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Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
Lucre Lucifer writes "The top climate scientist at NASA, James E. Hansen, says that the Bush Administration tried to silence him(NY Times) after he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth 'a different planet.' The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions."
Yeah, because none of the technologies NASA has developed have ever been used for anything other than space travel.
From TFA:
"I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."
There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
... is a whack job who's been ginning up "global warming" hysteria for a decade now, always in search of more funding. He was hyping his meaningless computer models way back in the '90's as proof of the impending apocalypse--models that didn't include little environmental factors like the Earth's oceans.
That's not science. That's flat-out dishonest political advocacy.
That's possible... on the other hand, the Bush administration has had a long and illustrious history of suppressing and distorting scientific findings that contradict its own world view. Their truculent behavior has been widely protested by scientists before, so it wouldn't surprise me if they're at it again.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I certainly do not believe that our elected leaders are idiots. If they have the IQ to engage in mud politics to win an election, they have the IQ to understand the seriousness of global warning.
The problem is that American agribusiness is a huge and powerful lobby.
Think about this scenario. Washington concedes that global warming is real. Then, immediately, Washington must switch to a carbon-neutral fuel system like ethanol. To get enough ethanol, Washington would need to drop the 54-cent tariff per gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Dropping the tariff would cause Midwest corn farmers and their lobby to cry, "Uncle Sam!"
To understand the power and influence of American agribusiness, consider the Japanese ban on American beef. Tokyo demanded that we Americans test 100% of our cattle meat destined for the Japanese market. The management of Creekstone Farms actually proposed a plan to test all its cattle meat so that it could be exported to Japan. Tokyo was happy. Creekstone Farms was happy, and its management would happily shoulder 100% of the cost of the tests in order to re-enter the highly profitable Japanese market. Yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to sell the necessary chemicals (for the tests) to Creekstone so that its chemists could conduct the tests. The reason is that American Agribusiness was very unhappy. Who would have thought that Washington would be so opposed to free enterprise and capitalism? The management of Creekstone had every right to satisfy its primary customer: Japan. After all, in a free market, businesses make their own decisions about how to win business. Yet, Uncle Sam blocked this decision (to test all cattle for madcow disease) by a private business.
If you aren't angry yet, consider this fact. If Washington dropped the 54-cent tariff per gallon of imported ethanol, everyone would pay $1.50 per gallon of fuel for their vehicles. What's the cost of fuel now? $2.70 per gallon and climbing.
The evidence is getting more and more clear that what I was hearing about climate change in the early 1990's was, in fact, true see here for example. You can also read National Geographic, which does a story about how climate change affects real people every month. Last month, an author went to the Alps and found that the glaciers were melting and that businessmen were concerned that in 30 years many low lying resorts would have to close. This month there is an article on how traditional peoples of the Arctic are worried about drowning. The Arctic ice is melting more than ever before. Every country but the US seems to "believe" in climate change. The evidence is also getting more and more clear that we are the cause of this warming.
It seems to me that the Bush administration is upset with this scientist because he is interfering with their policy of keeping the truth about climate change from the American public.
Us Americans have such a short term memory. This has been going on for a long time. http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12 374,1509876,00.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/global_warming;_ylt=AjO PHgKyNMiA1zjvEt8quVSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHN lYwN0bQ--
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Climate-Gate.html
And of course, the big one that made national news:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/19/scie ntists.bush.ap/
I could cut and paste all day. The fact is this administation tries to hide information from the public all the time because they are engaging in illegal and immoral activity. Bush said 'Jesus is my hero' once and that makes it all ok with most people. As long as he's against abortion, most people will follow him into hollow shell that was once the USA.
catalytic converters don't reduce emmisions. They catalyse (remove) poisons from the exhaust. These poisons are only present in the exhaust of unledded fuel. It has nothing to do with reducing emmisions of CO2 - it improves the air quality in cities.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter for more info.
An interesting note is that the lead in leadded fuel will damage/destroy the catalyst - that's why one shouldn't put leadded fuel in an unleadded car. (and why cars running leadded fuel don't have catalytic convertors.)
Once upon a time, I was a public affairs officer in the employ of the Feds. Clearly, this is a case of selective treatment of one individual because he takes public stances opposed to the Bush administration. Read all of the NYT article and you'll learn that other NASA scientists whose public remarks typically support Bush are not subject to the same restrictions as Hansen.
It is par for the course to vet, review and approve a federal employees public remarks when they are speaking for their employer. This is not what is happening here. Hansen speech is being restricted because he says things Bush does not like.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The current administration does exactly that, and it's well documented. Some time ago there was even published a letter signed by 48 Nobel Laurates very concerned abouth Bush science policy. Government researcher has been pressurised not to publish results that the administration does not like:
Use Google a bit, and you'll find more disturbing facts.
