This really is abuse of Hansen’s position at NASA, what next? Meanwhile China keeps building coal plants, where’s your letter to them Jim? Of course China would tell Hansen to go suck rocks, and Hansen knows it, so he doesn’t try. – Anthony
Guest post by Kirtland Griffin
James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, copied me on a letter to the President of Slovenia and their National Assembly. Don’t ask, it’s a long story. But suffice it to say, I got copied.
Seems the Assembly and the President are deciding whether to build a lignite powered electrical generation plant. The actual discussion is financial support. Yes, I mean ONE PLANT. To read this letter, you’d think the destiny of the planet depended upon this one plant. News flash! …. IT DOESN’T!
So how does a US private citizen tell a foreign government not to build a power plant? We are to believe Dr. Hansen is writing as a private citizen and not as a NASA Director. Otherwise it would not be within government policy. Got it?
The most outrageous piece from a quick glance has to be the global tempereature chart going from 1880 to 2012. It is an anomaly chart based on the average of a 40-year period just after the Little Ice Age was beginning to wane. You could not get a more biased chart. Think of measuring the amount of solar radiation received in a particular location as the Sun rose and then compare that to the solar radiation at noon. That should give you some idea.
One interesting piece is this:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1, 2) summarized broad-based assessments with a “burning embers” diagram, which indicated that major problems begin with global warming of 2-3°C. A probabilistic analysis (3), still partly subjective, found a median “dangerous” threshold of 2.8°C, with 95% confidence that the dangerous threshold was 1.5°C or higher.
OK, the beginning of the problem is 2 to 3°C, being partly subjective (fantasy?) So much for evidence.
Then he talks about Greenland and Antarctic ice loss that is accelerating. If he means it is accelerating in the growth direction, he may have something. That is not where he is going.
The facts that Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass at an accelerating rate (5, 6) and sea level is rising at a rate (+3m/millennium) much higher than during the past several thousand years provide strong evidence that the temperature in the past decade (+0.75°C relative to 1880-1920) exceeded the prior Holocene maximum.
Yes, he thows in rising sea levels which aren’t, and somehow this disputes all the evidence that the Holocene Maximum was warmer than now. Peter Pan has nothing on this story.
He then goes on a dissertation about the causes of radical changes in the distant past, which of course have nothing to do with the Sun and its variations. No, it’s all about CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Rule #1: Never admit the Sun changes anything.
Then he goes over the edge with a long discussion of CO2 and it’s predicted effects based on climate models which Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia, UK says, “none of them work”.
Go ahead and read the rest of the letter and keep in mind that all predictions are the result of models that do not work. When he talks about current temperatures and other climate data, go look on the Internet to see what is happening. Go to original sources, not what someone else says. The links in this article may help you get started. You will begin to wonder where this fellow gets his information.
As for Slovenia, go ahead and build your power plant. China is building more than one a week. Your contribution is a drop in the bucket, but a very important bucket for Slovenia. If your people need power, give it to them.
As I recall, Hansen praised China as the example for the world to follow, didn’t he?
Jeez.
So what’s the Slovenian translation for “Shove that watermelon all the way up your dupa, Cargo Cultist?”
Did Hansen use NASA letterhead for the letter? I’d like to see a copy of it (and no, a bogus rendition meant to hide the truth won’t suffice).
Hansen. Gleick. Mann. All creepy individuals who will say anything to advance their slippery agenda. Creep me out, I mean really.
One of the pepers authors:
Fred Kruegerf, National Religious Coalition on Creation Care, Santa Rosa, CA 95407-6828
National Religious Coalition on Creation Care?
What might that mean?
They should change the name to something more sciency.
National Religious Science Coalition on Creative Careology
I thought China was one coal fired power plant per month. The nuclear power plants – 4 per year for 6 years or something?
Hansen wrote…
“For the sake of identification, I am an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and director of
the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but I write here as a private citizen resident.”
Perhaps some of the pros out there who have some spare time on their hands can also send a letter as private citizens titled,….Concerns: approval for plan of state guarantee for 440 mio EUR loan from European Investment Bank (EIB) for Unit 6 at Sostanj Thermal Power Plant.
I think Hansen has spent so much time and effort diddling with the surface temperature numbers that he no longer has a clue what the truth might be.
He cannot possibly bear to admit that global temperature-rise has stalled while CO2 has continued to rise (in abject defiance of this 1988 and later “predictions”).
So the only things left are deception and demagoguery.
Those “Death Trains” are enabling people to live more productive, comfortable, affordable, and healthy lives
Time for Jim-bo to “Exit, Stage Left!”
Hansen is not even a “Thinking mans idiot” – he infamously once stated that ” Our seas will boil. ”
His looks even fit the weirdness of his AGW faith, he has “deserved his face.” as the old expression goes.
I can picture the reception his letter will receive:
“James Hansen? Who is James Hansen?”
“Sir, I believe he is the creator of the Muppets.”
“Ah, Miss Piggy. Pigs in Spaaaaace. Kermit the Frog. ‘It is not easy being green.’ Hee hee. Funny guy. Funny letter. So how’s the power plant coming along?”
