Climatologist James Hansen Testifies Today. By Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes, June 23, 2008. "Twenty years ago Monday, James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, shook Washington and the world by telling a sweating crowd at a Senate hearing during a stifling heat wave that he was '99 percent' certain that humans were already warming the climate. 'The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now,' Dr. Hansen said then... To many observers of environmental history, that was [when] global warming moved from... looming issue to breaking news... [helping] propel the first pushes for legislation and an international treaty... [to be] enacted [with]... the Kyoto Protocol... added... [Today], Dr. Hansen, 67, plans to testify [before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming] that it is almost, but not quite, too late to start defusing what he calls the 'global warming time bomb.' He will offer a plan for cuts in emissions and also a warning about the risks of further inaction... Dr. Hansen disagrees with supporters of 'cap and trade' bills to cut greenhouse emissions, like the one that foundered in the Senate this month, [preferring] a 'tax and dividend' approach that would raise the cost of fuels contributing to greenhouse emissions but return the revenue directly to consumers to shield them from higher energy prices."
2008-06-23
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