More Info – Thanks Gavin!
February 12th, 2006Posted by: admin
Ed.- This comment from Gavin Schmidt of NASA appeared in the comments and I thought important enough to bring to the top. Thanks Gavin very much, RP
A couple of points for clarification. Around 20 of the scientific staff at GISS work directly for NASA as civil servants (including me). The rest work for Columbia University or the contractor.
GISS’s mission is to research long term climate change, rather broadly defined, it is not to implement government policy. Thus there is no contradiction in Hansen continuing to work on climate science while disagreeing on policy.
The problem with NASA public affairs was not limited to Hansen, but also impacted the rest of us even on issues and media requests that had absolutely nothing to do with any policy questions. Simple requests to explain ‘global warming’ or discuss the difference between weather and climate were turned down by Deutsch and company, presumably because they felt the mere mention of the science was political.
February 12th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Gavin-
I would just point out that doing research _is_ implementing a government policy. And for the Bush Administration research has been a substitute for other types of policies.
And I’d bet that the Bush Administration’s perspective is/was that if they don’t let you talk about the science it probably won’t show up in the news, and people won’t be discussing climate change — hey, they’re right! Just talking about the science is political!
February 13th, 2006 at 9:06 am
More details here:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-nasapolitics1206feb12,0,483151.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-space
February 13th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Even more info:
“n Griffin’s first public comments about the controversy since authoring a “Statement on Scientific Openness” sent to agency personnel and later posted to the NASA Web site, he reaffirmed his commitment to free discourse but also talked about the importance of maintaining clear distinctions between factual observations and policy recommendations.
“Nothing is more important to this agency or to me than a free and open discourse on technical subjects,” Griffin said during a question-and-answer session following his National Space Club speech. “Now there is a line where technical subjects cross over into policy recommendations. … Some folks don’t wish to observe that line. And if they don’t, as long as people speak as private citizens, my attitude is let me hold your coat for you. You can get into that fray and get beat up. You just can’t label it as an agency position.”
Griffin went on to say that NASA’s policies governing what its scientists and engineers can or cannot say “have admittedly not been clear.”
“So before we can expect people to adhere to standards we wish to have as a federal agency, we’ve got to re-look at those standards,” Griffin said. “We’ve got to say what it is we want to say in a clear and consistent fashion and then we can have a close to it.”"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060213/sc_space/nasarevisingpublicaffairspolicies
February 14th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
For official NASA policy on Roger’s last comment see…
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/02/the_risk_of_not.html#more
