James Hansen
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Rush Limbaugh calls climatologist James Hansen a ‘double agent’
Earlier this week, the notorious Rush Limbaugh got in trouble for calling soldiers in Iraq opposed to the war "phony."
Thursday he called the science of ozone depletion "phony" and the science of climate change "fraudulent." Limbaugh went on to accuse Dr. James Hansen, America's top climatologist, of being "dishonest," compared him to a "CIA double agent," and said he should be "drummed out of NASA."
Does anyone take Limbaugh seriously anymore? Apparently, the answer is yes. Here are facts and links for the open-minded:
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The question must be asked
The thought didn't cross my mind until my Minneapolis-based brother suggested it. I had asked him for his thoughts on the collapse, and that is the question he posed.
I was skeptical at first, but after doing a Google search -- and after NBC reported Sunday that National Transportation Safety Board investigators are "looking at everything" including "the weather" -- I think it is a legitimate question to ask.
First, though, why is it an important question to ask? NASA's James Hansen says we are on the verge of turning the earth into "a different planet," thanks to uncontrolled greenhouse-gas emissions. We've seen the Brits and Chinese link recent flooding tragedies driven by extreme weather to climate change.
We are all facing far more extreme heat waves, floods, wildfires, rainstorms, droughts and hurricanes -- yet our infrastructure apparently can't handle the weather we have today, as Hurricane Katrina revealed. If we don't adopt aggressive actions to prevent catastrophic climate change, we need to seriously climate-proof our electric grid, our levees, and our water and sewage systems.
The question remains, do we need to climate-proof our bridges? Does a connection exist between climate change and the collapse of the I-35W bridge? Consider what a meteorologist who worked in the city for years blogged:
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How coal CO2 is different from oil CO2
Our top climate scientist has sent out a really, really long email (where does he find the time?), mostly discussing comments on his recent essay on coal. I think Hansen is the clearest thinker on climate among the top scientists in the field, so I will reprint the email, breaking it up into several postings. The first one addresses "Coal-CO2 versus Oil-CO2": -
A guest essay
A week or so back, climate scientist James Hansen passed this essay along to a few folks. It’s about the need to rein in coal, and the puzzling lack of involvement from young people on the issue. I thought I’d pass it along. —– Scientific data reveal that the Earth is close to dangerous climate […]
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Hansen says scientists need lovin’, too
NASA climate scientist James Hansen has a new paper out, titled “How Can We Avert Dangerous Climate Change,” which is actually a slightly-edited version of his testimony before Congress in April. The paper is available online here (PDF), and it’s worth checking out, of course. But also interesting is the preamble Hansen included in his […]
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Is anyone listening?
James Hansen has a new paper out, co-authored with six other scientists: "Climate Change and trace gases." It appears in the current issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and Hansen says: "In my opinion, among our papers this one probably does the best job of making clear that the Earth is getting […]
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Hard to believe he’s part of the Bush administration!
Everybody and their cousin has already posted on this, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it, but yesterday on NPR, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said some extraordinarily stupid things. To wit: I’m aware that global warming exists. … Whether that is a longterm concern or not, I can’t say. … … I […]
