NASA chief downplays threat of warming

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Thursday that he's not convinced that global warming is "a problem we must wrestle with." Scientists called the remarks ignorant.

The NASA chief — whose agency has come under fire in Congress for cutting programs designed to monitor climate change — also said it's "rather arrogant" for people to assert that today's climate is the optimal one.

"I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings," Griffin said in an interview on National Public Radio (NPR).

The day before the remarks, Griffin's own agency put out a news release about a research paper written by nearly 50 NASA and Columbia University scientists and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The report says "human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet."

James Hansen, a top NASA climate scientist and lead author of the report, said Griffin's comments showed "arrogance and ignorance" because millions of people likely will be harmed by global warming.

"The devastation with sea-level rise of several meters, with hundreds of millions of refugees, would dwarf that of New Orleans," Hansen wrote in an e-mail, referring to Hurricane Katrina. "Is it arrogant to say that such would be a problem?"

Jerry Mahlman, a former top scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said the remarks showed Griffin was either "totally clueless" or "a deep anti-global-warming ideologue."

White House science adviser Jack Marburger said he was not disturbed by Griffin's remarks but distanced them from President Bush.

"It's pretty obvious that the NASA administrator was speaking about his own personal views and by no means representing or attempting to represent the administration's views or broader policy," Marburger said. "He's got a very wry sense of humor and is very outspoken."

White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton also downplayed Griffin's remarks: "We're dedicated to action. And, in fact, I think the conversation's really moved beyond a statement of the problem."

NASA spokesman David Mould said the NPR interviewer was trying to push Griffin into saying something about global warming. NASA's position is that it provides scientific data on the issue, but policymakers decide, he said.