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The Management

Speculation that the Senate is “swift-boating” scientist James Hansen suddenly seems less speculative (hat-tip: SciAm). Marc Morano, new communications director for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), has a colorful history. Greenwire reported recently:

Morano, who worked as a producer in the mid-90s for radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, was also among the first reporters to write about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign scrutinizing Kerry’s Vietnam War record. And earlier this year, Morano penned an article questioning the Purple Heart medals of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a leading critic of Bush’s Iraq policy.

Morano penned the recent attack on Tom Brokaw and three scientists including Hansen. Greenwire is reporting that Morano also recently attacked the credibility of New York Times environmental reporter and children’s book author Andy Revkin. Morano listed Revkin “among journalists who have tied their personal and professional reputations to the catastrophic effects of global warming.”

At issue: Revkin’s new children’s book, “The North Pole Was Here.” From Friday’s Greenwire (subscription required):

“The title alone implies climate alarmism,” said Morano, who added that he has not read Revkin’s book. […]

“I doubt there’s another current account of Arctic climate change out there as true to the science and as spin-free and scare-free as ‘The North Pole Was Here,’” Revkin said. “It is, in every way, an extension of the journalism I’ve been doing on climate for 20 years, journalism that has been consistently lauded by people on all sides of the climate debate for its accuracy and fairness.”

Morano insisted in an interview today he was not criticizing all aspects of Revkin’s reporting, and he commended the journalist for challenging Time magazine over a recent cover story on global warming headlined “Be Afraid…Be Very Afraid.”

But Morano said he did have questions about how the New York Times should present Revkin’s future articles on climate change. From time to time, Morano said the newspaper should include a disclaimer explaining Revkin has published a book on the subject.

When searching for an analogy to this climate, we always come back to Jaws. If Senator Inhofe was the mayor of Amity Island, and Morano was his spokesman, we fear that Chief Brody would be stripped of his dignity and scientist Matt Hooper would be on the next boat for the mainland. As body parts and shark fins became an increasingly regular sight at the beach, Mayor Inhofe would be urging calm among the rash of “boating accidents.”

Unfortunately, this drama is taking place outside of the cineplex. The swift-boating of scientists, science, and journalists is no accident, and it has no place in public or scientific debate.

Last week we were one of the first blogs to pick up on the Senate’s “fatwa on Brokaw.” The Senators’ press release was striking in its paranoia, conjecture, and lack of science as it made a scientific attack on a then yet-unaired Discovery Channel special (yes, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is attacking the network that brings you Shark Week and American Chopper).

In attacking the integrity of former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, the Senate also sought to diminish the integrity of noted climate expert James Hansen. Throwing several mud pies to see if one might hit, they tossed this into the debate:

Hansen also conceded in a 2003 issue of Natural Science (http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh6.html ) that the use of “extreme scenarios” to dramatize climate change “may have been appropriate at one time” to drive the public’s attention to the issue — a disturbing admission by a prominent scientist.

Enter into the fray Scientific American. In yesterday’s blog entry “Half-Baked Smears against Climatologists,” John Rennie absolutely shreds this attack, showing both a lack of fact-checking and honesty. He then draws parallels to attacks on climatologist Stephen Schneider, who skeptics have smeared with an out-of-context quote for nearly two decades.

The Senate Committee is trying to suggest scientists play by the rules of politicians (God help us were that the case). These elected officials would like the public to believe that a $250,000 gift from an ethically-challenged lobbyist is the same as a $250,000 grant from a foundation headed by a politician’s wife. It’s simply not the case, but as Rennie points out, they’ll bend the truth over backwards to fit their world view.

We’ll close on a related quote from Hansen that Rennie highlighted in his post.

Science and politics don’t mix. I believe that active researchers should offer objective assessment of the science problem and leave it to others to extract policy implications. The complication is that the scenarios for climate forcings and climate change are a function of people’s actions. Unless we make clear the relation between those actions and climate change, policy makers will not have the information they need.

