EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming

CBS News:

The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.

Read the whole story: CBS News

Comments

[Amunaka]

Extra! November/December 2004

Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias

Creating controversy where science finds consensus


A new study has found that when it comes to U.S. media coverage of global warming , superficial balance—telling "both" sides of the story—can actually be a form of informational bias. Despite the consistent assertions of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that human activities have had a "discernible" influence on the global climate and that global warming is a serious problem that must be addressed immediately, "he said/she said" reporting has allowed a small group of global warming skeptics to have their views greatly amplified.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978

[ReedYoung]

Good for Huffington Post for preserving the alarmist, politically motivated title of the Westinghouse (CBS) report, which asserts,
quote:
Carlin's report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years
/quote

1998 was THE hottest year on record. The past 11 years have not been as hot as 1998, but MOST of the subsequent 10 years (2009 can only be included on or after January 1, 2010) have been among the top 10 hottest years ever.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm

It's like comparing to Michael Jordan and concluding that Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Allan Iverson all three are all bad at basketball. Of course they aren't as good as Michael Jordan, but that obviously does not suggest they are bad at the game. A meaningful comparison is to the average, not to the hottest ever.

Carlin's cherry-picking would warrant expulsion from any accredited university. I call for immediately terminating his employment with the federal government, without possibility of any retirement benefits. His "report" is grossly dishonest and absolutely constitutes professional misconduct which must be prohibited under numerous laws on federal employment as well as EPA employee regulations. His blatantly false assertions are intended to defraud the entire country for the short-term economic advantage of corporations taking advantage of the economics of scarcity peculiar to petroleum, coal and other non-renewable energy sources.

[Running2Ks]

And he was debunked, not that CBS noted that:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/

[fumes]

''..to defraud the entire country..''

has that ever been done?

[ReedYoung]

Every subsidy to Texaco, Chevron, Conoco, Phillips, Exxon, Mobil ... plus, of course, Paulson's and Bernanke's handouts ... Yes, it has been done, and some want it to continue. Some CEOs and major shareholders will motivate somebody like Carlin to do their lying for them and get it packaged in pseudo-science, labeled with the right agency names to influence public opinion -- sometimes. I am optimistic that those times have passed.

[pissedmichael]

More slip-shod 'reporting.' Did the EPA suppress or didn't it? Just like using the word 'alleged' to excuse the incompleteness of fact checking so prevalent in the media these days.

[johndtuttle]

Read the CBS article. A non Scientist wanted his comments included in the report and the Scientists nixed it as shoddy work.

[JulieSA]

They nixed it because the EPA had already made up it's mind on the policy and only gave people one week to comment.

[Amunaka]

Hmmm....


W. House Guts Global Warming Study

WASHINGTON, June 19, 2003

CBS/AP) Angry environmentalists are denouncing the Bush administration for censoring the scientific evidence on global warming, reports CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts.

At issue is next week's huge government report on the state of the environment. Under heavy editing pressure from the White House, a lengthy chapter on climate change has been gutted.

In a draft of the report – obtained by CBS News – strong language that "climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment" was stricken by the White House; as was government research that suggests recent climate change is "likely mostly due to human activities."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/24/politics/main564873.shtml

[omobob]

The Story is did the EPA ignore the study because it was right or wrong? The fact that Alan Carlin is an economist and not a climatologist, one might be compelled to error on the side of it’s wrong.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/

[starkcr31]

This Global Warming crap is really getting out of hand. It's nothing but a political tool and an excuse to raise taxes. If someone shows me some actual proof that humans are causing this (or that it even exists), I'll believe it. Until then, no dice. That "carbon credit" BS is most hilarious scam I've ever seen.

[BrettnCalgary]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

[johndtuttle]

It is sloppy thinking to sit back and say "no one has shown me proof" when you have not done the slightest work yourself to examine the MOUNTAINS of evidence showing C02 emissions contributing to the rise in Global temperatures.

You don't need to be spoonfed. You're an Adult. Do your own reading.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=448

[starkcr31]

I have done my reading. There are plenty of scientists on both sides of the fence so I'm not going to say I know for sure either way. Perhaps you should stop getting your science from the likes of Al Gore.

