ABC News reports that “NASA administrator Michael Griffin is drawing the ire of his agency’s preeminent climate scientists after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.” Here are the comments he made on NPR:

“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told (NPR’s Steve) Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”

“To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change,” Griffin said. “I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”

Sounds like a very wise man to me. But one of his employees, climate scientist James Hansen, thinks otherwise:

“It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement,” Hansen told ABC News. “It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.”

“It’s unbelievable,” said Hansen. “I thought he had been misquoted. It’s so unbelievable.”

I guess being featured prominently in Al Gore’s movie has given Hansen some balls. He’s talking about his boss!

Griffin thinks Hansen is arrogant. Hansen thinks Griffin is arrogant. I agree with Griffin, but I want to offer another reason to believe that Hansen and his ilk are arrogant. After this planet has experienced many cycles of extreme climate conditions lasting millions of years, and most all of them occurring before humans inhabited the planet, what is the likelihood that an impending dramatic change in the climate is caused by humans or can be mitigated by humans? Ants are as likely to be able to dramatically affect the earth’s climate as are humans.