Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.
James HansenWe have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet.
James HansenScientists will say we can't blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that's right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.
James HansenI 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.
James HansenInjection of environmental and political perspectives in midstream of the science discussion cannot help the process of inquiry. I believe that persons with relevant scientific expertise should concentrate, with pride, on cool objective analysis, providing information to the public and decision-makers when it is found, but leaving the moral implications for later common consideration, or at most for summary inferential discussion.
James HansenIf 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 COโ 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 COโ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.
James Hansen