Leahy: President censored warming research

Rutland Herald ^ | Oct 29, 2006 | Kevin O'Connor

[proud_yank]

BURLINGTON — U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., joined the world's leading researcher on global warming Saturday to charge that the Bush administration's use of censorship to foil terrorism is hurting the fight against climate change and other environmental threats.

"If you have information that points out a problem, the only way you're going to make a correction is if you find out about it," Leahy said. "I have never seen an administration, either Republican or Democratic, as secretive as this one. It has become absolutely farcical, except that the country has been damaged by it."

Leahy, speaking in Burlington, punctuated his point by sitting beside top NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who alleged in January that the government was trying to stop him from speaking out after he called for prompt reductions in pollution emissions linked to global warming.

"There's a huge gap between what is understood by scientists and what is known by the public and policymakers," Hansen said Saturday. "I think people are unaware how close we are to the tipping point. That's not speculation. The science is clear."

Leahy and Hansen made their comments at the Society of Environmental Journalists international conference at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel, which drew 800 participants from around the world. Hansen is known as the man who testified before Congress in 1988 about a strong "cause and effect relationship" between temperature and pollution emissions into the atmosphere, sparking the first news reports about global warming.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration ordered federal agencies to stop releasing sensitive information. That clampdown has extended beyond national security to such scientific agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA. Journalists writing about fish migration, for example, often can't obtain basic information about bridges and dams because the data is stamped classified.

The government is censoring its research findings on global warming for a different reason, Hansen said.

"There's simply not agreement in this administration that we should do the things that need to get done. Because this has policy implications and they don't like them, they prefer we don't talk about it."

Hansen isn't the only federal employee complaining of a clampdown. Earlier Saturday, Rick Piltz told conference-goers that he resigned his senior position in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program last year after an administration official cut portions of his global warming reports before publication.

"They have never given any reason why they have suppressed the report, they just suppressed it," said Piltz, now director of the national watchdog group Climate Science Watch. "The net effect has been to misrepresent the information about climate change and therefore undermine national preparedness."

Piltz commended Hansen for speaking out publicly.

"Not all scientists have the cachet to be able to do that," he said.

Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he is working to strengthen the country's Freedom of Information Act, but is facing resistance from Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

"The secrecy is hurting everybody — it makes the days of Watergate look like child's play," Leahy said. "But it is possible that, if there really is a tsunami about 10 days from now in the congressional races, it will change."

Leahy and Hansen prefaced their remarks by saying government secrecy isn't new.

"I've had problems with prior administrations," Hansen said. "But there's apparently a feeling (the Bush administration) has the right to influence what gets out to the public rather than let it be based on scientific results."

The Society of Environmental Journalists conference, being held for the first time in Vermont, has included such speakers as Middlebury College scholar Bill McKibben, whose 1989 book "The End of Nature" was the first to explain global warming to a general audience, and New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the latest book on the topic, "Field Notes from a Catastrophe: A Frontline Report on Climate Change."

Participants also heard from Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and previewed an environmentally themed work in progress by John O'Brien, the Tunbridge filmmaker behind "Man with a Plan."

Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.

PQ: "There's a huge gap between what is understood by scientists and what is known by the public and policymakers," Hansen said Saturday. "I think people are unaware how close we are to the tipping point. That's not speculation. The science is clear."

[proud_yank]

Hansen is known as the man who testified before Congress in 1988 about a strong "cause and effect relationship" between temperature and pollution emissions into the atmosphere, sparking the first news reports about global warming.

Speaking of censorship, wasn't it Hansen who merely suggested a correlation between human activity and fluctuations in earth's temps? Weren't his initial reports also changed to make it sound more severe?

I recall reading about in 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton, but can't remember the details of it. If anyone has any info, please fill me in.

Other than that, this is one of the most disgustingly liberal articles I've read in a while. Comparing terrorism to global warming(TM) is rather lame.

[proud_yank]

ping

[Paladin2]

Let me be the first to say: MBP.

GOREBAL WARNING ALERT.

[proud_yank]

LOL! You don't happen to have the pic of him shooting flames, do you?

[johnthebaptistmoore]

Vermont's two U.S. Senators are two of the worst in the country.

[greasepaint]

hey Vermont,
you go first

pass global warming laws

[proud_yank]

I find it odd though, as they have some of the best gun laws in the country.

[kittymyrib]

But "Leaky" Leahy isn't worried at all about the real disaster looming in the failing Medicare and Social Security systems that the Democrats know is going to happen within the next 15-20 years, max. The Democrats don't want to talk about that, because it would prove that all the conservatives who said it was a giant Democrat Ponzi scheme were right.

[leprechaun9]

Ah Ha! LEAKY LEAHY (one of the Senate Leaders of the HATE THE UNITED STATES MOB )has spoken!

[dirtbiker]

"I think people are unaware how close we are to the tipping point. That's not speculation. The science is clear."

Climate scientist can't predict the weather more than 3 days out with any accuracy (heck, the Farmer's Almanac is more accurate), and have missed the 2006 hurricane forecast BY A MILE, but insist "global warming" is real!

