Storms of My Grandchildren by Dr. James Hansen
"Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity" is NASA climate change scientist Dr. James Hansen's first book. Dr. Hansen is arguably the most visible and well-respected climate change scientist in the world, and has headed the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City since 1981. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Dr. Hansen greatly raised awareness of the threat of global warming during his Congressional testimony during the record hot summer of 1988, and issued one of the first-ever climate model predictions of global warming (see an analysis here to see how his 1988 prediction did.) In 2009, Dr. Hansen was awarded the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society, for his "outstanding contributions to climate modeling, understanding climate change forcings and sensitivity, and for clear communication of climate science in the public arena."
Storms of My Grandchildren focuses on the key concepts of the science of climate change, told through Hansen's personal experiences as a key player in field's scientific advancements and political dramas over the past 40 years. Dr. Hansen's writing style is very straight-forward and understandable, and he clearly explains the scientific concepts involved in a friendly way that anyone with a high school level science education can understand. I did not find any scientific errors in his book. However, some of his explanations are too long-winded, and the book is probably too long, at 274 pages. Nevertheless, Storms of My Grandchildren is a must-read, due to the importance of the subject matter and who is writing it. Hansen is not a fancy writer. He comes across as a plain Iowan who happened to stumble into the field of climate change and discovered things he had to speak out about. And he does plenty of speaking out in his book.
James Hansen vs. Richard Lindzen
Dr. Hansen's book opens with an interesting chapter on his participation in four meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney's cabinet-level Climate Task Force in 2001. It seems that the Bush Administration was prepared to let Dr. Hansen's views on climate change influence policy. However, Dr. Richard Lindzen, whom Hansen describes as "the dean of of global warming contrarians", was also present at the meetings. Dr.Lindzen was able to confuse the task force members enough so that they never took Dr. Hansen's views seriously. Hansen observes that "U.S. policies regarding carbon dioxide during the Bush-Cheney administration seem to have been based on, or at a minimum, congruent with, Lindzen's perspective." Hansen asserts that Lindzen was able to do this by acting more like a lawyer than a scientist: "He and other contrarians tend to act like lawyers defending a client, presenting only arguments that favor their client. This is in direct contradiction to...the scientific method." Hansen also comments that he asked Lindzen what he thought of the link between smoking and cancer, since Lindzen had been a witness for the tobacco industry decades earlier. Lindzen "began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous to his views of climate data."
Alarmism
Global warming contrarians often dismiss scientists such a Dr. Hansen as "alarmists" who concoct fearsome stories about climate change in order to get research funding. Dr. Lindzen made this accusation at Cheney's Climate Task Force in 2001. However, Dr. Hansen notes that "in 1981 I lost funding for research on the climate effects of carbon dioxide because the Energy Department was displeased with a paper, 'Climate Impact of Increasing Carbon Dioxide,' I had published in Science magazine. The paper made a number of predictions for the 21st century, including 'opening of the fabled Northwest Passage', which the Energy Department considered to be alarmist but which have since proven to be accurate." If you read Dr. Hansen's book and listen to his lectures, it is clear that he is not an alarmist out to get more research funding by hyping the dangers of global warming. Hansen says in his book that "my basic nature nature is very placid, even comfortably stolid", and that nature comes through very clearly in Storms of My Grandchildren. Hansen's writings express a quiet determination to plainly set forth the scientific truth on climate change. He has surprisingly few angry words towards the politicians, lobbyists, and scientists intent on distorting the scientific truth.
The science of climate change
The bulk of Storms of My Grandchildren is devoted to explanations of the science of climate change. Hansen's greatest concern is disintegration of the gerat ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica causing sea level rise: "Once the ice sheets begin to rapidly disintegrate, sea level would be continuously changing for centuries. Coastal cities would become impractical to maintain." Hansen is concerned that evidence from past climate periods show that the massive ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica can melt quickly, with large changes within a century. For example, sea level at the end of the most recent Ice Age, 13,000 - 14,000 years ago, rose at a rate of 3 - 5 meters (10 - 17 feet) per century for several centuries. Hansen is convinced that just a 1.7 -2°C warming, which would likely result if we stabilize CO2 at 450 ppm, would be a "disaster scenario" that would trigger rapid disintegration of the ice sheets and disastrous rises in sea level. Hansen advocates stabilizing CO2 at 350 ppm (we are currently at 390 ppm, with a rate of increase of 2 ppm per year.)
Another of Hansen's main concerns is the extinction of species. He notes that studies of more than 1,000 species of plants, animals, and insects have found an average migration rate towards the poles due to climate warming in the last half of the 20th century to be four miles per decade. "That is not fast enough. During the past thirty years the lines marking the regions in which a given average temperature prevails (isotherms) have been moving poleward at a rate of about thirty-five miles per decade. If greenhouse gases continue to increase at business-as-usual rates, then the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least seventy miles per decade."
