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So, NASA’s in-house celebrity activist James Hansen says the following in explaining his departure from a lucrative perch — salary alone: $180k per year — one that proved extremely lucrative while there was a useful foil in the White House: “‘As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government,’ he told the Times.” Hogwash. Not that “Job 1″ for Hansen at NASA was attentiveness to ethics guidelines or anything, but the rules say no such thing. See 5 C.F.R. Part 6901.103 (c) and 5 C.F.R. 2635.805. Indeed, on top of that cool $1 million-plus in outside cash tossed Hansen’s...

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Anthony Watts Delusion is a big problem with the green crowd By Stephen Murgatroyd, Troy Media The draft text for discussion at Rio +20 – the UN conference on sustainable development – makes clear that the summit itself is a waste of energy and time. Even the environmental non-government organizations attending it think so.Jim Leape, international director-general of World Wildlife Fund, hoped that the document would be renegotiated: “It’s pathetic. It’s appalling. If this becomes the final text the last year has been a colossal waste of time.” Friends of the Earth are even...

Margaret Thatcher was the first leader to warn of global warming - but also the first to see the flaws in the climate change orthodoxy A persistent claim made by believers in man-made global warming – they were at it again last week – is that no politician was more influential in launching the worldwide alarm over climate change than Margaret Thatcher. David Cameron, so the argument runs, is simply following in her footsteps by committing the Tory party to its present belief in the dangers of global warming, and thus showing himself in this respect, if few others, to...

CANBERRA, Australia -- Recent short-term cooling of global temperatures shouldn't be misinterpreted as meaning an end to global warming, an Australian expert says. Barrie Wanker-Hunt of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization says overall global warming is happening despite natural variability that can bring periods where the global climate can be either cooler or warmer than usual. Seasonal cold spells can still be expected under enhanced greenhouse conditions, he says. "Future changes in global temperature as the concentration of greenhouse gases increases will not show a simple year-on-year increase but will vary around a background of long-term warming," he...

Without a blush of shame, this week’s Science magazine just ran an article called “Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of Global Warming.” After wiping off the unnecessary words we’re left with: “Global Warming would be here — except for that damned water vapor.” It’s the “woulda coulda shoulda” of the True Believers. Al Gore’s Ptolemaic epicycles are being rolled onto the scientific stage, to be piled higher and deeper until they fit the curve of real temperatures – a nearly flat line with a little bit of jitter. You could just turn it into...

Wherever Jim Hansen is right now -- whatever speech the "censored" NASA scientist is giving -- perhaps he'll find time to mention the plight of Alan Carlin. Though don't count on it. Mr. Hansen, as everyone in this solar system knows, is the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Starting in 2004, he launched a campaign against the Bush administration, claiming it was censoring his global-warming thoughts and fiddling with the science. It was all a bit of a hoot, given Mr. Hansen was already a world-famous devotee of the theory of man-made global warming, a reputation earned...

NASA's Jim Hansen has declared that President Obama has four years to save the planet from impending climate doom, but critics say Hansen is making much ado about nothing. The Guardian is reporting that Hansen has given the Obama administration four years to save planet Earth from soaring carbon emissions that will trigger worldwide flooding from melting ice caps, wide-spread extinction of animals, and catastrophic weather patterns. He says only the U.S. has the political muscle to lead the world in stopping climate change. Christopher Monckton is the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and has done extensive research into climate change....

Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastropheRobin McKie, science editor The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009 Article historyAlong one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and...

President 'has four years to save Earth' US must take the lead to avert eco-disasterBarack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added. Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future....

The United Nation’s agency responsible for relieving hunger is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities. The World Food Programme is holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term. Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached” if donors did not provide more money. “Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up,” she said. WFP officials...

The U.S. federal government has a detailed set of regulations requiring scientific information to be peer reviewed before it is disseminated by the federal government. NASA, which says that it has “employs the world’s largest concentration of climate scientists”, has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies. Once again, the system involves an employee purporting to be acting in a “personal capacity”. Here’s how it works.

.... "I object to the fact that I’m not able to freely communicate via the media," says Hansen. "National Public Radio wanted to interview me and they were told they would need to interview someone at NASA headquarters and the comment was made that they didn’t want Jim Hansen going on the most liberal media in America. So I don’t think that kind of decision should be made on that kind of basis. I think we should be able to communicate the science." Politically, Hansen calls himself an independent and he’s had trouble with both parties. He says, from time...