A joint letter from NASA scientists, engineers and astrnauts. Will this make any impact on the agency?

Thankfully these are FORMER employees, although I would suspect that NASA still has their share of politically motivated crackpots, like any large organization. You would be advised to look up consensus in the dictionary, not just to learn the spelling, but also the meaning. NASA has on the order of 20,000 employees, and you've got a letter from 49, and think that determines a consensus? EDIT: Let's all apologize personally to Mike for having offended his sensibilities. Mike, we sincerely apologize for insulting these 49 American heroes, by and large untrained in climate science, but who no doubt know vastly more about the subject than the tens of thousands of real climate scientists that you insult every day.

You say it sounds like a consensus. You do know that it represents 0.02% of NASA employees. That means that for every 1 person who put their name to the letter 6,122 people didn’t. It looks like NASA’s staff overwhelmingly accept the theory of global warming. Whilst the people named are undoubtedly highly experienced and qualified in their respective fields, how many have any qualifications or skills relating to the climate. Being able to assemble a Space Shuttle or even get launched into space doesn’t require a knowledge of the climate. In fact, of the 49 people only one has any relevant qualifications and that’s Tom Wysmuller, a former weather forecaster at Amsterdam’s Royal Dutch Weather Bureau. It’s not impressive is it? - - - - - - - - EDIT: TO MAXX I’m not marginalizing anyone’s qualifications, I described them as “undoubtedly highly experienced and qualified” and clearly they are. You could be the best flight engineer in the world, it doesn’t mean that you know a thing about climates – why should it. It makes as much sense as thinking they’d be experts in dentistry, graphic design or flower arranging. I’m a climate scientist, have been for years, it’s a subject I know a lot about, does that qualify me to comment on rocket science or engineering? Why ever would there be a list of NASA personnel who have signed a counter statement? A non-sequitur like this doesn’t merit a counter statement, the real world facts and the robustness of the science speak for themselves. It’s no different to when the smoking deniers signed petitions and letters claiming smoking was harmless, did the doctors and scientists waste their time with counter statements? Of course not. - - - - - - - - - EDIT: TO MIKE Harrison Schmitt is a geologist, that does not make him a climate scientist. Why is there this assumption amongst some skeptics and deniers that just about anyone with a half decent qualification in any subject is an expert in climatology. NASA employs thousands of physicists, astrophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists etc – people with qualifications that require a comprehension of climate science, where are their names on the letter? If someone produced a list of engineers, designers, pilots, technicians etc who signed a letter supporting the theory of global warming would you for one minute consider it to be credible? No you wouldn’t. So what credibility does such a list have when it opposes the global warming theory. Answer – exactly the same, none.

""With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.""" ""We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases"" Isn't it ironic that they make unproven and unsupported remarks and then demand NASA to never make unproven or unsupported remarks. Isn't it Ironic? Don't ya think? EDIT - I stand corrected - Irony is Mike defending these people while taking cheap shots at whoever disagrees with him. Sure the NASA engineers are swell, heart-thumping patriots. All the other scientists who believe in AGW are agenda driven liars. Oh wait, that's hypocrisy, not irony.

They weren't even able to explain where they say the problems. Their letter says if NASA has any question, go ask the guys a the Heartland Institute, a political lobby. These poor fools are political pawns. Not one of them is educated in climate science and they can't offer any specifics. The argument continues to be between between real climate scientists and a political machine organized by the Heartland Institute. When you see these political statements be sure to follow the money. They always trace back to Heartland.

It sure took them long enough to speak-up. It's awful what Warmists like James Hansen has done to the reputation of NASA. For decades after it's upstart it was a respected agency within the American government, perceived as one of the very few that was trustworthy and doing it's job well. That's all gone now because the Warmists move in and used up all the accumulated respect it had amassed by decades of hard work and good performance to push a corrupt agenda. NASA's reputation is today in shambles because of the obvious political manipulation of their reports and data to prop-up this global AGW scam. It must be infuriating for all those scientists and technicians that worked so hard to build their agencies reputation. And now, to see it all kicked into the gutter because of the greedy and corrupt special interest and politicians trying to foist this hoax on the America people. My hat's off to them for trying, whether it will do any good or not remains to be seen. I guess the 'consensus' for catastrophic man-made Global Warming at NASA isn't so strong after all. --------------------- Trevor - Before criticizing this list and trying to marginalize their qualifications, where exactly is YOUR LIST of NASA personnel that have signed a statement counter to this one and have thereby risks their good names and reputations for the "cause" of man-made Global Warming? If you don't have one, then the count stands at 49 to zero, in favor of the skeptics and that is impressive. --------------------- Trevor - The reason there would be a counter list is to show how many of these people actually believe that man-made Global Warming is a problem. I'm sure you want to claim all non-signers as signers for your side. But that's disingenuous, non-signers that work at NASA are by no means necessary proponents of man-made Global Warming. So unless and until somebody gathers signature to support the opposing view then the 'consensus' at NASA is a skeptical one. ---------------------

There is a consensus at NASA but it is a political consensus. Those scientists who are far leftists (e.g. Hanson) are often AGW alarmists and those who aren't are generally properly skeptical.

No Because it's not about real science. It's political science. Political science doesn't care about being right. It only cares about where the money is coming from.

If not, cooler temperatures will.

If 49 NASA scientists, engineers, and astronauts had published peer-reviewed research saying NASA's stance on global warming is not supported by the empirical data, that would be one thing. But this thing is something different. It's not research. It's a letter. Cost of an envelope and a postage stamp. Lots of talk about empirical data; no actual empirical data. NASA didn't choose its current stance on global warming based on how many letters it got from the "hockey team", and it shouldn't base its stance on unresearched correspondence now.