James Hansen – off the rails

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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

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mike_g
April 7, 2012 3:13 pm

Marcella,
You indict civilization. Without it, we could expect to live, what, twenty, twenty-five years? I’ll take civilization and the occasional screwup that goes with it.

beesaman
April 7, 2012 3:22 pm

If Hansen wants to push a politicl agenda he should fund it himself and not on the back of the tax payer. Another global socialist agenda trying to control all of our lives without a democratic mandate. A coward who hides behind his goverment position.

Babsy
April 7, 2012 3:44 pm

Lars P. says:
April 7, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Can you further point what is your understanding what does CO2 do? What will happen if weontinue to burn coal?
I know, Teacher! I know! We will be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We will have fresh food and we will prosper! And we won’t have to live in a cave!

David L
April 7, 2012 3:56 pm

Saying it’s a moral issue doesn’t make it so.

Marcella Twixt
April 7, 2012 3:56 pm

Lars P. asks: “Can you point where did any coal company deny CO2 raises global temperature?”
———————
Yes, even in the present day. For example, it is easy to check the web site CO2 Science, which is a house organ of the “Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change ()” confidently asserts: “global atmospheric warming as a result of increasing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission is a myth
Past publicly acknowledghed funding sources for CO2 Science have included ExxonMobil and the Western Fuels Association…. at present, though CO2 Science takes steps to ensure that the identities of its corporate donors remains strictly secret.
Has that answered your question, Lars?

Krazykiwi
April 7, 2012 3:58 pm

I note that Hansen is being awarded with the same honor as James Lovelock, the fruit loop ‘scientist’ who brought us Gaia. Makes the Edinburgh Medal slightly less valuable than a McDonalds employee-of-the-month badge

ntesdorf
April 7, 2012 3:59 pm

I think he must have got to Edinburgh early to practise for a spot in comedy shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which runs each August. He could be a hit with the children if he puts on a clown costume!

RockyRoad
April 7, 2012 4:02 pm

Zeke says:
April 7, 2012 at 1:56 pm
RockyRoad says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:45 pm

The problem is that Romney’s current and past ideas of “good business” usually entail using government to tell you what to buy. For example, Romney mandated the purchase of state-approved health insurance…

So you’d rather that freeloaders sponging on the public purse take my taxes for their health care?
And that’s “fair and equitable” how?
If it’s an 88% to 12% split (those with health care and those without), it should be incumbent on the few getting the service to pay their way (and if they couldn’t, there was always state assistance to get them private health insurance); or do you somehow think “the rich” should have to continuously pay for freeloaders?

…and the program is now running billions over projected costs. This businessman – did you call him? – has repeatedly said that this was a “good plan” for his state. In fact, he is running his campaign on the success of Romneycare.

That’s what happens when the Democrats change the program and include a boatload of benefits that weren’t in the original legislation–similar to New York State and Washington State, where insurance premiums are some of the highest in the nation because of a Democrat-controlled Dept of Insurance, through which all policies must pass before being offered for sale in their state.

He also mandated GHG reductions and renewable energy programs aplenty in Mass, so certainly you can argue that he is a tight businessman – one who has been deeply involved in government coercion in such industries as autobuilding, energy, and health care, claiming it is “good business.”

A lot of people were (and still are) hoodwinked with the UN, the IPCC, and other supposedly-honest sources about climate. Romney is no longer a believer in “Global Warming”; he’s seen the “light”. I think a number of us here are in the same boat.
I appreciate your “talking points”, Zeke, but you really should do some in-depth investigation into the issues before making blanket statements that are only marginally accurate (and seem to reflect DNC propaganda more than anything).

don
April 7, 2012 4:15 pm

It’s a curious formulation: Apparently being a slave is to experience something (weather) over which no one has any control (climate) and this (slavery) is apparently now equivalent to the classic definition of a slave being an owned human whose production and consumption is entirely controlled by another human. And apparently the solution to (normal) uncontrolled climate change is that all humans have to have their production and consumption controlled for there own good by an elite human vanguard that knows better. I could be wrong, but it looks like more slavery is Hansen’s proffered solution to being a “slave”. What a self serving idiot. I bet he thinks everyone is a slave to the capitalist uncontrolled market, and wet dreams in the night.

