From MSNBC.
During his big emotional climate speech this week, President Ovbama said:
“I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”
But for some who study climate change the only shame is this: Obama’s plan does not go nearly far enough. It’s meek and dangerously self-congratulatory, sapping the movement of urgency while doing almost nothing to maintain the future habitability of the earth.
“The actions are practically worthless,” said James Hansen, a climate researcher who headed NASA’s Goddard’s Institute for Space Studies for over 30 years and first warned congress of global warming in 1988. “They do nothing to attack the fundamental problem.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he wrote, when asked if the plan would make continued climate activism unnecessary. Obama’s plan, and for that matter the proposed plan Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, he continued, “is like the fellow who walks to work instead of driving, and thinks he is saving the world.”
Hansen suggested a gradually rising fee for fossil fuel extraction, collected at the port of entry or, in domestic cases, the place where the material actually comes out of the ground. “As long as fossil fuels are allowed to (appear to be) the cheapest energy, someone will burn them,” he wrote in an email to msnbc. “It is not so much a matter of how far you go. It is a matter of whether you are going in the right direction.”
The right direction is away from a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. If that grim milestone is reached the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that irreversible damage to society would be the likely result.
In Copenhagen in 2009, world leaders agreed to work together to keep global temperatures below that mark. In Paris this coming November and December, climate ministers will gather again in hopes of negotiating a new agreement, one that puts the world on a path for less than 2 degrees of warming.
…
The White House is reviewing the criticisms and told msnbc that it would respond shortly.
More: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obamas-climate-policy-practically-worthless-says-expert
You gotta love the single mindedness on display at MSNBC in the poll that accompanies the story:
There’s no option for a simple “No, I don’t support it”. Typical.
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President Ovbama – You type like me.
Translation: I want my grandchildren to enjoy elite uber-rich values of private jets to exotic vacation locales, filled with yachts and chalets. The little people and unwashed masses in the 3rd World cannot be allowed to use up all that hydrocarbon my grandchildren will require for an oppulent lifestyle, one that I and Tom Steyer and our Watermelon elitist pals enjoy today.
Why will they not be able to swim in Hawai’i? Let’s begin with the basics. Can they swim at present?
Racist joke?
Given they have no grand-kids the question has no meaning .
Because the oceans will be boiling and the acid seawater will eat the skin off his grandkids?
Let’s do a mind experiment.
The Big O’s daughters are teenagers, roughly [can’t be bothered to Wiki their actual ages].
in fifteen years time, they will – reasonably – have children of their own.
Another decade, and O’s grandkids will be – ish – teenagers.
But if the fathers of the Big O’s grandkids – and so spouses of the daughters – are Iranian, there may be some restrictions on swimming for religious reasons; possibly more so – if the grandkids are also grand daughters.
But if – mind experiment – the fathers of the Big O’s grandkids are similarly connected military-politico-economy scions – Gateses, perhaps, or Kennedys, possibly even Gores – then I think they will be able to jet to Hawai’i [Airbus’s new SST (another mind experiment?) will do that in a couple of hours from anywhere in the ConUS, and I assume they’ll have their own personal planes], swim, surf, and return in a day.
Auto
I had the same thought. It is almost impossible not to be able to “swim in Hawaii” unless the entire chain were to be submerged by rising sea levels. Not even Hansen is predicting that.
Lee Harvey – what is racist about the ability to swim? Either you can or you can’t.
It’s bad enough that a PUSA would make such an ignorant statement. But considering that this PUSA spent a good deal of his time in Hawai’i, this has to rank as one of the most inexplicable statements ever uttered by someone in his position.
hahaha
timg56 – “..unless the entire chain were to be submerged by rising sea levels. Not even Hansen is predicting that.” Yet…
Does he even have children? Who would mate with a person like that? Creepy.
Actually you can’t swim in Hawaii, but you can swim in the Pacific ocean which is nearby, and will always be there.
And you don’t need to climb a mountain to see a glacier. Some of them come right down to sea level, and are likely to continue doing so; even in New Zealand.
No public pool in the entire state?
