An Outbreak of Censorship: When Talk of Warming Becomes Absolutely Chilling-- By Ross Gelbspan

FIDDLING WHILE THE PLANET BURNS
>From Atencion (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico)
March 3, 2006 Edition

Ross Gelbspan has been raising warnings about global warming for some time
now. He is the author of The Heat Is On (1997) and Boiling Point (2004). A
prize-winning journalist, he has reported for The Philadelphia Bulletin, The
Washington Post and The Boston Globe. On Monday, March 6 he will be
speaking in the Center for Global Justice¹s Snowbird Symposium. The talk
will be in Teatro Santa Ana at 10:30 am. Admission 50 pesos.

An Outbreak of Censorship: When talk of warming becomes absolutely chilling
By Ross Gelbspan

The accelerating pace of climate change is truly frightening -- with growing
numbers of scientists expressing concerns that we are passing a "point of no
return" which see increasingly destructive and widespread climate impacts.
Responding to the findings of scientists, many European governments are
calling for cuts in our use of coal and oil from 50 to 80 percent in the
next 40 years.

The Bush Administration, by contrast, is going after the messengers.
While big coal and big oil have spent millions on disinformation about
climate change, the Bush Administration has upped the ante by turning
industry-generated denial into a government policy of censorship.

The targets are some of the most respected climate scientists in the U.S.
Jim Hansen, a NASA researcher who first told the U.S. in 1988 that "global
warming is at hand," complained recently he is being muzzled by officials in
his own agency. His sin: suggesting that we need to act quickly to reduce
carbon emissions. As a result, NASA ordered the agency's public information
staff to review any future statements, including interviews with
journalists, by its scientists.

Ironically, that order was issued by a resume fraud, George Deutsch.
Appointed by the Bush White House, agency. Deutsch was forced to resign in
disgrace recently when it was revealed he had claimed on his resume to have
received a degree from a Texas university when, in fact, he never graduated
from the school.

Nor is the censorship limited to NASA. Similar tactics are being employed by
NOAA, (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), to silence
scientists who confirm the connection between global warming and hurricane
intensity. That research became particularly pertinent in the wake of
Katrina.

Today, NOAA scientists are no longer able to speak freely with reporters.
Instead, the agency now requires an in-house "minder" to sit in on any such
interviews to limit what scientists can say to journalists.

NASA's Hansen said recently these new policies of NASA and NOAA "seem more
like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States." NOAA
officials justified the need for "minders" in order to protect their own
scientists. Responded Hansen: "If you buy that one, please see me. . .
because there's a bridge down the street I'd like to sell you."

NOAA administrator, Conrad Lautenbacher, recently asserted: "We have no
direct link between the number of storms and intensity versus global
temperature rise." He repeated that assertion to a CBS News anchor, saying
hurricane strength is not related to greenhouse warming" -- despite three
prominent, peer-reviewed research papers to the contrary.

Donald Kennedy, editor of Science, the journal of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, declared: "There are a lot of scientists
there who know [the Administrations position on climate change] is nonsense
but they are being discouraged from talking to the press about it."
His observation was seconded by one of the country's most accomplished
climate scientists, Dr. Jerry Mahlman who headed up a major climate
laboratory at Princeton University before joining the National Center for
Atmospheric Research.

"Many scientists have become too intimidated to go public with their
findings. I know a lot of people who would love to talk to you," he told one
reporter, "but they don't dare. They are worried about getting fired," said
Mahlman.

The timing couldn't be more ominous. Around the world, we are heating the
deep oceans and melting earth's glaciers. We have reversed the carbon cycle
by 650,000 years. We loosed a wave of violent weather and we have altered
the timing of the seasons -- all because of our burning of coal and oil.

The rest of the world is beginning to address this threat by taking steps to
switch away from carbon fuels to such proven sources of clean energy as
wind, solar, tidal power and other technologies.

The Bush Administration, by contrast, is responding by stifling the voices
of science. Whether it can succeed in censoring nature is an open question.

-- Ross Gelbspan