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
That photo at the top of the article.
Somebody needs to photoshop a bishop’s hat on Hansen and a pastoral scene behind him.
I agree with John Coleman on this. A real, good court case is what AGW alarmism needs. Once brought to court, with BOTH sides showing their data for the debate, it will be obvious how much of the alarmist agenda just comes from anecdotal evidence and the like. – James Chamberlain
I’m still in favor of someone exploring the idea of suing Mann for release of his codes he used in the “hockey-stick graph.”
Get those codes, and you may have all you need to prove fraud in a court of law — which is probably why he’s chosen to withhold them. I can’t imagine any other rational explanation as to why he won’t release them.
Reliance & damages can be proven, misrepresentation of a material fact is already present. There’s only one other element left to prove: either intent or reckless disregard for the truth.
‘ “Pamela, So you doubt that liberals have dumbed down public education?” ‘ MarkW
I will defend liberals here. They often try to clean up the messes our government backed banking cartel causes. Both liberals and conservatives (and, of course, us know-it-all libertarians) should agree that stealing is wrong. This is precisely what your local banker does when he creates money out of thin-air and loans it out.
When the banksters are finally dealt with then there will be far less disagreement between honest people on all sides.
“…he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming… er cooling … er warming…”
Hanson’s modeling of atmospheric data from Venus in 1971(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/173/3992/138), and responsibility for the resultant claims of an impending “catastrophic ice age” on earth were big news then, and should be equally big news now in light of this latest vitriol.
It strikes me as fair that every time this scientist utters the words “global warming”, he be forced to explain why his models and predictions now are any more credible than they were 38 years ago.
After reading this story I immediately wrote my Congressman asking that he look into this and work towards Hansen’s dismissal from NASA. It is NOT appropriate for a NASA employee to advocate any policy which violates the First Amendment.
Please do the same! You can find and write your House Representative at:
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
You can find and write your Senators at:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Here’s the letter I sent to Dana Rohrabacher. (I don’t know if it’s worth sending this to Feinstein or Boxer.)
James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, is publicly calling for the arrest and trial of energy company executive officers for “…actively spreading doubt about global warming…”
It is absolutely unacceptable for a government employee, especially one of Hansen’s stature, to publicly advocate for any law, policy, or position which amounts to the abridgment of our First Amendment rights. When James Hansen speaks on a matter related to his job, the media and the people interpret his opinion as the official position of NASA. He has misrepresented NASA and, by attaching such a controversial legal opinion to the NASA name, smeared NASA’s image. Many in the public, especially outside the U.S., will now believe that it’s official NASA policy to limit and violate the First Amendment.
James Hansen has a right to say what he wants, but I do not believe it is appropriate for him to use his privileges as a NASA employee to advocate for policies which are against our very Constitution. I am writing to ask you to look into his behavior, and to seek his dismissal from NASA.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Trying again, the link to the Science Magazine abstract of the impending catastrophic ice age:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/173/3992/138
Do people call this to Hansen’s attention in his public appearances?
We have David Suzuki and you have this tool. Complete buffoons!
A.K.A Brent in Calgary
I’m not a banker, or even related to one.
But the notion that fractional reserve banking is the equivalent of stealing is about as far out there as one can get. That’s from one Libertarian to another.
How not to measure temperature at http://palousitics.blogspot.com/2008/06/purposeful-manipulation-of-temperature.html
“One day the Gazette-Times told of a minimum temperature about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas the radio station at the Marys River bridge into Avery Park reported much colder, a “minus” reading, which agreed with home thermometers of some readers. Inquiring about locations, I learned the the “official” minimum came from the shelter atop the steam-heated agricultural building on campus. Moreover, the professor moved the instruments to the greenhouses to the west in the summers when he worked there. What poor practice!”
[…] Joe D’Aleo comes this […]
MarkW,
Happy to meet you! There are never enough of us. Fractional reserve banking is theft via inflation but it is also the CAUSE of the business cycle. The Mystery of Banking by Murray N. Rothbard makes it very clear. It can be downloaded for free from Mises.org at:
http://www.mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
(fractional-reserve) banking in a nutshell
“What do bankers do?”
Well, they take your money and lend it out
then make some more and lend it too.
“Make some more!? Surely you jest;
t’ would take a printing press!”
Au contraire mon freir,
they make it from thin-air.
“They make it from thin-air!?
But that’s dishonest, absurd!”
Yes, hence the Fed Reserve.
T. Van Druten;
There is absolutely no need to wait on what he says- his quotes are already in print. What does it take to wake you up?! A bomb? Hansen’s lies and falsehoods haven’t changed an iota in 10 years. It’s time for you to do the research and see what he’s already said and done. None of us need wait another nanosecond to make a proper judgment.
Politicians are weather vanes. If public opinion shifts against AGW, they will also shift. Let hope for snow in september.
Thanks, anna, I know. (We’ve been ’round the block twice or once and seen it happen.) Very often the darkest hour is just before the dawn. If the PDO shift holds, things should quiet down. I’d hate it if it took a major minimum to blow those weather vanes back in a reasonable direction, though.
OTOH, the news out of England is encouraging! (Maybe the French farmers could get involved. I haven’t seen the streets of Paris run with avocados in years . . .)
You may be right that the oil industry is not causing the global warming but it’s causing a lot more other troubles
And what about all the good it causes?
