“Shut yer mouth”
Bookworm on Mar 20 2007 at 7:59 am | Filed under: Climate change, Government
One of the things that irritates and amuses me in equal parts is the Left’s habit of crying “censorship” whenever someone disagrees with them. They deliberately (I think) confuse the distinction between government acts shutting down debate and mere disapprobation. Nothing shows the difference more clearly than this story about the climate “scientist” who testified before Congress that the Bush administration was muzzling him because his views about global warming:
A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he’d done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years.
James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn’t want his message to get out.
But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced.
“We have over 1,400 opportunities that you’ve availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.
Mr. Hansen responded: “For the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line.”
So, despite 1,400 points of intersection between himself and the media, Mr. Hansen believes he was muzzled because he didn’t get to go on NPR. Wow, the tears are streaming down my cheeks even as I think about the suffering he must have experienced. Never mind that, in the real world, if you work for a company, you tow the company line. And in the real world, if you don’t like the company line, you leave the company.
In any event, this was a far cry from true government repression, of the type you see in, say, Egypt, where criticizing the government means torture and imprisonment. In the marketplace of ideas, he’s too lazy or unconvinced by his own rightness to even bother speaking up.
Hat tip: Drudge
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17 Responses to ““Shut yer mouth””
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Those should be 1,400 interviews for jobs. Starting now.
In the real world you actually show up for work now and then, too. If those interviews required shooting a day to get to, get organized, sound checks, lighting, makeup, etc., etc.; then this guy hasn’t been in the office for five and half years.
“In any event, this was a far cry from true government repression,. . .”
What, you mean like Clinton using the IRS audit as a tool to silence opponents?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45138
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14675
p.s., from ymarsakar’s comment here (with which I completely agree), I realize I may have misinterpreted something he wrote in another post. If so, I appologize..
Politicos rewrote the science, and Bookworm’s ignorant on human-forced global chance. Looks like the politicos accomplished their mission. As Hansen testified:
“I believe that the nature of these edits is a good part of the reason for why there is a substantial gap between the understanding of global warming by the relevant scientific community and the knowledge of the public and policymakers,”
There are some problems with Hansen - say, a few dozen - not least of which is that he is NOT the expert in this area. The world-recognized US experts are Roy Spencer and Fred Singer, neither of whom, incidentally, agree with Hansen. In his wildest dreams Hansen is about half as well regarded as either of them. (Internationally you’d be looking at Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at Cook University in Australia; Tim Ball, University of Winnipeg; Tim Patterson, Carleton University; Boris Winterhalter, Geological Survey of Finland and University of Helsinki; and Dick Morgan, University of Exeter and former advisor to the World Meteorological organization. Add in Wibjorn Karlen of Sweden, Neville Nichols and Bjarne Andressen. These are the top guys in the world. You know: people who might actually know something about it. They recognize Spencer and Singer as being among their number: Hansen is not.)
They also, like Spencer and Singer, do not agree with Hansen. Or with Al Gore.
Speaking of the politics interfering, I found one of the fascinating aspects about this show being put on today was that Hansen was holding forth at the podium late morning, in front of all the gathered press. They had to call Spencer - couldn’t avoid it, since he’s the brightest bulb in the room - but they called him as the last witness of the day, right before closing, long after the media had gone home. Funny about that.
So he blew holes through Hansen largely unheard, and, I would suspect (ah, those pesky politics!) his testimony will - by sheerest coincidence! - remain mostly unreported.
Spencer also worked for NASA, during which time he did what the government asked, and has always asked: he didn’t spend more time reporting to the press than he did reporting to his bosses. They got his reports first, they didn’t read it in the papers before hearing about it. That confidentiality requirement has been in place at NASA only since about 1965. One of the reasons Hansen is widely thought of as poorly as he is, is that he routinely ignores that rule, and puts his face in front of a camera almost as often as Chuck Schumer does. 1,400 times, is it?
Spencer, being an honorable guy, worked for the people paying him while employed by NASA and didn’t say anything public until he was in the private sector, and free to do so.
And speaking of editing - which Hansen, I guess, only likes when he does it - the AP story by Seth Borenstein about the findings of the IPCC 4th Assessment Working Group 1 (AP, 2/1) was pretty comprehensively disagreed wtih by the aforementioned Neville Nicholls. This is interesting chiefly because Nicholls was the guy who wrote the report. He says:
“I was disappointed because after more than two years carefully analyzing the literature on possible links between tropical cyclones and global warming that even before the report was approved it was being MISreported and MISrepresented. We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of the coin at the present state of the science - but the premature reports suggested that we were asserting the existence of much stronger evidence.”
