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 have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn't make it clear.
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.
Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.
There's no win for us in talking about this.
I've never seen such great support as you see from the folks in Texas. They really put their money where their mouth is.
This is an authorized biography, and a lot of readers may suspect that that means that it will treat Neil with kid gloves, ... That's not the case. Neil gave me complete freedom of interpretation and analysis. All he wanted to do was have input to make sure my facts were straight.