Interview—Climate Scientist Asserts Coming Catastrophe as Carbon Emissions Continue

National security, economic security, climate security and generational security are imperiled as the Earth's biosphere faces a threat unprecedented in scale during the span of human existence

If super storms, devastation of coastal cities, uninhabitable land regions, famine and myriad societal break-downs were not so compelling, the subject matter of climatic scientist James Hansen's literature might be dismissed as idiosyncratic and arcane.

I mean who really cares about the composition of planetary atmospheres? Dr. Hansen can take his quirky infatuation with planetary atmospheric dynamics and knock himself out in Manhattan.

In the 1980s James Hansen began using non-controversial principles of his field, physics and statistical tools, and like the turgid empiricist that he is quantified atmospheric compositions, energy retention and extrapolated how Earth might fare under specific sets of conditions.

The subject of Hansen's work had turned to Earth, and Hansen's testing of hypotheses like the consequences of industrial carbon burning on Earth, resulted in Hansen's work being recognized as bearing some relevancy to human affairs. See, for example from June 26, 1988, The Heat Is On; Calculating the Consequences of a Warmer Planet Earth, (Shabecoff, New York Times), published a couple days after Hansen told a Congressional committee it was 99 percent certain carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere caused global warming.

Hansen spurred massive public relations campaigns and systemic disinformation by energy and extraction corporations working to halt critical thinking, never a productive enterprise for economic entities for whom public communications work to mislead populations.

Hansen is the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and author of Storms of My Grandchildren. He is perhaps the leading voice warning about the consequences of global warming and climatic change caused by human beings' changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere.

Planet Earth is here to stay, but the world—including the biosphere where life on Earth lives—in 50 years won't be one we recognize, as human societies bake in the point-of-no-return, (not Hansen's extrapolation but mine).

James Hansen was interviewed by Alexander Heffner in wide-ranging talk this spring on a program called The Open Mind.

HEFFNER: I’m Alexander Heffner your host on The Open Mind. Joining me today is perhaps the world’s most famous climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, Director of Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Formerly the leader of NASA’s Space Studies, Hansen recently returned from the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Conference, where he pitched Warren Buffett and fellow investors on a carbon fee. His discussion, “Energy and Climate Change: How justice can be achieved for young people,” focused on the inter generational imperative of climate change and the harm climate disruption poses to us, Millennials and their children and grandchildren. Hansen’s newest study, alongside his European counterparts, projects more melted ice sheets, rising sea levels, and superstorms. As we have explored here on this program, the consensus of modeling forecasts, a dangerous doom and gloom, that puts in jeopardy the habitability of the planet, just decades from now. I want to welcome Jim, James, Dr. Hansen. Thank you for being here today.

JAMES HANSEN: Thank you for having me.

HEFFNER: Now, we were talking off camera. And in, in The Guardian, you said, in response to the Paris talks, “It’s really a fraud, a fake.” And I said, uh, well…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

HEFFNER: People in our industry have a tendency – not this show, per se – to hyperbolize. And so I asked you off-camera – I wanted to give you the courtesy of clarifying – people know your perspective and the science that substantiates it, but I wanted to ask you to elaborate: Why a “fraud” or a “fake,” the Paris talks?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, absolutely. Because it’s not going to reduce the emissions globally. You know, it’s analogous to the Kyoto Protocol. People clapped themselves on the back after that and pretended that it was addressing the problem, and emissions accelerated. You know, as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, then people will keep burning them, so. But they are… Of course, they are not really the cheapest, because they don’t include the cost to society: The effect of fossil fuels on human health…on, um, on climate change. We need to include those costs in the price of the fuels.

HEFFNER: Now, the argument you were making to Mr. Buffett and his colleagues, uh, reminded me of a show I did with Kate Gordon, who leads the Paulson Institute, which has created this kind of index to measure the cost of doing dirty business…

JAMES HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER:…with carbon emissions. Was that the playbook that you went in there with, and how successful do you think your pitch was?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, I won’t know how successful until I… You know, I didn’t ask him for an answer on the spot, because I was afraid what the answer would be. But if he thinks about it, you know, he has children and he… He is a good person, I think. And once you really understand the moral implications of us continuing to burn fossil fuels – and what that’s going to mean for young people and their children – then it can change your perspective. [LAUGHS] One of my sisters said, um, “Where is Tiny Tim?” You know, we have got to… We have got to make people think about young people and what our actions mean for them. Just making more money is not a very good legacy. So in, in my remarks, I mentioned it could be his greatest legacy if he would just… Because the public… So much of the public has great respect for him. So if he would make a comment that we really need to make the price of fossil fuels honest, um, I think that could have a big effect… If I say it, you know, hundreds of people might hear; if he says it, millions of people hear it.

HEFFNER: The Buffett Rule, in the economic lexicon, was not adopted when it comes to tax reform. I remember he made a pitch to, through the Washington Post, a column there, about taxing the rich, and where has that gotten?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, well, that… Well, yeah. But that, uh, comment still rings. And I think we will address, uh, the disparity in the tax rules. I, uh… The public wants to see that fixed, and I think it will be fixed over… I am not sure how rapidly, but I believe it will be. And so I think his, his, uh, word means a lot.