Louis
April 7, 2012 4:17 pm

I kind of agree with Hansen on this one. His policy for combating climate change is on a par with slavery. That’s why I’m against both. Hansen would enslave the entire world to a police state in the name of saving the planet. Its not that he wants to live by the rules he demand for others. He plans to continue flying to lucrative speaking engagements all over the world and has no intention of lowing his carbon footprint one bit. But he does want everyone else to live in such a world so he can set the rules for the rest of us to follow. He and his elite friends will be issued waivers.

Sean
April 7, 2012 4:21 pm

“James Hansen – on crack” should have been the title. What a lunatic.

Zeke
April 7, 2012 4:25 pm

You have made the statement that Romney is no longer a believer in global warming and has “seen the light.” So this indicates you are aware of how commited he has been in the past to ghg regulations, including mandates, regional ageements, carbon emissions restrictions on cars which were 30% stricter than national standards?
You are also aware that he has written extensively in his book about breaking our “addiction to oil,” and how a carbon tax could be revenue neutral for the government and encourage the use of renewables?
You are aware that he has made statements as recently as June of 2011 saying that he supported worldwide carbon emissions reduction agreements? He has certainly been in the dark on a very serious issue, I will grant you that, Rocky Road. Now that we have est. that, can you show me what makes you imperviously announce that he has changed his mind, without any documentation for your source of information?

April 7, 2012 4:29 pm

Professor Hansen, I’d like to introduce you to Kari Marie Norgaard, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon.
There’s a whole CAGW psychology thesis on its own.

Steve from Rockwood
April 7, 2012 4:36 pm

Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 2:22 pm

Smokey says “Bee mites are the primary cause of colony collapse, not pesticides.”
Please see “Pesticide exposure in honey bees results in increased levels of the gut pathogen Nosema” … and a flood of similar recent scientific articles.
Needless to say:
• Tobacco companies denied that smoking causes cancer
• Fluorocarbon companies denied harm to the ozone layer
• Japan’s TEPCO denied the Fukushima reactors had melted-down, and now
• Pesticide companies are denying their products kill bees, and of course
• Coal companies deny CO2 raises global temperatures.
Given the above history, it’s evident that James Hansen stands firmly in the tradition of scientists whose findings were highly “inconvenient” to established corporate, political, and ideological interests. In which event, scientists have a special obligation *NOT* to be silent.

Marcella, did you know that most bee colonies are not natural – they use imported queens for better honey production. So forget about bee mites and pesticide exposure. We are dealing with a man-made unnatural problem.
I won’t comment on your idiotic points.
Hansen is an alarmist. This does not make him right. There used to be a day when scientists did not use their position of influence to peddle their personal agenda. Those days are gone.

Marcella Twixt
April 7, 2012 4:52 pm

Steve from Rockwood says: “Marcella, did you know that most bee colonies are not natural – they use imported queens for better honey production. So forget about bee mites and pesticide exposure. We are dealing with a man-made unnatural problem.”
——————
Steve, the assumptions of your post are verifiably incorrect: the plain fact is that wild bee populations are collapsing too. The emerging consensus of scientists is that excessive use of inadequately tested and poorly regulated pesticides is the primary cause of this collapse … and one implication, which increasingly many scientists are wondering about, is whether the accelerating incidence of male autism disorder may have similar chemical origins.
James Hansen is warning us that a similar dynamic is in-play with atmospheric CO2. Except that CO2 doesn’t wash out of the atmosphere nearly as rapidly as pesticides … nor do humans reproduce as fast as bees … and so the possibility of a CO2-induced “Civilization Collapse Disorder” is exceedingly sobering.

