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The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.

James Hansen

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James Hansen
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 29
Astrophysicist
Environmentalist
Physicist
Professor
University Teacher
Denison
Iowa
James Hansen
James E. Hansen
James E Hansen
J. E. Hansen
J E Hansen
J. Hansen
J Hansen
Hansen
Hansen J
Hansen J.
Hansen J. E.
Hansen JE
Jim Hansen
Imagine
Grandchildren
Energy
Hanging
Humans
Scale
Children
Scales
Time
Changes
Danger
Environment
Irreversible
Greatest
Initiation

More quotes by James Hansen

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What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.
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We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life.
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Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate.
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The urgency derives from the nearness of climate tipping points.
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The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.
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In view of the immense power of natural weather and climate fluctuations and the great buffering capacity of the Earth, especially the ocean, it is easy to be skeptical about whether small anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition can have important practical impacts.
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Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases. The observed rapid warming gives urgency to discussions about how to slow greenhouse gas emissions.
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The fact is fossil fuel carbon will stay in the surface climate system for millennia.
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If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet.
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A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.
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'Cap and trade' generates special interests, lobbyists, and trading schemes, yielding non-productive millionaires, all at public expense. The public is fed up with such business. Tax with 100% dividend, in contrast, would spur our economy, while aiding the disadvantaged, the climate, and our national security.
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The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon.
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I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change. No longer than a decade at most.
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How long have we got? We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree... We don't have much time left.
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The five warmest years over the last century occurred in the last eight years.
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I tend to be naive and gullible, I guess, but I try to believe that governments believe what they say.
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As you get more global warming, you should see an increase in the extremes of the hydrological cycle - droughts and floods and heavy precipitation.
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I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university.
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We have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet.
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Rising carbon price is essential to 'decarbonize' the economy - to remove the nation towards the era beyond fossil fuels.
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