HEFFNER: If you think about wildfires in California, or if you think about drought in the Midwest, alternatively you could think about Superstorm Sandy here in the Northeast, and the potential threat that looms for another Katrina or Rita type disaster on the Southern coast, the Southeast here… If you are making that pitch, the one thing Warren Buffett stays true to is his native Nebraska. How are the people of Nebraska being affected by climate change?

JAMES HANSEN: Oh well, I think… Climate change is now a global issue… It’s like…

HEFFNER: I, I appreciate that too…

JAMES HANSEN: Things like sea level rise…

HEFFNER: Mm hmm.

JAMES HANSEN: Well, if we allow the ice sheets to go unstable, we will lose the coastal cities. And more than half the large cities in the world are on coastlines. The economic implications of that are incalculable. And the number of refugees would be in the hundreds of millions. Compare that to the present number of a… A million or so is a, is a problem. Well, you are talking hundreds of millions… It may… The planet may become ungovernable.

HEFFNER: I completely acknowledge what you are saying. At the same time, realizing that politics is all visceral, and all local…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

HEFFNER:…like the former Speaker Tip O’Neill said. And you are a Midwestern son.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

HEFFNER: I am, I am wondering when you made that… When you constructed the pitch to a Nebraska…OK, a Nebraska constituency born and bred…

JAMES HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER: …what made that unique? And to your mind, was there that global consciousness, or are they saying, “Not in my backyard,” or at least, “Not in my backyard yet…”

HANSEN: You know, I was quite impressed by Nebraskans. They stepped up. Some farmers stepped up and said, “We are not gonna let this pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipeline…”

HEFFNER: Mm hmm.

JAMES HANSEN: “…cross our lands.” And they recognized the… Not just the effect of that on a possible spillage on their property… But also just the fact that it is an inter generational injustice for us to continue to expand the extraction of these fossil fuels – after we realize the problems they are going to cause. You know, our parents didn’t know that they were causing a problem for future generations, but we can only pretend that we don’t know. We know very well.

HEFFNER: What I find telling is… [LAUGHS] Remembering the New York Times A 1 photo of President Obama drinking the water from Flint, Michigan, and the ambivalence in his eyes when he was sipping that glass… Well, we see the impact of lead and paint or water fountains…

HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER: …and families are experiencing it. How do you relate your new ground breaking study here to the American family in Iowa or Nebraska?

JAMES HANSEN: That is the fundamental difficulty, you know? We don’t react until the problem is at our doorstep. And that’s what makes climate change a particularly difficult issue, because the climate system has this great inertia. Much of the response to the gases already in the atmosphere is going to occur over the next few decades and even few centuries. And another… And what makes it all the more difficult is the fact that our solutions are going to require changing the energy system, and that requires decades. So it’s a very difficult problem. But that’s… We are… That’s what we are faced with. And we have got to communicate that, this, uh, to the public. And you know, we should hope that our elected officials would help us do that… But in fact, what I find is that both political parties have substantial obligations to lobbyists, to special interests. Our democracy is not as pure as when it started out; there is too much role of money in Washington. And I find that’s true in both political parties.

HEFFNER: We were not, as a global community, paralyzed in the sense that we could not… You call it a “fraud,” but we could not agree to some basic terms… Now you say that it’s “minimal,” but…

JAMES HANSEN: Well, it’s an agreement that there is a climate problem…

HEFFNER: Right.

JAMES HANSEN: …but it’s not an agreement for a solution. You have to…

HEFFNER: What would that look like?

JAMES HANSEN: The solution has to be…recognize that we cannot allow fossil fuels to, uh… You, you… We are not only not making them pay their costs, we actually have governments who are subsidizing them. Um, you… Well, so it’s basically being unfair to young people and future generations, because the benefit of burning the fossil fuels goes to the present generation, while the future generations, uh, bare most of the cost…

HEFFNER: And you really think, Doctor, that a long term…a long term…shutdown of fossil fuels is not a viable strategy at this point?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, it’ll help… It… If, if you…

HEFFNER: It has to be short-term, or immediate?

JAMES HANSEN: No, no, it has… Oh well, it’s, it’s gonna have to be phased in. So what we advocate is a gradually rising carbon fee. Because you can’t suddenly just turn off the fossil fuels, you, it, the economic implications would be, uh, very disruptive, so. But what you can do is just add a, a rising fee…collect it from the fossil fuel companies at the, the domestic mine or at the port of entry, so it’s a very small number of sources…and you have to give the money to the public. So you don’t give the money to the government, because then it’s a tax, and a tax depresses the economy. But if you give the money to the public – especially if you divide it equally among all legal residents – it actually spurs the economy. The economic studies

HEFFNER: Do you see an instrument – other than the U.N. – that could operate as the source of global governance to institute that kind of…?

JAMES HANSEN: Oh, the United Nations cannot…

HEFFNER: …fee?

JAMES HANSEN: …cannot, um… It cannot… There is…

HEFFNER: But is there an entity that, that could?

JAMES HANSEN: The United Nations… You can’t have 190 nations sitting around, uh, a table. What you need is the major powers to agree. And that means China and the United States. It only requires those two nations. If they would say, “We are going to have a rising carbon fee…” They could also put border duties on products from countries that do not have an equivalent fee. That would be a huge incentive for these other countries to have their own fee, so they can collect the money themselves, rather than have us collect it at the borders. That would work. Economists say that would work…the World Trade Organization, that’s consistent with the rules of that…so we could do it. But it’s got… The… These, uh… The United States has to realize that there really is a problem here.

