Did you catch the global warming segment on "60 Minutes" tonight? It seems that James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is being muffled by the Bush administration in his attempts to report his scientific findings on global warming. His reports are now filtered through the White House, where redactions are made by non-scientists that seem to be based on political agenda rather than hard science.
The "60 Minutes" segment presented pages of Hansen's text that had been edited by a White House official, a former oil company lobbyist, to downplay the dangers of global warming. This is not surprising. In 2001, President Bush explained his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to curb greenhouse gases and help control global warming, "The (Kyoto) targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science. For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases."
For this administration, it's all about economic impact on big oil corporations.
"The only way to have real success in science ... is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good about it and what's bad about it equally. In science you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty." — Richard Feynman
Integrity and honesty. Even Diogenes with his lamp couldn't find them in this administration.
4 comments:
I was appalled, but I can't say surprised in the least. What a naked attempt to blur the issue and cast doubt on Hansen's findings in every way possible.
Politicization of science is a common and disturbing theme in this administration.
Here you go, Eyedoc:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/20.html#a7587
That's it! Thanks, Anon.
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