Friday, June 01, 2007

The Battle of NASA   [Iain Murray]

Even as President Bush was making his speech yesterday, NASA's Administrator Michael Griffin appeared on NPR's Morning Edition, May 31, 2007 to defend the space agency's programs, including plans for a permanent moon base and manned missions to Mars. He also said that while NASA studies climate change, the agency has no authorization to "take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another." This has set off a firestorm of protest about "denialism," which is making a huge mountain out of a very small molehill

The following are excerpts from Griffin's conversation with Steve Inskeep, edited for clarity, with my comments:

It has been mentioned that NASA is not spending as much money as it could to study climate change — global warming — from space. Are you concerned about global warming?

I'm aware that global warming exists. I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we've had about a one degree centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of 20 percent. I'm also aware of recent findings that appear to have nailed down — pretty well nailed down the conclusion that much of that is manmade. Whether that is a longterm concern or not, I can't say.

This is pretty much my take, and the take of a lot of people. I think there are concerns over the extent of warming — are the satellites better indicators than the surface measurements, for instance - but the truth of warming seems pretty well established to me. As for the anthropogenic nature, yes, much of it - possibly even most — is anthropogenic, but a large proportion of it is almost certainly from sources other than greenhouse gases such as land-use change and black carbon (soot). As for longterm projections, until the warming models are more accurate in their economics, never mind the science, I don't think they form any basis for rational discussion.

Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?

I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

This is a fair point with which only the Panglossian can disagree. There are undoubtedly benefits from global warming to agriculture and in terms of lives saved — the experts agree that more lives are saved than additionally lost in a warmer world. If we can reduce the costs of global warming but capture the benefits, then that is a scenario we should consider rather than rule out on principle. Only dogmatists and zealots would argue with that, I think.

Is that thinking that informs you as you put together the budget? That something is happening, that it's worth studying, but you're not sure that you want to be battling it as an army might battle an enemy?

Nowhere in NASA's authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another. We study global climate change, that is in our authorization, we think we do it rather well. I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change.

And that is undeniable. NASA is a scientific, not regulatory, agency. Anyone who wants NASA to battle climate change is calling for a fundamental shift in the agency's mission, never mind setting up turf battles with EPA.

In short, I fail to see what the problem is. Is the stance conservative? Certainly. Is it injudicious? Certainly not.

06/01 12:38 PMShare