Even Dr. James Hansen doesn’t believe Keystone XL itself will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions
Video follows below
At today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Keystone XL, Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) asked well-known climate scientist James Hansen to clarify what he meant when he made his famous “game over” comment, which has been used widely by Keystone XL opponents to justify their erroneous claims. Of course, “game over” has been the main rallying cry for the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune who sat next to Hansen at today’s hearing. In response to Senator Menendez’s question, Hansen explained,
“I’m glad you asked me that question because my comment continues to be misinterpreted […] It has been clear that conventional oil and gas are limited. We’re probably close to peak-oil for conventional oil. The science was clear that we cannot burn all the coal, we’re going to have to phase that out and that’s a solvable problem because coal is used mainly for electricity production and we can generate electricity in other ways including nuclear power, which is carbon-free. Then there is this other huge source of carbon, unconventional fossil fuels and my statement was that if we are going to now open up that other source of unconventional fossil fuels, that’s what tar sands are: the first big step into that unconventional fossil fuels. But the science tells us we can’t do that. We’re screwing our children and our grandchildren and all the young people in future generations if we think we can use those unconventional fossil fuels. The science is crystal clear on that and the world is just ignoring the science. The scientists are saying ‘wait you can’t do that,’ and that’s what I was saying. This is game over if you don’t understand; we have to leave that extremely large amount of carbon in the ground.”
So not even James Hansen, the very person Keystone XL opponents quote incessantly, believes that Keystone XL itself will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.
But that’s not all. Senator Menendez followed up on Hansen’s clarification, offering yet another blow to Keystone XL opponents. As he explained,
“So I now have the greater definition. I just personally don’t think that the approval or disapproval of the pipeline is a decline in global leadership, nor do I believe that the specific approval or disapproval is necessarily game over. I understand what you’re saying, there is a broader context which is whether you have access to this fuel and you start down that road. I just wanted to refine this as it relates to the question before the committee, which is the question of approval of the pipeline.”
Of note, this question came after the State Department, numerous energy and climate experts, and Obama administration officials disputed activists’ claims. Looks like it’s officially “game over” for opponents’ “game over” claims.
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@ur momisugly Jimbo on March 13, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the link to Joe Romm’s piece at think progress (i). If you look at the chart at the top of the page, tar sands and heavy oil are grouped together. We are currently importing about 9% of our oil from Venezuela. According to this source,
Yet, one does not hear a peep about our imports of Venezuelan oil. Indeed, an argument could be made that, for similar oils, importing it from Canada using a pipeline would have a smaller carbon footprint than importing it from Venezuela for transportation reasons.
Honest question; if Hansen is advocating nuclear energy as a solution to “global warming” this tells me that he is not a “no growth, lower energy, regressive” environmentalist. Is there a chance he fully understands the non-science of CAGW, but is using it as a tool to promote nuclear to the die-hard 60/70’s generation environmentalists? I feel that is what “Pandora’s Promise” is doing.
Ahhhh. The Gnostic Gospel of Climate Change. Only those who “understand” will be saved. Got it.
Hansen makes a perceptive comment:
And yet no solution to provide replacement fuel in time.
Consequently he appears seeking to shut down our economy.
Only the WUWT lemmings could interpret Hansen’s position as pro pipeline
Game Over is what happens after you fail to collect any tipping Points.
‘It’ was “game over” when an oracle of omaha bought into a pipeline company needs the KXL to be built…..
The way I read his comments is that if we tap into our natural resources it is game over for the environmental movement. They will have lost because they we will never turn back and never listen to them again. They know they are wrong about Co2 but still feel progress of the human race is evil and need to stop it by controlling energy. By agreeing with nuclear he is putting something on the table as a head fake knowing it will be tied up in legal for years.
He knows there is no peak oil but he also knows he can’t say that since that is one of the last cards they hold in the propaganda wars. I am convinced that they hate humans, human progress and they hate not being in control of us.
So, James Hansen wants man-made “peak oil” to happen right now. This to keep all that CO2 from being released where the plants can get to it and grow faster. But, in addition, oil (petroleum) is use to make plastics.
Hansen theory was demonstrated wrong by climate observations.
Listening to him being coy with ‘games’ verbiage make him duplicitous. His has been for some time.
John
I might be suggested that if 58 commenters can’t make head nor tail of what Hansen said, then the best that can be said is that Hansen didn’t say anything at all – just unintelligible rambling, which pretty much sums up his entire career.
The oil trains are trashing the tracks. They are always down for maintenance. Build the damn pipeline you boneheads.
It would be impossible for life on earth to exist without carbon.
Carbon is the main component of sugars, proteins, fats,
DNA, muscle tissue, pretty much everything in your body.
Carbon is the basis of organic molecules (carbohydrates,
proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids). We, as humans, consume
these organic molecules to create energy (ATP) necessary for
bodily functions. Thus, carbon is the fundamental element that
allows us to live.
