Several former top NASA executives and scientists, including Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle managers and astronauts, are accusing the agency of sloppy and imprecise science in promoting global warming alarms and are also charging NASA’s chief scientist with hypocrisy for warning of a climate change catastrophe.
“We are not trying to stifle discourse, but undisciplined commentary, lacking in precision, is wholly inappropriate when NASA’s name and reputation is attached,” said 41 former NASA officials in a letter to agency boss Charles Bolden.
At issue is NASA’s history of talking up the potential disaster from global warming. The same group recently accused the agency of using public statements and the NASA website to side with climate change alarmists. NASA’s chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, responded that the agency wasn’t promoting global warming, just helping in the research.
But then he recently told a Senate hearing that the coastlines will be flooded, and lives potentially lost because climate change will likely raise sea levels by 0.2 meters to 2 meters, based on “commonly considered” warming scenarios.
It’s very sad that these ex-NASA people have sold out and exchanged reason for political rhetoric. Objecting to the science because you don’t like what it tells you is perhaps understandable in a way, but it’s definitely irresponsible and highly immoral, considering what’s at stake.
“…considering what’s at stake.”
Why not just spell it out. Sound the alarm. The sky will fall on us. Like your namesake and other government-supported scientists, you are ignoring the power of the sun and other not well understood factors. The “settled science” of global warming has become a religion, cloaked in “high morality and responsibility”.
It’s largely by studying the response of climate to natural forcings that we know what to expect from anthropogenic forcings. Don’t forget that human activity is now the dominant influence on global climate.
Remove the “ex-” from the above and you’ll get it right.
it’s great that these ex nasa people are taking NASA to task over what is becoming, thankfully, a more debated science,
After all, Russia’s most prestigious science institution is saying we are moving into a cooling stage.
There is only one reason that NASA (Hansen) won’t release the data. It must be a fraud! Why wouldn’t you want to prove your thesis? Why wouldn’t you want to the world to understand the truth? The same is true of Mann and Jones. If they have real valid scientific data there can be no argument. If they don’t, they just might be charged under RICO! And that could take down Gore and Obama as well and maybe the entire National Democrat Party as that is the organization promoting bad data. And also the mainstream news media. People could begin suing the New York Times! No wonder the truth must stay hidden even though the taxpayer paid for the research.
All research notebooks and equipment should be made public. As long as NASA hides its raw data, no reasonable person should believe them.
NASA has gone downhill. Not only in their science, but in other areas.
Don’t go to the space museum. It’s embarrassing to walk through and count the spelling and grammar mistakes on each poster.
The former employees are having a hard time finding employment because their quality of work does not measure up to industry-trained researchers and engineers.
It’s sad. NASA was the home of demigods, now, merely politicians.
Fifteen thousand years ago, a relatively short geologic period, glaciers extended as far south as Akron, Ohio. They receded without human intervention. The middle ages was also a pronounced period of global warming. The earth’s climate goes through cycles of heating and cooling with minimal involvement by mankind. The sun’s energy is not constant. It varies and the climate varies accordingly. The United States can sacrifice our entire industrial capacity to the global warming alarmists and make no significant effect on the climate. As a retired NASA scientific project manager, I assure you that NASA approves study grants on preconceived assumptions and denies those grants that challenge those assumptions. NASA peaked out with the Apollo moon program and has been in steady decline since..