Even the very liberal UK Guardian picked up on this. What next Jim, the Constitution? NASA, please fire this man. (h/t to Barbara)
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
From the UK Guardian:
Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said.
James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. “The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working,” he said.
Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said: “The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
“The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I’m not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we’re running out of time.”
Hansen said he was taking part in the Coventry demonstration tomorrow because he wants a worldwide moratorium on new coal power stations. E.ON wants to build such a station at Kingsnorth in Kent, an application that energy and the climate change minister Ed Miliband recently delayed. “I think that peaceful actions that attempt to draw society’s attention to the issue are not inappropriate,” Hansen said.
He added that a scientific meeting in Copenhagen last week had made clear the “urgency of the science and the inaction taken by governments”.
Read the entire story in the UK Guardian
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Maybe I missed something, but isn’t Hansen, acting as a U.S. Government employee, injecting himself the the political processes of a foreign country.
This probably has nothing to do with the Hatch Act, but it is surely poor judgement, and likely prohibited by some U.S. law or other.
Can anyone here argue that this is proper conduct?
Why can’t the politicians ever see that those that mobilize, write letters, protest etc. are actually the minority. What you see is their entire forces, whereas us silent majority are always overlooked because we refuse to protest. As for democracy I think he has the situation completely backwards. Just where does this clown get the money, and time off to participate in all this insurrection?
OMG!
Have you seen this obscene site?
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/
Liebensraum anyone?
I think some of you should be more circumspect. Obama spending billions on new forms of energy is GOOD. Why? Because we send over a trillion dollars a year overseas to some pretty distasteful regimes. Sure, they give us the money back (buying our treasury bonds), but we are in debt to them and that’s not good.
Now, continue arguing that AGW is a load of tripe (as I do), but do so not because you are “pro-oil”, but because you are “pro public trust in the scientific process”.
“Keith (11:31:36) : The Office of Special Counsel investigates Hatch Act violations”
Can complaints be sent to this office?
Roy Spencer left NASA for the very same reason Hansen should…..
I have to admit..
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/razingappalachia/mtop.html
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/enlarge/strip-mine.html
I am against that as well. However, cap and trade will not stop these practices. They are not intended to clean up or stop anything. They are intended to tax us. I think Hansen’s Koolaid might be wearing off and he is starting to realize that the gov has no intention of making the Star Trek future Im sure he dreams of. I think its sadly humorous that we find ourselves in the same boat, for completely different reasons. The time and effort spent to propagate AWG could have been spent to clean up stuff like this, and worse.
If Hansen is taking vacation and protesting, then its free speech. However since he is using his NASA credentials to further his agenda, which he freely admits to at his columbia.edu site.. then its time for him to go. Im curious though.. who employs him Columbia U, or Nasa .. or both?? Second question. Whose dime was he on for these trips to protest?
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2007/20070723_OldKingCoalII.pdf
A sample
“The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I’m not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we’re running out of time.”
Translation
People aren’t listening to me. I’m so important and I tell people there is global warming and show it every month in my monthly reports. Why aren’t people listening to me. I’m NASA for crying out loud. Listen to me please. Make me feel bigger than i am!
Too much focus on the Hatch Act. Look at it this way. If an employee of Exxon was actively lobbying against the actions of Exxon should Exxon be able to fire her, or would people say this is a violation of free speech? If you worked for coke and you spoke on television about how coke was poison … Well that’s free speech right … so you shouldn’t be fired? Ridiculous of course! Of course you can and should be fired. You won’t be locked up fro your opinion, but having a job is not a right.
So same with Mr. Hansen. He is being overly political (can there be doubt about this … seriously??) It doesn’t matter if he is being non-partisan … he inappropriately using his position for political adovocacy that conflicts with his work where objectivity is ‘supposedly’ required … THAT IS ENOUGH. There would be no debate if he worked for a private company? Why is the fact that he is a public employee different? If he worked as an executive for Ford and the ‘Board’ or the ‘shareholders’ considered his advocacy inappropriate .. that is grounds for dismissal. Having a job is not a ‘right’ … you ‘can’ say whatever you want, but you also ‘can’ be fired for saying it … that is soo obvious (at least to people who work in the private sector anyways!!) that it is embarassing to have to point this out to the likes of Luis.
