James Hansen again warns us of climate difficulties

NASA climate scientist James Hansen gave a talk at the TED conference on February 29th where he laid out the case for taking urgent action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

NASA climate scientist,
James Hansen.

During that 17 minute talk he said “It would be immoral to leave these young people with a climate system spiraling out of control.”

Hansen is one of the planets best informed and knowledgeable climatologists.

Dr. Hansen’s talk began by describing his personal journey, originally studying Venus under Prof. James Van Allen and then working at NASA on an instrument to study Venus’ atmosphere.

But after being asked to do some calculations of Earth’s greenhouse effect, Dr. Hansen resigned from the Venus mission to work full time studying Earth’s atmosphere “because a planet changing before our eyes is more interesting and important – its changes will affect all humanity.”

Dr. Hansen said that if we wait 10 years to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we will need to reduce them at a rate of 15%/year to stabilize the climate. This, he said, would be “difficult and expensive — perhaps impossible”.

Watch his TED address here.