Archive for December 2009

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Yes Virginia, There is a Afterlife



It is fitting that on the last day and the last post of 2009, that this post is number 1400 for this blog.  I provide these thoughts to carry with you for the next year and perhaps the rest of your life.  If they inspire, then share them with your friends and tell them about this blog. Perhaps we may inspire a lively discussion.

This is one of the best first hand reports on contact with the afterlife that I have come across.  It also mirrors many others, but remarkably here there is a prior pattern of consideration and developing sensitivity so that when the key events occurred the author was open to observing them properly.  This is unique.

So I post this item to provide a tale of hope that the mythology surrounding the concept of the afterlife may have merit.  It is far better to cross over if you are not wracked with fear.

Yet also I post this item to extend my own investigations.  I have thought for some time that human progress in the sciences would reach the point in which it becomes possible to image the human mind in its totality.  It becomes even plausible that a whole human life might be recorded if thought useful.  It is at least a challenging research goal.

I have also suggested that it would be marvelously effective if we could link to memories directly across time via molecular based wormholes if such actually exist.  It allows our organic brain to link to the memory in time and place without creating a physical memory.  And since nature is notoriously efficient, if nature can do it then it is likely done this way.

We have also found excellent reasons to believe mankind has already done all this and then left Earth for space habitats while Earth itself was properly terraformed.  We, of course, are the mugs stuck with the dirty work.  It would make complete sense to transport personalities and full memories in and out of the available hosts and to operate in terms of an afterlife.  Of course we would not have that knowledge because we would quickly become difficult.

Of course my principal conjecture is unrelentingly scientific.  It is just that few understand how much scope that provides.  I can replicate Heaven and Earth, the human soul, and a media based afterlife and just about everything spun our way in the Judaic tradition which now appears to be reports passed down from the earliest resettlement efforts on Earth. Once we accept that the scientific agenda was accomplished once before by humanity, the rest falls into place and all become possible.

So I have given you a second source of hope.  We are not asked to believe in a mystery that is hooey but to understand that scientific inevitability may well achieve the same result and that possibly humanity has already completed the job and is preserving our souls while we do the dirty work of physically terraforming Earth.

A principal theme of this blog is to investigate methods of terraforming the Earth to achieve optimum living conditions.  A natural conclusion of the underlying conjectures is that Space based humanity is looking forward to been resettled on Earth.


Yes, Virginia, there is life after death

Jack Cashill

Posted: December 24, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=119900


On an early morning last week, just 10 days before Christmas, as I lay in bed gathering my thoughts, I heard a loud crashing sound downstairs in my house.


No sound had preceded it, so I did not fear a break-in. But it was loud enough to wake my wife. "What was that?" she asked, alarmed. "I'll go check," I said dutifully.


In that no one else was home, I had figured that the Christmas tree had toppled over or a picture had fallen off a wall, but I could find nothing out of order.


With no place else to look, I checked the sparest and smallest room downstairs, the one where I kept my weights and a TV to watch while working out.


What I found there, especially on reflection, was evidence enough for me to come to a rather stupendous conclusion: yes, Virginia, there is indeed life after death.


To understand how and why I concluded thusly requires a little back-story. It begins with a family friend we will call "Anna," a sensible young wife and mother I have known forever.


After years of suppressing her gifts, and more years still of struggling to reconcile them with her deep Catholic faith, Anna has let a few people know what she believes herself capable of doing, namely – hang on here – communicating with the dead.


I have been historically agnostic about all things irrational and/or intangible like extraterrestrials or ESP or telekinesis or poltergeists or pro-life Democrats or people who self-combust in their living rooms.


Despite my doubts, Anna approached me because of my access to the media. There were missing person cases where she thought she could be helpful but, understandably, she had made little headway with skeptical authorities.


Curious, I asked her what she could tell me about Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the title character of my book, "Ron Brown's Body."


The apolitical Anna had not heard of Brown but came back a day later with astonishingly accurate details about his life and death. Still wary, I figured, she could have pulled some of these details from my book, but not all.


For one, the death scenario she drew differed from the one I had depicted as most likely, but hers was nonetheless entirely plausible.


For another, the personal details she evoked went well beyond anything I knew. To check, I called Brown's confidante, Nolanda Butler Hill, and the precision of Anna's revelations took Nolanda's breath away.


Some time later Anna called me without prompting. She told me that my late father had visited her the night before. This was not an area I was eager to explore, but I chose to listen.


As Anna related, she had been awakened by a very loud rendition of the song "Sloop John B." She heard my father's voice filtered and coming from her left. This meant, she told me, "He did, in fact, shoot himself."


Anna laid out the details: my father been demoted from top grade detective to cop on the beat in a political purge by an incoming administration. "He hated the corruption around him," she told me.


This stuff happened in Newark, I explained. I was 15 years old at the time. Anna had yet to be born, but she was eerily accurate.


"It was not only a self-esteem thing," she told me. "His salary had been cut, too. It caused him to feel badly about himself."


Anna then proceeded to tell me the when, where, how and why of his death in detail beyond what my three siblings and I had ever shared or even knew.


After the conversation, I called my oldest brother, Bill. For about an hour, we parsed the lyrics of "Sloop John B."


"We come on the sloop john b/ My grandfather and me/ Around Nassau town we did roam." My father's grandfather was John D. Cashill, who had come of age in Princeton, N.J., "Old Nassau."


Beyond that, we were struck by the haunting repetition of the refrain, "I wanna go home." Anna had explained that as a result of the suicide my father remained in a purgatorial "healing place" and had yet to get home.


That much said, my brother and I laughingly conceded that we might have been reading more into it than a Beach Boys song could possibly bear. Still …


Shortly after this revelation, my brother, Bill, was diagnosed with a potentially fatal immune disorder.


Despite a valiant struggle and a bone marrow transplant, he died last month, two years after the diagnosis.


Bill was largely asymptomatic during those years, and I spent a good deal of time with him and his lovely and loving wife, Maybel.


Spiritually, and politically for that matter, Bill and I were on pretty much the same wavelength. He chose me to deliver the eulogy.


When Anna learned of Bill's death, she e-mailed me her regrets saying, "I am sure Bill will send you some sort of sign to let you know he is OK."


A day later Anna sent me another e-mail. Bill had come to her. Although she had never met him, her description of him and my mother and father with whom he had happily reunited was absolutely on target.


Bill's message, "There is nothing to fear. It really is that beautiful. It's truly amazing."


Although Bill did not tell me what to say, my eulogy mirrored the sermon preached that day and the Bible verses he chose.


"In the last third of his life Bill learned to appreciate his faith," I concluded. "There is no wisdom without it. This is something that he wanted you all to know and remember, especially his family."


