Rice U. Professor Says Texas Agency Censored Article Over Climate Change

October 11, 2011, 12:54 pm

A professor of oceanography at Rice University has accused a Texas environmental agency of censoring an article he wrote by deleting references to global climate change and the impact of human beings on the environment, the Houston Chronicle reports. The professor, John B. Anderson, said he refused to go along with the edited version of his article about sea-level rise in Galveston Bay that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality wanted to publish. A spokesman for the agency said it had removed information that the agency did not agree with.

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11262324

Or did they remove information with which Gov. Perry did not agree?
lexalexander

Memo to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: You can ignore reality, but reality has a nasty way of not ignoring you.
Babagranny

1984 has arrived.
old nassau’67

Thank God, err, ummmm, I mean the Intelligent Designer, that Professor Anderson wasn’t writing about evolution.
old nassau’67

As Ayn Rand remarked, ““You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
11272784

GREAT! Now government agencies get to decide what is true in articles written by scientists. “Comrade Anderson, do not fear, we know what is true!”
old nassau’67

As long as the Internet remains free (to inform and misinform), only inept and failed attempts at censorship will remind us of Big Brother.
old nassau’67

Read yesterday’s (Oct. 10) article “West Virginia U. Accused of Distancing Itself From Faculty Research Critical of Coal”. The TCEQ’s censorship reminds me of the coal industry’s reaction to the WVU study: “One industry lobby group hired a consulting firm to try to discredit his
work, and an industry law firm alleged that any increased birth defect
rate in Appalachia could be related to inbreeding among the region’s
residents.” Hooray for academicians!
goodeyes

Scary.
ssaulvolk

Texas! Once again at the forefront of intelligent discussion!
11890636

Inbreeding, indeed! Has anyone studied marriage and birthing among Republican politicians, corporate lobbyists, and staff of right-wing think tanks?
megginson

Unfortunately, in this particular arena this has been going on for a long time. See, for example, Mark Bowen’s book “Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the
Truth of Global Warming.” I’ve seen climate change denier books support such censorship on the basis that when the scientists are your paid employees, then you have the right to control what they say in public, but this is the first time I’ve seen a government agency blatantly admit that they are censoring science specifically because they disagree with its findings – usually they find some fig leaf such as saying that they need more time (perhaps a few decades) to validate such findings before having them see the light of day. I worry a lot that our nation is not getting more disgusted than it seems to be about such remarkably self-serving arguments by folks who claim that they are serving the public by filtering out what they do not want the public to hear.
darccity

Southerners think the Big Bang is the sound your concealed 45 makes.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002980932866 John Sullivan

He claimed the sea was rising when its not according to satellites. They removed it because its wrong.
dank48

Could you be more specific, please? By “southerners” do you mean everyone from below the Mason and Dixon line? It’s not that I particularly object to sweeping statements about people based on their geographical origin, but we need to define terms.

Btw, how do you feel about New Englanders? The Lodges who speak only to Cabots and that crowd.
texasmusic

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
archman

can you cite that source, please?
wvsulibrary

If Rick Perry were to be elected President (God forbid!), I’ll be on the first plane out. Once again, Texas has shown it’s anti-intellectual behind.

DC
katisumas

John Sullivan, the seas and oceans are rising around the world. No one, but no one is disputing this. They are rising too slowly for you to notice, unless you look at the levels from 5 years ago and now. Measure the sea level near your home and measure it again two years from now. Actually, you could also ask people with beach front properties who are losing them every year.

The article was censored because its author referred to man made climate change and gave a projection of what the gradual rise in sea level would do to the Galveston area.

Check out the following comment in the Huston Chronicle:

“Anderson said the article is based upon a 10-year, peer-reviewed study with other scientists. It was published by the Geological Society of America.”

Since the Texas Board of Education censored Thomas Jefferson out of Texas high school history textbooks, does it mean that Thomas Jefferson never existed?

And who invented satellites to begin with? How did they get up there? How do they stay up there? How do they communicate data? Was it scientists or politicans?
pflady

I am sure that the members of TCEQ are all carefully-picked Perry cronies.
pflady

If Rick Perry is elected President, I hope Texas secedes, and then I’ll move there!
oldcommprof

This surprises people? This is the state that doesn’t believe in science.

I’ve been wondering this: Does Texas believe in math?