Two days ago, NOAA and NHC had a press conference with their predictions for this year's hurricane season, which begins next Thursday. During the press conference, according to one of the members of the press who attended, the head of NOAA, Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., "brushed off global warming as a factor," as far as the increased destructiveness of major storms.

Below is a statement that we will be releasing to the press at our 11 a.m. press conference next Wednesday. If your organization or you personally would like to endorse it please let us know ASAP.

And if you can participate in the action or reach out to others to urge them to do so, please be in touch. The main time to be there is by 11 a.m. Wednesday, but we will have a presence outside NOAA for 37 hours, until midnight on June 1st, leafletting and talking to NOAA employees, drawing attention to the dangerous cover-up of the truth by their bosses.

We hope to hear from you soon!

For the U.S. Climate Emergency Council,

Ted Glick

An Open Letter: It's Time for Truth Telling
About Hurricanes and Global Warming



We are here on the day before the beginning of the hurricane season to denounce the Bush Administration’s cover-up of the growing scientific link between monstrous hurricanes and human-induced global warming.



Despite a flurry of peer-reviewed scientific studies linking planetary warming to storms like Katrina, leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (a subset of NOAA) continue to claim – with no supporting data -- that the recent hurricane devastation is part of a “natural cycle” having nothing to do with a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We condemn these responses as an abdication of government responsibility when millions of Americans are increasingly vulnerable to violent storms in a warmer world.



After a record four major hurricanes hit Florida in 2004, the 2005 hurricane season was even more devastating. Of the six most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the United States in the past 150 years, three occurred within 52 days in 2005. These were Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The damage from Katrina alone was over 1,500 dead, two million Americans displaced, and at least $200 billion in damages.



Meanwhile, just since August 2005, no fewer than four major scientific studies – one conducted by NOAA itself – have shown that warmer sea-surface temperatures created by atmospheric warming are increasing the frequency, power, and lifespan of major, Category 4 and 5 hurricanes. Yet there is no mention of these studies at the National Hurricane Center web site despite the agency’s official mission “to save lives, mitigate property loss, and improve economic efficiency by issuing the best watches, warnings, forecasts and analyses of hazardous tropical weather, and by increasing understanding of these hazards.” And NHC director Max Mayfield denied any substantive connection between global warming and hurricanes before a US Senate panel last fall.



Meanwhile at NOAA, The Washington Post and other media have documented the ongoing campaign to cover up global warming data. Under the directorship of Bush’s friend and political appointee, Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., NOAA climate scientists are being intimidated from talking to the press and their papers are being withheld from publication.



These actions at NOAA and the NHC are part of an obvious political campaign orchestrated by the White House to avoid the serious cuts in fossil fuel use scientists say are needed to fight global warming. But by ignoring the science and denying the warming on behalf of Exxon Mobil and other major oil corporations, the Bush Administration is putting millions more Americans this year and for years to come at great risk for experiencing the kind of suffering and loss seen throughout the Gulf Coast in 2005.



The cover-up must stop now!



Endorsed by (list in formation):


U.S. Climate Emergency Council

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Climate Crisis Coalition

Alliance for Affordable Energy, New Orleans, La.

Climate Solutions

The Enviro Show

Global Exchange

Global Justice Ecology Project

Global Warming Solution.org

GRACE Policy Institute

Green House Network

Greenwood Earth Alliance

Just Transition Alliance

Labor Community Strategy Center

Organic Consumers Association

Pax Christi, USA

Shalom Center

Jonah Blaustein

Rev. Laura J. Collins, National Capital Presbytery Environmental Team Convenor

Rev. Charles Morris, Director, Michigan Interfaith Power and Light

Rabbi David Shneyer

Peter Stegehuis

Mike Tidwell, U.S. Climate Emergency Council