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?
Prof. Jim Hansen: “We’re handing future generations with a climate system that is potentially out of their control.”
I agree! However, it is not only ‘potentially’ out of their control. It is completely out of their control!
As for ‘forcing’ anyone to comply with his myopic views, we all must directly challenge and confront these socialist green attacks. I offer the following example, to illustrate the point.
After a 2 year long battle with the King County “Environmental Services” department, I finally have a building permit to construct a detached garage. (Sidebar: Love that name ‘Environmental Services’! Sounds like your attending church doesn’t it?!) Although my planned structure was deliberately sized to NOT exceed any of their criteria that would involve extraordinary measures for ‘run off water abatement’ or ‘sensitive areas’ nonsense, their ‘specialist’ (billed at $250/hour) was insisting that I was bound by these requirements and their very expensive requirements. My ‘environmental services fees’ (aka: permit cost) grew to $4,500 , for a 780 sq. ft. detached garage permit!!!
My last meeting with the ‘permit specialist’, I refused to agree to their unsubstantiated requirements and all of the costs associated with them. There were no other citizens seeking permits in the office at the time, because the local construction activity is virtually nonexistent and the permits process has become so difficult and arbitrary. I pointed this out to the fellow. I explained to him that I had cash in the bank that was not ‘stimulating the economy’ by being spent on materials and construction manpower because he was needlessly obstructing the building permit. He just smiled and insisted that I was going to have to ‘comply’ with his ‘requirements’.
When the smirking little comrade departed on an extended vacation, I finally got the permit elevated to a 2nd level management review, to address the issues in conflict. This fellow, I’m delighted to report, made short work of the ‘extraordinary measures’ his subordinate was trying to impose! All of the onerous and costly special environmental requirements were removed, the basic permit approved, and the charges reduced to $1,373, which I paid.
Was this a case of a ‘green’ zealot, trying to use the permits bureaucracy to push his personal views? I think it was…. I’ve had to delay several projects because I did not have sufficient space to pursue them. In addition, no one was hired to excavate and prep the site. No one was paid to mix concrete and pour the foundation. No lumber, siding, wiring, doors, or roofing materials were bought. No gravel was delivered or driveways paved. No construction crews were hired to convert those materials into a 2 car garage and shop! No bushes, flowers, topsoil mix, fertilizer, or grass were bought or labor hired to complete the landscaping after construction. None of that happened. Why is the economy sooooo anemic? Multiply my experience a thousand times and you begin to understand the impact of this soft green infection!
Was it worth it, to refuse for 2 years to comply with unreasonable and unsupported demands from an ‘environmental services specialist’? You damn betcha! We must not yield!
max says:
April 7, 2012 at 11:23 am
“The Guardian should be ashamed of this article if no other reason than for lowering themselves to Bbc levels of editing. They even have a photo credit from the Ap, and refer to Co2 in the story, cannot they be consistent? The Uk education system must be in shambles to allow such an execrable error to be made”.
Guardian = BBC
Didn’t you know that?
Maybe Hansen should team up with Durbin.
“Sen. Dick Durbin reacts to the tornadoes in Dallas, Texas earlier this week. Durbin calls for more laws regulating carbon output while he sends a dire warning that we must convert to hybrid cars or lose our life. Durbin says we must spend money now to fix the problem.”
“It’s your money or your life,” he said a press conference.
All this would make a great Monty Python sketch.
Hansen is desperate for action because then he can say “look it’s cooling” and thus save his reputation. The thought of a normal cooling cycle unrelated to volcanoes must absolutely terrify him. This, I believe is the cause of his wild outbursts. Imagine what it could do to his reputation?
Janet Goudahl says:
April 7, 2012 at 10:47 am
=========================
gosh Janet, every example you gave is false….
….and you go on to use that as a reason that hansen is right
DirkH
Thanks for catching my dyslexia. mea culpa over mixing up my Vaclavs.
