[essex]

Icecap Note: Read this excellent post by Anthony Watts entitled “If Global Warming was a Company Decision, How Would You Vote?” on Hansen and his latest ”cognitive dissonance” outburst. Instead of suing big oil, I think the American people ought to seriously consider going after Hansen and Gore who are as much responsible for the energy and food crises by turning a minor largely natural cyclical change into a earth threatening man-made disaster by manipulating both science and data. Environmental groups and some politicians share the blame and if we can’t sue them, we can stop donating to their causes and/or kick the bums out of office. Maybe we can put Boxer’s picture on Unleaded, Gore on high test and Hansen on Deisel pumps to remind folks where the blame really lies. In this Washington Post story, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the bill’s failure was proof that Hansen’s message had not caught on. “Hansen, Gore, and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it,” Inhofe said. “It’s back to the drawing board for Hansen and company as the alleged ‘consensus’ over man-made climate fears continues to wane and more and more scientists declare their dissent.”

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', 'G')raeme, your posts lately have been losing quality and substance faster than Mexico's Cantarell field is depleting. I have to wonder what you are thinking when you post so many far-out and ridiculous articles such as this one. Especially lately. I haven't put you on my ignore list up until now, but I have finally decided to do so. If and when you ever decide to start posting something that is actually useful and worthwhile, I might decide to start reading your threads again. Until then, take care.

[Peleg]

Jim has sort of cracked under the pressure of having the cable tow yanked back on him a few times by the Bushies. I feel for him, but anyone who is climate change aware and peak oil blind is too narrowly focused in my opinion to be able to help at this point.

[Plantagenet]

Can we prosecute the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund lawyers and all the "ecologists" who blocked nuclear power plants in the 70s and forced utilities to build unneccessary coal-fired power plants?

The coal-fired plants that the Sierra Club is responsible for generated huge amounts of CO2 pollution and made a significant contribution to greenhouse warming.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', 'G')raeme, your posts lately have been losing quality and substance faster than Mexico's Cantarell field is depleting. I have to wonder what you are thinking when you post so many far-out and ridiculous articles such as this one. Especially lately. I haven't put you on my ignore list up until now, but I have finally decided to do so. If and when you ever decide to start posting something that is actually useful and worthwhile, I might decide to start reading your threads again. Until then, take care.

[threadbear]

Drifter and American dream--You are frothing at the mouth and also completely misrepresenting what Graeme is trying to accomplish with his posts, or so it seems. He doesn't seem to be a cornucopian. He simply posts alternative energy articles on occasion. But, by all means, get out your cyber pitchforks and chase him down the electronic highway and then give him the lynching of his life. It would suit your style.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'D')rifter and American dream--You are frothing at the mouth and also completely misrepresenting what Graeme is trying to accomplish with his posts, or so it seems. He doesn't seem to be a cornucopian. He simply posts alternative energy articles on occasion. But, by all means, get out your cyber pitchforks and chase him down the electronic highway and then give him the lynching of his life. It would suit your style.

[Graeme]

Thanks for your support, threadbear.

For goodness sake people, calm down otherwise this thread will be moved to Hall of Flames. What we're talking about now is not the topic of the thread.

Lets just see what is reported in the media about this speech in congress over the next few days.

[Graeme]

Here's a longer more informative article by NYT

Years Later, Climatologist Renews His Call for Action

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')wenty years ago Monday, James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, shook Washington and the world by telling a sweating crowd at a Senate hearing during a stifling heat wave that he was “99 percent” certain that humans were already warming the climate.

“The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now,” Dr. Hansen said then, referring to a recent string of warm years and the accumulating blanket of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other gases emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels and forests.


On Monday, Dr. Hansen, 67, plans to testify at a House committee hearing that it is almost, but not quite, too late to start defusing what he calls the “global warming time bomb.” He will offer a plan for cuts in emissions and also a warning about the risks of further inaction.

“If we don’t begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years, and really on a very different course, then we are in trouble,” Dr. Hansen said Friday at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which he has directed since 1981. “Then the ice sheets are in trouble. Many species on the planet are in trouble.”

Dr. Hansen said the United States must begin a sustained effort to exploit new energy sources and phase out unfettered burning of finite fossil fuels, starting with a moratorium on the construction of coal-burning power plants if they lack systems for capturing and burying carbon dioxide. Such systems exist but have not been tested at anywhere near the scale required to blunt emissions. Ultimately he is seeking a worldwide end to emissions from coal burning by 2030.

Another vital component, Dr. Hansen said, is a nationwide grid for distributing and storing electricity in ways that could accommodate large-scale use of renewable, but intermittent, energy sources like wind turbines and solar-powered generators.

The transformation would require new technology as well as new policies, particularly legislation promoting investments and practices that steadily reduce emissions.

Such an enterprise would be on the scale of past ambitious national initiatives, Dr. Hansen said, like the construction of the federal highway system and the Apollo space program.


Dr. Hansen said he had no regrets about stepping into the realm of policy, despite much criticism.

“I only regret that we haven’t gotten the story across as well as it needs to be,” he said. “And I think we’re running out of time.”

