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• Wednesday, July 2, 2008 04:14 PM

  On Hansen

  Monday, James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), addressed Congress and brought a new twist to his tired global warming song and dance routine. Hansen now seems to be calling for the chief executives of Big Oil to be tried for high crimes against humanity. Their crime? Spreading doubt about global warming.

  Actually, it is Hansen who is guilty. Guilty of abusing the public trust.

  James Hansen is the recognized international arbiter of the global temperature record-past, present and future. Armed with a network of thermometers, state-of-the-art satellites, computers and a huge chunk of NASA's near $18 billion budget, Hansen is the man who is deemed the final authority on Al Gore's constant claim that "the earth has a fever."

  All this despite the fact that GISS' own data clearly illustrates that the Earth's temperature has been flat since 1998 and recently has been dipping downward. Hansen's shenanigans on Capital Hill are not about climate-they are about money.

  As is the case with all government agencies, maintaining a budget is critical. The bureaucrats at NASA boast of their obvious needs for cash: completion of the International Space Station, furthering the Space Shuttle Program, and, of course, preventing the world from spontaneously combusting in a ball of flames. Hansen is a zealous promoter of the latter, and, since the 1980s, has been able to keep the funds flowing-both into NASA, as well as into his personal pocket-to study the world's climate. A slick marketer, Hansen possesses an insatiable appetite for media attention -- as long as the person asking questions is favorable to his point of view.

  In 2007, Hansen agreed to an interview conducted on a rooftop in downtown San Francisco with a counterculture, internet-based outfit called TUC Radio (TUC is an acronym for "Time of Useful Consciousness"-the time between the onset of oxygen deficiency and the loss of consciousness"). During the interview Hansen hardly sounded like an honorable director of a U.S. government agency, but rather more like an underground community agitator:

  "I tell young people that they had better start to act up. Because they are the ones that will suffer the most. Many of the changes will take time, but we're setting them in motion now. We're leaving a situation for our children and grandchildren which is not of their making, but they're going to suffer because of it. So I think they should start to act up and put some pressure on their elders, and on legislatures, and begin to get some action."

  I assume that prior to the interview, Hansen made it clear that all his comments were his own and not representative of NASA. That is a line he uses from time to time to appear as pure as the wind driven snow. But the truth is, Hansen a proclivitiy for popping off at the mouth.

  Early in 2006, a major story in the New York Times pointed a finger at the Bush Administration for supposedly trying to censor Hanson. In part, it read:

  The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

  The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

  Can you blame the administration for wanting to review his content? As a NASA Director, his role should be collecting data and truthfully sharing results, not trying to influence policy and legislation.

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  Congressman Darryl Issa (R-San Diego) called Hansen on his continual talking out of turn. During a hearing on Capitol Hill regarding his abuse of his government status, Issa said, "You're speaking on federal paid time. Your employer happens to be the American taxpayer." Issa went on to say that an internet search showed Hansen had had stated on more than 1,400 occasions in over a year's worth of interviews and appearances (15 interviews alone in the month that the congressional hearings were taking place) that the Bush Administration had censored him.

  According to the Associated Press:

  "Hansen said...as a matter of free speech, government scientists should not be restrained in their remarks or have public affairs officers listening in on interviews."

  I agree with Congressman Issa. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to use their job as a soapbox; nor should they be allowed to receive huge sums of cash for work they have conducted on the taxpayer's dime, from private, liberal interests with a global warming agenda.

  —Brute. Read Brute.'s other letters
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