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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Oh? Ask Professor Halton Arp, who dared to suggest that visible connections between objects of different redshifts were evidence redshift is not necessarily a measure of distance, that intrinsic redshift is not only possible but an observational fact, a view which suggests in turn that the theory of the expanding universe and the Big Bang is wrong.
Professor Arp, despite his strong credentials in the profession, was been ridden out of meetings and journals (not unlike the experience of AGW ‘skeptics’). See his fascinating book, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, Aperion (August 1998).
It’s not just climate science that is apparently held captive by an intransigent orthodoxy.
/Mr Lynn
I am!
I dare an environmentalist to step one foot on my property! I will exercise my 2nd amendment right, as I would have to view it as an imminent threat to my wellbeing and that of my family and neighbors!
To bill,
Your comment of 17:01 contains the following:
“PS Nuclear is not an option – there are insufficient reservers for more than a few decades of a fully nuclear future – its all about energy balance:”
This is inane. The source material you linked gives a bogus sense of being accurate–but it omits the fact that “breeder reactors”–which can produce new fuel while in operation–have been built and have been operated. The French, who have heavily committed to nuclear power, operated breeders for years. Current breeder reactor technology can produce about 20% more fuel per year than is consumed.
Lead photo…? ‘Homer’ Hansen.
Hi-diddly-ho! Of course I should be expected to recognize my own neighbor.
Signed,
Ned Flanders
Owner
The Leftorium
Springfield, USA
I feel for Hansen he is betting the farm on AGW just like Gore and his arctic ice prediction (3.5 Years to go).
The man could have been remembered for a great contribution to climate studies, but alas he took his research far too seriously and never once entertained that he may be wrong. Then he started to believe his own press, convinced himself that his opinions were of such value that the “Government” was censoring him, urged by activists (lobbyists without the paycheck) he ventured farther and farther afield and shriller in his calls while on his crusade to save the planet, which served to isolate and marginalize him until now he looks around and cannot understand why everyone is not just doing what he says.
So now he may very well be be the object of historical obscurity or even ridicule after such a distinguished career and accomplishments.
It is kind of sad.
Excerpt:
But I thought it was supposed to be getting toasty warm up there.
We are going to begin shipment of our spent fuel to India for use in their breeders soon. What is really “inane” was Carter’s notion that we should just bury our fuel that has only 5% of its energy expended rather than reprocess it and extract up to 90% of the energy.
Google for an article in Scientific American from December 2005 titled “Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste”. You can find it in PDF. It is worth reading.
bill: “I see no lies here, do you?”
I don’t understand what ‘lies’ you’re talking about, bill. I never mentioned any lies.
My post @17:20:18 was in response to your post of 17:01:09 — in which you stated that “Hanson now stands up and puts his belief in his research results before any thought of staying in his well paid employment.”
[But Hansen is not so sure of his research that he is willing to publicly debate it with his skeptical peers.]
I provided links to some pretty damning evidence that Hansen takes what amounts to bribes, which derail him from impartial science, and into paid advocacy — while he is still taking a salary from taxpayers.
Those links referred to the payola that James Hansen received from pro-AGW groups and individuals.
But instead, you’re changing the subject, to a chart that you just plotted yourself.
Let’s stay on point here, bill: You contend that Hansen is risking his salary by advocating for AGW alarmism. I say that he is being paid to thwart the impartial science that the taxpaying public has a right to expect, by taking these huge bundles of cash from advocacy groups and individuals.
It’s not surprising that you would want to change the subject. But before we get into graphs — which I have plenty of — please explain why it’s OK for a person in Hansen’s position to take payments from these advocacy groups while he’s on the public payroll. And from George Soros — a convicted felon.
Chris R. (19:04:39) :
There is thorium as well. But this requires highly enriched uranium to start it
The problem is, how long before breeders are on line (are there operational designs available?). Security and forcing our descendants to look after a wastes 150 years after they were last produced just does not sit easy with me.
Bill
Chris R. (19:04:39) :
PS can you give me a link to more reliable information please.
uranium from seawater is not far from being a profitabel operation and the amount is “endless” (from human perspective).
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/01/207-uranium-from-seawater-part-1.html
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/01/208-uranium-from-seawater-part-2.html
another link in german that that shows that reserves are anyways much bigger than often described
http://www.areva-np.com/de/liblocal/docs/Germany_pdf/Uran_final.pdf
Smokey (19:16:10) :
I cannot debate on a subject of bribes as I have no evidence. If there were real evidence don’t you think this would have given sufficient ammunition to Hanson’s opposition for a lawful arrest?
AND talking of bribes and corruption without absolute proof puts WUWT at risk of legal action, take care!
Bill
Chris R.,
I notice that Mr. bill gives an unsupported opinion — and then in his next post, he demands that you put up more information. More “reliable” information.
Yo, bill, there’s this thing called google… try it yourself some time.
