[paul.fr]

'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'
Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe

Along one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and cardboard boxes filled with reports on climate variations and atmospheric measurements.

The director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York is clearly a doting grandfather as well as an internationally revered climate scientist. Yet his pictures are more than mere expressions of familial love. They are reminders to the 67-year-old scientist of his duty to future generations, children whom he now believes are threatened by a global greenhouse catastrophe that is spiralling out of control because of soaring carbon dioxide emissions from industry and transport.

"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," Hansen said last week. Hence his warning to Barack Obama, who will be inaugurated as US president on Tuesday. His four-year administration offers the world a last chance to get things right, Hansen said. If it fails, global disaster - melted sea caps, flooded cities, species extinctions and spreading deserts - awaits mankind.

"We cannot now 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."

After eight years of opposing moves to combat climate change, thanks to the policies of President George Bush, the US had given itself no time for manoeuvre, he said. Only drastic, immediate change can save the day and those changes proposed by Hansen - who appeared in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and is a winner of the World Wildlife Fund's top conservation award - are certainly far-reaching. In particular, the idea of continuing with "cap-and-trade" schemes, which allow countries to trade allowances and permits for emitting carbon dioxide, must now be scrapped, he insisted. Such schemes, encouraged by the Kyoto climate treaty, were simply "weak tea" and did not work. "The United States did not sign Kyoto, yet its emissions are not that different from the countries that did sign it."

Thus plans to include carbon trading schemes in talks about future climate agreements were a desperate error, he said. "It's just greenwash. I would rather the forthcoming Copenhagen climate talks fail than we agree to a bad deal," Hansen said.

Only a carbon tax, agreed by the west and then imposed on the rest of the world through political pressure and trade tariffs, would succeed in the now-desperate task of stopping the rise of emissions, he argued. This tax would be imposed on oil corporations and gas companies and would specifically raise the prices of fuels across the globe, making their use less attractive. In addition, the mining of coal - by far the worst emitter of carbon dioxide - would be phased out entirely along with coal-burning power plants which he called factories of death.

"Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater reserves. We must stop using it." Instead, programmes for building wind, solar and other renewable energy plants should be given major boosts, along with research programmes for new generations of nuclear reactors.

Hansen's strident calls for action stem from his special view of our changing world. He and his staff monitor temperatures relayed to the institute - an anonymous brownstone near Columbia University - from thousands of sites around the world, including satellites and bases in Antarctica. These have revealed that our planet has gone through a 0.6C rise in temperature since 1970, with the 10 hottest years having occurred between 1997 and 2008: unambiguous evidence, he believes, that Earth is beginning to overheat dangerously.

Last week, however, Hansen revealed his findings for 2008 which show, surprisingly, that last year was the coolest this century, although still hot by standards of the 20th century. The finding will doubtless be seized on by climate change deniers, for whom Hansen is a particular hate figure, and used as "evidence" that global warming is a hoax.

However, deniers should show caution, Hansen insisted: most of the planet was exceptionally warm last year. Only a strong La Niña - a vast cooling of the Pacific that occurs every few years - brought down the average temperature. La Niña would not persist, he said. "Before the end of Obama's first term, we will be seeing new record temperatures. I can promise the president that."

Hansen's uncompromising views are, in some ways, unusual. Apart from his senior Nasa post, he holds a professorship in environmental sciences at Columbia and dresses like a tweedy academic: green jumper with elbow pads, cords and check cotton shirt. Yet behind his unassuming, self-effacing manner, the former planetary scientist has shown surprising steel throughout his career. In 1988, he electrified a congressional hearing, on a particular hot, sticky day in June, when he announced he was "99% certain" that global warming was to blame for the weather and that the planet was now in peril from rising carbon dioxide emissions. His remarks, which made headlines across the US, pushed global warming on to news agendas for the first time.

Over the years, Hansen persisted with his warnings. Then, in 2005, he gave a talk at the American Geophysical Union in which he argued that the year was the warmest on record and that industrial carbon emissions were to blame. A furious White House phoned Nasa and Hansen was banned from appearing in newspapers or on television or radio. It was a bungled attempt at censorship. Newspapers revealed that Hansen was being silenced and his story, along with his warnings about the climate, got global coverage.

Since then Hansen has continued his mission "to make clear" the dangers of climate change, sending a letter last December from himself and his wife Anniek about the urgency of the planet's climatic peril to Barack and Michelle Obama. "We decided to send it to both of them because we thought there may be a better chance she will think about this or have time for it. The difficulty of this problem [of global warming] is that its main impacts will be felt by our children and by our grandchildren. A mother tends to be concerned about such things."

