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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."
They haven't been trying to keep him quiet until he started spouting off ideas that NASA didn't sign off on. In fact, the article says that he briefed Cheney twice on his previous research (about cleaning soot being more effective than reducing CO2 emissions) by request of the administration. He may say the administration is trying to silence him, but the proof is there that he's not being entirely honest.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Then what should we do about all those volcanoes that spew out more gases in 1 day than the emissions of all puny motor vehicles within a 3000 mile radius?
Stop adding to the problem by eliminating the vehicle emissions? The planet can obviously handle the amount of emissions it naturally generates, and handle it in such a way as to provide a climate that facilitates our existence. The problem is that the emissions we are adding are tipping the balance towards a climate which does a much poorer job of supporting our existence.
It's foolish to think that motor vehicles are the direct cause of global warming which is a theory anyway.
So is Gravity. They're both very well supported theories, too. If you don't believe me, try walking off the nearest cliff.
The problem is that they have learned that if they do one thing and say another, it works and people buy what you said so long as everyone has the same story and repeats it (and only it) in interviews. But it's the actual things they are doing, not what they say they do that matter, right?
To be fair, I think when I read the article earlier, it was lighter on actual problems and inconsistencies in their story. Now, it is to the point.
Are our polluting idustries going to radically alter this planet? Probably, if we haven't already. I think its a good bet that Human beings one way or another going tto do something to absolutely make Earth uninhabitable. Just a matter of how, and when. This happens because only a small minority of inhabitants on the planet have the education, knowlege, beliefs, time, resources and a whole host of other things to really fix whats wrong. Most of the world is too concerned with staying alive, not starving to death, not being murdered, tortured, raped, die for the cause of theirs or someone elses percieved 'God' and the list goes on. There are lots of things in this world that can kill you. A good 85% of the Human/Terran population of the Earth falls in this category. So, until something happens that changes that bare survival aspect, and your not worried about whether roaming bands of starving bandits with automatic weapons are going to kill you over your last can of beans and cantine of water, like some people in the world do, I think that the major portion of the population won't care until its too late. And the rich don't care because the rich won't be affected by it until its too late.
Hansen should be allowed to speak his opinion, subject to the obvious trap of credibility, ego. Saving the world from (fill in the list - apocalypse, extinction of species etc.) is heady stuff and gets media attention far beyond what the (peer reviewed) sober teachnical work (with its obligatory qualifications of the things omitted and the uncertainties in data and calculations) gets. Add to this the exuberance of occupying the moral high ground and temptatrion abounds. Decisions on future coarses of action coasting multiples of a GNP obviously involve many trade-offs. Specialists in narrow fields of science and technology often get guru treatment by media and some succumb to the temptation speak in areas beyond what they know. They nevertheless deserve to be heard, but the media need to be less gullible.
No it is NOT a reality. I noticed you gave NO evidence, just "scientists at MIT". Are those the same ones that looked at the SCO Code and said Linux infringed? There is a little place in at the University of Huntsville Alabama(UAH) called the Global Climitology Center that has collected Global Climate data since 1978 for multiples areas of atmosphere. Here is what they said lately in May 2005 Global temperature trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.12 C per decade, so that's right at .4C in the last 28 years. That's about .7 degrees F not enough to matter. And who knows if 28 yrs is a local min or a local max? And if there was one year that skewed the average (Yes, 1998)? What about sunspots which can affect weather patterns? 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. A scientist dares not get different results than what they are paid for, or they will soon be unemployed. How many jobs are there REALLY for climatologists? If you look at the Dec 2005 data (climate.uah.edu) you can see areas that are warmer AND colder which offset. So the argument is FAR from settled. Climate change is a longterm issue, and even IF the USA was to reduce "Greenhouse" emissions do you think China will as their growth causes more automobiles to be used and more factories to be built? The former Soviet states? South America? The rest of Asia? These are all the areas where population growth is going to occur! And if they Don't does the rest of the world make them? If so how? War? Trade Sanctions? Treaties like Kyoto are not worth the paper they are written on, it's political grandstanding to appease the Greens in those nations that signed (FYI - several have now backed out).
Don't lump all US agribusiness into the people who feed ADM. ADM is the entity that lobbies against removing the EtOH tarriff, on behalf of the farmers (sort of like the RIAA does for its artists).