Hansen's other main concern is the release of large amounts of methane gas stored in sea-floor sediments in the form of methane hydrates. If ocean temperatures warm according to predictions, the higher temperatures at the sea floor may be enough to destabilize the methane hydrate sediments and release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 - 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Solutions to the climate change problem
Dr. Hansen is a controversial figure, since he has stepped outside his field of expertise and become an activist in promoting solutions to the climate change problem. He devotes a chapter called "An Honest, Effective Path" in the book to this. His main theme is that we need to tax fossil fuels using a "fee-and-dividend" approach. All of the tax money collected would be distributed uniformly to the public. This carbon tax would gradually rise, giving people time to adjust their lifestyle, choice of vehicle, home insulation, etc. Those who do better at reducing their fossil fuel use will receive more in the dividend than they will pay in the added costs of the products they buy. The approach is straightforward and does not require a large bureaucracy, but currently has little political support. Hansen is vehemently opposed to the approach that has the most political support, "Cap-and-trade": "Cap-and-trade is what governments and the people in alligator shoes (the lobbyists for special interests) are trying to foist on you. Whoops. As an objective scientist I should delete such personal opinions, to at least flag them. But I am sixty-eight years old, and I am fed up with the way things work in Washington." Hansen also promotes an overlooked type of nuclear power, "fast" reactors with liquid metal coolant that produce far less nuclear waste and are much more efficient than conventional nuclear reactors.
Quotes from the book
"Humanity treads today on a slippery slope. As we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the air, we move onto a steeper, even more slippery incline. We seem oblivious to the danger--unaware how close we may be to a situation in which a catastrophic slip becomes practically unavoidable, a slip where we suddenly lose all control and are pulled into a torrential stream that hurls us over a precipice to our demise."
"In order for a democracy to function well, the public needs to be honestly informed. But the undue influence of special interests and government greenwash pose formidable barriers to a well-informed public. Without a well-informed public, humanity itself and all species on the planet are threatened."
"Of course by 2005 I was well aware that the NASA Office of Public Affairs had become an office of propaganda. In 2004, I learned that NASA press releases related to global warming were sent to the White House, where they were edited to appear less serious or discarded entirely."
"If we let special interests rule, my grandchildren and yours will pay the price."
"The role of money in our capitals is the biggest problem for democracy and for the planet."
"The problem with asking people to pledge to reduce their fossil fuel use is that even if lots of people do, one effect is reduced demand for fossil fuel and thus a lower price--making it easier for someone else to burn...it is necessary for people to reduce their emissions, but it is not sufficient if the government does not adopt policies that cause much of the fossil fuels to be left in the ground permanently."
"I have argued that it is time to 'draw a line in the sand' and demand no new coal plants."
"The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism--the time for compromises and appeasement is over."
"Humans are beginning to hammer the climate system with a forcing more than an order of magnitude more powerful than the forcings that nature employed."
"Once ice sheet disintegration begins in earnest, our grandchildren will live the rest of their lives in a chaotic transition period."
"After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty."
"One suggestion I have for now: Support Bill McKibben and his organization 350.org. It is the most effective and responsible leadership in the public struggle for climate justice."
Commentary
James Hansen understands the Earth's climate as well as any person alive, and his concern about where our climate is headed makes Storms of My Grandchildren a must-read for everyone who cares about the world their grandchildren will inherit. Storms of My Grandchildren retails for $16.50 at Amazon.com. Dr. Hansen's web site is http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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And you don't?
We are 12,000 years into an interglacial, interglacials last 12,000 to 20,000 years. In the last billion years or so there has never been a really bad case of runaway warming. I do not consider the massive volcanic eruptions of 225 million years ago runaway warning, that was just an impact event followed by massive eruptions. However there have been numerous cases of runaway cooling. Snowball Earth being the most spectacular. Maybe we should worry more about cooling then warming, at least until the Sun gets hot enough to fry the Earth in about a billion years or so.
As much as I agree with you, that won't change unless/until Dr. Master's changes the topic to a tropical weather related subject. At the moment, GW is the "topic" and I guess will continue to be ranted about even though nothing will change/improve.
I agree, but.....NEW BLOG DOC!!!!!!
Your the one who misstated Reed there Al
Well apparently BP just concluded an investigation and declared they were not responsible for the accident.
1) RDS, BP, TOT all view AGW as being a credible theory that needs to be dealt with
2) XOM has stopped funding the Heartland deniers and now takes a neutral position. Does favor conservation
3) CVX favors resource conservation and is very large in geothermal energy production (a quiet renewable)
I don't know why Rush Limbaugh et alia think the know more than ENERGY PROVIDERS.
The climate change topics sure blow up the number of posts on here.
Looks like another hot month in a hot year.
Ditto to you
There aren't any, as you know. The connections between varying levels of Co2, Methane, etc. and varying global temperatures are simple physics and as indisputable as gravity.
