Recently we saw how an environmental activist managed to convince a BBC writer that the story he wrote had to be changed to reflect what the activist perceived to be the “correct” view.
Now we find that Dr. James Hansen, director of GISS, has done the same, and on NASA stationery no less. Read the entire letter here courtesy of the “Friends of the Earth” website.
Because Hansen wrote on NASA stationery, it becomes a public document, which we can view here. For that reason, I’ve posted a backup copy here, just in case the original disappears or changes. See hansen_letter.
Writing to Houghton Mifflin Company, Hansen asks for changes in the textbook to reflect what he considers to be the truth and consensus:
Apparently, there is no room for debate in the classroom on these issues. Apparently also there is no uncertainty. Hansen also makes a mention of “so called activist scientists”. I think he proved the point about activist scientists quite well with this letter.
What is most curious, is that in letters Hansen has written in the past, such as to the Prime Minister of Australia, he uses his home address in Kintersville on plain paper, and in his reply to a coal company executive on Columbia University stationery, but puts his NASA title on it. This makes me wonder how he chooses which stationery to write what letter on, and how to sign it.
Maybe it is just a byproduct of all that censorship by the Bush administration:
Source: Roger Pielke Jr. Prometheus
I have sent formal complaints to both NASA and my US Senators about Hansen using the trappings of his office to push his alarmist agenda and his attempt to silence the voices of the many that disagree with him.
I agree that he’s coming across as being increasingly shrill. That’s typically a sign of being under pressure.
Keep it up guys !
Jack Koenig
Your glasses must be far more powerful than mine, as I only see someone writing his opinion. Threats? Where?
We ought not allow ourselves to enter the gutter of leftwing intolerance and name-calling. Let’s keep it about science. The guy has an opinion – let him write it. In fact he’s only doing us a favour by exposing himself and his AGENDA.
Quite frankly, I’m a little astonsihed that the NASA GISS Director would waste his valuable time writing a complaint to a book publisher. That’s weird. Like he’s got nothing better to do.
I hope this wasn’t some sort of a set up.
As Anthony noted, the persistence is paying off.
Jeff, for those old enough to remember the great John Wooden-led UCLA teams of the 60’s and 70’s, Coach Wooden instilled in his players a killer instinct, a never-let-up (and never quit) attitude that won them (IIRC) 7 NCAA Championships in a row and 9 in an 11 year period. That is the kind of attitude we need to develop. They could be ahead by 40 points and the first thought when Alcindor or Walton came down with the rebound was FAST BREAK!
Of course his expression of an opinion is guaranteed by the US Constitution.
However, as an employee he does not have a right to ignore and not follow the rules of his employment as set by his employer.
Generally, and more likely always, public pronouncements in the guise of official policy of an employer must be approved before release. And actually, use of government property, such as letterhead papers, for personal use is viewed as a very unwise thing to do.
Hansen should be fired for gross misconduct. But of course that won’t happen because Bush is too scared of being seen as being a big bad big boss.
This ploy by Hansen reeks of censorship — submit, conform, obey! He is free, of course, to speak as a private citizen; however, this is not the appropriate action of a government official, addressing a private entity on government letterhead, warning of consequences faced by failure to change the message. There are no explicit, direct warnings; just the sledgehammer of a government official issuing a warning.
Hmm. the book is at
http://www.amazon.com/American-Government-Institutions-James-Wilson/dp/0618556621/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207942464&sr=1-2
and two people have already weigh in with 1 star reviews to offset the only other review from a student (5 stars).
I had hoped to fine the text at issue, but Amazon doesn’t have it. 10th edition from 2005.
James Wilson is at Pepperdine, i don’t see an Email address.
http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/academics/faculty/default.htm?faculty=james_wilson
I should be working, so that’s enough digging for now.
