James Hansen Quotes
-
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.
→ -
Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.
→ -
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
→ -
Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King - and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights.
→ -
We're running out of time.
→ -
I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.
→ -
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.
→ -
Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed.
→ -
I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change. No longer than a decade at most.
→ -
The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.
→ -
We cannot afford to put off change any longer. 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.
→ -
Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career.
→ -
Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.
→ -
Policy decisions on climate change are being deliberated every day by those without full knowledge of the science, and often with intentional misinformation spawned by special interests.
→ -
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.
→ -
'Goals' and 'caps' on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air.
→ -
The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO₂, is Herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.
→ -
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.
→ -
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
→ -
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm... If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.
→ -
Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.
→ -
As you get more global warming, you should see an increase in the extremes of the hydrological cycle - droughts and floods and heavy precipitation.
→ -
Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril.
→ -
The scientific excitement in comparing theory with data, and developing some understanding of global changes that are occurring, is what makes all the other stuff worth it.
→ -
...the global surface albedo [surface whiteness] and greenhouse gas changes account for practically the entire global climate change.
→ -
We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life.
→ -
Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.
→ -
The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet.
→ -
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.
→ -
Rising carbon price is essential to 'decarbonize' the economy - to remove the nation towards the era beyond fossil fuels.
→
Related Authors
-
George Monbiot Writer -
Robert Kenner Screenwriter -
Daryl Hannah Film actress -
Amory Lovins Physicist -
James Van Allen University Professor -
Joseph J. Romm Author -
Stephen Schneider Professor -
Richard Lindzen Physicist -
Jane Goodall Primatologist -
Gavin Schmidt Investigator -
Michael E. Mann Author -
Andrew Revkin Fiction writer -
Carl Sagan Astronomer -
Bill McKibben Environmentalist -
James Lovelock Scientist -
John Holdren Professor -
Roger Revelle Scientist -
Al Gore Former Vice President of the United States -
Naomi Klein Author -
Rajendra K. Pachauri Researcher