White House Differs from Media on Timing of Climate Report
After the Bush administration released a report warning of the potential dangers of global warming, you would think the media, which propagate much of the modern alarmism over climate, would be thrilled.
That wasn’t the case. The May 29 ABC “World News” used the release of the report as an opportunity to indict the Bush administration for conspiring to hide science about global warming.
“For the first time, the Bush administration is conceding what most scientists have said for years – that global warming is having an impact on just about every aspect of the way we live,” ABC “World News” anchor Charles Gibson said. “The government report was mandated by an act of Congress, but the White House has fought its release since 2004 and released it now only because a federal judge ordered it.”
According to the Associated Press, the report doesn’t have any new revelations in it that would change what exists in the public discourse about climate science. It just serves as a compilation of data that already exists.
“While the report has no new science in it, it pulls together different U.S. studies and localizes international reports into one comprehensive document required by law,” Seth Borenstein wrote for the AP on May 29. “The 271-page report is notable because it is something the Bush administration has fought in the past.”
Both “World News” and the AP quoted Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, which the AP story called “a whistleblowers’ organization.”
“It’s [the release] totally begrudging,” Piltz told the AP. “It’s important the government go on record honestly acknowledging this stuff.”
However, Piltz is not the most objective observer when it comes to matters of the Bush administration and climate science. On its Web site, Climate Science Watch calls itself an advocacy “project” that is dedicated to holding public officials accountable and is working to a “goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change.”
Piltz is also a former employee of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. He resigned in 2005 after alleging the Bush administration intentionally interfered with the climate change science documents, which weakened the global warming alarmism positions he advocates.
But the administration’s move wasn’t quite the concession to global warming alarmism portrayed in news reports. According to a White House spokeswoman, the timing of the release of the report was not done begrudgingly, but as a “magnanimous” act.
“Prior to the lawsuit, the Administration’s plan was to meet the statute’s requirements for climate science information by delivering a series of topical reports,” Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, told the Business & Media Institute on June 2. “Recognizing that not everyone wants to read multiple reports, and to remove any doubt over the Administration’s intent to fully comply with the law, we decided to also prepare a single, integrated report. In short, we did not want a legal controversy to continue to detract from the substantive science.”
