{"id":4799,"date":"2015-12-23T06:41:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T11:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=4799"},"modified":"2016-12-14T12:15:53","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:15:53","slug":"james-hansen-father-of-climate-change-awareness-calls-paris-talks-a-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=4799","title":{"rendered":"James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ‘a fraud’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article from The Guardian<\/a>. (abbreviated, Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Mere mention of the Paris climate talks is enough to make James Hansen grumpy. . . \u201cIt\u2019s a fraud really, a fake,\u201d he says, rubbing his head. \u201cIt\u2019s just bullshit for them to say: \u2018We\u2019ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.\u2019 It\u2019s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.\u201d . . . <\/p>\n

\"Hanson\"<\/a>
\nJames Hanson. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian<\/center><\/p>\n

Hansen, 74, has just returned from Paris where he again called for a price to be placed on each tonne of carbon from major emitters (he\u2019s suggested a \u201cfee\u201d \u2013 because \u201ctaxes scare people off\u201d \u2013 of $15 a tonne that would rise $10 a year and bring in $600bn in the US alone). There aren\u2019t many takers, even among \u201cbig green\u201d as Hansen labels environment groups.<\/p>\n

Hansen has been a nagging yet respected voice on climate change since he shot to prominence in the summer of 1988. The Nasa scientists, who had been analyzing changes in the Earth\u2019s climate since the 1970s, told a congressional committee that something called the \u201cgreenhouse effect\u201d where heat-trapped gases are released into the atmosphere was causing global warming with a 99% certainty. . . <\/p>\n

From being possibly America\u2019s most celebrated scientist, Hansen is now probably its most prominent climate activist. He\u2019s been arrested several times in protests outside the White House over mining and the controversial Keystone pipeline extension.<\/p>\n

He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University. When he\u2019s in New York, he lives near the campus, surrounded by books piled on groaning shelves. Hansen\u2019s not slowing down \u2013 he\u2019s involved in a climate lobbying group and still undertakes the sort of scientific endeavor which helps maintain his gravitas.<\/p>\n

One particular paper, released in July, painted a particularly bleak future for just about anyone living near the coast. Hansen and 16 colleagues found that Earth\u2019s huge ice sheets, such as those found in Greenland, are melting faster than expected, meaning that even the 2C warming limit is \u201chighly dangerous\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sea level could soon be up to five meters higher than it is today by the latter part of this century, unless greenhouse gases aren\u2019t radically slashed, the paper states. This would inundate many of the world\u2019s cities, including London, New York, Miami and Shanghai.<\/p>\n

There is a positive note to end on, however. Global emissions have somewhat stalled and Hansen believes China, the world\u2019s largest emitter, will now step up to provide the leadership lacking from the US. A submerged Fifth Avenue and deadly heatwaves aren\u2019t an inevitability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we will get there because China is rational,\u201d Hansen says. \u201cTheir leaders are mostly trained in engineering and such things, they don\u2019t deny climate change and they have a huge incentive, which is air pollution. It\u2019s so bad in their cities they need to move to clean energies. They realise it\u2019s not a hoax. But they will need co-operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

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Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article from The Guardian. (abbreviated, Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd) Mere mention of the Paris climate talks is enough to make James Hansen grumpy. . . \u201cIt\u2019s a fraud really, a fake,\u201d he says, rubbing his head. \u201cIt\u2019s just bullshit for them to say: \u2018We\u2019ll have … Continue reading James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ‘a fraud’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,10],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-4799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global","category-sustainable","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}