Whitman’s Not-So-Comprehensive Environmental Report
Much ruckus being kicked up regarding the New York Times’ article, yesterday, that blew the whistle on the White House having so watered down the section on global warming in the EPA’s upcoming big-ass report on the state of the environment that it was eventually decided to just remove that section altogether: Report by the EPA leaves out data on climate change. Editorial/opinion pages are pretty universally taking up the call against such politicization of scientific findings. From Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globe: Bush fries climate change. SunSpot: More revisionist history. And the NYT itself: Censorship on global warming.
It’s part of the same pattern that gave us sexed-up evidence of Iraqi WMDs. Bush & Co. have little use for expert opinion that doesn’t square with their political agenda. Yeah, I realize all politicians do the same thing to some degree, but with Bush it’s off the charts. And since simply pretending very, very hard that things are true that really aren’t, or aren’t true that really are, has a poor track-record in terms of actually changing reality, this becomes pretty scary for anyone who has to live with the consequences of the resulting decision-making.
June 20th, 2003 at 9:44 pm
One technicality that many bloggers and news reports are mis-stating and should be corrected is that the EPA, in fact, chose to delete the section on global warming themselves, rather than insert the watered-down version proposed by the White House. I would say that it was the right thing to do from their point of view.
I won’t pretend to be an expert in the science of global warming, although the causes that are commonly accepted make intuitive sense to me. But common sense and the facts of science don’t always go together. I do know that there are still some serious discussions within the scientific community regarding the specific factors which influence global warming.
I suppose that it shouldn’t be a real shock that the Bush Administration is resistant to endorsing the EPA findings, due to the Climate Policy currently under development http://www.gvnews.net/html/DailyNews/alert3059.html which will authorize the funding of additional study of this issue. Why endorse a finding on global warming when you intend to propose more study of it?
From all appearances though, it certainly looks like a lack of political will on the Administration’s part to go forward with current world consensus.
June 23rd, 2003 at 2:06 pm
Okay, this is going to be a long response but no help for it. As a chemist I have access to some of the data and thought I’d weigh in (if anyone’s still interested…).
In this case common sense and science are growing closer and closer together (depending on whose common sense you’re using). So to the issue and you don’t have to take my word for this, there are good web sites out there:
1. Carbon dioxide contributes to an elevated global temperature? Definitely true and supported by much experimental evidence, including the average temperatures of earth and venus. the mechanism for global warming, the absorption of infrared radiation by vibrating molecules, is well understood and accepted.
2. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmoshpere has been increasing over the past century? Definitely true. Reams of data to support this position.
3. The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past century is a consequence of human activity? Very likely. If you’re a creationist ignore this next statement (my jab at creationists)- Carbon isotope ratio measurements strongly suggest that at least part of the increase is attributable to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and cutting of forests.
4. Average global temperature has increased over the past century? Virtually certain. the data are consistent with this interpretation, indicating an increase of about 0.6oC (+/- 0.2oC) over the 20th century indicating the warmest century since the 1400s. Now to qualify that, measurement methods have changed/improved over time which might call the conclusion into question. Also, a century may be too short at time to reveal genuine temperature trends (planet is 4.55 billion years old, ice ages, droughts, etc.). Now that I think about it, a draught (not drought) of Guiness sounds good about now…
5. the guiness was a good idea.
6. Carbon dioxide and other gases generated by human activity are responsible for this temperature increase? May be true. The cause and effect relationship are not unambiguously established. It is possible that there are other, natural causes for the measured temperature increase. However, the evidence implicating CO2 from human sources is growing rapidly but still remains circumstantial. Interestingly, there is the IPCC, a collection of 2500 world-leading international research scientists and technical experts whose mission is to assess climabe change research in a balanced way through peer-review (Limbaugh, O’Reilly and company should have to suffer through it at some point…) In its 2001 report, the IPCC it takes the very firm position that humans have caused untoward global changes (I am not a member of IPCC) “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” and “With the growth in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, influence with the climate system will grow in magnitude, and the likelihood of adverse impacts from climate change that could be judged dangerous will become dangerous”. In essence, do soemthing now to curb greenhouse gas emissions so we have some options in the future (sound advice).
7. The average global temperature will continue to increase as human-generated emission of greenhouse gases increase? Uncertain. This statement assumes that the (probable) increase in average global temperature observed over the last century has been caused by the (very likely) increase in human generated CO2 and other gases. As I stated above, the cause and effect relationship is not unambiguously established. Also, trying to project into the future is problematic due to the complexities of the global system.
The take home message if you’ve made it this far? The Bush doctrine is ignorant and I think John has it right, expert opinion is only important if it squares with Bush & Cos political agenda. Not only are they ignoring the IPCC, they’re ignoring the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences, none of whom are scientific light weights. We should be taking steps now to curb CO2 emissions so that we have some options in the future.
July 9th, 2003 at 8:55 pm
For what it’s worth, here is an article that refutes the claims that the Bush Administration caused the omission of valid scientific data on the global warming issue. http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/envirowrapper.jsp?PID=1051-450&CID=1051-070203E
Don’t ask me to defend it though, as I was lousy in Science classes!