- SHNS
- Scripps Newspapers
- Abilene Reporter-News
- Anderson Independent-Mail
- Boulder Daily Camera
- Corpus Christi Caller-Times
- Evansville Courier
- Henderson Gleaner
- Kitsap Sun
- Knoxville News Sentinel
- Memphis Commercial Appeal
- Naples Daily News
- Redding Record Searchlight
- Rocky Mountain News
- San Angelo Standard-Times
- Treasure Coast Newspapers
- Ventura County Star
- Wichita Falls Times Record News
- SHNS Partners
- Scripps Broadcast
- Scripps Networks
- Scripps Blogs
Vengeful Hansen's answer for global warning heretics
Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 06/24/2008 - 15:55.
James Hansen, the NASA scientist who 20 years ago warned of global warming disasters, was on stage again recently, once more giving run-for-the-hills testimony before Congress and receiving adulatory comment at every turn. Too bad he's a vicious-minded extremist whose name should be pilloried instead of praised.
A saint of the left, a hero of the environmentalists, a self-proclaimed martyr to truth and champion of democratic processes, Hansen has an interesting idea of what to do with those -- or at least some of those -- who disagree with him. Conduct an inquisition. Strike back at the heretics.
But let's let him speak for himself.
"Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future," he wrote in an online piece for World Watch Institute. "Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer.. .
"CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."
In other words, if you exercise your democratic rights to petition your government and speak freely but are also contradicting someone in possession of absolute knowledge -- in this instance, the great, infallible Hansen -- you are to be dragged before the proper authorities and prosecuted, not for some misdemeanor, mind you, but for crimes way, way up there -- high crimes -- and crimes not just against some group of people or the other, but against all of humanity, and for that matter, against nature itself. One shudders to think of what penalties a guilty verdict might lead to.
The Hansen hubris, his vengefulness and disregard for the core political values that have largely informed this polity of ours since its inception, are of a piece with other leftist calls to get the bad guys -- by prosecuting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for war crimes, for instance. The left sees its hour arriving, after all, and there are interesting precedents political victors just might heed, such as the retribution exacted following the French, Russian and Cuban revolutions. We need not fear beheadings or firing squads, I suppose, but don't underestimate the self-righteous vindictiveness at play here.
"I'd love to see every global warming denier taken out and shot," wrote one person posting a comment under the Hansen piece on the World Watch web site. "This would clean up the world quick, and rid us of hateful dumb types," the person said while adding -- blessed relief! -- that neither this final solution nor the Hansen-preferred trials would happen. The person's defense of Hansen is that Hansen knows as much.
Maybe, maybe not. For all the cheering directed his way by mainstream media that have paid scant attention to his announced ambition for CEOs, Hansen strikes me as an irresponsible crybaby, someone who once made it erroneously sound as if his nonstop mouth was being sealed shut by the administration, whose pro-Democratic politics are blatant, whose policy prescriptions outreach his scientific competence and whose predictions of a warming apocalypse are more speculative than his discussion of them ever comes close to indicating.
Those who take great delight in their ad hominem attacks on scientific skeptics of ruinous, human-caused warming as invariably being on the take from corporations ought also to be told that Hansen once grabbed a quarter of million dollars given him by the ultra-liberal Heinz Foundation. Oh well, not the same thing, right?
The warming issue is not simple, but what does seem clear is that the wrong policies could be more humanly destructive than warming itself and that climate-change science is making lots of guesses.
One distinguished scientist I know -- not a climatologist but someone who at several points in an award-laden career delved into climate issues -- stressed in a conversation with me that we just don't know enough at this point to predict future temperatures. I won't tell you his name because, for one thing, it was a private conversation, and for another -- if I can be allowed a second's hyperbole to make a point -- Hansen might be out there making lists.
(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)
Exactly Who Is Irresponsible Here?
You seem to want to characterize the whole climate change/global warming challenge as a "Democrat-Republican" or "left-right" issue. It isn't. It impacts people from both parties equally, and both parties will have to get together if we ever seriously try to solve it.
I see positive pronouncements of intent to address this critical challenge by both major Presidential candidates, which is a welcome change from the current Administration's deliberate policy of obfuscation on this issue.
