Editing away global warming

From today's NY 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.

Meanwhile, the Independent reports,

An unprecedented joint statement issued by the leading scientific academies of the world has called on the G8 governments to take urgent action to avert a global catastrophe caused by climate change.

The national academies of science for all the G8 countries, along with those of Brazil, India and China, have warned that governments must no longer procrastinate on what is widely seen as the greatest danger facing humanity.

...Over dinner at the White House last night, Mr Blair appeared to make little progress on one of his main priorities for Britain's year chairing the G8 - a new international effort to combat climate change. The Prime Minister is trying to draw the US, China and India into the discussion, but there is little sign that the Bush administration will accept the growing scientific evidence about the problem.

Somehow I doubt Tony's going to have much success. Like elsewhere, the facts can always be "fixed" or, as the Times story attests, edited around the policy.