The other day, an article revealed how Vice President Dick Cheney has intruded in the business of underlings within the EPA and the Department of the Interior to get his way in environmental issues. As I’ll explain later, this interference, and, particularly, Cheney’s method of handling the situation, was very revealing. It helped to demonstrate the way that pro-business interests view science when it hinders their productivity, and the way that they prefer to deal with it.

In 2001, farmers in Oregon were about to be cut off from irrigation water to protect two species of fish. Federal biologists decided that water levels in the Klamath River were dangerously low, so diverting water to irrigate farmer’s fields would only exacerbate the problem. The farmers, faced with the possible loss of their crops, began to fight back. They contacted their Congressman, who lobbied on behalf of the farmers to the White House. Fortunately for the farmers, someone at the White House took notice. That person was Dick Cheney. From that point, tentacles reached from the Vice President throughout the Executive Branch, exerting far-reaching pressure to push for help for the farmers:

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the 19th-ranking Interior Department official, arrived at her desk in Room 6140 a few months after Inauguration Day 2001. A phone message awaited her. "This is Dick Cheney," said the man on her voice mail, Wooldridge recalled in an interview. "I understand you are the person handling this Klamath situation. Please call me at -- hmm, I guess I don't know my own number. I'm over at the White House." Wooldridge wrote off the message as a prank. It was not. Cheney had reached far down the chain of command, on so unexpected a point of vice presidential concern, because he had spotted a political threat arriving on Wooldridge's desk. – Washington Post

Cheney’s main concern? Politics as usual:

Cheney recognized, even before the shut-off and long before others at the White House, that what "at first blush didn't seem like a big deal" had "a lot of political ramifications," said Dylan Glenn, a former aide to President Bush. Bush and Cheney couldn't afford to anger thousands of solidly Republican farmers and ranchers during the midterm elections and beyond. The case also was rapidly becoming a test for conservatives nationwide of the administration's commitment to fixing what they saw as an imbalance between conservation and economics. – Washington Post

Had Cheney been concerned with more than just politics, he’d have known, or at least would have been able to find out, that there was no imminent economic disaster headed for the region if the farmers did not get irrigation water:

There is no doubt that some Klamath Project farming families will experience economic hardship. This is what happens in a major drought, when there is simply not enough water to go around. However, many non-Project lands in the Klamath Falls areas are still being irrigated, many farms have access to groundwater wells, and the Oregon Water Resources Department is not only issuing many emergency well drilling permits but has an estimated 100,000 acre-feet of water available from existing pumps that the agency is taking steps to provide for emergency relief. Oregon Water Resources is also taking steps to provide additional water from groundwater taps of the large Upper Klamath Basin aquifers. – The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations

The following is, to me, the most shocking part of the story. It explains in detail the preferred method, for big business interests and for politicians in the pocket of large industries, of dealing with scientific issues in which science is not on their side. Cheney was presented with a loophole in the law, but he preferred a more sneaky approach – altering the science to fit his agenda:

There was, as it happened, an established exemption to the Endangered Species Act. A rarely invoked panel of seven Cabinet officials, known informally as the "God Squad," is empowered by the statute to determine that economic hardship outweighs the benefit of protecting threatened wildlife. But after discussing the option with Smith, Cheney rejected that course. He had another idea, one that would not put the administration on record as advocating the extinction of endangered or threatened species. The thing to do, Cheney told Smith, was to get science on the side of the farmers. And the way to do that was to ask the National Academy of Sciences to scrutinize the work of the federal biologists who wanted to protect the fish. – Washington Post

So, as the story progresses, the NAS agreed with Cheney that the fish would not be harmed and the farmers got their irrigation water. A biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service team even disputed the NAS report’s findings, but he was overruled by his superiors and his objections never saw the light of day:

In late October 2002 Mike Kelly, a scientist from the National Marine Fisheries Service stepped forward to say his work in the spring of 2002 to assure adequate water levels for the health of the Klamath River had been over ridden for political purposes. Kelly said his team twice developed guidelines for how much water would be needed to assure compliance with Endangered Species Act protections for coho salmon in the Klamath and twice were rejected by higher ups. He said the guidelines approved by the federal government were forced on fisheries scientists by the Bureau of Reclamation, the government branch charged with giving water to farmers. In 2003 the Wall St. Journal reported that Bush presidential advisor Karl Rove pressed the issue of Klamath water diversions with political appointees and others from the Bureau of Reclamation, US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies at a 2002 meeting. - EarthJustice

The end result? Happy farmers and thousands of dead fish (77,000, to be exact). A July 2004 report by the California Department of Fish and Game confirmed the cause of the deaths of these fish:

The primary cause of the fish-kill was a disease epizootic from the ubiquitous pathogens ich and columnaris. However, several factors contributed to stressful conditions for fish, with ultimately led to the epizootic. An above average number of Chinook salmon entered the Klamath River between the last week in August and the first week in September 2002. River flow and the volume of water in the fish-kill area, were atypically low. Combined with the above average run of salmon, these low-flows and river volumes, resulted in high fish densities. Fish passage may have been impeded by low-flow depths over certain riffles or a lack of cues for fish to migrate upstream. Warm water temperatures, which are not unusual in the Klamath River during September, created ideal conditions for pathogens to infect salmon. … Flow is the only controllable factor and tool available in the Klamath Basin (Klamath and Trinity rivers) to manage risks against future epizootics and major adult fish-kills. Increased flows when adult salmon are entering the Klamath River (particularly during low-flow years such as 2002) can improve water temperatures, increase water volume, increase water velocities, improve fish passage, provide migration cues, decrease fish densities and decrease pathogen transmission between fish.- September 2002 Klamath River Fish-Kill: Final Analysis of Contributing Factors and Impacts (emphasis added)

