if the facts don't fit, change the facts

[MushMouth]

That should be the credo of the Bush administration. If reality turns out to be inconsistent with Bush policy, so much the worse for reality.

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html)

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

[Pól Rua]

Reminds me of a joke Australian Comedian Wendy Harmer once said: "If the tobacco companies were selling sex instead of cigarettes, they'd still be denying that sex leads to pregnancy."

[Guts/Batman]

This is the golden rule of politics.

[Royal]

"I reject your reality & replace it with my own."

[SUPERECWFAN1]

" Reality , Smeality ...you losers are stuck with me 3 more years and god knows I can't make myself or my Adminstration look worse ! "

[MushMouth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html

"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company. This administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night.

No new revelation here, but now we have further documentation.

[Samurai]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html


No new revelation here, but now we have further documentation.
You do know that the US Senate unanimously voted against the Kyoto Treaty, right? (97-0, 3 were absent) And it is Congress that legally must approve the treaty. Kyoto is so horribly flawed that both sides in Congress are in 100% agreement against it... considering the typical partisan bickering, that outta tell you something...

[Matt]

To quote someone of fair intelligence...

You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering

[Spike-X]

Okay, I give up. Who said that?

[Matt]

Heh. Look to my avatar...
It was The Doctor in the story 'The face of evil'.

I actually found it in the midst of a bunch of education based quotes on this site: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/education_quotes.htm

It has some very, very good sayings.

[Pól Rua]

That is freakin' awesome.

[Wesley Dodds]

You do know that the US Senate unanimously voted against the Kyoto Treaty, right? (97-0, 3 were absent) And it is Congress that legally must approve the treaty. Kyoto is so horribly flawed that both sides in Congress are in 100% agreement against it... considering the typical partisan bickering, that outta tell you something...

I like how you ignored the fact that a White House official has edited government climate reports to downplay the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warning.

"The White House is falsifying scientific findings to justify their partisan agenda!"

"Yeah, but the Kyoto Treaty is deeply flawed."

Edit: Well, it's not a claim, is it? It's fact.

[west3man]

" Reality , Smeality ...you losers are stuck with me 3 more years and god knows I can't make myself or my Adminstration look worse ! "
I agree with that quote, but not for the apparent reasons.

Bush is Superman... or he's got Superman as a super-speed, invisible bodyguard. Even if he frigs up, *shrugs*, so what?! Who can hurt him?

His approval ratings drop a lil. So what? They'll go back up.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I agree with that quote, but not for the apparent reasons.

Bush is Superman... or he's got Superman as a super-speed, invisible bodyguard. Even if he frigs up, *shrugs*, so what?! Who can hurt him?

His approval ratings drop a lil. So what? They'll go back up.


All he needs to do Is do some anti-gay talk and that rating shoots back up. Notice a trend last year ? His ratings tumble and he talks about how a Marriage Amendmant Is needed !

You have to love politics and the will of stupiedity of some Americans.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I like how you ignored Mushmouth's claim that a White House official has edited government climate reports to downplay the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warning.

That's not a claim. It's a fact. It's documented, it's true, it's real. But as an inconvenient fact, Samurai simply ignores it and attempts to redirect attention and discussion, just as do those in the Administration.

This Administration demonstrates contempt for facts and for the truth at every turn. In regard to sex education (lies about the efficacy of condoms and the relative efficacy of abstinence-based education vs. full sex ed) , drug education (effects of drugs), environmental policy (changing numbers and ignoring/burying reports which demonstrate dangerous and polluting effects of various substances at the Administration's chosen level of allowance), global warming (the examples above are just a small sample), social security (claiming only the wealthiest retired folk would take a cut in benefits under the Bush plan, then defining "wealth" to include just about anyone with significant savings or pensions), pre- and post-invsaion information about WMDs (they weren't there, and at very best the Administration grossly overstated the case for their existence) and Iraqi connections w/ al Qaeda (insignificant), Administration policy is to twist figures around, distort facts and outright lie.

And then these scumbags have the nerve to blame "the liberal media" for the fact that virtually nobody believes what the government tells them.

[MushMouth]

This news won't even make it onto the "liberal" tv media.

