User:Tillman/Hansen criticism

Criticism of Hansen's role as a climate activist

Andrew Freeman, an environmental journalist and columnist at the Washington Post, thinks the American Meteorological Society erred in giving Hansen its 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal: "By citing his 'clear communication of climate science in the public arena,' they may have actually sanctioned his political advocacy. Such advocacy... threatens to paint the AMS as having a political agenda too." Other AMS members have also criticized the award.

Freeman Dyson has been strongly critical of Hansen's climate-change activism. "The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers... Hansen has turned his science into ideology.” Dyson "doesn’t know what he’s talking about", Hansen responded. "He should first do his homework."

After Hansen's arrest in West Virginia, New York Times columnist Andrew Revkin wrote: "Dr. Hansen has pushed far beyond the boundaries of the conventional role of scientists, particularly government scientists, in the environmental policy debate."

New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert believes Hansen is "increasingly isolated among climate activists." Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said that "I view Jim Hansen as heroic as a scientist... But I wish he would stick to what he really knows. Because I don't think he has a realistic idea of what is politically possible..."

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In June 2008, Vic Svec, a senior vice president of Peabody Energy, responded to Hansen's statement to Congress that coal and oil executives should be tried for “crimes against humanity and nature”: "If he would imprison those who don’t march in lockstep with his views, the jails would be very, very big."