NASA's Top Official Questions Global Warming

NASA's Top Official Questions Global Warming

abcnews.go.com

NASA administrator Michael Griffin is drawing the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.

In an interview broadcast this morning on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program, Griffin was asked by NPR's Steve Inskeep whether he is concerned about global warming.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related ATS thread:

NASA: Only 10 Years Till Irreversable Climatic Danger Point

[edit on 31-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

What do all of you think of this statement? It just seems to me to be strange line of thinking. This interview was on NPR Radio.

Does Griffin know something we don't and that NASA top chiefs only know?

abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 31-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

Is the above in response to the NASA news report found here?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

News link:
abcnews.go.com...
NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming

This just received from a friends U2U, apparently NASA has issued an OFFICIAL statement, presumably concerning M. Griffin (as alluded to in the press release in reference to NPR interview..)...

The press release has retracting overtones of what was said in the NPR interview. Here is the official release from the NASA site:

www.nasa.gov...

Now here is an audio of the interview on NPR to give a better context and understanding of Griffin's statements. Audio Source Or goto here and click the listen tab... www.npr.org...

Here is the NPR interview snippet on Griffin's statements.

www.spaceref.com...

STEVE INSKEEP: One thing that's been mentioned that NASA is perhaps not spending as much money as it could on is studying climate change, global warming, from space. Are you concerned about global warming?

Mod Edit: Removed portions of complete source copy pastes, These words appear above every new post submission field form:

"If you feel inclined to make the board aware of news, current events, or important information from other sites that supports the thread; please post one or two paragraphs, a link to the entire story, AND your opinion, twist or take on the news item as it relates to the thread."

[edit on 31-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

[edit on 31-5-2007 by greatlakes]

www.abovetopsecret.com...

doesnt that topic cover what this topic is suppose to be about?

Originally posted by bodrul
www.abovetopsecret.com...

doesnt that topic cover what this topic is suppose to be about?

No Bodrul, the above thread deals with what NASA has stated in that news story, that global warming is dire and that in 10 years will reach a point of no return, roughly. The NPR interview of Griffin basically says the opposite of that story...Please listen to the interview or read the transcript, linked above post...

And yet another press release concerning the topic:

www.spaceref.com...
This one is from House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN)

House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN)responded to remarks that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made to National Public Radio (NPR) in an interview that aired on today's Morning Edition.

This seems to be getting much attention for such a SMALL clip of an interview on NPR. Now representatives are chiming in as well. Word sure does travel fast...!

Could it be that what he said was not meant to given out to the public? Check the link for the full press release...

I have moved my thoughts here after being advised a thread had already been started on the Griffin matter before my posting. My apologies.


What I want to point out here is how Dr. Richard Lindzen is totally correct when he says that any scientist who is a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming is shunned, criticized or even ostracized by the legion of believers. Some have even said Griffin should resign. Open-minded lot, aren't they? Folks, this is not how science is supposed to work. Skepticism and debate should be encouraged, not punished. It seems to me that the league of warmies are the arrogant ones in this flap. Many of Griffin's critics don't have the guts to give their names. A few scientists have said that they support Dr. Griffin in his comments.

Skeptics also must face the fact that most of the scientific publications won't accept anti-climate change papers at all. So much for their lack of bias. Then the mass media, they really discriminate against anthropogenic global warming skeptics. There truly is a conspiracy against us A.G.W skeptics. Dr. Lindzen is right AGAIN.


Lindzen

More Lindzen






[edit on 6/4/2007 by TheAvenger]

no apologies needed! the ats search is terrible!

With regards to the story: I think something else is going on some other agenda for such fierce reactions so quickly made after Griffin interview on NPR. I don't know what it is going on, but somethings up/...

You see, policymakers, those scientists, and even some people who claim that mankind is at fault of Climate Change are afraid that people will start to see that the AGW (anthropogenic Global Warming) claim was made up so they can squeeze some more money out of regular folks, and this money is not going to stop or mitigate Climate Change in the least sorry to say, it is only going to fill the pockets of some people.

