"Would it be terribly impolite to suggest that when those who deny that climate change is happening complain of censorship, a certain amount of projection is taking place?"
The drafting of reports by the world's pre-eminent group of climate
scientists is an odd process. For many months scientists contributing to
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence.
Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the
panel's reports are extremely conservative - even timid. It also means
that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be.
Then, when all is settled among the scientists, the politicians sweep in
and seek to excise from the summaries anything which threatens their
interests. While the US government has traditionally been the
scientists' chief opponent, this time the assault was led by Saudi
Arabia, supported by China and Russia(1,2).
The scientists fight back, but they always have to make some
concessions. The report released on Friday, for example, was shorn of
the warning that "North America is expected to experience locally severe
economic damage, plus substantial ecosystem, social and cultural
disruption from climate change related events"(3). David Wasdell, an
accredited reviewer for the panel, claims that the summary of the
science the IPCC published in February was purged of most of its
references to "positive feedbacks": climate change accelerating itself(4).
This is the opposite of the story endlessly repeated in the right-wing
press: that the IPCC, in collusion with governments, is conspiring to
exaggerate the science. No one explains why governments should seek to
amplify their own failures. In the wacky world of the climate
conspiracists, no explanations are required. The world's most
conservative scientific body has somehow been transformed into a cabal
of screaming demagogues.
This is just one aspect of a story which is endlessly told the wrong way
around. In the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, in columns by Dominic
Lawson, Tom Utley and Janet Daley the allegation is constantly repeated
that climate scientists and environmentalists are trying to "shut down
debate". Those who say that manmade global warming is not taking place,
they claim, are being censored.
Something is missing from their accusations: a single valid example. The
closest any of them have been able to get is two letters sent - by the
Royal Society and by the US senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe -
to that delicate flower ExxonMobil, asking that it cease funding
lobbyists who deliberately distort climate science(5,6). These
correspondents had no power to enforce their wishes. They were merely
urging Exxon to change its practices. If everyone who urges is a censor,
then the comment pages of the newspapers must be closed in the name of
free speech.
In an interview four weeks ago, Martin Durkin, who made Channel 4's film
The Great Global Warming Swindle, claimed that he was subject to
"invisible censorship"(7). He appears to have forgotten that he had just
been given 90 minutes of prime time television to expound his theory
that climate change is a great green conspiracy. So what did this
censorship amount to? Complaints about one of his programmes had been
upheld by the Independent Television Commission. It found that "the
views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had
been distorted by selective editing" and that they had been "misled as
to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take
part."(8) This, apparently, makes him a martyr.
If you want to know what real censorship looks like, let me show you
what has been happening on the other side of the fence. Scientists whose
research demonstrates that climate change is taking place have been
repeatedly threatened and silenced and their findings edited or suppressed.
The Union of Concerned Scientists found that 58% of the 279 climate
scientists working at federal agencies in the US who responded to its
survey reported that they had experienced one of the following
constraints. 1. "Pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,'
'global warming', or other similar terms" from their communications. 2.
Editing of scientific reports by their superiors which "changed the
meaning of scientific findings". 3. Statements by officials at their
agencies which misrepresented their findings. 4. "The disappearance or
unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials
relating to climate". 5. "New or unusual administrative requirements
that impair climate-related work". 6. "Situations in which scientists
have actively objected to, resigned from, or removed themselves from a
project because of pressure to change scientific findings." They
reported 435 incidents of political interference over the past five
years(9).
In 2003, the White House gutted the climate change section of a report
by the Environmental Protection Agency(10). It deleted references to
studies showing that global warming is caused by manmade emissions. It
added a reference to a study partly funded by the American Petroleum
Institute, which suggested that temperatures are not rising. Eventually
the agency decided to drop the section altogether.
After Thomas Knutson at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) published a paper in 2004 linking rising emissions
with more intense tropical cyclones, he was blocked by his superiors
from speaking to the media. He agreed to one request to appear on MSNBC,
but a public affairs officer at NOAA rang the station to tell the
programme that Knutson was "too tired" to conduct the interview. The
official explained to him that the "White House said no". All media
inquiries were to be routed instead to a scientist who believed there
was no connection between global warming and hurricanes(11).
Last year the top climate scientist at NASA, James Hansen, reported that
his bosses were trying to censor his lectures, papers and web postings.
He was told by public relations officials at the agency that there would
be "dire consequences" if he continued to call for rapid reductions in
greenhouse gases(12).
Last month, the Alaskan branch of the US Fish and Wildlife Service told
its scientists that anyone travelling to the Arctic must understand "the
administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice
and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."(13)
At hearings in the US Congress three weeks ago, Philip Cooney, a former
aide to White House who was previously working at the American Petroleum
Institute, admitted he had made hundreds of changes to government
reports about climate change on behalf of the Bush administration(14).
Though he is not a scientist, he had struck out evidence that glaciers
were retreating and inserted phrases suggesting that there was serious
scientific doubt about global warming(15).
The guardians of free speech in Britain aren't above attempting a little
suppression, either. The Guardian and I have now received several
letters from the climate sceptic Viscount Monckton, threatening us with
libel proceedings after I challenged his claims about climate
science(16,17,18,19). On two of these occasions he has demanded that
articles are removed from the internet. Monckton is the man who wrote to
Senators Rockefeller and Snowe, claiming that their letter to ExxonMobil
offends the corporation's "right of free speech"(20).
After Martin Durkin's film was broadcast, one of the scientists it
featured, Professor Carl Wunsch, complained that his views on climate
change had been misrepresented. Wunsch says he has now received a legal
letter from Durkin's production company, Wag TV, threatening to sue him
for defamation unless he agrees to make a public statement that he was
neither misrepresented nor misled(21).
Would it be terribly impolite to suggest that when those who deny that
climate change is happening complain of censorship, a certain amount of
projection is taking place?
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Catherine Brahic, 6th April 2007. Climate change is here now, says
major report. NewScientist.com
2. David Adam, 7th April 2007. Scientists' stark warning on reality of
warmer world. The Guardian.
3. Roger Harrabin, 6th April 2007. The Today Programme, Radio 4.
10. Andrew Revkin and Katharine Seelye, 19th June 2003. Report by the
E.P.A. Leaves Out Data on Climate Change. The New York Times.
11. Union of Concerned Scientists and Government Accountability Project,
ibid.
12. Andrew Revkin, 29th January 2006. Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to
Silence Him. The New York Times.
13. Andrew Revkin, 8th March 2007. Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss
Climate. The New York Times.
14. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 19th March 2007.
Committee Examines Political Interference with Climate Science.
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1214
15. Andrew Revkin, 8th June 2005. Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas
Links to Global Warming. The New York Times.
16. Viscount Monckton, 14th November 2006. Email to the Guardian.
17. Viscount Monckton, 23rd November 2006. Letter to the Guardian.
18. Viscount Monckton, 23rd November 2006. Letter to George Monbiot
19. Viscount Monckton, 24th November 2006. Email to George Monbiot.