IT is people like Philip A. Coney, a former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality that keeps the public – and most decision-makers – blinded about the importance or urgency of certain vital courses of action.

Cooney, previously an oil industry lobbyist before landing a job at the White House, who stands accused in a House committee on government reforms, has practically admitted at a hearing that he edited climate reports of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 meant for President Bush’s reading. In several hundreds of instances, a news report said, Coney justified his editing work saying he felt they did not reflect his own knowledge of the subject.

The sad part is he had no scientific background whatsoever

.

All he had, alas, was his past work of opposing restrictions on global warming gases for the oil industry, specifically the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil industry lobby in Washington.

Cooney’s work actually played up uncertainty or played down evidence of a human role in global warming.

Small wonder perhaps that the United States under Bush has almost single-handedly blocked efforts at reducing its own dangerous gases that contribute to global warming.

Thanks –or no thanks – to the in-(White)house editor.