Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men'

That is it - Kill the debate by removing the opposition.

This is exactly what I expect from the harbingers of doom.

I am still yet to be convinced one way or the other about the issue, but I am never impressed with the all to common approach that seems to, "If you don't agree with me you are an idiot and should be locked up."

Am I to loose my right to not believe that carbon dioxide, that stuff I breath out minute by minute, is making the earth warmer.

A warning to the Denialist Apes.

Hanson is quite correct - and a growing body of scientists hold the same opinion as he does. Those who fund Public Relations and other Propaganda firms for the purpose of deceiving the public - particularly on a matter so grave and pressing as Global Warming - Or smoking - are guilty of crmes against humanity, and I would add, crimes against nature.

I place no limit on the punishment for such crimes, and hold that those who engage in them wilfully and knowingly - particularly for profit - should be arrested, tried, and executed where warranted.

When it becomes obvious to even the lower forms of human intelligence that a crime has been committed. I will be there... Holding the rope, and pointing to the nearest tree limb.

I'm Sparticus

I'm Sparticus!

Resignation letter

"He also bemoaned the “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process”"

I trust this quote is the beginning of his letter of resignation from The Enlightenment and rational thought in general. He certainly has put himself up with Mad Bob Mugabe in league of open minded thinkers...

Let me guess ...

He made these comments while at a conference in Bali, Maldives, Barbados (or some other tropical paradise). I'll stop being sceptical about these people when they start practising what the preach.

Environmentalism is a big industry (admittedly not as big as the fuel industry). A lot of money can be made from advising philanthropists where they should invest their money to save the planet.

That said, I'm all for reducing wasteful power consumption, walking when possible, using public transport when possible, not flying halfway around the world just to sit on a beach. It just makes sense.

Mines the one with the map of Lake District in the pocket.

Hear, hear!

Well, guess what, Hansen was right in 1988. And your greatest criticism of him is that not enough people have paid attention? I completely agree, and I think his modest proposal has a great deal of merit. If nothing else, in another twenty years' time I'll still be sighing smugly and saying "Yes, I know, weren't you paying attention back in 2008?" just like I am now as the Arctic sea-ice looks set for another record-breakingly dreadful season. ( http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html )

Glad to see the Reg have broken the habit of not having comments on these climate-change flamebait/troll posts, though.

Getting my coat as I know this rationalist evidence-based PoV on AGW is unpopular over here.

Nice extreme views there

So, let's sum this up. You want to lock up people for opposing undecided science. And before I see a mass of people opining that the "consensus" is for climate change you need to understand the basics of science. Science is about putting forward theories which we try and prove or disprove. Very very rarely do we successfully prove a theory, usually we get a balance of evidence which shows it to be reasonable, until it becomes unreasonable. Science history is littered with occasions when the consensus was just plain wrong. When Copernicus and Galileo argued about a sun-centric view of the solar system, they were persecuted, but right. Newton's laws of motion were considered right by the consensus until Einstein came along. Quantum mechanics was laughed at for a long time. The consensus in medicine for a long time was that leeches could cure diseases. Anthropogenic climate change has plenty of supposed evidence both supporting and denying it, but its current position in popular culture is more about politics than science.

Funnily enough, in screaming for people to be locked up for their views he is contributing only to the political part of the debate, not the scientific part, despite his credentials. If people start believing that people should be locked up for their scientific views, then we are heading straight back to the middle ages. Or to modern day Britain - whichever authoritarian society you think is closest.

Just an ape here

"...executed where warranted."

Hey, Vendicar, Let's round up all the extremists and herd them off cliffs.

IGMC

Contradictions

Nothing illustrates the dangerously conflicted mindset of this group better than this soundbite. He manages to mention locking people up for their beliefs and democracy in the same breath. All those guilty of thoughtcrime are out of step with the rational concensous and should be prosecuted.

As for Hansen being right, did he successfully predict the global cooling of the last decade?

Nobody can deny anymore that climate change is being contributed to by man's activities, but it doesn't mean that we need to subscribe to the doomsday scenarios painted by this neo-apocalyptic doomsday cult.

Mine's the black, electric powered surveillance chopper that will be monitoring our compliance to the commandments of the death Goddess Gaia.

Hmm...

