Guest Post by David Middleton
More improper activity from the Million Dollar Bureaucrat…
A Scientist’s Misguided Crusade
By JOE NOCERA
Published: March 4, 2013
Last Friday, at 3:40 p.m., the State Department released its “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” for the highly contentious Keystone XL pipeline, which Canada hopes to build to move its tar sands oil to refineries in the United States. In effect, the statement said there were no environmental impediments that would prevent President Obama from approving the pipeline.
Two hours and 20 minutes later, I received a blast e-mail containing a statement by James Hansen, the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA — i.e., NASA’s chief climate scientist. “Keystone XL, if the public were to allow our well-oiled government to shepherd it into existence, would be the first step down the wrong road, perpetuating our addiction to dirty fossil fuels, moving to ever dirtier ones,” it began. After claiming that the carbon in the tar sands “exceeds that in all oil burned in human history,” Hansen’s statement concluded: “The public must demand that the government begin serving the public’s interest, not the fossil fuel industry’s interest.”
As a private citizen, Hansen, 71, has the same First Amendment rights as everyone else. He can publicly oppose the Keystone XL pipeline if he so chooses, just as he can be as politically active as he wants to be in the anti-Keystone movement, and even be arrested during protests, something he managed to do recently in front of the White House.
But the blast e-mail didn’t come from James Hansen, private citizen. It specifically identified Hansen as the head of the Goddard Institute…
[…]
Yet what people hear from Hansen today is not so much his science but his broad, unscientific views on, say, the evils of oil companies.
[…]
For a midlevel scientist at the Goddard Institute, what signal is Hansen sending when he takes the day off to get arrested at the White House? Do his colleagues feel unfettered in their own work? There is, in fact, enormous resentment toward Hansen inside NASA, where many officials feel that their solid, analytical work on climate science is being lost in what many of them describe as “the Hansen sideshow.”
[…]
Hansen should be fired and prosecuted for misusing his office and title as a NASA director in an effort to push his political agenda (the Hatch Act).
The Hatch Act grew out of nineteenth-century concerns about the political activities of federal employees. As early as 1801, President Thomas Jefferson issued an Executive Order that said federal workers should neither “influence the votes of others, nor take part in the business of electioneering.” He saw such activities as “inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution.” Jefferson was primarily concerned with what government employees did while in office; subsequently, concerns developed in another area. Throughout the nineteenth century, appointments to the federal bureaucracy were viewed as the natural spoils of political success. The prevalent awarding of jobs for political loyalty created a so-called spoils system and, ultimately, a reaction against it.
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Wouldn’t that be nice to see, Hansen getting the ax. It SURE is appropriate.
So who is the current head of NASA ( . .sorry, being too lazy to look it up . . 🙂 ).
Let’s all send that person a request for Hansen to be removed from his position.
In Canada we have the problem of Dr. David Suzuki, politically active and endorsing specific candidates (and villifying others) and lobbying even foreign governments while an employee of the national news service, the CBC, which puts him on a (nature specialist) podium of “saving the planet”. Ezra Levant of Sun News (Toronto)has been going after him for this breach of clearly defined restrictions.
Both Hansen and Suzuki should be forced to decide which they wish to be, a “respected” senior member of government or government services, or a political activist. Green activism is not the same as political activism and both Hansen and Suzuki have crossed the line between the two by explicitly called for specific political policies and politicians to be supported or opposed.
For people who claim that money is not important to them, the dollar certainly has a sweet taste.
Charles Bolden, Islamophile.
I can understand how many scientists at NASA would be frustrated by Hansen. There are many very non political highly intelligent and respected scientists who work at NASA. Its unfortunate NASA allows Hansen to do whatever he wants. It is reflecting on the reputations of all who work at NASA and the institute itself.
I’d really love to see this idiot (Hansen) fired-sooner rather than later. .
Don’t bang him up (much as I’d like that) he’d be too much of a martyr.
Why are people alarmed that tar sands are “dirty”? The oil company refineries take the impurities out, and crack and distill it until it meets the specifications of the products they make from it.
Also, why the worry that this could possibly get down into the aquifer. It requires heat and/or solvents to even get it to flow through a pipe. If it flows out of the pipe somewhere, the problem will more likely be a hardened mess of asphalt goo.
Martin C…..according to wiki(yeah,yeah.I know),Charles Bolden, administrator.But it’s kinda cunfussing as it also list the US government. Regardless, if nothing else than ruining the good name of an outstanding puppeteer and designer,Hansen should get the ax,only probably not where most people think.
Far better to buy oil from the Saudi’s half-way around the world./sarc
The oil is flowing across the border and to ports to China in any case by train tanker car. Tanker car capacity is being built to allow an additional 2 million barrels a day to ship.
I would prefer pipeline to train shipments without question.
No chance under the current political situation , for they simply don’t need nor what or the fall out that would occur , while has much as Hansen bugs people who find his views ‘mad ‘ in reality his not having any real impact on his bosses main concerns ,’yet ‘
And actual like Mann he does much good work without even knowing it , and for the very people he dislikes so much .
