Clarification: "trash talk" is what competitive athletes do. Nothing wrong with that. Caitlin Clark is a prolific trash talker -- I love it. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson traded trash talk all the time. It's rather common among some of the best athletes. However, when serious scientific issues are raised on one side and the clique responds with ad hominem remarks, it is inappropriate to describe this as trash talk, which implies that the two behaviors are equal. I don't give a whit about being called brash, although I think that blunt is probably more accurate. The issue is how to communicate scientific understanding to the public -- if the public understood the climate situation, polices would be different -- but we scientists are not good communicators.
Israel said Yahweh said climate change is Israel's true enemy.
And Trump, the misguided Christian zealots, and the Zionists said no to war. No to killing. No to destruction. No to oil. They turned their war machinery into a climate saving corps.
And I woke up to the truth this morning.
And the truth is you gotta have faith and work for dreams to happen.
Your point about scientists as poor communicators cuts to the heart of it, Jim, but I’d argue the failure runs deeper.
If climate scientists themselves truly understood—in an integrated way—the unraveling of the climate system, ecosystems, agriculture, and resource bases, their communication would look nothing like it does now. They would collectively disown the IPCC and COP processes (institutions framed by Western neoliberal politics) and instead openly name the manipulation by politicians, capitalists, and media.
But most climate scientists are not holistic systems thinkers. Worse, they are not honest about the limits of their own knowledge—because stepping outside the narrow confines of the ivory tower threatens the career structures that sustain them. Hansen is the major exception here (along with Kevin Anderson): willing to speak truth precisely because he refuses to let institutional loyalty override clarity.
Technology will not stop the coming systemic collapse. Deep reductions in consumption might buy enough time to make harder choices—including, eventually, reducing population before collapse forces it in far crueler ways.
There really is no way to reduce population that is not 'cruel' in the view of most people. The history of even a modest effort such as "Zero Population Growth", a try at broader communication of the concept, was met with the same sort of rejection and lies that we see prevailing now in the political realm. So the topic of population growth is radioactive now. We are now in stampede, where fear and confusion have seized control.
Much of the world has already dipped below replacement birth levels, and the fraction where they are still above 2.2 births per woman - mostly Africa - does not generally have greenhouse gas emissions per person anywhere near those of the developed, richer countries. The task is to reduce emissions, not reduce population, and also to cope with the changes already underway. That will likely include consciously using the particulate aerosol emissions that till now were inadvertently slowing the warming we caused by greenhouse gas increases. It could also involve other ways to reduce CO2 in the air and sea, perhaps adding iron or ground-up ultramafic rock to parts of the ocean. Opposition on the grounds that 'we shouldn't interfere with Nature' ignores the fact that we already have done, and are the largest variable in the future of the biosphere. If you're heading for a cliff, you don't let go of the wheel on the grounds that your past driving has been sub-par - you hang on, and figure out how to do better.
If you are heading toward a cliff it seems obvious you are not taking time to make any rational decisions. I've been following the climate issues for 40 years and I've seen how likely it is to get any coherent, dedicated action. I assumed it would take this long before the problem got any serious public notice - long enough that even casual attention to the world shaking effects would offer proof. The measure you suggest, as well as many other geoengineering schemes have never made any sense strictly on the basis of scale, but they are very popular with people who have convinced themselves that we humans can master any problem with our clever minds.
But it's obvious you are not an ecologist. The problem of collapsing ecosystems is as great as climate change, and intertwined with it. Whatever simple strategies we have to somehow rebalance climate will come far too late to avoid ecological collapse. The complexity is multiplied many times by our lack of knowledge.
If our lack of knowledge is the problem, why do alleged ‘environmentalists’ fight so hard against experiments that could mitigate that? For example, the German research vessel Polar Stern, with an international team from India, Britain and other countries, was set to do a twenty tonne release of iron sulfate into the Southern Ocean in 2009, but first they had to endure a flurry of court cases from NGOs having any research declared illegal, trying to have the South African government impound their FeS, etc. This in an ocean already absorbing billions of tonnes of fossil-derived CO2 per year (and, till recently, ten million tonnes a year of SO2 aerosols from marine bunker fuels, that partially reduced the CO2 heating.)
I’m in New Zealand, where the natural, and unique, ecosystem suffered a human-caused blitzkrieg, first from the Maori arriving 800 years ago, and then, much worse, with the Europeans over the last 250 years. Some of the losses are irrecoverable - about 44 bird species have gone extinct, for example. But without human intervention, creating nature reserves, fencing them, eradicating introduced predators, and developing island sanctuaries, the damage would be much worse. We’re still not doing enough, and climate change isn’t helping, but I reject the notion that human intervention can’t be a positive for the environment, or that it’s too complicated for our puny intellects to comprehend. Humans are now by far the largest agent of change, for good or ill, on this planet; we have to figure out how to do it better.
I can't say your arguments are any more convincing. Essentially you are saying that humans can reverse 10,000 years of confirmed behavior and suddenly spring forward as planetary saviors. In the meantime you don't seem to be aware that on a global scale nothing has changed. I have seen some limited success stories in many places over many years, but limited is the operative word. Here is a statistic for you - that amount of money that US citizens spend on their pets every year would be enough to fund all the conservation work now proposed for the world. In my country (and yours, I assume) no meaningful legislation to address climate change has ever been approved by voters. The international climate change conferences have become performance venues that consistently backpedal from their goals.
You can cling to your ideals, and argue to run meaningless experiments on the environment, but none of this will count as progress. Even if you had a workable method to limit CO2 (and your method of choice has a lot of competition from other tinkerers) do you think it will be anything but an excuse to continue on our path of abusing the planet?
As a journalist with CBS Radio who left corporate news 3 decades ago to cover environmental news—interviewing hundreds of experts on climate and all shades of green—I can offer some insight gleaned from direct experience.
