[indiscernible] which is a good start. But we need to take this moment and gain some momentum. And say that we need to educate america. What role you think there is in the Mainstream Media and to try to get some designated shows the talk about this day in and day out . This is not the fiscal cliff, but the climate cliff . Getting politicians, authors, experts, so that the rest of america hears it. I really hope that this will be the next wave, talking about solutions. The good news is that there are already some wonderful things coming. If is a great series. It is coming out of showtime. They go interviewing people around the country and record any impact on the lives. I think that increasing the awareness, that this is an issue that happens to me in my life, where i love, none of the people of bears for the island, but me living in san antonio tx or me living in concord or seattle for miami. You can make it directly relevant and interesting to cubas lives. The more interest there will be. Thank you so much to each of you for coming. I want to draw on a couple of things. As the education director with the power and passion of my generation wanting one of the things that i think is so critically missing is clear pathways to support the translation of informed inspiration and its desire to be part of interaction. I was curious it, if we had to lift up in a threeyear window, how do we prioritize the leverage point in terms of production . Is it a rebate system . Will it make a difference in the general public . My generation of young people would want to be a solution to the change. That is a whole other panel. As scientists, our job is to solidify the suns with the best possible information. Honestly, i am thankful that i am not in policy making because that is the hardest thing to do. But i believe that there is a great amount of lowhanging fruit. There are a lot of things that we can do, leaving climate out of it, still have benefits. Old malay, there is a worthy debate be had on what the rule is that government plays. Ultimately, that is what we have to do. There is a debate to be had. Should it be a carbon tax, a cat capt. Trade legislation . There are now conservative groups who are advancing with freemarket branded solutions. The other day, a filler in the conservative booth, came out in support of a carbon tax. [applause] Grover Norquist chemo for about 16 hours. Came out for about 16 hours. [laughter] definitely carbon taxes is bubbling up. Rush right. And from a surprising source. People on the conservative side of the political spectrum, ultimately, i should not be a bar a partisan political issue. The day the sandy hit, i was with many people. Of is just about to touch on that. Fires burned homes with their democrats for republicans. The climate system does not care. Hopefully, what we can do as scientists, is checked the risks and then the location details. But that is a whole different ball game. My name is carol stone. Do you think the mayan calendar this year will have any effect . And what is the effect of the population in the world a billion on this issue of carbon violation . That there is a number of factors. When you look at local government in emissions. If there are more people on the planet burning carbon for energy, we will be adding more carbon to the atmosphere. On the other hand, people who are living in a westernstyle exist then use a lot more energy than people in the developing world. One of the terms in the product of terms from which we deduce future Carbon Emissions is global population. We tend to believe the global population will stabilize with 10 billion people by the middle of the century because the developing world will take on some of the characteristics of the western world in terms of their rate of production, for example. When you look at some of those projections, built into many of them is the assumption that the global population will eventually stabilize. If it does not do that, it means that the problem is even worse. That is the key uncertainty, the wild card. The bottomline is a really nice where people are in the world, but how many people want a u. S. Lifestyle. Thomas rugen talks about an america that has 3 billion people. My name is wayne rauf. It is wayne rth. What will it take to make the sacrifices to save our planet . My basic metaphor for what were doing to plan a is putting a stick in a hornets nest. A look at the pale ale for maximum and that lasted a thousand years. When we were bombed in pearl harbor, we acted very quickly. We do not recognize that were in a program right now. But it is spreading all of the planet and nothing is raising the consciousness of the Common People to the degree to say that we have to do something. Where is the sense of urgency . What will it take . Will it take another hurricane katrinawould take another drought in the midwest where they have no food to eat . How many people in the United States will have to die before the United States political system recognizes and becomes a leader should quicken actually make some changes . One thing that Steve Schneider always emphasized to students is that if is worth thinking about the matter for which apply to Climate Change. Coral harbour is one which is an urgent one. But certainly apartheid or Civilrights Movement were things that are every bit as urgent where the time skills are much longer and the accuracy takes on how you talk to people. I think we can learn a lot from the past. Look at the issue of slavery. We were the bad guys than also. It was the foundation of the economy. People were making the same argument at them. It was not so bad. It would destroy the economy if we got rid of it. I think people have a lot to learn. There are many examples we can build on from the past year in the past. Admitting that we have a problem is the first step. Slavery abolishing slavery did not room economy. Did not ruin the economy. Right. Nobody objects to a medical researcher over what we need to do to save