James Hansen on why scientists should speak out
“I do think the public, in general, trusts scientists. If we’re careful in explaining things and do a good job at that I think it will help in getting the actions that are needed.” – James Hansen
James Hansen was selected as the EarthSky Scientist Communicator of the Year – the scientist who best communicated with the public on vital science issues or concepts in 2008 – by a panel of over 600 EarthSky Global Science Advisors. Dr. Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
In this EarthSky Clear Voices for Science podcast, Dr. Hansen spoke with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar at a recent scientific meeting, where Hansen warned of Earth’s climate reaching a ‘danger zone.’
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The research being conducted by James Hansen and others at Goddard Institute of Space Studies deserves an enormous round of applause and decisive move to action.
In Hansen et al’s latest report, “Target CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim,” (a paper that should be required reading for every politician entering office) the authors warn that, “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is is adapted…CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”
In other words, carbon emissions reductions aren’t enough. We need to reduce emissions and directly capture CO2 directly out of the atmosphere.
At present, “biochar” (renewable energy production from biomass which simultaneously produces a powerful soil amendment and sequesters CO2) seems to be our most promising solution to do this.
A national carbon tax and powerful international agreements that get China, India, and the rest of the developing world on board in a post-Kyoto Accord will be the most significant international negotiation in human history. 350: the most important number on Earth. Spread the word…
Thank you Dr. James Hansen for all the work you do—may the world leaders and decision makers start listening to the best science available.
Many too many economic powerbrokers have been playing “the only game in town” the way everyone “in the know” has been participating in the construction of a global, leviathan-like “house of cards” called the global political economy.
Can we finally share an understanding of the many attacks on Earth and climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen by saying loudly and clearly that their assailants’ activities are venal efforts to spread garbage and junk science, based upon nothing more or less than the duplicitous promulgation of ideological idiocy?
It appears that the many arrogant and hostile efforts toward Jim and other Earth and climate scientists are for the sole purpose of shoring-up and building trust in a con game; to support the most colossal pyramid scheme in human history…..a modern version of the ancient Tower of Babel. Only this modern ‘edifice’ is an Economic Colossus, one not made of stone but rather built out of filthy lucre as a house of playing cards. The entire game is a patently unsustainable, gigantic ruse perpetrated by a tiny, greedy minority of outrageously conspicuous consumers who are recklessly consolidating and relentlessly hoarding great wealth and power.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176.
Dear Mememine69,
Surely you jest.
Our dangerous devotion to a “business as usual” status quo as well as our idolatry of unbridled global economic growth and outrageous per capita overconsumption could prove to be lethal for our children also to worship because these distinctly human activities could soon become patently unsustainable on a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet like the planetary home which God has blessed us to inhabit……and not to ravage as elders in my “Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation” have been advocating so religiously and doing so recklessly in these early years of Century XXI.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
While most scientists agree that global warming is a reality and that the human race is contributing CO2 to our atmosphere, I still have some problems with the lack of discussion of the historical (geological time scale) rises and falls in sea levels. If humans have only been on the earth for say the last 200,000 years (+/-)then we need to understand what the driving forces of warming and cooling were for the previous 4.48 billion years? Catalysts for cooling such as volcanic and meteoric events cloud the atmosphere with aerosols that block sunlight and start the earth into cooling phases. The drivers for the warming events prior to mans contributions are not as obvious. Historically the earth has warmed and cooled without any contribution from mankind, yet few people take the driving events for these processes into account in modern times. The catalysts of heating and warming events of the past must still be in effect today, yet mankind’s contribution to rising CO2 levels are seen as the major culprit to global warming. The heating and cooling events of the past, and the drivers of these events are the key to the future.
It would be an interesting experiment to magically wave a wand and have all of mankind’s contribution to our atmosphere suddenly cease, and see if the earth ignored us and continued to warm as it has for billions of years, followed by the impending historical cooling event. As a geoscientist I want to improve our way of life and preserve the environment where we live. We should do everything we can to reduce our contributions of greenhouse gases and preserve/improve our quality of life on the earth. However, we should not ignore the fact that the planet we live on may have its own agenda and that we may not be able to change the cycles of warming and cooling. The bigger challenge to mankind than stopping global warming may be the effort required as a species to change our way of living and adapt to the changes of the earth that are beyond our control.
Resolution for 2009: SPEAK OUT loudly, clearly and often
Dear Friends,
In calling for change in our time, great scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true to wealthy and powerful people who prefer that the “business as usual” status quo be maintained. Industrial/big business powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians want to keep things going along just as they are going now, come what may for the children and coming generations, for life as we know it, for the integrity of Earth and its environs.
Many voices are needed to support “voices in the wilderness” like those of Jim Hansen and John Holdren, exemplary scientists who have been willing to speak truth to those with the power to make the kinds of necessary change that make belief in a good enough future at least a possibility. Assuring a chance of a good future for the children and for life as we know it is an achievable goal that will lead us to overcome the arrogance and avarice of many too many leaders of my “Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation” of elders.
If too many leaders of the family of humanity choose to keep doing precisely the things they are advocating and doing now, and if we in the human community keep getting what we are getting now, then it appears a sustainable world for our children cannot be achieved. By so doing, the limited resources of Earth will be permanently dissipated, its biodiversity massively extirpated, its environment irreversibly degraded and life as we know it recklessly endangered. The current gigantic scale and anticipated growth of per-capita overconsumption of limited resources, global production and distribution capabilities, and absolute human population numbers worldwide are simply, clearly and patently unsustainable, even to the year 2050. Given Earth’s limitations as a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet, the projected increases in these currently unbridled consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species could soon lead the human family to come face to face with some sort of colossal ecological wreckage.
Now is the time to speak out loudly, clearly and often about what is true for you. Forget about political correctness and convenience. Let go of economic expediency and greediness. Embrace necessary change rather than waste another day preserving the selfish interests of the small group of rich and powerful people, and their many minions, all of whom are adamantly and relentlessly defending an unsustainable, same old “business as usual” status quo.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
what a great honour to have !! Congrats !!
More people who communicate science / astronomy and shares the night sky to beginners ( like myself ) should be recognized for their hard work and sharing !
IN 2009 I would like to see and hear more atomic scientist expose the U.S. being far behind in the logical extreme advancement in the atomic numeral and zero levels.This produce the deepest use in atomic/space equations and atomic/space communications as well as informational data.
It is an instructive interview. I hope to listen more prodcast on earthsky dot org.
A fill in the blanks game for warmies at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
2006 – 2008 Trend = -44.25 degF / Decade COOLING
2005 – 2008 Trend = -16.35 degF / Decade COOLING
2004 – 2008 Trend = -1.50 degF / Decade COOLING
2003 – 2008 Trend = -0.69 degF / Decade COOLING
2002 – 2008 Trend = -2.47 degF / Decade COOLING
2001 – 2008 Trend = -0.17 degF / Decade COOLING
2000 – 2008 Trend = -0.74 degF / Decade COOLING
1999 – 2008 Trend = -1.08 degF / Decade COOLING
1998 – 2008 Trend = -1.77 degF / Decade COOLING
1997 – 2008 Trend = -0.15 degF / Decade COOLING
1996 – 2008 Trend = 0.92 degF / Decade WARMING