Posted on 06/26/2008 7:49:12 AM PDT by ZGuy
On 23 June of this year (2008), James E. Hansen --Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- unleashed a tirade that was truly "beyond the pale" ... even for him. He said, among other things, that "climate is nearing dangerous tipping points," that if CO2 emissions follow a business-as-usual scenario, "sea level rise of at least two meters is likely this century," that "polar and alpine species will be pushed off the planet," that "ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution," and that "we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb." And he says that his conclusions "have a certainty exceeding 99 percent."
Well if they do, Hansen certainly didn't reach them via the scientific method; for there is likely no other scientist on earth that would give any credence at all to such an extreme claim, especially as it pertains to such a complex subject. And perhaps that is why U.S. House of Representatives member Ed Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts) is reported by Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein (23 June 2008) to have said "we recognize him as a climate prophet."
But why stop there? With a certainty exceeding 99%, Hansen may as well be recognized as a fledgling God.
Hansen's policy prescriptions for the planet are equally extreme and absolute: "we must draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide to preserve the planet we know," "we must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants," a carbon tax "is essential," and "CEOs of fossil energy companies ... should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."
But why even bother with trials? ... especially when we have an oracle whose views have "a certainty exceeding 99%" of being correct. Let's just rush out and see how fast we all can carry out his will.
Or perhaps we should actually examine Hansen's rantings just a bit. We have done so in some detail in one of the three major reports we have posted on our website: Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion, which carries the subtitle "A critique of the 26 April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled 'Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate'." Our report is lengthy, but the complexity of the subject demands much more than the curt contentious claims and dogmatic demands decreed by our "climate prophet."
In addition, we would call your attention to the new DVD we have recently released -- Carbon Dioxide and the "Climate Crisis" - Reality or Illusion? -- which presents the thoughts (and words) of many climate scientists who do not subscribe to the Gore-Hansen religion.
Truly, there is no place in science for the hubris displayed by Hansen in his recent rantings. In such crucial policy matters as where we should get the energy that sustains our way of life -- intimations of the tiniest impacts of which may be seen today in the form of exorbitant gas, oil and food prices (and in a world that has not warmed over the past decade) -- we must carefully test the predictions of climate models against a vast assemblage of real-world physical, chemical and biological data. To do anything less, and especially to bow down to this most recent and outrageous diatribe of Hansen, is to abandon all rationality and disavow our God-given ability to think for ourselves and make our own decisions.
“Hansen’s policy prescriptions for the planet are equally extreme and absolute: “we must draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide to preserve the planet we know,” “we must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants,” a carbon tax “is essential,” and “CEOs of fossil energy companies ... should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”
Especially with the last part about CEOs of energy companies being tried, how is this guy still employed?
Well, I wouldn’t say his hubris was unparalleled. I think Obama has him beat by a long shot.
Someone dig this stuff up and post it.
I dunno.
Political connections?
“Affirmative action”?
Gore Derangement Syndrome.
i am confused, how do these idiots explain away the natural warming and cooling cycles that the earth has gone through for millions of years. we have the proof, its been documented over the years. now its a problem and man is going to stop it? i think not.
“Climate prophet” is right, since it’s a religion.
Last I knew, he was also a prof at Columbia.
Ummm, I think they blame it on cavemen who drove SUV's. If they're going to make this stuff up, they might as well go all the way.
dang cavemen should never have invented the wheel. lol
How does the Director of the Institute for Space Studies know so much about climate? I’ll will bet big money that this guy was called to testify because the majority on the committee knew what his testimony would be.
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
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 past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "runaway greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. -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.
They ought to be stripped of the renowned name "Goddard" and their affiliation with NASA canceled.
"The environment is suffering damage that could be irreversible — global warming, the greenhouse effect, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rising sea level, hurricanes — with terrible social occurrences that will shake life on this planet."
"I believe this idea has a strong connection with reality. I don't think we have much time. Fidel Castro said in one of his speeches I read not so long ago, 'tomorrow could be too late, let's do now what we need to do'."
"I believe it is time that we take up with courage and clarity a political, social, collective and ideological offensive across the world — a real offensive that permits us to move progressively, over the next years, the next decades, leaving behind the perverse, destructive, destroyer, capitalist model and go forward in constructing the socialist model to avoid barbarism and beyond that the annihilation of life on this planet."
--Hugo Chavez, at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Caracas on August 8-15, 2005
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/640/640p16.htm
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