While it’s true scientists may not be the best communicators that shouldn’t fall on them only to communicate the urgency, connect dots, and focus on actionable solutions. Independent journalists who acquire eco-expertise, are climate literate, etc. should be supported rather than left to fend on our own. There is almost no funding available for experienced environmental content creators, not from philanthropists nor investors. As a result, those of us who are credible climate communicators are hampered by limited production and marketing funds and often forced to self-fund our programs. Given 1) the catastrophic consequences of low public eco-iq (such as voting for deny-o-saurs who make the crisis worse) AND 2) that climate can be a tough beat to cover mentally/emotionally AND 3) with recent firings of the few climate reporters in mainstream news, THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE CASE! Jim, if you’re reading this I’d love to interview you for CODE GREEN on You Tube:
There are some disparities in what some popular climate scientists and climate hawks with large followings say. I have the most faith and trust in your diagnosis. Is there any kind of credo you have so we can follow and share? Also, it would be a good "Q" source for the other climate scientists and hawks to refer to.
United we stand, divided we fall. This is too urgent to fail at.
Also, the media is a big problem. Washington Post's new motto should be: " Democracy died when Bezos bought us".
Already there is extremely severe coral bleaching mortality across the South Pacific, and much of the North Pacific will be affected later. The Caribbean and many Indian Ocean reefs are already essentially dead.. We knew coral reef ecosystem mass extinction was inevitable since the very first mass coral bleaching events in the 1980s, but nobody would listen or do anything when there was time to act.
Uggh. I am not qualified to talk about the ins and outs of the science. I will say that
a) James Hansen has been getting crap from governments, fossil fuel goons "etc" since the early 1980s (grant funding cut in 1981 after the Reagan lot didn't like him talking to the New York Times science journalist Walter Sullivan
b) there isn't a human alive who wouldn't occasionally over-react to perceived slights after that amount of abuse
c) you would have lost serious money betting against Hansen over the past decades.
This is of course not to say he is automatically right but I reckon
Is there a link to McKibben's comments that are mentioned here? I'm not doubting it , but am keenly interested in seeing how this plays out. I hate this, since I trust both of these guys immensely, and honestly expect there is more to be said about this, which is more clarifying as to what prompted Bill to say it.
Recent McKibben Substack has this: ”2027 looks increasingly likely to set a new record, perhaps by a sizable margin if we end up on the high end of the range of El Niño forecasts. That Hausfather and the brasher Jim Hansen are in basic agreement here should terrify us.” — from McKibben’s Substack : https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/now-comes-the-heat
That was the only instance of “Brash” I saw there, and I’m wondering if this wasn’t an over-reaction on Hansen’s part, stemming from some innate aversion to the word “brash” that likely has been used in a less than endearing way re: Hansen in the past.
I do notice that McKibben’s use was “brashER”...but wondering it it isn’t better to say “more uncensored” or “more direct and unfiltered”. I’m kinda hoping that this is what it was, because that is easily defended.
I read McKibben's post and was not surprised by the adjective he used. He is not one to be "brash" under any circumstances himself. I have become inured to such attempts to 'tamp down' bad news. I have regarded Dr Hansen as a once in a lifetime hero since 1988 when he basically brought the truth to the whole world. Of course he was dismissed and attacked. This is how humans express abject denial. Of course it continues today. The majority is still deep in denial. I respect McKibben, but he is a humanist, not a scientist.
Me 2. Dr. Hansen has been right through and through and I hope Bill M. Made the comment out of the respect for that..Bill M. haa a large following but he doesn't promote the triad but mainly just reduce. We are in worse shape than Bill M. has been promoting. Gotta reflect and remove ghgs too
I’m sure he did, myself. I had read that article last week, and I took it as full throated support for Hansen’s warnings. It seems like that support is the very reason he wrote it and even described Hansen as “brasher”. I think a more accurate word/phrase would have been “less inclined to sugar-coat” or “less uncensored” or “more direct”.
I don’t know, Sean, that article you link there (which I also read sopon after it came out), seems even more to be a rather full throated backing for Hansen’s sense and numbers , and doesn’t even include the word “brash” or anything else that could be misconstrued.
I can’t really read this : “I will note that Hansen remains a bit apart from other climate researchers, but that they are starting to converge a little on his numbers.” and sense anything but an argument to realize that Hansen has been ahead of “other Climate researchers”.
"They think that global warming began to accelerate viciously about 2015, and that it will become evident to everyone in the next few years, and they even engaged in a bit of good-natured trash-talking aimed at other climatologists who they said were beginning to arrive at a “befuddled recognition that something was wrong with the models, which did not reproduce the rapid warming of the past several years.” Here’s their guess of the political impact, with which I agree:
Realistic understanding of the climate situation, and public recognition [snip]"
and
"I will note that Hansen remains a bit apart from other climate researchers, but that they are starting to converge a little on his numbers. "
page search it for 6 refs to Hansen incl. that he supports him 100% - it is a disgrace how other climate scientists, Hausfather Mann Schmidt included have treated and cast aspersions and outright lied about Hansen and his coauthors work. A dishonourable disgrace.
Here's my take on it- Bill's audience for his piece was not Hansen's peers, but rather the general population, a sizeable number of whom categorize others on a continuum of consideration. Bill took the liberty to make the point that this aerosol news is being amplified across that entire contrived continuum, so we'd better take notice.
That's the reason they became voices in the first place as they play global warming down. Gavin schmidt and Zecke did not even recognize the role of the oceans surface causing the warming jump - it came from the oceans.
Now several studies are out.
What I respect on Gavin is that he at least admits that the models could be wrong...
My hobby is attacking wrong positions as humanity can't affort them anymore as we are deep in code red territories now...
Synchronizing feedbacks is what will bring the warming momentum.
Just these two studies show how deep we are in the shit - the oceans skin temperature is controlled by highly non-linear feedbacks between the atmosphere and upper oceans - its kind of collapse of Earth system science as we knew it...
