James Hansen speaks out

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
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What would he know about global climates, he was only director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies for several decades and was taught by James Van Allen. There's something wrong when politicians think they have a better grasp of physics than world renowned physicists.

Top U.S. climate expert calls Conservatives 'Neanderthal' - Politics - CBC News

The former NASA scientist criticized by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver earlier this week for his views on the Keystone XL pipeline is responding by calling the Conservatives a desperate and "Neanderthal" government.

In an interview with Evan Solomon airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, James Hansen defended his position that approving the proposed pipeline would be disastrous for the environment.

I think Hansen is being kind, it would be more accurate to refer to many in the Harper government as criminal.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
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Now, I am far from a conservative supporter, BUT....Oliver nailed this.

"It does not advance the debate when people make exaggerated comments that are not rooted in the facts. And he should know that," Oliver said to reporters, following a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In an op-ed piece for the New York Times last year, Hansen claimed that "if Canada proceeds [with oilsands development], and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate."
Oliver countered that when a source of energy represents 1/1000th of global emissions, "to say it’s the end of the planet if that’s developed is nonsense."
He added that "crying wolf all the time" does not advance the serious debate.


Joe Oliver slams scientist's oilsands claims as 'nonsense' - Politics - CBC News
 

SLM

The Velvet Hammer
Mar 5, 2011
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London, Ontario
Now, I am far from a conservative supporter, BUT....Oliver nailed this.




Joe Oliver slams scientist's oilsands claims as 'nonsense' - Politics - CBC News

He's absolutely right, it does not advance the discussion. Additionally it actually does more harm to the cause they seek to advance, they shoot themselves in the foot with exaggerated claims. Any cause suffers when the more extreme followers of that cause continually advocate full on exaggerated alarm in this way.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
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He's absolutely right, it does not advance the discussion. Additionally it actually does more harm to the cause they seek to advance, they shoot themselves in the foot with exaggerated claims. Any cause suffers when the more extreme followers of that cause continually advocate full on exaggerated alarm in this way.


I USED to be a proponent of climate change. It was brain dead morons like this idiot that turned me off of it. If they had kept it real, it would be different.
 

SLM

The Velvet Hammer
Mar 5, 2011
29,151
3
36
London, Ontario
I USED to be a proponent of climate change. It was brain dead morons like this idiot that turned me off of it. If they had kept it real, it would be different.

I've never been strictly for or against it, I've just always been of the mindset that of course we do impact the planet, it's just the degree to which we are doing it that's the big question. But when either side (of any debate issue) throws out the extreme rhetoric, it just turns me off and I stop listening.

Keeping it real would definitely have helped.
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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What would he know about global climates, he was only director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies for several decades and was taught by James Van Allen. There's something wrong when politicians think they have a better grasp of physics than world renowned physicists.

I think Hansen is being kind, it would be more accurate to refer to many in the Harper government as criminal.

You are maybe too innocent to realize that Hansen was elevated to world renown especially for Mission Science work in the service of the NWO. Maybe you remember another Mission Scientist name of Sagan who's retarded work on comets made of snow made him a super star in another time. And of course lets not leave out the emperor of Mission Science Hawking who's responsible for the worlds worst collection of coffee table science books ever envisioned. He's an idiot. How about our own CBC science Bob who has yet to ask a meaningful question of any of his guest yet and usually spends his time fawning and ooing and aweing over their lunatic ideas.
 

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
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Now, I am far from a conservative supporter, BUT....Oliver nailed this.

From what I read, James Hansen is concerned about the amount of bitumen present in the oil sands and what continued development would mean. And close to 2 million barrels a day production of a heavy crude that has a global warming footprint between 3 and 4 times that of light crude from reserves is a significant contribution to the overall situation.

It's the 300-500 BILLION barrels of crude equivalent in the Athabasca region that James Hansen and others are concerned about and how much of that evolving technology will allow to be extracted. If you accept the well established science on the issue, we should be finding ways to phase out fossil fuels, not find ways to exploit some of the most energy intensive and high emissions sources.

I USED to be a proponent of climate change. It was brain dead morons like this idiot that turned me off of it. If they had kept it real, it would be different.

I haven't seen anything seriously flawed in his science and he's done his best to keep out of the politics and stick with the science. With some of the implications already from global warming and climate change, I think James Hansen is being responsible, it's the politicians and business figures who are distorting the science who are acting irresponsibly in my opinion. When the worst affects of global warming arrive, most will be dead, leaving the next generations with one hell of a mess.

