Burn em, Burn em all...
as per usual the most interesting news stories get buried somewhere on page 12.
has anyone read any of the information coming out on Philip Cooney. The guy just recently
resigned as the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, (which devises and promotes the administration's policies on environmental issues), because he he apparently
edited a bunch of scientific documents to make them fit into the white house's agenda.
"He removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists...The White House denied Mr Cooney, a former oil industry advocate, watered down the reports.
It said the changes were part of a normal inter-agency review process. "
how the hell does an Oil man with no scientific background become the head honcho on environmental
affairs??
He was a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil industry trade group and is also a lawyer by training, with no scientific background.
The New York Times reported that he made dozens of changes to reports issued in 2002 and 2003, and many appeared in final versions of major administration climate report, such as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties", and adding the word "extremely" to the 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 snow-pack.
His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."
anyways now since he has resigned he has taken a job with exxon/mobil which is a natural
career choice for anyone concerned with the environment, but we all know this already.
posted by one too many mornings @ 2:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
that's such a sickening abuse of power. Is must be so hard to work towards a cleaner environment just to learn some asshole lawyer is editing/making up environmental policy at will. lame.
i know my views on enviroscience are not popular, but from what I've seen so far about cooney is that his editorial changes were correct. There are fundamental and significant uncertainties in understanding global climate change, and quantitatively relating human behavior to climate change is extremely difficult, especially when the goal is policy making. Furthermore, every report handed to the boss from a committee should be edited and revised heavily before being made public. what's so scandalous about that?
Also, it is better if the man in charge is not a scientist. If anybody is bad about dishonestly duping politicians and the public about the importance of their work, it is academic scientists, hands down.
Finally, association with the oil industry shouldn’t be a scarlet O. Some of the world's best physicists, my mentors, spent years working for exxon-mobil in the 70's and 80's.
Now maybe Cooney isn't qualified, or maybe he actually did something wrong. But the allegations I'm hearing make me think, who gives a shit?
I urge anybody listening to read at least the first chapter of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist". I would hope it would at least serve to temper your feelings about these issues. And, interestingly enough, Bjorn Lomborg isn't an enviroscientist either. He is a statistician who did a kind of cost-benefit analysis on hundreds of the most influential environmental studies.
ooh, a new philosophical dispute! I can't wait to jump in...maybe not today though...I'm still trying to remember when I read a Vanity Fair article about John Ashcroft in which the journalist went over to his southern mansion for lunch and discovered his entire household staff was black: well if it ain't 1847! It certainly feels like it at times. Tommy, I'm obsessed with your comment: "association with the oil industry shouldn't be a scarlet 'O'" and am considering putting it on a t-shirt. would you sign off ownership rights to me, as long as I don't pretend I said it?
Dan, can't wait to read more what you wrote. Here's my site: www.einfuhlung.blogspot.com if you're bored at work, or home, or wherevs there's a computer. I kind of um, write a lot.
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