This just in: Beth Daley at the Boston Globe reveals
the most serious attempt yet on the part of this administration to cripple global warming science, while Kenneth Chang looks at the same news and turns lemons into lemonade, characterizing NASA's cancellation or delay of climate-monitoring satellites as "
progress in weather satellite effort." A program that was "billions of dollars over budget... is finally on a realistic track," Chang happily writes, in contrast to Daley's assessment that the cuts amount to a massive reduction in our ability to study the earth from space, and that
the earth science mission cancellations and delays take on greater significance, some scientists say, given recent allegations by a top NASA researcher and other government scientists that the Bush administration tried to silence their warnings about global warming.
In contrast to the Globe's story, which centers around the satellites' capability to expand our knowledge of earth and climate science, the Times merely notes that the orbiters "have military and civilian uses" and confines to the end of the article the observation that "
gap in weather data would create problems for researchers tracking long-term climate trends."
Rather than spend money learning about the extent, origins, and dangers of global warming, President Bush would rather go to the moon. Literally-- he wants more Americans there by 2020. Maybe we can send him there sooner.
The Washington Post is so far
silenton the subject.