On climate change, do the media, scientists, and commentators treat possible conflicts of interest equally across the political spectrum? Based on the anecdote reported below, it appears not.

First the precedent. Imagine if a prominent non-scientist responsible for editing official government reports on climate change was at the same time being paid to engage in advocacy work related that that issue. You and I would probably have some concerns, no? This situation is not so far from a true story.


Last fall, a senior staff member in the Bush Administration’s Council on Economic Quality resigned after it was revealed in the New York Times that he had edited government reports related to climate change. As The New York Times reported,

Philip A. Cooney, the former White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for Exxon Mobil this fall, the oil company said yesterday.

Mr. Cooney resigned as chief of staff for President Bush’s environmental policy council on Friday, two days after documents obtained by The New York Times revealed that he had edited the reports in ways that cast doubt on the link between the emission of greenhouse gases and rising temperatures.

A former lawyer and lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying group for the oil industry, Mr. Cooney has no scientific training.

Much concern, appropriately in my view, was expressed at the time that Mr. Cooney’s ties to an organization with a vested political agenda on climate change made it unseemly at best to have him involved with editing a government report on climate change (although as I wrote at the time, the edits themselves were not so significant). For instance, one member of the press asked the following of President Bush’s spokesman, Scott McClellen,

“Scott, on Philip Cooney, you said earlier today that the White House has been — that he had been looking at other options for some time. With his move to Exxon, are there concerns now about at least an appearance of impropriety?”

McClellen avoided the question, of course.

Now consider this case. Last night HBO aired a documentary on global warming (which I did not see). The program describes itself as focused on describing the problem posed by global warming and recommending solutions. Its producer, Laurie David, claims that the documentary to be non-partisan, but at the same time the program clearly describes its mission as one focused on advocacy. The writer of the program is identified as Susan Joy Hassol.

Ms. Hassol, interestingly enough, currently serves as the Technical Editor for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s report on Climate Change Science Program Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences (authors are listed here in PDF). She was also a lead author of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (here in PDF) and edited the U.S. National Assessment (here in PDF).

I am sure that Ms. Hassol must be good at what she does, given her resume (a short but incomplete bio is here in PDF), though she is clearly not a scientist and it is unclear what subject(s) her degree(s) may be in. Ms. Hassol is not shy about her political agenda on climate change, as indicated by this interview last week in the Aspen Times:

Hassol said specific mention of Kyoto is not in the final version [of the HBO film], even though she felt it was important.

“There was an effort not to want to alienate anyone,” she said, though she said politics is an essential part of solving global warming.

“We need to have a law in this country that makes it no longer free to dump carbon into the atmosphere,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you do that? It’s so cheap to burn fuel and burn coal. The costs of climate change are not built in to the costs of burning fossil fuels, and they should be.”

However, the film does not include those points.

“I raised the idea,” she said. “Their eyes glazed over. You just can’t do everything in one hour. It was tough. There were a lot of things I wanted to include that we couldn’t.”

Even with the restrictions on some of the material, she is excited about the solutions presented, from energy efficiency to new technologies.

“We have an enormous challenge, yet it’s not an impossible challenge,” she said. “It can be addressed. We can’t stop it cold. This is definitely the largest challenge humanity has ever faced.”

So here is the situation: A prominent non-scientist responsible for editing official government reports on climate change is at the exact same time being paid to engage in advocacy work related that that issue. To quote the media question to Scott McClellen regarding the Phil Cooney affair, “are there not indications of at least the appearance of impropriety?”

Let’s get the obvious differences out of the way – Mr. Cooney worked as a government employee for the President in the White House, while Ms. Hassol serves as a paid consultant for the government. ExxonMobil is a favorite target of activists, and the environmental groups associated with the HBO special are much less visible. Those differences aside, my question is, is it fair for Mr. Cooney to serve as the focus of attention for his possibly conflicted role in the preparation of official government reports on climate science, and Ms. Hassol to get a free pass while also editing major government science reports? Or think of it this way, if Mr. Cooney has been an outside consultant editing the same reports, while also in the pay of ExxonMobil (or any other group with a vested interest) would that have lessened the focus on his role? I think not. Let me reiterate that this post is not to disparage either Mr. Cooney or Ms. Hassol, but to compare and contrast their very similar professional roles and how it seems that each has been treated very differently by the media and commentators, and certainly by scientists. Does this situation say something about different standards applied to different people on this issue, depending upon whose politics they happen to advocate? Are we conflicted about conflicts of interest?