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En overraskende personlig bog skrevet af NASA's klimaekspert James Hansen. Han er overrasket over hvor sårbar planetens klima er og over hvor hurtigt en opvarmning kan ske. Hvis vi brænder alt fossilt kul af, så ender vi som Venus nr 2 i solsystemet.
Han ser sig selv som et Vidne, ikke som en Prædikant. Han beskriver sine egne erfaringer fra 2001-2009 og starter med sin 60 års fødselsdag. Eller rettere helt fra start og med sin første videnskabelige artikel, nemlig en observation af en måneformørkelse i marts 1963, som kom ni måneder efter et stort vulkanudbrud på Mount Agung.
I 2001 kommer han med i en Climate Task Force nedsat af præsident Bush. Han forklarer fænomener som Den Sydlige Oscillation og Climate Forcings. Og tidligere klimaændringer, fx Den Lille Istid og forklarer blandt andet med et lille 1-watts juletræ. I sig selv ikke ret meget, men hvis der brænder sådan et ekstra juletræ på hver kvadratmeter af Jorden altid, så kan der ske ting og sager. Han har nedjusteret sin egen fornemmelse for hvor meget co2 der er for meget. 350 ppm højst, tak!
En enkelt grad nedkøling stoppede engelsk vindyrkning. Præsidentens Climate Task Force er en form for cherry picking, hvor man har udvalgt folk, der siger noget, man gerne vil høre og så nogle naive videnskabsfolk, der tror at det er en ærlig debat.
James Hansen vender tilbage fra det andet møde i Climate Task Force og sætter sine studerende på sagen.
I mellemtiden sørger Dick Cheney og Bush for at stoppe det her forsøg på at tage fakta-baserede beslutninger.
Og fysikerne begynder at regne på forsimplede klimamodeller, hvor man fx tager en uændret jord og fordobler co2 koncentrationen. Det giver 4 watt pr m2 i forcing og en simpel Planck-model giver at Jorden så bliver 1.2 grader celsius varmere. Klimamodeller er ikke ret meget bedre, for de skal modellere helt uhyggeligt meget.
Metan og sod skal i hvert fald også tælles med.
Resten af historien er lige sådan. Politikerne lytter ikke (med undtagelse af Al Gore). Eller er købt og betalt af kul og olie industrien. Et godt bud på hvor det ender er en isfri jord med en havstigning på 75 meter.
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In Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen, the world's leading scientist on climate issues, speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming- the planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return. Although Hansen was Al Gore's science advisor for An Inconvenient Truth, his recent data shows that our situation is even more dire today. But politicians haven't made the connection between the policy and the science. He shows why Gore's solution won't work, why we must phase out all coal, and why 350 ppm of carbon is a goal we must achieve in the next two decades if our grandchildren are to avoid global meltdown. This urgent manifesto bucks conventional wisdom (including the Kyoto Protocol) and is sure to stir controversy, but Hansen - whose climate predictions have come to pass again and again, beginning in the 1980s when he first warned Congress about global warming - is the single most credible voice on the subject worldwide, and this book is sure to receive enormous attention. Hansen paints a devastating but all-too-realistic picture of what will happen in the next year, and ten years from now if we follow the course we're on. But he is also an optimist, showing that there is still time to do what we need to do. Urgent, strong action is needed, and this book, released just before the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009, will be key in setting the agenda going forward to create a groundswell, a tipping point, to save humanity - and our grandchildren - from a dire fate more imminent than we had supposed.… (more)
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Though Hansen does, of course, occasionally get into some really dense science in this book, overall it is very readable. He writes with an oddly casual tone, that makes the book feel rather personal- as if he is just sitting down and talking to you. He covers all the basics of climate change that people should know about; climate forcings, the exact difference between weather and climate, ice sheet collapse, feedback mechanisms that amplify climate change, sea level rise etc. But this book is also somewhat autobiographical; Hansen talks about his own personal experiences with the government and the increasingly political NASA under the Bush administration, as he refused to be censored. There is also, unsurprisingly, a lot about his grandchildren; this may be a scientific book, but it is also an intensely personal one, and it is Hansen's personal pleas for the world's grandchildren to be given a fair chance in life that are the most memorable part of the book.
One of the most haunting chapters is The Venus Syndrome, when Hansen discusses the possibility of runaway climate change ending life on Earth totally. He thinks that if we burn all fossil fuels, including things like the Canadian tar sands, this is a dead certainty. Hopefully other issues will get in the way of that occurring, and I'm pretty sure they will, but even the possibility of this occurring is a pretty frightening thought.
The most interesting chapter is An Effective Path- the solutions chapter. Here he explains what is so wrong with the cap-and-trade system that is touted around the world as being the best way to reduce emissions- it was this sort of scheme that was in the Kyoto Protocol and which Copenhagen was supposed to give us. Hansen's arguments against this are extremely compelling, as are his arguments for fee-and-dividend system, sometimes called a carbon tax- Hansen doesn't like this name as it implies that cap-and-trade isn't a tax, which it is, it's just a hidden one that gives no benefits to citizens.
Less compelling are his words on alternative energy. Well, only a little bit less; Hansen for the most part knows the facts about clean energy. He recognises that 'clean coal' is not a legitimate solution, and is being used by governments to make it look like their doing something, when in fact there are many technological issues with clean coal, and it will likely never get off the ground- or at earliest, 2040, which is rather late. He also recognises that renewable energy is generally not capable of providing baseload electricity needs, due to its intermittent nature. This is all good stuff, though much more can be found elsewhere explaining why clean coal and renewable energy are insufficient to run industrial civilisation in its current form.
The big problem is Hansen's bit on nuclear energy, which can be best described as cornucopian. He talks about the potential of the speculative fourth generation nuclear power plants, which are said to be able to use 99% of the energy from uranium (as opposed to current nuclear power plants, which use very little and the rest comes out as nuclear waste), to supply electricity for thousands of years with current supplies of uranium. I didn't know anything about this at the time of reading, so I was thoroughly absorbed by it all. Then I went away and read about 4th generation nuclear, or breeder reactors, more; turns out test ones have been made in some countries, and there are a hell of a lot of technological issues that have to be overcome for it to ever be possible, and we don't have time for those to be sorted out. Hansen is cautious in his support of nuclear energy, due to the fact that 4th generation nuclear power plants haven't been made yet, but I feel he gives too much of an impression that this is the answer to all of our problems, which it really isn't.
Aside from that, Hansen has written a very good book. It is an effective introduction to climate change, and is good for those looking for an update of the science too. Certainly worth reading.
Storms is mainly a science book describing the science behind global warming. It can get detailed but Hansen is thorough. His career has been spent in developing and advancing the science. He is optimistic that changes can be made in time to prevent a lifeless Earth. He does believe that if every last hydrocarbon is burned for energy, including tar sands and shale oil, then the Earth will rebel and wipe us out. We might hold off the nuclear demons but fall to the greenhouse gas demons. 500 years at the most before this doomsday.
James Hansen was a scientist at NASA with a particular interest in climate change. This book explains what is happening with climate change and what needs to be done to stop the potentially devastating effects.
I was listening to the audio, and I think that made it a bit tougher for the
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Omslagsfoto: iStockphoto
Omslaget viser vand, en kystlinie og nogle bjerge
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Side 12: The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.
Side 55: It made a big impression on young Feynman - seeing how really good scientists work. They wanted to look at a problem from all angles, reexamining alternatives and different facets, to guard against a mistake. All the while they could recognize the best idea without having to repeat the arguments.
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