Censoring Science

November 5, 2007
This portrait of NASA climate scientist James Hansen and his decades-long struggle to alert the public about global warming's perils and potential solutions ranges from deeply disturbing and frightening to inspiring. Disturbing, as Bowen (Thin Ice
) gives convincing evidence that the Bush administration did its best to control NASA scientists' communication with the public in order to undermine belief in global warming and belittle its consequences. According to Bowen, the administration set up ideological political loyalists in positions formerly held by career professionals, gutted NASA's earth science budget, then denied these actions. Frightening, as Hansen concludes that “climate is significantly more sensitive†than two years ago and that “our choice†may be “not between no change and a significant change, but between a significant change and disaster.†Inspiring, in Bowen's portrayal of Hansen, who obeys the “Feynman admonition†in both science and policy—“describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be.†Bowen's in-depth treatments of politics and science, although hard going at times, give his arguments substance. Hansen's conviction that tools exist right now to mitigate the worst effect—if only we will use them—is surprisingly hopeful.

January 15, 2008
Science journalist Bowen ("Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains") tells the story of Dr. James Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and his suppressed attempts to warn the public about global warming and climate change. Bowen details how NASA's press office, under pressure from the Bush administration, censored or toned down press releases and prevented scientists from speaking to the media. In rambling and digressive detail, the author recounts how a Bush political appointee redacted scientific reports to describe global warming as an unproven theory. This work is partly a biography of Hansen and partly an explanation of climatology, and it shows what goes wrong when science and politics mix. The bleak subject matterglobal warming and censorshipmakes for depressing reading. Bowen's seemingly endless descriptions of NASA's office politics beg for editing, and his text, which is not organized chronologically, reads as if it were stitched together from shorter pieces. Recommended only for larger research libraries. [For better accounts on the Bush administration's attacks on science, see Chris Mooney's "The Republican War on Science" and "Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming".Ed.]Jeffrey Beall, Univ. of Colorado at Denver & Health Sciences Ctr.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 15, 2007
Bowen, of Thin Ice (2005) renown, reveals the full extent of the Bush administrations censoring of the findings of NASA climatologists, preeminent among them Dr. James Hansen, a tireless and trusted scientist who has been making crucial discoveries about the dynamics of climate change for more than three decades. Thanks to Hansens refusal to be muzzled and the courage of whistle-blowers, Bowen was able to track the machinations of political appointees with no science background and troubling associations with the fossil-fuel industry, the swift boat debacle, and Alberto Gonzalez as they dumb down and stall NASA press releases regarding climate change and attempt to control media access to government scientists. Meanwhile, reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on global warming and the intensifying of hurricanes were censored after Katrina, and Bowen documents the sneaky way the feds slashed the earth sciences budget and eliminated the directive to understand and protect our home planet from the NASA mission. Bowen salts his jarring report with clear-as-day facts about global warming and carbon emissions and joins scientists in saying that weve already lost so much time, these acts of suppression may well go down in infamy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)