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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."
It seems to me that this whole article hinges on a single notion:
"Mr. Acosta said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel whom the public could perceive as speaking for the agency. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen."
They just don't want scientists running around spouting off all kinds of ideas/theories only to result in the media latching on to these ideas as some sort of "official NASA position." The public is a fairly skittish beast, and as soon as they hear some "expert from NASA" telling them one thing, even if it is a theory, they'll run with it for miles. Next thing you know "The next ice age could be coming in the next several thousand years" has turned into "RUN FOR THE HILLS, THE GLACIERS ARE COMING!!!"
At least that's all this seems to be about to me.
Posting as directed.
Heaven forbid we let experts make policy!
Ugh.
Nothing phases me about these a**holes anymore. True or not i can't believe we give the administration the benefit of the doubt.
If George Bush hired him, he can do whatever he damn well pleases with the reports. But as long as my tax dollars are in there, this guy is welcome to speak the truth. So long as he's clear about what's his opinion and what's NASA's opinion, and it sure sounds like he has been.
NASA does a lot of things -- not all directly involve space travel. This guy happens to be in charge of climate simulations; in particular we should listen to his opinion about how changing our behaviour might affect the climate.
What's more disturbing is the politicians telling us to "leave the policy decisions to [them]". While it's true that they are the one who will make decisions, they are not experts on anything -- we put them there to choose among options offered by experts. The scientists should be saying "if we don't do anything now, the climate situation will get worse". The politicians might then decide "doing something now will have more negative impact than the climate change it averts" (that's up to them), but they shouldn't try to diss the scientists.
My personal take: the politicians prefer lobbyists to be the ones offering the options, since in that case they are paid to make the right decision instead of having to think.
Bush is daily dropping bombs on people to help the financial interests of certain people (oh, right, it was so that we could fight the terrorists over there. Now that we have invaded Iraq the terrrorists wouldn't try to attack America.).
Can you cite a single time the president has told the truth about any issue? (about something not immediatly verifiable. Yes, when he lit the capitol christmas tree, and then said "It's lit!" he was telling the truth.)
The answer is no, you can't, but feel free to try if you really like the guy. Every statement this president has made which involved delayed verification has been false. Thank you TV for making us all idiots.
How can anyone trust the word of a man who has his fingers in so much oil business he walks around with a man known for having people buried up to their wastes and pelted with stones until their sculls collapse!? George W Bush has allot of friends and family in the business of selling oil, this isn't fiction, conspiracy, or liberal BS, someone try and tell me the president of the united states of America sells sun flower seeds? While you're at it tell me that the Saudi royal family has adulterers tickled with pink feather dusters. I don't blame GWB, if it was me I would be out for what I could get too. The question is, when will the history books conclude that he is the worst president ever to run the USA.
I really wonder how my prime minister manages to get along with Bush, what do they have in common? Why would Blair want to cut emissions when Bush clearly thinks its not a problem? Why is Blair's government scared of finding out that it may have allowed CIA 'torture flights' to use our airspace and that the public may be pissed off about this, when the White house is so brazenly non-committed to completely denouncing torture and is running a prison which goes against every single founding ideology of the United States?
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He's the top climate scientist who has been with NASA for decades. Calling him a "NASA Employee" as if he's a janitor is more misleading than you think! A better headline would be "NASA's Climate Expert Says Agency Tried To Silence Him". I guess it's more a matter of taste than anything else.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
If everybody jumped off a bridge you would too, I take it.
If Clinton is literally the antichrist and the example of every possible vice this does not make Bush any better. Bush IS a liar. Bush DOESN'T tell the truth. It is not a defense to point at other liars in an attempt to change the subject away from something that makes you uncomfortable.
DOH! Let's apply your line of illogic to another scenario to see how stupid a thing it was to say:
Criminals often say they are innocent. Makes you wonder about people who claim they are innocent when you see what company they are in.
Read the article. The scientist in question is an expert on climate science who's been at NASA for 38 years. The guy who's trying to shut him up is a recently appointed public affairs officer, loyal to Bush. The scientist's story is backed up by other NASA scientists, and also by another of the public affairs officers.
> I will however point out the hypocrisy inherent in demonizing America while ignoring the acts of much worse offenders.
I guess you're not a fan of the quaint notion that "a better world starts with me".
You can justify anything, if all it requires is finding someone doing worse.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Actually I tried to post directly to the article but I recieved a "lameness filter" message each time. So I tried to respond to a post and then it worked. But I notice that you weren't able to come up with an example of the president telling the truth, but instead you just insulted me. Does my challenge make you uncomfortable? Do you wriggle in your seat when people bring things like this up?
Maybe instead of praying toward Washington 5 times each day like a good republican you can join the debate.
Sure. You'll mainly notice it when his mouth is open.
Possible lie:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." -- Sept 12, 2002
Certain lie:
"We found weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." --May 29, 2003
Why? lie:
"I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot." -- Dec 04, 2001 (There was no video of the first plane hitting WTC on television until days later. Bush was informed of the second strike while already in the classroom.)
Care to give an example of the president telling a truth? (It has to be something that isn't immediatly verifiable, we aren't to emperor has no clothes territory.. yet)
At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
The weather scientists need clearance from Washington and a PR hack listening on the phone when they talk to the media??!
That at least rates as 'repressive'.
Say whatever you want about the credibility of one side of this debate or another, the fact that our scientists can't talk to the media without a babysitter is truly and spectacularly wrong.
