Re: The global-warming hucksters
- From: Anonymous <nobody@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:38:17 +0100 (BST)
On 24/10/07 0:11, in article 1193177461.441233.29190@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Capitalist Pig" <cochon-capitaliste@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Universities get GRANT money for meteorological research.
Also for many other disciplines. Many of these disciplines
involve "pure science" which have no predicable commercial
spin-off. Astronomy is an example. Of what "use" is it to
study Mars? Who cares about the "big bang"? Climate research
does not carry the potential of a big industrial payoff, but
it is a necessary area of research since it has an impact
on determining what policies are necessary avoid environmental
disasters.
What you implied is that getting funds distorts their scientific
mission and scientists lie or distort the facts. The fact that most government funded research supports the claim that global warming is man caused it what irritates the right wing ideologues.
You would cuts or eliminate funds in this area of research. In fact
Bush appointees have been accused of trying to control the direction
of research, eliminate certain funding and control information release
by government scientists in order to fit into anti-global warming
policies. Bush heads an anti-science administration, from
stem cells on "down".
We have seen incidents like the following
******
NASA humiliated by Bush flunky
The New York Times has discovered that a 24-year old, intelligent-design-promoting press officer appointed by the White House has been interfering in the way that NASA presents its science results to the public, including insisting on controlling the public statements of renowned climate scientist James Hansen.
The Big Bang memo came from Mr. [George] Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the "war room" of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."
It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."
The memo also noted that The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual specified the phrasing "Big Bang theory." Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's boss, said in an interview yesterday that for that reason, it should be used in all NASA documents.
The Deutsch memo was provided by an official at NASA headquarters who said he was upset with the effort to justify changes to descriptions of science by referring to politically charged issues like intelligent design. Senior NASA officials did not dispute the message's authenticity.
Mr. Wild declined to be interviewed; Mr. Deutsch did not respond to e-mail or phone messages. On Friday evening, repeated queries were made to the White House about how a young presidential appointee with no science background came to be supervising Web presentations on cosmology and interview requests to senior NASA scientists.
The only response came from Donald Tighe of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Science is respected and protected and highly valued by the administration," he said.
The background on how the Times came to discover these latest abuses of science and scientists by the Bush administration:
Last week, the Times reported of Dr. Hansen:
[H]e was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for prompt action to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. He and intermediaries in the agency's 350-member public-affairs staff said the warnings came from White House appointees in NASA headquarters.
Other National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists and public-affairs employees came forward this week to say that beyond Dr. Hansen's case, there were several other instances in which political appointees had sought to control the flow of scientific information from the agency.
They called or e-mailed The Times and sent documents showing that news releases were delayed or altered to mesh with Bush administration policies.
The revelations are so embarrassing that the administrator, Mike Griffin, didn't waste any time promising changes:
On Thursday night and Friday, The Times sent some of the documents to Dr. Griffin and senior public-affairs officials requesting a response.
While Dr. Griffin did not respond directly, he issued the "statement of scientific openness" to agency employees, saying, "NASA has always been, is and will continue to be committed to open scientific and technical inquiry and dialogue with the public."
Because NASA encompasses a nationwide network of research centers on everything from cosmology to climate, Dr. Griffin said, some central coordination was necessary. But he added that changes in the public-affairs office's procedures "can and will be made," and that a revised policy would "be disseminated throughout the agency."
Let's hope Griffin's new policy is true to his words and not undermined by his own bosses in the White House.
Keith Cowing at NASA Watch suggests Griffin should fire George Deutsch. That's certainly a minimum.
.
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