FollowUp 3: Republican Denial of Climate Change

It is bad when people are foolish enough to look at science and decide that their preconceived notions are right and that the evidence in front of them must be somehow flawed.  It would be reasonable, when confronted with evidence that challenges prior knowledge, to endeavor to determine if the new evidence is valid, seeking additional studies or testing.  What is not reasonable is changing the evidence to suit outdated notions.

Nearly all of the Republican candidates for President deny that there is climate change and that humans impact that change (link to my first article on this).  Mr. Perry has gone a step further and endeavored to hide scientific findings.  Mother Jones Magazine published an article last week titled Perry Officials Censored Climate Change Report.

The Mother Jones article describes a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) study, commissioned from the Houston Advanced Research Center that was to produce a series of reports on the status of Galveston Bay.  Quoting from Mother Jones, But when HARC submitted its most recent State of the Bay publication to the commission earlier this year, officials decided they couldn't accept a report that said climate change is caused by human activity and is causing the sea level to rise. Top officials at the commission proceeded to edit the paper to censor its references to human-induced climate change or future projections on how much the bay will rise.

The Mother Jones article includes the original report with the edits shown.  The original had already not included references to human activity since the TCEQ is staffed by those who are known to deny global warming.  Still the scientists had not expected for so much to be changed.

The Guardian reports that lead author John B. Anderson who released the original document to Mother Jones, and all of the scientists who worked on the report have asked that their names removed from it.  The Guardian refers to the editing as a scientists' revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state's environmental agency.

Thanks to Care2 for the heads up.

1 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.
10 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
11 October 2011, FollowUp 2.

21 October 2011, FollowUp 4.
27 October 2011, FollowUp 5.
30 November 2011, FollowUp 6.
29 January 2012, FollowUp 7.
15 February 2012, FollowUp 8.
18 February 2012, FollowUp 9.
2 March 2012, FollowUp 10.
11 March 2012, FollowUp 11.
4 June 2012, FollowUp 12.