the war on the war on science

I still have one more night of David Byrne's Carnegie Hall concert series to write about, but I do recognize that a lot of my readers come here for politics (or at least variety), so I'll switch gears for a bit and get to day four a little later on. Believe me: there was some hot new music to talk about, but you'll have to check back later to read about it. Today's topic is, The war on the war on science, or, The difference a Democratic Congress makes.

Bush's war on science has been widely covered in the six years since he usurped the presidency. The Bush White House has altered and supressed data on everything from global warning to sex education. I'm sure my readers know all that, and I don't want to be in the business of telling people what they already know.

But Reader, did you also know that the backlash against the backlash against science has entered the halls of Congress thanks to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman of California? On January 30, 2007, the committee held hearings on 'Political Interference with Climate Change Research' and the testimony was damning indeed.

Since the topic is science, let's look at the numbers. The Union of Concerned Scientists surveyed over 1,800 federal scientists. According to Francesca T. Grifo, Senior Scientist at UCS, here is what they found:

GRIFO: In a nutshell, here is the problem we face - political interference is harming federal science and threatening the health and safety of Americans. UCS has surveyed more than 1,800 federal scientists and found the following:
-- 145 FDA scientists reported being asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or change their conclusions in an FDA scientific document.
-- Nearly half (44 percent) of all FWS scientists whose work is to evaluate endangered species reported that they have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making findings that would protect a species.
-- And, from the report we are releasing today, 150 federal climate scientists report personally experiencing at least one incident of political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 such incidents.

When it came to climate change in particular, the interference was acute.
GRIFO: Yet unacceptably large numbers of federal climate scientists personally experienced instances of interference over the past five years:
-- Nearly half of all respondents (46 percent of all respondents to the question) perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words "climate change," "global warming," or other similar terms from a variety of communications.
[...]
The more frequently a climate scientist's work touches on sensitive or controversial issues, the more interference he or she reported. More than three-quarters (78 percent) of those survey respondents who self-reported that their research "always" or "frequently" touches on issues that could be considered sensitive or controversial also reported they had personally experienced at least one incident of inappropriate interference. More than one-quarter (27 percent) of this same group had experienced six or more such incidents in the past five years.

The UCS has compiled a helpful A to Z Timeline of every instance of political interference in science that has een reported in the press. It is an impressive and depressing document.

My personal favourite anti-data instance was not part of the hearings and did not involve scientists at all but, incredibly, cattle ranchers. As reported in the New York Times for April 10, 2004, the feds used the Animal Virus, Serum, Toxin, Antitoxin Act of 1913 to prevent Creekstone Farms Premium Beef from voluntarily testing its own cows for mad cow disease. So much for the free market. This beef producer lost its Japanese market because Bush's Department of Agriculture compelled it not to test its cows. One wonders what the feds were afraid to find.

What Republican government cannot compel, the private sector has tried to bribe, as the Guardian reported on February 2:
'Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).'
ExxonMobil has reportedly given AEI $1.6 million. Why exactly do people refer to the AEI bribe-o-rama as a think tank? What thinking is alleged to go on there?

Bush and Cheney's attitude towards science is no different than their attitude towards intelligence. What we've witnessed is, in short, the politicization of everything: not just every government agency but every fact, every word, every punctuation mark. The federal government can no longer produce or publish information that does not serve partisan Republican ends.

I earnestly hope the new Congressional leadership will persist in its oversight obligations. Science should not be a dirty word. Reader, raise your fist in the air and shout for all to hear, 'Science Power!'