My favorite part was
Destroy life on the planet? Hysterical much?
w.
“…I am an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies…”
America, what the hell were you thinking?
I don’t think we are ( or have been for some time ) dealing with a person with all their mental synapsis operating properly. I think Hansen can be officially referred to as NASA’s crazy aunt…………
I wonder if NASA is keeping him on as an employee so he does not hurt himself or others. He loves his title or he would not throw it out there in that letter. They need to keep him busy doing something because if he was left alone, at home, retired…I think we might have another unibomber on our hands.
One day when he is far from a danger. In his more senior days they will put him in a room that looks like the Star Ship Enterprise where he can watch big screens that keep showing the computer models over and over from his big swivel chair with that cool flip up thingy….and he will bark out orders and send important emails to all the world that the end is near so do as he says.
If somebody could break the insular shell Hansen has built around himself, he might consider the alternative:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295098/carbon-emissions-are-good-robert-zubrin
DR says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:21 pm
As I recall, Hansen praised China as the example for the world to follow, didn’t he?
————————————————————————
I suspect it`s Their “efficiency” in dealing with dissidents that provokes His admiration, We are all too aware of what the watermelons would like to do climate heretics
RE
Dude says:
April 3, 2012 at 9:14 pm
I can picture it. Maybe with Professor Kari Marie Norgaard of the Univ of Oregon as Lieutenant Uhura… fetching him cups of warm tea and giving him his little blue pill 3 times a day…?
Isn’t this an intervention in domestic affairs?
Hansen wrote a similar letter to erstwhile Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd — very similar indeed:
“…Choices among alternative energy sources – renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture – these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO2 is captured is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being….” Hansen to Rudd March 27 2008.
http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd.pdf
“…Choices among alternative energy sources are local matters. But a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, with later coal phase-out, is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being…” Hansen to President of Slovenia.
He says in conclusion to Rudd :”…for your information, I plan to send a similar letter to the Australian States Premiers…”.
It may be of interest Mr President that only two of those seven recipients is still in office — I mention that advisedly.
Correction:
It may be of interest Mr President that only one of those seven recipients is still in office — I mention that advisedly.
Has anyone else had the same dream?
Hansen staggering along the main street in NY with his hands tied behind his back, occasionally pushed along by a couple of guards, throngs of people lined up along the sidewalk throwing rotten vegetables at him and hurling abuse.
I didn’t want to wake up. The most satisfying dream I’ve ever had.
I get the impression the word “tenure” is what prevents both Columbia University and NASA from putting him out to grass …
Dr. Hansen is beginning to make Peter Seller’s infamous Dr. Strangelove look positively sane!
At 10:07 PM on 3 April, The Gray Monk had written:
Tsk. Simple to solve.
(a) Move Dr. Hansen to a basement office
(b) Get him on the phone in a prolonged discussion.
(c) While so engaging him, have the work crew bring up the cinderblocks, the rebar, the soundproofing insulation, and the quick-setting mortar to give his door the good old “Cask of Amontillado” treatment.
(d) Cut all phone lines to his office.
(e) Hang a tasteful sign on the wall reading “For the love of God, Montressor!”
Tenure he can have.
Permanently.
Good chance for a qualified reply in a form of open letter, if Slovenian presidents would bother at all. next, I want to see Hansen writing such a letter to V. Klaus 😀
For coal fired power construction statistics see:
Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants
Slide 16 shows China adding about 70 GW each year.
i.e. China has been adding one 1000 MW coal fired power plant every 5 days on average.
China is wisely providing power for rapid development.
I trust Slovenia has the pragmatic common sense to do likewise.
Our urgently critical task is to rapidly develop transport fuels to replace rapid oil depletion.
See Robert Hirsch Thoughts on Declining World Oil Production and Energy
See Peak Oil – the R/P Ratio re-visited etc.
Did anyone notice he’s even referencing religons to support his argument ??? (It was at the end of the letter and I’m sure most people had given up by then!)
“Religions and Climate
There is widespread support among religions for preserving climate and the environment. An indicative sample of religious statements follows”
NASA can launch the finest satellites in the world but can’t find anyone to use their data.
See Slovenia’s Energy Sources
75% of the population in India and China still cook and heat with charcoal, coal, wood, trash, stover etc.
Slovenia should file a formal inquiry with the US Embassy wanting to know why the US Government (NASA) is interfering in their internal affairs.
That might clip Hansen’s wings a bit.
I am just waiting for Hansen to do a “Kony Guy” and run screaming through the streets, shouting at the traffic and generally have a public psychotic episode. I am not being cruel and I hope it does not happen but I more than half expect it to happen. The guy is off his rocker IMHO.
Doug Proctor says:April 3, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I thought China was one coal fired power plant per month. The nuclear power plants – 4 per year for 6 years or something?
But note China is doing themselves, and probably everyone else a favour by building new, clean coal plants (and nuclear plants).
Because right now every man and his dog who needs energy is burning dirty, low grade, sometimes wet, coal in old, run down furnaces.
