Issues in Scholarly Communication is a newsletter produced by Paula Kaufman, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, for the Illinois community. Entries from 2001-2005 newsletter are available.
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From the Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2005
The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating three professors whose work suggests that the earth's climate is warmer now than at any time in many centuries and that increasing levels of greenhouse gases from burning fossils fuels are largely to blame.
n letters to the three scientists last week, Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, demanded detailed documentation about the hundreds of studies on which they were an author or co-author. Mr. Barton also sent a letter to the director of the National Science Foundation that requests information about the work of the three professors, as well as a list of all grants and awards in the area of climate and paleoclimate science, which number 2,700 in the past 10 years.
Several climate scientists reached by The Chronicle expressed dismay at the investigation and described it as harassment.
Mr. Mann [an assistant professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, and one of the three whose research is being investigated] said he would comply with the congressman's requests, but because of the legal issues involved, he said he could not comment in detail. "I am pleased that the U.S. Congress has shown in interest in the issue of climate change," he told The Chronicle. "I am confident that when members of Congress take a look at the science, they will join with the consensus of the world's scientists that the earth is indeed warming, and that human activity has played a primary role in the warming observed in recent decades."
UIUC: Read the rest of the article (search for global warming in the headline)
Posted by at July 1, 2005 2:46 PM
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