The June 29th issue of The New Yorker contains a feature on James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in NYC. He is also one of the leading experts on climate change on the planet.
He earned the job through the Ph.D. in physics he received from the University of Iowa where he wrote his dissertation on the atmosphere of Venus, a planet that illustrates the Greenhouse Effect to the nth degree.
Beginning in 1981 he became the director of GISS and later that year forecast that the decade would be peculiarly warm. That prediction came true. He went further to say that the 90s would be even warmer. Right again.
Narrowing the issue, he bet a roomful of scientist that 1990 or one of the two following years would be the warmest on record. According to the article, "Withing nine months, he had won the bet."
During the Bush administration, the White House "insisted that all communications between GISS and the outside world be routed through political appointees at the agency." This is one of the policies that led Howard Dean to accuse the administration of bullying scientists when it came to discussing gloabal warming or the milder term, climate change. He was also forbidden from giving a "routine interview" on NPR.
Not that the Obama administration is doing much better. He gave a letter to John Holdren, a friendly acquaintance of Hansen's and Obama's chief science advisor.
The letter read, in part:
"'A stark scientific conclusion, the we must reduce greenhouse gases below present amounts to preserve nature and humanity has become clear. It is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if policies are consisitent with what science indicates to be required.'"
In a later email, Holdren stated he could not discuss "'what I have or haven't given or said to the President.'"
Hansen said he hopes that Obama grasped "the reality of the issue and would seize the opportunity to marry the energy and climate and national-security issues and make a very strong program."
"'Maybe he still will, but I'm getting bad feelings about it.'"
Yes, the Earth has undergone climate fluctuations, but what is happening now "is that climate history is being run in reverse and at high speed, like a cassette tape on rewind.'" (I won't go into the obscolence of that statement.) It continues: "Carbon dioxide is being pumped into the air some ten thousand times faster than natural weathering processes can remove it."
While ice sheets won't melt overnight, when they do, "sea levels will go up two hundred and fifty feet. So [it can't happen] without producing a different planet."
There is no specific term for the human footprint on the environment, but scientists and policy-makers have come up with "dangerous anthropogenic interference."
CO2 is already at a dangerous level - 385 parts per million, 35 ppm over the hazardous level. One way to fight this is to cut off coal. Clean coal plants could curb this but "for a combination of technological and economic reasons, it's not clear that [this will ever happen]."
The amount of summer ice on the Arctic ice cap is "only a little over half what it was just 40 years ago."
As a result, "highly populated areas, including the Southwest and the Mediterranean basin, are likely to suffer more and more frequent droughts." I live in Texas. I can testify to this firsthand.
And although John Holdren has been wishy-washy on his communication (or lack thereof) with the president, he does say:
"'Any reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system."
And Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and current Energy Secretary, said in a speech, "'There's enough carbon in the ground to really cook us. Coal is my worst nightmare.'"
Hansen also states that "'Almost everyone in the scientific community is prepared to say that if we don't do something now to reverse the direction we're going in we either already are or will very, very soon be in the danger zone.'"
Rather than the current cap-and-trade system now facing a Senate vote, he suggests direct taxes on emissions and distributed back to Americans on a per-capita basis. This would mean that "households that use less energy would actually make money." Those that use more would soon find it prohibitively expensive. (This would be a good place to encourage solar panels or wind generators for the home and business.)
Hansen feels the best thing to happen to the cap-and-trade bill would be to fail so that Congress would have to "'come back and do it more sensibly.'"
He argues that politicians "willfully misunderstand climate change." By the same token, "it could be argued that Hansen just willfully misunderstands politics."
A conumdrum either way, a sympathetic lawmaker recently approached Hansen and said, "'I assume you're used to telling policy-makers the truth and then having them ignore you.'"
'"You're right,'" was Hansen's reply.
He earned the job through the Ph.D. in physics he received from the University of Iowa where he wrote his dissertation on the atmosphere of Venus, a planet that illustrates the Greenhouse Effect to the nth degree.
Beginning in 1981 he became the director of GISS and later that year forecast that the decade would be peculiarly warm. That prediction came true. He went further to say that the 90s would be even warmer. Right again.
Narrowing the issue, he bet a roomful of scientist that 1990 or one of the two following years would be the warmest on record. According to the article, "Withing nine months, he had won the bet."
During the Bush administration, the White House "insisted that all communications between GISS and the outside world be routed through political appointees at the agency." This is one of the policies that led Howard Dean to accuse the administration of bullying scientists when it came to discussing gloabal warming or the milder term, climate change. He was also forbidden from giving a "routine interview" on NPR.
Not that the Obama administration is doing much better. He gave a letter to John Holdren, a friendly acquaintance of Hansen's and Obama's chief science advisor.
The letter read, in part:
"'A stark scientific conclusion, the we must reduce greenhouse gases below present amounts to preserve nature and humanity has become clear. It is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if policies are consisitent with what science indicates to be required.'"
In a later email, Holdren stated he could not discuss "'what I have or haven't given or said to the President.'"
Hansen said he hopes that Obama grasped "the reality of the issue and would seize the opportunity to marry the energy and climate and national-security issues and make a very strong program."
"'Maybe he still will, but I'm getting bad feelings about it.'"
Yes, the Earth has undergone climate fluctuations, but what is happening now "is that climate history is being run in reverse and at high speed, like a cassette tape on rewind.'" (I won't go into the obscolence of that statement.) It continues: "Carbon dioxide is being pumped into the air some ten thousand times faster than natural weathering processes can remove it."
While ice sheets won't melt overnight, when they do, "sea levels will go up two hundred and fifty feet. So [it can't happen] without producing a different planet."
There is no specific term for the human footprint on the environment, but scientists and policy-makers have come up with "dangerous anthropogenic interference."
CO2 is already at a dangerous level - 385 parts per million, 35 ppm over the hazardous level. One way to fight this is to cut off coal. Clean coal plants could curb this but "for a combination of technological and economic reasons, it's not clear that [this will ever happen]."
The amount of summer ice on the Arctic ice cap is "only a little over half what it was just 40 years ago."
As a result, "highly populated areas, including the Southwest and the Mediterranean basin, are likely to suffer more and more frequent droughts." I live in Texas. I can testify to this firsthand.
And although John Holdren has been wishy-washy on his communication (or lack thereof) with the president, he does say:
"'Any reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system."
And Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and current Energy Secretary, said in a speech, "'There's enough carbon in the ground to really cook us. Coal is my worst nightmare.'"
Hansen also states that "'Almost everyone in the scientific community is prepared to say that if we don't do something now to reverse the direction we're going in we either already are or will very, very soon be in the danger zone.'"
Rather than the current cap-and-trade system now facing a Senate vote, he suggests direct taxes on emissions and distributed back to Americans on a per-capita basis. This would mean that "households that use less energy would actually make money." Those that use more would soon find it prohibitively expensive. (This would be a good place to encourage solar panels or wind generators for the home and business.)
Hansen feels the best thing to happen to the cap-and-trade bill would be to fail so that Congress would have to "'come back and do it more sensibly.'"
He argues that politicians "willfully misunderstand climate change." By the same token, "it could be argued that Hansen just willfully misunderstands politics."
A conumdrum either way, a sympathetic lawmaker recently approached Hansen and said, "'I assume you're used to telling policy-makers the truth and then having them ignore you.'"
'"You're right,'" was Hansen's reply.
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