Yesterday I passed on a report that appointed officials at NASA seemed determined to prevent scientists from deviating from the party line, as confirmed by interviews with both the director and public affairs officers at the Goddard Space Flight Center. This bit seemed particularly troubling:
At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Government scientists can only speak to the press in the presence of handlers. Where have I heard that before? Give me a minute, it’ll come to me.
In an unexpected turn House Science Committee chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) today wrote a prompt letter in reply to the NASA administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin:
Dear Dr. Griffin:
I am writing in response to several recent news articles indicating that officials at NASA may be trying to “silence” Dr. James Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
It ought to go without saying that government scientists must be free to describe their scientific conclusions and the implications of those conclusions to their fellow scientists, policymakers and the general public. Any effort to censor federal scientists biases public discussions of scientific issues, increases distrust of the government and makes it difficult for the government to attract the best scientists. And when it comes to an issue like climate change, a subject of ongoing public debate with immense ramifications, the government ought to be bending over backward to make sure that its scientists are able to discuss their work and what it means.
Good science cannot long persist in an atmosphere of intimidation. Political figures ought to be reviewing their public statements to make sure they are consistent with the best available science; scientists should not be reviewing their statements to make sure they are consistent with the current political orthodoxy.
NASA is clearly doing something wrong, given the sense of intimidation felt by Dr. Hansen and others who work with him. Even if this sense is a result of a misinterpretation of NASA policies – and more seems to be at play here – the problem still must be corrected. I will be following this matter closely to ensure that the right staff and policies are in place at NASA to encourage open discussion of critical scientific issues. I assume you share that goal.
Our staff is already setting up meetings to pursue this issue and I appreciate NASA’s responsiveness to our inquiries thus far. I would ask that you swiftly provide to the Committee, in writing, a clear statement of NASA’s policies governing the activities of its scientists.
NASA is one of the nation’s leading scientific institutions. I look forward to working with you to keep it that way, and to ensure that the entire nation gets the full benefit of NASA sciences.
Sincerely
[Signed]Sherwood Boehlert
Chairman
Good news, but needless to say the devil is in the details. Recall for example that Goddard officials described intimidation that was conducted strictly through unofficial channels (same link as above), which would make a reiteration of ‘official’ harrassment policy largely meaningless in this context:
[Goddard director Dr. James Hansen] said he was particularly incensed that directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Nonetheless, Boehlert deserves credit if he genuinely plans to hold hearings on the question of scientific intimidation. In the spirit of blogospheric-government cooperation I’d like to recommend a few witnesses. First, Rep. Joe Barton (R – TX):
Barton, an 11-term Republican from Texas, is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and one of the oil lobby’s best friends on Capitol Hill. Late last month he fired off letters to professor Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and two other scientists demanding information about what he claimed were “methodological flaws and data errors” in their studies of global warming.
Barton’s letters to the scientists had a peremptory, hen-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife tone. Mann was told that within less than three weeks, he must list “all financial support you have received related to your research,” provide “the location of all data archives relating to each published study for which you were an author,” “provide all agreements relating to . . . underlying grants or funding,” and deliver similarly detailed information in five other categories.
Next, Sen. Larry Craig (R – ID):
Salmon math has clearly riled up Craig, who in his last election campaign in 2002 received more money from electric utilities than from any other industry and who has been named “legislator of the year” by the National Hydropower Association.
The Fish Passage Center has documented, in excruciating statistical detail, how the Columbia-Snake hydroelectric system kills salmon. Its analyses of fish survival data also suggest that one way to increase salmon survival is to spill more water over dams, rather than feed it through electrical turbines.
…Last summer, a federal judge in Portland, using data and analysis from the Fish Passage Center, infuriated the utilities. He ordered that water be spilled over federal dams in the Snake River to increase salmon survival. Shortly after Judge James A. Redden issued his order, Craig began pushing [successfully] to cut all funding for the Fish Passage Center.
That’ll make a lively first day of testimony. If Rep. Boehlert feels in the mood for a quick read he or his staff can pick up many more ideas from this helpful book.
Paul Wartenberg
Further evidence that it’s the lobbyists and not the lawyers that Shakespeare should have worried about.
DougJ
Sherry Boehlert was my congressman for years. The brother is in the wrong party.
Sherard
Let’s try and separate a legit issue – intimidation of science in favor of politics – with moonbattery.
Golly gee, that hydropower dam kills fish when the water goes through the turbines, and lookee there, it doesn’t when it spills over insteda. Well holy crap, that must be a goddam scientific breakthrough.
Know what ? I work at a power plant and we use lake water to cool our condenser. And fish die every day that get into our intake. I guess we should just shut down every piece of modern technology that could harm a lovely fish. Perhaps we should just sign the whole damn planet over to the fish. See how THEY run it. I wonder if they’d cut taxes or raise them ?
Morons. Same morons who LOVE wind power. Kills birds by the hundreds. Wind farms have to employ someone who’s job it is to pick up the dead birds and nothing eles. But you don’t hear about that, do you? Could it be because wind power is a fave of the enviro-moonbats and hydro power isn’t ?
Man, I do so love people that would like to put the salmon above humans in the pecking order. Brilliant.
ppGaz
DougJ is our hero.
stickler
Sherard must be another DougJ spoof.
Just for the record, though, the US Government has several non-trivial legal responsibilities to prevent the extinction of wild salmon runs in Washington and Oregon. These salmon runs, remember, provided untold millions of fish for the tables of America … until the dams were built. The Snake River dams in particular are open to criticism because they primarily serve to get the the grain of Idaho and Montana down to the Port of Portland (and enable a navigable river system over 1,000 miles inland). The Snake dams are pretty new, most of them dating from 1965-74. They produce a small part of the electricity of the Pacific Northwest.