[Typo Lad]

You do know that the US Senate unanimously voted against the Kyoto Treaty, right? (97-0, 3 were absent) And it is Congress that legally must approve the treaty. Kyoto is so horribly flawed that both sides in Congress are in 100% agreement against it... considering the typical partisan bickering, that outta tell you something...

Be that as it may. what do you think of the actual revelation in the article?

Pro-or anti this administration, this is fairly damning, don't you think? No real "positive" way to construe it.

[Wesley Dodds]

Pro-or anti this administration, this is fairly damning, don't you think? No real "positive" way to construe it.

Ha ha. Oh, wait and see, O Mortish One.

Let me try. "It was just an overzealous low-level operative! Bush had nothing to do with it!"

[MushMouth]

Be that as it may. what do you think of the actual revelation in the article?

Pro-or anti this administration, this is fairly damning, don't you think? No real "positive" way to construe it.

Sadly, this should not be a shock to anyone who's very familiar with this administration's environmental policy. This incident is not isolated, it is rather that is generally how the Bush administration operates.

http://www.scienceinpolicy.org/index.html

[Ray R.]

Ha ha. Oh, wait and see, O Mortish One.

Let me try. "It was just an overzealous low-level operative! Bush had nothing to do with it!"

I think his name is Mr. Not Me. After originally getting his start as a young cohort to Jeffy in the "Family Circus" strips, Mr. Not Me graduated from the rigorous academia of DeVry Technical College and started to campaign actively for then Texas Governor George Bush.

Once in the White House, Mr. Not Me really got to spread his wings. He provided flawed information on Nigerian yellow cake, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda; he provided daily press passes to Jeff "MilitaryStud.com" Guckert; he gave the order to hook up prisoners' testicles to car batteries at Abu Graib; he ordered that passages that painted Saudi Arabia in a negative light be redacted from 9/11 reports; he also made the EPA turn the other cheek on administration so-called "Clean Air" initiatives; and he made up the story about the heroic death of Pat Tillman. Mr. Not Me has also been attributed to 56 other so-called "mistakes" (by the liberal media of course), but confirmation has not been forthcoming.

For his efforts, Mr. Not Me has received three promotions, an office overlooking the Washington Monument, and is in line for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

[Wesley Dodds]

For his efforts, Mr. Not Me has received three promotions, an office overlooking the Washington Monument, and is in line for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

No, because you only get the Medal of Honor for something you weren't told to do, and it's pretty obvious Mr Not Me was acting under orders. :p

Perhaps in keeping with Bush's policy of rewarding failure Mr Not Me should get the Medal of Freedom?

[Ray R.]

For his efforts, Mr. Not Me has received three promotions, an office overlooking the Washington Monument, and is in line for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

No, because you only get the Medal of Honor for something you weren't told to do, and it's pretty obvious Mr Not Me was acting under orders. :p

Perhaps in keeping with Bush's policy of rewarding failure Mr Not Me should get the Medal of Freedom?

I believe we should look to the phrase "competency is its own worst enemy" and take another look at the meaning.....

We have taken the "Peter Principle" to a level previously unseen and beyond prediction: employees within a hierarchical organization advance to their highest level of competence, are then promoted to a level where they are incompetent, and then stay in that position.

In the Bush Administration they are Gods among men, starting right at the top....

[Patient Boy]

I think his name is Mr. Not Me. After originally getting his start as a young cohort to Jeffy in the "Family Circus" strips, Mr. Not Me graduated from the rigorous academia of DeVry Technical College and started to campaign actively for then Texas Governor George Bush.

Once in the White House, Mr. Not Me really got to spread his wings. He provided flawed information on Nigerian yellow cake, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda; he provided daily press passes to Jeff "MilitaryStud.com" Guckert; he gave the order to hook up prisoners' testicles to car batteries at Abu Graib; he ordered that passages that painted Saudi Arabia in a negative light be redacted from 9/11 reports; he also made the EPA turn the other cheek on administration so-called "Clean Air" initiatives; and he made up the story about the heroic death of Pat Tillman. Mr. Not Me has also been attributed to 56 other so-called "mistakes" (by the liberal media of course), but confirmation has not been forthcoming.

For his efforts, Mr. Not Me has received three promotions, an office overlooking the Washington Monument, and is in line for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Bloody hilarious.

[Samurai]

Be that as it may. what do you think of the actual revelation in the article?

