Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen

NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fears.

[ See: UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]

Sampling of Key Information about NASA’s James Hansen (for full articles, see below):

1) The oil money's paltry contribution pales in comparison to the well funded alarmist industry. (LINK)

3) Hansen’s Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis challenged by UN Scientists and new peer-reviewed studies. (LINK) & (LINK) & (LINK)

4) Hansen who alleged Bush administration muzzled him -- did 1,400 on-the-job media interviews (LINK)

6) Hansen Claims 1988 Hottest Day Testimony was result of being ‘lucky’ – ‘We were just lucky’ (LINK)

7) Senator Admits Hot Day and AC Failure during Hansen’s 1988 Testimony was ‘Stagecraft’ (LINK)

8) An August 2007 NASA temperature data error discovery has lead to 1934 -- not the previously hyped 1998 -- being declared the hottest in U.S. history since records began. (LINK)

9) Hansen Received $250,000 from partisan Heinz Foundation & Endorsed Dem. John Kerry for Pres. in 2004 (LINK)

12) Hansen conceded that use of “extreme scenarios" to dramatize climate change “may have been appropriate at one time” (LINK)

UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' – June 23, 2008

Excerpt: Veteran climate scientist James Hansen is marking the twentieth anniversary of his seminal speech to the US Congress on global warming by calling for oil company execs to be locked up for denying global warming.

UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 Excerpt: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist· Speech to US Congress will also criticise lobbyists· 'Revolutionary' policies needed to tackle crisis - James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer. Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable. Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading. [Note: See March 2008 report on how skeptics reveal “horror stories” of scientific suppression and the July 2007 comprehensive report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK ] Reality Check: Challenge to Hansen's funding data claims. The oil money's paltry contribution pales in comparison to the well funded alarmist industry. See full funding report here:

Excerpt: Newsweek reporter Eve Conant was given the documentation showing that proponents of man-made global warming have been funded to the tune of $50 BILLION in the last decade or so, but the Magazine chose instead to focus on how skeptics have reportedly received a paltry $19 MILLION from ExxonMobil over the last two decades. Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter, who has testified before the Senate Environment & Public Works committee, explained how much money has been spent researching and promoting climate fears and so-called solutions. “In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US50 billion on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one," Carter wrote on June 18, 2007.

Earth has COOLED since Hansen’s Dire Climate Warning in 1988 - According to Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo

See how global temperatures have declined according to NASA satellites since Hansen’s first testimony in June of 1988. See temperature chart HERE.

Excerpt: Here is the plot of actual NASA satellite monthly temperatures since June 1988. Note we are colder than in 1988. See larger image here His testimony will no doubt include reference to upcoming or ongoing dangerous rises in sea level and ignore the data. See larger image here He will also no doubt repeat his claim he is being muzzled. He confuses a muzzle with a megaphone as shown by this table of actual Hansen media references by year.

What Muzzling? Chart documenting James Hansen’s Massive Media Megaphone – By Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado.

June 23, 2008: Hansen’s Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis challenged by UN Scientist! – (By Richard Courtney, DipPhil, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant.)

Excerpt: The present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW-hypothesis is wrong; i.e. 1. There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature. 2. Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to global temperature at all time scales. 3. Recent rise in global temperature has not been induced by rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present (i.e. mid-2008). This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940. But atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a near-constant rate and by more than 30% since 1940. 4. Rise in global temperature has not been induced by increase to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. More than 80% of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide has been since 1940 and the increase to the emissions has been at a compound rate of ~0.4% p.a. throughout that time. But that time has exhibited 40 years of cooling with only 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940. 5. The pattern of atmospheric warming predicted by the AGW hypothesis is absent. The AGW hypothesis predicts most warming of the atmosphere at altitude distant from polar regions. Radiosonde measurements from weather balloons show slight cooling at altitude distant from polar regions. The above list provides a complete refutation of the AGW-hypothesis according to the normal rules of science.: i.e. Nothing the hypothesis predicts is observed in the empirical data and the opposite of the hypothesis' predictions is observed in the empirical data. But politicians and advocates adhere to the hypothesis. They have a variety of motives (i.e. personal financial gain, protection of their career histories and futures, political opportunism, etc..). But support of science cannot be one such motive because science denies the hypothesis. Hence, additional scientific information cannot displace the AGW-hypothesis and cannot silence its advocates (e.g. Hansen). And those advocates are not scientists despite some of them claiming that they are. United Kingdom

