[Mb-civic] SUPER READ: Muffled warnings on global warming - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  Muffled warnings on global warming

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  February 4, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

THE BURNING issue was the thin ice encrusted on the boulders. The rocks 
were half-submerged in a small stream at the foot of the White Mountains 
in Maine. Ribbons of water swirled around them, propelled by two days of 
nonstop rain.

That was the first problem. It was mid-January. In northern New England, 
the rain usually would have been a foot of snow. The boulders would have 
been smothered into giant marshmallows. This aberration was amplified by 
the seductive warmth in Boston. For the first time in about a quarter 
century of Januarys, I jogged around the Charles River on consecutive 
weekends in shorts. The only true blast of winter I have felt this 
season was with my Scouts, snowshoeing in the White Mountains to 2,700 feet.

The coup de ice came at the end of January when NASA's chief climate 
scientist, James Hansen, said Bush administration minions were muffling 
his warnings on global warming. Hansen said officials at the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration in recent months have canceled or 
rejected interview requests for him and appointed monitors for approved 
interviews. He reportedly was ordered last fall to remove preliminary 
information from the Internet that said last year might be the warmest 
year on record. Last week, NASA announced that 2005 was indeed the 
warmest on record.

''In my three decades in government, I've never seen control of 
communications to the public so constrained," Hansen said over the phone 
this week. ''Communications from government scientists have never been 
so constrained."

Hansen, 63, said NASA, which denies any censorship, seemed particularly 
petrified by a December speech he gave in San Francisco before other 
earth and space scientists. He said of the nation's stonewalling on 
climate change, ''It seems to me that special interests have been a 
roadblock wielding undue influence over policymakers. The special 
interests seek to maintain short-term profits with little regard to 
either the long-term impact on the planet that will be inherited by our 
children and grandchildren or the long-term economic well-being of our 
country."

Hansen said ''business as usual" will lead to a ''different planet." The 
temperature will rise about 5 degrees Fahrenheit over this century to a 
warmth not seen for 3 million years, a time when sea levels were eight 
stories higher than today. The human-induced melting of polar ice could 
bring those eight stories of water back in mere centuries, not a more 
natural timing of many thousands of years.

Hansen said we can beat the tipping point for runaway change if the 
United States leads global efforts to limit or eliminate greenhouse 
gases and pollutants. There is no margin for business as usual. ''We 
can't afford to wait another 10 years," he said.

It appears we will lose more time. In his State of the Union address, 
Bush said, ''America is addicted to oil," but did not mention the top 
first step environmentalists and scientists say the United States must 
take to fight global warming -- higher fuel efficiency for cars. He said 
he wanted to support more math and science for schoolchildren and more 
research in the physical sciences.

But if his minions ignore and stifle the best scientists we have today, 
there is no point.

In the early days of the Bush administration, Hansen's credentials 
earned him two invitations to address Vice President Dick Cheney's 
secretive, industry-packed energy task force. He spoke two years ago to 
US auto executives at ExxonMobil headquarters.

The White House went on to urge energy drilling at all costs. Auto execs 
rebuffed Hansen on fuel efficiency by saying they only give consumers 
what they want. ''After the meeting, I watched TV and saw all these ads, 
with cars on top of mountain peaks and fantastic vistas of the American 
West," Hansen said. ''It's like the cigarette ads that use sex to sell. 
All the average person does with an SUV is commute to work or the store. 
They're creating a market they claim the public is demanding."

Listening to Hansen, it was clear he will continue to speak out for 
science despite the special interests. He said the last time he checked, 
democracy only works when the public is well informed. ''For instance, 
they're using the economy as the reason not to consider taking action," 
Hansen said. ''I've been chastised for being a scientist saying we are 
damaging the economy in the long run. But you need to look at the broad 
problem. I think I'm free to do so and free to have my opinion."

The melting polar ice and the thin ice cap on the river boulder in Maine 
wait for America to listen to the right opinion. The ice cube is the new 
canary warning of doom. If we do not listen, it will melt in one place, 
and drown us in another.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/04/muffled_warnings_on_global_warming/
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