UNREALITY-BASED….Out of the blue the other day I heard from an old high school friend who apparently discovered my blog and wrote to say hi. Turns out he’s now a professor of geology at an Ivy League university, and after a bit of chatting the conversation (of course) turned to politics. “I’m finding the election to be a colossal distraction from work,” he said. “Scientists, particularly environmental scientists, see this election as the most important of their lives. I can’t recall any previous election in which professors in conversations have been so blunt about the stakes.”
I’ve heard all that before, of course, but it hits home a little harder when it comes from someone you know personally. He also told me to watch out for a speech from NASA’s director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Here it is:
“In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now,” James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.
….Hansen said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that “fit predetermined, inflexible positions.” Evidence that would raise concerns about the dangers of climate change is often dismissed as not being of sufficient interest to the public.
….Hansen said such warnings are consistently suppressed, while studies that cast doubt on such interpretations receive favorable treatment from the administration.
Just consider that a message from the ultimate reality-based community.