Václav Klaus is 2nd President of the Czech Republic following Vaclav Havel. See BBC: Vaclav Havel and a climate of ‘freedom’> where Klaus is quoted:
d
Future generations, says he?
The only modern situation on a par with slavery is abortion. 100 million children have no future. Zero. Nada. Nil. Nichts.
These warm-earth Kult Klowns are not able to think before they open their mouths.
See further on Vaclav Klaus environment freedom including WUWT’s
President Vaclav Klaus: Climate Control or Freedom
Environmentalism and Other Challenges of the Current Era, April 20, 2007 Economic Development Bulletin no. 10
See: Vaclav Klaus on YouTube
I hope he keeps it up. The Satanic choir love their preacher, but the unconverted are simply tired of all moral crusades, whether Christian, Muslim or Gaian. The “vague”, as Rowan Williams neatly describes them, are now too poor to feel the need for further sacrifice.
The contrast between Hansen and Klaus is shown in:
Skeptics, Deniers, and World Class Scientists -Why do you want to raise my energy prices? by: alan caruba | published: 03 11, 2009
Vaclav Klaus lecture “From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism” 2008 International Conference on Climate Change
Czech President Vaclav Klaus gives a speech to the UN on climate changes, Sept. 24, 2007. – emphasizing the need to evaluate costs even if unpopular.
Further on Vaclav Klaus from PolicyBot
In reply to Janet Goudahal
“Janet Goudahl says:
April 7, 2012 at 10:47 am
Hansen is repeating history:
— distant past —
(1) scientists observe increased rate of lung cancer
(2) smoking confirmed as the cause
(3) sale of tobacco regulated to diminish risk
— more recent past —“
You present an emotion argument because you have been taken in by the scam.
Hansen is trying to create the belief that the world will end if CO2 emissions are eliminated. The crisis is the AGW warming issue is the most costly scam in the history of western civilization. You do not presenting facts and logic to support the AGW position. You do not even acknowledge that there might be a down side to spending trillions of dollar on CO2 reduction scams.
A doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C of warming, with most of the warming occurring at higher latitudes (Canada and Russia in the Northern Hemisphere) where the growing season is limited by the number of frost free days, as planetary clouds in the tropics increase or decrease to resist forcing changes. The IPCC extreme warming prediction – 3C average warming by 2100 – requires temperature amplification. With no amplification (i.e. Feedback is neither positive or negative the IPCC models predict 1.2C warming.) The satellite data indicates the planet’s feedback response is negative. The so called safe limit in warming is 2C. Mission accomplished. There is no global warming crisis due to CO2 rise. CO2 is not a poison. Greenhouses inject CO2 into the greenhouse to increase yield. The biosphere will and is expanded due to atmospheric CO2 rise.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf
On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data
Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE…
How much would it cost to reduce CO2 emissions to change atmospheric CO2 from 0.039% back to 0.35% to meet the 350.Org movements’ goal? What is the cost benefit of spending trillions of dollars on scams Vs practical energy conservation which makes economic sense (i.e. there is a logical evaluation and selection of alternatives based cost and the benefits).
The money spent on green scams will not significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They will however result in a massive reduction in primary industry and secondary industry in the Western countries. The path the 350.Org movement advocates for would turn the US into a financial version of Spain or Greece. Even if Western countries has trillions of dollars to spend on the scams the atmospheric CO2 rise would not be significantly reduced as China and India are not going to stop building coal fired power plants or stop driving gasoline power cars.
The problem with your argument by analogue is the analogues you select “cigarettes cause cancer” is a correct statement. Hansen and the IPCC statements are not correct. The IPCC predicted warming of 3C is not correct, as it requires positive feedback to amplify the CO2 greenhouse effect. The planet’s feedback response is negative (clouds in the tropics increase or decrease reflecting more or less sunlight off into space) which resists rather than amplifies the greenhouse warming.
Dot.com scam. Billions of dollars spent on startup companies that could never not possibly make a profit.
