The Christian Science Monitor has an article on a recent House Committee report that the White House has been manipulating the work of the government’s environmental scientists.
At least since 2003, and especially after hurricane Katrina hit, the White House has broadly attempted to control which climate scientists could speak with reporters, as well as editing scientists’ congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions, according to a new report by a House committee.
“The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming,” said the report, which is the result of a 16-month probe by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues.”
I’m not a big fan of Ayn Rand, but I think some of her ideas were useful. (Eh? I thought we were talking about the White House?) One of those ideas was one the John Galt character apparently took from Aristotle — the somewhat obvious law that “A” equals “A”. And, no matter what you say about “A” — it’s still going to equal “A”. No matter how off base physicists may be in describing the laws of physics, a mechanic is going to have to deal with those laws as they are and not as they are described.
So, the environmental situation is what it is, and the Bush administration’s deceptive descriptions are not going to change it. We’d better do our best to accurately observe what “A” equals.
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