A little while ago we made mention of an alarming 'screening process' that scientists were being subjected to by the Bush administration. Since then, the mid-term shift in power has brought this under closer scrutiny:
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.This investigative hearing could be a landmark event; key in finally getting global warming issues presented in their fullness to the American public - the very public that are the greatest polluters on our overburdened planet.
The hearing focused on allegations White House officials for years have micromanaged the government's climate programs and have 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, D-California. 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. (Watch White House changes to climate reports)
... 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. (Watch what a major new report concludes)
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. - CNN
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