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."

Comments

"Level playing field" is a sham

[Dachannien]

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.

Re:"Level playing field" is a sham

[jpapon]

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.

Actually, I think the idea is to put a monetary cost on things which currently have no cost, namely, emission of gasses which may have a negative effect on climate. I think thinking that there is some conspiracy here is kind of ridiculous. One side wants to implement government regulations to reduce carbon emissions. The other side believes the market will solve these problems. So we arrive at a compromise where we attempt to achieve our goal (reducing emissions) by using the market (make it have a cost). This seems entirely reasonable. Why shouldn't we attach a cost to pollution?

Re:"Level playing field" is a sham

[Entropius]

It really is the only sensible way to go about it: as you say, fossil fuels' cost doesn't represent their true cost, because they cause unreimbursed damage to ... everyone.

Use a carbon tax to make these fuels' cost represent their real cost, cut taxes somewhere else if you want to or dole the money out to the public, and let the market sort it out.

Re:"Level playing field" is a sham

[BasilBrush]

That's a false dichotomy. Both manufacture and research provide jobs, and both are being funded. There is no either/or.

There are plenty of alternative technologies already, and they need to be rolled out. Then as research comes up with better ones, the roll out will progress to better technology.

Compare and contrast with microprocessors. Would you have said in the late 1970s that we need to invest in microprocessor research RATHER THAN manufacture? That the 808*, 6502 and Z80 weren't good enough and we should wait for something better before manufacturing? Had we have done so, we'd never have had the Core 2s and such like of today. The market supplied reason, direction and finance to the research.

Re:The problem no one will mention

[Issarlk]

So if I understand well, eating the vegetables ourselves is unsustainable. But feeding animals with them, then eating the meat is somehow sustainable?

Sorry but something doesn't adds up here.

It's just nuts

[Johann Lau]

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.

Re:The problem no one will mention

[Rockoon]

Don't forget, the third most populous country is the United States.

Its China and India with their 36.47% of the worlds population, and then the United States with its 4.47%.

Your statement, while correct, is disingenuous in intent. You are using the truth to be dishonest.

This graph spells it out nicely. The United States is on the same line as all less populous countries, while China and India are playing on a completely different field.

The fact that every other country falls on that line says something important about the line, and also says something important about the only two outliers.