James Oliver Deckard v/s James Hanson
Wonderful account from
The Libertarian Alliance: BLOG:
An Evening with James Hansen
The famous climate �scientist,� James Hansen, spoke at the London School of Economics on the 16th May 2013. Here is an account of his talk and its attendant circumstances.
Last night he gave the usual bilge, truly putting the frighteners on and informing everyone (for about the 10,000th time since 1988) that immediate action is required otherwise thermageddon is guaranteed. Though he has changed his tune a little � the threat is now no longer imminent but (conveniently), �in the pipeline�. That it is going to be catastrophic though, he is in no doubt at all.
A bit more:
The place was absolutely packed � hundreds of people were there and I have to admit, as I listened to one questioner after another identify whichever hack activist group or pleading green lobbying special interest they were from, I truly felt like I was alone in enemy territory. I almost backed out and let my fear get the better of me. But I kept putting my hand up regardless � Hansen�s scaremongering could not go unanswered and if it wasn�t by way of putting points and questions to him then it was going to have to be heckles.
Shortly before the mike came to me, one of the activists in the audience pointed out that he [Hansen] was only preaching to the choir, saying that it was important to get people from �outside the choir� to attend such events and asking how.
And the meat of the exchange:
I stood up and laid into him. I said that he was high on the hyperbole and hysteria and low on the facts. Most of the people there would unfortunately take him at his word and not look any further so I said I felt obliged to point out that most of his claims were highly controversial and some were flat out wrong and that I�d be happy to go through them with him there and then and debate him.
The crowd then turned on me, exploding in incredulity.
I said that my question to him was that if he truly wanted people from �outside the choir� to get involved then what on earth did he expect to happen when he (and he did) ridiculously claim that there was an �enormous well funded denial conspiracy, funded by big oil and gas�, thereby immediately dismissing anyone who dared to air a single sceptical thought.
After several hostile exchanges with the crowd immediately around me and a bit of back and forth between myself and Hansen, he finally got around to (not) answering my question. His response was bizarre. He came out with the hackneyed bollocks that the basis of science was scepticism blah blah blah. He then said that he had debated Richard Lindzen previously (Lindzen is one of the world�s most famous climate sceptics and most highly published atmospheric physicist). He said (referring to Lindzen) that it was �hard to win against an articulate guy�). He also � bizarrely � claimed that Lindzen had been shown to be wrong again and again and that he [Hansen] would no longer have any kind of debates, public or otherwise, with Lindzen or others because � apparently � �even when he has been shown to be wrong on so many occasions, he just shifts to another point to pick on�.
Much more at the site.
Hansen is just plain off his rocker. He 'retired' from his post at NASA and is now doing the speech circuit. He needs to do a careful self-evaluation as his claims are coming apart at the seams. He has not done honest science in forty years...
Posted by DaveH at May 18, 2013 11:50 AM