In his speech, Oliver listed the benefits he said will come from the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would carry oil from Western Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. He said the pipeline will create thousands of jobs and ensure the U.S. with a reliable supply of oil.

"Ultimately this comes down to a choice. The U.S. can choose Canada — a friend, neighbour and ally — as its source of oil imports," Oliver said. "Or it can choose to continue to import oil from less friendly, less stable countries with weaker — or perhaps no — environmental standards."

Oliver added that oilsands development will continue, whether the Keystone pipeline is approved or not.

I think politicians like this are living in a dream world, we're already seeing serious affects from climate change, the short term economic picture is meaningless if current activity causes so much chaotic change that even nations can start to question their long term viability. The scale of this is massive and relentless, at the very least our politicians should be seriously questioning their assumptions based on the best available evidence, but the conservatives seem almost totally incapable of this.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
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From what I read, James Hansen is concerned about the amount of bitumen present in the oil sands and what continued development would mean. And close to 2 million barrels a day production of a heavy crude that has a global warming footprint between 3 and 4 times that of light crude from reserves is a significant contribution to the overall situation.

It's the 300-500 BILLION barrels of crude equivalent in the Athabasca region that James Hansen and others are concerned about and how much of that evolving technology will allow to be extracted. If you accept the well established science on the issue, we should be finding ways to phase out fossil fuels, not find ways to exploit some of the most energy intensive and high emissions sources.



I haven't seen anything seriously flawed in his science and he's done his best to keep out of the politics and stick with the science. With some of the implications already from global warming and climate change, I think James Hansen is being responsible, it the politicians and business figures who are distorting the science who are acting irresponsibly in my opinion. When the worst affects of global warming arrive, most will be dead, leaving the next generations with one hell of a mess.


Here it is in a nut shell

"Oliver countered that when a source of energy represents 1/1000th of global emissions, "to say it’s the end of the planet if that’s developed is nonsense.""


You want to ignore that fact, you go right ahead and continue to bash oil sands development, and cry wolf about it being the demise of the planet. Coal generated electricity is far more detrimental, but it is so much easier to bash the oil sands.


I think politicians like this are living in a dream world, we're already seeing serious affects from climate change, the short term economic picture is meaningless if current activity causes so much chaotic change that even nations can start to question their long term viability. The scale of this is massive and relentless, at the very least our politicians should be seriously questioning their assumptions based on the best available evidence, but the conservatives seem almost totally incapable of this.


No, it's you and your politically motivated "climate scientists" that are living in the dream world. At this point in time they all can't even agree on the actual amount of "warming"..... or was that "cooling"...... or is it "both"....... that is/has/will occur.
 

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
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Here it is in a nut shell

"Oliver countered that when a source of energy represents 1/1000th of global emissions, "to say it’s the end of the planet if that’s developed is nonsense.""


You want to ignore that fact, you go right ahead and continue to bash oil sands development, and cry wolf about it being the demise of the planet. Coal generated electricity is far more detrimental, but it is so much easier to bash the oil sands.

I don't think it's a pick and choose situation, I think eventually we should go off of all fossil fuels starting with coal. I've also proposed using nuclear power to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands projects and sent an email to my local MLA detailing that. I'm not bashing oil sands development, I'm concerned about the long term viability of the province, country and world I live in based on the science, not the local politics and economics.

No, it's you and your politically motivated "climate scientists" that are living in the dream world. At this point in time they all can't even agree on the actual amount of "warming"..... or was that "cooling"...... or is it "both"....... that is/has/will occur.

I didn't invent this issue and the science goes back hundreds of years, it's hardly invented. There will be eventual cooling in thousands of years due to the Milankovitch cycles but the negative forcing from those is so small compared to human generated positive forcings from greenhouse gases and other activities that as long as we're emitting greenhouse gases there won't be another ice age glaciation period.

It's probable we've been significantly altering the natural world for 8,000 years or more through "wet" agricultural activity that has been emitting methane such as rice and taro farming. This inter-glacial period probably hasn't shown the temperature variability of previous ones due to our influence, we're already affecting the climate on a global scale and have been for thousands of years. Now modern technology allows us to do it much faster, at the very least we should be debating this issue in Canada seriously instead of trying to discredit experts who's evidence contradicts political policies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
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I don't think it's a pick and choose situation, I think eventually we should go off of all fossil fuels starting with coal. I've also proposed using nuclear power to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands projects and sent an email to my local MLA detailing that. I'm not bashing oil sands development, I'm concerned about the long term viability of the province, country and world I live in based on the science, not the local politics and economics.