I find it amusing that several of those commenting seem to accept the article authors adjective out of hand in regards to the quote, “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process". As the quote itself seems to demonstrate at least some insight and appreciation of the nature of science. Perhaps more to the point he was bemoaning the exploitation of good faith inherent in the functioning of proper science by propagandists on doll to the lobbyists. Such exploitation is well known to occur in the Evolution vs ID and the issue of Tobacco. Both being rather close politically with the oil industry. Perhaps some natural skepticism should be applied to examining the context of such quotes.

Oh, did I say I find it amusing? I meant I find it depression and indicative of the intellectual shortcomings of this whole farce of taking on the mantle of rationality when it is anything but.

Noddy's guide to science

You have the right to believe in Farther Christmas. You could connect an infra-red camera to your VCR on Christmas Eve and find out who is really responsible for presents appearing in your stocking. Once you have done your experiment, faking photographs of Farther Christmas and trying to pass them off as real in childrens' text books is naughty and you really should halt in the name of Plod.

Skepticism alone is not constructive. You could follow it up with an experiment that tests the predictions of the theory you are skeptical about, or you could run around shouting "I'm a skeptic! !'m a skeptic! Aren't I cool? Believe in me because I'm a skeptic!"

I'm with the deniers

... but for a different reason.

Burn the fossil fuels! Dredge up every last drop that we can from the tar pits and oil wells. Burn it all! The faster the better.

Then perhaps, when the sea levels have risen and the majority of the population has been wiped off the planet (with the pols and the CEOs as the first against the walls when the riots start), there'll be a bit of peace and quiet.

Rest assured, by the time that there's any political will to do anything about climate change, it will be far, far too late to avert the global catastrophe that we've brought on ourselves.

We've poisoned our own well, let's give another species a go. In the meantime, I can fish and sail my yacht. I'm all right, Jack (just like all those interested parties with their conflicts of interest).

James Hansen Actually Said...

Arnold Lieberman wrote:

<blockquote>"He also bemoaned the “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process”"

I trust this quote is the beginning of his letter of resignation from The Enlightenment and rational thought in general. He certainly has put himself up with Mad Bob Mugabe in league of open minded thinkers...</blockquote>

Jim Hansen stated:

<blockquote>My testimony two decades ago was greeted with skepticism. But while skepticism is the lifeblood of science, it can confuse the public. As scientists examine a topic from all perspectives, it may appear that nothing is known with confidence. But from such broad open-minded study of all data, valid conclusions can be drawn.

My conclusions in 1988 were built on a wide range of inputs from basic physics, planetary studies, observations of ongoing changes, and climate models. The evidence was strong enough that I could say it was time to "stop waffling." I was sure that time would bring the scientific community to a similar consensus, as it has.

Guest Opinion: Global Warming Twenty Years Later

by James Hansen on June 23, 2008

Tipping Points Near

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5798</blockquote>

He was not bemoaning the natural skepticism inherent in the scientific process. He considers it critical to that process. However, such scientific skepticism should not be confused with Cartesian doubt -- as the climate "skeptics" would seem to have it.

Please, Please listen to Hansen.....

"one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation ... that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime,... such (people) should be put on trial for high crimes against humanity.."

Please enact this! Oh, please do!

Then look at ClimateAudit.org. They are currently looking at some of Hansen's GISS 'corrections'. Misinformation isn't the word for it, straight lying is more accurate.

I would love to see Hansen strung up for what he has done to scientific independence and integrity, and it looks like he can be persuaded to lobby for the very law that will sink him!

Gates, as Hansen performs the same function for the climate world....

Thanks, Tim

My initial thought on reading that "He also bemoaned the “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process”" was "I bet that's a journalistic misrepresentation that's going to cause chaos in the comment thread". Right on both counts.

Other commenters - let this be a lesson: *please* always go and read the entire original quotation, in context, before you pile on based on a sketchy misrepresentation in a press report.

Oh, and also note that Dr. Hansen is not advocating imprisoning people based on their beliefs. He is advocating imprisoning people for deliberately and maliciously spreading misinformation (or to put it more bluntly, 'lies') to support the product they happen to be selling. Often in a misleading way - i.e. through front organisations designed to give the impression that there is no connection between themselves and the industry lobby they represent. This is exactly on the model, as other commenters have noted, of the successful prosecutions of tobacco companies for suppressing what they knew to be true - that tobacco is extremely damaging to human health. The vital point is that they did not genuinely believe that tobacco was safe; they knew it wasn't, yet - in order to protect their profits - tried to tell the public that it was. Dr. Hansen believes that the oil lobby knows that they are contributing to pollution and global warming on a massive scale, but are attempting to tell the public that they aren't: this is not about their private beliefs.

