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Forums - General Discussion - NASA warming scientist: This is the last chance "We're Toast"

Edge112 on 23 June 2008

You want to die? no? then help save the world. GLOBAL WARMING. For all you foolish people that deny this truth. If only there was a hell...

"WASHINGTON - Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.


James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/...ming_scientist



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MrBubbles on 23 June 2008

"beware of false prophets"

anyways...im sure hes just as smart as all those "scientists" who claimed we were heading for an ice age.

historical facts go against the claims as well as current facts.

 

there is no such thing as a "warming scientist" and the subject is outside NASAs purview.  So hes just another crackpot who wants to make money off scaring people



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O-D-C on 23 June 2008

somehow I think its already too late, we somehow have to convince EVERYBODY that the path were taking is wrong, and right now theirs too many people making money on the old system to bring about the radical change needed to save our planet, what needs to be done is to elect a very radical pro-change official to a very influencial nation or organastion to make the USA and China and the other of the worlds top polluters to absolutly change the manufacturing process of most of the things.

Sadly I think this is impossible.



super_etecoon on 23 June 2008
MrBubbles said:
"beware of false prophets"

anyways...im sure hes just as smart as all those "scientists" who claimed we were heading for an ice age.

historical facts go against the claims as well as current facts.

 

For some reason I am reminded of Ostriches.



HappySqurriel on 23 June 2008

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize "outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment." He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

...

Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.

"I was laughed off the platform for saying that," he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News

In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.

"Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past," he told us in an interview this past winter. "Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?"

"All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd," Bryson continues. "Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air."

...

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

This begs questions about the widely publicized mathematical models researchers run through supercomputers to generate climate scenarios 50 or 100 years in the future. Bryson says the data fed into the computers overemphasizes carbon dioxide and accounts poorly for the effects of clouds—water vapor. Asked to evaluate the models’ long-range predictive ability, he answers with another question: "Do you believe a five-day forecast?"



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MrBubbles on 23 June 2008
super_etecoon said:

 

For some reason I am reminded of Ostriches.

 

 must be because you have a face full of sand



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

ssj12 on 23 June 2008
O-D-C said:
somehow I think its already too late, we somehow have to convince EVERYBODY that the path were taking is wrong, and right now theirs too many people making money on the old system to bring about the radical change needed to save our planet, what needs to be done is to elect a very radical pro-change official to a very influencial nation or organastion to make the USA and China and the other of the worlds top polluters to absolutly change the manufacturing process of most of the things.

Sadly I think this is impossible.

 

The USA is forcing more regulations as of late to change companies, hell Wal-Mart is making companies switch to different packaging that uses less paper and plastic otherwise they refuse to sell the product. Also Wal-Mart has increased the amount of recycling it does.

China... well we are screwed.

 



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segajon on 23 June 2008

Visit my sig to try and help the climate crisis. World leaders need to take climate change more seriously, if not were f****d!!!



whatever on 23 June 2008

http://www.realclimate.org

If it weren't so sad, it would be funny that in the face of all the data we have, people will still deny that human activity has a HUGE impact on the planet.

Unless you want to believe "scientists" that are paid by Exxon. These are the guys that are making money off this, not the scientists that spend years sitting on an ice shelf taking samples and analyzing them.

There is a lot more money to be made by being a climate change "denier". If you can't see this, then you too are burying your head in the sand.



wfz on 23 June 2008

HappySquirrel, thank you. I'm glad not everyone on this site is buying into the man made global warming conspiracy.

Water Vapor is a million times over more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, maybe it's time we all stop growing crops and using any water for anything. =P

A few years ago people were freaking out over another ice age, and now it's global warming..

Oh well, let those people "save" our planet if they wish to. I'll be sitting back and enjoying my life.