One of Lomborg's more disarming claims is his assertion that global warming will save human lives because the number of people killed by higher temperatures will be more than offset by the number of people who live through less severe winters.
Evaluating such claims depends on having access to the best available data. But the Bush administration has just been caught blatantly censoring the testimony of the testimony written by Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control for an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the impacts of global warming on public health.
For example, Gerberding wrote that the "CDC considers climate change a serious public concern," a concern which disappeared in the White House version.
As you can see in the graphic from the Washington Post, Bush's operatives deleted half of the pages of the testimony which Dr. Gerberding submitted. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, was not pleased:
“The White House continues to say that science should guide us on global warming legislation. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control is one of the country’s leading voices on public health. The Administration should immediately release Dr. Gerberding’s full, uncut statement, because the public has a right to know all the facts about the serious threats posed by global warming.”
As a loyal Bush foot soldier, Gerberding claimed that the editing had not affected her major points, but Boxer (and other scientists who are familiar with some of the claims that were excised) was not satisfied. Boxer has sent a letter to President Bush asking for all of the documents involved in the censoring of Gerberding's testimony, setting up yet another collision between Congressional demands for transparency and the Bush administration's reliance on extreme secrecy.
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