Dr. James Hansen Honored as a Rebel With a Cause

In the early to mid seventies, working at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. James Hansen assembled a team to perform climate modeling of the earth and found some of the first reliable and predictive computer models of global warming. In the late eighties the testimony that he gave before Congress was noted for its drama and certitude that yes, we did have a problem. The CO2 we were pumping into the air was warming our world, and if we didn’t curtail this process, heat waves and droughts lay in our future.[i]

            Hansen has not tired of warning the rest of us about global warming. In more recent years he has gone beyond speaking at seminars and writing articles in journals and has taken up work as an activist. He’s been arrested, along with Daryl Hannah, protesting the Keystone Pipeline and mountaintop removal, both of which, besides causing environmental damage to their immediate environments, add or will add greatly to global warming.

            Yesterday, Conservation Colorado announced that James Hansen will be honored as their “Rebel With a Cause” at their annual gala to be held in June. Looking back over the decades, Hansen certainly deserves the recognition. Is the Nobel Committee taking note?

James Dean caused a ruckus in the fifties still from Rebel Without a Cause Warner Bros. 1955

James Hansen is causing a ruckus now, and he doesn't even need a leather jacket and cigarette photo Goddard Institute for Space Studies

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[i] Philip Shabecoff, Special to The New,York Times. Sharp cut in burning of fossil fuels is urged to battle shift in climate. New York Times June 24, 1988