If you want to be scared witless, read the speech on global warming that NASA climate scientist James Hensen made recently to a House committee. It’s available in my Yale RSS feed, e360.yale.edu, and made headlines in various newspapers around the world. Twenty years ago Hensen was the first high-profile scientist to sound the alarm against climate change, in an address to Congress that was eerily predictive of the critical state we’re in today; this week, on the anniversary of that groundbreaking speech, he returned with an update that raised hairs and concerns among his audience.
Basically, we must immediately move to carbon-free energy sources, or mass species extinction, rising sea levels, food shortages, and climate extremes are some of the consequences we can look forward to.
In this portrait of a dire future painted for the assembled House committee, Hensen makes an indictment that is breathtaking in its bravery and fury:
Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link…Sorry Mr. Hensen….as you’re well aware, our government is way too busy chasing down “eco-terrorists”—citizens who risk their lives protesting our environmental crisis—to go after these rapacious, self-serving corporate entities. But thank you, Mr. Hensen, for reminding the House committee—and the American public—who the real criminals in our doomsday scenario are.
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
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