This op-ed appeared in the New York Times today, and since it was written by a government employee, using his NASA title at the end of the article, I consider it a public domain work reproducible here. I see what Hansen is saying here as giving license to the McKibbenites for more protests, more rallies, and since Hansen has endorsed it, likely some civil disobedience or perhaps even criminal activities to block Canada’s sovereign right to develop their own resources. I suspect we’ll see a rebuttal or two in the NYT perhaps as an op-ed or at least some letters, and I encourage WUWT readers to make use of that option. – Anthony
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By James Hansen
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.
If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.
The global warming signal is now louder than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would happen by now in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers have increased noticeably. We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change.
We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life. But add too much, as we are doing now, and temperatures will inevitably rise too high. This is not the result of natural variability, as some argue. The earth is currently in the part of its long-term orbit cycle where temperatures would normally be cooling. But they are rising — and it’s because we are forcing them higher with fossil fuel emissions.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years. The tar sands contain enough carbon — 240 gigatons — to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close cousin of tar sands found mainly in the United States, contains at least an additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control.
We need to start reducing emissions significantly, not create new ways to increase them. We should impose a gradually rising carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies, then distribute 100 percent of the collections to all Americans on a per-capita basis every month. The government would not get a penny. This market-based approach would stimulate innovation, jobs and economic growth, avoid enlarging government or having it pick winners or losers. Most Americans, except the heaviest energy users, would get more back than they paid in increased prices. Not only that, the reduction in oil use resulting from the carbon price would be nearly six times as great as the oil supply from the proposed pipeline from Canada, rendering the pipeline superfluous, according to economic models driven by a slowly rising carbon price.
But instead of placing a rising fee on carbon emissions to make fossil fuels pay their true costs, leveling the energy playing field, the world’s governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This encourages a frantic stampede to extract every fossil fuel through mountaintop removal, longwall mining, hydraulic fracturing, tar sands and tar shale extraction, and deep ocean and Arctic drilling.
President Obama speaks of a “planet in peril,” but he does not provide the leadership needed to change the world’s course. Our leaders must speak candidly to the public — which yearns for open, honest discussion — explaining that our continued technological leadership and economic well-being demand a reasoned change of our energy course. History has shown that the American public can rise to the challenge, but leadership is essential.
The science of the situation is clear — it’s time for the politics to follow. This is a plan that can unify conservatives and liberals, environmentalists and business. Every major national science academy in the world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans, and requires urgent action. The cost of acting goes far higher the longer we wait — we can’t wait any longer to avoid the worst and be judged immoral by coming generations.
James Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is the author of “Storms of My Grandchildren.”
Isn’t Hansen a great illustration of a US bureaucrat. Makes me so proud to be an American. (do I really need a sarc tag)
How come such garbage can be published by a newspaper such as the NYT and can be written by a NASA director is indeed beyond imagination.
“If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control.”
As if climate was/is within our control to start with…
Aw, don’t be so hard on Hansen. He’s just mad because he found out that there are millions of hockey sticks in Canada…. and ours are real.
Jimbo says:
May 10, 2012 at 11:34 am
Hansen
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Thank goodness. Does that mean we won’t hear any more from this delusional man if Canada proceeds and we do nothing?
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Perhaps Hansen can explain why the U.S. continues to sell coal to China.
Since Hansen has gone apocalyptic on the basis of Mann’s totally discredited Hockey Stick, and the occasional coincidence of increasing temperature and CO2 (and not the just as frequent incidence of decreasing temperature and increasing CO2), I open my “Climate, History and the Modern World” by Dr. H. H. Lamb, open it to one of its many pages I’ve highlighted, and wonder what keeps Hansen and the “natural climate deniers” going. Today I’m looking at a chart on page 142 of “Changes in the height of the upper tree line in two areas in the White Mountains, California and in the Alps in Switzerland and Austria (From work by V. C. La Marche and V. Markgraf)” for the last 6,000 years. The charts show tree lines were much higher than present (meaning it was warmer) for the entire 6,000-year period, and in recent periods both charts clearly show the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. These trees don’t lie, and they don’t need their rings measured and interpreted as to temperature, moisture, changes in solar exposure, fertilization, &etc. It’s quite simple, really, If a certain type of tree once grew 100 meters above where they now grow, it was warmer then than now. If a certain type of tree once grew 200 to 400 kilometers north of where they grow now, it was warmer then than now. The evidence of the trees’ former habitat is easily determined by stumps and other woody artifacts, which then leads to the comparative ease of determining when they were there through carbon dating. If trees can no longer live somewhere because of changing conditions, they won’t, and have no choice in the matter.