HEFFNER: You have been called a, an “alarmist,” but you are also portraying the reality of now, and the reality potentially even moreso of the future, Dr. Hansen. You must take some pride, or at least be cognizant of, if not the transformation of the vast lobbyist complex in D.C., the picture that was… the Bush administration, when that president’s team was editing out your findings of climate change being real… to a two-term presidency that may not have responded as comprehensively or acutely, um, where there is need, but that was not denying the problem – and in fact starting, beginning to address the problem…

JAMES HANSEN: I, uh, yeah, I… Unfortunately, I can’t do that, because … it… We missed an opportunity. If President Obama, at the beginning of his administration, had tried to explain…had taken this as the first issue… And it should have been the first issue, because national security, economic security, and climate security, all depend upon this.

HEFFNER: And health care – which was the first initiative – could have been interwoven into this…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, yeah. But he has to explain it to the public. He would have to – like Franklin Roosevelt – he would have to have Fireside Chats. He didn’t tend to do that. And he didn’t take this as an early issue. And he didn’t seem to understand. He took the standard Democratic approach, which is “more regulations” and, uh, they have even attempted to get taxes on it… But that’s, that’s not gonna work. The… So, you know, I, I wish I could somehow…

HEFFNER: When you say “the standard Democratic approach.” If the Republican approach was denial; “the standard Democratic approach,” you are insinuating, is “regulation”?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, that’s, um…

HEFFNER: But expound on that…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, well… [SIGHS] So, you know, I have explained what I think is needed…

HEFFNER: Right.

JAMES HANSEN: …a revenue neutral, rising carbon fee. Um, and I can’t get either party to take that as their position. That’s why I argue… And I am going to conclude – in a book that I am starting to write now – that we probably need a new party, right? I call it the “American Party,” or maybe the “American Revolution.” It’s, it has to be… It has to give up with taking money from lobbyists. And it has to have policies that are in the public’s best interest. And, and this issue should be central, because this is actually the place you should get money to, um… Yeah, the economy should be partly based on, uh, how we price, uh, fossil fuels.

HEFFNER: And now with the explosion of natural gas – which is really an increasing…

JAMES HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER: …source of energy – that has been touted by this administration as a way to, hmmm…

JAMES HANSEN: It could be…

HEFFNER: …move…

JAMES HANSEN: It could be a bridge fuel, if you had a rising carbon fee, because then coal would fall off the table quickly. And things like tar sands…

HEFFNER: Mm hmm.

JAMES HANSEN: …which are very carbon intensive, they would fall off the table immediately. And temporarily, we would be using some gas, but then we would have to move off of that also, because there is a lot of gas in the ground. And when we look at the planet’s, uh, climate and carbon budget, we realize we can’t burn all that gas. So we have… You can’t take that and just replace coal with that, without this rising carbon fee. We have to… That has to be a bridge fuel.

HEFFNER: From the basic core of the research that is newest, as of…

JAMES HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER: …summer 2016, what are you finding now about the potential pattern of climate change and disruption that is new from what you found just within the last decade?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. Well, I think the important thing that’s new is that we find that the freshwater that is being injected onto the ocean surface, uh, around Greenland and around Antarctica affects the ocean circulation in a way which actually enhances the melting of the ice, uh, the ice shelves that come out from the ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland. And that’s a very dangerous amplifying, uh, feedback. Because, um, it allows… As you melt these ice shelves, it allows the ice sheets to discharge their ice to the ocean more rapidly. And, uh, there are at least several meters of sea level included in the, uh, in the vulnerable ice on Antarctica and Greenland. So there is the potential for several meters of sea level rise, relatively rapidly, because of these amplifying feedbacks. It makes things happen faster. And we are beginning to see that. The records are short, but when we look at the mass of the Greenland ice sheet, which you can now measure from the Gravity satellite very accurately – and the mass of the Antarctic ice sheet – we see that they are beginning to lose mass more and more rapidly. And we see that the, um, the oceans around, uh, Antarctic are beginning to cool from this freshwater that’s being injected from the melting ice.

HEFFNER: And plainly spoken, once those sheets melt, there is no recourse?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. The problem is, it takes thousands of years for ice sheets to build up. And so, sea level… If we once let the ice sheets disintegrate, those… All the coastal cities will be lost. All the history and the… The economic implications are just enormous, if we lose cities like New York City.

HEFFNER: Are we constantly monitoring the sheets? And do they have names?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, yeah. And we now have this spectacular Gravity satellite, which can measure the gravitational field of the Earth so precisely that you can see not only that the ice sheets are losing or gaining mass, but it, how different pieces of the ice sheet are losing or gaining mass. So we are doing a pretty good job of, uh, monitoring the ice sheets. And also the ocean, because you know, the fundamental thing is that when you add CO2 to the atmosphere, it’s like putting a blanket on the planet. So it reduces, it reduces the amount of heat radiation going to space. So there is an imbalance: The amount of energy coming in from the sun exceeds the heat going out, and where is that energy going? The atmosphere has a very small heat capacity, so most of it goes into the ocean. And we now have more than 3,000 floats distributed all around the world’s ocean, which dive down into the ocean to a two kilometer depth, come back to the surface, radio the information to a satellite, so we can measure now the heat content of the ocean quite accurately. And what we see is the planet is out of energy balance: There is more energy coming in than going out, the oceans are getting warmer. And if we want to stabilize climate, we have to restore that energy balance. That’s how we come up with the fact that we had better reduce CO2 to no more than about 350 parts per million. That’s what we’ll have to do if we want to restore energy balance and stabilize climate.

