Daryl Hannah, scientist arrested at W.Va. mine protest
SUNDIAL, W.Va. (AP) — More than two dozen people — including actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climate scientist James Hansen — were arrested Tuesday in the latest protest in a growing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in Southern West Virginia.
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State Police said about 30 people were charged Tuesday afternoon after they blocked State Route 3 near a Massey Energy subsidiary’s coal processing plant in Raleigh County.
Full AP story here
In a statement distributed by the Rainforest Action Network, whose executive director was also arrested, Dr. Hansen said:
I am not a politician; I am a scientist and a citizen. Politicians may have to advocate for halfway measures if they choose. But it is our responsibility to make sure our representatives feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not what is politically expedient. Mountaintop removal, providing only a small fraction of our energy, should be abolished.
No Jimbo, you are an activist and advocate for a cause.
Note to NASA: Now can you fire this guy?
Meanwhile, back at the RealClimate ranch today, the sound of crickets…
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Travis King (13:47:01); (13:58:13); (14:02:57) :
I don’t think you understand. Or maybe you just don’t know Hansen’s background.
You’re probably unaware of the fact [unconvincingly denied by Hansen] that he has taken upwards of a million dollars from people with a very strong pro-AGW agenda. He’s been bought and paid for. Those people expect something of value in return for their cash, and with Hansen they get their money’s worth.
But where does that leave the ordinary taxpayer, who expects the scientists they pay to do science, not partisan advocacy? The taxpayers get defrauded.
And it’s not simply Hansen’s advocating for pro-AGW special interests that is objectionable. It’s the fact that Hansen’s organization, GISS, routinely fudges the temperature record by adjusting it upward.
Finally, your comparison of Hansen to Congress and the president doesn’t fly. Even the president couldn’t get away with taking boatloads of cash from special interests wanting a desired outcome, and putting it into his personal bank account. In Hansen’s case, that payola flowed right into his own pockets, no one else’s. GISS didn’t get it. The U.S. Treasury didn’t get it. NASA didn’t get it. It’s Hansen’s bribe; he got it all.
Some hero you’ve got there.
The repeating theme from the earnest young on this thread is that any interference with the earth in sinful, be it logging trees or digging coal. I attribute this mainly to successive generations of poor school teachers who have a closed circle of wrong information that they propagate incestuously from generation to generation.
You cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs. You cannot have the material comforts of a modern society without mining and logging. Without them, you are back to cave dwelling and that is NOT an exaggeration.
The mining and logging companies are not idiots and they will seek to invest their funds into enterprises that are efficient and free of externalities like metal spikes driven into trees.
Do go through this mental exercise for a day. Each time use use an object or a utility like electricity, say to yourself “Without this, what would I use?” That is the type of future that uninformed and dangerous people are trying to enforce on you. I am surprised at the number of innocents who vote for this future. No, not surprised, just dismayed that they have not thought it through before committing.
The big agenda that nobody wants to talk about is complete disruption of the ordered economic, political and social structure and its replacement by warfare in which ambitious people can become heros in their lifetimes. Chairman Mao is one model. Take the Profs from the Universities and have them clean toilets. Yes, it’s that serious.
I don’t see anything wrong with Jim Hansen protesting. Because of pollution damage from our overuse of coal, there already is environmental damage. we need to reduce the number and size of coal mines, not add to them.And in the areas around mountaintop mines, there is already damage from erosion,as well as byproducts of the mining process.
Dave Mackenzie,
Surely you read Geoff Sherrington’s commend directly above yours. You might want to read it again. Try to understand what Geoff is saying. It will do you good.
Smokey, no, you need to try to both understand what Jeff is saying (basically, ‘Anyone who disagrees with me is worse than a commie and wants to end the world and send us back, oh, about a 50,000 years.’ (Oh, so it’s that old favourite insult ‘You want to send us back to the stone age’ with a ‘you’re also commies’ twist)) and that it’s thus not the most subtle of stuff, it IS plain and simple scaremongering and insult. it might work for you, it leaves me unmoved because I’ve seen it for years from those who don’t address the evidence.
Peter Hearndon,
How can you presume to know what Mr. Sherrington is saying, when you can’t even spell his name correctly?
I’ve just re-read Geoff’s comment, and I find nothing wrong with it, or inaccurate about it.
A serious problem, though, is your re-writing of Geoff’s comment in your own words, and then arguing with your restatement. That’s a strawman argument.
So you set up a strawman and knocked it right down, you brave strawman killer, you. Instead, try to understand what was actually being said, not what you said was said.
You should give some thought to Geoff’s idea: that some misguided and uneducated people truly believe that any interference with the earth is ‘sinful, be it logging trees or digging coal’. That is literally crazy.
Try doing without any of the benefits of wood or coal. Then report back to us. Be sure to use smoke signals or some other environmentally pure means of communication, since silicon and copper are mined, you know, and paper is made from wood. Above all, don’t be a hypocrite. A carrier pigeon would probably be OK. I’ll keep an eye out for it.
Really, that “environmentally pure” level of foolish drivel is what passes for understanding in the enviro movement. They presume, based on true belief and nothing else, that stopping coal use will have zero negative cascade effects; there will just be less evil CO2 around, taxes won’t go up more than $175 a year, and everything else will be wonderful. They simply do not have a clue as to how the real world works.
Well put, but it’s not just that they have no clue; they want no clue. They are true believers (cf. Eric Hoffer), blinded by a simplistic and emotional ideology, which admits of no glimpses into “the real world.”
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
/Mr Lynn
From today’s Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/03/drax-coal-train-trial-guilty
James Hansen was not allowed to testify and these protesters were convicted.
Climate change protesters who ambushed and hijacked a power station coal train failed to convince a jury today that their actions were justified by the “imminent threat” of devastation from global warming.
THeir IS A COMET THAT IM VARY wooryd about vary