In the final sentence I echoed Anna's comment, "And now that he has had firsthand experience with what happens next, he would want me to share with you one final thought: There is indeed life after death, and it is a beautiful and amazing thing."


Two weeks later, before going to bed, I reread these words. As much as I wanted to believe them, I still hoped for "some sort of sign" from my brother as Anna had predicted.


"Billy," I thought, "I have negative ESP, a brain encased in lead. I have never even won at the track. Make that sign obvious."


What I found that next morning seemed to be about as obvious as a sign could get: One of my two 25-pound barbells had somehow come off the radiator and fallen into an unwanted gift basket, breaking two cups and waking my wife.


Those barbells had nestled in the radiator's grooves without incident for the last 10 years. I had placed them there at least 1,000 times and not touched them in two days. Plus, they were about the only items distinctively mine in the whole house.


That night I had some friends over, and we tried without success to conceive of a physical explanation for the jumping barbell. We could find none.


My friends were spooked. Seeing had made them believers, in no small part because they knew an additional detail I have yet to share: That day was my birthday; the incident had taken place at my birth hour.


I e-mailed Anna and explained what happened. "Whaddya think," I asked.


"Is your question supposed to be rhetorical?" she joked. "A sign like that is hard to overlook and dismiss. Consider it a special birthday gift."


So I do. Thanks, Billy, and Merry Christmas!


Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue. 

Written by fatih al-farahat in


A Blue Moon On New Years Eve




We are been graced this year with a full moon on New Years Eve.  Take advantage of it and get outside.  Unless you have cloud cover, there will be a well lit countryside.

Otherwise enjoy this history of the idea of a blue moon.  It is a case of science having to invent a definition for a truly ambiguous nomenclature.  It is surprising how often that has happened.  It is a little bit of science acting like cooking.

Have a happy New Year celebration.


Blue Moon on New Year's Eve

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29dec_bluemoon.htm?list1109684


Dec. 29, 2009: Party planners take note. For the first time in almost twenty years, there's going to be a Blue Moon on New Year's Eve.

"I remember the last time this happened," says professor Philip Hiscock of the Dept. of Folklore at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. "December 1990 ended with a Blue Moon, and many New Year's Eve parties were themed by the event. It was a lot of fun."


Don't expect the Moon to actually turn blue, though. "The 'Blue Moon' is a creature of folklore," he explains. "It's the second full Moon in a calendar month."


Most months have only one full Moon. The 29.5-day cadence of the lunar cycle matches up almost perfectly with the 28- to 31-day length of calendar months. Indeed, the word "month" comes from "Moon." Occasionally, however, the one-to-one correspondence breaks down when two full Moons squeeze into a single month. Dec. 2009 is such a month. The first full Moon appeared on Dec. 2nd; the second, a "Blue Moon," will come on Dec. 31st.


This definition of Blue Moon is relatively new.


If you told a person in Shakespeare's day that something happens "once in a Blue Moon" they would attach no astronomical meaning to the statement. Blue moon simply meant rare or absurd, like making a date for the Twelfth of Never. "But meaning is a slippery substance," says Hiscock. "The phrase 'Blue Moon' has been around for more than 400 years, and during that time its meaning has shifted."


The modern definition sprang up in the 1940s. In those days, the Farmer's Almanac of Maine offered a definition of Blue Moon so convoluted that even professional astronomers struggled to understand it. It involved factors such as the ecclesiastical dates of Easter and Lent, and the timing of seasons according to the dynamical mean sun. Aiming to explain blue moons to the layman, Sky & Telescope published an article in 1946 entitled "Once in a Blue Moon." The author James Hugh Pruett cited the 1937 Maine almanac and opined that the "second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon."


That was not correct, but at least it could be understood. And thus the modern Blue Moon was born.


Blue moon has other connotations, too. In music, it's often a symbol of melancholy. According to one Elvis tune, it means "without a love of my own." On the bright side, he croons in another song, a simple kiss can turn a Blue Moon pure gold.


The modern astronomical Blue Moon occurs in some month every 2.5 years, on average. A Blue Moon falling precisely on Dec. 31st, however, is much more unusual. The last time it happened was in 1990, and the next time won't be until 2028.


So cue up that old Elvis record and "enjoy the extra moonlight on New Year's Eve," says Hiscock. "It only happens once in a Blue Moon."

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Warming Lakes







This information presents us with a conundrum of significance.  It begs questions and more data.  I have already noted that the surface of Lake Superior is also warmer.  Therefore we might make the conjecture that all lakes in the Northern Hemisphere have warmer surface water during the past two decades.

The obvious causation is increased solar radiation ably collected by surface waters.  Perhaps additional heat collected on land enters the drainage to super charge the lake itself.

This is also a good reminder of the heat capacity of water and its central role in managing the climate.

We know that the northern hemisphere is warmer the past two decades than previously.  We know that the Atlantic surface waters have strengthened at both ends.  The effect is been best expressed as warmer waters.

When we observe these effects it is difficult to discern the chain of cause and effect in a correct manner.  The first instinct is to assume the sun grew warmer somehow.  Yet if the heat absorption layer in water were to be altered in some manner (by velocity change) then its dwell time would be changed and temperature would change.  A change in algae populations should also impact temperatures.  So the observation of an increase in temperature reveals the limitations of our present modeling methods, if such even exist.

Once again the advice is to keep your powder dry and work on improving the models or even to create some.

NASA study: Lakes warming quickly

by Staff Writers

Pasadena, Calif. (UPI) Dec 27, 2009 

New U.S. scientific findings suggest that climate change may be affecting aquatic environments faster and sooner than the atmosphere.


Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., came to conclusions after noticing that Lake Tahoe, Clear Lake and four other big lakes in Northern California and Nevada are heating up faster than the surrounding atmosphere, The Sacramento Bee reported Sunday.


The newspaper said the researchers tapped satellite sensor temperature data compiled over 18 years in what is believed to be the first time that long-range lake surface temperatures have been dissected. What the data reportedly showed is that the lakes' water temperature rose two times faster, on average, than the regional air temperatures.


"It was a big surprise to see that," Philipp Schneider, the study's lead author and a post-doctoral research scientist at the NASA lab, told the Bee. "If it turns out they're actually changing faster than the air temperature, then there's a whole new phenomenon going on here. The lake ecosystems are going to be very much affected, especially because the trend we observed seems to be quite rapid."

Written by fatih al-farahat in


GOCE Gravity Mapping Begins




This technology represents a major jump in resolution of the Earth’s gravity potential.  At present it is early days, but we can see from the illustrations the shape of things to come.  By next year we should have a map showing fine resolution for the whole earth.

I wonder if it is good enough to develop a sense of depth also as is possible with magnetic surveys.  Perhaps in time this will become possible.

