For those who didn't happen to notice, perhaps because it wasn't exactly front-page news in most of the country, NASA's James Hansen, the man who first alerted Congress to the dangers of global warming 20 years ago, returned to testify before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming this week. This time around, he was essentially offering a final warning on the subject. Unless the U.S. begins to act soon, he pointed out, "it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control."

For the "elements of a 'perfect storm,' a global cataclysm" being assembled, he placed special blame on the "CEOs of fossil energy companies [who] know what they are doing and are aware of [the] long-term consequences of continued business as usual." He added that they should, in his opinion, "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature… I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials." That's a novel thought in our nation's capital. Oh, and while he was at it, he probably should have thrown in George W., Dick C., and crew. What they haven't done (and what they've blocked from being done) over these last eight years may turn out to be their greatest crime of all. Talk about smoking guns... or is it melting ice?

And here's the sad thing, as with so much else in these last years, the only way global warming has gotten the slightest respect in Bush's Washington is as a national security issue. Big surprise. The Navy, for instance, was already holding a symposium entitled "Naval operations in an Ice-Free Arctic" in April 2001; now, it seems that by 2010, or 2015 at the latest, it may have its wish -- an iceless Arctic Ocean in the summer for the first time in perhaps one million years and a scramble for energy and mineral wealth at the poles. An office of the Pentagon, war-gaming climate change back in 2004, wrote up a hair-raising, spine-tingling end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it report on a future planet in eternal conflict amid every kind of weather disaster; and only this week, the U.S. Intelligence Community, the official 16 agencies gathering the stuff for the government, chimed in with a grim new report, "The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030."

As "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change," a 2007 report from the military-allied research organization, the CNA Corporation, indicated, admirals and generals galore have been worrying about the subject for a while. Think, for instance, of those low-lying U.S. bases, like the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, that might just go under. Could climate change not only send millions fleeing from flooding or salinating lowlands, or out of areas of conflict over ever scarcer resources, but start the process of de-garrisoning the globe for the Pentagon? ("Climate change could compromise some of [our] bases…[T]he loss of some forward bases would require longer range lift and strike capabilities and would increase the military's energy needs.") It's enough to set a military-minded group to worrying.

Now, in a striking report, "Living on the Ice Shelf," from the front lines of science, Mike Davis, author most recently of In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire, "welcomes" the new geologic era we're officially entering, a period in which humanity may simply, and catastrophically, outrun history itself. As he puts it: "Our world, our old world that we have inhabited for the last 12,000 years, has ended, even if no newspaper in North America or Europe has yet printed its scientific obituary.

Comments (32)

1. Speaking of obituaries, this blog is close to having its' own written. The web master is incompetent, but no one at the Nation seems to notice. Serious questions arise.

   Posted by Benchrest at 06/27/2008 @ 07:09am

2. Benchrest

   you ain't just whistling dixie. amateur hour here. the sad part is that it used to be great.

   Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 07:16am

3. Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 07:16am

   There are few logical explanations for the types of problems. Look at the time stamps, which are wrong. That requires little to correct, yet it is not noticed nor addressed. Bizzare.

   Posted by Benchrest at 06/27/2008 @ 07:21am

4. Benchrest

   hahahahaha.

   Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 07:31am

5. So, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is a better authority on atmospheric conditions than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)?

   Posted by ACook at 06/27/2008 @ 07:33am

6. Friday, June 27, 2008 12:01:14 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 06/27/2008 @ 07:59am

7. "For the "elements of a 'perfect storm,' a global cataclysm" being assembled, he placed special blame on the "CEOs of fossil energy companies [who] know what they are doing and are aware of [the] long-term consequences of continued business as usual." He added that they should, in his opinion, "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature… I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials." NASA's James Hansen

   From his own lips, Hansen demonstrates why he is a complete nutcase. He should have been fired for incompetence years ago.

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/27/2008 @ 08:05am

8. From his own lips, lvliberty1 demonstrates why he is a complete nutcase.

   Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 08:08am

9. The problem isn't so much "greenhouse gasses" as it is with variable heat from the sun. We'd have to get a good deal warmer than this to match the years from about 1000 to 1200.

   Some people are not paying close attention to the facts of history.

   Posted by balataf at 06/27/2008 @ 08:35am

10. It's almost kinda funny.

    We get a smattering of mostly inane commentary on this thread in response to an Englehardt Notion post that references a jaw dropping Tom Dispatch by Mike Davis.

    Has anyone here read the damn thing?

    It ought to be a subject for planet wide news coverage --from now until we seriously address the issue (which might very well be kingdom come).

    We are systematically destroying our life support system, the Earth, while virtually every nation --certainly every culpable nation anyway-- on the planet fiddles away.

