From LiveScience, another reason for NASA to fire Jame Hansen now:
Here’s the basis for his actions in a nutshell:
If carbon dioxide emissions aren’t reduced in time, the Earth will pass a tipping point with irreversible, catastrophic consequences, including the disintegration of ice sheets and large-scale extinction of species, according to the scientific analysis Hansen provided to the lawsuit.
I think Dr. Hansen has lost it. Earth has had higher CO2 concentrations several times in its history and it didn’t head to runaway roasting. So far, this all hinges on positive feedbacks, and there doesn’t seem to be much conclusive evidence for it. Here’s what Pielke Sr. has to say about CO2 as a control knob for Earth’s climate system.
Read Dr. Hansen’s latest non peer reviewed paper where he justifies to himself the use of kids as legal pawns here:
The Case for Young People and Nature: A Path to a Healthy, Natural, Prosperous Future
This seems an opportunity that must not be missed to end this controversial ploy, surely in US Law there is a right for any party likely to be effected by the outcome, to be legally represented and allowed to jointly test the merits of the case, and its claimed “expert”.
This would stop the whole “cuteness” of Hansen’s strategy to expect that those initially being sued will “rollover”in compliance and therefore create a legal precedent to give legitimacy to extreme measures and legislation created for the purpose.
It should be a strong legal team backed by the best scientists willing to go head to head with Hansen. I say a strong legal team, because in the event, of a initial court ruling preventing such representation by an aggrieved or dissenting third party, that an immediate appeal is prosecuted to the highest court of Law in the United States.
My intuition tells me that a supreme court will not want to forever bind future governments, so they can be so easily blind sided by such a legal “trick or connivance” and allow the third party to properly test the evidence.
I am sure competent legal practicioners have many issues and scenarios to support that contention.
This needs to be fought out in the courts, for the truths and fictions to be revealed, there is no room for compliant politicking. I agree with Richard Courtney, not something to just passively observe and allow to happen.
Enough “tricks” already in compliant slimate science…err Climate Science without allowing Hanson’s pea and thimble trick!!
Employing children in weird lawsuits, thousand year predictions, frantic repetitions of the same falsehoods, white-wash inquiries, backdoor attempts to bring in carbon credits….all this hysteria can seem pretty funny, as we all know, but it’s starting to look creepy and outright dangerous to me.
There’s a lot of money, prestige, reputations, millions of work hours, thousands of publications, career plans, cushy positions, government handouts, special products and services, high tech sector deals, endowment funds, international agreements and juicy promises of political power riding on this silly little scam. The “investors,” who are surrounded by yes-men with outstrtched hands, still think that their perfect scenario is just temporarily held up by a bad economy and public fatigue, but that better times and good PR will quickly clear the snags. When reality eventually sinks in, and their rickety edifice, the “castle in the air” as a chap here described it, begins to fall apart, there’ll be a whole lot of pretty peeved off, scared, angry and wildly desperate people in very high positions and with lots and lots of resources. All that makes me a bit jumpy, seeing how people in the past have done some extremely nasty and shocking things with a lot less…and for a lot less. Things could, indeed, be worse than we think.
son of mulder says:
May 10, 2011 at 11:12 am
“c.s says:
May 10, 2011 at 9:29 am
the many people and ecosystems that……. (and already are) very adversely affected by human-caused climate change.”
Go for it c.s, list some of the people and ecosystems that you know of that are already very adversely affected by human-caused climate change and describe how they are adversely affected. I’m genuinely still searching.
Well c.s. I’d like to be enlightened, also…..Where’d ya go?
Hansen is drawing a long bow to believe that the USA owns the atmosphere or part thereof and therefore has jurisdiction over it. Sure, there are laws such as the altitudes of aeroplanes allowed over the USA, but these are more specific to the aircraft than to the air. There are laws allowing reservation of parts of the broadcast spectrum, but these are again for use within the USA, and relate to the act of broadcast more than the air.
If the USA wants to make laws about the amount of CO2 in the air, it has to emphasise CO2 rather than the air. It then has to show that the CO2 in question has a relationship with actions done in the USA. If a glob of CO2 comes wafting over from China, that’s not the business of the USA.
Nobody I know is really happy with the way entry to Pakistan was gained by US helicopters recently – there were other ways that could have been negotiated with less infringement of Soverign rights. There’s no way the USA is going to tell me and my country that we have to stop CO2 production, or the USA will fly in devices to suck it up in the middle of the night.