High res gravity surveys have always been attractive to the mining industry because a number of valuable minerals typically increase ore density uniquely to surrounding rock.

Anyway, the process has begun and we should soon be looking at fresh 3D representations of sinking plates and hot spots.  Perhaps we will discover a number of buried hot spots.

Europe's Goce satellite probes Earth's gravity

By Jonathan Amos 
Science correspondent, BBC News



A first glimpse at the data coming down from Europe's Goce satellite

Europe's Goce satellite is returning remarkable new data on the way the pull of gravity varies across the Earth.

Scientists say its first maps clearly show details not seen in previous space and ground measurements.

Goce was launched by the European Space Agency (Esa) in March from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia.

Its information is expected to bring new insights into how the oceans move, and to frame a universal system to measure height anywhere on the planet.

Researchers who study geological processes, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, will also make use of the data.

The first maps built from Goce observations were presented at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) recent Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.

More or less

Although they represent just 47 days of operation following the start of the satellite's science campaign on 30 September, the maps prove Goce is attaining an exceptional level of performance.

"There is a tremendous amount of geophysics in these plots," explained Rune Floberghagen, Esa's Goce mission manager.

"You see where there are big variations, for example in the mountain range of the Andes, or the Mariana Trench, or the Indonesian Arc, or the Himalayas. In fact, on most of the continents, you see a lot of variation," he told BBC News.

The maps reproduced on this page illustrate "gravity gradients".

The red colours indicate a positive variation in gravity moving from one place to another - i.e. places where Earth's tug becomes greater.

The blue colours indicate a negative variation in gravity - places where Earth's tug is a little less.

Simply put, if you were to take some bathroom scales to these locations you would weigh fractionally more in red places and weigh less in blue ones.


Compared to existing models, it is clear Goce has something new to offer

Most people are taught at school that the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface - known as g - is about 9.8m per second squared. But, in truth, this figure varies around the planet depending on the nature of the material underfoot.

The planet is far from a smooth sphere; the radius of the globe at the equator is about 20km longer than at the poles.

This ellipsoid is then marked by tall mountain ranges and cut by deep ocean trenches.
The Earth's interior layers are also not composed of perfect shells of homogenous rock - some regions are thicker or denser.

Such factors will cause g to deviate from place to place by very small but significant amounts.

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce) maps these differences with a state-of-the-art gradiometer produced by the French Onera company.

The instrument is sensitive to accelerations of about one-tenth of a millionth of a millionth of g.

And the gradiometer measures these accelerations across all three axes of the spacecraft to obtain a multi-dimensional view of the Earth's gravity field.

"These are by far the smallest accelerations ever measured from orbit," said Dr Floberghagen.

Ocean shape

The first maps not only record the three components but also compare their signals to the best available gravity field models assembled from existing space- and ground-acquired data-sets.

Again, in this challenge to the existing models the Goce gradients appear most pronounced in high latitude and continental regions. The gradients seem less marked over the oceans where a lot of gravity field information has already been determined by spacecraft that measure sea-surface topography.

The Goce team stresses that its data is not yet fully homogenous; some areas of the Earth are currently covered better than others. This is evident in the diagonal stripes that can be seen in a number of the maps. The scientists say that some work also remains to be done in understanding how best to process the data.

Nonetheless, it is hoped that sufficient high-quality information will have been gathered in the opening months of the science campaign to construct.

what geophysicists call a geoid.

This is a special type of Earth model which traces its idealised "horizontal" surface - the plane on which, at any point, the pull of gravity is perpendicular to it. If you could put a ball on this hypothetical surface, it would not roll - even though it appears to have slopes.
The geoid is of paramount interest to oceanographers who study the causes of the "hills" and "valleys" on the sea surface.

If local gravity differences are not pulling water about to create these features, then other factors such as currents, winds and tides must be responsible

Extended mission

The mission team also announced at the AGU meeting that Goce is likely to keep flying far longer than anyone had envisaged at launch.

This increase in lifetime is a result of the unusually quiet behaviour of the Sun at the moment. In periods of reduced solar activity, the Earth's atmosphere is less extensive and this means satellites do not experience quite so much drag.

Even at its ultra-low altitude of just 254.9km, Goce requires little effort from its propulsion system to maintain a steady orbit and keep itself from falling out of the sky.

Esa had been expecting the satellite to stay aloft for about two years. Current solar conditions suggest Goce will still be orbiting and gathering science data in five years' time.

"The air drag that we have experienced on orbit after launching has been very different from what any model was able to predict pre-launch," said Dr Floberghagen.

"And that in turn means there is a lot of new science not only in the gravity field measurements but also in the measurements of the surface forces acting on the spacecraft.

"So we plan to generate another product from this mission which will serve modellers of the thermosphere, people who model the air density in the upper layers of the atmosphere."


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44979000/gif/_44979325_gravity_466.gif

1. Goce senses tiny variations in the pull of gravity over Earth
2. The data is used to construct an idealised surface, or geoid
3. It traces gravity of equal 'potential'; balls won't roll on its 'slopes'
4. It is the shape the oceans would take without winds and currents
5. So, comparing sea level and geoid data reveals ocean behaviour
6. Gravity changes can betray magma movements under volcanoes
7. A precise geoid underpins a universal height system for the world
8. Gravity data can also reveal how much mass is lost by ice sheets


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44979000/jpg/_44979323_gravity_spaceship_466.jpg



1. The 1,100kg Goce is built from rigid materials and carries fixed solar wings. The gravity data must be clear of spacecraft 'noise'
2. Solar cells produce 1,300W and cover the Sun-facing side of Goce; the near side (as shown) radiates heat to keep it cool
3. The 5m-by-1m frame incorporates fins to stabilise the spacecraft as it flies through the residual air in the thermosphere
4. Goce's accelerometers measure accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth
5. The UK-built engine ejects xenon ions at velocities exceeding 40,000m/s; the engine throttles up and down to keep Goce at a steady altitude
6. S Band antenna: Data downloads to the Kiruna (Sweden) ground station. Processing, archiving is done at Esa's centre in Frascati, Italy
7. GPS antennas: Precise positioning of Goce is required, but GPS data in itself can also provide some gravity field information

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Written by fatih al-farahat in ,


Under the icy north lurks a ‘carbon bomb’: scientists fear for boreal wilderness, too

Under the icy north lurks a ‘carbon bomb’

Tropical deforestation is a climate change crisis, but scientists fear for boreal wilderness, too


A lake in the boreal forest north of Ottawa. Peat in the forest has been absorbing and storing carbon for thousands of years. (Fred Chartrand/ The Canadian Press for The Boston Globe)

 


by Beth Daley, Boston Globe, December 13, 2009

OTTAWA -- North of Canada’s capital, underneath an endless expanse of spruce, pine, and birch, ticks what some scientists are calling a carbon bomb: Peat.