One study on the tropical monster marine heatwave in 2023/24 and on the Mediterranean in 2024
They show that we have here highly non-linear feedbacks at work with thresholds involved which regulate "Skin" temperature of the oceans - the upper ~100m - mean upper mixed layer depth.
Just initially week winds shallowed the mixed layer leading to a non-linear heating up of the surface layer and the whole current and eddy system in the Mediterranean See going into hypherdrive - also look at these high pressure values - lots of non-linearities involved
To understand the system one has to track the latest science papers on what we observe and why do we observe it...
Models simulate the warming are now trash!
The acceleration is just starting if we look at ocean heat uptake increase where the energy goes, the recent GHG trends in the atmosphere and how warming jumps function...
There is a real urgency to making this analysis relatable to the general public. I’m looking at Polar Vortex distortion and an inexorable shift toward solar and wind power for daily energy use.
It seems to me that if 2024-25 shifted the polar vortex as severely as it seems, it may repeat that influence more regularly soon. In 2025 it completely shifted the locus of major hurricanes around the US, and caused flooding and drought in different areas or at different intensities than expected.
And, despite the petrochemical industry’s (and Trump’s) best efforts, oil and gas will increasingly be replaced by non-carbon electric sources. Even China, which is still increasing its coal use, has planned to replace fossil fuels in the near future. There was an article about the Philippines today where locals are flocking to BYD dealerships to buy electric vehicles, in response to the war in Iran. As the world decreases Sulfur emissions from petrochemicals the locus of cloud formation will change, as will the quantity (I would imagine.)
That makes the need to inform the next generation even more urgent.
What I wonder is, why? What could be the motive for hiding the truth about a heating planet, and who benefits from that? I had to stop Heating Planet blog because Google, who owns it, made it impossible to continue. I just wonder who wants to keep the truth from people and how much longer will they be able to keep up the obfuscation, as things get hotter and hotter and hotter. Google basically pulled the plug on this blog https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/
What I wonder is, why? What could be the motive for hiding the truth about a heating planet, and who benefits from that?.................................
Institutional loyalty and self-preservation is a powerful motivation to not see or hear or deeply interrogate the accepted assumptions. The Result: A "one-track mind" is actually a requirement for staying within the professional mainstream. In high-stakes fields, Motivated Reasoning occurs when experts are emotionally or professionally invested in a specific conclusion. When a scientist dismisses critics as "the usual suspects" or "fallacious," it can be a defense mechanism to protect the core theory from a "conundrum" that they cannot yet explain.
The field has reached a state of premature closure, where they have decided on the "culprit" (CO2) before the "investigation" (the full Pleistocene history) is complete. You’re observing a difference in scientific communication and epistemic posture, not just personalities.
Hansen’s style which you prefer makes explicit rationally based mechanistic claims (aerosols, EEI, cloud feedbacks, paleoclimate constraints). Hansen shows his chain of reasoning. States uncertainty explicitly. Then he overtly translates technical results into real world implications. Hansen fully accepts that he could be wrong and flags his specific assumptions openly. That is classic Feynman/Sagan scientific epistemology at work-real science.
Many mainstream communicators (Mann, Schmidt, Dessler, Hausfather, other embedded institutional voices) you'll notice they default to push a strong emphasis on consensus outputs (CMIP ensemble, IPCC summaries). Argument by aggregation with “thousands of models / scientists say X”. Assume a Defensive posture against outliers that has been entrenched by early 2000s attack by professional climate science deniers -- despite them being defeated the posture remains against against any perceived doubts or questioning of Institutional positions. This Media-facing group rely on rhetorical / narrative framing. Dispense ad hominem toward all dissenters (even if technically incorrect or overstated). That is institutional science communication, not frontier epistemology.
What you don’t see often or at all is a clean public logical teardown of Hansen's core chain of reasoning. Nor the data evidence he and his group of scientists relies upon. Instead you see: “Outlier” “Old” “Alarmist” “Defies CMIP consensus” “Cherry-picking” and now "trash-talking" and "brash".
Those are sociological arguments, not scientific falsification. Your unstated inference that this kind of behaviour by SELF-APPOINTED Aggressive Institutional Spokespeople triggers epistemic distrust is rational.
I'm a layperson but Jim Hansen's latest take on the imminent ElNino switchover makes total sense.
2 key data sets produced using 2 different benchmarks. One doesn't account for the reduction in aerosols .. IPCC.. Jim's does.
Paul Beckwith is another excellent science podcaster who people interested in EEI (Earth Energy Imbalance) should look up.
Ultimately in this chaotic geopolitical climate with war in the middle east causing fossil fuelled economic misery, we need the straightforward science of experts to be aligned in telling the public the truth.. so Bill... please talk to Jim. 🙏🙏
More than ever we need countries across the globe to embrace renewables to off-ramp economic success tied to fossil fuel production.
The first step is to listen to the best science experts, not a former TV star with a failed history running his own businesses. Someone who is on-track to potentially cause the worst economic, environmental and humanitarian crisis since the 2nd world war.
I am a keen reader of both Hansen and McKibben. I don't recall seeing McKibben's comment about Hansen "trash talking." In any case, I look forward to Bill's response. In science, I trust Hansen. In communication, I trust McKibben.
Thanks for this interesting discussion. If that super El Niño does arrive, watch for legacy media anchors reading items with names such as “Is climate change real after all?”
We wrote a short on the feedback that is now starting to operate in the global oceans driving SSTs:
Add the recent understanding of marine heatwaves driven by local feedbacks that interact non linear with the surrounding boundary conditions and this signal becomes an outcome of a vicious cycle…
I can provide a reader on the literature on this feedback as it is complex as regional developments and their drivers become important
Reading B M's post I think he belittled the great climate science of Dr Hansen
He should never had called him "brasher" but rather "esteemed climate scientist". This shows B M's not fully aware HOW BAD THE CLIMATE FIASCO REALLY IS.
I KNEW something was going on when that ocean temperature anomaly appeared immediately after they switched to cleaner fuel. Can we just cut to the chase and start up the stratospheric aerosol injection program already?
