NASA head regrets global warming remarks

[Barrett808]

Source: Associated Press

NASA head regrets global warming remarks
By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES - The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in the closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that "unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it."

"All I can really do is apologize to all you guys ... I feel badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this," he said.

...

Griffin reiterated that NASA's job was to provide scientific data on global warming and leave it up to policy makers to decide what to do with it.

Griffin told JPL workers he tried to separate his opinions during the NPR interview, but that it got "lost in the shuffle."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_on_sc/nasa_climate_change_1

[whistle]

1. Well, apology accepted, now fire the bastard!

[Duppers]

10. help the process, sign this petition

http://action.lcv.org/campaign/griffin

thanks.

[NastyDiaper]

33. /signed. nt.

[Sal Minella]

2. The "Who's to say the climate we have right now is the one we should keep forever?"

comment did me in. So he thinks we should try things out at a lot higher temp and see how we like it, I guess -- the only problem being, it will be too late to go back.

He was a total jerk in that National Public Radio interview. Acted like the interviewer shouldn't be asking questions.

[gravity]

5. He never said that we should get higher temperatures

He just said that he doesn't know what the best temperature for human beings or life should be on this planet.

You are twisting his words around and assuming that he has a political agenda behind his statement.

[Duppers]

6. why are you a Griffin apologist?

Do you work for the man? Or are you a mind reader?

Griffin is giving the whole agency a bad name.

NASA Administrator’s Global Warming Statement is Ignorant
June 5th, 2007
Last week, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told NPR that he is unsure whether global warming is “a problem we must wrestle with.”

As the world’s most renowned scientists concluded in the International Panel on Climate Change reports this year, the debate on global warming is over: global warming is occurring, humans are contributing to the problem and we need to curb the greenhouse gases that cause it.

It’s not rocket science.

That’s why Administrator Griffin’s statement that he cannot say whether global warming is a real concern is so troubling.

Administrator Griffin even went as far as to suggest that global warming could be beneficial. Griffin’s remarks are not only ignorant, but insensitive.

Jim Hansen, one of the world’s leading experts on global warming and Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told NPR that “he almost fell of his chair” when he heard Griffin’s remarks and called Griffin’s comments “remarkably uninformed.”

Another leading climate scientist, Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, called for Griffin’s resignation.

After hearing Administrator Griffin’s astonishing display of ignorance of his own agency’s research and the sheer threat global warming presents, we have reached the same conclusion.

Today, LCV launched a petition calling for Administrator Griffin’s resignation. You can view and sign the petition here.

http://blog.thehill.com/2007/06/05/nasa-administrators-global-warming-statement-is-ignorant/



and more reading for ya: http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/05/

[gravity]

8. I just don't think his statement warranted the controversy

[annabanana]

19. of course. . . the general climate conditions we evolved to

exist in are only "guidelines" for our continued existence...

We might decide that we like living submerged, for instance..

Some say that dessicated is the way to go.

[Uncle Joe]

38. I liked Don Knotts in the movie "Mr. Limpett" where he turned in to a fish,

maybe this is what Griffin had in mind.

[NastyDiaper]

32. What it didn't warrant was an audience.

Hansen's response was like mine. When I read the headline, I thought he was misquoted.

[annabanana]

18. giggle (you forgot your "sarcasm" tag). . . . n/t

[Toots]

22. He insinuated that we want to make an ideal climate to someone's own choice

What the goal is from what I have gathered is the opposite of that. Let nature do it's own thing and let humans clean up after themselves. If human activity is causing the climate to do things not intentioned by nature then those activities should be stopped or limited. That seems to be the goal of the Kyota Treaty, not as he said that certain humans want to design their own "perfect" climate. I have never heard any scientist or anyone for that matter say they want to control the climate. Have you? I have heard them say they want to control human activities that effect the climate in a way different than nature would ordinarly create. Big difference IMO. Another perfect example of how Wing nuts distort the facts.

[Sal Minella]

26. Presented with the FACT that temperatures are rising, he said we should do nothing to interfere.

I did not distort what he said.

[Morgana LaFey]

31. Here's a clue for ya

EVERYONE in this administration has a political agenda or they wouldn't BE in this administration. Period.

Secondly, it is absolutely self-evident that the climate we have had up til recently is the best one for human and other life on earth. We have NO evidence -- and isn't he a farkin' scientist after all?? -- that higher temps would be GOOD for humans or other life (except certain microbes which will love higher temps, much to humans' regret).

[gravity]

3. I accept his apology

His statement was taken out of context and twisted around to mean something completely different from what he intended.

[keopeli]

4. Typical Repub: 'I regret people misunderstood me' is NOT an apology! n/t

[Harper_is_Bush]

7. Yeah, well......the world regrets that Bush appointed another idiot to a position of importance...

it's a fucking tragedy. A REAL regret.

[dave29]

9. "this is an issue which has become far more political than technical"

He is not apologizing.

There is not a debate amongst the Scientists.

Nice try.

[gravity]

11. So there isn't a debate whether this is the best temperature for life on earth?

It's a different issue than global warming itself

[Phredicles]

13. An odd, over-simplisitc question: different temperatures are better

for different forms of life. For example, I understand that various algaes are flourishing in warmer oceans. Unfortunately for us, while the algae are having a great time, it's messing over the food chain we've come to depend on.

Perhaps a better question is: What temperatures are benficial to the life we're comfortable with? The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures really won't be very kind to us.

