Is Bush's Administration Anti-Science?

[jshore]

@Sam Stone

Knorf: I addressed this before. You have decided that the amount of spending is irrelevant simply because it doesn’t support the thesis that Bush is anti-science.

Well, I don’t see where that is Knorf’s thesis. It is the title of his thread but titles are necessarily short. The questions he asked in the OP were:

What do you all think? Does the administration “cherry pick” and manipulate science in a manner comparable to the way it is accused of handling intelligence about Iraq?

In short, does the Bush administration allow political and idealogical objectives to overrule science (and tangentially, intelligence)?

Is this group of scientists presenting a issue which should be taken seriously by the public?

And, in fact, most of the early posters to this thread, who basically answered yes to these questions specifically pointed out that “anti-science” was probably not the best term. And, in fact, Knorf agreed that it probably wasn’t the best choice of words.

[jshore]

@pervert

The EPA was asked to put together a “Report on the Environment” with the purposes stated above. They did so and included a small section on global climate change. The Bush administration saw it and did not feel it met the goals of the report. Accordingly, they suggested some changes. The EPA representitives responsible baulked. A multi month negotiation ensued during which the EPA representitives refused to include any mention of uncertainty in Global Warming predictions. Finally, the WhiteHouse made some edits and attempted to enforce them. The EPA then decided to delete the section entirely rather than live with the edits.

Now, do I think this is more likely what happened than the scenarios portrayed by Waxman, the UCS, or the Science editors? No, not really.

I would argue that this scenario is unlikely for a few of reasons:

(1) It doesn’t particularly jive with the facts we know, e.g., concerning what the EPA memo says the Bush administration wanted inserted, in terms of the references to the papers, etc. Also, what the EPA memo claims is that “Uncertainty is inserted (with “potential;ly” or “may”) where there essentially is none.” They even give an example: “changes in the radiative balance of the atmosphere ‘may’ affect weather and climate.” They note that they provided documentation in terms of a number of references and even the testimony of Patrick Michaels [who, just to fill you in, is one of the global warming skeptics, a senior fellow at Cato and has received funding from Western Fuels Association for his work and even to put out a little periodical bulletin on global warming (“World Climate Report” or something like that)].

(2) If the EPA refused to mention any uncertainty about anything, this would put them out of the mainstream of scientific thought on global warming. This seems unlikely since there has been no evidence presented to my knowledge from previous reports or websites or whatever from EPA that they have adopted positions that are outside of what is said by IPCC, NAS, and such?

However, I would very much like to see the section of the EPA report before and after the edits. I find it difficult to believe that such a comparison does not exist. If the edits asked for by the administration are so intollerable, why has someone not come forward with the actual evidence of it. Surely the side by side comparison of what the EPA wanted to say and what the administration tried to force them to say will be enough to outrage the people.

Yes, but who are you suggesting should release this? I don’t think that people working in government are free to release whatever they want. In fact, they can probably be fired for releasing stuff that they have not been authorized to release. (I think there are some whistle-blowing laws but since noone is accusing the Bush Administration of having done anything that is illegal in the case of this report, I doubt they would apply.)

Thus, we have to rely on either leaks (where the leaker is potentially jeopardizing their career) or releases under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I don’t know how easy it is to get stuff under the FOIA but what I do know is that the Bush Administration has legally challenged attempts to get it to release information concerning who they sought input from in developing their energy policy and that Ashcroft issued a memorandum that has made it at least somewhat more difficult to get information under such FOIA requests.

[See here for a discussion and here for a GAO report [PDF file]. Here is the GAO’s first paragraph describingthe change:

Following the issuance of the Ashcroft memorandum, Justice changed its guidance for agencies on FOIA implementation to refer to and reflect the two primary policy changes in the memorandum. First, under the Ashcroft memorandum, agencies making decisions on discretionary disclosure are directed to carefully consider such fundamental values as national security, effective law enforcement, and personal privacy; the Reno memorandum had established an overall “presumption of disclosure” and promoted discretionary disclosures to achieve “maximum responsible disclosure.” Second, according to the Ashcroft memorandum, Justice will defend an agency’s withholding information if the agency has a “sound legal basis” for such withholding under FOIA; under the Reno policy, Justice would defend an agency’s withholding information only when the agency reasonably foresaw that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption.

The GAO also surveyed FOIA officers in government agencies on the effect of the change. The general conclusion seems to be that while about half (48%) of the officers felt that this change by Ashcroft did not significantly effect the likelihood that they would release discretionary information, 31% felt it would make release less likely, 7% more likely, and 14% no response / don’t know.]

