The Bush White House is again dictating science based upon ideology, this time altering a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands. Never has a modern presidency acted so cavelierly towards scientific knowledge, and with such potential for disasterous impacts. The ecological damage caused by cattle grazing upon range and forest lands is well known. Do the Bush people think this can just be ignored? This is the second example in two weeks of the Bush administration policy-makers rewriting science - the other being downgrading the risk of climate change through strategic edits of supposedly unbiased science by an oil industry stooge. Science needs to stand on its own, particularly matters of global ecological sustainability which will effect us all. This criminal contempt for what science has to tell us in this regard must end.

Science suppressed again: National Parks edition

The N.Y. Times is reporting that the National Parks Service has suppressed and failed to act upon a report insisting that NPS needs to "do much more to preserve biological diversity and ecological integrity in the national parks," according to a member of the panel that produced the report.
That member, Dr. Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society, said she and her colleagues had expected that the National Park Service would distribute the report and take action on its findings. Instead, she said, "it has just languished."

That is unfortunate, Dr. Earle said, because "the sooner action is taken the easier it will be, the less costly it will be, to maintain the health of the systems upon which all of the recreation depends."

The report did not appear on the Web until this week, when a coalition of retired park employees posted it, accusing the Bush administration of hiding it because of its emphasis on science over recreation.

Bush's Science Aide Rejects Claims of Distorted Facts

Source: Copyright 2004, New York Times
Date:&nbspApril 3, 2004
Byline:  Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times

The White House issued a detailed rebuttal Friday to accusations by an advocacy group and 60 prominent scientists that the Bush administration had distorted or suppressed scientific information to suit its politics.

In a letter to Congress, which had requested a White House response, Dr. John Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush, said most of the accusations were false and in some cases "preposterous."

In February, the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has long criticized administration policies on issues like biotechnology, global warming and nuclear power, released a 38-page report which found that "There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented."

The report was endorsed by 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and people who had served in past Republican administrations.