Dr. James Hansen, now no longer on a leash under NASA policy, has started what I expect will be the first of many ugly comments and actions in his new role as activist.
Niall from Canada writes in asking for help from WUWT and the readership:
This Saturday morning Canada’s state broadcaster (the CBC) aired, on their weekly politics & current affairs show “the House”, a 15 min. ‘interview’ with James Hansen, in which he denigrated our Government as “neanderthal” in it’s approach to AGW, and that climate change science is “crystal clear”.
He also angled for a carbon tax (presumably to support his desired global wealth re-distribution scheme). I know you’re a very busy guy, but if you could formally respond in writing to the CBC, and indicate the gross errors Hansen voiced, and also post to your own site, many of us Canadian climate ‘realists’ would be very grateful for your help in exposing this grotesque charlatan.
Att’d is the link for the show, and the address to respond to.
Yours very truly,
Niall from Winnipeg
the Story:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/04/26/pol-hansen-oliver.html
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@ur momisugly The Monster, Doc Martin, The Last Democrat and Scottish Skeptic
I was really just making a point that comparisons to supposed odious groups are not necessary and escalate barriers to rational discourse and that Hansen loses by doing so.
However—– Claiming to have Neanderthal genes is a nice sentiment (in this context) but the probability is that they were inherited not directly but from a common ancestor. The evidence for claims that Homo sapiens overwhelmed Neanderthals (species or race) is the in sites where remains of both are found, H.s replaces N after a time gap. This can just as validly be interpreted as N extinction some time before H. s arrived. Contemporaneous sites are widely separate. When body type, technology and ecology and changing climate are considered the latter seems more convincing to me. But don’t trust me, read Finlayson.
Peter Gulutzan says: April 28, 2013 at 11:35 am
Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not.
Typically (and this Solomon interview was certainly no exception), when a CBC program does deign to interview someone whose views do not reflect the all-climate-change-all-the-time party line, all one hears is a few sound-bites to serve as a foil or backdrop for the main act.
The actual interview can be heard at:
http://www.cbc.ca/thehouse/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2381955582
Hansen’s wolf howlings (and howlers which Solomon allowed to be left unchallenged, as though they were gospel truth) segment begins at approx. 12:29
Oliver was heard on the air for – what seemed to me to be – considerably less than a minute. Any further comments from Oliver were filtered by Solomon’s (and/or his producers’/writers’) choices.
Not only did Solomon mistakenly call Hansen a “climatologist”, but also dubbed him as a “world renowned scientist”. Furthermore, Solomon’s intro was positively dripping with unadulterated adulation and appeals to Hansen’s haloed “authority”. So the set-up was clearly “politician vs scientist”.
Yet (and here’s one of the howlers Solomon let pass without comment), during the course of this particular CBC exercise in the promotion of unchallenged advocacy propaganda, Hansen appealed to the authority of U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, as well as to that of Obama. Both of whom are … politicians!
As an aside, Hansen clearly demonstrated, at last year’s AAAS meeting here in Vancouver, that he cannot hold his own – and comes in a very distant third – when placed on the same platform as those who actually know what they’re talking about:
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/science-is-not-enough-invitation-to-an-exceptional-aaas-live-webcast/#comment-769
Hilary Ostrov
P.S. Janice Moore April 27, 2013 at 8:56 pm : Many thanks for your kind comments on my posts!
P.P.S. Michael Palmer April 27, 2013 at 9:16 pm: I’m sorry that you don’t appear to recognize and/or appreciate that there is a BIG difference between saying that an individual “should be ashamed” with its implicit “of himself” – almost as an afterthought to a series of valid factual observations – and “trying to ‘shame'” a person.
Perhaps to a professor of Chemistry there is no difference or distinction between the two scenarios; but I can assure you that to a pre-post-modernist English major, there certainly is 😉
The only way in which Oliver could be deemed to have “denigrated” or “shamed” Hansen is if one believed that drawing attention to and quoting Hansen’s very own words is tantamount to “denigrating” or “shaming” him. However, IMHO, this would be a very mistaken belief that lacks a sound foundation..
I would rather be an Honest Neanderthal than a Professional Fearmonger with a line in dodgy statistics
Dang, if it was not for this article I would not remember who the CBC is, I am a Canadian and pretty much up to date on what is going on, no thanks to that waste of tax money! One Billion $$ per year and the only reason they are still on the air is “Unions” and “Human Rights” without either they would not know how to make a nickle! (venting sorry)
Dr/ Hansen is an academic, and as such should demonstrate more sensitivity. This h. sapiens-centric bigotry must stop:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tVY6CWfJWsw/Si2ShCwkHdI/AAAAAAAAAa8/hBSz3-rtGFM/s320/geico_caveman.jpg
One last observation on Dr. Hansen;
He looks waaaaay too much like a certain iconic cartoon character to be indulging in calling anyone names:
@ur momisugly lurker passing through, laughing says:
April 28, 2013 at 7:24 pm
The likeness really is uncanny isn’t it? Is is almost unsettling. I wonder if whoever drew Homer was working from some archetype, either in personal observation, or seen “in books” about pre-history. It can’t be accidental.
