Via BraveNewClimate, Dr James Hansen, one of world’s leading scientists on climate issues, is giving a talk on the 11th March in Adelaide.
Which raises the question as to whether he is appearing elsewhere in Australia.
His first gig, as far as I can find out, is participating in a debate on Nuclear energy in Melbourne on the 4th of March.
Then he’ll be at Sydney Ideas on the 8th of March.
The only press coverage I can find is this article in the Southern Courier, which at least tells us what he will be talking about:
In his Sydney Ideas lecture titled “After Copenhagen: Looking for Real Solutions,” Dr Hansen, a proponent of nuclear energy and an opponent of carbon emission trading schemes, will discuss the most workable options for tackling climate change for the future.
I understand the Adelaide talk will be similar, if not the same.
Hansen, of course, needs no introduction to readers of LP or anyone who has taken the slightest interest in climate change. I came relatively late to the issue and at first sat fairly squarely on the fence on the question of anthropogenic influence. In 2003 I happened to be in the local news agency when Hansen’s article “Can we Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb?” in the Scientific American caught my eye. For a long time it was online, no longer, but longer version is still on Hansen’s NASA GISS site. That turned me into the warmist I now am.
That was where I first saw the famous image of this moulin in Greenland:
Of course it wasn’t the moulin as such that convinced me. In the print version there was a very neat image of how the greenhouse effect works, not in the longer version. I can’t find one that I’d care to show you. But take that in conjunction with images like this and the anthropogenic influence is clear.
Along with the three graphs of course, that was a beginning.
Hansen believes in using images to communicate climate science. He also rates sea level rise along with species extinction as major threats. I’m more than happy to acknowledge the influence.
If anyone knows of other appearances, please share.
Will he be able to answer why we haven’t warmed since 1995? I think not.
That is a talk that I will try hard to attend. Thanks, Brian.
Rationalist – I take you haven’t heard of trend lines and outliers.
Only in Australia do people debate whether the planet is warming, the rest of the world argues about the predicted effects of global warming, but why should we listen to glaciologists, climatalogists, when screaming Lord Monckton, a publicity seeking trained mathmatical journalist says it isn’t so.
“Only in Australia do people debate whether the planet is warming”
Simply breathtaking.
Or perhaps not. Blithe unawareness of what is happening in the real world isn’t all that uncommon in these parts.
Wozza, Rationalist, just need to know one thing: Will you be going to Hansen’s talk? Fair’s fair, I went to Monckton’s.
Or do you prefer to keep your misinformation undiluted by the input of a real scientist?
Rationalist said:
Doubtless he will also duck questions on where he was when the Zapruder footage was shot. Scandalous!
Mind you, it’s a bit unfair to ask him to respond to the fact that the Sunday Times wants to verbal a climate scientist to titillate its more unhinged or ignorant readers.
Nice to see people have given up claiming that the world stopped warming in 1998.
Lets not feed the trolls. Perhaps they haven’t heard that 2009 was the second warmest year ever in the instrumental record, and January 2010, in spite of being rather cool where the rich and powerful largely live, the second warmest month.
Thanks for this Brian
(ya bastage
, now I’ll have to go to the Steak and Kidney again, hate that joint, as I no longer have the excuse that I didn’t know. And I would not have known had you not mentioned it, yet I’ll make up the science Monckton’s tour was well publicised – sorry, that’s Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, curer of HIV, MS and and the Common Cold, Victor of the Falklands War and Vanquisher of Al Gore)
One of the best things I’ve done was to get myself to a talk by Matthew England. Great to hear from a guy who you could tell just knew his stuff and loves it, lives it. And the new gear he was researching was great gear too.
I too was a latecomer – Mum asked of me ~2006 what do I reckon of this global warming – I replied that I have no idea but I’ll look it up – I came back to her a few days later with every scientist on the planet think it’s on except for a few employed to be ratbags in an almost identical replay of tobacco interests. Every economist also reckon that a price be put on carbon as the most cost effective way to move to a post-carbon economy with the only dissenters are those having an interest in delaying the move.
This is worth a read.
Fantastic, I will be doing everything I can to see this. The man’s a hero in my book.
I’d love to go hear this – i’m beginning to think seriously about nuclear options as worth considering, despite my oud youthful protestations.
