Don't like the truth - ignore it

[Rand]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, who study everything from caribou mating to global warming, subjecting them to controls on research that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.

“This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way,'' Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said Wednesday. “I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow.''

Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be compromised.

“I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every damn thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing. I worry that it borders on censorship,'' said Jim Estes, an internationally recognized marine biologist who works for the geological unit. “The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest possible quality research,'' said Estes, a researcher at the agency for more than 30 years. “But to me it feels like they're doing this to keep us under their thumbs. It seems like they're afraid of science. Our findings could be embarrassing to the administration.''

The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be “alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature.''

The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be told — prior to any submission for publication — “of findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed.''

Patrick Leahy, USGS's head of geology and its acting director until September, said Wednesday that the new procedures would improve scientists' accountability and “harmonize'' the review process. He said they are intended to maintain scientists' neutrality.

“Our scientific staff is second to none,'' he said. “This notion of scientific gotcha is something we do not want to participate in. That does not mean to avoid contentious issues.''

The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to determine whether they deserve to be published.

From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside peer reviewers' as well any exchanges between the scientists who are seeking to publish their findings and the reviewers.

The Bush administration, as well as the Clinton administration before it, has been criticized over scientific integrity issues. In 2002, the USGS was forced to reverse course after warning that oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm the Porcupine caribou herd. One week later a new report followed, this time saying the caribou would not be affected.

 

[Rand]

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.
The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—part of the Commerce Department—in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

Leetmaa, head of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said he had no details of the report.

NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue.

However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said "closes the loop'' between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

Not all agree, however, with opponents arguing that many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles.

The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.

In February, a NASA political appointee who worked in the space agency's public relations department resigned after reportedly trying to restrict access to Jim Hansen, a NASA climate scientist who has been active in global warming research.

 

[gsdx]

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.
The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

How old is Bush? I was born in 1951 and I have seen the climate change drastically over the last half-century. How can he not have seen it, too? And how (or 'why') can he be so in denial about it and fight it so strongly?

We're killing this planet, but, take my word for it, the planet will kill us first!

 

[gsdx]

Jets and planes contribute to global warming on a ridiculous scale.

Following 9/11, when the planes were grounded, scientists here in Canada, who have been studying atmospheric temperatures, recorded a 2-degree drop in temperature over the US. It went back up when planes started flying again.

 

[Rand]

I am so hopeful that the new Congress will be looking into issues more and allowing more than 1 view to be heard and addressed.

It is so sad what we have allowed to occur

 

[Paladin]

Doesn't sound as harmless as just ignoring the truth to me.

More like suppressing the truth.

Yet as everyone knows, the planet goes through its own long natural cycles. We may still be coming out of an ice age. The question is how much of global climate change can be directly attributed to us, and how much is natural and inevitable?

 

[gsdx]

Yet as everyone knows, the planet goes through its own long natural cycles. We may still be coming out of an ice age. The question is how much of global climate change can be directly attributed to us, and how much is natural and inevitable?

Nature's cycles take eons - not lifetimes.

 

[backpacker]

Let's face it, there are people with agenda's on both sides. You can make statistics say anything you want them to say. All of you are assuming that whatever these people have to say is the absolute truth. Given the type of topics specifically covered by the policy, there are always facts to support opposing view points. This policy basically says that they want to be sure that the USGS's position is properly stated. They clearly say it's not about censorship and even the people against the policy don't say that they were censored. They just don't like having their superiors watch over them. If they worked for a company, most likely they would have even less freedom. It's only appropriate that information should be reviewed before being held out as the findings of the USGS. I hope that a fair and balanced approach will be used, but I realize that it may not always be. Sounds like a reasonable policy. If it does turn into outright censorship of valid findings, I'm sure it will be a big story.

 

[gsdx]

Let's face it, there are people with agenda's on both sides. You can make statistics say anything you want them to say. All of you are assuming that whatever these people have to say is the absolute truth. Given the type of topics specifically covered by the policy, there are always facts to support opposing view points.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm guessing I'm a lot older. I have noticed the changes during my lifetime. I tend not to agree with the nay-sayers.

