Editing Turns the Mild into Weather Gods

330   “The Kyoto Protocol is like a vampire”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush’s Shift Could Doom Air Pact, Some Say,” The New York Times, March 17, 2001.

It’s a pretty fascinating article.

 

Efforts to complete the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement intended to curtail global warming, have been seriously damaged by President Bush this week, negotiators and independent experts on the treaty say.

. . . When Mr. Bush issued a letter on Tuesday that renounced his campaign promise to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, he delivered what could be the coup de grâce, said many foreign government officials, some White House ones and others involved in the talks.

 

Did any nations especially approve?

 

Mr. Bush’s policy change was welcomed by Saudi Arabia, one of the treaty’s staunchest opponents.

‘‘This announcement by President Bush is the announcement of the death of the Kyoto Protocol,’’ said Mohammed Al-Sabban, the energy adviser to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

 

330   browning-out California: James Gerstenzang, “Bush Defends His Stance on Environment,” The Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2001.

 

“I will explain as clearly as I can, today and every other chance I get, that we will not do anything that harms our economy. Because first things first are the people who live in America. That’s my priority,” Bush said. “I’m worried about the economy. I’m worried about the lack of an energy policy. I’m worried about rolling blackouts in California.”

. . . Talking to reporters in the White House driveway, [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder said he and Bush agreed to assign staff members to study how to fight climate change under the Kyoto agreement without the United States joining the campaign “because the president has firmly decided this matter.”

As for the atmosphere of the meeting itself, the chancellor said with no apparent irony, “It was really a good climate indeed.”

 

330   deliberately manufactured by Enron: Richard A. Oppel Jr, Jeff Garth, “Enron Forced Up California Prices, Documents Show,” The New York Times, May 7, 2002.

Jad Mouawad, “Settlement Is Reached With Enron,” The New York Times, July 16, 2005.

 

330   the president’s largest corporate supporter: CBS News, “Follow the Enron Money,” January 12, 2002.

Veteran political writer Kevin Phillips makes it historic.

 

For the 2001 festivities in Washington, [Enron CEO] Ken Lay’s apparent money machine produced $300,000. When the ceremonies were over and the Bush White House opened for business on Tuesday morning, Enron may have had more influence than any single company had previously commanded in a new administration.

 

Kevin Philips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Viking 2004. Chapter 5, “The Enron-Halliburton Administration,” 163.

 

330   rides on the Enron jet: Robert Scheer, “Enron’s Enablers: Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling Would Have Remained Small-time Crooks Were It Not for the Energy Industry Deregulation Measures They Effectively Purchased from Bush I and II,” The Nation, October 25, 2006.

 

The Enron crooks would never have been more than petty thieves were it not for the political support they received from their fellow Texas oil buddies. They knew that, and they paid for it: Over the years, Lay and Enron gave the Bush family politicians $3 million in contributions, as well as lending the campaigning George W. a jet on at least eight occasions.

 

ABC News, “Enron’s Close Ties to Bush,” January 6, 2006. “Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has been a friend of Bush and the Bush family for years. When Governor Bush ran for president, Enron gave him access to a company jet.”

 

330   In November, staffers boarded: Houston Chronicle, “Bush campaign used Enron, Halliburton jets, records show,” August 3, 2002.”

“During the 2000 presidential election recount battle, George W. Bush’s campaign used jets owned by several large corporations, including Enron Corp. and Halliburton Co., that are now under federal investigation . . . Republicans said Friday there was nothing improper about the use of the corporate planes.”

Eric Alterman, “Florida 2000 Forever,” Center for American Progress, December 9, 2010.

 

Just as useful but little remarked on was the army of conservative activists willing, on the spur of the moment, to create what Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot admiringly termed a “bourgeois riot” whenever necessary. IRS documents would later show that these rioters were flown in from out of state on private jets lent to the Bush campaign by supportive corporations including Enron and Halliburton, put up gratis in local hotels, and entertained by Wayne Newton singing “Danke Schoen,” all courtesy of the Republican Party. Many were specifically recruited by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, and given directions from a communications-equipped Winnebago by party operatives keeping abreast of where their services might be best deployed.

