In the latest issue of Seed, Chris Mooney has a nice profile of legendary climate scientist James Hansen. Here's the nut:
Yet Hansen isn't afraid of value judgments either. With increasing stridency, he has been articulating a very political, very moral premise: We can't take much more human-induced greenhouse warming if we want to preserve the planet in the state that we actually like. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had originally united the world behind the goal of preventing "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system"--but left the word "dangerous" conveniently undefined. Hansen, however, has been defining it explicitly, in the process outlining a scenario much more alarming than those produced by the more conservative U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to Hansen, we can sustain only one more degree (Celsius), at maximum, of human-induced global warming before we're committed to consequences that are simply intolerable--most frighteningly, the disintegration of the ice sheets, followed by a catastrophic sea-level rise measured in tens of meters. Translating that into years, Hansen says we have maybe a decade to get the climate problem under control.
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Zarkov Posted 7:37 pm
12 Mar 2007
NASA
>>> most frighteningly, the disintegration of the ice sheets, followed by a catastrophic sea-level rise measured in tens of meters.
Wrong the Antarctic ice sheet in danger is partially submerged... ie it is resting on land under the sea water level. So it won't add much to sea level rise even if it did melt... but it won't. The Antarctic will in general gain more ice and snow. The sea level will not rise by very much, IMO.
>>Translating that into years, Hansen says we have maybe a decade to get the climate problem under control. >>
Hansen is a greenhouse gas advocate. Curious because NASA has incidentally reported upon the marine oil peril, but doesn't seem to have recognised the significance. Curious and curiouser, said Alice.
But, yes the first decade of possible effective mitigation has resulted in no-action action.
Another decade will see civilisation in its death throes.
I understand the reluctance to act....
What would you do ? So why worry ?
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WWAGD?! Posted 2:10 am
13 Mar 2007
Subjective Hype Machines Then?
I already don't like this guy:
Oh, yes, let's not be those scientists who deal with "facts", no, let's go and win some Oscars and have a lot of conferences despite the facts.
I mean, facts get in the way of him getting on television and scaring people. If they knew the facts, they'd see that Global Warming is (a) beneficial to most people and (b) completely and utterly naturogenic.
Yes, let's be those kind of scientists that swill cappucinos at conferences in Geneva where we discuss "policies" rather than writing papers, formulating hypothesis and testing them in the lab (like Henrik Svensmark, a real scientist).
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Whiskerfish Posted 3:23 am
13 Mar 2007
Jabailo, who pays you...
...to spout this meaningless drivel?
Science has always been value-driven and value-laden. Just because various aspects of the scientific method are means of approaching amore objective view of things doesn't mean that scientists aren't embedded in moral matrices that direct what they do.
You also clearly have no idea how the media industry works.
Whiskerfish
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Whiskerfish Posted 3:25 am
13 Mar 2007
While we're at it, Jabailo, could you...
...please define a 'purely scientific opinion'?
Yours expectantly
Whiskerfish
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