Suppress That Information
Apr 27th, 2009 • Posted in: What They're Saying
“I’m amazed and astonished that the Global Climate Coalition had in their possession scientific information that substantiated our cautious findings and then chose to suppress that information.”
– Dr. Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, commenting in a piece last week from the New York Times that examines efforts by the coal, gas, and oil industries to create doubt about the science of global climate change.
Santer’s work as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was challenged by the industry-created Global Climate Coalition, which lobbied the government — and the public — by trying to cast doubt on scientific findings, even by their own scientists, that human energy use was a key cause of global warming.
The industries’ efforts have been likened by some to obfuscation efforts by the tobacco industry. “They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed, only to cause as much confusion as possible,” a British environmental activist and writer noted to the Times.
Industry representatives have denied trying to suppress the truth.
Source: New York Times, Apr. 23.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 9 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 8, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 30, 2006 — Related Newsline story, June 13, 2005.
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