A Major Defeat For Environmental Freakazoids

[SSDD]

Yesterday the leaders of almost 200 countries agreed on terms to curb a problem agreed on by almost all scientists. Today we get to hear the thumb-suckers in the GOP romper room whine and attack it.

Sorry, world. We don't know what to do about them, either.

Here is what the king of all the warmers has to say about that agreement:

Mere mention of the Paris climate talks is enough to make James Hansen grumpy. The former Nasa scientist, considered the father of global awareness of climate change, is a soft-spoken, almost diffident Iowan. But when he talks about the gathering of nearly 200 nations, his demeanor changes.

“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s 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.”

The talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, have spent much time and energy on two major issues: whether the world should aim to contain the temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C above preindustrial levels, and how much funding should be doled out by wealthy countries to developing nations that risk being swamped by rising seas and bashed by escalating extreme weather events.

But, according to Hansen, the international jamboree is pointless unless greenhouse gas emissions aren’t taxed across the board. He argues that only this will force down emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst ravages of climate change.

The paris conference was lip service and even someone as bent on AGW alarmism as james hansen can see it.

 

[Crick]

Your conclusion doesn't work. Hansen would be about the least likely scientist on this planet to be satisfied with whatever was to be accomplished in Paris. Hansen would have supported a 100% tax on fossil fuels 30 years ago and called it insufficient.

 

[Old Rocks]

As a realist, Hansen understands that we have already gone past the 2 degree mark. That is precisely why the re-evaluation of the treaty every five years. That way, we can ramp up measures if we are failing to get the needed reductions in GHGs. I imagine, within a decade, we will have to attempt tropical reforestation, and the rich nations will have to fund it. And the 'Conservatives' will cry and whine about that, even though the affects of the deforestation of the rain forests affects the whole world, just as the melt in the Arctic does.