Yeah, right.....

[Ben Ficklin]

In part, Bush's global climate change policies is based on Hansen's statements made during the Clinton administration and Hansen resents that.

Hansen accurately stated that there was neither scientific nor political consensus on global warming, and, rather than wait for that consensus, the US needed to act quickly in those areas where there was consensus.

The logic behind this policy was that any effort to control/reduce emissions of smog producing gasses would result in a corresonding reduction in emissions of CO2.

[sirchtruth]

Vermont's two U.S. Senators are two of the worst in the country.

HA! You ain't seen NOTHING yet, wait til that socialist prick Sanders gets elected!

"I have never seen an administration, either Republican or Democratic, as secretive as this one. It has become absolutely farcical, except that the country has been damaged by it."

Could that be because Leahy only sees what he wants to see, or stuffing classified docs down one's pants to STEAL is a-ok with this dork!

The damage to this countyr began when you became, Senator Leahy, and started LEAKING certain selective information from classified docs.

[greasepaint]

climate models are a complete hoax.

without past temperature measurements as input,
so called 'climate models' would have
absolutely no clue as to what the climate is today.

they just can't produce a correct temperature calculation,
unless you give it the temerature.

[YOUGOTIT]

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. = This man is a TRAITOR and should be railed out of the US Senate. He is scum and has leaked secret documents to our enemies. If there are any Americans left in Vermont they should be ashamed to have this idiot as their Senator.

[seasoned traditionalist]

PATRICK (THE LEAKER OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL) LEAHY.

He has a lot of room to talk.

Patrick Leahy: One of the main reasons I moved FROM Vermont ((where I grew up in the 50's and it used to be a nice Conservative State) to Virginia last year--that and the ONLY avowed Socialist in Congress, Bernie Sanders + "Jumpin" Jim Jeffords + Howie "The Clown" Dean, + having had it with being only one of 12 Conservatives in a State of 600,000, + + + + +

If Vermont is not one of the 10 Most Liberal States, I'll give up eating Maple Syrup . lol

JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER FOLKS--IF THERE IS A NEED FOR ONE--THAT THIS FAR-FAR-FAR-LEFTISTS LOON, WILL HEAD THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE WHICH CONTROLS THE SELECTION AND NOMINATING PROCESS FOR JUDGES, IF THE DHIMIRATS GAIN CONTROL OF THE SENATE!!!!!

[hnj_00]

even if he were correct......

is this the biggest issue at the moment?......what good would global neutral climate be...when

1) china/india/mexico/the third world pays no attention to it and thus only the US economy fall apart

2) the US becomes part of the third world due to illegal invsions of mexico

3) most importantly...the US is at war....our existence is being threatened by the f'n muzzies and this guy is worried about global warming....

if the US ceases to exist....global warming does not seem to be a major concern!!!!!

[Dick Vomer]

I heard he put the Kabash on the research into the "Flat Earth" theory as well.

[SunkenCiv]

Leahy... [charged] that the Bush administration's use of censorship to foil terrorism is hurting the fight against climate change and other environmental threats... Leahy, speaking in Burlington, punctuated his point by sitting beside top NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who alleged in January that the government was trying to stop him from speaking out after he called for prompt reductions in pollution emissions linked to global warming.

James Hansen...

[pp 208-216] "On June 23, 1988, climatologist James Hansen testified before a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a day when the temperature in Washington D.C. reached a sweltering 38C... Hansen had impressive data from 2,000 weather stations... which documented not only a century-long warming trend but a sharp resumption of warming after the early 1970s... Hansen flatly proclaimed that the earth was warming on a permanent basis because of humanity's promiscuous use of fossil fuels [sic]... Recently, James Hansen and a group of his colleagues have argued that the rapid warming of recent decades has in fact been driven by non-CO2 gases such as chlorofluorocarbons. Fossil fuel [sic] burning CO2 and aerosols have both positive and negative climatic forcing effects, which tend to cancel each other out. Hansen and his team point out that the growth rate of non-CO2 gases has declined over the past decade and could be reduced even further. This, combined with a slowing of black carbon and CO2 emissions, could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming. Much more research is needed to confirm this hypothesis."

In other words, in 1988 Hansen warned Congress that CO2 would raise world temperatures. About ten years went by, after which Hansen claimed that CO2 doesn't have any net impact at all. So much for his data. Mind you, this came from the book shown below, which is egregiously in advocacy of the notion of "global warming".

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian M. Fagan Paperback

[muawiyah]

Leahy is right about the scientists knowing something the public generally doesn't know ~ that's the fact that almost all of them pushing the "manmade global warming" story down the road are on the government payroll, or they work on a government grant, or they work for an organization highly dependent on government grants or contracts.

This makes them all highly suspect ~ particularly this Hansen guy.

There seem to be few scientists independent of the government in this subject area.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Thanks for the info, Leaky, that cinches my vote for Bush in 2008.......hey, he's not running in 08. How come you dim dummies are still running against Bush?