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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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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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Some Democrats deserve to be criticized.
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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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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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Scientists will say we can't blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that's right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.
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Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.
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Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed.
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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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The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.
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The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
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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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'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.
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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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As a government employee, you can't testify against the government.
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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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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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We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.
James Hansen
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Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.
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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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