Rather than concentrating on a resource that introduces a miniscule amount into ecosphere, why don't you concentrate on the resources that DO contribute vast amounts? The reason you and the NASA no mind don't is because whining about china and India would be a waste of time whereas whining about Canada scores ya's points.


I didn't invent this issue and the science goes back hundreds of years, it's hardly invented. There will be eventual cooling in thousands of years due to the Milankovitch cycles but the negative forcing from those is so small compared to human generated positive forcings from greenhouse gases and other activities that as long as we're emitting greenhouse gases there won't be another ice age glaciation period.


Really, and then there are those that predict that we are bringing another ice age upon ourselves.
 

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
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Rather than concentrating on a resource that introduces a miniscule amount into ecosphere, why don't you concentrate on the resources that DO contribute vast amounts? The reason you and the NASA no mind don't is because whining about china and India would be a waste of time whereas whining about Canada scores ya's points.

I'm all for China being required to reduce it's dependency on coal and other fossil fuels, but it's hard for Canada to argue for this when we're not reducing our own dependency. One barrel of Western Canadian Select produces between 3-4 times the amount of greenhouse gases as light crude pumped from the ground. We're producing about 2 million barrels a day now which would give us a greenhouse gas footprint equivalent to 6 to 8 million barrels of light crude, Saudi Arabia produces about 9 million barrels a day. In the future when oil sands production goes to over 3 million barrels a day by 2030 or 5 million by 2050 which it's projected to, that will be the equivalent of around 10.5 million barrels and 17.5 million barrels a day respectively. That's a lot of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere and why many people are concerned about this. It's also why I contacted my MLA and proposed something that would make the oil sands project more viable in the short term. A small nuclear reactor of Gen IV design could replace the use of natural gas at site reducing emissions there and a larger 1,000-1,500 MWe nuclear power plant could replace the use of coal fired power plants for the upgraders. In the long term I think we should develop Gen IV nuclear power, and other sources of power to replace all fossil fuels, this is the 21st. Century, not the 19th.

Really, and then there are those that predict that we are bringing another ice age upon ourselves.

Nobody credible, there was a small amount of conjecture by a few theorists in the early 1970s, but most researchers in global climate studies have accepted the high probability of human driven climate change for decades, certainly since the mid 1990s when the signal clearly rose above the noise of background measurements.

We're already coming up to a wall in terms of oil sands viability, if there's no debate at all on how to meet the valid concerns(at least as far as they're concerned) of other nations then we could lose the whole thing as demand drops.

Alberta’s loathed ‘bitumen bubble’ slams Canada’s rich province - The Globe and Mail

In yesterday’s budget, Finance Minister Doug Horner projected that Western Canadian Select, whose price has been well below global benchmarks because of pipeline constraints exacerbated by the shale boom in the United States, will continue to trade at a marked discount.

WCS, as it’s known, is forecast to sell at an average 27-per-cent below West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, in the 2013-14 fiscal year. That’s projected to shrink to 19 per cent by the next fiscal year, and it’s hitting the province hard.

I seriously doubt the Northern Gateway project is going to go through with an NDP government set to take over in BC, they've already stated they won't support the project. And even if the Liberals pull a miracle off and hold onto power, there's a good chance they won't back it either.

Northern Gateway appears likely to be rejected by next B.C. government - The Globe and Mail

Should the Liberals hang on to power, it’s likely the B.C. legal team will be instructed to say “no” to the pipeline. Even with the draft conditions on Northern Gateway released last week by the NEB, the five conditions for B.C. government approval that were laid out by Ms. Clark have not yet been met. Ms. Clark, at a party fundraiser last week, signalled she will take the pipeline issue to voters as she laid out her campaign priorities in a half-hour speech.

Keeping the oil sands alive means getting WCS to a market that's set up to process it, which means the Texas coast most likely. And if we're totally against any sort of compromise on this issue then we give oursleves no room at all to work with interested parties in the US. This "avoid reality at costs approach" being taken by the current federal government is likely to cost us even limited continued viability of the oil sands project.

Playing with the truth has consequences.