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The politicization of science occurs when governments use legal or economic pressure to influence research, especially when this influence retards the progress of science.

Global warming

Frederick Seitz charges that such politiciziation makes it virtually impossible for scientists to get funding to pursue hypotheses which run counter to prevailing ideas about ozone depletion.

"Here is an example. I'd love to know more facts about halogen compounds that come out of volcanoes. If I went to a federal agency and asked to get funded for such a study, they would probably throw me out. Why? Because looking at this question assumes the need to look further into issues related to possible sources of presumed depletion of ozone. It would also suggest that the concept that man-made CFCs are the greatest threat to the ozone layer may not tell the whole story."

Critics respond that this allegation does not take into account that business interests in the United States, where the consensus on global warming is probably weakest, have deliberately created the notion that the science on global warming is "not settled", and have convinced government interests to support that line. Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton, for example, wrote in the 1998 article "The PR Plot To Overheat The Earth" (Earth Island Journal):

In 1991, a US corporate coalition including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association and Edison Electrical Institute created a public relations front called the "Information Council for the Environment" (ICE). ICE launched a $500,000 advertising and PR blitz to, in ICE's own words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)."

(...)

To boost its credibility, ICE created a Scientific Advisory Panel that featured Patrick Michaels from the Department of Environmental Services at the University of Virginia. Michaels has been the leading scientific naysayer on global warming.

The industry's propaganda campaign also created a bevy of other front groups. The group currently leading the charge is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a creation of the Burson-Marsteller PR firm. From its founding in 1989 until the summer of 1997, GCC operated out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers. Its members include Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute, Shell Oil, Texaco, Chevron, Chrysler, the US Chamber of Commerce, Exxon, General Motors, Ford Motor, and more than 40 other corporations and trade associations.

They charge that the claims about the "politicization of science" regarding global warming are part of a deliberately engineered public relations campaign to reduce the impact any international treaty, such as the Kyoto Protocol, might have on the business interests sponsoring the campaigns.