Note: this letter from Dr. Jim Hansen of NASA GISS is reprinted below unedited, exactly in email as it was received by me, including the title below. You can reference a PDF version on his Columbia U page here I’ll have to agree with Dr. Hansen though, Cap and Trade is about the closest thing to the “Temple of Doom” our economy would face. No word yet from Harrison Ford if he’ll play Jim in the movie. What is most interesting is who he didn’t mention in the last paragraph.- Anthony
Worshipping the Temple of Doom
My response to the letter from Dr. Martin Parkinson, Secretary of the Australian Department of Climate Change, is available, along with this note, on my web site.
Thanks to the many people who provided comments on my draft response, including Steve Hatfield-Dodds, a senior official within the Australian Department of Climate Change. I appreciate the willingness of the Australian government to engage in this discussion. I believe that you will find the final letter to be significantly improved over the draft version.
Several people admonished me for informal language, which detracts from credibility, and attempts at humor with an insulting tone (e.g., alligator shoes). They are right, of course – these should not be in the letter. So I reserve opinions with an edge to my covering e-mail note.
My frustration arises from the huge gap between words of governments, worldwide, and their actions or planned actions. It is easy to speak of a planet in peril. It is quite another to level with the public about what is needed, even if the actions are in everybody’s long-term interest.
Instead governments are retreating to feckless “cap-and-trade”, a minor tweak to business-as-usual. Oil companies are so relieved to realize that they do not need to learn to be energy companies that they are decreasing their already trivial investments in renewable energy. They are using the money to buy greenwash advertisements. Perhaps if politicians and businesses paint each other green, it will not seem so bad when our forests burn.
Cap-and-trade is the temple of doom. It would lock in disasters for our children and grandchildren. Why do people continue to worship a disastrous approach? Its fecklessness was proven by the Kyoto Protocol. It took a decade to implement the treaty, as countries extracted concessions that weakened even mild goals. Most countries that claim to have met their obligations actually increased their emissions. Others found that even modest reductions of emissions were inconvenient, and thus they simply ignored their goals.
Why is this cap-and-trade temple of doom worshipped? The 648 page cap-and-trade monstrosity that is being foisted on the U.S. Congress provides the answer. Not a single Congressperson has read it. They don’t need to – they just need to add more paragraphs to support their own special interests. By the way, the Congress people do not write most of those paragraphs – they are “suggested” by people in alligator shoes.
The only defense of this monstrous absurdity that I have heard is “well, you are right, it’s no good, but the train has left the station”. If the train has left, it had better be derailed soon or the planet, and all of us, will be in deep do-do. People with the gumption to parse the 648-pages come out with estimates of a price impact on petrol between 12 and 20 cents per gallon. It has to be kept small and ineffectual, because they want to claim that it does not affect energy prices!
It seems they would not dream of being honest and admitting that an increased price for fossil fuels is essential to drive us to the world beyond fossil fuels. Of course, there are a huge number of industries and people who do not want us to move to the world beyond fossil fuels – these are the biggest fans of cap-and-trade. Next are those who want the process mystified, so they can make millions trading, speculating, and gaming the system at public expense.
The science has become clear: burning all fossil fuels would put Earth on a disastrous course, leaving our children and grandchildren with a deteriorating situation out of their control. The geophysical implication is that most of the remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels (tar shale, etc.) must be left in the ground or the emissions captured and put back in the ground. A corollary is that it makes no sense to go after every last drop of oil in the most remote and pristine places – we would have to fight to get the CO2 back out of the air or somehow “geoengineer” our way out of its effects.
A more sensible approach is to begin a rapid transition to a clean energy future, beyond fossil fuels – for the sake of our children and grandchildren, already likely to be saddled with our economic debts, and to preserve the other species on the planet. Such a path would also eliminate mercury emissions, most air pollution, acid rain and ozone alerts, likely reversing trends toward increasing asthma and birth defects. Such an energy future would also halt the drain on our treasure and lives resulting from dependence on foreign energy sources.
What is it that does not compute here? Why does the public choose to subsidize fossil fuels, rather than taxing fossil fuels to make them cover their costs to society? I don’t think that the public actually voted on that one. It probably has something to do with all the alligator shoes in Washington. Those 2400 energy lobbyists in Washington are not well paid for nothing. You have three guesses as to who eventually pays the salary of these lobbyists, and the first two guesses don’t count.
