We’ve discussed, on many occasions, the tendency of the Bush White House to ignore, and sometimes edit, the work of objective scientists who conduct research and come to politically inconvenient conclusions. But, as Chris Mooney wrote this week, scientists would probably prefer Bush’s disinterest to Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-Texas) harassment.
On June 23, presumably as a first step toward holding public hearings, Barton’s [Energy and Commerce Committee] dispatched five letters: one to the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), one to the head of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and one to each of the three authors of a now-famous 1998 scientific study published in the journal Nature — the “hockey stick” graph, showing sharply spiking global temperatures during the twentieth century and especially the 1990s. The “hockey stick” has been widely attacked by the political right both because of the striking evidence it provides for an alarming rise in temperatures in recent years and because it was prominently featured by the IPCC in the panel’s Third Assessment Report (2001).
Barton’s letters, in essence, announce a congressional inquisition into the validity of the “hockey stick” graph. Framed in an accusatory tone, and selectively citing “hockey stick” critics rather than the study’s defenders, the letters note that “questions have been raised” concerning “the significance of methodological flaws and data errors” in the research. The letters also charge that researchers “have failed to replicate the findings of these studies, in part because of problems with the underlying data and the calculations used to reach the conclusions. Questions have also been raised concerning the sharing and dissemination of the data and methods used to perform the studies.”
As part of the process, Barton’s committee made a series of burdensome demands on the scientists, including details on the researchers’ financial support and a “detailed narrative explanation” of so-called errors in the research raised by right-wing critics. Why? Because the scientists had the gall to point to evidence of global warming.
It’s as if Barton and his cohorts are serious, not only in attacking science they don’t like, but also about dividing the academic community into two camps: Republican science and reality-based science.
In this case, Barton literally wants to replace the peer-review process with his congressional committee, and replace scientific scholarship with lay politicians using think tank talking points to raise questions about global warming. This “hearing” will, no doubt, have all the spontaneity of a communist show trial. It’s about as absurd as Barton using his committee as a cudgel to intimidate scientists in the first place.
One of the researchers, Penn State University’s Michael Mann, said he’s “confident that when Congress takes a look at the science, they will join with the consensus of the world’s scientists that the earth is indeed warming, and that human activity has played a primary role in the warming observed in recent decades.” I wish I could share his optimism.
It’s more likely that Congress will ignore the science, berate the experts, and then move on to their next victim.