The Last Frost

 This past Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled that the EPA does in fact have the authority to regulate auto emissions that contribute to climate change such as carbon dioxide. It was a close vote, but in the end they did the right thing voting 5-4 in favor. Unfortunately those 4 votes stemmed from the 4 justices you would expect to vote against the ruling, all Bush appointees. 

 This ruling may have widespread impacts across the automotive industry as States and the EPA are now able to set mandatory emissions standards.  

Court rules against Bush in global warming case - [Reuters]

The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has held hearings on the accusations that the White House has been "asserting it's will" on climate science. What they've found is that it's true, there are documented cases of so called 'editing' by White House aides. The goal of this editing process is to filter the information from the scientists in order to align it with the policies of the Bush administration before the information reaches the public. 

One of the defenders of the practice, Phil Cooney who was the chief of staff at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality and now conveniently works for ExxonMobile. So what were the specifics? In 10 years, 181 edits to highlight scientific uncertainties, 113 edits to diminish the role of humans in climate change.

Here's an example from the New Scientist article (which I encourage everyone to read):

For example, Cooney replaced "will" with "may" in the sentence: "Warming temperatures will also affect Arctic land areas." He also deleted this sentence: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." [New Scientist Environment, 2007]

Is this the way America conducts scientific research now? It's certainly not the behavior of the America I was raised to love.  

US fudging of climate science - details revealed - [New Scientist Environment]

At a congressional hearing held this past Monday, scientists charged the administration with hiring uninformed oil-friendly lobbyists to edit climate change reports to soften their impact. 

Here's an example:

"greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures to rise and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."

was changed to:

"Some activities emit greenhouse gases that directly or indirectly may affect the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation, thereby potentially affecting climate on regional and global scales."

I can see why the scientists are pissed.

Congressional hearing heats up over changes to climate reports - Los Angeles Times

A memo sent to The New York Times seems to show an obvious attempt to control the flow of information regarding climate change and polar wildlife by this administration. It was circulated at the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service and require a "spokesman" be named before any trip is conducted for the sake of climate change. The idea being that only people who agree with a certain view will be allowed to speak out on the issues.

Certainly sounds like a roundabout way of gagging federal employees who don't agree with the current administrations view, disturbing stuff.

Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate [New York Times]

"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change" [Rep. Henry Waxman via CNN.com]

Well you don't say! I mean seriously, does this really surprise anyone? Disturbing, yes, surprising? Not in the least. 

Lawmakers hear of interference in global warming science - [CNN.com]

Hilarious imitation of George W. Bush on the issue of global warmings. Probably not too far from the truth.

This blog is just so dang serious all the time, that I'm going to try to find at least silly article a week just to shake it up a bit. Here's the first installment courtesy of the good folks at the Onion. You just gotta love 'em over there, well you don't have to, but is there a reason not to? 

Bush Urges Expanded Drilling Of Alaskan Wildlife » [The Onion]

The journal Nature has reported that Bush is actively in the business of suppressing information pointing to the true severity of global warming. Specifically a report on the link between current warming trends and stronger and more intense hurricanes. 

He's avoiding a political backlash due to his hardline support for industries that causes this problem. So who do you think Bush is working for now? Certainly not the American public… but we already knew that.

'US blocking global warming report' » [The Times of India]

In thier 2006 budget, NASA deleted a sentence from their mission statement that is rather unfortunate. The language that was cut?

"To understand and protect our home planet"

The reasoning behind the change is that they wanted to align their statement with Bush's goals for space exploration. I think it's obvious that the goals of Bush's administration don't include consideration for anything relating to climate change or the environment. So I can't blame NASA for catering to the administration's twisted priorities. Perhaps they simply recognize that Bush has been a little touchy about the subject of global warming ever since Al Gore made that movie.

I just hope that this doesn't signify a permanent shift in mindset for the organization as some NASA scientists fear. Afterall if we can't 'understand and protect our home planet', well, all we've got are a few tin cans floating in space which tend not to work very well for long periods of time.

NASA’s Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet » [New York Times]

I guess he likes to ignore serious problems, at least he admits it.

Bush: 'Global warming is a serious problem' » [The Raw Story]