I get a lot of e-mails telling me to stick to climate, that I don’t know anything about economics. I know this: the fundamental requirement for transition to the post fossil fuel era is a substantial and rising price on carbon emissions. And businesses and consumers must understand that it will continue to rise in the future.
Of course, a rising carbon price alone is not sufficient for a successful rapid transition to the post fossil fuel era. There also must be efficiency standards on buildings, vehicles, appliances, electronics and lighting. Barriers to efficiency, such as utilities making more money when we use more energy, must be removed.
But the essential underlying requirement is a substantial rising carbon price. Building standards, especially operations, for example, are practically unenforceable without a strong cost driver. The carbon price must be sufficient to affect lifestyle choices.
648 pages are not needed to define a carbon fee. It is a single number that would be ratcheted upward over time. It would cover all three fossil fuels at their source: the mine or port of entry. Consumers do not directly pay any tax, but the fee’s effect permeates everything from the price of fuel to the price of food (especially if it is imported from halfway around the world).
As a point of reference a fee equivalent to $1/gallon of gasoline ($115/ton CO2) would yield $670B in the United States (based on energy use data for 2007). That would provide a dividend of $3000/year to legal adult residents in the United States ($9000/year to a family with two or more children).
A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average would gain economically, if the fee is returned 100 percent to the public on a per capita basis. With the present distributions of income and energy use, it is estimated that about 60 percent of the people would get a dividend exceeding their tax. So why would they not just spend their dividend on expensive fuel? Nobody wants to pay more taxes. They prefer to have the money for other things. As the price of fossil fuels continues to increase, people would conserve energy, choose more energy efficient vehicles, and choose non-fossil (untaxed) energies and products.
Hey, does anybody know a great communicator, who might level with the public, explain what is needed to break our addiction to fossil fuels, to gain energy independence, to assure a future for young people? Who would explain what is really needed, rather than hide behind future “goals” and a gimmick “cap”? Naw. Roosevelt and Churchill are dead. So is Kennedy.
Jim
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Here in British Columbia two long time environmentalists, David Suzuki and Tziporah Berman, are supporting the taxers (Liberals) as opposed to the cap and traders (NDP) in a provincial election coming up on May 12.
I think they must get their orders from the same source as Hansen. It looks as though the game plan has switched. As Hansen points out, a tax is easy to ratchet up. Then there are those that call for both systems to be put in place.
Whoever runs the world is out to get us coming and going.
What you fail to include with your Precautionary Principle is the fact that millions will die due to funds diverted towards fighting a phantom menace, instead of providing modern amenities, affordable power, medicine, education, food, etc.
The bottom line is, we’ve seen nothing, nor have evidence for, anything unprecedented happening with “global climate” on any reasonable time scale.
@Bill (11:25:29)
We’ve already gone a number of years since Hansen’s 1988 testimony. We are nowhere near the warming best-case from Hansen’s scenario. Why do you think it will be any different in a few years?
bill (10:00:19) :
But where will this evidence come from.
You do not believe models
You do not believe temperature reconstructions
You do not believe recorded temperature
Proxies are poxy.
Glaciers – unbelievable
CO2 does no harm
Computer models are not evidence. Computer models do not output facts.
At least you got the last part right CO2 does no harm.
No, it sure doesn’t, at least not at the concentrations we are talking about. Not at 2 or 3 times, either. It’s a very weak greenhouse gas and increasing it has had negligible effects. The feedbacks and tipping points for increasing CO2 Hansen posits do not exist.
one thing is sure: “the debat is over” … 🙂
At least I agree with Hansen on something. Here is a post I wrote on Nov. 6, 2008, over at Climate Audit:
I might add that I’m an economist at Ohio State University. Newsweek columnists Robert Samuelson and George Will have very eloquently made similar points.
Although I don’t agree with everything he says, at least he is trying to be honest about it
@Steve Briggs (11:58:04) :
“1. There is no fossil fuel shortage – with the Bakken Oil Shale the US has at least 41 years of oil even at the currently projected increases in consumption.”
Clearly you have no geologic knowledge of this play. As a geologist who has extensive knowledge of this play, I will tell that this statement couldn’t be further from the truth – at any oil price
Bill
worst case to a couple of deg C increase in temperature and fuel shortage.
The worst case is a couple of degrees decrease in temperature and a fuel shortage due to cap and trade driving miners and drillers out of business.