World was warmer 20 years ago when he made his last speech

According to NASA satellites, the world was warmer 20 years ago. How about jailing NASA scientists for spreading misinformation about global warming?

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSEN_AND_CONGRESS.jpg

Idiotic

There isn't a shred of evidence for man-made global warming. What we have are a lot of very dodgy models predicting doom and gloom (which, I might add, all failed to predict the current static/cooling period) and a lot of very dodgy surface station temperatures, which have been "adjusted" by people like Hansen, almost always in ways that magically show a huge amount of warming. Scientists can't even agree on the validity of the various Proxies they use to reconstruct past temperatures (see the Wegman Report, climateaudit.com and wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com for further references).

Meanwhile, the media continues to pump out the most ridiculous hyperbole ("if it bleeds, it leads") about the coming catastophe. People like Al Gore feed this giant propaganda machine with ridiculous films and presentations that not only misrepresent the actual science but make claims that are basically untrue (yes, lies).

All the while the politicians, blinded by the non-science, are busy playing with the law of unintended consequences (bio-fuels) that will have no effect whatsoever on the temperature of the planet, but that may result in mass starvation in many countries of the world.

"Global Warming" wouldn't even be in the top ten items on any agenda for solving mankinds problems. Why does it get so much airspace, so much money and so much political traction? This whole debate is completely idiotic.

Sigh....

And if Hansen is wrong, let's please lock him up along with Al Gore and the rest of the Doomsday whiners.

All the people crying about the artic ice seem to forget or not know, that while it is true, the artic ice sheets are receding, the Antartic ice sheets are actually growing. . In the last 10 years the temperatures have actually cooled. In the 70's they were crying Ice Age. SUnspot activity is at an all time low. Could there be a correlation between sunspot activity and temperatures?

The doomsayers are not usually right.....the earth if flat, you will fall over the edge if you sail too far.

RE:Missing the point - Len Goddard

Spot on - science works through scepticism - to knowingly exploit that for personal gain against global damage - that is exactly the crime that has been commited

Either way...

over here in the US, global warming doesn't matter. The urban/suburban layout of our country resembles a poorly-made city in the video game "SimCity", where all the commercial and industrial zones are in one central location, and all the housing is elsewhere. That is, most of us live out in the sticks and suburban areas because we can't afford to live in the cities where the jobs are. So, we commute. And commute. And commute.

I don't *want* to drive over an hour for a job. I have a life to live, you know. But where I live, jobs are extraordinarily scarce. I've had a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science since 1997, and for the past 6 years, I've not been able to get an IT job within an hour's drive from home - they're just not enough jobs here. And by the way, I live out where *buses don't run*. There is no mass transit here, and it's 10 miles to the nearest civilization.

My point is that you'll have to change a lot more than vehicles if you truly want to change the climate. You *will* have to change the entire civil infrastructure layout of the entire country. You *will* have to make adequate jobs within close distance of all residential areas to cut down on commuting times. You *will* have to create mass transit everywhere. This is *very* expensive, and will take a long time. It will also involve a lot of eminent domain usage, and this will be seen as forced relocation in a lot of cases. In short, this will be *hard*, and our government doesn't want to do anything hard - after all, that would require our congresspeople to actually WORK for a change (instead of having 3-day workweeks).

And that's just America. Just try this kind of thinking on the Chinese.

Food for (rational) thought.

I have just a few points to make here.

Those who were around 30 or so years ago, may remember the "inevitable climate catastrophe" that awaited us then. It was the impending ICE AGE. Why did they think an ice age was coming? Mainly, because from 1940-1970, global temperatures dropped steadily, and the fear was runaway global cooling. Who was one big backer of the "coming ice age" theory? None other than James Hansen. Last time I checked, Ontario had not been erased by a glacier.

I personally find it odd that the global temperature dropped during this period. This was WW2 and a post-industrial West. CO2 levels were skyrocketing during this time, yet the temperature continued to fall. This would seem to fly in the face of the (high CO2) => (global warming) equation.

