June 3rd, 2008
NASA IG: Scientists were muzzled
Remember this? How NASA climatologist James Hansen claimed he was being muzzled by public affairs toadies trying to enforce the administration’s “there is no global warming” stance? Two years later, the agency’s inspector general agrees. The Times reports:
The report, signed by Kevin H. Winters, assistant inspector general for investigations, criticized what it said was a sustained pattern of activities, largely supervised by senior political appointees, that included muting or withholding news releases on global warming and, at least in Dr. Hansen’s case, limiting a scientist’s interactions with reporters.
“Our investigation,” the report said, “found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.”