We don’t have to prove or disprove anything. Meteorologists and climate scientists alike are taking a second look at oceanic affects on long term land temperatures. CO2 has as much to do with land temperature trends as the Sun does. The race is now being packaged in terms of who will be left behind hawking their version of temperature sources, AGW’s or Sun’ers.
The US Congress did not outlaw or tax the horse when a new and better set of wheels became the standard. Let us learn from history, and not tax the CO2 as we get weened from hydrocarbons!
Cap and trade is much to be preferred to carbon taxes. Carbon taxes never actually get spent on reducing carbon emissions. The EU countries have been collecting them for many years and spend less than 1% of the revenues on actual carbon sequestration/reduction. Carbon taxes are all about one thing and one thing only: Huge welfare state budgets.
Cap and Trade is conversely a means by which companies can trade emission rights in a free market basis.
The opposition to cap and trade is from the socialist forces whose real goal in AGW is to raise funds for a new Nanny State welfare system with central control over our economies for environmental reasons. It is eco-communism.
Ira (08:52:47) :
Hansen is the #1 alarmist at NASA so I, as a loyal WUWT reader, hate to agree with him. BUT, he IS right about opposing the Cap & Trade scam. He is also right about the Carbon Tax with 100% dividend (also known as revenue-neutral Carbon Tax and supported by more of us on the right than those on the left.)
Rising atmospheric CO2 levels may be responsible for, oh ten percent, of the warming we have seen over the past 100 years. That is insignificant compared to the efects of natural cycles of the sun. With the “Inconvenient” solar minimum, we are likely to see temperatures stabilize and perhaps decline a bit in the coming decades. Hansen has been wrong about any kind of “tipping point” anytime soon.
So, why do I favor the revenue-neutral Carbon Tax? And why now? Well, a tax of about $1/gallon (and proportional tax for natural gas and coal) would raise the price to about $3/gallon, which is less than the $4/gallon we paid last year. The Carbon Tax would apply at the wellhead or mine, which would make it relatively easy to collect and hard to avoid. The 100% dividend, paid as an equal share to every legal US resident with a social security card, would offset the higher prices of fuel and petroleum products. It would stimulate the economy. Rather than have the government (i.e., lobbyists) set our energy agenda, the marketplace would automatically reward industries and consumers who used less fossil fuel.
Would a Carbon Tax reduce atmospheric carbon-gas growth levels? Probably. Certainly more so than the politically loaded Cap & Trade or Kyoto Agreement.
Should we be concerned about rising carbon-gas levels? Perhaps not. Higher atmospheric CO2, IMHO, is beneficial to most agriculture and it is responsible for only a fraction of global warming. On the other hand, as a conservative, I am wary of any major changes that may have unknown long-term effects. So, like chicken soup, the Carbon Tax may help reduce rising CO2 levels and it couldn’t hurt. Best of all, the revenue-neutral Carbon Tax is the least destructive way to head off the evil Cap & Trade scam”.
Ira,
You are joking, right?
Apparently James Hansen cares more about fighting the use of carbon based fuels than establishing the U.S. Climate Action (fascist) Partnership with Government. USCAP is a step toward a World Climate Action (fascist) Partnership. So far, Hansen has been a useful tool for USCAP.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/04/green-lobby-guides-democrats-on-climate-bill/
“But the sweeping climate bill Mr. Waxman and Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the panel’s key environmental subcommittee, introduced at the end of March includes a provision that benefits Duke Energy Corp., a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), whose climate plan released in January the lawmakers have frequently called a ‘blueprint’ for their climate legislation.”
USCAP’s Number One Big Green Transnational Corporation, General Electric, has a history of working with nations that want a socialist government “where a measure of private enterprise was still permitted”. GE’s verbiage copied below is a pledge to modern day Russia that GE will gladly partner with a socialist government.
http://www.ge.com/ru/en/ourCompany/news/20061106.html
An excerpt from General Electric’s website is as follows:
GE in Russia
GE has been actively working in Russia since early 20th century when the first supplies of equipment for developing the country’s energy infrastructure were made.
In 1922, Charles Steinmetz, General Electric’s chief engineer, wrote a letter to Vladimir Lenin offering his help in restoring the country’s industry: “I will always be delighted to help Russia with advice and suggestions on equipment, especially power equipment.”