Andrew
April 7, 2012 4:52 pm

“We’re handing future generations a climate system which is potentially out of their control”.
You couldn’t make this stuff up – people would think it was just far too contrived to be funny.
He talks about slavery and in the same breath demands a worldwide tax be levied on everyone! The Orwellian truth-inversion of it all. It’s mind numbing.
These people really are literally, figuritively, entirely and without question stark raving bonkers.

David L. Hagen
April 7, 2012 5:02 pm

Marcella Twixt
By your logic, all the IPCC reports are inadmissible since:

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK was set up in 1971 with funding from Shell and BP . . . CRU was still being funded in 2008 by Shell, BP . . .the key institution providing support for Global warming theories and the basis for the IPCC findings receives funding from “Big Oil” and the nuclear power industry.

James Delingpole Climategate: peak, oil, the CRU and the Oman connection
Your selective quote is equivalent to saying that you support coal companies because you linked to that statement. Look at the full quote and you will see that CO2Science was just reviewing and citing a statement by Khilyuk and Chilingar.
If possible, please rise to objective evaluation and scientific logic rather than rhetorical ad hominem denigration.

David L. Hagen
April 7, 2012 5:05 pm
David L. Hagen
April 7, 2012 5:09 pm

Bishop Hill observes:

Hansen is going to use the platform to issue a call for a global carbon tax. It seems hard to envisage any way this would be brought about without some form of global government/ governance. I imagine this would be something along the lines of the UN – a huge bureaucracy nominally answerable to national governments but in practice entirely unaccountable.

EternalOptimist
April 7, 2012 5:17 pm

forgive me if I am wrong, but I cant find the link or the quote.
Didnt Hansen at one point believe that humanity could jump a spaceship and migrate to another planet

David Ball
April 7, 2012 5:31 pm

Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Trees “exhale” Co2. Are you mad at them too?

Babsy
April 7, 2012 5:46 pm

Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 4:52 pm
The emerging consensus of scientists is that …
Ahhhhhh! Consensus! Lovely consensus! The most wonderful of words! That seals the deal for me! Gleick! Set! Match!

u.k.(us)
April 7, 2012 5:48 pm

Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Needless to say:
• Tobacco companies denied that smoking causes cancer
• Fluorocarbon companies denied harm to the ozone layer
• Japan’s TEPCO denied the Fukushima reactors had melted-down, and now
• Pesticide companies are denying their products kill bees, and of course
• Coal companies deny CO2 raises global temperatures.
===========================
Yet, you seem to live in a country, where opinions are tolerated, even if expressed over the CO2 spewing internet.
Your story might have been believable, but it lacked children.
Try again.

David Ball
April 7, 2012 5:49 pm

Marcella Twixt says:
April 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
What you are seeing in posts like these, are the people who are gullible enough to accept what “scientists” like Hansen are spewing. Anyone with even the slightest scientific background can see the omissions and obfuscation. The bastardization of the scientific method.
You have to feel sorry for someone who makes statements like Marcella has made. Lacking any understanding of what they are talking about, following the pied piper blindly. The “civilization collapse disorder” is particularly funny. Another “boogyman” to scare the populace. The kool-aid must have some hallucinatory effect as well.
We are witnessing the death of critical thinking.

April 7, 2012 5:50 pm

Zeke says April 7, 2012 at 1:56 pm

The problem is that Romney’s current and past ideas of “good business” usually entail using government to tell you what to buy. For example, Romney mandated the purchase of state-approved health insurance, …

Completely absolving the part the legislature played in this Zeke?
You are aware of the three-branch make up (and bicameral legislative branch) of most state governments in the US … right?
You are aware that the legislature drafts, debates, then perhaps ‘passes’ legislation for eventual signing by the lop level manager in the executive branch?
Are you aware that a veto by the executive branch can be overridden by the legislature in most states?
.