Posted: 08/02/2005 | Author: H. Sterling Burnett
Climate Studies Cannot Be Free From Oversight
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Scientific progress depends upon the free flow of ideas and data, which allows researchers to independently confirm, refute or improve upon the findings of a specific course of inquiry.
And policy makers often rely on scientific research, much of which is funded by federal and state governments, in making important policy decisions. Thus, transparency of scientific data and methods is critical because faulty research can result in bad policy.
None of that is controversial, which is why it’s puzzling that House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Joe Barton’s request for data from three noted climate scientists has produced howls of protest from much of the nation’s scientific establishment and their friends in the mainstream media.
Controversial studies by the scientists, heavily funded by federal taxes, are being used by eco-activists to prod Congress into taking a more aggressive stance to combat global warming — a stance that could end up costing U.S. taxpayers and consumers tens billions of dollars annually.
So one wonders what exactly Barton, an 11-term Texas Republican, is doing wrong when he seeks to exercise Congressional oversight by having independent experts examine the scientists’ data to ensure its validity.
Barton asked the scientists, led by the University of Virginia’s Michael Mann, to share the data and the methodologies they used to come to their conclusion that the 20th century was the warmest of the last two millennia. In addition, he wanted to know the sources of the funding for their research.
When Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) chaired Barton’s House Energy and Commerce Committee, he unearthed major scandals and saved taxpayers billions of dollars by regularly hauling suspect scientists before his committee, demanding their research papers, putting them under oath and grilling them until their shirts were wet with sweat.
Few in the mainstream media complained in those days and Dingell was praised in editorials and op-ed columns across the country for conducting effective oversight about the use — and misuse — of federal monies.
When a Republican congressman from Texas acts in the same manner and with the same intentions, he is accused by the media of conducting a witch hunt. This despite the fact that the issue of whether human carbon dioxide emissions cause any significant amount of greenhouse gasses is still the object of an intense debate among scientists.
Although Mann’s research has been thoroughly debunked — most recently by two Canadian scientists — it continues to be promoted by the United Nations and such global warming enthusiasts as the Pew Center on Climate Change as a prime reason for imposing draconian curbs on American energy consumption.
The Pew Center, headed by former Clinton Administration official Eileen Claussen, and its allies in the environmental community are spending upwards of $300-million annually promoting the idea that global warming is the major cause of whatever bad weather happens to be on the horizon at the moment.
Since the legislation they are pushing would short-shrift the U.S. economy — and working Americans — tens of billions of dollars each year, Barton is doing a public service by trying to document that their claims rest on a foundation of sound science.
Mann’s research appears to fall far short of that standard. To popularize his theory, h produced a chart that shows nearly 1,000 years of relatively stable temperatures followed by an abrupt up-turn in temperatures in the latter part of the 20th century. The graphic resembles a hockey stick with more than 900 years of statistics occupying the short length at the bottom and the recent shorter period running the entire length of the hockey stick’s handle.
The “hockey stick” interpretation was given great currency until peer-reviewed journals published substantive critiques by six different teams of researchers that showed Mann and his colleagues “stacked the deck” by omitting key data and seriously misinterpreting other data.
In response to this deluge of criticism Mann’s team initially offered a stubborn defense of their work, but later issued a partial “correction” — conceding that they had underestimated temperature variations by more than one-third since 1400.
Yet they steadfastly maintained that this major error did not affect the basic conclusions of their research. At the same time, they adamantly refused other, more skeptical scientists the right to review their raw data or the methodology they used to arrive at their findings. Without that information, it is impossible to determine if Mann’s research is valid.
Far from being a witch hunt, Rep. Barton’s request for full disclosure by Mann and his fellow researchers promotes scientific integrity.
Research that is funded by taxpayers and then used to promote legislation that affects their prosperity should always be reviewed for its validity by their elected representatives. In fact, billions of taxpayer dollars go down the drain every month because Congress fails to conduct vigilant oversight.
Rep. Barton, like John Dingell, before him, is doing exactly what he should be doing for America’s taxpayers, who, after all, will have to pick up the tab for bad public policy. He deserves bouquets from the press, not brickbats.