From the Powerline blog:
Nebraska attorney Dave Begley is our faithful Omaha correspondent. Dave reports: (video follows)
Friday night in a crowd of 500 to 700 people at Creighton University it appeared that I was not only the only conservative, I was also the only person who was thinking clearly and critically. One of global warming’s oldest and most revered leaders, Dr. James Hansen, spoke prior to his protest at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting on Saturday. I have never heard such nonsense in my life. He gave a rambling and incoherent presentation for nearly two hours. Three times he forgot the question or lost his train of thought. Since the Jesuits taught me logic, I could easily identity his use of the context, bulls-eye, omission and appeal to authority fallacies.
…
The really shocking thing for me was how many times he contradicted himself and made admissions against interest. If he was under oath and subject to cross examination at a trial, Power Line’s own John Hinderaker would carve him up.
…
His main assertion was that the ice sheets were melting and it was causing the sea level to rise. He predicted that coastal cities would be under water. No date given. Not even a range of dates. And he never identified man as the cause of this impending disaster and that gradual warming is not just the natural evolution of the Earth over time. One young woman asked him “when Earth will be uninhabitable.” Hansen assured her that would not happen in her lifetime but it was still an emergency. Act now!
The deadline aspect of the CAGW scam is actually quite important. Doomsday is coming but no range of dates is given. If a date is given it is so far off that you will forget that the prediction was made when the date passes or you will be dead due to natural causes. But it is essential for the government to spend other people’s money now to save Mother Earth.
Howler number one: Violence between nations is caused by global warming. Tell that to ISIS. Howler number two: It is too hot to work outside. No lawn mowing this summer by your kids. Howler number three: 10,000 people per day die due to air pollution. I suspect that if that number is accurate, people are not dying from carbon dioxide poisoning. Howler number four: His predictions about future events based upon his models were “as certain at the law of gravity.” Roll over, Newton, tell Einstein the news.
…
I asked the first question. I reminded the Iowa native that he was in the home city of the Union Pacific Railroad and it has had recent significant layoffs due to a serious decline in coal car loadings. I then asked him, since his models have been mostly wrong for 30 years, why we should believe his models were any more accurate in predicting the disaster that is going to hit when everyone in the room was dead 70 years from now.
He asserted that his predictions were not based upon models but “observable evidence.” False. He dodged, stalled and avoided. He threw out some numbers and put up a slide depicting the Hiroshima bomb explosion. His answer was non-responsive. If I could have cross examined him at length I would have destroyed his answer, but he knew the format.
James Hansen is not impressive at all. If he is the best the Greens have, we conservatives should win this fight. The whole CAGW scam is based upon speculation and the veneer of science. The proposed remedies are costly fantasies. Their only real solution is to tax Americans back into pre-industrial poverty.
(added) Here is part 3 of a four parts video where the question is asked:
The caption for the video reads:
At the request of Nebraskans for Peace, Dr. James Hansen came to Omaha Nebraska to speak in favor of the shareholder resolution regarding climate change that NFP had placed on the agenda for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting. Nebraskans for Peace worked primarily with Dr. Richard Miller at Creighton University to have Dr. Hansen give an informative lecture about his work to stop global warming and climate change from getting much worse.
Full report here h/t to reader QQboss
It should be noted that Berkshire Hathaway shareholders rejected Hansen’s nonsense in a vote.
aneipris wrote at May 1, 2016 at 3:28 am
“I have to fight against feeling sorry for this guy. I bet if they hooked him up to a polygraph, he’d pass. I have personal experience with delusional people, and this is how they talk, with vague associations, faulty logic, and above all, absolute rock solid certainty.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how many of us have seen the light if our political masters have been convinced otherwise. Here in Canada we have a completely sold prime minister, and his minister for the environment and climate change is equally as much a believer (as are the leaders of the majority of our provincial governments). The same is true (for the moment, anyway) of the president of the USA and any number of other Western leaders. As long as they believe (facts don’t count) we have no power.
Ian M
Wikipedia: Citizens Climate Lobby
Also operates in Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Climate_Lobby
Scroll down to: Special Activities Canada, # 9
James Hansen is affiliated with this organization. Follow the link on the Wikipedia page to Citizens Climate Lobby website
ENGOs operating in both Canada and the U.S. are issues that need to be taken seriously by people.