My impression (someone could correct me if they think I’m wrong) is that such a release could take place if it were approved at the highest levels. That is, the administration would have the power to release this and set the record straight if they wanted to.

[jshore]

@pervert

When jshore said this “It is only when politicians start to meddle in the process, either by making politically-motivated decisions such as the stem cell one or by earmarking lots of money to pork-barrel research projects that it becomes a real problem.” Perhaps I took it too farm but I read it as government science has no biases without politician’s interference.

Yes…I think you did. It is likely impossible to eliminate all bias from anything. The point is to establish processes that tend to minimize any bias or politicization.

[pervert]

@jshore

Yes…I think you did. It is likely impossible to eliminate all bias from anything. The point is to establish processes that tend to minimize any bias or politicization.

Agreed. Perhpas we can negotiate the details of such a system in another thread?

[pervert]

@jshore

(1) It doesn’t particularly jive with the facts we know, e.g., concerning what the EPA memo says the Bush administration wanted inserted, in terms of the references to the papers, etc.

That’s right. Particularly to the “paper” you mentioned before. However, the EPA memo does not mention this paper by name. It merely suggests that the administration wanted to refer to 2 studies which supported the “administration’s preffered position.” Certainly Waxman claimed one of the papers was the one you mentioned. Did he give any evidence for this?

Also, what the EPA memo claims is that “Uncertainty is inserted (with “potential;ly” or “may”) where there essentially is none.” They even give an example: “changes in the radiative balance of the atmosphere ‘may’ affect weather and climate.”

Right. Presumably, this is intended to show that the administration is attempting to deny that if the Earth captures more heat from the sun, then the climate will be effected. It seems, a little odd, though, that the rest of the paragraph is not given in the memo. In a memo circulated to describe problems with a draft of a paper, wouldn’t you at least expect some sort of reference to the paper? Something like “On page 45 paragraph 2 the second sentence was changed to…”? I agree that the change suggested seems odd, but can you at least acknowledge that it seems taken from an inknown context?

What if the changed sentence originally read “Proven anthropogenic changes in the radiative balance of the atmosphere will affect weather and climate”?

(2) If the EPA refused to mention any uncertainty about anything, this would put them out of the mainstream of scientific thought on global warming.

Quite. And I agree that this is hyperbole to make the point. Namely that we do not have a good idea what phrases were negotiated between the agencies. We have a bad photo copy of a single paper which Waxman, UCS and apperently the editors of Science contend is proof that the administration wished to pervert the scientific process.

This seems unlikely since there has been no evidence presented to my knowledge from previous reports or websites or whatever from EPA that they have adopted positions that are outside of what is said by IPCC, NAS, and such?

Do we have any previous statements from the EPA concerning global climate change?

Yes, but who are you suggesting should release this?

The people making the claim. I’d be ok if the administration did it. I think I did say earlier that I would like the whitehouse to respond, did I not?

I don’t think that people working in government are free to release whatever they want.

Are you saying that they were free to release the memo but not the context around it?

[jshore]

Sam, welcome back from Jasper! And thanks for the “retaliation”…I do appreciate the image of the ‘Miss Nude Snow Bunny’ festival though even if it exists only in our imaginations.

Back to Bush’s spending on science: What annoyed me about your dismissal of it as spin was that I actually went to considerable effort to make it as fair as I could. For instance, I averaged out Clinton’s entire 8 years, when I could have chosen his first two years to match Bush’s - which would have made Bush look better, since Clinton’s science spending went up in his second term.

Well, my main points are:

(1) That since you looked at average increases in absolute dollar terms, this would tend to exaggerate Bush’s increases relative to Clinton’s. And, this is not only because you didn’t discount for inflation by looking at increases in real dollars. Even doing that would still tend to give a bias. The reason is that things like inflation, GDP, and budgets tend to increase in a geometric manner. For such cases, when one is looking at two different periods, it is best to look at percentage changes year-over-year. Even if you had corrected for inflation but it was true that these budgets tended to increase, say, at the rate of GDP then you would tend to find that absolute real dollar increases at a later time are lower than absolute real dollar increases at an earlier time. This is why I was quite confident that my comparison of GDP increase under Clinton and Reagan would yield the results it did using your method of comparison even before I looked up the numbers. (In fact, I was thinking of throwing it out as a conjecture but decided to actually check because I wasn’t sure what the effect of the somewhat larger underlying inflation rate during the 1980s than during the 1990s would affect things.)

