The NY Times reports that NASA's top climate scientist, 63-year old physicist Dr. James E. Hansen of the Goddard Institute, says the Bush administration has tried to muzzle him since he spoke at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Dec. 6, 2005, warning that 2005 had been the warmest year on record and calling for immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Hansen said officials at NASA headquarters and ordered the public affairs staff to review forthcoming lectures, papers, postings, and even to "stand in" for him on any future interviews.
Amazingly, the public affairs office at Goddard has stood up for him. One public affairs officer who personally witnessed the intimidation, Ms. Leslie McCarthy, defended her report of it to a NASA administrator looking into the matter, saying, "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog is this race." And the Director of Public Affairs for the Goddard Space Center and Institute, Mark Hess, said of Dr Hansen, "The thing that has always struck me about him is I don't think he's political at all. He really is not about concerning himself with whose administration is in charge, whether it's Republicans, Democrats or whatever. He's a pretty down-the-road conservative, independent-minded person."
It's not that Hansen is saying anything new that threatens the Bush Administration--what bothers them is that he's part of the government and, as Ms. McCarthy said, "the inference was that he was disloyal." But as she explained, "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission."
Over the past few years, many concerned scientists have felt compelled to blow the whistle on Republican attempts to squelch the facts, notably about environmental degradation and global warming. It seems even the tobacco industry has a greater respect for the truth. And it's stupid too. If the Republicans knew the first thing about how science operates, they would know that the only sure way to piss of a scientist is to tell him he can't publish.
Bush and Cheney must be impeached.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Bush's War on Science
Posted by Dr. Strangelove at 10:38 AM
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3 comments:
The only way to get Bush impeached is for the Democrats to win back at least the House. That means all those Nader types out there no longer have luxury of being picky about what kind of Democrat they vote for.
The single-minded goal of all patriotic Americans should be the defeat of Republicans in every race. Even so called "moderate" Republicans are not moderate at all when it comes to defending their leadership's crimes.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
The war on science is real in this respect: Bush dislikes policy built on facts, rather than ideology and expediency. We all suffer when the public debate does not address observable problems, and when testable solutions are avoided for political reasons. As the USSR showed, all sides of the political debate fear science, because it intrudes upon favored policy with disquieting facts and analysis.
// posted by LTG
This just in from NY Times... the particular Bush appointee who tried to muzzle Dr. Hansen--Mr. Deustch--resigned today. Apparently, he had claimed to have a degree from Texas A&M on his resume, but the university said he did not. Someone told the NY Times, and then told Deutsch about it... and he resigned.
But even Dr. Hansen said the man was just a, "bit player" and his resignation should not distract from the problem of Bush's politicization of science. (Is that a word?)
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