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Should NASA fire Dr. James Hansen?

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Total Votes: 6,570
12 Comments

  • Jim S. - 9 years ago

    Let's not fire him, let's hold him, Mann, Gore, and others for trial...by James Inhofe's Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The public and the "stupid" voters have been "Gruber'd" regarding climate change. Let's set the record straight.
    Have a two year investigation, not just a hearing... under oath, put all the facts on the table, have them analyzed by objective scientists and professionals. Let each camp give it their best shot, cross examine the witnesses, etc. Then issue a verdict, publish a report and transcripts, with a summary that any college grad can read... backed up with scholarly evidence, charts, data, diagrams. Make it "peer-reviewed" quality. Publish the report in a professional journal for all to review and critique. Science will never be settled...about anything, that's not how it works. But, this debate can be settled, alarmists exposed, deniers challenged, and the public educated.
    I am a physics major (MS), not a physicist... but I can understand most of what I read, especially the data, correlations, gas laws, solar cycles, greenhouse effect... and the computer models, which I've worked with for 40 years in the environmental remediation and compliance industry (no oil companies!) After several years of study, and doing numerous presentations to civic and professional organizations on energy, the environment, and now... global warming / climate change, my conclusion is that...the climate is slowly changing (as always), the earth has been warming for decades following the Little Ice Age, it is caused primarily by solar/lunar/planetary and other forcing factors, but not primarily by man made CO2. That the earth has been in a warming/cooling cycle since the last glaciers receded 11,000 years ago, but the IPCC with Mann's help cooked the books in 2000 to minimize this well established fact and produce the famous hockey stick diagram. Also, that a mild increase of clean invisible CO2, not smog and particulates, is good for plant life... they prefer about 1500-2000 ppm! The Supreme Court made a very serious mistake in declaring CO2 a regulatable pollutant... what's next, water vapor? Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the GHG effect. That sea levels are rising slightly and have been for 150 years and we don't know why, that intensity and number of storms is not rising and not correlated with global warming, etc, etc. to much to mention here.
    One thing is for certain... All the uncertainty in the alarmists arguments should prohibit a major policy change that would seriously impact our recovering economy. We came within a few senate votes of a real catastrophe in 2009 when they almost passed cap and trade legislation which Obama was eager to sign. It died without bipartisan support according to Harry Reid. Now that the real crisis is passed and Republicans are in control again, let's end the debate by considering ALL the facts, and exposing the advocates on both sides for what they really are, good or bad.

  • Robert H - 12 years ago

    Advice: Get published in a peer-reviewed journal. THEN write your letter of skepticism.

  • Box of Rocks - 12 years ago

    Cuff him and stuff him Kew-kew-kew-kew.

    "I am going to git them Duke boyz"

    Hansen is a disgrace to science.

  • Terry Yonker - 12 years ago

    No one of the people who signed the letter are qualified to question Jim Hansen.

  • Disputin - 12 years ago

    @P helms - yesterday:

    "When you stop dissing climate scientists' life work, I'll start re-considering manned space flight."

    Not quite sure who the "you" is there, but assume it's Anthony.

    Is there any reason to accord respect to something just because someone made it their life's work? Dr. Joseph Mengele springs to mind.

    I'd also dispute whether the people referred to here can reasonably be called "Scientists", as they don't appear to follow the scientific method or observe the norms of scientific debate (unlike, for instance, the team who recently claimed they'd detected neutrinos travelling faster than light. When challenged, they assisted other researchers to investigate their results, and faulty connections were duly discovered, whereupon the team leader (unnecessarily in my view) resigned.)

  • Teri Varga - 12 years ago

    ...give him a gold watch and escort him out the door??!
    More like: put him in cuffs and an orange jumpsuit and escort him to maximum security prison!

  • Wayne Richards - 12 years ago

    No. Not gold. Atom-thick gold electroplating will do.

    And for each new hour, when his cute little four-fingered hand is on the 12, Mickey's voice says, "We're running out of time! It's worse than we thought!"

    Four-fingered hand. Hmmm. Could that be why Hansen got so many calculations wrong?

  • P helms - 12 years ago

    When you stop dissing climate scientists' life work, I'll start re-considering manned space flight.

  • Tom Murphy - 12 years ago

    Andrew W says:

    "It'd be nice if you could look at the AGW debate with a little more objectivity than you've demonstrated... You've tied your ego to one side of the debate and any ability you once had to stand back and look fairly at both sides of the argument is long gone."