Thanks for the link, Paul. The article has January 2010 as the hottest January ever on the satellite record. @ 8 I was quoting the NASA GISS record, which also includes data from ground stations.
Of interest, Hansen says:
He says that the Academy was set up by Abe Lincoln to provide exactly that sort of service and is one of the “most respected scientific bodies in the world.”
From his book.
@Brian: maybe we should do the same thing and ask CSRIO for a similar report … oh.
In the spirit of bipartisanship, should we be criticisng Hansen for arguing about economic and energy policy in the same way we criticise economists and others for arguing the science?
For the record, Mercurius, I was not expressing any view of my own on whether the world is warming or is not warming. I was merely pointing out that the statement that no-one in the entire world outside Australia questions that it is warming is self-evidently such silly, head-in-the-sand stuff as to be actively counter-productive to advancing the apparent ends of the person who made it.
Why is it that around here one cannot question any statement connected even peripherally with climate change without being accused of trolling?
As for Hansen, were it to be the sort of event that you attended with Monckton – an actual exchange of views on climate issues with someone who disagreed with him – I might be tempted. Hansen, a bit like this blog, doesn’t do debates on climate science, though, does he, even when invited repeatedly? Political advocacy, not science, is his forte these days.
And for the record again, that is a comment on Hansen’s current persona, not to be taken as expressing any view on the science of climate change.
declared Wozza adducing facts not in evidence.
It was something of a generalisation Fran, granted, but I have been accused of trolling often enough here – including on this thread, when at the time my only comment had been to do no more than point out a far grosser generalisation – for comments which have not been in any way denialist to suggest a substantial element of truth. Did I hit a sore spot?
In that case, my mistake, Wozza. You weren’t trolling, you were concern trolling.
Yawn.
josh @ 14 and 15.
Don’t know whether the CSIRO is independent enough to be credible.
Hansen is not arguing with economists about their economics, but contributing to the debate as a scientist, but with a large dose of pragmatism. He says they are his views as a citizen-scientist.
To summarise his position, he knows that we should try very hard not to exceed 400ppm and get down to 350ppm ASAP but certainly this century. He’s desperate to start early in a significant way, but not as desperate to reach the end point as some.
He knows that we can only afford to burn limited amounts of fossil fuels from here on as a scientist. He sees leaving the oil and gas in the ground harder in practical and political terms than coal. So we have to be very hard on coal, with nukes as the lesser evil.
He went to Germany and had 90 minutes with Sigmar Gabriel, Minister for Environment in the previous government, with Stefan Rahmstorf from Potsdam in tow. Gabriel agreed with everything but continually balked at the notion of ruling out new coal-fired power stations. The third time around Gabriel simply said, we are phasing out nukes, it’s political, it’s non-negotiable.
Wozza @ 17, Hansen thinks very carefully about how he spends his time and about what is productive and what is not. He’s not there to dance to your tune.
Wozza said:
To be fair Wozza, your comment @4 (that the claim about warming was debated only in Australia was “breathtaking”) was imprecise enough to admit the reading that you were solidarising with those who denied warming. Even the deniers Inhofe wheels out — like Seitz, doesn’t make that claim.
To say later that you only meant to speak of where it was debated resembles sneakiness.
Your broader claim is unsustainable. While people who repeat long debunked talking points are fairly called trolls, merely wondering out loud about “any statement connected even peripherally with climate change” doesn’t get you a trolling moniker. The IPCC wondered explicitly about such things as clouds modelling, sea level rises, rates of glacial decomoposition, regional climate impacts and so forth.
It would be really good if we could get someone like Eban Goodstein to Australia to inject some sanity into the debate on the economics of climate change responses and non-responses. (But take precautions to keep Birdy away from his speaking engagements!)
Is Hansen’s visit being sponsored by the nuclear lobby? Can we expect a push for nuclear power in Australia, along with our own nuclear dump?
Josh @14: …”maybe we should do the same thing and ask CSRIO for a similar report”
Did you notice that the current CEO is an ex-BHP exec? In whose pocket then, given the amount of funding they raise from the resources sector?
And notice she ran that bloke who argued that ETS wouldn’t yield significant results into the ground, and drove him out of the organisation?
