A top NASA climatologist huddled under a tent Tuesday to talk about coal and global warming.
With UNC-Chapel Hill's massive coal-burning cogeneration plant as a backdrop, outspoken NASA scientist James Hansen pushed the university - and others - to take the lead in weaning off of coal as an energy source.
Hansen, who gave a speech and spoke in some classes as well this week, gamely donned a gaudy, yellow "Beyond Coal" T-shirt - the same as those worn by about 15 sign-toting activists - to speak Tuesday as a guest of the local Sierra Club.
That's the organization whose lobbying helped prompt UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp to recently form a new energy task force to examine the university's use of coal and other issues.
Hansen, an internationally recognized expert on global climate change, spoke as rain dropped and slushy ice crunched underfoot. The crux of his argument: The United States needs to wean itself entirely off of coal use, and sooner rather than later. Universities, he said, must take the lead in this venture.
"Coal is the dirtiest fuel on the planet," he said. "If we phase out coal over the next 20 years, we can solve the problem. The universities should be taking the lead."
Hansen praised UNC for its new energy task force, a symbol, he said, of the institution's willingness to tackle a complicated problem. And he praised students, some of whom stood shivering behind him holding signs sounding the global warming alarm, for their activism.
"Young people are really standing up and asking for proper attention to this issue," he said. "And I'm heartened that this university is responding in a positive way."
Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
In 2006, Time magazine named Hansen one of the world’s most influential people. His Congressional testimony on climate change in the 1980s made him an early scientific voice that helped raise broad awareness of global warming. He created one of the first models of climate change about 30 years ago and has used it to predict much of what has happened since.
Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995, he has been an active researcher in planetary atmospheres and climate science for nearly 40 years, with the last 30 years focused on climate research.
Comments
I don't understand altruism?
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 19:55 — SeaOwlisomer is you really believe the motivation behind the stop global warming crusade is altruistic you do need to keep hitting your head on that wall.
Maybe you can pound some sense into it.
And yes, I am sure many researchers in many fields of study are getting rich, or making a great living, off grant money.
You MUST somehow and in some way be employed by the government.
Coal front
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:57 — SweetsieIt is funny to see all of these brainwashed greenies standing outside bundled to the hilt and getting a good taste of the "Warming". Records being kept on climate and temps has only been done for the past couple of hundred years and not in any great detail except the past 80 years or so. This short time snapshot cannot offer any conclusive evidence on anything. What we do know is that the planet and our climate is dynamic and ever changing through warm and cool periods. And it will continue in spite of the ridiculous effort of man to change it. Keep the air and water clean with common sense and cost effective laws and s--- can the rest.
We gain if we change now; we lose if we change later
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:27 — skmcinteeConsidering the limited supply of fossil fuels and the exponential growth of the power users on the planet, it is only a matter of time before we will have to change the way we generate our power, anyway. OIL AND COAL SUPPLIES WILL PEAK ANY DAY NOW. When that peak happens, and the limits are realized, the prices will rise rapidly.
Why wait for that day to happen?
If we choose to convert to the alternatives NOW, to nuclear, wind, and natural gas (during transition), than we are not just minimizing the predicted disasters expected to happen, but we also get to make the change without successive emergencies displacing long term planning efforts. If we choose to convert NOW, we also have a chance of having alternative technologies to sell to the rest of the world. We would have the time to develop the alternative technologies in a moderate, safe, and thoughtful way. We gain by changing now.
If we choose to change our power sources later, however,we will be building nuclear plants in a climate of stress: economic stress, cultural stress (from mass migrations), and stress in international relations. We will be building with the rest of the world quite ready to sell us their well-developed alternative technologies, while we will have none developed. For alternative technology we will have ZERO market share. Do we really want to be building thousands of nuclear plants in a hurry, carelessly, with high oil prices and little oversight? If we want to be sure our plants are safe, a time of stress is the wrong time to build something as sophisticated as a modern nuclear plant, or a smart grad for wind and solar sources. If we want proper containment structures and well-though of waste storage, we lose by starting late, in either nuclear or in other alternative power technologies.
We should choose to make the change NOW and not LATER. We have to make the changeover away from oil and coal eventually. Why not start now, when we can afford to do the changes and have the opportunity to economically benefit from the change?