It is, as lawyers say, ultra vires. Negotiation perhaps, dictatorial demand, no.
Lucia – It appears that the lawsuits were filed by “Our Childrens Trust” in Northern California. The filing is avaliable at http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/FEDERAL%20FILE%20STAMPED%20COMPLAINT.pdf
“List some ecosystems and people that are already adversely affected by climate change”
How about the lower crop yields from farms that are greatly driving up food prices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/05/food-prices-global-warming
How about ocean acidification and coral reef bleaching?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming-intermediate.htm
How about the steep drop in antarctic penguin populations thanks to loss of sea ice and the krill that feeds on the algae that grows on it
http://news.discovery.com/animals/chinstrap-adelie-penguins-krill-110411.html
How about the melting permafrost and loss of the tundra?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110216132100.htm
I could go on and on.
Lastly, how about that fact that the “research” of most climate skeptics are financed by coal and oil companies?
In my opinion, Hansen is guilty of child abuse!
And Geoff (May 10, 2011 at 6:32 pm), perhaps you should expand your circle of friends if they don’t include those who support the means used to terminate the foremost terrorist of the past decade. I suspect the “other ways” you refer to would have been a total failure, typical of most UN operations.
But I agree with you regarding regulation of CO2.
Why anyone listens to this unethical scientist is beyond me.
He endorsed a book about anarchy called “Times Up!” by Keith Farnish and he admits he never read the book !
“30 December 2008
Keith,
well I do not have time to read it ‐‐ but I would certainly be willing to state that your thesis is correct, something like “Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, the ‘system’ is the problem, and we must force our governments to look out after our interests, rather than the interests of the fossil fuel industry.””
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100325_Clarification.pdf
c.s,
The Guardian is an object of ridicule and contempt when it comes to anything scientific. It caters to the wacked out eco-Watermelon contingent.
FYI, the evidence of increased agricultural production due to CO2 is all around:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
Got more charts if you want ’em. Just ask.
Diverting food into ethanol production caused rising prices and food riots in Mexico a couple of years ago. The riots have spread to Egypt and other countries. Contrary to the Guardian, CO2 enhances plant growth; more CO2 is better.
The Skeptical Pseudo-Science blog is alarmist propaganda emitted by this strange person.
OTOH, WUWT has won the “Best Science” category in the Weblog Awards twice running. Your Pseudo-Science blog has never even made the finals. Neither did RealClimate. Neither blog is credible. Here, you will learn real, honest science here.
Do a search of the WUWT archives if you want to see the “coral bleaching” disinformation thoroughly debunked. Likewise regarding the penguin canard [hey, I like that one!] The permafrost question has also been covered. For a list of debunked global warming claims, see here.
You ask: “Lastly, how about that fact that the ‘research’ of most climate skeptics are financed by coal and oil companies?”
Please provide verifiable evidence that ‘coal and oil companies’ provide more funding to scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientists] than companies, NGOs and governments provide to climate alarmists.
You aren’t even 18 yet, and you don’t realize the outright propaganda you have been subjected to your whole life. Eventually you will realize what is being done, and why. In the mean time, stick around WUWT. Sixty million unique page views and almost six hundred thousand reader comments mean WUWT has gained widespread acceptance and credibility, unlike slick-looking propaganda blogs that are spoon feeding impressionable youths climate misinformation.
lucia says:
May 10, 2011 at 3:32 pm
http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/FEDERAL%20FILE%20STAMPED%20COMPLAINT.pdf
Also, under the Equal Access to justice Act, if the plaintiff prevails in all or a substantial part of the complaint, we as taxpayers get to pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees!
“The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) (5 U.S.C. § 504; 28 U.S.C. § 2412) provides for the award of attorney’s fees (up to $125 per hour) and other expenses to eligible individuals and small entities that are parties to litigation against the government. An eligible party may receive an award when it prevails over the government, unless the government’s position was “substantially justified” or special circumstances make an award unjust.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Access_to_Justice_Act
This was discussed in the earlier thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/04/desperate-measures-indeed/
I think contributor “wws” had the most clear-sighted view of these claims in that thread.
Sorry kids, but your cases will fail before they even get to the evidence, if the Supreme Court decides in American Electric Power vs. Connecticut that the issues are not legally manageable. The decision will be handed down shortly, but it seems to be the likely outcome. If so only the legislative and executive branches of US government can help you.
