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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Ray (13:58:00) : It might not be all that bad…
No, no, Ray! We’re supposed to believe that man has damaged the earth beyond repair. We are supposed to feel guilty. 😉
It occurs to me that if Hansen is arrested, he won’t be able to make it to the debate …
don’t tarp me bro (14:04:12) : …our planet is loaded with volcanos. They are mountain top removal events…the mass extent of the deposition of volcanic ash. Shall we declare volcanos illegal?”
No, no, tarp! Where’s your obligatory guilt! 😉
rbateman (14:42:33) : “W.Virginia needs a coal industry for it’s economy, but it doesn’t need coal mining totally shut down in hard times.
Which is no doubt Hansen’s aim.
And the people of W. Virginia will be stuck both with a crippled economy and a mess that won’t get taken care of because the operators will simply leave.
Joe Appalachia is the one who will get hurt.
Hansen and the Greenies won’t be sticking around to help out after the coal operators are gone.”
It looks like James Hansen isn’t taking the time to think about others.
James Hansen—a non-thinker for the ages.
“GlennB (15:40:25) :
I wonder why Hansen agreed to debate him.”
Because he’s easy meat (I’ve just googled him).
Steve (Paris) (12:07:38) : Mine/drill or just close down the US and beg China to send the welfare checks
Nicely put!
Great idea! Let’s kill people unnecessarily for aesthetic purposes!
Hansen is a computer programmer not a climatologist. He should make iPhone games instead of trying to be a Biblical style prophet with a keyboard and mouse.
Bill Ryan (16:50:01) :
Hey maybe Blankenship can get Christopher Moncton to step in as his surrogate!
I’m sure they are already on the phone
I don’t see any solar cells or wind turbines on the roof of GISS.
But I do see the restaurant from Seinfeld on the ground floor of the GISS’ building (no kidding).
I can see Hansen getting arrested and then finding out at trial, that Hansen’s supercomputers use a mountain of coal-fired electricity each year.
That would make a great Seinfeld episode and they wouldn’t have to go very far to film it – just down the elevator powered-by-electricity-from-coal.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/about/
Hansen is a disgrace to NASA and the normal citizens of the USA. The way things are going, we may end up like the situation in Iran and marching on Washington
towards the bottom of the following link David Evans makes some usefull points which could dent hansen’s position.
http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
The Money Connection
So what is going on here? In time-honored journalistic fashion, follow the money:
The anti-AGW spend is around US$2 million per year. It comes primarily from big-oil and skeptic organizations such as Heartland.
The pro-AGW spend is about US$3 billion per year, about 1,000 times larger. It mainly comes from big government spending on pro-AGW climate research and on promoting the AGW message, and from the Greens.
Emissions trading by the finance industry was US$120 billion in 2008. This will grow to over US$1 trillion by 2012, and carbon emission permit trading will be the largest ―commodity‖ market in the world—larger than oil, steel, rice, wheat etc. Typically the finance industry might pocket 1% – 5% of the turnover, so even now their financial interest matches the pro-AGW spend and soon it will vastly exceed it.
Presumably therefore it is the finance industry that is driving the carbon emission permits agenda. It is not that the ―science is settled‖ (a fine piece of anti-science propaganda!), but that the science is simply irrelevant now because big money interests are in control.
OT
Today was the hottest day ever for parts of Florida.
http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MFL&product=PNS&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1
Aron (17:52:16) :
“Hansen is a computer programmer not a climatologist.”
That’s quite debatable! Have your ever seen the FORTRAN listings for GISTEMP or Model E? If not, go here…
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources/
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
Gino Danno Bruno (12:01:26) :
I’ll bet that one went right over her head.
I don’t see much good that can come out of this… Google blankenship speech and listen to some clips… I didn’t see much in the way of a decent argument other than he doesn’t believe in it. Hansen could win this unless he has some seasoned realists preparing a scientific presentation…
Bill Illis (11:26:10) :
Why would any skeptic organization agree to allow the alarmist contingent set the agenda, by giving the opposition the right to pick the skeptics’ own debater?
Does the skeptic side get to name their opponents? OK, then let’s have Al Gore front and center. Otherwise, each side should choose who it wants. Anything else is shenanigans.