Get out in the countryside, and every hotel, factory, chicken or pig farm, etc, has its own little furnace, boiler and coal pile.
I rather suspect the same thing may be happening in Slovenia.
I think Andrew says it all. “America, what the hell were you thinking?”
But then again, coming from Australia where we made a mammologist our chief climate change fearmonger, I’m hardly in a position to cast the first (or second) stone. Oh, the shame …
+/- 0.1 degrees error at 1890 ! Nuts !!
It’s about time a statistician did some proper analysis.
It became clear to me sometime ago that Hansen values his agenda more than those inconvenient facts. In short, he believes his own press. The spotlight of the congressional hearings may have been too much for him. Now, more often than not he comes off like the consummate chicken little. Why is he still employed?
America, what the hell were you thinking?
Well I think some explanation is in order to explain how NASA could go wrong, but the short version goes like this…
It was the 70’s, and hippies were cool, and NASA hired like mad and some hippies were smart enough to get hired. The drugs hadn’t addled their brains all that much yet. (And yes this is kind of the funny haha short version….)
Or for the longer story of how it happened..
Dr. Hansen is just one of those leftovers from that era along with many others..
Remember, NASA over-hired during that time and happened to hire some losers among the many very good people it hired for the space program and some of those people festered and stuck around for many years.
The best of the crew jumped ship for more lucrative positions and/or retired and/or were happy being productive where they were, while hippies like Jimbo got promoted because in Government especially but its true anywhere that they over-promote in general and people tend to get over-promoted and people especially in academia are accredited not with as much with how smart they are but how much they publish no matter how bad it is.
In this case, Dr. Hansen has never been correct but he publishes a lot and gets grants and has friends in high places, so of course he is promoted and too much so. So he can be wrong in his science, but if his philosophy sounds good to his higher ups, he gets praise just because they think it sounds good. Think of it as an echo chamber and a bunch of people just agreeing with each other without any critical thinking or rational thought put into it at all.
The philosophy of the hippy era is still around here with the idea that man should be one with nature (or that man should have zero impact on nature) and the believers in this philosophy include many of Dr. Hansen’s contemporaries in politics who agree with his politics and how he spins his science. Its in this vein that he can get away with bad science that is not justified and like many like him from this era can have a completely incorrect picture of humanity and nature in general and everyone thinks its ok.
But by far, this is not an isolated instance, Dr. Hansen in general is just the most prevalant because of his high stature in NASA. This is probably why the green movement is so strong today, and its been said by many others countless times, but the ages of the politicians in their primes are at the ages where this philosophy is at its prime.
The next generation will take over at some point and some of this nonsense will go away hopefully. My generation makes fun of hippies in general and the idea of seperating man from nature at all is just so laughable and the idea of going green is getting to be so funny and stupid as to be a laugh riot.
As I tell my friends who were at one time somewhat worried about the environment:
Why worry about the small stuff like light bulbs, plastic bags and recycling when it makes no difference?
You can make more difference by simply convincing 100 hippies to live in yurts without electricity in the end as I proved to them, and these are the same idiots who are forcing the rest of us to pay more for light bulbs, mandatory recycling, and plastic bags because they believe everyone should pay in the end instead of it being a choice.
If you do not practice what you preach and instead try to force everyone else to sacrifice, you are nothing but a raving lunatic who deserves nothing but insults. And that goes especially for people like Dr. Hansen who make no effort to personally check their environmental impact personally and expect everyone else to do so.
So yes, blame the US for Hansen, but I think every nation has its own Hansen and we all have our own Gore. Its quite stupid that anyone takes them seriously after they have never been right and made careers about being wrong, but I guess some people just were not cut out to make money on the stock market or to work on actual space projects for NASA, and so NASA to be nice put them where they wouldn’t hurt the public too much. (or so we thought.)
One every 5 days. 6 per month, not 1.
markx says:
April 3, 2012 at 10:45 pm
Because right now every man and his dog [in China] who needs energy is burning dirty, low grade, sometimes wet, coal in old, run down furnaces.
Get out in the countryside, and every hotel, factory, chicken or pig farm, etc, has its own little furnace, boiler and coal pile.
I rather suspect the same thing may be happening in Slovenia.
Correct you are, Mark. There are seven Slovenian techies working on a project here (in Kabul) and one said that it it weren’t for coal, every household outside Ljubljana would be burning twigs for warmth.
@ Tucci78 I asked one what “Shove that watermelon all the way up your dupa, Cargo Cultist?” was in Slovenian, and he’s still laughing hysterically…
Viet Nam plans 90 new coal-based power plants by 2025, investing US$83bn to add 106GW of coal-based capacity to the sector.
U.S. energy developer PHI Group has signed an agreement with Hoang Ngoc Joint Stock Company, a Vietnamese company, to build a coal-fired power plant in Viet Nam.
The 2,000-megawatt plant will be constructed in Vinh Hau Village, An Phu District, An Giang Province, Viet Nam. PHI Group intends to supply coal through its relationships in Southeast Asia, according to a company statement.