Carbon dioxide is the gas which is used to transport the
carbon between living organisms in this process, CO2 is
a rare but essential gas in this respect, and Hansen,
Gore, Mann et al, are ludicrous fools in attempting to
demonize the gas which is of course responsible for
their own continuing miserable lives.
All of Hansen’s clothes in the above picture are made from
Carbon compounds, and without them he would be naked,
unless he were to wear a suit of ceramic tiles or something.
That oil has ALREADY leaked out and is INSIDE the ground leaking still to the ground water.
Like the Montana and North Dakota coal field found BURNING in exposed beds when Lewis and Clark paddled past back in 1804, that carbon has been released into the environment ever since the coal fields were “founded” millions of years ago. It is ONLY NOW that we are putting that wasted oil and pollution to good use.
Your grandkids will be far safer with that being used wisely and transported safely underground – rather than sent by overloaded trains above ground right through the middle of EVERY little town and big city between the oil sands and the NY ports … Where they will be emptied into barges and sent downstream on open rivers, then to be re-pumped into above ground storage tanks, then to be pumped into oil tankers in the middle of NY harbors to go overseas …
By the way, all those excess union jobs on the trains, in the transfer yards, on the barges, in the next transfer yards, and on those ports would be threatened by pumping oil safely underground directly to the non-union southern ports ….
Think THAT has anything to do with the forces sending money and political encouragement to the protesters ans POLITICIANS opposing this?
Tar actually has been mined by people for various uses for hundreds of years, just maybe not on a large scale for fuel use in internal combustion engines. http://www.sjvgeology.org/history/tarpits_hist.html
But today however, Suncor does it profitably on an industrial scale. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SU+Profile
I interpreted the dear Mr Hansen’s words differently than Anthony did. I heard them the same way I suspect Mr. Blackstone heard them to mean. Does that make me a non-lemming? Ad Hominem! It’s all the the alarmists got left!
Query me this. What’s the difference between an atom of carbon emitted by the burning on a liter of methane from a natural gas well produced in the Eagle Ford field in south Texas and an atom of carbon produced from the burning of “unconventional” fossil fuels? These people are intellectually pathetic.
Even though Warren Buffett’s railroad profits from hauling oil, he said on a recent CNBC interview that he would vote in favor of Keystone XL. And he is an Obama supporter.
Hansen: “We’re screwing our children and our grandchildren”
the grandchildren prince charles wants to come back as a virus to annihilate?
the grandchildren suzuki refers to as maggots?
those grandchildren?
Chad Wozniak says:
March 13, 2014 at 4:27 pm
@Gamecock – Game just might not be over despite Obama and Kerry, the way Democrats like Landrieu, Menendez and Manchin might be coming around to support it. Veto-proof majority in Congress? I don’t think that’s impossible. Democrats don’t want to dig themselves any deeper than they already are.
================================
Obama will be President until January, 2017. Nothing changes til then.
– – – – – – – –
gnomish,
Pity the grandchildren of those who have no intellectual integrity.
They will live in their grandparent’s looming shadow.
To break free of their grandparent’s intellectual legacy handicaps them.
John
Isn’t the emotional flatness of a true expert, a wonder to admire. Why, I think I stopped using language in this LOADED, EMOTIONALLY LADEN, LUDICROUS manner, when I was…what…about 13 years old? Oh that would be when I joined the Civil Air Patrol, and learned Military drill and ceremonies and had my first introduction to regimented civility, and objective communication standards. I’m sure Hansen has had…oh wait, never mind. I’ve seen his bio. No Military service. AH! Now I understand, they evidently don’t promote civility of language and non-emotional communication at institutions of “higher learning”. Ah yes, hence came the hippies and “war protesters”. SILLY ME!
@Gamecock –
I didn’t say likely – just not impossible. But in any event, we’re stuck with der Fuehrer till 1/20/17, as you say – unless Congress somehow, after the 2014 elections (assuming his Hitlerness doesn’t cancel them) can find it in itself to impeach him. This lawsuit from the House of Representatives to compel him to obey the law is a pathetic exercise in rank stinking cowardice if ever there was. They could at least have shaken things up a little by introducing articles of impeachment. He’s certainly done enough to warrant that.
RACookPE1978 says;
Oh no. The pipeline isn’t going anywhere near NY. It goes south from here. Multiple refineries between here and the gulf of Mexico. I do agree with the rest though.
Science editor-in-cheif, Marcia McNutt just endorsed Keystone. In his book, Energy for Future Presidents, Richard Muller says one of the main issues is energy security and that means having enough liquid fuel for transportation. I hope Hansen’s toning down of his hysterics means sanity will return to Washington.
http://priceofoil.org/2012/03/07/new-kxl-route-within-weeks/