While I have some level of technical respect for Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, he has become a sad reminder that some well-credentialed people with extensive subject matter knowledge can become hyper-focused nutcases when it comes to their own work and pet theories.

Crying wolf since 1971 … only this time it is global warming instead of global cooling …

President 'has four years to save Earth' -- US must take the lead to avert eco-disaster

“Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of NASA scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.”

Assumes facts not in evidence …

“Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. ‘We cannot afford to put off change any longer,’ said Hansen. ‘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.’"

“Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.”

There is absolutely no way to determine what the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should be – and there is nothing that points to anything called “runaway greenhouse warming.”

“Only the US now had the political muscle to lead the world and halt the rise, Hansen said. Having refused to recognise that global warming posed any risk at all over the past eight years, the US now had to take a lead as the world's greatest carbon emitter and the planet's largest economy. Cap-and-trade schemes, in which emission permits are bought and sold, have failed, he said, and must now be replaced by a carbon tax that will imposed on all producers of fossil fuels. At the same time, there must be a moratorium on new power plants that burn coal - the world's worst carbon emitter.”

Why NASA continues to employ someone with such a political agenda is beyond me – unless they are counting on Hansen to attract funding from the government?

“Hansen - head of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and winner of the WWF's top conservation award - first warned Earth was in danger from climate change in 1988 and has been the victim of several unsuccessful attempts by the White House administration of George Bush to silence his views.”

“Hansen's institute monitors temperature fluctuations at thousands of sites round the world, data that has led him to conclude that most estimates of sea level rises triggered by rising atmospheric temperatures are too low and too conservative. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says a rise of between 20cm and 60cm can be expected by the end of the century.”

Since when has the United Nations ever been right on their projects of mass calamity? Remember their little error in a global population catastrophe when they found that the world’s population growth was not linear and that their projections were less than accurate? In fact, their projections were little more than conjecture designed to attract media attention, funding and increase the power of the United Nations.

Ditto with the HIV-AIDs numbers. How embarrassing that there projections on a worldwide catastrophe were sidelined by the science and that the UN assumption that almost everyone with a fever and malnutrition in a particular part of the world must be suffering from HIV-AIDs.

“However, Hansen said feedbacks in the climate system are already accelerating ice melt and are threatening to lead to the collapse of ice sheets. Sea-level rises will therefore be far greater - a claim backed last week by a group of British, Danish and Finnish scientists who said studies of past variations in climate indicate that a far more likely figure for sea-level rise will be about 1.4 meters, enough to cause devastating flooding of many of the world's major cities and of low-lying areas of Holland, Bangladesh and other nations.”

“As a result of his fears about sea-level rise, Hansen said he had pressed both Britain's Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences to carry out an urgent investigation of the state of the planet's ice-caps. However, nothing had come of his proposals. The first task of Obama's new climate office should therefore be to order such a probe ‘as a matter of urgency,’ Hansen added.”

The problem with James Hansen …

The problem with James Hansen is he has become a professional “alarmist” and political player. Along with Al Gore, they want to rush the world into seeing things their way – without answering some fundamental questions in an open forum. Both practice message control and only spew forth in controlled environments where hostile questions are brushed aside and people are referred to as “deniers.” A word stolen from the “holocaust deniers” and used in the same derisive and mocking tone. There is no doubt in my mind that Hansen wants a major position in the Obama Administration. And considering Obama’s past associations with people of dubious character and intent, he just might become the “global warming czar.”  Personally, I would like to see him fight to

We have seen this behavior before …

On June 23, 2008, I wrote a blog entry titled “NASA Researcher crosses the line between politics and science: suggests oil chiefs should be tried for crimes against humanity.” I am quoting it here because it is even more relevant today.

“Just because you have scientific credentials and a large microphone does not mean your “theory” is valid and you speak the truth …

From London’s Guardian …

“Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist”

“James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.”

If nothing else, this marks Hansen as a zealot and probably a nut case.

“Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the ‘perfect storm’ of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.”

Does Hansen understand that climate change is cyclical? That any examination of the historical record, using real temperature records or climate proxies such as ice cores or tree rings, does not indicate any past climate change was irreversible? Perhaps Hansen is using the United Nations population models which were said to prove linear population growth would imperil the Earth – when that was clearly not the case?

“Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.”

Why are there major well-respected and equally well-credentialed scientists who doubt Hansen’s theories?

“He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.”

What about Hansen’s past work ?

If he is 99% certain, let him explain why the rise in carbon dioxide lags the rise in temperature by 600-1000 years and how, if this is true, an increase in carbon dioxide can lead to global warming.

If he is 99% certain, let him explain why this theory regarding carbon dioxide is not valid: oceanic carbon dioxide and atmospheric carbon dioxide for a stable feedback loop. As the oceans warm, dissolved carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere much as a warming soda bottle discharges carbon dioxide into the surrounding air. Under this scenario, we would be 600 – 1000 years into the next ice age by the time carbon dioxide levels start to fall.

And if he is 99% certain, how does he explain the ice age he and his associated predicted, using the same type of modeling, and that never materialized and exactly the same prescriptive remedy 30+ years ago … 

THE ICE AGE THAT NEVER WAS …

“On July 9, 1971, the Washington Post published a story headlined ‘U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming.’ It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.”

“The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in ‘the next 50 years’ fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.”

“Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, ‘could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.’"

“Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a ‘computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen,’ who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.”

Wait a minute …

Before we turn our society topsy turvy and initiate measures which drastically restrict our personal freedoms, raise taxes, enlarge government and weaken our economy,  perhaps we should put James Hansen on public trial before a  jury of his scientific peers. A trial with evidence, proof and logical thinking without the politics and emotion.

Hansen goes political …

How can one take Hansen’s position seriously when he has allied himself with Al Gore and is being used much in the way Cindy Sheehan was used by the far-left to drive public opinion?

The current concentration is 385parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.”

“He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. ‘The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon.’"

“He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding ‘it is time to stop waffling’".

“A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.”

“It is one thing to force a debate and it is quite another to force an action …”

“Scientists, except for those on the far-left, very rarely engage in political debate to promote their positions. Because it is a waste of time considering that it is an immutable fact is that science is not subject to public opinion or political whim.”

“If Hansen were truly a scientist, rather than a computationalist, he would be attempting to force a rigorous scientific debate based on his work. He would be presenting at scientific conferences, not political rallies.”

“And, one should remember, that a Congressional inquiry is not a scientific forum or even a place when open and honest debate takes place. It is where asshat politicians extend their fifteen minutes of media fame.”

“The mere thought that people like Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer and others of their ilk that can hardly understand the science or formulate a cogent question, points to the ludicrous nature of Hansen’s Congressional appearance.”

Hansen, shopping for a political appointment?

“It is my personal opinion that Hansen is lobbying for a major political appointment in an Obama administration”

What can YOU do?

There is no doubt in my mind that NASA’s James Hansen has become a political and scientific zealot who is seeking a position of prestige and power within the Obama Administration.

I firmly believe that Hansen is every bit as dangerous to our nation as al Qaeda – forcing a radical change in our economy and personal freedoms --  based on his particular unproven ideology.

Send Hansen off to commune with Cindy Sheehan and all of the other far-left kooks and let the rest of the country continue to rebuild our nation.

-- steve

Quote of the day: “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.” - James Thurber

A reminder from OneCitizenSpeaking.com: a large improvement can result from a small change…

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius

Reference Links:

President Obama 'has four years to save Earth' | Environment | The Observer