NASA's chief climate scientist built his career studying Earth's atmosphere and modeling humans' potential impacts on climate. Then he realized that laboratory work wasn't enough.
?| January 24, 2012?|
Jim Hansen
Image: NASA
Editor's note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A's with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries.
James E. Hansen never thought his decision to study atmospheric models would lead to his arrest. But there he was in handcuffs this summer, protesting at the White House against a pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta's oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.
It wasn't the first arrest, either. Hansen, who has directed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 31 years, earned the sobriquet "father of global warming" after testifying before Congress in 1988 on the dangers of global warming. He appeared again in 1989. Then he quietly returned to his work, turning aside television and media requests for the next 15 years because, as he said, "you have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media."
That approach changed in 2004, when he realized government climate policies worldwide failed to reflect the dangerous story his science was telling. Emerging from his lab, Hansen attacked Bush Administration officials for censuring and watering down climate findings. In 2008 he testified in British court on behalf of the "Kingsnorth Six," a group of Greenpeace activists who successfully claimed their effort to shut down a power plant was justified under British law because it prevented the greater harm of climate change. In 2009 and 2010, Hansen was arrested protesting mountaintop-removal coal mining.
DailyClimate.org editor Douglas Fischer caught up with Hansen in December at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where the scientist previewed findings about impacts the world courts with its unslacked appetite for carbon-based fuels.
Question: Do you fear you have lost some of your scientific credibility by protesting at the coal plants or by becoming more of a voice in the climate debate?
Answer: If I was not publishing papers in the peer reviewed literature, then that would be a valid criticism. But I am still publishing. I'm trying to make that science clear to the public. It's not easy: The scientific evidence has really become very clear, and we're not doing a very good job of communicating that.
Q: Climate policy has become less a scientific question and more a cultural marker. How can science influence those values and attitudes?
A: We need to make clear to the public what's really going on. If they just listen to politicians, they don't understand the story because nothing is being done.
Q: Do reporters ever say, "Look, I can't touch you as a source because you're involved in 350.org or the coal plants or these protests"?
A: The fossil fuel industry and those who prefer business as usual ? they will use that. But look at my coauthors. I've got some of the best scientists in the world.
Q: Let's flip the question: Do scientists ever say, "Jim, I wish I could get out there the way you are, but I'm afraid, I don't have the support"?
A: There are consequences of becoming a target. Look at the people who have been the principal targets: Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Ben Santer. Their science has been confirmed. And yet (the attacks) took a toll on them. Of course that's going to cause other scientists not to step out.
Q: Failure to develop a climate policy isn't a fault of just one party or one person.
A: That's right, and that's not understood. If you say, "Democrats are the ones who favor doing something," look at the records of the last several administrations: Emissions increased fastest during the Clinton/Gore administration. And (Democrats) proposed a policy that is not going to do anything significant. It's designed by big banks and it favors big oil and big coal and big utilities.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=d6d861e4bd34eca2f1be305545c03cf9
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