The IC engine is the engine that moves the world. It is one of the great triumphs and liberators of mankind. If we woke up tomorrow and were somehow without it, the resulting suffering would be staggering, unimaginable (unless you’ve read the unabated misery that is human history before Big Oil).
Besides, the IC engine SAVED the environment. (Consider what it replaced!)
Maybe tomorrow some genius will come up with something better. That would be just neato. In the meantime we ought to be profoundly grateful for what we have.
20 years and he’s still got a combover.
Idiot.
So you doubt that liberals have dumbed down public education?
It’s all a matter of what’s important.
Well, okay, the kiddies don’t know the times table, but they have mastered the field of flavored condoms. And in tolerance class they have successfully learned to refer to everybody (and everything) they want to insult as “gay”.
I, for one, can only regard this as an impressive achievement.
All we used to learn in school was useless stuff like what states border on Ohio and why Van Buren failed of reelection. (And the use of the subjunctive!)
Re the quirky Mr Hansen:
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. ”
(Anonymous ancient proverb, wrongly attributed to Euripides.)
I suppose what bothers me most about all this is the vitriol directed at the energy companies. If climate is changing and energy used for heating/cooling is a large segment of usage, I am going to want to know what the climate is likely to do so that my production mix will match demand in the future.
If climate is warming, there might be more demand for natural gas during peak periods of increased electricity demand. If climate is cooling, I might need to produce more heating oil. So an industry that sees a great portion of it’s product being used for heating and cooling would be incompetent if it DIDN’T research climate change.
I fail to see how it would be in the interest of the energy companies to falsely state the direction of climate change. Either way they are going to make more money and they would stand to gain nothing at all from missing the direction of change.
All of this angst on the part of Hansen seems to be aimed at the oil companies being evil in wanting to avoid additional government regulation because they aren’t arriving at the same conclusion as Hansen. That would tend to point to the real purpose of the “global warming” scare as being a “hook” to use to gain popular support for regulating the energy industry. He seems to be more concerned about the energy companies avoiding regulation than he is about actual climate change.
Government stands a good chance of going broke when the boomers retire and owning the energy supply is a great way to assure cash flow.
Mark,
I opened the Guardian link above:
“The problem is not political will, it’s the alligator shoes – the lobbyists. It’s the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it’s intended to work.”
Okay, Hansen is not attacking democracy per se, but he is attacking how democracy works in America. Hey, everyone is for democracy until the people doen’t share your opinion. Then, somehow democracy isn’t as wonderful as one first thought. That was my point. As you can see, I was posting late last night.
This dork was the chicken little of the 1970’s who cried we were heading for a Global Ice Age.
Now it’s the opposite.
Anyone who thinks contrary to him or Heidi Cullen from the Weather Channel are subjected to Joseph McCarthy style tactics and they threaten to run them out on a rail.
I think they all have lost the cheese off their crackers.
Well, I just listened to the whole “51 minutes” of Hansen on NPR and I am still a “diehard” AGW “skeptic”. Why wasn’t that “clown” fired on 1/19/2001?
Note to Pamela Gray: Fortunately, I got my “public education” in the 50’s, when schools were still teaching the 3R’s instead of PC BS. I know there are still many good teachers in this country, and you sound like as though you are probably one of them. I, however, strongly believe that things have changed “drastically for the worse” in our public education system and Universities. Political Correctness now rules. I know teachers who were fired for bucking the system. IMHO!!
If Hansen expect to make such bold claims about the climate and beyond (justice against AGW-believer and electric power-grid proposals), his damn government position should be term limited or appointed like most upper level cabinet officials.
This isn’t right. The energy industry is already responding to market pressures. American ingenuity = idea’s and those ideas which achieve market profitability = solutions, not political will.
Political will gave us an over-emphasis on coal-fired generation borne out of the 1970s, and now we have too much pollution. Political will gave us a moratorium on the exploration and refinement production on light sweet crude during the 80’s thru today, and we now we have $4 gasoline.
God save us!
If Hansen expects to make such bold claims about the climate and beyond (justice against AGW and electric power-grid proposals), his government position should be term-limited or appointed similar to most upper level cabinet officials.
This isn’t right. The energy industry is already responding to market pressures. American ingenuity = idea’s and those ideas which achieve market profitability = solutions, not political will.
Political will gave us an over-emphasis on coal-fired generation borne out of the 1970s energy policy, and now we have too much pollution. Political will gave us a moratorium on the exploration and refinement production of light sweet crude during the 80’s thru today, and we now we have $4 gasoline.
God save us!
Anthony may wish to kill the off topic threads but here is a brief response to:
“Fractional reserve banking is theft via inflation but it is also the CAUSE of the business cycle”
Banks do not make money for free since they must create a liability to match any loan they create. i.e. if a bank creates a loan for 100K that money has to go somewhere when it is spent and whoever gets it will demand that the bank pay interest on the 100K. This means that banks only make money on the difference between the interest they pay and the interest they receive. They do not make a profit equal to the amount of the loan despite what some might say.
BTW, Pamela, I taught in the NYC public school system.
I was wildly popular among both kids and teachers. I took extra time and tutored some of the kids. It was appalling what they did not know. I just tried to open their eyes a little and show them what they could shoot for.
The teachers were not so hot. They were okay at keeping order, but just plain old didn’t know that much.
When I took the LAST tests (i.e., tests for teachers), I could see why.
They were politically correct–I guess–but they were such lamebrain twaddle it was hard to tell. Anyone who couldn’t pass those dumbed down pieces of krud doesn’t deserve a middle school diploma.