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
The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren.
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.
I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university.
Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.
What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.
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.
In a way it's kind of my own moon landing, ... It's hard to top this. I don't think I can top it.
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.
I made the vote predicated on what I thought was right.
I'm probably the hardest head of the bunch (of nine commissioners),
What really won that (decision in favor of Groton) was Rob Simmons, ... He did a phenomenal job.
What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
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.
Earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements, The warming of a few degrees is going to take us to a world that is perhaps as different from today as the last ice age is from today.