Students Are Here to Make a Change
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 16:19 — AndrewTHI'm not going to talk about prehistory, climate models, or political spin. I'm going to talk about the children in West Virginia who can't go to school because coal ash half an inch thick covers the ground and windows. I'm going to talk about the fact that the county in Virgina that provides the coal the CoGen plant burns has the highest rates of cancer in the state. I'm going to talk about the mess we are leaving our children and grandchildren if we don't take action now.
I am a student here on campus, active in the campaign. Coal is archaic, dirty, and a fossil of the past. It is cheap because it is subsidized by tax payer money that could be more efficiently allocated. West Virginia continues to be one of the poorest states in the nature because its citizens are out of a job thanks to the capital (not labor) intensive nature of the coal mining industry. Arsenic and mercury continue to poison the air we breathe and the water we drink. The money "saved" by using coal quickly disappears when the medical costs of cancer, Autism, and respiratory disease are factored in. It is not just a matter of environmental justice, it is a matter of social and economic justice as well.
On top of all this, the plant already has the capacity to burn natural gas! It is irresponsible for the administration to continue to burn coal while an transitional source of energy can already be utilized as the campus and community move to a sustainable, clean, and efficient future.
The students are speaking out and we will not stop until action it taken.
Well articulated post,
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 19:02 — countriboyWell articulated post, Andrew. Good luck with your efforts.
I hope your idealism will continue to burn brightly after you leave
college. Coal is a dirty fuel and the relationship of coal-fired power
plants to acid rain is empirically established. As for the folks who deny the
possibility of global warming, remember a great many others denied the Copernican
principle when they first heard of it, because it threatened their comfortable
and convenient view of the world.
Terrorist in town
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 15:57 — bobbatchelorJames Hansen is an eco terrorist. He should be ashamed of himself spreading this crap.
Where are the right wing nutjobs?
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 15:44 — festusOnly one denier so far. Come out, come out, wherever you are! It is only our kids and grandkids futures we are worried about.
nut jobs
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 23:05 — plusafhere i am... denouce me...
but not until you read [if you can] at least the first three pages at www.
petitionproject.org/gw_article/GWReview_OISM300.pdf
the data do NOT support any of Hansen's rants, nor do they support the heartfelt beliefs of all of the MMGW supporters in this thread nor N&O editorials to the same effect.
you can denounce me, but you can't provide real data that refutes me.
There's no money in global warming ... I just saw a pig fly by
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 15:51 — SeaOwlI chuckled when I read from the Ignorant Right Wingers post ....
"....Why do rightwingers spew disinformation about climate change? It is because they have vested self-interest - they want to protect the status quo. They want to get rich off wasteful behaviors that harm the planet and future generations...."
That hilarious. Do you think there's any possibility that the "brilliant left wingers" are simply lying to line their own pockets? Maintaining the status quo doesn't really require that we waste a trillion or so dollars responding to a supposed global warming crisis.
Al Gore was worth a couple million when he started pounding out this crap. Now I believe he is worth, I believe, closer to $200 million.
G.E. is totally behind the Global Warming Fairy Tale. They have already begun work on their "pollution credit sales" division that will come about with the totally insane Cap & Trade. Without that "green moron bonanza of selling air space for dirty air" they will be forced to just keep making their appliances and jet engines.
The whole global warming thing is 100% drivel but if you get enough idiots to believe it's real, the government will destroy itself trying to fix what isn't broken.
Our government thrives on fixing what doesn't need fixed. The more stupid it is - the better, That's why they're going to spend $230 million to create a prison for GITMO detainees. There are 245 of them as of 1/17/2010.
That's $938,776 per detainee of your tax money flushed down the toilet. And we're spending all this so Obama can keep his promise of closing GITMO. Seems rather expensive for us to finance his promise.
How about we leave them there and save the $1 million per detainee. Or, better yet, shoot them and feed them to the fish.
And you think global warming is a problem?! I think the total insanity of our government is a more pressing issue.
I suppose you think
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:24 — isomerI suppose you think researchers are getting "rich" off all the grant money as well.
