posted on Jan, 31 2007 @ 11:13 AM
A survey by a government watchdog group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, administered to 150 government-employed climate scientists, alleges a
pattern of political pressure by the Bush Administration to minimize the impact of reports by omitting inflammatory words such as "climate change"
and "global warming." The findings of the survey were presented to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week.
t
oday.reuters.com
A survey by the group found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least
435 incidents.
"Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other
similar terms from a variety of communications," Grifo said.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
The primary difficulty with this article is that there is not a distinction made between statements of policy and conclusions based on government
studies. With respect to scientific conclusion, there is a difference between encouraging research in a new direction and insisting on changing
documents. The Administration should feel free to criticize research, even that done by the government, but suppression ignores possible avenues of
research and makes for poor public relations.
On the other hand, if these were merely political documents, such as statements of policy, then the administration should be held to a lower standard
so that the it has the flexibility to put forward the message it feels is appropriate. Then the political system has the opportunity to being forth
contrary evidence.
In this case, the former, at least in some circumstances, seems true. If they have been suppressing testimony, they must be called on it so that we
can have the entire story.
[edit on 1/31/2007 by Togetic]