Survey Alleges White House Pressure on Climate Scientists

A survey by a government watchdog group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, administered to 150 government-employed climate scientists, alleges a pattern of political pressure by the Bush Administration to minimize the impact of reports by omitting inflammatory words such as "climate change" and "global warming." The findings of the survey were presented to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week.



The primary difficulty with this article is that there is not a distinction made between statements of policy and conclusions based on government studies. With respect to scientific conclusion, there is a difference between encouraging research in a new direction and insisting on changing documents. The Administration should feel free to criticize research, even that done by the government, but suppression ignores possible avenues of research and makes for poor public relations.

On the other hand, if these were merely political documents, such as statements of policy, then the administration should be held to a lower standard so that the it has the flexibility to put forward the message it feels is appropriate. Then the political system has the opportunity to being forth contrary evidence.

In this case, the former, at least in some circumstances, seems true. If they have been suppressing testimony, they must be called on it so that we can have the entire story.

[edit on 1/31/2007 by Togetic]

Why would the Bush administration welcome anything that is in contrast to their corporate interests or the military-industrial complex? Just for the hell of it?

Bush aide who doctored global warming documents joins ExxonMobil

This administration sees no profit motive towards climate control,
so as Maria Antoinette would say, "Let them suck greenhouse gas!".

[edit on 31-1-2007 by Regenmacher]

I think using the word "alleges" gives a false sense of what has been going on, that somehow it has not been proven or happened.... they have been pressuring scientists to rewrite their papers on climate for some time now.... they have the smoking gun or should I say the edited papers to prove it.