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.
And with an initial $90 million endowment the ecototalitarians are at work in British Columbia, targeting KIDS!!!
PICS-SFU Initiatives
Outreach Program for Kids. Science in Action energy workshop
Exploring Energy: Conversion, Consumption and Conservation
Brought to you by SFU-Science in Action and PICS
Starting this Fall, 2011
Children from grades 4 to 7 will have a hands-on opportunity to explore different ways to generate “green” energy using wind, sun and water as a power source.
The program will look at topics such as generating electricity from renewable sources, finding out how much energy is required to light different kinds of bulbs while pedaling a bike, and learning about the effects of green house gases on the climate.
SFU students are invited to participate in this workshop as volunteers. You will help to run one of the 5 stations that are part of the program. This is a fun and unique opportunity to contribute to your community woriking directly with children!
Click here for a link to the poster. For more info contact Nastenka Calle at n_calle@ur momisuglysfu.ca or by phone at 788-782-8834
Climate Change Research @ur momisugly SFU Call for Poster Presentation
SFU graduate and undergraduate students are invited to share their climate change-related research at the SFU Sustainability Festival which will be held at SFU – Burnaby Campus on September 20, 2011. The poster session will provide an excellent opportunity to students to share their research to the SFU Community.
Aplication deadline: September 6th, 2011. Spaces are limited.
Prize for best poster: $300 (for Graduate Students) and $200 (for Under Graduate students)
Festival Sponsors: SFU Sustainability, Faculty of Environment (FENV), Sustainable SFU, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS).
More details are available on the sustainability-poster guidelinesGrad.pdf and sustainability-poster guidelinesUndergrad. For further information contact Nastenka Calle, PICS-SFU Coordinator at n_calle@ur momisuglysfu.ca
Elect me President and I’ll be on the phone to the NASA administrator the second the oath of office is done.
It might be worth a federal pension to have the guy spending the next decade counting polar bears by hammering nails into a plank, without any sort of recourse to electronic communication.
“Thank you, Dr Hansen, here’s another box of nails and another plank. Your dogsled leaves in five minutes. Remember not to get too close to the bears…”
R. Gates,
If he is a public employee, and he stands up for his beliefs attempting to use his position as political leverage then yes, he should be canned. If a public employee wishes to influence policy, he should either quit his job then advocate, or run for public office.
R Gates:
No, a man should not be fired for what he believes in. But: if what he believes in necessitates distortions and hyperbole, with its dissemination being funded by the employer in question, you bet your tush he should be sent packing. That, sir, is perhaps one of the best out-of-context trolls you have produced lately.
I don’t necessarily agree with some of the childish AdHom directed at Hansen, but insinuating that his rights have been violated is just plain silly.
R. Gates says:
August 29, 2011 at 8:37 pm
A man should be fired for standing up for what he believes in…right or wrong? Nice country Amerika has become…
Well Hansen’s obviously breaking the law, and his, er, scientific product is worthless. But, hey, this means he is subserving NASA’s new prime directive to ~”help raise the esteem of the Muslim nations in regard to their historic achievements in the areas of science, mathematics, and engineering”!
So given Obama’s new status quo, I guess you do have a good point, and Hansen should indeed not suffer the consequences other people do and should maybe even get a raise! But then at the same time he’s not really doing much in the way “standing up” against Obama’s new status quo by merely participating in another “show arrest” while he protests fossil fuel and tries to make prices “skyrocket”, just like Obama wants, is he? Especially given the “lead” concerning this very nuanced new Social Justice thingy as shown by Eric “Hit Man” Holder in arming Mexican and Dominican Republic drug gangs, while most recently putting the “protection money” hit on the evil Republican contributor, Gibson Guitar Co., in order to spread the good news.
Therefore, until Obama makes him pay, I’d say that by now Hansen is more of a very helpful enabler of the “transformation of America” than anything really resembling a ‘radical’ outlier speaking against the System and such.
And I suppose the same ‘transformational’ reasoning applies to yet another status quo situation now successfully effected by the Demokkkrats and fully supported by Obama, their establishment and nurturing of the Inner City Ghetto critical habitat for ‘Africans’.
