The JAXA and NSIDC websites are there, the data is available for inspection. Don’t take my word for it.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/index.htm
http://nsidc.org/

I’ll be perfectly honest with you. It scares the shit out of me. I’m glad I don’t have any kids.

Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention but I don’t think I’ve see him deny anything lately.

I get the impression the denialist community doesn’t want anything to do with any of the solutions, so they have just decided there isn’t a problem, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes and spend whatever they have to to see to it that no one believes there is a problem.

Nowhere in all those pages of posts I laid down do I make even one suggestion of what we should be doing about climate change, in the way of policy, regulation, technical solutions, law, etc. I doubt if I’m even qualified to make that kind of decision. But I never got that far before I was told to shut up because I didn’t know Hansen.

This is why I find this flap so frustrating. I could see someone saying, in good faith, “We have a climate problem, but this guy Hansen’s solution is not the way to go.” That’s a big difference from saying, “You don’t know who Hansen is, so you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Or,

“Hansen’s an idiot, there is no problem and we don’t have to do squat. Shut up, I know all about this and you don’t. Don’t bore us with graphs and satellite photos, we’ve already talked about that. Trust us. We know what we’re doing.”

From what little I read about Hansen on Wikipedia, he apparently is highly respected and his science is first rate, but even those who support his conclusions feel his response is too radical and impossible to politically and economically implement. His fellow scientists feel he is compromising himself and his message by his activism. But who he is and what he wants has nothing to do with the information on the JAXA and NSIDC websites.

But that’s putting the cart before the horse. All I’m saying is these temperatures and graphs and photos all tell me that we have a problem, we need to do something, and the sooner the better. Furthermore, those who deny there is a problem are irresponsible. Maybe Hansen is an extremist. Maybe he’s not extreme enough. I really don’t know. But as I tried to explain. That is not what I’m talking about. I don’t need to know what he wants to do. I really don’t care.

I haven’t got much idea of how to go about protecting us from climate change, but I think I am able to evaluate whether or not we HAVE climate change or not. And I certainly don’t need some political hack wannabee telling me I don’t even know enough to know what I should be talking about.

And here we are, instead of talking about the pictures or the numbers, we’re talking about Hansen. We’re not even talking about Hansen, we’re talking about whether we should be taling about Hansen. We’re not talking about ice.

Unfortunately, all he really knows about Hansen is his policy proposals for handling AGW’s consequences, which he obviously loathes, but which we are not even talking about here. They are quite irrelevant to this discussion. You can’t discuss solutions unless you both agree there’s a problem.

So he has the Rearden Metal casters to suggest that because I am not familiar with Hansen’s political program, or the Right’s campaign to demonize him, I can’t read a satellite photo, do simple statistics, or draw conclusions from well-presented scientific data from reputable sources which I am perfectly well-qualified to evaluate. By extension, he implies no one else here is qualified either, not even the (at least one)other earth scientist who posts here.

In other words, he is telling me what I need to know to be competent in my own field. He even has the patronizing arrogance to suggest what I need to bone up on so he can change the subject to something he’d rather talk about instead. Here’s his statement, and my response.

TB: To claim to be able to seriously discuss the global warming controversy and have no idea who Hansen is, is like someone pontificating on the chances of their favorite football team and having no clue who the quarterback is.

ER: He [Hansen} contributed no data to my argument, his opinions did not influence my analysis, my reasoning was not guided by his in any way.

So which statement makes the least initial assumptions, unfounded declarations, and inappropriate comparisons (football, my ass!)? Hansen is TB’s bogeyman, he’s not MY champion. And I never claimed to know shit about football.

I’m sure he does in your world. However, I am far, far, far more familiar with Al Gore than I am with James Hansen. That may be because Hansen is a nut, espousing a cause which has passed from possible to probably to for sure and his ideas are no longer relevant.

But in your world, he’s as well known as Al Gore. Says a lot.

Talking about Creationism, for example. Ridiculous. It shouldn’t be mentioned. Like giving equal time to the Flat Earthers.

Giving any sort of attention to those who deny man-made global warming is like giving attention to those who say we didn’t land on the Moon. Silly.

And why they are ignored, they blame those who ignore them, instead of examining their positions and acknowledging the ridiculousness of them.

But that takes guts.

Arf

We’re not so lucky in California. “Cap and trade” starts in January, with an estimated billion dollars in new taxes flowing the first year to the eager grasping hands in Sacramento.

There aren’t enough offset credits to balance the taxes, which will result in huge cost penalties to industries that stay here, but then the taxes were the whole point in the first place. Watch what happens. Some industries can move. Agriculture, already on the ropes in the Central Valley, can’t.

After years of telling us AGW was a fraud, or a Socialist plot, now you would rather change the subject and talk about Hansen, instead. I’m not surprised. Your task was to get everybody fed up with talking about this issue, preserve the status quo and you and your fellow shills succeeded admirably at that. If Mr Romney gets elected we’ll even have a President who is on your side.

But the ice would still be melting even if Hansen had never existed. What he says or thinks has nothing to do with what is happening now. Neither does anything you say or think. So go right ahead and complain all you want about him, no one is stopping you, and nobody cares.