Concerning tree rings, and in particular bristle-cone pines in the White Mountains of California, Professor V. C. La Marche at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at my alma mater, University of Arizona, Tucson, has constructed a chart indicating variations of summer warmth and/or its seasonal duration covering the past 5,500 years (see page 141 of Lamb). Unlike Mann’s and others’ studies involving these upper-tree line bristle-cone pines, La Marche’s study shows great variation over the 5,500-year period, with six warming and cooling periods including a very prominent Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, with current warming beginning over 200 years ago.
This is science. It clearly shows that current warming is not unprecedented, but in fact is normal if a bit cooler than previous periods of warming. It also lends great weight to the argument that denying that climate change is normal and has occurred without the aid of humans – or of CO2 instigation, since the AGW believers posit that atmospheric CO2 was stable for this entire period of significant warming and cooling – is supported by a robust body of scientific evidence, far superior to the thin, short time period, model driven body of science that finds an insignificant trace gas rules climate change.
Only true believers like Hansen, not scientists, could hold out against such overwhelming evidence. His article sounds like he is overcome with religious fervor.
“We Mean it, Bank of America: No More Money for Coal!”
So after reading the above Hanson post, I searched via Google for the Hanson NYT article. But instead came up with the same Hanson “game over” quote in a NYT article from last July on the Keystone pipeline debate http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/07/25/25climatewire-debate-intensifies-over-climate-change-aspec-46622.html?pagewanted=all
The article mentioned Bill McKibben and his “activist group”: 350.org. So I checked that website. Their “250 Update” headline today is titled “We Mean it, Bank of America: No More Money for Coal!” Their claimed 1000 person protest (though just 30-40 appear in their own photo) was directed at “BankvsAmerica” in Charlotte. Apparently B of A invests in the coal industry: “In the last two years, Bank of America has thrown more money at the coal industry than any other bank — more than $4.2 million.”
Now maybe this is a typo and they meant $4.2 billion. But if their protest is over $4.2 million, loaned over two years, isn’t that sort of silly? Isn’t that less that coal industry workers deposit in their Bank of American checking accounts each month? And around the world, $4.2 million just isn’t a lot of dough in the energy industry. According to OilPrice.com: “2011 coal exploration spending in Australia surged by 62 percent, with investment in exploration for new coal deposits reaching $520 million…” http://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Green-Australia-Still-Experiencing-Massive-Coal-Boom.html
Lubbock Online discusses BP’s Tiber Prospect deep water oil well in 2009, and reports: “A production platform costs more than $1 billion to build. Drilling a deep-water well can add another $100 million, and if crude is located, it could cost another $50 million to bring the oil to the surface.” And maybe BP can borrow $4.2 million of that from Bank of America, if the firm isn’t too spooked by 350.org activists marching “through the Charlotte streets to the Shareholder meeting, flooding the intersection and halting traffic for a two-hour rally.”
The 350.org post does offer some hope: “While we had an incredible morning of singing, marching, and uniting our struggles on BofA’s doorstep, we wish these protests weren’t necessary in the first place.” The good news?: These protests aren’t necessary in the first place.
The shale gas boom will outcompete coal power over the coming years. Too bad the protesters aren’t cheering shale gas development instead of distracting Bank of America shareholders and frustrating Charlotte drivers.
Since Hansen has written this little missive using his official position one can assume that it is the position of NASA. Frankly, I think that every Canadian who reads Hansen’s rant should both write the US State Dept as well as their own Government. “If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing…” seems to be advocating direct US action into Canadian affairs.
