Jim Hansen: klimaatsceptici zijn aan de winnende hand

De klimaatsceptici zijn bezig het pleit te winnen. Dat komt niet uit mijn koker, maar uit die van Jim Hansen, die er in 1998 in slaagde om wat sluimerende zorgjes over een mogelijke opwarming van de aarde door de menselijke uitstoot van CO2 om te zetten in een zeer succesvolle klimaathype, die ons inmiddels honderden miljarden aan weggegooid geld heeft gekost.

Michael McCarthy rapporteert daarover het volgende in 'The Independent':

Climate sceptics are winning the argument with the public over global warming, the world's most celebrated climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA, said in London yesterday.

It is happening even though climate science itself is becoming ever clearer in showing that the earth is in increasing danger from rising temperatures, said Dr Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and is widely thought of as "the father of global warming" – his dramatic alert about climate change in US Senate hearings in July 1988 put the issue on the world agenda.

Since then he has been one of the most outspoken advocates of drastic climate action, and yesterday he also publicly criticised Germany's recent decision to abandon its new nuclear power programme, formerly a key part of German climate measures, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year. "I think it was a big mistake," he said. "And I think the Prime Minister [German Chancellor Angela Merkel] knows that, as she's a physicist, but I think the political reality is she couldn't stay in office if she expressed that opinion."

In a briefing at the Royal Society , Dr Hansen, pictured, was frank about the success with public opinion of what he termed "the climate contrarians", in effectively lessening public concern about global warming. He said: "They have been winning the argument for several years, even though the science has become clearer. "There's been a very strong campaign by those who want to continue fossil fuel 'business as usual', and the scientific story has not been powerful enough to offset that push."

Part of the problem, he said, was that the climate sceptic lobby employed communications professionals, whereas "scientists are just barely competent at communicating with the public and don't have the wherewithal to do it." The result was, he said, that in recent years "a gap has opened between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community, and what's known by the people who need to know – and that's the public.

However there's nothing that has happened to reduce our scientific conclusion that we are pushing the system into very dangerous territory, in fact that conclusion has become stronger over that same time period." Asked if anything might re-alert the public to the dangers of climate change, Dr Hansen said: "Mother Nature."

Lees verder hier

Maar ja, Moeder Natuur wijkt nogal af van de paniekerige opwarmingscenario's van Hansen (zie afbeelding onderaan).

Bovendien ligt de wetenschap (Hansen bedoelt natuurlijk niet 'de' wetenschap, maar 'zijn' wetenschap en die van zijn companen) sterk onder vuur.

Ook zijn gezeur over over het feit dat de communicatie (lees PR) aan de kant van de klimaatwetenschappers tekort zou hebben geschoten is flauwekul. De klimaathype is een schoolvoorbeeld van een geslaagde propagandacampagne. Hoe is het anders mogelijk dat de alarmisten, met de medewerking/compliciteit van de reguliere media, de hele wereld zo'n twintig jaar lang in de greep van de klimaatangst hebben kunden houden? Maar ja, zoals het spreekwoord zegt: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.'

Als dat dan duidelijk is geworden, moet je ook niet verder klagen en de schuld daarvan afschuiven op de fossiele brandstofindustrie. Dat is flauw.