Last month PHI Group signed an agreement with Sao Nam Group in Viet Nam to build a 2,400- to 3,600-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Hai Khe Commune, Hai Lang District, Southeast Quang Tri Economic Zone.
Vietnamese specialists once came to a conclusion that the coal exploitation capability in Viet Nam would be some 60 million tons PA. However, the program which has been made public shows that the coal volume to be exploited would increase continuously, from 47 million tons in 2012 to 58 million tons by 2015, then to 65 million tons and 75 million tons by 2020 and 2030, respectively.
If they need more coal Australia will be able to supply all the cheap coal Viet Nam will ever need.
Good news that, Viet Nam should build more coal fired power stations. It is the cheapest way to make power, the government is making a very good decision here. Wonderful stuff. looks like PHI will be building these very modern plants all over Vietnam.
So with these new plants coming on stream, Viet Nam should have plenty of cheap electricity. Hurrah!
Hansen toured New Zealand last year and at the end of his tour he sent a similar letter to a New Zealand newspaper. Throughout his tour he had been trying to discourage development of lignite and oil resources in New Zealand.
Whenever quoted in media articles, he was associated with NASA which carries a fair degree of prestige from New Zealand’s perspective.
Slovenia (together with Croatia) has an ageing, and not very safe, nuclear plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C5%A1ko_Nuclear_Power_Plant
which may need to close, so I wonder if Hansen could arrange subsidy from the NASA funds for the ever more costly Slovenia’s electricity imports.
Hansen hasn’t lost his marbles. It’s becoming glaringly clear that he never had any in the first place. So how does he continue to be employed, at public expense, as Director of GISS? And why aren’t more people in the US government asking that same question?
The anglo americans were doing this back in the 1970s with nuclear power – going to lengths to dissuade nations from using nuclear power for [i]environmental[/i] reasons.
The real reason is that cheap energy brings prosperity to a nation, and enables it to compete better internationally.
The Anglo americans have backed Chinese industry ( slave labour ), with all their factories there. They don’t want countries to compete with this.
It’s not complicated.
Hansen is a child of the 60’s that never grew up.
I wonder how Hansen’s “private citizen” routine would work for others:
Greetings,
I am Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, also known as The Leader of The Free World.
I am writing to you as a private citizen to inform the leadership of your country that their pursuit of nuclear weapons will result in damage to the environment globally and your country specifically, and will also lead to severe lasting damage to your economy, which shall have a great and lasting impact on the health and longevity of those living in your country.
These are my personal views as a private citizen and should in no way be considered indicative of the official positions I may hold while serving in the federal government of the United States of America.
Yeah, I wouldn’t buy it either.
Other similar cases:
In December 2011, the Flemish Government refused to give a construction permit tot the German company ‘E.On’ to build a coal fired power station in Antwerp, Belgium. This power station would provide for 8% of the electricity needs of Belgium. Reasons of the refusal? Too much emission of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Also, the emission of CO2 was a problem.
In August 2011, a Dutch court annulled German utility RWE/Essent’s environmental permits for a coal-fired power plant in Eemshaven (The Netherlands). The cost price of this plant was 2.6 billion euro. Essent had already started work on the 1,560 megawatt hard coal/biomass unit and the construction was halfway. The plant was due to come online in 2013. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/rwe-idUSL5E7JO28A20110824 )
I don’t say that Dr. Hansen wrote a letter to the governments of The Netherlands and Belgium!!
Andrew,
We don’t need Hansen being given BLUE pills – he’s rampant enough already.
Maybe he’s already taking green ones, though.
Tucci78 says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:31 pm
I think it might be something like: “potisk to lubenica vsi izvrsten vaš dupa”
Hansen has a strange obsession with the residence time of the plant’s CO2 in the atmosphere:
“The fact is that most CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels stays in the surface carbon/climate system for millennia.”
“This is a simple consequence of the long life of CO2 in the air …”
“… given the long life of CO2 in the air”
However, this paper suggests the residence time is 5-15 years
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/04/carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-5-15-years-only/
The oceans alone release and absorb 20 times as much CO2 as man, ensuring fast turnover.
I assume Hansen is trying to emotively link CO2 to the bad press of the longer residence time of flurocarbons (70 to 100 years).
Wan’t it Hansen who posited that it was the enormous sulphur aerosol emissions from Chinese power stations that was causing global warming to pause?
He’s just typical of a present day surplus of hypocritical, nosey-parkering and interfering bizzy-bodies. The poor old planet must be in really sad way if it can afford all these people, have they really got all the spare time and nothing else to do but tell everyone else how to live their lives? Putting on my sociologist’s hat and an oversized pair of dentures I might venture to suggest they’ve got Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and ‘need treatment’. But, that would just make me intolerant and hypocritical as them.
Live (and you do pretty well doncha Jimbo?) and let live.
Hansen is quite simply a fanatic. He can’t change his mind and he just can’t stop. It’s only a matter of time until he gets himself and “the cause” into a Gleickian mess.
Pointman
RE
meemoe_uk says:
@ April 4, 2012 at 12:37 am
A peurile thing to say and not just because it’s completely untrue but also because it implies the only racial group represented in Amercian politics in teh 1970s was from “anglo” stock.
