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Last updated on July 16th, 2017 at 11:42 am
An intriguing question:
Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for … an ice age?
Read on.
- Aiding Rasool’s research, the Post reported, was a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen,” who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
My, my. Columbia remains true to form. They are in the news again for inviting Ahmajinedad (an’ ahm ok!) to speak there, and stating that they would invite Hitler too, given the opportunity.
Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for … an ice age?
Scientists would believe anything if it got them attention and a nice compensation package. Biased? Of course. A conflict of interest? Certainly.
But that doesn’t mean the West can’t cut off 1/3 of its economic productivity and transfer it to the People’s Republic of China with not one shred of benefit to the world. Because we have to do something!
Posted by wronwright on 2007 09 23 at 08:10 AM • permalink
I agree with “wolves evolve”, it is wrong to point out how uncertain climate models can be.
After all Hansen himself “broadened the debate” so effectively when he called those who disagree with him “jesters” unworthy to be engaged in discussion and best ignored.
It doesn’t do any good to point out that Hansen has beclowned himself on this subject already.
By the way, now that my irony tag is off, curtesy of Lubos Motls’ blog Here is a peer reviewed study
which claimed that an ice age might be coming.You might want to keep the link around if an alarmist like this guy claims otherwise.
Another interesting line from the study.
although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Ya think?
OT, but I know some of you read Jules Crittenden: He pans Ken Burns’ “The War”. “The narration is often banal. The artful string music is often a distraction. Interviews are inexpertly conducted: To judge by often awkward answers, the most common question was the unhelpful “How did you feel?””
Don’t ask a generation noted for not talking about their feelings, how they feel!
I’ve been wondering if Burns could repeat his “The Civil War” performance. It seems not.
I’ve seen clips and previews of The War. I’ll be watching.
Banal or not, NOBODY else is talking to these people.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 09 23 at 11:08 AM • permalink
O/T, but what the hell happened to Scott Adams?
(Via Hot Air)
Ah, Investors.com, surely the most trusted source we have for developments in science.
Except that the article you sneer at isn’t about science, it’s about the scientist, WE. A small distinction, but a significant one. Scientists are only human (unlike, say, wolves), and are prone to human weakness. Which is the point of the article in the first place: Hansen may be letting greed override his professional etchics.
And I still find it ironic that a business publication does a better job of pointing out hypocrisy than the “news” publications like Times.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 09 23 at 12:01 PM • permalink
Hot or cold, s’long as it brings in the grants… we really should have started suppressing Hansen a long time ago.
Not that I have much respect for NASA on any environmental issue. Their own ‘green’ policy killed the “Challenger” crew…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 09 23 at 01:17 PM • permalink
Changing your mind in science is a good thing, it’s different than politics where you have to stick to any mistake you make and pretend it’s wasn’t a mistake since otherwise you’re a flip-flopper. New evidence is found, oh well the politician has to ignore it he’s on record saying X, can’t say Y now…
Of course in this case we have a scientist who morphed into a politician, so he’s stuffed.
From a scientific perspective the flip is perfectly acceptable – in fact a good thing.
Sequence is:
1. Look at all the pollution we produce I wonder what it will do the climate.
2. There are competing forces, we pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere which causes warming, we also pump lots of particulate matter into the air with blocks some of the incoming heat from the sun and hence causes cooling.
3. We think the cooling will win and we are going to cause in ice age
4. years pass – said cooling doesn’t happen
5. Mmm… strange
6. It would seem we reduced the particulate matter we pump out since it was also unpleasant to breath, so the warming will now dominate and we are going to boil the oceans.Of course inserting:
3a. political scare campaigning
6a. political scare campaigning, silencing critics, collecting as much money as possiblemakes it not so much science…
OT, but amusing: Official Kilogram Losing Mass
Mr research assistant,Mr. Google, says that in 1999 Rasool penned a letter about scientific responsibility in climate research. I’d give a purty to read that but it’s behind a pay wicket.
Anybody got a subscription?
30 seconds of googling reveals that Rasool’s model did not include clouds. Duh.
Of course, no subsequent models do either.
Rasool’s other collaborator in the ‘70s was S. Schneider, another name to conjure with.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 09 23 at 01:48 PM • permalink
Uh oh. Ethanol from corn or rapeseed suddenly not so good at stopping the planet from reaching its greenhouse gas open-loop tipping point (due any day now, I’m sure): click.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2007 09 23 at 02:08 PM • permalink
Back in the mid to late 1970s when I was taking environmental science classes, the prevailing theory being taught was we were entering a new ice age. I remember one professor explaining how U.S. farming was going to be in big trouble because the Midwest and Plains states developed as America’s Breadbasket at a time when there was an unusual warming period, and with the coming cool down, those states would no longer be able to grow wheat, corn, etc.
But I do distinctly remember that most profs taught the ice age theory as a THEORY, not a fact, which I guess is different from how global warming is being presented today in most colleges. It’s too bad that even the science classes have become political.
#45 Dave: LGF also confirms that Adams has gone moonbat (citing the same screed).
Hard to figure the guy. How could someone whose insights into corporate culture are so frequently right on the money go so completely bat-shit crazy on Iran and Israel?
#50 Also he was kind to dogs and he was a better dancer than Churchill; Hitler was a better dresser than Churchill; Hitler was a better painter than Churchill: he could paint a whole apartment in one afternoon, two coats.
and I’m pretty sure he would have seen the possibilities inherent in global warming
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 09 23 at 05:51 PM • permalink
Hansen is just another climate change carpetbagger. He goes where he thinks he can make the most money.
This prostitution of science is a greater threat to humanity than climate change. Thanks to Hansen and his ilk, science is now like expert witnesses in a court room. They are opinions to be bought to satisfy the short-term needs of the client. It means that science has ceased to be a tool in the advancement of mankind.
This prostitution of science is a greater threat to humanity than climate change.
Ain’t that the truth.
Gore and Rudd are even pushing for a return to Kyoto. It is difficult to believe that there is anyone out there who still believes that ratification of a failed protocol can reduceglobal warmingclimate change.
Climate Change is a device to keep the whole farce alive until the alarmists can get some “science” out to prove Anthropogenic Global Cooling.
Their difficulties will be in maintaining CO2 as the villain but, believe me, they will find away.
We must keep pinning the alarmists to their previous arguments and not let them use Climate Change as a ladder to weasel out of the hole they have dug for themselves.
Mussolini was a vegetarian too. When he was a boy, his family was so poor they never ate meat, so he never liked it.
Toward the end,he was eating six kilos of grapes a day (according to Dennis Mack Smith, who would know). Glad I didn’t have to clean up after him.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 09 23 at 06:52 PM • permalink
Far too late in the thread, but I was interested to see in, of all things, the ABC’s Gardening show – which sounds a relentless drumbeat of catastrophic AGW – an interview with the current director of Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens. This guy used to do botany in Antarctica, and when the interviewer asked him what, if any, plants grow there, he replied that he was a palaeobotanist, studying the fossil remains of the forests which used to cover Antarctica. Interesting.
At the end of the day, Dr Hansen may be able to claim that, on average, he was right.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 09 24 at 02:29 AM • permalink
- Posted by Dean Douthat on 2007 09 24 at 11:57 AM • permalink
Investors Business Daily claims Hansen was funded by George Soros.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 09 25 at 01:25 AM • permalink
Ah, Investors.com, surely the most trusted source we have for developments in science. Or the changes in opinion of scientists, in fact. Array the facts against the facts; and there are plenty of holes in Hansen’s recent arguments to go with. But these types of articles are gormless and obvious, and do nothing to broaden the debate.