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james hansen
The Most Important Thing That Happened This Year Was the Heat
And yet you really wouldn’t know it from reading the wrap-ups of the year’s news now appearing on one website after another.
Dec 28, 2023
The world—its politics, its economy, and its journalism—has trouble coping with the scale of the climate crisis. We can’t quite wrap our collective head around it, which has never been clearer to me than in these waning days of 2023.
Because the most important thing that happened this year was the heat. By far. It was hotter than it has been in at least 125,000 years on this planet. Every month since May was the hottest ever recorded. Ocean temperatures set a new all-time mark, over 100°F. Canada burned, filling the air above our cities with smoke.
And yet you really wouldn’t know it from reading the wrap-ups of the year’s news now appearing on one website after another.
We’re programmed—by evolution, doubtless, and in the case of journalism by counting clicks—to look for novelty and for conflict. Climate change seems inexorable, which is the opposite of how we think about news.
Earlier today, for instance, The New York Times published an essay by investment banker and Obama consigliere Steven Rattner on “ten charts that mattered in 2023.” That’s the most establishment voice imaginable, in the most establishment spot. And the global temperature curve did make the list—at #10, well behind graphs about the fall in inflation, the president’s approval levels, the number of Trump indictments, the surge in immigrants, and the speed with with the GOP defenestrated Kevin McCarthy.
Indeed, yesterday the Times and The Washington Post both published fine stories about 2023’s record temperatures, but they were odd: In each case, they centered on whether the year was enough to show that the climate crisis was “accelerating.” It’s an interesting question, drawing mainly on a powerful new paper by James Hansen (one that readers of this newsletter found out about last winter), but the premise of the reporting, if you take a step back, is kind of wild. Because the climate crisis is already crashing down on us. It doesn’t require “acceleration” to be the biggest—by orders of magnitude—dilemma facing our species.
In a sense, though, that’s the problem. Those stories in the Times and Post were a way to search for a new angle to a story that doesn’t change quite fast enough to count as news. (In geological terms, we’re warming at hellish pace; but that’s not how the 24/7 news cycle works.) It’s been record-global-hot every day for months now: The first few of those days got some coverage, but at a certain point editors, and then readers, begin to tune out. We’re programmed—by evolution, doubtless, and in the case of journalism by counting clicks—to look for novelty and for conflict. Climate change seems inexorable, which is the opposite of how we think about news.
The war in Gaza, by contrast, fits our definitions perfectly. It is an extraordinary tragedy, it changes day by day, and it is the definition of conflict. And perhaps there’s something we can do about it (which is why many of us have been trying to build support for a cease-fire). So, rightly, it commands our attention. But in a sense, it is the very familiarity of the war that makes it easy for us to focus on it; “Mideast conflict,” like “inflation” or “presidential elections,” is an easily-accessed template in our minds. The images of the horror make us, as they should, feel uncomfortable—but it’s a familiar discomfort. The despair, and the resolve, we feel are familiar too; even the subparts of the story fit into familiar grooves (a New York Times reader would be forgiven for thinking the main front of the war is being played out in Harvard Yard, between free speech advocates and cancel culture warriors). Next year seems likely to be another orgy of familiarity: Joe Biden and Donald Trump, yet again.
Climate change has its own familiar grooves—above all the fight with the fossil fuel industry, which played out again at COP28 in Dubai. But so much of the story is actually brand new: As this year showed, we’re literally in uncharted territory, dealing with temperatures no human society has ever dealt with before. And to head off the worst, we are going to require an industrial transition on a scale we’ve never seen before: There were signs this year that that transition has begun (by midsummer we were installing a gigawatt worth of solar panels a day), but it will have to go much much faster.
These changes—the physical ones, and the political and economic ones—are almost inconceivable to us. That’s my point; they don’t fit our easy templates.
