• James Hansen

    What James Hansen Had To Tell Us At Gustavus

    An impressive congregation of academics descended on Southeastern Minnesota last week at Gustavus Adolphus’s Nobel Conference to speak about energy and global warming. In addition to Nobel laureate Steven Chu , the list of panelists included James Hansen, Paul Joscow, Kenneth Dreffeyes, Joan Ogden, and Will Steger.

    Even though Steven Chu has won the Nobel prize in physics, arguably, the most recognized person on this panel was James Hansen. Hansen, for those who know little about him, is most famous for his testimony before the US Senate in 1988 on the danger of anthropocentric global warming and published this paper, where his model’s predictions have closely matched observed temperature trends (see graph below). He serves as the director for the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. More recently, Hansen has received attention for claiming that the Bush White House has been censoring science. He has said that NASA officials tried to influence his public statements on climate change, and the White House has edited press releases to make the impacts of global warming seem less severe. 60 minutes had a great piece with Hansen where he discussed these issues.

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