Nor have his messages of imminent doom been restricted to US politicians. The heads of the governments of Britain, Germany, Japan and Australia have all received recent warnings from Hansen about their countries' behaviour. In each case, these nations' continued support for the burning of coal to generate electricity has horrified the climatologist. In Britain, he has condemned the government's plans to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth, in Kent, for example, and even appeared in court as a defence witness for protesters who occupied the proposed new plant's site in 2007.

"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. America comes second and Germany third. The crucial point is that Britain could make a real difference if it said no to Kingsnorth. That decision would set an example to the rest of the world." These points were made clear in Hansen's letter to the prime minister, Gordon Brown, though he is still awaiting a reply.

As to the specific warnings he makes about climate change, these concentrate heavily on global warming's impact on the ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. These are now melting at an alarming rate and threaten to increase sea levels by one or two metres over the century, enough to inundate cities and fertile land around the globe.

The issue was simple, said Hansen: would each annual increase of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere produce a simple proportional increase in temperature or would its heating start to accelerate?

He firmly believes the latter. As the Arctic's sea-ice cover decreases, less and less sunlight will be reflected back into space. And as tundras heat up, more and more of their carbon dioxide and methane content will be released into the atmosphere. Thus each added tonne of carbon will trigger greater rises in temperature as the years progress. The result will be massive ice cap melting and sea-level rises of several metres: enough to devastate most of the world's major cities.

"I recently lunched with Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, and proposed a joint programme to investigate this issue as a matter of urgency, in partnership with the US National Academy of Sciences, but nothing has come of the idea, it would seem," he said.

Hansen is used to such treatment, of course, just as the world of science has got used to the fact that he is as persistent as he is respected in his work and will continue to press his cause: a coal-power moratorium and an investigation of ice-cap melting.

The world was now in "imminent peril", he insisted, and nothing would quench his resolve in spreading the message. It is the debt he owes his grandchildren, after all.
The climate in figures

• The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 385 parts per million. This compares with a figure of some 315ppm around 1960.

• Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that can persist for hundreds of years in the atmosphere, absorbing infrared radiation and heating the atmosphere.

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last report states that 11 of the 12 years between 1995-2006 rank among the 12 warmest years on record since 1850.

• According to Jim Hansen, the nation responsible for putting the largest amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is Britain, on a per capita basis - because the Industrial Revolution started here. China is now the largest annual emitter of carbon dioxide .

• Most predictions suggest that global temperatures will rise by 2C to 4C over the century.

• The IPCC estimates that rising temperatures will melt ice and cause ocean water to heat up and increase in volume. This will produce a sea-level rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres. However, some predict a far faster rate of around one to two metres.

• Inundations of one or two metres would make the Nile Delta and Bangladesh uninhabitable, along with much of south-east England, Holland and the east coast of the United States.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-climate-change

[Chemistry4me]

And good luck to Obama, I hope he goes well because frankly, a lot of people are depending on him.

[Vern]

I hope Obama succeeds as well but I'm going to do my best to convince his administration that Global Warming is a fraud. Its intent is to extract money from wealthy nations funnel it through the UN where the money will be skimmed by corrupt UN officials and what's left passed on to cooperating poor nations. It is all about Cap and Trade.

[Chemistry4me]

I'm going to do my best to convince his administration that Global Warming is a fraud.

How? You going to bombard them with letters? E-mails? Riots? Protests?

[Vern]

Did you ever wonder why Global Warming suddenly became Global Climate Change. It is because Global ain't Warming. So the vultures at the UN changed it so they can still get to skim the Cap and Trade money.

How will I persuade; simply by stating the facts in places like this []

[Chemistry4me]

I don't really know where I stand on this issue, whether to believe it or not. But I think they use 'climate change' because that is what it is, not just 'Global warming'. The weather patterns change, the migration patterns of animals are affected, some places get draughts whereas others get hurricanes. But if what happened on "The Day After Tomorrow' is anything to go by, you could well be right. []

[Vern]

I first took notice on this issue when Al Gore couldn't make it to the Saint Louis convention on Global Warming because of a blizzard. You Brits need to take note. You will be paying a big part of this Trade money. I don't know about you folks, but my taxes are already high enough; and Obama is promising to raise them some more []

Oh; please don't fool yourself on what it is all about. It is about MONEY. Your money.

Oops; I'm sorry; you're from New Zealand; you'll be getting money from us Yanks and the Brits [] Go for it!!

