the blog quebecois

CTV:

U.S. scientists have been pressured to make their writings on global warming fit with the Bush administration's skepticism on the topic, a U.S. Congressional committee has been told.

A survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists found 150 climate scientists had personally experienced political interference in their work over the past five years. The survey had 279 respondents.

At least 435 incidents were recorded, representatives of the watchdog group told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications," said Francesca Grifo.

Well, no. CTV (or more probably, the wire service that provided the report) just plain gets the numbers wrong. Iain Murray, writing in The Corner:

We're going to hear a lot about the new Union of Concerned Scientists' report on the so-called Republican War on Science that was unveiled at today's hearing chaired by Henry Waxman. What you won't hear is that the UCS report is undeniably Junk Science, a term I try to avoid but completely apposite in this case. The UCS mailed out over 1600 survey forms to climate scientists and based their assertions of political interference on the 297 that got returned. That's a response rate of just 19 percent. OMB guidelines clearly state that a response rate of less than 80 percent requires an investigation of potential biases and an even closer investigation for a response rate lower than 70 percent. A response rate of lower than twenty percent is clearly vulnerable to the charge of a self-selecting sample, perhaps those with an axe to grind against their bosses, the politically motivated, and so on. In short, it proivides all sorts of legitimate reasons to dismiss the survey as utterly unrepresentative. The fact that these so-called scientists went ahead regardless exposes them for the partisan media manipulators they are.

To be fair, this is a bit confusing. Giving him the benefit of what might have been a rushed blog entry, I believe that Murray meant to say that the OMB's (The White House's Office of Management and Budget) oversight responsibilities are triggered by a 70% or greater response rate on polls for bias; at least, this is what seems to make logical sense. The 279 (there is also a slight discrepancy in this number, probably a transposition error) claims of interference from 1600+ potential respondents might seem large -- but I would defy you to find any large, controversial project in which 20% of the participants didn't feel slighted by or critical of the end result. As we know too well by now, unanimous opinion is only possible in newsrooms, usually before a word is written or a phone call made. Or after.

And who were the dissenters crushed under the iron heel of the Bush Administration? Most of the press that I've seen featured two in particular: Drew Shindell and Rick Piltz, with little-to-no coverage of their claims. Marlo Lewis comments in National Review Online:

Another witness, Drew Shindell of NASA, recounted what happened when he published a paper forecasting a warming trend in Antarctica. The Bush White House did not try to stop him from publishing the paper, nor did it try to stop NASA from putting out a press release on it. So what dastardly deed did Bush operatives commit? White House officials twice rejected the titles he and the NASA press corps proposed for the press release, and eventually told them what title to use. This was, in the apt words of another witness, Roger Pielke Jr., ham-handed communications management, but it hardly qualifies as censorship or persecution.

and further goes on to eviscerate Piltz, whose complaints seem equally trivial. Not that you'd know it from lazy, lazy journalists.