Coventry climate change funeral march, featuring Jim Hansen. Fortunately, only a few hundred participated. Perhaps even the British are growing tired of Hansen’s alarmism?

“Global warming is accelerating, the arctic and antarctic ice shelves are rapidly melting, sea level and global temperatures are on the rise, ocean acidification is increasing, foot shortages and water shortages are occurring worldwide, a mass extinction event of millions of species is underway, and the human race faces peril. Thanks to coal, oil, and the industrial revolution.”

Note that the initial speaker is Paul Ehrlich. What does that tell us?

James Hansen is combining his scientific career with a political one. On Thursday, he will once again take part in a massive climate protest in Great Britain. This time, Hansen will actually lead the whole thing. The protest is being organized by Christian Aid and will involve a New Orleans-style funeral march by “mourners” for future lost generations.

Obviously, James Hansen is not worried that his climate activism may harm the reputation of science. He’s by the way not the only one who, desperate for new climate policies,  turns to activism. Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow, at the Earth and Biosphere Institute at Leeds University, believes his understanding of climate change means he is morally obliged to become a climate activist.

Others, like Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre, use academic journals to post their views on climate politics. Anderson recently wrote the following in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society:

“Emissions are rising so fast that we are heading for a world that will be 4C-5C warmer than now by 2100. That would be catastrophic. (…) Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonisation, it is difficult to foresee anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilising the climate.”

But if scientists start acting as politicians, what damage will that do to science itself? How can we trust scientific results? If science becomes distorted by politics, how will we be able to tell the truth about our world?

James Hansen has promised to join the greatest US civil disobedience ever that will take place at the Capitol Power Plant in Washington D.C on March 2d. The event, known as the Capitol Climate Action (CCA), is said to be the largest mass mobilization on global warming in the country’s history.

“The Capitol Climate Action comes not a moment too soon. For more than thirty years, scientists, environmentalists and people from all walks of life have urged our leaders to take action to stop global warming; and that action has yet to come,” said James Hansen. “The world is waiting for the Obama administration and Congress to lead the way forward on this defining issue of our time. They need to start by getting coal out of Congress.”

The question is, what does NASA say about James Hansen’s deep engagement in climate action?

Australian ABC News reports today that Dr James Hansen has sent a letter to Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging him to stop the mining and exports of coal. Australia is one of the world’s biggest coal producers. However, both India and China produce more coal than the Aussies. China is the world leader with 2.4 Mt, eight times as much as Australia’s output. But I guess they are pardoned being in need of fast development.

Coal is Australia’s largest commodity export and a vital national resource. It provides 85 percent of Australia’s electricity production. So what James Hansen is suggesting is practically a total blackout of the Land Down Under.

Climate scientist Jimbo Hansen at NASA has just drafted a fresh paper urging us to return the CO2-levels back to those of 1988 (350ppm).

Humanity today, collectively, must face the uncomfortable fact that industrial civilization itself has become the principal driver of global climate. If we stay our present course, using fossil fuels to feed a growing appetite for energy-intensive life styles, we will soon leave the climate of the Holocene, the world of human history. The eventual response to doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 likely would be a nearly ice-free planet.

The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.

Sounds to me more like sermon than science. I wonder if Hansen at all believes returning to 1988-levels of CO2 is possible with emissions pouring out of China and India. Someone should tell the guy to get a grip.