    Spot on comment about Dr. Hansen! Over the past two decades, he has consistently failed to frame the CAGW debate within even a modicum of objectivity. Here's what Hansen had to say recently before being awarded the Edinburgh Medal in Scotland, "We can't simply say that there's a climate problem, and leave it to the politicians. They're so clearly under the influence of the fossil fuel industry that they're coming up with cockamamie solutions which aren't solutions. That is the bottom line," - http://tinyurl.com/7opsa7l .

    Hansen does not speak like a researcher applying the scientific method. Rather he speaks as one of the "faithful" with the decidedly religious-like qualities of:

    1. Revelation (alarmists alone hold the truth about CAGW and any attempt to deny the consensus speaks solely from ignorance or worse - corporate greed),
    2. Ritual (every year becomes the new warmest year ever and if you repeat the lies often enough, they become the truth),
    3. Reverence (great weight is given to "scholars", scientists, celebrities, and politicians as verification that the alarmists' cause is just and "real" - how could someone such as Michael E. Mann be... wrong),
    4. Restrictions (only alarmists can show you the truth and expose the evil of corporate greed - they control that objective gateway to the truth),
    5. Repentance (if an alarmist falters in the "faith", they must be shown the error of their ways or thoughts - and if they repent of their misdeeds, then they are permitted to return to the fold but under a renewed watch for future lapses of "faith"),
    6. Reliance (once the masses accept the models the alarmism will be justified),
    7. Resurrection (by accepting the validity of the alarmism, we can awaken from our self-imposed slumber and begin a new, energy-reduced lifestyle),
    8. Rebellion (alarmists are in opposition to corporate greed, which is a primary contributor to CAGW due to its promotion of an energy-intensive lifestyle),
    9. Removal (the research of lukewarm alarmists and deniers must dismissed with extreme prejudice),
    10. Relationships (sharing the CAGW truth via respective web sites, blogs, papers, conferences, etc... creates social and emotional bonds that only strengthen the collective adherence to the "cause")
    11. Reality (CAGW truth gains its own "reality" not by evidentiary examination but by the collective will of the alarmist - surely, this many learned people cannot be wrong),
    12. Righteousness (alarmist "leaders" like Hansen have established rules - adherence to these rules is required by proponents and assists the leaders by ensuring that the alarmists' way of thinking is aligned to the leaders' wills), and
    13. Retribution (before repentance, a lukewarm alarmist must understand that there are consequences for not following the rules - including a diminishing of the "violator's" words, a closer association to a leader to learn more of the truth or be watched more closely, and being used as a public front to the "cause").

    And note the irony wherein Dr. Hansen had no problem excusing himself from the above criteria by unnecessarily increasing his carbon footprint after flying from the U.S. to Scotland just to accept an award. Has Hansen not researched the benefits of hosting a webex presentation rather than wantonly promoting an energy-intensive lifestyle via commercial air travel?

    You're absolutely right about Dr. Hansen, Andrew W, when you assert that he has, "...[T]ied [his] ego to one side of the debate and any ability [he] once had to stand back and look fairly at both sides of the argument is long gone." Good comment!

    Or... were you speaking as one of the faithful, as well...?

  • AtheoK - 12 years ago

    Hey! Where's the Fire his ass button?

    Any other Federal employee would have been investigated by now for his shenanigans and arrests. Given the public information about his, ahem, extra-curricular earnings and his flagrant support of property destruction, I seriously doubt that any other federal employee would still be employed. I also doubt that they'd get even as much as a timex watch before being escorted out.

    An Inspector General investigation into Hansen's earnings, arrests, his personal application and use of Federal ethics regulations in accepting international roles and money, and their looking into the science behind Hansen's so called objective decisions should uncover what is really going on with this so-called Manager.

  • Doubting Rich - 12 years ago

    Andrew

    Don't you see the irony in criticising a private individual for wording a tongue-on-cheek poll with no objectivity. while implicitly supporting the man who by his job description should be objective, but is trying desperately to destroy the world's economy and kill millions of people, leave billions more in grinding poverty by his subjective pseudo science. And illegally earned over a million dollars in one year from that subjectivity.

  • Andrew W - 12 years ago

    It'd be nice if you could look at the AGW debate with a little more objectivity than you've demonstrated in the phrasing of the pole questions, but hey, I'm realistic. You've tied your ego to one side of the debate and any ability you once had to stand back and look fairly at both sides of the argument is long gone.

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