Wednesday October 24, 2012, 8:54 am


Mother Jones
Climate Deniers To Release Rip-Off Report
The Cato Institute makes a counterfeit version of an official government report.

By Kate Sheppard | Tue Oct. 23, 2012 11:36 AM PDT

Back in June 2009, the US Global Change Research Program [1] (USGCRP) released [2] a detailed 188-page report [3], "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," showing how climate change would affect different regions of the country. The USGCRP is at work on its next assessment right now, which is due out in 2013 [4]. But this week a climate-change-denying think tank is trying to muddy the water by releasing what it calls an "addendum" to the USGCRP report.

The Cato Institute [5], a "free-market" minded think-tank based in DC, plans to release its own "Addendum: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" report. In addition to the title, the report's cover looks like the USGCRP report:

The Daily ClimateThe Daily Climate [6]

The Daily Climate flagged the fake report [6] on Monday, noting that the addendum "matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, 'key message' sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes."

While the real USGCRP report had grim predictions for many regions of the US, the Cato report claims that "observed impacts of climate change have little national significance." A draft version of the Cato report is posted online [7]. It lists noted climate contrarian and Cato senior fellow Pat Michaels [8] as the editor in chief.

Rick Piltz, who was a senior associate with the USGCRP for ten years before leaving amid Bush-era censorship [9] in 2005, also covered the Cato draft [10] on his blog, Climate Science Watch:

Because of its misleading design and layout throughout, the Cato report can be characterized as a counterfeit, having nothing to do with the USGCRP or the authors of the original report. It was not subjected to the extensive review process that characterized the 2009 report, and its key findings are neither consistent with the original assessment nor with the analysis developed by the great majority of qualified scientists.

UPDATE: Eleven members of the Federal Advisory Committee that wrote the 2009 USGCRP report have released a statement [11] condemning the Cato report as "deceptive and misleading."
Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/climate-deniers-release-rip-report

Links:
[1] http://globalchange.gov/
[2] http://grist.org/article/2009-06-16-climate-science-impacts-usa/full/
[3] http://globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts
[4] http://globalchange.gov/component/content/article/67-themes/154-spotlight1
[5] http://www.cato.org/
[6] http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/10/cato-climate-science-report
[7] http://www.cato.org/pubs/Global-Climate-Change-Impacts.pdf
[8] http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/02/pat-michaels-climate-skeptic
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html?_r=0
[10] http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/10/22/cato-institute-counterfeit-u-s-climate-change-impacts-assessment/
[11] http://www.umces.edu/Cato-Report

Wednesday October 24, 2012, 9:01 am
to think that they go to such great lengths just to try and prove that climate change has no impact or that we are not in any danger of being wiped out!

Wednesday October 24, 2012, 9:17 am
You cannot currently send a star to natalie because you have done so within the last week.

Thursday October 25, 2012, 12:20 am
J.L. I sent Natalie the earned star. As for the post, of course they publish such bias information, this way they don't have to do anything about the problem...

Thursday October 25, 2012, 1:00 am
Scoundrels.

Thursday October 25, 2012, 6:23 am
Thanks so much Giana! And you are so right.You cannot currently send a star to Giana because you have done so within the last week.

Thursday October 25, 2012, 6:32 pm
geesh, are they still at it?

99.9999999% of scientists agree climate change is happening thru human fossil fuel burning, deforestation etc.

Thursday October 25, 2012, 6:36 pm
Yup, sad to say greenplanet: You cannot currently send a star to greenplanet because you have done so within the last week.

Thursday October 25, 2012, 9:53 pm
Certain folks seem to be willing to mislead (lie) to folks. So many of us believe that climate change is happening right now, I guess misleading is all they have left.

Friday October 26, 2012, 12:32 am
surely nobody pays attention to these jokers any more...

Friday October 26, 2012, 4:51 am
You cannot currently send a star to Don because you have done so within the last week.
You cannot currently send a star to june because you have done so within the last week.

Wednesday October 31, 2012, 1:23 am
Thanks.

Wednesday October 31, 2012, 7:40 am
You are welcome Jennifer.