By the way … Anthony has a right to free speech too, right? How is calling for someone’s dismissal evil? You mean all those people who called for the impeachment of George Bush were evil? Who knew … I just thought they were excersizing their free speech, or does free speech only go in one direction .. i.e. the one you want it to?
Anthony can do and say whatever he likes. Its his blog. I don’t understand how you can’t see the contradiction in condemning him for using his right to free speech?!?!?
I would suggest to recycle back the new Al´s book ““Our Choice,” (without reading it, of course) by turning it into liquid, in a first step, or else, into cellulose microfibers, in a second step.
Details at:
http://www.giurfa.com/microfiber.pdf
Guys….whenever we talk about this (we…sorry, ‘you’…I’m a newbie!) it all comes down to this simple fact…
Does the CO2 emitted by us make a diff to temps/climate?
Everything else is distraction/socio/political/philosphy…which we humans choose to value as our own personal ideals so we will never agree.
So….I’m kinda with Jo Nova a bit on this. Just state the facts. So Hanson should be countered with fact, not emotion.
Of course, Hanson may be right, but it looks unlikely as Josh Willis gets pushed ever closer to admitting the oceans have been cooling.
Now my question, which I hope someone can tell me…
We know that CO2 is now 380ppm and 100 years ago it was 280ppm give or take a ppm.
So…the clincher is, how much of that 100ppm increase is ours, how much is natural. If its all human, then Hanson may be on to something. If our contribution to the INCREASE is tiny, then that is the fact to keep throwing around (although I believe that the lower CO2% amount grabs more heat from the sun – as the % goes up it cannot grab any more…is that the right laymans way of understanding it?).
Has anyone done the math (beyond me I’m afraid!)
Don’t worry Mr Hansen, democracy is already dead. The Religious Right has overthrown it and the US constitution and replaced it with a theocracy. Beheadings for adultery are only a matter of time. You can see this sinister trend in the entire voting pattern of the US since 2006. Or so we keep hearing down here in Australia from the sages of America. Well, maybe Hansen’s brand of surrogate religion will go very well with this new world order . . .
“Tim Conway, perhaps, William, but I’m seeing shades of the late Don Knotts in the fist shaking…”
Now, cut it out, you guys! I got way to much respect for both Conway and Knotts to see either playing Hansen. They always played good-natured duffuses who wouldn’t hurt a fly or say a bad word about anybody.
However, he does kinda remind me of the Picard-clone in Star Trek Nemesis. Whaddayathinkothat?
” Steven Hill (13:40:11) :
New Al Gore book … follow-up to his best-selling “An Inconvenient Truth,”… “Our Choice,” ”
If he makes another movie will it look like this?
YouTube video :
After skimming through the Hatch Act and the agency regulations promulgated under it, there does not seem to be any issue raised by Hansen’s statements/protests. The Hatch Act forbids partisan political activity by some federal employees, which is narrowly defined to include only activities directed to assist a person or party when running for office. In other words, the protests/speeches by Hansen are not considered to be “political activity” as meant by the Hatch Act. In fact, the regulations expressly state that federal employees may engage in advocacy regarding “nonpartisan” (i.e. not associated with a candidate or political party) political or social issues, which is what the global warming issue is.
Someone above quoted a regulation stating that an employee may participate fully in public affairs in a manner that does not compromise the integrity of either them or the agency that they are employed by. This regulation is not really relevant as it does not proscribe any activity; to the contrary, it states what is permissible. You can’t take a regulation like that and impose a reverse regulation that proscribes participating in public affairs in a manner that is alleged to compromise their integrity, or that of their employer agency, when there is no actual regulation that expressly forbids that conduct.
