I’ve got to hand it Dr. James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan. He’s a brave man with a powerful message…who Karl Rove will probably destroy by the end of the week.
Hansen, a top climate expert at NASA, has been trying to convince the White House for years to take global warming seriously. He’s even briefed Dick Cheney twice. As they do to all experts who give them information they don’t like, White House officials ignored Hansen and continued to pursue reckless environmental policies.
Worse, a senior administration official told Hansen last year not to discuss the dangerous consequences of rising temperatures. Hansen’s had it; he’s speaking out.
In a lecture at the University of Iowa tonight, Hansen will put his job on the line by telling the public what he’s seen: an administration that has ignored the evidence.
Many academic scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates, have been criticizing the administration over its handling of climate change and other complex scientific issues. But Dr. Hansen, first in an interview with The New York Times a week ago and again in his planned lecture today, is the only leading scientist to speak out so publicly while still in the employ of the government.
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In a draft of the talk, a copy of which Dr. Hansen provided to The Times yesterday, he wrote that President Bush’s climate policy, which puts off consideration of binding cuts in such emissions until 2012, was likely to be too little too late.
Actions to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions “are not only feasible but make sense for other reasons, including our economic well-being and national security,” Dr. Hansen wrote. “Delay of another decade, I argue, is a colossal risk.”
Good for him. Hansen may end up with a horse head in his bed tomorrow morning, but he’s taking a stand for all of our benefit.
Dr. Hansen, 63, acknowledged that he imperiled his credibility and perhaps his job by criticizing Mr. Bush’s policies in the final days of a tight presidential campaign. He said he decided to speak out after months of deliberation because he was convinced the country needed to change course on climate policy.