It should come as no surprise, given the Bush Administration's track record, but for over a year the political appointees in the public affairs office of the US space agency "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public."
News releases in the area of climate change "suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency and scientific dilution," NASA Office of Inspector General reported June 2. While not all adjustments to climate change news releases were politically motivated, "the preponderance of evidence does, however, point to politics inextricably interwoven in the news dissemination process."
The activities at issue occurred from the fall of 2004 through early 2006. Once NASA leadership was made aware of the conflict between the Office of Public Affairs and the scientists working on climate change, it "aggressively implemented new policies with a view toward improved processes in editorial decision-making relating to scientific public affairs matters," the IG reported.
The efforts at NASA echoed attempts by the Bush White House to downplay the scientific evidence about the threat posed by global warming (in reports prepared under the supervision of a former oil industry lobbyist). However, the NASA operation was a local phenomenon, the IG reported. There was no credible evidence that senior NASA or administration officials were involved.
But that leads to the disturbing conclusion that the notion that it was acceptable to manipulate, obscure or deny the climate science was so pervasive, officials well removed from the White House thought it acceptable to engage in their own freelance activities.
The IG report said that the evidence "reveals that climate change scientists and the majority of career (italics added by the IG) Public Affairs Officers, strongly believe that the alleged actions taken by senior NASA Headquarters Pubic Affairs officials intended to systematically portray NASA in a light most favorable to administration policies at the expense of reporting unfiltered research results."
Dean Acosta, who was appointed deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at NASA in 2003 and resigned in 2007, told the New York Times, "The inspector general's assertions are patently false."
NASA's various programs are critical to understanding climate science and the impacts of global warming, and informing the public and policy makers. For example, the key objective of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is the "prediction of atmospheric and climate change in the 21st Century." The Institutes current mission is an interdisciplinary initiative "that addresses natural and human-caused changes in the environment that can occur on various time scales and effect the habitability of the planet."
Manipulating or mischaracterizing climate science is an immense disservice to the scientists, the public interest and the planet.
Science is definately a complicated subject, at times, a field with lots of ego at stake. That is easy to understand. There have even been bouts of "outsiderness" in the scientific community (molecular biology vs. ecology, or mathematics vs. physics), and samples of dogma rising above scientific acumen are too numerous (even once is too much as within the "Clovis first" mandate). Skepticism has long served science well, it also may be time for just a new paradigm -- a subtle, yet effective shift in attitude and thinking. Could "selfless restraint" fill that duty? It's got all the right elements minus the excess baggage that all too often goes with skepticism. One look at the "skeptics" forums and websites, and you'll be able to see the amount of illogics that occasionally find their way into scientific thinking.