Quotes by James Hansen - Page 2

Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril.
James Hansen / Professor
Civilization
Climate
World
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The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.
James Hansen / Professor
Children
Energy
Environment
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A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.
James Hansen / Professor
Running
Levels
Practice
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The danger is that the compromises and special interests inherent in Kyoto-style targets and cap-and-trade will be accepted because of bureaucratic momentum.
James Hansen / Professor
Kyoto
Special
Style
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...99 percent confident that the world really was getting warmer and that there was a high degree of probability that it was due to human-made greenhouse gases.
James Hansen / Professor
Degrees
Energy
World
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If your child gets asthma, the fossil fuel industry doesn't pay. Or if there's a natural disaster, the bill is paid by the taxpayer, not the fossil fuel company.
James Hansen / Professor
Disaster
Fossil Fuel
Fuel
Natural Disaster
Bill
Fossil
Taxpayer
Your Child
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'Goals' and 'caps' on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air.
James Hansen / Professor
Air
Carbon Emissions
Long
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What makes tar sands particularly odious is that the energy you get out in the end, per unit carbon dioxide, is poor. It's equivalent to burning coal in your automobile.
James Hansen / Professor
Automobile
Burning
Carbon
Carbon Dioxide
Coal
Equivalent
Per
In The End
Odious
Sands
Tar
Unit
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Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise - they are what they are.
James Hansen / Professor
Law
Looks
Thinking
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How long have we got? We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree... We don't have much time left.
James Hansen / Professor
Degrees
Long
Temperature
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The scientific excitement in comparing theory with data, and developing some understanding of global changes that are occurring, is what makes all the other stuff worth it.
James Hansen / Professor
Data
Stuff
Understanding
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Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases. The observed rapid warming gives urgency to discussions about how to slow greenhouse gas emissions.
James Hansen / Professor
Emissions
Gas
Giving
Greenhouse Gases
Growth
Made
Rapid Growth
Urgency
Discussions
Observed
Gives
Greenhouse
Rapid
Slow
Recent
Warming
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Being at NASA and having the access to both computing capability and satellite observation capability is kind of the ideal research situation to try to understand global climate change.
James Hansen / Professor
Access
Capability
Climate
Climate Change
Computing
Nasa
Observation
Research
Situation
Global
Ideal
Satellite
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Policy decisions on climate change are being deliberated every day by those without full knowledge of the science, and often with intentional misinformation spawned by special interests.
James Hansen / Professor
Climate
Decision
Special
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The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.
James Hansen / Professor
Growth
Mean
Years
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The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon.
James Hansen / Professor
Levels
Sea
World
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We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.
James Hansen / Professor
Climate
Generations
Life Future People
Actions
Future Generations
Preserve
Send
Young People
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Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.
James Hansen / Professor
Ocean
Humanity
Ice
Tipping
Pass
Points
Sheet
Slide
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I have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn't make it clear.
James Hansen / Professor
Climate Change
Grandchildren
Grandfather
Grandpa
Understood
Change I Am Climate
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On a per capita basis, Britain is responsible for more of the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere than any other nation on Earth because it has been burning it from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
James Hansen / Professor
Atmosphere
Britain
Burning
Carbon
Carbon Dioxide
Dawn
Earth
Industrial Revolution
Responsible
Revolution
Basis
Nation
Per
Industrial
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Scientists will say we can't blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that's right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.
James Hansen / Professor
Blame
Events
Facts
Frequency
Global Warming
Intensity
Event
Increasing
Scientists
Warming
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With a fourth generation of nuclear power, you can have a technology that will burn more than 99 percent of the energy in the fuel. It would mean that you don't need to mine uranium for the next thousand years.
James Hansen / Professor
Fourth
Fuel
Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Percent
Thousand
Thousand Years
Uranium
Burn
Generation
Mine
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Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.
James Hansen / Professor
Children
Hands
Years
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CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
James Hansen / Professor
Science
Humanity
Long
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We cannot afford to put off change any longer. We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.