In doing this, they have contributed to the near-extinction of Snake River salmon. I’ve heard these fish were tasty. I’ve never had the privilege of catching one, let alone eating one, and if something more productive isn’t done very soon, I never will.
Is cheaper grain shipment worth this? Especially since rail lines already exist which (if the railroads were forced to respond to grain shippers) could take the traffic?
The only way to answer this question is through more, and better, science. Cutting funding for the Fish Passage Center isn’t really doing anything to help fish, or science, or progress.
Steve
I agree that environmentalism must be viewed relative to other societal interests, but vindictively cutting off funding for an organization that studies fish populations sure isn’t the answer.
The lawyer in me also idly wonders if there might not be a cause of action for intimidating a federal witness. :)
Sine.Qua.Non
Great post Tim. I like the last link, very cute!
Gary Farber
Swiped your link to Boehlert, with credit to you, here.
Good job, as usual, Tim. (Good judgment in picking him, John, although on principle I oppose adding people to single-voice blogs. :-))
Richard Bottoms
Unless you are a Republican shilling for big business. Which is kind of like saying the same thing.
Mr Furious
I had my own piece on Craig and the salmon in December. [link] What an asshole. My favorite part?
That’s right, counting is “false science.”
ppGaz
That’s my Laugh of the Day.
Good work.
Dennis
I have a bachelor of science in geophysics. I have been a late bloomer to global warming. I always looked at climate change from the standpoint that the globe has been warming since the last ice age. 10,000 years at least. Human causes are the least of the problem under these circumstances. Water will maintain temperature until all ice has melt. 50 degrees farenheight has been the average approximately, globally. Average over the last 100 years. Atmosperic data did not show significant change over the last century, a few tenths of a degree. That changed. Recent information indicates that the measurement devices underwent a design cange that affected the measurements, corrections show significant atmospheric change. recent oceanic temperature change leaves no doubt. Other indicators such as ice depth at the poles and acceleration of ice melting of glaciers, only add to the evidence that we and our planet are experiencing rapid change. Regardless of weather natural or human causes, everything on our panet is interconnected, the earth is a conservative system,(energy is conserved), we are absorbing more energy than we are using, storing or reflecting back into space. We have a problem. I would not advocate that people start hoarding or running for their bomb shelters, but we had better start some serious rational thinking on all levels.
WE HAD BETTER WAKE UP OUR POLITICIANS!!
Perry Como
Global warming is just a theory. Get back to me when you have some facts. Until then I like my policy set by elected representatives, not activist scientists.
Actvist
Its a space based laser that conrols the hurricanes and we’re sending more to New Orleans because they worship the dead
S.W. Anderson
Sherard had a chance to say something to me. He lost it shortl y after “moonbattery.” From there on, I just glanced down to see … of course, “morons.”
Freep-grade angry, close-minded, disdainful rant. What a waste.
S.W. Anderson
Como, get a clue. For the policy set by elected representatives to be worth a rat’s ass, those elected representatives have to operate with closed mouths and open minds.
Richard Bottoms gets it. What we have running the government now are agents of corporations. Errand boys like Barton and Craig don’t want to know — and don’t intend for the rest of us to know — the truth, about global warming, fish survival or anything that might crimp their corporate masters’ profitability.
The deal is, they see to the corporations’ profitability and those making big bucks off the corporations keep those generous campaign contributions flowing to Barton, Craig and the rest.
Kudos to Boehlert for serving the public interest — bet he’s in for a colder shoulder than McCain about now. And a salute to Tim for a topnotch post.
tzs
The reason wind power killed so many birds at first was the placement on top of hills right smack in migratory passages. Also blades spinning at high speed.
Redesign of windmills, better placement, slower spinning–>drop in deaths of birds.
Sherard, if you don’t want wind power, where DO you plan to get your power from??? Are you willing to sign up to fight over the increasingly smaller amounts of oil in the Mideast? If you would prefer nuclear, would you be happy to store the nuclear waste in your backyard?
Wind power is getting more and more plausible. It would get us off the Mideast oil spigot and allow us to ignore all the crazies out there. Even better, if we develop the technology enough, we have something we can sell around the world. (One reason why Japan is gung-ho for energy-sipping technology–great stuff to sell.)
LITBMueller
I believe the term you’re looking for, Tim, might be ZAMPOLIT.
CaseyL
Anyone who wonders how the Easter Islanders could keep on chopping down their trees to build and worship their idols – even as their island was dying all around them – need look no further than today’s wingers.
Faux News
.
It was 64 degrees in Washington DC yesterday. According to the washington post, cherry trees on Conn. Ave are already blooming. Only 2 to 3 months early. Nothing to worry about I guess. Except where the Polar Bears and Inuits are going to live once all the Polar ice has melted.
Lines
Considering that Idaho and downstream states on the Snake River only get about 20% of their power from hydroelectrics and over 80% of the dams are not functioning at this time, the battle to save the salmon is quite interesting.
BIRDZILLA
All the waco activists at GREENPEACE should put duct tape over their mouths it would realy cut down on all that HOT AIR
Andrew
If it meant converting all are coil/oil/natural gas power plants to nuclear, I would gladly store the waste in my basement. Of course, my basement isn’t big enough, and my neighbors might object. But the stuff isn’t nearly as dangerous as people think.
On second thought though, we could recycle the waste and reuse it. That seems to be the best solution to me.
rhodeymark
Your computer is producing CO2. Shut it off.
Sine.Qua.Non
So are you. Stop breathing.
Sine.Qua.Non
Andrew, what planet are you from? Not dangerous? Holy shit!