Speaking out on climate change (TED lecture by James Hansen)

March 11, 2012
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Another lecture that really should be required viewing for everyone. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is a credible expert on climate change and global warming. In this lecture he describes some of the main features of the climate change taking place today and gives a good sense of just how much time is left before we reach the point of no return. Most amazing is the fact that Hansen firmly believes that the greatest challenge facing human civilization has a simple and elegant solution, which is for governments to collect a gradually rising carbon fee from oil companies and to redistribute it to legal residents. This would make fossil fuels increasingly less profitable for oil companies to produce and less economical for consumers to use, which in turn would help nudge us off the addiction to oil. The trouble though with this simple and elegant solution is that, not only are we addicted to oil, but the pushers of this drug are the wealthiest, most powerful corporations on the planet. What government could possibly phase them out of existence? 

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