James Hansen at the US Building Solutions Conference

On 29 January 2014, James Hansen gave the John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture at the Building Climate Solutions Conference. His talk title was "Minimizing Irreversible Impacts of Human-Made Climate Change". 

Watch live streaming video from climatenexus at livestream.com

James Hansen The Climate Crisis and the Need for an Energy Revolution

I have found another talk by James Hansen to listen to. It is titled 'The Climate Crisis and the Need for an Energy Revolution' and Hansen gave the talk on 10 October 2012 in New York as part of the Energy Emergency, Energy Transition roundtable convened by Cornell University's Global Labor Institute (GLI), a program of the Worker Institute at Cornell, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

The latest James Hansen talk Facing the Truth About Global Warming

I found another talk by James Hansen on the internet. Hansen gave the talk to the Center for Science Writings (CSW) at Stevens Institute of Technology after they had given him another award for his book Storms of my Grandchildren.

Facing the Truth About Global Warming

New James Hansen talk from 10 October

Here is a new talk by James Hansen on climate change and tipping points. It has been uploaded by Cornell University.

Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute addresses 75 international union leaders about the urgency of the climate crisis. The presentation was given in NYC on 10/10/12, and was part of the Energy Emergency, Energy Transition round table convened by Cornell University's Global Labor Institute (GLI), a program of the Worker Institute at Cornell, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Nick Smith blows hot gas for more global warming

What has happened to the hon Dr Nick Smith? The former Minister of Climate Change Issues, A while back he resigned from all his ministerial offices when his conflict of interest in the ACC case of his National-insider friend Brownyn Pullar became public.

Well Nick Smith is back and is promoting the extraction of unconventional gas via hydraulic fracturing.

Smith has written an op-ed in the NZ Herald Fracking the sensible choice for NZ.

Fracking technologies are underpinning an energy revolution in the United States. Huge unconventional shale gas resources in Louisiana and Pennsylvania are coming on stream, enabling gas to replace coal-fired electricity generation. Gas emits one-third the greenhouse gas emissions of coal.

So, according to Smith, from a global warming perspective, unconventional gas is implicitly okay as its emits one-third the greenhouse gas emissions of coal.

Smith concludes that NZ needs;

a strong economy and a clean environment. That will only be possible if we take a rational and science-based approach to our natural resources and risk management.

But promoting unconventional gas development is not the climate science based approach.

Thats abundantly clear from James Hansen's speaking tour of New Zealand in 2011. Did Smith miss these?

Kharecha and Hansen, in their 2008 paper Implications of "peak oil" for atmospheric CO2 and climate. Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 22, GB3012, doi:10.1029/2007GB003142, have clearly told us that we can only keep carbon dioxide concentrations from exceeding about 450 ppm by 2100, if emissions from coal, unconventional fossil fuels, and land use are constrained.

The specific issue of whether a transition to conventional natural gas will actually reduce future greenhouse gas emissions is dealt with in Myhrvold and Caldeira (2012) Greenhouse gases, climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity.

The Carnegie Institute explains Caldeira and Myhrvold's conclusion; Only the lowest CO2 emitting technologies can avoid a hot end-of-century.

..in the case of natural gas—increasingly the power industry’s fuel of choice, because gas reserves have been growing and prices have been falling—the study finds that warming would continue even if over the next 40 years every coal-fired power plant in the world were replaced with a gas-fueled plant.

As Joe Romm says natural gas is a bridge to nowhere

The zombie ETS infects the RMA with climate insanity

The Environment Court won't consider James Hansen evidence on coal and climate change in the appeal against the Escarpment opencast coal mine consents

The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme ("NZETS") has become living-dead "zombie" legislation that infects other statutes with its own virulent climate change insanity. The example is a recent decision by the Environment Court that it can't consider climate change impacts of coal mining as described by James Hansen in the Forest and Bird appeal of the resource consents for the opencast 'Escarpment' coal mine.

The other week I saw the zombie genre film 28 Weeks Later on tv. The turning point in the film was when British actor Robert Carlyle kissed his wife and was instantly infected with the 'Rage Virus', which of course meant he had to turn into a homicidal-virus spreading-living-dead zombie who would then infect the rest of the surviving population of post-Rage Virus London. A great zombie movie movement!

For me, another much less amusing zombie moment, was last week's news from TVNZ, Radio NZ, the Otago Daily Times, and the Dominion Post, that the Environment Court had declared that climate change effects from coal mining will not be considered in Forest and Bird's appeal of the consents for the opencast coal mine the Escarpment_Mine_Project.

For background to the Escarpment Mine Project, including James Hansen's videotaped climate change evidence given to Jeanette Fitzsimons, and the conservation and biodiversity issues, see Claire Brownings Pundit post. And there is wildlife photographer Rod Morris' view that the mine proposal is simply ecological destruction on a massive scale. Botanist Alan Mark reminds us that the coal measure landscape of the Denniston Plateau is the only one left as Solid Energy have destroyed the other one - the Stockton Plateau.

According to the Dominion Post, Judge Newhook's decision was "that regulatory activity on the important topic of climate change is taken firmly away from regional government and made the subject of appropriate attention from time to time by central government by way of activity at a national level".

If we are at all unclear what that means, coal apologist and Stratera boss Chris Baker explains that this means the NZETS; "We have an emissions trading scheme, we are well ahead of our obligation internationally...".

The utter ill-logic of the "we have an ETS, more coal mining and exporting is okay" argument is that although the NZETS applies to all coal mined within New Zealand, all coal exported is exempted. Bathhurst Resources intends to export all the coal from the Escarpment Mine. So the application of the zombie NZETS to coal mining means that there will be no carbon price on the coal from the Escarpment Mine.

