Public Comments Push Climate Agency to Reconsider Methods
The Climate Change Research Program agreed to reconsider its "Unified Synthesis Report," which was issued in July, following comments from scientists and policy experts, according to an Aug. 21 press release from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
The government panel claimed the report synthesized 21 studies to present an alarming series of regional climate change projections. Only 8 of the 21 studies had actually been completed and released.
"The authors go to great lengths to obscure their inability to credibly articulate human influence on the climate," said Christopher C. Horner, senior fellow at the institute. "They do so through selectivity in research, alarmist language, failure to provide relevance or context to many of their claims, and generally throughout with transparent advocacy in tone and content."
Despite a small window of less than 30 days to submit substantive comments on the 208-page report, a number of scientists and policy experts, including Horner and CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, managed to detail the alarmist bias, selective use of sources, and inappropriate policy advocacy.
"The report claims it doesn't provide official recommendations for government action," said Lewis. "Yet the document continually commingles science and advocacy for regulatory controls on carbon dioxide. In fact, the cheerleading begins on the cover page with an intentionally exaggerated graph of global temperatures."
Comments on the report can be read at http://www.globalwarming.org/nationalassessment.
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.