Rod Proctor, NewsMax.com
Thursday, June 7, 2007

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NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has ensnared himself in the controversy over global warming, first by telling National Public Radio that global warming is not necessarily "a problem we must wrestle with," and then later expressing regret that he commented on the matter at all.

Griffin's controversial remarks drew strong criticism from the scientific community.

Chief NASA climate expert James Hansen, who in the past has charged NASA and the administration with muzzling evidence of man-made climate change, issued one of the most strident rebukes of his Griffin's statements.

"It's an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement," Hansen told ABC News. "It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change. It's unbelievable. I thought he had been misquoted."

Griffin's statement appeared to downplay the global warming issue, even as President Bush sought to reassure allies about his position prior to the Group of 8 conference of industrialized nations taking place in Germany.

"The United States takes this issue seriously," Bush said last week, expressing his support for "a long-term global goal" of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report in The New York Times.

In a closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., Griffin said that "Unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it."

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Griffin added that he felt "badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this," according to The Associated Press, which obtained a video of Griffin's statement at JPL.

Griffin maintains his NPR comments represented only his opinion, not agency policy, but he says that fact got "lost in the shuffle," the AP reports.

"Doing media interviews is an art. Their goal is usually to generate controversy because it sells interviews and papers, and my goal is usually to avoid controversy," Griffin added.

During the NPR interview, Griffin also said he had no doubt that a global warming trends exists, according to MSNBC.

A Princeton University climate expert echoed Hansen's criticism.

"I was shocked by the statement and I think the (NASA) administrator ought to resign," Michael Oppenheimer told ABC. "I don't see how he can be the effective leader of a science agency if he doesn't understand the threat of global warming."

Others in the scientific community came to Griffin's defense, however. "My main reaction to Michael Griffin is to congratulate him on his clear-sightedness, not to mention his courage in speaking out on such a controversial topic," Australian Professor Robert Carter told the Science and Public Policy Institute.

"Many rationalist scientists agree with him, clearly demonstrating there is no scientific consensus on man-made, catastrophic global warming," said the director of the Science and Public Policy Institute, Robert Ferguson.

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