Stop Bush’s “Category Five” Hurricane Cover Up
Wednesday, May 31, 2006- Thursday, June 1, 2006
Location: NOAA National Headquarters
1305 East/West Highway
Silver Spring, MD
Hurricanes and Global Warming: Stop Bush’s “Category Five”
Cover Up Now Underway at NOAA
May 31st protest and vigil marks start of 2006 storm season. Katrina survivors describe horrors nine months later while scientists explain how climate change is creating bigger storms
SILVER SPRING, Md (5/5/06) -- Hundreds of concerned citizens and leaders from across the nation will join Hurricane Katrina survivors May 31st just outside of Washington, D.C. to denounce the Bush Administration’s cover up of the growing scientific link between monstrous hurricanes and human-induced global warming.
DETAILS:
WHAT: Protest and vigil to condemn government cover up of science linking hurricanes and global warming
WHEN: May 31st, a day before the official start of the 2006 hurricane season. Speeches at 11 am followed by daytime picketing of NOAA headquarters front door and candlelight vigil by night, continuing till midnight June 1st.
WHERE: NOAA National Headquarters, 1305 East/West Highway, Silver Spring, Maryland. Just outside of Washington, D.C.
SPONSORED BY: The U.S. Climate Emergency Council, a newly launched nonprofit dedicated to rigorous grassroots action in the fight to stop global warming and promote a clean-energy economy.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Anne Havemann of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council at anne@chesapeakeclimate.org or 301-891-6844
BACKGROUND
Despite a flurry of peer-reviewed scientific studies linking planetary warming to storms like Katrina, leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (a subset of NOAA) continue to claim – with no supporting data -- that the recent hurricane devastation is part of a “natural cycle.” Protesters will condemn these responses as an abdication of government responsibility when millions of Americans are increasingly vulnerable to violent storms in a warmer world.
After a record four major hurricanes hit Florida in 2004, the 2005 hurricane season was even more devastating. Of the six most powerful hurricanes ever to hit America in the past 150 years, three occurred within 52 days in 2005. These were Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The result from Katrina alone was 1,500 dead, two million Americans displaced, and at least $200 billion in damages.
Meanwhile, just since August 2005, no fewer than four major scientific studies – one conducted by NOAA itself – have shown that warmer sea-surface temperatures created by atmospheric warming are increasing the frequency, power, and lifespan of major hurricanes. Yet there is no mention of these studies at the National Hurricane Center web site despite the agency’s official mission “to save lives, mitigate property loss, and improve economic efficiency by issuing the best watches, warnings, forecasts and analyses of hazardous tropical weather, and by increasing understanding of these hazards.” And NHC director Max Mayfield denied any substantive connection between global warming and hurricanes before a US Senate panel last fall.
Meanwhile at NOAA, The Washington Post and other media have documented the ongoing campaign to cover up global warming data. Under the directorship of Bush’s friend and political appointee, Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., NOAA climate scientists are being intimidated from talking to the press and their papers are being withheld from publication.
These actions at NOAA and the NHC are part of an obvious political campaign orchestrated by the White House to avoid the serious cuts in fossil fuel use scientists say are needed to fight global warming. But by ignoring the science and denying the warming on behalf of Exxon Mobil, the Bush Administration is condemning millions more Americans to the suffering and loss seen throughout the Gulf Coast in 2005.
The cover up must stop now! Please make plans to join the May 31st protest and vigil.
Contact: Anne Havemann
301-891-6844
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