Listen to people who know something. A group that includes neither Hansen nor Gore.
p.s., from ymarsakar’s comment here (with which I completely agree), I realize I may have misinterpreted something he wrote in another post. If so, I appologize..
Comment by yonason | March 20, 2007
Thanks for being upfront about it.
Roy Spencer is a creationist who is often taken to task for his “vivid” misrepresentation of fact (scientific and otherwise), along with his “selective” analyses.
Fred Singer’s research at UVA was paid for by the oil industry. His views are simply marginal.
Neither Spencer nor Singer contribute in a meaningful way to the science or popularization of global-change.
oh, but wait, I must add that what Spencer and Singer to very well is to fan the flames of ignorance that our Book — and others here — breath deeply. Your inability to think shows for it, which of course is why I enjoy this blog so much. It’s a thrill to see smart people work so very hard to at making themselves stupid.
Greg, insults really are not substitute for reasoned debate. The fact is (and this is a fact) that there is a lot of debate about the causes of global warming. To accept as true (which I do) that there is global warming is not the same as buying into the belief that it’s entirely due to human causes. Even the NYTimes is urging its acolytes to cool their jets, as their increasingly unreasoned screeds are harming more than helping. Nor does it help when we discover that the movement’s high priest is an energy hog burning fuels at levels unparalleled by most Americans, and then trying to buy his way out of his own sin (in a way that ensures a return to his own pocket). And, as I’ve always said, the real problem isn’t here, but abroad, in China and India (a view recently confirmed by a major scientific report. The most useful thing we can do is to figure out an affordable technology, not for us, but for them. Until them, I’m unimpressed by the screaming going on, since it serves no purpose but to frighten people. So, when a government employee starts whining during his 1,401st interview that no one is listening to him, pardon me if I don’t bring out the violin.
Oddly enough Greg, and I’ve yet to see you ever cite anything, most of the genuine scientists in the world seem to regard Spencer and Singer quite highly.
And considerably less than a tenth of Fred Singer’s years at UVA were “paid for” by anyone in the oil industry. Like Al Gore, or Teddy Kennedy, both of whom figure largely in that industry.
Pssssst … Sorry Book, the”debate” on human-forced global chance is a conservative (ignorance-embracing, partisan) pipedream. You slept through the Gore movie. Purchase the IPCC report and read it.
and do not ever try to position yourself on the high road. You sacrificed that option a long time ago.
No JJ. Your assertions about those two are false.
It is amusing that a believer of human induced climate change would cry about being told to adhere to the rules of the organization he works for. But then, if it hurts the Bush Administration, of course, any behavior is permitted and required. Actually, the demeaning comments heard nationally and in this string about people who do not consider the theory of human induced global warming as fact indicate an improvement in the debate. It implies that the true believers in human induced global warming are realizing they are beginning to loose.
Al
Psst - sorry, Greg, nobody on the planet can purchase the IPCC report quite yet, it hasn’t been released. Speaking of blithering ignorance.
No, Greg: my assertions about those two are accurate. Things are not so simply because you would have them so, or think they’re so, and plenty of us here cite evidence in support of positions. You don’t.
Singer has been paid by oil companies, so he is therefore no good. Well, Mr. James Hansen has taken a $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation, controlled by the winsome Theresa. Hansen was also a loudmouthed supporter of Kerry - which I guess for a quarter million some people might be. (Wouldn’t be enough to buy me, probably suffices for him.) So I’ll assert that on the identical grounds, he’s no good either. (Except that Singer is an actual scientist, Hansen’s a bureaucrat.)
Hansen’s out there charging that he’s being silenced - well: anyone who does 1400 interviews and then claims that he’s being silenced… draw your own conclusion. “Full of s**t” mnight be a phrase that occurs to you.
Hansen is a bureaucrat who runs a government department. Spencer and Singer are scientists.
And, by the way - you can’t even get your calumnies straight - Spencer’s thirty years of reasearch led him (in 2005) to embrace the idea of intelligent design - not creationism. There is a difference. And what he concluded in 2005 invalidates the previous thirty years of work? I don’t think so.
The surest sign that they are losing the competition of ideas is when they start trash-talking their opponents, JJ. Keep it up…it’s fun to watch them unravel.
[...] current accusation, which falls apart by his own admission. As a further example, one of the “muzzled” scientists gave more than a thousand interviews about his opinions while on the job. In addition, although I [...]
[...] current accusation, which falls apart by his own admission. As a further example, one of the “muzzled” scientists gave more than a thousand interviews about his opinions while on the job. In addition, although I [...]