Interesting how Hansen mentioned “Dust Bowl”. Severe drought in seven consecutive years in the 30th produced large dust storms in the midwest coining the phrase dust bowl. Here Hansen speaks of unprecedented climate condition that only could have been caused by the increase of CO2 but clearly we know that those weather or climate events took place before with much lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
I resent Hansen’s blithe citation of the warm Pliocene as having any relevance to today’s climatology. It’s well known that the Strait of Panama and the Tethys Sea established a circumglobal warm current that dominated the paleoclimate and ensured a nearly iceless world. Antarctica too was mostly unglaciated, because the Drake Passage was still too shallow for ocean currents. The warm ocean drove CO2 out into the atmosphere, hence the 400 ppm levels, which were consequence, not cause.
Today’s climate is the Interglacial phase of an Icehouse climate regime, greatly differing in fundamental character from the Pliocene regime. The mere difference in ‘average temperature’ completely fails to capture this enormous difference in climate. Even more ludicrous is any references to the Paleocene or Eocene, which were even more different from today.
Hansen the Climate Quack, peddling a Carbon-Reduction Snake Oil utterly toxic to our prosperity & freedom.
Rhoda R says:
May 10, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Yeah, we’ll send a whole platoon of one. That “soldier” may very well look like Hansen. You do keep all prisoners, don’t you?
I think that Hansen should get himself arrested more often…. maybe someone can think of some protest/trespass events which would tempt Hansen to get himself arrested for the sake of the grandchildren. How about trespass protests of the “Keystone XL” pipeline route which surely poses a danger to all of humanity? How about inviting Hansen to protest illegally on-site at some evilll tar sands facility?? If Hansen truly believes that humankind is on the brink then he should be willing to get himself arrested a lot more often.
I was in my last year at University in 1988/1989 and the CO2 nonsense came just at the right time for the Universities as their funding had largely dried up because of the oil price crash in 1985/1986.
OK with perhaps a tad of disagreement Ian wins the best post of the day on this topic.
Ian W says:
May 10, 2012 at 6:00 pm
The question to ask is why did the NYT decide to allocate so much space to such an unscientific rant? That’s a lot of column inches that could be earning money – so there must be a good reason.
Anyone?
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Now I have to clean the beer of my computer screen…
Oh and we are not related, honest 😉
James Hansen says ” if Canada proceeds and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate “.
In a peer reviewed paper, Feb. 2012, Andrew Weaver U. Vic., one of Canada’s top climate scientists and no oil sands apologist, concluded that burning all of the recoverable oil from Alberta’s oil sands would increase global average atmospheric temp. by between 0.02 and 0.05 degrees C. Hardly game over for the climate! Dr. Hansen should spend more time keeping up with the climate science literature and less time getting arrested.
“We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change.”
“Climate” is an abstraction about changing weather patterns. It, as such, cannot be a causative agent. Only concrete weather events exist and are effects caused by solar input, geological thermal energy, and human fuel use interacting with the the Earth’s surface and atmosphere.
One should always distinguish between concrete objects and abstract objects. The former exist in objective reality and are real and have definitely measurable properties at a particular time. The latter are objects of consciousness and only exist in one’s mind and only have ranges of measurements for their properties.
By not strictly distinguishing between concrete objects and abstract objects one can create whole theories in minds with no connection to reality. Climate theory with climate as causative and not as just an abstraction about weather events is one such lack of distinction which has cause an extreme amount of mischief.
Readers of many of these blogs are warned to avoid “ad hominem attacks” in their comments, but I fear that many do not know what such attacks are. I offer three excellent examples from the standard text on the subject, “The Book of Insults, Ancient and Modern”, by Nancy McPhee (no relation to Christine McFee of the band, Fleetwood Mac). I have found these three examples to be most instructive. Read them aloud; as with all such attacks, the words flow into the ear with great rhetorical intensity, and can only be understood as such.
