“TRUMP CLIMATE GENOCIDE” – poster message of climate change action protester outside the US Embassy in London after the election of racist, bigoted, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-oil, anti-science, anti-environment and neoliberal climate change denier Donald Trump as President of the US (see Tom Powell, “Donald Trump protesters swoop on US Embassy in London to warn of “climate genocide”” , Evening Standard, 2016: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-protesters-swoop-on-us-embassy-in-london-to-warn-of-climate-genocide-a3399621.html ).
“TRUMP CLIMATE GENOCIDE” – poster message of climate change action protester outside the US Embassy in London after the election of racist, bigoted, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-oil, anti-science, anti-environment and neoliberal climate change denier Donald Trump as President of the US (see Tom Powell, “Donald Trump protesters swoop on US Embassy in London to warn of “climate genocide”” , Evening Standard, 2016: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-protesters-swoop-on-us-embassy-in-london-to-warn-of-climate-genocide-a3399621.html ).
Dr Hansen has also stated that approval of the Keystone pipeline to exploit oil from Alberta, Canada tar sands was “game over for the climate” (2012): “Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.” If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk. That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground… The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years. The tar sands contain enough carbon — 240 gigatons — to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close cousin of tar sands found mainly in the United States, contains at least an additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control” (James Hansen, “Game over for the climate”, New York Times, 9 May 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html )].