7.23.2005
Houses Divided on Warming (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: July 23, 2005
It's going to be hard enough to find common political ground on global warming without the likes of Representative Joe Barton harassing reputable scientists who helped alert the world to the problem in the first place.
Mr. Barton is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and thus has great influence over energy strategy, which badly needs updating to address issues like warming. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Barton has also been a leading beneficiary of campaign funds from the oil, gas and utility industries, which have belittled the warming threat and resisted regulatory efforts to control the burning of fossil fuels. Mainstream scientists believe such fuels are responsible for the warming trend in the last century.
Mr. Barton, a Texas Republican, has zeroed in on three climatologists - Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes - who have presented influential data showing a sharp rise in global temperatures in recent decades.
Their conclusions have never been convincingly challenged, and indeed have received strong support from other researchers taking different analytical paths. Nevertheless, Mr. Barton has peppered the three scientists and the National Science Foundation, which underwrote some of their research, with endless demands for documentation, including, in the foundation's case, checks and bank statements. A Barton spokesman says such requests are a "common exercise" of committee responsibility.
But Sherwood Boehlert of New York - a fellow Republican who is chairman of the House Science Committee and an enlightened moderate on environmental issues - seemed much closer to the truth when he described Mr. Barton's inquisition as "an effort to intimidate scientists rather than learn from them, and to substitute Congressional political review for scientific peer review."
(More ... Houses Divided on Warming - New York Times) ¶ 20:11
Published: July 23, 2005
It's going to be hard enough to find common political ground on global warming without the likes of Representative Joe Barton harassing reputable scientists who helped alert the world to the problem in the first place.
Mr. Barton is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and thus has great influence over energy strategy, which badly needs updating to address issues like warming. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Barton has also been a leading beneficiary of campaign funds from the oil, gas and utility industries, which have belittled the warming threat and resisted regulatory efforts to control the burning of fossil fuels. Mainstream scientists believe such fuels are responsible for the warming trend in the last century.
Mr. Barton, a Texas Republican, has zeroed in on three climatologists - Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes - who have presented influential data showing a sharp rise in global temperatures in recent decades.
Their conclusions have never been convincingly challenged, and indeed have received strong support from other researchers taking different analytical paths. Nevertheless, Mr. Barton has peppered the three scientists and the National Science Foundation, which underwrote some of their research, with endless demands for documentation, including, in the foundation's case, checks and bank statements. A Barton spokesman says such requests are a "common exercise" of committee responsibility.
But Sherwood Boehlert of New York - a fellow Republican who is chairman of the House Science Committee and an enlightened moderate on environmental issues - seemed much closer to the truth when he described Mr. Barton's inquisition as "an effort to intimidate scientists rather than learn from them, and to substitute Congressional political review for scientific peer review."
(More ... Houses Divided on Warming - New York Times) ¶ 20:11
