NWF VIEW

Climate Science Under Attack:Who Speaks andWhy? By Larry J. Schweiger President & Chief Executive Officer

The famed Supreme Court Justice OliverWendellHolmes understood that great revelations create great ene- mies.He once warned: “You never need think you can overturn any old falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little pop- ulation that dwells under it.” Based on many observations and

calculations, Galileo discovered that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the cen- ter of the universe. Pope Urban VIII deemed the discovery heretical and launched an inquisition that ended with Galileo receiving a life-sentence “house arrest” in 1632. Sadly, it seems that important scien-

tific findings can be just as contentious today as in the 17th century. This is especially true when those discoveries bump up against and threaten to over- turn profits. Consider these examples: In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote her

now famous book Silent Spring, warn- ing that DDT was harming bird life. For the remainder of her days, she was attacked relentlessly by DDT manu- facturers and their hired critics. In the late 1970s, Dr.Herbert L.

Needleman, a Pennsylvania medical researcher and toxicologist, discovered that urban children who had been exposed to atmospheric lead from vehicle emissions and lead paint had significantly impaired mental develop- ment.His research subsequently was attacked by oil and chemical interests that were making a profit peddling leaded gasoline and lead-based paint. Reflecting on his painful experience,

Dr. Needleman wrote recently: “For researchers who operate at the inter-

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section of basic biology and toxicology, following the data where they take you—as any good scientist would— carries the risk that you will be pub- licly attacked as a crank, charged with scientific misconduct or removed from a government scientific review panel. Such a fate may seem unthinkable to those involved in primary research, but it has increas- ingly become the norm for toxicologists and environ- mental inves- tigators. If you find evi-

dence that a compound worth billions of dollars to its manufacturer poses a public health risk, you will almost cer- tainly find yourself in the middle of a contentious battle that has little to do with scientific truth.” In an effort to cast doubt on last

December’s Climate Conference in Copenhagen, unidentified deniers hacked into a computer server at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and stole tens of thou- sands of emails, then carefully parsed the words to craft a story they dubbed “Climategate” just days before the meeting. The contrived story line sug- gested a deliberate and systematic attempt to manipulate data by two leading climate scientists: Phil Jones, who heads the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, andMichaelMann, the director of Pennsylvania State Univer- sity’s Earth System Science Center who studies ancient tree ring patterns as proxy for climatic conditions. The distortions created by the hackers accomplished their intended purpose of slowing progress at Copenhagen.

| 6 | NATIONAL WILDLIFE In a sermon written 150 years before

the creation of the Internet, the influ- ential British clergyman Charles Spur- geon warned: “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” At the speed of electrons flying through cyberspace, charges about the work of these two climate scientists disseminated all over the Internet and in themedia. UnlikeWatergate, where the authorities and themedia sought to discover who did the break-in,many in themedia—especially FoxNews— replayed the story line as created by the thieves and continue to falsely report the science of climate change. Long after the Copenhagen confer-

ence failed to develop a treaty, the BritishHouse of Commons Science and Technology Committee conducted an investigation and, in part, con- cluded: “We are content that the phrases such as ‘trick’ or ‘hiding the decline’ were colloquial terms used in private emails and the balance of evi- dence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt tomislead. Likewise the evidence that we have seen does not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer-review process.” As a result of 47 emails anony-

mously posted on a rented Russian file server,MichaelMann became the focus of an academic investigation. On Feb- ruary 3, 2010, that investigation con- cluded that “there exists no credible evidence that Dr.Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data.” Watching this affair unfold, I am

reminded of Rachel Carson’s response to her chemical industry sponsored crit- ics. “I recommend,” she said, “that you ask yourself:Who speaks? And why?” We would be wise to listen to her advice and look behind the curtains.

JAN LEWIS (NWF)