practices. Continue reading
Scientific integrity guidelines for federal agencies issued December 17, 2010, by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, ostensibly endorse open communication between journalists and scientists. But the available documentary evidence, including disclosures forced by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, strongly suggests that the White House Office of Management and Budget has impeded the drive for scientific integrity and openness. Has OMB dictated a policy that will allow agencies to keep scientists from talking freely with reporters and to continue keeping politically inconvenient scientific findings in the shadows? This first of a four-part series by environmental journalist Joseph A. Davis provides an overview.
photo: The Weather Network
2010 was a year of wild weather all over the world. Who doesn't remember the torrential monsoon rains that devastated Pakistan, Russia's raging wildfires that wiped out grain crops and burnt forests to a crisp, and the record breaking hot spells that struck around the globe? In short, 2010 was not a very happy weather year for many parts of the world. One place viewed as largely removed from weather calamities is Canada. Northern, cool, wet, and forested, Canada enjoys the prime location and conditions to escape pretty much scot-free from wild weather events. However, the weather of 2010 suggests that Canada may not be as safe and sound as commonly thought.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee / Flickr user Gage Skidmore
The new Republican majority in the House is making moves in its plan to hamstring EPA regulations, particularly of greenhouse gases. EPA is currently moving forward with GHG regulations for fossil fuel-based power plants and petroleum refineries, with proposed standards to be released starting in mid-2011 and final standards in 2012. The GOP is pursuing multiple lines of attack in its attempt to stall EPA action, with strategies taking shape under a new crop of climate ‘skeptic’ committee chairmen to de-fund implementation of regulations, conduct aggressive oversight, and overturn rules through the Congressional Review Act. Here’s a look at the new chairmen and their roles in the Republican attack on EPA. Continue reading