Hansen’s Science Claims Continue to be Challenged - June 20, 2008 - Ivy League Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack Challenges ‘Consensus’ View of CO2’s role in Climate Change (Giegengack is from the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Bio Link & Peer-Reviewed Research Link Excerpt: We know (or we surmise) from model reconstructions (e.g. Berner, Royer, Cerling, and many others) that the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere has been higher, indeed much higher, than it is now for most of Earth history, but the average surface temperature has varied over much smaller amplitude than the greenhouse-gas concentration. If the influence of growing concentrations of greenhouse gases can be isolated from all the other factors that control Earth-surface temperature, we might be able to measure the role of CO2 concentration as a forcing mechanism directly, but we are not there and we probably can't get there (the system is far too complex). If we could get there, we would learn that the relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature is not linear. There have been times in Earth history when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were 5, 10, even 15 TIMES the present concentration, and the climate of Earth still supported animals not unlike ourselves. Indeed, the average CO2 concentration of the atmosphere, if Berner, Royer, Cerling, etc. are to be believed (and they began this work before the history of composition of the atmosphere carried any political implication), has been about 5 times the present concentration. […] One or another Pole has supported a "permanent" ice sheet only for 5-10% of Earth history. […] The bottom line is: it ain't that simple. CO2 is a player, but not the primary, and maybe not even a major, player in controlling, or "forcing," Earth temperature. (LINK)

Washington Times: Scientist Hansen who alleged Bush administration muzzled him -- did 1,400 on-the-job media interviews – March 20, 2007

Excerpt: Hansen Claims NASA Muzzled Him – But - A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he'd done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn't want his message to get out. But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced. "We have over 1,400 opportunities that you've availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.

Skeptical Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, Formerly of NASA, Reveals Being Muzzled – June 3, 2008

See June 3, 2008 report: Media Double-Standard on Global Warming "Censorship" – (LINK)

Excerpt: A NOTE ON NASA'S JAMES HANSEN BEING MUZZLED BY NASA - I see that we are once again having to hear how NASA's James Hansen was dissuaded from talking to the press on a few of the 1,400 media interviews he was involved in over the years. Well, I had the same pressure as a NASA employee during the Clinton-Gore years, because NASA management and the Clinton/Gore administration knew that I was skeptical that mankind's CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming. I was even told not to give my views during congressional testimony, and so I purposely dodged a question, under oath, when it arose. But I didn't complain about it like Hansen has. NASA is an executive branch agency and the President was, ultimately, my boss (and is, ultimately, Hansen's boss). So, because of the restrictions on what I could and couldn't do or say, I finally just resigned from NASA and went to work for the university here in Huntsville. There were no hard feelings, and I'm still active in a NASA satellite mission and fully supportive of its Earth observation programs. In stark contrast, Jim Hansen said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to the press and congress during that time. He even campaigned for John Kerry, and received a $250,000 award from Theresa Heinz-Kerry's charitable foundation -- two events he maintains are unrelated. If I had done anything like this when I worked at NASA, I would have been crucified under the Hatch Act. Does anyone besides me see a double standard here? -Roy W. Spencer

Click here: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b6a8baa3-802a-23ad-4650-cb6a01303a65

"James Hansen, the director of the agency's [NASA's] Goddard Institute for Space Studies, received a $250,000 grant from the charitable foundation headed by former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz. Subsequent to the Heinz Foundation grant, Hansen publicly endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004, a political endorsement considered to be highly unusual for a NASA scientist.":
http://www.freedom.org/news/200607/12/morano.phtml

James Hansen, from October 2004:

"Several years ago I received the Heinz Environment Award. I don't know who nominated me for that award or how the selection works."

"I am confident that it has no impact on my evaluation of the climate problem or on my political leanings."

"In the upcoming election I will vote for John Kerry."

Source: Columbia University.edu [pdf]:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf

Also see: Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12187

NASA's Hansen Mentioned in [George] Soros Foundation's Annual Report:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/26/nasa-s-hansen-mentioned-soros-foundations-annual-report

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

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The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at this relationship between temps and CO2 levels and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the graph indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000 year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these 4 past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise.-ETL

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"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present.":
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

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So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

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Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

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