US censors Arctic scientists' findings as it prepares for oil and gas auction

Is there no end to the Bush administration’s irresponsibility? Outrageously censoring and distorting science for short-term gain is all in a day's work for the current U.S. president. From the Independent (UK), a story by Daniel Howden: The United States has blocked the release of a landmark assessment of oil and gas activity in the Arctic as it prepares to sell off exploration licences for the frozen Chukchi Sea off Alaska, one of the last intact habitats of the polar bear. Scientists at the release of the censored report in Norway said there was "huge frustration" that the US had derailed a science-based effort to manage the race for the vast energy reserves of the Arctic.

The long-awaited assessment was meant to bring together work by scientists in all eight Arctic nations to give an up-to-date picture of oil and gas exploitation in the high north. In addition to that it was supposed to give policy makers a clear set of recommendations on how to extract safely what are thought to be up to one quarter of the world's energy reserves.

…"For a polar bear population already stressed due to massive climate change, these activities could be the last straw," said Kassie Siegel, the climate director at the US-based Centre for Biological Diversity. She said the censoring of the Arctic report was typical of the actions of the White House. "It fits a pattern of downplaying, denying, and suppressing climate science at every turn. It's all part of the Bush-Cheney strategy of handing out as many fossil fuel entitlements as quickly as they can in their final months in office."…