He’s got the whoooole woorld in his hands…
This troubling news from the Guardian, UK
“James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress – in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming – to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.
Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.”
I suspect he’ll be calling for the jailing of bloggers like myself next. I think Mr. Hansen has lost all sense of reason, and his last shred of credibility.
UPDATE: Apparently Mr. Hansen has made the claims above on live radio on the Dian Rehm show this morning, audio files of the interview will be up shortly here:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/06/23.php#20635
When the audio file is up, I’ll post a direct link.
AUDIO CLIPS NOW AVAILABLE:
Listen to this segment
Joe D’Aleo created this graph this morning:
click for a larger image.
Satellite measured global temperature trend from the University of Alabama, Huntsville show sthat it is cooler now than when he made his testimony in 1988.
UPDATE2: See the reader poll on this issue here
I like the part where George Soros gave him $720,000 reasons to change from global cooling to global warming.
http://www.topix.com/news/global-warming/2007/09/nasa-scientist-james-hansen-receives-george-soros-money
What a jerk!
BUCK036 said, “Our Liberial (sic) enforced (Dumb down education system) has put the fate of this Country in the hands of a bunch of totally “Uninformed/Misinformed” voters.”
You and Hanson seem to be made of the same cloth. Blanket blame statements are the stock and trade of talkative AGW’s who spend time publicizing their beliefs instead of blindly (the only way to do it) investigating cause and effect theories.
I am just glad that Dr. Hansen is in his late 60’s. He should be retiring soon. Then perhaps a change at NASA GISS will be possible.
Hansen’s gone totally insane.
I just sent an email to NASA as follows:
Why is this person allowed to spew his anti science venom while being an employee of the government? Ten of thousands of thoughtful true scientists and well researched lay persons do not accept the agenda driven CO2 dogma. I can’t speak for everybody but I and vast numbers of others I communicate with are not in any way affilliated with “big oil”.
What we seek is open inquiry of science issues and falsifiable results, not silencing of those with an opposing view.
Hanson is a disgrace to NASA and to true scientists and seekers of knowledge everywhere.
FIRE this lunatic, Lloyd Graves
“http://www.nasa.gov/about/contact/ask_nasa_form.html”
“You and Hanson seem to be made of the same cloth. ” Pam Gray
Pam, you still don’t get freedom, do you? Why do we need a government school system? Its purpose is not to educate but to indoctrinate.
A rule of thumb:
Good ideas do not have to be enforced on others; bad ideas should not be.
We now have a situation where a mad scientist may wreck the world’s economy which just might lead to a world war as the Great Depression led to WWII.
My dear sister Pam,
with locks flowing red,
has bats in her attic
but science in her head.
My dear sister Pam,
my fondness no sham.
I wish you quite well.
May your head not now swell.
In spite of liars like hansen and gore, the public isn’t buying into their trash.
According to another article in the Guardian published on 6-22-08 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/22/climatechange.carbonemissions ) most Britons doubt cause of climate change.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars brainwashing Brittons, the vast majority are still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans – and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
This also means that Hansen is calling for the jailing of scientists like Richard Lindzen etc.
It`s time for the scientists like Lindzen and the other 30,000 who signed the recent Oregon petition to stand up and defend their freedom.
It`s time to fight fire with fire – time to call for criminal charges against Hansen and the media that peddled his lies.
REPLY: He hasn’t used the word “jail” but rather “trials”.
Let’s put NASA chiefs on trial for murdering Grissom, White, and Chafee by using pure Oxygen in a capsule stuffed with miles of electrical circuits. Another trial for Apollo 13, when NASA cut corners by hurriedly boiling an O2 tank dry after a prior launchpad test run. The tank’s internal heater system wasn’t designed for continuous operation, or the higher voltage from the launchpad umbilical. That’s why the tank, with a stuck thermostat, later became a ticking bomb when mens’ lives were at stake. Criminal negligence, for sure. Then there’s the Challenger deaths, victims of NASA’s kowtowing to the Greens. The original design was for a safe one-piece booster, but NASA quickly switched to a dangerous segmented one, so that they could avoid digging a booster recovery canal in the fetid swamp of the Everglades. Dodging a Green eco-lawsuit was considered more important than safety. Someone should have had NASA in court over that one. The most recent murders also are a result of putting Green before human lives. Our brilliant chemists can’t use their full arsenal of foam products, because NASA is worried that the re-entry burnup smoke may be toxic. The tank sheds worse than a Lhasa-Apso in June, because they won’t use tough insulators. NASA lights the candle, anyway. Someone should sue them for not making safety paramount. Each accident was preventable, and the result of NASA bigwig’s arrogance, period. I’ve lived through all of these events, most of it pre-internet, and highly politicized sites like Wikipedia certainly will have a different, sanitized view. Too bad. For a guy like Hansen, we’re all just a bunch of Laikas, the Russian space-pooch that was sent on a one-way ride.
