For instance, the mining of sand and clay for the construction of two major highways in South Carolina, Routes 22 and 31, left the Myrtle Beach area dotted with large, deep ponds that qualify as wetlands in the Interior Department's survey but do not provide the wildlife habitat or perform the filtering functions of tidal marshes or cypress swamps.

"For Route 22, there was nine million cubic yards of fill material needed," said Boyd Holt, a regional hydrogeologist for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. "There were probably 30 or 40 ponds as a result of that activity since 1998."

What is government for? It is to protect the commons, all the things we own together and none of us owns individually, such as air, water, wildlife, the human gene pool, the accumulated human knowledge that we each inherit at birth, and more. Can protecting the commons be expressed in a simple set of guidelines? Here's a start...

What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.

. . . .

"The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."

Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen says his research shows that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.

Restrictions like this e-mail Hansen's institute received from NASA in 2004. "[T]here is a new review process … ," the e-mail read. "The White House [is] now reviewing all climate related press releases," it continued.

In the wake of last night's report, the Government Accountability Project announced today its support for a new nonprofit watchdog called Climate Science Watch, which will will support and be a resource for federal scientists who are experiencing political interference with their ability to communicate their findings on climate change.

Posted by Robert Shull, 03:24:30 PM