My Op-Ed Piece Today in the Statesman
The Austin American-Statesman today published my Op-Ed piece that takes a swing at Rush Limbaugh and his "ditto heads" on the topic of climate change:
We should've listened to the inconvenient truth a long time ago
This critical topic, of course, absolutely won't go away. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Dr. James Hansen's original warning to Congress about global warming (Associated Press Story), and Dr. Hansen gave a presentation at the National Press Club and briefed the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming.
The good news is that whoever wins the Presidential race will be infinitely more pro-active on this issue than the abysmal Bush Administration.
The bad news is that -- according to Hansen -- it's already too late to avoid major consequences of man-made warming, and he says that if we don't do something major soon to reduce CO2 the consequences will be dire and irreversible. His number one target: coal-based power plants.
My take is that the increase in greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) are an important part of what's causing climate change, but there are clearly other major factors, too (sunspot activity, El Nino, etc.) These factors all conspire to create what many respected scientists call an "energy imbalance" that truly does threaten our planet's future in a big way.
We clearly need to reduce our (human) contribution to the Climate Change problem as aggressively as we can, because that's the part that we can control. These changes will take a long time to impact things (as Dr. Hansen often says, more radical climate change is already "in the pipeline"), but we need to do it for future generations.
This problem begs for national leadership on climate change, something that has been not only lacking, but has been undermined by the Bush Administration.
I can't wait for a new Administration and Congress.
Jerry
We should've listened to the inconvenient truth a long time ago
This critical topic, of course, absolutely won't go away. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Dr. James Hansen's original warning to Congress about global warming (Associated Press Story), and Dr. Hansen gave a presentation at the National Press Club and briefed the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming.
The good news is that whoever wins the Presidential race will be infinitely more pro-active on this issue than the abysmal Bush Administration.
The bad news is that -- according to Hansen -- it's already too late to avoid major consequences of man-made warming, and he says that if we don't do something major soon to reduce CO2 the consequences will be dire and irreversible. His number one target: coal-based power plants.
My take is that the increase in greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) are an important part of what's causing climate change, but there are clearly other major factors, too (sunspot activity, El Nino, etc.) These factors all conspire to create what many respected scientists call an "energy imbalance" that truly does threaten our planet's future in a big way.
We clearly need to reduce our (human) contribution to the Climate Change problem as aggressively as we can, because that's the part that we can control. These changes will take a long time to impact things (as Dr. Hansen often says, more radical climate change is already "in the pipeline"), but we need to do it for future generations.
This problem begs for national leadership on climate change, something that has been not only lacking, but has been undermined by the Bush Administration.
I can't wait for a new Administration and Congress.
Jerry
posted by Jerry Werner | 6:21 PM
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