I didn't read McKibben's "brasher" comment as perjorative, but only as shorthand for the fact that there are differences of what scientists loosely call "opinion". Indeed Bill expressed alarm that the entire range of credible numbers points to an imminent and intolerable warming. The numbers are what they are, but everything in natural science relies on incomplete observations, all leading to some uncertainty. The deniers get away with framing this as "the scientists don't even agree on what is happening" because (a) few people can actually parse the subtle differences under discussion and (b) we who do follow the science fail to point out that the agreement between the predictions is far more worrisome than the scatter between them is comforting. Since 1988, Jim has been ahead of the crowd in perceiving the significance and threat of global warming. Other leading climate scientists and major IPCC reports make more conservative assumptions, but remember that the IPCC is massively coauthored by government reps from many oil-producing countries, and every word is "consensus" and thus watered down. All this is normal in science, but when the stakes are this high it is not necessarily "conservative" to simply accept the lower sensitivity numbers. If we want to "conserve" our way of life perhaps we should pay more attention to the higher sensitivity numbers. There will be no going back. Jim is suggesting that the plausible range includes more serious and sooner outcomes than the consensus, and he is very specific about why he draws this conclusion. I'd like a link that gives similarly concrete and specific scientific counterarguments to his, rather than typical MSM sound bites of the "he said, she said" variety. The "brash" and "conservative" estimates (in the face of today's shameful denial) both seem to say we are going to HIT the iceberg within the next generation or so, they just differ on precisely WHEN.
It is pejorative in every sense of the word. BM writes alot. Has a great vocabulary. BM should apologize but more than that listen to Dr Hansen. With great power comes great responsibility and BM should not act as a misleading climate parrot. I respect BM for his call to stop fossils and go green. I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR HIM CALLING MORAL HAZARDS AND SUPPRESSING CLIMATE TRUTH. We are burning faster and crawldown or lamedown is not enough.
The ad hominem abuse and the denial and ridicule of the science is coming from egotistical climate scientists. Part of the problem is this kind of sophistry above which denies there's fundamental scientific disagreements underpinning the disinformation and dishonesty by so-called "leading climate scientists and major IPCC reports" which Hansen et al are having to stand up against.
And try and get thru the constant serious misinformation like this above:> " the IPCC is massively coauthored by government reps from many oil-producing countries, and every word is "consensus" and thus watered down." is outright False.
Govt reps can only argue changes in Summaries not the Data. The input of CMIP Models that feed into everything of the IPCC reports are littered with errors unfounded assumptions and constant minimizing of the high degree of uncertainty in inputs and outputs. The mass scale modelling / CMIP SYSTEM as a whole is overstated unscientific and ideologically conservative while the "outspoken self-appointed leaders" publicly dissing and abusing the more formidable science based on physics and intelligent reasoning of others represent here by Hansen.
The muddying of the waters, the put downs are intentional and effective to the point where even a Bill McKibben gets seriously confused and thus manipulated by it.
Hansen is not alone. Beware the slick rhetoric who say there's no real scientific disagreement at heart of the constant abuse being dished out for years against him and any who align with him or Kevin Anderson. The "consensus" PR has been hijacked and is being misused against credible scientists like Hansen et al. It impacts their funding and their ability to get the message out to the politicians and the public globally.... that the rapid acceleration in warming is real, is scientifically solid, and the greatest denial about the urgent seriousness of climate change today is now coming from the consensus institutionally entrenched climate scientists!
That is interesting that the non-scientists ONLY get to massage the summaries (not that this is insignificant, because it is here where the "urgency" factor enters and it is mostly these parts that policy makers read), but are you sure there are not also participants labeled scientists, say, corporate scientists or government scientists with conflicting interests, who can spin the technical sessions as well? I'm just curious. Maybe that's the difference between the lengthy IPCC discussions and the (shorter) COP meetings (where many parties with vested interests seem to play actively in the same game). Just trying to get educated here. I think we may agree about the rest of it, though, that there are genuine scientific uncertainties (as captured in most of your paragraph ".. The input of .. etc..", including the ones Jim describes so well in detail that I am not competent to assess. Frankly though, I think there is plenty enough in the co-called "conservative" scenario alone to horrify anyone who is paying attention, as McKibben has so well shown. To make real progress, I'd rather look harder at addressing the real obstacles - the MSM in particular for playing the "both sides" game for FAR too long, and the cynical and remorseless denial of the GOP in the USA, which have lulled a scientifically illiterate electorate to sleep. To move the progress needle, I think, we have to get the young aroused to the point of hair-on-fire, in language they can understand, as it is their future and they have abundant energy if energized. For example, they all blamed Joe Biden for higher food prices and I bet very few of them understand that human-caused global climate change is a significant factor.
Clarification: "trash talk" is what competitive athletes do. Nothing wrong with that. Caitlin Clark is a prolific trash talker -- I love it. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson traded trash talk all the time. It's rather common among some of the best athletes. However, when serious scientific issues are raised on one side and the clique responds with ad hominem remarks, it is inappropriate to describe this as trash talk, which implies that the two behaviors are equal. I don't give a whit about being called brash, although I think that blunt is probably more accurate. The issue is how to communicate scientific understanding to the public -- if the public understood the climate situation, polices would be different -- but we scientists are not good communicators.
Last night I had the strangest dream.
Israel said Yahweh said climate change is Israel's true enemy.
And Trump, the misguided Christian zealots, and the Zionists said no to war. No to killing. No to destruction. No to oil. They turned their war machinery into a climate saving corps.
And I woke up to the truth this morning.
And the truth is you gotta have faith and work for dreams to happen.
Dreams come true when we try..
IF humans were smarter, and IF more women ran countries, the only war that would be fought and united against is runaway climate change. IF ONLY🔥
Your point about scientists as poor communicators cuts to the heart of it, Jim, but I’d argue the failure runs deeper.
