NASA Expert Criticizes Bush on Global Warming Policy

[Rose Siding]

top NASA climate expert who twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming plans to criticize the administration's approach to the issue in a lecture at the University of Iowa tonight and say that a senior administration official told him last year not to discuss dangerous consequences of rising temperatures.

The expert, Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, expects to say that the Bush administration has ignored growing evidence that sea levels could rise significantly unless prompt action is taken to reduce heat-trapping emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes.

Many academic scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates, have been criticizing the administration over its handling of climate change and other complex scientific issues. But Dr. Hansen, first in an interview with The New York Times a week ago and again in his planned lecture today, is the only leading scientist to speak out so publicly while still in the employ of the government.

In the talk, Dr. Hansen, who describes himself as "moderately conservative, middle-of-the-road" and registered in Pennsylvania as an independent, plans to say that he will vote for Senator John Kerry, while also criticizing some of Mr. Kerry's positions, particularly his pledge to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada.

http://nytimes.com/2004/10/26/science/26climate.html

[whistle]

1. Bush and his whole administration have been arrogant and belligerent

...on the environment and global warming. This collective attitude can only be explained by an indifference by this administration to the ecological balance, protection and human safety, driven by the greed of the polluters.

[Just Me]

11. The neoCONS have been scrubbing the facts in order to advance profits.

Money and power is the force that drives them irrespective of the damage to human life and the planet. They are just plain evil.

[wildflower]

2. I'm glad to hear this...

I hope the "leaders of the free world" will wake up to this while there's still a world left!

Listen to me, Ms. Pessimist this evening.

-wildflower

[951]

3. In other news...

Dr. James E. Hansen takes an early retirement :D

[Jim__]

8. That's actually not that far-fetched - in 1988 James Hansen

testified before congress and told them that Global Warming was not some future concern but that it was here now. Before giving his testimony he was warned by superiors at NASA that there would be political consequences for saying this. After he gave his testimony, the Reagan Administration cut the funding to his group at NASA.

Unfortunately, suppression of science is nothing new.

[LongTomH]

12. Hansen has been under fire for years!

Dr. Hansen was on the Pioneer Venus team in the 1970's. He used data from Venus to extrapolate the effect of greenhouse gases on Earth's climate.

He was one of the first to warn about global warning; for that, he's withstood dozens of attempted character assassinations from the right.

Like many people here, I had a youthful flirtation with Libertarianism. One of the events that first led me to question the tenets of Libertarianism, was a conference where someone from the Reason Foundation launched into an ad hominem attack on Dr. Hansen. I'm an amateur of science, not a professional; but, I have a great respect for science and the many people of courage and integrity who work in science.

Many kudos to Dr. Hansen.

[goforit]

4. Dr. James Hansen?.......Welcome aboard !!!!

[DeepModem Mom]

5. kick

[Divine Discontent]

6. further link

"In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=201062


Bush surely is going to lose, I will be shocked if he wins PA, MINN, or OH. We must hope for voter turnout in FL, this state is so goofy, but hopefully, enough of the truth about this pResident has come out that people will change. My best friend & his mom decided last month they were voting for Kerry, after being for Bush all the way up til then, so that's a 4 vote swing! woohoo!

[0007]

7. junior is toast

The administration risked disaster by discouraging scientists from discussing unwelcome findings.

[lawladyprof]

9. Linked to Biblical inerrancy mindset

For some (although not all certainly) in this administration, this reflects a "faith-based" view of the world. You start with what you believe in and then assemble evidence to support that "truth." Think creationism, but it is a broader paradigm/habit of thought. Highly pernicious in my view.

[JI7]

10. nice to see he votes in Pennsylvania