You must be a bit like Woody Allen’s character in that film featuring the “orb” – at the start when he get’s wheeled out of deep-freeze hibernation after a few hundred years – bumping into things, talking jibberish…
meemoe_uk says: April 4, 2012 at 12:37 am
“…..The real reason is that cheap energy brings prosperity to a nation, and enables it to compete better internationally ……They don’t want countries to compete ….”
As I got older I gradually realized behind most of these “save the world” causes, whether it be saving the Amazon, or the world from communism, or one of dozens of other wonderful schemes, is usually the motivation of political/financial dominance.
Hansen is a coward, he knows if he did the same to the Chinese that they would demand his head on a plate and get it from Obama.
Maybe we should challenge Hansen to either take on the Chinese or admit he’s an opportunist bully.
DR says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:21 pm
As I recall, Hansen praised China as the example for the world to follow, didn’t he?
__________________________________________
Yes, the guy is seriously WACKED. I can not believe he is paid with tax dollars by US citizens. Makes one wonder about the loyalty to the USA of what ever power monger is making sure the guy keeps his job. Hansen should have been given the boot a long long time ago.
Dr Burns says:
April 3, 2012 at 10:53 pm
+/- 0.1 degrees error at 1890 ! Nuts !!
It’s about time a statistician did some proper analysis.
_____________________________________
A NASA engineer did (An engineer’s thinking has to be real world based)
See AJ Strata’s analysis:
“I am an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University” <– That says it all.
How anyone can believe that a slight increase in a trace gas – 0.039% – by volume of earths atmosphere can destroy the earth is mind numbing to put it mildly. Look up the history of Greenland and you will find that at one time it was lush green farmland. Applying a little common sense will help also.
What sickens me to death is when comfortable people from the West tell developing or emerging economies (Slovenia??) to not try to get energy from coal/oil, while those comfortable b@#$%%$s partly rely on coal/oil to power their office computers and warm their homes. I am sick to death of the hypocrisy. Something I pointed out to some time ago to Warmist commenters at the Guardian.
How many air miles has this ‘green’ Pinocchio traveled over the past 5 years? I have not traveled by air in over 10 years. Sheeesh!
Gail Combs said:
“The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization.”
That was stated in Jawoworowski’s paper,”CO2, The greatest scandal of our time” at a private meeting of world leaders, including Al Gore as a means to reduce the planet’s population. The how to get countries to do it voluntarily was through the CO2 global warming scam. And they were right. It is working as planned. Stupid people!
Gail Combs Writes:”One rule of reality is you cannot process data (run statistics) to create more accuracy than originallly captured in the raw data. ”
This fellow is incorrect, sort of…… One can achieve accuracy through precision or multiple measurements. You can achieve accuracy in the thousandths of an inch with a scale with 1/4 inch lines if you do it enough times. The proplem with Hansen and company is they are not measuring the same thing, like the temperature on a given day at a specific time. So, in that he is correct. I have determined the length of a steel rod to within .ooo3″ using this principle. For a ficticious parameter like the temperature anomaly of the planet, I suspect one can take liberties. Where is the precedent?
Bill Tuttle says:
April 3, 2012 at 11:37 pm
…….There are seven Slovenian techies working on a project here (in Kabul) ….
@ Tucci78 I asked one what “Shove that watermelon all the way up your dupa, Cargo Cultist?” was in Slovenian, and he’s still laughing hysterically…
_______________________________________
Any bets that comment is translated and then makes the rounds in Slovenia….
At this point the best weapon in our arsenal is laughter and Hansen provides lots of ammo.
I don’t believe a word Hansen has to say.
1) Would you trust a scientist who is an activist?
2) Would you trust a scientist who constantly fiddles with settled temperature from the past?
3) Would you trust a scientist who said that the oceans would boil (when even someon at the IPCC calls runaway warming it highly unlikely)?
4) Would you trust a scientist whose very livelihood/reputation depends on continued warming?
By the way Hansen, how are your temperature projections from 1988 doing? FAIL!
Hansen may not get the reply he is hoping for. Eastern European countries have taken a EU carbon related diktat to the courts and won.
From the link http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/5352-dominic-lawson-britain-has-finally-rejected-the-bogus-economics-of-climate-change.html
Germany, where almost half the world’s solar energy is produced — in a country with just an hour of sun on an average December day — is now drastically cutting back (as is the much sunnier Spain, whose central plains are littered with bankrupt solar farms).
And which energy source is ecologically correct Germany now developing faster than any other? Lignite, otherwise known as brown coal, the most carbon- intensive fuel known to modern man.
This makes the countries on the European Union’s eastern borders (notably Poland, for which indigenous coal is a dominant energy source) even more reluctant to accept the national emissions targets promoted by Brussels. Eight of these nations launched a legal challenge and last week they won a ruling by the European Court of Justice that Brussels had exceeded its powers in imposing such limits. The court brushed aside the European commission’s complaint that it would not otherwise be able to “protect the integrity of the EU-wide market of [carbon] allowances”.
