Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute Dr. James E. Hansen said coal would destroy us in two decades

http://www.ecodirt.com/archives/director-of-nasas-goddard-institute-explains-the-threat-of-coal-usa/

* There is also a great article about him in the New Yorker

CONGRATULATIONS OBAMA AND FRIENDS

Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute Explains the Threat of Coal (U.S.A.)

Coal Filled Railroad Hopper Cars
Photo courtesy of Know Your Power website

The Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. James E. Hansen, has challenged global warming, NASA, and, yes, even the White House. Since 1988, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City has been very vocal about the effects of greenhouse gases.

This Iowa native was one of the first scientists to publicly testify on human-caused climate change. His reason for returning to Iowa is to testify that the proposed Marshalltown, Iowa coal plant will significantly contribute to global warming.

Director Hanson feels that a global tipping point will be reached in 10 years (starting from 2006), if levels of greenhouse gases such as methane and CO2 are not reduced. Once past the tipping point, he says global warming becomes unstoppable.

Dr. Hansen appeared on 60 Minutes stating that the White House edited climate- related press releases reported by federal agencies to make global warming seem less threatening.

“In my more than three decades in the government I’ve never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public,” Dr. Hansen said.

Dr. Hansen added, “Coal will determine whether we continue to increase climate change or slow the human impact. Increased fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, compared to the pre-industrial atmosphere, is due 50% to coal.”

Dr. Hansen is expected to testify as an expert of Plains Justice at the public hearing of the Iowa Utilities Board on Thursday, January 17. Other opportunities for the public, to hear Dr. Hansen speak, are listed below:

They hope to see Iowa Legislators at this event:

***WHO: Dr. James Hansen, Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA;

***WHAT: Educational briefing by NASA’S top climatology expert;

***WHERE: State Historical Building, Auditorium, on East Locust between East 6th and East 7th Streets, Des Moines; and

***WHEN: Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 6:30 p.m.

AND here’s briefing in Iowa City:

***WHO: Dr. James Hansen, Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA;

***WHAT: Educational briefing by NASA’S top climatology expert;

***WHERE: Old Brick, in Iowa City; and

***WHEN: Thursday, January 17, 2008, 7:00 p.m.

(Ed.: With good forture, there will be a follow-on Earthtalk Editorial tomorrow.

Remember: if we let our planet go past the environmental recovery tipping point, there won’t be any do-overs!)

Source for this post: Fresh Energy

Website: http://www.fresh-energy.org/

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/29/090629fa_fact_kolbert

(for full article go to that URL)

Elizabeth Kolbert, Profiles, “The Catastrophist,” The New Yorker, June 29, 2009, p. 39
Read the full text of this article. (Registration required.)
June 29, 2009 Issue


ABSTRACT: PROFILE of climatologist James Hansen. A few months ago, James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), in Manhattan, joined a protest outside the Capitol Power Plant, in Washington, D.C. Thirty years ago, Hansen, who is sixty-eight, created one of the world’s first climate models, nicknamed Model Zero, which he used to predict most of what has happened in the climate since. Hansen has now concluded, partly on the basis of his latest modeling efforts and partly on the basis of observations made by other scientists, that the threat of global warming is far greater than even he had suspected. Unless immediate action is taken—including the shutdown of all the world’s coal plants within the next two decades—the planet will be committed to climate change on a scale society won’t be able to cope with. Hansen grew up in Denison, Iowa, and he obtained a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Iowa. From there he went directly to work at GISS, where he studied Venusian clouds. In 1981, he became the director of GISS. He published a paper forecasting increased temperatures in the following decades and his insights were immediately recognized by the scientific community. Mentions Anniek Hansen, Bill McKibben, Michael Oppenheimer, and Spencer Weart. Describes a talk Hansen gave on climate change at the state capitol in Concord, New Hampshire. What is now happening, Hansen said, is carbon dioxide is being pumped into the air some ten thousand times faster than natural weathering processes can remove it. There’s no precise term for the level of carbon dioxide that will assure a climate disaster; the best scientists have come up with is “dangerous anthropogenic interference,” or D.A.I. Hansen estimates the dangerous amount of carbon dioxide to be no more than three hundred and fifty parts per million. The bad news is that carbon dioxide levels have already reached three hundred and eighty-five parts per million. Hansen argues that the only way we can constrain the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to drastically decrease the use of coal. But if Hansen’s anxieties about D.A.I. and coal are broadly shared, he is still, among climate scientists, an outlier. Describes the cap-and-trade system, which Hansen argues is essentially a sham. Mentions the American Clean Energy and Security Act. In order to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, annual emissions around the globe would have to be cut by something on the order of three-quarters. So far, there’s no evidence that anyone is willing to take the necessary steps.

from warning the American People of impending global catastrophe, can only mean one thing; the government believe the scientists, but the political "leaders" are more afraid of economic disruption, than the potential extinction of the human race.

So when Dr. Hansen speaks of irreversible tipping points, I believe he's correct and I also believe Al Gore was keenly aware of those rapidly approaching tipping points on 12/12/00 and this guided his decision to accept the felonious fives' ruling, instead of risking civil war, civil strife and or the diminishment of this most critical issue facing humanity.

"Dr. Hansen appeared on 60 Minutes stating that the White House edited climate- related press releases reported by federal agencies to make global warming seem less threatening.

“In my more than three decades in the government I’ve never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public,” Dr. Hansen said."

Luckily Obama reads...

and is still speaking out. Why isn't someone like Dr. Hansen leading out country? We need more than politicians in these seminal times.

The bill was already marginal when it came out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where coal-state Democrats extracted concessions for the industry. Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford took a stand then in calling for a stronger bill. Greenpeace kept working behind the scenes, but none of the group's efforts to fix the bill paid off, Muffett said.

This bill seems to have damaging flaws--yet we are suspose to be happy about it. I am not.



http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090625/greenpeace-says-no-climate-bill-aces-too-weak


...............The tipping point came this week when bill sponsor Henry Waxman bowed to the demands of farm-state Democrats, led by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and agreed to shift authority over offsets from the EPA to the Department of Agriculture.

That shift was made "with the express political purpose of making it easier for industrial agriculture to access offset credits," Muffett said. "The big problem with offsets is if they aren't stringently policed, you have a great risk of undermining the system."

On top of that, Waxman agreed to block the EPA from considering land-use changes when calculating the lifecycle emissions of biofuels, a move demanded by Peterson to protect large ethanol producers.

Another serious flaw was the change to Section 116 to allow any coal fired power plant that has received even just its initial permits to avoid regulation under this bill, "yet another concession to the coal industry," Muffett said.

"You’re talking potentially 100 coal-fired power plants that are now exempted from these rules."

Then came the EPA's analysis, showing that the bill would lead to burning more coal and more than doubling nuclear generation, with marginal benefits for renewable energy and a delay in real emissions reductions.