If climate scientists themselves truly understood—in an integrated way—the unraveling of the climate system, ecosystems, agriculture, and resource bases, their communication would look nothing like it does now. They would collectively disown the IPCC and COP processes (institutions framed by Western neoliberal politics) and instead openly name the manipulation by politicians, capitalists, and media.
But most climate scientists are not holistic systems thinkers. Worse, they are not honest about the limits of their own knowledge—because stepping outside the narrow confines of the ivory tower threatens the career structures that sustain them. Hansen is the major exception here (along with Kevin Anderson): willing to speak truth precisely because he refuses to let institutional loyalty override clarity.
Technology will not stop the coming systemic collapse. Deep reductions in consumption might buy enough time to make harder choices—including, eventually, reducing population before collapse forces it in far crueler ways.
There really is no way to reduce population that is not 'cruel' in the view of most people. The history of even a modest effort such as "Zero Population Growth", a try at broader communication of the concept, was met with the same sort of rejection and lies that we see prevailing now in the political realm. So the topic of population growth is radioactive now. We are now in stampede, where fear and confusion have seized control.
Much of the world has already dipped below replacement birth levels, and the fraction where they are still above 2.2 births per woman - mostly Africa - does not generally have greenhouse gas emissions per person anywhere near those of the developed, richer countries. The task is to reduce emissions, not reduce population, and also to cope with the changes already underway. That will likely include consciously using the particulate aerosol emissions that till now were inadvertently slowing the warming we caused by greenhouse gas increases. It could also involve other ways to reduce CO2 in the air and sea, perhaps adding iron or ground-up ultramafic rock to parts of the ocean. Opposition on the grounds that 'we shouldn't interfere with Nature' ignores the fact that we already have done, and are the largest variable in the future of the biosphere. If you're heading for a cliff, you don't let go of the wheel on the grounds that your past driving has been sub-par - you hang on, and figure out how to do better.
If you are heading toward a cliff it seems obvious you are not taking time to make any rational decisions. I've been following the climate issues for 40 years and I've seen how likely it is to get any coherent, dedicated action. I assumed it would take this long before the problem got any serious public notice - long enough that even casual attention to the world shaking effects would offer proof. The measure you suggest, as well as many other geoengineering schemes have never made any sense strictly on the basis of scale, but they are very popular with people who have convinced themselves that we humans can master any problem with our clever minds.
But it's obvious you are not an ecologist. The problem of collapsing ecosystems is as great as climate change, and intertwined with it. Whatever simple strategies we have to somehow rebalance climate will come far too late to avoid ecological collapse. The complexity is multiplied many times by our lack of knowledge.
If our lack of knowledge is the problem, why do alleged ‘environmentalists’ fight so hard against experiments that could mitigate that? For example, the German research vessel Polar Stern, with an international team from India, Britain and other countries, was set to do a twenty tonne release of iron sulfate into the Southern Ocean in 2009, but first they had to endure a flurry of court cases from NGOs having any research declared illegal, trying to have the South African government impound their FeS, etc. This in an ocean already absorbing billions of tonnes of fossil-derived CO2 per year (and, till recently, ten million tonnes a year of SO2 aerosols from marine bunker fuels, that partially reduced the CO2 heating.)
I’m in New Zealand, where the natural, and unique, ecosystem suffered a human-caused blitzkrieg, first from the Maori arriving 800 years ago, and then, much worse, with the Europeans over the last 250 years. Some of the losses are irrecoverable - about 44 bird species have gone extinct, for example. But without human intervention, creating nature reserves, fencing them, eradicating introduced predators, and developing island sanctuaries, the damage would be much worse. We’re still not doing enough, and climate change isn’t helping, but I reject the notion that human intervention can’t be a positive for the environment, or that it’s too complicated for our puny intellects to comprehend. Humans are now by far the largest agent of change, for good or ill, on this planet; we have to figure out how to do it better.
As regards iron fertilisation, this might interest you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9UaudgEow&t=57s
Here is an article about an algae bloom in your part of the world. I assume the introduction of iron compounds to the ocean is an attempt to do this as well. I also assume that you really can't decide which algae your experiment might be boosting. Ecology is not as simple as engineering.https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/world/australia/south-australia-algal-bloom.html?unlocked_article_code=1.a1A.3RGd.QL2fcwHy5xiq&smid=url-share
I can't say your arguments are any more convincing. Essentially you are saying that humans can reverse 10,000 years of confirmed behavior and suddenly spring forward as planetary saviors. In the meantime you don't seem to be aware that on a global scale nothing has changed. I have seen some limited success stories in many places over many years, but limited is the operative word. Here is a statistic for you - that amount of money that US citizens spend on their pets every year would be enough to fund all the conservation work now proposed for the world. In my country (and yours, I assume) no meaningful legislation to address climate change has ever been approved by voters. The international climate change conferences have become performance venues that consistently backpedal from their goals.
You can cling to your ideals, and argue to run meaningless experiments on the environment, but none of this will count as progress. Even if you had a workable method to limit CO2 (and your method of choice has a lot of competition from other tinkerers) do you think it will be anything but an excuse to continue on our path of abusing the planet?
As a journalist with CBS Radio who left corporate news 3 decades ago to cover environmental news—interviewing hundreds of experts on climate and all shades of green—I can offer some insight gleaned from direct experience.
While it’s true scientists may not be the best communicators that shouldn’t fall on them only to communicate the urgency, connect dots, and focus on actionable solutions. Independent journalists who acquire eco-expertise, are climate literate, etc. should be supported rather than left to fend on our own. There is almost no funding available for experienced environmental content creators, not from philanthropists nor investors. As a result, those of us who are credible climate communicators are hampered by limited production and marketing funds and often forced to self-fund our programs. Given 1) the catastrophic consequences of low public eco-iq (such as voting for deny-o-saurs who make the crisis worse) AND 2) that climate can be a tough beat to cover mentally/emotionally AND 3) with recent firings of the few climate reporters in mainstream news, THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE CASE! Jim, if you’re reading this I’d love to interview you for CODE GREEN on You Tube:
http://youtube.com/@betsyrosenberginterviews
Dr. Hansen,
There are some disparities in what some popular climate scientists and climate hawks with large followings say. I have the most faith and trust in your diagnosis. Is there any kind of credo you have so we can follow and share? Also, it would be a good "Q" source for the other climate scientists and hawks to refer to.
