Tax fossil fuels or risk kids' future
Miami : The planet's three most dangerous greenhouse gases are rising, and fossil fuels must be taxed to protect children from the costly turmoil of rising seas and extreme storms, world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen warned Tuesday.
Otherwise, young people face the "dubious" proposition of somehow sucking carbon dioxide from the air at a price tag of hundreds of trillions of dollars in the next century, said Hansen, who leads the climate science program at Columbia University's Earth Institute.
"The science has become crystal clear," Hansen told reporters on a conference call to discuss his latest research paper, titled "Young People's Burden: The Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions."
"We have to phase out carbon emissions over the next few decades," said Hansen, describing the actions of the US government up until now as "grossly inadequate."
Hansen, formerly of NASA, is suing the US government along with 21 youths across the country, including his 18-year-old granddaughter.
The suit alleges that US leaders are not doing enough to curb climate change and are and failing to protect essential "public trust" resources such as clean air and water, thereby depriving future generations of their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
The paper, published Tuesday in Earth Systems Dynamics Discussion, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but Hansen said he wanted it released now because time is of the essence.
"Some people might object to discussing such a paper before it has gone through the peer-review process, but I am going to do that simply because we are running out of time on the climate issue," Hansen said.
Related Posts