(2) Just looking at the first two years of the Bush Administration is probably not a good measure of what will happen over a longer time because the large discretionary budget increases, due in part to 9/11 are unlikely to be sustained. The AAAS pages you cite do have numbers for FY2004 which are “estimates … based on final FY2004 appropriations and numbers for FY2005 which are “estimates of President’s FY 2005 request.” These numbers indeed seem to suggest that there is now a considerable slowdown in the R&D growth outside of defense. Thus my results that if you look over the full 4 years from FY2001-FY2005, you find an increase in basic research averaging 5.8% per year (as compared to 6.0% over Clinton’s 8 years in office). For all non-defense R&D, the number is 6.0% per year as compared to 4.8% per year over Clinton’s time. [If you look at this instead in constant dollars, you get basic research increases averaging 4.3% for Bush and 4.0% for Clinton and all non-defense R&D averaging 4.5% for Bush and 3.0% for Clinton.]

Note that I am not trying to argue that Bush has been bad for science funding. In fact, I concluded in my first post on this that “the evidence is that over the long-haul, non-defense and basic research will likely fare similarly under Bush as they did under Clinton. I’ll grant you that defense research is likely to do better.”

However, I do think your conclusion that “In fact, judging by money spent it looks like Bush is about twice as interested in promoting science as was Clinton.” was not at all justified.

[Now that I have realized how complex things and how many valid ways there are to look at it, I would probably weaken my statement somewhat in regards to the certainty that I can say what I did. There is uncertainty in both directions though…For example, under the not-unreasonable assumption that the first two Bush years were anomalous and that budgetary pressures mean that in a second term (assuming reelection) Bush would follow the trend of from FY2003 to FY2005 then you get much lower estimates since the increases over this two year period for both basic research and non-defense R&D average only 1.6% per year in real terms or 2.9% not adjusted for inflation.]

@Sam Stone

I also mentioned that constant dollars vs real dollars wasn’t that big a difference in this period, since inflation was very low, and the magnitude of the increases under Bush was large enough that the data would still show big increases over Clinton in constant dollars. Well, here’s the same chart I posted before except this time in constant dollars. It shows the same thing. Total R&D spending started off at 89.272 billion. It went down in Clinton’s first budget, and continued going down every year until 1997. It wasn’t until 2000 that R&D spending made it back up to the level that Bush I had funded. Under Bush II, federal R&D spending has taken a dramatic climb upwards.

Yes, but this story for total R&D is dominated in large part by the defense component of R&D, which in all years is more than half the total and which I already agreed was getting more lavishly funded under Bush than Clinton. The numbers in real terms that I now gave above give you the average percent increases in real terms under Clinton’s entire term and under Bush’s entire first term (admittedly using his request for the FY2005 numbers). They show basic research increases to be only a bit higher under Bush and non-defense R&D increases to be 50% higher. However, as noted above, this is due to large increases in the first two years followed by increases from FY2003 to FY2005 that are quite small and, if continued, for a second Bush term would result in an entire 8 years under Bush in which spending in basic research and non-defense R&D goes up at a lower rate under Bush than Clinton…So, it is hard to say how things would be likely to end up.

Since we are using numbers from the AAAS here, it is worthwhile to look at what they have to say when they analyze Bush’s FY2005 funding request, particularly in regards to the breakdown of where the money is going:

In a repeat of past budgets, the FY 2005 budget proposes record funding for federal R&D due to large increases in defense and homeland security R&D; but with tight constraints on other discretionary spending, most federal R&D programs would see flat funding or cuts, and even favored R&D agencies of past years would see increases barely above the expected rate of inflation of 1.3 percent.

…
Every year for the past few years, there have been record-breaking totals for the federal investment in R&D because of enormous increases in the past few years for defense weapons development, the creation of new homeland security R&D programs, and the now-completed campaign to double the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget. In these flush times, however, funding for other areas of federal R&D has remained stagnant or declined, with increases in some agencies offset by steep cuts in others. The FY 2005 budget for federal R&D would continue these recent trends with large increases for weapons development and homeland security R&D, but flat or declining funding for the rest of the federal R&D portfolio. (All figures in this release are preliminary and will be revised in later AAAS releases with revised agency data.)