Hence, Gates, I fully understand and support your right to cry out, “Long live Obama!”, whenever and wherever. No doubt his “fundamentally transformed” Amerika is nearly at hand! snif…If it weren’t for the Teaparty and pro-scientific method raaaacists…and the Tsunami.
tom s says:
August 29, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Ok, let me get this straight; Hansen is an activist about the thing he is supposed to be unbiasly studying? Am I reading the Onion here? This is sickening!
You’d be surprised at who some of those people are that try to tell us we are supposed to believe he is unbiased. And beyond that, some of them will jump on you if you suggest James Hansen is biased.
James Allison says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:49 pm
People who wear dark suits and brown shoes should be avoided.
LOL
mark t says:
August 29, 2011 at 7:30 pm
I am surprised he still has a clearance (seems reasonable to expect his position to require one.)
Mark
I’m not. I’m pretty sure there are people of political power that want him right where he is. They want the clout of “Top NASA Scientist” attached to a gloom and doom global warmer. And they want him having access to that important data.
But hey, that’s just me.
I like the shot. Hansen’s friends, even — applauding the cops as he gets arrested. How ya know when you’ve lost credibility…
Vic says:
August 29, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Lots of folks here at WUWT understand…… that 600ppm would almost certainly bring about catastrophic climate change.
You certainly have been presumptuous to put words into many strangers mouths. I don’t think I want to hear the line of reasoning that went into your concluding this. I think I’d rather like to stay clear of a mind that thinks like yours.
BTW, are you with Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, who has said, “Greenhouse gases are pollution”?
So we should get rid of those greenhouse gases. After all, who needs a dumb ole atmosphere?
I love the drive by trolling. Nothing new there. Apperantly its ok to have a conflict of interest in the workplace if its 1) A Government job 2) its for the correct policies.
I bet the same people saying that would scream bloody murder if someone from the FDA also wrote a book called “smoking does not cause cancer.”
Conflict of interest? Yes, but its only a true conflict of interest if your politics are incorrect.
Just another example of how everyone is equal, but some are more equal then others.
Does anyone why he was arrested? What offence has the man committed by attending a rally and expressing his personal views on a matter of public policy?
Even though I disagree with Hansen, can someone explain on what lame-ass basis he was handcuffed and arrested?
John B (UK) says:
August 29, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Retirement beckons, surely………..
But if he retired, he would have much more time on his hands for this sort of thing.
TBear (Warm Cave in Cold-as-Snow-Sydney) says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:10 am
Does anyone why he was arrested? What offence has the man committed by attending a rally and expressing his personal views on a matter of public policy.
Even though I disagree with Hansen, can someone explain on what lame-ass basis he was handcuffed and arrested?
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Sure can….the “Rally” is being held on property where such activities are prohibited by LAW!! Because of it’s proximity to the white house it wouldn’t make any difference if he recited the “Gettysburg Address”. The National Park Service informed the organizers of this BEFORE the event…….which is PRECISELY why they chose it, because they WANTED to be arrested.
Brown shoes don’t make it
Brown Shoes don’t make it
Quit school, why fake it
Brown shoes don’t make it
TV dinner by the pool
Watch your brother grow a beard
Got another year of school
You’re okay, he’s too weird
Be a plumber he’s a bummer
He’s a bummer every summer
Be a loyal plastic robot
For a world that doesn’t care
Frank Zappa 1967
Just a fragment – the whole thing is very long and … ahem … not suitable for a family magazine. There’s an FZ quote for almost every situation if you look for it.
I was under the impression that political activity was not a permitted passtime for US Government employees. How come he gets away with it?????
Whenever I read about this man I always think he was the one that sat round a camp fire and told Mr Gore about ‘ManBearPig’ and the rest is scary history.
I wonder how much CO2 is used to feed that obese man standing next to J.Hansen…
I’m as sceptical as any commenter on here but I fail to see what’s wrong with speaking out for what you believe in, or what’s criminal about having the courage to stand up in public and declare it. . . . . and, particularly, I wonder why, in the land of the free that such action should get you handcuffed and dragged off to jail . . ?
Bravo Mr hansen!
Keep fighting the fight, keep doing what you are doing.