The most telling point is that this verdict gained almost no coverage. As Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, observes: “In the past, Poland’s intractable hostility to green unilateralism was greeted by protestation in capitals around Europe. Today it is hardly noticed by the media, while green campaigners have become limp . . . Other and more pressing concerns are taking precedence and are completely overriding the green agenda.”
Thank you Gail Combs ! An excellent start. However he does not take into account some of the major sources of error I have mentioned in previous posts. I’m surprised Anthony or Willis haven’t picked up on this.
Phil Jones’s approach implies that we could for example, plot the precise length of the average automobile to a fractions of a mm, and greater than measurement accuracy, simply by including every model of every brand manufactured around the world each year. The more models, the greater the accuracy … utter nonsense of course. When it comes to temperature, people seem to swallow this approach.
>>http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11420
Here’s an example of 1850 average temperature measurement for which CRU claims ridiculously small errors of +/- 0.1 deg C:
———————————-
Analysis of the 1850 Ft. Snelling record reveals that the 1850 temperature record (like temperature records for several years in the mid-1840’s) may have been compromised by improper instrument exposure and/or erratic observational schedules. Specifically, fixed time temperature readings taken during the warm months of 1850 show inordinate “compression” of daily readings taken at 0900 and 1500 hours. This suggests, of course, that the station thermometer may have been exposed to the mid-morning rays of the spring and summer sun and/or that observations were often taken at times significantly different than the times indicated in the official record .
The foregoing 1850 climatological record includes both unadjusted (UNADJ) and adjusted (ADJ) mean temperature values. The unadjusted record, in turn, includes two monthly mean temperature values: a) the simple average of fixed time readings taken daily at sunrise, 0900, 1500 and 2100 hours; and b) the simple average of fixed time readings taken daily at sunrise, 1500 and 2100 hours ONLY. Because it disregards the often anomalous 0900 hour readings, the second set of unadjusted averages illustrates the extent to which sun contamination may have distorted the 1850 Ft. Snelling temperature record.
I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to find out from Slovenia, but I did note a curious item. At the bottom of page 3, the last line, Jim Hansen gives his NASA e-mail address as official contact. Is that legal? If he were representing himself as a private citizen of the United States and used his private e-mail, that would be one thing. But in giving his government e-mail address, is he representing NASA’s position? As I understand it, it is illegal for a government employee to receive outside compensation to actively effect government policy. When Mr. Hansen gives a paid speech on
Global WarmingClimate ChangeGlobal Climate Disruption and is recommending political solutions, isn’t that against NASA’s and government policies? I remember all throughout the Pres. Bush (43) years that he was crying about how the administration was trying to censor him, but someone tallied up all that he earned in speaking fees on AGW and what was needed to correct it, and it was over $700k for 5-7 years of speeches. I don’t see much censoring going on.Does anyone know if this policy is real? If a government researcher, being paid with public money to do research for the public, if they are allowed to then actively effect public policy and get paid to do so by outside organizations?
It would be interesting and important to know NASA and wider Federal Government policy on how to separate one’s private advocacy from one’s official capacity. Hansen could have written his letter without reference to his academic and government titles, but he took care to include them, early and prominently, “for identification.”. That seems disingenuous. For “identification,” Dr. Hansen, you need provide only your name. Not your affiliation or your achievements. These latter are brought in not to establish who you are, but “who” you are: your qualifications, your reputation, your influence. The reason why the Slovenians should read further and give more weight to your words than they would to some zealous crackpot.
I think he may have crossed a line here, but I thought that about his civil disobedience pranks a few years back, and he seems to get away with it. The eventual housecleaning at NASA will be something to see.
The commenters are being much too kind. Hanson has no illness, and he’s no dummy. He’s a millionaire fraudster who if fighting tooth and fang to keep his dying fraud alive.
Tucci78 says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Jeez.
So what’s the Slovenian translation for “Shove that watermelon all the way up your dupa, Cargo Cultist?”
“Skidaj svojo lubenico globoko v svojo rit, kargo kultist!” But that is a bit unatural. Better is:
“Kargo kultist Zalet’ se v rit!”- “Cargo cultist, collide with your ass!”
globalcooler says:
April 4, 2012 at 4:57 am
Gail Combs Writes:”One rule of reality is you cannot process data (run statistics) to create more accuracy than originallly captured in the raw data. ”
This fellow is incorrect, sort of…… One can achieve accuracy through precision or multiple measurements….
I will agree that if you use a calibrated ruler with only inch markings and measure it multiple times estimating the first decimal place you can come up with a decent estimate of the object to a tenth of an inch. (Sample size of N>10) On my 1990’sVWR min-max thermometer I do not think you could even estimate much more than 0.5 degree fahrenheit. However you are certainlynot going to get an estimate of the hundredths place in either case. As you said Hansen and company are not measuring the temperature at the same spot at the same instant in time. Therefore you are dealing with a sample size = one and not a sample size of thousands.
In Austriala 20-30% of all the measurements back then [prior to 1972] were rounded or possibly truncated…as many as 85 -95% of all Australian sites in the pre-Celsius era (before 1972) did not comply with the BOM’s own stipulations.