• The request for total federal R&D in FY 2005 is $131.9 billion, $5.9 billion or 4.7 percent more than FY 2004 (see Table 1). The entire increase would go to Department of Defense (DOD) development of weapons systems and R&D in the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leaving all other federal R&D programs collectively with declining funding. Total research (basic and applied) would barely increase by 0.6 percent to $55.3 billion, even including DHS’ expanding research efforts (see Table 2).

• Outside of DOD development and DHS R&D, the federal R&D portfolio would mostly decline or stay even with this year’s funding, consistent with the 0.5 percent increase for nondefense, non-homeland security discretionary spending overall (see Figure 1).

• Even two favored nondefense R&D agencies in recent years are adjusting to diminished expectations. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, after doubling in the five years between 1998 and 2003, would see an increase of 2.6 percent in FY 2005. Although President Bush signed an NSF authorization bill in December 2002 that called for its budget to double over five years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget would fall short of the mark with a budget of $5.7 billion, up 3.0 percent after similar increases in the past two years but well short of the $7.4 billion envisioned in the authorization. Most NSF research directorates would see increases of about 2 percent in FY 2005.

-The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would continue its dramatic expansion of R&D capabilities with an R&D budget of $1.2 billion, up $163 million or 15.5 percent after an even larger increase last year…

-Most of the other agencies in the federal R&D portfolio would see steep cuts or at best modest increases in their R&D funding.

Like I said above, I am not trying to argue that Bush has been bad overall for science funding (or R&D in general). Clearly, R&D in defense and in homeland security is faring very well. The news outside of that is certainly more mixed however.

And, in any case, nothing in regards to science funding should excuse distortion and suppression of science.

[jshore]

@pervert

That’s right. Particularly to the “paper” you mentioned before. However, the EPA memo does not mention this paper by name. It merely suggests that the administration wanted to refer to 2 studies which supported the “administration’s preffered position.” Certainly Waxman claimed one of the papers was the one you mentioned. Did he give any evidence for this?

Waxman references the N.Y. Times article (which is no longer available for free). UCS also references the N.Y Times article. But to be perfectly honest, pervert, from the description given in the EPA memo, i.e., “The 1000 year temperature record is deleted. Emphasis is given to a recent limited analysis supports the Administration’s favored position,” it is not very hard to figure out what paper they are almost certainly talking about.

As for the rest of your various hypotheticals, I agree with kimstu that it makes little sense to be discussing all possible hypothetical scenarios, no matter how implausible, on the basis of the fact that the information we have is from the EPA memo and not the full draft texts in their various forms. If the Administration believed that the EPA memo somehow described their changes very deceptively, they could certainly release evidence to this effect. It is not our job to act as the Administration’s defense counsel. They are the ones who actually have the information and could put up a defense if there were one to be made.

Do we have any previous statements from the EPA concerning global climate change?

Yes…They issued the 2002 Climate Action Report (which may have been required through the UNFCC [United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change]…I forget), the one that Bush derided as the report put out by the bureaucracy.

And, here is the EPA global warming website. See, in particular, this page.

The people making the claim. I’d be ok if the administration did it. I think I did say earlier that I would like the whitehouse to respond, did I not?

Well, I explained to you why it is likely not be possible for the people making these claims to release these documents without jeopardizing their jobs because they are releasing info that they are not authorized to. So, the ball really is in the White House’s court.

Are you saying that they were free to release the memo but not the context around it?

I don’t know how the memo was obtained. I thought it might have been leaked or it might have been obtained through an FOIA request. If leaked, someone likely already risked their job to do so. It is easy for us here to sit and say, “Boy, it would be really nice if they leaked everything that we might want to see.”

[pervert]

@jshore

Waxman references the N.Y. Times article (which is no longer available for free). UCS also references the N.Y Times article.

And what evidence was given in that article?

But to be perfectly honest, pervert, from the description given in the EPA memo […] it is not very hard to figure out what paper they are almost certainly talking about.

But does this not require some big extrapolation on your part? Are there not many neo con “papers” they could have been refering to? Could they not simply have been trying to claim that the Sattilite temperatures were more important than the ground based readings? Why do you assume that destressing the temperature data implies a desire to claim that CO2 emmisions are a good thing?

If the Administration believed that the EPA memo somehow described their changes very deceptively, they could certainly release evidence to this effect. It is not our job to act as the Administration’s defense counsel. They are the ones who actually have the information and could put up a defense if there were one to be made.

And if they felt that such a case did not need to be made because the case made by Waxman et. al. is politically motivated and not worth responding to, then they might not do so. I am begining to see the wisdom in refraining from responses to these attacks.

Yes

Thank you.

