Politics of Climate Change

24 MB MP3

Tonight we’re launching into the first of the climate change shows by looking at the politics of it in the US. This means following the money trail that leads from the fossil fuel industry to political spin; and figuring out why the American press, as a whole, has been pretty quiet about the issue.

[courtesy Government Accountability Project (GAP)]

Ross Gelbspan

Former reporter for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. Author of The Heat Is On and Boiling Point.

His website (The Heat Is Online) is a comprehensive source of information on climate change.

[in studio at WGBH in Allston, MA]

Rick Piltz

Former senior associate at the Climate Change Science Program, which coordinates climate research in different government agencies.

Resigned in March 2005, saying, “Each administration has a policy position on climate change… But I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program.” [Quoted in the New York Times on 8 June 2005]

[by phone from Maryland]

Read Piltz’s letter of resignation, made available through the Government Accountability Project (GAP).

GAP also released a factsheet outlining the items that were cencored or rewritten.

Stephen Schneider

Climatologist in the Biology department at Stanford University. Co-director of Stanford’s Center for Environmental Science and Policy.

Maintains his own website on climate change here.

[by phone from California]