The problem with people like you is that you will never understand altruism or why somebody would take a lower paying job with much more responsibility. And furthermore, the entire concept of science is lost on you which is obvious from your post. Where can I find a wall...
altruism?
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 23:17 — plusafaltruism?!?!?!
cut me a break. in today's economy, anyone who can get grant money to publish ANYTHING will do whatever's necessary to get or keep their job!
and that includes most of whom you call "altruists" who publish phony data, because their "conclusions" ALSO help insure that they'll get published AND keep getting grant money.
if you wanted ANY unbiased opinions, why don't you listen to people who DON'T have skin in the game or an axe to grind?
here's one... Burt Rutan. he's an engineer/scientist.
engineers and scientists like to START with DATA and through ANALYSIS, draw CONCLUSIONS.
email me for a link that will do you more value than any of the blather you've been following so far. ...
plusaf at plusaf dot com
it's a shame N&O doesn't even allow links for references which might disagree with editorial slants...
:(
ps. "altruism"? show me anyone who does ANYTHING and gets NO VALUE IN RETURN AT ALL and i'll call them an atruist... and a fool or a slave. everyone does everything for a reward; just sometimes it's a "good feeling inside" and not a golden parachute check. but they get something.
wonderful
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 15:00 — neergnawow, it's great to see students, who are surely busy with school and other activities, getting out in the freezing rain to show that they understand this dire environmental crisis our world faces, and are doing something about it. It's comforting that there are people out there who are not afraid to face the consequences of our energy use and work their asses off to try to salvage what is left of our endangered world.
What is real? What isn't?
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 14:40 — mrwhitmanCoal served its purpose during the 20th century but it is time for it to end. Scientists, who use real math, real physics, real chemistry, real biology, real smart people, know that coal and other fossil fuels are being depleted. Not only that the effects from burning these materials are being seen. I just don't understand how a person can not believe in global warming. In a recent survey 9/10 scientists/climatologists agreed that global warming is real AND that humanity caused/influenced it. There are those out there who would question that it takes a brave and couregous person to stand up and disagree-to be the 1/10-the majority opinion. Yes, if you look back through time there are those who have done this and were correct. Galileo, Copernicus, Christopher Columbus to just mention a few. This is not the case here. Global warming is a real environmental issue. The burning of coal is a real contributing factor to global warming. Let's get real here. If we as a global society don't change our attitudes and actions we will be in real trouble. Who am I? A West Virginia native. My biological grandfather died in a coal mine accident when my mother was 3 years old. My grandmother was evicted from the coal company's company town. My grandfather (step) died of black lung disease and lung cancer in 1988. I saw him cough up pieces of lung a few hours before he passed away.
So Hansen and these
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 14:35 — grantncsuSo Hansen and these simpletons are opposed to coal. They have made their positions clear regarding nuclear and gas exploration as well. Good luck with the windmills and solar panels. By the way, it will be extremely difficult to manufacture these things without industrial supply of electricity. It is a safe assumption that the solar panels and wind turbines we buy from China are and will continue to be made with coal/nuclear power. Apparently, this is the idea behind Obama's energy policy too.
Ignorant rightwingers
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 14:29 — Real_Americans_ThinkWhy do rightwingers spew disinformation about climate change? It is because they have vested self-interest - they want to protect the status quo. They want to get rich off wasteful behaviors that harm the planet and future generations. They don't care about anyone other than themselves. there is a huge body of peer reviewed scientific evidence upon which the conclusion of human induced rapid climate change is based. Claims that the climate has changed in the past are not entirely irrelevant - when there has been rapid change because of volcanic eruptions, entire species were wiped out. When climate change has been slow, species adapted to it. We are seeing fast climate change - too fast to adapt to. If rightwingers want to argue that they don't care about climate change, that would at least be honest. But trying to pretend that it doesn't exist is dishonest - i.e. a lie. Even countries that have the most to lose economically from climate change, such as China, admit that it is happening. Yet, China is turning this into an economic opportunity, by aggressively pursuing technological leadership of "green" energy technologies. Meanwhile, the U.S., we'll be sitting on our hands, getting our lunch handed to us by China, while we watch our coastal areas disappear, all because of a few selfish rightwing ignorami.
Real Amerithugs is Back!
