Hansen’s blog is here.
A couple of sample extracts:
The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species. “Make no doubt, however, if tipping points are passed, if we, in effect, destroy Creation, passing on to our children, grandchildren, and the unborn a situation out of their control, the contrarians who work to deny and confuse will not be the principal culprits. The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. … “The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What a hysterical rant. Hansen sounds like a car salesman huckstering that you better buy this car right now, don’t sleep on it, because tomorrow it will gone. Sorry. I back away when someone tries to pressure me and tells me that I don’t have time to think things over.
If one were to “suspend belief” and buy into Hansen’s claim that we might pass the “tipping point,” then he and people like him are to blame. Huge projects involving nations and industry take time to study for their needs versus alternative projects and to implement once the need is confirmed. We just can’t rush into things.
Why did he wait so long or too late–or, is just another car salesman?
Woody
he sounds worried and he knows the science better than you do.
Hi there,
Seems like a lively and rhetorically appropriate critique of much of the climate denying community. And, to improve on Woody’s metaphor, the plague has hit town and the car he’s trying to sell you is the last one in the yard. Are you worried that it only has an eight track?
If he’s right, then there is no time to waste. That’s not his fault, that’s just what the research is telling him. You can’t argue with what is happening in the real world.
SJT, Hansen is hysterical. He may know science better than I do, but he gets paid to push global warming alarms and I get nothing for the wisdom that I share here–and, that’s backwards for the truths from each of us, plus, he has a conflict of interests.
The faster Hansen talks and the louder he gets and the more he says that we don’t have enough time to think this through, the more suspicious I become.
If he had been serious and honest, this debate would have been settled by science much earlier rather than left-wing repetition and anti-West groups trying to push through the issue. It’s “his” fault, meaning people like him.
Why didn’t Al Gore take serious action when he and Clinton were in office? Clinton never submitted the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification. Why wasn’t global warming THE major campaign platform for Gore when he ran for President?
There’s time for dealing with this and a lot more, and shouldn’t we be able to adapt better than mankind has since the beginning of time and still surviving?
It’s always some crisis with people who never want to be happy and have to have some cause du jour. If Jen started a site about the threat of asteroids hitting the Earth, people would be telling us that we need to spend trillions on that.
Patrick, the problem is that Hansen only tells you that he has the last car for sale. He wants too much money for it and forgot to mention that the he stole the radio out of it. Rather than spend trillions for his junk, I’ll put that money towards educating my kids and providing for my family.
Yes – highly political emotive and a bit deceptive.
What are the tipping points?
When will they be reached?
What scientific evidence exists to back this up?
That type of stuff is speculative and easily seen as such.
I repeat – you don’t have to go to these lengths of emotive exaggeration to argue logically for reduced emissions.
So write him off and walk away – just go back to the dry IPCC reports.
His view on tipping points comes from his assessment of the Earth’s paleo history, what has happened before, and where he understands the climate is going.
But you can just ignore him. He’s only “an” opinion.
For some reason Hansen represents a focal point for all the evil denialist energy – if we didn’t have Hansen and Gore you’d all be bored shitless.
Gee then maybe – you’d have to dust off the neurones and talk about THE SCIENCE. Denialist doo-bees would have to decide which of the 60 theories they’d like to settle on. Perhaps they may even come up with a comprehensive structured “other” theory. Now let’s see was it cosmic rays, the PDO or ice age. Maybe solar torque or sunspots. Maybe it’s “NATURE”.
The climate’s done it before – maybe it will do it again (the tramp!). It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain for the contrarians.
Please don’t ask me! You’ve shilled once you can do it again.
How come we never hear anything about co-chair IPCC Working Group I – Susan ? yes the surname is ?
Do you know how she votes – whether she knows Soros?
Perhaps there may be a bit more to AGW than Hansen. I wonder if CSIRO consulted Hansen on their latest research. ROTFL. LMAO. etc
zzzzzzzzz next .. ..
More importantly – Divinyls were a good group actually (bit retro of course)
I know you love this stuff Woody – don’t you??
Get me out of here.. ..
Given that nothing has happened so far, logic and reason haven’t worked.
Ah yes, the old “tipping point” bunyip rises from the primordial sludge of the Hansen billabong.
Forgive me, I was under the impression that tipping points referred to changes in trend, like the change from an interglacial to an ice age, or from an ice age to a warming trend. But Hansen et al have so debased the language to imply that a “tipping point” is some sort of event during an extreme extrapolation that converts that extreme extrapolation into an irreversible, and incontestable fact.
We have had numerous references to the Greenland ice melt “tipping point” that is supposed to take place when the altitude of the ice mass has been reduced to a point where melting is continuous.