[justaskin]

Hey Vern I am with you.Here is how I understand the system(scam)works.The IPCC provides(creates) the science and the UNFCCC provides the administration.I would point people to the thoughts of one Yvo De Boer executive secretary of the UNFCCC to get an idea what climate change is all about.Its about redistributing the wealth from the developed countries to the under developed countries.It could be renamed the WWS(World Welfare System)were the under developed countries go to get their welfare cheque.Another person that is worth reading about with regard to using climate change as a means to a world government is Maurice Strong.

Oops; I'm sorry; you're from New Zealand; you'll be getting money from us Yanks and the Brits [] Go for it!!

No they won't they are one of the lucky developed countries infact I think they are in debit on their Kyoto agreement to the tune of about 2billion already.China and India just love Kyoto.

Cheers
justaskin

[Chemistry4me]

I have absolutely no idea about where the money is coming from [][] don't pay any attention to it either.
And I know nothing about politics either   [:I]

[Vern]

Well I have made and lost a few fortunes in my life; unfortunately I'm at present on the lost side of the cycle; in doing so we get to recognize scams that attempt to extract money from them that's got some by those that want to skim a piece and pass along the rest to some made up cause. I suspect that is the totality of the Global Warming scam. The sad thing is that so many of us are so gullible that we fall for it.

[justaskin]

I have absolutely no idea about where the money is coming from [][] don't pay any attention to it either.
And I know nothing about politics either   [:I]

I would find out about both if I was you Chemistry4me while you still have some money. []

Cheers
justaskin

[Vern]

No they won't they are one of the lucky developed countries infact I think they are in debit on their Kyoto agreement to the tune of about 2billion already.China and India just love Kyoto.

2 billion; whew; I wonder how much of that Chemistry4me has to pay. Let's see; divide the 2 billion by the population; that should be it.

[Vern]

Okay; I just did the math; its not too bad; the population of New Zealand is about 4 million; so 2 billion divided by 4 million is around $500. So Chemistry4me is not in hoc for that much. But for every citizen of New Zealand to have to fork over $500 to this scam is a very sad thing.

[Chemistry4me]

Yes, very sad indeed [][][]

[Chemistry4me]

Wait, how do you know that our country is in 2 billion dollars of debt? Is it spread across the newspapers or something? [][][]

[justaskin]

You could try here.
http://newszealand.blogspot.com/2007/04/claims-kyoto-debt-has-hit-17-billion.html

Or just put new zealand kyoto debt into google.

Good news I may have over stated by 1 billion.Bad news is it is still a billion.

Cheers
justaskin

[Chemistry4me]

Okay, will do, cheers justaskin.

[yor_on]

Ok, I've been following global warming some years.

We have a non linear Earth, that means that as all such systems it can 'rest' in a state until a sudden 'nudge' can tip into an opposite position.

The last years heat have beat all sorts of records right:)
And you may have noticed that the weather have been acting very unpredictable with unusual snowstorms in the states and I think in India too?

That's a natural reaction when a system as complicated as the Earths weather systems 'suddenly' is starting to change, and no, it's no beginning of a 'ice age'.

Let's take it in parts here.

First of all you need to know the average lifetime of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Remember that those might be longer than we think now, but they will not be shorter.
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2008/02/26/ghg_lifetimes/

For those of you interested in the physics of the greenhouse effect.
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/physics-of-the-greenhouse-effect-pt-1/

I start with this faq from 1997 about Sea Level, Ice, and Greenhouses.
http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/sea.level.faq.html
You should really read it, it's only one side, it talks about what could happen to Antarctica.
We already know that the Arctic is more or less doomed.
The only polar bears you will see soon will be those at the zoo.
But it seems rather quiet about Antarctica.

Now read this.
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=773

And this.
Warming Waters May Make Antarctica Hospitable To Sharks.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217220939.htm

And here is a site dedicated to Antarctica.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/global_warming.htm

Okay, the Carbon Dioxide (CO2)that we humans produce by burning fossil 'fuels' is what we call 'man made'. Plants trees and other flora produces also Carbon Dioxide, but that is part of the Earths normal cycle.
So btw: is Cows farthing, of all stupidities I've seen I think that one, and those that see the Arctics death as a blessing, have been amongst the most stupid I've read about.

