James Hansen Quotes

United States, Professor
March 29, 1941

James Edward Hansen is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years he has become a climate activist to mitigate the effects of climate change, on a few occasions leading to his arrest.

Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.

James Hansen
The climate system is being pushed hard enough that change will become obvious to the man in the street in the next decade.

James Hansen
- Change
- Street
- Pushed

Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.

James Hansen
- Civilization
- Threat
- Coal
Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril.

James Hansen
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.

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

James Hansen
It would be immoral to leave young people with a climate system spiraling out of control.

James Hansen
- Control
- Young
- Climate
The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet.

James Hansen
- Impact
- Planet
- Extremes

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

James Hansen
- Future
- Doing
- Issue
If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet.

James Hansen
- Different
- Act
- Planet
Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise - they are what they are.

James Hansen
- Nature
- Laws
- Compromise