It really amazes me how naive people are.
0 1/09_quakes.shtml
Here's a really unscientific way to see how much damage emissions form cars vs geological damage.
Look at the map of California. Imagine that Los Angeles , San Diego, and San Francisco are just black, nasty, unbreathable poison. Compare that to the rest of the square footage area of the state.
Now compare that to the San Andreas fault line http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/
What will cause more damage?
Do the same for the northwest and compare to Mt St Helens and other Yosemite vents.
The vents of Yosemite do more toxic spewing than the rest of the US driving public day per day.
If I were an alarmist, I'd be moving the hell out of the northwest too. Indonesia just had a quake and I'm sure that the rest of the plates on this planet will adjust too.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
> Anything you hear that's critical of Bush, or, in the rest of the world, critical of the US, people tend to automatically believe
Because, sorry, a lot if it is quite easy to believe these days. The Bush government has so far invaded 2 sovereign nations, committed God-knows how many people to a period of miserable hell at Gitmo, rabbitted on like something worthy of Monty Python about Iran, and had a hand in loads of other things too numerous and dodgy to mention. Is it any real surprise to anyone with half a brain that people are just a touch apprehensive about anything out of the "Good Old" US of A these days?
Obviously it's not all Americans that feel this way, but from what I've seen (and this includes living there for 4 years) it's certainly a majority. Iraq (and soon, Iran, I'm sure) is just about oil and protecting America's regional sweetheart, Israel. Funny, isn't it, that Israel is allowed to have nuclear weapons but anyone else in the region gets a stern talking to, followed by invasion, for daring to think about the same.
JG
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
This is typical of the Bush administration.
1 38494131/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3755481-66817 00?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Check out Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465046754/qid=1
I work for NASA, and I guess I somewhat agree with the parent.
I do conferences from time to time (although I'm not a professional researcher like Dr. Hansen), and the restrictions the parent talks about apply to me as well. I cannot present anything without agency approval, because as an employee speaking in a professional capacity, I'm representing NASA and the federal government. The perception of our material seems to be different - our conclusions are often construed to be those of those of NASA itself. The positions of university researchers are almost never construed to be the institutional views of the university proper. The same would apply to mistakes/errors in that research.
Federal employees that do research are in a unique position compared to those that work for corporations or universities. Univerisity researches are protected by tenure, and can essentially voice any opinions they like. Corporate researchers generally can be fired for not towing the company line in public. Federal researchers really cannot be fired, but they certainly do not enjoy the protections of tenure (you may end up being moved to another job).
Also, there may be a deeper story with the comment about being muzzled after saying that he was going to vote for Kerry in 2004 during a speech. There are rules regarding what a federal employee can do during an election (the Hatch Act). If he was on duty (i.e., NASA paid for the trip to the conference or he charged the hours) that comment is definitely a no-no under federal law.
Worst...sig...ever!
Most of the progress in emissions technology in the last 15 years has involved getting cats to warm up progressively more quickly. Automakers have found ways to locate the cats closer to the exhaust manifold (or even within it in a few cases), to make the exhaust manifold lighter so it doesn't soak up so much heat before it gets to the cat, to make the exhaust gases themselves hotter, and even in a few cases to electrically preheat the cat. Today, your cat is working within a minute or two of a cold start, at most. Even if you're driving to the store five minutes from your house the cat is dramatically reducing your emissions.
It drives me batshit when I see ricers taking off their cats, which are directly responsible for the considerable improvement in the particulate situation since the '60s, to gain 2 hp. If they weren't so cheap, they'd realize that high-performance exhaust systems with cats are everywhere and work just as well to reduce backpressure enough to kill the motor's low-end torque.
Bush also pressured an awful lot of people into bending intelligence reports to sound the way he wanted them and interpred Intelligence information in the way that suited his political goals. To me that is lying albeit in a roundabout way. I have read some of the pre-invasion reports on Iraqi WMD capabilities used to justify the invasion and that were made public. They don't exactly tell lies but they do seem to be written in such a way as to make them easy to misunderstand. I suppose it depends on how you define lies. Did he go on television and tell outright easily provable lies? You tell me:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Source, Now revealed to be crap.
"We've [learned] that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases."
Source, Direct Bush quote, Now revealed to be crap.
"Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant, who]"
Note the present tense, those WMD's that Saddam supposedly controlled at the time those words were spoken have yet to be found. The rest of the statement is true.
"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein [had] an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb."
