From the Huffington Post, Dr. Hansen is more than a little upset over the failure of G-8 to produce any meaningful CO2 cuts. Once again he tries to take the “representing himself as a private citizen” tact while at the same time citing his NASA credentials.
I call BS on that. His opinion would not be sought if he were not a NASA climate scientist. He cannot separate himself from NASA and climate science and the policy springing from it any more that President Obama could write an essay now as a private citizen. Further, Jim, you started it in 1988 with your address before congress. Don’t insult our intelligence by saying you have been acting as a private citizen either then or now.
That being said, we do agree on one thing: “the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity” – Anthony Watts
Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Posted: July 9, 2009 10:33 AM
G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change
Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen.
It didn’t take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama’s agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:
The world’s major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.
Of course, emission targets in 2050 have limited practical meaning — present leaders will be dead or doddering by then — so these differences may be patched up. The important point is that other nations are unlikely to make real concessions on emissions if the United States is not addressing the climate matter seriously.
With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy. Instead, it looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it’s no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.
I share that conclusion, and have explained why to members of Congress before and will again at a Capitol Hill briefing on July 13. Science has exposed the climate threat and revealed this inconvenient truth: If we burn even half of Earth’s remaining fossil fuels we will destroy the planet as humanity knows it. The added emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will set our Earth irreversibly onto a course toward an ice-free state, a course that will initiate a chain reaction of irreversible and catastrophic climate changes.
The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere now stands at 387 parts per million, the highest level in 600,000 years and more than 100 ppm higher than the amount at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Burning just the oil and gas sitting in known fields will drive atmospheric CO2 well over 400 ppm and ignite a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, we have a chance to bring CO2 back to 350 ppm and still lower through agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil.
The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.
This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won’t get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.
For all its “green” aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like “cap-and-trade” scheme. Here are a few of the bill’s egregious flaws:
- It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
- It sets meager targets — 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year’s level — and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious “offsets,” by which other nations are paid to preserve forests – while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.
- Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, “has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives.”
- It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, “businesses and households won’t be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense,” thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.
There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the “fee-and-dividend” version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead.
A carbon fee-and-dividend would be an economic stimulus and boon for the public. By the time the fee reached the equivalent of $1/gallon of gasoline ($115/ton of CO2) the rebate in the United States would be $2000-3000 per adult or $6000-9000 for a family with two children.
Fee-and-dividend would work hand-in-glove with new building, appliance, and vehicle efficiency standards. A rising carbon fee is the best enforcement mechanism for building standards, and it provides an incentive to move to ever higher energy efficiencies and carbon-free energy sources. As engineering and cultural tipping points are reached, the phase-over to post-fossil energy sources will accelerate. Tar sands and shale would be dead and there would be no need to drill Earth’s pristine extremes for the last drops of oil.
Some leaders of big environmental organizations have said I’m naïve to posit an alternative to cap-and-trade, and have suggested I stick to climate modeling. Let’s pass a bill, any bill, now and improve it later, they say. The real naïveté is their belief that they, and not the fossil-fuel interests, are driving the legislative process.
The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It’s less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years — as did our country — from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude.
With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won’t we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won’t be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.
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“I call BS on that.”
Bad Science?
“How can this person be in charge of GISStemp surely its a complete conflict of interest?”
Yes. Shirley. But I’m beginning to see the patsy in Jim. Here’s a naive astrophysicist from Iowa with a fixation on the Venus atmosphere and how it formed. One day a little birdie whispers in his ear: “Psst, Jim. That could happen to Mother Earth! YOU can stop it!” And Jim is stunned. “Me??”
Of course it has certainly helped that somewhere along the way he and others got a healthy dose of religious fundamentalism. That’s where language like:
“ignite a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back.”
It’s dat dam debil agin!
Gotta hand it to the authors of this stuff. It’s a laugh riot!
