Australia 'destroying life on Earth' - 地球科學討論

※ [本文轉錄自 Ecophilia 看板]

作者: balanceCIH (()()()) 看板: Ecophilia
標題: [新聞] Australia 'destroying life on Earth'
時間: Tue Jan 6 19:17:13 2009

來源媒體或網址: http://tinyurl.com/a527j5 (News.com.au)

NASA's James Hansen tells Barack Obama Australia 'destroying much of life on
Earth'

By Sean Plambeck
NEWS.com.au
January 06, 2009 05:00pm



* NASA scientist writes to Obama
* Attacks our coal, climate policies
* Will destroy much life on Earth


AUSTRALIA'S use of coal and carbon emissions policies are guaranteeing the "
destruction of much of the life on the planet", a leading NASA scientist has
written in a letter to Barack Obama.

The head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Professor James
Hansen, has written an open letter to Barack Obama calling for a moratorium
on coal-fired power stations and the use of next-generation nuclear power.

In the letter he says: "Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon
dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the
planet."

Prof Hansen said goals and caps on carbon emissions were practically
worthless because of the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air.

“Instead a large part of the total fossil fuels must be left in the ground.
In practice, that means coal,” he wrote.

“Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil
and gas will be left in the ground.”

Prof Hansen said that emissions reduction targets, like Kevin Rudd's goal to
cut emissions by a minimum of 5 per cent and up to 15 per cent by 2020, do
not work.

“This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat,”
he wrote of reduction plans.

“It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our
planet and humanity.”

Professor Hansen also works in the Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at Columbia University and has given testimony on climate change to
the US Congress.

He said he wrote to Mr Obama as the incoming US president is in a position to
instigate global change and "his presidency may be judged in good part on
whether he was able to turn the tide (on climate change) - more important,
the futures of young people and other life will depend on that".

He called for the end of coal plants that do not capture and store carbon
dioxide and for funding for "fourth generation" nuclear power plants that
could run on material now regarded as waste.

Comment is being sought from Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.


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