Y2K scam. Billions of dollars spent on panic credit by computer support companies. Southern Hemisphere spending on Y2K. Less than $50 million. Instances of problems caused by Y2K in the entire world. One reported, reported by an Australian utility. No specific details provided.
Morgage scam. Trillions of tax payer funds used to clean up the scam.
Green energy is a scam. An example to support that statement is the food to biofuel conversion program. In the US the program to requires corn to be converted to ethanol results in 7% increase in carbon dioxide emission if the all of the energy inputs required to grow the corn, harvest the corn, grind the corn up, and to triple distillate the ethanol produced based on the energy value of the ethanol produced. 25% of the US corn crop is now been diverted to convert to ethanol. The result is food prices in third world countries has gone up.
There is limited agricultural land to feed people. The food to biofuel program is madness. Hansen is yelling Fire! Fire! Fire! in a crowded theater. It is natural some people will following him. It is natural there are crooks such Bernard Madoff who will take advantage of an opportunity to profit from a scam.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
David L. Hagen wonders “Whose goal will survive? Freedom or Tyranny?”
***
David, pretty much everyone appreciates that America’s founders, by their wise impost of checks and balances, established a moral, legal, and constitutional principle that has served America well: Your freedom ends where my nose begins,
So never call “freedom” your license to blow tobacco smoke into our eyes, or spray fluorocarbons to ozone’s demise, or sow pesticides in our beehives, or spread autism that everyone decries, or loft CO2 that heats our skies.
From the article:
“Under this proposal, the carbon levy would increase year on year, with the tax income paid directly back to the public as a dividend, shared equally, rather than put into government coffers.”
====================
No matter the variations of this theme, it is just government control of the energy sector.
The “dividends” are just another hand-out of monies, the government never should have taken in the first place.
Where does the “tax income” come from ?, and who (but a politician) could imagine themselves as being capable of equally sharing the rape of the economy.
TG McCoy (Douglas DC) says:
April 7, 2012 at 9:39 am
I’m betting he will. When Newt brought up the idea of a colony on the Moon, Romney’s response was that if a subordinate brought such a lame project for his approval in these trying economic times, he’d fire him on the spot.
Romney’s a businessman and tight as a wad*–he won’t mess around with unsubstantiatable “dreams”, crooked deals, bogus plans, and a plethora of “splendid ideas” people cook up to waste taxpayer money or require additional $Trillion loans from Big China.
If Romney wins, I predict we’ll hear howls and lamentations from the “takers” like you’ve never heard before.
Hansen’s job? Good question: I’ll send Romney a request that he be terminated, too; I suggest we all do.
And if Obama wins, Hansen will probably get a raise and maybe even a bonus. That demonstrates the stark contrast between the two ideologies.
*Ann Romney got after Mitt for his old winter gloves he used while sledding with the grandkids–they were falling apart and she told him to get some new ones. Instead, Mitt just put them back together with a lot of duct tape, which saved him a trip to the store and the expense of new gloves. Having somebody that frugal at the helm of our runaway spending machine would be revolutionary, perhaps even breath-taking.
If Hansen believes carbon dioxide emissions are on par with slavery, in terms of immoral equivalency, and as a result should be taxed accordingly is he, in turn, saying that slavery be re-instituted and those who take part in it simply taxed? Essentially, this is the absurdity of his claim.
Imported “cough cough” bee farmers came to the Willamette Valley to bee keep. Much to their dismay field burning debris landed in their backyard pool so they sued the old time farmers to get them to stop burning their fields.
A few years later said bees decided to swarm an old nearby farm house, invading the siding causing extensive damage. The bee farmers went back to California.
Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
“So never call ‘freedom’ your license to blow tobacco smoke into our eyes, or spray fluorocarbons to ozone’s demise, or sow pesticides in our beehives, or spread autism that everyone decries, or loft CO2 that heats our skies.”
Now there’s a series of strawman arguments for everyone to savor: this article is not about secondhand smoke, or ‘spraying’ fluorocarbons, or ‘sowing’ pesticides in beehives [who would do that?], or spreading autism [huh?].
