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NASA CURBS COMMENTS ON ICE AGE DISASTER MOVIE
By Andrew C. Revkin
New York Times
April 25, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/national/25MOVI.html

Urgent: HQ Direction," began a message e-mailed on April 1 to dozens of
scientists and officials at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Md.

It was not an alert about an incoming asteroid, a problem with the space
station or a solar storm. It was a warning about a movie.

In "The Day After Tomorrow," a $125 million disaster film set to open on May
28, global warming from accumulating smokestack and tailpipe gases disrupts
warm ocean currents and sets off an instant ice age.

Few climate experts think such a prospect is likely, especially in the near
future. But the prospect that moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the
Bush administration for inattention to climate change has stirred alarm at
the space agency, scientists there say.

"No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything
having to do with" the film, said the April 1 message, which was sent by
Goddard's top press officer. "Any news media wanting to discuss science
fiction vs. science fact about climate change will need to seek comment from
individuals or organizations not associated with NASA."

Copies of the message, and the one from NASA headquarters to which it
referred, were provided to The New York Times by a senior NASA scientist who
said he resented attempts to muzzle climate researchers.

Late last week, however, NASA appeared to relax its stand on discussing the
movie. Though she did not disavow the e-mail, Gretchen Cook-Anderson, a
spokeswoman at NASA headquarters, said on Thursday that the agency would
make scientists available to discuss issues raised by the film.

"We've decided not to proactively speak out on anything related to the
movie," she said. "But when asked, we can certainly provide some of our
experts to answer questions about the validity of the science."

Several days ago, NASA scientists produced a list of questions and answers
about abrupt climate change, but the information has not yet been approved
for public release.

"The Day After Tomorrow," from 20th Century Fox, is directed by Roland
Emmerich, whose "Independence Day" in 1996 depicted an alien invasion of
earth and included such memorable special effects as the White House
exploding in flames. The new movie's script contains a host of politically
uncomfortable situations: the president's motorcade is flash frozen; the
vice president, who scoffs at warnings even as chaos erupts, resembles Dick
Cheney; the humbled United States has to plead with Mexico to allow masses
of American refugees fleeing the ice to cross the border.

The initial efforts by NASA headquarters to limit comments angered some
government researchers.

"It's just another attempt to play down anything that might lead to the
conclusion that something must be done" about global warming, one federal
climate scientist said. He, like half a dozen government employees
interviewed on this subject, said he could speak only on condition of
anonymity because of standing orders not to talk to the news media.

Along with its direct criticisms of a Bush-like administration, the movie
also could draw attention to a proposed Bush budget cut.

The lead character, played by Dennis Quaid, is a paleoclimatologist, an
investigator of past climate shifts, for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. President Bush has proposed sharp cuts to the
agency's paleoclimatology program, which began under the first Bush
administration.

On Friday, NOAA officials said they saw the movie mainly as an opportunity,
not a problem.

"Any time anybody can focus on this little agency that nobody ever pays
attention to and talk about what we do, that's a good thing," said Jordan
St. John, the agency's director of public affairs.

Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, which handles policy on environmental issues, said she was "not
aware of any White House discussion about this movie with anyone -- none at
all."

Some leaders of nonprofit environmental groups are also distressed about the
movie, though for different reasons. In conference calls and e-mail
exchanges, they have said it so overstates the issue -- turning a
decades-long or century-long threat into one that explodes over five days --
that it might cause people to simply laugh off the real questions.

The film's creators said they were puzzled by the concerns of
environmentalists. "If they can get their act together, all they need to be
saying is the drama of this movie is fictional but the fact is that global
warming is real," said Mark Gordon, the producer of the movie.

If environmentalists distance themselves from the movie, they will be
squandering a gift, said Dr. Daniel B. Botkin, an emeritus professor of
ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"I think it is a good educational opportunity, and that we should treat a
disaster movie as entertainment and not get upset that it is a distortion,"
Dr. Botkin said. "But $125 million on global warming must be a record for
publicizing the issue."

............

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW WEBSITE:
http://www.thedayaftertomorrow.com/index.php

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PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

SCIENTISTS RIDICULE ICE AGE CLAIMS (4/17/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7091

HOLLYWOOD DISASTER FILM SET TO TURN HEAT ON BUSH (3/15/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6912

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