Their rioters’ value was no doubt best demonstrated when, on November 22, a Miami-Dade canvassing board attempted at one point to undertake the hand recounts the courts had ordered. With just a few phone calls the Republican street operation produced hundreds of “volunteers” who, once engaged, according to Time, proved to be a “mob scene … screaming … pounding on doors and … [threatening an] alleged physical assault on Democrats … the Republicans marched on the counting room en masse, chanting ‘Three Blind Mice,’ and ‘Fraud, Fraud, Fraud.’”

 

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/general/news/2010/12/09/8828/think-again-florida-2000-forever/

Accessed 7-12-22.

 

Two decades later, Mark Miller in the Washington Post said it was these very demonstrators who turned the tide for Bush: that is, Enron owning a plane and that plane being at one campaign’s disposal may have resulted in a presidency. Life is very minutely balanced.

Mark Miller, “‘It’s insanity!’: How the ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’ killed the 2000 recount in Miami,” The Washington Post, November 15, 2018.

 

330   CBS News got their hands on audiotape: CBS News, “Enron Traders Caught On Tape,” June 1, 2004. CBS News, “Enron Tapes Anger Lawmakers,” June 1, 2004.

 

331   “Greenhouse gases are accumulating”: National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, National Academy Press, 2001. 1.

 

331   “Which is essentially that there is”: Tim Radford, “It’s True Mr. President, the World’s Hotting Up: Warnings from His Own Scientific Advisors Add to Bush’s Isolation on Global Warming,” The Guardian, June 8, 2001.

Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer also hit the talking point. “This report shows what is known and certain, and that which is unknown or surmised. For instance, it concludes that the Earth is warming. But it is inconclusive on why.”

Eric Pianin, “NAS Tells Bush Global Warming Is Real Problem,” The Washington Post, June 7, 2001.

 

331   “The report thus all but eliminates”: Katharine Q. Seelye and Andrew C. Revkin, “Panel Tells Bush Global Warming Is Getting Worse,” The New York Times, June 7, 2001.

 

331   “Hello? Where have you been”: Katharine Q. Seelye and Andrew C. Revkin, “Panel Tells Bush Global Warming Is Getting Worse.”

 

331   “The President did not ask”: James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, Bloomsbury 2009. Chapter 3, “A Visit To the White House.” “The answer that the National Academy of Sciences had delivered in response to the president’s request, Hansen writes, “was not the answer the White House wanted to hear. The president did not ask the academy for advice about global warming again during the remainder of his eight years in power.”

 

332      “an ecological Kristallnacht”: Al Gore, “An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen,” The New York Times, March 19, 1989.

 

332      “Can these crashing glaciers”: Andrew C. Revkin, “‘Averting Our Eyes’: James Hansen’s New Call For Climate Action,” The New York Times, November 28, 2007.

 

332      “The threat to our world”: Nicholas Schoon, “Thatcher Demands Urgent Action On Global Warming,” The Independent (London), November 7, 1990.

 

332      “To me, the question”: The New York Times, “Hans Blix’s Greatest Fear,” March 16, 2003.

 

332      “There’s still snow”: MSNBC, “MSNBC Reports With Joe Scarborough,” March 14, 2003.

 

332      in the blistering European summer heat wave: David Remnick, “No More Magical Thinking,” The New Yorker, November 19, 2012.

 

333      “We and the rest of the world”: Paul Brown, Mark Oliver, “Top Scientist Attacks US Over Global Warming,” The Guardian, January 9, 2004.

David King, “Climate Change Science: Adapt, Mitigate or Ignore?”, Science, January 9, 2004.

 

333      “a complete paranoia”: Andrew C. Revkin, “With White House Approval, E.P.A. Pollution Report Omits Global Warming Section,” The New York Times, September 15, 2002.

 

333      “at war”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush vs. the Laureates: How Science Became A Partisan Issue,” The New York Times, October 19, 2004.

