Inspector General: NASA Distorted Climate Data

[babylonsister]

Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds
Appointees in NASA Press Office Blamed

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 3, 2008; Page A02



An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.

The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.

James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government's lead agencies on climate change issues.

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, 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." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/02/AR2008060202698.html?nav=rss_politics

[Mist]

1. Wasn't it NASA that had a 23-year-old snot-nose, with NO scientific

background, who told scientists twice his age what to put in their reports? Seems I remember that story.

[countryjake]

2. Violated the public's trust...now what are these senators gonna do about it?

And has NASA removed these political operatives from their payroll?

Too bad this will not make any headlines today.


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