Isn't labeling UCS an "unlabeled left wing activist" group equivalent to mentioning how much coal Australia produces in a story about the Australian drought? I don't think either comment sheds light on the issue. To discredit the report tell me something it says that is wrong, and I can double check the facts myself.

Brian, I guess I don't see the parallel there. Putting the coal figures in the story about Australian drought seems to just be a means to insert global warming into the story - and an odd guilt-by-association means at that. Given that GW is a politicized issue, it seemed only right on my part to look into the politics of the organization publishing the report. And if I hadn't done so, you can bet other commenters would have, and then would have labeled me the UCS's "stooge". I'm not attempting to discredit the report, which I thought was pretty sound.

If you want to draw attention to the political side you could say " The report is put out by UCS, a group known to be sympathetic to the global warming issue and other environmental causes." Calling someone a left-wing activist is the same as calling someone a neocon nazi. Name calling does not enlighten the discussion.

Laura,

I am still befuddled by your take that mentioning coal production in the Australian drought story was a means to drag in global warming as a subject. I re-read the article and still don't get your point. Activists linking the drought to global warming, and therefore demanding a change in government policies was the story!

Here is an interesting link to the Australian Government Department of the Environment which discusses possible causes of the rainfall decline:

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/hottopics/pubs/topic9.pdf

Brian,

The "left wing" comment was not my own, it was a quote from the Wikipedia entry - which is why it was in quotes in my entry.

I'm puzzled at the labeling of the Union of Concerned Scientists (yes I got that about quoting Wikipedia, shame on them). UCS is a legitimate organization of concerned scientists. Science is not a left-wing activity: all the technology we depend on (weather prediction, computers, cars, etc.) are created as a result of scientific effort. Apparently some people want to pick and choose what science they accept. Science is not a faith-based activity, it's based on rigorous methodology, testing and retesting. When scientists are discovered to have based their conclusions on bias they are discredited and severely censured by the scientific community. Science depends on telling the truth.

I tried to access the Tech Central Station website mentioned in your article but cannot access the site, getting instead strange behaviours.

Susan - I'm confident that the UCS is full of very well-educated scientists who are concerned about the planet. I can understand the label, though, just from a perusal of their "history of major accomplishments." They've opposed various weapons systems supported most frequently by Republican administrations, they've pushed for the closing of some nuclear plants and they're very "green." There's nothing wrong with any of that, but none of those things will earn you a "right wing" label.

Michael - I'm not sure why you're having a problem, as the link works fine for me. Did you try a search engine?

Susan - I'm confident that the UCS is full of very well-educated scientists who are concerned about the planet. I can understand the label, though, just from a perusal of their "history of major accomplishments." They've opposed various weapons systems supported most frequently by Republican administrations, they've pushed for the closing of some nuclear plants and they're very "green." There's nothing wrong with any of that, but none of those things will earn you a "right wing" label.

Laura, hypothetically speaking, suppose "team purple" proposed and aggressively advocated a series of initiatives that were each premised on fundamental scientific flaws or internal logical inconsistencies. Suppose that "team orange" consistently opposed the programs of team purple and advocated alternative approaches.

In this HYPOTHETICAL scenario, would it be surprising if an association of scientists were to consistently take positions in support of team orange and opposition to team purple? Would such a list reflect "bias"?

Less hypothetically, you cite UCS opposition to "various weapons systems" and closing of "some nuclear plants" in concluding that they have not earned a "right wing label" -- certainly true. One could, however, read your response as supporting the claim that they are a "left-wing" organization.

If we, however, look at the SPECIFIC weapons systems the UCS opposed, and WHY the UCS opposed them, I fear we come closer to the team purple/orange analogy. For example, Reagan's initial "star wars" proposal failed even the most cursory energy-balance constraints (the energy required to destroy incoming ICBMs could not possibly be supplied in the required time window). In the context of political posturing from one side of the aisle, supported by "scientists" such as Teller, was it "left-wing bias" for other scientists to expose the fraud for what it was? The specific weapons programs opposed by UCS have been opposed because they each contain fundamental flaws (such as falsified test data). When a manufacturer offers a wide variety of failing products, it is not "bias" to identify those failures and seek alternatives.

Similarly, the initial nuclear plant that UCS wanted to close was Three Mile Island -- TWO MONTHS BEFORE its catastrophic failure. Is it "left-wing bias" for a knowledgable scientists to call for the closing of a clearly unsafe power plant? TMI did subsequently fail, very much along the lines of what the UCS warned of. Fortunately, the containment vessel was not breached.

We know that NASA was warned of the failed booster seals that doomed Challenger. Management was warned by knowledgable technical staff that the o-rings were flawed. Management chose to ignore those warnings.

Who demonstrated "bias" in the Challenger case, the engineers who warned of the problems and were ignored, or the management who discounted the warnings and gave the launch order anyway?

If one political party consistently takes positions that ignore or fly in the face of basic science (such as, for example, global warming, evolution, and sex education to enumerate several), it is not "bias" to oppose those positions and articulate the reasons for such opposition.

To the contrary, it's good science and common sense.

The UCS is a leftist organization that started to oppose nuclear weapons. After they saw that issue running out of funding they picked up the next trendy cause - environmentalism. Their deceit is well documented: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html - Find the section labelled "Consensus and the Current "Popular Vision''" and scroll down to the 11th paragraph.

