Sexing down global warming?
Last Modified: 08 Jun 2005
By: Julian Rush
A key official has accused of altering White House papers, to water down the scientific evidence about global warming.
"A section warning that global warming will melt glaciers in Arctic regions is dismissed as 'speculative findings and musings'."The New York Times has published documents which show that a top White House official in charge of environment policy repeatedly altered government climate reports, to water down the scientific evidence on climate change. The White House issued a denial - insisting its reports were based on the best available evidence.
Environmentalists have long claimed the oil industry has an undue and malign influence on the White House. It's not just that George W Bush used to be an oilman, his administration stuffed with former oil executives.
Now a Washington pressure group for whistleblowers has revealed one of them has repeatedly altered official US government reports on climate change: watering them down to give the impression climate science was more uncertain than it really is - a mantra long quoted by President Bush.
The man "sexing down" these climate dossiers was once a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. He's now Chief of Staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a body central to US climate change policy.
The documents show dozens of changes in his handwriting. In one report, "uncertainties" become "significant and fundamental uncertainties".
In another, a section warning that global warming will melt glaciers in Arctic regions, with serious impacts on native populations is simply crossed out, dismissed as "speculative findings and musings".
The White house tonight said claims this was watering down were false. But it puts in context the Prime Minister's return empty-handed from Washington yesterday - at least as far as climate change was concerned.
INTERNET LINKS
See the New York Time's story here: www.nytimes.com
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): www.ipcc.ch
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"A section warning that global warming will melt glaciers in Arctic regions is dismissed as 'speculative findings and musings'."Further evidence of oil industry influence comes from documents obtained by Greenpeace. They are briefing notes for this woman: Paula Dobrinsky, the US Undersecretary of State who led American climate negotiations till 2004.
They were for two meetings in 2001 with Exxon - the oil company environmentalists really love to hate, and one with the lobby group, the Global Climate Coalition, funded by the oil industry.
Channel 4 News exposed the activities of their representative Don Pearlman, during the Kyoto negotiations. Mr Pearlman was one of the GCC team to meet Paula Dobrinsky. She was briefed to tell them their tireless lobbying had succeeded.
To tell the GCC: "POTUS - the President of the United States - rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you."
It is, of course, perfectly reasonable any government will talk to an industry that will be affected by its policies, but what these documents reveal is an administration adamant it won't budge at all on climate change. Tony Blair's task to get anything credible at all on climate change at the G8 summit looks, right now at least, like mission impossible.
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