As for CO2 ‘heating our skies’, the relevant questions are: 1) how much, if any, and 2) is it any problem? The planet’s temperature has risen about 0.8ºC in a century and a half. That warmth is entirely beneficial. And there is no proof that CO2 is the cause.
Why fuss about Hansen this was the Guardian’s editorial on Friday 6 Apri (please note NOT Tuesday 1 April).
“As gardeners in eastern and southern Britain hang up their hosepipes for the summer, it may be worth considering one way of soothing their pain and at the same time easing the current water shortage in the UK’s most populous regions. Discourage the growing of grass. Specifically, grass that is purely aesthetic, kept short, and which absorbs thousands of gallons of mains water in every dry year. Lawns, once a celebration of status, are nowadays an affront to changing climate. They are an environmental desert, generally a monoculture where any tendency to biodiversity is vexed by the application of noxious weedkillers. Clover, buttercups, daisies and dainty speedwell are all unwelcome. Even worms are to be deterred. Meanwhile, keeping the sward green and encouraging it to grow requires – as well as copious water – regular applications of oil-based fertiliser. And having got it growing, cutting it back again takes more resource-intensive machinery. Some claim that lawns have a certain benefit as a kind of natural air conditioner. But they serve no socially useful purpose, or none that would not be better served by turning the space over to vegetables. If that sounds over-prescriptive, it would be less effortful to allow a wildflower meadow to develop. Golf courses, commons and sports fields are shared public spaces and fall into a different category. But, while a property tax remains a distant dream, a tax on private lawns beyond a certain size is within the gift of every chancellor”
Golf courses next?
William Astley says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
“The problem with your argument by analogue is the analogues you select “cigarettes cause cancer” is a correct statement.”
It is not. Smoking is one of many ‘risk factors’. See d1002391.mydomainwebhost.com/JOT/editorials/vol-1/e1-4.htm
This site is rightly suspicious of junk science. Junk science is not exclusively found in climate science.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/12/quote-of-the-week-dr-james-hansen-of-nasa-giss-unhinged/
“the oceans will begin to boil”
If he truly believes it he needs really help to understand physics, but can NASA-GISS pay such a person who believes the oceans will boil because of CO2? “Runaway greenhouse to destroy all life on this planet”??
We are talking of the head person at NASA-GISS. This is beyond embarrassing. It is beyond discussing about CO2 sensitivity. It is beyond skeptics/alarmist discussions.
Based on this he should be fired. Not doing so is accepting his alarmist these.
Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
So never call “freedom” your license to …loft CO2 that heats our skies.
Yikes!
We all have to stop exhaling else we infringe on someone else’s “freedom”!
Perhaps those who feel we must act this way would stop exhaling first and show us the way to act properly?
🙂
Goddard Institute for Space Studies is getting a biased picture of the climate, located as it is in the heart of a large city. They should move out into the heartland, say maybe Lenexa, KS.
I’ll suggest that to the President next time I see him.
those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
*****************************
Smokey asks: “‘sowing’ pesticides in beehives [who would do that?]”
*****************************
Smokey, economists call it “the tragedy of the commons”. Namely, corn-growing farmers can increase their profits by spraying corn with imidacloprid pesticide. It’s true that imidacloprid collapses bee populations … but corn doesn’t require bees … and so unregulated markets provide corn-growing farmers with a perverse incentive to do harm.
How do we protect the rights of (say) apple farmers, whose trees depend utterly on bees? It is a well-established constitutional foundation of American law, that under the above circumstances, there can be no unregulated market in imidacloprid … or in any similar commons-degrading chemical.
Bottom Line: Regulated markets in commons-degrading chemicals are plain common sense, plain moral right, and plainly constitutional law, as a matter of plain legal precedent.
“Describing this as an issue of inter-generational justice on a par with ending slavery, Hansen said”
Describing abolitionism as having been based on scam in a cAGW like manner is a pretty un-PC stance, is not it, Dr. Hansen?