Bush admin blocked report suggesting global warming affecting hurricane strength

[joe1347]

White House said to bar hurricane report By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
50 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_sc/hurricane_report

I wonder what other findings (from scientific research) are being blocking?

 

[Rob Lister]

I wonder what other findings (from scientific research) are being blocking?

The finding that even if global warming is real, and regardless of it's cause, there isn't squat we can do about it. And, given the current state of science and politics, anything we try to do to fix what may or may not be 1) real and 2) an overall negative, will cost us far more than just dealing with it as it occurs.

That's the science being blocked.

 

[a_unique_person]

You managed to misdirect the OP in about a ten different ways.

 

[Rob Lister]

Well, bring it back on topic, AUP. Seems to me I'm dead on topic. If no solution exists, then that is the real issue. The opening posts asked, overtly, what else was being suppressed. I interjected with a reall issue being, seemingly, suppressed.

If you dispute this, rehash your "framework" argument. Season it with your "you don't care about poor people" argument, and add a pinch of "at least WE'RE doing SOMETHING" argument. I'm sure it will last a few pages at least.

 

[Kopji]

Settled then, ignorance is bliss?

 

[Rob Lister]

Settled then, ignorance is bliss?

Not so long as money is to be transferred will it be settled. It will be bliss only for those on the receiving end. That, the only windfall directly caused by global warming.

 

[Bikewer]

According to several different Science Friday segments I've listened to over the last several years, the Bush administration has a considerable history of ignoring or supressing scientific findings it does not like or does not agree with.

As a for-instance, the FDA dwadling over the "morning after" pill for some years, after the scientific/medical report reccomended it's approval for OTC sales.

 

[joe1347]

Extreme Global Warming Fix Proposed: Fill the Skies With Sulfur
Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News

August 4, 2006
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has proposed a controversial method for protecting Earth from global warming: seeding the atmosphere with sulfur to reflect the sun's rays.

In the current issue of the journal Climate Change, Paul Crutzen of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry suggests injecting particles of sulfur into the stratosphere—the upper layer of the atmosphere—to cool the planet and buy time for humans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The sulfur particles would be dropped from high-altitude balloons or fired into the atmosphere with heavy artillery shells, he says.

Once airborne the particles would act like tiny mirrors, bouncing the sun's light and heat back into space.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060804-global-warming.html

Actually there has been some discussion regarding trying to reverse the effects of global warming. The link above is for one of what I think is one of the crazier ideas. Seeding the ocean with iron ore to promote Plankton growth and biologically trap carbon is another one that I've seen somewhat serious discussion on. With the likehood of the third world (especially China and India) as well as the USA agreeing to sequester carbon dioxide being close to zero - the 'planet cooling' solutions seem to merit additional and serious study.

As for suppressing science - I seriously wonder if the Bush Administration's anti-science policy has created a chilling effect on some researchers who avoid publishing for fear of having their funding cut. Remember all of the fuss about the NASA public affairs hack 'without a college degree' that was editing scientific documents related to climate change (global warming). The NASA scientists as well as other scientists were all thrilled with themselves over getting the NASA Public Affairs political appointee fired. Of course it's just a coincidence that a few months later that NASAs climate change program budget was cut.

Changing the mission: NASA Climate Change Science Program budget has been cut by 22% since 2004
Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006


Removing “understand and protect our home planet” from the NASA mission statement this year was not just a matter of semantics. The administration has been slashing its support for the agency’s Earth Science activities, including observations and research on climate and global environmental change. The President’s 2007 budget request for NASA’s Climate Change Science Program activities is 22% below the Fiscal Year 2004 spending level—more like 30% adjusting for inflation—a staggering cutback.

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/nasa-budget-cutback/

 

[Kopji]

The SAB [Science Advisory Board] asked how the rigor and integrity of science could be protected in a context of consensus. The reply was through transparency and sharing.

http://www.sab.noaa.gov/Meetings/1999/july0799min.html

I agree with the NOAA meeting minutes from an earlier time.

Maybe government reports are always something of a compromise, a result of consensus where not everyone completely agrees. It is by their openness and our ability to see the workings of the process we gain confidence.

Transparency and sharing of information is critical to good science. If their reason for existing is to reinforce the political positions of whatever administration is in place, the government should just get out of the science business altogether.

Hopefully it has not become that.

 

[davefoc]

The finding that even if global warming is real, and regardless of it's cause, there isn't squat we can do about it. And, given the current state of science and politics, anything we try to do to fix what may or may not be 1) real and 2) an overall negative, will cost us far more than just dealing with it as it occurs.

That's the science being blocked.

I am truly not sure what you intended here. Is it that:

You think the Bush administration is blocking news of global warming kind of like in the old science fiction movies the government suppressed news of alien landings to prevent a panic?

 

[peptoabysmal]

...
In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ? part of the Commerce Department ? in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

Leetmaa, head of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said he had no details of the report.

NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue.

However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements.
...

The NOAA is part of the Commerce Department. What is the mission of the Commerce Department?

The only information we have is that the document was rejected for release as being too technical. That indicates it is being considered for public release. Perhaps a re-write? I've had to re-write documents many times as a programmer because they were "too technical."