I’m disheartened by how many comments are focused on the Neanderthal comment and the politics of the situation, and how few comments touch on the climate change issues. It seems the public is kept well educated on pipelines, protesters, and carbon taxes, while actual science is deemed too complicated for the news.
Don’t listen to this guy.
Don’t listen to the government.
Don’t listen to the corporations.
Listen to the many books and documentaries that explain with empirical evidence and sound science what is happening to our planet. It is changing. It always has been, and will continue to do so until our sun goes supernova and envelops us (if we’re still around as a species at that point). While many of the forces that drive these changes our out of our control, it’s pretty clear that our species has a major effect on the planet. We’re also the only species capable of mitigating these changes. Therefor, it is our responsibility – not just to future generations of humans, but to every species on the planet – to learn all we can about how our planet operates and to attempt to counteract any potentially cataclysmic events.
Educate yourself.
Deal in facts.
Ignore propaganda and politics from both sides of the argument.
Question authority.
Joel, what empirical evidence would that be? The ones on hurricanes, volcanoes, snow, rain, wind, floods, droughts? Would the documentaries you like to watch be the ones Al put together? Or maybe Bill Nye? Or maybe that oriental guy (can’t remember his name)? Yeh, those would be the ones I would hang my tax dollars on. Where do I sign up to have my pocket picked. I’m old and a woman. Maybe you could guide me to some documentaries that include puppies and kittens.
Hansen was to NASA’s GISS as Schmidt was to RC. (And I do mean was in both cases)
Both celebrated and honored themselves as the pseudo scientists they emulated sacked and pillaged both NASA’s reputation and the public’s respect for climate science.
John
– – – – – –
Joel Parsons,
Yes.
And authority is just a tiny subset of what each person should persistently question.
John
Perhaps Dr. Hansen could use some remedial education if he continued to use the term “neanderthals” as a pejorative, All modern Indoeuroasians (of which he, and I are members) share 2.5 percent of our DNA with the neanderthals. He is essentially insulting himself.
mandobob:, you probably meant to say, “all but 2.5 percent of our DNA”?
We share 2.5 percent with nearly everything.
Gene Selkov says:
April 29, 2013 at 8:35 am
mandobob:, you probably meant to say, “all but 2.5 percent of our DNA”?
We share 2.5 percent with nearly everything.
No I meant what I wrote. I have no doubt that overall we share 2.5 percent of our DNA with other organisms but I am referring to neanderthal specific DNA markers.
Right. I followend the 2.5% lead and found that the source (Svante Pääbo) claimes 2.5% identity in mitochondrial DNA between non-Africans and Neanderthals. That’s a fun fact, but the media talk about “2.5% of the genome” (and you said “of our DNA”). It’s not even “our” DNA.
Well, isn’t “Neanderthal” in the list of neo-Marxist/Post Modernist smear words, inferring that they are progressive?
It gets funny, they are so obvious.
Of course Marxism came from old conditions in continental Europe, albeit Marx was too stupid to see that good things had happened in England due to increasing freedom.
@ur momisugly Hilary Ostrov — My pleasure. He cited “… fifty-seven states, uh, not counting Alaska and Hawaii…” [quoted from memory only] Doh!bama?! Desperation is not pretty.
@ur momisugly lurker — Thanks for the laugh (and hat tip to Jimbo, great minds…). Yes, as jc pointed out, a striking resemblance… BTW, what in the WORLD did Marge say in the last scene? I ran it back three times. Probably something like: “A Jim Hansen called. Is he really your father?”
As a proud neanderthal, I can only hope that Hansen is charged, with uttering hate speech, by one of our Orwellian Human rights commissions.
The more we learn about Neanderthals, the more we see that in the context of their time they were exceptionally advanced people. How would you rate Hansen?
Eric Worrall
points to Hansen’s boiling oceans comment. But the start of the clip starts with something much more embarrassing for the climate consensus. Rapidly melting ice caps will cool the polar oceans – reducing temperatures. As the most extreme warming in the future will, according to the UNIPCC, be in the Arctic, Hansen is saying melting ice caps will have negative feedbacks.
As a Canadian I can save you some time and effort. No contribution from you will be published unless it forwards the AGW theme.Skeptics are routinely cut off or labeled as cranks during radio call in shows, David Suzuki is treated like a scientist instead of a environmentalist activist hack and the Conservative government is the result of a horrible perfect storm of corrupt election promises, voter ignorance and the powers of darkness. The only exception to this rule is when the CBC includes at least two “expert” rebuttals to the skeptical view. It’s the CBC, not an actual legitimate media outlet.