Don’t read this as an endorsement of Hansen’s activities. I think the guy is a loose canon that hasn’t a shred of objectivity regarding the influence of CO2 on climate. The guy insults our intelligence with grandiose claims that he fully understands how the world actually works to the point of, not only being able to determine that the world has “tipping points” that can’t be recovered from, but is able to calculate precisely where these tipping points occur, and by the way, don’t bother asking for actual proof of this ability – we should just accept that he’s inbued with a sufficient intellect that his word on the matter is golden.
Roy (11:00:58) : “torrid” Love this! Folks, if you missed it — go back.
UK John (11:38:29) UK’s CO2: Hansen thinks it hangs around 200 years.
That’s not even close, but the real number is hard to get.
Bill McClure (12:47:35) : implication of food production:
Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States by Archibald (2008)
If it gets as cold as Archibald thinks it will, Canadian wheat farmers are in trouble. This was on the web – can’t locate it now:
janama (13:04:16) : “freedom of speech”
FOS isn’t being questioned. The issue is: Has Hansen as a scientist and administrator gone beyond a “fuzzy” line the folks on this thread can’t seem to agree on. Further, freedom of speech works both ways. I (and others) can claim it is shameful that NASA has lost stature as a scientific organization because of Hansen and that AGW is false – but he thinks we are treasonous for getting in his way.
who? I lost track of where this was mentioned
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece?Submitted=true
“JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.”
Britain’s population now: 61 m
projected in 2031: 71 m
Desired population 30 m
If you want to get to 30 while adding 10 you will have to get rid of 41 million people in 22 years. Thus, there are 1,863,636 that will have to die, leave, or be shot each year. Leaving doesn’t do any good, it just moves the problem elsewhere. So assume one-half die. That gives 931,818 people that need to be removed. That is about 2,550 per day disappearing – via a new government agency. Now there’s a program everyone will get behind!
I think many are missing the point that if outlets like the Guardian entertain a man like Hansen then naturally he’ll go from bad to worse because the media isn’t critical of him. They use him to get their scary stories, but he isn’t quite aware of how he has been used, abused and made worse.
The Guardian should be taken to task for being an agitating and divisive influence. Their journalists frequently, daily, make huge errors in reporting scientific issues and even more regularly side with political groups who openly advocate the destruction of a free society.
Just look at their front page right now. They’re siding with Hamas and claiming that Israelis use Palestinians as human shields. Shouldn’t the Guardian be criticising Hamas for not only indoctrinating children in racism and suicide but also using civilians as shields for many many years? Or is the Guardian just like the Badder-Meinhoff group, the Red Army Faction or the Red Brigade, in the belief that supporting Islamist groups is a good cover for attacking Jews?
It is also no secret that many Eco-socialists are under the impression that “Jews run the world” and that hurting industry is the same as destroying Jewish business.
Radicalism has always had an anti-Semitic streak to it. It’s no wonder that they have been exploiting the Holocaust to achieve their ends. Anybody who cared about what happened to those six million victims would not play around with their memories for political gain.
While I do not normally write to government agencies to complain, this afternoon I sent the following note to a number of e-mail addresses listed on the NASA headquarters website. I suggest those of you who wish to do a little bit more than comment on this fine blog consider complaining to NASA yourselves. Futile? Probably, but better than doing nothing, and there is a small chance our voice will have an impact. Feel free to use any or all (or none) of the note I sent:
“To whom it may concern:
For many years I have been a supporter of NASA and your mission, but that has recently changed. To me, you had represented the best that science can offer a society, and your efforts were worth devoting many more resources than you were given by Congress.
My opinion has recently changed. While in many areas you are still doing worthwhile science, in others, you are directly contributing to the sacrifice of science on the altar of political correctness.
I speak of course of Jim Hansen, and his issue advocacy hiding behind flawed science, and flawed scientific method. In his official capacity at NASA he is promoting a viewpoint about human caused global warming that has little hard science to support it, and he endangers the support NASA receives for all of its other efforts. (Note: Unproven climate models are NOT hard science: GIGO. Hiding your methodology, so that other scientists cannot validate your results is NOT hard science.)
