Scientists Criticized for Climate Advocacy
- Valerie Richardson
- Aug 22, 2016
- 1 min read
Critics are attacking as a “climate power play” a letter to the US Congress from 31 science associations advocating for domestic and natural-security policies predicated on climate change.
Judith Curry, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, described the June 28 letter as a “blatant misuse of scientific authority to advocate for specific socioeconomic policies.” She added that the professional societies, led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), have “damaged public trust in science” by putting scientists on the same level as lobbyists.
“They claim the science is settled; in that case, they are no longer needed at the table,” Ms. Curry said in a Monday post on her blog Climate Etc. “If they had written a letter instead that emphasized the complexities and uncertainties of both the problem and the solutions, they might have made a case for their participation in the deliberations.
“Instead, by their dogmatic statements about climate change and their policy advocacy, they have become just another group of lobbyists, having ceded the privilege traditionally afforded to dispassionate scientific reasoning to political activists in the scientific professional societies,” said Ms. Curry, a prominent climate change skeptic.
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