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.