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
We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.
We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.
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.
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.
It is an important study that increases our confidence that there is a link between global warming and intense tropical storms.
I think I was just trying to find my father, ... I hadn't been able to ask him these questions.
I think this is a more optimistic assessment of the chances for keeping climate change moderate in the next 50 years, and the way to do that is to focus on stopping the growth of several gases, ... Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario.
The area below the proposed plat has experienced numerous slides that have resulted in residential property damage.
To be playing in a threesome with Neil Armstrong and Clint Eastwood was pretty incredible, ... For Peggy and I to be part of that was pretty heady stuff.
With a fourth generation of nuclear power, you can have a technology that will burn more than 99 percent of the energy in the fuel. It would mean that you don't need to mine uranium for the next thousand years.
We can't afford to wait another 10 years.
Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.
You have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media.
What makes tar sands particularly odious is that the energy you get out in the end, per unit carbon dioxide, is poor. It's equivalent to burning coal in your automobile.