Government Climate Editing Continues (Update)
Researchers Advised to Remove Climate Change Language, The Scientist
“The US Department of Energy (DOE) is asking scientists to reword their grant proposals so as to avoid mentions of “climate change” or “global warming,” researchers say. The move came to light when Jennifer Bowen, an ecologist at Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center, posted part of an email from a DOE official on Friday (August 25), prompting a backlash from members of the scientific community over perceived interference from President Trump’s administration in climate research. “I found it to be a stark reminder of the ongoing politicization of science,” Bowen writes in an email to The Washington Post. “I firmly believe that scientists should have the intellectual freedom to tackle the most pressing issues of the day, regardless of the political landscape.”
NIH unit deletes references to climate ‘change’, Washington Post
“A unit of the National Institutes of Health has removed references to climate “change” from its website, deletions that one environmental group criticizes as “cleansing” but an NIH official describes as minor. The revisions occurred on the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences site. A headline that read “Climate Change and Human Health,” for example, was altered to “Climate and Human Health.” A menu title that read “Climate Change and Children’s Health” in June now appears as “Climate and Children’s Health.” Links to a fact sheet on “Climate Change and Human Health” also were removed. “The cleansing continues,” said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But they’re not going to be able to erase the science, or the truth, by scrubbing websites.” The changes were revealed in a report by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a group of nonprofits and academics who monitor what they call “potential threats” to federal policy and scientific research on energy and the environment.”
– Trump Eliminates National Climate Assessment Panel, earlier post
– Will Saying “Climate Change” Be Banned At All Government Agencies Or Just Some Of Them?, earlier post
– #MakeOurPlanetGreatAgain, earlier post
– NASA Websites Contradict Claims Made By Trump, earlier post
– Trump Is Not Listening To NASA or NOAA on Earth Science. Get Used To It., earlier post
I saw a Tweet this morning that researchers are being told not to put “global warming” or “climate change” in any of their abstracts.
I really don’t want to spend the next three and a half years defending Mr. Trump, but…
I have to wonder how much of this is directed from the top, and how much is much lower level managers who want to do something they think the boss would like. That’s not at all an unnatural tendency, but it’s a corrupting influence which many senior managers don’t think about. In the same way, I’m not sure of Senator Mikulski actually pulled strings to get NASA contracts to institutions in Maryland. She heart could have been as pure as new fallen snow, but it a few people at NASA headquarters thought sending money to her state would get them on her good side, the results would have been the same.
In this case, it could easily be a minor lab director who is telling people not to put “climate change” in abstracts, just because he thinks it would get him on the big boss’s good side, as opposed to a directive from the White House. It’s a problem either way, but how you solve it depends on the details.
Insidious nonetheless, wouldn’t you agree?
Perhaps you are describing our natural tendency to gather in mobs? Once self-identified we tend to find a lowest common denominator.
Since the climate is always changing and always has been changing I always thought the phrase climate change was redundant. Climate Trends would be more accurate.
The original popular term was global warming. Climate change was adopted because some areas of the globe may see other types of changes in temperature, precipitation, etc.
The original phrase before the mid-1980’s, when environmentalists hitched their band wagon to global warming, was CO2 Induced Global Warming, which was clear and accurate. But it was too long for newspaper headlines and protest placards 🙂
At that time CO2 was 320, now it is over 400, and the majority of anthropogenic CO2 remains dissolved in the oceans. Although temperature change is not geographically uniform, and it involves warming of the oceans as well as the atmosphere, the phrase “global warming” is accurate.
This is a management problem that probably predates cooking with fire. There is always a risk that a leader will listen to and/or reward cronies. There’s also no lack of people who know being a yes man is an easy way to get rewarded. That was probably Grant’s biggest failing as a president. He trusted the people around him too much, and wouldn’t stop even when corruption became a massive problem. I’m concerned Mr. Trump will have similar problems.
These actions by the Trump Administration sound ominously familiar. Time to re-read Orwell’s “1984”.
A reminder of what happened in Germany when Hitler got started and what it took to end it. Now similar things are starting to emerge.
Fake news?
Unfortunately, many of the propaganda techniques from the 1930s work. So well that they have now become accepted forms of marketing and advertising. And, more recently, accepted forms of advancing a political position. Or even space programs. (Yes, endless repetition of a catch phrase, without evidence or facts, until it becomes something “everyone knows” is propaganda. A quick check on Wikipedia will tell you who came up with it.)
Not just the Trump Administration, but megatech firms that have systems like Alexa or Siri that monitor what you say. Yes, they are there to “serve” you, but then that is what the government in 1984 was doing – serving you 🙂
The tech behind Siri and Alexa reflect dramatically different corporate attitudes and policies towards privacy. They aren’t even close to equivalent.
At Google, you are the PRODUCT. At Apple, you are the customer.
Given the current attitudes amongst most of us that giving up a bit of privacy is the price we pay for security, I doubt there will be much push back.
The Supreme Court of India held last week that there is an equivalence between privacy and human dignity. Nicely phrased.
Do you have a link to an article re: that court ruling?
http://timesofindia.indiati…
http://timesofindia.indiati…
Alexa is Amazon, not Google.
While it’s not unfair to attach Trump’s name to this, remember that any other Republican president would likely be sending the same signals. Climate change has become a standard bugbear/litmus test for the GOP.
True. And also hard to figure out.
Environmentalism was, until the election of Mr. Reagan, bipartisan, regarded similarly to foreign policy. This makes sense, as ‘conservation’ is logically conservative. And I’d point out that EPA—the single best thing we ever did for our environment—was signed by Mr. Nixon.
I think you’re seeing the gradual shift in conservatism, to becoming more strongly pro-business, over the last century or so, the shift in environmentalism to being more and more anti-development, and the fact that, to a greater and greater extent, those two attitudes are in conflict.
When Yellowstone was established as a national park, in 1872, it had zero impact on existing real estate and development interests. The same was true of Grand Teton national park in 1929. Today, any suggestion to expand their borders southward would make business interests in Jackson Hole have seizures.
The elder Bush and Nixon were not this strongly anti-environment. Sadly, while the democrats have better rhetoric, their actions on the environment and climate change were weak and inadequate. As the costs of events such as Hurricane Harvey and the floods in Asia (not covered by most media) become greater I hope people will start connecting the dots.
There will always be disagreements related to values. What is really disturbing is that this is a disagreement that is really over values but which requires that one side actually deny proven facts.. and they have had no problem persuading a large part of the American public to do so. Without critical and objective thinking, it is difficult to see how science can benefit humanity, because it won’t be believed. The problem is much larger than this issue. My friends on the liberal side of the debate could as easily fall into similar traps when the facts do not support their emotional views, which I feel is the case with nuclear power.