That headline is NOT a typo, that’s what they say:
If there was even any doubt about Hansen changing from scientist to advocate, that doubt is now shattered.
Meanwhile, amazingly, James Hansen has agreed to a debate. Hansen is going to debate with Don Blankenship of Massey coal company.
This just in, from NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in response to Massey Energy President Don Blankenship’s challenge to debate global warming, the coal industry and the West Virginia economy. I received this note from Dr. Hansen, who asked that I forward the information on to Blankenship.
This is going to become ground zero for the issue. Word has it the people of WV are becoming quite energized.
Hansen has a new commentary on Yale’s Environment 360 blog called “A Plea to President Obama: End Mountaintop Removal.”
Stay tuned. This is going to escalate most likely.
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Manfred (14:23:28) :
nice comment at the end of the page 😉
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/06/17/get-arrested-with-james-hansen-to-stop-mtr/
I checked it out – liked it – and added my own. What would Shakespeare have said?
“To moderate? Or not to moderate? That is the question!”
He’s got to be able to rebuff the accusation of raping the landscape, by explaining that modern mining operations, which incidentally are still essential for every natural resource from cement to steel to aluminium to paint, cosmetics and jewellery, now operate on a policy adhering to and exceeding all mandatory environmental requirements for landscape sensitivity and rehabilitation, with far less impact on visual amenity than for instance wind farm batteries. And back it up with before and after examples. Then move to the proper debate.
Jimmy Haigh (14:24:37) :
I’ll drink to that !
Actually, I was thinking of sending Gore & Hansen to an Antarctic station. They can come back when the place is fully melted.
After reading up on Don Blankenship today I feel confident that , regardless of the tenor of the debate , he will not be intimidated by either Hanson or a hostile audience . Unfortunately , I have no idea how well informed he is on the science . I would love to be there .
?
Whenever I debate seasoned alarmists (actually, people like me, who are interested laymen, but on the other side of the debate), all I ever hear is the “but it’s peer reviewed science!” line of argument. To be fair I hear this from Schmidt, Gore, Mann and every Scientist who ventures forth with their sanctimonious lecturing. Presumably Hansen will use this line too. It’s hard to argue with in a way, because it’s an argument from authority; if you question the underlying process of review it’s almost as if you’re attacking Science itself. The proponents of AGW are able to cite hundreds, maybe thousands of papers supporting their position in one form or another. I’ve read Wegman and read Steve McIntryre’s blog, so I understand the very serious problems with peer review in Climate Science, but I do worry that without serious, published counter-points in the literature, it’s going to be an uphill struggle for any debater.
“”” RoyFOMR (12:43:12) :
timetochooseagain (12:09:03) :
Thanks. So am I getting this right: a 3C rise in the example above, would more likely trend to the (10C->14 C and 20C-> 22C) scenario rather than the (10C-> 12C and 20C->24C) picture.
Your explanation makes a lot of sense. If we had a summer of cloud then this would make the nights warmer and the days cooler. I recognise that kind of summer!
So our nights will be less chilly and our days a bit warmer. Doesn’t sound too catastrophic to me. “””
Actually RoyFOMR, you have the cart before the horse; you should have said:- If we had a summer of warmer nights and cooler days, this would make the nights cloudier.
It’s the lower surface conditions that form those cloudy nights; not the other way round. Just think how a high cold low pressure lower density cloud, is going to radiate enough IR radiation downwards (half will go upwards), that has to run the gauntlet of an increasingly warm and dense atmosphere full of water vapro and GHGs, that produces an every broadening absorption band, as you go lower, that is going to re-absorb that upper sourced IR, and then re-emit it again (with half going back up), until the multidivided dregs finally reach the ground with its much higher thermal capacity, and tries to change the temperature of the ground.
Ain’t gonna happen; and least not in any great amount.
The atmosphere is graded in density and temperature to make multiple re-absorption and re-emission cascades preferentially progress upwards, rather than downwards. The broad emission due to collision and Doppler temperature broadening, at ground level radiates upwards (1/2) to a cooler less dense higher atmosphere layer, with a lowere GHG molecular density, and an ever narrowing absorption spectrum as the pressure, and temperature slowly drop.
The ground can easily warm the clouds (and drive them to higher altitudes); much more difficult for those low density cold clouds to heat the ground.
Geiorge
If I read the Green Agenda right, they will not only try to get coal mining shut down entirely, they will also coninue thier efforts by obstructing any attempt at mitigation of the environmental mess, claiming that cleanup is not natural.
And that is the argument I’d hit him with hardest.
It’s already happened on scale to the forests in the Pacific Northwest, much to the dismay of the US Forest Service and the communities devastated by loss of economy and ravaged landscape.
I’ve seen this movie.
