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
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.
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.
We've driven them out of the range that has existed for the last 1 million years. And the climate has not fully responded to changes that have already occurred.
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.
You have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media.
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.
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.'
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.
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,
I made the vote predicated on what I thought was right.
In California, they are beginning to require much cleaner fuels for transportation vehicles, ... That kind of thing could go a long way in reducing pollutants.
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.
If somebody came and took my dog, it would break my heart.
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.