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NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist Stirs Controversy With Call for Civil Disobedience
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Fox News
NASA’s chief climate scientist is in hot water with colleagues and at least one lawmaker after calling on citizens to engage in civil disobedience at what is being billed as the largest public protest of global warming ever in the United States.
In a video on capitolclimateaction.org, Dr. James Hansen is seen urging Americans to “take a stand on global warming” during the March 2 protest at the Capitol Power Plant in Southeast Washington, D.C.
“We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet,” says Hansen, who has likened coal-fired power plants to “factories of death” and claims he was muzzled by the Bush administration when he warned of drastic climate changes.
“What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet. The only practical way to solve the problem is to phase out the biggest source of carbon — and that’s coal.”
But critics say Hansen’s latest call to action blurs the line between astronomer and activist and may violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity.
“Oh my goodness,” one of Hansen’s former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, told FOXNews.com when informed of the video. “I’m not surprised … The fact that Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here is sad because he’s a good fellow.”
Theon, a former senior NASA atmospheric scientist, rebuked Hansen last month in a letter to the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, saying Hansen had violated NASA’s official position on climate forecasting without sufficient evidence and embarrassed the agency by airing his claims before Congress in 1988.
“Why he has not been fired I do not understand,” Theon said. “As a civil servant, you can’t participate in calling for a public demonstration. You may be able to participate as a private citizen, but when you go on the Internet and call for people to break the law, that’s a problem.”
Officials at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates possible Hatch Act violations, disagreed, saying Hansen is in the clear since it’s an “issue-oriented activity,” according to Hatch Unit attorney Erica Stern Hamrick.
The majority of federal government employees are allowed to take an active part in political activities, while workers at other departments like the FBI, Secret Service and National Security Council are subject to more restrictions on their political activities.
NASA spokesman Mark Hess also defended Hansen.
“He’s doing this as a private citizen on his own time and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Hess told FOXNews.com. “There’s nothing partisan here. You don’t give up your rights to free speech by becoming a government employee.”
Matt Leonard, a project coordinator for Greenpeace, one of more than 90 organizations endorsing the protest, said several thousand people are expected to participate and “peacefully disrupt operations” at the plant just blocks from Capitol Hill.
Participants are willing to “put their bodies on the line to stop climate change,” including risking arrest, Leonard said.
“Our intention is to completely surround the facility, basically sending a message that these types of power plants can’t be a part of our future,” Leonard said. “They’re destroying our environment.”
Hansen will be in attendance and is expected to speak at the “completely nonviolent, peaceful” protest, Leonard said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., urged Hansen to rethink his plans.
“If he wants to have a demonstration concerning global warming, coming to the Capitol is not a right choice,” Rohrabacher told FOXNews.com. “The bottom line is if Hansen wants to protest global warming, he should go to the National Cathedral and take it up with God rather than going to Capitol Hill.”
Rohrabacher, a member of the House’s Committee on Science and Technology, called on Hansen to “step out” of his role.
“He obviously doesn’t feel comfortable with the restraints that come with being a scientist rather than a political activist,” Rohrabacher said. “Most of us have always thought he has been hiding behind a scientific facade, and really, he was a political activist all along.”
Chris Horner, author of “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed,” also denounced Hansen’s latest call to arms against climate change.
“He’s providing ample cause to question his employment on the taxpayer dime,” Horner told FOXNews.com. “He’s clearly abused his platform provided to him by the taxpayer, principally by the way he’s been exposed of manipulating and revising data with the strange coincidence of him always found on the side of exaggerating the warming.”
Horner claimed that Hansen doctored temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe.
“He’s creating an upward slope that really wasn’t there,” Horner said. “At some point you have to say these aren’t mistakes.”
Hansen, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story, was most recently honored for his work last month with the 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society.
“Jim Hansen is performing a tremendous job at communicating our science to the public and, more importantly, to policymakers and decision-makers,” Franco Einaudi, director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a press release.
“The debate about global change is often emotional and controversial, and Jim has had the courage to stand up and say what others did not want to hear. He has acquired a credibility that very few scientists have. His success is due in part to his personality, in part to his scientific achievements, and in part to his refusing to sit on the sidelines of the debate.”
