White House adds to list of censored climate science
This White House has no shame. I'm sure that's not news to any of our POLJUNK readers. Or pretty much any other American.
But here's something else to add to your list of censorship of science by the Bush administration. They edited out large chunks of draft Senate testimony from the director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that covered the anticipated effects of global warming on the spread of disease, etc:
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, the government's premier disease monitoring agency, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."But her prepared testimony was devoted almost entirely to the CDC's preparation, with few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease. ... Her testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had much less information on health risks than a much longer draft version Gerberding submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review in advance of her appearance.
"It was eviscerated," said a CDC official familiar with both versions[.]
There are many other examples. We posted on efforts by the White House to censor James Hansen the other day. And according to a hearing on the subject by the House Oversight Committee:
- Dr. Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a new survey that revealed that 150 federal climate scientists personally experienced at least one incident of political interference during the past five years.
- Rick Piltz, formerly a Senior Associate at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), testified that he left the program because "politicization of climate science communication by the current Administration was undermining the credibility and integrity of the" CCSP.
- Dr. Drew Shindell, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the Committee about his efforts to inform the public of his findings on the warming of Antarctica. He testified that, as a result of intervention by political appointees, his press release "was repeatedly delayed, altered and watered down."
Of course, there are certainly more examples. History will not be kind to the Bush administration.
