The recent Opinion essay by S. Fred Singer on the awarding of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for research on chlorofluorocarbon-ozone chemistry [The Scientist, March 4, 1996, page 9] is a continuation of a well-orchestrated political campaign, using a small group of self-appointed "skeptics," that is aimed at undermining research into environmental problems. The implication that it is the Nobel Prize committee that is politicizing the basic science issues of CFC-ozone chemistry is disingenuous at best. Time and again the mode of attack is to assert that the basic science being conducted is contaminated by the political ends desired. The CFC-ozone and climate change research programs are the current favored targets of these "skeptics"; as species and habitat protection threatens unrestricted property use, I would guess that biodiversity and sustainability research will soon be targeted as well.
The debate is not being waged in the scientific literature...
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