A thick layer of the black spongy soil, the remnants of ancient forests, wraps the globe’s northern tier. Deeper than 15 feet in places, the peat layer extends over more than 6 million square miles across Russia, Scandinavia, China, Canada, and the United States.

Carbon that those forests absorbed from the air over thousands of years is stored in the peat and suspended in waterlogged bogs or permafrost. When it is disturbed or drained - as is happening in some areas - the peat can start to decompose and dry out, unleashing greenhouse gases. In North America alone, the peat and the trees growing in it hold as much carbon as would be emitted worldwide by 26 years of burning fossil fuels at current rates.

“It’s like a great big stew of carbon percolating away for centuries,’’ said Janet Sumner, executive director of the Wildlands League in Ontario, a conservation group pushing to preserve the northern, or boreal, forests from development. “If we don’t protect the boreal, it will mean more emissions and climate change.’’

While a critical deal is being brokered at the Copenhagen climate talks this week to protect threatened tropical forests, a growing number of scientists and environmentalists say the world’s boreal forests need to be conserved too. A group of international scientists are planning to deliver a letter to Northern heads of state tomorrow urging them to formally recognize the importance of the boreal forest and find ways to finance its protection. And they say Canada, with 1.4 billion acres of intact forest and a majority of the world’s peat lands, is the place to start.

The pace of boreal deforestation from mining, dams, oil and gas drilling, and road building is glacial compared with the destruction of tropical forests. Still, scientists say development is beginning to accelerate and it needs protection before warming temperatures lure even more industries north.

Mining and similar operations can cause the release of carbon from peat because the land is often drained, exposing the material to oxygen, which is essential for decomposition. Poor logging practices, road building, and other development can alter water flows and expose peat as well, drying it out and making it vulnerable to fire. Dried peat burns so well it is used as a cheap fuel in parts of the world.

Many point to Indonesia - one of the few tropical forests with underlying peat - as a cautionary tale: Deforestation and draining is causing the peat to burn and pump enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air.

To fly over the northern forest is to experience ancient, nearly-unbroken vastness. Swamp-like - it has been described as a kind of giant Everglades of the North - tiny aboriginal communities, logging roads, and clear-cuts stand out in its southern expanse. In the more frozen north, only icy lakes and rivers interrupt the thousands of miles of tree cover. Caribou and wolves roam underneath the evergreens, and every summer, millions of birds arrive to breed, including the white-throated sparrow and many species of ducks that winter in New England.

The boreal forest - with its hues of muted green, gray, and brown - once blanketed New England as well, but warming temperatures since the last Ice Age have transformed the forest, although some peat lands and boreal tree and wildlife species remain in northern Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Unlike most of the tropics, where decaying plant matter decomposes quickly, the boreal forest accumulates dead sedges, mosses, grasses, shrubs, and trees in bogs or in permafrost, permanently frozen soil that can store it for thousands of years. About 30% of the carbon is stored in the trees - the rest is in the peat.

“For a long time, we failed to see the soil for the trees,’’ said Larry Innes, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative and adviser to the Pew Environment Group, a funding and advocacy group. Innes talked as he piloted his small plane over hundreds of tiny peat islands capped with spruce trees in lightly iced lakes about 150 miles north of Ottawa. Fluctuating water levels in a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam had eroded peat from the shorelines, allowing some of its carbon to be released and leaving sand behind. Enormous clear-cuts - miles across - opened the landscape nearby.

While the northern forest’s beauty is undeniable, it is tropical forests, with their towering tree canopies and enormous number of colorful and charismatic species that have riveted the world. And, scientists say, there is good reason for that: Agriculture and development are causing massive deforestation, totaling more than 20 million acres a year by some estimates, and the forests are being further degraded by illegal and shoddy logging practices and fire.

Because it is more valuable to cut trees than to preserve them in these areas, Copenhagen negotiators are trying to make it financially attractive to conserve trees in developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol, the climate treaty that expires in 2012, largely ignored forests as critical tools in fighting global warming, though deforestation - and the resulting loss of carbon-absorbing capacity - accounts for about 15% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

But the boreal forest - holding twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests - also needs a place at the table, scientists say. In Canada, deforestation - defined as permanently cleared land - is estimated at about 126,000 acres a year, although scientists say development and industrial uses alter far more of the forest. That figure also excludes logging. In Alberta, with its enormous mining effort to squeeze oil from tarry sands, only about 40% of its once vast forest is still considered intact, according to Global Forest Watch Canada, a research group.

In 2007, an international group of 1,500 scientists, some on the leading scientific advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recommended that at least half of Canada’s forest be protected from further disturbances, both for its carbon storage and wildlife habitats.

While the Canadian government is facing deep criticism for backtracking on pledges to reduce greenhouse gases, the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba have promised to protect enormous swaths of forest from future mining and development - roughly half of Quebec’s and Ontario’s forest, which is largely publicly owned but can be leased to industry.

But paying for it will be challenging and there is no clear mechanism to do so. In Copenhagen, negotiators from developing countries and the United Nations are trying to win financial commitments from rich countries to protect tropical forests, or create a system where polluting industries pay to protect a swath of trees that would absorb the equivalent amount of heat-trapping gases they emit.

“It is only fair that developed countries pay’’ to protect both tropical and boreal forests “because they have created the climate change problem,’’ said Chris Henschel, senior conservation manager of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, but he said they should protect the boreal forests “without any payment from a Copenhagen mechanism.’’

Yet the advocates for the boreal forest say it is vulnerable because northern regions are heating up faster than more temperate areas, which could cause the peat to thaw and release its carbon. No one knows how quickly emissions will occur if that happens.

“It is under threat. . . . It is the last great intact place on earth for natural resources,’’ said Jeff Wells, director of science and policy for the Boreal Songbird Initiative, a conservation organization. “We need to ensure it can withstand the impact as best it can.’’

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a previous version of this story incorrectly described a group that recommended the protection of Canada's boreal forest. It was a group of 1,500 international scientists, some on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who signed a 2007 statement to urge protection, not the IPCC itself.

Link:  http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/12/13/under_the_icy_north_lurks_a_carbon_bomb/

Written by fatih al-farahat in ,


M. M. Robinson, Stratigraphy (2009), New quantitative evidence of extreme warmth in the Pliocene Arctic

Stratigraphy, 6(4) (2009) 265-275.

New quantitative evidence of extreme warmth in the Pliocene Arctic

Marci M. Robinson* (U.S. Geological Survey, 926A National Center, Reston, VA 20192, U.S.A.)