The Democrats were falling all over themselves to declare war after 9/11 too. Ever since 2000 the Democrats are spinless cowards who don't deserve my vote. They haven't taken a stand on any issues that matter to me (particularly civil liberties and stopping class warfare [ie., the war on drugs]). The Green Party actually had those as major campaign platforms.
If the Democrats stop acting like Republicans, I might feel a little more apt to vote for them come next election. Until then a vote for Gore or Kerry is a vote for Bush.
Just about 40 yrs ago scientists were saying we might soon have a mini ice-age! So what changed thier minds? Funds from liberal environmental groups.
Sorry, but I gotta call bullshit on this one. Forty years ago scientists measured global cooling effects and they were right. It was related to global dimming - burn a lot of high sulfur fuels and you end up with reflective sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere. We've cleaned up our fuels and this effect has been reduced.
We currently get about 4.0 watts/M^2 of 'forcing' due to carbon dioxide, methane, and a cocktail of other stuff I can't spell without Googling for it. We lose about 2.0 watts/M^2 due to sulfate and other aerosols reflecting sunlight.
All of this information and more can be found at http://realclimate.org/
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
"Please ensure you capture context of Saddam the undeniable bad guy, engaging in systematic brinksmanship with the rest of the world. Counterfactuals about the two madmen-in-training, his sons, would also be interesting."
There are lots of madmen in the world, why go after saddam and his sons first.
For that matter if there are three madmen in a country why not simply kill them. Why invade and occupy a country? Why spend two hundred billion dollars and counting just to get rid three madmen.
DOn't get me wrong. I am all for getting rid of madmen but I am for getting rid of all of them, not just the ones with oil.
evil is as evil does
I got a few...
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - Aug 5, 2004
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the 'truth' to sink in. You gotta catapult the propaganda." - May 25, 2005
"Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision and they end up alienating decent people across the globe." - Oct 27, 2005
-- thinkyhead software and media
Except that history is written by the victors. So from the standpoint of what people will remember, it has very little to do with the factual truth and everything to do with who wins the argument.
What about waiting, drinking tea and look at the Iraqi regime crumble to dust? I would have given the Saddam regime another two years before it would have fallen in. Dictatorship only carries so far, and a dictatorship that isn't even able to cater for the persons supporting it will be dead tomorrow.
The U.S. led invasion took the Iraqi people the chance to help themselves and get rid of their oppressors themselves and be proud of it. Didn't you ever wonder why nearly no one ever cheered for the U.S. troups? Because they were seen as just another foreign force taking foothold in their beloved land.
And about the dead poll: Look at the numbers for the last two years: The yearly account of Iraqis dying by violence is about the same as we know for the worst years of the Saddam rule. I guess for the families there is no difference if their loved ones die from Saddamists or Terrorists or Criminals or as "collateral damage" from military actions against them. The terms are exchangeable. The people are still dead.
The public is a fairly skittish beast,
This might be the scariest thing I've read on Slashdot all day. It betrays a fascist or oligarchical point of view, where the Leaders know best and the Public are ignorant rubes who must be led to a greater future against their will. It implies that it is right to control information or withold from the "skittish" public because it would just upset them and cause trouble.
I don't know where you're posting from, but in my country, the U.S., that goes against everything the country was founded on and stands for. We are a government for the people, by the people. The public rules the roost around here and if you don't like it you can move to Myanmar or North Korea or some other fascist state where daddy knows best.
Since 9/11 the U.S. federal government has become more and more fascist--seeing the need to control and limit information to the public for their own good, making decisions in isolation and resisting the efforts of others to inform or influence them. Opinions like the parents are wholly part of the problem and should be attacked wherever they are expressed.
I'm an adult citizen, responsible and free, and legally entitled to hear all sides and make my own decision about things, thanks.
The second-greatest success of the special interests and political elites was convincing the public that they are powerless to direct their own country. The greatest success was convincing them that they don't want to.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is the only thing in your post I agree with.
What a lot of this "they're all the same" mantra sounds to me like is Republican apologists desparately trying to prevent the public from taking their anger out on the Republican party for Bush Jr. The problem of course is that it is the Reps who put an unqualified man on their ticket, and did absolutely no oversight on his admin after getting in office, and then defending him as his incomptentence and arrogance gets Americans killed and puts the Constitution in danger. So you're trying to hide the scary truth from people by repeating this mantra over and over, aka the Big Lie:
Before the Religious Right takeover of the Rep party, I would have agreed with you and the others that the Dems and Reps acted similarly, but not any more. Now your vote between Dem and Rep DOES MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE, at least until such time as classical conservatives can retake their party.
Sorry, but this Big Lie mantra isn't going to work anymore, just as many of Rove's other Big Lie mantras are starting to wear real thin on an increasingly cynical population, especially given the fact that Bush Jr. is going to inflict a lot more damage on our country in the 2.5 years he has left, and the Reps as you say, won't stop him.
Agreed. I always wonder why the right wingers inevtiably try to bring up Clinton in defense of Bush. They paint Clinton to be the worst, immoral, ineffective President of all time and then are satisified to make Bush out to be only slightly better.
They also seem blind to the fact that one can dislike Bush and Clinton! I didn't vote for Clinton and voted for Bush the first time but not the second. While I am currently leery of the Republicans, I don't think I could ever vote for Hillary!