Clean burning diesel vehicles need to be maintained. On this little BC island, the VW and Volvo asthma bombs, spewing rancid cod and fries fumes and soot, as their owners close their eyes as they pass beneath power lines, are a much worse threat to us all than all the Roundup, smart meters and 2-cycle mowers in the entire province, maybe the country. And they would have ME incarcerated because I sometimes watch Fox News. It’s also that time of year when they start commiserating about the shortage of Scottish Broom pullers and gypsy moth traps. Meself? Roundup and BTK. And a gas mask.
Being that my grass is covered by snow, I can’t tell if it needs cutting.
Janus100
May 1, 2016 at 3:56 am
Please check into the facts a bit more.
Modern diesels do not have any particulate missions to speak of.
So what is the black smoke exactly?
An oil burning not well maintained diesel that needs an overhaul…..
Is it just me, or are most diesels burning biofuels these days? Because whenever I’m behind one, I feel like I’m following the fryer from the local diner.
It’s difficult to understand but the majority of those attending lectures like this crave hearing this drivel. That young woman gets satisfaction in her belief that the world is becoming uninhabitable. There is usually no amount of evidence that will alter her belief.
Hansen is no different than an end of the world preacher who preys on people like that. It’s a win, win for those two zealots.
“Roll over, Newton, tell Einstein the news.”
Nice.
When will the Earth become uninhabitable? That one’s easy: When Sol becomes a red giant 6 billion years from now.
Not to quibble Dan, but we probably only have a billion years left until earth becomes uninhabitable. While its true that in six billion years (give or take a year or two) the sun will become a red giant and the outer atmosphere of the sun will expand to earth’s orbit, in about a billion years the sun will have become hot enough to start boiling off the oceans. The sun is gradually increasing in heat and our drop dead date is one billion years from now.
(Unless we can figure out a way a put a giant window shade between the the sun and us. Or change the earth’s orbit a bit to push it further away from the sun. That might buy us another five billion years or so. )
Of course considering that all of multicellular life on earth is 545 million years old (give or take a year or two) I think we might just figure something out in a billion years.
I wonder how much Nebraskans for Peace paid him and where Nebraskans for Peace’s funding comes from.
“…..His main assertion was that the ice sheets were melting and it was causing the sea level to rise. He predicted that coastal cities would be under water. No date given. Not even a range of dates. And he never identified man as the cause of this impending disaster and that gradual warming is not just the natural evolution of the Earth over time. One young woman asked him “when Earth will be uninhabitable.” Hansen assured her that would not happen in her lifetime but it was still an emergency. Act now!
The deadline aspect of the CAGW scam is actually quite important. Doomsday is coming but no range of dates is given. If a date is given it is so far off that you will forget that the prediction was made when the date passes or you will be dead due to natural causes. But it is essential for the government to spend other people’s money now to save Mother Gaia…..”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerism
Every time I read about the gloom-and-doom-end-of the-world predictions of the climate alarmist and environmental activists that have been made over the past four and a half decades since the first Earth Day in 1970, I keep looking back with fascination at how this parallels with the Millerite Movement back in the 1830s and 40s.
William Miller, the founder of the movement, was doing similar things back then. His source though was the Bible, not a faulty scientific theory that has morphed into a religious dogma or orthodoxy. But everything else was there back then as it is today; the predictions of gloom-and-doom, the faithful followers of the dogma, and the national attention the movement received. Miller even set specific dates for events that never came true, since known as the “Great Disapointment”.
Today’s climate alarmist MIllerite followers and believers are apparently not into the study of history as I am. I find the parallels between then and today quite fascinating to ponder….to say the least. Those who do not heed anything from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat their mistakes.
If it comes in my remaining lifetime, I patiently await the climate alarmist “Great Disappointment”.
Another famous doomsday was The Church of the Subgenius’ “X-Day.” It was the day when the saucers would land from Planet X would land on the planet Earth and destroy the world of “normals”, “pinks”, and “glorps,” while the members of the Church of the SubGenius would be rescued by the aliens and taken away into space.
