Politics vs. climate reality

0 Comments | USA TODAY, February, 2006

Would that the rise and fall of George C. Deutsch, 24, a NASA political appointee, could become a metaphor -- one taken all the way to its logical conclusion -- for the Bush administration's policies on global warming. Deutsch has for months embodied the White House's earth-is-flat take on why the earth is warming, with consequences from melting glaciers to freak weather.

Working in NASA's public relations, he tried to muzzle a renowned climate scientist who -- like serious scientists the world over -- warns that global warming is a threat requiring government intervention to curb emissions from cars, factories and more.

This furthered the business-friendly Bush administration's increasingly lonely mantra that the science isn't solid enough for more than voluntary...