Say Anything Blog

Sometime back Whistler opined on the problem of a politicized NASA using its good name to weigh in on so-called Global Warming, in his thread The Problem with NASA, saying among other things, that:

… not to mention the embarrassing number of times they’ve been caught relocating their thermometers on black top parking lots and above air conditioners.

with the implication being that through negligence or design, they are skewing their results.

Yet this gem that came out recently piqued my curiosity:

NASA Chief’s Global Warming Remarks Called ‘Naive’

NASA sought today to deflect criticism its chief received following skeptical comments he made on the topic of the agency’s role in global warming research.

During an interview Wednesday with NPR, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin expressed doubts that global warming was an issue that humans could or should address.

In a telephone interview today, NASA spokesman David Mould told LiveScience that climate is an important issue about which the agency provides a significant quantity of data, and that it will continue to provide that data, but that NASA’s job is not to make policies or advise on policies.

Along the same lines, NASA clarified Griffin’s remarks (corrected him, politically) in a press release issued late Wednesday:

NASA is the world’s preeminent organization in the study of Earth and the conditions that contribute to climate change and global warming. The agency is responsible for collecting data that is used by the science community and policy makers as part of an ongoing discussion regarding our planet’s evolving systems. It is NASA’s responsibility to collect, analyze and release information. It is not NASA’s mission to make policy regarding possible climate change mitigation strategies. As I stated in the NPR interview, we are proud of our role and I believe we do it well.

Griffin’s comments to NPR’s Morning Edition included: I have no doubt that global—that a trend of global warming exists. I’m not sure it’s fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with.

He further stated that it is wrong for mankind to say what climate conditions are best for the planet.

To assume that [global warming] is a problem is to assume that the state of the Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t change, he said. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown.

Second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings—where and when—are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we might have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Evidently, Griffin inadvertently let the truth slip out and committed heresy in departing from the adopted party line. The rest of the statements from NASA were attempts to get the toothpaste back into the tube.

But is this simply a matter of differences? If the French were investigating the matter, they would gravely intone cherchez les femmes However, my old FBI mentor, had a different view: follow the money.

NASA’s Hansen Mentioned in Soros Foundations Annual Report

NASA, James Hansen, and the Politicization of Science

Michael Asher (Blog) - September 26, 2007 11:04 AM

New issues swirl around controversial NASA branch

NASA’s primary climate monitoring agency is the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Operating out of a small office at Columbia University, GISS is run by Dr. James Hansen. Official NASA climate statements come through GISS ... which means they must get by Hansen. Many other scientists and agencies make climate predictions, but Hansen’s top the list for scare factor, predicting consequences considerably more dire than his colleagues.

Hansen specializes in climate “modeling”— attempting to predict future events based on computer simulations. In 1971, Hansen wrote his
first climate model, which showed the world was about to experience severe global cooling. NASA colleagues used it to warn the world that
immediate action was needed to prevent catastrophe.

Most research papers are rather dry reading, written to be as unemotional as possible. Not so with Hansen’s reports, whose works scream alarmism even in their titles: “Climate Catastrophe,” “Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb,” and “The Threat to the Planet.”

Hansen was most recently in the news when an amateur blogger discovered an error in his climate data, a mistake Hansen later discounted as unimportant to the “big picture” of compelling public action on climate change.

Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data


But who is James Hansen? Is he an impartial researcher seeking scientific truth? Or a political activist with an axe to grind?

In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA’s official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being “silenced,” despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim. While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a “constitutional right” to grant interviews. Hansen then began a barrage of public appearances on TV, radio and in lecture halls decrying the politicization of climate science.

Turns out he was right. Science was being politicized. By him.

and here it is....

A report revealed just this week, shows the ‘Open Society Institute’ funded Hansen to the tune of $720,000, carefully orchestrating his entire media campaign. OSI, a political group which spent $74 million in 2006 to “shape public policy,” is funded by billionaire George Soros, the largest backer of Kerry’s 2004 Presidential Campaign.

Soros, who once declared that “removing Bush from office was the “central focus” of his life, has also given tens of millions of dollars to MoveOn.Org and other political action groups.

Certainly Soros has a right to spend his own money. But NASA officials have a responsibility to accurate, unbiased, nonpartisan science. For
Hansen to secretly receive a large check from Soros, then begin making unsubstantiated claims about administrative influence on climate science is more than suspicious—it’s a clear conflict of interest.

(Ya thinkkkkkkk??)


But the issues don’t stop here. Hansen received an earlier $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation, an organization run by Kerry’s wife, which he followed by publicly endorsing Kerry. Hansen also acted as a paid consultant to Gore during the making of his global-warming film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and even personally promoted the film during an NYC event.

Sounds like the usual suspects: Soros, Gore, Kerry, MoveOn.org ad nauseum…

He who pays the piper calls the tune and Soros is paying the pipers and calling the tune, and it sounds an awful lot like Global Warming 24/7