Dr. James Hansen

Global Warming: Connecting the Dots from Causes to Solutions
Sunday, July 29, 10:00 am

Earth's climate is dominated by positive feedbacks, and it is now at a tipping point. Avoidance of climate catastrophe requires fundamental changes, primarily in energy use. Although the changes are not yet being adopted, they would have great benefits for energy independence and national security.

Dr. James Hansen heads the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City; and he is an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa, where he received his bachelor’s of arts degree with highest distinction in 1963, his masters of science degree in astronomy in 1965, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1967. Except for 1969, when he was an NSF post-doctoral scientist at Leiden Observatory under Prof. H.C. van de Hulst, he has spent his post-doctoral career at NASA. His early research on the properties of clouds of Venus led to their identification as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has worked on studies and computer simulations of the Earth's climate, for the purpose of understanding the human impact on global climate. Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and, in 2001, received both the Heinz Award for environment as well as the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle Medal. Dr. Hansen received the World Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Medal from the Duke of Edinburgh in 2006.