HEFFNER: We had, uh, Gerardo Ceballos – I don’t know if you are familiar with that name – on, uh, the show recently. And we contemplated the potential for a mass human extinction through climate change…through weather, weather patterns that are gonna radically alter the way we are able to live, or not able to live… Hmmm, as I see you nod affirmatively…

JAMES HANSEN: Mm hmm.

HEFFNER: …in thinking about that future…what, to you, in the absence of these kind of radical steps that governments are failing to take, what is, what is the layperson watching this have, besides political capital, if they form with their brothers and sisters to make this a movement?

JAMES HANSEN: That’s the, the issue. They cannot personally solve the problem. Even if you band together with millions of people and try to reduce your emissions, there are billions of people on the planet, and there are many countries where they want to raise the people out of poverty, and they are going to burn fossil fuels, if there is no alternatives. So we have to have… We have to effect policies. Uh, governments have to step up to the job. And the job has to include making the price of fossil fuels honest, it’s very simple. And if governments would try to explain this to the public: You know, that you are gonna have to… The price of fuel at the pump is going to go up. But if the money that’s collected from the fossil fuel companies is given to the public, most people can come out ahead. So this could be explained, um… There was the director of the…an organization called Republicans for the Environment…who said, Gee, this makes a lot of sense. You could explain this in a, in a two minute elevator talk. Well, uh, so there are people who understand this, but our politicians are still too much bound by the special interests and the lobbyists and the fossil fuel money. And the public is confused because they see advertisements on television from “I am an energy voter.” The fossil fuel company makes it sound very logical: Oh, the… ..More oil in North Dakota is making the United States more energy independent and creating jobs…. Uh, yeah, it sounds logical. Unfortunately, it’s not actually what’s in our best interest, in the long run.

HEFFNER: When you describe – in the minutes we have remaining – when you describe that process by which the public would monetarily benefit – get a fee that is, that the fossil fuel companies are subjected to. How, how would you ensure that the money going to the public is not thrust back into the vicious cycle of the present scheme?

JAMES HANSEN: Sure. And on the first day that you get your dividends, you may go out and, and spend money on fuel for your present vehicle. But the next time you buy one, you would like to come out ahead. And, and you know, everything that you buy is affected by fossil fuel prices – some things more than others – so it will automatically be included… You will… When you buy things, you will tend to buy things that do not have as heavy a tax on them.

HEFFNER: It’s, it’s about creating a disincentive. That…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

HEFFNER: …is the number one…

JAMES HANSEN: Right.

HEFFNER: …principle goal…

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, yeah. And as the economic studies show, … People will… Many people will change their practices, because they have other things to use their money for. They don’t want to waste it on fossil fuels, if they have alternatives.

HEFFNER: The whole idea of teaching one’s carbon footprint, is that an obsolete model of how, how are…?

JAMES HANSEN: You know… Well, you don’t even have to worry about it. You know, for example, if… As the carbon fee goes up, food that’s imported from New Zealand will become more expensive. The family… The nearby farm will be favored, because it’ll have a smaller transportation requirement. So, uh… Different things on the store shelves…

HEFFNER: Right.

JAMES HANSEN: …will have a bigger or smaller carbon footprint, and that will be reflected in their prices. So you don’t have to sit down and calculate…

HEFFNER: Right.

JAMES HANSEN: …your carbon footprint, you just pay attention to the prices of what you buy.

HEFFNER: What countries do you think are getting it right, in adopting models like the carbon fee you imagine?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, uh, no one has adopted, um, a revenue neutral, carbon fee. I have gone to about a dozen different countries and tried to persuade, um, them of such a model. It turns out that the fossil fuel industry is powerful in all governments that I have, uh, become acquainted with… So the public is gonna have to understand this. Um, it’s not easy. But, uh, the future for our children and grandchildren depends upon us getting this right, and doing it soon.

HEFFNER: Is there a country that’s come close, remotely close, to what you are imagining?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, there, there are… Sweden is a good example of a country that de carbonized its electricity. And that’s the most fundamental requirement for solving the climate problem. Because, although they still have a carbon footprint because their vehicles are using petrol…are using carbon based fuels. But you can make, uh, fuels, once you have carbon-free electricity. So they, uh, have a lot of hydro power, and they have built nine nuclear power plants. So they have completely carbon-free electricity. So they have come the closest. They have the smallest carbon footprint.

HEFFNER: Dr. Hansen, thank you for being here today, and for sharing an example of some possible progress in the future.

JAMES HANSEN: Thanks.

Obama Takes in National Parks Before Talk on Carbon Emissions

"U.S. President Barack Obama is taking his family to two national parks this weekend on a working vacation where he will spend some time with his teenaged daughters while making the case for more spending on conservation and curbing climate change," reports Roberta Rampton in Rueters.