In the USA, Anthony’s Surface Station auditing crew found that only 80 of the 1007 sites surveyed in the 1221 station network met the criteria of CRN 1 or CRN 2 sites – those deemed appropriate for measuring climate trends by NCDC.
These two countries represent a large part of the temperature record and can be considered to represent the “best” in measurement practices. The calculation of error also has to take into account the equipment, calibation and test method and not just the fact you can “read” a thermometer to the nearest tenth of a degree.
Did the temperature rise coming out of the LIA? Yes. Can Hansen & Co. measure it with an error of + 0.5 degree C possibly, but that is the best the older measurements are and I am being very generous.
If you look at NOAA’s error bar graph in light of the above, you can see it is full of bull paddies. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/global-jan-dec-error-bar-pg.gif
If they used a real world error estimate of + 0.5 degree C the rise in temperature would be within the error bars and therefore meaningless.
Hansen has an agenda and he is not about to let good scientific practices get in the way. That should be very obvious by now.
Even though the proposed coal-powered plant will blow considerably less smoke than Hansen, I suggest Slovenia name the generating plant after Hansen/NASA – The James Hansen NASA Climate Tipping Point Memorial of Slovenia. I’m sure that would impress the NASA bigwigs.
Tucci78 says:
April 3, 2012 at 11:23 pm
“(a) Move Dr. Hansen to a basement office ”
Don’t forget to take his stapler!
Willis, losing high-speed internet at home would be an end to life as I know it. Technically, Hansen isn’t exaggerating on that point, just making a specious argument that sounds impressive and frightening but is meaningless.
Ultimately, I’m in agreement with Hansen, that the government should not be funding this power plant.
However, as a libertarian, I come to the same position via a very different route. I generally believe that governments should not be providing financing (or guaranteeing loans) for any form of power production, leaving that role (along with the commensurate risks) entirely to the private sector.
Since I know nothing of the Slovenian constitution, nor of the powers and authorities held by their government, I think I’ll refrain from telling them how to run their country.
Just like Mann its actual in AGW skeptics interest to keep him in the public eye, especial given his behavior and the total lack of will from the ‘climate science’ community to public call him out when he indulges in such over the top BS. For give the people credit they sooner or later can smell the BS and will start to ask why others could not or did but said nothing .
“The fact is that most CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels stays in the surface carbon/climate system for millennia.”
A classic case of something being a fact not because the science supporters the idea but because a AGW prophet claims it to be?
MikeH says: @ April 4, 2012 at 5:52 am
…Jim Hansen gives his NASA e-mail address as official contact. Is that legal? If he were representing himself as a private citizen of the United States and used his private e-mail, that would be one thing. But in giving his government e-mail address, is he representing NASA’s position? …
Does anyone know if this policy is real? If a government researcher, being paid with public money to do research for the public, if they are allowed to then actively effect public policy and get paid to do so by outside organizations?…
___________________________________
Here is the Department of Justice point of view on the conduct of Federal Employees. It is a lot longer than this and contains links to several points.
I would say that Hansen has been walking all over the DOJ code of conduct handbook that is issued by the Office of Government Ethics.
I wonder if private citizens can give the DOJ a prod and get them to investigate questionable ethics on the part of an employee. Hansen’s comments on democracy alone should have put him in the hot seat. When a newspaper (Washington Times) runs a story like EDITORIAL: NASA extremist advocates U.S. decline Radical green James Hansen pushes Chinese war on American economy You would think someone in the DOJ would at least look into it.
(Article has lots of links not duplicated here)
DOJ “…each Federal employee has a responsibility to the United States Government and its citizens to place loyalty to the Constitution, laws, and ethical principles above private gain. The public deserves and should expect no less….”
COntact information for the Department of Justice is here: http://www.justice.gov/contact-us.html
As for the “America, how did you let this happen thread”, here’s how.
Jim Hansen was hired into his position by Robert Jastrow, then-head of the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Jastrow was a prominent skeptic on CAGW. So one day, about 15 years ago, I asked Jastrow (who, for a while, called me daily or thereabouts asking for climate information) why on earth he hired Hansen. His reply was that “he seemed like a smart guy”.
In reality, Jastrow hired Hansen into the NASA modelling position because he (Jastrow) knew little about climate and he was in awe of Hansen’s PhD advisor, James VanAllen, an astrophysicist who demonstrated the VanAllen belts in the ionosphere. None of the people involved–Jastrow, Hansen, or VanAllen–knew a lick about climate and none could probably construct a rudimentary weather map (I suspect Hansen still cannot). The reality is–however ironic–is that the buddy system in academic/government science, not any conspiracy, gave us Jimbo.
From globalcooler on April 4, 2012 at 4:57 am:
Please tell me you’re not a machinist. I have never met any competent machinist who’d make such a claim, and neither would just about all of the borderline or incompetent ones. Sure, you can take many measurements and improve the precision, figure the real reading is at the center of the distribution, average all the measurements together.