The first example is found on page 125 of the paperback edition (Penguin, 1978), said by the critic H.L. Mencken of then-President of the United States, Warren Harding (not to be confused with the Yosemite big wall climber with the same name). When I read this the first time, I immediately thought of Professor James Hansen of NASA:
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”
The second example is found on page 131 of the same volume, said by the British politician Benjamin Disraeli of his main rival in the House of Commons, William Gladstone. When I read this, I was reminded of global warming blogger Joseph Romm:
“A sophistical rhetorician, enebriated [sic] with an exuberance of his own verbocity [sic], and gifted with an egotistical imagination, that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments, malign an opponent and glorify himself.”
My third and final example is found on page 140 of the same volume, said by the Canadian politician Sir Francis Bond Head of one of his primary rivals in the Canadian House, William Lyon Mackenzie. This one reminded me of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore:
“He is, without exception, the most notorious liar in all our country. He lies out of every pore of his skin. Whether he is sleeping or waking, on foot or on horseback, talking with his neighbours or writing for a newspaper, a multitudinous swarm of lies, visible, palpable, and tangible, are buzzing and settling about him like flies around a horse in August.”
I do not mean by this exercise to suggest that the aforementioned objects of these attacks actually do deserve such treatment, or that these words are actually descriptive of their character and/or practice. But now readers of this blog can safely say that they have been exposed to ad hominem attacks of great quality, and are now edified with excellent examples of the insult craft. In other words, in our contemporary idiom, “If yuh don’t know, yuh been told”.
davidmhoffer says:
May 10, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Aw, don’t be so hard on Hansen. He’s just mad because he found out that there are millions of hockey sticks in Canada…. and ours are real.
Better for all concerned if he’d found out about Canadian beer, instead…
Babsy says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:48 pm
@me, May 10, 2012 at 1:14 pm
“But then, CO2 reduction is just a red herring — the actual target is wealth redistribution.”
And control…
It’s their version ot the Golden Rule — “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
Jimbo says:
May 10, 2012 at 11:38 am
What about the recent deaths due to cold in Europe recently? What about the Mongolian cattle catastrophe a few years back? What about the snow in the Amazon, Tunisian sands dusted in snow this past winter and so on…
The nomadic herders in this part of Afghanistan make their winter camp on the south slope of the hills around Kabul. This past December, some of them froze to death in their sleep — according to the locals, this past winter was the coldest since the ’60s.
I’m sorry to say my US friends but this man is a measure of where your countries at the moment. Don’t worry we aren’t much better over here in the UK although Jones hid back under his rock when the scientific light was shone on him, I guess they build them of tougher stuff at NASA.
The game is over alright – for Hansen. His job should be in danger soon, like, after November 6. Why Hansen hasn’t been fired yet, I’ll never know.
Johanna, I’m operating under the assumption that you are a lady, as such this “macho, big guy” (how’d you know?) rarely if ever will consider smacking down even the most naively liberal female concern troll. Hey, it’s how I was raised so long ago.
Having said that, how the heck did you manage to read my comment, get the particulars wrong and still somehow avoid the glaringly obvious question: All the *Queensberry* bed-wetters from the other thread should post a comment here describing their approved method to combat the continuing insanity from James Hansen, NASA employee.
Perhaps you can go over and meet him and talk him to death or persuade him with your devastatingly effective non-aggressive advertising campaign? 😉
P.S. yes, Queensberry was mispelled.
[MODS: apologies for this nessed up HTML tag in previous post!]
Johanna, I’m operating under the assumption that you are a lady, as such this “macho, big guy” (how’d you know?) rarely if ever will consider smacking down even the most naively liberal female concern troll. Hey, it’s how I was raised so long ago.
Having said that, how the heck did you manage to read my comment, get the particulars wrong and still somehow avoid the glaringly obvious question: “All the *Queensberry* bed-wetters from the other thread should post a comment here describing their approved method to combat the continuing insanity from James Hansen, NASA employee.”
Perhaps you can go over and meet him and talk him to death or persuade him with your devastatingly effective non-aggressive advertising campaign? 😉
P.S. yes, Queensberry was mispelled.
It would appear that Mr Hansen is in possession of an anatomical rarity.
Talking bollocks.