Climate Change Expert To Testify White House Interferes In Research

This is going to be messy. The US' top climate scientist, Jim Hansen at Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Science, is to testify to Congress today that the White House has interfered at every level in climate change research in an attempt to stop the bad news getting to the public. According to the Guardian, his statement will include the following:

"The executive branch seems to be exercising greater control in the functioning of our government, in ways that our forefathers probably did not imagine and almost certainly would not approve. This includes White House control of testimony to Congress, White House control of information that scientists provide to the public ... and most decidedly through control of the purse strings."

..."Interference with communication of science to the public has been greater during the current administration that at any time in my career."

..."One way to avoid bad news: stop the measurements! Only hitch: the first line of the Nasa mission is 'to understand and protect our home planet'. Maybe that can be changed to 'protect special interests' backside'."

"The most troubling impact of the political interference with climate change science is the potential burden that we leave for our children and grandchildren,"..."If we continue on this course, failing to effectively address climate change, we will leave a heavy moral burden, and perhaps a legal burden, for our children."

Dr. Hansen will also charge that the Bush administration has cut budgets for earth science to "almost a going-out-of-business" level, including cancelling essential satellite launches and defunding scientists' research.

He has spoken out before, and was given a PR minder by the Bush administration as well as being restricted in what he could post to the Goddard Institute's website. After media exposure of this censorship, NASA issued a statement saying it supported scientific openness.

Even so, Dr Hansen will testify that political PR appointees are still restricting what scientists can say. "In no way has the impact of deception of the public about climate change been undone by Nasa's forthright decision in favour of scientific openness."

It's yet another scandal where the Bush administration follow a narrow, partisan path of serving special interests instead of the whole nation and then try to cover up doing so. So what should we call it? ClimateGate? ScienceGate?