lives. That when a clear researcher says what we have to do to save lives, people get upset. One of the things that i tried to stress in my book is a theme that i touched on earlier, that this should not be partisan political issue. With the attacks those of you to by politicians who wanted to discredit my work and wanted to discredit the signs of Climate Change, some of the heroes came from what you might be considered as surprising quarters. Probably the greatest defender of against defender against the attacks of joe barton of texas, trying to find something to discredit me, it turned out that it was a fellow republican, the chair of the house science committee, pro sons, proenvironmental republican who came to defend my colleagues and me in this political witch hunt by his own fellow republican. A think youll find this among many of my colleagues and scientists today. We do our best to frame this not as a bipartisan or political issue because it should not be. It is a fact of life that it has become somewhat of a partisan political issue. But there is some evidence that there are people on the republican side of the aisle were stepping up to challenge and do something about this problem. We sometimes make the mistake of saying that [indiscernible] science and values can provide the same information. I think they are completely complementary. Signs is able to tell us what the problem is and what the consequences are of the trees is we make. Our values is what happens from the sources. A village in alaska considers it already happened. A town and a texas might think it will not happen for a few tickets are lunker. We have to bring our values and to it. Otherwise we do not know what to do. Left it to more questions in here. Correct there has been a lot of the has been a lot of talk and im wondering if have we seen a similar rise in the denial . Unfortunately, we have seen that. Some of it at a fairly high level. It turns out a lot of lobbyists and advisers who were behind some of the efforts to stifle scientists and in the previous president ial administration here in the u. S. Literally moved up to alaska. They used the same playbook. The government set aside to being centered, not being allowed to talk to the media about the threat to the environment from Climate Change. I have colleagues. Scientists to study and were told specifically they were not allowed to talk to the media. But if that was being orchestrated at a highlevel. It was the same playbook. Some of the same advisers and lobbyists running the show. I do not think that is unrelated to some of what we have seen happen with policy, with regard to the mining it into canada under this administration. You mentioned hoping to hold the line or the parts per million. How many billion metric tons are pumping it in this year . What do we have to do to get it to stay down to that line . James hansen has made a passionate argument for 450 ppm being too high. Even we we bought co2 back to 350, that would barely be necessary to make some of the changes. Were well above 350. We are now at 394 ppm. There may not be a magic number. It is a matter of extent and how much risk we want to subject ourselves to. If you want to think of it as a freeway, you would like to get off at the soonest exit ramp you can but if you missed that first exit ramp, you still want to take that next ramp. It does not mean you stay on the freeway in oblivion. He has done the numbers pretty carefully. We have 5 times as much fossil fuels already the available known reserves that we are ready to access. We have five times the amount necessary to give us 2 degrees celsius, three and a half degrees fahrenheit. Dangerous warming of the climate system. We cannot afford to tap into the reserves we already have available, let alone be exploring, investigating other additional reserves. That is the bottom line. It is hard to look this issue issue in the face and not lose hope. When we see the signs rose ever more certain year after year. And the doubt regarding the seriousness of this issue has climbed as well how does each of us get up and in the morning . I think we all have enormous hope and faith in the fact that the trugth can win out. That we are survivalists. We want a better world, we want a better future. With some work, i think we can get there. Lets end it there. ,. Thank you for coming. Continue the discussion now with james hansen at the Goddard Institute for space studies and author of the storms of my grandchildren. He spoke of the Commonwealth Club of california and was awarded and the board at the event. It was named for a Stamford University environmental scientists who advised several u. S. President s. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] i interviewed a lot of fantastic people in this room and that does not happen very often. Welcome to climate one. Im greta dalton. In 1988, james hansen told a congressional hearing he was 99 certain that burning fossil fuels was hurting the earths atmosphere. The next day, and New York Times had nine set Global Warming has begun. A quartercentury later, he and other scientists are still striving to convince much of the United States. Seas are rising, floods are increasing. Humans are the cause. Half of americans now accept that fact. 40 to not, according to gallup. We will discuss climatized communication, Public Policy and opinion with james hansen and our Live Audience here at the Commonwealth Club of california. Today dr. Hanson received a Steven Schneider award for outstanding communication. He was a pioneering scientist at stanford. Please welcome dr. Hansen. [applause] welcome back. It has been two years since you were here. I would like to begin with hurricane sandy. You lived in manhattan. Where were you when it was approaching . I was on our farm in pennsylvania. Where we ended up losing power for the better part of a week. Four big trees blown over. Railings blown off. Our deck and windows blown out of the barn. Even in pennsylvania, separate it