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NASA's Hansen Calls Out Obama On Climate Change
Hugh Pickens writes "Dr James Hansen, director of the NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who first made warnings about climate change in the 1980s, writes in the NY Times that he was troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves 'regardless of what we do.' According to Hansen 'Canada's tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now.' Hansen says that instead of placing a rising fee on carbon emissions to make fossil fuels pay their true costs, leveling the energy playing field, the world's governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds of billions of dollars per year."
The level playing field for carbon neutrality is a sham designed to do nothing more than transfer wealth from first-world economies to third-world economies. In the process, all you really do is set a soft cap on carbon emissions without reducing actual dependence upon fossil fuels.
We can achieve the same goal of reducing carbon output by instead investing that money into first-world research and development of alternative fuels. Full implementation then eliminates carbon emissions altogether, a goal which can't be achieved by market-based carbon neutrality alone.
Overpopulation.
If you want less carbon emitted, reduce our population.
We are not going to achieve zero carbon emissions, but we need more (a) natural land and forests to absorb that and (b) fewer producing sources.
All people produce some carbon. Having seven and then nine billion people guarantees we will be unable to stop the increase even if we all live in mud huts, eat vegetables and bury our poop.
Futurist Traditionalism
Every political debate about climate change countermeasures comes down to the same fundamental conflict:
Politician: "My advisers inform me that if we do not take action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, there will be serious global climate repercussions."
Public: "Well, reduce emissions then."
Politician: "This does mean some unavoidable increase in gas prices, but -"
Public: "FUCK THE CLIMATE! Give us cheap gas!"
People are happy to do something to help reduce emissions, providing this something doesn't involve any expense or inconvenience for them personally. Politicians know this. There is a big public demand to exploit every drop of oil that can be found in order to keep gas prices down, and it's very difficult for anyone hoping to get elected again to go against that.
So on this website whenever Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, etc. do anything that America doesn't like it's universally applauded as "standing up against evil imperialist right-wing Chrisitan America" No matter how bad or destructive the action, it's OK because it's "speaking truth to power" or some nonsense.
Now we have Canada basically saying that it's going to use its own oil, and the exact same people are going apoplectic. International intervention suddenly become
Note that these same people are strangely silent when Brazil or Venezuela develop new oil resources, and I haven't heard any huge outrage over the fact that drilling off the coast of Cuba will put oil rigs just a few miles from the Florida Keys. The same people who complain that America == Somalia (you've seen those posts) because we don't have the federal government in control of all economic activity never complain when foreign corporations drill for oil righ in the middle of sensitive areas.. as long as the money will be going to a government they approve of.
I've come to realize that environmental movement doesn't really care about what is done to the planet, only on who is doing it. Put up a windmill in America that a bird might run into? Destroying the world! Use nuclear power in Japan? CHINA SYNDROME! Setup nuclear plants in Iran that are known to be using unsafe designs that are intended to produce weapons-grade plutonium instead of producing electricity? No problem. Put an oil pipeline directly through the rainforest in Venezuela to prop up Hugo Chavez? That's a wonder of the world showing how great socialism is!
I've seen it all before and this is just a thin coating of green paint on a corrupt and broken set of ideas.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Consider the vast amount of energy the sun is pumping into earth (not to mention all the stuff that doesn't hit earth....). We need to get to that, instead of plundering resources that could be used for other things other than just burning them, or in some cases even are best just left there. If worst comes to worst, we let "elites" and private, short-sighted interests run amok with this, and when they're done with it let it serve as an excuse for even more control and subsidies (for more stuff that does more harm than good, ofc). Instead of, you know, being gentle(wo)men and trying to get free energy, shelter and food for everybody. How can we even look in the mirror.. Oh wait, we can't, that solves that.
I know this is a rather random rant off-topic; I have no clue about the details about any of this, anyway... but "the big picture" gets me every time. It's just nuts! No convincing me otherwise.. we have a veritable Garden of Eden on one hand, and New York and Calcutta is what we turn it into. WTF.
I am very tired of the same old Apocalyptic rants from this stupid political straw man. "Global Warming" is now "Climate Change": a move in words that Joseph Goebbels would love! Climate change is a straw man. These people are anti-capitalists, they are Puritanical. They are elitist ecological technocrats. They are moralists! They believe that everyone should bow to their world view, the means to do that is through legislation on "climate change".
GUESS WHAT?? ITS CALLED THE WEATHER! AND IT CHANGES!!!! Why does it have to be apocalyptic, in your myopic vision? Why can't northern fields, liberated from cold produce more 10 times more food? Energy saved with mild winters would be Trillions of Barrels of oil! Deserts, emersed in the warm steamy wind off the oceans will bloom! Why not have that kind of a hippie dream? NO! instead it has to be DOOM!
Listen you liberal apocalyptic fear-mongers:
QUIT TELLING US WHAT TO DO!!!
Great principle. What about charging for the environmental destruction many third world nations are guilty of? What about charging for the enormous population growth that Asia and Africa are imposing on the world? What about charging for the stupendous costs environmental destruction in Europe over the last 5000 years has imposed on the rest of the world, not to mention the consequences of European colonialism and emigration, which kick-started these processes all around the world?
Depending on how you account for these factors, you reach very different answers about who should pay for carbon emissions. There is no objectively right answer, and that's why there won't be any meaningful agreement on carbon emissions.
Hansen would be garner more support from a wider base and generally more acceptance if instead of trying to stop people from doing things he encouraged them to do something...such as invest in nuclear power.
If the AGW crowd expended only half as much energy advocating and educating the public about nuclear power, and how it could solve the AGW problem, as they do with silly stunts and way over the top scenarios (50 feet higher eh?), it would be a win win. CO2 would be cut and we could tell the Oil Tyrants to fuck off and die.
I know that Hansen supports nuclear, including Breeder reactors for waste recycling, but he's not very vocal about it.
People respond better when you come to them with a solution rather than admonishments, guilt and doomsday predictions.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.