Subverting Science

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/opinion/01mon3.html?th

 

October 31, 2004

EDITORIAL

 

 

Subverting Science

 

The Bush administration's well-deserved reputation for tailoring

scientific information to fit its political agenda was reinforced last

week when James Hansen, the government's pre-eminent climatologist,

said that he had been instructed by Sean O'Keefe, administrator of the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not to discuss publicly

the human contribution to global warming. The charge came as part of a

broader indictment, delivered in a speech in Iowa, of the

administration's refusal to confront the consequences of climate

change or to do anything meaningful about reducing the industrial

emissions that contribute to it.

 

NASA officials said that Mr. O'Keefe had no similar recollection and

that Dr. Hansen may have misinterpreted a cautionary comment about the

complexity of the issue as a direct order not to discuss it. But this

administration has a depressing history of discouraging robust

discourse on climate change. In 2002 and 2003, the White House

censored reports from the Environmental Protection Agency discussing

the risks of warming and linking it to human activity. A recent

article by Andrew Revkin of The Times suggests that the selective use

of evidence to suit predetermined policy goals began even earlier. In

March 2001, for example, the White House chose a single, narrow

economic analysis to help President Bush build his case that

regulating greenhouse gas emissions, as required by the 1997 Kyoto

Protocol on global climate change, would inflict unacceptable damage

on the American economy. Meanwhile, other studies drawing more

optimistic conclusions about industry's ability to limit emissions

were swept under the rug.

 

The net result is that while most of the industrialized world has

ratified the Kyoto agreement, and committed itself in general terms to

mandatory cuts of carbon emissions, America is saddled with a passive

strategy of further research and voluntary reductions.

 

Dr. Hansen said he knew he was risking his credibility and possibly

his job by criticizing Mr. Bush in the final days of the campaign, but

had decided - properly so, in our view - that the risks of silence

were greater.

 

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