More Accusations of Govt GW Suppression

Bush administration officials are still muzzling government scientists, according to NCAR senior scientist Warren Washington.

Washington made the charge at a Wednesday conference on climate change in Boulder, Colorado.

"The news media is not getting the full story, especially from government scientists," Washington said.

His accusations back up those of Jim Hansen, who earlier (Jan 29, 2006) made his concerns known to the NY Times.

"Washington said in an interview that the climate cover-up is occurring at several federal agencies, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Forest Service. NOAA operates several Boulder laboratories that conduct climate and weather research."

A NOAA spokesperson called the accusations "unfair":

"NOAA is an open and transparent agency," said NOAA spokesperson Jordan St. John. "It's unfair to the people who work at this agency that this kind of characterization keeps being made. Hansen said it once, and it took on a life of its own and just keeps getting repeated."

The Rocky Mountain News reporter, Jim Erickson, did some good homework for this article, after Trigg Talley, acting director of the U.S. Office of Global Change, highlighted FutureGen, "a 10-year, $1 billion, U.S.-led international effort to build the first zero-emission power plant...." (It sequesters GHG emissions underground.) Erickson called up NYU emeritus professor Marty Hoeffert, who "pointed out that 850 new coal-fired power plants are planned for the U.S., China and India. None of them would capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions.

"One highly touted FutureGen won't do much to counter the "oncoming wave of carbon" from those 850 plants, he said.

"It's a totally ineffective program," Hoffert said later of the Bush plan outlined by Talley.