... "The president will help celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service, and he is also expected to talk about his plan to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions. He sees this as part of the legacy of his time in office."

This is positive.

Yet, does the lack of public urgency meet the scope of the threat, the predictable consequences associated with carbon emissions?

"Research has also indicated that, without drastic action, some regions may reach temperatures that could make them uninhabitable," notes Tim Radford this morning.

Not could, rather will make regions uninhabitable.

Life's Maximum Peril Is Locked-in

From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon
Crossing Face of Earth - A (now NOAA) camera aboard the
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite
between the earth and sun captured unique view of the moon
as it moved in front of the sun-lit side of Earth in August 2015.
The series of test images shows the fully illuminated dark side
of the moon that is never visible from Earth.
The DSCOVR satellite is in orbit around the sun,
932,000 miles sunward from Earth.
Cameras on DSCOVR give a constant view of
the fully illuminated Earth. Over the coming
decades, new blasts of methane and other climate-changing
gases will become visible, and we can watch via satellite
as Earth enters a point-of-no-return phase featuring climate
change-induced catastrophes, including massive loss of human life,
caused by increasing concentrations of fossil fuel gases
altering the climate. Superstorms will become more frequent
and severe. We can watch the demise of human and
much other life via cameras on satellite DSCOVR. Very cool.

'Young people will not get a do-over,' as humans lock in superstorms, sea rises exceeding 20 feet, disaster-inducing feedbacks and amplifications

Updated: "With a little help from that natural cyclic phenomenon El Niño and a lot of help from humans, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will exceed 400 parts per million (ppm) not just for the rest of the year, but probably for a lifetime."

And as carbon dioxide levels rise, so will temperatures. Scientists say that summers 50 years from now will be far hotter than any experienced by anybody now," (Radford, Climate News Network).

As often as responsible minds such as Tim Radford, James Hansen, the host of climatic scientists around the globe, Noam Chomsky, and other rational-minded folk warn of the dire consequences of systemic, massive injection of carbon and methane into the Earth's atmosphere, the truth is most people and policymakers will not comprehend or care.

Not that the subject matter is difficult, it's just that thinking and acting are enterprises that do not reach the corrupt, nihilistic, or plain stupid—most of the planet's population, and virtually all of the policymakers in government and corporations.

James Hansen is spending his semi-retirement in a living acknowledgement to his grandchildren that the world we, this generation, is leaving our future is one we would not recognize.

Hansen is the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and author of Storms of My Grandchildren, (Bloomsbury, (2009)).

America’s first operational deep space satellite orbits some one
million miles from Earth. Positioned between the sun and Earth,
it is able to maintain a constant view of the sun and
sun-lit side of Earth. This location is called Lagrange point 1,
(L1). - (Illustration is not to scale)
Credit: NOAA.

"If you prefer to remain in the land of the blissfully ignorant, you will have lots of company. … But if you are willing to expend a modicum of effort, you can take a big step toward appreciating the degree to which we are living on a planet in peril," writes Hansen in 2011.

The White House is leading the way among the blissfully ignorant.

Perhaps President Obama will offer an address after November stating 'we should do something.'

Won't be enough.

There is no policy urgency in the White House to enact emergency measures to mitigate and halt what appears to be point-of-no-return positive feedbacks and amplifications.

"Humanity is rapidly extracting and burning fossil fuels without full understanding of the consequences," say climatic scientists in a widely ignored paper, (Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations that 2°C Global Warming is Dangerous). The authors in the above-linked paper do not conclude we have reached the point-of-no-return, but this is an obvious inference.

What about 10s°C global warming that Radford warns about? The authors of the above paper, as good empirical scientists, leave it to readers to extrapolate.

Those interested can read the public release of papers from the Pentagon warning about the coming dangers of global warming, (Global Warming and Pentagon), but the lack of public urgency from the presidency makes one wonder why the business-as-usual posture.
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The earth's biosphere "refers to the regions of the surface, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the earth occupied by living organisms," (NOAA).

Earth is 4.5 billion years-old, and will remain long after humans have altered the biosphere and surface systems supporting life.

The threat of systemically injecting fossil fuel gases into the atmosphere is to living things.

To reject the need to protect living things by planning for humanity and life’s future as a species and on a planetary scale is to reject, for one, the consequences humans have on the biosphere by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels over a short time scale.

Human beings are a successful species, but this will change.
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Mr. Buffett's Ark
April 26, 2016

Dear Mr. Buffett,

As America’s most revered businessman and investor, you have a singular opportunity for good.

When you speak, millions listen. And they trust your judgment.

In the time I am granted to speak at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting on April 30 my remarks will focus on the world we are leaving to young people, the prospects they will inherit.

I believe that you and I share optimism about the future, but also concerns.

You are in a singular position, via the respect you command, to help the public see through special interests. Indeed, I will argue that you could, and that you should, do your best to influence the course of history this century and beyond.

To help make my case, let me first note that we share Midwestern roots.

I worked for the Omaha World Herald for years, thus earning a chance to study at the University of Iowa under renowned physicist James Van Allen.

That career path, the study of other planets and Earth’s history, led me to realization of the dangers posed by human-made climate change as we burn fossil fuels.

