Readers of this blog or the NY Times already know how much trouble James Hansen has had recently trying to talk in public about global warming under the Bush administration, but last night "60 Minutes" retold the story of James Hansen’s muzzling for a television audience, and well, calling it "Rewriting the Science."
Hansen told reporter Scott Pelley:
"In my more than three decades in the government I’ve never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public."
Hansen pointed to e-mail he received from NASA in 2004, talking about "a new review process" that would look at all "climate related press releases" before they went out. The story says that NASA "let" Pelley sit down with Hansen, but only with "a NASA representative taping the interview."
"I object to the fact that I’m not able to freely communicate via the media," says Hansen. "National Public Radio wanted to interview me and they were told they would need to interview someone at NASA headquarters and the comment was made that they didn’t want Jim Hansen going on the most liberal media in America. So I don’t think that kind of decision should be made on that kind of basis. I think we should be able to communicate the science."
Hansen spoke out against the deliberate attempt to inflate ambiguity a year and a half ago in a talk at the University of Iowa, saying of the Bush Administration:
"I find a willingness to listen only to those portions of scientific results that fit predetermined inflexible positions. This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disaster."
Kit Stolz 