US government conducts ‘integrity inquiry’ on federal biologist amid lobbying by oil firms for Arctic permits
It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.
But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. He managed about $50m (Â £30.5m) in research projects.
Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.
“You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas,” said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic.”
I called BS when I first heard of this in An Inconvenient Truth:
http://agonist.org/don/20060618/an_inconvenient_truth#comment-89169
It was bad science then. Don’t know why it took so long to come out now.
want the anti globalwarming take, it is here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100098972/polarbeargate/
It has been hot as hell around here in MN & it appears our weather is destabilizing. However I don’t support a carbon tax or crooked credit market or etc… Just put up some damn clear tubes with algae on powerplant smokestacks :/
–
Hongpong.com
Was it an Obama appointee that set Monnet afloat on political/bureaucratic drift ice? Or was one of the hundreds of bureaucratic “stuffs” Bush/Cheney crammed into agencies before skipping town?
On all the fraud going on in science, look here:
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
The bottom line is that for many people, science is just a job like any others. Those people should not be in the field, but they are. If they are not good enough to compete and they don’t want to give up their jobs, then they have to cheat. Pretty simple.
AP, By Becky Bohrer, July 29
Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.
Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.
The federal agency where he works told him he’s being investigated for “integrity issues,” but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear.
The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, filed a complaint [PDF, Press Release] on his behalf Thursday with the agency, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Investigators have not yet told Monnett of the specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, the watchdog group’s executive director.
[...]
His wife, Lisa Rotterman, a fellow scientist who worked with Monnett for years, including at BOEMRE’s predecessor agency, said the case did not come out of the blue.
Rotterman said Monnett had come under fire in the past within the agency for speaking the truth about what the science showed. She said the 2006 article wasn’t framed in the context of climate change but was relevant to the topic.
She feared what happened to Monnett would send a “chilling message” at the agency just as important oil and gas development decisions in the Arctic will soon be made.
“I don’t believe the timing is coincidental,” she said.
[...]
At the time, they were conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, and saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. There were other witnesses, according to Ruch, and low-resolution photos show floating white blobs.
Monnett and Gleason detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology. In the peer-reviewed article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of the bears floating dead and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances.
Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds. They also added that the findings “suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues.”
[...]
According to a transcript, provided by Ruch’s group, Ruch asked investigator Eric May, during questioning of Monnett in February, for specifics about the allegations. May replied: “well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations.”
Monnett said that alleging scientific misconduct “suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don’t see any indication of that in what you’re asking me about.”
Also, Alaska Dispatch: Why is a scientist at an offshore oil agency under investigation?
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
I worked for the United States Forest Service for 15 years (1988 – 2003). During that time I say many scientists, whom I define as anyone who has a bachelor’s degree or higher in either forestry, biology, botany, soil science or any other earth science related field, who after doing good, accurate science, that was not what management wanted, were harassed, demoted, moved or made ineffectual in other ways.
BOEMRE Director Bromwich weighs in on suspension of Arctic scientist
Alaska Dispatch, Jul 29, 2011
The following email was forwarded to Alaska Dispatch Friday, and was sent from Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich to BOEMRE’s Alaska regional office employees. The email is in response to recent revelations that an Arctic polar bear scientist had been suspended from his job with the Interior Department. According to the Feds, Dr. Charles Monnett’s suspension was not politically motivated, and the suspension did not involve questions about his scientific integrity. Monnett claims not to know why he was suspended. Read the full story here [below].
And read here, unedited, Director Bromwich’s missive regarding Monnett’s suspension:
Scientist’s administrative leave has ‘nothing do with’ polar bear study
Alaska Dispatch, By Patti Epler, July 29
The federal agency that this month suspended a veteran scientist now says its case has nothing to do with an article he wrote about polar bears that apparently drowned, permitting issues or scientific integrity.
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist who oversaw numerous Arctic research projects for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, was put on administrative leave July 18. The agency’s letter to him says Monnett will remain on leave pending an Inspector General’s investigation into “integrity issues.”
On Thursday, Monnett’s story made national news when Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — a nonprofit that aims to protect government employees who work in environmental agencies — filed a complaint on his behalf with the U.S. Interior Department and linking the investigation to a 2006 article by Monnett and another scientist that documented polar bears drowning in the Beaufort Sea two years earlier.
The article captivated the public’s attention and in no small way has served to make the polar bear the icon of climate change and its effects on the Arctic environment in particular.
[...]
On Friday, PEER executive director Jeff Ruch, who is representing Monnett in the complaint filed with Interior, said Schwartz’s statement makes the whole case even more puzzling.
“Now he doesn’t even have a clue,” Ruch said. “Now he’s totally in the dark.”
Ruch said Schwartz’s statement also contradicts written material given to Monnett by investigators, who told him the Interior Department had concerns about his ability to act impartially on a contract involving polar bear research.
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.