The only problem with this is that even spring and autumn temperatures are lower than -20C, and at 1C increase in temperature with every 100m drop in altitude, the claimed tipping point would still not be present if the entire 1500m thick ice sheet was not there.
Lets do the maths. If -20C + 15C still equals -5C then the tipping point is still 5C or 500m in altitude away.
Hansen’s use of such bogus and ill-defined terms makes it very clear in which camp the mongrel dog of deception gets it’s fleas.
“Ah yes, the old “tipping point” bunyip rises from the primordial sludge of the Hansen billabong.”
In fact I’d recommend that Hansen take note of the cold, reflective analytical language used here. I wish all peer reviewed scientific journals were written with the same dispassionate tone we find in this fine example.
Tell you what though some people are obviously a bit worried about their own gullibility …
“the problem is that Hansen only tells you that he has the last car for sale”, how’d you like some gen-u-ine moon rocks Woody?
Tipping point is only what you wish to make it but from experience, things really start zooming once rates of change double.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_Point
Words don’t describe it properly but look up phase transition rather than point of inflection, angle of response, positive feedback etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition
“Tipping point is a sociological term that refers to the moment when something unusual becomes common”
Ian – I think you will find Hansen is suggesting that the ice volume will come from Antarctic ice shelves more than Greenland and his argument is that “last time the Earth was this warm we have sea levels of “x” metres. And the ice shelves are undermined and collapse/slide into the ocean more than melt directly.
Added only for clarity.
It is a blog, Patrick, get over it.
Ah yes, Luke, a lump of ice bigger than Australia is just delicately poised there, just waiting for the little bump that will send it hurtling 3000km sideways. Bumped, perchance, by that mythical butterfly from the amazon?
Excerpt from the sceptics dictionary;
“Tipping point; An imaginary point, in what passes for logical sequences in the mind of a moron, or person otherwise burdened by cognitive deficiency, eg. by substance abuse, ideology, schizophrenia, bi-polar etc, beyond which the subject no longer feels under any obligation to base speculative extrapolations on relevant facts and realistic probability. Particularly associated with extreme pessimism. See IPCC, Hansen et al, gonzo science.”
Gee I love my daily ream out. Listen Mottsa – he’s not saying it will all melt is he? Only 9 metres of it, from Antarctica – so try to get a tad of precision into your abuse.
His basis – NOT a model but paleo history when Earth was as warm before. The tipping point stuff is just his theory of how it happens.
From Wiki:
If small glaciers and polar ice caps on the margins of Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula melt, the projected rise in sea level will be around 0.5 m. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet would produce 7.2 m of sea level rise, and melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would produce 61.1 m of sea level rise.[2] The collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level by 5-6 m
Hansen if not saying the whole 68.8 metres is he !! Only 9 metres.
From Wiki again: However, for the past 6,000 years (a few centuries before the first known written records), the world’s sea level has been gradually approaching the level we see today. During the previous interglacial about 120,000 years ago, sea level was for a short time about 6 m higher than today, as evidenced by wave-cut notches along cliffs in the Bahamas.
“[D]estroy Creation”?
Oh, my God!
Nobody ever told me about ‘universal warming.’ Will prayers help, or is giving money to Al Gore good enough?
We hear reports daily about the artic ice melting, the glaciers retreating, etc. People like Hansen claim this has been going on for decades, but I haven’t seen any problems in world water levels or anything for which we couldn’t adapt. Where’s the observable proof? There is only so much money available, so I’m going to put it where the results are more certain.
Woody have a look at the Artic ice melt stats – it has just gone off the scale – perhaps notable. You guys will be going “but but but” as the data keeps coming in.
Care to explain these two graphs Woodstock – you can’t.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/explain-this/
Water levels – MATE – wake up – SE Australia is in worst ever drought. Billions in aid. Permanent orchards dying –
Chinese really worried about Himalayan glaciers melting and loss of supply. Peru the same.
Wait till the glaciers are gone – then you might wake up.
You’re a typically insular yank – look outside your backyard ! You choose not to look – as if you look you’ll be most concerned with what you find. Drop the politics for a change and have a look at some data.
C3PO said
Woody,
he sounds worried and he knows the science better than you do.
I say, all of this is true. Hansen knows his
science is bogus, and he is worried with good
reason.
Everyday Steve McIntyre unravels a new falsehood.
Todays is, “2006 values for both NOAA and NASA are as much as 0.8 deg C higher than CRN1-2
values.”
Someone is cooking the books, literally. Hansen is the head cook.
Someday Hansen will get the Ken Lay treatment.
James I think you must be some sort of illiterate nitwit. Try getting off the cheer squad and reading. See McIntyre’s update. We’ve now got JohnV checking McIntyre. One on one mate.