NASA tells staff not to talk about chilling film

By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times

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The alert was not about an incoming asteroid, a problem with the space station or a solar storm. It was a warning about a movie.

In "The Day After Tomorrow," a $125 million film scheduled to open May 28, global warming from pollution sets off an instant ice age.

Few climate experts think such a prospect is likely, especially in the near future. But the prospect that moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate change has stirred alarm at the space agency, scientists there say.

"No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with" the film, said the April 1 message, sent by Goddard's top press officer. "Any news media wanting to discuss science fiction vs. science fact about climate change will need to seek comment from individuals or organizations not associated with NASA."

Copies of the messages were provided by a senior NASA scientist who said he resented attempts to muzzle researchers.

NASA, however, appeared to relax its stand last week. Although she did not disavow the e-mail message, Gretchen Cook-Anderson, a spokeswoman at NASA headquarters, said Thursday that the agency would make scientists available to discuss issues raised by the film.

"We've decided not to proactively speak out on anything related to the movie," she said. "But when asked, we can certainly provide some of our experts to answer questions about the validity of the science."

"The Day After Tomorrow," from 20th Century Fox, is directed by Roland Emmerich, whose "Independence Day" in 1996 depicted an alien invasion of Earth and included memorable special effects such as the White House exploding in flames.

The new movie's script contains a host of politically uncomfortable situations: the president's motorcade is flash frozen; the vice president, who scoffs at warnings even as chaos erupts, resembles Dick Cheney; the humbled United States pleads with Mexico to allow masses of fleeing American refugees to cross the border.

Initial efforts by NASA headquarters to limit comments on the film angered some researchers.
 
"It's just another attempt to play down anything that might lead to the conclusion that something must be done" about global warming, one federal climate scientist said. He, like six government employees interviewed, said he could speak only on condition of anonymity, because of orders not to talk to the news media.

Along with its direct criticisms of a Bush-like administration, the movie also contains more subtle potential embarrassments.

One is that its lead character, played by Dennis Quaid, is a paleoclimatologist, an investigator of past climate shifts, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. President Bush's proposed 2005 budget would sharply cut the agency's paleoclimatology program, started under the first Bush administration.

NOAA officials said Friday they saw the movie mainly as an opportunity, not a problem.

"Any time anybody can focus on this little agency that nobody ever pays attention to and talk about what we do, that's a good thing," said Jordan St. John, the agency's director of public affairs.

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