And notice that she says the CSIRO does not comment on politically sensitive matters, which presumably includes the topic of climate change?
A political weasel for CEO of Australia’s premier research outfit.
Anything useful coming out of CSIRO may be IN SPITE OF their CEO, and against fierce organisational resistance.
What’s the bet that, if the government asks for a report, then they will be delivered exactly what they want to hear?
silkworm @ 23, I thought at first it might be a book promotion tour, but it doesn’t look like it. Maybe the Sydney Ideas Festival took an initiative, maybe he was taking a holiday here anyway. I don’t think we can jump to any conclusions.
I sounds as though he may not be calling on Kevin at the Lodge.
Elise, are you on drugs? My CSIRO comment was a joke. You see, they have already given quite a few reports on climate change. It’s a big feature of their research work and heavily promoted on their home page. Many of their researchers were lead authors of the IPCC reports, including LP resident Roger Jones, although he’s moved to greener pastures now.
Hysteria is one thing, but this is ridiculous!
Brian, I’m not sure what you were trying to say about their independence in this regard, but they were doing the above during the Howard denial years, if not as much as now. I do agree they are generally less independent of both government and industry now, which is a great shame.
Josh @26: “Elise, are you on drugs? My CSIRO comment was a joke.”
“I do agree they are generally less independent of both government and industry now, which is a great shame.”
Josh, you have agreed with me. That WAS my point.
I didn’t say that CSIRO scientists weren’t doing work on climate change, but rather that the researchers were not able to speak freely about their findings.
Invisible strings are attached to funding and to political appointments. Those strings became temporarily visible in the case of Dr Clive Splash:
http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?id=2009-11-25.102.2
So who is on idealism drugs then, Josh?
josh, one of their previous senior guys had to resign (Pitman?) and there was the Splash affair. What the substance is on their independence is difficult to know, but the public perception is such that they probably won’t convince anyone.
Elise, you picked up my comment that “maybe we should do the same thing and ask CSRIO for a similar report … oh.” That comment was in response to Hansen’s suggestion that the NAS do a report on climate science, presumably on the grounds that the NAS right now has more credibility in the USA than the IPCC. My comment, through the oft-used blog device of “… oh” was designed to make it clear that we already have an equivalent set of reports from what has traditionally been seen, and outside a very small circle still is seen, as an independent and authoritative scientific institution.
I am not on idealism drugs (me? ha!). And on reflection I apologise for the over the top response to you. But your response was, well, just a little OTT as well. I am not disagreeing with you that the CSIRO has been compromised, although I don’t think it has been as much as you clearly do.
But your remarks don’t make sense (to me). To be precise, you wrote “she [the CEO] says the CSIRO doesn’t comment on politicially sensitive matters, which presumably includes the topic of climate change?” Well, the CSRIO writes reports and conducts interviews extensively on the science of climate change. What did you mean by that comment? It sounded to me like you thought they don’t do these things, hence my (OTT) response.
Lastly, the
SplashSpash case is more complex than that. The CSIRO has for a long time had a policy of not commenting on government policy. Stop for a second to think about why that might be important for an institution that’s meant to be independent. I agree with just about every word he wrote, but it completely violated his terms of employment, which he presumably accepted on being hired, so it’s a bit rich to then complain about his work being suppressed. Indeed, your link helpfully explained these very points, for which you have my thanks.Rationalist, I have to agree with you.
You definitely think not.
I’m not so sure Josh. He was employed to do “Blue Sky” thinking on matters of economics. As he reasonably describes it, he was like a tenured academic rather than someone paid to produce specific advice for a minister. His work didn’tbecome controversial until the CPRS was rejected, but in February when he first published, nobody cared.
Fran, fair enough. I’m not fully up on his case. Perhaps the problem was he was employed to do something the research policy wouldn’t allow (which would be CSIRO’s fault, not his).
Come to think of it, that paper wasn’t exaclty ‘blue sky thinking’ about economics. It was a direct and sophisticated critique of a very specific policy instrument! So maybe CSIRO has a case after all?
But all of this is off-topic. Back to swooning over Hansen
Josh, perhaps I should explain. In one of my previous reincarnations, before becoming an intermittent blogger, I worked in research for a part-government, party-industry funded outfit in Europe. I know the price industry extracts for their money. Not guessing. I know.
