There’s an essay by Dr. James Hansen in the Guardian, the header of which is shown below. Next time people accuse of “big oil” connections for skeptics, point out that the most pro-agw newspaper on the planet is pushing Shell Oil ads.
That distraction aside, Dr. Hansen has some stunning things to say, excerpts below.
“The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual.”
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“Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.”
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Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.
It is clear that Hansen doesn’t agree with the current direction. The plan that he outlines, while radical, certainly seems less damaging than “cap and trade”, which is primed for abuse and corruption of the system.
Read the complete article here at the Guardian
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What to do James. What “science” should we believe. At the moment from my perspective there is no science. What is left is political rhetoric based on Margret Meade or Malthus. It is time for James Hansen to step down from GISS. Enough damage has already been done by these profits of doom.
Hansen needs a time out to discuss this with a good shrink, his fanaticism is a debilitating condition. All the pro-AGW folks should take a step back and a fresh look at any science (key word) that exists.
I am shocked, shocked that you seem to be suggesting that The Guardian is hypocritical. It is kept alive by UK government job advertising and the recent sale (using a tax efficient offshore ‘trick’) of ‘Autotrader’ so their motives must pure.
” Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points . ” Try proving that , please , Dr. Hansen . This is just more rubbish from Jimmy .
AGW is just as damaged as the original? climate data held by CRU.
They are intertwined, inseparable at this point in time.
The Earth cools, the Artic Ice rebounds, the Sun snores, land temperature records and rural recording stations are in a truncated state and the ocean is going absoutley nowhere.
Prominent in my mind is the stunt urging activists to storm the coal-fired power plant of Washington DC and shut it down.
There is much to set right before going down the road of examing anew the Earth’s Climate.
Cap & Trade will accomplish nothing but misery and insecurity, leading to hostilities and global warfare. We knew that already.
What we don’t know is how the Earth’s Climate works in precise manner.
We surely need to know more about it, before going down any paths that are difficult to backtrack.
Fee and dividend? Right. Like that’s gonna happen. The “Fee” part would, but forget any “dividend”. Hanson and the others on that article all want to send us back to 1850 life styles. Forget that. I much prefer electricity and modern transportation over candles ( or whale oil – and we know where that would end up! ) and horses.
What if the proportion of any observed warming attributable to man is so small in relation to natural variability that we have several hundred years to sort out our sustainability problems with no current need to go for global energy rationing ?
The proxy data has been shown to be inadequate in describing the full range of natural variability since it failed to capture the undoubted oceanic forcing of the late 20th Century. The MWP could well have been warmer than now as could have been the Roman Warm Period and Minoan Warm Period.
AGW supporters accept the oceanic component now that they have seen the effect of a short L Nina. They previously accepted no oceanic or solar effect at all.
Now they say that the recent temperature trend is due to La Nina and less solar forcing.
To be consistent they must accept that ALL the observed 20th Century warming could be down to those two causes with a human component unproven and unquantified.
The tragedy of climategate is that the incompetent tinkering with the historical data and the proxy data has made it less likely that more competent scientists will be able to unravel the past and learn from it.
Furthermore there has been no progress with climate theory for 20 years because they lazily attributed all observed change to CO2 levels.
As my writings show, there is plenty of evidence now available to support alternative hypotheses. In particular no one seems to have tried to create a consistent top down theory of the Sun/Ocean/Air/Space energy flow as I have done.
The fact is that there is plenty of observed internal system variation at the interfaces between each component of the system. Enough to explain all that we have observed without invoking a measurable CO2 effect at all.
C02 was blamed due to the absence of plausible alternatives. I have pointed out the existence of such alternatives. Those alternatives need to be properly addressed before attention should return to the issue of CO2 levels.
The past 20 years of wasted endeavour need to be compensated for via a faster and more open minded climatological effort in the years to come.
It is no use using models until there is a manifestly workable conceptual overview of the entire energy transfer system globally. At present they are inadequate and have been used only to try to validate a preferred scenario which keeps going out of sync with reality every time it is ‘adjusted’.
Hansen has been saying this for some time now. He’s been a critic of cap-and-trade in favor of an outright tax. Maybe this is why he’s been out of the limelight lately.
The Guardian is known in the UK as the Grauniad because of its propensity for mis-spellings on a grand scale.
Its contributors are a pathetic bunch, in my view, and this is self-evident by their constant use of the (purposely intended) emotive phrase ‘Saving the Planet’.
Until their whole raison-detre is finally exposed as fraudulent, they will continue to re-arrange the deck chairs on their version of the Titanic.
He’s still the nutbar he always was. I note the Guardian failed to acknowledge that the next circus performer up was Ann Daniels, late of the Pen Hadrow Arctic Circus expedition. How seriously can you take someone who, by her own admission “dragged a sled 1500 km” for no real good purpose, and damned near killed herself doing it.
And oddly, I have to agree with him. IF CO2 reductions are necessary, THEN cap-and-trade won’t be adequate, because it won’t materially affect CO2 concentration. No matter what scenario you pick, CNT won’t have any material effect, because of the logarithmic nature of the greenhouse effect.
No matter what the question, Copenhagen has the wrong answer.
Here in the UK the Guardian is known as the Grauniad because of its propensity for mis-spellings on a grand scale.
In my view the journos and contributors are a sorry bunch who cling to the belief that they are always right about everything. Thus they insist on using the fatuous phrase ‘Saving the Planet’.