Jimmy Haigh (14:24:37) :
[snip – sorry, for your own good]
Fair enough! But Mr R Bateman caught it!
Da da da da da da da da Bateman!
There is a better way to mine coal than Blankenship’s.
There is a better way to study climate than Hansen’s.
As someone observed, this is a Goliath Vs Goliath fight.
America seems to have more than it’s share of demagogues in powerful positions.
I think gold and copper mining is many times worse than coal extraction, yet we don’t hear about that. You can be sure they will never lobby to shut down gold mines since it would completely destroy the economy of all countries.
http://www.nodirtygold.org/dirty_golds_impacts.cfm
rbateman (14:49:05) :
Jimmy Haigh (14:24:37) :
I’ll drink to that !
Actually, I was thinking of sending Gore & Hansen to an Antarctic station. They can come back when the place is fully melted.
They could, in fact, sail back on Al Gore’s yacht!
(This expedition was fuelled by renewable energy sources. No empty or non-empty oil drums, which were not used to fuel this expedition, were left on the rapidly melting ice (unlike Caitlin!) to cause untold havoc on the cascading, plummeting, lemmings-being-pushed-off-a-cliff-by-Disney (allegedly)-documentary-makers, Arctic polar bear population during the making of this Antarctic real-life documentary.
Don’t worry folks, If Hansen and the other scaremongers
would like to close coal mining, let’s happen:
“let’s give ’em freeze”, they wiil be the first ones, complaining.
We, OTOH, can try to be prepared. And when they are knocking
at the door, barn it.
Unfortunately, I am sceptic, that we can avoid
the “Worst of Folliness” – stupidity has to run full circle
until it’s exhausted. Only then, reason has it’s chance.
“When the stupid’s are running, don’t get into their way.
When they stumbled and fell, you still can help them up
and steering them to running in the right direction.”
I checked out Blankenship on Google. Looks like a huge idiot. Probably why Hansen agreed to debate him. Blankenship comes across like the worst kind of corrupt capitalist stereotype.
Personally, I think Hansen gave up his claim to impartiality along time ago. But I do agree that Mountain Top removal needs to stop. There is way to much pollution that takes place as a result and it is destroying the beauty of the mountains of West Virginia.
The only reason to mine coal at the top of a mountain is because there is coal at the top of the said mountain! That’s what rocks do. Coal is a rock. Sometimes it outcrops on the surface but, like most rocks, it’s usually underground. Usually there are rocks at the tops of mountains and occasionally the rocks there are coal. Sorry for being flippant. But… For the benefit of the AGW brigade….
Being, as I am, from Scotland, with its 284 ‘Munros’ of 3000ft and higher (http://www.munromagic.com/), I’ve seen lots of things at the tops of mountains. Usually litter left by the bearded-woolly jumper-folk music loving-finger in the ear-brigade.
Especially lots of cigarrette butts.
Which was always a mystery to me: why every green I’ve ever met – smokes or smoked?
David Segesta (09:53:21) :
“Sounds like a bad idea to me. Blankenship is an accountant not a scientist.”
I wonder why Hansen agreed to debate him.
NIMBY
This is what people say when they really mean NIMNY – Not In My Neighbor’s Yard…. (because I might upset me if I might possibly see it from my backyard).
I just hope the debate is video recorded. Its been a long time since Hansen has faced anything like proper open debate.
Britannic no-see-um (14:45:56) :
He’s got to … explain that modern mining operations now operate on a policy adhering to and exceeding all mandatory environmental requirements for landscape sensitivity and rehabilitation, with far less impact on visual amenity than for instance wind farm batteries. And back it up with before and after examples.
Not even Saatchi and Saatchi could make this guy’s mining operations look good. Let’s face it, open cast mining is an environmental disater wherever it’s practised. Blowing the tops off mountains and filling the valley heads with the spoil is… well… words fail me.
I’m not for sending anyone to their doom, only sending the agenda to where it belongs.
The end does not justify the means, else we are no better than the doomsayers.
Hansen & Gore can survive in Antarctic stations proving thier melting case.
If they cannot, they can throw in the towel.
The Greenies have some explaining to do, likewise, for the results of thier own agenda.
The folks in W.V. deserve nothing less.
I am interested to see what the locals think fo all this
Sorry for being sort of off topic but this is really funny.
[yes but its just a bit too much OT, sorry. – Anthony ]
Hansen…Sir Hansen????/
confusion is the famous man.
“I just want to be alone” (Greta Garbo)
Steve (Paris) (12:37:39) :
From the article :
“Maldives property owners are so confident the sea is receding, they are building a number of upmarket seafront hotels.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5599916/Polar-Bears-are-not-dying-out-say-scientists-in-book-on-popular-scare-stories.html
Hey maybe Blankenship can get Christopher Moncton to step in as his surrogate!