White House Officials muzzle hurricane/climate change expert

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In their continuing battle to obfuscate on the issue of climate change, a series of e-mails has been uncovered that shows White House officials successfully barring the public appearance of a NOAA hurricane expert who, along with most of the scientific community, believes that increased hurricane intensity is attributable to climate change. Here is a copy of the letter from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez that describes the muzzling. And here is a copy of the e-mail that Rep. Waxman uses as evidence.

A big hat tip to ThinkProgress.org for revealing this. When will the US administration pull it’s head out of the sand and start dealing with this issue? Until they do, no amount of this osrt of PR spin will make up for  their lack of credibility. The best PR always begins with doing the right thing.

This of course isn’t the first, or do I highly doubt it will be the last, time the US administration has dabbled in the art of manipulating pesky scientific findings that don’t mesh with their agenda. Here is a series of articles by Andrew Revkin at the New York Times chronicling other similar activities, as usual they are blocked in the subscription-only gate:

Scientists Commend NASA‘s Progress on Communications (March 14, 2006)

House Panel Prods NASA for Improvement on Openness (Feb. 17, 2006)

Call for Openness at NASA Adds to Reports of Pressure
(Feb. 16, 2006)

Ex-Press Aide for NASA Offers Defense (Feb. 10, 2006)

Editorial: Censoring Truth (Feb. 9, 2006)

A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA (Feb. 8, 2006)

NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness
(Feb. 4, 2006)

Lawmaker Condemns NASA Over Scientist’s Accusations of Censorship (Jan. 31, 2006)

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
(Jan. 29. 2006)

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmogBlog.

He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning.

Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks.

Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder.

Prior to DeSmogBlog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health.

In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications.

Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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