So how does it goes with China and its coal driven power plants then?
Awh, they build for their bare lives, One new plant every tenth day, wasn't it?
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/14905.html

And here you have an educated guess for carbon emissions scenarios for China to 2100
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/twp121_summary.shtml

One of the things this Carbon dioxide does, amongst other things is to acidify our oceans.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521105251.htm
And this is our primary heatsink on Earth.
And it kills the marine life.

Then there is the rising surface ozone that reduces plant growth and adds to global warming.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070725143612.htm

But then we have new problems rising on the horizon, namely methane and nitrogen trifluoride.
http://ktar.com/?nid=35&sid=979586&r=1

The one we really need to take seriously (near future) is methane.
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/09/11/ancient-ocean-released-a-torrent-of-methane/

We have other evidence for what Methane have done before.
http://www.physorg.com/news4491.html

So let us take a closer look at methane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate

And if you followed me this far:)you might read this as well..
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html?startindex=110

"methane chimneys" have been observed releasing methane in deep waters too. One off the coast of Norway, one off the coast of North Carolina, and probably elsewhere too. And remember that methane producing bacterias exist in the Perma frost on land too. As well as hydrates under the ground. Hydrates will be created by the combination of a low temperature (around 0 C) and pressure, depending on the pressure surrounding it it can remain stable at up to 18 C. So take away the pressure and it will rise but not as oil do. Remember that the 'permeability' of a gas is higher than that of water ('denser'). It will find 'ways' out everywhere.

" In fact, estimates are that more than 10% of the world’s hydrates are located on-shore in arctic permafrost; and a sizable — although not quantified — amount are in relatively shallow arctic seas. These are susceptible to melting from warming. And as we know, the polar regions are warming faster and will get hotter than the global average. So a sizable amount of the methane trapped in hydrates is vulnerable to release by warming.

Something similar is believed to have happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
That happening ended " up to 96 percent of all marine species[3] and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct; it is the only known mass extinction of insects. 57% of all families and 83% of all genera were killed off. The event had a profound effect on the terrestrial ecosystem, which is still being felt today, a quarter of a billion years later."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum

And I'll end with those two links.

Arctic ice melting and not coming back..
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080828/arctic_ice_080827/20080830?hub=SciTech

And "The rate of climate warming over northern Alaska, Canada, and Russia could more than triple during periods of rapid sea ice loss, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)."
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/permafrost.jsp
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/permafrost.jsp

Need more proof over global warming?

How about this.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061229-arctic-ice.html
And this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7595441.stm

And finally " Earth's land surface was unusually warmer than normal last month (November) with some exceptions that pointed to a destabilizing stage of early imploding climate change.

The temperature pattern over land during November showed that Eurasia - the planet's biggest continent combining Asia with the smaller sub-continent of Europe - had a dramatic departure from normal temperatures. Across eastern European Russia, eastward through central Siberia and southward over the open plains of northern Kazakhstan, mean monthly temperature last month ranged from 5C - 10C degrees above normal.

The unusual high temperatures faded eastward and northward, although the warmth overall was still substantially warmer than usual with only relative few swaths of near normal temperatures. In much of China and India temperatures were from 1C to 3C degrees above normal.

The core of Europe also recorded substantially warmer than usual warmth that tapered westward over Russia to central Europe. However, there was a noticeable chill of 1C to 3C degrees below normal over the Iberian Peninsula to nearby northwest Africa.

Across the Americas the corridors of western Alaska experienced temperatures 2C to 4C degrees below normal. But the Alaskan Arctic - together with the southeast, most of Canada and the western half of the United States - were significantly warmer than usual and up to 4C degrees above normal.

The eastern and southeastern areas of the US experienced a warm start to the month but ended up slightly colder than usual. While in South America, big heat waves made for widespread warmth 2C to 4C degrees above normal in Argentina and in Brazil."

Take a look here.
http://www.dailyplanetmedia.com/

[Vern]

Okay, the Carbon Dioxide (CO2)that we humans produce by burning fossil 'fuels' is what we call 'man made'. Plants trees and other flora produces also Carbon Dioxide, but that is part of the Earths normal cycle.
So btw: is Cows farthing, of all stupidities I've seen I think that one, and those that see the Arctics death as a blessing, have been amongst the most stupid I've read about.

All the fossil fuel we can possibly put into the atmosphere originally came from the atmosphere. The fossil fuel was once living stuff.

Plants consume CO2 and produce O2. The sky is not falling.

Money and greed produce false claims.

[dentstudent]

I would suggest that the use of "Prison Planet" developed by broadcaster Alex Jones (an accepted conspiracy theorist) is possibly not the best place to gain credible and impartial information about anything.