{"id":14993,"date":"2015-12-02T07:40:37","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T12:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14993"},"modified":"2015-12-02T07:40:37","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T12:40:37","slug":"what-worries-the-worlds-most-famous-climate-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14993","title":{"rendered":"What Worries the World&#8217;s Most Famous Climate Scientist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2015\/12\/02\/Climate-Scientist-Worries\/\" target=\"_blank\">What Worries the World&#8217;s Most Famous Climate Scientist?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"tagline\">James Hansen is fretting about the Paris talks, and for good reason.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2015\/12\/01\/DrJamesHansen_610px.jpg\" alt=\"DrJamesHansen_610px.jpg\" width=\"610\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"photo-caption\">\n<p>James Hansen detailed his fears in a recent communiqu\u00e9 posted on his website. Photo by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/10288916@N03\">chesapeakeclimate<\/a>. Creative Commons licensed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"block block-article_related\">\n<div class=\"block-inner\">\n<p class=\"title\">James Hansen is fretting about the Paris climate talks, and for good reason.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>You might recall that Hansen was the NASA scientist that boldly warned the United States Congress about the perils of rising global temperatures as early as 1988.<\/p>\n<p>And you might remember that officials with the U.S. administration of George W. Bush instructed the world&#8217;s most famous climate change scientist not to talk about how fossil fuel burning could have a dangerous effect on climate in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>But Hansen kept on talking about melting ice, rising seas, flooded coastal cities and super storms. And now he&#8217;s worried that Paris will be another bureaucratic gabfest that avoids the true remedy: rapid fossil fuel emissions reductions driven by a carbon levy.<\/p>\n<p>By rapid, Hansen doesn&#8217;t think the world&#8217;s industrial economies have time to be self-satisfied about stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions around 450 parts per million or even the alarming present amount of 400 ppm. No, to restore the Earth&#8217;s energy balance, now unsettled by centuries of greenhouse gas emissions, the world needs to aim for 350 ppm and possibly lower.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone agrees that business as usual will take the world to 600 ppm by 2050, along with a rise of temperature by four degrees.<\/p>\n<div class=\"block block-adspace-full\">\n<div class=\"block-inner\">\n<div class=\"adspace d300x250\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_div_Tyee_In_Story_BigBox_ad_wrapper\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_div_Tyee_In_Story_BigBox_ad_container\">That grim future will give the world drowned coastal cities, parched crops, millions of refugees and failing ecosystems. Nobody really knows what would remain of civilization, as we know it.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Hansen worries politicians still don&#8217;t get the urgency. He also worries that U.S. President Barack Obama and others will sell our children and theirs &#8220;down the river&#8221; in Paris with more promises and no action.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Worries the World&#8217;s Most Famous Climate Scientist? James Hansen is fretting about the Paris talks, and for good reason. James Hansen detailed his fears in a recent communiqu\u00e9 posted on his website. Photo by\u00a0chesapeakeclimate. Creative Commons licensed. James Hansen is fretting about the Paris climate talks, and for good reason. You might recall that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,2956,10451,328,369,6955,929,9056,9341,1796],"class_list":["post-14993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-science","tag-cop21","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-global-warming","tag-james-hansen","tag-nasa","tag-paris-climate-talks","tag-the-type","tag-us-congress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14994,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993\/revisions\/14994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}