Well, I explained to you why it is likely not be possible for the people making these claims to release these documents without jeopardizing their jobs because they are releasing info that they are not authorized to. So, the ball really is in the White House’s court.

Well, not possible and difficult are two different things. If someone wanted to release a memo and claim it represented the views of EPA scientists, this would be a good way to do that. If it did not, in fact, represent any significant views, how would we know? This is what I am getting at. Who wrote this memo? How many of the authors of that section of the ROE agree that it is substantially correct? I’m sorry, but we only have Waxman and the UCS as sources for this.

It is easy for us here to sit and say, “Boy, it would be really nice if they leaked everything that we might want to see.”

But it would be even nicer if the political attackers making this case made a small token attempt to see the possible other side of the argument represented by the memo. Maybe there is no other side. I could buy that. But to hear that “Bush bad, EPA good” from Waxman and the UCS leaves me with questions.

I know it is not the habbit of political rhetoricians to exhibit sympathy for the other side’s position. But I find it difficult to condemn an entire administration based solely on such attacks.

Maybe the Bush administrations activities are so bad that they cannot come up with a single point in their favor. I tend to doubt that. They have much better spin doctors than me.

Maybe the Bush administration hopes that most people will see the issue as I do, namely that it is a political attack with little substance. I tend to doubt that also, though. I have found that looking at both sides of an issue is quite difficult. I notice that basically what we have here is an incident, a single peice of paper evidence, and many many charcterizations in the media about how bad it is. Most people will get their news from the characterizations and never even look into the evidence such as it is. They will decide without considering either side of the issue very thouroughly.

I do appreciate you willingness to talk about it. I still don’t think you have tried very hard to see the issue from the other side, but you are quite willing to discuss the evidence.

I should also say that I am not claiming that Bush is innocent. I am simply saying that there is reason to doubt the veracity of the Waxman et al report’s characterization. At least on this issue.

[jshore]

@pervert

And what evidence was given in that article?

Like I said, the article is no longer free. You can pay to check if you want.

But does this not require some big extrapolation on your part? Are there not many neo con “papers” they could have been refering to? Could they not simply have been trying to claim that the Sattilite temperatures were more important than the ground based readings? Why do you assume that destressing the temperature data implies a desire to claim that CO2 emmisions are a good thing?

No. It does not require that big an extrapolation. There are very few papers it could refer to, assuming you mean a paper in an even marginally respectable scientific journal. The EPA memo says it was a recent paper and the context in which it appears in the memo suggests that related to the 1000 year temperature record (although it is not entirely clear on this last point)…which then certainly narrow it down to one.

To be honest, I have no idea what your last sentence above refers to. Where did I assume that their suppression of the data implied a desire to claim that CO2 emissions are a good thing?

And if they felt that such a case did not need to be made because the case made by Waxman et. al. is politically motivated and not worth responding to, then they might not do so.

Well, when they have been told by the editor of one of the two most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world that the charges are serious and credible enough that they deserve a response and then they choose not to defend themselves anyway, what does that tell you? [And, the editor of the other journal actually published an editorial in which he raised some of these charges independently (concerning the appointments to the committees) and bluntly told the Administration to read the law on this and start following it.] At the very very least, they are showing quite a lot of arrogance toward the scientific community.

I am begining to see the wisdom in refraining from responses to these attacks.

I most certainly see the wisdom in refraining from response particularly if they don’t have strong grounds to defend themselves but can rely on people like pervert who are going to make all sorts of hypothetical defenses for them. Why should one ever provide evidence if someone is willing to give you so much benefit of the doubt that such compelling evidence in your defense exists?

Again…The rest of your stuff is just hypothetical “well, maybe this”, “well maybe that” defenses. If I were an administration and had the public so willing to consider such hypotheticals, why would I ever need to make a substantive defense? It could only hurt me if I tried but was unable to provide as compelling evidence as you’ve dreamed up in your mind.

If someone wanted to release a memo and claim it represented the views of EPA scientists, this would be a good way to do that. If it did not, in fact, represent any significant views, how would we know? This is what I am getting at. Who wrote this memo? How many of the authors of that section of the ROE agree that it is substantially correct?

Note that parts of the memo are corroborated by independent evidence such as the fact that the EPA chose one of those options in the memo…i.e., it deleted the whole section on global warming. Has Former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman come forward to say that the memo is not authentic or representative? I imagine that she would if this were the case.

Maybe the Bush administrations activities are so bad that they cannot come up with a single point in their favor. I tend to doubt that.