Those same international resources companies provide funding to CSIRO. I was also offered a research job by CSIRO many moons ago, and they told me how much industry funding I was expected to bring with me. Not insignificant – shockingly high, in fact.
Those researchers will be compromised, both directly (via commercial in confidence arrangements and black-out periods, in some cases many years) and indirectly through the subtle pressure of avoiding biting the hand that feeds you (least it stop feeding/funding in the future).
If you thought the response was OTT, then I’m sorry, but I do think we have a sizable problem with climate change information being potentially filtered through this system.
Also perhaps it was OTT because I detest the way some of our brightest minds are asked to continually go cap-in-hand for funding, just to do their job. Their industry colleagues do not face this miserable situation. It is an inditement of how little regard we have for research ability.
We pay semi-skilled workers and truck drivers in the Pilbara far more than some of our sharpest minds working on solutions for the future of all Australians. They should do it for the love of it, right? What are we thinking as a nation?
josh, Fran linked to this PM story on Spash on another thread. It would be worth your while to have a look. Spash says he was told he had a “free remit” when he was hired. Kim Carr’s objection is finally on what he sees as inadequate quality in the paper. Even the version that had passed the peer revue process and was to be published.
We did a thread on it at the time, but Spash’s own account puts a new complexion on it, I think.
Hansen was talking in the context of the complaints of what he calls contrarians. So what we are looking for, I think, is a body with impeccable integrity to report on the practice of climate science. Remember climate scientists are accused of being dishonest money-grubbers, colluding to keep the game and their jobs going. So you don’t get Caesar to judge Caesar, you have to look to a body not engaged in climate science.
We have an Australian Academy of Science, but I’m not sure that they would see such an exercise as within their remit.
You can trust CSIRO on the science, including impacts and adaptation. Their energy portfolio is straight up as well. None of their scientists can take part in science advocacy, or promote direct action of any sort. (Including actively promoting the better public understanding of science as part of independent scientific groups).
At the moment Will Steffen from ANU is doing the government’s science updates – he did one last year.
CSIRO stuffed upon Spash – they don’t know the difference between serious policy analysis and comment on specific policy.
Pitman never worked for CSIRO, it was Pearman who was “pushed” and that was about organisational politics between ideas-driven and project-driven science.
Elise@33, on those points we are in absolute agreement. I just wish you hadn’t attacked me in the process.
Roger – stop ruining our comments with accurate/insider information!
No, his visit is being sponsored by the St James Ethics Centre and the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute (in conjunction with the Government of SA).
Thanks, Roger @ 35. My memory for names has always been shocking. I was on the fly today and didn’t have time to look it up. But it’s useful to know what the Pearman exit was about.
Steffen’s report is here – pdf and deserves to be widely read by the public and policy makers.
Barry @ 37, thanks for the information on the funding of Hansen’s trip. It is simply not his style to allow himself to be compromised.
Unfortunately, the bit of the web site where one could possibly book for this talk is borked.
I don’t know whether to suspect unprecedented demand or some kind of cyber-attack by flying monkeys.
Just confirming that Dr James Hansen will be speaking at Sydney Ideas at the University of Sydney on Monday, 8 March, 2010.
Details: http//www.sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas
He will also be speaking at an Intelligence Squared Australia debate in Melbourne on Thursday, 4 March, 2010.
Details: http://www.iq2oz.com/events/event-details/2010-series-melbourne/01-march.php
And he will also give a public talk at the University of Adelaide on Thursday, 11 March, 2010.
Details: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/environment/event/2010/jameshansen1.html
Katrina O’Brien
Media officer
University of Sydney
I can’t get that first link to the Sydney lecture to work, Katrina. This one takes you to a site where there is a link to booking on the side bar.
As Katrina said, James Hansen is participating in a public event at the Adelaide Convention Centre on March 11, you can buy tickets through this webpage. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/environment/event/2010/jameshansen1.html Tickets are $22 each and the audience will have the opportunity to put questions to James Hansen. Seating is limited so make sure you get a ticket before they all go.
If you can’t make it to any of the events, keep an ear out for James Hansen on Radio National Breakfast with Frank Kelly on March 4, or keep an eye out for him on ABC’s Lateline on March 3
josh @36: “Elise@33, on those points we are in absolute agreement. I just wish you hadn’t attacked me in the process.”