Here is the over-reaction from the D side of the aisle:

...
The report drew a prompt response from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., who charged that "the administration has effectively declared war on science and truth to advance its anti-environment agenda ... the Bush administration continues to censor scientists who have documented the current impacts of global warming."
...

Not quite; a department suppressing a document produced in one of it's sub-departments is not the same as "Bush declares war on scientists." And even if it is for nefarious reasons, it is quite understandable, because the mission of the Commerce Department is to promote business.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The information in the actual article is far less damning than the headline of the article, which is far less damning than the first line of the article and the title of this thread.

Out of curiosity, is there an official definition of what exactly constitutes "The Bush Administration"?? Is it the members of the White House and Bush's cabinet secretaries, or is it the White House, Cabinet Secretaries, and all of their respective departments -- in other words, does "The Bush Administration" extend down to the entire executive branch of the government, down to the lowest levels of all departments? As a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces, am I a member of "The Bush Administration"? When the TSA Airport Screener feels me up after I go through the metal detector at the airport, can I say that I got groped by the Bush Administration?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[davefoc]

I think your question here, ARubberChickenWithAPulley, is how to distinguish Bush administration groping from non-Bush administration groping.

Clearly if you are groped by Condi Rice you have been groped by a member of the Bush administration.

In your example about the TSA employee the answer is more complex. I think there it is fair to say you were groped by the Bush administration, but that you weren't groped by a member of the Bush administration. My thought is that to qualify as a member of the Bush administration the person must hold a position that doesn't qualify for civil service job protection. I think it is important to note here that only TSA groping in the course of its officially specified duties would constitute groping by the Bush administration. Groping by TSA employees not ordered or authorized by the Bush administration would not constitute Bush administration groping.

I am not sure what the situation is on the military side. If you were groped by a member of the joint chiefs would that constitute groping by a member of the Bush administration? I think so. But groping by most members of the military would not constitute groping by a member of the Bush administration. But if the groping was carried out as part of the soldier's official duties then I think it would be reasonable to say that you had been groped by the Bush administration.

 

[a_unique_person]

The information in the actual article is far less damning than the headline of the article, which is far less damning than the first line of the article and the title of this thread.

Out of curiosity, is there an official definition of what exactly constitutes "The Bush Administration"?? Is it the members of the White House and Bush's cabinet secretaries, or is it the White House, Cabinet Secretaries, and all of their respective departments -- in other words, does "The Bush Administration" extend down to the entire executive branch of the government, down to the lowest levels of all departments? As a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces, am I a member of "The Bush Administration"? When the TSA Airport Screener feels me up after I go through the metal detector at the airport, can I say that I got groped by the Bush Administration?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The head of their department has stopped a report from being published on the grounds that it is 'too technical'. The administration is the one which hands out these jobs, IIRC>

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I think your question here, ARubberChickenWithAPulley, is how to distinguish Bush administration groping from non-Bush administration groping.

Valid points, all those. It's a real shame we couldn't be having this conversation while Clinton was still in office. The scenario would be so much more meaningful...

The head of their department has stopped a report from being published on the grounds that it is 'too technical'. The administration is the one which hands out these jobs, IIRC>

The article simply says a "Commerce official" sent an e-mail and said the report needed to be made less technical. It doesn't say it was the head of the NOAA who made that decision.

 

[a_unique_person]

That's the point, the Commerce Office made the decision, not NOAA.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

That's the point, the Commerce Office made the decision, not NOAA.

The NOAA is part of the Commerce Department. It wouldn't exactly be odd for the Commerce Department to have oversight over one of its own sections. The term "commerce official" could also just as easily refer to an NOAA official, given that people working in the NOAA are also part of the Commerce Department. Who knows. The article doesn't give enough information to say one way or another.

 

[a_unique_person]

A scientific organisation is run by the commerce department? Australia is trying similar tricks, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resouce Economics, (set up by the current conservative government to tell it what it wants to hear), offers critiques of the findings of the CSIRO, as required.

 

[JamesDillon]

Not so long as money is to be transferred will it be settled. It will be bliss only for those on the receiving end. That, the only windfall directly caused by global warming.

So... the theory of global warming is a plot hatched by climatologists to line their own pockets with tax money?

Do you have, by the way, any authoritative source for your assertion that even if global warming is real, "there isn't squat we can do about it"?

 

[Beerina]

> USA agreeing to sequester carbon dioxide being close to zero

The left hand of environmentalism doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

In the '70's (no, not going to talk about "global cooling") there were all kinds of dire predictions that we're running out of landfill area because of ever-increasing amounts of trash. (I recall this cute history cartoon I used to watch on some Canadian channel that had the same 4 characters acting out different periods in history. One "special" episode had them in the future fighting ever-growing mounds of trash. Yikes! BTW, anyone recall this show?)

So, in many places, yard waste was banned. In some places, paper and other biodegradeables were also banned. Landfills were mandated to have air pipes so they could biodegrade.

Now carbon sequestration may or may not be a significant possible solution to atmospheric carbon dioxide, but clearly we're missing the forest for the trees on this one. Jam it in there and bury it over without air pipes. Maybe it'll biodegrade anyway eventually, but not for a number of centuries. (I can even see future archaeologists looking back on us as "idiots" who were "incapable of seeing future technological developments rendering the problems moot" lamenting their loss of wonderful landfill dig sites.)