Noone is saying that these reports are meant to give a balanced view of everything the administration has ever done. Yes, they have a point-of-view. But, they document their charges. Again, what you seem to want is that the prosecutors present all possible facts (“This man accused of murder was considered to be a nice guy by his neighbors”) rather than that they make their case and then the defense actually has to present something.

Maybe the Bush administration hopes that most people will see the issue as I do, namely that it is a political attack with little substance.

Well, if they do, they will certainly be out-of-step with the editors of Nature and Science who don’t consider to be this at all. But, yes, clearly that has been the administration’s line of defense, which seems pretty interesting since one might expect they would present a substantive defense if they had one.

I should also say that I am not claiming that Bush is innocent. I am simply saying that there is reason to doubt the veracity of the Waxman et al report’s characterization. At least on this issue.

Like the Nature editorial said after the Waxman report, serious and credible charges have been made and they deserved to be seriously addressed by this Administration. I am curious to see what editorials in Nature and Science appear now following the UCS report. (And, by the way, you seem not only to be doubting the veracity of the Waxman and UCS reports but also of the scientists who wrote that EPA issue and option paper, etc.)

[jshore]

@jshore

No. It does not require that big an extrapolation. There are very few papers it could refer to, assuming you mean a paper in an even marginally respectable scientific journal. The EPA memo says it was a recent paper and the context in which it appears in the memo suggests that related to the 1000 year temperature record (although it is not entirely clear on this last point)…which then certainly narrow it down to one.

Just to summarize, the Waxman and UCS reports, citing the NY Times paper claim the paper referred to is the Soon and Baliunas one. (Well, the Waxman report just describes it somewhat; the UCS report actually gives the full journal reference to the paper.) And, I independently can pretty much figure out which paper is being referred to just from reading the EPA memo. By doing this, I arrive at the same conclusion as what the UCS report says. And, this is some sort if big extrapolation?

[jshore]

With a little bit of investigation, I did manage to find a place where that N.Y. Times article is reposted online. Here it is. Note it says:

Drafts of the climate section, with changes sought by the White House, were given to The New York Times yesterday by a former E.P.A. official, along with earlier drafts and an internal memorandum in which some officials protested the changes. Two agency officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the documents were authentic.

The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.

Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion.

So it sounds that the New York Times reporters did actually get to look at the drafts of the climate section with the proposed White House changes. And, indeed, the story provides us with enough detail to determine that what the White House did was delete reference to the Mann et al. study and substitute a reference to the Soon and Baliunas paper.

[Squink]

@jshore

So it sounds that the New York Times reporters did actually get to look at the drafts of the climate section with the proposed White House changes.

IIRC, there was a global warming discussion going on here in GD at the time of the report, in which I posted a link to draft text. The keyword search doesn’t seem to be up to the task of finding it.

[jshore]

Squink,

Yeah…I’ve been having problems using the search to find previous threads that I was pretty sure I had good enough keywords to find. Here is a recent thread in the “About this message board” forum on this subject which seems to imply they are having to re-index all of the message board (since the last upgrade, perhaps?)

[jshore]

By the way, I was looking at some of the [url=]news reports about the release of the UCS report and it sounds like the Administration is actually saying that they are going to give it some sort of more substantive response:

White House science advisor John Marburger III called the charges ‘‘like a conspiracy theory report, and I just don’t buy that.’’ But he added that ``given the prestige of some of the individuals who have signed on to this, I think they deserve additional response, and we’re coordinating something.’’

I look forward to it!

[pervert]

jshroe I think you are mixing up some of the issues. At least as far as out discussion goes. I am not talking about the rest of the Waxman or UCS report. I am only concentrating on the EPA issue. As presented in those reports, they seem a little shy on details. If as you say, the details were available before the reports were written, why were they not included? If the NYTimes already had draft copies of the ROE, why could neither Waxman nor the UCS get copies included in their reports?

I most certainly see the wisdom in refraining from response particularly if they don’t have strong grounds to defend themselves but can rely on people like pervert who are going to make all sorts of hypothetical defenses for them. Why should one ever provide evidence if someone is willing to give you so much benefit of the doubt that such compelling evidence in your defense exists?

Look, I am having difficulty here expressing myself. I am not claiming that any of my hypotheticals are more right than Waxman or UCS. But if you were president and had reports like this by enemies like those, you could make a pretty good case that responding to them only adds fuel to the fire.

