RUSH: James Hansen is doing an appearance, a 20th anniversary appearance today.
‘James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call…’ (laughing) I hope I get subpoenaed. James Hansen ‘will today call for the chief executives of [Big Oil] to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that [Big Tobacco] blurred the links between smoking and cancer. Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress — in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming — to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the ‘perfect storm’ of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable. Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of [Big Oil] of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.
‘In an interview with the Guardian he said: ‘When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that’s a crime.” Well, if that’s the case, the entire NEA needs to be brought up on charges. What gets into textbooks is a bunch of BS and lies. But that is not the point. (Ooh, there’s that ugly dog. That ugly dog that won the ugly dog contest — the Chinese breed, three legs, one eye — is a cute little puppy, cute little dog. They say it’s ugly.) At any rate, I have not lost my place. Twenty years of fear, and he’s going to go back for an encore performance today, to redo it, and now he wants these people put in jail! This is a NASA guy who is not even allowed to comment politically, and he’s not been reprimanded for it, even when he was part of NASA and doing all this. Can I tell you a little story about 20 years ago and what happened?
I have this on good authority from a blog. Chris Horner at CEI.org remembers a Frontline — the PBS show called Frontline — interview with Timothy Wirth, who was Gore’s buddy back then, who ran this committee where Hansen first testified. ‘Frontline interviewed key players in the June 1988 Senate hearing at which then-Senator Al Gore rolled out the official conversion from panic over ‘global cooling’ to global warming alarmism. Frontline interviewed Gore’s colleague, then-Sen. Tim Wirth (now running Ted Turner’s UN Foundation).’ Wirth, because it was PBS and a bunch of liberals, ‘freely admitted the clever scheming that went into getting the dramatic shot of scientist James Hansen mopping his brow amid a sweaty press corps.’ I have the transcript here, and this is what happened. ‘Sen. Timothy Wirth (D-CO): We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it.
‘So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.’ Deborah Amos, the reporterette for Frontline: ‘On Capitol Hill, Sen. Timothy Wirth was one of the few politicians already concerned about global warming, and he was not above using a little stagecraft for Hansen’s testimony. Timothy Wirth: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it. Deborah Amos (PBS Frontline): Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day? Timothy Wirth: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air-conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot. Wirth: Dr. Hansen, if you’d start us off, we’d appreciate it.’
And then ‘Hansen was wiping his brow at the table at the hearing, at the witness table, and giving this remarkable testimony,’ he was all sweaty. Everybody in the room was sweating profusely, because they had turned off the air conditioner. So they used ‘stagecraft’ to set all this up. Now, aside from the theatrics and so forth, stop and think of this. He wants to put Big Oil guys on trial and put them in jail for lying! This is an insult. I mean, if anybody’s going to get sued, brought on trial, brought up on charges, thrown in jail, why not me? Nobody knows the names of these Big Oil guys! Big Oil guys supposedly have been lying about this for 20 years. I have been telling the truth about it for 20 years, which Hansen says is a lie. Come on, Dr. Hansen. You’re going after Big Oil? I have been doing more to get the truth out about global warming than anybody at Big Oil. They’re a bunch of cowards! They’re running around funding all these alternative research projects, and they’re showing up just recently that they finally got some gonads before Congress in these hearings. Come on, Dr. Hansen, be a man about this. Go after the real enemy: me. Those guys, they haven’t convinced anybody of anything. They’re just running around making their excess windfall profits. But I’m the guy you really gotta worry about in terms of dealing with the American people and public opinion on this. Come on, Dr. Hansen. Indict me!