There’s not a whole lot I can say about this, except that I’m looking forward to his retirement soon. Then, he can speak as a “private citizen” as much as he wants.
Here’s the full story.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/06/nasa-scientist-climate-change?newsfeed=true
Related articles
- Gore, Hansen, Trenberth to make Antarctic PR expedition (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Why I must speak out on climate change: James Hansen at TED2012 (junkscience.com)
- NASA’s Hansen tries to tell Slovenia not to build a power plant (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Hey Hansen! Where’s The Beef?
“…handing future generations a climate system that is potentially out of control…”
Since when have humans controlled climate? Or weather?
Per Hansen’s recent prediction that sea-level rise will accelerating in the coming decade, in his “Earth’s Energy Balance and Its Implications” (2012, a Google Search finds it), what Hansen now is seeking to establish is simply this:
(1) *IF* Hansen’s predictions are confirmed …
(2) *THEN* serious moral problems must be faced.
The common sense fact is, Hansen is completely correct to argue this. And needless to say, it is very largely fear of (2) that motivates many folks to argue against (1).
I wonder what the rest of GISS thinks of Hansen’s tomfoolery.
Are they in agreement? Or are they horribly embarrassed by Hansen’s literally foaming mouth advocacy?
There is a major moral duty involved. Don’t scientists have a moral obligation to do honest work and not hide the decline? How can we trust a scientist when they don’t allow for full disclosure on all of their data, including source data?
he’ll have a fine fat pension when he retires, too.
what does it matter if a few people whine – they won’t stop paying, so it’s all a joke.
and hansen isn’t the punch line.
“Because the tax would greatly increase the cost of fossil fuel energy, consumers relying on green or low carbon sources of power would benefit the most as this dividend would come on top of cheaper fuel bills.”
Bull! Bills in the Umk are increasing regularly under the Renewable Energy Obligation, a regressive tax that pasys billions in subsidies to energy firms to building subsidised windfarms & solar arrays that blot the landscape!
Slavery? How quaint & interesting! Who is it who doesn’t want Africans to escape poverty & hunger by developing? I am a AGW sceptic, I want them to ahcieve freedom, democracy, develop, reduce their engery footprint, escspe poverty through development. No Sir, not me, it’s the whole damnable Green movement that wants to Africans poor! They should hang their heads in shame, slavery be blowed! Clearly Hansen has either lost it or recently had a sharp blow upon his head! Billiobs will be handed over to venal mendacious politicans & crooks in poor countries who will enrich themselves, not the people! That was one of the primary reasons Copenhagen failed, developing countries didn’t want the west to know what they spent the west’s money on!
It is just a matter of context…
http://i39.tinypic.com/19xnkl.jpg
I was reading a first-person description of living with manic depression (“Angels of madness” by Glen Allen in “The New Brunswick Reader” June 19, 1999) and came across a memorable passage:
“Manic depression, or bipolar disorder as it is now called in these days of political correctness, touches the lives of one of every 100 New Brunswickers. It is an often devastating malaise that can strike without warning, rendering its victims subject, initially, to inexplicable “highs” that can spin out of control. First comes “hypomania” – a time of great busyness and well-being and then follows full-blown mania when the afflicted persons will make great plans, sleep not at all, feel a sense of grandiosity, spend wildly, and travel widely.
“It can also be a time of delusion or even hallucination (hearing, seeing or smelling things that aren’t there) marked by extreme irritation with family or friends who cannot share this experience. This condition leads the manic persons to believe that what they are doing is absolutely correct. They may, as I have done in the past, write floridly mad letters to everyone but the Queen simply because it seems necessary to alert the world to some clear and present danger, again the right thing to do.”
Several parts of this article put me in mind of someone else who is regularly in the news.
IanM
I hope he continue for many more years.
Just because he is making a fool of himself and his run away climate change theory.
More and more people realise that when listening to him.
Great job. Please continue with statements like this:
“Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming.”
does anyone, anywhere, still think that this fight about science and not politics? I didn’t think so.
A 15 trillion dollar national debt is an “injustice of one generation to others”. All else pales in insignificance.
A classic display of shark jumping by Hansen.
Funny how the political elite hahaha never say anything about their moral culpability in the mountains of debt they are storing up for our grandchildren, for the insanely trivial reason that its the best mechanism for enhancing own electoral prospects.
Whenever will Hansen understand that the only obligation I have to the next generation is to nurture it, clothe it, feed it and educate it till it reaches 16 (or 18 or whenever it finishes full-time education)? After that it’s on its own, like every generation before it, unless it chooses to use the wisdom of my accumulated years.
And one thing I most certainly am under an obligation not to do is to second-guess that generation’s answers to the problems that it will face because:
1 I don’t know what those problems will be and how they may play out (and neither does Hansen);
2 I don’t know what technological developments will be available to it (and neither does Hansen but the last 50 years ought to be a lesson!);
3 Experience tells me that — like generals forever preparing to fight the previous war — today’s “solutions” will be wrong;
4 And given the costs associated with the purported cures for climate change these “solutions” may well have impoverished the next generation to the extent that it could be struggling to find the means to address the serious problems that arise then rather than the minor ones which may or may not have arisen now.
Somehow I put a #1 behind my name. It’s just RobRoy. oops
If Hansen’s hyperbole casts this as a moral issue on par with slavery, maybe he should be cast as representing the slave owners.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new notion, conceived in university, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created evil.
Now we are engaged in a great climate war, testing whether that notion, or any notion, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that notion might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will note, and long remember what we say here,because we’re scientists. It is for us the activeists, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored scientists we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these scientists shall not have faked in vain—that this nation, under Gaia, shall have a new birth of activism—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall perish from the earth.
I extracted the following text from the self-descriptive article “Angels of madness” by Glen Allen (The New Brunswick Reader June 19, 1999):
“Manic depression, or bipolar disorder as it is now called in these days of political correctness, touches the lives of one in every 100 New Brunswickers. It is an often devastating malaise that can strike without warning, rendering its victims subject, initially, to inexplicable “highs” that can spin out of control. First comes “hypomania” – a time of great busyness and well-being and then follows full-blown mania when the afflicted persons will make great plans, sleep not at all, feel a sense of grandiosity, spend wildly and travel widely.
“It can also be a time of delusion or even hallucination (hearing, seeing or smelling things that aren’t there) marked by extreme irritation with family or friends who cannot share this experience. This condition leads the manic persons to believe that what they are doing is absolutely correct. They may, as I have done in the past, write floridly mad letters to everyone but the Queen simply because it seems necessary to alert the world to some clear and present danger, again the right thing to do.”
A lot of the text seems to describe a person well known from the news.
IanM
Mr. Green and his royalty fly around the world telling everyone that they must reduce their carbon footprint. The electorate may or may not notice. Mr. Green is still in charge and according to Gallup enjoys a 50% favorable rating.
What an idiot. I’m sure he’s arrived a bit early in Edinburgh, the comedy season isn’t until later in the year. Hope he appears via webcam. Won’t he just think of the children!
Maybe he’s sore because the West Side Highway still hasn’t flooded, even once.
Hansen used to rant merely about “death trains” carrying coal. He’s since had to expand his horizons thanks to oil sands and frakked natural gas. I suspect he’ll die as a bitter old man.
Like to see Hansen debate Al Sharpton on this topic.
How many times can this guy actually jump a shark without getting eaten?! sigh.
GISS should be terminated. We have a lot better things to do with our money. Funding nut jobs should not be high on the list.