James E. Hansen
Legendary climate scientist
James E. Hansen is retiring from NASA, where he headed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
At the same time, retirement will allow Dr. Hansen to press his cause in court. He plans to take a more active role in lawsuits challenging the federal and state governments over their failure to limit emissions, for instance, as well as in fighting the development in Canada of a particularly dirty form of oil extracted from tar sands.
“As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government,” he said in an interview.
Hansen has been
outspoken in his criticism of President Obama's seeming willingness to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Hansen has been raising the alarm over climate change and anthropogenic global warming since 1981, and stresses that the dire consequences continue to outpace predictions. And the predictions continue to grow more ominous, as you can read below the fold.
If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.
Given the State Department's
shamefully dishonest Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on Keystone, and State's decision
to keep public comments on Keystone closed to the public, there's little wonder many are reading the
tea leaves on the president's upcoming decision. But Hansen
won't be going away:
In the interview and in subsequent e-mails, Dr. Hansen made it clear that his new independence would allow him to take steps he could not have taken as a government employee. He plans to lobby European leaders — who are among the most concerned about climate change — to impose a tax on oil derived from tar sands. Its extraction results in greater greenhouse emissions than conventional oil.
The
scientists have spoken. Will the politicians listen?