James Hansen / Professor
America
Example
Years
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The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.
James Hansen / Professor
Climate
Energy
Would Be
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The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren.
James Hansen / Professor
Carbon Emissions
Children
Climate
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You can't turn on your television without seeing these advertisements about clean coal, clean tar sands and the claim that there's more jobs associated with fossil fuels than other industries. That's of course not true. But they're hammering that into the voters' heads.
James Hansen / Professor
Jobs
Clean
Coal
Seeing
Television
Voters
Advertisement
Associated
Claim
Fossil
Fossil Fuels
Fuels
Hammering
Heads
Industries
Sands
Tar
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In view of the immense power of natural weather and climate fluctuations and the great buffering capacity of the Earth, especially the ocean, it is easy to be skeptical about whether small anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition can have important practical impacts.
James Hansen / Professor
Ocean
Impact
Views
Weather
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We're handing them [young people & future generations] a climate system which is potentially out of their control. We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction
James Hansen / Professor
Future
Ecosystems
Sea
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After spending three or four years interacting with the Bush administration, I realized they were not taking any actions to deal with climate change. So, I decided to give one talk, and then it snowballed into another talk and eventually to even protesting and getting arrested.
James Hansen / Professor
Administration
Arrested
Climate
Climate Change
Interacting
Spending
Change Climate Climate Change
Actions
Bush
Bush Administration
Eventually
Protesting
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Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.
James Hansen / Professor
Emissions
Actions
Altruistic
Cap
Effect
Perverse
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The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet.
James Hansen / Professor
Average
Impact
Long
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...chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to [should] be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature; [Hansen] accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
James Hansen / Professor
Cancer
Humanity
Smoking
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We have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet.
James Hansen / Professor
Ice
Ties
Years
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'Cap and trade' generates special interests, lobbyists, and trading schemes, yielding non-productive millionaires, all at public expense. The public is fed up with such business. Tax with 100% dividend, in contrast, would spur our economy, while aiding the disadvantaged, the climate, and our national security.
James Hansen / Professor
Climate
Special
Spurs
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Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine.
James Hansen / Professor
History
Animal
Earth
Generations
Global Warming
Half
Imagine
Plant
Scales
Species
Years
Being
Apparently
Became
Came
Cannot
Case
Each
Times
Extinct
Global
Hundreds
Hundreds Of Thousands
Over
Occurred
Rapid
Several
Spurred
Tens
Thousands
Thousands Of Years
Warming
We Cannot
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It has become very difficult for anyone to argue that observed global warming is natural variability. We have good reason for being able to say that the world will be warmer by about a quarter of a degree in the next decade. It's the same reason we had 10 years ago when we said that the 1990s would be warmer than the 1980s: The planet is out of equilibrium.
James Hansen / Professor
Degrees
Would Be
Years
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The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO₂, is Herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.
James Hansen / Professor
War
Ignorance
Years
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We have at most ten years - not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions... We are near a tipping point, a point of no return, beyond which the built in momentum and feedbacks will carry us to levels of climate change with staggering consequences for humanity and all of the residents of this planet.
James Hansen / Professor
Decide Upon
Humanity
Years
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Coral reefs, the rain forest of the ocean, are home for one-third of the species of the sea. Coral reefs are under stress for several reasons, including warming of the ocean, but especially because of ocean acidification, a direct effect of added carbon dioxide. Ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution as the ocean becomes more acid.
James Hansen / Professor
Ocean
Rain
Stress
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If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm... If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.
James Hansen / Professor
Environmental
Humanity
Wish
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Injection of environmental and political perspectives in midstream of the science discussion cannot help the process of inquiry. I believe that persons with relevant scientific expertise should concentrate, with pride, on cool objective analysis, providing information to the public and decision-makers when it is found, but leaving the moral implications for later common consideration, or at most for summary inferential discussion.
James Hansen / Professor
Believe
Perspective
Pride
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Our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change. The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year [2011] can each be attributed to climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.
James Hansen / Professor
Jobs
Morning
Past
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