Former Vice President Al Gore, who toured with Hansen while promoting “An Inconvenient Truth,” did not return repeated requests for comment for this article.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:02 am
This may be the most misinformed article I’ve ever read. I am an Environmental Science major at the University of Mary Washington, and the science is clear. Global warming has already created significant and dangerous consequences around the world. The sea is rising, currents are changing, weather patterns are becoming unpredictable and destructive, and island countries are literally vanishing. This is not opinion, this is observable fact. Furthermore, James Hanson is among the most respected scientists in the world for his work on climate change. To suggest that he is misinformed or malicious is absurd. To do any less than call for action would be irresponsible, public official or not.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Is this guy even looking at the massive amount of data that indicates that the warming is a natural phenomenon and a normal part of earth’s patterns? Of course, the U.N. (United Nothing) is probably pulling this guy’s strings…
March 4th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Quit your gobal whinning!! You and that other government clown a-gore trying to rip the taxpayers off with carbon credits. Why don’t you go after the big polluters, China, India, Russia, etc. I guess in your world they get a free ride.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Haha. . .this is totally laughable. Why is this flake still being paid by my tax dollars? Huh? You know what, I been itchin’ to sue someone, I think I’ll sue the government for keeping this nut on the payroll. Because with the new socialist liberal government in place, you know they’ll wanna make him NASA director! Why do these people need to “peacefully disrupt” anything? Don’t they realize that the ECONOMY is CRAP right now, and that the Feddies need to worry about fixing that before they go dumping money into a “green” power plant for the Capital? If they wanna get some “change” they need to do something besides stand around a power plant and sing “Kumbaya”. GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIBERAL FARCE CREATED SO THAT THEY CAN BRAINWASH US AND TURN THE USA INTO A COMMUNIST NATION.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
This may be the most misinformed article I’ve ever read. I am an Environmental Science major at the University of Wisconsin, and the science is clear. Global warming is a natural occurance and has turned into hysteria which has already created significant and dangerous consequences around the world. This is not opinion, this is observable fact. Furthermore, James Hanson is a nut.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Why must the world stop every time some leftist bourgeois crybaby doesn’t get his way in the political arena? In a political system where the people are supposed to be sovereign, we all get to decide how we shall live. Yes, Jason, numbskull undergrad boy, even when it comes to your beloved global warming/cooling/climate change/we’re all gonna die ideology. It’s ultimately a political decision to be made by the polity.
I am not willing to hand over decision making over my life to any non-accountable academic expert in any–note the word any–narrow field. The climate scientists are just that — climate scientists. And guess what nimrod? Climate scientists differ in their opinions as anthropogenic causes and whether and to what extent your desire to consign me and my family to a grey agrarian existence will have any effect beyond making me miserable. Scientists and other experts are not, and they should not be, elevated to philosopher king of America. Let them run for office and be accountable to me. This, by the way, is why we don’t delegate architectural design to fire chiefs. Stay with me. Fire chiefs would design a building of concrete, with no walls. That would solve the problem of fire prevention but it would not be livable would it? We entertain and weigh their input but we do not delegate all our power to one interested party. We the people delegate our decisionmaking power to elected, hopefully accountable officials. Not to academic grandees, however credentialed, nor to their callow young wanna-be undergrad lab assistants.
I note that Hanson and his fellow travelers, certainly his followers, seem to be the people who in other contexts will tell the rest of us, endlessly, that “we won” every time a political debate is raised. So, I guess being a leftist means you’ll happily take the win under our system (See,e.g., Election 2008) but you’ll pout and call for civil disobedience or worse when you lose (oh, and allege wrongdoing) (See, e.g., Election 2000, 2004). Kind of like a four-year-old playing monopoly. Always has to win, and if they don’t, then the game is fixed.
Science should not be politicized. But it always has to some extent. It’s because there are people involved. Our duty as citizens is to exercise discernment, weigh the claims of opposing camps, act reasonably and restrain the revolutionary destructive desires of young and naive ideologues like our little friend here.
