This week Global Warming alarmist James Hansen (Al Gore’s right-hand man who, like Gore, has become phenomenally rich pushing his alarmism) now wants oil executives imprisoned. Y’see, Hansen is the one who has convinced Gore that the science is settled: The earth is warming at a catastrophic rate. Man is causing it through the burning of fossil fuels. Oil execs are becoming rich off by manufacturing and selling fossil fuels. So his solution: Go to Congress and tell them to imprison them. Talk about “chilling effect” on free speech.
James Hansen: Abusing the Public Trust
By Brian Sussman
Monday, James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), addressed Congress and brought a new twist to his tired global warming song and dance routine. Hansen now seems to be calling for the chief executives of Big Oil to be tried for high crimes against humanity. Their crime? Spreading doubt about global warming.
Actually, it is Hansen who is guilty. Guilty of abusing the public trust. [...]
As is the case with all government agencies, maintaining a budget is critical. The bureaucrats at NASA boast of their obvious needs for cash: completion of the International Space Station, furthering the Space Shuttle Program, and, of course, preventing the world from spontaneously combusting in a ball of flames. Hansen is a zealous promoter of the latter, and, since the 1980s, has been able to keep the funds flowing-both into NASA, as well as into his personal pocket-to study the world’s climate. A slick marketer, Hansen possesses an insatiable appetite for media attention -- as long as the person asking questions is favorable to his point of view. [...]
Early in 2006, a major story in the New York Times pointed a finger at the Bush Administration for supposedly trying to censor Hanson. In part, it read: The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard web site and requests for interviews from journalists. The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Can you blame the administration for wanting to review his content? As a NASA Director, his role should be collecting data and truthfully sharing results, not trying to influence policy and legislation. | Congressman Darryl Issa (R-San Diego) called Hansen on his continual talking out of turn. During a hearing on Capitol Hill regarding his abuse of his government status, Issa said, “You’re speaking on federal paid time. Your employer happens to be the American taxpayer.” Issa went on to say that an internet search showed Hansen had had stated on more than 1,400 occasions in over a year’s worth of interviews and appearances (15 interviews alone in the month that the congressional hearings were taking place) that the Bush Administration had censored him. [...]
I agree with Congressman Issa. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to use their job as a soapbox; nor should they be allowed to receive huge sums of cash for work they have conducted on the taxpayer’s dime, from private, liberal interests with a global warming agenda.
Examine the largess culled by Hansen.
In 2001, the Heinz Foundation “awarded” James Hansen with a payment of $250,000 for his work on global warming. According to the foundation:
“It was Dr. Hansen who, in the sweltering, drought-scorched summer of 1988, went where few scientists were willing to go-before Congress, to explain just how serious the potential for global warming truly was.”
The Heinz Foundation, directed by the wife of U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate, John Kerry, is widely known for its support of liberal causes. Is it any surprise that James Hansen also endorsed John Kerry for President in 2004? The quarter of a million was just a tease of additional monies to come. In 2007, Hansen split a $1 million prize from the Dan David prize category of “Future Quest for Energy” (layman’s translation: a world without oil). In addition he also reported to have acted as a consultant to Gore’s global whining slide show, which was the impetus to the Prince of Peace’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” In fact, in 2006 Hansen had the gall to appear on a New York City stage with Mr. Gore to promote the then upcoming film-though he did reportedly inform the audience, “I’m not speaking as a government employee.”
Topping it all, Hansen has allegedly received hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to further politicize the issue of global warming. According to Investors Business Daily, “How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely ‘NASA whistleblower’ standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by [George] Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI), which gave him ‘legal and media advice’? That’s right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros’ flagship ‘philanthropy’ by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI’s ‘politicization of science’ program.”
Hansen denied any relationship with OSI, but Investor’s Business Daily refused to back off on their story, “claiming the funding first passed through the Government Accountability Project, which then used it to package Hansen for the media.” [...]
Yup, that’s a liberal for ya: Going around with the agenda of “Get on board with what I say, or go to jail!” And make tons of money while doing it. Somewhere in Hell, Uncle Joe Stalin is cheering for this guy.
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