As you point out, Dr. Hansen's been trying to get people to wake up to the seriousness of this issue for over 20 years. His frustration at the CEO's of the fossil energy companies is based on what he knows is their deliberate efforts over the years to spread misinformation.
Clearly, shooting someone who is a global-warming "denier" is over-the-top hyperbole, but you blended that notion into your Op-Ed piece as if Dr. Hansen might indeed want that to happen. You call Hansen irresponsible, but isn't that even worse?
I, for one, think that his parallel between these CEOs and the CEOs of the tobacco industry who falsely testified before Congress years ago that they didn't believe nicotine was addictive is an appropriate one.
In fact, Dr. Hansen is in a very similar role to that of Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, the former senior executive of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company (and focus of the movie "The Insider") who years ago blew the whistle on the tobacco industry's clear efforts to make cigarettes even more addictive.
They are both heroes, taking enormous personal risks to get the word out to the public about critical issues that impact countless people.
If I were you, I would cut Dr. Hansen some slack.
Finally someone takes Hansen to task
I listened to his interview on NPR the other day and was completely blown away with this guy's hubris, vindictiveness, and self righteousness.
Thank you for not just parroting his extremist views and lauding his faux bravery and martyrdom.
Climate change
Yes,
The climate is changing. We are on the verge of starting a multigenerational effort to rebuild our energy infrastructure. It will take $trillions and a century to even get art way.
Sadly there are those like Mr Hansen who stand in the way with silly warnings based on protecting their own income and place. They hold back the future, not help it.
Foolish sidetracks promoted by politicians who would tell people how and what to think so they can manage their vote.
Group think
P.J. O'Rourke has always something relevant to say about, well, almoat anything.
“There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.”
"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."
Cut Hansen some slack!
"Clearly, shooting someone who is a global-warming "denier" is over-the-top hyperbole, but you blended that notion into your Op-Ed piece as if Dr. Hansen might indeed want that to happen. You call Hansen irresponsible, but isn't that even worse?"
Well, thanks for that letting us know that you think shooting me is a little excessive. What do you think the penalty is for "High Crimes" - especially against humanity. And calling someone who is incredibly irresponsible is "irresponsible" and worse than calling for trials and shootings. Clearly you are very confused.
People who think like you are very dangerous. You always criticize people who follow traditional religions as stupid and causing all the trouble in the world, but then blindly follow your own earth religion with a devout fervor that you think entitles you to impose your beliefs on the rest of the world.
There has never been anything close to empirical science supporting Hansen's (and I assume your's) crazy theory that he wants to end industrial civilization over. Perhaps you should share your wisdom with us and offer it as proof that you are correct.
How is this for a start ?
As James Hansen is quoted as saying that we need to reduce carbon emissions. Perhaps we should begin by eliminating the NASA which employs him. We would quickly see just how committed he is. Right now in this debate, Hansen makes a donation but not a committment. With all his travel, I wonder what his carbon footprint measures compared to the average ?
Thanks, Jay--and thanks, Hansen!
We should all be grateful for Jay Ambrose pointing out the absolute absence of any sense of proportion among the global warming zealots. We should perhaps be even more grateful that Hansen, who has been the chief proponent of this fraud for 20 years, has clumsily revealed what the world can look forward to if the global warming zealots ever find themselves in charge. People of all political persuasions had better reflect deeply on what could become routine if serious power falls into the hands of people who think they are on a holy mission to save the planet. Sure, trials, purges, firing squads are "hyperbole" and "over the top" right now. But wait until we find ourselves governed by folk (spelled "volk" in earlier incarnations)who believe ANYTHING they do is permissible because they're defending the Earth. Against what? Why, against those who disagree with the zealots--on anything!
Look at Day to Day Events
I just began posting comments about global warming but I have been reading for quite some time. Something that supporters of AGW never really do is examine day to day or year to year events and compare them to what AGW scientists and supports say will happen.
Katrina was said to have been such a strong storm because of AGW. The experts and scientists said that the following hurricane season would produce even stronger and more destructive storms. However the following season did not produce more storms and the ones it did produce were relatively weak because of a weather pattern called El Nino.
The experts could not accurately predict weather patterns one year out. Why is so much stock put in them when a simple observation such as this raises questions?
Post new comment