Perhaps Skeptical Science’s Dana Nuccitelli can help out. His employer, Tetra Tech is:
“Designing and Permitting an Oil Pipeline Through Complex Terrain” to carry heavy California crude.”
“When oil companies needed to provide safe, economical, over-land transport to bring crude oil from offshore platforms along California’s central coast to Los Angeles-area refineries, they called on the pipeline expertise of Rooney Engineering, Inc., A Tetra Tech Company (REI).
http://www.tetratech.com/projects/designing-and-permitting-an-oil-pipeline-through-complex-terrain.html
We need you on the picket lines Dana.
I remember Hansen a few years back on a BBC Horizon science program. He talked of being muffled. The funny thing is that I hear more from him on the MSM than any other astronomer or for that matter climate scientist. That show was frightening for me at the time. They talked of co2, runaway, methane calthrates and ended with fire coming out of the sea. No joke. Horizon should be ashamed of that episode. It was that piece of fiction that set me off looking for more evidence.
We have several thousand foreign individuals in the country illegally recently released from jail and the reason they were released is because of the Sequester. Yet, this guy continues to be funded.
One day, James Hansen’s grandchildren are going to look back at their grandfather and hang their heads in shame. It’s not their fault to have Bart Simpson as a grandfarter. The sooner he is fired the better it will be for the grandchildren.
Federal employees, as private citizen as all the rights and privileges of citizenship. As a Federal employee some restrictions apply. If Hansen or anyone else believe they have some calling or moral obligation to speak out, while Federal employees, he or she is obligated to resign that position first. Unfortunately in our modern society few are willing to take personal responsibility for anything let alone anything that might effect income.
As a so called scientists perhaps Hansen might have used bituminous sand. Tar as any child would know is a man made product. We make oil up here in Fort McMurray – if he has any doubts ask China. Moreover, on a world wide scale Canada as a nation is responsible of 0.02% of co2 on planet earth. Of that 0.02% the oil sands is responsible for 0.001% co2 on a Canada wide basis. Hardly the stuff of nightmares is it? We use 1/5 of 1% of the water flowing in the nearby Athabasca River – 85% of the water we do use is recycled year around. We have 100 water quality monitoring stations around the region and 58 air monitoring systems around the regions operating 24/7/365.
The air up here is better than in any city on planet earth any day. Trust me we produce OIL. Anyone that calls it tar is an idiot.
Jimbo says:
March 5, 2013 at 3:57 pm
One day, James Hansen’s grandchildren are going to look back at their grandfather and hang their heads in shame. It’s not their fault to have Bart Simpson as a grandfarter. The sooner he is fired the better it will be for the grandchildren.
Soooooo TRUE!
Some one should tell Hansen to relax, we Canadians are getting those sands as clean as we humanly can.
We understand him to be obsessed with us having only the cleanest sand.
I agree, Hansen is bad for NASA and always has been. I’m surprised he’s lasted so long. If there’s huge resentment inside NASA, then what’s the matter with them all? Why haven’t they risen up as one and kicked this no-hoper out? Are they all cowards now at NASA?
I know the astronauts and engineers wrote that letter (which was brilliant) but NASA refused to act on it. I understand everyone else is worried for their pension, but they can still band together which would protect them from persecution.
Now, I used to respect NASA above all else. I worshipped the space program. I tell you, though, if they keep silent and let Hansen die of old-age still with his “job” – they will never – EVER – win my respect back. I want to see heroes back at NASA and I don’t care if they are desk-jockeys. GET RID OF HANSEN.
Albertalad: You didn’t mention that Hansen’s activities won’t stop Canada from producing oil, or that it is being transported to the US via truck and rail, a much more “polluting” method than pipeline.
Hansen should be given his gold watch and thanked for his service, or fired and asked to reimburse the public for their money he has wasted.
Off topic and I sent this to Tips and Notes but I think this should be of interest to those worried about polar bears:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Earth 2 to three degrees warmer and the arctic was 14 to 20 degrees warmer 3.4 million years ago – scientists find camel fossils in the arctic:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/paging-lawrence-of-nunavut-camel-fossils-found-in-canadian-arctic/article9296216/
“OH NO! I couldn’t fudge the numbers so I can’t have my dessert!”
Elmo deserves more credibility.
ARgghh! Typos!!
“OH NO! I couldn’t fudge the numbers so I can’t have my dessert!”
Should have been, “OH NO! I couldn’t fudge the numbers so I can’t have my favorite dessert!”
(He wants to bake Alaska.)
Wonder which will come first – Hansen being fired or the oceans boiling?
Just wonderin’…
Hansen, the poster-child for precisely how and why the “system is broken.”
The proof?
He’s still employed at NASA. Which is also the proof that some people are more equal than others.
The “hardest” part is torturing the data so that it gives the expected results? I guess. These things must be done delicately.