So, increasing flow by cutting off irrigation was the only way to alleviate the problem, and therefore the decision not to do so resulted ultimately in the deaths of thousands of fish. Another interesting fact is that by intervening in favor of the farmer, Cheney and his staff actually did damage to the fishing industry. So rather than helping business, he only shifted the problem to another industry. The problems caused by Cheney’s political meddling are only recently being mitigated:

For generations, the Klamath has had two overarching problems: low flows of water as a result of irrigation diversions and dams that block migrating salmon, and also make the river an unnaturally warm breeding ground for fish-killing bacteria and algae. Salmon runs have plummeted from historic highs of a million fish a year in the early 1900s to a prediction this year of fewer than 30,000. Three consecutive years of such near-record low returns of adult salmon are forcing the likely closure this year of commercial and sport fishing in all areas where Klamath chinook salmon might be caught. A decision is expected this week. If it occurs, it would be one of the largest and most costly fishery closures in West Coast history, affecting 700 miles of the Oregon-California coastline. A federal court ruling last week, however, may go a long way toward solving the problem of lethal low flows in future years. In Oakland, U.S. District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong ordered that the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates one of the nation's oldest irrigation projects on the Klamath, must limit the quantity of water sucked out of the river for farmers in dry years. There are scientifically set minimum flows needed to protect migrating salmon, the judge ordered, and the federal government cannot fiddle with them. – Washington Post

This is not the only time Cheney has intervened in favor of big business, either. He has also pushed for easing pollution rules for old power plants and oil refineries, making Nevada’s Yucca Mountain the nation’s repository for nuclear and radioactive waste, and opening national forests to logging, mining, and most development, among other things. So how else might the energy industry benefit from intervention by politicians? You guessed it – global warming. And that’s mainly why I wanted to share this story. The Bush administration has indeed already taken actions to combat the science of climate change, such as appointing industry lobbyists to positions of power over government scientists. In one such instance, the former lobbyist, Philip Cooney, was actually editing the reports of scientists to water them down. Cooney, by the way, now works for Exxon.

This story seemed to me to be extremely analogous to the problems we face with the powerful influence of the energy industry in both politics and science when it comes to global warming. The IPCC has found that warming is “unequivocal” and has a “very high confidence” that human activity is the primary cause. However, many people disagree with those findings. I often ask myself why. Every time I encounter a new skeptic, my wheels start turning, trying to figure out what has led this person to believe so strongly in such obvious propaganda. Most of the time, I come right back to the influence of industry money in the political realm. This influence is very far-reaching and also very difficult to track. The big corporations give their money to think tanks or other organizations, who then fund other organizations, who then funnel money to certain scientists. Fortunately, some people have followed the money for us. DeSmogBlog, for example, has a great list of many of the skeptical “scientists”, which shows some of their funding sources, including other interesting tidbits like how much actual research they may have done on the subject. Some, not surprisingly, actually have done very little. Additional sources include SourceWatch and Exxon Secrets.

Having said all of that, I’d also like to point out that funding and bias should be exempted from any discussion on climate change. Ad hominem attacks aimed at the funding sources of skeptical scientists won’t convince skeptics of anything. The beauty of the scientific method is that it can weed out bias. Any serious scientist will present his research to a peer-reviewed journal for publishing. If this study can then be independently replicated and therefore verified, the research should be considered valid, thus eliminating the influence of any potential bias on the part of the original scientist. Therefore, while it may be helpful to understand what motives may play into certain decisions, any debate on the issue of climate change should always be grounded in scientific research on the subject, thereby avoiding the issue of bias altogether.

So, as I see it, we can think of ourselves as the fish in the Klamath River. Bush administration policies have continually laid waste to our environment, and could eventually kill much more than just fish. I think the key here is education. There are so many people out there who are completely suckered into the idea that our current climate change is natural and that there is nothing we can do about it. Some are simply misled, but most believe it because it falls right in line with their already held beliefs on the subject, and especially plays on their fears of government regulations gone awry. The only way I’ve found that these people can come to understand the truth is through a patient, knowledgeable discussion. Let them throw all of their anti-global warming talking points out, and then fire right back with facts and figures, each supported with quotes, links, and most importantly, citations to scientific research whenever possible. I ended up engaged in one such conversation recently at a blog called Hooah Wife and Friends. The skeptic, named Don, displayed an acceptance of some very shocking conspiracy theories about how this is all just a global attempt to ruin the United States’ economy. However, I stuck with him, no matter how irrational his arguments, and tried to continually steer the discussion back to science, even through all of the logical fallacies, accusations, conspiracies, and just plain silliness. If done correctly, I think the result of this approach can only lead to a logical elimination of the skeptical arguments until none are left, at which point, assuming the debate has remained civil, the skeptic should have no choice but to rethink his or her previously held beliefs. Remaining civil and professional is paramount, because one is much more likely to let down their guard and concede if they feel they’ve been treated fairly, as opposed to having been ridiculed the entire time.

So, with that, I present you with the 51st thing you can do to make a difference: know your stuff. Do some research. That way, not only will you understand better how our climate works and how your contributions are making a difference, you will be prepared to discuss the subject with others, especially those who have been misinformed. For more information, visit this post at RealClimate, which contains many links for people with varying amounts of knowledge on the subject.