Until their raison-detre is completely destroyred by the more rational and reasonable members of the human race they should be allowed to continue re-arranging the deck chairs on their Titanic.
The Guardian closed the comments section of this article more hastily than usual.
Only 5 hrs. Silence all dissent.
Can’t accuse the guy of changing his stance.
He should be careful using the word “fraudulent”, in line with what’s been coming out of Climategate’s e-mails & Harry’s “much read me”!
Generally I don’t like the Guardian and its leftish approach. True, it is still pushing the pro-AGW line in the paper. However, it is allowing online debate to a far greater degree than its rivals. The Telegraph is a reasonable second, but The Times has hardly allowed anything at all to appear (though there was a chink today) and the Independent won’t go anywhere near the Climategate issue. So, on this occasion, some credit where it’s due.
Well, it’s nice to see a little reflection and self-criticism in climate science.
I’m kidding, of course, none of the conclusions have changed now that the data has changed, because the conclusions weren’t based on the data but rather the assumptions.
The data was always just an inconvenience, as the reaction of the climatescenti now amply demonstrates. Like their progenitors in the green movement, it isn’t really pollution they want to limit, it’s people. They’re just more squeamish when it comes to talking about the consequences of their policies.
What happens to the billions who depend on fossil fuels when we ban their use or tax them enough to price them out of reach? Oh, those people can’t move or feed themselves then? So what are we to do, firing squads, gas chambers, or just let them starve while surrounding them with guards like the Soviets did?
Greens are always talking about the consequences of everyone else’s policies, it’s manifestly obvious why they don’t want to talk about theirs.
As you can tell, I get a little worked up about this. It’s pretty much the first place I go when a greenie wants to talk to me these days, so far it’s a fair split between those who want to end the conversation suddenly and those who confess to being budding Stalins – a terrifying percentage.
I would like to see those presented in this article address the energy needs of a growing population and what the alternative is, not including cold fusion and trying to pave the entire planet with trillions of dollars in solar cells (and batteries) or windmills (and backup generators).
The more the limelight is away from him, the more he craves the attention, the whackier he gets.
Hansen has advocated a tax and return 100% to citizens for some time now, and I haven’t heard much discussion about it. It certainly seems more efficient, but it could be a big problem for energy importing countries. I’ll leave it to the economists.
How about the first debater, Ann Daniels: “It’s too late for the Arctic, but it’s not yet too late for us” Hey, she was on the Catlin boondoggle. So why do we even bother to monitor the Arctic if it’s too late? We might find ice there?
Note its published today and comments are closed. Typical Hansen.
He’s proposing an old socialist concept called the ‘social dividend’ where, rather than the government inflating the currency with debt it borrows from a private bank like the Federal Reserve Bank (its not publicly owned), it should go back to printing its own money and pay out a dividend to every citizen, funds earned from leasing federal land and water to mining, drilling, ranching, lumbering, fishing, hydropower, irrigation, etc.
Now, Alaska already has something like this, depending on oil prices every Alaska resident earns $1500-2000 per year from oil revenues (the snowmobile dealers always have great deals in snow machines at the price equal to whatever the oil royalty check is).
Now, a problem with this whole concept of course is where is the money coming from to pay for all this? The fees government charges those who use the resources pass those costs on to those who buy their refined products, which gets increased in every step in the distribution chain until it reaches us consumers. Whatever we receive in a social dividend, we wind up paying that plus 100% over that, or more, once every level of distribution has added their administrative overhead costs….
So, no thanks Hansen, we dont need another big socialist screw job.
Yertizz (11:08:44) :
Here in the UK the Guardian is known as the Grauniad because of its propensity for mis-spellings on a grand scale.
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A Raid Gun
Naiad Rug
Dung Aria
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New York Times:
Monkeys write
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http://wordsmith.org/anagram/
It seems the pro-AGW melons are getting highly confused. They can’t get their desired wish (close down as must industry in the west as possible while leave the east burning cow dung), so are starting to realise they have buggered up. There’s not much longer to run on this.
@ur momisugly Chris S (11:12:03) :The Guardian closed the comments section of this article more hastily than usual. Only 5 hrs. Silence all dissent.
There are a lot of deleted comments, too.
Also from the Guradian blog November 25.
Poor George MoonBat has figured out that something is wrong, but:
*****
” George Monbiot: Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That’s why we climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot
*****
Climate Rationalist? Him? He still doesn’t get it that the lies and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is among those that he refers to as “rationalists”.
It is like a train wreck happening in slow motion and watching bodies thrown out of the cars. You can’t look away. Will Poor George figure out just how badly he has been had? Or will he wander endlessly through the darkness babbling about Oil Company conspiracies?
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
Well, what Hansen proposes might eliminate some cap-and-trade fraud, weird corruption, and insane oscillations of the new grey market, but it would still be more damaging to the economy.
He might prefer something like a direct tax but it would have to be huge in order to reduce (!?) CO2 to his 350 ppm. So the energy prices would have to jump ten-fold, or something like that.
So there is some trade-off between some potentially “more ethical” proposals by Hansen and those that are “less ethical” but still “relatively less damaging” such as Kyoto which doesn’t do much on the global scale (except for creating a few carbon billionaires and feeding a few thousand bureaucrats) – which may be a good thing.
“Real” regulation a la Hansen could be more ethical but much worse in its consequences for all of us.
My guess is that Hansen feels like a carbon tax might be easier to obtain than cap and trade. We shouldn’t accept any “carbon” regulations until all the previous papers have been verified – including raw data, meta-data, and code.