Abstract

The most recent geologic interval characterized by warm temperatures similar to those projected for the end of this century occurred about 3.3-3.0 Ma, during the mid-Piacenzian Age of the Pliocene Epoch. Climate reconstructions of this warm period are integral to both understanding past warm climate equilibria and to predicting responses to today’s transient climate. The Arctic Ocean is of particular interest because in this region climate proxies are rare, and climate models struggle to predict climate sensitivity and the response of sea ice. In order to provide the first quantitative climate data from this region during this interval, sea surface temperatures (SST) were estimated from Ocean Drilling Program Sites 907 and 909 in the Nordic Seas and from Site 911 in the Arctic Ocean based on Mg/Ca of Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sin) and alkenone unsaturation indices. Evidence of much warmer than modern conditions in the Arctic Ocean during the mid-Piacenzian with temperatures as high as 18 °C is presented. In addition, SST anomalies (mid-Piacenzian minus modern) increase with latitude across the North Atlantic and into the Arctic, extending and confirming a reduced mid-Piacenzian pole-to-equator temperature gradient. The agreement between proxies and with previously documented qualitative assessments of intense warming in this region corroborate a poleward transport of heat and an at least seasonally ice-free Arctic, conditions that may serve as a possible analog to future climate if the current rate of Arctic sea-ice reduction continues.

Introduction

Arctic Ocean surface waters and those of the surrounding seas have been warming since 1965, increasingly since 1995, even more rapidly since 2000, with 2007 and 2008 marking the first two sequential years of extreme summer minimum sea ice coverage (Comiso et al., 2008; Steele et al., 2008; Stroeve et al., 2008). In addition, autumn surface air temperatures during these two years were greater than 5 °C higher than the central Arctic average (Wang & Overland, 2009). Continuation of this trend could lead to a dramatic change in the Arctic ice-ocean-atmosphere regime (Johannessen et al., 1999). In anticipation of continued warming, climate model scenarios for the near future commonly feature Arctic warmth and sea ice retreat yet struggle to predict climate sensitivity and the response of sea ice in these high latitudes. In fact, model simulations of sea ice retreat compare poorly to observations (Stroeve et al., 2007), some underestimating sea ice minima by at least 30 years (Wang & Overland, 2009). Future projections of sea-ice cover vary wildly with some models simulating seasonal ice-free conditions by 2070 while others project virtually no change over the same period of time (Boe et al., 2009).

One way to refine climate models and to improve projections is to attempt to recreate known warm climates of the past from climate proxy data (Robinson et al., 2008a). A model’s ability to accurately portray a past climate state, both in terms of magnitude and spatial variability, increases confidence in climate projections based on that model. Due to the high sensitivity displayed by polar regions during the current warming trend, accurate reconstructions of paleo-conditions in high latitude regions during past warm intervals are integral to reliable model results, but data are rare due to the shortage of paleoclimate proxies in high latitudes, and high resolution temporal correlation between regions is complicated.

The most recent geologic interval of global warmth comparable to climate projections for the end of this century was ~3.3-3.0 Ma (IPCC 2007), during the mid-Piacenzian Age of the Pliocene Epoch. During this time interval, the positions of the continents and the patterns of oceanic circulation were similar to modern, but mean global temperatures were 2-3 °C warmer, and sea level was about 25 m higher (Dowsett, 2007). It was also during the Piacenzian (between 3.6 and 2.4 Ma) that restricted local scale glaciations transitioned to extensive regional scale glaciations on the circum-Arctic continents (e.g., Fronval & Jansen, 1996; Mudelsee & Raymo, 2005). Paleoclimatologists interested in this warm interval as a possible analog to future warming, as well as other climate researchers intrigued by the transition between this warm period and the subsequent onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, recognize the potential of mid-Piacenzian climate reconstructions to reveal uncertainties regarding climate sensitivity. As a result, a wealth of paleoclimate data exists for this warm interval, but most is restricted to lower latitudes where traditional paleoclimate proxy methods (i.e., inferring  conditions from faunal assemblage data) work best.

The USGS Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping (PRISM) Project is charged with reconstructing global conditions during the ~3.3 to 3.0 Ma time interval (hereafter “the mid-Piacenzian”) in an effort to better understand past and possible future climate dynamics. PRISM reconstructions of sea-surface temperature (SST), based largely on planktic foraminifer assemblage data, indicate that temperature  differences between the mid-Piacenzian and modern increase with latitude in the North Atlantic (Dowsett et al., 1992). That is, mid-Piacenzian temperatures near the equator were similar to modern temperatures, but temperatures in the higher latitudes were several degrees warmer than at present. This reconstructed equator-to-pole gradient has been indeterminate at and above ~66° N, however, because temperature estimates from polar regions such as the Nordic Seas and Arctic Ocean have remained elusive due to the lack of geologic proxies yielding quantitative results as well as weak age control.

[Continued at link below...]

*e-mail: mmrobinson@usgs.gov

Link:  http://micropress.org/stratigraphy/papers/Stratigraphy_6_4_265-275.pdf

Written by fatih al-farahat in , , , , ,


James Hansen on why he’s disappointed that we did not show more leadership at the Copenhagen, “Cap and Fade,” Climategate, and more

James Hansen on why he’s disappointed that we did not show more leadership at the Copenhagen summit, “Cap and Fade,” Climategate, and more


Democracy Now, December 22, 2009

James-hansen-dn
We speak with the nation’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen. He wasn’t at the Copenhagen climate summit and explains why he thinks it’s ultimately better for the planet that the talks collapsed. We also speak with with Dr. Hansen about his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity, and much more. [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: We are just back from Copenhagen. Even as global criticism of the proceedings and final outcome of the two-week climate summit in Copenhagen continues to mount, the United Nations is trying to put a positive spin on the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. Speaking to reporters Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon insisted the accord was “quite a significant achievement.”
    SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: While I’m satisfied that we sealed a deal, I’m aware that the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, including the Copenhagen Accord, did not go as far as many would have hoped. Nonetheless, they represent a beginning, an essential beginning. We have taken an important step in the right direction.
AMY GOODMAN: Today I’m joined by the scientist who first convinced the world to take notice of the looming problem of global warming back in the 1980s. Yes, I’m talking about the nation’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen.

But the outspoken director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies wasn’t at Copenhagen. He decided to sit out the climate conference, saying it would be better for the planet if the summit ended in collapse.

James Hansen also teaches at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He’s just out with his first book; it’s called Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth [about] the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity..

Welcome to Democracy Now!

JAMES HANSEN: Thanks for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hansen, start off with why you weren’t at Copenhagen. I mean, this is your thing. It was the global warming summit of summits.

