Though, he still thinks we are all funded by some sort of “machine”. It never occurs to him that he’s fighting a guerrilla war and that most skeptics are self motivated.
Update: the UK telegraph has a similar story here
Scientist hits climate change skepticism – UPI.com
EDINBURGH,Scotland,April 9 (UPI) –Environmentalists and climate scientists, facing public skepticism, are losing the debate on global warming, a U.S. scientist who first raised the issue says.
James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who issued warnings about man-made climate change as early as the 1980s, said public skepticism is increasing even in the face of growing scientific acceptance of the reality of global warming.
“There is remarkable inconsistency between the scientific story and public story,” Hansen said in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he will receive the Edinburgh Medal at the Edinburgh International Science Festival this week, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Hansen said those opposed to major social and economic changes needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were attempting to undermine the scientific evidence.
“The science has become stronger and stronger over the past five years while the public perception is has gone in completely the other direction. That is not an accident.
“There is a very concerted effort by people who would prefer to see business to continue as usual. They have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources.”
Without a dramatic change in public opinion, Hansen said,he fears future generations will inherit a world where global warming is out of control.
“Our parents honestly did not know what the consequences of continued development and reliance on fossil fuels as an energy source,” he said. “We can no longer claim that, as the science is now clear.”
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(My bold)
And thereby hangs the tail: Hansen is more concerned, along with his ‘Green’ buddies, about getting control of people, not for science but for pure, unalloyed power.
To extend what Disko Troop suggested (A Glasgow kiss): that act is usually preceded by the comment: ‘See you Jimmy, can ye sew? Well, stitch this!!’ Now THAT, I’d pay to see!
Wishing the man dead makes us no better than the illeterate twit who suggested that Watts kill himself with CO. Shame on you.
Moderators: why do you allow that? It just gives our detractors more ammunition to call us dangerous kooks.
“There is a very concerted effort by people who would prefer to see business to continue as usual. They have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources.”
The increased waste and abuse of tremendous resources by the charlatans trying to halt business as usual has helped catch the attention of people who would prefer to make a living.
Pleeeeze! Won’t someone think of the children.
If Hansen is correct,and we skeptics are “winning”, the children will remain free.
Thanks Anthony.WUWT is indeed an enormous asset. Keep on rockin’ ladies and gents!
“There is remarkable inconsistency between the scientific story and public story,”
===================
No there’s not…………..LOL
….but keep it up, you’re doing yourself in
He is talking about the forced social and economic change that people oppose based on common sense and the desire not to suffer from his solutions.
Bob the Swiss:
How can this guy remains director of the NASA GISS ?
higley7:
Tell me again—why does he still have his job at NASA?
In order to coordinate the manipulation of historical temperatures so that they provide a better match to the models and the preconcieved notion of global warming.
… In my opinion.
James Hansen: please read up on the Peter Principle and get back to us.
Seems to discribe your career perfectly…
From a ‘political’ point of view Hansen is right – in fact he could have said that the ‘warmists’ (Agenda 21 et al) have won. The European Union is taxing everything on emissions, has a working emissions trading scheme and mandating ethanol; the US similarly mandates ethanol and is regulating fossil fueled generation out of business. _All_ the populatiion now understands the idea of global warming and the suparmarkets show ‘local produce with low carbon footprint’. Rio+20 will be a roaring success and expect the impositiion of international treaties as a result.
From a scientific perspective they have lost – but many of the converts will be unable to conceive of CO2 driven climate change NOT happening – so they will continue to blame every weather occurence on fossil fuels. There are too many scientific illiterates thanks to academia’s bias being put ahead of real science.
So I am afraid Hansen is right – they have won – even if the weather and climate ceased to cooperate a few years ago and may cool significantly. It’s cooling because of global warming after all.
A glance at the source of funds for this organisation reveals that the major funding bodies were gvernmental, both at national and local level, and that other important sources were energy companies that levy renewable obligation taxes.
No doubt further research would reveal that the remaining sources also have seats at the governmental feeding troughs, but, since I have no doubt, i will leave it to a lurking AGW troll to prove me wrong.
aul Marko says:
April 10, 2012 at 6:31 am
Yes, Hanson’s delusional and beyond repair. Yes, the AGW cabal is losing. But here in the U.S., we’re going to be paying dearly for accepting their delusions for some time to come. The Supreme Court ruled CO2 a pollutant giving the EPA authority to regulate its’ industrial production. No new coal electrical generating plants will be built ,and older facilities will go off line because of this nonsense.
I’ll believe we’re actually winning when government funding of Green Industries cease, and a new administration places a gag on CO2 regulation. We can’t afford to wait for another Maunder minimum to prove a point. Right now, Hanson is still way ahead of us.
I think you will find that the Supreme Court did not rule CO2 a pollutant. They ruled that the EPA had the legal powers to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. That of course is what they have done. Nobody in Congress has had the sense to call the EPA on that and have them state what is the ‘safe level’ and why that is so. As if the CO2 concentration falls to less than 150ppm plants will start dying shortly followed by most of nature.
The currency received by me for my climate scepticism? Getting to see bozos like Hansen, Mann and Gore self-immolate with gobs of funding. The thing that irritates me, however, is the waste of money. Then there’s our local crop of trolls, who do the same thing for free…some kind of compulsive anti-scepticism. Oh my, can I hope beyond hope that I will see the gutting of AGW in my lifetime?
fenbeagleblog says:
April 10, 2012 at 1:11 am
You and Josh are national treasures. I always look forward to a new fenbeagle masterpiece.
