Politics and Climate Change

[3Vee]

Interesting report on an investigation of NASA's released information on climate change: http://oig.nasa.gov/investigations/OI_STI_Summary.pdf . Well, it's not actually interesting to read, as it's written in legalese. But the conclusion - that at least some release of public information was politically motivated - bears consideration.

I find it somewhat disturbing, and not at all surprising, that politics would dictate what a scientist can or can't say. I'm not surprised because I'd argue that this is the obvious result of government funding for just about anything, but I'm still disappointed because it's not how it should be.

(I'm not trying to say, "Look, no global warming because of this one investigation" or some such nonsense. I consider myself environmentally concerned, but I think the jury's still out on global warming, meaning I'm willing to be convinced either way - by hard evidence.

And of course, if the original release (or suppression) of results was politically motivated, who can tell with the investigation. Tempted to say, "Politics, all politics," and guess that someone is leaning on NASA now to undermine support for likely Congressional environmental action in a Democratic legislature. But this starts getting into the realm of paranoia.)

[SilverCrusader]

I find it somewhat disturbing, and not at all surprising, that politics would dictate what a scientist can or can't say. I'm not surprised because I'd argue that this is the obvious result of government funding for just about anything, but I'm still disappointed because it's not how it should be.
Sad that scientists need jobs.

(I'm not trying to say, "Look, no global warming because of this one investigation" or some such nonsense. I consider myself environmentally concerned, but I think the jury's still out on global warming, meaning I'm willing to be convinced either way - by hard evidence.
Here (http://www.popsci.com/future-human/article/2008-05/human-cause-global-effect) is your hard evidence.


And of course, if the original release (or suppression) of results was politically motivated, who can tell with the investigation. Tempted to say, "Politics, all politics," and guess that someone is leaning on NASA now to undermine support for likely Congressional environmental action in a Democratic legislature. But this starts getting into the realm of paranoia.)
NASA should stick to what NASA does. I don't consider any information from NASA to be true about anything other than what they are meant to do; aerospace and space. The statements in that paper still can't be considered true until it has been reviewed by the scientific community.

[Subjukator]

of course politics are involved in government funded scientific findings, its nothing new to any government administration. thats why people think all these hurricanes and the large number of them are because of climate change or that the current war on terror was not Pres. Bush's plan from the start (unrelated but still politically motivated)

[Magmaniac]

So the after reading the first page or two of the article, I can see that the basic idea is that the government told the NASA scientists who were working on climate change that they could not release all of what they found to the public.
This is a big deal because it's A.) Government censoring scientific advancement and B.) LYING to the American public.
This is something to add to the long list of things that the Bush administration has done wrong, but not to forget that this has happened over and over again through countless presidencies as far back as there are records.
The only real question here is what should be done about it, and what WILL be done about it. What SHOULD be done is the government officials should be tried for... I don't know... fraud... sedition... I don't know I'm not a lawyer but something along those lines. (Not to mention Bush, who if tried under the same standards as the Nuremburg trials for his various wrongdoings would be put to death, although so would most past U.S. Presidents.)
The problem is what WILL be done. The American public has grown to stupid and lazy to care about this kind of thing. To most Americans this is no big deal. "Oh, another corrupt politician! Whatever. What are you gonna do? Switch the channel to NASCAR, honey."
Nothing will be done. Nothing was done about the numerous similar incidents in the past, and nothing will be done about these in the future, unless Americans start fucking GIVING A SHIT about what happens in the world.