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Congress Hears From Muzzled Scientists

Posted by kdawson on from the global-mmpphhhh dept.

BendingSpoons writes "More than 120 scientists across seven federal agencies have been pressured to remove the phrases 'global warming' and 'climate change' from various documents. The documents include press releases and, more importantly, communications with Congress. Evidence of this sort of political interference has been largely anecdotal to date, but is now detailed in a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings on this issue Tuesday; the hearing began by Committee members, including most Republicans, stating that global warming is happening and greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are largely to blame. The OGR hearings presage a landmark moment in climate change research: the release of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC report, drafted by 1,250 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2,500 scientists, is expected to state that 'there is a 90% chance humans are responsible for climate change' — up from the 2001 report's 66% chance. It probably won't make for comfortable bedtime reading; 'The future is bleak', said scientists."

1 of 664 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this by gnurfed · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From conversations I've had with "conservative republicans", I've mostly gotten variations of the following non-exhaustive list of answers:
    • "(a) Al Gore believes in global warming. (b) Al Gore is a liberal. Thus global warming is a liberal conspiracy"
    • "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud"
    • "There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry"
    • "I like warm weather, so I don't care"
    • "Climatologists are just fishing for more grants, which they want to steal out of my pockets"
    • "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now"
    • "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright"
    The scary thing is that most of the conservatives I know are otherwise quite science-literate and often accept the science communities consensus views. I'd say it's very healthy to be sceptical, but on this issue there's much more to it. Something I can't explain.