And the point of my newsletter, now and in the years to come, is to try and explain the speed of our crisis, and explain what it dictates about the speed of our response. It’s a story I’ve been trying to put into perspective for 35 years now (The End of Nature was published in 1989, the first book about this crisis), and I’ll keep looking for new ways in. As the climate scientist Andrew Dessler put it in one year-end account, "The only really important question is, 'How many more years like this we have to have before the reality of how bad climate change is breaks into the public's consciousness?'"
Thank you for being part of this ongoing effort to break into that consciouness, and—well, happy new year. It’s coming at us, we might as well make it count.
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We Underestimated the Speed and Scale of the Climate Crisis, Scientists Warn
“We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions,” one expert said.
Jul 21, 2023
As leading climate scientists watch the devastating, breakneck speed of unfolding climate disasters unfolding across the globe—from record soaring temperatures to catastrophic flooding—many are aghast at how rapidly their worst predictions are being now being played out in real-time.
Some are also now admitting that they might well have underestimated the speed and scale of our impending climate crisis and how bad things could get.
This is deeply ironic because, for years, those scientists who sounded the alarm over climate change were attacked by the oil industry or their funded front groups for exaggerating or playing “chicken little.”
“The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range.”
But now some of the most senior climate scientists on the planet are speaking out about their concerns.
Speaking to the BBC Thursday morning, Sir Bob Watson, who is currently emeritus professor of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, “I am very concerned. None of the observed changes so far (at +1.2°C) are surprising. But they are more severe than we predicted. We probably underestimated the consequences.”
He added “The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range. We are likely to pass 1.5°C in the mid-2030’s and 2°C around 2060. Current pledges and the policies needed them are totally inadequate.”
As the BBC notes, although Watson’s “comments are candid on the state of action on climate change, many of his colleagues will agree with his conclusion that we are on course for a temperature rise of 2.5°C or more.”
And Watson’s colleagues do concur. Ellen Thomas, a Yale University scientist who studies climate change told TheGuardian “It’s not just the magnitude of change, it’s the rate of change that’s an issue.”
Thomas added: “We have highways and railroads that are set in place, our infrastructure can’t move. Almost all my colleagues have said that, in hindsight, we have underestimated the consequences. Things are moving faster than we thought, which is not good.”
Other leading scientists agree too:
Meanwhile, others are being candid that nothing will change until we reduce our use of fossil fuels. “I’ve been expecting this for 20 years,” Professor Camille Parmesan, from the National Center for Scientific Research and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author, told Bloomberg. “This is just going to keep happening given that we’re not reducing emissions.”
Speaking to TheGuardian, James Hansen, often seen as the Godfather of climate science, warned we are hurtling towards a superheated climate because “we are damned fools” for not acting sooner. “We have to taste it to believe it.”
He told The Guardian: “There’s a lot more in the pipeline, unless we reduce the greenhouse gas amounts. These superstorms are a taste of the storms of my grandchildren. We are headed wittingly into the new reality—we knew it was coming.”'
“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis.”
“This does not mean that the extreme heat at a particular place this year will recur and grow each year,” he continued. “Weather fluctuations move things around. But the global average temperature will go up and the climate dice will be more and more loaded, including more extreme events.”
In a so far unpeer-reviewed scientific paper, Hansen and colleagues said: “It seems that we are headed into a new frontier of global climate,” one not seen for millions of years.
They warn: “As long as more energy is coming in than going out, we must expect global warming to continue.”
Al Gore is another who is alarmed by what they are witnessing: “Everywhere you look in the world, the extremes have now seemingly reached a new level,” he told TheNew York Times in an interview. “The temperatures in the North Atlantic and the unprecedented decline of the Antarctic sea ice, both simultaneously. We see it in upstate New York, we see it in Vermont, we see it in southern Japan, we see it in India. We see it in the unprecedented drought in Uruguay and in Argentina.”
“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis,” Gore added. “If the world is not permitted to discuss the phasing down of fossil fuels because the fossil fuel companies don’t want the world to discuss it, that’s the sign of a very flawed process.”
