| WHAT: | James Hansen, a leading NASA climate scientist under fire from the Bush administration for decrying its poor track record on reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, has agreed to speak at The New School on Friday, February 10 as part of a two-day conference called “Politics and Science: How Their Interplay Creates Public Policy.” It will be his first major public appearance in New York since January 29 news reports revealed that officials at NASA headquarters have tried to prevent him from undercutting Bush administration climate and environmental policies. He will participate in a panel discussion with Michael Oppenheimer (Princeton University), Steven F. Hayward (American Enterprise Institute), and Paul Ehrlich (Stanford University). |
| WHO: | James Hansen is the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the deleterious long-term effects of the gas emissions and carbon dioxide that are unavoidable byproducts of coal, oil, and other fossil fuels commonly burned. In 2001, Dr. Hansen twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. But he raised their ire when, in a 2004 speech prior to the presidential election, he divulged that his fellow government climate scientists had been actively silenced. More recently, in December 2005, he argued that, without effective leadership by the United States, climate change would leave the earth "a different planet." That same month he released a study demonstrating that 2005 was warmer than any other year in the past century. |
| WHEN: | Friday, February 10th, 2006, 10 a.m.-12:45 p.m. |
| WHERE: | Tishman Auditorium, The New School, 66 West 12th Street, First Floor, New York, NY |
| ABOUT: | On February 9 and 10, Social Research, a prominent journal of opinion and social science based at The New School for Social Research, will host “Politics and Science: How Their Interplay Creates Public Policy,” a two day conference featuring leading figures from the political and scientific communities in candid dialogue about public health, the environment, and energy. Participants will examine the increasing politicization of science in the United States and the nexus of interests currently determining our government policy. |
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