The "let's blame mankind crowd" want you to think "all scientists agree with us", when that's not true in the least. There is a lot of research which shows the AGW claim is wrong, and shows that warming events have happened in the past and have been warmer than at present, with lower levels of CO2.

Many very respected scientists who have been studying Climate Change know that anthropogenic CO2, nor all CO2 is the reason for the present warming. Yes, CO2 is a GHG, but even in experiments it has been shown that temperatures would not increase much. As for example a doubling of CO2 in the Mid U.S. would only increase temperatures by 0.014C. There will be some differences in other parts of the world, but CO2 will not warm the atmosphere as the AGW crowd claim it will.

As a matter of fact it is true that we are currently undergoing Climate Change. This has happened many times in the past without any help from mankind. What happens during warming cycles that the "let's blame mankind crowd" would like to dismiss is that GHGs increase naturally during all warming cycles. The most important heat trapping gas is actually water vapor, and not CO2. Water vapor retains more than twice the heat than CO2 does, and it exists in larger abundance on Earth's atmosphere. It is also the GHG which increases the most during warming cycles.

The increase of CO2 levels has been merely an effect of Climate Change in the past. Of course it is true mankind is also emitting CO2 during this cycle, (anthropogenic CO2) but even during the last 200 years the most that CO2 has increase, both naturally and by mankind's activity is 0.01% of all gases in the atmosphere. CO2 has not even doubled from the pre-industrial levels.

If people want to fight pollution, then fight for the right cause, to clean rivers and hold companies responsible for releasing toxics into the oceans.

CO2 is not a pollutant, even if the EPA voted to make it a pollutant. CO2 is needed for Earth's ecosystem to exist. Without it plants wouldn't exist, nor animals, nor humans of course.

It is true that at a level of about 15% CO2 becomes fatal to humans and animals, but so does water, and oxygen. If you drink too much water, or breath too much pure oxygen you will die. At certain high pressures oxygen becomes toxic. Any divers would know this for a fact.

Are we going to also label oxygen and water as "pollutants" because they can kill?...

Some claim because of mankind the levels of CO2 can reach dangerous levels, but that is not true. Mankind's activities will never increase CO2 levels to 10% or 15%. The most that CO2 levels have existed in the atmosphere is at 7,000ppm, right now it is at 380ppm, mankind will never get it to 7,000ppm, or 0.7% of all gases in the atmosphere.

The whole AGW is just but a new scheme to implement a new global tax system. That's why the policymakers and the "let's blame mankind crowd" are so afraid that the public becomes informed and finds out that there is no real concensus among scientists on Climate Change.

[edit on 5-6-2007 by Muaddib]

Very well stated. I agree with what you say, my own scientific research
backs it up. Many comment on atmospheric CO2, but not many have actually tested the atmosphere for it. This scientist has chemically analyzed many areas of our environment for over 30 years, but just gets ridicule from the Al Gore religious crowd of warmies when I state my totally unbiased opinion of the climate change scenario. I work at an independent lab without any agenda whatsoever proving or disproving anthropogenic global warming. There is absolutely no consensus of us scientists that believe in A.G.W. Several of my colleagues and I are signers of the infamous Oregon petition denouncing the "science" behind anthropogenic global warming. Bad science is all too common on our planet, and those who believe in and promote A.G.W. as reality are endorsing some of the worst science I have ever seen.

As an environmental chemist, I would never want harm to come to the ecosystem. Hell, I work every day to protect it, and have caused some very serious and costly environmental cleanups to take place over the years when the evidence justified it. Pollution court cases have been won by my testimony. My work is almost always double checked by peers at other facilities, with my findings concurred nearly 100% of the time. With all of the data I have seen, I just don't buy the man made cause of global warming.

