Thursday, December 3, 2009

Obama On Scientific Integrity

What was President Obama’s response to the revelation that many climate scientists whose reports shape world climate policy have been cooking their information, trying to suppress contrary opinion and data and embracing censorship of critics?


Read the President’s words:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Scientific Integrity

Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.

The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public.

Sorry, that was what he said on March 9, 2009. He hasn’t said anything yet about the data and scientists who will have the biggest influence on talks in Denmark that could reshape climate policy and cost the economies of developed countries hundreds of billions of dollars.


To understand how an open minded scientist looks at evidence, please watch this video on the nature of climate change and some of the forces (including human) that act on it.


http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists?source=email

(Yes, this is on an investing site. Forget the surrounding text. Watch the video.)


(For the record, as the co-author of a book on America's beaches and as a science writer, I understand that we have lots of field data that result from warmer temperatures. Tundra, polar ice coverage, widespread glacial shrinkage, etc. These are the results of past warming. The direction, rate, and scale of future climate change and its causes is open to debate. Past events are not proof that humans are the critical element in climate change. And if we are the critical element, no one yet has proposed any measure that will significantly reduce projected temperature changes in the next 100 years or beyond.


As one of the scientists promoting global warming as a fact said in his e mail about variations on a time frame greater than 100 years, "We know with certainty that we know f***-all."


Given the other urgent needs of humankind and the natural environment, should any committed environmentalist be signing onto Kyoto, Copenhagen, and such schemes or cap and trade without proof that the results are worth the enormous costs?)

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