 

Several dozen interviews with administration officials and with scientists in and out of government, along with a variety of documents, show that the core of the clash is over instances in which scientists say that objective and relevant information is ignored or distorted in service of pre-established policy goals. Scientists were essentially locked out of important internal White House debates; candidates for advisory panels were asked about their politics as well as their scientific work; and the White House exerted broad control over how scientific findings were to be presented in public reports or news releases.

 

333      “NOAA reports cooler”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush vs. the Laureates: How Science Became A Partisan Issue,” The New York Times, October 19, 2004.

 

333      “Study Shows Potential”: Revkin, “Bush vs. the Laureates.”

 

333      were purged from the press release: Juliet Eilperin, “Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House,” The Washington Post, April 6, 2006.

 

333      “battle over climate-change”: Juliet Eilperin, “Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House.”

 

334      “American taxpayers are paying the bill”: Juliet Eilperin, “Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House.”

 

334      maintain radio silence: Andrew C. Revkin, “NASA Expert Criticizes Bush on Global Warming Policy,” The New York Times, October 26, 2004.

 

334      “I did not want my grandchildren”: James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, Bloomsbury 2009. Chapter Six, “The Faustian Bargain: Humanity’s Own Trap,” 92; Preface, xii.

NPR, “Jim Hansen: What Makes A Scientist Take A Stand,” TED Radio Hour, April 17, 2017.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/522856713?storyId=522856713

Accessed 7-11-22.

The NPR contains excerpts from a 2012 Hansen TED Talk. I’ve included the link, if you’d like to see what Hansen looks and sounds like. (Here, wearing a slightly rakish hat that makes him resemble Sam Neill from Jurassic Parks I and III.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8

Accessed 7-11-22.

Both links have Hansen saying a disturbing thing: sad in 2017, even sadder in 2012.

 

So now you know what I know that is moving me to sound this alarm. Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now, yet we dither taking no action to divert the asteroid. If we’d started in 2005, it would have required emission reductions of 3 percent per year to restore planetary energy balance and stabilize climate this century. If we start next year, it is 6 percent per year. If we wait 10 years, it is 15 percent per year — extremely difficult and expensive, perhaps, impossible. But we aren’t even starting.

 

And in both 2012 and 2017, there’s this additional gloss on Hansen’s grandchildren. “How did I get dragged deeper and deeper into an attempt to communicate the gravity and the urgency of this situation? More grandchildren helped me along . . . It would be immoral to leave these young people with the climate system spiraling out of control.”

 

334      “colossal risk”: Juliet Eilperin, “Putting Some Heat on Bush,” The Washington Post, January 19, 2005.

Hansen was himself stunned by the Bush administration’s efficient ferocity.

“In my more than three decades in government,” Hansen said, “I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now.”

 

334      “a different planet”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him,” The New York Times, January 29, 2006.

 

334      “dire consequences”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him,” The New York Times, January 29, 2006.

The power of words and comparisons to get a scientist in trouble. “After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century,” Revkin reports, “officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be ‘dire consequences’ if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.”

 

334      interned on the Bush reelection effort: Mark Bowen, Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming, Dutton 2008. Chapter One, “The Cardinal Rule,” 16.

Elizabeth Kolbert later wrote in The New Yorker that the experience was catching.

 

But by 2004 the Administration had dropped any pretense that it was interested in the facts about climate change. That year, NASA, reportedly at the behest of the White House, insisted that all communications between GISS scientists and the outside world be routed through political appointees at the agency. The following year, the Administration prevented GISS from posting its monthly temperature data on its Web site, ostensibly on the ground that proper protocols had not been followed. (The data showed that 2005 was likely to be the warmest year on record.) Hansen was also told that he couldn’t grant a routine interview to National Public Radio. When he spoke out about the restrictions, scientists at other federal agencies complained that they were being similarly treated and a new term was invented: government scientists, it was said, were being “Hansenized.”

 

Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Truthteller,” The New Yorker, June 29, 2009.

 

334      had become the unlikely conduit between: Rick Casey, “An Aggie’s Big Bang At NASA,” Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2006.

Juliet Eilperin, “Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA; Scientists Afraid to Speak Out, NASA Climate Expert Reports,” The Washington Post, February 11, 2006.

Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, Chapter Seven, “Is There Still Time? A Tribute To Charles David Keeling,” 127. Hansen describes George Deutsch as “scampering” between the science and administrative offices. “As,” Hansen adds, “was his wont.”

Mark Bowen, Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming, Dutton 2008. Chapter One, “The Cardinal Rule,” 18. Deutsch “had the Earth side of the house” and was the political side’s “eyes and ears.”

All this was a violation of what Bowen recounts as NASA public affairs’ cardinal rule: “Don’t fuck with the science.”

 

334      “the most liberal news outlet”: Donald Kennedy, “The New Gag Rules,” Science, Vol. 311, February 17, 2006.

Sixty Minutes, “Rewriting the Science,” S38E26, March 19, 2006.

The press-restriction situation gave CBS producers the chance to burnish Hansen’s credentials a little bit. They brought out Ralph Cicerone, then president of the National Academy of Sciences. “How important is Hansen’s work?” CBS’s Scott Pelley begins. “We asked someone at the top: Ralph Cicerone, President of the nation’s leading institute of science, the National Academy.” And Dr. Cicerone explains, “I can’t think of anybody who I would say is better than Hansen.”

 

334      “make the President look good”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him,” The New York Times, January 29, 2006. Goddard’s public affairs officer, Leslie McCarthy, responded to Deutsch’s “make the president look good” notions to the paper. “I’m a career civil servant, and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That’s not our job. That’s not our mission.” The inference, in speaking about climate, “was that Hansen was disloyal.”

Bowen, in Censoring Science, points out that Deutsch decorated his computer monitor with a George Bush screensaver. 16.

Deutsch’s basic position: “Hansen can’t say anything good about government. We can’t have this anymore.” 23.

 

334      “This is more than a science issue”: Andrew C. Revkin, “NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness,” The New York Times, February 4, 2006.

Deutsch added, re: the “young people” to whom NASA was only communicating 50 percent of the debate, “That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.”

In U.S. House of Representatives, Compilation of Exhibits, Political Interference with Science: Global Warming, Part II, March 19, 2007.

 

334      he’d never graduated: Andrew C. Revkin, “A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post At NASA,” The New York Times, February 8, 2006.

 

“George Carlton Deutsch III did attend Texas A&M University but has not completed the requirements for a degree,” said an e-mail message from Rita Presley, assistant to the registrar at the university, responding to a query from The Times.

. . . A copy of Mr. Deutsch ‘s resume was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other NASA employees, said Mr. Deutsch played a small but significant role in an intensifying effort at the agency to exert political control over the flow of information to the public.

Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen’s speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.

 

Deutsch complained via email to reporters he was the casualty of a “culture war”: “Anyone perceived to be a Republican, a Bush supporter or a Christian is singled out and labeled a threat to their views. I encourage anyone interested in this story to consider the other side, to consider Dr. Hansen’ s true motivations and to consider the dangerous implications of only hearing out one side of the global warming debate.”

Eilperin, Washington Post, “Censorship Is Alleged At NOAA; Scientists Afraid to Speak Out, NASA Climate Expert Reports.” Hansen replied mildly he was a centrist who supported Senator John McCain.

 

334      and Jim Hansen ran free again: Deutsch later said there’d been meetings “with senior leaders at the agency to discuss the problems with Hansen, and the topic of firing Hansen was raised, but the conclusion from the meeting was that such an action would have ‘huge political fallout.’”

Bowen, Censoring Science, 47.

 

335      “That is why it is API’s highest priority issue”: American Petroleum Institute, “Strategic Issues: Climate Change,” 1999. In U.S. House of Representatives, Compilation of Exhibits, Political Interference with Science: Global Warming, Part II, March 19, 2007.

 

335      “Climate-change treaty foe”: Jackie Calmes, “Washington Wire,” The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2001.

 

335      hold less visible jobs: Don van Natta Jr., Neela Banerjee, “Many Made the Move From the Industry to the Administration,” The New York Times, April 21, 2002.

 

335      “Many scientific observations indicate”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports: Ex-Oil Lobbyist Softened Greenhouse Gas Leaks,” The New York Times, June 8, 2005.

