Hansen Says Development Of Tar Sands Would Mean “Game Over For Climate”

The global warming movement is all about energy starvation – with the aim of denying humanity access to the cheapest and most readily available forms of energy.The restriction of energy eventually makes whatever energy that is left on the market so expensive that it risks becoming unaffordable to the large majority of the world’s poor people. The result: Many of the poor will simply die because of the consequences of energy deprivation.

After all, it was Hans Schellnhuber who called determining that the “carrying capacity of the planet to be less than a billion people” one of the triumphs of science, read here.

One way to help deny energy to humanity is to deny populations the use of the huge reserves of the now easily extractable tar sands in Canada. Activists are now gearing up to pressure Obama stop this supply of fuel.

This is what German alarmist site klimaretter.de (which means “climate saviour.de” in German) here encourages, namely blocking the Keystone XL continental pipeline extension that is in the works to transport the valuable tar sand petroleum product from Canada to US markets. Klimaretter labels the pipeline: “Pipeline for climate killer oil”.

Solid bitumen in the sands

Tar sands are heavy bitumen found in the soils of northern Canada. Anywhere else, bitumen oozing openly in the environment would be considered an environmental hazard and any efforts to clean it up would be welcome. But not if the clean-up means supplying the USA with cheap and reliable energy. Klimaretter claims tar sand “is considered extremely environmentally and climate-damaging” and that “studies presume that its oil causes 5 times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil”.

Activists demand that it all be stopped. One way to stop, at least hinder, tar sand extraction would be to shut down the planned pipeline extension from Canada to Texas. Klimaretter says that the USA is greedily wringing its hands as it eyes these riches, claiming that the “fatal impacts on climate change are being gladly ignored”.

James Hansen, says klimaretter, warns of these “fatal” consequences. Klimaretter quotes the eccentric NASA scientist:

The known climate scientist James Hansen emphasizes that the extraction of tar sands would increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by 50%. ‘When the development of the tar sands continues, then it means “game over for the climate,’ says Hansen.”

Bill McKibben chimes in saying that Obama could stop the pipeline expansion. Klimaretter quotes:

‘In this matter the President has full control in that he can issue permission or refuse it,’ says Bill McKibben, founder of  350.org.”

With the US economy still in shambles and Obama looking out for the poor folks, it’ll be interesting to see what Obama decides. Poor people desperately need cheap and reliable energy –  so does prosperity. And looking at the climate, the scientific data clearly shows that CO2 has only a minor impact, if any, on the climate.

20 responses to “Hansen Says Development Of Tar Sands Would Mean “Game Over For Climate””

  1. DirkH

    Pierre, i was walking around at klimaretter, marveling at videos of vegan festivals in Berlin and so on, and found, at their “climate lie detector”, this link.

    http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article13466483/Die-CO2-Theorie-ist-nur-geniale-Propaganda.html

    Die Welt lets Günter Ederer explain the skeptic position. From July the 04th.

  2. Bruce of Newcastle

    The irony is that the US will still buy the oil, just that it will come by sea through the west coast terminals.

    Which means it will cause more emissions of CO2 due to the fuel oil burnt by all the tankers bringing it.

  3. John F. Hultquist

    In the Eastern USA there is opposition (see Kennedy) to wind power with part of the argument based on the more efficient importing of electricity from Canada. Others claim there are environmental issues with that. There is opposition to the Western USA importing oil from Canada. When corporations move jobs to Canada for an ample supply of economical power there will be an outcry about exporting jobs. Either way, the less skilled and poor sacrifice the most. As the current administration leads from behind, can anyone be surprised with the muddle?

  4. Bernd Felsche

    I’ll make it one of my goals in life to eliminate as much of the “Klimakiller-Öl” as possible. Even if it means taking many, pointless inter-continental flights and many, very long, aimless drives around the countyside.

    And as Pierre rightly points out, there’s no sense in NOT cleaning up the countryside in Canada and removing the toxic substances as efficiently as possible to appropriate points of disposal.

    1. DirkH

      Isn’t this what recycling is all about – recycle the remnants of old plants and create new plants from it.

