Hansen and his bosses

[mmcirvin]

Political appointees at NASA really don't like what Jim Hansen has been saying about global warming. A scientist who works for Hansen speaks here.

We mostly have Hansen's side of the story here, but nothing I've heard about his statements suggests to me that he's a hysterical loose cannon. His warnings about a closing window of opportunity to prevent major ice sheet melting further down the line are, as far as I can tell, pretty much based on consensus science on the subject, and downright conservative compared to, say, James Lovelock's recent we're-all-gonna-die-with-Gaia strangeness.

I don't think global warming is going to kill us all; I do think that if global temperatures go up by a few degrees over the coming century, and sea levels rise, storms become more destructive, etc., the usual thing is going to happen, which is to say that the poorest and most defenseless people in the world are going to be hit hard—and the rest of us will lose some things we'd rather not, such as, say, New York and Boston. But in the near term, an American administration judging results in climate science on the basis of loyalty bothers me more.

Comments

Climate Chaos

[http://users.livejournal.com/erasmus__/]

I see the damage down by global warming events (floods in Sacramento, tornadoes in the mdiwest, blizzards up north, droughts wherever) to defintely be a drag on the economy.

I'm surprised there's not more campus activism around it.

[(Anonymous)]

But Jim Henson's dead!

...

Wait, hold on.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

I'm worried that it's going to make Colorado even drier, which is going to have all sorts of fun effects on interstate water rights.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't think CO had much left to take after Calfornia. And with the huge exodus of Californians to those dry states it's only going to get worse. We really need to make golf courses in the desert punishable by death. Or make them cut it 24/7. With a pair of scissors. Manicure scissors. Or something.