[ReedYoung]

Carbon dioxide has been KNOWN to be a greenhouse gas since the late 19th century. At the time, scientists at the forefront of chemistry and physics estimated that humankind was burning coal and petroleum too slowly to make a significant impact on thermal retention of the atmosphere, and at that time that was probably true. It is not now.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

You have now been shown the proof that CO2 traps heat, and you already knew that CO2 is a reactant of combustion of coal and petroleum. Where is all that heat going if it isn't causing Global Warming?

[starkcr31]

We cause less than 2% of the world's CO2 output. The rest is from natural sources. I guess we should tax the volcanoes.

[Running2Ks]

Wow, way to miss the point...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/

Also, we want green jobs, a clean environment, and national security by no longer giving money to countries who hate us. Stop fighting what is best for America and the planet.

[starkcr31]

If we were actually able to drill here we would have to give money to other countries, now would we? Alternative energy sources cannot sustain our energy needs, at least not with technology how it is now.

[knowhelpnow]

Even if the pollution isn't changing the plant, what is this doing to people, why the rise in breathing problems? You could see the pollution in the 70's over LA if you were flying it just sat there on top of the city, this stuff is killing people men, women and children. We have to come up with clean, renewable energy, not only for health reasons but what do you think we are in these wars for especially Iraq we wanted their oil for our self and I'm pretty sure we want Iran's also.

[climatebabes]

I would suppress nonsense as well..

[starkcr31]

If it's nonsense, why suppress it? Could it because it's most likely right and that would inhibit this BS religion called Global Warming?

[Running2Ks]

See, your premise is wrong: it wasn't suppressed. And here is evidence that CBS didn't do its homework:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/

Don't jump to conclusions.

[johndtuttle]

Most likely "right" when an Economist expresses his opinions (that are not founded in Science) only if you are grasping at straws.

[Amunaka]

Why do righties find religion in everything....

[randman2009]

Of course they did. They wouldnt want word getting out that Global Warming was a sham. That might get in the way of enormous govt control measures like that abomination the house passed yesterday.

[johndtuttle]

Please explain to me how an Economist has the credentials to question Climatology science?

"Alan Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing."

Funny how the Supreme Court agreed that C02 was a dangerous pollutant and needed to be regulated. Isn't that odd???

[starkcr31]

I didn't realize Physics was Economics. Who knew? What makes the Supreme Court qualified to make that determination?

[randman2009]

Please explain to me how someone with a background in law and has served as TN senator and VP has the credentials to be the foremost "expert" in Climatology Science?

[ReedYoung]

Fake Objectivist, you are nothing but a corporatist, a soft fascist. The abomination was Bush's handouts to petroleum corporations, which would offend a real Objectivist. Protecting the populace from harm is exactly what proper, just governments do. And the science is not in doubt.

[personalpolitical]

Uh, if they did, GOOD! The EPA should suppress reports based on ignorance. Any report which concludes global warming isn't a big deal and governments don't need to control CO2 is garbage, and it would be stupid for any organization to push that.

[johndtuttle]

Please explain to me how an Economist has the credentials to question Climatology science?

"Alan Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing."

Funny how the Supreme Court agreed that C02 was a dangerous pollutant and needed to be regulated. Isn't that odd???

[johndtuttle]

Actually I'm to agree with you but replied under the wrong post, my bad.

[Mauiloa]

It would appear that the EPA is always going to be a political lightning rod regardless of whether the President leans Right or Left politically.

According to Wikipedia, "In April 2008, the Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work. The survey included chemists, toxicologists, engineers, geologists and experts in other fields of science. About 40% of the scientists reported that the interference has been more prevalent in the last five years compared to previous years."

With this history, then, it disturbs me that an economist has raised these issues at this time and that his opinions are now being used to attempt to derail any real effort to do what we can do to address this critical problem.

At the very same time, a new report from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reinforces the severity of the problem. https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2009/NR-09-06-05.htmll)

We must get beyond the knee-jerk reaction in this country that regulation is inherently bad. With something as vital as the future of the planet, shouldn't proceeding with caution be the most important and intelligent focus?

[fumes]

''With something as vital as the future of the planet..''

i agree! if we don't SAVE THE PLANET who will? no really..