Anyone ever wonder what happened to the "hockey stick" graph that Al Gore, Hansen, and others flapped around so wildly claiming it was "definitive proof"? Well, it got thoroughly smacked about, and was proven to show the exact opposite of what it had been claimed to show. Yes, the chart did indeed show a link between high CO2 levels and global temps. But, the relationship showed that the temperature change came FIRST, then the CO2 levels would rise. Hansen and Co. would have us believe that the effect preceded the cause. This is the caliber of scientist you have in James Hansen.

People seem to often confuse two separate issues. There is climate change, and then there is human-induced climate change. There isn't much we can do about the first. So, there are no careers or fortunes to be made pursuing it. Few would argue that climate change is not happening. It is happening, and has always happened. The climate is not a steady state machine. The climate has always swung back and forth between extremes, ice ages to global jungles. The human race has just been damned lucky that we popped up when we did, in the middle of a relatively temperate period. One which has lasted long enough for us to develop technologies that would allow us to survive much of what the planet could throw at us.

Computer models are often cited as good evidence for human-induced climate change. One way (really, the only way) to test if a model is accurate, is to have it predict the weather for a period of time that we already have reliable records for. Say, 1970-1980. If the model's predictions match up with the recorded data, the model can be claimed to be sound. However, no one has yet produced a model that can reliably pass this test. As any programmer could tell you, garbage in = garbage out.

The doomsayers often make a point of the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on record. Which it was. But, if we are in a warming period, should that record not have been consecutively broken in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, etc? Well, it wasn't. Indeed, global temps have done nothing but go down since then. So, where's the warming?

Back in the 70's, similarly drastic, economy killing "solutions" were proposed. Careers and fortunes were made, and then the whole furor died down. I see the cycle of history repeating itself here (at much greater expense). The Greens tell us the opposition can't be trusted because they have a vested financial interest in the status quo. Well, the Greens have just as much of a vested financial interest in this game. No one is going to pay Hansen to give a speech on global warming if there's no apocalypse around the corner.

Is climate change happening? Yes. Are humans responsible for it, even in part? To me at least, and to quite a few meteorologists (a title Hansen can not claim btw), the evidence to date would seem to say no. One last thing, some might say "Of course it's us, what else could it possibly be?". These people seem to forget about this big bright thing that occupies the daytime sky. This thing which is a runaway nuclear fusion reactor 800,000 miles across, and is anything but stable and unchanging. The Sun drives ALL of our weather. If the Sun changes, the weather changes.

The dead vulture, because its bloated, rotting corpse will release methane and CO2, bringing us all that much closer to the end.

Two words: PEAK OIL

Go google it. You can debate global warming all you like, but running out of oil is a much bigger threat to society and a solid reason for cutting consumption NOW.

GISS

So let me see - 20 years ago GISS (the global "thermometer" fiddled, sorry run, by Hansen) shows the temperature to be 0.50 degrees C above his baseline (chosen, conveniently, to be during the coldest period of this century).

20 years after "runaway man-made global warming" his "thermometer" (which, have I mentioned, is constantly fiddled to ensure that it shows up warming and, as such, is consistently far hotter than the satellite measurements) shows the temperature to be 0.35 degrees C above his baseline.

So in 20 years it has got 0.15 degrees cooler.

How's that for manmade global warming!

Flames as obviously the world is currently burning!

Hanson should be first...

Or has he relased his actual mentodalgy behinf his revisions?

Oh But he is wanting it for thoses that hold the other view point...so would he halpply go to jail if this turnsout to be the same as his global coolong idea?

Funny, I was just venting on this subject earlier in the evening

Although I'm not sure that climate change denial on its own is worthy of capital punishment, it is only the latest in a long list of crimes perpetrated by Big Oil. While it may be unfashionable to say so, carrying out business in an unethical manner should be considered a Crime Against Humanity, for the simple reason that rampant capitalism (not capitalism, just rampant capitalism) is a major cause of death and suffering in parts of the world too poor to fight back.

So, how do you go about encouraging the others? Imprisonment or execution, making their families destitute and using their personal fortunes to repair the damage. We should demand nothing less.

+sceptics@wade=

Wade, Bush doesnt need anyone to make him look bad, he does a great job of appearing to be a corrupt moron without help.