Blimey.
Hawai’i needs aid!
Auto
The ocean within 12 miles of the mean high tide line is part of Hawaii
Beautifully stated, Joel Bryan. I have a nephew with that name.
Well on that Hansen is the expert; after all he is the one that spawned the Obama policies on climate.
Here I must agree with Hansen, as I think most of Obama’s policies are worthless,
Jeeez. Scientists come up with bad science and somehow it is always the poltician’s fault for listening to them. I hate that argument no matter whether the politician is conservative or liberal.
How can they swim in Hawaii unless they fly there first? Hey no more flying allowed, right Jim Hansen?
They could try to swim to Hawaii…
John Boles. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why Obama’s grandchildren would not be able to swim in Hawaii, and you have hit on one of the logical possibilities. Still, it should be possible to get there on a sailing vessel, just as they did originally. What a perfectly ridiculous example for a President to use.
yuuuuuup
Here’s a clip, Obama discussing his grandchildren not being able to swim off Hawaii. Go to minute 1 and 45 seconds
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4547062/want-grandchildren-swim-hawaii
Well, we (mostly) agree on something, but I would have said “… totally worthless”.
james hansen and totally worthless should always be used in the same sentence.
Hey, first belly laugh of the day!
Gold star to Mr. Chilly.
@ur momisugly bit chilly?, man that was down right COOL!
Journalists never ask a question unless they know what the answer will be. That’s how they create a narrative to explain complex issues in bite-sized chunks.
The questions aren’t meant to find the truth. They are a means of relaying a version of the truth.
The same applies to their online polls too.
Well the MSNBC poll might very well be the sound of one hand clapping !
I remember when I was a kid, and listening to politicians.
I would listen to the questions asked of them, then listen to their answers, then look to the faces of any adults in the room I was in…and was amazed that they seemed not to notice that the answers did not actually answer the question…EVER!
That and that the entire manner of their speaking was completely slippery and non-informative.
They were talking…a LOT…but not saying anything!
But no one seemed to notice, except me!
Eventually I heard someone address this and other perplexing mysteries of the adult world:
https://youtu.be/yX6FsTIq6ls?t=1m21s
https://youtu.be/LftzRjilTEI?t=1m32s
https://youtu.be/obAtn6I5rbY?t=35s
Somewhere along the line, many people are brainwashed into thinking that replies are the same as answers, and that parroting people who are bat-shit crazy is, somehow, sane.
“But no one seemed to notice, except me!”
I noticed. That’s when I know the politician is a B.S. artist.
Courtney,
It is a good attorney who never ask a question unless they know the answer. Journalists ask all sorts of questions they don’t have a clue about what the answer will be. Hell, a lot of them have trouble asking any type of intelligent question, whether the answer is known before hand or not.
Anthony suggested the poll should have contained the option: “No, I don’t support it.” I suggest the option: “This poll stinks.”
I finally agree with him on something.
Perhaps, but I’d hate to use him as an authority on anything. In the cases where he is correct, people may not believe him on reputation grounds.
The poll is typical of politics today and the lack of true democracy. People often say that if you don’t like something you can vote them out but what do you do when they are all the same. All the parties in parliament voted in favour of the UK Climate Change Act in 2008 with only 3 honourable MPs who voted against it. Not voting at least reduces their legitimacy if their support is low.
Gerry, England.
Write, E-Mail, the sod that if he/she does not oppose these types of wasteful actions you will vote against him/her. It does not matter what their Opponent states, make it clear that It will cost them their job. Then inform their replacement exactly how they came to sit in their chair and what they must do and not do so as to continue enjoying its comforts.
Make it clear who is buttering the bread. It is after all you the voter. Make it clear that Green money is the kiss of death. Also make clear that if they support the Greens and AGW in any way, they will never ever get your vote. AND mean it.
I know this sounds difficult, impossible, but then how do you think the Greens came to control your(and my) governments.
If enough do this, you (and I)will have our governments back.
michael
MtM
“If enough do this, you (and I)will have our governments back. ”
Well – ish.