Segueing from the last post (on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works’ attack on An Inconvenient Truth) the Committee has struck again. Today it attacked former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw on, of all things, a Discovery Channel program he’ll be hosting on Sunday. The Committee Majority’s release is thin on science but is alarmingly rich with reactionary paranoia.

The Senators embarrass themselves and their committee with this attack on Brokaw (and Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Oppenheimer, and “Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio”). The 860-word assault haphazardly tosses assertion and conjecture at Brokaw and his sources, hoping something will stick:

For example, Brokaw presents NASA’s James Hansen as an authority on climate change without revealing to viewers the extensive political and financial ties that Hansen has to Democratic Party partisans. Hansen, the director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, received a $250,000 grant from the charitable foundation headed by former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz.

There’s a lot more like that, as the Senators attempt to write off the findings of three well-respected scientists as being purely partisan motivated. Their main thesis is that the show fails to include a wide-enough range of opinions. Curiously, in the attack’s one scientific nugget, the Senators rely on only one scientist, and one factoid, in their attempt to discredit Brokaw and the broadcast.

To paraphrase New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this attack is not science, it’s political science.

“Climate Change: What You Need to Know” airs on the Discovery Channel Sunday, July 16 and will be repeated Saturday, July 22.

In a guest column for the Toronto Star, a Canadian chemist makes some nice outside-the-border observations about the venom being spat at An Inconvenient Truth.

The U.S. right wing has reacted venomously to this movie made by the former Democratic contender for president. On June 27, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a statement that included quotes such as, Gore’s “arguments are so weak they are pathetic,” “a propaganda crusade … mostly based on junk science” and “this man is an embarrassment to U.S. science … ”

Step back a moment. First of all, in Canada, can you imagine Environment Canada issuing an official denunciation of a movie? Since when do government members review films? Second, bear in mind the substance of the film. If Gore had declared the end of gravity, or claimed DNA to be optional, he couldn’t have been condemned any more baldly — his critics have exhausted the dictionary of abuse.

This last observation is especially well-noticed. Rather than discuss the substance of what scientists and their champions are saying, skeptics like the Senate Committee continue to prefer smoke and handwaving. In their effort to make their argument sound strong, they are painting themselves into a reactionary rhetorical corner. And it’s getting more bizarre and paranoid each day.

To provide you with an update on our last post E Magazine has coverage from the second-round of the Inhofe-led Senate assault on the Associated Press.

The AP fired back with its own release, claiming that its methodology “was simple, straightforward and clean: We contacted more than 100 of the nation’s top climate researchers, including those who have been vocal skeptics of climate change theory. But we quoted only climate scientists who had actually viewed the documentary or read the book upon which it was based. As we learned in the course of our reporting—and as our story noted—most scientists have not seen the movie or read the book. And those who had seen it or read it were generally positive toward Gore’s scientific presentation.

“The Senate Committee Majority’s press release was headlined ‘AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE’S MOVIE.’ That headline is wrong: The story was completely accurate and met AP’s high standards in every way.”

Marc Morano, a spokesperson for the Senate majority on the Environment and Public Works committee, responded that “our headline dealt with their misleading headline.” He added, “Seth Borenstein cannot be proud of that article; it won’t be included in his clip file when he goes for a promotion. He didn’t get the goods, and he could have done much, much better.” Morano also denied, however, that the press release was “an official government action,” implying subpoenas or hearings. “This was not from a senator, but from the Republican majority,” Morano said. “It’s up to others to decide if it was unusual or not. I’d be surprised if there was no precedent, because many congressional committees are highly partisan and political.”

Be sure to check out the rest of the story here. As far as we know, a third-round has yet to commence, and where this fight will go next is anyone’s guess. The long holiday weekend will hopefully offer the Environment Committee a cooling-off period. We hear the Senator will be enjoying the annual Inhofe Family 4th of July snipe hunt. Don’t come back without bagging a snipe, Senator!

Kidding aside, the Senate Majority’s odd step of issuing such a critical and factually-challenged press release had its desired effect in the skeptic blogosphere, and in the general media. For whatever disservice it does to the progress of enacting global warming policy, it unnecessarily does more damage to citizens’ trust of the press.