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 14:40 — mike27513Climate Change is Measured in THOUSANDS and 100's of Thousand of Years not Decades!
A 100 years of data is only 1 data point, not a trend line.
Fact : 200 Million years ago Average Mean Global temperature was approx. 12 DEGREES HIGHER Than TODAY.
Any good Earth science reference will show it or just Google "Global Warming at the Triassic Jurassic boundry" for lazy Democrats.
"for lazy
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:15 — isomer"for lazy Democrats"
Exactly. This is a purely political argument, not a scientific one. Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall.
Again No basic Effort for data
Wed, 02/03/2010 - 00:07 — mike27513Again,
No effort has been made to state any facts. Global Temperatures have been estimated back at least 500 Million years ago. Please do a very little research and see what the scientific data says.
The Earth has been much warmer that currently.
But continue to believe what you want. As a scientist, I use data to confirm hypothesis. A hundred years of data is too small a sample size when talking about climate change, much less a sample size of a decade.
James Hansen @ UNC
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 14:07 — climatescienceThe real back drop for the Hansen propaganda tour at UNC is the 4 weeks of revelations of scientific fraud from East Anglia University, the UN Climate Geeks, and NASA. What happened to hard core science? If he wants to be a poly-sci professor or a professor of religion great. But a thesis based on faith is not science. Hansen is now the defacto head of a fully discredited scientific community holding on to a thesis of man caused global warming which has no basis in fact only doctored data. Man caused global warming and those who support that "religion" is now on par with the pseudo science Eugenics and its noisy supporters from 1900 until it's final demise in 1975 in Sweden. As the demonstrators stand in the snow of the second worse winter in years, thank God for coal and oil. Let's bring those wonderful French nuclear reactors on line and power up! Have you seen the new 2010 Hydrogen powered Ford F250? For those of you who are earning BS, MS and PhD degrees at UNC lets find some science practioners where the data drives the hypothesis. But if you need a minister, James Hansen is your man. ClimateScience
Speaking of Ignorance...
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 13:27 — mike27513For those who know nothing about Geological History....
200 Million yrs ago the AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE WAS 12 DEGREES HIGHER THAN TODAY.
There was 10 TIMES AS MUCH CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
[I guess the dinosaurs drove a lot of SUV's and had a lot of Coal Fired Power plants
The Earth has been cooling for the last 5 BILLION YEARS and will continue to Cool.
A course in basic earth science would help most folks
We didn't know the average
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:12 — isomerWe didn't know the average global temperature 200 million years ago. We only CO2 concentrations dating back to 800,000 years ago, and now they are higher than we have ever seen them. Try a more advanced earth science instead of the basic.
NASA Scientist
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 12:51 — ncsickleGotta love the "cropping" of the photos for this article. With all the talk about "global warming" we sure don't want to show all the snow in the background! LOL. FAR too funny that schools are closed, and roads are a skating rink, HERE IN THE SOUTH, and this idiot's spouting on about the planet heating up, carbon credits, yadda yadda yadda....he's a NWO shill. And all the goofy students have figured out which way the wind is blowing (yeah, and it's blowing COLD), so they hop on the bandwagon for their little pats on the head. Pathetic.
In Respone
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 16:00 — AndrewTH"And all the goofy students...hop on the bandwagon for their little pats on the head. Pathetic."
First and foremost, this goofy student is sickened by some of the response to this article.
Bandwagon? What bandwagon? This campaign has been built from the ground up bit by bit by the hard work of dedicated, intelligent students committed to something more than themselves. Lux and libertas my friend, lux and libertas.
Little pats on the head? We would have been out there in the freezing rain regardless of Hansen's appearance. We do much more than sit behind computers and type away. I have the privilege to attend a public university and I have a duty to see that this institution, subsidized by the men and women of NC, lives up to the high standards it sets for itself, regardless of the flak I get from people removed from the situation and even more so removed from the facts.
The students want change, and we're here to bring it.
You show your own ignorance
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 13:05 — isomerYou show your own ignorance by using one small weather system to overturn years of climate data. You also don't realize that the oceans are much bigger sinks for heat. Water has the capacity to absorb much more heat than air. And I guess you also missed the study by NASA which shows the last decade as the warmest on record with the 90's being the second warmest on record.