Politics v. Science in Fight for the Future

I am not particularly pious about objective science--it's flawed like any human enterprise. Nor do I believe that politics is automatically ignoble--although it's in eye of the needle territory. But when it comes to information bearing on the Climate Crisis, it's important to notice the difference.

For example, President Bush got headlines for proposing an international conference to set carbon emission limitation goals, something he's resisted in the past. Some have applauded this move, including political leaders in and beyond the U.S. But others see it as a calculated political diversion, meant to postpone action that many countries are ready to take, notably as a result of the European Union proposals that the U.S. rejected. In this view, Bush's proposals are a p.r. smokescreen to deflect criticism at the upcoming international conference Bush will attend in Germany. And as has happened so often, U.S. media fell for it, hook, line and sinker, though European media did not.

The climate crisis debate, which must appear to be predicated on science, is often dominated by politics, which in turn serves the interests of the rich companies that finance political campaigns and careers, and otherwise buy influence with ideologically-driven or just plain fearful constituencies.

Political interference with climate science has been well documented in the Bush administration. But sometimes it is more subtle, like the latest Bush move, which deflects attention rather than squashes information. Something similiar may have happened last week after NASA scientists, led by Dr. James Hansen, issued a sobering report on the Climate Crisis, indicating that the world has no more than a decade to address it with measures that substantially lessen climate crisis pollution.

As ABC News put it: Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute. With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

These are scientists, not politicians, telling us that our planet as we know it is in grave danger, and of course they are not the first or only ones to have done so in the past year, or five, or ten. These are the people we educate and pay to study these subjects, and to give us just such a warning.

But instead of spurring debate and action with urgency befitting such a warning, our media got suddenly deflected by another story that by some strange coincidence also had the NASA label affixed to it--a statement by the head administrator of NASA that it's arrogant to assume that global heating requires action--after all, who's to say what climate is best?

NASA chief Michael Griffin isn't a climate scientist. His background is in engineering. But his comments got talked around, angrily opposed, debated point by point with reason and evidence and---well, that was the point. To get everybody talking about this outrageous nonsense, and not about scientific findings.

Now, like clockwork, India has reportedly announced that it won't abide by any binding restrictions on fossil fuel emissions that might emerge from the G8 international summit, because they would limit its economic growth. Besides being the country where your customer service representative likely lives, India is also the nation with the Bush's biggest sweetheart deal on nuclear weapons and nuclear power in general. What a coincidence. Otherwise known as politics.

Griffin got some traction on his possibly poll-tested remarks because a lot of people think scientists are arrogant, and some doubtlessly are. On the other hand, when it works right, science is self-correcting. So when a new study contradicts accepted climate models--suggesting a global heated future may be considerably wetter than suggested--scientists take note. And they get going on doing more science to get it right.