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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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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
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More quotes by 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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Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.
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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Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.
James Hansen
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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.
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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As a government employee, you can't testify against the government.
James Hansen
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If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet.
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.
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 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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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 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.
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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'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.
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 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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It would be immoral to leave young people with a climate system spiraling out of control.
James Hansen
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Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise - they are what they are.
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