Look at what happened to me. Certainly my arguments have not been the most cogent. Certainly they have not been expressed very well. But the basic idea that alternative explanations exist for much of this memo has been basically laughed at (with your noble exception, jshore). Why would they participate in a debate when these are the rules of engagement?

To be honest, I have no idea what your last sentence above refers to. Where did I assume that their suppression of the data implied a desire to claim that CO2 emissions are a good thing?

Was not the study we were talking about claiming that build up of CO2 is a boon to agriculture? Or did I confuse them? Perhaps that is why I called it an extrapolation.

Noone is saying that these reports are meant to give a balanced view of everything the administration has ever done. Yes, they have a point-of-view. But, they document their charges. Again, what you seem to want is that the prosecutors present all possible facts (“This man accused of murder was considered to be a nice guy by his neighbors”) rather than that they make their case and then the defense actually has to present something.

But if they had comparitive editions of the ROE and did not include them in either report, how can you say they documented this charge? Is this memo really sufficient? I understand if this memo is all that is available. But that does not appear to be the case. As I suspected.

Well, when they have been told by the editor of one of the two most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world that the charges are serious and credible enough that they deserve a response and then they choose not to defend themselves anyway, what does that tell you?

Frankly it tells me that they do not give those journals much political credence. Which is unfortunate.

If I were an administration and had the public so willing to consider such hypotheticals, why would I ever need to make a substantive defense? It could only hurt me if I tried but was unable to provide as compelling evidence as you’ve dreamed up in your mind.

This is partly the point I have been trying to get to al along. Let’s face it, there will be a substantial portion of the voting population which will not even hear about this issue. Of those that do, there will be a considerable portion who will believe the charges and nothing short of a smoking gun will dissuade them. Meanwhile, another sizable portion will look at the sources for these reports and look no further. Waxman and UCS had to know this. I’m not sure it is possible that Waxman could have forgotten it. So it is extremely puzzling to me that more information regarding this EPA memo was not included in their reports. If you are a biased enemy of an administration, trying to convince the middle that you are presenting objective concerns, don’t you bend over backwards to do just that? Maybe I’m naive.

Thank you for that link to the NY Times article. I noticed a couple things.

But in the “Global Issues” section of the draft returned by the White House to E.P.A. in April, an introductory sentence reading, “Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment” was cut and replaced with a paragraph that starts: “The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, diagnose its causes, and develop useful projections of how natural variability and human actions may affect the global environment in the future.”

You notice how the sentences are included in full? It makes it much more clear what was replaced and what it was replaced with. Certainly, it does not make it as alarming. But it is much more clear.

The only thing I have been suggesting is that the Waxman and UCS report could have done this as well. They chose not to. This makes their claims suspect. <to me, and on this issue>

Did you also note that the article consistently refers to EPA staffers. Are all staffers at the EPA scientists? I thought we were talking about a disagreement between the WhiteHouse and EPA scientists. Did I confuse something again?

[pervert]

:smack: jshore, obviously. Sorry about the typo.

[pervert]

BTW, while we are decrying the evidence that I seem to be requiring what, exactly, would I have to produce to demonstrate that nothing inappropriate happened in the EPA incident we are discussing. Would quotes fromt he missing section showing that the Bush edits were not, in fact, totally antithetical to the scientific consensus do it? I’m just curious.

[jshore]

@pervert

If as you say, the details were available before the reports were written, why were they not included? If the NYTimes already had draft copies of the ROE, why could neither Waxman nor the UCS get copies included in their reports?

…

But if they had comparitive editions of the ROE and did not include them in either report, how can you say they documented this charge? Is this memo really sufficient? I understand if this memo is all that is available. But that does not appear to be the case. As I suspected.

Well, I don’t know. But since we have been talking so much in hypotheticals, let me give you a few:

(1) Everyone has to make editorial decisions and decide between issuing as complete a report as possible going on for hundreds of pages and issuing a report of manageable size. Perhaps they felt the EPA report explained the edits sufficiently and accurately.

(2) The NYTimes may not be releasing the draft text that they received. I don’t know what their policy is on this…They might have been given the drafts under the agreement that they would not release them. Or, the NY Times might have decided not to release them for their own reasons. (E.g., they had the scoop and they want to keep control over it.) [Although Squink seems to imply that he thinks he saw the draft text…Is that correct, Squink, or might you have just seen the copy of the EPA memo that appeared in the appendix of the UCS report?]

