In their continuing battle to obfuscate on the issue of climate change, a series of e-mails has been uncovered that shows White House officials successfully barring the public appearance of a NOAA hurricane expert who, along with most of the scientific community, believes that increased hurricane intensity is attributable to climate change. Here is a copy of the letter from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez that describes the muzzling. And here is a copy of the e-mail that Rep. Waxman uses as evidence.
A big hat tip to ThinkProgress.org for revealing this. When will the US administration pull it’s head out of the sand and start dealing with this issue? Until they do, no amount of this osrt of PR spin will make up for their lack of credibility. The best PR always begins with doing the right thing.
This of course isn’t the first, or do I highly doubt it will be the last, time the US administration has dabbled in the art of manipulating pesky scientific findings that don’t mesh with their agenda. Here is a series of articles by Andrew Revkin at the New York Times chronicling other similar activities, as usual they are blocked in the subscription-only gate:
Scientists Commend NASA‘s Progress on Communications (March 14, 2006)
House Panel Prods NASA for Improvement on Openness (Feb. 17, 2006)
Call for Openness at NASA Adds to Reports of Pressure (Feb. 16, 2006)
Ex-Press Aide for NASA Offers Defense (Feb. 10, 2006)
Editorial: Censoring Truth (Feb. 9, 2006)
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA (Feb. 8, 2006)
NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness (Feb. 4, 2006)
Lawmaker Condemns NASA Over Scientist’s Accusations of Censorship (Jan. 31, 2006)
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him (Jan. 29. 2006)
