James Hansen
James Hansen
James Edward Hansenis an American adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years he has become a climate activist to mitigate the effects of climate change, on a few occasions leading to his arrest...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth29 March 1941
CountryUnited States of America
He wanted it to be a scholarly book, ... I think if I had been a commercial writer, he would not have paid much attention. He's not interested in feature stories about him.
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.
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.
For instance, they're using the economy as the reason not to consider taking action. I've been chastised for being a scientist saying we are damaging the economy in the long run. But you need to look at the broad problem. I think I'm free to do so and free to have my opinion.
It is an important study that increases our confidence that there is a link between global warming and intense tropical storms.
I think you have a base that can be a credit to this area, more so. I guess I didn't understand the importance of this area to America.
They're a lot of fun to perform with. They're good guys to work with. They're helpful to work with. Any time you can work with a professional group, it's helpful.
You can't tie a rope around the ice sheet. You can't build a wall around the ice sheets.
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.
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.
I don't know how much is done to start with, ... It is a suggestion by political folks in the White House. I don't think that is 'done.'
There's no win for us in talking about this.
I put a little more emphasis (than the other commissioners did) on the lack of savings when it seemed obvious that we had way too much infrastructure,
If there's one place that I could put my finger on and say what's the No. 1 place that if a rogue aircraft came in and you had trouble it would really have a huge amount of trouble, it would have to be Houston, Texas. Boy, that could just bring America to its knees, almost.