I will be writing my Congressmen requesting that they defund NASA completely, unless you take some basic steps to restore integrity to your organization. You have at least 2 options to accomplish this. One option is for you to remind Dr. Hansen that he is a scientist, not a politician or activist, and that he needs to refrain from partisan or controversial political activities and statements when representing himself as a NASA employee. (He is free to do what he likes in this area when he is not representing himself as a NASA official.) You must also require him to release to the general scientific community details of his corrections of raw global temperature data, so that others can properly review, replicate and criticize his findings. Much of the global warming hysteria is fueled by the temperature numbers generated by Dr. Hansen and his staff. These numbers are “adjusted” but Dr. Hansen hides how he does the adjustments, and that worries other scientists as all of Dr. Hansen’s adjustments seem to be for higher temperatures.
The other course of action is for you to fire Dr. Hansen immediately.
There may be other appropriate courses of action for you to take, but I would prefer you select the first of the two I have listed above. Restore transparency to the scientific process at NASA. Require Dr. Hansen to conduct his research and present his findings with full transparency, as this alone will restore confidence in the information he releases on behalf of NASA. Do not allow him to continue as a loose cannon, damaging the reputation of all of NASA in pursuit of his political agenda.
Sincerely,
Dan Murphy”
Claude Harvey (09:59:14) :
I think it is highly likely that Hansen is showing his true colors because he sees the writing on the wall. I think he knows he has based his entire professional career on a scientific lie that is soon to be exposed, both by science and by nature. He’s stepping off the scientific train and onto an emotion-driven, radical politics train because that is the only place where he won’t have to defend and explain himself to his fellows.
I think your analysis is correct. I just stepped off the train he’s stepping on to. During the 1990s, it seems to me that the evidence was supporting the AGW models. By 2009, the divergenc between those models and the reality they purport to explain and predict, has become so tenuous that anyone capable of being led by evidence, must be prepared to doubt the “consensus.” That leaves Hansen and Gore et al, tragically, nowhere to get but to sever their ties more and more from the real science.
On the issue of Dr. Hansen’s employment, I am divided between the view that his public entanglements constitute a conflict of interest with his professional responsibility and the view that he is becoming so ridiculous that he is best left where he is, to avoid any risk of turning him into a martyr. A hard call.
It looks like according to this video there won’t be a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth movie like there is for the book (for now, so don’t hold your breath) :
http://revver.com/video/900276/an-inconvenient-truth-sequel/
We’ll have to settle for the
parody video :
BTW, Hansen works for me, the US taxpayer and if his vision is implemented, I will be massively impacted in a very negative way.
Yup, he’s fired!
Many people asked what laws Dr. Hansen is encouraging people to break in the UK. Well, for one, he is encouraging people to destroy coal plants. He spoke in defense of some environmentalists that did just that a month or two ago. I don’t remember the exact words, but the court basically found the vandalism was justified because the coal plant was endangering the earth.
“cormac (14:37:53) :
Cormac,
The issue that most folks here have with Hansen is the same issue we have with Gavin, Mann, et al., that being that they refuse to release their methodology. Hansen “adjusts” temperatures. How?…why?…what’s the formulat?…he won’t release it. Why?…what’s being hidden? Then on top to that come the outrageous claims, the outrageous predictions…which historically have been shown to not come true. One would think this would make him even MORE transparent with his data/formulas/methodology, not LESS so.
Is he right? Hope not. Why not show us the stuff so that others can truely peer-review it and say “Hey…this guy’s got something here!”…or say “Hey…turns out there’s a good reason he was hiding this…it’s total garbage.”
JimB
Hasn’t Hansen violated the “Hatch Act” ?
Reply: It’s best to read the thread before commenting. ~dbstealey, mod.
J.F. Hultquist:
What these neo-Stalinists never define is “sustainable.”
Britain currently has a very sustainable population. In fact, it sustains wave after wave of new immigrants. No one involuntarily goes hungry there. Just as in America, the poorest are the most over-fed and obese. And if the British government got out of the medicine business, its citizens would not have to endure the long waiting lists that government intervention causes.
“Sustainability” is a Stalinist code word, just as “robust” is an alarmist code word. When you see it, you know where they’re coming from. George Orwell would know, too.