Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

[Neurotoxin]

June 23, 2008

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

[a_joker10]

Have fun putting the Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela on trial.

Just another attack on American business, while the rest of the world does whatever it wants.

[Hugo Chavez]

Have fun putting the Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela on trial.

Just another attack on American business, while the rest of the world does whatever it wants.

boy is that statement assbackwards

[a_joker10]

China will buy oil from Iran and Venezuela and will continue to send cheap goods to America.

While American business is supposed to pay for global warming.

This would just make the America even less attractive to investment.

[Decker]

China will buy oil from Iran and Venezuela and will continue to send cheap goods to America.

While American business is supposed to pay for global warming.

This would just make the America even less attractive to investment.

Absolutely.

We can have no impediments in the race to the bottom.

If Global Warming is real, why bother looking for any consensus among leaders in dealing with the alleged problem?

The point of all this (reality) is to make as much cash as possible. 

Global warming, if it exists at all, is not our problem alone.  We can't take irrational bites out of the bottom line if no one else does.

The same goes for environmental regulations that choke off business. 

The USA must compete and to do that stories like 'global warming' will have to take a backseat to business.

[shootfighter1]

Experts still argue on global warming because of the cyclic nature of the earth's tempature patterns.  Ya got experts on both sides disagreeing.

Any regulations put on the US must be worldwide or else it will not have a significant impact and will handicap us compared to all other nations.  We must realize that we are not the sole economic power in the world...far from it.

[Neurotoxin]

Experts still argue on global warming because of the cyclic nature of the earth's tempature patterns.  Ya got experts on both sides disagreeing.

 



Scientists agree: Humans causing global warming
Report today makes strongest assertion to date


February 2, 2007 AP
Using their strongest language to date, the world's leading climate scientists are reporting today that they are basically certain that burning gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels has unnaturally heated the atmosphere -- and the effects are likely to last for centuries.

As report co-author Philip Mote, the Washington state climatologist, said in translating his fellow scientists' language about responsibility: "We did it."

"Scientists are pretty well done arguing about whether the warming in the last 50 years is related to burning fossil fuels," Mote said.

Researchers said they are more than 90 percent certain that global warming is caused by humans -- their most powerful assertion to date. And that conclusion was even stronger until last-minute maneuvering by China, whose exploding energy use stands to exacerbate the problem.

Worldwide, the report says, the warming is likely to mean intensified droughts and heat waves, along with unusually strong storms -- such as the ones that left millions of Northwesterners shivering in December, while killing 13.

The scientists also highlighted an increasingly worrisome global trend: acidification of the oceans, which could unravel the marine web of life. It is caused by the carbon dioxide spewed out by power plants, cars and countless other sources, as well as methane and other gases.

In the Pacific Northwest, residents appear headed into a period of more drought, less snow for skiing -- and less water for drinking and watering lawns in the summer. That could mean perilous times for forests, glaciers, salmon and, ultimately, orcas, which eat the salmon.

[a_joker10]

The fact is china is the world's largest CO2 polluter and the largest oil production companies are state owned.

This lawsuit would do nothing to reduce pollution and kill the American economy.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/20/business/emit.php
LONDON: China overtook the United States in 2006 as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas blamed for the bulk of global warming, a policy group that advises the Dutch government said.

China produced 6,200 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and making cement last year, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said Tuesday on its Web site. That pushed it past the United States, which produced 5,800 million tons of the gas, the agency said.

Largest Oil companies in the world
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34137.pdf
Table 3. World Petroleum Liquids Production
(thousands of barrels per day)
Rank
2006 Company Production Rank  2000 Company Production
1 Saudi Aramco 11,035             1 Saudi Aramco 8,044
2 NIOC 4,049                          2 NIOC 3,620
3 Pemex 3,710                        3 Pemex 3,343
4 PDV 2,650                           4 PDV 2,950
5 KPC 2,643                           5 INOC 2,528
6 BP 2,562                             6 ExxonMobil 2,444
7 ExxonMobil 2,523                  7 Shell 2,268
8 PetroChina 2,270                  8 PetroChina 2,124
9 Shell 2,093                          9 BP 2,061
10 Sonotrach 1,934                 10 KPC 2,025
Source: Energy Intelligence Research, “The Energy Intelligence Top 100: Ranking the World's Oil
Companies,” 2007 and 2001 editions.

[Deedee]

No one expects the oil barons to go on trial, nor does James Hansen more than likely. He's been relating an increasingly urgent message throughout the years, with last year's being almost plaintive. No one has listened. At least this terse one is guaranteed to get headlines where the others haven't.