 

336      “Reduce the causes or effects”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee On Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

336      “The uncertainties remain so great”: Sixty Minutes, “Rewriting the Science,” S38E26, March 19, 2006.

There’s a very grainy, very sixteen-millimeter summer camp projector-looking copy of the segment at YouTube. If you’d like to see Hansen and Rick Piltz, who’s about to show up in the text. You’ll also see how Philip Cooney made the documents look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUyQMYiRCcw

Accessed 7-12-22.

 

336      “Delete ‘disaster reduction’”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee On Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

336      “You are doing a great job”: Tim Dickinson, “Six Years of Deceit: Inside the Bush administration’s secret campaign to deny global warming and let polluters shape America’s climate policy,” Rolling Stone, June 28, 2007.

 

336      “We’d take the text from the E.P.A”: Tim Dickinson, “Six Years of Deceit: Inside the Bush administration’s secret campaign to deny global warming and let polluters shape America’s climate policy,” Rolling Stone, June 28, 2007.

 

336      Cooney had the warming chapter: Andrew C. Revkin, “With White House Approval, E.P.A. Pollution Report Omits Global Warming Section,” The New York Times, September 15, 2002.

“For the first time in six years,” the paper reported, “the annual federal report on air pollution trends has no section on global warming.”

 

336      “went beyond editing”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee On Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

336      Cooney made 110 edits: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

336      scribbled the budge-free word No: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

336      “a chilling effect”: Andrew C. Revkin, “Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports: Ex-Oil Lobbyist Softened Greenhouse Gas Leaks,” The New York Times, June 8, 2005.

 

336      Cooney yanked the sentence: Paul Harris, “Bush Covers Up Climate Research: White House Plays Down Its Own Scientists’ Evidence of Global Warming,” The Guardian, September 20, 2003. Andrew C. Revkin, Katharine Q. Seelye, “Report By E.P.A. Leaves Out Data On Climate Change,” The New York Times, June 8, 2005.

 

337      “Some activities emit greenhouse gases”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

337      resigned from government: Dickinson, “Six Years of Deceit,” Rolling Stone.

Whitman later told Dickinson, “The language that CEQ found acceptable was such pablum.” The changes, he reported, “sparked a rebellion by the EPA’s senior scientists. In an internal memo uncovered by Congressional investigators, they wrote that Cooney’s edited text ‘no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change’ and ‘may leave an impression that cooling is as much an issue as warming.’”

Dickinson describes Whitman as “furious.” He adds, “But her solution to this problem was to simply delete the section on climate change – handing Cooney a carte-blanche victory.”

 

In The Guardian, post-report, Paul Harris painted a dismal EPA picture.

 

Former EPA climate policy adviser Jeremy Symons said morale at the agency had been devastated by the administration’s tactics. He painted a picture of scientists afraid to conduct research for fear of angering their White House paymasters. ‘They do good research,’ he said. ‘But they feel that they have a boss who does not want them to do it. And if they do it right, then they will get hit or their work will be buried.’” . . . The Bush administration’s attitude was clear from the beginning, he said, and a lot of people were working to ensure that the President did nothing to address global warming.

 

Paul Harris, “Bush Covers Up Climate Research: White House Plays Down Its Own Scientists’ Evidence of Global Warming,” The Guardian, September 20, 2003.

 

337      “exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

337      “someone who had no scientific training”: Andrew Revkin interviewed By Amy Goodman, “Bush Environmental Chief: From the Oil Lobby To the White House To ExxonMobil,” Democracy Now!, June 20, 2005.

https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2005/6/20?autostart=true

Accessed 7-12-22.

 

337      A documentary crew: A segment of the 2007 climate documentary Everything’s Cool.

The film also features drop-ins by Andrew Revkin, Bill McKibben, and Ross Gelbspan, who wrote one of anti-denial’s seminal texts, The Heat is On. (It began as a 1995 Harper’s magazine cover with a prescient subtitle. “The Warming of the World’s Climate Sparks a Blaze of Denial.”)

