Burned Up About the Other Fossil Fuel

Tag : Waste Oil Changer

That rather counterintuitive theme emerged yesterday from a visitto Washington by James E. Hansen , director of NASA's Goddard Institute and one of the first tosound the alarm about global warming in a congressional hearing 20years ago yesterday. As he undertook a commemorative, I-told-you-sotour, from Diane Rehm 's radio show to ABC News to the National Press Club to the House of Representatives , he made a point of saying the biggest worry isn't what we put inour cars, but what we put in our power plants.
"Practically, I don't see how we can stop putting the oil in theatmosphere, because that's owned by Russia and Saudi Arabia," headvised the House committee on global warming. "We can make ourvehicles more efficient, but that oil is going to get used and it'sgoing to get in the atmosphere . . . and it doesn't really mattermuch how fast we burn it. But what we could do is stop the coal."
The theme was much the same at the press club, where he gave aluncheon speech. "CO2from oil is going to get into the atmosphere,"he said, because "you're not going to be able to tell Saudi Arabiaand Russia, the countries that have oil, not to sell their oil."Hansen's solution: "Phase out coal as promptly as is practical."
The message from the celebrated scientist was somewhat at odds witha popular culture that has equated global warming with miles pergallon. And while Hansen wasn't discouraging fuel economy -- hecalled it "very important," because it could discourage drillingfor "every last drop of oil" -- he said there's hope of preventingthe world from burning through the rest of the world's major oilreserves. If we don't put it in our Hummers, the Chinese willeventually put it in theirs. "We can't prevent [using] the big,easily available oil in these superdeposits that Saudi Arabiahave," he said. "That's going to end up in the atmosphere. I don'tsee any way to avoid it."
But what we could do, Hansen said, is phase out all coal use by2030 except at those power plants that could capture the carbondioxide. With the help of a carbon tax, coal would be replaced bysolar, wind and other renewable energy, he said. That, and improvedforestry and agriculture, could return carbon dioxide levels in theatmosphere to safe-for-the-planet levels, even if we burn throughthe half of Earth's oil that we haven't already used.
Environmental leaders hailed Hansen as a conquering hero as hemarked the 20th anniversary of his original testimony to the Senateenergy committee yesterday. Former senator Tim Wirth introduced himat the press club as a "brave and lonely leader" of thefight against climate change. "Jim Hansen is a hero ofscience, a hero of our planet," Wirth said. Two hours later inthe Rayburn House Office Building , Rep. Ed Markey called him a "modern-day Cassandra" -- but thenabandoned that comparison for a more flattering one. "Dr.Hansen is a latter-day climate-change Paul Revere ," Markey proposed.
But Hansen was too dour about the condition of the Earth to enjoysuch praise. "We have limited time," he complained when theaudience at the press club gave him an extended standing ovation."Actually, it's not a time to celebrate. Although the issue hasbecome popular, the fact of the matter is that the emissions arecontinuing, basically unfettered." Likewise, the first sentence outof his mouth after Markey's effusive introduction was this: "It'sprobably also worth pointing out that our actions to deal withclimate change over the past 20 years have really been minusculeand we're really running out of time."
Hansen's stature was raised substantially -- if accidentally --when Bush administration political appointees a few years ago triedto silence him by ordering him to make his public statementsconsistent with official policy. Because of the publicembarrassment the administration suffered from that episode, Hansenis now untouchable. In addition to his duties at Goddard, he has anadjunct professorship at Columbia and takes "vacation" time tospeak as a "private citizen" on the issue of global warming.
Yesterday was one such vacation day -- and Hansen showed no fear ofhis administration superiors as he sounded new and better alarms:"a disaster of almost unimaginable proportions. . . . We've passedthe tipping point. . . . We are going to lose all of the arctic seaice within the next five to 10 years. . . . We are in the processof pushing off the planet polar and alpine species. . . . There'sthe potential for ecosystems to begin to collapse."
The Post's Sally Quinn asked Hansen if he has "had a chance to sit down face to facewith President Bush and tell him everything that you've just told us."
Hansen laughed at the thought. "Unfortunately, no, I've nothad a chance to talk to the president," he said. "I knowthat Michael Crichton did." (Bush was otherwise engaged yesterday meeting withmembers of the Phoenix Mercury , the winners of last year's WNBA championship.)
Since his appearance on the Hill 20 years ago, Hansen had lost mostof his hair; the few remaining strands, suspended over his head bystatic electricity or some other force, gave him a crazy-professorlook. Now 67, he still speaks in the slow cadence of his nativeIowa and the technical dialect of a physicist. But he has embracedhis role as polemicist as well, accusing fossil-fuel interests of"crimes against humanity" and demanding that politicians "have theguts" to embrace a carbon tax.
But the carbon tax remains a political nonstarter, and lawmakerswere despairing as they listened to Hansen's grim presentation inthe Rayburn Building -- just a few blocks from Congress's owncoal-fired Capitol Power Plant. "You've been at this for twodecades, and we've made marginal to no progress," Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) told Hansen. "What should be our short-termgoal?"
The answer had nothing to do with Priuses and fuel cells. "There isa difference between oil CO2and coal CO2in that we can slow downthe oil but we're not going to prevent it," the scientist said."Coal is the one that we could prevent, so I think the mostimportant near-term thing is to say let's have a moratorium oncoal."