from the Atlantic Ocean by new jersey, all this still new jersey did not do much to offer it. But that is where i was. The lights went out. We heard these noises on the second floor as these billings were getting blown off. It was an interesting experience. Your first big storm like that . I think this was the biggest one i was a in. Even though im from western iowa upper but we get these tornado warnings all the time to go to the basement. Where we would get these tornado warnings all the time to go to the basement. When did you go to new york . I drove to new york excitedly as a 25yearold graduate of the university of iowa. In 1967, i met Steve Schneider, as did dent a student at that time. It is ironic that im getting the Steve Schneider war. We could not have been more opposite. Award. We cannot have been more opposite. He had the gift of gab. He is so particulate as it didnt as a student. And, as i say, we couldnt have been more opposite. He as i was this tactiturn midwest scientist who wanted to do the numbers and do my science and not talk about it, but he would come to my door, he would be in the door of my office and talking to me and, eventually, i would turn around and be working on my desk and he somehow, he couldnt take the hint. [laughter] but when anniek who was then my girlfriend, would visit me, then she would see that, well, i really didnt want to talk to steve. So she would talk to him, and that was good, let me try to work. But if you try to work, you know, like when the television is on, and youre trying to do work, its very hard. But, anyway, we actually despite this, we became friends and anniek and i went mountain climbing with him in the small mountains around new york. But and youve actually delegated to him some of the communications requests that came to you. Yeah, because i didnt and when i after i testified in 1988 and realized all the hoopla that went with that, which is not what i do, im not a communicator and i dont enjoy it. So, when there were request for interviews, steve said he was happy to take them. So and that division of labor was fine with you . Yeah, that was fine with me. And if they insisted on someone on the east coast, then i send them to michael oppenheimer, but hes at princeton. So yeah. So on sandy, when you went back to new york after sandy, what did you see and what were you thinking . You wrote a book, storms of my grandchildren. Were you thinking, aha, the storms ive been writing about are here now . Well, it was an example. The storm you know, i titled it storms of my grandchildren because, if we pass the point where greenland begins to shed ice fast enough to cool the north atlantic, which only requires that you get up to about half a meter or so from greenland, that will increase the temperature gradients between the high latitudes and low latitudes and that is what drives cyclonic storms. So some of these storms of the century that weve had, the really big cyclonic storms which, unlike a hurricane, they stretch for thousands of miles. So you can have one that stretches from the caribbean to canada and with Hurricane Force winds. And now, if we increase the temperature gradients by several degrees, which we can do, were going to get those types of storms and europe will particularly suffer from them. But when you get a hurricane embedded within one, then you get double dose and thats what happened with sandy and that kind of thing will happen, too if we get stronger cyclonic storms. And the damage goes like the cube of the wind speed. So its not like you know, if the wind speed had been 10 Miles Per Hour less, we wouldnt have had all that damage. Those trees have been standing there for centuries. These were really big trees on our property. So there havent been storms like that, or those trees wouldnt still have been there. And was there a human fingerprint on sandy . Could you say how much Climate Change contributed to the ferocity and the intensity of sandy . Well, theres a human fingerprint in several ways. The ocean was unusually warm along the eastern seaboard and it was warmer by more than the global average, so people are saying, oh, you can only credit one quarter of that to Global Warming. Well, the warming, its like, these extreme events that were getting, were getting them much more frequently. Of course, you cant say where and when they are going to be, but if you just as i say, the climate dice are now loaded, and they are loaded in such a way that, not only do we get more unusually warm seasons, but those which are most extreme are much more frequent than they used to be. So this warm patch of water, i would say, you would not have had unlikely that you would have such extreme warming without this Global Warming underneath that. So thats one thing. But in addition, the Global Warming makes more water vapor in the atmosphere which makes the rain fall heavier and the floods greater. So there is a connection with Global Warming, even though as scientists always like to say, well, you cant blame a single event and connect that in a simple way to Global Warming. But the frequency and extreme extremity of those events, you can connect to Global Warming in a very straightforward way. Because i had heard from some people that hurricanes was where the data was less firm. Sea level rises very good data, precipitation events, floods has very good data, but hurricanes is where people who are skeptics or deniers like to say, aha, not so. The frequency of occurrence of hurricanes is affected by many factors, not just the global temperature. But the storms that are driven by latent heat are that like have their fuel from latent heat and that includes hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornados, you have more fuel for those, so the strongest ones are going to be stronger. The number of hurricanes is a is more difficult and that is a matter of research, but the region in which you can possibly have hurricanes is expanding and the seasons in which you can have sandy was