The US Government now is not into free market economics anymore. It is into business model protection. Vertically integrated dairies (dairy produces milk, bottles it and sells it to retailers) that provide milk cheaper than the typical dairy coop or Dean's Foods? Hmm... no, that's not fair, so the FDA must stick them with the same rules that "protect" the coops from Dean's Foods!
great.
I couldn't agree more.
Sydney, Australia is currently powered by several large coal plants. In fact 78% of the power generated in Australia is from coal. Every year we spread a ridiculous quantity of carbon dioxide and other emissions in to the atmosphere.
Australia has no nuclear power plants. None at all.
To makes things even more ridiculous, Australia even mines uranium!
The main concern anywhere about nuclear power stations is the chance of a catastrophe. People point at Chernobyl and say "We can't have one of THOSE near us!". This is obviously garbage, it's well documented how safe a modern nuclear plant can be and how badly you need to stuff up to end up with an event like the one at Chernobyl.
What's more - Australia has a LOT of empty space. While building a plant in the middle of the outback wouldn't make a great deal of sense (hard to maintain, expensive to carry the power so far to the city etc), we could certainly find a balance point between distance and cost if it really worries people (personally, I wouldn't care if it was in the next suburb over from me).
There has been some thought of getting nuclear power in Australia, however as yet, the protests of an uninformed public have stopped any serious efforts.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Yes, because one will always trump the other.
Good grief, is the world always so black and white for you? Both education AND experience (all 38 years of it in this case) have a place in this world. Hell, they can even coexist.
Not all volcanoes are of the same magnitude. They're indexed by the Volcanic Explosivity Index, (usually abbreviated) VEI. Presumably, the grandparent was talking about volcanoes towards the higher end of that scale.
Anyway, when you ignore individual eruptions and look at net output, volcanoes do not put out nearly as much CO2 as human activities. According to Wikipedia,
Finally, what would you have us do if volcanoes were causing climate change? (Let's ignore the fact that this was not a problem at all before the industrial revolution, even though volcanoes were around far earlier). Surely the answer "accept much of the earth becoming uninhabitable and keep going about our merry ways" is not acceptable.
I'll be taking a closer look at both the Green and Libertarian parties next general election myself, what with being disillusioned with both of the dominant parties. However, I would not be surprised at all if at the beginning of the election year, Bush is going to announce that he has reorganized the Republic of the United States into the First North American Empire (to the sound of thunderous applause.)
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Many of the same people defending Bush's lies are the same ones that said so many things about clinton (he murders loads of people; he raped 10's of women; He ran up the defict, he did not balance it; etc, etc, etc). Yet, GWB had at least one traitor in the white house and said that he would fire him once he found him. So far, libby has been shown to be involved and bush allowed the man to quit with the statement that he had to be proved guilty. Likewise, he runs up monster deficits. I remember his infamous state of the union addr where he stated that Iraq was buying Uranium from Nigeria. That same night, tenet came out and said that it was absolutely false. Bush then follows it up with saying that Tenet already showed that it was true, so tenet's last statement was incorrect. IOW, GWB was incorrect, Tenet outed him on it, and then GWB tried to disprove Tenet over it. And yet, Tenet was accused of being incorrect on this. Currently, GWB has Sibel Edmunds under a quasi-legal gag order. I only hope that the courts will do the right things and allow her to speak (or that she leaves the country, tells all that will not turn her into a traitor, and wait for the next president to allow her back).
And yet, some 40% of the country support a lieing traitorous president who is destroying the country and turning just about every country against us. Very scarey.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is sad that this story doesn't surprise me. In fact, back when Bush stole the election from Al Gore, I explained to my republican friends that its not that I'm so much for Gore, but every ounce of my being is against Bush. The country would have been in good hands with Gore and none of the bullshit we've seen come to pass would have occurred. And I'm not talking about 9/11, I'm talking about our childlessly impotent response to 9/11 and the subsequent sacrifice of 1000's of American lives and countless Iraqi lives by Bush under the guise of a lie.
I gasp when I hear anyone suggest that the Monica Lewinsky "scandal" amounted to more than stealing from a cookie jar and lying about it- when Bush lies to us daily, spies on us, and breaks our laws; setup to keep the government from doing just that.