What is not yet clear is the risk of non-linear atmospheric behavior, i.e. runaway AGW due to fossil fuel emissions. The models out there suggest is is a risk, with greater or lesser probabilities. So to do nothing is like playing Russian roulette with a revolver you don't know much about. Are there 10 or 50 chambers or are there, say, three?
Those who post here on a Daily or seasonal basis that iz?
Not many..less than 1 % by my figures.
I can use a slide rule.
You have feelings on this matter?
Do a entry on it.
Show us why and how you decided your insight is better than the data presented by climatologist on the matter.
A consensus was reached long ago.
..but we get the political junkies and hacks opines like a Glenn Beck RUSH Party line regurgitated for the World to see via Dr. Masters entry.
And trust me..your making Fools outa yourselves daily.
Globally.
So if ya passionate about what you believe.
Do a Blog entry.
I've done 250 in 4.5 years.
It aint rocket science.
But its how we do things here.
We have a name for Main Blog Hipsters who front here instead of their er,,respected,er,
featured Entries.
But its a lil secret.
So do a entry, save your opines.
Along with several tropical storms..
Looks like it got some light SE shear right now..
dry air to the north and south
No model support..
Over warm water.
Have to see if it surprises us as the High behind the front moves off the coast.
They were cutting cost of doing business.
In the long run it cost them and us more.
"If I'm wrong, nothing happens. We go to jail.. Peacefully... Quietly... We'll enjoy it. But if I'm right.. And we can stop this thing... Lenny... YOU will be responsible for saving the lives of millions of registered voters...."
-Peter Venkmen, GHOSTBUSTERS
Sorry, couldn't resist...
If the AGW skeptics are wrong, then, in a a few thousand years, humans will likely become extinct.. Then, after a couple million years, new life forms will likely develop.. And so on and so on..
But if the AGW proponents are wrong and get their way, then economies will collapse and the world will be thrown into complete and utter chaos and anarchy in less than a hundred years..
So, let's see....
Possible extinction of the human species in a few thousand years???
Or
Death, starvation and anarchy for my grandchildren and great grandchildren...
Aww geeee... Lemme think about this one....
We bring the BREES, you bring the WHEEZE
WHO DAT
Lmao. I knew you where coming
Got a spare $30K?? :D
...who sympathizes with you this morning may depend upon your view of global warming; if i were you right now, wouldn't mention it.
You are just what this blog needed.
Of course, the disputed evidience
Link
and
Link
Maybe we should worry more about cooling then warming, at least until the Sun gets hot enough to fry the Earth in about a billion years or so.
Worrying about cooling is so 1970s... :D
How is one to intelligently argue against made up date (extrapolated) that is accepted as correct??? It is up to the individual to make up his own mind, after seeing for themselves how the limited data was collected...
The basics physics are not disputed..
What is disputed is statement like "Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity""
Granted CO2 is greenhouse gas but is the rate fo our emission going to cause warming at a "Catastrophe"(ic) rate? What about the expansion of the atmosphere as warming occurs giving more surface area to radiate heat and greater depth at a higher altitude.. PV=NRT are those basic facts of physics being taken into account?
It is the knee jerk reaction without an investigation AND viable solution that is being reacted against
Agree 100%!
Because the boys don't make money on consensus; they make money on division...the louder the argument, the better Rush and the club like it
Some people are shutting down BP stations.. true though that's greenpeace though which has always used specific events to generate publicity for general causes.
But I still don't understand the anger though. I don't think there is anything more to be angry about for their actions than the rhetoric I hear on the other side. The rhetoric is not any worse than that of the abortion debates, the anti-war demonstrations or many others. I disagree with many things that go on in the world but believing in global warming when it isn't true seems a victimless crime compared to all the other polarizing issues... so who cares?
I, by the way, am mostly conservative. Mostly i hate politics in general these days. I am not going to argue with you about cap and trade because I don't follow it and doubt it is a solution. I remember bartending and the general feeling was that any system you can invent to keep me from stealing drinks, is just a better way for me to hide that I am stealing drinks. I think cap and trade is the same probably.
But speaking of St Thomas as an example ( I used to live in St Maartin so I know the islands some.) Are the traffic jams still horrible? Why are there no electric bikes? All the islands are crying out to be test beds for new technologies: a small captive audience which relatively low infra-structure reworking costs. You know the costs to do this, electric bike infrastructure would pay for itself with the first season of tourists: a few chargers in each hotel, some centralized renting, scattered public chargers around the island, ideally powered by solar panels. The islands with consistent trade winds would be even more ideal. Where is the wind power in Aruba or Bonaire? It's not that difficult but my guess is the politics of the island won't allow it. Why? It's not the greenies protesting on St Thomas (is it? I hope not).
"the only thing worse than ignorance is arrogance"
Albert Einstein
So this means there is consistency?
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