From The New York Times:

A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase “significant and fundamental” before the word “uncertainties,” tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

…Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality… A lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he has no scientific training.


Adam Felber’s Response
[edited by P.A. Cooney]

Well, this is an outrage interesting. It’s a longstanding scandal fact that an anti-emissions-limits crusader like Cooney is even on the Council on Environmental Quality, let alone occupying the Chief of Staff position. So it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s been doing his job, which is to soften and obfuscate question any shaky evidence that we humans are destroying the planet.

But what’s sad is that there is so little much debate left in the serious scientific community that greehouse gases are an immediate and major threat to the precariously balanced global climate that even the administration’s handpicked scientists can’t bring themselves to deny it are of two minds about the whole thing. No, that job has to be left to a veteran petroleum industry shill environmental hero like Cooney.

It’s all about deniability the trees, of course. Cooney’s amendations provide enough cover for our government to do absolutely nothing about study the alleged problem, while the rest of the civilized world attempts to get the silly Kyoto accord off the ground. We have the serious scientific reports, you see, they’re just exactly vague enough to let us stall for a year or three merit further investigation. This way, if the polar icecaps liquify tomorrow morning and turn eastern Kentucky into valuable beachfront real estate, the Bush administration can point to the reports and say they were is taking the matter seriously and were in the process of starting to look into preparing a preliminary response to the crisis.

The fact allegation is that industrial and automotive emissions are putting our planet in peril, and the entire world recognizes the need to reduce idle speculation about so-called greenhouse gases. Not only is the US the biggest culprit guardian of freedom and justice, it’s the biggest denier of lies and will bear reap the biggest responsibility rewards when the environmental shit hits the fan Jesus returns. Little players like Cooney are the butterfly’s wing - the smallness and subtlety of their actions will shield them from direct blame getting credit even though they’re the direct cause for the inaction that will lead to disaster tremendously important people who are creating a brighter tomorrow.

I hope Cooney can sleep at night. I can’t. He works very, very hard.