Inspector General Report Confirms Distortion of Climate Science at NASA
Senior political appointees in NASA’s public affairs office inhibited the release of scientific evidence of global warming, according to a NASA Inspector General report (pdf) released yesterday. The report confirms censorship claims made by top NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen in 2006.
As The Washington Post reported this morning, the report said that from 2004 to 2006, NASA’s public affairs office “managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.”
The report goes on to say that “news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution. Some scientists claimed to have self-censored; others simply gave up. Worse, trust was lost, at least temporarily, between an Agency and some of its key employees and perhaps the public it serves.”
A 2006 New York Times article revealed that political appointees directed public affairs officials at NASA to focus the Agency’s public message on eventual trips to the Moon and Mars, stymieing efforts to release findings related to climate change.
According to yesterday’s NASA IG report, Bush-appointed NASA public affairs officials deny any wrongdoing, “claiming that many of the proposed news releases were poorly written or too technical in nature for meaningful broad public dissemination.” So they weren’t censoring the public from information so much as saving the public from boring information.
Fourteen senators requested the IG report after Hansen and other NASA scientists received national attention for their complaints about censorship in 2006.
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3 comments
Stephan Dore
June 13, 2008, 10:02 a.m.
Mr. Sapien,
I understand that a scientist was denied authorization to participate in a media briefing or interview, in contravention to the agreement they have at NASA, but this article’s title doesn’t accurately reflect the conclusion of the report produced by the inspector, in my humble opinion.
Stephan Dore
Quebec City
hartman_john
June 24, 2008, 10:36 p.m.
“...inhibited the release of scientific evidence of global warming.”
What exactly did the inhibitor do? Did he twist arms? Did he Indian Leg Wrestle the scientists? Were the Scientists so frightened at the possibility that they might lose their jobs and the resulting pension plan that they decided they were unable to prevent themselves from being inhibited?
ProPublica should call it what it was - government managers went out of their way to browbeat and threaten credible scientists in order to continue foisting the head-in-the-sand mythology coming out of Washington, DC. Stop pussyfooting and call a spade a spade.
Ray DeRusse
Feb. 21, 2009, 6:56 p.m.
They sure did. Since NASA is so beholden to the military establishment for it and their justification, they have to act accordingly. Oftentimes this involves manipulating the scientific record or certain discoveries for agency benefit. In 2002 I was asked to examine a supposed lunar meteorite sample found by a Dr. Ninninger in Canada that dates to 1965. Here it is in 2002 and I was able to successfully identify the sample using a unique superimposition method with other known samples. They could have done this themselves but the Apollo program was in full swing so it made no sense to upset the “reason” for the Apollo program which was “to go get lunar samples for study”. Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first seek to deceive.
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
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