earthfamilyalpha: The Climate Change Trials

Nuremberg

It's one thing for me to talk about climate criminals and how those who recklessly endanger our civilization to maintain or increase their bottom lines should be held accountable. It's quite another thing for that concept to be presented by a noted scientist before Congress.

Here's the story from the Guardian:

Put oil firm chiefs on trial,

says leading climate change scientist

.
Testimony to US Congress will also criticise lobbyists· 'Revolutionary' policies needed to tackle crisis

.
The Guardian,
Monday June 23, 2008

by Ed Pilkington

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 (pdf) 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.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

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. (clip)

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

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."( more)

I keep wondering when folks are going to wake up.

I suppose its pretty hard with the Darvon consumer drip drip.

But sooner than later, we're going to have to put the proverbial

pedal to the metal,

and get with it.

We're going to have to rip our consumer car culture

out of the fabric of our lives,

And, we're going to have to let go of of a lot of our ideas.

Competition must be balanced with Cooperation.

Rigged Free Markets must include all of the social costs.

Releasing carbon into the global atmosphere

must be as cool as smoking in a hospital waiting room.