The New York Times reported that the Bush administration was changing the language in an EPA report to greatly scale down the language from "global warming." Supposedly, Christie Whitman said, "As it went through the review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change."
Let's look at the meaning of the word consensus. According to the dictionary, it's an agreement by the majority. So what does less consensus mean? Maybe a few scientists changed their views? Perhaps scientists have less agreement about the specifics of the mechanisms? In either case, Whitman's statement is a tacit admission that there is still a consensus among the scientific community, and there there already existed a consensus. If there was no general agreement about climate change, the administration would be delighted to be able to truthfully make that statement in answer to any criticism about the "editing" of the EPA document. So, we can conclude that the Bush administration has basically admitted that the majority of the scientific community thinks that climate change is a serious problem.
Perhaps the administration sincerely believes a minority of the scientific community. It could be that they are right in doing so, as sometimes the minority, even the smallest, is correct. But to use word games as an excuse to change a major report and back out of something the administration seems inclined not to support in general is disingenuous and intellectually cowardly.
6:10:21 PM 
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