James E Hansen Quotes & Sayings

The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon. — James Hansen

Rising carbon price is essential to 'decarbonize' the economy - to remove the nation towards the era beyond fossil fuels. — James Hansen

Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career, — James Hansen

99 percent confident that the world really was getting warmer and that there was a high degree of probability that it was due to human-made greenhouse gases. — James Hansen

After spending three or four years interacting with the Bush administration, I realized they were not taking any actions to deal with climate change. So, I decided to give one talk, and then it snowballed into another talk and eventually to even protesting and getting arrested. — James Hansen

It has become very difficult for anyone to argue that observed global warming is natural variability. We have good reason for being able to say that the world will be warmer by about a quarter of a degree in the next decade. It's the same reason we had 10 years ago when we said that the 1990s would be warmer than the 1980s: The planet is out of equilibrium. — James Hansen

Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control. — James Hansen

The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues' gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release. Publicly humiliated? Yes please. Having all their crappy books remaindered? Definitely. Dragged away from their taxpayer funded troughs and their cushy sinecures, to be replaced by people who actually know what they're talking about? For sure. But hanging? Hell no. Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags. — James Delingpole

The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren. — James Hansen

He also had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids and it caused him to blink more than usual, as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept. — Ron Hansen

Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers. — James Hansen

Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King - and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights. — James Hansen

It's as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them. — James Hansen

We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life. — James Hansen

The global surface albedo [surface whiteness] and greenhouse gas changes account for practically the entire global climate change. — James Hansen

Scientists will say we can't blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that's right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming. — James Hansen

The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming. — James Hansen

What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet. — James Hansen

With a fourth generation of nuclear power, you can have a technology that will burn more than 99 percent of the energy in the fuel. It would mean that you don't need to mine uranium for the next thousand years. — James Hansen

We're running out of time. — James Hansen

I tend to be naive and gullible, I guess, but I try to believe that governments believe what they say. — James Hansen

Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up. — James Hansen

The danger is that the compromises and special interests inherent in Kyoto-style targets and cap-and-trade will be accepted because of bureaucratic momentum. — James Hansen

Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed. — James Hansen

I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university. — James Hansen

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. — James Hansen

Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases. The observed rapid warming gives urgency to discussions about how to slow greenhouse gas emissions. — James Hansen

Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate. — James Hansen

We have at most ten years - not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions ... We are near a tipping point, a point of no return, beyond which the built in momentum and feedbacks will carry us to levels of climate change with staggering consequences for humanity and all of the residents of this planet. — James Hansen

We're handing them [young people & future generations] a climate system which is potentially out of their control. We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction — James Hansen