Look at what happened to me. Certainly my arguments have not been the most cogent. Certainly they have not been expressed very well. But the basic idea that alternative explanations exist for much of this memo has been basically laughed at (with your noble exception, jshore). Why would they participate in a debate when these are the rules of engagement?

Well, I hope you don’t feel that you have been laughed at…although we have ribbed you a little for being so darn creative in coming up with hypothetical possibilities. Note, however, that the Bush Administration is in a much different position than you…They don’t have to come with hypotheticals; they have the knowledge of what happened; they presumably have the draft text that they could release if they want to! They’ve got the power, dude! They can set the record straight…And, hey, maybe that’s what Marburger will do.

Was not the study we were talking about claiming that build up of CO2 is a boon to agriculture? Or did I confuse them? Perhaps that is why I called it an extrapolation.

No. If you go back and re-read my 02-27-2004 8:01 PM (EST) post, I think you’ll see that you are mixing up the paper that is being referred to in all of this with a “paper” (not even a published one) that is referred to by Park in his little riff on the history involving Soon and Baliunas.

You notice how the sentences are included in full? It makes it much more clear what was replaced and what it was replaced with. Certainly, it does not make it as alarming. But it is much more clear.

It didn’t particularly change the alarmingness for me. The N.Y. Times quote also did not make it that more clear to me since in fact they only quoted one sentence out of what they said was a whole inserted new paragraph.

Did you also note that the article consistently refers to EPA staffers. Are all staffers at the EPA scientists? I thought we were talking about a disagreement between the WhiteHouse and EPA scientists. Did I confuse something again?

Well, there are presumably a lot of people involved in that EPA memo and such, some of who are presumably scientists and some who might not be (e.g., a secretary may have typed it up, some managers including Whitman herself may have had some involvement in either producing it or seeing it…She almost certainly at least read it, I assume.)

BTW, while we are decrying the evidence that I seem to be requiring what, exactly, would I have to produce to demonstrate that nothing inappropriate happened in the EPA incident we are discussing. Would quotes fromt he missing section showing that the Bush edits were not, in fact, totally antithetical to the scientific consensus do it? I’m just curious.

Well, sure, that would be good. Either the full text of before and after the EPA edits. Or, barring that, at least some detailed point-by-point explanation rebutting the claims in the EPA memo (and the Waxman and UCS reports) regarding the edits.

[Squink]

[Although Squink seems to imply that he thinks he saw the draft text…Is that correct, Squink?

That’s right. Ferreted out by some blogger. Sadly, too much time has passed for me to remember the trail without at least a hint from the thread I can’t find. The Memory hole appears not to have it, and Google sucks for finding this sort of arcana.

[pervert]

@jshore

although we have ribbed you a little for being so darn creative in coming up with hypothetical possibilities.

No, I like that part. I consider it an art with its own esthetic. The esthetics of perversion, if you will.

No.

Fair enough. My bad. I assumed you took the information in the memo and found that they were inserting a study about co2 concentrations being benificial. My bad. So, the Soon and Baliunas paper proported to dispute the historical temperature record? Had the controversy over that paper happened yet? A brief googling seems to indicate that the controversy happened after. Am I wrong?

It didn’t particularly change the alarmingness for me.

I’m not sure why this is. The inserted sentence seems to me merely to suggest that future predictions are difficult to make. This seems in line with some of what I saw in the NAS study summary.

The N.Y. Times quote also did not make it that more clear to me since in fact they only quoted one sentence out of what they said was a whole inserted new paragraph.

Granted. But at least we have sentences rather than phrases.

Well, there are presumably a lot of people involved in that EPA memo and such, some of who are presumably scientists and some who might not be

Right. But the article seemed to indicate that “staffers” were not happy with the edits. If the edits were objectionable because of the science, and if the complaints were made by EPA scientists, why did it not say that scientists were unhappy with the edits. Am I wrong, or have the other reports implied that EPA scientists are unhappy with the edits?

Or, barring that, at least some detailed point-by-point explanation rebutting the claims in the EPA memo (and the Waxman and UCS reports) regarding the edits.

Fair enough I’ll see what I can do tommorrow. Its not like I have a life or anything ;). But as we go through this, what sorts of expanations do you want? If I can propose alternative situations which fit the memo but refute the interpretation, would that suffice? Or would you need evidence that such a situation were in fact what happened. Obviously, any situation would have to be plausable. I’m willing to debate the plausibility in good faith if you are. We don’t need a whole new thread do we?

As to your hypotheticals, well done! I did not even think of #1. Perhaps that is because I do not think the memo fills in enough details. #2 I did think of.