This blog had some interesting thoughts on this also
http://upperweather.com/bblog
I find it quite weird that FOE quotes the text this way
“But many other problems are much less clear-cut. Science doesn’t know how bad the green-house effect is.” (p. 566)
while Hansen quotes it
“Science doesn’t know if we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming, or how bad the green-house effect is.” (p. 569)
Do you think the textbook really repeats itself that closely three pages later?
Also, I think that FOE has beat us to the punch on writing our congressmen and governors to let the text stand. They have automated the process for Hansen’s supporters here
http://action.foe.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24133
It’s kind of pathetic, but alarmists look at Hansen like some “groupy” would look at a “rockstar.” They just numbingly nod their heads to whatever crap this guy comes up with. He is no doubt a “rockstar” for the AGW audience.
He has been wrong on more than one occasion.
I have a hard time believing that 350ppm is the maximum safe limit for CO2. Since 1750, man has contributed approximately 0.0087% CO2. This has NO negative effects on HUMANS, therefore has NO negative effects on the rest of our BIOSPHERE. So don’t worry, the fish will not go deaf, the frogs will not die off, and the polar bears wil not commit suicide due to trace amounts of CO2.
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com covered this yesterday. Well, not so much ‘covered’ as put it out there. Lots of comments.
I don’t have the book, but as I understand it the textbook is on the American Government, its history, and how it works. The global warming material, contrary to being a discussion of GW, was merely a section of the book dealing with how public policy is formed and the processes involved. The book took the position that the science isn’t settled. ::horrors::
The kid’s father is so proud of him ::gag:: and shows up in the comments.
(Why was I told I’m posting comments too quickly when this is the first ever comment I’ve posted here?)
“Science doesn’t know if we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming, or how bad the green-house effect is.”
But that is absolutely true, even by IPCC’s standards. The estimated sensitivity to doubling of CO2 is tought to lie between 1.5 and 4.5 degC. 1.5 would not be dangerous, 4.5 would. So, they don’t know.
ref Francois
But that is absolutely true, even by IPCC’s standards.
I didn’t know IPCC had standards.
NCPA’s audit of the IPCC
“Scientific forecasting methods should be used to project climate change. The methodologies used should be those shown empirically to be relevant to the particular types of problems involved in climate forecasting. However, the evidence shows that the IPCC forecasts are instead based on opinions.”
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308
When you teach Science, you do the students a great disservicce if you don’t shows them the nature of scientific debate. Good Science is tentative. You don’t make strong claims until evidence emerges. When new evidence emerges, paradigms change. I think even middle school students are mature enough to understand that.
asad123.wordpress.com
I guess I don’t get the problem here. The textbook here is merely repeating the GW deniers claims, and someone from the other side wants to correct them, it’s wrong, wrong, wrong? When he does, everyone wants to silence Hansen and then claim that Hansen is practicing censorship? If the textbooks had written that germ theory is just a theory – in line with the Christian Scientist’s beliefs – should scientists be allowed to criticize those textbooks, and suggest that they rewrite the be rewritten in line with the scientific consensus, would you claim that it would somehow be tantamount to censorship? Anyway, the way those textbooks were written sounds absurdly biased. I’m not going to go as far as saying they MUST be wrong, but they should bring things in line with scientific consensus – rather than reflecting the ideological views of the authors. The very question of what gets into textbooks is very political (I suggest you look at the kinds of battles that get fought over evolution). Yet, apparently, “politics” is bad when it involves someone suggesting textbooks should say GW is real, but the politics of how those biased statements got their in the first place is completely ignored.
I’m sure the oil companies would love to get this kind of language into textbooks. Heck, they already offered money to anyone who would dispute reports on GW. Are their opinions to be trusted over everyone else? Apparently so.
http://www.desmogblog.com/a-textbook-case-of-global-warming-denial-in-new-jersey
Sorry, but so much about your reporting of this story is wrong. You keep ramping up the language – like saying that Hansen’s suggestion amounts to “pressuring the textbook publisher” – so that you can cast him as the bad guy.