Pro-or anti this administration, this is fairly damning, don't you think? No real "positive" way to construe it.
I couldn't read the article, it requires registration. (Why don't people post the contents of registered site articles? Pet peeve on mine...)

That said, I don't see anything wrong with fixing supposed statements of fact so that they are phrased as the unproven theories they actually are. There are literally thousands of scientists who feel that humans have minimal, if any, effect on global temperatures. The Earth has natural cycles of warming and cooling, and if the guy changed hard statements like "Man-made global warming will reach disasterous proportions by 2075" to "Global warming, if it continues as some scientists believe it may, could reach disasterous proportions in 2075, though there is little evidence humans can influence such a progression one way or the other", then that is a legitimate correction of a misstatement IMHO. Look into the case against man-made global warming... it may surprise you. I posted a series of Canadian videos on the topic a while back in the thread "The videos Canada doesn't want you to see!" Do a search for it, if you're interested.

[MushMouth]

(Why don't people post the contents of registered site articles? Pet peeve on mine...)

Because to do so would be a violation of copyright. New York Times registration is free, anyways.

[Spike-X]

"I didn't read the article, but I'm going to make excuses for what happened anyway."

Love your work, Samurai.

[MushMouth]

That said, I don't see anything wrong with fixing supposed statements of fact so that they are phrased as the unproven theories they actually are.

Thats not what is at issue. What is at issue is editing reports of scientists in such a way as to alter the meaning of those reports. Its intellectually dishonest.

[Typo Lad]

Because to do so would be a violation of copyright.

See, now I wanna do it!

New York Times registration is free, anyways.

How dare you make people make an effort to find the facts to support their position.

[JeffreyWKramer]

That said, I don't see anything wrong with fixing supposed statements of fact so that they are phrased as the unproven theories they actually are.
So, you're saying it's okay for the Administration to misrepresent the conclusions of scientists, so as to make it appear they concluded something other than what they actually concluded?

[Michael P]

Let's liven the debate up with some pictures. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/1.stm)

[Hiromi]

I couldn't read the article, it requires registration. (Why don't people post the contents of registered site articles? Pet peeve on mine...)

That said, I don't see anything wrong with fixing supposed statements of fact so that they are phrased as the unproven theories they actually are. There are literally thousands of scientists who feel that humans have minimal, if any, effect on global temperatures. The Earth has natural cycles of warming and cooling, and if the guy changed hard statements like "Man-made global warming will reach disasterous proportions by 2075" to "Global warming, if it continues as some scientists believe it may, could reach disasterous proportions in 2075, though there is little evidence humans can influence such a progression one way or the other", then that is a legitimate correction of a misstatement IMHO. Look into the case against man-made global warming... it may surprise you. I posted a series of Canadian videos on the topic a while back in the thread "The videos Canada doesn't want you to see!" Do a search for it, if you're interested.

www.bugmenot.com

There should really be a sticky for this site.

[MushMouth]

This news won't even make it onto the "liberal" tv media.

I saw at least one show cover it. It was Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC

Oh, and here's the NYT's follow up about Scott McClellan's response (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/politics/09climate.html):
"There are policy people and scientists who are involved in this process, in the interagency review process, and he's one of the policy people involved in that process," Mr. McClellan said, according to a transcript by Federal News Service Inc. "And he's someone who's very familiar with the issues relating to climate change and the environment."

Right, "policy people" who distort scientific reports to say what the administration want them to say. Yeah, and he's someone familiar with the issues relating to climate change and the environment as an economist with no scientific training and as a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.

Chris Mooney gives a more detailed analysis of McClellan's spin here (http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1901)

[JeffreyWKramer]

Chris Mooney gives a more detailed analysis of McClellan's spin here (http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1901)

McClellan is a professional liar and a scumbag of the lowest order. A true heir to Goebbels.

[MushMouth]

http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp

Mooney has a couple more posts today picking apart McClellan's untruthfull statements, as well as a link to Piltz's whistleblower document about the systematic manipulation of climate science.

[MushMouth]

Two days after this story came out Cooney resigned his position. Now he's going to go work for Exxon Mobil. Go figure.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/15/cooney.exxon.ap/

[Nitmo]

Because to do so would be a violation of copyright. New York Times registration is free, anyways.
not if you give them credit for it, like I do here
June 8, 2005
Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.

The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.