What is human life worth? According to many of the environmental people, humans are not worth much. But I guess mountains are worth a lot more than people, too. Open pit mines which were originally mountains are just a tad safer than having human burrow through the insides of said mountains. They used to have slaves work mines, during most of human history, because it was such dangerous work that nobody else would do it, no matter what the salary. So now, in our modern age, we still hold that mountains are more important than humans, especially human miners.
I personally think that mines should be open pit, whenever possible. Just my humble opinion.
i and my wife are of Appalachian coal miner stock.Her Pop worked in a mine in Kentucky,I had family in mines in West Va. and Pennsylvania. We are the Saudi Arabia
of Coal.People like Hansen do not want happy prosperous Hillbillies _or_ anyone else for that matter.He needs to debate Monckton…
Agree w/Janice. Very few mountains are made of coal. That’s what power companies are looking for. Coal. Anyone who is unfamiliar with West Virginia may not realize it, but there are tens of thousands of similar ‘mountains.’ The very few that contain large amounts of coal are rare, and thus are overly photographed and reported.
And the EPA — closely scrutinized by the enviros’ lawyers — makes certain that all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed. When mining operations at any particular location are completed, the environment is restored, as close as humanly possible, to its natural setting. [Certainly much closer to nature than any environmentalist’s back yard.]
These 0bama children in the “Youth Climate Movement” know absolutely nothing about West Virginia. They are pawns in the game; useful fools to be discarded when convenient.
Wikipedia sure does a hatchet job on this gentlemen but he gets guillotined on this ABC segment on YouTube:
I think there is likely to be many more comments like this one which you can find after the You tube excerpt:
I saw Blakenship speak at WVU. He’s an evil, evil man, who reminds me of the old city bosses from the early 20th century. This guy doesn’t care that he’s killing West Virginia’s people, environment, or mountians, all he wants is to line his pockets. I’m so glad that ABC ran this news story even after their reporter was attacked. I hope they continue to cover the awful politics of the coal companies like Massey. DOWN WITH COAL!
Know nothing about the man myself but from what I have seen, I would sure prefer Christopher Monckton in my corner.
On Florida, yes it seems the high pressure center is sitting in the worst possible spot for Florida heat, smack in the middle of the gulf according to some weathermaps, it’s not sitting over Texas like usual.
Or we can use that to make a scare-fest statement saying that life in the Northern Hemisphere will end in a massive inferno in a few weeks, can’t cut back now, watch for your local waterways to boil by next year and watch steel melt on concrete O.O
Also, how much of the South Florida heat compared to the 1940’s is from UHI and giant condo towers blocking any breeze from the sea, there’s tons of condo towers, tons of concrete around airports, and tons of surfaces for heat to radiate off of in more crowded areas.
Frank K. (18:37:06) : You are both wrong. He’s an astronomer.
Aron says:
It’s a curious feature of the internet that people with God-knows-what credentials can critique the credentials of someone like James Hansen. Here is Hansen’s CV: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/cv_hansen_200702.pdf
Among the highlights: He is a PhD physicist who has studied radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres for over 35 years and global climate issues for almost that long. He is the recipient of numerous scientific awards and honors including being elected to the National Academy of Sciences, being a Fellow of the AGU, and winning a trifecta of awards from the major relevant professional societies: the American Geophysical Union, the American Physical Society, and the American Meteorological Society. (He won the AGU’s Revelle Medal which is awarded annually and “recognizes outstanding accomplishments or contributions toward the understanding of the Earth’s atmospheric processes, including its dynamics, chemistry, and radiation; and toward the role of the atmosphere, atmosphere-ocean coupling, or atmosphere-land coupling in determining the climate, biogeochemical cycles, or other key elements of the climate system”. He won the APS’s Leo Szilard Lectureship Award, given annually “to recognize outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society in such areas as the environment, arms control, and science policy .” And, he won the AMS’s Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal which “is presented to individuals on the basis of outstanding contributions to the understanding of the structure or behavior of the atmosphere. It represents the highest honor that the Society can bestow upon an atmospheric scientist.”)
You may not like Hansen, his political views, or even his scientific views, but I think it shows quite a lot of arrogance to disparage his credentials!