Nineteen years since he last took a public stand against global warming, Dr. James Hansen has emerged from scientific anonymity once again with a dire warning.
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Before both a media and government audience, Hansen warned that we are dancing at the brink of numerous environmental tipping points: an “ice-free” Arctic, rising sea levels, increasing numbers of forest fires, veritable genocide of aquatic life as the ocean is acidified, bodies of fresh water turning arid and more.
The impact on the environment is mind-boggling. In terms of people, though, these imminent threats may translate into hundreds of millions of refugees and countless lives lost as portions of the planet become uninhabitable for humans.
Hansen did not merely identify the impending catastrophe we face. He established culpability for the wholly avoidable escalation of greenhouse gas levels. Drawing a parallel between fossil fuel companies and the “debate” fueled by tobacco corporations regarding cancer risks and smoking, Hansen asserted that these special interest groups have prioritized their own profit over the well-being of both the planet and humanity.
Hansen called for criminal indictment of the heads of big fossil fuel corporations such as ExxonMobil and a carbon tax with a 100 percent dividend to be returned in full to the public. He called for leadership amongst the masses, believing both the U.S. government and others will follow suit.
Without any reservation, Hansen further declared that both the knowledge and the technology exist to intervene in the global warming crisis; it is simply a matter of getting the lobbyists out of the way. In his presentation, he noted, “The fossil-industry maintains its strangle-hold on Washington via demagoguery, using China and other developing nations as scapegoats to rationalize inaction. In fact, we produced most of the excess carbon in the air today. …”
Today, Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Earth Sciences Division. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and also serves as Al Gore’s science advisor. Hansen received the Heinz Award in the Environment for his work on global warming.
Hansen first stepped in front of Congress 20 years ago. On June 23, 1988, he told them that he was “99 per cent [sic] certain” that global warming was a legitimate threat, and that he was equally confident in its correlation to the ways in which humans interact with the planet.
Between his initial presentation to Congress and this past June 23, Hansen stepped into the political arena only once. Before appearing before a 1989 committee chaired by then-Senator Al Gore, the White House modified Hansen’s statement regarding global warming and the impact of human activity on its rising levels. Told to either read the compromised statement or forego his chance at a governmental ear, Hansen briefed Gore ahead of time for assistance in revealing the White House’s hand in censoring his speech. The story was broadly covered in the media.
Though Hansen’s 1988 admonition received much media attention at the time, little has been done by the government since then to reverse—or even slow down—this perilous environmental trend. In the past 20 years, greenhouse gas emissions have been virtually untouched by government regulation, and our dependency on fossil fuels has only increased.
As usual, capitalism has thrown the well-being of the people and the planet aside, focusing on short-term profits for a small handful of business elite instead. As this inherent trend in capitalism continues unchecked, the stakes for the masses become higher and higher.
The decline of our planet’s health is one of the most serious symptoms of the disease of capitalism. Repairs cannot be left in the hands of either Democrats or Republicans. Both are in the pockets of the big polluters. The solution lies in a militant mass movement that demands that our planet and its resources be treated not as means for profit, but as the very lifeblood on which we depend.
