Receding glacier in Iceland 1973 versus 2000
As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn’t want you to hear but he’s going to say them anyway.
Hansen is arguably the world’s leading researcher on global warming. He’s the head of NASA’s top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.
But he didn’t hold back speaking to Pelley, telling 60 Minutes what he knows.
Asked if he believes the administration is censoring what he can say to the public, Hansen says: “Or they’re censoring whether or not I can say it. I mean, I say what I believe if I’m allowed to say it.”
What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.
Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?
“There’s no doubt about that, says Hansen. “The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface.”
Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen says his research shows that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.
“In my more than three decades in the government I’ve never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public,” says Hansen.
This isn’t a new agenda on the Bush administration’s part I remember reading this article in 05, Swift Boating Science
It’s not news that the reign of Bush fils has been marked by an antagonism toward science and scientists unlike any since 1954, when Robert Oppenheimer had his security clearance revoked and Linus Pauling had his passport pulled. The many times this administration and its supporters have fudged or even lied about scientists and scientific research are well-known. Global warming, stem cells, cloning, sex, land use, pollution and missile defense come to mind.
The real value of Mooney’s book rests with his behind-the-scenes exposure of the groups, the personalities and the tactics used to craft the assault on science and how this assault has been used as a potent political weapon.
Mooney begins by outlining the dangers posed by creating a mistrust of science and admitting to a few caveats. For example, “Republican war” is something of a misnomer. It’s not really the Republicans — as a whole party — who have made war on science. It’s the odd, far-right coalition of Christian fundamentalists, CEOs and anti-eco zealots who have come to dominate the party’s electoral politics. There was a time when trust-busting environmentalist Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican.
Give the Bushies credit for consistancy, from Feb, 18, 2004, Scientists: Bush Distorts Science
The Bush administration has distorted scientific fact leading to policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry, a group of about 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization, also issued a 37-page report, “Scientific Integrity in Policymaking,” detailing the accusations. The statement and the report both accuse the Bush administration of distorting and suppressing findings that contradict administration policies, stacking panels with like-minded and underqualified scientists with ties to industry, and eliminating some advisory committees altogether.
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