I think you nailed it on the head.
The term Faustian is used three times in the article, a little heavy-handed IMO.
I found this interesting:
“Hansen argues that the impact of human carbon dioxide emissions has been masked by the sharp increase in coal use, primarily in China and India.”
Increased coal use is usually presented as increasing, not decreasing coal use. So the warmists should make up their minds. Does increased coal use warm the environment? Or cool the environment? China, India are waiting with bated breath to hear the answer. Also, Obama might want to stop his war on coal-fired powerplants if they actually combat global warming. Closing these powerplants will hurt the economy and might, according to Hansen, warm the environment.
In the mid 70s there was concern about global cooling. For an example, you can do a search on “The Cooling World” to find an article from Newsweek. (Also, a search on “James Hansen Global Cooling” turns up some hits.) There had been 30 years of cooling and the environmentalists/socialists demanded that the government take action.
They thought the cooling might have been due to particles emitted by mankind. Which brings us to the next paragraph:
“Increased particulate and nitrogen pollution has worked in the opposite direction of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.”
The warmists have never, to my knowledge, addressed why global cooling ended, and why global warming began. Did we reduce our emissions of particles, thereby stopping cooling and starting warming? Perhaps government policy, advocated by environmentalists, caused global warming. Surely, that was not their intent, but that may be what happened.
Correction. I meant:
Increased coal use is usually presented as increasing, not decreasing global temperatures.
They deny there ever was 'scientifically accepted' global cooling; therefore, they don't need to explain how/why it ended.
Their line of BS is that "most reputable" scientists in the field of the time quietly observed warming, while a very few scientists made "questionable and sensationalist" claims about cooling that "were never supported by reputable climate researchers"; but which were hyped in the popular press. Very Fenwickian bunch, they are.
