Storms of My Grandchildren comment by Dick Bennett

LETTER TO CCTF ON HANSEN’S STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN

Page after page is packed with keen  political observations.   This is all from p. 135. 

 The political appointees running NASA’s Office of Public Affairs were charged with the widest dissemination of the scientific research, but covertly they had to make the president look good; for them personally this meant leaving no paper trail.   But Hansen names names.

He believes in the original NASA mission statement: “to understand and protect our home planet,”  chosen under the NASA administrator Dan Goldin (cheers).   That meant for Hansen to connect all the dots, tell the truth about warming, melting, rising.  So he was astonished to find in 2006 that someone had deleted these words.

But that wasn’t all that disappeared covertly.   20% of the budget of his dept. (earth science research) was cut.

These events lead him to expatiate, still on p.135, on the increasing executive power in the US, in this case from the President, to the new NASA head, to his dept..

But you gotta read p. 136 to see how it was secretly excecuted.

 CCTF thankfully is not running for office or working for a corporation or the government, so we can hold fast with Hansen to NASA;’s original statement:  We strive to UNDERSTAND AND PROTECT OUR HOME PLANET., and nothing else will do—no denying, no greenwashing, no half-measures, no cant, and no secrecy.     We are fortunate, we don't even have to be brave like Hansen.   Dick

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Dick Bennett
jbennet@uark.edu