It was predicted to occur on July 5, 1998, and thousands gathered at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman, NY to await the arrival. When nothing took place many theories were put forth to explain the nonevent. Rev. Ivan Stang, the main spokesman for the church, then suggested that perhaps he had been reading the date upside down, and that it wouldn’t occur until 8651, whereupon he was immediately thrown into a nearby lake.
JAMES HANSEN — Death Train Hansen
Always Good For A Laugh
More holy than thou
He warns you of Venus
The only thing now
That hardens his penis
he rants at the crowds
A coot with the hypers
His mind in the clouds
A load in his diapers
He quotes from the Greens —
We work for the many
(But really that means
They’re after the money)
He quotes from the Reds —
Consensus is dictum
(Good socialist heads
Are all up one rectum)
A Fascist he cries
This Goebbels of weather
The truth is in lies
The bigger the better
So just like a skunk
His sight is alarming
His science is junk
There’s no global warming
Eugene WR Gallun
You owe me a keyboard!!!!!!!! Best. EVAH!!!
“as certain at the law of gravity.”
=============
the law of gravity is well known. Even still, we can only calculate the future orbits of 2 objects. As soon as you add a third, the ability to predict the future breaks down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem
This is the basis of chaos and the Lorenz butterfly.
http://scienceblogs.com/greengabbro/wp-content/blogs.dir/265/files/2012/04/i-d600c0b7a24e0b239cc42c86d4f0fe1c-lorenz-attractor.jpg
So, knowing the Law of Gravity, we still cannot predict the future, except in the simplest case. Climate is considerably more complex, it represents the n-body problem, which is inherently why it cannot be predicted reliably.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
Talking about gravity the n-body problem
Another comet second within a week (last 25/04/16) has dived into sun. At this rate solar system is going to run out of comets (but good news is) before there is a chance of one hitting the Earth.
In the Nasa’s soho image it can be clearly seen how its tail grows longer as it approaches its demise.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.mp4
Hansen’s story about energy accumulation in the oceans because of an imbalance caused by CO2 in the atmosphere is delivered with such a doctoral tone that everyone is supposed to believe it without any proof. This is called climate catechesis.
The author of this post states “He asserted that his predictions were not based upon models but “observable evidence.” False. He dodged, stalled and avoided. He threw out some numbers and put up a slide depicting the Hiroshima bomb explosion. His answer was non-responsive.”
I watched the video and I completely disagree. Hansen did an excellent job of stating the empirical evidence supporting the contention that the earth (in particular the oceans) are warming as a result of the human caused increase in CO2. It is time to stop denying the evidence and start contributing to the discussion on how to solve the most pressing environmental issue humans have ever faced.
Hansen did an excellent job of stating the empirical evidence supporting the contention that the earth (in particular the oceans) are warming as a result of the human caused increase in CO2
That’s kinda interesting since Hansen’s theory is that
a) CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs LW radiation which;
b) warms the atmosphere, which;
c) warms the oceans and the land, but;
d) the land warms faster than the oceans
With none of a,b,c and d happening, Hansen (and you) wants to hang onto this theory, and we are to believe that:
e) in particular the oceans is occurring without a,b,c and d.
This is the equivalent of claiming that apples fall up into the sky, and when directed to apples laying on the ground underneath the tree, exclaiming see! I told you so!
The apples on the ground are merely resting.
Nebraskan’s for Peace?! Holy crap, does this nonsense NEVER go away? I was living in Omaha in 1984. They were stupid enough to try to bring a RUSSIAN Air Force general into town to give a talk on why Korean Air flight deserved to be shot down as it was a “spy” flight. Evidently it was to be a closed talk, but someone got hold of the “internal” advertisement and it “got out”. Of course the talk never came to happen (some doubt if it really was a personal appearance or just a VCR video or recording) but the true driving force of the “Nebraskans for Peace” was suddenly brought to light. Now back in the ’80’s it was all the “Nuclear Freeze” and “anti-nuclear” power. Amazing how these groups never go away, they just morph into the next generation of crazy.
It was largely Hansen’s claim that Venus was a “runaway” , http://CoSy.com/Science/Hansen.avi , which so offended my sense of physics I got involved in understanding the physics myself . I was and continue to be appalled by the lack of any presentation of the most basic quantitative equations supporting his claim that some spectral effect can trap heat to a surface temperature 225% that of a gray ball next to Venus in orbit . I’m perhaps appalled most by the almost universal lack of curiosity about the enabling physics at this fundamental level .