Does the UCS have any scientists on staff? They say they do, but you can't prove it by me. Looking at their staff links you get some names and titles, but no resumes. Walk into any bank and every teller is a VP; titles don't mean anything.

The UCS is not a credible organization. Like many parasitic DC think tanks, they exist only to grab onto the the next trendy pet cause so they can generate the funding required to continue to exist and pay their execs fat salaries. Anything they say is suspect.

I have to thank Brookline Tom for articulating in detail some of the more egregious examples of "right-wing bias" and attempting to explain why activities like pointing out what's wrong with Star Wars (a fantastically expensive weapons defense which never has and never can work which diverts precious resources from real needs) is a factual rather than a political activity.

I think the politicization of science is a real tragedy, which is why I tried to keep my entry simple and point out some less controversial scientific accomplishments. I hope that someday treating science as a belief system rather than a search for the truth will stop.

The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" covers the difference between the conclusions of scientists who work with facts and industry-funded "research" funded by those who would like the public to be confused. Real scientists are 100% convinced but the public is confused by media influenced by biased reports.

By the way, I think this year's warm winter is largely not due to global warming, but the warm temperatures provide a kind of "tipping point" for global warming and can accelerate its effects.

It appears to me from a couple of years of following worldwide weather incidents that we are already in the throes of a major increase in flooding, high winds, drought, etc. Darfur exemplifies the human result of a cultural crisis exacerbated by climate crisis.

Another home run for woodNfish. He cites a Cato Institute piece written by Lindzen as an argument that the UCS is a "leftist organization." He even directs us to the "11th paragraph".

Whoops. No reference to UCS at all. Instead, another shill, funded by Exxon/Mobil, writing pieces that correspond to the Exxon/Mobil Disinformation Strategy for advancing Exxon/Mobil's corporate interests on a right-wing crackpot site ALSO funded by Exxon/Mobil.

Meanwhile, woodNfish whines:
Does the UCS have any scientists on staff? They say they do, but you can't prove it by me. Looking at their staff links you get some names and titles, but no resumes. Walk into any bank and every teller is a VP; titles don't mean anything.

That's funny, it took me all of thirty seconds to find the UCS Experts on Global Warming Science. There, I found a full-blown link to Brenda Ekwurzel:
Brenda Ekwurzel
Climate Scientist
Global Environment Program

Expertise
climate variability
hydrology
oceanography
paleoclimate
geochemistry

Profile

Brenda Ekwurzel works on the national climate program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). She is leading UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for strong federal climate legislation and sound U.S. climate policies.

Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Ekwurzel was on the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint appointment in the Geosciences Department. Her specialty is isotope geochemistry, a tool she has used to study climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and the desert Southwest. She has published on topics that include climate variability and fire, isotopic dating of groundwater, Arctic Ocean tracer oceanography, paleohydrology, and coastal sediment erosion. She has also worked as a hydrologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, working with communities to protect groundwater sources.

Dr. Ekwurzel completed her doctorate work at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and post-doctoral research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Sure looks like a resume to me. But just in case that's not enough, it took only another 10 seconds to find another resume for her, this time her CV at the University of Arizona.

So let's see. Two resumes. PhD. Assistant Professor at public, accredited university. Postdoc at Lawrence Livermore. Research interests in hyrdology and hydrologic problems using tracers. Sure looks like a scientist to me.

...Anything they say is suspect.

I'm not sure you even want to go there, woodNfish. This post didn't help your own credibility, and you've once again offered no substance for your attacks and rants.

from the BBC (a "radical" organization?)
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6178213.stm):

"Some 10,000 US researchers have signed a statement protesting about political interference in the scientific process.

The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy.

.... a major row when a discussion here resulted in the renowned US space agency climate scientist Dr James Hansen later claiming he had come under pressure not to talk to the media on global warming issues.
....
' ... signed by science advisers to both Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to President Eisenhower, stating that this is not business as usual and calling for this practice to stop' ... "

I asked one of the Nobel laureates and none of this is lies.

Susan - I guess I'm not quite sure why you're bringing the James Hansen incident up here. That was reported in the New York Times in January of 2006. This blog started at the end of October, 2006. I assure you, I have no political motivation in my writing. It seemed to me journalistically that if I was going to post about the UCS's report, I should know and also report if there MAY have been any political motivation for their claims. Period. End of story.

By the way, I got a very nice, complimentary email from Dr. Hansen a couple of months ago. I tried to get his consent to publish it, and also asked if he would be willing to be interviewed here, but never got a response from him. I'd love to have his participation here.

Laura, my unconditional apology. I left the Hansen reference in a BBC article (Oct. 2006) as an example of bias, but my main purpose in citing the article was to mention the 10,000 scientists. I think you are doing a wonderful job of bringing forward the issues and maintaining neutrality. My whole life has been entwined with science, so the issue of confusion of science with faith is deeply personal to me. Science attempts to deal with truth, and is based on evidence. It's hard to say this without sounding like a flaming liberal, which is a sad commentary on the times we live in.

Susan - no need to apologize. I just wanted to make it clear that I have no agenda, political or otherwise, here. I have to remember that many visitors here may be relative newcomers to the site and may not understand what our purpose is.