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Scientist 'gagged' by No 10 after warning of global warming threat

Downing Street tried to muzzle the Government's top scientific adviser after
he warned that global warming was a more serious threat than international
terrorism.

Ivan Rogers, Mr Blair's principal private secretary, told Sir David King,
the Prime Minister's chief scientist, to limit his contact with the media
after he made outspoken comments about President George Bush's policy on
climate change.

In January, Sir David wrote a scathing article in the American journal
Science attacking Washington for failing to take climate change seriously.
"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today,
more serious even than the threat of terrorism," he wrote.

Support for Sir David's view came yesterday from Hans Blix, the former
United Nations chief weapons inspector, who said the environment was at
least as important a threat as global terrorism. He told BBC1's Breakfast
with Frost: "I think we still overestimate the danger of terror. There are
other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the
environmental global risks."

Since Sir David's article in Science was published, No 10 has tried to limit
the damage to Anglo-American relations by reining in the Prime Minister's
chief scientist.

In a leaked memo, Mr Rogers ordered Sir David - a Cambridge University
chemist who offers independent advice to ministers - to decline any
interview requests from British and American newspapers and BBC Radio 4's
Today .

"To accept such bids runs the risk of turning the debate into a sterile
argument about whether or not climate change is a greater risk," Mr Rogers
said in the memo, which was sent to Sir David's office in February. "This
sort of discussion does not help us achieve our wider policy aims ahead of
our G8 presidency [next year]." The move will be seized on by critics of Mr
Blair's stance over the Iraq war as further evidence that he is too
subservient to the Bush administration. It will also be seen as an attempt
to bolster the Prime Minister's case for pre-emptive strikes to combat the
threat of international terrorism, which he outlined in a speech on Friday.

Sir David, who is highly regarded by Mr Blair, has been primed with a list
of 136 mock questions that the media could ask if they were able to get
access to him, and the suggested answers he should be prepared to give. One
question asks: "How do the number of deaths caused by climate change and
terrorism compare?" The stated answer that Sir David is expected to give
says: "The value of any comparison would be highly questionable - we are
talking about threats that are intrinsically different."

If Sir David were to find himself pushed to decide whether terrorism or
climate change was the greater threat, he was supposed to answer: "Both are
serious and immediate problems for the world today." But this was not what
Sir David said on the Today programme on 9 January when the Science article
was published.

Asked to explain how he had come to the conclusion that global warming was
more serious than terrorism, Sir David replied that his equation was "based
on the number of fatalities that have already occurred" - implying that
global warming has already killed more people than terrorism.

The leaked memo came to light after a computer disk was discovered by an
American freelance journalist, Mike Martin, at the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, where Sir
David gave a lecture.

"The disk was lying on the top of a computer in the press room and I popped
it into the machine to see what was on it," said Mr Martin, whose own
article is published on the ScienceNow website, an online service operated
by Science.

Mr Rogers' memo, written a few days before the Seattle conference, was aimed
at limiting his exposure to questions from US and British media. While in
Seattle, Sir David sat on a panel of scientists at one carefully
stage-managed press conference, but his press office said he was too busy to
give interviews afterwards to journalists.

Lucy Brunt-Jenner, Sir David's press officer, said she could not comment on
internal government documents but said it would be wrong to suggest that Sir
David was in any way muzzled. "Sir David had a press conference and he was
available to the media at three times," Ms Brunt-Jenner said.

But Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, said: "It's
a clear attempt by the Prime Minister to keep Sir David quiet. The
Government's chief scientist is the nation's chief scientist and I'd expect
him to say what he thinks."

By Steve Connor and Andrew Grice
The Independent, London - 08 March 2004

---

How chief scientist attracted heat from No 10

When Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientist, wrote a guest editorial
for the journal Science there was little doubt that his message was directed
at the US government and in particular the advisers behind President George
Bush who led America out of the Kyoto agreement to limit global warming.

The article, published on 9 January, was a frank denunciation of American
policy on climate change, which Sir David said was more serious than
international terrorism in terms of the potential loss of human life and
damage to the environment.

It is rare for a British civil servant to be outspoken about the policy of a
friendly government but Sir David, a scientist at Cambridge University,
comes from a culture of academic freedom; a culture at odds with the
Whitehall machinery of official secrets.