Recent scientific data indicate that continued high fossil fuel emissions will lock in sea level rise of at least 6-9 meters (20-30 feet).

Almost all coastal cities, including most of the world’s largest cities, would be lost.

Large impacts may not begin for several decades, but this delayed response of the ponderous climate system spells danger for young people.

We can pass a point of no return, where it becomes impossible to avoid future Antarctic ice sheet disintegration and loss of coastal cities. Economic devastation and refugees could make the world ungovernable.

So, Mr. Buffett, I am heartened by the words in your last annual report, where you conclude that continued inaction on climate change “is foolhardy.” You wrote: “Call this Noah’s Law: If an Ark may be essential for survival (your emphasis), begin building it today.”

Your Ark’s characteristics will need to be informed by science and practical matters.  Fossil fuel energy, encouraged and subsidized by our governments, has powered our economic development for more than a century. 

Science now informs us, unambiguously, that fossil fuel emissions must be phased out rapidly, or our children will inherit a climate system out of their control.

I recognize and salute your commitment, with Mr. Gates and others, to invest in development of clean energy technologies.

Such Research and Development is an essential component of sound energy policies. Yet even your resources are tiny in comparison to the total fossil fuel economy.

We need good national and global energy policies to move the world off fossil fuels onto clean energies.  However, the Paris climate accord, signed with pomp and circumstance, is only a precatory, [wished-for or requested], agreement, based on the hope that each of 190 nations will choose an effective “cap” for their emissions.

But when a U.S. citizen is responsible for 25 times more emissions than an Indian citizen, what cap can we expect India to ad opt and how would it be enforced?

I suggest, Mr. Buffett, that your Ark will need to include two fundamental timbers.

And unless the public understands these basic matters, it will be difficult to achieve a vessel for salvation.

First, there will need to be an across-the-board gradually rising carbon fee or tax.  This is the underpinning needed to provide incentive for rapid innovation and investment.  Without this fee, fossil fuels continue to appear to be cheap to the consumer, as their price does not include their costs to society arising from air pollution, water pollution, and climate change.

Second, these funds should not be grabbed by the government or used to fund politicians’ favorite subsidies, which would depress the economy.  Economic studies show that a revenue-neutral carbon fee stimulates the economy and creates jobs.

Returning all funds to the public garners wide public support, helping avoid later over turning by subsequent political leaders.

These concepts are not rocket science.

Yet communication of such basic information to the public is nearly impossible when the media are saturated with propaganda such as the fossil fuel industry’s “I’m an Energy Voter” campaign, designed to keep the public hooked on fossil fuels.

Mr. Buffett, the public needs advice from trusted sources.  You have done a useful service with your remarks about climate change and your advice to begin building an Ark.

If you believe that the Paris climate accord has put us on a path to rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, if you believe that the sun and wind will soon provide all the world’s energy needs, there is little reason for you to say more.

But I suspect you agree that more is needed.

You have no obligation to advise the public about effective policies, but as a much-respected business person, you have an opportunity.

Recently my oldest grandson, as an 11-year old, made the astute observation about climate change: “unless we can figure out a time machine that actually works, there will be no way to go back in time to fix it.”

Mr. Buffett, young people will not get a “do-over.” 

They urgently need us to start building your Ark.

James Hansen, Director
Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions
Columbia University Earth Institute

Eight to Eighteen Decades Before Irreversible Planetary Catastrophe

Links are available to Dr. James Hansen's, (and co-authors), alarming new paper on climate change presenting findings suggesting a range of some eight to 18 decades before Earth reaches a point of no return, ("locked-in"), of catastrophic consequences caused by human beings' fossil-fuel energy systems' emitting gasses changing the atmosphere.

'Consequences include sea level rise of several meters, which we estimate would occur this century or at latest next century, if fossil fuel emissions continue at a high level. That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history. A more immediate threat is the likelihood of shutting down the oceans overturning circulations in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans. That’s where superstorms come in ... .'

Hansen's new paper is entitled Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: The Threat of Irreparable Harm:

• Nineteen-page abbreviation of Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: The Threat of Irreparable Harm, with links to media, full paper, and video included
• Final Paper
• Video Discussion
• Dr. Hansen’s webpage, communications, etc. 
• Justin Gillis' piece in the New York Times 
• Amelia Urry's piece in the Grist 

It is possible a massive change in the energy production systems on a global scale could alter the consequences, suggests the paper.

Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: The Threat of Irreparable Harm

'Irreparable harm—questions pertain to how soon we will pass points of no return, in which we lock in consequences that cannot be reversed on any time scale that people care about. Consequences include sea level rise of several meters, which we estimate would occur this century or at latest next century, if fossil fuel emissions continue at a high level. That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history. A more immediate threat is the likelihood of shutting down the oceans overturning circulations in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans. That’s where superstorms come in ... .'

It would perhaps be gratifying if the United States government began an emergency crash project on changing public policy related to the energy extraction industry, as if the species and biosphere depended on it.

A new paper by Dr. James Hansen and 18 co-authors reveals findings confirming precisely that, (Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: The Threat of Irreparable Harm).

So we have the grave planetary situation facing the world, and in the United States the Republican Party busily demonizing not the energy extraction industries but rather the human species who appear non-white and hold to disfavored religious beliefs, while Hillary Clinton acclaims how tough she is in an address to AIPAC. [By the way, consider voting for Bernie Sanders for a dose of sanity.]