At the time those words were spoken and used to justify the invasion the US administration was already well aware of reports by the IAEA that there were no indications of the Iraqis having a significant nuclear weapons making capability. I wonder why that wasn't mentioned in the next breath?
Decide for yourself whether it's an appropriate lecture for a climate scientist to give: here
mt
Yeah, extreme accidents like the 56 deaths from Chernobyl totally outweigh non-nuclear events such as the Bhopal chemical spill which killed a mere 3,800 people. Heck, it outweighs the average US death rate from coal mining of 45 a year.
;)
In order to have a chernobyl style event in a modern, properly designed reactor*, more than 12 major systems have to simultaneously fail. Heck, 3MI, which was built before Chernobyl, was a better design.
*Chernobyl was more flawed than the Galaxy class's warp core
I don't read AC A human right
Yes. Down here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, this is a sore point. Climate models now suggest that big storms will be more frequent and sea levels are rising faster than previously predicted (turns out the those global-warming wackos have been underestimating the seriousness of the problem).
... But from an efficiency perspective Fahta couldn't have delivered more inefficient services. Maybe Bush's fear of terrorists stems from the worry that a "Hamas-like" organization might some day arise here in an effort to sweep out the corruption that permeates this administration. No wonder they are spying on all Americans these days. Oh, now I get it. All this global democracy PR is designed to bring the politics of Middle Eastern efficiency to the US. I think I'm starting to see the logic of it all. Its the new security economy stupid! A sincere diplomatic initiative to not offend the Chinese and the Saudis who we need to keep buying our debt.
We were promised help from Katrina but the FEMA and Security bureaucracy eats the relief funds and only the well connected seem to be receiving the billions. I'm still waiting for a trailer to live in and the storm was over 4 months ago. My wife was called by a FEMA guy who told me to call him back because he might finally have us a trailer. When I called back, he told me they were "having contractor problems" and that I was "shit out of luck". This is truely the fecal matter I have come to expect from the Bush administration.
Another Bush lie? One can only wonder which will come first, another major storm or Bush living up to one of his promises? I'm seriously thinking about moving out of the country. I simply can't bear the pain of so closely watching it go down the toilet every time Bush and his freinds flush another one of their PR productions.
Those that need help here have mostly given up seeking it from the government. The only ones still playing this line are the security types posing as reporters and talk show participants. But then you the taxpayer are still paying for all those extra security contractors who are there to protect the workers from the "angry mobs" (we were actually only one of a few people in the entire FEMA emergency relief center staffed by more than 30 people, about half of whom were security personel. Does this make any sense? I guess it doesn't have to as you are there to pick up the tab. I guess it was only fitting that they set up the Gulfport center a Bingo Parlor. I'm still waiting for my number to come up. America really does thrive on the "sweepsteaks myth". If only I can get a
Instead of solving problems this administration seems more intent on creating them for their own political and financial gain. They're tried and true method is just change the PR volume and go on yet another PR offensive when people and the facts begin to turn against them. Take this new illegal initiative on the domestic spying as an example. They are now claiming that its essential to spy on all Americans to capture terrorists (and no doubt peddle inside information in the backroom. What do you really think Jack Abramoff was doing in the White House those 6 occasions one of which shows his picture with George's arm around him?). Hasn't anyone noticed that this only serves to emphasize their complete incompetence in finding this Osama Bin Luddite guy. Hell, I know bill collectors who can do better than this and they don't have Bush's resources. They should just call out that bounty hunter guy I've seen on TV. He has the same general personality, looks, and style as Bush, but at least seems to always get his man. This administration looks more and more like the gang that can't shoot straight. Boy they really "solved" the Israeli-Palistinian issue didn't they? They avoided the issue like the plague when they had a chance to deal with lesser "evils". Now they have managed to usher in the wrong crowd. Good for them at least that the new Palestinian government can all be labeled "democrats". My own se
Maybe. Did you ever consider that merely calling names without any attempt to make a point might get modded down as flaimbait? Because that is what happened to your post.
I don't expect that you have the ability to look at the world without completely distorting it to fit your apriori theories. Regardless, the topic of the article is Bush preventing people with opposing opinions from expressing themselves, which he is clearly doing. Further, he has a tendency to lie at every possible occasion. If you don't like that, fine, nobody can make you believe it. But if you want people to care about what YOU say a good way to start would be to cite facts, or at least not immediatly resort to name calling and blaming the system.
god damnit how did that get modded up so much? and all his other bullshit posts?
The answer is that people agree with what I said, or they disagree but find what I posted meaningful. What makes my posts bullshit? I mean besides your disagreement.