Climate change is an existential threat to the earth. We’ve known this for a long time. In 1896, the Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius published a report in which he said that the burning of fossil fuels will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere resulting in higher temperatures.
In the 21st Century, report after report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[1] has provided scientific information relevant to understanding human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and economic impacts and risks and possible ways to mitigate climate change. The Sixth Assessment Report[2] indicates an increasing human footprint resulting in higher temperatures (hot extremes)[3] in every continent, heavy precipitation in some regions of each continent, and increases in agricultural and ecological drought.
The advances of understanding climate change have taken a long time, and have met much resistance from politicians, government appointees, and business and industry, especially the petrochemical and fossil fuel industries. Censorship of science is a global issue,[4] but has been exacerbated by the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W., George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, or whenever the majority leadership was held by the Republicans.
One of the first scientists who worked on global warming for more than three decades was put to the same kind of treatment other scientists whose work was condemned and ridiculed including Rachel Carson,[5] Alice Augusta Ball,[6]Hedley Marston[7] and Anthony Fauci.[8] The scientist I’m speaking about is James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and former director of the Program on Climate Science. He is now adjunct professor directing the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Congressional Hearing
In 1988 Hansen testified before the United States Congress saying that “he was ninety-nine percent certain the earth was warmer then than it had ever been measured to be, there was a clear cause and effect relationship with the greenhouse effect and lastly that due to global warming, the likelihood of freak weather was steadily increasing.” Mark Bowen,[9] says it became clear that Hansen’s ideas were result in him facing headwinds from climate science deniers. I want to point out that Hansen published one of the earliest papers on greenhouse gases.[10] In this paper he reported that the non-carbon dioxide gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases trap more heat becoming important greenhouse gases. However, it wasn’t until 2007, that the Environmental Protection Agency would start monitoring greenhouse gases.
James Hansen was convinced that he needed to share his research as widely as possible. He began by giving the “Keeling talk: Is there still time to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with global climate change”[11] at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco. The “Keeling Talk” is in honor of Charles David Keeling, the scientist who monitored carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory beginning in 1958. After this and other talks, Hansen was admonished by political operatives within NASA to seek pre-clearance for any future media interviews, speeches, and Web postings. Despite these rebukes, Hansen blew the whistle and asserted a scientist’s right and responsibility to call attention to research findings and their implications for society. Hanson spoke out during George W. Bush’s administration while they attempted to dissuade him from speaking freely. Finely, Hansen was convinced that the United States and other countries needed to act on reducing global fossil fuel emissions now rather than later.
Censorship
At the height of the “censorship controversy” a top NASA administrator secretly gutted the agency’s earth scientist’s (Hansen) budget by 20%. Hansen would have none of it. He circulated a letter widely within the scientific community entitled “Swift boating, stealth budgeting and the theory of unitary executive.”[12] Hansen’s research on climate change conflicted with the high-level NASA administrators and the Bush White House. Hansen believes that someone within NASA changed the mission of NASA from “to understand and protect our home planet” to “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research…”. To this Hansen replied that “to protect our home planet” was erased by the slimy belly of a slug crawling in the night.”
For two decades, Jim Hanson’s research was subdued and undermined by three Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Even when Clinton was president, the Democrats lost the Senate and House of Representatives in 1996, stalemating any progress on climate policy. This was the first time Republicans held both houses since the 1950s. It wouldn’t be until Barack Obama came into power in 2009 that the Democrats could make any progress on climate and environmental science. But that lasted only two years, when the Republicans took back the House and Senate. As I explain ahead, Donald Trump’s administration caused enormous harm to environmental regulations and climate change policy. We now must wonder what will happen under President Biden if his party loses control of the House or the Senate in the next election.
James Hansen, at age 80, is still speaking out and doing research on climate change. You can follow him at his Facebook page: /jimehansen/.
[1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC. (2021). https://www.ipcc.ch/.
[2] Sixth assessment report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC. (2021). https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/.
[3] During the summer of 2021, the Northwest region of the United States and British Columbia experienced one heat done after another resulting in the highest temperatures ever recorded in some of the cities in the region.
[4] Ritchie, E., Driscoll, D. & Maron, M. Science censorship is a global issue. Nature 542, 165 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/542165b
[5] Stoll, M. (2020, March 5). The Personal Attacks on Rachel Carson as a Woman Scientist. Environment & Society Portal. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/rachel-carsons-silent-spring/personal-attacks-rachel-carson-woman-scientist.
[6] Edugyan, E. (2019). The silencing of black scientists. Retrieved February 01, 2021, from https://unbound.com/boundless/2019/11/08/the-silencing-of-black-scientists/.
[7] Cross, R. (2001). Fallout: Hedley Marston and the British bomb tests in Australia. Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield Press.
[8] Klein, C. (2020, September 12). Trump health officials reportedly tried to censor Fauci’s covid messaging. Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/trump-health-officials-reportedly-tried-to-censor-faucis-covid-messaging.
[9] Bwen, M. (2008). Censoring science: Inside the political attack on Dr. James Hansen and the truth of global warming. New York: Dutton.
[10] Wang, W.-C., Y.L. Yung, A.A. Lacis, T. Mo, and J.E. Hansen, 1976: Greenhouse effects due to man-made perturbation of trace gases. Science, 194, 685-690, doi:10.1126/science.194.4266.685.
[11] Design & Development Cause Inspired Media (2006, February 3). Censorship of Federal Climate Scientists: The Critical Case of Jim Hansen. Retrieved February 02, 2021, from https://whistleblower.org/general/whistleblowers/censorship-of-federal-climate-scientists-the-critical-case-of-jim-hansen/
[12] Hansen, J. (n.d.). Swift boating, stealth budgeting, and unitary executives. Retrieved August 30, 2021, from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293773830_Swift_boating_stealth_budgeting_and_unitary_executives
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