I wasn’t attacking YOU, silly bugger! My comments were directed at our research system in Australia. Show me where I said anything negative about you? I just continued the discussion from your talking points.
By the way, and again not directed at you, josh, has anyone looked at the average/median age of CSIRO researchers and university academics? Have they tried plotting the average/median age against time, e.g. on a 5 yearly basis?
As a wild guess, they could be mostly baby boomers, nearing retirement. A time plot (median age versus time) might show about a year extra for every extra calender year? In other words, negligible new blood? Few young turks with energy to burn and new ideas for the future. Those few that joined could be fast suffocated by the system &/or spat out, if they challenged it in any way?
How might a geriatric system come to pass? Education and R&D starved for funding under Howard for a decade? Most young turks would quickly realise that they could do better for themselves by taking jobs in industry, especially the resources or finance sectors.
The lad next door decided to drop out of uni, a couple of years back, because he could earn more as an unskilled tradie’s assistant in the Pilbara, than he would earn as a fully-qualified graduate. Why bother with the grind of study then? He would do even worse financially, if he decided that he wanted to do ground-breaking research for Australia’s future, whether at uni or at CSIRO. Assuming we still do such things.
Australia is inadvertently, actively rewarding “dumbing-down” our youth.
Most of the old guard in the research field would not be able to make the switch from academia to industry, even if they wanted to, and could be comfortable where they are, despite the low wages.
The end result could be uni’s currently full of geriatric lecturers teaching old material, &/or importing cheap labour/lecturers from SE Asia? WHO will be staffing our unis and CSIRO in 2050? Where will the bright young minds go?
I hope Rudd and Gillard have their eye on where underfunding of R&D could lead, for their 2050 vision. The lucky country may not become the clever country?
It wasn’t just Howard, Elise. Keating was seriously anti-intellectual as well, and Bob Hawke didn’t do as well as he should’ve. It’s been happening for the best part of 30 years.
Fran Kelly interviewed James Hansen on Breakfast this morning.
It was probably a pass mark for Fran. Hansen was very good, stayed on message.
He emphasised that we need to leave coal in the ground. In 2005 he warned that we had 10 years to get “on a very different path” wrt to climate change mitigation. Now we have only 5, having wasted 5.
His objection to cap and trade was that there is no way of making it global. With leakage through the purchase of offsets it’s effectively BAU for major emitters.
He was asked about whether he had ever had any doubts about the science. He said no, and as we go the evidence mounts up. He said that recent measurements on the heat content the ocean was very much in line with expectations and was important evidence.
From his book, this is what he says towards the end about Obama. He hasn’t completely given up on him but the signs are not good. Obama appointed many fine scientists to senior positions in science and energy and promised to listen to scientists, but didn’t say who else he would listen to as well. Hansen:
I don’t give Ms Kelly a pass … she introduced that drivel about the Himalayan glaciers …
Note also that Hansen never actually uttered the word “no” to the doubt about the science question and indeed suggested scientists were always doubting things although he did explain why he was confident it was robust. I wish he’d started with a clear “no, never”.
I’m with you, Fran.
I bet, after he’d hung up on Fran Kelly, he turned to his missus and said, “God! What a stupid woman.”
Fran @46: If Hansen had said “no never” he would have failed the credible scientist test.
Not in the eyes of anyone whose opinion was worth listening to John D …
@ 47 and 48, perhaps getting a bit generous in my old age!
This fellow should help ordinary folk get Monckton’s fantasies and posturings in perspective.
We know from that a remark by the CRU East Anglia head that there’d been a) no *statistically significant* atmospheric warming in recent years and that b) it made no difference to the conclusion of overall warming, from man-made CO2
has been widely and deliberately distorted as “no warming sine 1995″.
We know from more recent work, to which Hansen refers, that oceanic warming is continuing, at about the projected rate for global warming.
Himalayan glaciers: Fran Kelly would have been failing her job not to ask. He dealt with it simply. Those glaciers are shrinking – the rate was somewhat overstated.
Good ABC piece. Data from The NASA Goddard Institute, not to be sneezed at. Articulate expert spokesman, badly needed.
More: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/