    Excerpt (and note, in particular, the final sentence --no pun intended):

    This planetary deficit of opportunity and social justice is captured in the fact that more than one billion people, according to UN-Habitat, currently live in slums and that their number is expected to double by 2030. An equal number, or more, forage in the so-called informal sector (a first-world euphemism for mass unemployment). Sheer demographic momentum, meanwhile, will increase the world's urban population by 3 billion people over the next 40 years (90% of them in poor cities), and no one -- absolutely no one -- has a clue how a planet of slums, with growing food and energy crises, will accommodate their biological survival, much less their inevitable aspirations to basic happiness and dignity.

    If this seems unduly apocalyptic, consider that most climate models project impacts that will uncannily reinforce the present geography of inequality. One of the pioneer analysts of the economics of global warming, Petersen Institute fellow William R. Cline, recently published a country-by-country study of the likely effects of climate change on agriculture by the later decades of this century. Even in the most optimistic simulations, the agricultural systems of Pakistan (a 20% decrease from current farm output predicted) and Northwestern India (a 30% decrease) are likely to be devastated, along with much of the Middle East, the Maghreb, the Sahel belt, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Twenty-nine developing countries will lose 20% or more of their current farm output to global warming, while agriculture in the already rich north is likely to receive, on average, an 8% boost.

    In light of such studies, the current ruthless competition between energy and food markets, amplified by international speculation in commodities and agricultural land, is only a modest portent of the chaos that could soon grow exponentially from the convergence of resource depletion, intractable inequality, and climate change. The real danger is that human solidarity itself, like a West Antarctic ice shelf, will suddenly fracture and shatter into a thousand shards.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 06/27/2008 @ 09:59am

11. Above post @ 2:00 pm

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 06/27/2008 @ 10:02am

12. George Carlin hit said it best. He said that the world created humans because it didn't have any plastic, and so it created people. Now, we are like fleas on it's back and it wants to get rid of us.

    The human race may be wiped out, but the world itself will be fine. It's been around a little longer humans. Not much longer according to the bible thumper crowd, but even they have to conceed, with their own book, that the world has been around longer than humans.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 06/27/2008 @ 10:06am

13. Posted by Wolfgang1 at 06/27/2008 @ 10:06am | ignore this person | warn this person

    I posted this at 2:03 EST

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 06/27/2008 @ 10:07am

14. Good post, Wolf.

    I've been checkin' out quite a bit of the Carlin footage on youtube.

    Some of it will probably be getting quite a bit of airplay, in the near and not so near future, as ironic background to our sorry state of affairs.

    He's certainly in my personal pantheon.

    2:36 Eastern

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 06/27/2008 @ 10:36am

15. the planet hysteria here by the left makes for nothing more serious than comic relief.

    Hey BKool, are you suggesting forced abortions worldwide to limit the population ala China?

    Are you saying that someone in the US or Europe can dictate to someone in India or Malaysia how many children to have?

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/27/2008 @ 11:29am

16. 'SANTEE, Calif. -- As gasoline prices rise ever higher, some drivers have discovered an alternative to runaway fuel inflation in the U.S.: subsidized gas just minutes away in Mexico. Gasoline is selling for six pesos per liter across the border in Tijuana, which works out to about $2.50 a gallon, way cheaper than gas prices approaching $5 a gallon in San Diego County. Diesel fuel is cheaper still -- $2.19 a gallon. ... But as the price of gas has skyrocketed in the U.S. in the past few years, Mexico has kept its prices in the border area from rising as quickly in order to keep fuel affordable for the poor. In May, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced an additional $20 billion subsidy this year as an emergency measure intended to keep inflationary forces in check. ... There is another reason Mexicans do not like the American invasion of their filling stations. Even though Mexico is an oil exporter, it doesn't have the refinery capacity to turn enough of the oil into gasoline, and therefore imports much of its gas from the U.S. By subsidizing the fuel and reselling it to Americans at cut rates, the Mexican government loses twice. .. For the first four months of the year, Pemex sold gasoline for about $89 a barrel, but paid on average more than $110 a barrel for imports, according to data from the Mexican Energy Ministry. In April, Mexico's gasoline-import bill ballooned to more than $120 a barrel. The government's calculation of the first quarter subsidy bill: $1.8 billion.' -- 24 June, 2008 -- Joel Millman and Ana Campoy -- Wall Street Journal

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 06/27/2008 @ 11:36am

17. Hey BKool, are you suggesting forced abortions worldwide to limit the population ala China?

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/27/2008 @ 11:29am

    I don't know about that idea, but how about forced abortions on republicans and neocons. I'm only kidding...partially.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 06/27/2008 @ 12:04pm

18. Hey BKool, are you suggesting forced abortions worldwide to limit the population ala China?

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/27/2008 @ 11:29am

    there was not the slightest suggestion of this in the post. why don't you just argue with yourself, you jerk?

    Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 12:24pm

19. liberty, even the pentagon has admitted as least as much as Hansen, if not more.

    Posted by darladoon at 06/27/2008 @ 2:48pm

20. Problem is....Hansen gave plenty of ammo to the RIGHT with ..

    "He added that they should, in his opinion, "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature… I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials."

    That goofiness may play with the Left, but it comes off (without LVLIB's help) as "nutty".

    On the up-side...the global warming deniers...

    have NO candidate this year for President.

    Posted by Mask at 06/27/2008 @ 3:56pm

21. "The problem isn't so much 'greenhouse gasses' as it is with variable heat from the sun," "Balataf" opined. "We'd have to get a good deal warmer than this to match the years from about 1000 to 1200. / Some people are not paying close attention to the facts of history."

    Just as some people are not paying close attention to facts that don't fit in their own bullheaded ideology.

    Just visit that lovely website called "Grist" and check "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," and you'll find two nice rebuttals to "Balataf's" "claims" and many more. Here's an example (regarding the "Middle Ages were warmer" claim)"

    "Objection: It was just as warm in the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) as it is today. In fact, Greenland was green and they were growing grapes in England!

    Answer: There is no good evidence that the MWP was a globally warm period comparable to today. Regionally, there may have been places that exhibited notable warmth -- Europe, for example -- but all global proxy reconstructions agree it is warmer now, and the temperature is rising faster now, than at any time in the last one or even two thousand years.

    Anecdotal evidence of wineries in England and Norse farmers in Greenland do not amount to a global assessment.

    On its website, NOAA has a wide selection of proxy studies, accompanied by the data on which they are based. Specifically, they have this to say on the MWP: 'The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today, however, has turned out to be incorrect.'

    With regard to the 'grapes used to grow in England' bit, here is some fairly solid evidence that grapes are in fact growing there now, denialist talking points aside. If that is not enough, RealClimate has a remarkably in-depth review of the history of wine in Great Britain, and how reliable it is as a proxy for global temperatures. (Hint: not very.)"

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:16am

22. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:18am

23. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:18am

24. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:18am

25. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:19am

26. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:20am

27. And here's the other shoe dropping: The rebuttal to "Balataf's" other "claim," also from "Grist":

    "Objection: The sun is the source of warmth on earth. Any increase in temperature is likely due to changes in solar radiation.

    Answer: It's true that the earth is warmed, for all practical purposes, entirely by solar radiation, so if the temperature is going up or down, the sun is a reasonable place to seek the cause.

    Turns out it's more complicated than one might think to detect and measure changes in the amount or type of sunshine reaching the earth. Detectors on the ground are susceptible to all kinds of interference from the atmosphere -- after all, one cloud passing overhead can cause a shiver on an otherwise warm day, but not because the sun itself changed. The best way to detect changes in the output of the sun -- versus changes in the radiation reaching the earth's surface through clouds, smoke, dust, or pollution -- is by taking readings from space.

    This is a job for satellites. According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed."

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:20am

28. Sorry about the repeat postings. The website kept responding with the message that the webpage I was targeting "did not exist", so I hit the "submit" button again.

    Glitches happen.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:23am

29. Dear "Honest Liberal,"

    For a long time I have been saying that if we do not impose a gasoline tax and invest this money in alternatives to automobile dependence, then before long we will have to impose a tax upon everything else in order to subsidize gasoline.

    Already, the two wars that we have fought in Iraq seem to be a "stealth tax" with exactly this latter goal in mind - though right now, this tax consists primarily of debt, deferred to future generations to pay.

    And now, in what you have quoted, it seems that the "Wall Street Journal" is on board with the new program!

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/28/2008 @ 03:57am

30. fine posting.

    Posted by emile duBois at 06/28/2008 @ 08:06am

31. there was not the slightest suggestion of this in the post. why don't you just argue with yourself, you jerk?

    Posted by emile duBois at 06/27/2008 @ 12:24pm

    Sure he did. He complained that the great crisis was one of overpopulation.

    So it is natural to ask how he wants to control or reduce the global population.

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/28/2008 @ 12:35pm

32. Well, I think that the situation isn't settled. Don't know if global warming is man made or not. But a cleaner environment is a good idea, isn't it?

    Bush and his cronies have been pretty busy on that global population thing, haven't they?

    I mean over 4000 soldier's alone now aren't polluting the earth now, right GWB?

    Vote Obama!

    Posted by ginza00 at 06/28/2008 @ 8:45pm