Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.

James Hansen

Global warming isn't a prediction. It is happening.

James Hansen

Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed.

James Hansen

It's as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.

James Hansen

Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine.

James Hansen

The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.

James Hansen

We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.

James Hansen

What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

James Hansen

I have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn't make it clear.

James Hansen

Climate change is analogous to Lincoln and slavery or Churchill and Nazism: it's not the kind of thing where you can compromise.

James Hansen

After spending three or four years interacting with the Bush administration, I realized they were not taking any actions to deal with climate change. So, I decided to give one talk, and then it snowballed into another talk and eventually to even protesting and getting arrested.

James Hansen

Scientists will say we can't blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that's right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.

James Hansen

I tend to be naive and gullible, I guess, but I try to believe that governments believe what they say.

James Hansen

Talking nice about sun and wind and green jobs is just greenwash.

James Hansen

Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.

James Hansen

You have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media.

James Hansen

What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.

James Hansen

The five warmest years over the last century occurred in the last eight years.

James Hansen

You can't turn on your television without seeing these advertisements about clean coal, clean tar sands and the claim that there's more jobs associated with fossil fuels than other industries. That's of course not true. But they're hammering that into the voters' heads.

James Hansen

What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet.

James Hansen

You can't tie a rope around the ice sheet. You can't build a wall around the ice sheets.

James Hansen