JAMES HANSEN: Well, they were talking about having a cap-and-trade-with-offsets agreement, which is analogous to the Kyoto Protocol, which was disastrous. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions of carbon dioxide were going up one-and-a-half percent per year. After the accord, they went up three percent per year. That approach simply won’t work.

And I’m actually quite pleased with what happened at Copenhagen, because now we have basically a blank slate. We have China and the United States talking to each other, and it’s absolutely essential. Those are the two big players that have to come to an agreement. But it has to be an honest agreement, one which addresses the basic problem. And that is that fossil fuels are the cheapest source of energy on the planet. And unless we address that and put a price on the emissions, we can’t solve the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go for a minute to a quote of Paul Krugman. Paul Krugman is the New York Times op-ed columnist. You had written a very interesting piece in the New York Times called “Cap and Fade.” The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said about your December 7th op-ed—his response was called “Unhelpful Hansen.” And he said, “James Hansen is a great climate scientist. He was the first to warn about the climate crisis; I take what he says about coal, in particular, very seriously.

“Unfortunately, while I defer to him on all matters climate, today’s op-ed article suggests [that] he really hasn’t made any effort to understand the economics of emissions control. And that’s not a small matter, because he’s now engaged in a misguided crusade against cap and trade, which is—let’s face it—the only form of action against greenhouse gas emissions we have any chance of taking before catastrophe becomes inevitable.”

Your response?

JAMES HANSEN: That’s not right. In fact, I’ve talked with many economists, and the majority of them agree that the cap and trade with offsets is not the way to address the problem. You have to put an honest price on carbon, which is going to have to gradually rise over time.

But what you need to do—and many people call that a tax, but in fact the way that it should be done is to give all of the money that’s collected in a fee, that should be across the board on oil, gas and coal, collect that money at the mine or at the port of entry from the fossil fuel companies, and then distribute that to the public on a per capita basis to legal residents of the country. Then the person that does—that has less than average carbon emissions would actually make money from the process, and it would stimulate the economy. It would give the public the funds that they need in order to invest in low-carbon technologies. The next time they buy a vehicle, they should get a low-emission one. They should insulate their homes. Such actions. And those people who do that will come out ahead. That’s—the economists agree that that’s the way you should address the problem, with a price on carbon. Otherwise, the emissions will just continue to go up.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what’s meant by “cap and trade.”

JAMES HANSEN: Cap and trade, they attempt to put a cap on different sources of carbon dioxide emissions. They say there’s a limit on how much a given industry in a country can emit. But the problem is that the emissions just go someplace else. That’s what happened after Kyoto, and that’s what would happen again, if—as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned someplace. You know, the Europeans thought they actually reduced their emissions after Kyoto, but what happened was the products that had been made in their countries began to be made in other countries, which were burning the cheapest form of fossil fuel, so the total emissions actually increased.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me play an excerpt of what the Australian scientist Tim Flannery says. He was speaking on Democracy Now! earlier this year in defense of cap and trade.

TIM FLANNERY: Look, cap and trade, by itself, is not enough, but it is essential in terms of these international negotiations. And one way of showing that is to look at the alternatives. Just say the US went with a carbon tax. That would leave the President in a position where he’d be going to Copenhagen and saying, “Look, we’ve got a carbon tax, but we’ve got no idea really what it’s going to do in terms of our emissions profile.” So, countries would just say, “Well, what are you actually pledging to? What are you—how are you going to deal with your emissions?” You know, the only method, really, to allow countries to see transparently what other countries intend to do and then share the burden equally is through a cap-and-trade system. So it’s not enough to deal with emissions overall, but it is an essential prerequisite for any global deal on climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: The Australian scientist Tim Flannery. Dr. Hansen?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, I guess I would turn Krugman’s comment around and say Tim is a great biologist, but he hasn’t looked at the data on emissions and the effect of a cap with offsets. In fact, it does not decrease emissions. And that’s one reason, in my book, I say that I’m going to update the graphs every month and every year, just showing what’s really happening, because, in fact, you have to actually decrease the emissions.

And the only way that will happen is if the price of the fossil fuels is gradually rising so that the alternatives—energy efficiency, renewable energies, nuclear power, the things that can compete with fossil fuels—begin to be cost-competitive. That’s the only way it will work.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go back for a minute and talk about what we are actually facing. I mean, it’s amazing to come back from Copenhagen after two weeks there, where the entire discussion was about global warming, back to the US media, where there is almost no mention. It’s more the politics of what did it mean for President Obama to swoop in, did he save the talks, did he collapse the talks, whatever. But actually, what the stakes are. You begin your book, Storms of My Grandchildren, by talking about a tipping point. What do you mean by that, Dr. Hansen?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, there are tipping points in the climate system, where we can push the system beyond a point where the dynamics begins to take over. For example, in the case of an ice sheet, once it begins to disintegrate and slide into the ocean, you’ve passed the point where you can stop it. So that’s what we have to avoid.

Another tipping point is in the survival of species. As we begin to put pressure on species and move the climate zone so that some of the species can’t survive because they can only live within certain climate parameters, because species depend upon each other, you can drive an ecosystem such that when some species go extinct, then the entire ecosystem will collapse. So you don’t want to push the system that far.

And these tipping points are not hypothetical. We know from the earth’s history that these have happened in the past, especially when we’ve had large global warmings. We’ve driven more than half the species on the planet to extinction. And then, over hundreds of thousands and millions of years, new species come into being. But for any time scale that we can imagine, we would be leaving a much more desolate planet for our children and grandchildren and future generations. So we don’t want to pass those tipping points.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do you know that we are headed in that direction?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What, in your work, has told to this?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, in the case, say, of the ice sheets and sea level, we see. We began in 2002 to get this spectacular data from the gravity satellite, which measures the gravitational field of the earth with such a high precision that you can get the mass of the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheets. And what we see is that in 2002 to 2005, we were losing mass from Greenland at a rate of about 150 cubic kilometers per year. Well, now that’s doubled to about 300 cubic kilometers per year. And likewise, the mass loss from Antarctica has also doubled over that time period.

So we can see that we’re moving toward a tipping point where those ice sheets will begin to disintegrate more rapidly, and sea level will go up. And that’s one of the bases, and others, for saying that a safe level of carbon dioxide is actually less than what we have now. It’s—

AMY GOODMAN: Which is?

JAMES HANSEN: What we have now is 387 parts per million. But we’re going to have to bring that down to 350 parts per million or less. And that’s still possible, provided we phase out coal emissions over the next few decades. That’s possible. We would also have to prohibit unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and oil shale.