[knowhelpnow]

You can bet the plant will save itself, though it may not include humans in it's future.

[Running2Ks]

CBS is supposed to be better than Fox Propaganda, but their "source" for this "report" was already debunked.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/

They should be ashamed of themselves.
All we want is less pollution, a future for the planet, green jobs so American's can work, and to stop giving money to countries that hate us.

And all the G "No" P wants is to stop progress.

[JulieSA]

The second sentence of the grist article is a l i e.

"The agency didn’t think much of the report because it’s authored by an economist claiming to be a climatologist."

When did Carlin ever claim to be a climatologist?

[JulieSA]

Regulation is not inherently bad. But it is not inherently good either. Bad regulation is worse than no regulation. The guide should be "First, do no harm".

[ReedYoung]

Bad regulation of murder, wherein we only catch some perpetrators, is better than no regulation of murder.

[ReedYoung]

The EPA will remain a political football, only as long as anti-trust laws remain inadequate and unenforced enough for the pollution industry* to own the "Free Press."
http://ketupa.net/westinghouse2.htm#WestinghousebuysCBS
http://www.westinghouse.com/ Notice the hyperlink at the bottom of the page to
http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/

* Economics of scarcity is what attract the corrupt and untalented to the largest "energy" corporations, which specialize in extracting energy via combustion and nuclear decay instead of photons from the sun and motion from the wind. When clean energy sources are installed on most roofs and in every neighborhood, Westinghouse's nuclear subsidiary will cease to exist.

[lj9283]

This was the same type of revisionist science that the EPA had been undertaking for eight years under the Global Warming Denial Science of the Cheney/Bush regime.

Just a bunch of Cheney/Bush "scientists" who have burrowed themselves into the EPA to discredit science in the name of politics.

[knowhelpnow]

In the name of greed, I don't believe these people that are polluting earth care about much else as long as it isn't going to be the end of them, they care nothing about the future of their grandchildren or the future of human life.

[kgb999]

This guy burrowed in 38 years ago ... that was some atypical forward-thinking by Bush.

If they are "Bushies" it makes suppressing the report worse. It opens Obama's administration to being accused of stifling dissent just like Bush's. The proper way to deal with this would have been to accept it, note it, and dismiss it.

Now it's going to be a different debate. The information in this report will be viewed as "dangerous" to the global warming proponents ... otherwise why would the "lefties" be trying so hard keep it from "getting out". The right is going to be beating this thing like a drum! It doesn't matter how good the debunking is now - this became a media game, not a game of science.

This could to play out badly in the Senate and prove just enough cover for reluctant "aye" votes to turn "nay". Remember, this isn't a debate between scientists - it's now a debate between politicians using the weapons they have been given by scientists. It's like suppressing evidence in a trial, even though the guy may be guilty as sin ... misconduct often results in a mistrial.

Sadly, in this case a "mistrial" may be a delay in passing much needed legislation. On the bright side - if it does get knocked out due to this, the next go at it could come back a bit stronger in some of the areas that have been watered down.

[JoeLosFeliz]

At the end of last year, the University of Illinois conducted a poll among Earth scientists. 3,146 responded to the poll. The vast majority agreed that global warming is real. 97 percent of climatologists indicated that human activity played a large role in global warming.

"They're [the climatologists] the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it."

- Peter Doran (Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois & one of the survey's authors)

[RomeoMD25]

There is not a scientific consensus
that man is the primary cause of
global warming.
A group of scientists and researchers recently gathered in New York to sign a declaration stating that there is no convincing evidence to suggest that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity cause climate change and called upon world leaders to abandon all efforts to reduce emissions. Over 19,000 scientists have signed a petition stating that there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gases activity is causing global warming. And John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, calls global warming the “greatest scam in history”.

[gnorrfa]

so this is it? this is THE report that will resolve all the differences between the pro global warming and the anti-global warming? it was suppressed so the "conspirators" could continue with their nefarious plot to destroy the world's economies? or was it suppressed because the anti's could continue with their nefarious plot to extract every last ounce of the world's resources to enrich their enormous greed? i dunno, i'll be outta here before any of this takes place. relax. enjoy.