In fact , of course , no such equations nor experimental demonstration exist . The GHG heat trapping explanation for the bottoms of planetary atmospheres being hotter than the gray body temperature in their orbits is simply false . And false at the level of undergraduate physics .
The people who believe it are the same ones who believe you can terraform mars without increasing its mass, resurrecting its gravitational field and supplying a moon to keep it active.
“If he is the best the Greens have, we conservatives should win this fight.” Well, we can win the science fight, but since big, big money is backing the CAGW scare, I suspect that many battles will be lost until the “war” is won.
Funny, Hansen says at the ten minute mark that we should not be subsidizing any energy forms. How about that!
I think your perfectly reasonable question was over shadowed by Hansen’s “bullshit beats brains” and unfortunately it worked very well according to the applause received when his “answer” was finished.
In other words he is very good at his game and although probably no-one in the audience followed his answer right through, (certainly didn’t), it sounded so good and authoritative that most normal people swallowed his message – that being – AGW is fact, its here, its dangerous to us all and we need to spend your money now!
Very hard to beat this guy in the forum of this meeting – of course one could make mince meat of him in a proper debate, but like all authoritative greens I have met – he will avoid a fair debate of facts like the plague.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Homer Simpson is modelled on James Hansen.
Whose name in turn might have been inspired by the phrase, “homo simp.”
Question…..if the “climate scientists” and the IPCC are so certain of their warnings about sea level rise, etc., then why is the UN spending billions on renovating their building which is only 150 feet away from the East River in NYC? Wouldn’t you think they would be looking for higher ground?
Joey,
Good point although they could simply move up a floor or two and use boats:)
Here is the google view.
https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/United+Nations+Headquarters/@40.7448298,-73.9686024,505a,20y,41.58t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x89c2591ce0874d11:0xc5fae28bdd3df635!2sUnited+Nations+Headquarters!3m1!1s0x89c2591ce0874d11:0xc5fae28bdd3df635
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Hansen Big Think Interview
http://bigthink.com/videos/big-think-interview-with-james-hansen
Hansen on runaway greenhouse and melting antarctica
“Question: How long would this take to occur if we stay on this path?
James Hansen: Well, you would have to — first of all, you’d have to melt the ice sheets, and that takes a while. The Antarctic ice sheet is a couple miles thick. But with continued rapid increase in greenhouse gases, that — you could melt the ice sheets in less than a century. “
Thanks mike.
I have never in my life heard anything more stupid or ignorant than this.
He has lost his mind.
When one talks to a room full of blind believers, you can say ANYTHING and it will be swallowed hook, line and sinker. I have seen this myself on a few occasions when I was the lone sceptic/ “denier.” What was disturbing last time is that they knew there were 3 sceptics in the theatre and knew who we were.
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die..” –Max Planck
Within 20 years, the Sun will go back into its sleep phase, and the climate will respond with great cooling. I’m the meanwhile, many of the radicals who’ve been pushing this political agenda will have died of old age.
The only thing that can save this political movement then will be if they’ve been able to setup an Orwellian government that can force people to believe:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
AND
Cold is Hot
simple physics experiment on melting ice in water. Put several ice cubes in a container of water, and carefully measure the depth of the mixture. After the ice has melted, measure the depth of the mixture. The levels are the same.
That refutation only applies to ice caps on the ocean, not ice caps on land mass, which can drain into the ocean…and which has been the cause of the ocean rise over the millenia.
Just remember the benefits of age. I am 65 years old and have had the benefit of living in the same place for the vast majority of my life. Nothing has changed. The seasons are the same. I ask: have the high tides been increasing their level? No one has that answer. Meanwhile, life goes on. What those audiences need are more old-timers who can personally testify that Hanson is an idiot, based on personal observation of the climate.
While many people do not follow every detail emerging in the back and forth of climate “science” debate, they can often spot a shifty promoter using dodgy logic to peddle bogus goods.
This guy is a unique treasure and should be encouraged to continue inflicting damage on junk science — and other junk scientists.
By all means, let the man speak! Pay him, if necessary. It’s money well spent.