James Hansen: activist, environmentalist, physicist, astronomer,
scientist. Whichever of these you choose, he’s a man recognized for “speaking truth to power”, that truly cares about Earth’s climate. His
extensive work on climate research and on educating governments and public
alike has raised awareness of global climate change significantly in the last
30 years.
For his TED talk in 2012, “James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change”, we see your average American
man humbly and wholeheartedly addressing his audience. He’s of mid-height, greying, and wearing the
same hat as the day he was arrested for protesting outside the White House, but then
again “What would
you do if you knew what I (Hansen) know?”.
He started his early work with Professor Van Allen, moving to NASA on a project studying Venus’s climate. It was during this project that Hansen turned this knowledge to Earth, truly adopting NASA’s mission statement: “TO UNDERSTAND AND PROTECT THE HOME PLANET” (a sentence quietly removed in 2006). He made calculations of the greenhouse effect and its predicted impact as atmospheric composition persistently changed. His groundbreaking 1981 paper in Science magazine, observed warming of 0.4°C consistent with CO2 increase. They predicted that warming would exceed noise level of random weather by 21st C, causing shifting climate zones, drought and flood prone areas, rising sea levels, erosion of ice sheets, opening of the North West Passage…all of which are well underway. Following this paper, Hansen testified to congress, emphasizing increase in climate extremes around globe, with stronger extreme events 3sd or more above the norm. The paper stated “CO2 effects on climate may make full exploitation of coal resources undesirable”, a statement ignored by the Presidents climate task force, with which Hansen spoke twice.
Throughout the TEDtalk, Hansen makes
the alarming science easy to understand...“The extra energy earth gains each
day is 20x the energy used by all of humanity, its 400 000 Hiroshima bombs per
day, all year”, and (especially for the Americans) “A warmer ocean releases CO2, just
as a warm Coca-Cola does.”
The upper half of ocean is gaining
heat at substantial rate, with the deep ocean not far
behind and land warming
to 10’s meters depth. This path guarantees that we will pass tipping points –
ice sheet disintegration, 15-20% species committed to extinction by 2100,
increasing floods and drought intensity leading to famine and global economic
decline, and the longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to
prevent and reduce this.
The science is clear, Hansen
concludes, with a plea to all “Clearly I haven’t gotten this message across. I need your help. We owe it to our
children and grandchildren”.
Have a listen yourself, if you weren't convinced on the severity of climate change already, this talk might provide your tipping point.
No comments:
Post a Comment