And regarding bribes: I gave you chapter and verse. When someone pays a public servant upwards of a million dollars, IMHO that amounts to a bribe. Investor’s Business Daily said essentially the same thing. I notice you can’t seem to refute the info I linked to. But give it a try, I’d like to hear your take on it. As a taxpayer and all.
I think y;all are being very mean to poor Mr Hansen.
His needs are shurely very simple.
More rope.
Just want to clarify there seem to be two Bill’s here tonight. I always use my full name. I sat next to another Bill in High School and it was confusing for both of us
“As a US taxpayer it is my right to make this call for his dismissal. When a US government employee suggests that protests against the government he is employed by should be commenced because “the democratic process isn’t working” it becomes an issue of conflict of interest. I’m not ashamed to do so, nor do I care for your opinion that I should be. In fact you have inspired me to take my complaint to the next level. I urge others to do so as well. – Anthony”
Do you have a mailing list for action Anthony, what in the heck can we do? Liberal speak is nothing but stinkin’ thinkin”, renaming and constant obfuscation. It’s an imaginary reality.
Smokey my graph was in response to this comment of yours:
“Have you compared GISS with other data sources?”
Yes, let’s look at that: click
Manfred (19:23:25) :
uranium from seawater is not far from being a profitabel operation and the amount is “endless” (from human perspective)
My comment about energy balance (budget) was all about this the energy to extract uranium from low grade sources such as the sea requires more energy than will be produced. (its explained in the reference).
The Japanese have developed a passive extraction method using a special polymer. But it is worth doing the maths on the polymer requirements for a rate of extraction that can feed the world yellow cake.
“The problem is, how long before breeders are on line”
Breeder reactors have been “online” for decades. We had an idea for both types of plants on the same site. You would have one kind of reactor producing energy and the other kind reprocessing the fuel. The waste produced from reprocessing decays in hundreds of years rather than thousands and is less dangerous making storage less of a problem. There is also much less of it.
Clinton/Gore killed that project. I believe it was called the “combined fuel cycle” project or something like that. Read the SI article I mentioned above if you can find it in a web search.
Anthony, I read your website regularily and enjoy it. You are doing a lot of good in exposing AGW. The Hatch Act is intended to curb partisan political activity and does not apply here. However; Hansen is breaking other NASA rules. NASA does not permit direct contact between employees and members of Congress on NASA work except through official channels. This rule is not strongly enforced and Hansen has established patrons in Congress that make him too hot for NASA to handle. He probably made the trip on NASA money. You will have to get your lawyer to submitt a Freedon of Information Act request to find out that information. Your request will experience numerous delays unless it is also released to the press.
Good luck, Retired Engineer John
Hansen is the Bernie Madoff of global warming. He is going mad trying to keep all the balls in the air.
OT IMPORTANT
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25239707-23109,00.html
Obama invites online questions
Reuters
US President Barack Obama today encouraged Americans to submit their questions about the economy over the internet and said he will answer some of them live on the White House website on Friday.
Why is this coming from australia?
Since popularity of questions is the order, how about the best science blog US participants forming a good question on the relevance of CO2 to climate and economy?
HAhahaaa…. that’s funny!
I had heard about ideas along these lines, I didn’t realize that someone was actually going to attempt this, but the first thing I thought when I first heard of the idea was “wouldn’t something just come along and eat up all that algae?” … sure enough, I guess I’m not as dumb as I thought I was. 🙂
Crosspatch wrote: “I consider myself environmentally conscious but what I resent deeply is people using “environmentalism” as a hook to hoodwink well-intended people into supporting a cynical grab for power. People are being duped in this case. Many people want to do what is right and ensure the Earth they leave behind for future generations is cleaner than the one they inherited. The problem in this case is that nobody has shown that CO2 is a problem.
When someone controls energy production and use, they control the entire economy. There are two ways of regulating an engine … you can use the brake to regulate friction or you can use the throttle to regulate fuel. Politicians seeing pushback from the people in allowing them more direct control over the economy (modulating the brake) through taxation and redistribution of wealth, have stumbled upon this ingenious plan of a globally managed economy by regulating energy consumption. In order to do this and get away with it, they need a mechanism to make the people WANT them to do it. So they come up with “global warming” as a means to scare people into allowing them to manipulate global economic policy through the energy abstract.”
That is one of the most eloquent descriptions of the problem at hand I have seen yet.
I am saving it for further reference. Many thanks, Crosspatch.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
betting the farm on AGW
That’s just it. They’re going for glory. If AGW is real, they get glory, a place in history. Great upside. If no AGW, then there’s a downside of some damage to career, but it’s not intolerable, considering the upside, even as the likelihood of AGW holding true diminishes.
Mike D. wrote: “Here’s how it goes down in the USA, Luis. Hansen works for me; I don’t work for him. I pay his salary; he doesn’t pay mine. He is a public servant, I am the public. Get it? Hansen servant, me master.
Nobody has a right to a government job. Every government employee ought to be subject to firing in a heartbeat if the public wearies of them.”
Brilliantly written. Thanks.
Chris
Norfolk, VA