Ish-ish
A bit more than we do now – say up to 0.3%, up all the way from 0.22% – or some other meaningless and made-up pair of decimal fractions.
[Whoo-hoo – Channelling the Mann?]
“If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal,” often attributed to Emma Goldman.
That’s going too far.
But all we’ve done in the UK is change the rascals – and a few who really want to make a difference – who sit on the Government side in the House of Commons.
[And they’ve fouled up the House of Lords . . . .]
Auto – rather cynical after fifty years (I supported a Liberal in 1964 – but couldn’t vote until the ’74 election which saw the return of the Twister Wilson, he of more faces than the Town Hall Clock) of watching politics – and its hand-maidens – in this “Green and Pleasant Land”.
Glad the poet isn’t here to see it now.
Mike, you are right, if it can be done before a world council of bureaucrats removes our rights to vote.
We could try the old Aztec method for the winner and the loser gets the seat: http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-ball-game.html Might not change anything, but it’d make the debates really interesting.
Easy to think of the solution, nearly impossible to put in practice.
(These days anyway, what with votes bought and paid for by the lavish dowry of borrowed money being showered on various factions of the populace.).
The solution?
Vote out every single incumbent…and do it for every election…for a few cycles. Then insist that they do what they say they will do when running and getting elected, and let those that follow through remain…the rest hit the revolving door…out they go.
That would get results… I guarantee it.
As long as thieving liars and lying thieves are re-elected time after time, nothing can possibly be expected to change.
As lo g as cronyism and shady dealing are allowed to be the norm among our elected officials, why would they change one single freakin’ thing?
Me Nick
Again, to a point.
Somewhere we need the people to have some control over constituency sizes, shapes, borders and that.
While the politicos get to approve constituency margins, elections will continue to be decided in twenty per cent of constituencies, where the other eighty per cent will return the appropriate donkey, cactus or pile of sharp sand – provided it wears the right-coloured rosette.
An exceptionally egregious member might revulse enough to get the boot – but even that would be in the next ten or fifteen per cent close to the marginal twenty per cent.
Out in the boonies, where they weigh the votes, being caught in bed with a lobbyist, your suitcase full of her/his 500 Euro notes, their underage German Shepherd dog, rubber wear, and a kilo of cocaine would barely dent your majority.
See – for example – FIFA where Blatter was elected- yet again – with the world talking about endemic corruption in FIFA on his watch.
I don’t think he was corrupt.
May he have been complicit – maybe.
Ahhhh – but his terms and conditions meant that he had no need to be corrupt.
And make of that what you will. And – like me – dream of a job that remunerates so fabulously!
Today, given the power of the computer, it would be possible to allocate voters to a notional constituency by random number generation.
But if there is no continuity, seeking to get the rascals to – try to – do what they promised – on pain of not voting for them next time – becomes utterly null and void.
I shall give more thought to this.
Auto
A page from the Green “play-book” will have to be used; that is to be an international party-organization. Transcending our own parties and politics. Remember all that money buys is air time and paper print. The only vote that can be bought is the one a citizen sells.
Can it be done. Yes the Greens did it. It took time and commitment. Here in the States the Tea party has had some success. Steal a page from them.
michael
what poll – normally a poll at least gives you a yes or no – this one gives a yes and a not yes enough!! how long before the results of the poll show that 100% of respondents agree, even though a lot will probably think they are answering ‘no’ because its the first word of the devious second question
I find it strange that they criticise Obama now for not doing enough but didn’t seem too fussed when he reached agreement with China to do nothing for the next 15 years. How you can criticise western countries for crippling their economies whilst the biggest emitters are free to do nothing. Hansen is totally ingenuous .
Because it not about what you are for but what you are against, so China gets a free ‘do not go to jail’ card from the watermelons. Which tells us, as if they did not already ready know, that the politics is the main driving force behind much of CAGW not science .
They knew what China would say to any attempt at arm twisting, so they declared a unilateral freeze on our side only, and hailed it as a great victory to have this historic agreement with China.