United we stand, divided we fall. This is too urgent to fail at.
Also, the media is a big problem. Washington Post's new motto should be: " Democracy died when Bezos bought us".
Already there is extremely severe coral bleaching mortality across the South Pacific, and much of the North Pacific will be affected later. The Caribbean and many Indian Ocean reefs are already essentially dead.. We knew coral reef ecosystem mass extinction was inevitable since the very first mass coral bleaching events in the 1980s, but nobody would listen or do anything when there was time to act.
Here Tom in case you missed what we wrote - its important to spread the knowledge on this feedback we are now in the process to trigger…
https://substack.com/home/post/p-189991236
Uggh. I am not qualified to talk about the ins and outs of the science. I will say that
a) James Hansen has been getting crap from governments, fossil fuel goons "etc" since the early 1980s (grant funding cut in 1981 after the Reagan lot didn't like him talking to the New York Times science journalist Walter Sullivan
b) there isn't a human alive who wouldn't occasionally over-react to perceived slights after that amount of abuse
c) you would have lost serious money betting against Hansen over the past decades.
This is of course not to say he is automatically right but I reckon
d) we are about to find out one way or the other
Is there a link to McKibben's comments that are mentioned here? I'm not doubting it , but am keenly interested in seeing how this plays out. I hate this, since I trust both of these guys immensely, and honestly expect there is more to be said about this, which is more clarifying as to what prompted Bill to say it.
McKibben is not a scientist.
Recent McKibben Substack has this: ”2027 looks increasingly likely to set a new record, perhaps by a sizable margin if we end up on the high end of the range of El Niño forecasts. That Hausfather and the brasher Jim Hansen are in basic agreement here should terrify us.” — from McKibben’s Substack : https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/now-comes-the-heat
That was the only instance of “Brash” I saw there, and I’m wondering if this wasn’t an over-reaction on Hansen’s part, stemming from some innate aversion to the word “brash” that likely has been used in a less than endearing way re: Hansen in the past.
I do notice that McKibben’s use was “brashER”...but wondering it it isn’t better to say “more uncensored” or “more direct and unfiltered”. I’m kinda hoping that this is what it was, because that is easily defended.
I read McKibben's post and was not surprised by the adjective he used. He is not one to be "brash" under any circumstances himself. I have become inured to such attempts to 'tamp down' bad news. I have regarded Dr Hansen as a once in a lifetime hero since 1988 when he basically brought the truth to the whole world. Of course he was dismissed and attacked. This is how humans express abject denial. Of course it continues today. The majority is still deep in denial. I respect McKibben, but he is a humanist, not a scientist.
Me 2. Dr. Hansen has been right through and through and I hope Bill M. Made the comment out of the respect for that..Bill M. haa a large following but he doesn't promote the triad but mainly just reduce. We are in worse shape than Bill M. has been promoting. Gotta reflect and remove ghgs too
I’m sure he did, myself. I had read that article last week, and I took it as full throated support for Hansen’s warnings. It seems like that support is the very reason he wrote it and even described Hansen as “brasher”. I think a more accurate word/phrase would have been “less inclined to sugar-coat” or “less uncensored” or “more direct”.
Great perception Dale! We need them both and on the same page.
Dale, see here an earlier article as well referring to Hansen https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/an-el-nino-is-brewing
That is mainly what jim is responding to imo
I don’t know, Sean, that article you link there (which I also read sopon after it came out), seems even more to be a rather full throated backing for Hansen’s sense and numbers , and doesn’t even include the word “brash” or anything else that could be misconstrued.
I can’t really read this : “I will note that Hansen remains a bit apart from other climate researchers, but that they are starting to converge a little on his numbers.” and sense anything but an argument to realize that Hansen has been ahead of “other Climate researchers”.
Big Sigh as I find this a sad and tedious discussion and hope Jim prevails on the issues - the worse comments in question come from https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/an-el-nino-is-brewing Feb 17, 2026
"They think that global warming began to accelerate viciously about 2015, and that it will become evident to everyone in the next few years, and they even engaged in a bit of good-natured trash-talking aimed at other climatologists who they said were beginning to arrive at a “befuddled recognition that something was wrong with the models, which did not reproduce the rapid warming of the past several years.” Here’s their guess of the political impact, with which I agree:
Realistic understanding of the climate situation, and public recognition [snip]"
and
"I will note that Hansen remains a bit apart from other climate researchers, but that they are starting to converge a little on his numbers. "
page search it for 6 refs to Hansen incl. that he supports him 100% - it is a disgrace how other climate scientists, Hausfather Mann Schmidt included have treated and cast aspersions and outright lied about Hansen and his coauthors work. A dishonourable disgrace.
Here's my take on it- Bill's audience for his piece was not Hansen's peers, but rather the general population, a sizeable number of whom categorize others on a continuum of consideration. Bill took the liberty to make the point that this aerosol news is being amplified across that entire contrived continuum, so we'd better take notice.
This is eye opening to find such new info in the last five years! A quantum leap. Everyone should read this.
They are IMO the voices of the system
That's the reason they became voices in the first place as they play global warming down. Gavin schmidt and Zecke did not even recognize the role of the oceans surface causing the warming jump - it came from the oceans.
Now several studies are out.
What I respect on Gavin is that he at least admits that the models could be wrong...
My hobby is attacking wrong positions as humanity can't affort them anymore as we are deep in code red territories now...
Synchronizing feedbacks is what will bring the warming momentum.
Just these two studies show how deep we are in the shit - the oceans skin temperature is controlled by highly non-linear feedbacks between the atmosphere and upper oceans - its kind of collapse of Earth system science as we knew it...
