There’s an essay by Dr. James Hansen in the Guardian, the header of which is shown below. Next time people accuse of “big oil” connections for skeptics, point out that the most pro-agw newspaper on the planet is pushing Shell Oil ads.
That distraction aside, Dr. Hansen has some stunning things to say, excerpts below.
“The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual.”
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“Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.”
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Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.
It is clear that Hansen doesn’t agree with the current direction. The plan that he outlines, while radical, certainly seems less damaging than “cap and trade”, which is primed for abuse and corruption of the system.
Read the complete article here at the Guardian
Another consideration here is that neither the carbon tax nor cap and trade will bring down CO2 levels anyway. That would take huge cuts by China and that ain’t gonna happen. No one wants to commit economic suicide by reducing use of fossil fuels. Anyway, the odds are there is no reason to do that in the first place. The science isn’t even in yet.
AQ42 “the Independent won’t go anywhere near the Climategate issue”
Since their circulation seems to be based on putting large pictures of polar bear cubs on their frontpage, I’m not surprised either.
WRT The Daily Telegraph – I think the MPs expenses horror has given them the bit to run with this before the rest. The Times is catching up rapidly with their guest articles from Nigel Lawson et al. Together these two have about 3/4 of the serious press readers.
We need the broadcasters and the Sun [biggest selling tabloid at 3-4m a day] to follow suit.
Dr. Hansen is very pro nuclear. He is spot on in his criticism and is joined by many environmentalists.
His preference is a direct tax, which at least is a more honest approach. He also wants a huge and quite impossible redistribution system to repay the costs to the people.
Both the wrongly termed cap and trade and tax and redistribute are based on the erroneous assumption that raising the price of carbon will necessarily bring more alternatives. It is as likely to make both unaffordable.
I love clarity.
In this case Hansen makes it clear where he stands.
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Jon Jewett (12:15:52) :
Also from the Guradian blog November 25
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I thought it was the Grauniad.
Pure positioning, chaps and chapesses. After all, JH has a lot invested in being ‘The Prophet’, and the real knack to prophecy is spotting a far-off bandwagon, and hopping aboard first.
Ice Age – 20+ years ago
Frypan – 10 years ago
Badly designed Taxation Policies – the latest Thang
(Although one must wonder just what the catchy slogan could be, here – tax is soooo boring). But I digress.
Think Carnival, not Science. Barkers, hustlers, fortune-tellers, animals in cages. And every man-jack of ’em wiv there long fingers in yer wallet.
(See the Dataracious Temperatura in the Raw! No touching, that thing’ll have yer arm off in a flash! Nooo, we couldn’t possibly Release it for Scientific Study, we’ve spent 25 years training ‘im up not to eat small children! But ‘ee’s a Model Datracious now! Trust Us!)
Re: Grauniad: Ooops! I see Mike at 11:45:09 beat me to it.
I too was distracted by the testimony of Artic explorer and mother of four, Ann Daniels:
“During my time “up north”, I have witnessed the change in the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean and experienced more extreme temperatures and unexpected storms….we witnessed a very dynamic and moving sea ice…Climate change is happening – I have witnessed it first hand – and we simply must do something about it.”
When I read the passionate reasoning of Alarmism, I often think of that 18th cent sceptic of the Enlightement, David Hume:
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
Who’s right? the Alarmist? The scepticist? Either way we are doomed. Oh no, I think I have just became an Alarmist sceptic!
Hansen should have been on our side all along because the real issue is and has always been long term energy security. The use of climate fears to push a security agenda made things worse, held back development and gave rise to cap and trade.
In fact, cap and trade gives governments and energy companies little incentive to develop advanced energy technologies if CO2 can be made so profitable.
Hansen is getting old he has no time to see his Utopia materialize slowly with cap-and-trade he wants his Utopia right now so he can be more equal than the rest of us immediately.
Didn’t I read something about Shell wanting the restrictions on trading carbon credits so as to allow the trading of _derivatives_ of carbon credits? I do believe Shell wants to play both sides here. I wouldn’t advise using the motives of Shell as a logic point.
I’m writing a paper for my class on the GW. I bought some magazines, and all renewal energy ads were shell, chevron, and once in a while some unheard company(most likely an offshoot from these big oil and banking dynasties).
PS Can anyone direct me to a peer-reviewed paper which proves temperature trends precede CO2 trends?
Ole buddy Hansen. You have some 3 year old Freedom of information covered requests that you haven’t answered. Have your boy gavin gett off the blogging and crank out the reports. They are due before you get ijnvestigated. Be carefull not to delete information.
In an ever changing world, filled with chaos and uncertainty, Hansen stands out as a constant.
Constantly wrong.
Hansen is clearly deranged. The data doesn’t matter to him. Whether the data is good or bad or even if it is faked, his conclusions are the same – humans will perish in flames unless they stop using energy.
Hansen is demanding that mankind take a hit in their income to the tune of trillions of dollars and all because he sees “tipping points”. Most dangerously deluded men merely see “ghosts”.
Like my Grandfather said, ‘Often wrong, but never in doubt’.
Not sure where to post this so here goes
The Washington Times is really taking the mick on this subject and Ed Begley’s very shouty interview on Fox
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/30/censoring-contradictions/
I’m not familiar with the US press, is the WT a major player? They’ve been front and centre with this story since it broke.
