Top climate scientist blasts UK's fracking plans as 'aping Trump'

[Eugene]

Source: The Observer

Top climate scientist blasts UK’s fracking plans as 'aping Trump’

James Hansen, ‘father of climate science’, accuses Britain of ignoring science

Matthew Taylor Environment correspondent
Sat 13 Oct 2018 12.55 BST

One of the world’s leading climate scientists has launched a scathing attack on the government’s fracking programme, accusing ministers of aping Donald Trump and ignoring scientific evidence.

James Hansen, who is known as the father of climate science, warned that future generations would judge the decision to back a UK fracking industry harshly.

“So the UK joins Trump, ignores science… full throttle ahead with the worst fossil fuels,” Hansen told the Observer. “The science is crystal clear, we need to phase out fossil fuels starting with the most damaging, the ‘unconventional’ fossil fuels such as tar sands and ‘fracking’.”

Hansen has also written to the UK energy minister, Claire Perry, to underline his objections, warning that the decision was a serious policy error that would contribute to “climate breakdown”.

His intervention came as the first fracking operation in England for seven years – which had been due to get under way on Saturday in Lancashire – was postponed until Monday because of bad weather.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/13/top-climate-scientist-james-hansen-attacks-uk-fracking-plans

[NNadir]

1. Lots of people attack Jim Hansen, notably those who don't agree with his CORRECT views...

...on nuclear energy.

It's pretty funny, there was an asshole front pager at Daily Kos - let's call him "Larry" - who used to make a good deal of rote noise about how much he respected Jim Hansen until Jim Hansen said something he didn't like, the thing not liked being this:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

If you look today, I'm sure Jim Hansen is a non-entity at DailyKos.

Don't worry; be happy. The UK is going "green" by building lots of wind plants, which is why they find it necessary to "frack."

They built and brought on line the first commercial nuclear plant in 1953, in the UK, and it operated for 50 years without a single loss of life.

It is, whether or one knows it or not, buried in Jim Hansen's data on the lives saved by nuclear energy.

We may laugh contemptuously on the right wing's view of climate change, which is involved with denial, but we're no strangers at lying to ourselves.