This really is abuse of Hansen’s position at NASA, what next? Meanwhile China keeps building coal plants, where’s your letter to them Jim? Of course China would tell Hansen to go suck rocks, and Hansen knows it, so he doesn’t try. – Anthony
Guest post by Kirtland Griffin
James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, copied me on a letter to the President of Slovenia and their National Assembly. Don’t ask, it’s a long story. But suffice it to say, I got copied.
Seems the Assembly and the President are deciding whether to build a lignite powered electrical generation plant. The actual discussion is financial support. Yes, I mean ONE PLANT. To read this letter, you’d think the destiny of the planet depended upon this one plant. News flash! …. IT DOESN’T!
So how does a US private citizen tell a foreign government not to build a power plant? We are to believe Dr. Hansen is writing as a private citizen and not as a NASA Director. Otherwise it would not be within government policy. Got it?
The most outrageous piece from a quick glance has to be the global tempereature chart going from 1880 to 2012. It is an anomaly chart based on the average of a 40-year period just after the Little Ice Age was beginning to wane. You could not get a more biased chart. Think of measuring the amount of solar radiation received in a particular location as the Sun rose and then compare that to the solar radiation at noon. That should give you some idea.
One interesting piece is this:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1, 2) summarized broad-based assessments with a “burning embers” diagram, which indicated that major problems begin with global warming of 2-3°C. A probabilistic analysis (3), still partly subjective, found a median “dangerous” threshold of 2.8°C, with 95% confidence that the dangerous threshold was 1.5°C or higher.
OK, the beginning of the problem is 2 to 3°C, being partly subjective (fantasy?) So much for evidence.
Then he talks about Greenland and Antarctic ice loss that is accelerating. If he means it is accelerating in the growth direction, he may have something. That is not where he is going.
The facts that Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass at an accelerating rate (5, 6) and sea level is rising at a rate (+3m/millennium) much higher than during the past several thousand years provide strong evidence that the temperature in the past decade (+0.75°C relative to 1880-1920) exceeded the prior Holocene maximum.
Yes, he thows in rising sea levels which aren’t, and somehow this disputes all the evidence that the Holocene Maximum was warmer than now. Peter Pan has nothing on this story.
He then goes on a dissertation about the causes of radical changes in the distant past, which of course have nothing to do with the Sun and its variations. No, it’s all about CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Rule #1: Never admit the Sun changes anything.
Then he goes over the edge with a long discussion of CO2 and it’s predicted effects based on climate models which Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia, UK says, “none of them work”.
Go ahead and read the rest of the letter and keep in mind that all predictions are the result of models that do not work. When he talks about current temperatures and other climate data, go look on the Internet to see what is happening. Go to original sources, not what someone else says. The links in this article may help you get started. You will begin to wonder where this fellow gets his information.
As for Slovenia, go ahead and build your power plant. China is building more than one a week. Your contribution is a drop in the bucket, but a very important bucket for Slovenia. If your people need power, give it to them.
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As I recall, Hansen praised China as the example for the world to follow, didn’t he?
Jeez.
So what’s the Slovenian translation for “Shove that watermelon all the way up your dupa, Cargo Cultist?”
Did Hansen use NASA letterhead for the letter? I’d like to see a copy of it (and no, a bogus rendition meant to hide the truth won’t suffice).
Hansen. Gleick. Mann. All creepy individuals who will say anything to advance their slippery agenda. Creep me out, I mean really.
One of the pepers authors:
Fred Kruegerf, National Religious Coalition on Creation Care, Santa Rosa, CA 95407-6828
National Religious Coalition on Creation Care?
What might that mean?
They should change the name to something more sciency.
National Religious Science Coalition on Creative Careology
I thought China was one coal fired power plant per month. The nuclear power plants – 4 per year for 6 years or something?
Hansen wrote…
“For the sake of identification, I am an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and director of
the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but I write here as a private citizen resident.”
Perhaps some of the pros out there who have some spare time on their hands can also send a letter as private citizens titled,….Concerns: approval for plan of state guarantee for 440 mio EUR loan from European Investment Bank (EIB) for Unit 6 at Sostanj Thermal Power Plant.
I think Hansen has spent so much time and effort diddling with the surface temperature numbers that he no longer has a clue what the truth might be.
He cannot possibly bear to admit that global temperature-rise has stalled while CO2 has continued to rise (in abject defiance of this 1988 and later “predictions”).
So the only things left are deception and demagoguery.
Those “Death Trains” are enabling people to live more productive, comfortable, affordable, and healthy lives
Time for Jim-bo to “Exit, Stage Left!”
