James Hansen's Damning Remarks On NOAA And NASA Censorship

[hatrack]

New York -- James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling researchers who study global warming.

Hansen, speaking on a panel about science and the environment to a packed audience at the New School university, said that while he hopes his own agency will soon adopt a more open policy, NOAA insists on having "a minder" monitor its scientists when they discuss findings with journalists. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said Hansen, prompting a round of applause. He added that while NOAA officials said they maintain the policy for their scientists' "protection, if you buy that one please see me at the break, because there's a bridge down the street I'd like to sell you."

NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher denied Hansen's charges, saying his agency requires its scientists to tell its press office about contacts with journalists but does not monitor their communications. "My policy since I've been here is to have a free and open organization," Lautenbacher said.

Hansen prefaced his speech, which focused largely on how quickly humans must act in order to prevent irreversible climate change, by saying he was speaking as an individual: "I'm not speaking for the agency or the government." After the panel discussion -- which also featured Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer, Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute and Stanford University's Paul Ehrlich -- Hansen said he knows of NOAA scientists who are chafing at the administration's restrictions but are afraid to speak out.

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/11/MNGSOH6PNL1.DTL

[electron_blue]

1. Gee, how long til the US experiences a brain drain,

where the top scientists leave the US to avoid censorship and persecution.

[Angry Girl]

2. Already happened/happening...

Stem cell policies here forced most of the best and brightest researchers here to other countries so that they could continue ground-breaking work. I don't know the figures but it's been bad enough that it was in the headlines a couple of years ago.

NSF funding has been cut. And cut. And cut.

The following stats are from America's Brain Drain Crisis article in the Dec 2005 Reader's Digest (nasty little conservative magazine but it's a good article):

- Fewer kids here are going into the hard sciences, with only 17% of U.S. undergrad degrees (compare this to China, where 56% of their undergrads major in the hard sciences)

- Less than 6% of U.S. high school seniors plan on an engineering degree, down from 36% 10 years ago.

- Scientists and egineers make up less than 5% of the u.S. population but create up to 50% of the Gross Domestic Product.

- Most of China's government's top ministers have science degrees - here we have nothing but lawyers.

- In a 2003 scientific literacy survey, the U.S was 24th out of 40 industrialized countries, tying with Latvia. In math the U.S was 24th out of 28 industrialized countries.

- According to Nobel laureate Richard Smaller of Rice University, if present trends continue (and they are likely to worsen, IMHO), by 2010 90% of all the worlds scientists and engineers will be living in Asia.

[NNadir]

5. I certainly feel science is devalued here. n/t

[megatherium]

9. You mean people here at DU devalue science?

Gosh!

But not as much as they do in FreeRepublic.com. There you'll find people questioning the dangers of not just environmental tobacco smoke, but of smoking itself; you'll endless posts not just defending intelligent design but young-earth creationism (but to FR's credit, they have some very good pro-evolution partisans joining the debates). And you'll find many a thread mocking global warming.

[NNadir]

10. No. I meant in the United States.

Ours is a culture of MBA's in the US.

DU in general has an excellent respect for science. I know of a few people who treat science with contempt, but I've had many very good scientific discussions here.

I phrased my sentence badly.

[megatherium]

11. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I thought you had in mind certain sparring partners of yours in Environment/Energy. For my own part, I am occasionally irritated by alternative medicine enthusiasts and AIDS conspiracy theorists who sometimes push their agendas on DU.

But you are certainly right about the US. The level of ignorance about science (indeed about many subjects, such as history) here is sometimes completely disheartening, and people often have a smug attitude about it, as if no one should expect them to learn anything of value. So people who don't know a thing about biology can carry on with such conviction against evolution, and even "well-educated" columnists can doubt global warming in print.

[NNadir]

12. No problem. I can easily see how you could interpret my remarks that way

There are definitely a few people for whom I have very little scientific respect here at DU. That's not a secret.

There are also many first rate thinkers at DU too, which is really not surprising. I've learned quite a bit from them.

But the most serious risk to the United States is the cultural devaluation of science that has taken place over the last few decades, the decline going into overdrive after 2001. This has very serious implications for the economic and intellectual future of our country.

[phantom power]

3. Did you hear that students are starting to turn down MIT in favor of...

universities at foreign countries?

They're turning down fucking Massachussetts Institute of Technology. Not so long ago, MIT was like the center of the science/technology universe. 20 years ago, I doubt that any young scientist on planet earth would have turned down an acceptance there.

[electron_blue]

4. who is turning down MIT? Do you have a link?

[phantom power]

6. Found it...

The physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepted only 25 graduate students this year, down from 50 in years past. Several job candidates turned down the prestigious school for work in other countries where science funding is considered more stable. And two MIT contracts with NASA -- that PhD candidates rely on to pay for their work -- were trimmed by 91 percent.

(...)

Last year, two researchers turned down job offers from MIT's physics department and went to work instead in Europe, where funding is less of a struggle.

''It was quite striking," said Marc Kastner, who heads the department. ''It used to be that a position at MIT was the best in the world, and now people are turning us down."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/01/23/young_scientists_hit_the_hardest_as_us_funding_falls/

[electron_blue]

7. great, thanks. I find this very interesting

and useful (as someone working out their career plans...)

[megatherium]

8. This is outrageous. They should have the same rights as tenured faculty

at universities -- freedom of inquiry, freedom of debate. Freedom to advance intellectual ideas or theories without interference from the establishment or special interests. (Don't you just love it when politicians and other paid shills from the carbon industry refer to environmentists as "special interests"?)