MattN: Joe McCarthy wasn’t entirely wrong. Read (Google) the Venona Papers, archives from the defunct Soviet Union.
Well if there is too much “free speech”, and democracy is failing to provide the required result, the answer is obvious.
Burn a witch.
That gives the believers an “revenge indulgence”, and an additional reason to stay in the fold.
It also puts the fear of penalty into any that don’t believe, or might be skeptical.
This is not “rocket science”. Too bad that is the business NASA is supposed to be in.
If you are short on reading time, a quick primer on GW can be found in John Coleman’s comments presented to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce:
Sorry… link didn’t post…
Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html
Hansen has been targeting universities and young people in general, because they are easier to convince that prior to 1988 there wasn’t any bad weather. Their lack of historical perspective makes them easy targets for predators.
Congress on the other hand is made up of older people who have no excuse. None of them have read Steinbeck, have read about the Galveston Hurricane, or remember the droughts in China which killed tens of millions in the 1960s?
He actually said that ‘global warming’ caused the flooding in the midwest? I was blaming THAT on incredibly stupid reporters.
Old Gasser, I’ve also thought that Jim Hansen on his ecological jihad is responsible for the deaths of the shuttle astronauts.
“MattN: Joe McCarthy wasn’t entirely wrong. Read (Google) the Venona Papers, archives from the defunct Soviet Union.”
No, but when he started pointing his finger at the US Army, public opinion dramatically and drastically turned against him. He may have rooted out a commie or two, but overall he did far more harm than good.
Is this much different?
Will no one rid Us of this troublesome bureaucrat?
All I am saying is that to blame the current crop of political talking head GW scientists and their theoretical beliefs on public schools, or democrats, or liberals, or environmentalists, or “cold mother” syndrome, or lack of a strong father-figure, is the same argument type used to blame a rising temperature change on AGW. You stand in the same debate stream as the Gore-inspired GW’s by using that kind of rhetoric.
As to the above comment on freedom, my comments have nothing to do with freedom. Trust me, I get freedom. My comments have to do with debate format. By counterpunching blanket statements with blanket statements, both sides fail in debate technique and lead the audience away from informative discussion.
The same critique can be made for those who have written a “call to arms” statement. In my opinion, that kind of statement also detracts from educated and informed debate.
For those who use tongue-in-cheek rhetoric, my complements. That is a favorite essay device of mine as well. However, there is a style difference clearly seen/heard between tongue-in-cheek and hubris. So far, I have seen both. The former keeps the discussion pleasant, the later, dulls it.
Oooooh, I just heard for myself (the Dian Rehm show) that the contrarians are given some sort of “prominence” by “oil companies”, but there’s no real debate. I just want to know where my prominence from the oil companies is.
I’m listening to it and just shaking my head in amazement.
James Hansen is exhibit A for the death spasms of a dying ideology. Same with his buddy Al Gore. The reason for statements like Hansen’s, and $300 Million Ad campaigns is that they are losing.
The public has made their own empirical calculations. We can see the cold. We can see that damage of the Ethanol Craze. And we can see the ultimate motives of statist control that won’t do anything to lower CO2, as if that was even a desirable.
Trials for deniers? Ever heard of a little thing called the Constitution? Hansen and Gore are flailing their way to laughable obsolescence. Get the popcorn and watch the entertainment.
You are all a bunch of contrarian data cherrypickers per Hansen and NOT real scientists.
What bothers me most about Hansen and his followers (including Al Gore) is that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF HIS HORROR PREDICTIONS he made twenty years ago has come true! None! Zip! Nada! Why does he even have a shred of crediblilty? Except for the fact that most members of Congress are unbelievably stupid when it comes to any kind of science why would they give Hansen a minute of their time. Oh, I know, because most are lawyers,(like Obama) and everyone knows that if you’ve been to Law School you know everything about everything. God help us and save us from these dopes.
I listened to the first 30 minutes of the show. He had his Congressional testimony redacted 17 years ago. Is this all he has to show? Give me a freakin’ break!
Talk about a martyr complex!!!
sadly, BOTH of our Presidential candidates foaming at the mouth.
McCain is beginning to come around on all sorts of issues regarding AGW. And he has always expressed unwillingness to sacrifice the economy over the issue.
So, he’s not great, but he could be a lot worse. The alternative is terrible.
Per Jim Hansen, oil industries are making big profits and they don’t want to see that disturbed. They support a small number of fringe scientists that say things directly contrary to what the scientific community* is proving. They even influence what goes out in the media. He is laughing at the very idea of “confusing” the public** by having a contrarian even appear to debate with him.
*global warming true believers
**Stupid public.