And even more joyous news today! Waxman-Malarkey has just hit a double roadblock in the Senate – first, Robert Byrd came back from the hospital to announce that he would *never* vote for it, since it didn’t treat coal with the respect he demands (he is from West Virginia, after all).
And now the Senate Committee responsible for working on this has said that they won’t even START hearings until September, even though they had earlier pledged to wrap things up by mid-August.
Every day that goes by and allows voters to hear about this mess is another nail in it’s coffin. They needed to slam this thing through for the plan to work.
It ain’t workin. Hooray!!!
It’s pretty simple. Jim Hansen is so convinced of his projections and what they mean that he’s willing to descend into civil disobedience. It makes it that much easier to discount him as someone who goes to the extraordinary measure of lawlessness to make a point. Wouldn’t he also be expected to descend to exaggeration and fraud?
Oh my – Hansen unhinged — that happened quite some time ago.
But look on the bright side, the man shows potential for creative writing: a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests. Perhaps he should try some sci-fi with a touch of the medieval. Oh wait – he already does that in his day job.
Oh, oh.
Hansen’s RealClimate website posted today.
“Blah, Blah, … warmer than it has been in millions of years (when you only count the ice ages that is), …
… Nevertheless, we view today’s development as a constructive step.”
Not quite the same tone it seems.
@ur momisugly Mike D.
“Hansen is without peer when it comes to Alarmist rhetoric.”
Actually Hansen has a peer. The honorable professor Dr. Paul Ehrhlich.
Dr. Ehrlich is a well respected (adored actually) biologist/climate scientist who, since the early ’70s has spewed all kinds of alarmist rhetoric.
“Actually, the problem in the world is that there is much too many rich people…”
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
“We’ve already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure.”
“The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.”
Dr. Ehrlich’s most important discovery was that “scientists,” like him, could be completely wrong about virtually everything and suffer absolutely no ill consequences. The good Dr. is still gainfully employed by the University of Stanford and is still adored. He consults with the AGW crowd too.
A modest proposal (with a hat tip to J. Swift) on carbon cap and trade taxes: impose the taxes on those who believe that AGW is occurring; and the more you believe the more you are taxed.
I’m sure that Al Gore, J. Hansen, and the Hollywood Elite (whose entire existence depends on pumping electrons) would not object to being taxed at a minimum 95% tax rate.
As the Beatles sang, “Be thankful we don’t take it all”.
Curious how the effect of the last 100 ppm increase of CO2 is arguably difficult to pick out of natural variation but the next 100 ppm, which should have less effect than the last addition, will lead to bubbling icecaps, combustible permafrost and melted forests.
Director of NASA, blah, blah blah, as a citizen blah blah blah.
C’mon! What a joke he has become.
He and his Fortran masterpieces (relics?).
How can not everyone not see these ethical conflicts?
How can anyone take his science seriously anymore?
Beware the young scientist who lays down with this man, let alone seek a consult with anyone from ‘The Team’.
Just like a witness in court who tells a white lie, FOREVER more her testimony will be discredited. It don’t matter if she is right or wrong anymore. She is done.
To those young climate scientists, practice science and not rhetoric. If you want to be a politician, get out of the science beforehand.
I am convinced a person can’t do both, practice science and be a politician.
EJ
Shawn Whelan (17:20:03) :
“Crazy old senator Robert C. Byrd has come out against the climate bill.”
I’ve got west Virginia roots deep in them hills and hollers,Byrd may be crazy but
he is the porkman of W.Va.-and crazy like a Fox-he knows Cap and Tax would kill his beloved state,and he isn’t the only one.What the Greenies would like for West Va. is sort of a Theme park, with folks selling homespun wool and corncob pipes, then the
tourists would get on their private Jet and fly to Oregon.Which, unlike West Va. has been turned in to a National Park-except for the Willamette Valley…
-Where most of those Eco Tourists live…
Um — I think it’s “tack” not “tact.” I think it’s a sailing term. You tack this way, then that way. But it’s not “tact” whatever it is.