In his article, Sir David did not spell out why he thought climate change
was more serious than terrorism but it was clear that he was concerned about
the deaths that global warming could cause in the future and, indeed, may
have already caused.

He said: "Last year, Europe experienced an unprecedented heatwave; France,
alone, bearing around 15,000 excess or premature fatalities as a
consequence. Although this was clearly an extreme event, when average
temperatures are rising, extreme temperature events become more frequent and
more serious.

"As a consequence of continued warming, millions more people around the
world may in future be exposed to the risk of hunger, drought, flooding, and
debilitating diseases such as malaria.

"Poor people in developing countries are likely to be most vulnerable. For
instance, by 2080, if we assume continued growth rates in consumption of
fossil fuels, the numbers of additional people exposed to frequent flooding
in river delta areas ... and from coastline cities and villages ... would be
counted in hundreds of millions assuming no adaptation measures were
implemented."

America, the world's greatest polluter, produces 20 per cent of the global
emissions of greenhouse gases but accounts for 4 per cent of the world's
population. Sir David said it should not shrink from its responsibilities to
the international community. "As the world's only remaining superpower, the
United States is accustomed to leading internationally co-ordinated action.
But, at present, the US Government is failing to take up the challenge of
global warming.

"The Bush administration's current strategy relies largely on market-based
incentives and voluntary actions ... But the market cannot decide that
mitigation is necessary, nor can it establish the basic international
framework in which all actors can take their place."

Sir David's comparison of the dangers of climate change to global terrorism
irked Downing Street. When Mr Blair was questioned on 3 February about Sir
David's comments before a House of Commons committee, he said that, while
terrorism and climate change were both of "critical urgency, I think you can
get into a rather cerebral debate about which is more important than the
other".

Seven days later, Ivan Rogers, the Prime Minister's principal private
secretary, wrote to Sir David telling him to avoid media interviews and to
tone down his previous pronunciation that action on climate change was more
important than the war on terrorism.

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The Independent, London - 08 March 2004


GREENPEACE.ORG.UK STATEMENT ON IRAQ WHISTLE-BLOWER CASE:

Government faces further headache over legal case for Iraq war
Last edited: 28-02-2004

Whistle-blower case has 'huge implications' for Greenpeace protesters

Tony Blair faces further embarrassment in less than a fortnight, when
fourteen Greenpeace volunteers appear in court on charges relating to an
anti-war protest. Their case has taken on great significance since the
Crown
Prosection Service (CPS) claimed the case against Katherine Gun was
dropped
because they could not "disprove the defence of necessity" -- that is to
say, they could not counter the defence that her actions were justified to
save lives.

The so-called Marchwood Fourteen occupied tanks at the Southampton
military
port in February last year. Throughout their case the defendants - all
Greenpeace volunteers - have argued that their actions were necessary to
prevent loss of life. With the CPS now saying they could not have
disproved
such a defence in the Gun case, Greenpeace lawyers wonder how the CPS will
proceed against the fourteen.

In a further development Greenpeace has today written to the CPS asking it
for the Attorney-General's full advice to government on the legality of
the
war. Lawyers for the group claim access to the full advice is vital if the
defendants are to be allowed a proper defence. Greenpeace has given the
CPS
24 hours to produce the full advice, otherwise the group will renew its
request for the advice in court on the first day of the trial, set for
March
9th.

Greenpeace legal adviser Kate Harrison said, "The protesters thought the
war
was illegal. We think it is essential for a fair trial that they see the
full Attorney General's legal advice and the basis on which it was made."

"Since the Katharine Gun trial it would appear that the Attorney General
probably thought at the time of the protest that the war would be unlawful
and that the Foreign Office and other advisors thought so too."

The case against the fourteen will be held at Southampton Magistrate's
court
from March 9th.

Further information
Greenpeace opposed the war in Iraq and campaigned actively to prevent it.
We
joined the Stop the War coalition and made submissions to the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee on the illegality of the war, see
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk...0219to0222.pdf

For more information contact the Greenpeace press office
on 020 7865 8255 or 07801 212967 or 07801 212968
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multime...eport/6206.pdf