NASA鈥檚 top climate scientist has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out after he called for swift cuts in emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming in a recent lecture.
James Hansen, director of the US space agency鈥檚 Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his forthcoming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard website and requests for media interviews, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
鈥淭hey feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,鈥� said Hansen, who told the paper he would ignore the restrictions.
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Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at NASA, denied that there was any effort to silence Hansen. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not the way we operate here at NASA,鈥� Acosta said. 鈥淲e promote openness and we speak with the facts.鈥�
Acosta said that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen. 鈥淭his is not about any individual or any issue like global warming,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about coordination.鈥�
Different planet
Hansen has been issuing about the long-term threat of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, and has had run-ins with various US politicians.
He said that 鈥渆fforts to quiet him鈥� had begun in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on December 6, 2005, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In this talk he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, but that without leadership by the US, climate change would eventually leave the Earth 鈥渁 different planet鈥�.
US administration policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
鈥淎fter that speech and the release of data by Dr Hansen on December 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr Hansen that there would be 鈥榙ire consequences鈥� if such statements continued, those officers and Dr Hansen said in interviews,鈥� the Times reported.
Hansen said 鈥渋t would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA鈥檚 mission statement includes the phrase 鈥榯o understand and protect our home planet'鈥�.
Hansen鈥檚 supervisor, Franco Einaudi, is reported as saying there had been no official 鈥渙rder or pressure to say shut Jim up鈥�. However, he added: 鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 mean I like this kind of pressure being applied.鈥�
