Yeah-just another right wing global warming denier!!
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <richardhughes...@...> wrote:
>
> Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist
> Exclusive: World's leading climate change expert says summit talks so
> flawed that deal would be a disaster
>
> * Suzanne Goldenberg
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/suzannegoldenberg> , US environment
> correspondent
>
> * guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/> , Wednesday 2 December
> 2009 20.54 GMT
> [James Hansen]
> 'We don't have a leader who is able to grasp [the issue] and say
> what is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as
> usual,' say James Hansen. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
>
> The scientist who convinced the world to take notice
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatech\
> ange> of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better
> for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen
> climate change summit <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/copenhagen>
> ended in collapse.
> James Hansen talks to Suzanne Goldenberg Link to this audio
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2009/dec/03/copenhagen-shou\
> ld-fail-hansen>
> In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/hansen> , the world's pre-eminent
> climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the
> negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start
> again from scratch.
>
> "I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right
> track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa
> Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
>
> "The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to
> reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/kyoto-poznan-environm\
> ent-emissions-carbon> then [people] will spend years trying to
> determine exactly what that means." He was speaking as progress towards
> a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a
> target to curb its carbon emissions
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/india-reveal-carbon-e\
> mission-target> . All four of the major emitters the US
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/25/barack-obama-copenhag\
> en> , China
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-car\
> bon-footprint> , EU and India have now tabled offers on emissions,
> although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/eu-copenhagen-climate-aid-f\
> unding> to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.
>
> Hansen, in repeated appearances before Congress beginning in 1989, has
> done more than any other scientist to educate politicians about the
> causes of global warming and to prod them into action to avoid its most
> catastrophic consequences. But he is vehemently opposed to the carbon
> market schemes
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market\
> -copenhagen-summit> in which permits to pollute are bought and
> sold which are seen by the EU and other governments as the most
> efficient way to cut emissions and move to a new clean energy economy
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/18/climate-change-renewable\
> energy> .
>
> Hansen is also fiercely critical of Barack Obama and even Al Gore,
> who won a Nobel peace prize
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/12/climatechange.interna\
> tionalnews> for his efforts to get the world to act on climate change
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/scienceofclimatechange> saying
> politicians have failed to meet what he regards as the moral challenge
> of our age.
>
> In Hansen's view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the
> compromises that rule the world of elected politics. "This is analagous
> to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism
> faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you
> cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a
> compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."
>
> He added: "We don't have a leader who is able to grasp it and say what
> is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as usual."
>
> The understated Iowan's journey from climate scientist to activist
> accelerated in the last years of the Bush administration. Hansen, a
> reluctant public speaker, says he was forced into the public realm by
> the increasingly clear looming spectre of droughts, floods, famines and
> drowned cities indicated by the science.
>
> That enormous body of scientific evidence has been put under a
> microscope by climate sceptics after last month's release online of
> hacked emails sent by respected researchers at the climate research unit
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change-scepticism> of
> the University of East Anglia. Hansen admitted the controversy could
> shake public's trust, and called for an investigation. "All that stuff
> they are arguing about the data doesn't really change the analysis at
> all, but it does leave a very bad impression," he said.
>
> The row reached Congress today, with Republicans accusing the
> researchers of engaging in "scientific fascism" and pressing the Obama
> administration's top science adviser, John Holdren, to condemn the
> email. Holdren, a climate scientist who wrote one of the emails in the
> UEA trove, said he was prepared to denounce any misuse of data by the
> scientists if one is proved.
>
> Hansen has emerged as a leading campaigner against the coal industry,
> which produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other fuel source.
>
> He has become a fixture at campus demonstrations and last summer was
> arrested at a protest
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/24/james-hansen-daryl-ha\
> nnah-mining-protest> against mountaintop mining in West Virginia
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/04/mountaintop-mining> ,
> where he called the Obama government's policies "half-assed".
>
> He has irked some environmentalists by espousing a direct carbon tax on
> fuel use. Some see that as a distraction from rallying support in
> Congress for cap-and-trade legislation
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/06/carbon-tax-cap-trade>
> that is on the table.
>
> He is scathing of that approach. "This is analagous to the indulgences
> that the Catholic church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected
> lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that
> arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening," he
> said. "We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or
> less business as usual and then these developing countries who want
> money and that is what they can get through offsets [sold through the
> carbon markets]."
>
> For all Hansen's pessimism, he insists there is still hope. "It may be
> that we have already committed to a future sea level rise of a metre
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/sea-level> or even more but that
> doesn't mean that you give up.
>
> "Because if you give up you could be talking about tens of metres. So I
> find it screwy that people say you passed a tipping point so it's too
> late. In that case what are you thinking: that we are going to abandon
> the planet? You want to minimise the damage."
>