  5. Edward

    /The known climate scientist James Hansen emphasizes that the extraction of tar sands would increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by 50%. ‘When the development of the tar sands continues, then it means “game over for the climate,’ says Hansen.”/

    Usual c**p,”increase CO2 concentration in the atmophere by 50%” – absolute BS!

    Does he mean, 390ppm to 780ppm? Or, just man’s contribution @ +/-5% of .039% by volume?

    If a realist came out with that sort of vacuous ‘guestimation’ – the laughing would never stop…………………so how come Hansen gets away with it?

  6. Edward

    OOPs.

  7. biggreenlie

    As an “ex-employee” of one of the two major “players” in the Tar Sands back in the early 1980’s I saw first hand the “environmental concerns” by the very company I worked for. I might mention at the time I would have considered myself as a “concerned Environmentalist” and was very aware of what damage could be done by “dirty oil” extraction.
    The company I worked for had a large “Environmental Team” set up with their own laboratory to address any negative methods of oil extraction that could place Land and Wildlife in harms way. I was surprised and delighted to witness first hand, man-made duck nesting grounds right ON the Tar Ponds that literally allowed Ducks to live in elevated nests and bear their young, not only surviving but re-producing and carrying on a healthy lifestyle! This amazed me and gave me a whole new perspective on how thoughtful and scientific people could help wildlife adapt to a potentially disastrous development. Many other efforts were also developed to protect the surrounding lands and the people who actually worked inside the Tar Sands were “cutting edge” at the time and may well be ahead of their time by at least 30 to 40 years!

    I now read daily the absolute BULLSHIT coming from the mouths of people like Hansen and others about horror stories that don’t exist in reality and create false impressions on how the Oil Sands is a “Dirty blight on the Planet!”

    They spout out and out lies to push through “their agenda” which is to create Energy Poverty world-wide for the end game of Global Control over all the people’s of the world.

    Here’s a remedy: get these naysayers to work for 6 months inside these developments, all the while keeping their “pie holes” shut and at the end of 6 months get them to tell their stories the way they should, with real-world experience!

    Until they do that, BOYCOTT any statement made by these idiots!

  8. mwhite

    “Tar Sand: A sandstone containing the densest asphaltic components of petroleum – the end-product of evaporation of volatile components or of some thickening process.”

    http://www.superglossary.com/Definition/Geology/Tar_Sand.html

    All those hydrocarbons evaporated into the atmosphere, who knows perhaps still evaporating.

  9. R. de Haan

    Never heard so much hubris in my life.
    Foxtrot them all.

  10. matti

    The attched information explains why Hansen’s views are void of credibilty

    http://joannenova.com.au:80/2011/08/blockbuster-planetary-temperature-controls-co2-levels-not-humans/

  11. Charles Higley

    “The known climate scientist James Hansen emphasizes that the extraction of tar sands would increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by 50%.”

    What utter BS! There is not even enough total available carbon to even get a rise of 20%!

    What the reknown Dauchter Hansen fails to know or admit is that CO2 partitions 50 to 1 with the oceans, thus requiring 50 times more CO2 than a simple atmospheric doubling.

    If we released CO2 equal to the atmospheric content today, partitioning would result in less than a 2% rise (100%/51), ignoring that the biota of the planet would thrive and grow faster and calcium carbonate deposition would accelerate, all serving to decrease the rise.

    Hansen is an idiot!

  12. Joe

    It’s not nearly as foul as that oily brown coal they used to use (even in apartments) in the DDR.

  13. Chris Young

    You’re all too stupid to take a minute to read up on the basics of climate and the fossil record. You’re toxic waste

    1. Ed Caryl

      And where you for the last seven months??

    2. DirkH

      Hi Chris. Any coherent argument from you? A link? No, a childish insult.
      Here’s a link for you. UAH global temperatures. We currently have a tropospheric temperature like in 1979.

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2012.png

      Make of that what you will.

      1. Ulrich Elkmann

        Dirk, from the warmist point of view, we ARE toxic waste: slowly making their life unsustainable in the warm muddy biotope they have created for themselves. As the saying goes: If you want to drain a swamp, don’t ask the frogs.

        1. DirkH

          Oh come on. He’s angry and frustrated… somebody has to help these people; their belief system collapses.

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