[ThomasPaineWeNeedYou]

The CBS story has Carlin saying that global temps have declined over the last 11 years anyone living in the midwest knows that is not true in the last 10 years or so the hottest years on record have been recorded year after year. National Geo has done several stories on the amount of melted ice water that is flowing from under the world's largest glacier or ice cube in Greenland. That solar radiation has the single largest effect on earths temp which of course is true and it is the build up of CO2 in the atmosphere that is keeping and blockin the heat which is the effect of solar radiation from escaping into space and keeping our temps at normal levels. I don't even understand his points which from my perspective and what I have read over the years is nonsense. He goes on to state that manging sea level rise or reducing solar radiation from reaching earth would be cheaper alternatives, now how in the world that be cheaper your trying to affect planetary systems that we have absolutely no control over.
We human pollute and mothe nature adds when Penatoubo the volcano in Phillippines exploded NASA measured and stared that that one natural event put out the entire years worth of US industrial equivlalents of NO2's and 3's, SO2's, 3's, &4's and CO2's.
Sounds like typical MSM conservativ bias to me.

[fumes]

you must have ''keeling windows'' in your house..

good for you!!

[obamanomics]

Few simple facts on low E windows..... It does not matter which gas is used between the panels of glass so long as the gasses are fairly inert in reaction to the other materials used to make the window. Any gas will act as an insulation barrier. They simply choose gasses that will not corrode the other materils used in the window. that makes CO2 and argon good choices, and is the main gasses you will find used in most low E windows.

[ThomasPaineWeNeedYou]

Sorry about spelling errors.

[Chubbster]

forgiven

[obamanomics]

They glaciers in greenland are no longer retreating, and are actually growing in size, and we just went through a very cold winter here in Iowa.

[fumes]

omg!!!

you're through it???

it's still winter here in the great cool state of new jersey..

[ThomasPaineWeNeedYou]

Global warming is all about extremes no is saying we won't have cold winters it's the extremes. I live in Missouri and we had a long cold wet spring and now incredible heat and humidity that usu doesn't hit untlil august or july and we no longer have falls just extended summer and then winter.

[BlackbirdHighway]

Greenland had record ice loss in the summer of 2007. In 2008, the ice loss tripled from the 2007 record. Greenland ice loss is on running 100 years ahead of the estimates made just a few years ago.

Because of the acceleration in Greenland ice melt, it is now likely that the East coast of the US will see 6 feet of sea level rise by 2100. That will move the coastline in Florida many miles inland and drown Wall Street in NYC. The effects will be devastating and they won't stop at 2100, things will continue to get worse for centuries to come.

[knowhelpnow]

Compared to what the last 10 years? I live in Nebraska right next to you and we had a mild winter. It still means nothing one year to the next it has to do with longer terms them one year.
It really is climate change because all over the world things are changing to rapidly for it to be a cycle of the plant.
You better read the whole story on Greenland to make a statement like that, another one year cure except it was only the top layer and not building on the glaciers or even keeping up with with the deterioration of that glacier.

[HisPetGoat]

I live in New Orleans, a city in the mountains of Louisiana. It did not flood during hurricane Katrina. We have many beautiful glaciers here. I can see Russia from my house.

[Running2Ks]

And he was already debunked!

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/

But don't let CBS report facts or anything.

[dan-o]

Solar output is at its lowest level since 1923. We have been coming out of a mini ice age since the early 19th century. During the fourth of July celebrations in 1815 the people were skating on the Hudson river. This was caused by something called the maunder minimum which was a massive decrease in the output of the sun. This started in the 14th century when European tempertures were 8 degrees warmer than today. This warm "garden period" led to an explosion of agriculture and population which was part of the reason for the mass deaths during the Black Death in the 1400's. The population was starving as a result of the massive cooling of the planet. What this shows is the effects of solar activity on our climate versus human activity.

We are now in a solar cooling period and it is reducing food production and that will cause price increases and increased starvation in the undeveloped world.

As to the article discussing options such as reducing the solar effects on the earth. Options are: all roofs to be white in new construction and remodels-will reflect solar radiation back to space, place reflective aluminum foil panels in orbit to block radiation and blast dust into the upper atmosphere to block solar radiation.