End of excerpt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin
“…[I]n 1920, Lenin ordered increased emphasis on the food requisitioning from the peasantry, at the same time as the Cheka gave detailed reports about the large scale famine. The long war and a drought in 1921 also contributed to the famine. Estimates on the deaths from this famine are between 3 and 10 million.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/lenin_vladimir.shtml
“Although Lenin was ruthless he was also pragmatic. When his efforts to transform the Russian economy to a socialist model stalled, he introduced the New Economic Policy, where a measure of private enterprise was still permitted, a policy that continued for several years after his death. In 1918 Lenin survived an assassination attempt. His long term health was affected, and in 1922 he suffered a stroke from which he never really recovered.”
Never thought I’d find myself of a similar opinion to “cap and trade” as James Hansen, but I do disagree with his stance on the extra “carbon taxes”. Life sure does present us with some strange twists.
Although I’m tempted to further observe that CO2 is not the real villain of the piece climatewise, just the fall guy.
Pamela Gray CO2 has as much to do with land temperature trends as the Sun does
So you never sun tanned!! What a pity!, tell me who obliges you to work day and night under roof without seeing daylight. Who tortues you that way?
Pierre Gosselin (11:01:34) :
In fact there’s an upcoming conference in Essen, Germany, 8-10 June, dubbed: THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION – Climate Change as Cultural Change.
This Congress poses the question (I kid you not!):
“Democratic regimes are not well prepared for the level of participation that is required: Can free democratic societies cope with the effects of grave changes in the global climate, or might AUTHORITARIAN regimes possibly be better placed to enforce the necessary measures?”
Pierre,
Thanks for the info.
This is a link where you can download a flyer. http://www.greattransformation.eu/
The program provides a platform for all the “Global Governance”, Population Control Perverts” and “Climate Control Lunatics” that are running loose on our planet.
I have checked some names and they directly link up to:
The UN, The Club of Rome, the Gorbatchov Foundation and MoveOn which is linked to the Obama Administration and the Clintons.
To organize such a meeting in Germany is hilarious.
It looks like the people behind http://green-agenda.com are right.
We are facing a Global Revolution and it’s showing it’s ugly face already.
This is bad and we should organize a protest to make clear that our democracies are guarded by the people.
Do you know that Obama will be in Germany around that period of time?
As a retired US Government civil servant I continue to be astonished that NASA continues to allow Jim Hansen, their employee, to engage in this type of political activity. None of the organizations I worked for would have permitted me, as their employee, to participate in such activities, and even related activities short of urging political action would have been seriously constrained. Not to mention not being allowed to engage in such activities on US Government funded time. I would love to see his time and attendance record for how he is accounting for all of these hours he spends furthering his polemics.
Just wondering.
John
Cap and Trade is conversely a means by which companies can trade emission rights in a free market basis.
“Free market basis”? What’s free market about the government creating a new currency (carbon credits) and controlling who gets credits and who get exemptions?
The opposition to cap and trade is from the socialist forces whose real goal in AGW is to raise funds for a new Nanny State welfare system with central control over our economies for environmental reasons. It is eco-communism.
President Obama wants to use cap-and-trade to pay for increased social programs. Given how little effect cap-and-trade would have on the climate, I think the real goal of cap-and-trade is to empower government.
BTW: Eco-communism is a great term. How is it that communist nations have such horrible environmental records? Anybody want to live in North Korea? Ever seen the clouds hanging over China?
I really don’t want to pile on here. Great comments have been made already about this ludicrous man and the words (prophecies?) that come out of his mouth. Yes he is right about cap n trade, but any cretin with one partially functioning brain cell should be able to see that in glowing Neon.
However, I have 1 point.
Suppose AGW theory is true (I’m pretty convinced it hasn’t got a single leg to stand on, but bear with me). What is the best way to tackle the problem?
1) Cap and Trade: Tax everyone to oblivion, introduce a plethora of ways for corporations to swindle countless billions from the general public – your electricity price would increase significantly because of the carbon the power company are claiming they are not producing (or because of the carbon certificates they are forced to purchase to offset their existing emissions). Lucrative entrepreneurs would be able to get free money from the government for not producing something…”I didn’t build a polluting coal plant on this piece of land, so give me my carbon credits”. Meanwhile, joe blogs in the street gets an increased electricity bill because of the power that wasn’t generated. Reduce our wealth, quality of life and energy security, and likely cause our jobs to move overseas to countries not bounded by these taxes (helping them accelerate way past us in economic terms) with not a single iota of impact on actual Climate. Lets not forget, Europe signed up to Kyoto and Cap and Trade and spent Billions (if not Trillions) on it. The result? – their emissions actually went UP, the Cap and Trade market bubble crashed and world Climate wasn’t impacted. What if that money had been spent on new technologies?