I see the usual suspects with their usual denial of climate change cropping up again, I for one am tired of the pathetic whining of the Climate change sceptics, and as usual they are self appointed experts, with no training in the climate field at all, all they can do is to try and selectively quote a small number of stats out of context

I for one believe the experts, not the profit driven deniers and their pathetic attempts at discrediting the worlds climate scientists. Get a brain and dont 'try to deny the bleedin obvious children. Why is it that otherwise smart people(In thier own field)feel qualified to make judgenents totally outside their field? Surely they arent thick enough to believe the "Great global warming swindle rubbish?

re GISS and others

It's easy to find two years where the earlier one is warmer, but that has no significance. Just about anything can be 'proven' when you start cherry-picking evidence. Colorful graphs are also easy to abuse, especially when you have an agenda.

@ moffatt

A change of less than 1% can be quite significant. By your figures, the average solar radiation is 39 petawatts (3.9e+16). An increase of 1.6% gives an additional 625 terawatts - over 40 times the entire human energy usage of the world (~15 TW - wikipedia).

You need to use statistical analysis to properly interpret the raw data. For example, the graphs of x^2, x^10, and e^x look fairly similar, especially if you have a bunch of data points with some random error in them. Trying to determine which equation it is by 'eyeballing' it can give you dramatically wrong results.

If you want to criticize the scientists' findings, first examine what they did and how they arrived at their conclusions. Then you can say where you think they made a mistake. And remember to cite your sources, as 97% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

its not just the Oil Barons, its the whole economic model

When we drill for Oil (a finite-resource)... as fast as we can....to make plastic bottles, then using more oil-energy fill it full of 3rd world spring water ( and transport the same bottle to E.U./US just (so that we can avoid pollution or taste a few chemicals that could easily have been added/removed to our tap-water). While those people still have unsafe water to drink!

This is considered "good for business", "economic growth" etc..as long as the great profit-margin is worshipped with his pennies per bottle.

Irrespective of the global warming (I agree with Dave...many clever people than I believe in)

IS a penny profit today REALLY worth all the irreplaceable energy that is used (look at recent oil price rises), as well as the damage to the environments (local and national)?

Dave ...

I am a trained scientist and the facts as I see them is that the world is cooler slightly than it was even ten years ago. I am also trained in statistics and how to interpret them and the stats are looking increasingly dodgy by the day. They have been since day one of this debacle.

We know nothing about how climate changes (and can't even predict weather 2 days in advance with any accuracy) but we do know there is plenty of historical precedent for great, long climate cycles and that it has always been going on.

Hansen is a quack. He's destined to go down as the Lysenko of the 21st century. I am sick of being told I'm not qualified to criticise bad science and weak statistical models.

This ruthless adherence to a model of global warming that merely shouts every other view down while not being able to produce a shred of proof is merely totalitarian garbage.

It has nothing to do with empirical science.

Keep the tune, boys

Good to see the same old nicknames that never comment on anything but global warming stories, but - we have one guy saying that global warming is baloney because Earth's only warmed up as much as Neptune (fine argument, that - they make really comparable experimental subjects!) and some others saying it's baloney because Earth's actually cooling down.

So, er, which is it, guys? Come on, can't you at least all buy the same edition of Dr. Pangloss' Hymns For The Eternal Optimist?

Earth warms up...

earth cools down...earth warms up...earth cools down...earth warms up...earth cools down.

Earth's climate CHANGES! It's been happening cyclically for BILLIONS of years people. Just try to get your tiny minds around the concept, then find yourself another nouveau religion to latch on to!

Actually....

"mprisoning people for deliberately and maliciously spreading misinformation"

Good, then lets start with Hansen himself and then we can follow up with the people who write the IPCC summary for policy makers.

Freedom of speech & evidence

Since when has expression of an opinion been a criminal offence?

Similarly there is not enough evidence to support global warming and although climate change is manifesting itself, the root cause cannot be scientifically proven. I suspect Dr Hansen might well be trying to revive his reputation by being outspoken and contrversial, rather than being scientific. Just pat him on the head and send him along to see that other marvellous alarmist, the Nobel prize winning Al Gore. They can sit around and scare each other with doomsday scenarios which man has no control (nor influence) over.