If you want to argue about this, please don't bother- I'm not hanging around for responses. Like the rest of the country, I'm tired of this guy being in office and I'm ready to split the country in half and move if my half has to have him as president. I'd be happy to give the religious right their own country and leaders because I don't want them in my life. The scary thing is that they'd probably immediately declare war on the other half because the last thing the extreme republicans and the religious right want is freedom of religion and beliefs in the world. I sometimes believe such a war is coming...just like the middle east, we can't escape these morons whose belief in imaginary deities cause them to butt into the lives of others and attempt to legislate their religious edicts into law. Whether you're talking about the Taliban or Bush Administration, both hope to legislate their religious beliefs and both are a threat to freedom.
You know what really bothers me? People will turn their heads the other way when this hits all the papers. "So what if Bush tries to silence scientists...its bad, but what am I going to do about it?" What you can do about it is vote for Democrats in the coming election so we can get enough seats to boot this guy based SOLELY on the countless laws he has broken. Donate money to the DNC. Throw out your politics, just count the number of laws he admits he has broken, but claims authority to break in the name of the American people! No President is above the law. If the president can break the law, then we have no law and he's not the President and we owe no allegiance to him- because the law is the only thing that makes him the President. Once he shows us that the law means nothing to him, he ceases to be the President of the United States. I don't care if he is "protecting the american people". The American people don't need a King who protects us- we had that- and we delcared independance and wrote our own constitution.
We are not going back to a ruler who thinks they know better than our laws. Impeach today.
As paranoid as it might sound, I keep wondering if Bush will invent some 'National Security' Crisis in '08 and announce that it is too dangerous to hold elections at this time.
For your protection, you know. And if you are a good patriot, you will not complain about a few more years of neo-con control, Its for your protection and disagreeing with the government aids our enemies, you know.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Nuclear power generation is a complex subject to attempt to explain to the average person. The only thing that roughly 99.9% of population know about it is what they heard on the news after the last accident X years ago.
I worked as a nuclear operator for almost 10 years. I do not know a single person in the field that had a single concern for the safty of the plant or their family that lived close by.
The more people learn about nuclear power, the more comfortable they will be. Currently it gets treated like the boogy man and people do not even know why they are scared of it, they just are. Some people are armed with some statitics and figures but those same figures may not be a true representative of the situation, represent the whole story, or are not compared in a relative manner to other forms of energy production.
Just for reference,
- A typical airline crew member recieves more radiation per year then a typcial nuclear plant employee.
- One method nuclear plants monitor for primary coolant leaks is by monitoring the air at certain points in plant. Temperature inversions in the atmosphere will commonly cause these devices to alarm because the level of naturally occuring radon from fresh air brought into the area is too high. I've seen levels 3x the plants limit.
- The most radiation I ever recieved in a calender year was only 10% of the federal legal limit. That specific year, I spent a lot of time in the reactor compartment doing maintenance during an extended shutdown.
I'll even guess that more people have died while bungy jumping then have from nuclear power accidents.
"I love that science can't involve policy statements."
Policy statements are NOT science. Policy MAY be based on science. But policy is a political decision.
Nah, he will just go get Osama. Does anybody believe that we have no idea where he is? A seven foot tall arab with a kidney problem?
evil is as evil does
Someone makes an allegation against NASA and everyone starts the Nazi and Soviet Union comparasons with the current American administration. Doesn't this strike you as shockingly paranoid. It is just a little concerning that people are so eager to believe, without ANY evidence, that NASA policies are actually a secret, malicious government conspiricy against the American people starting at the presidency. Whatever happened to skepticism? I wouldn't want you on my jury in a trumpt up suit against me.
By a very slim margin. And with wide allegations of election fraud.
Hmmm... so why aren't all the companies that have prospered from not having to reduce emissions now paying for the rebuilding of New Orleans and the other areas devasted by the obnormal number/size of the huricanes last year?
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Dr. Hansen is not a crackpot. If you would RTFA, you might see that in fact there is a real censorship issue going on here. There was nothing in the original lecture which should have prompted this sort of behavior from the administration. The lecture provides a very clear and well-supported case for anthropogenic global climate change; one which is anathema to the current administration's well-documented ties to the energy industry.
The real news is that a slashdotter is defaming a well-respected scientist who provides a very good scientific case for something. Oh, wait...