BUSH: SILENCING SCIENTISTS !

[Anonymous]

Bush Administration Quashes Own Scientists Agreement on Global Warming and Hurricanes
oct 06
In
the wake of hurricane Katrina, we got a tip from a friend that some
scientists were concerned that the government was misleading the
public. In public statements, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s (NOAA) seemed to be ignoring any link between
hurricanes and global warming. We submitted a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request to NOAA and have turned over some interesting stones.
In
an effort to avoid public embarrassment, NOAA scientists apparently
attempted to forge a consensus among government experts about the link
between hurricanes and global warming. What they came up with was a
“Hurricane Fact Sheet” that was sent to NOAA headquarters for sign-off.
That was last spring, and that fact sheet remains hidden from the
public today.

Silencing Scientists
We also uncovered a
document through the FOIA request that shows a 13 step illustration of
the guantlet that a press release has to go through to be approved.
Talk about red tape.NOAA also asks its scientists to notify the Public
Affairs office when they are working on something that might be
“controversial”. Read NOAA’s media policy.So let’s get this straight,
amplified hurricanes due to global warming is “controversial”? What if
a scientist were to discover that bird’s migration patterns were being
disrupted by global warming, or that snowmelt in the mountains was
accelerated, or drought deepened or a heatwave worsened.Since when
should a scientist have to judge the importance of their studies on a
political controversy scale?This week, NATURE sheds light on this story
with this news feature.For more background on this ongoing
investigation by Greenpeace and others, here are some resources:
Screening Scientist Interviews
This
shows a series of communications between a NOAA scientist and an
employee of NOAA public affairs discussing two incidents in which
reporters were denied the opportunity to interview him.
Imposed Restrictions
In
this series of emails a NOAA public affairs official imposes
restrictions on what questions a reporter may ask in an interview with
a NOAA scientist. Read the e-mails.
Leetma letter to Mahoney
Ants
Leetma, a NOAA senior scientist writes a scathing letter to the head of
NOAA James Mahoney.  Dr. Leetma is upset about NOAAs misrepresentation
of the current science available regarding the link between hurricanes
and global warming.  He writes “It is disconcerting scientifically that
… meteorologists were making decadal hurricane projections based on a
phenomena of which they know nothing…” Read the letter.

Protest Letter Regarding Hurricane Consensus
This
series of emails shows an incident in which senior NOAA scientists take
serious issue with an official NOAA statement released by NOAA public
affairs claiming increased Atlantic hurricane activity “is not related
to greenhouse warming.”  They collaborate on writing a letter of
protest to the Bush appointee Conrad Lautenbacher, NOAA Administrator.
The
New Republic dug into this story last February 2006, uncovering a
muzzling of scientists on the subject of global warming and hurricanes.
The New York Times covered how this document was blocked from release.
Rueters gives a breakdown of the nature feature.
The
Providence Journal ran a telling story in March 2006 containing telling
interviews with NOAA scientists and public affairs officials.
US News and World Report finds NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher in conflict with his spokesman.
Salon.com writer Paul Thacker revealed that the White House also had a hand on the muzzle.
ABC News digs in and tries to get the truth from NOAA themselves.
The Newark Star Ledger chronicles when the muzzle went on.
Congressman
Waxman’s office has dug its teeth into this story, sending a letter of
complaint to the Secretary of Commerce (which overseas NOAA) demanding
a full explanation.

[Author]

October 5, 2006 at 11:11 AM