Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
percent of New Jersey, and many other lowlands throughout the world.”
54
The paper also specifically referred to the need for a more diversified
national energy portfolio in light of the potential climatic impacts of CO
2
from fossil fuels. “The degree of warming will depend strongly on the
energy growth rate and choice of fuels for the next century,” the GISS
scientists wrote.
55
Their recommendations aligned with those of Carter's
CEQ. They ran directly counter to the new president's energy policy: “CO
2
effects on climate may make full exploitation of coal resources undesir-
able. An appropriate strategy may be to encourage energy conservation
and develop alternative energy sources, while using fossil fuels as neces-
sary during the next few decades.”
56
Worse still for the new administration,
Hansen gave a copy of the paper to science journalist Walter Sullivan.
57
For
Science,
Model II represented the cutting edge of the continually improv-
ing world of GCMs. At the
New York Times
, a six-meter sea-level rise made
front page news.
58
The administration responded quietly and predictably: officials down-
played the newspaper report and went after Hansen's funding. Hansen's
1977 NASA grant terminated during the Carter-Reagan transition. In
1980, amid uncertainty over the future of the GISS climate program,
David Slade, then still in his role as the DOE's chief CO
2
man, committed
the DOE to supporting Hansen's work within the context of the DOE-
AAAS climate program. After Slade's departure, however, Hansen had
to appeal to Frederick Koomanoff to secure funding— the same Frederick
Koomanoff called by Gore and Scheuer to testify on behalf of the Reagan
administration's cuts in CO
2
research at DOE. Hansen's model had drawn
specific technical criticism from some in the scientific community, rais-
ing questions about the certainty of Hansen's conclusions though not the
quality of his approach. Koomanoff played up these criticisms and used
them as grounds for denying Hansen's application, effectively curtailing
the GISS project.
59
The subsequent funding cuts forced Hansen to lay off
five researchers.
60
More insidiously, as Hansen told Erik Conway in 2006, the new DOE
officials also warned him not to share Model II with would-be collabo-
rators at Pennsylvania State University, suggesting that otherwise these
researchers, too, might lose their government support.
61
It was not the
last time Hansen would cross a Republican administration, nor was it the
most notorious attempt by an administration to shut him up. In 2008, still
