No chance yet to look this over, but the UK Stern Report on Climate Change has released its report, available here. This will surely be discussed a great deal. We’d welcome comments from anyone who has had a chance to look at it.

No doubt we’ll be discussing the SOTU in days to come, but for now on a different subject, Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment organized a congressional briefing last week on what science is and is not, according to a story in the New York Times today.

So now, when scientific questions pervade legislation on issues like climate change and stem cell research, there is growing concern that Congressional misunderstanding can produce misguided policy. To fight such misunderstanding, Mr. Boehlert and others sponsored the Jan. 23 briefing, organized by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard. Capitol Hill has briefings by the dozen every year in which industry, academic and activist groups address diverse topics related to science. Some criticize these briefings as little more than showboating. But Mr. Boehlert, like many others, thinks they are “absolutely” useful. And the briefing was unusual in that its subject was not avian flu, the budget for NASA or any other relatively narrow issue, but rather “how science works.”

Harvard’s Sheila Jasanoff, a widely read and respected scholar of science studies, took a less positive view of the session, one that I largely share:

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From Spaceref.com:

Rep. Boehlert Responds to Accusations Concerning NASA’s “Silencing” of Climate Scientist

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Monday, January 30, 2006
Source: House Science Committee

WASHINGTON – House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) sent the attached letter today to Dr. Michael Griffin, Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in response to articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post this weekend concerning NASA’s treatment of Dr. James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

January 30, 2006

Dr. Michael Griffin
Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington DC 20546

Dear Dr. Griffin:

I am writing in response to several recent news articles indicating that officials at NASA may be trying to “silence” Dr. James Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

It ought to go without saying that government scientists must be free to describe their scientific conclusions and the implications of those conclusions to their fellow scientists, policymakers and the general public. Any effort to censor federal scientists biases public discussions of scientific issues, increases distrust of the government and makes it difficult for the government to attract the best scientists. And when it comes to an issue like climate change, a subject of ongoing public debate with immense ramifications, the government ought to be bending over backward to make sure that its scientists are able to discuss their work and what it means.

Good science cannot long persist in an atmosphere of intimidation. Political figures ought to be reviewing their public statements to make sure they are consistent with the best available science; scientists should not be reviewing their statements to make sure they are consistent with the current political orthodoxy.

NASA is clearly doing something wrong, given the sense of intimidation felt by Dr. Hansen and others who work with him. Even if this sense is a result of a misinterpretation of NASA policies – and more seems to be at play here – the problem still must be corrected. I will be following this matter closely to ensure that the right staff and policies are in place at NASA to encourage open discussion of critical scientific issues. I assume you share that goal.

Our staff is already setting up meetings to pursue this issue and I appreciate NASA’s responsiveness to our inquiries thus far. I would ask that you swiftly provide to the Committee, in writing, a clear statement of NASA’s policies governing the activities of its scientists.

NASA is one of the nation’s leading scientific institutions. I look forward to working with you to keep it that way, and to ensure that the entire nation gets the full benefit of NASA sciences.

Sincerely

[Signed]

Sherwood Boehlert
Chairman

The UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs has released online a new book (here in PDF, 16 MB) titled, “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change,” which is a collection a papers presented at a meeting of the same title early last year. We commented on the meeting last year here and here.

I have just read Rajendra Pachauri’s (head of the IPCC) introductory chapter which was based on remarks that he gave at the conference. Not much new in it, but I thought that the following passage from Dr. Pachauri’s chapter provides a telling indication of how a narrow focus on human-GHG-caused climate change tends to warp the thinking of otherwise smart people about issues that involve much more than just human caused climate change:

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The Bush Administration once again demonstrates its unbelievable clumsiness when it comes to handling the politics of global warming. In a story carried on the website of the New York Times, Andy Revkin writes,

James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

What is it that the Bush Administration is trying to keep Jim Hansen from saying?

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Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) provides a great example of how politicians hand off hot-button political issues to scientists, and couch that transfer in science (hat tip, Matt Nisbet).

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The IPCC is the 800 pound gorilla in the climate debate. It has been the locus of legitimate and credible climate science (salience is another matter, but I digress). It is increasingly coming under criticism in a number of dimensions for some very good reasons. In this post I’d like to suggest a few hypotheses about how the IPCC has indirectly contributed to the politicization of climate science in ways we’ve not discussed here. These are for discussion, and I’d welcome evidence for/against and other sorts of examples.

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This post describes two papers that discuss different aspects of climate science, policy and politics. I don’t agree with everything argued in them, but they are thoughtful pieces of scholarship that challenge us to think. They are both worth a look.

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Yesterday the Government Accounting Office released a statement by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, on the challenges for the National Flood Insurance Program (PDF), before the Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate. The report notes the tremendous impact of the hurricanes of 2005 for the program, and goes over some of the basic challenges facing the NFIP, like the fact that the program is by design not actuarially sound. However, the report does not address what is the most fundamental flaw in the program: it is built upon a vision of climate science that does not square with reality.

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Interesting times are ahead for science policy discussions for a lot of reasons. This story from The Hill mentions the bills that we referenced a few days ago:

A bipartisan group of senators will introduce an ambitious trifecta of bills today aiming billions of dollars in new spending at the nation’s sliding science and technology sector. The bills, collectively called Protecting America’s Competitive Edge (PACE), sprang from a request made by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to the independently funded National Academies: What specific actions could Congress take to ensure continued U.S. competitiveness? When the National Academies came back with 20 recommendations and a report on how to implement them, the senators took notice, as did President Bush, who is reportedly considering making science and technology innovation a major theme of his State of the Union address. Alongside Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Alexander and Bingaman are sponsoring three versions of PACE: one for energy, one for education and one for tax policy. The bills would set up a new transformational-energy agency within the Energy Department, create science and math scholarships for 25,000 students and boost research spending at seven federal agencies. The bills are estimated to cost upwards of $9 billion, a price tag that could prove anathema to a congressional leadership already wary of the bloated federal deficit. But the PACE bills have the solid support of the GOP-leaning business community.

The brief article is here.