An excerpt and video of Hansen's talk laying out the main points of the paper are below. For some other reading explaining the consequences of inaction, see The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt and Company (2014)).

Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: The Threat of Irreparable Harm

22 March 2016

James Hansen

We made a video discussing some of the main points in our “Ice Melt” paper[1], which is about to be published in Atmos. Phys. Chem.

The main point that I want to make concerns the threat of irreparable harm, which I feel we have not communicated well enough to people who most need to know, the public and policymakers. I’m not sure how we can do that better, but I comment on it at the end of this transcript.

Hi, I’m Jim Hansen, Director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions program at Columbia University Earth Institute. I want to discuss some implications of the paper Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms that is being published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, a paper on which I have 18 exceptional American and international co-authors.

We have uncovered information and a partial understanding of feedbacks in the climate system, specifically interactions between the ocean and the ice sheets. These feedbacks raise questions about how soon we will pass points of no return, in which we lock in consequences that cannot be reversed on any time scale that people care about.

Consequences include sea level rise of several meters, which we estimate would occur this century or at latest next century, if fossil fuel emissions continue at a high level. That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history.

A more immediate threat is the likelihood of shutting down the oceans overturning circulations in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans. That’s where superstorms come in.  Let me explain.

We use global climate modeling, paleoclimate data – that’s Earth’s ancient climate history – and modern observations of the ocean and ice sheets to study effects of ice melt on Greenland [2] and the Antarctic ice shelves (tongues of ice extending from Antarctica into the Southern Ocean).[3]

Greenland and Antarctica are beginning to melt because of global warming. So far it is just a tiny, tiny fraction of the ice sheets that has melted. However, this fresh meltwater spilling out onto the North Atlantic and into the Southern Ocean already is having important effects. [F16]

We conclude that light freshwater added to upper layers of the ocean is already beginning to shut down North Atlantic Deep Water formation and Antarctic Bottom Water formation. This will have enormous consequences in future decades, if full shutdown is allowed to occur.

United Nations IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, does not report these effects, for two reasons. First, most models used by IPCC simply exclude ice melt. Second, we conclude that most models, ours included, are less sensitive than the real world to added freshwater, because most models have excessive small scale ocean mixing, which reduces the effect.

[4] The surface manifestation of slowdown of the deep circulations is cooling in the North Atlantic southeast of Greenland and in the Southern Ocean. These coolings are prominent in our model by the middle of the 21st century.  However, on multiple grounds, we conclude that the real world responds faster to freshwater than the models do.

First, let’s note that North Atlantic cooling, if the overturning circulation shuts down entirely, will have large effects. The tropics continue to warm as CO2 increases. If Greenland freshwater shuts down deepwater formation and cools the North Atlantic several degrees, the increased horizontal temperature gradient will drive superstorms stronger than any in modern times.  All hell would break loose in the North Atlantic and neighboring lands.

[5 1st boulder] Such a situation occurred in the last interglacial period, 118 thousand years ago. The tropics were about 1°C warmer than today because Earth’s spin axis was tilted less than today.  Ocean core data show that deepwater formation shut down, the North Atlantic cooled, and there is evidence of powerful superstorms at about that time, powerful enough for giant waves to toss 1000 ton megaboulders [6] onto the shore in the Bahamas.  Some scientists think these boulders may have been tossed by a tsunami, but we present multiple lines of evidence that the boulders and other geologic features are best explained as the result of superstorms.

An important point is that if we let ice melt from Greenland become large enough to fully shut down the AMOC, the Atlantic overturning circulation, it will be permanent as far as the public is concerned. It takes several centuries for AMOC (Atlantic overturning circulation) to get moving again.

However, superstorms will not be the most important consequence of global warming, if it continues to grow. The most important effect will be sea level rise.  Here too, the most complete analysis must account for paleoclimate data, which shows that ice sheets, when they disintegrate, can go quickly, non-linearly, yielding multi-meter sea level rise in a century, even when the climate forcing is weaker than the human-made climate forcing.

[7] We show from paleoclimate data that most ice sheet models are more lethargic than the real world, in which sea level is known to have risen rapidly many times. So instead of using an ice sheet model, we simply assume that when warming occurs driven by a growing climate forcing the rate of ice melt will grow nonlinearly.  We test several alternative growth rates.

What we find are amplifying feedbacks, just what is needed to feed nonlinear ice melt growth. Greenland meltwater reduces the density of surface water, thus reduces sinking of water to the deep ocean.  As meltwater grows it shuts down the ocean conveyor, as Wally Broecker calls it.

More important, for sea level, is what is happening around Antarctica. Sinking of heavy, salty cold water near the Antarctic coast normally forms Antarctic Bottom Water, thus also bringing relatively warm water to the surface, where it releases heat to the atmosphere and space.

Now, as fresh meltwater from Antarctic ice shelves increases, it tends to put a cold low density lid on the Southern Ocean. This reduces exchange with the surface, so he heat stays in the ocean, raising the temperature of ocean water at the depth of ice shelves, an amplifying feedback.

In a global perspective, cold freshwater lenses around Antarctica increase the planet’s energy imbalance. The added energy goes into the ocean where it is available to melt ice shelves.

