Bush Administration Misuses Science In Environmental Policymaking – YOU Can Help.

Via Pharyngula: Scienceinpolicy.org is a group working to express their dismay with the abominable science and environmental policies of the current administration. They are looking for people to sign this statement:

The Bush administration justifies environmental policies by misusing and misrepresenting science. The administration’s harmful positions on climate change, pollution, forest management, and resource extraction ignore widely accepted scientific evidence. When the administration invokes science, it relies on research at odds with the scientific consensus, and contradicts, undermines, or suppresses the research of its own scientists. Furthermore, the administration cloaks environmentally damaging policies under misleading program names like “clear skies” and “healthy forests.” As a result, the public and the media often wrongly believe that this administration uses sound science to help promote a healthy environment. In reality, the best available science indicates that President Bush’s policies will cause and exacerbate damage to the natural systems on which we all depend.

They also have some short analyses of bad science programs pushed by the Bush administration.

Site Goals:
We believe that the public benefits when sound science is incorporated in policymaking decisions. To this end, it is the obligation of the scientific community to inform the public and the media when science is misused. We believe that our policy analyses are objective and non-partisan. We welcome alternate interpretations of objective scientific information, and will readily incorporate additional credible evidence as it becomes available.

We seek support for the statement from a broad range of environmental scientists in order to raise public awareness, and to encourage policymakers to rely on sound science when creating and defending their policies. To this end, we plan to publicize this statement as widely as possible (see the January, 2004 issue of Bioscience). However, we believe the amount of publicity the statement will receive depends on the number of scientists who endorse it. Thus, we hope you will sign the statement and alert your colleagues to this site. [What Do You Think? Comment on this Post!]