Summary: The usual scaremongering of ‘tipping points’ and ‘warming in the pipeline’.

How did he get to the UK? By rowboat? Seriously, we do not have an alternative to long-haul flights for intercontinental travel at the moment. The protest might make more sense if it concerned expansion of infrastructure for shorter commuter flights, where fast rail could be a lower-emissions alternative. (I just returned to Australia from the climate conference in Copenhagen and I sure as hell didn’t travel by donkey – so I’m in no position to preach!)

I have a lot of respect for Jim Hansen as a scientist, and I agree in general on the need overall to shift to low-(or lower) carbon emissions. But the notion that “science” has some special authority which overrules democracy (which is what I am reading – perhaps mistakenly – in his comments) frankly scares me. It has the ring of totalitarianism to me.

As scientists we are, perhaps, in a better position than the populace in general to identify the processes affected by carbon emissions and to anticipate some of the risks. We can, and should, report those to the best of our current understanding. But the question of what, if anything, to DO about it, is not a scientific one and science has no special authority there. Even if we had a perfectly clear view of the future under our current emissions path, there is a possibility that policymakers (and the voters they answer to) decide the best policy is to adapt, compensate, mitigate, later, rather than cut emissions. This would be a perfectly valid policy option – even if I personally think it would be misguided. And I do think it would be misguided – there’s much we can do to reduce the risks presented by the buildup of CO2 and other GHGs. I can say so, as a citizen, and advocate my position (vote, write to my representatives, write letters to editors, give money to advocacy organisations). Then I have to step back and let democracy work. Sometimes I agree with the result and sometimes I don’t.

For those climate scientists who claim democracy doesn’t “work,” what just happened in the USA, and the previous year in Australia? Governments opposed to Kyoto-style emissions-limitation agreements were voted out, and governments in favor (at least in their rhetoric) were voted in. Climate policy was not the only issue on which those elections turned, but it was a prominent element of the successful campaigns. To complain about democracy in this context sounds like an inability to take “yes” for an answer.

Have the Rudd (Australia) and Obama administrations lived up their rhetoric? Well no, not quite, at least not yet. The Rudd gov’t has scaled back its early stated ambitions for deep emissions cuts, citing economic trade-offs.

And I couldn’t help but notice that one of the earliest big spending initiatives announced by President Obama under his economic stimulus package was for roads. After seeing this announcement by Pres. Obama at the Transportation Dept. ($28 billion for road construction), and another announcement of spending for airport infrastructure, I heard several comments at the conference about how great it was that Obama was going to use the economic stimulus for “green” energy initiatives. Perhaps he will – and that would be great and I will applaud it. And whatever the merits of spending on road and airport infrastructure, “green” it is not. Are climate scientists protesting this? To be true to the positions enunciated above by Jim Hansen and others, they would be obligated to.

So do all scientists from all disciplines get to “stand up for what we know”? And if we all did, would that look surprisingly like the variety of political viewpoints about “what is the best thing to do?”

Perhaps we need a mechanism where all scientists get an equal vote by some gigantic survey.. one scientist, one vote, and then we would know what “scientists think”. Otherwise it’s purely rhetoric and not a bit “scientific” at all. IMHO.

“it’s also very troubling to me that that record (GISS) has been diverging from satellite records in recent years, in the direction of the above-mentioned personally desired values.”

While it may be true that GISS is “the US’s most-respected land-based temperature record” it is a record that is becoming ever more apparently flawed. Science is based on empiricism, the careful observation of phenomena. If your method of observation is flawed, so, too, is your data. Real scientists pay close attention to the validity of their instruments (are we measuring what we think we are measuring?). The meteorologist Anthony Watts has started a project to review the stations that are collecting GISS data. The results are very discouraging. Take a look at

http://www.surfacestations.org/

Anyone who grew up in the fifties and sixties can tell you the world has warmed (at least it has in Southern New England). How much has it warmed? Has it ever been warmer? What are the trends? The data is, in fact, unreliable and the US GISS data is the gold standard. If it is as badly flawed as it appears, then the rest of the world’s records cannot be any better. Rather than spending trillions on cap-and-trade and green technology, maybe we should spending a few millon (ok, maybe a billion or so) on a valid and reliable system of measurement.

From a demographic point of view, cap and trade and the restrictions on development will result in the deaths of millions, primarily third world people. Politically, it will strengthen authoritarian regimes. Ordinary people CAN understand the science if they are given the time. Hansen wants to tell us there is no time and we should trust him. There is evidence that the world is in fact growing cooler… cold kills faster than heat. Isn’t in our interests to know the facts?

It seems to me scientists should of course be guaranteed the right to be politically active, but if they are, they should be ready for others to take the scientists’ political activity and political statements within papers into account when judging their science.

Still, it makes me uncomfortable that the person in charge of assembling data for and processing/constructing it into the the US’s most-respected land-based temperature record (Hansen, GISS) is overtly stating that pure science and democracy are not enough when it comes to this issue. This, in addition to the already troubling situation where a person constructing an official scientific record is also in the business of predicting its future values, and politically and personally vested in those future values turning out a certain way. And while this may be unfair, it’s also very troubling to me that that record (GISS) has been diverging from satellite records in recent years, in the direction of the above-mentioned personally desired values.

Perhaps, in the interest of GISS maintaining (or recapturing, depending on one’s opinion) its credibility, it’s time for Dr. Hansen to step down, most likely to become a full-time activist. It seems to me, however, that his apparent, growing megalomania makes this unlikely to happen any time soon, at least by his own choice.

In the time it takes one to read these two sentences, the Chinese have started to build another coal-fired power plant.

Seriously though, his efforts to stop the Kingsnorth power plant from being built while the Chinese are building so many seems rather futile (if reducing CO2 emissions from power plants really is his concern).

For example, here is a December 2004 report that indicated that the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency had received environmental impact reports for the construction of 200 coal-fired power plant in the *first 11 months* of 2004.

The total capacity was 180,000 megawatts. That’s more than HALF of the entire U.S. coal-fired power plant capacity. In less than one year!(!!!)

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200412/10/eng20041210_166808.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p2.html

““We can no longer allow politicians and business to twist and ignore science,” said Hansen.”

Many people think it is Hansen who is twisting and ignoring science.