Hansen shoots back on NASA head Griffin’s “incredibly ignorant and arrogant statement”

Posted on Thursday, May 31, 2007

In response to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s incredible statement on NPR’s Morning Edition today questioning whether global warming is a problem or long-term concern needing to be dealt with, NASA’s James Hansen fired back with a straightforward and welcome example of speaking truth to power. “It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement,” Hansen told ABC News. “It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.” Now it would be good to hear from other NASA scientists, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program leadership, and the scientific research community.  Jim Hansen should not be alone in calling Griffin down for misrepresenting the intelligence on climate science.

See our May 30 post—“NASA Administrator Griffin ‘not sure’ global warming is a problem or long-term concern”

Text and audio of the National Public Radio “Morning Edition” interview May 31

A story posted today by ABC News ("NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming") has a response from James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

Griffin’s comments—released in transcript form by NPR—immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

“It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement,” Hansen told ABC News. “It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.”

Hansen believes Griffin’s comments fly in the face of well-established scientific knowledge that hundreds of NASA scientists have contributed to.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Hansen. “I thought he had been misquoted. It’s so unbelievable.”

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