I acknowledge that a very small amount of warming has probably occurred in the past 100 years, and that atmospheric CO2 has increased a trivial amount. That, and the other alarmist tales of environmental crisis just do not convince me, in my professional opinion and judgement. (which is highly sought and regarded by many)

My employer is so pleased with my work that he is sending my wife and I on an all- expense paid 2 week vacation anywhere on the Earth that we may choose to go. We haven't chosen a destination yet. Even after ten years at the same environmental lab, my contributions are still appreciated. Life is great.





[edit on 6/5/2007 by TheAvenger]

LOL!!

NASA chief regrets remarks on global warming
www.msnbc.msn.com...
In video, Griffin says he wishes he’d stayed out of debate on climate effects

Updated: 10:17 p.m. ET June 5, 2007

LOS ANGELES - The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in the closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that “unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it.”

“All I can really do is apologize to all you guys.... I feel badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this,” he said.

Originally posted by lunarlunacy
LOL!!

NASA chief regrets remarks on global warming
www.msnbc.msn.com...
In video, Griffin says he wishes he’d stayed out of debate on climate effects

Good find lunarlunacy!

Yeah I've never seen so much flap over some comments like in this case. Is he going against the agenda grain with his comments, the established line of statements to be made by all scientists in regards to global warming? I would nt be surprised to see some announcement that Griffin has been found to be in some sort of a scandal in the future, something to get him out of the office hes in...

Just wanted to get his comments up onto this thread.

"I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told Inskeep. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change," Griffin said. "I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

All he is saying is that it is arrogant for us to decide which climate is right for Earth.
He isn't saying global warming isn't real.
He isn't saying that man isn't responsible for our current warming.
He isn't questioning Global Warming at all. He is questioning the "Need to Combat Warming."

Correct, most of us skeptics agree that global warming likely has occurred, we merely question the causation and the need to make radical changes to resolve an issue which we believe is caused by nature. Most of us think the human portion of the equation is very small, and that there is little we can do to change the climate anyway. I will add that it is my opinion that we know so little about how our atmosphere works that we dare not attempt to fix what very well may not even be broken.

Wait thats two separate things, if global warming is a natural planetary cycle we can do as the dinosaurs did - that is: do nothing and dieoff. Or we can do something now since we have the 'smarts' to possibly save ourselves. Griffin is essentially saying that we should pretend to be dinosaurs and do nothing for some odd reason.

Its akin to knowing that an large asteroid is headed for Earth impact and doing nothing, saying that its a natural universe event and that we should not interfere.

Of course we don't know how severe effects of global warming are on the planet and human existence, but it certainly looks like, at the peak of a warming event/cycle, that it would NOT be good and people WILL die. Of course more research needs to be done, but to wave it off as Griffins done, well....

[edit on 6-6-2007 by greatlakes]

Or, we can do the wrong thing to our atmosphere and kill ourselves off. More research, I agree with, but our science is not so advanced as many think.

An example: Methyl-Tertiary-Butyl-Ether was added to gasoline in the 1970s to oxygenate our fuel, making it burn more completely thereby reducing air pollution. It worked, BUT, now the feds have had the M.T.B.E. removed from gasoline because it contaminated our WATER! There is very substantial M.T.B.E. in water contamination is most if not all states, thanks to our learned scientists.
The risks of M.T.B.E. to human health is unknown, but I'm betting it causes medical problems from what I know of it.

The banning of D.D.T. is another example of bad science. It has resulted in a death toll in the tens of millions worldwide, mostly in very poor and developing countries. Bad scientific choices based on questionable or inadequate data and the unintended consequences of change kills
people.

Do you want the same people and agencies who made the bad M.T.B.E. and D.D.T. choices for you repairing perceived problems in your air? I don't. I trust the great buffer system that is nature to do a much safer and better job of remediation.







[edit on 6/6/2007 by TheAvenger]

I agree more research needs to be done, not a knee jerk reaction of course, as I stated in the post. Heck we don't even know the full effects of food additives on the human body, never mind complex chemical and biological changes and ramifications. But we are collectively intelligent, and right now, there is no clear path of resolution to finding the answers out concerning global warming, and what can be done about it.

