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'Goals' and 'caps' on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air.

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
Air
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More quotes by James Hansen

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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.
James Hansen
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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.
James Hansen
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The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.
James Hansen
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...chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to [should] be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature [Hansen] accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
James Hansen
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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.
James Hansen
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Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.
James Hansen
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The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
James Hansen
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Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine.
James Hansen
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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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The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren.
James Hansen
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We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.
James Hansen
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If we drive our fellow species to extinction, we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders.
James Hansen
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The fact is fossil fuel carbon will stay in the surface climate system for millennia.
James Hansen
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CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
James Hansen
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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.
James Hansen
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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.
James Hansen
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The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.
James Hansen
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I tend to be naive and gullible, I guess, but I try to believe that governments believe what they say.
James Hansen
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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.
James Hansen
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It would be immoral to leave young people with a climate system spiraling out of control.
James Hansen