But if you look at what governments are doing, the reason that you know that the kind of accords they’re talking about are not going to work is because, look at what they’re actually doing. The United States had just agreed to have a pipeline from the tar sands in Canada to the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: In Alberta.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, so they’re planning on actually burning those tar sands, which we can’t do.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how that works. What are the tar sands? I mean, this was a major issue in Copenhagen, and we played a number of pieces, especially indigenous people, for example, marching on the Canadian embassy—

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —to try to stop the drilling.

JAMES HANSEN: They’re among the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet. There’s oil mixed in the ground with the sand. You have to cook that material to get oil to drip out of it. That takes a lot of energy to cook it. And then you end up with oil, which also has carbon. Then you burn the oil, and you get more carbon. So it’s much more carbon-intensive than oil itself.

AMY GOODMAN: We get more oil from Canada than anywhere else in the world, is that right?

JAMES HANSEN: I’m not sure about that, but the plan is, in the long run. There’s much more there in tar sands than even in Saudi Arabia.

So the point is, we’re going to have to move to the energy system beyond fossil fuels. We need to drive the economic system so that we move to a clean energy future. And there are many other advantages in doing that: cleaning up the atmosphere, cleaning up the ocean. You get—the mercury and arsenic and all these pollutants are coming from fossil fuels. So we need to get off this fossil fuel addiction. And the way you do that is to put a gradually rising price on the carbon emissions.

AMY GOODMAN: How many times have you been arrested protesting now the issue of coal and mountaintop removal?

JAMES HANSEN: A couple of times in West Virginia, with regard to the mountaintop removal, and in Boston, where we were sleeping out on the Boston Commons. But, yeah, trying to draw—

AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you go from being the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies to getting arrested for these protests?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, these protests are what we call civil resistance, in the same way that Gandhi did. We’re trying to draw attention to the injustice, because this is really analogous. This is a moral issue, analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery or by Churchill with Nazism, because what we have here is a tremendous case of intergenerational injustice, because we are causing the problem, but our children and grandchildren are going to suffer the consequences.

And our parents didn’t know that they were causing a problem for future generations, but we do. The science has become very clear. And we’re going to have to move to a clean energy future. And we could do that. And there would be many other advantages of doing it. Why don’t we do it? Because of the special interests and because of the role of money in Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you don’t just protest outside of, you know, these companies that do mountaintop removal; you were protesting outside the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. They and some other environmental organizations have become too much of the Washington scene, and they’re trying to work on the terms that Washington now works on, in which the lobbyists are driving the legislation. We have to get the legislation designed in the public’s interest, not in the interests of the people who have the money to influence the process.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back. Our guest today is James Hansen. Storms of My [Grandchildren]: The Truth [about] the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity is his first book. He’s the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, teaches at Columbia University. He’s been arrested protesting coal mining and didn’t go to Copenhagen, because he wanted those talks to collapse, felt they wouldn’t save the planet. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
 [break]  

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Jim Hansen. Storms of My Grandchildren is his new book, The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity.

I wanted to play for you, Dr. Hansen, the comment of the Prime Minister of Nepal. Days before the climate talks began in Copenhagen, cabinet ministers from Nepal held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest, at the base, to send a message on the impact of global warming on the Himalayas. I spoke to the Nepalese Prime Minister in Copenhagen.
    PRIME MINISTER MADHAV KUMAR NEPAL: Global warming has its impact on the top of the mountain. And the snows are melting. Glaciers, many of the glaciers, Himalaya glaciers, has evaporated, has disappeared. Many glacial lakes are emerging, and many of the glacial lakes are the [inaudible]. So we have seen many landslides there and no regular land or rainfall there. Droughts and all these problems relating to the health of the people has been seen. And we have seen power plants that is damaging many of the villages. The natural calamities has been seen. And the impact on the mountainous region is much more in the downstream, where 1.3 billion of the population live in India, in Bangladesh. So the problem of Nepal is not only the problem of Nepal’s people, rather the problem of at least 1.3 billion of population.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Nepali Prime Minister Nepal. That is his name. Your response to that, Dr. Jim Hansen?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, yeah, we see the climate changes. It’s at the top of the mountains. The glaciers all around the world are melting. And those glaciers are actually very important, because they provide fresh water for the major rivers of the world. During the dry season, the rivers, such as the Brahmaputra and the Ganges Rivers, more than half the water in the river is from melting glaciers. So once those glaciers are gone, it’s a real problem.

But the problems are also occurring at the other end of the rivers. The coastline of Bangladesh, for example, is going to be moving inward, and you’re going to have hundreds of millions of people who will be refugees. So it’s especially these poor nations around the world that will suffer from climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week I also caught up with the President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed. Now, this is a low-lying island, the Maldives, at the frontline of climate change. And I asked him what a three degree Celsius rise in temperature, because the IFCCC, the climate change conference—apparently there was this document that we exposed on Democracy Now! with the French news organization Mediapart, saying that their plans, what they were putting forward, wouldn’t actually increase the temperature by two degrees Celsius, but actually by three degrees. And I asked the Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed to describe what that would mean for his country.
    PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: That would mean that we won’t be around. That would mean the death of us. And that’s really not acceptable for us. We cannot survive with that kind of temperature rise. 
    AMY GOODMAN: For people who don’t understand climate change, which is probably most people in the United States, why wouldn’t you be around? What would happen?  
    PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Sea levels would rise. We are just 1.5 meters above the water. And if we have sea levels rising to seventy, eighty centimeters, that’s going to eat up most of our country. So we won’t be around.  
    AMY GOODMAN: Are you making preparations for a mass population removal to dry land?  
    PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, you know, we’ve been there in the middle of the Indian Ocean for the last 10,000 years, and we have a written history that goes back 2,000 years. I can move, but where would all the butterflies go, all the sounds go, all the culture go, all the color go? I don’t think it really is a feasible option to move. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to convince our people to move.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly the problem. And that’s what was happening in Copenhagen. The wealthy countries are trying to basically buy off these countries that will, in effect, disappear. It doesn’t make sense. I mean, and the danger is that these countries will see this money—that’s why the United States offered to promote $100 billion per year, which is imaginary money, because I don’t think that’s going to happen. The United States’ share of that, based on our contribution to the carbon in the atmosphere, would be 27 percent, $27 billion per year. Do you think that our Congress is going to vote $27 billion per year to give these poor countries? It’s not going to happen. What we—but that’s the danger, that these poor countries will say, “Gee, that’s a lot of money. Maybe we can get that.” What we actually have to do is solve the problem, not pay people off. And that requires reducing the carbon emissions.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about the East Anglia controversy, the University of East Anglia, that the climate deniers, the climate change deniers, are using. Explain what happened, actually, the discussion between the scientists, what is being called Climategate, in emails that hackers got a hold of, and how it’s being used.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, well, obviously, this discussion between some of the climate scientists revealed frustrations that they have with the contrarians who continually will nitpick about “Is the station data good?” or “Is that one not?” And what they should have done is release their full data immediately, because there’s no question about the actual climate change. And by having—by this attempt to not be completely open, they opened themselves up to criticism.

