On Friday, the administration embraced a study from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that concluded with "90 percent certainty" that human carbon emissions over the last 250 years have caused the global climate to warm. Before warning of possible "unintended consequences" of mandatory carbon caps, Bush's Energy Secretary Samuel Bodwin went so far as to say:

Human activity is contributing to changes in the Earth's climate. That issue is no longer up for debate.

You might think that acknowledging the human responsibility for climate change while worrying about possible economic consequences of fixing the problem seems a bit disingenuous, but that's just because you've been reading too much Orwell.

While all this was happening, California Rep. Henry Waxman was holding hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a recently released report (PDF) from the Union of Concerned Scientists accusing the Bush administration of systematically manipulating science to meet their policy goals. More than 1600 government climate scientists were asked about their experiences, and findings in the report include:

Nearly half of all respondents (46 percent of all respondents to the question) perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words "climate change," "global warming," or other similar terms from a variety of communications.

Two in five (43 percent) perceived or personally experienced changes or edits during review that changed the meaning of scientific findings.

More than one-third (37 percent) perceived or personally experienced statements by officials at their agencies that misrepresented scientists' findings.

Nearly two in five (38 percent) perceived or personally experienced the disappearance or unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials relating to climate.

Nearly half (46 percent) perceived or personally experienced new or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate related work.

The report, and the subsequent Waxman hearings, inspired an exceptional editorial from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Good climate scientists have no political agenda. They seek to apply their skills within the long-established norms of scientific inquiry to understanding what is happening to global climates and what that portends. Their findings are critical to ensuring that the U.S. government embraces the wisest possible climate policies. Ensuring the integrity of federally funded climate science should thus be a high priority for the U.S. government, which does most U.S. climate research. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has turned that priority on its head. [...]

The reason for the political interference is clear: The Bush administration has an indefensible pro-business bias that trumps even the health and welfare of the nation's citizens. Because efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming could have severe impacts on deep-pocket companies close to the administration, its perverse logic dictates that the global warming science be suppressed.

Scientists often have good news for us ("We cured polio!"), but sometimes they figure things out that we'd rather not hear ("Sorry, but the earth isn't the center of the universe."). Climate science is no different. It turns out that when a few billion people participate for decades in the uninterrupted practice of releasing heat-trapping gasses into the earth's fragile atmosphere, things start to heat up a bit. Denying, censoring, and distorting science in the past has set us back centuries in the quest for knowledge and truth. Denying, censoring, and distorting climate science may not leave us with too many more centuries.