'We have only four years left to act on climate change

Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastropheRobin McKie, science editor The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009 Article historyAlong one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and cardboard boxes filled with reports on climate variations and atmospheric measurements.

The director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York is clearly a doting grandfather as well as an internationally revered climate scientist. Yet his pictures are more than mere expressions of familial love. They are reminders to the 67-year-old scientist of his duty to future generations, children whom he now believes are threatened by a global greenhouse catastrophe that is spiralling out of control because of soaring carbon dioxide emissions from industry and transport.

Here is my prediction. Within four years these alarmists are going to say that Obama’s policies have been so successful that the earth is now cooling. He has cured this impending catastrophe! That way they can't be held accountable in four years when nothing has happened to the earth. They can they say, we must continue our draconian measures to keep up our reversal of this trend. It's a win win for liberals.

Conservatives, we are sh*t out of luck unless we can disprove this madness and/or we the sheeple start feeling the pain of this nonsense in the pocket book.

Perhaps cogitator knows something that would give me a greater degree of confidence in this guy. This "only four years left" stuff sounds like more scare-mongering to me.

Call me a sponge. I know a lot of things that scare the h*ll out of me -- things which I know to be very real, yet which if I say them here on FR they are belittled and then besieged with irrelevancy.

The main thing I know is that short-term variability of climate does not change the potential hazards of long-term trends. And that's what Hansen is talking about. Four years to act? Maybe not, but probably important in establishing a framework for actions that will make a difference. The horizon for initiation of these actions is probably a few years further out, but not much.

So no, I don't know "something" that would give you a greater degree of confidence in Hansen. I know a lot of things that if you knew them too, you'd have the same degree of confidence (unfortunately) that I have, which is yes, we don't have a lot of time left before we need to start concerted action. [Note that I think, economically, that we're going to be forced to start acting in ways that benefit the economy and the environment.]

There are several things in this thread that are about the Arctic polar ice cap. I think Gore was a bit bold (for anybody reading, he's predicting the disappearance of the polar ice cap in SUMMER in five years), but I think that every following summer we are going to see a new minimum sea ice extent and volume, or values very close to the minimum, as happened this year.

Here's an article that summarizes the situation fairly well, I think.

Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

(Let's imagine this scenario: in the summer of 2013, the Arctic sea ice minimum extent sets a new record: only 25% of the minimum extent in summer 2007, the current record. I.e., a miniscule remnant of the ice cap survives the summer of 2013. I can hear the conservative skeptics now: "Al Gore was WRONG!!!")

Hunting around, I found this op-ed by science fiction author and editor Ben Bova. I think it's common-sense and I agree with him. I'm certain a large majority of FReepers don't. Oh well.

Ben Bova: It’s best to prepare for the worst on global warming

As a final note:

Multivariate ENSO Index Ranks

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.