WP: Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House

[Pirate Smile]

Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 6, 2006; Page A27

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.

Employees and contractors working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at an NOAA lab, said in interviews that over the past year administration officials have chastised them for speaking on policy questions; removed references to global warming from their reports, news releases and conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and sometimes urged them to stop speaking to the media altogether. Their accounts indicate that the ideological battle over climate-change research, which first came to light at NASA, is being fought in other federal science agencies as well.

These scientists -- working nationwide in research centers in such places as Princeton, N.J., and Boulder, Colo. -- say they are required to clear all media requests with administration officials, something they did not have to do until the summer of 2004. Before then, point climate researchers -- unlike staff members in the Justice or State departments, which have long-standing policies restricting access to reporters -- were relatively free to discuss their findings without strict agency oversight.

"There has been a change in how we're expected to interact with the press," said Pieter Tans, who measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming and has worked at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder for two decades. He added that although he often "ignores the rules" the administration has instituted, when it comes to his colleagues, "some people feel intimidated -- I see that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502150.html

[WhiteTara]

1. things must be really bad for these guys

to stick their necks out. Our world is crashing and they are playing politics and see who can steal the most money.

[IndianaGreen]

2. In a few years, Washington DC will be under water

and the world be better off.

[0007]

19. 'Tis is a sea of red now. Anyway one wants to look at it.

[DanCa]

3. The Bush administration thinks that when it thunders god is bowling.

I recently met a knuckle dragger who didn't believe in Global Warming, and I couldn't help but wonder, if he still thinks camera's still steal someones soul.

[Pirate Smile]

4. Thank goodness for the scientists. Here is more:

"Christopher Milly, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said he had problems twice while drafting news releases on scientific papers describing how climate change would affect the nation's water supply.

Once in 2002, Milly said, Interior officials declined to issue a news release on grounds that it would cause "great problems with the department." In November 2005, they agreed to issue a release on a different climate-related paper, Milly said, but "purged key words from the releases, including 'global warming,' 'warming climate' and 'climate change.' "

-snip-
Two weeks later, Hansen suggested to an audience at the New School University in New York that his counterparts at NOAA were experiencing even more severe censorship. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," he told the crowd.

-snip-
Tans, whose interviews with the BBC crew were monitored by Laborde, said Laborde has not tried to interfere with the interviews. But Tans said he did not understand why he now needs an official "minder" from Washington to observe his discussions with the media. "It used to be we could say, 'Okay, you're welcome to come in, let's talk,' " he said. "There was never anything of having to ask permission of anybody."
The need for clearance from Washington, several NOAA scientists said, amounts to a "pocket veto" allowing administration officials to block interviews by not giving permission in time for journalists' deadlines.

[fearnobush]

5. Let encourage NOAA to fight these sick Bush Fascists.

NOAA Public & Constituent Affairs
Room 6217 14th Street & Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20230
Telephone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]

Media inquiries are answered by public affairs staff, and public inquiries are answered by constituent and intergovernmental affairs staff.

Jordan St. John
Director


Scott Smullen
Deputy Director

[Peter Frank]

8. God job man...

This kind of thing is how change gets done. I'll be firing off some e-mails, and want to encourage the rest of us to do the same.

[Hekate]

6. How very like the old Soviet system, where Party handlers screened...

...everything.

The USSR was one massive bureaucracy, an enormous centralized government where no one could say or publish anything not approved by the Party hacks assigned to them.

Sound familiar? Brought to us by Republicans, formerly "the party of smaller government."

Hekate

[DLnyc]

7. Well, at least this will strenghthen the case for lawsuit claiming

92,440,000,000,000,000 dollars in damages after the poles melt and a good portion of civilization is washed away.

Not that the money will be worth anything then, though.

[dipsydoodle]

11. Reckon you

missed of just a few noughts there. But as you say money will have become just about defunct by then : we'll be back to bartering goods.

[babylonsister]

9. And no one is paying too much attention because

there's Cynthia McKinney, dead blonde girls, etc. :banghead:

[HuffleClaw]

10. dissent of any kind is simply not permitted by this administration

just wait till some researchers decide to REALLY look into the peak oil issue.

[corkhead]

12. You have to agree, the climatists don't report enough good things about it

It will help the boating industry
it will eliminate the need for snow shovels
we'll be able to have palm trees and grow oranges in Michigan
Plus, it's screwing up the weather in France

what's the big fuss anyway.

[RedEarth]

15. lol.... that's great

[Jim__]

13. The bush administration is not concerned with reality.

These fools really think they create reality.

If the human race survives this adminsitration and there is a history to remember it; they will be remembered as the most pathetic idiots to ever rule a nation.

[RedEarth]

14. Unbelievable.... I'm posting this on a winger site

[Supersedeas]

16. Revisionist history, and revisionist science - same ole story

[Odin2005]

17. Lyshenkoism version 2.0

[skip fox]

18. Global burning. Global scorching. Time to dust off some new phrases.

Sadly.