March 6th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Yes the science is clear the planet has a fever. But the planet has had a fever many times in the past before man was even exhaling carbon dioxide. We also know that several other planets are warming up. How did man do that — must be those pesky probes we’ve been spewing throughout the solar system. I think most scientits will agrre that the planet warms and cools. But is man causing it? If we cut all our carbon emissions and dropped the planets temperature a few degrees, we will need to emit more carbon dioxide to keep ourselves warm. Or is the answer to be good enviromentalists and freeze to death in the dark?
March 7th, 2009 at 1:33 am
moron
March 7th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Why don´t we ALL take to the streets, protest, and riot over all that we believe in. It´s only mob rule, what´s the harm? How about a protest for gun rights through civil unrest? Would that bother anyone? Hey, better still, let´s give the government reason to institute martial law. These are dangerous times and I Love It. Anarchy.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Is it not funny that these nut’s always use the words, “the fact Is” or “it’s a fact”, or “the truth is”, or “it is proven”, all indicating that their thrrory is certainly true?????? When in fact, more scientist every day say their few is “doubtful” and will be laughed at someday in the near future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 8th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Jason
Are you saying this because you have examined the research that is calling into question AGW or because this is what your professors are telling you?
I personally know 5 meterologists/climatologist who have Masters or PhDs in the field who would disagree strongly with you.
Fish
March 9th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Global warming is a political football and also a fact. In fact it has been going on for 12000 years. Where have all you dolts been for 11950 years. Global warming is the best thing that has happened for mankind and the entire planet. No global warming, no wheat fields in Kansas or Manitoba, no corn fields in Iowa. No ethanol from our corn crops. Seems to me your a bit narrow minded and unaware. If NYC an DC get flooded out how can that be anything but good. It would be like flushing your toilet. All positive.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:46 am
NASA management has no financial incentive to correct badly analyzed data or scare stories about global warming. They can grunt to a frightened Congress for billions of pork dollars for climate research satellites that would otherwise be put on the back burner.
It’s sad to see one of our nation’s premier science agencies apparently tolerating what may be outright dishonesty in order to get more funding. Political correctness is poisonous to integrity in every area, but except for theology, no field is more damaged by it than the sciences.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Ok, Jason can you please name ONE island country that has disappeared ? No, of course not because none has. And as far as the oceans rising, bunk. I have lived in a coastal area for almost 40 years and have been visiting the same docks and piers. Ocean levels have remained the same. Remember, sea-level is sea-level. So if the sea rises in Iceland it also rises in Hawaii. Well, it hasn’t risen in Iceland or Hawaii and I defy you to prove otherwise.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
The only reason for going green is MORE MONEY. I get it, green…MONEY…GET IT, MORONS!
March 9th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
The facts not to long ago, and stated in text books that the Northern Lights were caused by reflections off the Arctic Ice.
The facts are tree stumps have been discovered in Northern Canada where the ice has melted and there are no trees. Hmm must have been warm there before.
To: Jason and his buddies:
Look at the facts-Quacks
March 10th, 2009 at 7:34 am
according to the lastest info on world temp
data the earth has cool appox. .6 degree
in the last year. some one should check
the sun for a change in sunspots.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:22 am
This just shows what anti-science protagonist leaders push people of science to do. They go a little nuts. I am for using coal slurry to produce fuel oil with hydrogen electrolyzed from water with thorium nuclear reactors that don’t produce long lived waste. All the money that went into AIG could have completely removed our need for Saudi Arabia, or Canterell, and let Hugo Chavez be like Cuba all it wants. Thorium is the answer and it could burn the waste we have building up all over the nation, instead of sending it to Art Bell in Nye County.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Hansen is a lousy scientisst. He doesn’t know that his scheme of global warming is a violation of the Second Law of thermodynamics. And Congress can’t repeal, amend, interpret or touch it. So his claims are based on a lie. He seems to think he’s more powerful than GOD.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Forget the word “climate” and the rhetorical embellishments and off-topic references. WHERE is the “CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE”? Has it come to be that to protest is against the law?
