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Burning Tar Sands = ‘Unsolvable’ Climate Crisis: Hansen

By May 22, 2013
protesters with anti-tar sands banner

We have a 'tremendously chaotic' climate on the way, climate expert warns Fresh off his resignation from NASA, leading climate scientist James Hansen is making the rounds this week, warning media and lawmakers that not only are we heading for a "tremendously chaotic" climate, but if we dig up and burn Canadian tar sands, the climate crisis will be rendered "unsolvable." Hansen told a a panel of U.K. lawmakers, the Environmental Audit Committee, on Friday that “the potential amount of … [Read more...]

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Citing mystical vision, Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline

By April 1, 2013
Barack Obama speaking

Cutting short a permit review process expected to conclude this summer at earliest, President Obama today announced that he has decided to block the Keystone XL pipeline planned to carry more than 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian tar-sands crude into the country. "After a careful process of deliberation, and a prophetic vision after Easter service on Sunday, I have determined that permitting construction [of the pipeline] would not serve the national interest of the United States," Mr. … [Read more...]

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A fork in the road on dirty energy

By February 22, 2013
Photo: tarsandsaction/Flickr.

This article is taken from a response by James Hansen to an op-ed piece published by Joe Nocera in the New York Times on February 18, 2013, "How Not to Fix Climate Change."  There, Nocera writes "I believe the Obama administration should approve the Keystone pipeline, which would transport oil mined and processed from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Like it or not, fossil fuels are going to remain the world’s dominant energy source for the … [Read more...]

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#25: Thoughtful repurposing

By December 7, 2011
25th Reason

As we mentioned in Reason #27, the vast majority of the content on Transition Voice is original. We do it with the fresh on! But occasionally we do repurpose articles, especially when it comes to some of the greats, like climate activist Bill McKibben, climatologist James Hansen, economist Jeff Rubin, or democracy advocate Ralph Nader. Let's face it, the Internet is, in the words of the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, "a long hard slog." Sometimes you need someone to goeth before you, … [Read more...]

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Time to step up

By October 25, 2011
350 Candles

Next on the climate change agenda: Durban, South Africa, the location of the next round of global climate talks. The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires next year, by which time a new agreement needs to have been reached. Climate agreements are important because the signatory nations commit to reaching certain goals by a certain time. This being the case, it's always a source of great disappointment to American environmentalists that, while the US signed Kyoto, it has never honored the … [Read more...]

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Calloused but not broken: Walking Away From Empire

By September 28, 2011
Feet

Guy McPherson’s latest gift, Walking Away From Empire: A Personal Journey, is a necessary tonic, or more aptly perhaps, a high colonic, for those who have ears but refuse to hear the story of climate change and its pervasive affect on the life of man and the world. This collection of essays proclaims loudly, and occasionally with raw emotion, that it's time we took off our cultural blinders and acknowledged the obvious facts confronting humanity and the earth. A time to be born, a time to … [Read more...]

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Oil price differentials, not emissions, the key to Keystone

By September 19, 2011
Keystone XL Pipeline

James Hansen, NASA’s lead climate scientist, says if TransCanada Pipeline’s Keystone XL mega-project connecting Alberta tar sand producers to Gulf Coast refineries is approved, it is game over for the planet. It certainly won’t be game over for Alberta’s oil patch or the thousands of North American steel workers who will build the massive pipeline. And I rather doubt it will be game over for the planet. If Hansen is worried about emissions growth, he just has to look at where the … [Read more...]

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The White House and tar sands

By September 5, 2011
Photo of tar sands protesters

Let us return for a moment to election night 2008. As I sat in our farm house in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama's victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America. We had great hopes for Barack Obama - perhaps our dreams were unrealistic - he is only human. But it is appropriate, it is right, in a period honoring Martin Luther King, to recall the hopes and dreams of that evening. We had … [Read more...]

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How I learned to start worrying and hate the tar sands pipeline

By August 24, 2011
Bill McKibben arrested at White House

I'm their target audience. I already care about climate change. And I don't like Big Oil. Yet, it took Bill McKibben and more than 150 other activists getting arrested at the White House for me to finally care about the tar sands pipeline. Before that, I had five reasons to leave this particular issue to somebody else: Pipelines are boring. With the Environmental Protection Agency reporting up to 24,000 oil spills each year, plenty of crude must mess up dry land, but it lacks the … [Read more...]

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The changed climate: Warmer and wetter

By May 10, 2011
Tornado

“Tornadoes need warm, moist air interacting with faster, cooler air," explains Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "That much scientists know for sure. There’s a lot we understand about tornadoes. They’re tied to thunderstorms, and also require something that will cause rotation to occur, a wind shear.” Years from now, we may look back and remember April 2011 as the month climate change took  hold on the public’s mind. It was very difficult not to hear … [Read more...]

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