Originally posted by TheAvenger
The banning of D.D.T. is another example of bad science. It has resulted in a death toll in the tens of millions worldwide, mostly in very poor and developing countries. Bad scientific choices based on questionable or inadequate data and the unintended consequences of change kills
people.

Mosquitos eventually became resistant to DDT and other insecticides due to its widespread, indiscriminate, and ill-conceived use. It was never going to be the ideal answer to eradicate the malaria problem. In India it was essentially becoming useless:

Endemic malaria returned to India rather like the turnaround of a tide, slowly at first and then with a broad sweep. From 1961 through 1963 there were less than 100,000 cases in the entire country. In the next three years the number moved from 100,000 to 150,000. In 1967 and 1968 it reached 275,000 and in 1969, 350,000. Then the barriers gave way. Cases doubled in 1970 and doubled again in 1971. At that point about a quarter of the units resumed attack and for the next three years the spread was checked but not rolled back. In 1975 the cost of DDT, a petroleum product, soared in response to the steep increase in oil prices. Malathion, which had to be substituted for DDT where Anopheles culicifacies had developed resistance, was still more expensive. India ran short. Almost two and a half million cases were recorded in 1974, and the next year that number once more than doubled.* In 1977 according to some estimates the number of cases reached at least 30 million and perhaps 50 million. The proportion of potentially lethal falciparum infections inexorably mounts as Plasmodium’s reconquest of India tragically goes on.

Mosquitoes, malaria, and man: A history of the hostilities since 1880 by Gordon Harrison (1978), p246–248

And it is still used as a vector control in many tropical countries and was never banned in most, it's just used a bit more intelligently by targetting in dwellings. It was rightly banned for agricultural use but even the Stockholm Convention allows use of DDT as a vector control.

And as for the MTBE leaking into groundwater, sounds as though it was the engineers who designed the underground storage tanks who are a big issue. The scientists identified a useful cheap fuel additive for their industrial masters, they did their job. They could have used other suitable additives, but for some reason MTBE was the choice (financial?).

And you seem to have some conflict here, you seem to worry about the health effects of MBTE, but ignore those of DDT. Given that the positives of DDT use probably would outweigh that of MBTE, it still has numerous likely deleterious effects on humans, including developmental damage and reproductive effects at background levels.

If we thought a bit more about our effects on the environment and health rather than just economic factors, we might make better decisions on particular issues. This goes for industry, politicians, and scientists.

However, I fear we are straying OT...

[edit on 8-6-2007 by melatonin]

Yes, it's a bit difficult to compare unlike topics to the current one. We disagree on the subject of D.D.T. which I feel is reasonably and acceptably safe and effective. MTBE, the jury is still out on. I believe that rainfall, condensation, evaporation and pipeline breaks contributed somewhat to MTBE contamination, though leaking underground storage tanks are the major culprit. Benzene and other hydrocarbons eventually work their way through soil and contaminate the underground water table. MTBE has the unfortunate property of migrating and penetrating soil much faster than common hydrocarbons.

Still, it is my opinion that our science is not developed enough to attempt to remediate global warming with chemical concoctions with any degree of success. I work with such things every day. I tested air samples this very week. Reducing emissions I certainly agree with as a human response, but voluntarily, i.e. no carbon tax. We did ourselves no favors with our automobile catalytic converters which convert the CO in auto exhaust to CO2 so fast and efficiently. In it's raw state it slowly oxidized to CO2, and like most reactions, not 100%. Yes, I have even studied this part of the A.G.W. debate. Natural attenuation just can't be beat as a corrective measure.

Further, it is my opinion that the reduction of human generated CO2 mentioned above will do little more than appease the insanity of the A.G.W. religion and their high priest Al Gore. Pity that humans can't work together on something more productive with a real chance of success.

Dr. Griffin has every right to have a personal opinion on anthropogenic global warming, and merely stated that opinion. Why should that make him the devil? Dr. Hansen bloody well has his opinion and stated it. I see no difference.



[edit on 6/8/2007 by TheAvenger]