Photo courtesy of flickr, tarsandsaction.org stream Link
Excerpt from Bloomberg:
James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was arrested outside the White House as he joined protesters in urging President Barack Obama to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s $7 billion pipeline. Before he was taken into custody today, Hansen took a megaphone and implored Obama to act “for the sake of your children and grandchildren.”
In the following video, Dr. Hansen is plain spoken, coherent, and obviously quite convincing. His manner of delivery and calmness is actually something that Al Gore could learn from. Also, why isn’t Al Gore showing solidarity with these protestors?
“If Obama chooses the dirty needle it will confirm that the president was just green-washing all along,” Hansen, 70, who took a vacation day from his job at the New York based institute to participate in the protest, said in an e-mailed statement.
I wonder if NASA has a three strikes policy, this is arrest #3 from Dr. Hansen.
Nasa JPL confict of interest policy:
http://ethics.jpl.nasa.gov/handbook/conflict.html
Now let’s say you were in a position that you could make warming look “unprecedented” and “accelerating”, wouldn’t this be advantageous to your future book sales (you know the one you’ve been thinking about writing for years)? Seems like a clear conflict of interest to me.
Now let’s assume you truly believe in something other than book sales, that maybe getting the word out is more important than profit, wouldn’t give the book away?
Now let’s assume you truly want to maximize profits, wouldn’t a nice publicity stunt like getting arrested boost sales?
2% difference between tar sands oil and Venezuelan Oil currently used in US refineries.
And Canada executes way fewer political prisoners.
I’d tell my standard (repeatedly censored) joke here, but Anthony very busy these days and is not around to protect me from myself . . .
(Half of the punchline is “Jim Hansen”.)
How would Hansen feel if we entered another ice age? Blame Pinatubo? Blame Chinese coal? Blame…… Take your pick. Yet, if he is wrong on AGW, then he needs to come over to the sceptics on bended knee and apologize for his over confidence.
Oopsie! I shoulda posted here and not on Scientists Behaving Badly…
The motion is proposed:
Hansen looked sportier in the skirt.
Let the debate begin ;o)
Bruce, Canada takes no prisoners 🙂
How did Hansen make it from NYC to Washington DC?
Hopefully no petroleum was used in that.
Andrew Harding says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Reminds me of this.
Garry says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Garry – I’ve seen that data before. What infuriating is if you check their salary increases from 2008 to present, you will see that both Hansen, Schmidt and the rest of the GISS gang were given nice salary increases even as the economy was tanking (and thousands of engineers and scientists in the public sector were being laid off or having their salaries frozen). Moreover, their projects were provided “stimulus” funds in 2009, further increasing their consumption of public money.
I will listen to what these people have to say, including Dr. Hansen, when they relinquish all of their petroleum (i.e. crude oil) derived possessions. To start, any of the 250+ items listed here: http://whgbetc.com/petro-products.pdf
I am surprised he still has a clearance (seems reasonable to expect his position to require one.)
Mark
Bravo James Hansen !
And bravo to all the 400 other protesters that have been arrested so far in this demonstration. History will view your actions favourably.
There is, as I understand, around 400 gigatonnes of carbon locked up in the Canadian oil sands, which if burned would raise global atmospheric CO2 levels by a further 200 ppm.
Lots of folks here at WUWT understand that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that 600ppm would almost certainly bring about catastrophic climate change. I see they’re not here posting comments of praise for the protesters, perhaps they’re busy being arrested in Washington ?
Vic please answer me this, where was the catastrophic climate change when CO2 levels were much higher in the past. Did you forget the sarc on.
Jeff Id says: “The thing I like about Hansen is that he believes in what he is doing.”
Yes, and so did…er…what’s-is-name. That other guy with a messiah komplex.
See Vic above brilliantly demonstrating the(by now familiar) warmist ‘technique’ of making up the data as he goes along! Bravo.
Vic says:
“Lots of folks here at WUWT understand that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that 600ppm would almost certainly bring about catastrophic climate change.”
It is a greenhouse gas but the there is no rational basis for assuming CATASTROPHIC anything. That is just political propaganda and alarmism or paranoia. Did you forget your /sarc flag or something.
lol@Vic.Better stop using that oil.
Sadly there are hundreds of millions of dollars in the NASA budget going to climate change research. The ‘earth science’ portion of NASA’s budget in FY 08 was $428M, though only some portion of that is directly credited against ‘climate change’ research.
And Vic, I’d be delighted to see the proof of your theory that 600ppm would ‘certainly bring about catastrophic climate change’. I think that the reasonable people on this board would certainly not be ‘sceptics’ if such proof actually existed.
Vic says:
August 29, 2011 at 7:43 pm
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There is, as I understand, around 400 gigatonnes of carbon locked up in the Canadian oil sands, which if burned would raise global atmospheric CO2 levels by a further 200 ppm.
————————————————————————————————————————-
Then you understand wrong, indeed not at all. Even if burned over a short time, decades not years, such a quantity of carbon would barely raise atmospheric CO2 levels by more than a few ppm and that rise would dissipate within a couple of decades or so of cessation of combustion. .
It is the oceans that control the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, the effect of burning fossil fuels is imperceptible on the global scale: and consequently cannot be quantified given the limits of precision and location of our measuring apparatus at the moment.
Kindest Regards
hum says:
August 29, 2011 at 2:26 pm
He should be fired.
____
A man should be fired for standing up for what he believes in…right or wrong? Nice country Amerika has become…
Hansen should be Carbonised, and Vic needs to get his thinking cap on.
CO2 (Plant Food) at 600 ppmv would be good for all living things, Humans, Animals and Plants would love it. Earth’s present atmosphere is CO2 impoverished, its minor warming ability happens mostly in the first 20 ppmv, and at our current level of about 380 ppmv we are not that much above the level that plant growth shuts down.
Vic-Shouldnt Hansen and the other 399 be protesting China? They are the worlds largest CO2 “polluter” and shouldnt we damage their economy rather than ours? Why focus on US and let them off the hook???
The pathetic thing is if any low-level employee engaged in this behavior, they would be canned instantly. Hansen is not only one of the highest paid employees, ( and overpaid, I might add) but he makes large decisions that affect many programs and policies, many which receive millions of taxpayer funds. He must be impartial.
He has proved he is biased, prejudiced, and just plain wrong.
Where is the outcry from the MSM to fire him?
Not a very big protest by the looks of it.