But when I put your scale (ruler) on the comparator and show you the marks you’re using are about 0.0078″ (1/128th) off, you’ll know that all you did was get a highly-precise inaccurate measurement. Precise to 0.0003″ but still blowing a +/- 0.005 tolerance? Do you think machinists use all those pricey measuring tools instead of tape measures to avoid taking a lot of repeat measurements and doing the math?
Perhaps you should review the differences between accuracy and precision. You need enough precision to figure out the accuracy, if the measurements are all over the place then you can’t really tell much of anything. But precision does not yield accuracy.
If you feel this is incorrect and the method you used did improve accuracy, please post that method for review. I’d find it most interesting.
“Think of measuring the amount of solar radiation received in a particular location…”
Or the way I put it to people, Imagine you got a new thermometer for your birthday in January (NH). You record the temperature every day, and notice a trend… By the end of July you have convinced yourself the oceans will be boiling before another year passes, ending all life on the planet.
George says:
April 3, 2012 at 10:37 pm
This is overreaction; James Hansen has the same right to send a communication to the Slovenian president as any one of us.
But like Hotspur observed in Henry IV, part 1 when Glendower claimed to be able to call forth “spirits from the vasty deep”:
Hansen is only interfering in Slovenian affairs if he claims to be representing US policy. As a private citizen he can say anything he pleases, but nobody is required to pay any attention.
“We cannot assign blame for extermination of a specific species on a specific power plant, but the numbers are such that the emissions in the 50-75 years of operation of a large new coal-fired power plant without CO2 capture would be a dagger in the heart of at least dozens of species.”
Really Jim? One power plant causes a dozen species to go extinct?
His lunacy really has to be seen to be believed. The $64,000 question is: who has the power to relieve him as head of GISS, and what abandoned well have they fallen into?
But as I pointed out earlier, he is using his NASA e-mail address as an official contact to respond to the letter. If he wants to advocate on his own behalf, he should supply his personal e-mail address. But since he supplies his NASA address, that makes it look like official correspondence from the US govt.
MikeH says:
April 4, 2012 at 9:22 am
That interpretation would depend on NASA policy (I lack knowledge there, but I tend to agree). However the simple response for Slovenia is to refer the letter to the senior resident US diplomat with a request for clarification whether James Hansen is speaking as a private citizen or a senior NASA official. There can only be one possible response, and quite possibly an internal memo from the State Department to NASA requesting Mr. Hansen comply with applicable NASA policy in the future.
In any case as I noted, Slovenia has no obligation to take any notice of what private citizen James Hansen writes, any more than spirits from the vasty deep will come when he calls them.
What I think would be really nice would be for Slovenia to host a conference on the issue of coal power plants and CO2 emissions and invite James Hansen to give a presentation. Of course he would have to agree to appear with other invited participants, say Christopher Monckton for instance. If life as we know it really hangs in the balance, Hansen really ought to be willing to put in an appearance.
Pretty much a non-issue, as Slovenes are far to intelligent to pay attention to the religious preachings of Dr Hansen.
Also, I feel the need to address the comment by vukcevic about Slovenia’s nuclear plant. The two loop Westinghouse pressurized design is one of the best in the world. That particular plant probably has at least 20 years left in its operating cycle. As for not being very safe, if he is basing that on the wikipdia comments about a leak in 2008, he is way off base. Based on the comments, the leak most likely was of a steam generator tube. All Westinghouse plants have water chemistry / metellargury issues with the iconal tubing, leading to corrosion. This is dealt with by regular inspection and, where the wall thinckness falls below minimum specs, plugging of the tube. Eventually, they have the choice of de-rating the unit or replacing the steam generator.
By the looks of their Religious and Climate Section the Islamist think they’re nuts.
It is a letter to president of parliament, who is Gregor Virant, quite nice guy. Not to our president of republic DaniloTürk, who is just smoke of gentlemen’s shit! Real power is at the hands of prime minister Janez Janša.
I think, this is just stunt of local IPCC witch!
The story of TEŠ6 (Termoelektrarna Šoštanj blok 6, see http://www.te-sostanj.si/en/), that is the name of project, is little more complicated. In short, the money is problem. To many hands in the pott.
timg56 says:
…….
Any release of radioactive effluent in the river is taken down stream and affects 5 countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Rumania and Bulgaria) before it reaches the Black Sea. Last reported incident was just over a year ago in March 2011.
http://www.naslovi.net/tema/259193
power to the people
… of Slovenia
Andrew30 says:
One of the pepers authors:
Fred Kruegerf, National Religious Coalition on Creation Care, Santa Rosa, CA 95407-6828
I really thought that was a joke, with a name like “Fred Krueger”. It’s not…
Gail Combs says:
>>One can achieve accuracy through precision or multiple measurements…
This can only occur when measuring the same object or quantity, such as a piece of metal. This is not the case with global average temperature, any more than it is with the average length of all automobiles. Each time you estimate average global temperature, you are measuring a totally different object : the different weather in many different locations. More locations does not increase accuracy. Errors are at least as great as the measurement error and recording accuracy +/-0.5. This immediately places errors at a MINIMUM of +/-0.5 degrees, not =/-0.05 as CRU claims.