But it’s not too late to act. As Watson said: “We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions.” And its not just governments. It’s the oil industry, too; as Gore points out, this is a fossil fuel crisis. Created by the fossil fuel industry. Because their decades-old public relations strategy of denying the evidence, spreading doubt, and delaying action is the reason our world is on fire right now.
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Celebration as Last German Nuclear Plants Power Down
"The United States would do well to follow this example, rather than continue to fund nuclear power, the slowest, and most expensive of all energy choices," asserted one activist.
Apr 17, 2023
Environmentalists in Europe and beyond cheered as Germany's last three nuclear power plants went offline over the weekend, a controversial move the country's environmental minister hailed as the start of "a new era of energy production."
The Associated Pressreports the Emsland, Neckarwestheim II, and Isar II nuclear plants were shut down shortly before midnight Saturday after decades of protests and pressure by anti-nuclear campaigners.
"Millions of people worked towards this day for years," Greenpeace Germany managing director Roland Hipp wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday by Common Dreams. "People who protested against reprocessing plants, nuclear waste transport, unsafe nuclear waste storage facilities, and the construction of new nuclear power plants. Those decades of resistance were worth it."
"The German nuclear phaseout is a victory of reason over the lust for profit; over powerful corporations and their client politicians," Hipp added. "It is a people-powered success against all the odds."
\u201cThe last remaining German nuclear power stations finally shut down two days ago.\n\nGermany's nuclear phaseout has made the remarkable growth of renewables possible.\n\nThere's work to do, but a 100% renewable energy system is within reach.\u201d— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace International) 1681725933
Germany's nuclear shutdown—which was originally scheduled for completion by the end of 2022—was postponed as part of a compromise by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the Social Democratic Party, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent fuel shortages.
The phaseout—a key component of Germany's plan to produce 80% of the country's power from renewable sources by the end of the decade—is highly controversial, as numerous experts including former NASA climate scientist James Hansen urged Scholz to keep the reactors online.
Opponents of the phaseout argued that Germany's plan to replace the roughly 6% of electricity generated by the three shuttered nuclear plants with renewables, gas, and coal—the latter of which fuels more than 30% of the country's power—poses a greater climate risk than keeping the reactors in operation.
"Germany recognizes that renewables are cheaper, faster, and safer than nuclear power and come without a lethal waste legacy."
However, German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, a member of Alliance 90/The Greens, argued that "the risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable."
Last week, Lemke visited Fukushima, Japan, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster—the worst since the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine in 1986, when the country was part of the Soviet Union.
Juergen Trittin, parliamentary leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, said that "we are putting an end to a dangerous, unsustainable, and costly technology."
\u201cNuclear power is over now in Germany. Renewables easily filling the gap. If France got its act together and stopped needing to import German lignite electricity, the Energiewende would move even faster.\u201d— Beyond Nuclear International (@Beyond Nuclear International) 1681561606
Linda Pentz Gunter, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Nuclear, said in a statement that "the renewable energy revolution needed to save us from the worst of the climate crisis is a matter of political will, not technical know-how, and Germany's weekend shutdown of its last three nuclear reactors marks a strong step in that direction."
"The nuclear phaseout opened the way for renewable energy growth in Germany," she added. "Germany recognizes that renewables are cheaper, faster, and safer than nuclear power and come without a lethal waste legacy. The United States would do well to follow this example, rather than continue to fund nuclear power, the slowest, and most expensive of all energy choices."
Germany's neighbors remain heavily dependent upon nuclear power. France derives about 70% of its electricity from 56 nuclear power plants, while such facilities provide Switzerland and Belgium with between 30% and 40% of their electric power.
During a Group of Seven meeting that included Germany over the weekend, Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States announced a new nuclear power alliance and G7 ministers put out a statement that says "those countries that opt to use nuclear energy recognize its potential to provide affordable low-carbon energy that can reduce dependence on fossil fuels, to address the climate crisis, and to ensure global energy security as a source of baseload energy and grid flexibility."
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