The politicization of science occurs when governments, businesses, and lobby groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research, especially when this influence retards the progress of science.
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2 The "Waxman report" 3 External link |
Frederick Seitz charges that politicization makes it virtually impossible for scientists to get funding to pursue hypotheses which run counter to prevailing ideas about ozone depletion.
Global warming and ozone depletion
However, Seitz' example is purely hypothetical -- he thinks his proposal would "probably" be throw out but advances no instances of research proposals that have been thrown out. Critics point out that climate skeptics like Richard Lindzen continue to receive public funding.
Advocates with views similar to Seitz's charge that political and environmental groups have deliberately created the notion that the "science is settled", while their critics say precisely the opposite.
Media critics Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton, for example, claim that Seitz's allegation does not take into account that business interests in the United States, where the consensus on global warming and ozone depletion is probably weakest, have deliberately created the notion that the science is "not settled", and have convinced governments to support that line. They wrote in the 1998 article "The PR Plot To Overheat The Earth" (Earth Island Journal):
- In 1991, a US corporate coalition including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association and Edison Electrical Institute created a public relations front called the "Information Council for the Environment" (ICE). ICE launched a $500,000 advertising and PR blitz to, in ICE's own words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)."
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- To boost its credibility, ICE created a Scientific Advisory Panel that featured Patrick Michaels from the Department of Environmental Services at the University of Virginia. Michaels has been the leading scientific naysayer on global warming.
- The industry's propaganda campaign also created a bevy of other front groups. The group currently leading the charge is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a creation of the Burson-Marsteller PR firm. From its founding in 1989 until the summer of 1997, GCC operated out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers. Its members include Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute, Shell Oil, Texaco, Chevron, Chrysler, the US Chamber of Commerce, Exxon, General Motors, Ford Motor, and more than 40 other corporations and trade associations. [1]
In the United States, Democratic Congressman Henry A. Waxman and the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee have released a report in August 2003 which concluded that the administration of George W. Bush has politicized science in many areas and appointed key decision makers who shared the administration position on major issues. The issues analyzed in the report are:
The "Waxman report"
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