It may depend on your conception of whistleblowers, but this group certainly fits mine: 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden, admonishing the agency for its role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made carbon dioxide is a major cause of climate change, while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.
The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change.
They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.
Here are select excerpts from the letter:
• “The unbridled advocacy of C02 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming to NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements …”
• “We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
• “We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”
