A few months back (January), it was discovered that NASA was censoring one of their top global warming scientists. A ton of blogs covered the issue, thousands of emails were sent, and eventually, the PR flack responsible for the censorship quit his job, and NASA announced a new policy of openness.
Well, it appears that the lesson was not learned throughout all parts of the Federal Government. It was announced today that now the Department of Commerce is censoring a scientist at the NOAA who made a link between global warming and an increase in hurricane activity.
Rep. Waxman from CA is investigating this through the House Committee on Government Reform, and ABC News even picked up the story.
Essentially, CNBC wanted to interview Tom Knutson, a hurricane modeler with NOAA at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The request ended up going to Chuck Fuqua at the Department of Commerce (the DOC oversees NOAA), and Chuck (who worked as the Director of Media Operations for the Republican National Convention in 2004) wanted to know if Knutson agreed with the decadal theory (that increased hurricane activity is a normal cyclical thing) or with the global warming theory.
Thanks to internal emails posted on the House Committee for Government Reform's site, we can see that when it came back that Knutson was a global warming guy, Fuqua said to get someone else for CNBC, and ultimately, CNBC's request was denied with a note saying, 'routine, but sensitive'.
What a PR hack from the DOC is doing determining what scientists can and cannot say about global warming reeks of censorship, yet again. As we all know, within this administration there has been a consistent effort to bend all facts to fit their political ideology.
When it comes to global warming, we can't afford to not have the information, and the Department of Commerce's decision to perpetrate scientific fraud is an abomination.
While Waxman is working through his channels, we should work through ours. Environmental Action has set up an action page to send Fuqua an email expressing out outrage at this censorship. To check it out, click here, and please repost this action elsewhere.