And this zombie effect of the NZETS in making coal "alive but dead" to a carbon price, then infects the application of our great sustainability-promoting externality-internalising Resource Management Act. The coal exports are "regulated" (in reality protected) by the NZETS. Therefore the RMA doesn't apply.

The consequence will be that the Environment Court will not be considering the effects of the Escarpment Mine on a level playing field. They will attempt to reach a broad overall judgement of what is sustainable. They will balance the economic effects of more export dollars and jobs on the West Coast against the many adverse environmental impacts on a unique coal measure ecosystem full of rare and endangered endemic species. But the scales of justice won't be fairly weighted, as the adverse impact and the externality of the greenhouse effect of the coal have already been taken off the adverse effects side of the ledger.

The NZETS is truly a ZOMBIE.

James Hansen and Te Radar part 1

Yes, I know. The combination seems a bit incongruous. Well, here are Dr James Hansen and Te Radar talking at Auckland's Town Hall at an event called "Festival for the Planet - A People's Assembly On Climate Change" held on 21 May 2011. This was James Hansen's final public appearance on his 9 day tour of Aotearoa.

The Science is Clear - new James Hansen talk from TED 2012

I have just found this recent 2012 TED talk by James Hansen. It has been on-line since 7 March. The number of views on youtube was 13,473 when I watched it. I bet that rises.



The talk is very polished. Hansen reads from a script and has obviously run through the talk several times. Hansen discusses the natural greenhouse effect, the Earth's energy imbalance caused primarily by fossil fuel combustion, sea-level rise, species extinctions, impacts on agriculture and the need to act for the benefit of future generations as represented by his grandchildren.

Greenhouse gases global warming

Here is James Hansen giving a four minute explanation of global warming caused by our greenhouse gas emissions and the need to phase out coal within decades.

Powered By Coal CBS 60 minutes

Here's a CBS 60 minutes documentary featuring James Hansen and the CEO of Duke Energy, the USA's third largest coal thermal power plant owner. The CEO says he totally accepts that carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. However, his plan is to phase out coal over 40 years.

CBS cuts to Hansen who of course says "No new coal fired power plants and a phase out must take place in 20 years or less". CBS goes back to the CEO and ask him how much Duke has invested in carbon capture and sequestration. The answer is nothing!

The Daft New Zealand Energy Strategy

Have you seen this chart from James Hansen's website? I have included it in my submission on the National Government's Daft Energy Strategies

Draft Energy Strategies
Ministry of Economic Development,
PO Box 1473
Wellington 6140

Submission on Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy and Draft New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy

Dear Sir/Madam,
Please accept this submission in respect of the Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy and the Draft New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy.
I attach a chart of the trend in historic global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions and future IPCC emissions scenarios. I obtained it from the website of the NASA climate scientist James Hansen.
I see nothing in either strategy that will help reduce the trend in emissions growth.
I see next to nothing in either strategy that recognises the magnitude of the challenge of anthropogenic climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions (including carbon dioxide from fossil fuels).
Neither strategy even mentions;

• the UNFCCC which NZ has signed,
• the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,
• the Kyoto Protocol which is binding on NZ,
• NZ's energy intensity,
• NZ's actual emissions.

Therefore, I oppose the adoption of both strategies because they are wholly inadequate in setting out any realistic measures to decarbonise the economy.
I request that there should only be one New Zealand energy strategy, that is directed to decarbonising the economy, and that is focused on efficiency and conservation, as required by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act 2000.

The closing deadline for submissions is 5.00pm, Thursday 2 September 2010.

James Hansen 22 years of testimony

I just found a 2008 Guardian article by James Hansen noting the 20th anniversary of his 1988 testimony to the US Congress. The good old Guardian have left us a PDF of it.

Actually now its the 22nd anniversary. That's a two year old newspaper I'm surfing.

Storms of my grandchildren

"Storms of my grandchildren", the book by James Hansen that I ordered via Fish pond arrived today. Great!

Here is the promotional video for the book.

James E. Hansen wins Sophie Prize

My favourite climate scientist, James Hansen, has won a Sophie Prize.
I will borrow some text (and the photo) .

Dr. James E. Hansen is an outstanding scientist with numerous scientific articles published in high-ranking journals. His conscience, and later his role as a “concerned grandfather”, has committed him to combine his research with political activism based on personal conviction. This has led him to participate in political demonstrations against coal mining, and has made him testify in court in defence of demonstrators using civil disobedience to stop the building of new coal-fired power plants in the UK. In 2009 he published the book 'Storms Of My Grandchildren' - The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity.

Apparently;

The Sophie Prize is awarded to one or several persons, or an organisation, which has created awareness of alternatives to modern-day development and/or initiated such alternatives in a pioneering or particularly inventive manner. The Sophie Prize is an annual environment and sustainable development prize (US$ 100.000). This is the thirteenth time it has been awarded. The prize was established in 1997 by the author Jostein Gaarder and Siri Dannevig.

There is a prize statement and there is a photo gallery.

James Hansen on Letterman

I have just finished reading the book Storms of my Grandchildren by NASA scientist James Hansen.

I found it inspirational. For example on page 73, chapter 9 'An honest effective plan'.

A simple clear urgent conclusion leaped out from our research on the appropriate target level of atmospheric carbon dioxide: Coal emissions must be phased out as rapidly as possible or global climate disasters will be a dead certainty.

Here is a Youtube clip of Hansen talking to Letterman.