December 14, 2003
Global Warming: If we ignore it, will just go away?
[Ed: This article was first published for Vox Populi Nebraska in July and is the second in my series on the environment.]
Previously, I discussed Frank Luntz’ memorandum to the Republicans about how to win the environmental vote. His advice for handling global warming was to emphasize that there was not enough evidence yet on this subject and therefore, it was too early to take remedial action. From the Luntz memo (emphasis in the original):
The scientific debate remains open.. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming with the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.
Emphasize the importance of “acting only with all the facts in hand” and “making the right decision, not the quick decision.”
Is the White House taking Frank Luntz’ advice? You bet it is. On June 19th, 2003, the New York Times reported that the EPA was publishing a report on the state of the environment that basically leaves out any real information about global warming. This report, commissioned by Christie Whitman in 2001, was supposed to provide a comprehensive review of what is known about various environmental problems the country faces, what gaps there are in our knowledge and how to address those gaps. But now the report itself creates a huge gaping hole by not addressing climate change.
In 2001, the Bush White House funded a study by the National Research Council that concluded that human activity was a contributor to global warming. Furthermore, the study found that the global consequences of climate change would affect both human health and the environment. When the study was published, the White House accepted its findings. Now, it appears they do not.
Earlier drafts of the EPA report used key findings from the NRC study to cover what was known about global warming. In an early draft of the report, the introductory sentence for a major section on global environmental issues read, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment". This sentence was replaced with: "The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, diagnose its causes, and develop useful projections of how natural variability and human actions may affect the global environment in the future."
The leaked draft and internal memos from the EPA show that references to the NRC and other significant studies had been dropped. In the place of these studies was added a reference to a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute. The API study asserts that there isn’t enough evidence to say humans contribute to climate change and their conclusion is: “More Research is Needed”.
When the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) finished their edits, only two non-committal paragraphs remained. Gone was any mention that human activity contributed to the raising global temperatures. And gone was the any real information about this environmental problem, much less what might be done to mitigate the problem.
Why leave out information on global warming? From the NY Times: "As it went through the review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change," Ms. Whitman said. "So rather than go out with something half-baked or not put out the whole report, we felt it was important for us to get this out because there is a lot of really good information that people can use to measure our successes."
So, from where did the lack of consensus come? According to Ed Hunt of TidePool.org, “EPA staffers were so embarrassed by the way the Bush Administration had censored references to key climate science that they decided to drop the section altogether. After [edits made by the CEQ], it ‘no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change,’ EPA staffers said.”
So two of Luntz’ key points have been employed: recommend more research because there isn’t a consensus and find some scientists to make that point.
Of course, Frank Luntz knows perfectly well that there is very strong evidence that global warming is indeed a problem, but he recommends that Republicans dispute that fact (emphasis in the original):
The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. … However, only a handful of people believe the science of global warming is a closed question. Most Americans want more information so that they can make an informed decision. It is our job to provide that information.
The Times confirms that the professional scientists at the EPA were unhappy: “Another memorandum circulated [in late April] said that the easiest course would be to accept the White House revisions but that to do so would taint the agency, because ‘E.P.A. will take responsibility and severe criticism from the science and environmental communities for poorly representing the science.’” (Emphasis added)
One of the more ironic aspects of this redaction is how the White House insists that the evidence for global warming be rock solid before we can act. Would only they require as much concrete evidence before deciding to preemptively start a war against Iraq. Both cases show a predilection to ignore actual evidence because it interferes with the goal they have set. But just as people warned that the aftermath of the war in Iraq would be much more problematic than for what they were preparing, global warming is not something you can ignore forever. Once more the Bush policy is to let our children and grandchildren pay for their failure to consider the consequences of their policies for the future.
For more information on the topic of Global Warming, check out the information provided by the National Academy of Sciences. And for now, you can find more at the EPA website.
UPDATE: Kevin Drum has a post that presents the analysis the EPA went through deciding what to do about the subversion of the scientific data for global warming which led to their removal of this section.
Posted by Mary at December 14, 2003 11:56 PM | TrackBack