Dr. James E. Hansen at Ohio State on May 1 (NASA climate scientist)

[Kolesar]

http://cwc.osu.edu/events/seminars/Hansen_Seminar.pdf


Dr. James E. Hansen at OSU on May 1

Top climate scientist at NASA, described by
CBS' 60 Minutes as "arguably the world's leading
researcher on global warming" and called by some
the "Paul Revere" of climate change will be
speaking and presenting a slideshow on:

Climate Tipping Points: The Threat to the
Planet

GENERAL LECTURE

Thursday, May 1, 2008

8:00 P.M.

Room 100 Mendenhall Laboratory

125 S. Oval Mall

Columbus, Ohio



Dr. Hansen is a member of the National Academy
of

Sciences and has received the John Heinz
Environment Award (2001),

the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle
Medal (2001), the

Dan David Prize (2007), and the Leo Szilard
Lectureship Award from

the American Physical Society (2007). He was
designated by Time

Magazine as one of the 100 most influential
people in 2006

Dr. Hansen is a member of the National Academy of

Sciences and has received the John Heinz
Environment Award (2001),

the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle
Medal (2001), the

Dan David Prize (2007), and the Leo Szilard
Lectureship Award from

the American Physical Society (2007). He was
designated by Time

Magazine as one of the 100 most influential
people in 2006.

Dr. Hansen is known for his investigation of
climate sensitivity to

both natural and human influences, his
development of GISS into one

of the top climate research laboratories, his
testimony on climate change

to congressional committees in the 1980s that
helped raise broad

awareness of the global warming issue, and his
development of an

alternative scenario for greenhouse warming that
could control climate

change. We welcome James Hansen who has been
described as “an original,

inventive and outspoken scientist … thrust into
the limelight of our

national debate over climate change,” as our
Bownocker Lecturer and

Medalist for 2008.



TECHNICAL LECTURE

“How ‘Sensitive’ is the Earth’s Climate?
Uh, oh.”

Thursday, May 1, 2008

4:00 P.M.

Room 100 Mendenhall Laboratory

125 S. Oval Mall

Columbus, Ohio



This years seminars are cosponsored

by the Climate, Water, and Carbon Program.


These lectures are free and open to the public.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------
Union of Concerned Scientists
Citizens and Scientists for Environmental
Solutions
www.ucsusa.org

NASA Reaches for Muzzle as Renowned Climate
Scientist Speaks Out
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. James E. Hansen, the top climate scientist at
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), believes that the world has little time
to waste in reversing its current trend toward
global warming. In late 2005, however, Dr.
Hansen's ability to voice his concerns about
global warming was severely compromised by NASA
public affairs officials. After he called on the
United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
in a December 2005 lecture, Dr. Hansen found that
NASA officials began reviewing and filtering
public statements and press interviews in an
effort to limit his ability (as well as that of
other government scientists) to publicly express
scientific opinions that clashed with the Bush
administration’s views on global warming.



While Dr. Hansen's scientific standing is
unquestionable—he was described by CBS' 60
Minutes as "arguably the world's leading
researcher on global warming"¹—administration
officials found some of his conclusions
politically inconvenient. In a lecture at the
December 2005 meeting of the American Geophysical
Union, Dr. Hansen argued that the earth will
become "a different planet" without U.S.
leadership in cutting global greenhouse gas
emissions.² This position conflicted with the
Bush administration's policy of opposing
mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
In January 2006, NASA publicized data showing
that 2005 was likely the warmest year in over a
century.³



In January 2006, Dr. Hansen told Andrew Revkin of
the New York Times that he was warned of "dire
consequences" if he continued to make similar
statements. Revkin reported that George Deutsch,
a public affairs officer appointed by the White
House, denied a request from National Public
Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, calling NPR the
country's "most liberal" media outlet and arguing
that his job was "to make the president look
good."4 Mr. Deutsch later resigned after it was
revealed that he had fabricated his own academic
credentials.5



Arguing that his loyalty was to NASA's mission
statement, which then read in part "to understand
and protect our home planet," Dr. Hansen refused
to be silenced. ''Communicating with the public
seems to be essential,'' the Times reported him
as saying, ''because public concern is probably
the only thing capable of overcoming the special
interests that have obfuscated the topic."6



Dr. Hansen's public stand helped to bring about
reforms of NASA's public relations policy. In
February 2006, after the widely publicized
allegations of censorship, NASA Administrator
Michael Griffin issued an agency-wide statement
clarifying that the role of public affairs
officers was not "to alter, filter or adjust
engineering or scientific material produced by
NASA's technical staff."7 This statement was
followed, on March 30, by an official new NASA
media policy, which supports principles of
openness.8



However in February 2006, the phrase "to
understand and protect our home planet" was
deleted from NASA's mission statement without any
notification to agency scientists. The
replacement mission statement, which reads "to
pioneer the future in space exploration,
scientific discovery and aeronautics research,"
represented the first time that knowledge of
Earth was not explicitly stated as part of NASA's
mission.9



Dr. Hansen pointed out that Bush administration
attempts to control scientific information on
climate change were not limited to NASA, and that
colleagues at NOAA have told him that conditions
there are, in general, much worse.10 Said Hansen,
"In my thirty-some years of experience in
government, I've never seen control to the degree
that it's occurring now. I think that it's very
harmful to the way that a democracy works. We
need to inform the public if they are to make the
right decisions and influence policy makers."11