A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment. "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record," Ms. St. Martin said. "He's not a cleared spokesman."

In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertainty by adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."

In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

Other White House officials said the changes made by Mr. Cooney were part of the normal interagency review that takes place on all documents related to global environmental change. Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, noted that one of the reports Mr. Cooney worked on, the administration's 10-year plan for climate research, was endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences. And Myron Ebell, who has long campaigned against limits on greenhouse gases as director of climate policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian group, said such editing was necessary for "consistency" in meshing programs with policy.

But critics said that while all administrations routinely vetted government reports, scientific content in such reports should be reviewed by scientists. Climate experts and representatives of environmental groups, when shown examples of the revisions, said they illustrated the significant if largely invisible influence of Mr. Cooney and other White House officials with ties to energy industries that have long fought greenhouse-gas restrictions.

In a memorandum sent last week to the top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen agencies, Mr. Piltz said the White House editing and other actions threatened to taint the government's $1.8 billion-a-year effort to clarify the causes and consequences of climate change.

"Each administration has a policy position on climate change," Mr. Piltz wrote. "But I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program."

A senior Environmental Protection Agency scientist who works on climate questions said the White House environmental council, where Mr. Cooney works, had offered valuable suggestions on reports from time to time. But the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because all agency employees are forbidden to speak with reporters without clearance, said the kinds of changes made by Mr. Cooney had damaged morale. "I have colleagues in other agencies who express the same view, that it has somewhat of a chilling effect and has created a sense of frustration," he said.

Efforts by the Bush administration to highlight uncertainties in science pointing to human-caused warming have put the United States at odds with other nations and with scientific groups at home.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who met with President Bush at the White House yesterday, has been trying to persuade him to intensify United States efforts to curb greenhouse gases. Mr. Bush has called only for voluntary measures to slow growth in emissions through 2012.

Yesterday, saying their goal was to influence that meeting, the scientific academies of 11 countries, including those of the United States and Britain, released a joint letter saying, "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."

The American Petroleum Institute, where Mr. Cooney worked before going to the White House, has long taken a sharply different view. Starting with the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in 1997, it has promoted the idea that lingering uncertainties in climate science justify delaying restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases.

On learning of the White House revisions, representatives of some environmental groups said the effort to amplify uncertainties in the science was clearly intended to delay consideration of curbs on the gases, which remain an unavoidable byproduct of burning oil and coal.

"They've got three more years, and the only way to control this issue and do nothing about it is to muddy the science," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a private group that has enlisted businesses in programs cutting emissions.

Mr. Cooney's alterations can cause clear shifts in meaning. For example, a sentence in the October 2002 draft of "Our Changing Planet" originally read, "Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change." In a neat, compact hand, Mr. Cooney modified the sentence to read, "Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change."

A document showing a similar pattern of changes is the 2003 "Strategic Plan for the United States Climate Change Science Program," a thick report describing the reorganization of government climate research that was requested by Mr. Bush in his first speech on the issue, in June 2001. The document was reviewed by an expert panel assembled in 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists largely endorsed the administration's research plan, but they warned that the administration's procedures for vetting reports on climate could result in excessive political interference with science.

Another political appointee who has played an influential role in adjusting language in government reports on climate science is Dr. Harlan L. Watson, the chief climate negotiator for the State Department, who has a doctorate in solid-state physics but has not done climate research.

In an Oct. 4, 2002 memo to James R. Mahoney, the head of the United States Climate Change Science Program and an appointee of Mr. Bush, Mr. Watson "strongly" recommended cutting boxes of text referring to the findings of a National Academy of Sciences panel on climate and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews research on human-caused climate change.

The boxes, he wrote, "do not include an appropriate recognition of the underlying uncertainties and the tentative nature of a number of the assertions."

While those changes were made nearly two years ago, recent statements by Dr. Watson indicate that the admnistration's position has not changed.

"We are still not convinced of the need to move forward quite so quickly," he told the BBC in London last month. "There is general agreement that there is a lot known, but also there is a lot to be known."
-----
copyright NY Times 6/8/05

[Adam Crocker]

http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp

Mooney has a couple more posts today picking apart McClellan's untruthfull statements, as well as a link to Piltz's whistleblower document about the systematic manipulation of climate science.

Here's the permanent link to the blog entry in question (http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1906).