Scientists respond to intimidation from Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)

RealClimate has the complete scoop on how scientists have responded to efforts to intimidate scientists by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) over a particular detail (the now famous hockey stick) in the climate science. I think that Thomas Crowley summes it up in EoS (a weekly newspaper of the geophysical sciences):

At some point, one must ask why should a member of the U.S. Congress get involved in this matter which may have been raised by a Canadian? I believe the purpose is twofold: (1) to send a signal of intimidation to researchers who produce results that are not consistent with some political preferences; and (2) to continue to dwell on the hockey stick "hot button" by raising questions and fomenting uncertainty, with the aim to discredit greenhouse science so skeptics in government and their supporters can continue to claim that there are too many uncertainties to proceed with any action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Deeply disturbing (although I really want to say how pathetic and disgusting)!

UPDATE (07/23): NYT gets it straight, and calls Rep. Barton's efforts harassment. Washington Post calls it hunting witches.

Comments

[Doug L]

This article misses what the scientists are actually saying. They are shying away from a previous claim:

"It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the 20th century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years"

This seems rather important to determining the level of concern that is justified.
I document this here.

[APB]

Doug: You are trying to give an impression that the "two findings" as you call them are separate. In fact the two statements you refer to appear in the IPCC report one after the other.

More importantly, this is another attempt to distract from what is the real issue at hand. The real issue is that Rep. Barton's inquiry in to the matter is much less about knowing the scientific facts, and much more about intimidating scientists. This is an example of trying to fix the facts around a policy, and should be strongly opposed by anybody who cares about scientific research whether it is related to climate change or not.