Here's Dr. James Hansen from Democracy Now! a few weeks ago, talking about the politicization of global warming research by the Clinton administration:
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, my concern is general with both Republican and Democratic administrations. They both feel that they can control what scientists say to the public. So their offices of public affairs in the science agencies are headed, in general, by political appointees, and they review the press releases before they go out. So, it doesn’t really make sense in a democracy. The public should be honestly informed. And then, of course, the publications are allowed to make the decisions, and they don’t have to follow exactly what the science says. There are other considerations that they have. But they shouldn’t influence what is presented, the scientific evidence. And I object to that, regardless of which administration is in power.
AMY GOODMAN: So, before we go on to the Bush administration, where you did have the most trouble, can you talk about what happened during the Clinton years and how you were able to express or not your research?
DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, the one particular event that stands out in my mind is when I wrote a paper called “Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario,” in which I emphasized that it’s not only carbon dioxide, but other climate forcings—methane and black soot—and we need to address those also. And for some reason, the people in the White House didn’t like emphasis on the non-CO2 parts of the story, and I just—the press release just kept coming back, and I would try to change it, they would change it, and finally I gave up. I just couldn’t get a press release through the way I wanted it.
I'd speculate that the "some reason" here was that Hansen was effectively undermining the Clinton administration's key strategy on global warming, which was to feign engagement while arguing that the US itself didn't have to reduce its emissions in any significant way—as per this article about the 2000 Hague summit:
The prime problem is America, the world's greatest emitter of carbon
dioxide, which presses, with increasing insistence, that it should be
spared from reducing its output and should instead be allowed to create
new forests, both in the US and the Third World. These trees and
plants, known collectively as carbon sinks, will soak up all that nasty
carbon dioxide, say US delegates, and will obviate the need for
Americans to abandon their profligacy.
The US also believes
that by planting crops specially designed to soak up carbon dioxide, it
could extend its 'sink' philosophy from the wild to the farmyard, thus
strengthening its case for unabated industrial emissions. It was this
idea, introduced at the Hague last week, that provoked that outburst of
fury by Europe's delegates.
So by emphasizing climate forcings other than carbon dioxide, Hansen was undercutting the primacy of the Clinton administration's "carbon sink" argument—and that was anathema to Clinton and his global warming lieutenant, Al Gore, whose mission was to use arguments like that one to sell the illusion that the US was taking real action on climate change while forestalling any genuine, meaningful response.
Just once, in between the gentle caresses and soulful glances, I'd like to see an actual journalist actually confront Gore about the actual record he accrued on global warming back when he was in a position to do something more concrete about it than making movies and accepting Nobel prizes.