 

[Paladin]

I tend not to agree with the nay-sayers.

I think it is dangerous to automatically take any viewpoint...

 

[gsdx]

I think it is dangerous to automatically take any viewpoint...

I did not take this viewpoint automatically. There is a thing called 'experience'. I have it. You don't, apparently.

When I was a kid, we had snow so deep, you could make tunnels through it. We had outdoor ice rinks for months. I can't remember a tornado touching down anywhere up here. The Northwest Passage was blocked for much of the year. We could walk on the ice on Lake Ontario.

Now, we rarely get the snow. Summers are dangerously hot, and there are tornados all over the place. The Northwest Passage is an open waterway, and I wouldn't dare walk on the ice on Little Lake let alone chance it on Lake Ontario.

This has happened over the past fifty years. I'm not making it up.

 

[gsdx]

Adendum.

Isn't the point of a discussion that varying viewpoints be discussed? It wouldn't be much of a conversation if everyone agreed with everyone else.

 

[Rand]

^^ So true - I need to research this, but was told that the under-secretary of the environment was on a group that studied the impact of CO2 on global warming and this administration lead group determined that it was noticeable. That paper was suppressed as it did not fit the administrations agenda.

Somehow, that borders on treason rather than "good politics"
but then I'm an idealist

 

[Paladin]

I did not take this viewpoint automatically. There is a thing called 'experience'. I have it. You don't, apparently....
...This has happened over the past fifty years. I'm not making it up.

You seem to forget that my first comment regarding the subject of this thread was, that the powers that be seem to be not just ignoring the truth but suppressing it.

I am all for differing viewpoints to be aired and discussed - rationally and without emotive leaps to conclusions.

You on the other hand seem to resort to name-calling if someone doesn't agree with you unconditionally.

And you are imputing far more meaning to my words than was there. (Did I say that I disbelieved your personal climatic experience? No!)

 

[gsdx]

You on the other hand seem to resort to name-calling if someone doesn't agree with you unconditionally.

I beg your pardon? When did I call someone a name?

 

[star-warrior]

As a person with a science background up to a masters, everything in the first two articles above is anathema to me.

Science should be about the freeflow of ideas that allow other scientists in their field to test their findings independently so that they can ascertain the merit of the approach in such a way as to verify that hypothesis, or uphold the ideas put forward. Or refute and criticise if they don't work, like the cold fusion back a couple of decades...

I see no merit in spending money on research and have it hushed up because of politics. The money spent should be accountable to the people by the unbiased and accurate reporting of scientific findings, and not an excercise in gerrymandering by politicians to shore up their pride and follies.

Even the spin in wording is crucial in science, and when people want to dumb down a report because they don't want to understand it or want others to you can have the effect of that famous dossier that got us into the Iraq war - the one which was 'sexed up'. That is to say, the report claims things which weren't the original opinion, but made to look much more different for some political expediency.

Beware. Sooner or later, American science will have little or no credibility if such things happen as predicted above. Not only will you be fed lies, but other peoples research based on such lies become wasted, and all the scientists whose original findings are altered, become discredited for something they tried to write in all honesty, but have been altered by others for some other sinister factors.

When you no longer know the truth about things, will you get paranoid? Who will control you and what you do when it becomes easy to manipulate public anxiety through lies etc...

I would have thought this Bush Administration would have had some lessons already...

 

[belamy]

I beg your pardon? When did I call someone a name?

Did you type the word "whore"?

 

[Paladin]

I beg your pardon? When did I call someone a name?

Stating: "I have experience. You don't, apparently." is at the same level as name-calling. It's a cheap shot, unreasonable and unjustified, given that you have no way of knowing that. Exactly like calling someone a name without any substance behind it.

 

[gsdx]

Did you type the word "whore"?

I can't remember the last time I wrote that word.

I'll I said was that I was old and had experience, assuming that he is younger than I am and doesn't have as much. That's name-calling?

 

[Paladin]

^ We posted at the same time. My response is above yours.

I see you knew what you had said. Whether or not you will admit that it was intended as a put-down is another thing.