Knowing that the base he is pandering to consists of large numbers of incredibly low-information numbskull knuckleheads… people to whom facts mean less than nothing…even if they took the time to review any facts…which they do not.
Clear now?
Hint: Do not try to make sense of the half-witted shenanigans and galling jackassery of warmista politicians, or any other warmistas for that matter.
Me Nick
Or any other politicos either.
Auto.
Burning piles of money is “practically worthless” too.
“Burning piles of money is “practically worthless” too.”
Worthless? You mean the money, the heat output, or both?
To use another anology, burning my house down would be “practically worthless”.
…unless it’s your friends getting the money (Solendra, anybody?).
Spending 2.5 Trillion on the plan is nothing, then I wonder what the true price is to do something that is going to do something, in there eyes. Yikes. It’s only other people’s money, so who cares?
I don’t understand the disappointment in President Obama. Before election, he said “this will mark the moment when the seas stopped their rise, and globe began to cool.” Well, he was right. We realize now that that was about halfway into ‘the pause’. And since that point we’ve had an expedition of global warming alarmists frozen in ice. Thanks Obama!
Don’t forget the “electricity rates must necessarily skyrocket” comment.
And his wife’s statement:at the inauguration” All this for a damned flag”
He hasn’t achieved that yet, but if the new plan just released is allowed to stand untouched by the next couple of administrations and Congress, it is assured.
Give MSDNC a break… they’re polling people who would honestly answer that the atmosphere is 10% or more CO2. Given the stupidity of the pollees, the polsters should get a pass on this one.
/removes tongue from cheek
“MSDNC”! I bet most readers missed that!
…2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. If that grim milestone is reached the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that irreversible damage to society would be the likely result.
Based on… exactly nothing.
Now now…
It’s based on Hansen’s delusions. They’re not nothing.
What a self aggrandizing pompous person, so full of himself that he hasn’t taken time to check his own work result from the 1988 Senate forecast. If he could only turn himself into a lump of coal so as to claim a useful purpose in life.
Quaff deeply of the Karma Coala below; an artisan brew.
===================
A loon critiquing a loon…..the irony hurts
The irony isn’t half as painful as the stupid.
An semblance of intelligence left the building a long time ago.
I do no understand this obsession with with Dr Hansen. Everytime I look at WUWT there seems to be an article about him.
Squeaky wheels, grease, so on and so forth…
Because he is the gift that keeps on giving. He’s like Bill Nye with a PhD. You can always count on him for a quote of such blazing ignorance that it will warm your heart (by 2 degrees C).
You give too much credit to Nye.
While what Hansen believes may be way out there, the guy is a real scientist and also held the responsibility of being an agency head. Nye is what? A tv personality who let the exposure go to his head and think he was some sort of expert.
I am of the opinion tat Neil DeGrasse Tyson be ridiculed for his “Venus is an example of runaway greenhouse” crap. So sick of that guy.
@ur momisugly timg56, the guy was a result of the “Peter Principal”.
James:
And your comment means exactly what?
That you believe Hansen’s silly stuff? That you don’t believe Hansen’s silly stuff but don’t think anybody ought to call him out on it? Good grief…maybe there’s a correlation between the number of times Hansen says silly stuff and the number of time it’s discussed on WUWT…I could go on but I doubt I’m helping you.
Because Hansen was the head of a large portion of NASA for several decades, and as such has credibility with certain brands of idiot. Those credentials are better than actual facts to this crowd, you see…because such authority cannot be wrong, and to suggest otherwise is to engage in loony conspiracy mind-freak stuff.
And, ore to the point, Hansen has somehow become deluded in such a way that he sees death wherever there is life, disaster where there is success, truth in a cesspool full of lies, boiling oceans of acid where pleasantly warm to freezing cold seas exist and, basically, escalating turmoil and doom around every happy corner of a same-a-it-ever-was world brimming with hope and happiness.
AND…..He has never seen a pot of yummy soup he did not need to excrete himself into.
Next question!
Just looked up the phone page for GISS, about 150 names. Far away from a major portion of NASA. Hanson certainly had credibility from being its head, but many people in NASA have as much or more power.
