Here is what NASA Chief Bridenstine, the new head of NASA is
saying:
“I believe carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. I believe
that humans are contributing to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
“To what extent?”
Schatz asked.
“That is a question I do
not have an answer to, but I do know that humans have absolutely contributed to
global warming,” Bridenstine replied.
Sadly,
"The latest budget
deal didn’t specifically mention nasa’s Carbon
Monitoring System, a $10-million program to track greenhouse-gas emissions
around the world. The Trump administration took that as an opportunity to
terminate the program for good."
If not Trump, then
surely most in his administration must know these things...that humans
contribute to global warming. Miami loses an inch of its shoreline every
year. Louisiana loses football fields of its land base every single
day. Many places throughout the world are currently uninhabitable due to
climate change. The problem is that it doesn't serve Trump's interest to be
straight up with Americans and to admit such things.
We need to get Trump and
his minions out of office. Impeach, indict, bring criminal charges against
him—whatever it takes. And let's elect a Congress that is environmentally
aware and politically aggressive on such things. Not only does our
species survival as homo sapiens depend on this, but we should
all wish a better world with clean energy for our children, grand children, and
the unborn generations.
Angela Valenzuela
c/s
Trump’s NASA Chief: 'I Fully Believe and Know the Climate Is Changing'
“I also know that we human beings are contributing to it in a
major way,” Jim Bridenstine said, taking an unusual stance for his
administration.
· MAY
17, 201 | THE
ATLANTIC
The new administrator
of nasa held a town hall Thursday at the agency’s headquarters in
Washington, D.C. Jim Bridenstine is about four weeks into the job, and his path here was
mired in controversy. After a few opening remarks, he started taking some
questions. The first was about what Bridenstine thinks makes him qualified to
be the head of nasa. The second was, as the moderator put it, “one more easy
one—because it’s about climate change.”
Bridenstine laughed. So did
many in the room. It was an uncomfortable question. Bridenstine, as a
Republican in Congress, has a record of denying that humans are responsible for
causing climate change. For Democrats and liberals, Bridenstine’s view on this
and other issues—particularly on same-sex marriageand transgender rights—made him a contentious pick to lead nasa, an
agency that supports climate-change research and very
publicly agrees with the majority of climate scientists who say
that humans are the primary cause of the planet’s rising temperatures.
“As far as my position on climate change and how it’s
evolved, I’ll be very open,” Bridenstine replied. He described, as he has done multiple times before, his longstanding
interest in funding weather-forecasting programs, particularly for tornadoes,
which threaten people in Oklahoma, Bridenstine’s home state, each year. Then he
got to what his critics wanted to hear.
“I don’t deny that consensus that the climate is changing,”
he said. “In fact, I fully believe and know that the climate is changing. I
also know that we humans beings are contributing to it in a major way. Carbon
dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We’re putting it into the atmosphere in volumes
that we haven’t seen, and that greenhouse gas is warming the planet. That is
absolutely happening, and we are responsible for it.”
Bridenstine did not say that humans are the main drivers of
climate change. But his assertion that people are contributing to climate
change “in a major way” marks his strongest support to date for the scientific
consensus behind warming temperatures. And he went further than perhaps any
other Trump-picked leader has.
Bridenstine went further on Thursday than he has in the
past—even in the very recent past, like at his Senate confirmation hearing in
November, which was convened a month after President Trump picked Bridenstine
as his choice to lead nasa. When Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from
Hawaii, questioned Bridenstine about his views on climate change, Bridenstine
said, “I believe carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. I believe that humans are
contributing to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
“To what extent?” Schatz asked.
“That is a question I do not have an answer to, but I do
know that humans have absolutely contributed to global warming,” Bridenstine
replied.
“Are they the primary cause?” Schatz said.
“It’s going to depend on a whole lot of factors, and we’re
still learning more about that every day,” Bridenstine said. “In some years,
you could say absolutely. In other years, during sun cycles and other things, there
are other contributing factors that would have more of an impact.”
Bridenstine said something similar in June 2013, six months
after he took office in the House of Representatives, and soon after a tornado
killed 24 people in Oklahoma. During a floor speech, Bridenstine asked
former President Barack Obama to apologize to Oklahomans for spending more
money on global-warming research than on weather forecasting and warnings (a
claim that PolitiFact, a fact-checking website run by reporters, rated as “mostly false.”)
“Global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with
sun output and ocean cycles,” Bridenstine said back then. “During the Medieval Warm Periodfrom 800 to
1300 a.d., long before cars, power plants, and the industrial revolution,
temperatures were warmer than today. During the Little Ice Age from 1300 to
1900 a.d., temperatures were cooler. Neither of these were caused by any
human activity.” (Scientists have found that volcanic eruptions also play a large role in these natural
changes in climate, and they note that recent temperature changes dwarf any
of these historic anomalies.)
Bridenstine’s appearance at Thursday’s town hall signaled a
shift in the way he talks about climate change—and it was fairly reassuring for
some on the other side.
“This goes to show Jim is a realist and pragmatist on
climate—much as we had hoped when we looked to the confirmation hearing to hear
the right answers. The answer he gave today is the right answer,” says Phil
Larson, a former adviser in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology
Policy under Obama and the assistant dean of the University of Colorado at
Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “But what’s even more important
than right answers is how does that translate to nasa’s earth-science
portfolio?”
Indeed, it’s possible that Bridenstine was trying to make
sure his employees don’t hate him. It’s also possible Bridenstine is trying to
convey, ever so slightly—and ever so unlikely, as his most vocal critics would
probably say—that he’s changing his mind.
As far as my position on climate
change and how it’s evolved, he had said. “Evolve” is a
favorite word for politicians seeking to change their public opinions about somethingwithout
incurring the wrath of flip-flopping accusations. In 2008, Obama said he didn’t
support marriage for same-sex couples. In 2010, he shifted, saying “Attitudes
evolve, including mine.” A memoir from David Axelrod, an Obama adviser,
revealed in 2015 what many had already suspected: The former president only
made that statement in 2008 because it was politically expedient. When
Bridenstine was in Congress, it was probably politically expedient to rail against
human-caused climate change. Perhaps he knows that now, at nasa, it’s not.
Still, whether Bridenstine’s views on climate change have
changed or not, the views of his bosses haven’t, and this remains a point of
concern for Bridentine’s critics. The Trump White House has proposed cutting or
canceling many of nasa’s earth-science missions. So far, they’ve been
spared. Republicans don’t have enough seats in the Senate to pass their dream
budgets, so they’ve had to negotiate bipartisan budget legislation with
Democrats. This setup has preserved most of nasa’s climate funding, but
not all. The latest budget deal didn’t specifically mention nasa’s Carbon
Monitoring System, a $10-million program to track greenhouse-gas emissions
around the world. The Trump administration took that as an opportunity to
terminate the program for good.
Bridenstine became nasa chief 15 months after Obama’s
pick stepped down, an unprecedented gap in the transition
between two administrations. How does the White House feel that less than a month
in, he’s making one of the most supportive statements for climate change of any
Trump-nominated leaders?
“The climate has changed and is always changing,” said Raj
Shah, the principal deputy press secretary. “To address climate change as well
as other risks, the U.S. will continue to promote access to affordable and
reliable energy and support technology, innovation and the development of
modern and efficient infrastructure in order to reduce emissions and
effectively address future climate-related risks.”
Robinson Meyer contributed reporting
to this article.
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