One study on the tropical monster marine heatwave in 2023/24 and on the Mediterranean in 2024
They show that we have here highly non-linear feedbacks at work with thresholds involved which regulate "Skin" temperature of the oceans - the upper ~100m - mean upper mixed layer depth.
"Extreme Marine Heatwaves in the Tropical Atlantic during Boreal Early-Spring 2024: Major Role of Shortwave Radiation and Mixed Layer Depth"; https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-25-0383.1/JCLI-D-25-0383.1.xml
This one is highly important:
Just initially week winds shallowed the mixed layer leading to a non-linear heating up of the surface layer and the whole current and eddy system in the Mediterranean See going into hypherdrive - also look at these high pressure values - lots of non-linearities involved
"Unprecedented Mediterranean Sea warming in 2024: analysis of the driving mechanisms"; https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2025.1668204/full
To understand the system one has to track the latest science papers on what we observe and why do we observe it...
Models simulate the warming are now trash!
The acceleration is just starting if we look at ocean heat uptake increase where the energy goes, the recent GHG trends in the atmosphere and how warming jumps function...
There is a real urgency to making this analysis relatable to the general public. I’m looking at Polar Vortex distortion and an inexorable shift toward solar and wind power for daily energy use.
It seems to me that if 2024-25 shifted the polar vortex as severely as it seems, it may repeat that influence more regularly soon. In 2025 it completely shifted the locus of major hurricanes around the US, and caused flooding and drought in different areas or at different intensities than expected.
And, despite the petrochemical industry’s (and Trump’s) best efforts, oil and gas will increasingly be replaced by non-carbon electric sources. Even China, which is still increasing its coal use, has planned to replace fossil fuels in the near future. There was an article about the Philippines today where locals are flocking to BYD dealerships to buy electric vehicles, in response to the war in Iran. As the world decreases Sulfur emissions from petrochemicals the locus of cloud formation will change, as will the quantity (I would imagine.)
That makes the need to inform the next generation even more urgent.
Dr Hansen,
Thank you.
Bill, if you are reading this then, "Reflect, Baby! Reflect!" in every sense of the word. With great power comes great responsibility.
What I wonder is, why? What could be the motive for hiding the truth about a heating planet, and who benefits from that? I had to stop Heating Planet blog because Google, who owns it, made it impossible to continue. I just wonder who wants to keep the truth from people and how much longer will they be able to keep up the obfuscation, as things get hotter and hotter and hotter. Google basically pulled the plug on this blog https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/
What I wonder is, why? What could be the motive for hiding the truth about a heating planet, and who benefits from that?.................................
Institutional loyalty and self-preservation is a powerful motivation to not see or hear or deeply interrogate the accepted assumptions. The Result: A "one-track mind" is actually a requirement for staying within the professional mainstream. In high-stakes fields, Motivated Reasoning occurs when experts are emotionally or professionally invested in a specific conclusion. When a scientist dismisses critics as "the usual suspects" or "fallacious," it can be a defense mechanism to protect the core theory from a "conundrum" that they cannot yet explain.
The field has reached a state of premature closure, where they have decided on the "culprit" (CO2) before the "investigation" (the full Pleistocene history) is complete. You’re observing a difference in scientific communication and epistemic posture, not just personalities.
Hansen’s style which you prefer makes explicit rationally based mechanistic claims (aerosols, EEI, cloud feedbacks, paleoclimate constraints). Hansen shows his chain of reasoning. States uncertainty explicitly. Then he overtly translates technical results into real world implications. Hansen fully accepts that he could be wrong and flags his specific assumptions openly. That is classic Feynman/Sagan scientific epistemology at work-real science.
Many mainstream communicators (Mann, Schmidt, Dessler, Hausfather, other embedded institutional voices) you'll notice they default to push a strong emphasis on consensus outputs (CMIP ensemble, IPCC summaries). Argument by aggregation with “thousands of models / scientists say X”. Assume a Defensive posture against outliers that has been entrenched by early 2000s attack by professional climate science deniers -- despite them being defeated the posture remains against against any perceived doubts or questioning of Institutional positions. This Media-facing group rely on rhetorical / narrative framing. Dispense ad hominem toward all dissenters (even if technically incorrect or overstated). That is institutional science communication, not frontier epistemology.
What you don’t see often or at all is a clean public logical teardown of Hansen's core chain of reasoning. Nor the data evidence he and his group of scientists relies upon. Instead you see: “Outlier” “Old” “Alarmist” “Defies CMIP consensus” “Cherry-picking” and now "trash-talking" and "brash".
Those are sociological arguments, not scientific falsification. Your unstated inference that this kind of behaviour by SELF-APPOINTED Aggressive Institutional Spokespeople triggers epistemic distrust is rational.
Dr. H. takes alot and thank God he keeps on tickin'.
I'm a layperson but Jim Hansen's latest take on the imminent ElNino switchover makes total sense.
2 key data sets produced using 2 different benchmarks. One doesn't account for the reduction in aerosols .. IPCC.. Jim's does.
Paul Beckwith is another excellent science podcaster who people interested in EEI (Earth Energy Imbalance) should look up.
Ultimately in this chaotic geopolitical climate with war in the middle east causing fossil fuelled economic misery, we need the straightforward science of experts to be aligned in telling the public the truth.. so Bill... please talk to Jim. 🙏🙏
More than ever we need countries across the globe to embrace renewables to off-ramp economic success tied to fossil fuel production.
The first step is to listen to the best science experts, not a former TV star with a failed history running his own businesses. Someone who is on-track to potentially cause the worst economic, environmental and humanitarian crisis since the 2nd world war.
Failure is not an option folks.
If you have a conscience,
You must respect the science.
🌏🫶
It's going to get so hot this year, no one will be denying global warming by december. I think
I am a keen reader of both Hansen and McKibben. I don't recall seeing McKibben's comment about Hansen "trash talking." In any case, I look forward to Bill's response. In science, I trust Hansen. In communication, I trust McKibben.
