Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
an unintended consequence of the passage of clean air acts in the United States, Europe, and other
industrial nations that required aerosols to be “scrubbed” from smokestacks prior to emission,
primarily to solve the acid rain problem. But it easily could have turned out otherwise. The Rasool
and Schneider paper nevertheless remains the source of the favorite contrarian talking point that goes
something like: “Back in the 1970s, Steve Schneider was warning the world about global
cooling!
”
The attacks against Schneider didn't stop with the global cooling myth. One of the most
persistent smears relates to a statement he gave in a 1989 interview with
Discover
magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect
promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must
include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just
scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a
better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of
potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support,
to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage.
So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make
little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find
ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right
balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
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Contrarians, like Martin Durkin in his “The Global Warming Swindle” polemic, are fond of editing
Schneider down to the misleading snippet “we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified,
dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have” without the critical
context, including the three sentences that followed it.
James Hansen was the first scientist to publicly testify to Congress that greenhouse warming was
indeed upon us. In a sweltering Senate hall in the hot dry summer of 1988, Hansen asserted that “It is
time to stop waffling.… the evidence is pretty strong that the [anthropogenic] greenhouse effect is
here.”
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Though he has been criticized for that statement, in hindsight it appears that Hansen may have
been correct that the signal of human-caused climate change had already emerged, albeit only weakly,
by the late 1980s. The Reagan administration appeared to be unhappy with Hansen's public
testimonies; as a NASA civil servant, he was not immune from their efforts to control his message.
Representatives from the Office of Management and Budget repeatedly edited the drafts of his written
congressional testimonies. Finally, in 1989, he'd had enough, and in bombshell testimony revealed
that his words had been altered by the Bush administration.
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As Hansen has grown increasingly outspoken in recent years, the attacks against him by climate
change deniers have grown more vicious. Critics have attempted to impugn his science by implying
that he supplants objective scientific inquiry with political ideology. Among the baseless accusations
have been that he received money from progressive activist George Soros and that he is secretly a
Democratic Party operative because he received the Heinz Award in the Environment (in reality,
Hansen has been a lifelong Republican, and the award was established to honor the memory of
Republican politician John Heinz III, a Pennsylvania congressman who placed great value on
environmental stewardship). The politically motivated attacks against Hansen over the years have