2) Carbon Tax: Significantly increase the cost of everything produced, bought and sold around the world including a run on Global Food and Medicine prices (after all many pharmaceuticals use products derived from crude oil). The poor can’t afford basic medicines or food, the world’s level of health declines. Numerous new “trade wars” are introduced – other countries not bound by those taxes will not like the import carbon taxes you impose on their goods. Increased world tension. Reduce our wealth, quality of life and cause our jobs to move overseas. “Here China, we are heading back to the late 1930’s, why don’t you take up were we left up”.
3) Adapt and allow the free market to solve the problem. After all, if things like wind and solar power were so good, wind power would be cheaper and everyone would buy it – right? If our insurance costs go up because we own property near the beach and sea levels are rising, less people would buy property on the beach and there would be a slow migration inland – no? If the price of crude oil (and therefore) gasoline remained high for a sustained period of time (due to dwindling supply), we would all change to lower mpg vehicles – right? In the meantime, with the saved pointless billions we avoided shackling ourselves with, and continued prosperity we might actually develop nuclear fusion (we will still likely lag France) or other technologies currently undreamed of which could solve the problem outright.
Cap and trade IS bad policy, but methinks that Hansen is starting to crack up. Perhaps the Goracle will soon follow.
The whole thing was always just a house of cards built up out of poor computer models. Too bad we had to waste so much of our time, money and national energy on AGW. In his effort to “restore science to it’s rightful place” Obama may prolong the charade through continued research funding, but it can’t last. People are starting to jump off of this train in growing numbers.
Hu, McCulloch (12:53:25) :
You started with the assumption we need to “resrict something that has important negative externalities”.
Take the phoney CO2 emissions warming out of the mix and there’s no justification for any carbon tax or cap and trade.
That would be inflationary for no reason. It would raise the cost of energy for everyone, increase the cost of most consumables and increase the negatives of government spending and mission creep.
Yet all you see are benefits?
I find it distrubing that some who advocate a gas tax increase fail to envision the impact or where and how that money would be spent.
If there is nothing to the AGW story, such a tax would be punitive and counter productive.
1. Any direct reduction in fuel consumption would be miniscule and offset by the painful economic impacts and not do anything to reduce conventional pollutants, which we all know are already very low.
2. Assuming a tax increase caused decline in demand would be sufficient to reduce the supply price of crude and therefore the income of anti-American OPEC countries is the stuff of political fantasy.
3. Imposing tax pain is not “encourage” people to drive fewer vehicles fewer miles”, and that approach never, NEVER, relieves traffic congestion.
4. All the encouraging is already happening wthout the detriment of a tax increase. The boondoggles do and will get funded anyway. Again that is political fantasy to suggest otherwise.
5. Reduction in coal mining means a reduction in the source of 50% of our nations electrical energy. The localized destructive to the landscape can and is being midigated after the mining.
6. BINGO!!!!! ALERT!!! raise a lot of money for the Treasury to spend on whatever Congress decides WARNING!!!
“It could be used to reduce the national debt” Now that is hillarious.
It will be wasted.
7. And who knows, perhaps despite all the IPCC hype, time will tell that there really is something to the AGW story?
Gee I wonder if it wll take endless expansions of time to make that call?
Of course it will and amazingly the tax will be have to be rasied to a higher level. “Or if not, we can just eliminate the tax.” Funnier yet.
In theory, anything that is proposed will essentially be the same as a tax and the proceeds will go to the Treasury for congressional spending.
Using AGW to adopt higher taxation and spending is foolish beyond the normal insanity in DC.
Your justification is some pretty tired rhetoric.
“A tax is far more transparent and less cumbersome, plus it’s easy to see where the benefits are going.”
Oh brother is that stale.
But enough politics …
I might add that I’m a small business owner in Oregon where many politicians make the same justifications.
Adolfo, I’m a redhead. I don’t tan but I do freckle quite a bit in-between burns. And it is the Earth that moderates whether I freckle/burn or not. For example, I have noticed that in Winter snow and Spring downpours, I can stay out under the clouds all day with no ill affects. The other suspicious thing I have noticed is that I don’t freckle or burn at night. Really. Not even if I’m ncked.