Thanks for this interesting discussion. If that super El Niño does arrive, watch for legacy media anchors reading items with names such as “Is climate change real after all?”
We wrote a short on the feedback that is now starting to operate in the global oceans driving SSTs:
Add the recent understanding of marine heatwaves driven by local feedbacks that interact non linear with the surrounding boundary conditions and this signal becomes an outcome of a vicious cycle…
I can provide a reader on the literature on this feedback as it is complex as regional developments and their drivers become important
https://drtomharris.substack.com/p/the-great-decoupling-how-ocean-stratification
thx, very good article by Jan n Tom highly recommend;
with more from LS - March 18 shows a new daily record high global Sea Surface Temperature. Without an El Niño. with graph
https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/2034655055295467904
Reading B M's post I think he belittled the great climate science of Dr Hansen
He should never had called him "brasher" but rather "esteemed climate scientist". This shows B M's not fully aware HOW BAD THE CLIMATE FIASCO REALLY IS.
I KNEW something was going on when that ocean temperature anomaly appeared immediately after they switched to cleaner fuel. Can we just cut to the chase and start up the stratospheric aerosol injection program already?
Thank you. Keep up the fight. We must support efforts to get accurate information to young people.
I didn't read McKibben's "brasher" comment as perjorative, but only as shorthand for the fact that there are differences of what scientists loosely call "opinion". Indeed Bill expressed alarm that the entire range of credible numbers points to an imminent and intolerable warming. The numbers are what they are, but everything in natural science relies on incomplete observations, all leading to some uncertainty. The deniers get away with framing this as "the scientists don't even agree on what is happening" because (a) few people can actually parse the subtle differences under discussion and (b) we who do follow the science fail to point out that the agreement between the predictions is far more worrisome than the scatter between them is comforting. Since 1988, Jim has been ahead of the crowd in perceiving the significance and threat of global warming. Other leading climate scientists and major IPCC reports make more conservative assumptions, but remember that the IPCC is massively coauthored by government reps from many oil-producing countries, and every word is "consensus" and thus watered down. All this is normal in science, but when the stakes are this high it is not necessarily "conservative" to simply accept the lower sensitivity numbers. If we want to "conserve" our way of life perhaps we should pay more attention to the higher sensitivity numbers. There will be no going back. Jim is suggesting that the plausible range includes more serious and sooner outcomes than the consensus, and he is very specific about why he draws this conclusion. I'd like a link that gives similarly concrete and specific scientific counterarguments to his, rather than typical MSM sound bites of the "he said, she said" variety. The "brash" and "conservative" estimates (in the face of today's shameful denial) both seem to say we are going to HIT the iceberg within the next generation or so, they just differ on precisely WHEN.
It is pejorative in every sense of the word. BM writes alot. Has a great vocabulary. BM should apologize but more than that listen to Dr Hansen. With great power comes great responsibility and BM should not act as a misleading climate parrot. I respect BM for his call to stop fossils and go green. I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR HIM CALLING MORAL HAZARDS AND SUPPRESSING CLIMATE TRUTH. We are burning faster and crawldown or lamedown is not enough.
The ad hominem abuse and the denial and ridicule of the science is coming from egotistical climate scientists. Part of the problem is this kind of sophistry above which denies there's fundamental scientific disagreements underpinning the disinformation and dishonesty by so-called "leading climate scientists and major IPCC reports" which Hansen et al are having to stand up against.
And try and get thru the constant serious misinformation like this above:> " the IPCC is massively coauthored by government reps from many oil-producing countries, and every word is "consensus" and thus watered down." is outright False.
Govt reps can only argue changes in Summaries not the Data. The input of CMIP Models that feed into everything of the IPCC reports are littered with errors unfounded assumptions and constant minimizing of the high degree of uncertainty in inputs and outputs. The mass scale modelling / CMIP SYSTEM as a whole is overstated unscientific and ideologically conservative while the "outspoken self-appointed leaders" publicly dissing and abusing the more formidable science based on physics and intelligent reasoning of others represent here by Hansen.
The muddying of the waters, the put downs are intentional and effective to the point where even a Bill McKibben gets seriously confused and thus manipulated by it.
Hansen is not alone. Beware the slick rhetoric who say there's no real scientific disagreement at heart of the constant abuse being dished out for years against him and any who align with him or Kevin Anderson. The "consensus" PR has been hijacked and is being misused against credible scientists like Hansen et al. It impacts their funding and their ability to get the message out to the politicians and the public globally.... that the rapid acceleration in warming is real, is scientifically solid, and the greatest denial about the urgent seriousness of climate change today is now coming from the consensus institutionally entrenched climate scientists!
That is interesting that the non-scientists ONLY get to massage the summaries (not that this is insignificant, because it is here where the "urgency" factor enters and it is mostly these parts that policy makers read), but are you sure there are not also participants labeled scientists, say, corporate scientists or government scientists with conflicting interests, who can spin the technical sessions as well? I'm just curious. Maybe that's the difference between the lengthy IPCC discussions and the (shorter) COP meetings (where many parties with vested interests seem to play actively in the same game). Just trying to get educated here. I think we may agree about the rest of it, though, that there are genuine scientific uncertainties (as captured in most of your paragraph ".. The input of .. etc..", including the ones Jim describes so well in detail that I am not competent to assess. Frankly though, I think there is plenty enough in the co-called "conservative" scenario alone to horrify anyone who is paying attention, as McKibben has so well shown. To make real progress, I'd rather look harder at addressing the real obstacles - the MSM in particular for playing the "both sides" game for FAR too long, and the cynical and remorseless denial of the GOP in the USA, which have lulled a scientifically illiterate electorate to sleep. To move the progress needle, I think, we have to get the young aroused to the point of hair-on-fire, in language they can understand, as it is their future and they have abundant energy if energized. For example, they all blamed Joe Biden for higher food prices and I bet very few of them understand that human-caused global climate change is a significant factor.