February 28, 2007
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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999
FROM VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2, FEBRUARY 1997
SOUND SCIENCE, SOUND POLICY
Sound science, sound policy, and the relationship between the two
are the subject of some recent lively discussion. The new book Green
Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environment Movement, by Andrew Rowell of
Greenpeace, examines how anti-environmental interests exploit to their own
advantage "counter-scientists" whose views differ from those of the
mainstream. (See BOOKS/GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT, this Global Climate Change Digest
issue--Feb. 1997.) The book was reviewed in Nature by Julian Morris
of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), who rejects Rowell's claim
and defends scientific mavericks as essential to the scientific process. And in
a letter responding to the Morris review, Clive Bates of the International
Institute for Energy Conservation defends strong action on climate change based
on the consensus scientific view, noting that Morris and the ESEF (which
challenged the conclusions of the IPCC Second Assessment) have scant
scientific evidence to support their view.
In a similar vein to Green Backlash is the report Environmental
Science Under Siege, released by Rep. George Brown (Democrat-Calif.) of the
House of Representatives Committee on Science. (See Global Climate Change
Digest, REPORTS/GEN. INTEREST, Jan. 7, 1997.) He analyzes three hearings
entitled "Scientific Integrity and the Public Trust," held in 1995 and
1996 by the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Committee on Science, on
alleged abuses in the science of climate change and ozone depletion. The
hearings implied that scientists supporting the mainstream view were part of a
conspiracy with environmental regulators. Brown concluded that the hearings "constituted
an unprecedented assault on the peer review system and the scientific process
In a recent commentary in Chem. Eng. News (p. 30, Dec. 9, 1996),
Michael Heylin reflects on the Brown report, concluding that the truth about the
science of the environment will not come from a special subgroup of "skeptical"
scientists, nor be found in the editorial pages of the Washington Post.
Rather, it will come about as do other scientific advances, through open debate
and peer review amidst mutual respect and cooperation.
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