Though he probably imagines himself one, Jimmy is no Indiana. He’s got the Jones part right though, being so fond of peddling his climate kool-aid.
Yes, Cap n’ Trade is a huge scam, and will be “The Temple of Doom” – for our economy, though, not the climate.
“Carbon” taxes would be more straightforward, with less chance of fraud and abuse, but equally as harmful to the economy.
I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t let Hu’s comments about carbon taxation pass without some rebuttal:
—
1. reduce fuel consumption and therefore conventional pollutants, which we all agree are nasty.
There are lots of industrial processes which give off nasty emissions. Shouldn’t we include them too? Like the processes used to make plastics which the medical community uses to prevent diseases and save lives. How about the processes used to make the computer you’re using right now? We can go on…
2. reduce the supply price of crude and therefore the income of anti-American OPEC countries
How is a tax going to do this? My state road taxes were pretty high last year – they didn’t prevent the oil price bubble from inflating, however…
3. encourage people to drive fewer vehicles fewer miles, thus relieving traffic congestion.
Easy for you perhaps. How far away are you from your job? How much money do you make? Who do you think will be hurt hardest by this? The rich and well-to-do?
How about all of those 18 wheelers bring food to your grocery store? Maybe we should tell them to take it on the chin – that’ll teach ’em for bringing food to your town!
4. encourage people to seek out greater fuel efficiency, alternative energy sources, etc, in their own interest, thus eliminating the case for boondoggle subsidies to ethanol, wind power, carbon reburial, etc.
Eliminate the case for boondoggle subsidies?! Do you follow politics in Washington? Hello??? – see also number 6.
5. reduce coal mining, which tends to be destructive to the landscape.
But coal is the source of electric power for many. Again, it’s easy for those who can pay high electric rates to say we should make electricity more scarce and expensive. Maybe we should just learn to live with brownouts – especially at hospitals and nursing homes.
6. raise a lot of money for the Treasury to spend on whatever Congress decides — but there is no reason to tie this to energy, since the tax itself already provides the necessary incentives in this direction. It could be used to reduce the national debt (my favorite), to build multiple bridges to Ketchikan, to occupy the entire Middle East for the next 100 years, to insure all mutual funds against negative returns, or whatever Congress fancies.
This is the biggest laugher of them all. Reduce the national debt? Are your serious? Have you been paying ANY attention to the goings-on in Washington these days? No revenue from any source will remain unspent so long as our current Congress is in power. And I’m sure they would reserve a good chunk of the money for a variety of energy boondoggles, with no oversight and no return on investment.
7. And who knows, perhaps despite all the IPCC hype, time will tell that there really is something to the AGW story, and we can jack up the tax to a higher level. Or if not, we can just eliminate the tax.
If you think ANY tax will ever be eliminated, you are truly dreaming! And how long do we need to wait — 10, 20, 30 years? As we’ve seen, the AGW movement continually moves the goalposts as prediction after prediction fails to materialize. Once any “carbon” tax is enacted, it will never go away (see also – social security, medicaid, medicare, …).
Finally, when”science” begins to dictate social and economic policy in this fundamental way, it will be quite easy to generate the next “crisis”. Too many people on the earth, according the International Population Control Council (IPCC)? No problem – we’ll enact a new law limiting everyone’s lifespan to 67.25 years. And no one can have more than two children. And if you’re disabled either mentally or physically, well…you need to do you part…
I feel sorry for the guy. His sincerity is, I believe, genuine. He is fighting tooth and nail for a cause, that he believes in, and is prepared to fight dirty to spread his beliefs. He is as critical of the politicians who he sees as fiddling while Rome burns as he is of those who oppose his views.
He is an advocate of Nuclear Power, an opponent of C&T! He is, also, first in line to be ‘Fall Guy- Sans Pareil”. If man-made global warming does turn into natural global cooling then he’ll be sacrificed to protect his political buddies. If he is correct, then his missionary zeal and venom will be more and more directed at his political masters whose actions will increasingly frustrate him!
They will soon tire of him and put him out to pasture on sour grass.
Mr Hansen -as much as I disagee with your beliefs, I admire your tenacity but don’t let that stubborness, that has underpinned you in the past, condemn you to an undeserved bitter future.