But, in fact, the climate record is not debated, and it’s not debatable. If they give all the data, then they give the opportunity to somebody else to show, “Oh, it’s really not warming.” But, of course, they can’t show that, because the evidence is all over the place that the climate really is changing.

But unfortunately, this episode has been very confusing to the public, so now there are many in the United States, especially, who are skeptical about whether the climate change is real. So it’s been a public relations disaster, but it doesn’t change the science one iota. In fact, the science has become clearer and clearer over the last several years.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where the United States is versus Europe? I talked to people throughout Europe in Copenhagen. I mean, thousands of people came out. Whether you wanted those talks to collapse or not, the level of networking and of groups all over the world was truly remarkable that took place there largely outside of the Bella Center—

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —but also inside, because in the last few days, civil society was really kept out of those talks. But they said the United States is years behind in just the discourse, because we are at the point of—

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —if you even have a discussion in the US media, it’s about whether global warming exists.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Whereas in Europe, it’s about—the debates are about, well, what do we do?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, carbon sequestration? Should there be cap and trade? What are the alternatives? That’s where the debates lie there. Here, we’re way behind.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, and for a very good reason: because of the effectiveness of the industries that don’t want to see change. They have had an enormous impact on the public’s perception of the issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Where do you see that with scientists, for example? We just did that piece on healthcare, the amount of money they’re pouring in lobbying on healthcare. What is it in—on global warming legislation that didn’t pass the Senate, $300,000 a day from coal, oil, gas?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, yeah, there are more than two-and-a-half thousand energy lobbyists in Washington, so that’s more than four per congressperson. And that’s—unfortunately, the public just doesn’t have that kind of representation. And it’s also a fact that the industry influences the media, so that you always see this presented as if it’s an either—there’s one side and there’s another side, as if they were equal. But, in fact, the science has become crystal clear. And we have the most authoritative scientific body in the world in the National Academy of Sciences. So all the President would need to do if he wants to make this issue clear to the public is ask the Academy to give him a clear report on this subject, and the answer would be very clear.

AMY GOODMAN: The effect of the EPA now announcing that carbon, methane, that they are threats to public health? Can the EPA just start regulating regardless of Congress passing legislation?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, they can. But then, when we have a new election and a different party comes to power, that their ability to do that might be changed. And so, that’s why it’s preferable to have laws written by Congress and signed by the President. But in the absence of that, EPA can get us moving in the right direction. And they are beginning to do that, for example, in vehicle efficiencies.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the level of suppression of science in the United States. You personally experienced it. There was this exposé in the Times where you first were talking to Andrew Revkin and explaining what was happening under the Bush administration, and even before that, the suppression of your work when you testified before Congress to, what, Senator Al Gore at the time.

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah. There are two major problems. One is that the public affairs offices of the science agencies are headed by political appointees, and they tend to try to control the information that goes from the science agencies to the public, if it is a politically sensitive topic. In many topics, maybe 99 percent, there’s no interference. But when it becomes a sensitive issue, as it was with global warming, there is that tendency.

So the solution to that would be to have professionals, career civil servants, head the public affairs offices. Otherwise, they are offices of propaganda. And it still—it doesn’t matter which, whether it’s Democrats or Republicans; as soon as there’s an election, a change of the party in power, they replace the heads of these offices. So they’re still offices of propaganda, in my opinion.

The other thing is, is if a government scientist testifies to Congress, he has to first show his testimony to the White House. Doesn’t make sense. Why should Congress not get the best opinion of the scientists? This is a power which is just taken by the executive branch, and the Congress has not objected to it. Again, it doesn’t make sense, because the scientific—the scientists are paid by the public, so they shouldn’t be under the control of the White House. They should be free to give the best scientific advice they can.

AMY GOODMAN: You had a young man, twenty-four years old, named George Deutsch, put in charge of you as the top scientist over at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies under the Bush administration. It turned out he hadn’t graduated from college, whatever. He was determining who you got to talk to in the media, what information you were putting out? He was—

JAMES HANSEN: Well, that’s the way the story came out in the New York Times. And it sounded as if this low-level person was responsible for the censorship. He was reporting to the highest level at NASA headquarters, the head of the public affairs offices. So, in fact, this was the problem I just described. It’s the fact that the administration in power feels that it gets to control the information that goes to the public. It doesn’t make sense in a democracy. A democracy doesn’t work right if the public cannot be honestly informed.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel your work is being suppressed now? You still work with NASA.

JAMES HANSEN: No, I don’t feel that it’s being suppressed now. But the fundamental problem has not been solved, in that the heads of these offices are still political appointees. But I’ve been—ever since this issue became open during the Bush administration, I’ve been allowed to say what I want, because I think the bad publicity of any censorship is not worth it, so they’re not trying to control what I say.

AMY GOODMAN: You were reporting to the top people. It was not only the top people controlling what you had to say. You were meeting with Dick Cheney, the Vice President, you were meeting with Colin Powell, to warn them about global warming. What was their response?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, yeah, I had the opportunity at the beginning of the Bush administration to speak to the energy climate task force, which was headed by Vice President Cheney and which had six cabinet members plus the EPA administrator and the national security adviser on it. But what I learned was—and we, I think, gave them a clear story about the dangers in continuing greenhouse gas emissions, but the decisions on what the policies were made were made a couple of weeks before they listened to the science stories, as I discuss in one of the chapters in my book. So the policies were based on other considerations rather than the scientific information.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what do you think needs to happen right now?

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, what needs to happen right now—we have this great opportunity this spring, I would say, to have discussions in the House and Senate about what really needs to be done to solve this problem. And it’s not cap and trade with offsets. We can prove that that’s completely ineffectual. What we have to do is put a price on carbon, and the money that’s collected needs to be given to the public, not used for boondoggles, like Congress is taking—plans to take the money from cap and trade that’s collected in selling the permits to pollute and to use that money for things like clean coal or to give the money back to the polluters. That won’t solve the problem. We have to give the money to the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the Obama administration in any way going in this direction?

JAMES HANSEN: I think it’s possible. There were a couple of encouraging things in Copenhagen. For one thing, Al Gore made a clear statement that a carbon price is a better solution than cap and trade. And John Kerry also indicated that he had an open mind on that question. So that’s why I say the discussions in the next few months are very important, because the way the United States goes is going to determine the way the world goes, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us. Dr. James Hansen is our guest. He is author of Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity and one of the world’s leading climatologists.

Link:  http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/22/leading_climate_scientist_james_hansen_on