I suppose when any of those many make climate news, we will talk about them here as well.
Who can name, just from memory, not looking it up, five other people at NASA who hold top positions in the bureaucracy?
Name even one currently at NASA, who is not a Hansen crony, who is well known by name and position?
BTW, how is that Mars thing shaping up?
When is the USA’s new launch vehicle getting a test, or getting anything except cancelled?
Why is NASA even in this business, when we have NOAA?
Why is NASA now in charge of climate and Islamic relations?
When did it become impossible to believe that, nearly as I can discern, nothing that government does makes even a tiny bit of sense?
Why is any of this relevant? All of us in the telecom biz know that no one except a few people on the Upper West Side really views Massive Socialist National Broadcasting for Comrades.
Exactly. And with “climate change” currently occupying 49th priority in the recent Pew Research poll about Americans’ political concerns, personally I think all of it’s being shouted into a vacuum.
Gotta love the “When did you stop beating your wife?” poll.
Q: Is everyone in the USA presumed stupid unless proven otherwise?
Was Hansen hoping that Obama would pledge to destroy China’s coal fired economy?
It’s time for Obama to audit the temperature record, which Dr. Hansen so graciously controlled for so many years.
Total energy demand is targeted to be 820 quadrillion btu’s by 2040 based on our current consumption now of 160,000 TWh’s. What exactly does Hansen suggest we replace this with? As usual with all climate freaks they endlessly pontification about what we shouldn’t and fantasise about what might happen if we don’t stop but never quantify exactly what the options are and how long it would take to put them in place and in a finite world don’t even begin to estimate the volume of resources needed to enable the process. Jeremy Clarkson said in one Top Gear episode that having tested a battery powered SLS at least when the oil runs out we can still drive fast cars, wrong. When the oil runs out exactly how do you move billions of tons of iron ore from Brazil or Australia to anywhere else across the planet or even dig it out of the ground. Hansen’s mawkish addle brained fantasising beggars belief.
When there’s only 300-400 million people left on earth, the power demand will drop.
I have changed my tactics when debating with climate alarmists. Of course, first I have to get back the incessant ad hominem attacks that they use as a substitute for civil dialogue. After that, instead to trying to present evidence about what is actually happening in terms of average global temperatures etc. and comparing this to the IPCC’s projections, I focus on the economic and social consequences of doing what the alarmists recommend. Hansen’s comment about Obama is right to the extent that what Hansen and the IPCC are advocating is the complete elimination of fossil fuel use within 85 years, and the substantial elimination of fossil fuel use (i.e. 70% below 2010 levels) in the industrialized countries by 2050, just 35 years away. Unless one makes heroic assumptions about the pace at which the transportation sector can be completely electrified and the pace of scientific discovery of new non-carbon technologies and their lightning-like dissemination in the economy, Hansen is basically recommending a return to the world of the 18th century. It sounds quite romantic to the environmentalists, but of course it means transportation by horses on land and by sailing vessels on sea, lighting by candles (would kerosene lamps be permitted in a zero carbon world?) and several other deprivations from the lack of modern energy services as we know them. As the environmentalists despise nuclear energy and would ban it as a generating option in their carbon free world, the supply of electricity would be dependent on wind and solar energy which, being intermittent sources, would offer only limited availability for uses that the government, in a very non-18th century way, would undoubtedly step in to regulate. I live in a cold country where the winters are long and dark. The non-fossil fuel world does not seem so romantic to me.
“Total energy demand is targeted to be 820 quadrillion btu’s by 2040 based on our current consumption now of 160,000 TWh’s”
Wow, big numbers.
How much is that in electron volts?
David S said:
“I find it strange that they criticise Obama now for not doing enough but didn’t seem too fussed when he reached agreement with China to do nothing for the next 15 years. ”
I thought they agreed that China would ramp up emissions as quickly as they possibly can? 🙂
Translation—My next gig is in Hollywood.
Of course, he’s wrong, as usual. It isn’t worthless in any way shape or form. It will strike a serious blow to the U.S. economy, and hurt the middle class and poor. Thanks, Obama.