[gravity]

14. I agree for the most part

but there would be both benefits and costs from global warming. In reality some groups would be worst off, while other's would be better off. Scientists are forming some consensus on the drawbacks currently, but the verdict is still out there if there are going to be any benefits to global warming too.

Since most people choose to live in the best areas of the world, I think more people would be worst off unless they move to better areas(it's easier for us to do than someone in Bangladesh), but there isn't really a sure way to tell unless we build a time machine.

[Phredicles]

15. Maybe we can't tell for sure but we can freakin' GUESS.

Having a political operative at the head of a scientific agency just obscures matter, however. And I'm pretty sure this is intentional.

[Duncan]

21. Are you serious?

I guess if your house was full of fecal matter you would say there were benefits to living in it instead of cleaning it up.

[Xithras]

28. Even the IPCC admits that it will benefit many areas.

Some parts of the Earth will see increased rainfall, eliminating deserts. Some colder climates will see agricultural production grow tremendously. Canada, as an example, would see an economic explosion as many new parts of the nation open to agriculture just as agriculture was drying up in other areas of the world. Similarly, global warming will decrease the intensity of monsoons in south Asia (which are caused by a temperature/pressure differential between the Tibetan plateau and the lower lands to the south). This will reduce both flooding and erosion, saving many lives. I've even seen projections that increased oceanic evaporation may lead to increased rainfall in the Atacama desert (the worlds driest), permitting some development in what is today one of the worlds great wastelands.

Warming has good points, and bad points. For most of the world, according to the IPCC's own documents, global warming will be neither good OR bad, it will just be different. The obvious exceptions, of course, are those people living near sea level.

[Barrett808]

37. This assumes the biosphere can adapt to extremely rapid climate change

I take the position that the biosphere as we have known it is not capable of adapting gracefully to the multiple planetary-scale changes we are imposing.

We have very good evidence from the geological record that the wheels come off the biosphere when the CO2 concentration reaches about 1000 ppm. I submit that the best model to describe what will happen in the near future (~100 years) is the Permian-Triassic extinction, which happened around 250 million years ago.

A giant volcanic rift opened in what is now Siberia, and for tens of thousands of years it dumped gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The result was a globally anoxic ocean which contained only anaerobes, like purple sulfur bacteria and algae. These organisms released enormous quantities of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere, which had the effect of poisoning most life on land, and destroying the ozone layer. The resulting extinction event lasted several million years, and it was by far the worst mass extinction event the planet has faced.

Until now. We are dumping vastly larger quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere over an immensely shorter period of time. The accelerating climate change is unprecedented in the history of the planet, and I see no reason to hope that "some regions will benefit".

The catastrophe is ongoing, accelerating, and will cause immense suffering everywhere in the very near future. Extremely rapid climate change is the greatest threat, by orders of magnitude, that humanity faces.

[emmadoggy]

30. Sorry, there are FAR more consequences...

than just, "oh, we'll just move over here and start farming/living etc. It's 'nicer' over here."

This is not just an issue affecting human life - what about all the hundreds of species of plants and animals that will be affected or potentially wiped off the face of the globe by this? What about the large cities and population centers and the surrounding areas with MILLIONS of inhabitants who become homeless and jobless. Where will they go? What will they do? What will the consequences be to the economy and infrastructure? What about the wild and woolly weather with more powerful and frequent storms/tornadoes/hurricanes/droughts/floods?? What about the massive water shortages when there are no more glaciers? What about the spread of insects and diseases as climate changes? What about our oceanic food supplies dying off?

From where I stand, the costs are FAR, FAR higher than any so-called "benefits".

[MGKrebs]

17. The global warming problem isn't about "the best temperature".

We're not trying to build a theme park. It's about SURVIVABLE temperatures.
That guy tried to re-frame the question so that he could then dismiss it, but his premise is wrong.

[Phredicles]

12. "I regret that people noticed what a blatant political hack I am"

is what I'm pretty sure he meant.

[Ian David]

16. I'm going to NASA next week. During the "Ask an Astronaut" event, I'll bring this up. n/t

[annabanana]

20. Ooo Ooo. . . Report back!

It will be interesting to see if they try to sidestep the question..

[Duppers]

23. the Astronauts will have no choice but to do so

They cannot criticize their boss openly.

You must realize that Griffin does NOT represent NASA scientists, especially those calling for his resignation. No one wants to 'cover' for his man, since they like getting a paycheck. ;)

Tomorrow (Fri.) my son gets a face to face with Lisa Porter, the Deputy Director, and I joked about his asking her about her boss's 'opinion.' Too bad he cannot do that.

[RedEarth]

24. Sorry, idiot... it's too late.... it's very clear what your thoughts are

about global warming........pure politics.

[Orsino]

25. Not a retraction, but a nice enough apology.

He only regrets saying it out loud.

[progressoid]

27. "I regret that my brain is too small to comprehend scientifical stuff."

[ArbustoBuster]

29. And, of course, since he pretended to apologize, the media will now drop this.

I hate the fact that Republicans can say "I regret any misunderstandings," and get away with anything up to and including outing a CIA agent or starting an illegal war.

[yardwork]

34. "issue has become far more political than technical..."

Gee, I wonder how his words could have been construed to be political? /sarcasm

[gtar100]

35. Regret for the flak, but not about being dead wrong???

Regret happens when your "personal beliefs" fly in the face of facts.

[twiceshy]

36. Where I am sitting was once under a mile of ice...

I'm kinda glad the climate changed. Who's to say this is the ideal - I agree with him.