Bush History 12/13: NASA Pressured

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor ... If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action.” Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, Former Vice President Al Gore

2005: Astronomer Larry Travis tells the NY Times that around this date (mid-December 2005) he had walked in on a call between someone in the Bush administration and a NASA PR person. The White House was demanding that NASA chief climate scientist, James Hansen, be “better controlled”. Feeling an obligation to live up to NASA’s mission statement, which included the words “to understand and protect our home planet”, Dr. Hansen’s discussions on global warming have not been welcomed by the oil-friendly Bush administration. Dr. Hansen told the Times that he would ignore White House restrictions. Dr. Travis said of Hansen: “He’s not trying to create a war over this but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public”.

2006: President Bush says on this date “Today I heard from some opinions that matter a lot to me”. The president did not specify by what mechanism the opinions were able to speak.