The more you di it, the more evident it becomes that you are a man who will do ANYTHING to save our children.
Which of course includes delivering biased data to ensure that the world sees how bad it really is….
tom T says: August 29, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I thought that The Hatch act prohibited political activities by Government employees.
I just assumed that you didn’t have a law because all I see is people complaining and no one doing anything about it. Really, what is the point in laws if people don’t use them?
On October 6, 2008, federal investigators announced that they were investigating Sheriff Mike Scott of Lee County, Florida for possible violations of the Hatch Act. The previous day, Sheriff Scott spoke, in uniform, on stage, at a rally for presidential candidate John McCain.
In June 2007, Lurita Alexis Doan, then Administrator of the General Services Administration, was found by the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) of violating the Hatch Act when she took part in a video conference with Karl Rove and other White House officials, and sent letters asking how to help Republican politicians get elected,
On about July 29, 2004, the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) cited the Hatch Act while ordering NASA to remove photos of Senator John Kerry taken during his visit to the Kennedy Space Center.
federal and D.C. employees may not:
use official authority or influence to interfere with an election
solicit or discourage political activity of anyone with business before their agency
solicit or receive political contributions (may be done in certain limited situations by federal labor or other employee organizations)
be candidates for public office in partisan elections
engage in political activity while:
on duty
in a government office
wearing an official uniform
using a government vehicle
wear partisan political buttons on duty
Kibby Wind Power Project – On November 1, 2010 TransCanada Corporation announced the completion of the Kibby Wind project – New England’s largest wind power project .
The projects’ total annual production will represent 2.3 terawatt hours (TWh), the energy required to meet the electricity needs of about 150,000 households in the province of Québec. Cartier Wind Energy is owned by TransCanada Corporation
Now, for the fun bit: 6.4% of electricity from renewable sources.
In other words, there is a very high probability that TransCanada are a supplier to NASA of wind energy and as such Hansen is clearly soliciting political activity of anyone with business before their agency
R. Gates says:
August 29, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Wrong. Both your example and your conclusion. Nobody should have the right to break the law just because the believe what others are doing lawfully is wrong. If you suggest they should be able to break the law with impunity (from the law or their employers), you start down a dangerous road that leads to people killing those who disagree with them. Is that ‘right’ do you think?
Dennis Dunton at August 30, 2011 at 1:29 am `explains’ that it is, apparently, illegal to hold a peaceful rally promoting a view on public policy, outside the residence/office of the `leader of the free world.’
Huh?
So Hansen was arrested becaue of a lame-ass `law’. Even though the Bear disagrees with Hansen, that is a ridiculous proposition my dear friends in the USA. Who came up with that focking stupid idea?
What is it with all the postings on this article looking for ways to stop Hansen from expressing his views?
Who cares if he a NASA employee?
Yes, he is wrong and over the top, but that is no reason to stop him from speaking.
Hansen is one of the creators of the CAGW religion, so he has to be seen to be keeping faith with his disciples.
He supports direct action, including criminal behaviour. Don’t forget, Hansen travelled to UK to help persuade a jury to let off protesters who did deliberate criminal damage to a power station. He has described coal wagons as ‘death trains’ (reminiscent of the Nazi deportations) and used disgraceful hyperbole and rabble rousing in the UK press.
Some commenters have defended Hansen on the free speech principle. That’s not the issue – the issue is whether someone in Hansen’s position should be allowed to do as he does. When he gets arrested like this, or appears in defence of vandals, he is bringing his public persona with him. Vandals wouldn’t want him to appear in their defence if he was a nobody – they are wheeling him into court as the great James Hansen of Nasa. Stephen Schneider did exactly the same thing, claiming to be speaking as a private citizen, but getting all his access to the media and ‘authority’ on the back of his academic position. It was a deliberate tactic that he was very proud to use.
The freedom of speech issue is a red herring. What does one think would happen if a bishop came out defending pornography or encouraging criminal damage on his ‘day off’? Wouldn’t his employer would have grounds to sack him? The man could have free speech, but he couldn’t remain a bishop. Likewise, Hansen is perfectly entitled to do what he does in a democratic free country, but he should have been booted out of public office years ago.