Hansen is not even a “Thinking mans idiot” – he infamously once stated that ” Our seas will boil. ”
His looks even fit the weirdness of his AGW faith, he has “deserved his face.” as the old expression goes.
I can picture the reception his letter will receive:
“James Hansen? Who is James Hansen?”
“Sir, I believe he is the creator of the Muppets.”
“Ah, Miss Piggy. Pigs in Spaaaaace. Kermit the Frog. ‘It is not easy being green.’ Hee hee. Funny guy. Funny letter. So how’s the power plant coming along?”
My favorite part was
Destroy life on the planet? Hysterical much?
w.
“…I am an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies…”
America, what the hell were you thinking?
I don’t think we are ( or have been for some time ) dealing with a person with all their mental synapsis operating properly. I think Hansen can be officially referred to as NASA’s crazy aunt…………
I wonder if NASA is keeping him on as an employee so he does not hurt himself or others. He loves his title or he would not throw it out there in that letter. They need to keep him busy doing something because if he was left alone, at home, retired…I think we might have another unibomber on our hands.
One day when he is far from a danger. In his more senior days they will put him in a room that looks like the Star Ship Enterprise where he can watch big screens that keep showing the computer models over and over from his big swivel chair with that cool flip up thingy….and he will bark out orders and send important emails to all the world that the end is near so do as he says.
If somebody could break the insular shell Hansen has built around himself, he might consider the alternative:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295098/carbon-emissions-are-good-robert-zubrin
DR says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:21 pm
As I recall, Hansen praised China as the example for the world to follow, didn’t he?
————————————————————————
I suspect it`s Their “efficiency” in dealing with dissidents that provokes His admiration, We are all too aware of what the watermelons would like to do climate heretics
RE
Dude says:
April 3, 2012 at 9:14 pm
I can picture it. Maybe with Professor Kari Marie Norgaard of the Univ of Oregon as Lieutenant Uhura… fetching him cups of warm tea and giving him his little blue pill 3 times a day…?
Isn’t this an intervention in domestic affairs?
Hansen wrote a similar letter to erstwhile Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd — very similar indeed:
“…Choices among alternative energy sources – renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture – these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO2 is captured is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being….” Hansen to Rudd March 27 2008.
http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd.pdf
“…Choices among alternative energy sources are local matters. But a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, with later coal phase-out, is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being…” Hansen to President of Slovenia.
He says in conclusion to Rudd :”…for your information, I plan to send a similar letter to the Australian States Premiers…”.
It may be of interest Mr President that only two of those seven recipients is still in office — I mention that advisedly.
Correction:
It may be of interest Mr President that only one of those seven recipients is still in office — I mention that advisedly.
Has anyone else had the same dream?
Hansen staggering along the main street in NY with his hands tied behind his back, occasionally pushed along by a couple of guards, throngs of people lined up along the sidewalk throwing rotten vegetables at him and hurling abuse.
I didn’t want to wake up. The most satisfying dream I’ve ever had.
I get the impression the word “tenure” is what prevents both Columbia University and NASA from putting him out to grass …
Dr. Hansen is beginning to make Peter Seller’s infamous Dr. Strangelove look positively sane!
At 10:07 PM on 3 April, The Gray Monk had written:
Tsk. Simple to solve.
(a) Move Dr. Hansen to a basement office
(b) Get him on the phone in a prolonged discussion.
(c) While so engaging him, have the work crew bring up the cinderblocks, the rebar, the soundproofing insulation, and the quick-setting mortar to give his door the good old “Cask of Amontillado” treatment.
(d) Cut all phone lines to his office.
(e) Hang a tasteful sign on the wall reading “For the love of God, Montressor!”
Tenure he can have.
Permanently.
Good chance for a qualified reply in a form of open letter, if Slovenian presidents would bother at all. next, I want to see Hansen writing such a letter to V. Klaus 😀
For coal fired power construction statistics see:
Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants
Slide 16 shows China adding about 70 GW each year.
i.e. China has been adding one 1000 MW coal fired power plant every 5 days on average.
China is wisely providing power for rapid development.
I trust Slovenia has the pragmatic common sense to do likewise.
Our urgently critical task is to rapidly develop transport fuels to replace rapid oil depletion.
See Robert Hirsch Thoughts on Declining World Oil Production and Energy
See Peak Oil – the R/P Ratio re-visited etc.
Did anyone notice he’s even referencing religons to support his argument ??? (It was at the end of the letter and I’m sure most people had given up by then!)
“Religions and Climate
There is widespread support among religions for preserving climate and the environment. An indicative sample of religious statements follows”
NASA can launch the finest satellites in the world but can’t find anyone to use their data.