Everything’s Cool, Dan Gold, Director, 2007. In its Wiki entry, Philip Cooney is playfully listed as one of film’s co-stars. I’m certain, for this shy fellow, a pinnacle moment.

 

338      “The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration, December 2007.

 

338      “I mean, even to raise issues”: Sixty Minutes, “Rewriting the Science,” S38E26, March 19, 2006.

 

339      on the covers of the newspapers: Revkin, “Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports,” The New York Times, June 8, 2005.

 

339      “Phil Cooney did a great job”: David Remnick, “Ozone Man,” The New Yorker, April 24, 2005.

Greenwire, “Air, Water & Climate,” June 15, 2005.

 

339      If he’d had the stomach: Julian Borger, “Ex-Oil Lobbyist Watered Down US Climate Research,” The Guardian, June 9, 2005. “Bush Official Altered Scientific Reports On Global Warming: Report,” Agence France-Presse, June 8, 2005. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “Bush Aide Changed U.S. Reports On Global Warming – Report,” June 8, 2005. Alf Young, “The Climate’s All Wrong For Summit To Deliver Changes,” The Herald (Glasgow), June 10, 2005. Qatar News Agency, “US/Environment,” June 8, 2005. Northern Territory News, “White House Man Bites Dust,” June 13, 2005.

 

339      pointed an accusing finger: USA Today, “Yes, Globe Is Warming, Even If Bush Denies It,” June 15, 2005.

 

339      “to justify nations”: Mark Henderson, “Nations Told ‘Curb Greenhouse Gas To Fight Warming,” The Times (London), June 8, 2005. “The national science academies of all the G8 countries issued an unprecedented challenge to their governments yesterday, urging immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. Scientific evidence about the causes and impacts of climate change is now so clear that effective measures to address them can no longer be delayed, the elite institutions said.”

Joint Science Academies’ Statement: Global Response To Climate Change, June 7, 2005.

https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/internationalsite/documents/webpage/international_080877.pdf

Accessed 7-12-22.

For some world travel by internet, here’s the French site.

https://www.academie-sciences.fr/archivage_site/activite/rapport/avis0605a_gb.pdf

Accessed 7-12-22.

 

339      ExxonMobil offered Phil Cooney a job: Andrew Revkin, “Former Bush Aide Who Edited Reports Is Hired by Exxon,” The New York Times, June 15, 2005.

This, too, made the overseas papers. “White House Environment Adviser’s Move To ExxonMobil Criticized,” Agence France-Presse, June 15, 2005.

 

339      “I am shocked, shocked”: NBC, Meet the Press, Senator John McCain, interviewed by Tim Russert, June 19, 2005.

 

340      “Listen, I recognize”: George W. Bush, “The President’s News Conference with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark,” The American Presidency Project, UCSB, July 6, 2005.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-with-prime-minister-anders-fogh-rasmussen-denmark-kongens

Accessed 7-21-22.

Warren Vieth, John Daniszewski, “G-8 Summit Starts Amid More Protest,” July 7, 2005.

“In what some summit observers interpreted as a positive sign, Bush signaled his willingness to accept a G-8 statement linking climate change to energy consumption. ‘Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem.’”

A half-year later the Times’ Andrew Revkin underlined the moment.

 

President Bush has said it.

A lot of government scientists have said it.

But until yesterday, it appeared that no news release on annual climate trends out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Bush White House had said unequivocally that a buildup of greenhouse gases was helping warm the climate.

Mr. Bush has made two speeches on climate. He first expressly accepted that humans were contributing to global warming in a news conference in Denmark in July 2005 on the way to an economic summit in Scotland, saying, “Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem.”

 

Quite a presidency. Andrew C. Revkin, “Agency Affirms Human Influence on Climate,” The New York Times, January 10, 2007.

 

340      The House Oversight Committee summoned: Congressional Quarterly Roll Call, “House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Holds a Hearing on Possible Political Interference with Government Climate Change Scientists,” March 20, 2007.

There’s video at C-Span’s website. Cooney open-mouthed is at 1:03:00; Hansen’s smile at 1:03:15.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?197196-1/political-influence-climate-change-research 

Accessed 7-12-22.