Might I also say, Experts can’t expect to be shielded from “difficult” questions in cross examination, if asked specific questions they are bound in law to give truthful answers, so can’t dodge and weave and must give due credit to other scientific opinion, even if it destroys their own hypothesis! Other wise they lose their credibility as an expert and risk being exposed as a liar. This is the risk that experts take when they step in the witness box and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
c.s dealing with your points in order
1. Global food prices are driven by demand. Global food production is increasing. Global population is growing. More CO2 encourages plant growth. Yes there are always areas of eg varying drought causing local shortages but there always have been and there is no evidence that it is tied to anthropogenic CO2 but to normal climate variations. And as the head of Earth Policy Institute in your quoted Guardian article says.” Adaptation is difficult because our knowledge of the future is not strong enough to drive new investments” So he’s a sceptic.
2. Just reading the comments on the item you reference http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming-intermediate.htm
is enough to make it clear that the behaviour of Coral is not well understood.
3. Concerning penguins and Antarctic sea ice. The Antarcric sea ice has been very constant since satellite records started in 1979. see http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
The article you reference even states that the natural food of penguins is fish “Until about 200 years ago, they ate a diet largely of fish. But as whaling and seal hunting wiped out other top predators of the Antarctic that feasted on krill, the penguins moved in on the easy-to-catch plankton — and their populations swelled. ”
This well known behaviour in population modelling leads to rapid growth and decline when for some reason an equilibrium is changed. But it’s not caused by anthropogenic CO2 in this case.
4. Permafrost melt is a future prediction and not a current adverse impact only a projected one. Since the last ice age the permafrost has retreated from 45 deg N to 64 deg N and we seem to be fluorishing.
I love on the Yahoo link ‘Earth will pass a tipping point’ the way they use the day after tomorrow image for cliamte change.
Oh and ocean acidification.
Hansen is not a climatologist he qualified as an astrophysicist. Not the same discipline at all. Enough said.
Interstingly enough, Hansen lists himself at Columbia rather than GISS in this paper. Therefore, he didn’t need to get NASA approval for the publication.
I am going to lecture by Hansen in Dunedin on Wednesday next week. http://www.350.org.nz/our-projects/james-hansen-visit#tour_dates I always enjoy a good comedy.
Coldest March 11 in Australia since 1970… Experts say “this is consistent with our prediction that this winter’s temperature will be above average.”
c.s:
Big Oil funding, eh? Try this for size.
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_21_3/tsc-21-3-walker-sierra-club.shtml
Why is it never ‘small’ or ‘medium sized’ oil? /sarc.
D Johnson says: May 10, 2011 at 7:30 pm – Re Choppers over Pakistan
Commonly, it is dangerous to use a method where the end justifies the means. I said nothing of the pleasure or otherwise of my friends about the “end”. The “means” would distress many a country if unalerted, they found 5 USA choppers had entered airspace and done a military job. But then we do not know if Pakistan was alerted or not, there is so much propaganda floating around.
Very many writers on WUWT have expressed concern with AGW tactics where the end justifies the means. Should we not try to be above that tactic in our thoughts and actions?
David Falkner says:
May 10, 2011 at 8:11 am
In a ‘nutshell’ was very appropriate wording.
=====
agreed, perfect wording:-)
Hansen needs to get the sack immediately. There is no way a government employee should be allowed to be suing his employer and expect to stay employed. And if he is a NASA scientist it doesn’t matter if he has an adjunct teaching gig, when he publishes it impacts NASA’s reputation. If they had any concern at all of their once storied reputation they would cease all connection with this reprobate.
Wally says:
In general it is a criminal offense for a US Government employee to appear in a case against the government.
Given Hansen’s past record, I somehow doubt that concerns him at all.
Is this a publicity stunt, with the adults behind it assuming that the legal action will be dismissed at some early stage? It is unfortunate that they lack the basic adult sense of responsibility for protecting the young from foolishness and ill-founded scaremongering. They inhabit an unattractive world, and are apparently so frightened by it, or so full of hatred for it, that they seek to exploit these youngsters. But their world is one of their own imagining, with or without computer-model enhancements. It is standard operating procedure for political radicals to paint an awful picture of the future in order to destroy the present and thus speed up the arrival of a new and better era. The 20th century is replete with examples of the hideous messes caused when such people actually get into power.
But perhaps the actions will not be dismissed. Perhaps they will even be vigorously contested. But how can the present administration do so without losing face? Perhaps by arguing that they are doing all that is reasonably feasible in the circumstances? Could they thereby sidestep the more important questions?
TonyG–Hansen isn’t listed as a plaintiff.