VG 16:52:56
How can this person be in charge of GISStemp surely its a complete conflict of interest?
Well, at least the quality of his work is consistent with the quality of his thinking.
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, y’all. It’s much too early to be declaring any kind of victory.
James Hansen really missed his calling and could/should of been a evangelist, it’s quite spectacular!
He starts out screaming from the pulpit with fire and brimstone!
We will “ignite a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back!”
REPENT SINNERS REPENT!!!!!!
Then he laments, on a sad story of a sinner Systems analyst
who for his sins, failed and then DIED.
“Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years — as did our country — from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude.”
REPENT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!
Now that you’ve scared the bee-jebus out of your parishioners, you spring the “GOOD NEWS” on them.
It’s not to late to repent and be excepted into the kingdom of the god, but only if you give up your sin of greed!
“With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won’t we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won’t be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.”
HALLELUJAH YOU CAN BE SAVED!!
Then you sing hymn 3:5, pass around collection plate, have a nosh, a little wine and work on next weeks sermon making sure to put in,
MORE FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!!!!!
Truly he is gifted with superlative bombastic thought in his writings.
I almost feel like repenting for my CO2 sins, buying toxic curly light bulbs and trading in my Harley for a Pruis!
I believe columnist Deroy Murdock ‘nails it’ when he writes:
“It is one thing to have a national debate about a serious problem, with adults differing over which solution might work best. Reasonable people, for instance, can dispute whether growing federal involvement would heal or inflame our healthcare system’s serious maladies.
But as so-called “global warming” proves fictional, those who would shackle the economy with taxes and regulations to fight mythology increasingly resemble deinstitutionalized derelicts on an urban street corner, wildly swatting at their own imaginary monsters.”
See: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/44463
So what happens when the tax has the “desired” effect, and people decrease their use of gasoline?
“G8 agrees to limit global temperature increase to 2C.”
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”, Antoine de St. Exupery
“I prefer the “fee-and-dividend” version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead…”-Jim Hansen
This guy obviously lives in some type of wierd alternate universe if he thinks that any politician would ever in his wildest imaginings consider returning 100% of any revenues to anyone. I believe the generally accepted amount that is returned to the states is about 10% or less. Wake up Jim!!! You will be fired if you keep up with these fantasies… how do you think you have been earning the big bucks? Go back to your office, adjust your temperatures, and keep your mouth shut… unless you’re ready to retire.
“G8 agrees to limit global temperature increase to 2C.”
ARTHUR:
It’s true! It’s true! The crown has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect all the year.
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there’s a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot
That’s how conditions are.
The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it gives a person pause,
But in Camelot, Camelot
Those are the legal laws.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Freezedried nails it too.
“The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.”
So when will we see ol’ Jim Hansen protesting in front of a Chinese Coal-fired power plant?
Or trying to get those poor, abused Chinese coal miners to give up their jobs (which are surely killing millions)?
Any measures the G-8 take to reduce the CO2 levels will be surpassed by the constant increases by China and India.
Even if the entire “developed” world were to reduce their total CO2 output to zero, the big two will have us over 400ppm in a few years anyway…
Hey… Lets name the 1970 – 2000 warming period for Jim Hansen. We can look back with reverence at the Hansen Warming and know that posterity is well served. We will never, ever, forget Jim.
Eric Naegle (18:22:43) : Why can’t Ehrlich and his ilk show us the way over the cliff?
Again, let me point this out, because somehow it completely gets lost in the message. Every time someone says “CO2 has increased 100ppm since the start of the industrial revolution”, they always try to portray that the entire 100ppm CO2 rise is from human emissions. Even if they don’t think it, they leave out any notion that would reveal that only 3% (3ppm) of that CO2 is from human emissions.
So, all of the extreme global warming we are seeing right now, is due to 3ppm of atmospheric CO2 from human emissions. I am sorry, but I am just paralyzed with fright from those 3ppm!