Christine Stewart,
then Canadian Minister of the Environment,
speaking before editors and reporters
of the Calgary Herald,1998
“Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve.”
” ‘Wolves deceive their prey, don’t they?’ one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.”
Daniel Botkin,
president of the Center for the Study of the Environment
and professor emeritus
in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
at the University of California,
Wall Street Journal
Oct 17, 2007
“It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention.”
“So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.”
Monika Kopacz,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Program Manager,
in a letter to The New York Times,
April 12, 2009