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Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. For the past twenty-five years, he has headed NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world—that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change. Dr. Hansen joins us in our firehouse studio. His story is detailed in a new book by author Mark Bowen titled Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. Mark Bowen joins us from Massachusetts.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. It was his testimony to a Senate committee in 1988 that first brought the threat of global warming to the world’s attention. For the past quarter of a century he has headed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA’s premiere climate research center.
Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world, that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: You may have heard Dr. James Hansen mentioned before on Democracy Now! His name has been cited by many guests on the show.
JOHN PASSACANTANDO: This government, at the behest of its oil company contributors, has been told not to put out information about global warming, not to allow the scientists to talk about their expertise with the press, about the connection between global warming and hurricanes. That happened at NOAA. There’s been pressure on Dr. James Hansen at NASA.
PAUL EHRLICH: I think it’s true that attitudes have changed slightly in the White House, because they now see a political issue, but they have worked very, very hard to suppress the science on global warming. For instance, they sent some junior jerk to try and keep Jim Hansen, who’s one of our very top climate scientists, from saying what he thought.
CHRIS MOONEY: Apparently, a NASA aide was instructed to interfere with Hansen’s ability to do press interviews. Actually, this completely backfired, because Hansen is not someone to be told to be quiet. And so, he just went to the media anyway, and it ended up exploding.
TIM FLANNERY: Can you imagine what it would be like for one of the world’s leading scientists, who is revered by everyone, to have this pipsqueak who lied about his credentials controlling what he tells the public? Just appalling. And, you know, the countries around the world would—I don’t know what they’d pay to have the advice of a Jim Hansen. It’s the sort of stuff we all desperately need. And here, in a country that actually pays him a salary and allows him to do his work, he is silenced. I mean, I honestly cannot see the sense of that. I can’t see who benefits.
AMY GOODMAN: That last speaker was acclaimed Australian scientist and writer Tim Flannery. Well, today, Dr. James Hansen himself joins us in our firehouse studio. His story of how the Bush administration tried to silence his warnings on climate change is detailed in a new book. It’s called Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. It’s written by author Mark Bowen. He joins us from a studio in Watertown, Massachusetts.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Dr. Hansen, 1988, talk about the significance of that time.
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, I think it had become clear that the climate was changing and that human-made greenhouse gases were a reason for the long-term trend in the climate. And I just wanted to draw that to the attention of the public, because we really need to do something before the climate change becomes large, just because of the inertia of the system. If we wait until the climate change is large, then it’s too late to stop it from happening.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what did you do twenty years ago?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, I just reported that the world at that time was getting warmer, and I expected 1988 to be the warmest year in the period of instrumental record, which it did turn out to be, and that humans were primarily the reason for this long-term warming trend.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, that was twenty years ago, and while the Bush administration has gotten a lot of attention for its failure to heed any kinds of warnings, there was another administration before that, the Clinton administration, as well. And I think Bowen talks in the book about some problems that you had with Al Gore and—could you talk about how the Clinton administration reacted to some of the warnings you raised?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, my concern is general with both Republican and Democratic administrations. They both feel that they can control what scientists say to the public. So their offices of public affairs in the science agencies are headed, in general, by political appointees, and they review the press releases before they go out. So, it doesn’t really make sense in a democracy. The public should be honestly informed. And then, of course, the publications are allowed to make the decisions, and they don’t have to follow exactly what the science says. There are other considerations that they have. But they shouldn’t influence what is presented, the scientific evidence. And I object to that, regardless of which administration is in power.
AMY GOODMAN: So, before we go on to the Bush administration, where you did have the most trouble, can you talk about what happened during the Clinton years and how you were able to express or not your research?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, the one particular event that stands out in my mind is when I wrote a paper called “Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario,” in which I emphasized that it’s not only carbon dioxide, but other climate forcings—methane and black soot—and we need to address those also. And for some reason, the people in the White House didn’t like emphasis on the non-CO2 parts of the story, and I just—the press release just kept coming back, and I would try to change it, they would change it, and finally I gave up. I just couldn’t get a press release through the way I wanted it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: So, in essence, in these kinds of press releases, there’s a back-and-forth, as the White House or the environmental people at the White House—
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: —edit your press releases?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. And that’s another strange thing, because they don’t even admit that it’s going to the White House. You know, it goes to NASA headquarters, and then it sort of disappears for a couple weeks. And where is it? Well, it’s very often at the White House, and I mentioned that. And now, they tried not to make that known, you know? And that’s, again, something that’s very inappropriate, in my opinion. And again, it’s happened in both administrations.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about what happened when the Bush administration came in. You were continuing to do your research. First of all, explain your place of work and the significance of NASA Goddard.
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, NASA is important, I think, because of the global observations that we make from satellites. We see what’s happening, for example, on Greenland and then West Antarctica. My laboratory is also involved in the global models that try to interpret what’s happening. And we’re also located at Columbia University, where we have the opportunity to work with people who have the data from the history of the earth over thousands and millions of years. You put together these different things—the satellite information, the information on how the earth responded in the past when greenhouse gases changed and other things changed, and the models—and then you get a picture of how the system works.
And that’s what really concerns me, because it’s the inertia of the system which tells us we’re already pushing it, so that it’s going to respond more over the next several decades. There’s a lot more climate response which is already in the pipeline, that we haven’t seen it yet, and that’s why we have to have an understanding of what’s happening, so we can take the actions now before it’s too late.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Of course, the speech of yours that got even more attention was then in December of ’97—was it?—when you also then raised again the sense that you were—not only that the planet was reaching the tipping level in terms of the dangers of greenhouse emissions, but also, shortly afterwards, you started getting the articles appearing in the New York Times and other places about the direct attempts by the government to silence you.
DR. JAMES HANSEN: 1997—I think you mean—
JUAN GONZALEZ: I’m sorry, 2007.
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, 2006, I believe. I gave a speech in December of 2005 at the American Geophysical Union meeting, in which I tried to connect the dots. And the dots extend all the way to the role of special interests in confusing the public, you know, in not allowing straight scientific discussion of what’s happening and what’s causing it.
And, of course, the main problem is fossil fuel use. And the truth is, we cannot put all of the fossil fuel—the carbon dioxide from all the fossil fuels back into the atmosphere without creating a completely different planet. The last time that carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere, there was no ice on the planet. It was a completely different planet. And we have to realize we either are going to have to leave a lot of the fossil fuels in the ground, or else we’re going to have to capture the carbon dioxide when the fossil fuels are burned. And that just is not well understood, and the fossil fuel companies would rather that you didn’t understand that.
AMY GOODMAN: Who are those special interests, those fossil fuel companies that you’re talking about?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, it’s—
AMY GOODMAN: How do they stop the conversation?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, it’s the coal industry, and it’s also the oil industry. And they—you know, they put out disinformation, they fund a small number of scientists, and they expect the media to give you a balanced story. And by “balanced,” they mean that the scientists are saying that something’s happening, it would have to balanced by someone saying, “Oh, this is just natural.” You know, and even though the story has become very clear—you know, it’s 99.99 percent certain that humans are influencing the climate—but still, they make the story appear much less certain than it is, and therefore, why should we take actions as long as it’s uncertain?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Dr. James Hansen, who is heading up the NASA’s Goddard Institute. He has for twenty-five years. And when we come back, we will also be joined by Mark Bowen, who has written a book about James Hansen called Censoring Science. Stay with us.