If Hansen would just tone it back, he could end up with history treating him like Lamark, a bit ridiculed as have missed the Natural Selection boat, but when examined in detail was a dedicated and noble scientist, and eventually very ironic for Hansen’s B#%#.
However, Hansen, unfortunately for him and the starving poor of the world, is headed in a distinctly Lysenko’ish direction.
In a more competent world, James Hansen would be a vacuum cleaner salesman. In the present postmodernist world where rationality is frowned upon by university faculty and staff, James Hansen is necessarily a superstar.
I think James is the one he’s been waiting for.
[…] NASA official writes on government letterhead to a textbook publisher to get them to change information that he doesn’t like (e.g. “scientists do not know how large the greenhouse effect is”, “global warming is enmeshed in scientific uncertainty”). […]
This isn’t just reprehensible – It’s getting downright dangerous!
I first got interested in the whole AGW farce when Hansen et al claimed that the ‘debate was over’ – anyone who knows scientific method knows that this statement is unscientific to its very core….Since then, as the actual data becomes increasingly at odds with IPCC “models”, the cries of the AGW ‘consensus’ have become increasingly shrill…..
Now, finally, I fear we’re becoming engaged in a far bigger battle against what I can only describe as Orwellian style censorship.
This week we learn that Hansen has been changing the GISS temperature record to suit his version of events. Also we see the BBC, once World reknowned for its impartiality, censoring its own reports in response to a threat from an AGW proponent.
The AGW movement has coalesced into a potential challenge to the values upon which democracy is based……and must be tackled with this in mind. Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but the censorship issues which have been revealed this week have really raised my hackles. I fear that now there is more at stake in this debate than the science of Climate change.
tfrog:
The Hanseatic League has to answer for the Aqua satellite: The positive feedback from CO2 is WRONG. That screws the whole AGW equation. There has been no answer. (We eagerly wait.)
Why did temps rise from 1980-1998? For the same reason they rose from 1920-1940: PDO/AMO ocean current cycles. Add in some exaggeration of the last heating trend due to spurious warm bias as a result of gross surface station microsite violation since 1980.
That correlates with temp. mesurements FAR better than CO2 increase.
Therfore, it is not the texbook that is wrong, but the soon-not-to-be-consensus CO2 positive feedback theory which is wrong.
Besides, we have had the upwards of a decade of flat temperatures and a 5% increase of atmospheric carbon. (PDO and AMO appear to be peaking out. It’s a 25-30 year ocean cycle)
That’s the layman’s translation without the equations.
If you have arguments that dispute this I would be glad to hear them. But the AquaSat is the key, and it only takes the data of one satellite to shoot a consensus all to hell.
Gal, Pieter, tinyfrog:
See tty’s comments at 11:18:31 in the UAH, RSS thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/uah-global-temp-anomaly-also-slightly-above-zero/#comments
You folks are granting an assumption of innocence, competence and honor that we have repeated reason and evidence to question and doubt. Spend some time at CA on GISSTemp threads!
John Warden, deadwood, et. al., are the ‘enlightened’ here.
Evan
Would you kindly provide me with a link that shows the AMO is at its peak? I could search one out myself, but hope you have something at your fingertips.
I’d be grateful.
tinyfrog,
How would feel about a PUBLIC debate between Hansen and Lindzen. I say let’s not censor one side or the other. Let the public hear both sides.
Now they want burn the books! Mike
You can go to the Goddard Space Flight Center and on the “contact us” section, e-mail a complaint to the center and query whether Hansen has exceeded his terms and conditions of employment.
AGWS:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=265&tstamp=200512
This has the best graph I’ve found. It indicates that AMO is at its peak, but still has some time to go at current levels.
I read something recently I can’t find now which said a downteurn is expected in c. 5 years (which would make the current cycle a little short, acc. to the graph.
PDO is 29 years into a 25-30 year cycle, so we can probably expect a cooling Real Soon Now. (Note that there are ups and downs within the larger cycle. We are currently headed towards cooler, acc. to this graph):
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/