“Leave it to the Brits to celebrate just about anything.” I guess this was written by an American, so I can’t take offence at it. It would be like taking offence at a baby poking out its tongue.
“Tell me again—why does he still have his job at NASA?” Because it is an American organization?
Point is, higley7, abuse of one’s allies is not necessarily something that is the private property of Uncle Sam. Now, man up, and apologize.
Hansen likes using exponential functions. In the 1970’s he promoted exponential cooling just around the corner. In the 1980’s he flipped to exponential heating just around the corner.
He forgot to include an i (or j for you engineer types) in the exponent. With its complex conjugate, you end up with cyclical climate change.
It is astonishing, @snotrocket, that you have twisted the situation.
The facts should drive the policy, not the other way around as you have mistakenly put it.
The scientific evidence which is peer reviewed should drive a reduction in greenhouse gas production.
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
That would explain Gleick and other’s odd behavior.
So an old fella, who forgot to bring his hat, went to Scotland to get a badge and said, “The science has become stronger and stronger over the past five years while the public perception has gone in completely the other direction. That is not an accident.”
Nope, must be caused by climate change. :o]
It is so hypocritical that those posting here speak of a broken record regarding James Hansen’s Comments. No where is it more evident in the anti global warming community that an echo chamber keeps resounding again and again, recycling recycling myth after myth.
All of the myths, every one, dispelled here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Interesting that Hansen is worried about losing the debate he refuses to actually have.
Imagine how bad it would be for the likes of him, Mann, Schmidt, Romm et al if they actually did publicly debate skeptics.
There is only one side hiding from challenges and open discussion. It’s the ones claiming there is nothing to discuss.
Tonight in Portland Oregon there will be an alarmists presentation by Oregon state climatologist Phil Mote and professor Schmittner.
It’s a follow up to a January Oregon AMS sponsored skeptic’s presentation.
Here is the perfect example of how Mote or Schmittner et al discuss or debate AGW. They just don’t.
After 2:30:00 & Schmittner’s long comment (that was supposed to be a question) Chuck Wiese challenges him with a specific scientific point and asked Schmittner where the evidence was for the AGW claimed effect of current increasing concentrations of CO2.
Schmittner’s reply evaded the question entirely as he said, “I don’t agree with that and I do think the paleoclimate data shows there is strong effect from the CO2.”
This shows how Mote, Schmittner et al are incapable of having any focused conversation, discussion or debate. They will not address or answer any of the specific and focused challenges which normal discussion generates.
It is fascinating that , contrary to the scientific method, AGW skeptics form a disbelief about global warming, then find evidence to support it instead of weighing all evidence.
This clearly makes most of the skeptic community a member of a religion, not science based analysis.
Real scientists of the other hand look at all the evidence and form conclusions based on that.
Checking premises is a good thing to do. : )
Hansen irrationally attributes profoundly immoral motivations to all independent thinkers who are critics of his ‘a priori’/pre-science premise. His ‘a priori’/pre-science premise is it must be bad that humans are burning fossil fuels. That premise became the single fundamental concept of ‘the cause’. Then Hansen went out to advocate and promote only the science of people who agree with his ‘a priori’/pre-science premise that is the essential philosophical foundation of ‘the cause’. When it quickly became apparent that there was insufficient science to support that ‘a priori/pre-science premise and the resulting ‘the cause’ then a voluntary and self-selected group of scientists (‘the team’) spontaneously agreed to promote any so-called science that supported ‘the cause’ and become gate-keepers to stymie skeptics (independents) from involvement in the IPCC processes. See CG1 & CG2 for evidence of their efforts. They were IPCC centric CAGWists and proceeded to collaborate internationally with a primary focus on gaming the processes of the IPCC. It was a collaboration which yielded the IPCC centric science that was unavoidably biased toward CAGWism because of ‘the team’s’ shared myopic acceptance to pursue only what supported Hansen’s ‘a priori’/pre-science premise.
Hansen is the single most important reason that his so-called science is not being broadly accepted. He failed scientific professionalism and objectivity. It is ironic that he seems to have martyred himself for the benefit of the skeptics, weakening the case for his ‘cause’. That make him an anti-martyr for his ‘cause’.
The above makes a valuable case study for future journalism classes. The case study is needed by most journalists; the ones who were not critical of the Hansen’s ‘a priori’/pre-science premise and the resulting ‘cause’. The public has broadly smelled the problem with the foundation of ‘the cause’ but the fawning journalists were incapable of seeing it. They could not see the problem with ‘the cause’ because the journalists were ideologically pre-conditioned to accept it by their indoctrination in certain major schools of journalism that favor ideologies like Hansen’s brainchild ‘the cause’.
John
David, UK says:
“Can somebody change the record please? I’ve heard this one.”
I’d suggest that Hansen and Jones have changed the temperature record often enough.
Hansen said “those opposed to major social and economic changes…”
___________________________
Hansen scores “own goal”.
Trevor says:
April 10, 2012 at 2:53 am
Or maybe “climate dissidents”?
Dissident: disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief.
Hansen’t “take” on climate is certainly an “established religious belief”.