Hansen strikes fear into Nansen conference


Dr James Hansen, the NASA scientist who backs the carbon dioxide target implicit in the 350.org campaign, has doubtless been warned not to scare people too much with apocalyptic climate scenarios. We’ve all been told this induces perverse behaviour response.

My impression yesterday was that he relished as fair game the audience at Oslo’s Nansen Conference on Climate Change and Displacement in the 21st Century. After all, a bunch of disaster experts should be primed for cataclysm.

And, boy, he gave it to them with both barrels. New York’s Long Island became Short Island, the White House was under water and soon after that the oceans boiled dry.

The video archive will need severe editing if Hansen’s key message is to be heard. It was that climate campaigners should take full advantage of the US legal system to enforce damage claims and intergenerational justice. It’s the only language that Americans understand.

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this post was first published by OneWorld UK