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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
President 'has four years to save Earth'
2009-01-18
Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating Global Warming climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.

Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. "We cannot afford to put off change any longer," said Hansen. "We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead."

Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.

Only the US now had the political muscle to lead the world and halt the rise, Hansen said. Having refused to recognise that climate change global warming posed any risk at all over the past eight years, the US now had to take a lead as the world's greatest carbon emitter and the planet's largest economy. Cap-and-trade schemes, in which emission permits are bought and sold, have failed, he said, and must now be replaced by a carbon tax that will imposed on all producers of fossil fuels. At the same time, there must be a moratorium on new power plants that burn coal - the world's worst carbon emitter.

Hansen - head of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and winner of the WWF's top conservation award - first warned Earth was in danger from Global Warming climate change in 1988 and has been the victim of several unsuccessful attempts by the White House administration of George Bush to silence his views.

Hansen's institute monitors temperature fluctuations at thousands of sites round the world, data that has led him to conclude that most estimates of sea level rises triggered by rising atmospheric temperatures are too low and too conservative. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Global Warming Climate Change says a rise of between 20cm and 60cm can be expected by the end of the century.

However, Hansen said feedbacks in the climate system are already accelerating ice melt and are threatening to lead to the collapse of ice sheets. Sea-level rises will therefore be far greater - a claim backed last week by a group of British, Danish and Finnish scientists who said studies of past variations in climate indicate that a far more likely figure for sea-level rise will be about 1.4 metres, enough to cause devastating flooding of many of the world's major cities and of low-lying areas of Holland, Bangladesh and other nations.

As a result of his fears about sea-level rise, Hansen said he had pressed both Britain's Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences to carry out an urgent investigation of the state of the planet's ice-caps. However, nothing had come of his proposals. The first task of Obama's new Global Warming climate office should therefore be to order such a probe "as a matter of urgency", Hansen added.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#19  Oh, Bulllogna he can do it whenever he likes. All he has to do is fly 'round the Earth real fast and fix it then.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2009-01-18 21:03  

#18  He does, GoldenShellback. He's got one 4-year shot.

If he can't manage to do it by then, even the lefties will want to kick his worthless ass out of office in 2012. (Albeit for different reasons then normal people will have.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-01-18 19:47  

#17  Doctor to patient: "You only have one year to live".

Patient: "But I need at least 3 years to pay off your bills!"

Doctor (fumbling with papers): "Oh, silly me, you still have 3 years to live."
Posted by: European Conservative   2009-01-18 17:27  

#16  Now, now, Darth. As it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, I recommend everyone make a big-ass pile of truck tires in the driveway and burn 'em down in honor of The Chosen One.

As for Hansen, it is nice that he has won the World Wrestling Federation's top conservation award, but he would have flunked out of Mr. Gazierowski's 10th grade chem class for writing bad lab reports.
Posted by: SteveS   2009-01-18 17:21  

#15  LOL Darth.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2009-01-18 17:18  

#14  I thought this read:
"President 'has four years to ENSLAVE Earth'
Curious.
Posted by: GoldenShellback   2009-01-18 16:40  

#13  This is Hansen's job/promotion application being filed with BO and Carol Browner. Let's see if they bite.

Hansen's GW is a crock. But as long as temperatures seemed to be warming back in the 20th century many fence-sitters signed on to it.

Now things are NOT warming. They said the arctic ice would disappear. It's still there, and growing.) The glo-bull warming zealot continues to sail on in his Titanic of a political echo chamber. Methinks he is about to hit an iceburg.



Posted by: Minister of funny walks   2009-01-18 15:40  

#12  Save the earth, collect them all!
Posted by: DMFD   2009-01-18 15:26  

#11  -50F in Maine. Global sea ice same as 30 years ago. Lower troposphere temps same as 20 years ago. Sea level possibly dropping, certainly the rise is near the normal 3mm/year.

"Don't bother me with facts and related information."

Global Warming Summary by a Skeptic, Schumacher
Posted by: KBK   2009-01-18 15:10  

#10  Start by rendering this worthless git carbon neutral.
Posted by: DarthVader   2009-01-18 14:20  

#9  Somehow, I think Bambi ain't gonna be as tolerant of Mr. Hansen's rank insubordination as Georgie W was.
Posted by: mojo   2009-01-18 14:19  

#8  The ethical and intellectual collapse in much of science represented by the farcical and outrageous "global warming" nonsense surely ranks as the outstanding such episode in modern history.

In a world where more and more events force one to pinch oneself just to make sure you're actually living it, this is among the worst.

I'd be astonished if Bambi had the political will or guts to do anything serious (since that would mean economic calamity for no apparent gain). Instead, as with most of the vague and stupid ideas he and his ilk have been screaming or mumbling for years, they'll just define the issues away. While expanding the deadening hand of public sector spending and control, and appointing judges to continue the evisceration of the constitution and common sense rule of law, natch.
Posted by: Verlaine   2009-01-18 13:14  

#7  After the week we just had here in the Midwest, I got dibs on running him over with my snowblower first.

BRING ON GLOBAL WARMING!!!
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie   2009-01-18 12:33  

#6  I thought Obama could save earth in like 2 days. what's up
Posted by: rabid whitetail   2009-01-18 12:24  

#5  All this Global WarNing... about what ?
Posted by: Leroidavid   2009-01-18 12:10  

#4  "This so-called "scientist" should apply Occams's Razor to his own worthless throat.
Posted by: AlanC   2009-01-18 12:01  

#3  nothing had come of his proposals
This so-called "scientist" should apply Occams's Razor to that result and realize that Britain's Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences both concluded that he is stark raving mad.
Posted by: Darrell   2009-01-18 11:30  

#2  Not likely in the new administration.
Posted by: Steve White   2009-01-18 11:26  

#1  Hansen is not a scientist, but a screaming hysteric. Fire him
Posted by: Frank G   2009-01-18 11:05  

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