Climate guru James Hansen says he will scale back his dealings with the media in the wake of his comments about airport expansion.

Hansen’s apparent refusal to back protesters opposed to a new runway at the UK’s Heathrow airport made headlines around the world and forced Greenpeace onto the defensive. “I don’t think it is helpful to be trying to prevent air flight,” Sunday paper the Observer reported him saying, under a ‘Climate expert snubs Heathrow protesters’ headline.

Now, in one of his regular emails, he apologises to the protesters.

“I had no intention of damaging their case,” writes Hansen. “All I intended to say was that aviation fuel is not a killer for the climate problem – at worst case we can use carbon-neutral biofuels …”

For a man with such a large – and controversial – media-profile it is a little surprising that Hansen also says he has “relearned a basic lesson re interviews – which will have to be fewer and more guarded”.

Will we be seeing less of Hansen in 2009? This reporter rather doubts it.

Image: Plane at Heathrow / by SecretLondon123 via Flickr under creative commons