Union of Concerned Scientists - Press

Press

In 1997, the UCS presented their “World Scientists Call For Action” petition to world leaders meeting to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol. The declaration asserted, “A broad consensus among the world's climatologists is that there is now ‘a discernible human influence on global climate.’" It urged governments to make “legally binding commitments to reduce industrial nations' emissions of heat-trapping gases”, and called global warming “one of the most serious threats to the planet and to future generations.” The petition was signed by “more than 1,500 of the world's most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science.”

In February 2004, the Union received press attention for its publication "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking". The report criticized the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush for "politicizing" science. Some of the allegations include altering information in global warming reports by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and choosing members of scientific advisory panels based on their business interests rather than scientific experience. In July 2004, the Union released an addendum to the report in which they criticize the Bush administration and allege that reports on West Virginia strip mining had been improperly altered, and that "well-qualified" nominees for government posts, such as Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel were rejected because of political differences. On April 2, 2004, Dr. John Marburger, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a statement claiming that incident descriptions in the UCS report are "false," "wrong," or "a distortion", and dismissed the report as "biased". UCS rebutted the White House document by saying that Marburger's claims were unjustified. UCS later wrote that since that time, the Bush administration has been virtually silent on the issue.

On October 30, 2006, the Union issued a press release claiming that high-ranking members of the U.S. Department of the Interior, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald, systematically tampered with scientific data in an effort to undermine the protection of endangered species and the Endangered Species Act.

On December 11, 2006, the UCS issued a statement signed by 10,600 leading scientists including Nobel laureates. The statement calls for the restoration of scientific integrity to federal policy-making.

On May 23, 2007, the UCS cited a joint-study with MIT and issued a press release claiming that "any test of the U.S. missile defense system that does not show whether an interceptor missile can distinguish between real warheads and decoys is irrelevant" and "contrived," and called for an end to the taxpayer-funded program until the system can show an ability to actually address "real world threats."

On June 21, 2007, a UCS report charged the EPA with political manipulation of scientific data to influence updated US ozone regulations: "The law says use the science, the science says lower the standard to safe levels," said Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Program. "In disregarding its own scientists' analysis, the EPA is risking the health of millions of Americans."

In August 2008, the UCS purchased billboards at the airports in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota where the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions are to be held. The two nearly identical billboards showed the downtown areas of each convention city in a cross hairs, with the message that “when only one nuclear bomb could destroy a city” like Minneapolis or Denver, “we don’t need 6,000.” The name of Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama follows, with this admonition: “It’s time to get serious about reducing the nuclear threat.” The billboards were removed after a complaint from Northwest Airlines, the official airline of the Republican convention. The UCS has accused Northwest, whose headquarters were in Minnesota, of “taking on a new role as censor” and of having acted because it regarded the Minneapolis advertisement as “scary” and “anti-McCain.”

In March 2011, the UCS held daily telephone media briefings related to the Fukushima nuclear accident.