Two degrees warmer is a “grim milestone”?
Where the heck are they even coming from with that garbage?
Large portions of our planet are frozen wastelands, even in summer, and during winter, most of the surface of our planet has conditions cold enough to kill an unprotected person very quickly…minutes to maybe a few hours. A couple of days with warm clothing but no shelter.
And in these places, people must subsist on stored (Counting hunted animals as “stored food”.) or transported food, because it is impossible to grow food when the temperature is that cold.
But two degrees will kill…who?
That is the part no one explains.
These days, people flock to the hottest climates they can find.
Sportsmen and women travel to harsh and extreme deserts to engage in days long ultra-marathon running races. The only equipment needed to survive in these places is whatever one needs to store and drink water.
Go to the South Pole at the warmest time of year, and you better leave in a hurry…if you even survive to get there. When they find your corpse, it will be colder than a block of dry ice.
On another rant thread, what is this malarkey about not being able to swim in Hawaii?
Why not?
It will be too hot in the water?
Or it will be underwater?
Both notions are so stupid a ten year old knows enough to debunk them.
We are being led by people who are either detached from reality, or have so few scruples that the truth is like a foreign language to them.
Ocean acidification aggravates asthma, maybe?
Ocean acidification, nahhhh. Inhaling acetic acid fumes when pouring lots of vinegar on your freshly fried piping hot chips* causes severe breathing difficulties . . . . and choking . . . . and lots of coughing . . . . and . . . . help me, where did I leave my ventolin spray?
Latest: World Governments to include banning dangerous ‘vinegar’ on Paris agenda, AND those toxic fumes you get when frying scotch bonnet chillies, and, oh, you know, that strange gas that bubbles up from carbonated drinks, and, while we’re at it, PEELING ONIONS causes severe eye irritation and can lead to blindness – WHICH KILLS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE EVERY DAY. And as for that propellant used in fire extinguishers, well . . . .
We’re all doomed. Children won’t know what vinegar is. Vinegar will just become a thing of the past.
/sarc off.
*US = ‘fries’
Whenever I see a declaration that 2C more means death and destruction I like to check the current day’s recorded range of temperature. In the preceding 24hrs to 0400UTC today 8 August Kuwait tops the poll at +49.8C and Plateau Station Antarctica a chilly -79.2C. It’s probably not as cold as that at the summit of Mt Everest.
So, with a range of 129C, what is the global average temperature?
David, I expect the global average temperature to be tolerable and pleasant to most living organisms. Say around 24 degrees centigrade. However, I’ll apparently die if it gets to 26 degrees centigrade.
It’s actually about 15.5C I think. Which seems low enough that an extra 2C could be tolerated. Especially if concentrated on the poles.
“I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”
OK, so his grandkids in Future Warmmy World will not be able to swim in Hawai’i because the oceans will be too acid their nail polish will corrode. And they won’t be able to see a glacier because they all will have melted into the acid seas. But why in the HECK won’t they be able to climb a mountain??? For idiotic hyperbole this sets a new bar.
“I regret that if we do nothing about carbon dioxide my grandchildren will not be able to pick their toes in Poughkeepsie.” There, I fixed it for ya.
Tell ’em, Popeye!
But all the melted glaciers will dilute the acid. Or is Obama on acid.
Total energy demand is targeted to be 820 quadrillion btu’s by 2040 based on our current consumption now of 160,000 TWh’s. What exactly does Hansen suggest we replace this with? As usual with all climate freaks they endlessly pontification about what we shouldn’t and fantasise about what might happen if we don’t stop but never quantify exactly what the options are and how long it would take to put them in place and in a finite world don’t even begin to estimate the volume of resources needed to enable the process. Jeremy Clarkson said in one Top Gear episode that having tested a battery powered SLS at least when the oil runs out we can still drive fast cars, wrong. When the oil runs out exactly how do you move billions of tons of iron ore from Brazil or Australia to anywhere else across the planet or even dig it out of the ground. Hansen’s mawkish addle brained fantasising beggars belief