These feedbacks support our conclusion that melt in response to strong forcing will be nonlinear. These feedbacks, with meltwater driving subsurface warming, also help us understand and gain a consistent picture of rapid nonlinear climate oscillations in the paleoclimate record.

[8] Paleoclimate data makes clear that when ice sheets melt, they can go fast. However, we do not know the characteristic time for the nonlinear ice sheet response to growing climate forcing.  Eventually ice sheet models may give us an answer, but for now our best guide is observations.

Unfortunately records of growing annual mass loss by the ice sheets are short. The Greenland data can be fit as well by 10-year or 20-year doubling times, but already Greenland is losing several hundred cubic kilometers of ice per year.  Feedbacks for Greenland, with its surface melt, are different than for Antarctica, but there are several amplifying feedbacks.  Greenland response to global warming will be nonlinear, but likely with a different characteristic doubling time.

[9] Antarctic mass loss is smaller. Most melting so far is ice shelves, which does not show up in gravity satellite measurements of mass change.  However, as ice shelves disappear, the discharge of non-floating ice will accelerate.

If ice sheet mass loss has a 10-year doubling time, meter-scale sea level rise would be reached in about 50 years, and multi-meter sea level rise a decade later. 20-year doubling time would require about 100 years.

The data records are too short. But if we wait until the real world reveals itself clearly, it may be too late to avoid sea level rise of several meters and loss of all coastal cities.  I doubt that we have passed a point of no return, but frankly we are not certain of that.

[10] There’s an analogous, but I believe more imminent, situation with shutdown of overturning ocean circulations. The cold regions southeast of Greenland and around Antarctica are signs of the beginning of shutdowns of the AMOC, in the North Atlantic, and the southern Ocean SMOC.

We note that effects of meltwater seem to be occurring 1 or 2 decades earlier in the real world than in our model. Why would models be less sensitive to today’s moderate meltwater amounts? We present evidence for excessive small scale ocean mixing in many models, including ours.

[11] One key diagnostic is the climate response time. In 100 years our model achieves only 60% of its equilibrium response.  I have checked three other major climate models, two American and one British, finding similar slow response.  However, we have shown that Earth’s measured energy imbalance requires the 100-year climate response to be about 75% if equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 3°C, as paleoclimate data show to be the case.

The explanation for why the surface response is so slow in the model is that the model ocean mixes heat too rapidly into the deeper ocean. This same excessive mixing causes the models to be less sensitive to the freshwater lens on the ocean surface, which also tends to mix too fast.

There is other data, besides Earth’s energy imbalance, supporting this interpretation, including the sensitivity of paleoclimate to freshwater forcing. However, there is one recent paper that is especially important, by Winton et al. (2014), who show that a model with 0.1° resolution, fine enough to resolve small scale ocean motions and avoid parameterized mixing, yields a surface temperature response about a quarter larger after 50-100 years, consistent with our interpretation.

It would be valuable if all models would report their surface climate response function as well as their equilibrium climate sensitivity, and examine the model sensitivity to a standard rapidly increasing rate of meltwater injection. [4]

The relevance is that I believe we are already witnessing the beginning of this cooling southeast of Greenland and cooling around Antarctica in response to freshwater from ice melt.

[10] In that case observed cooling southeast of Greenland and the extra warming along the United States East Coast are not natural fluctuations – when AMOC slows down it causes both of those. This interpretation implies that Greenland meltwater is already having significant effects.  The warm water along the East Coast is the reason that “Sandy” retained hurricane force winds all the way up to the New York City area – the nearby Atlantic was about 3°C warmer than normal.  This unusually warm ocean water has also been able to provide the moisture for record snowstorms in recent years.

These are small effects compared to what happens if AMOC shuts down entirely.

So the question arises again: have we passed a point of no return, is ice melt sure to increase so that AMOC shutdown is a foregone conclusion? I doubt it, but it’s conceivable, depending on how fast we slow down human-made climate forcing.

I think the conclusion is clear. We are in a position of potentially causing irreparable harm to our children, grandchildren and future generations.

This is a tragic situation – because it is unnecessary. We could already be phasing out fossil fuel emissions if only we stopped allowing the fossil fuel industry to use the atmosphere as a free dumping ground for their waste. If we collected a gradually rising fee from fossil fuel companies, we could phase over to clean energies – if done right it would spur the economy and create jobs.

But that’s a story for another day.

One final point. This is a complex story, but one with important practical implications.  I find that the public sometimes misinterprets our science discussions, how research is done.  Skepticism is the lifeblood of science.  You can be sure that many scientists, indeed most scientists, will find some aspects in our long paper that they would interpret differently.  That’s entirely normal.  It takes time for conclusions to be agreed upon and details sorted out.

So after you have talked to a scientist about this topic, ask him or her a final question. Do you agree that we have reached a dangerous situation?  Do you think we may be approaching a point of no return, a situation in which our children inherit a climate system undergoing changes that are out of their control, changes that will cause them irreparable harm? That’s the bottom line.

Thanks for listening.

[1] Hansen, J., M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckmann, P. Kharecha, A.N. LeGrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo, 2016: Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence for paleoclimate dat, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous.. Atmos. Chem. Phys., in press.