He wants you all to sing along - June 23, 2008
It was twenty years ago today, Dr. Hansen taught politicians to play.
Jim Hansen, the scientist who is a perpetually clear and principled voice on climate change, was back in Washington today for the 20th anniversary of his famous 1988 testimony on global warming. Back then, in a planned-to-be-sweaty hearing room during a stifling heat wave, Hansen told senators that global warming was real, it was happening, and humanity was to blame. Today, on a slightly cooler though still muggy summer day, he told most of official Washington we are now at the point of a “planetary emergency.” 
Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York City, has never been one for mincing words. Recently he has been talking about how the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 385 parts per million, is far too high – and that we should be aiming instead for a maximum level of 350 parts per million. This raises eyebrows among climate analysts who think even 450 parts per million is an optimistic scenario for what society can achieve.
Still, Hansen received a warm welcome in town. At a luncheon at the National Press Club, he received a standing ovation before even speaking. (To which the thoughtful, taciturn Hansen responded: “It’s not a time to celebrate.”) In the afternoon he addressed a joint Congressional committee on global warming, citing climate tipping points such as shrinking Arctic sea ice and the potential extinction of species as reasons to act now to curb the increase in greenhouse gases. (For the text of his presentations see his website here.)
Most recently Hansen has targeted coal-burning power plants as the biggest problem, writing to government leaders such as Britain’s Gordon Brown and Australia's Kevin Rudd in an attempt to stop the construction of such plants. Here in the US, he recalled during his luncheon speech, the closest he ever got to a talk with President George W. Bush was a 2001 meeting with an energy task force led by Vice-President and former Halliburton chief Dick Cheney. Hansen has spared few kind words for those industry leaders and politicians who advocate opening new areas to drilling or otherwise extracting as many resources as possible from the ground. In fact, he thinks such special interests should be charged with “crimes against humanity and nature”. A court may not convict them, he says, but public opinion might.
In September, Hansen is slated to travel to the United Kingdom and testify in support of young people who blocked construction of a coal-fired power plant there. Such activists need as much support as they can get, he argued – because kids and animals don’t have much of a voice against powerful industry interests. As a way to get people on board with regulating emissions, Hansen advocates a carbon tax with a unique twist – paying 100 percent of the tax back to the American public, as a sort of dividend. “We have to figure out how to live without fossil fuels someday,” he says. “Why not do it now?”
Media coverage of the anniversary and visit has been fairly intense. Andy Revkin has a piece in the print newspaper supplemented by material on his DotEarth blog. Hansen spoke with Diane Rehm this morning on her NPR show. And the Guardian newspaper in the UK nicely puts up Hansen’s testimony from 1988.
Image from Jim Hansen's website
Comments
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