Bob Meyer (14:04:48):
Hansen is clearly deranged. The data doesn’t matter to him. Whether the data is good or bad or even if it is faked, his conclusions are the same – humans will perish in flames unless they stop using energy.
Hansen is demanding that mankind take a hit in their income to the tune of trillions of dollars and all because he sees “tipping points”. Most dangerously deluded men merely see “ghosts”.
A quotation comes to mind – something like:
“Those who can’t hear the music think the dancer quite mad.”
Icarus (14:50:33) :
Here’s a better one wrt Hansen.
<"Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order."
— Samuel Beckett
rbateman: “Cap & Trade will accomplish nothing but misery and insecurity, leading to hostilities and global warfare”
which is why the Malthusian elites want it.
In most of the western world, and especially in China we are about 50 years away from massive population reductions from a low birthrate. Energy security from say coal, oil or even the ultimate renewable – wood, should probably last us ok. The problem is political, because most of the huge oil reserves in Alaska or Montana have been capped and declared off limits, till most of us are gone anyway.
Other energy sources like Natural Gas or uranium appear to have a 15 – 30 year lifespan at best. There’s much we can do to be more efficient but sequestering CO2 is surely the stupidest thing imaginable. Let Africa burn coal or oil, get over it.
As usual I’m casting out the question – does anybody have info about how CO2 generated at ground level is supposed to drift upward to the upper atmosphere, when CO2 is heavier than air?
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Stephen Wilde: “Furthermore there has been no progress with climate theory for 20 years because they lazily attributed all observed change to CO2 levels.”
Although it may have been lazy, this science of ‘consensus’ needed to be as simple as possible for the new adherants to understand. And don’t forget a lot of the new recruits were non scientists who had to get the message and spread it amongst the population, including grade schoolers.
In reality CO2 is what we breathe out, and what our energy sources emit, so it was a no brainer – it had to be the enemy, lets just create the fudgy science to justify the new carbon reduction scheme. We’ve already had reports from Australia that they want to have a tax on babies for their assumed ‘carbon footprint’. So the plan has been successful, it was a political plan, maquerading as science. The scientists, ever the most politically naive in society, were the easiest to dupe.
To me this whole AGW idea really should be relegated to being the subject of cocktail party chatter, not an actual funded economic reality. In contrast it is taught to schoolchildren as fact, as morality even. There are a lot of problems in our world and they largely stem from the elite bankers who manipulate our world. From the forced fluoridation of our water (lowering our IQ’s), to the forced government schooling cranking out dumber and dumber pupils, to a corrupt justice system, media collusion etc. etc. But CO2 production is the problem – ya right!
And has anyone looked at Hans Schreuders work helping to explain that there is no Greenhouse Effect after all?
http://tech-know.eu/uploads/EPAInput.pdf
It is clear that Hansen doesn’t agree with the current direction. The plan that he outlines, while radical, certainly seems less damaging than “cap and trade”, which is primed for abuse and corruption of the system.
Dr Hansen disagrees because Cap’n Tax isn’t draconian enough. Any of these college professor ivory tower CO2 reduction schemes will do nothing to stop global warming, since it stopped in 1998, death due to natural causes. They will just make life less pleasant for us non-elite schlubs.
Mike McMillan (16:08:27):
…Any of these college professor ivory tower CO2 reduction schemes will do nothing to stop global warming, since it stopped in 1998, death due to natural causes.
Not so. It’s still proceeding apace, at around 0.2C per decade –
https://sites.google.com/site/europa62/climatechange/yvtayto200
Big oil companies know the oil supply is non-renwable. Sooner or later it will be very expensive and supply limited. They could not wastes the billions invested in energy infrastructure. They need big government subsidies to develop renewable energy and more energy efficient cars to extend the usefulness of their reserves and infrastructures. What better way to get the subsidies than all the hysteria on carbon dioxide emissions and AGW. Aside from the subsidies, oil companies use the RD subsidized renewable energy technologies and pilot programs for advertising. Oil companies emphasize conservation as a main platform to counter balance any criticism on their exploration problems. If oil companies funded skeptics it was to kick start the debate and make it more emotional. Big oil companies are the real winner.
Hansen: “Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points.” So more than one tipping point now. That could be useful if the first one doesn’t work.
JamesinCanada (15:26:55) :”There’s much we can do to be more efficient but sequestering CO2 is surely the stupidest thing imaginable.”
It’s pretty impractical. Imagine trying to capture exhaled CO². That’s about how stupid it is.
“As usual I’m casting out the question – does anybody have info about how CO2 generated at ground level is supposed to drift upward to the upper atmosphere, when CO2 is heavier than air?”
Very easily. The molecular weight of CO² is 44. Air is 29. Not very different. If heavy chlorofluorocarbons can make it to the upper layers of the atmosphere, CO² can, too. Just takes a little wind to mix it up.
“And has anyone looked at Hans Schreuder’s work helping to explain that there is no Greenhouse Effect after all?”
I looked at the link and it’s a little weird. It’s complex enough I can’t rule it wrong, but he looks at things differently than I’m used to. He overemphasizes the “greenhouse” analogy, which is known to be false by virtually everyone, except maybe Al Gore, who is scientifically challenged. Schreuder’s language is also a problem. I’ll have to study it a little, but I’m not optimistic of anyone brushing away the basic physics in a few pages. I’m skeptical.
Coal burning is quite damaging, regardless of CO2 output. Coal mining is even worse. Greatly reducing the burning of coal seems like the right thing to do – it is the elephant in the room for several pollutants.