March 11th, 2009 at 6:13 am
I just wanted to say that I love this site
March 11th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
There is a list of 30,000 scientists (9,000 of whom have a PhD.) who disagree with the notion that human activity is responsible for glabal warming. Of course, our liberal media does’t really mention that!
March 11th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Gee, of course JASON agrees that our world is coming to an end, and of course we should listen because he’s an “environmental science” major. College and university students always know best, isn’t that so? Even if there is “global warning”, I’ve yet to read or hear of, or have seen empirical evidence that it’s at all man-made, or even man-accelorated. A brief knowledge of the geographic history of the world shows us all the ups and downs that our world has been through. Bermuda has spent eons underwater completely, and deserts around the world have been oceans. If Manhattan and Long Island end up under water in a thousand years or so, I’m sure western New Jersey at that time will end up a coastal hotspot (although I don’t want to live to see that!).
March 11th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
The liberal agenda has and always will be to control the argument no matter that their facts are unfounded in unbaised scientific research. Al Gore had a professor in college that professed that rising CO2 levels produced by man will creat massive flooding, destruction of the environment and within our lifetime. Other academics or intellectual elites decided to take up the banner and this idea became a fact not a theory. Before his death Al’s professor recanted on his theory and Al called him seniel vice looking at the facts. NASA’s science is based upon many assumptions and computer generated projections that are based upon programming done by biased scientists who have everything to gain by screaming “the sky is falling”. They yell “We must stop CO2 emissions or else,” and creat mass histeria, and our children are brainwashed in school with their lies. Sounds like mind-control similiar to what has happened with Evolution being taught to all children. Entire industries have been built around such false science. Like Macro evolution or Darwinism, the theory of Global Warming based upon man made CO2 levels is not a fact for there is nothing scientific to support this theory. So let’s stop talking about Global Warming as being man made and start fighting the battle from the point of truth. People who understand the issue and believe in truth must fight the anachists who push Al Gore’s agenda. We must also include those so called leaders in Washington DC who believe anything that can not be proven but can be made into a beneficial political issue. If America is to survive the Global Warming lies tell your representatives to defeat tax and trade legislation. The damage done to by this baseless law will effect everyone today and in the future. The damage done by this tax will far exceed any ills that will be done by tons of man made CO2 emissions for decades to come. God save us from the false prophets!
March 11th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Perhaps if Jason, Dr. Hanson, and all the protesters on the planet stopped breathing the
carbon emissions would be diminished immensely.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Global warming is fantastic. It’ still technically winter, and I’m barbecuing on the deck already. When it gets a little breezy, I don’t put on a sweater, I empty a few cans of CFCs into the air and make that ozone hole just a little bit bigger.
Whenever someone claims to be an “environmental scientist”, I have to laugh. I’m an environmental customer. My opinion counts more than yours, because I am not supporting a political agenda. Environmental science has all the panache and credibility of Women’s Studies. Not a single iota of thought diversity in either field. Anyone who opposes them is driven out of the “discipline”.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Hey, MOSSBACK –
Yes. If you would read the entire article, you would have learned about something called the Hatch Act. Federal employees cannot protest the government. That makes it AGAINST THE LAW.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
JASON –
Wow, an environmental science major, huh? Impressive. That means you still don’t know anything yet. You’ve never paid bills, held down a job, raised a family, paid taxes, or just about anything else. All of a sudden, your declared major makes you an expert on something nobody else is an expert in? For all we know, you could be hanging on with a 2.0 GPA.
I have a Bachelors degree, two Masters degrees and a doctoral degree (JD). So, by your logic, that would make me a WHOLE lot smarter than you. I tend to think that it doesn’t, however. My experience makes me smarter than you. THERE ARE NO “FACTS” TO SUGGEST HUMANS HAVE AFFECTED THE CLIMATE. While you were protesting the Bush administration for yet something else that peeved you, the real scientists in the world have been seeing their academic freedoms crushed by the fascist-thinking dopes in academia. Looks like you are well on your way to becoming one of them.
March 15th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Didn’t know about it. Very nice information. Submitted this post to Google News Reader.