Replies to post #281903 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

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‘The doomsayers were right’: James Hansen’s 30-year-old climate warning rings true today
30 years after a brave scientist warned us about global warming, deniers run America.

Joe Romm
Jun 22, 2018, 8:00 am


EARTH’S AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE FROM 2013 TO 2017 COMPARED TO 1951 TO 1980 AVERAGE.
YELLOWS, ORANGES, AND REDS SHOW REGIONS WARMER THAN BASELINE. CREDIT: NASA

On June 23, 1988 NASA’s James Hansen told the U.S. Congress that global warming had begun — and he predicted it was just going to get worse and worse as levels of human-caused carbon pollution kept rising.

“Thirty years later, it’s clear that Hansen and other doomsayers were right,”... https://www.apnews.com/dbd81ca2a7244ea088a8208bab1c87e2/Warned-30-years-ago,-global-warming-'is-in-our-living-room';...
the AP explained this week after talking to more than 50 scientists.... https://www.apnews.com/c895b9ac7e4a4370953e51862285c2ce/Looking-for-signs-of-global-warming?-They%27re-all-around-you

Indeed, earlier this year, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) tweeted out that “the five warmest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010.”

The five warmest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010. pic.twitter.com/p4TUJ8uqNY

— NASA GISS (@NASAGISS) January 18, 2018

NASA scientists' most recent annual global warming temperature chart.

But 30 years ago, there was nothing like Twitter. To get the message out, then Sen. Tim Wirth (D-CO) held a hearing on a hot summer day about climate change in front of more than a dozen TV cameras and countless reporters.
He showcased Hansen, who was director of NASA’s GISS.
https://grist.org/article/a-climate-hero-the-testimony/

“The greenhouse effect has been detected,” Hansen told the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as temperatures that day hit 101°F in the nation’s capital, “and it is changing our climate now.”

Humans were enhancing the natural greenhouse effect by burning fossil fuels, sending billions of tons of heat trapping CO2 into the air, he explained. That’s why temperatures had been climbing in recent years and over the longer term.

The New York Times featured Hansen’s testimony the next day on its front page with the headline, “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate,” along with a NASA chart of warming temperatures.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html



The Times explained: “Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising global temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming caused by pollutants in the atmosphere.” Hansen was bravely sticking his neck out to warn the nation and the world.

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Projected changes in annual average temperatures (2070–2099) with strong climate policies (left) and with current policies (right). CREDIT: National Climate Assessment
Trump’s White House just declared that humans are responsible for all recent warming
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-national-climate-assessment-9ae0781f7a9a/

[...]

https://thinkprogress.org/30-years-after-a-brave-scientist-warned-us-about-global-warming-deniers-run-america-20fc66beb133/