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '.').. I am damned well not going to engage in polite debate...

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', 'I') totally disagree. We have every choice at the pump. People can choose to live car-free if they really make the effort. Problem is, most people don't. Too lazy, too selfish, and too greedy. Sure, people want to 'save the planet' as long as it doesn't personally inconvenience them. And most people never ever look in the mirror for the cause of all our problems. That would mean taking personal responsibility. Can't have that, now can we?

The illusion must end now. Personal car ownership on a large scale has no future.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

We should listen to James Hansen if he arrives in Washington using Amtrak and Greyhound as his mode of transportation. He should be traveling about DC on the WMATA Metro as proof of his true beliefs. If not, then it is doublespeak. The media should watch what he does outside the lights and cameras as proof of the message.

The Washington Business Corporation has more big SUVs and big black limos in their parking lots (usually tax payers funded) than most private corporations have combined.

He may speak, but does he practice. We have a government that knew of the problem, but running the way they did made money for their pet projects, fixing true issue problems drains the reservoir.

A SIDE NOTE:

As of today, there is NO U.S. owned manufacturer of intercity buses or any rail transportation for passenger services (light rail, commuter or intercity). They all disappeared, the last to die off in the '90's which of course was during the Clinton Admin. There are just 1 or 2 city bus manufacturers left that are domestically owned, but a low percentage of sales. How the current PUBLIC transportation system operates with their bid process is appalling and created an environment that caused them to die.

Again, we are at the mercy of foreign corporations to bail us out if we seek alternative transportation.

[btu2012]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'Y')ou cannot, cannot, I tell you, run a global civilisation of 6.5 billion greedy rats on a finite earthly larder. Something has to give and given the current high jinks at both the level of sub-primey financial services hoo haa as well as the spectacle of a new commodties gold rush, I am blimmin well not going to sit back and engage in polite conversation any longer. This nonsense has to stop! I have no desire to spend my twilight years in a Mugabe style fcuk up. Zimbabwe, mate, is what happens, when you hide your head in the sand and pretend alls well on the night.

[btu2012]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', 'W')hy are you defending his posts?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MyOldTDiIsStillGoing', 'W')e should listen to James Hansen if he arrives in Washington using Amtrak and Greyhound as his mode of transportation. He should be traveling about DC on the WMATA Metro as proof of his true beliefs. If not, then it is doublespeak. The media should watch what he does outside the lights and cameras as proof of the message.

[Twilight]

There is no need to look for meaning in that comment, it was cynical media manipulation. He baited the line and the papers fell for it and gave him exposure he would not have received otherwise. Provocative statements like that usually backfire though; it is a quick way to end one's career looking like a crank. Yet with the sensationalism out of the way, there is little here of substance.

[Graeme]

Here is the actual transcript of Hansen's speech.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jlw61', ' ')"Switch to a small EV" I'd be all for that!

[Graeme]

This the first response I've seen from an American politician about Hansen's speech.

A modern-day Cassandra

Thoughts on the 20th anniversary of James Hansen's historic Congressional testimony

Posted by Representative Ed Markey (Guest Contributor)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy -- of seeing the future. But she was also cursed to have no one believe her. For far too many years, Dr. James Hansen has been a modern-day Cassandra. Gifted with a scientific training that allowed him to see the forces at work that are warming the planet, for too many years he was also not believed by many who chose to ignore or deny the scientific reality of global warming.

However, this is also a time of amazing opportunity. Climate change is a call to action. We have the opportunity to transform and grow our economy, and move into an era of energy independence. New green-collar jobs are ready to be unleashed, and we must direct our investment in the new low carbon economy.

This is why I have introduced the Investment in Climate Action and Protection Act, iCAP. It sets up a "cap and invest" system that is science-based, reducing emissions by 85 percent by 2050. The consumer-focused iCAP reinvests over half the proceeds in American families through tax credits and rebates. Eighty percent of Americans would receive benefits and two-thirds of U.S. households would be fully compensated for any cost increases from the bill. Finally, iCAP is technology-driven and invests trillions of dollars in efficiency and clean energy technologies that will be essential to protect our planet from the climate threat Dr. Hansen warned us of twenty years ago.

[Graeme]

Here's a response by Brian Beutler from the Guardian newspaper:

Confusing politics with science

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')oday, he's one of environmentalism's leading voices, encouraging mass action to confront (and abate) global warming, and he's in the news again for a couple different reasons.

On the one hand, he's loaned that voice to an ambitious project: stabilising atmospheric carbon concentrations at 350 parts per million.

On the other hand, he's also raising a little bit of hell. Appearing on Capitol Hill on Monday, 20 years to the day after he first warned the American government of the dangers of climate change, Hansen called for fossil fuel executives to "be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature". That goal is arguably more out of reach than the goal of reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

In other words, Hansen is worth more political capital as a cutting-edge scientist than as a crusading activist.

According to Hansen, though, the issue isn't a political disagreement about the costs and benefits of addressing the crisis. As he told the Guardian this week: "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."