Posted on 01/13/2011 4:44:19 PM PST by Signalman
The NASA scientist at the heart of the global warming fiasco seems set to stir more controversy after declaring in an op ed piece for The South China Morning Post and a personally published follow-up that American democracy is not competent to deal with global warming, and communist China now represents the worlds best hope.
In the op ed piece for the Chinese newspaper, which he entitled Chinese Leadership Needed to Save Humanity (published as The Price of Change) Hansen placed the blame for the vast majority of Co2 emissions supposedly causing global warming on his home country of America, and appealed to China not to follow the same path. Hansen said that China was the worlds best hope and called for them to lead the world through the most dangerous crisis that humanity and nature have ever faced.
In a follow-up article published on his website Hansen calls Americans barbarians and slams American democracy, calling for China to raise tariffs on American-made products until such time as America falls into line.
He recalls with some bitterness how the findings on fuel efficiency that he and his A-Team (as he calls it) of crack scientists came up with were held up for years by the democratic and judicial process in the United States:
We won the court case, yet appeals stretched the time of action for years. I came away feeling that not only is it nearly impossible to get effective legislation through Congress, but that the special interests can prevent implementation almost interminably. Democracy of the sort intended in 1776 probably could have dealt with climate change, but not the fossil-money-democracy that now rules the roost in Washington.
James Hansen, China and the Barbarians.
The declaration that American democracy (as he sarcastically refers to it as) cannot cope with climate change, and that the world must look to the Chinese communist dictatorship to lead is bound to be controversial.
What is potentially even more controversial is that Hansen goes on to condemn the current democratic system in America as dysfunctional as it will not enact the carbon taxes he has been calling for. All is not lost, though, as he advises the Chinese government what to do about Congress in a truly incredible passage in his letter:
However, there is a way around that, which becomes obvious with the realization that an initially modest carbon fee is in Chinas own interest. After agreement with other nations, e.g., the European Union, China and these nations could impose rising internal carbon fees. Existing rules of the World Trade Organization would allow collection of a rising border duty on products from all nations that do not have an equivalent internal carbon fee or tax.
The United States then would be forced to make a choice. It could either address its fossil fuel addiction with a rising carbon fee and supportive national investment policies or it could accept continual descent into second-rate and third-rate economic well-being.
My reading of this is that Hansen is advising a foreign, communist dictatorship how to circumvent American democracy and force (his word) America into either kow-towing over carbon taxes, or accepting continual descent. It is truly breath-taking that a federal employee seems able to get away with such seemingly unpatriotic activity without any reprimand or disciplinary action.
Hansen concludes his remarkable personal advice by expressing his hope that China will be able to find good barbarians (i.e. compliant Westerners) to help it participate in effective policy. As he observes, the great thing about China is that they are not bound by the inconveniences of democracy, such as elections and accountability and can simply impose decisions by diktat:
I have the impression that Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps because of the long history of their culture, in contrast to the West with its short election cycles. At the same time China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly.
Hansen also claimed that if no action was taken, and all fossil fuels were burnt, then sea levels would rise by 75 metres (246 feet).
What a retard. Does he have any idea what controls on China does not have??
Send Hansen to live in one of those empty cities China built, let him calculate the damage to the environment of building whole cities that aren’t used.
I'm laughing so hard at this headline, I can hardly type.
Thanks very much for the chuckle.
Is there even enough ice at the poles to do that?
Hansen makes a convincing case- for zeroing out NASA's budget.
Because the US is now owned by China.
” calling for China to raise tariffs on American-made products until such time as America falls into line.”
This guy should be ridden out of town on a rail!
Saw something that said it was tried.
As long as the elevator isn’t stopped at or below that floor, yes, he should be shown the door.
Defund NASA until this Ivy League Overlord, Marxist apparatchik resigns in shame.
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