Friendly tip...Don't defend it as Gospel...it isn't. It is an opinion piece passed off as fact in a scientific journal. That is why many don't take it seriously.
Posted on 02/26/2006 11:12:43 AM PST by alumleg
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are among the most popular and scientifically sophisticated agencies in the U.S. government. Not only do they do good science, they do dramatic, risky, and even romantic things--capturing comet dust, sending surveyors to Mars, flying airplanes into hurricanes, and providing images of impending weather events. They are full of productive, respected scientists. We have published papers from groups at both agencies and have been proud to do so.
But these days, we're trying to figure out what is happening to serious science at NOAA and NASA. In this space a month ago, I described some of the research that supports a relationship between hurricane intensity and increased water temperatures. Two empirical studies, one published in Science and one in Nature, show that hurricane intensity has increased with oceanic surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The physics of hurricane intensity growth, worked out by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has clarified and explained the thermodynamic basis for these observations.
Yet a NOAA Web site** denies any relationship between global climate change and hurricane strength. It attributes the latter instead to "tropical multidecadal signals" affecting climate variability. Emanuel has tested this relationship and presented convincing evidence against it in recent seminars. As for the many NOAA scientists who may agree with Emanuel, the U.S. Department of Commerce (the executive agency that NOAA is part of) has ordered them not to speak to reporters or present papers at meetings without departmental review and approval.
That's bad enough, but it turns out that things are even worse at NASA, where a striking front-page story by Andy Revkin in the New York Times (28 January 2006) details the agency's efforts to put a gag on James Hansen, direct or of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, after a talk he gave at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December 2005. His sin was that he pointed out that the climate change signal is now so strong, 2005 having been the warmest year in the past century, that the voluntary measures proposed by the administration are likely to be inadequate.
Hansen was told that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued. The Times story identifies two NASA public affairs officials, Dean Acosta and George Deutsch, as responsible for delivering this news and insisting that Hansen's "supervisors" would have to stand in for him at public appearances. Those will presumably take place in approvable venues and certainly not on National Public Radio (NPR). Deutsch is reported to have rejected a Hansen interview requested by NPR on the grounds that it was "the most liberal news outlet in the country."
For at least two reasons, this event may establish a new high-water mark for bureaucratic stupidity. First, Hansen's views on this general subject have long been widely available; he thinks climate change is due to anthropogenic sources, and he's discouraged that we're not doing more about it. For NASA to lock the stable door when this horse has been out on the range for years is just silly. Second, Hansen's history shows that he just won't be intimidated, and he has predictably told the Times that he will ignore the restrictions. The efforts by Acosta and Deutsch are reminiscent of the slapstick antics of Curley and Moe: a couple of guys stumbling off to gag someone who the audience knows will rip the gag right off.
These two incidents are part of a troublesome pattern to which the Bush administration has become addicted: Ignore evidence if it doesn't favor the preferred policy outcome. Above all, don't let the public get an idea that scientists inside government disagree with the party line. The new gag rules support the new Bush mantra, an interesting inversion of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's view on war: "You don't make policy with the science you have. You make policy with the science you WANT." But the late-breaking good news is that NASA Administrator Griffin has said that there will be no more of this nonsense, and Deutsch, the 24-year-old Bush appointee sent to muzzle Hansen, has left the agency abruptly after his résumé turned out to be falsified. A change of heart? Stay tuned.
10.1126/science.1125749
**www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag184.htm
Of course not. Gagging is never correct. But the preponderence of evidence on scientific matters is left up to scientists. Do you have a problem with that?
I am a scientist myself - a chemist. But if I presumed upon myself to pontificate in public with bogus authority about, say, planetary geology or some other field outside of my area of expertise - then not only muzzling but rotten eggs and tomatoes would be in order.
The hockey stick is broken!
The preponderance of govt research money goes towards creating models which establish the link from human CO2 to warming. The link is assumed in advance and the model is created to prove it. Are you okay with billions of dollars being spent in this way? Or would you rather see, as many of us do, the govt get out of the politically driven science business. I think that's the conservative response.
As other posters have pointed out, science has, unfortunately, become all about funding. Scientists have to eat, too, and most of them work for liberal universities with vested interests in seeing their "industries" -- like global warming -- continue raking in the bucks. It's similar to some charities: the last thing their big bucks executives and board members want is the problem to be solved. Then they have to look for real jobs.
Therefore, like the scientific alarmists, they have to stir up the rabble to keep the dollars in the pipeline.
Follow the money. It's a tried-and-true technique.
Who cares?
Did he go back and look at the mid 50s? I remember the heat back then when corn plants dried up when they got to 2 - 3 feet. Stock tanks dried up, grass did not grow all summer, yet now we blame this "global warming" on the current administration.
This is from the same bunch of idiots that think the shell fossils found in the Rocky Mountains were actually ocean creatures. If that was the case back then, the entire planet and all it inhabitants would be gone.
Junk science indeed. Global warming is just that. It is wise to put the kibosh on it. The SUN is responsible, humans are 4th-order causative or some miniscule bit.
Mt. St. Helens puts out more pollution than all the industries combined in Washington State, and you cannt put scrubbers on it, sorry, Greenies. Bush is wise to ignore GW.
And the Evangelical Leaders who came out FOR GW last week, what tripe. Have you heard their ads?? gag....
Friendly tip...Don't defend it as Gospel...it isn't. It is an opinion piece passed off as fact in a scientific journal. That is why many don't take it seriously.
I don't see where anyone has been muzzled. This scientist's opinion/theory is well known. Just because the agency he worked in has employees with different opinions from his is not necessarily muzzling. I think this guy is just frustrated and trying to get some attention thrown his way and the greenies are more than welcome to help his agenda.
As far as the science goes, severe hurricanes and warm ocean temperatures are not something new. Global warming / cooling is part of a natural cycle that is incompletely understood, but likely has its primary origin in the output of the sun. Numerous other factors mediate the overall effect.
Conservatives, at least I, care about the environment because we have a responsibility for future generations and for the well-being of our planet, not because of some phantom fear of global warming.
Frankly, we are that the point that if man is impacting the planet, we have impacted it so much that it is soo late.
Our greenhouse emissions are on the decrease, one of the few areas of environmental improvement in the last decade. Radical changes will not stop the warming. What we are doing now will slow it down.
[[The reason for my post was to point out the fact that we have politicians who think it is OK to tell scientists what they may and may not say at scientific meetings. And the tone of your comment makes it obvious that this is a general problem with what used to be called conservatives.]]
But it is ok for a scientist to use their government job to advance a personal agenda ? Free speech does not mean freedom from responsibility for exercising that freedom. It is in the employment guidelines for working for the federal government that you cannot use your agency or job title to advance or lend credibility to non-governmental positions or agendas. If one does not wish to abide by the guidelines they agree to when employed, they are free to seek employment in the private sector.
I see your last line is an attempt to attack 'conservatives'. Now that is a typical left wing response when someone will not bow down to their expressed left wing opinion.
Where do I find the link -- I'll check it out.
Do not change the title from that found at the source.
Very true. However, Donald Kennedy is not considered a raving lefty. And Science is not just another journal. We are talking about the editor of what is probably the most prestigious scientific journal on the planet. You may not agree with this guy, but a fool (or a tool) he ain't.
Sorry, that was unintentional.
"Follow the money. It's a tried-and-true technique."
Don't forget the "Deep Pockets".
There is absolutely no way an assertion that water temperatures are at their highest in 100 years can be substantiated.
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