Federal scientists have been pressured to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified on Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.
The hearing focused on allegations that the White House has micromanaged the government's climate programs for years and has closely controlled what scientists were allowed to tell the public.
"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Democratic Republic Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He also is a critic of the administration of US President George W. Bush environmental policies, including its views on climate.
Climate change also was a leading topic in the Senate, where presidential contenders for next year lined up at a hearing called by Senator Barbara Boxer, also a Democrat. They expounded, at times trying to outdo each other, on why they believed Congress must act to reduce heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.
"This is a problem whose time has come," Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, widely considered the early Democratic front-runner in the presidential race, proclaimed.
"This is an issue over the years whose time has come," echoed Republican Senator John McCain.
Democratic Senator Barack Obama said "for decades, far too many have ignored the warning" about climate change. "Will we look back at today and say this was the moment we took a stand?"
At the House hearing, two private advocacy groups produced a survey of 279 government climate scientists in which many said they had been subjected to political pressure aimed at minimizing the climate threat. Their complaints ranged from a challenge to using the phrase "global warming" to raising uncertainty on issues on which most scientists basically agree, to keeping scientists from talking to the media.
The survey and separate interviews with scientists have "brought to light numerous ways in which US federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years," Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the committee.
Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said climate scientists frequently have been dissuaded from talking to the media about their research, although NASA's restrictions have been eased.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was