Global Warming Problem Clearer Now, Expert Says

James Hansen has felt the heat of global warming.

In 1988, the NASA climate modeler sat before a U.S. Senate committee and declared that the planetary warming phenomenon “is already happening now.” His persuasive account grabbed headlines worldwide.

It also grabbed the attention of the White House.

A year later, when Hansen was scheduled to testify again on Capitol Hill, Bush administration officials edited the scientist’s remarks to water down conclusions about the impact of global warming. As a result, he declined to appear.

When it comes to climate change, it seems, both the science and the politics are major league. And lately, the sandal-shod Hansen said, “I’ve been sticking to the science.”

In his 17th year as director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hansen, 56, remains in the forefront of world research on atmospheric change.

He and the staff at the uptown Manhattan center also manage, in the midyear months, to run a summer Institute on Climate and Planets for promising inner-city high school and college students, sessions that he interrupted to meet with a reporter.

The deliberate, soft-spoken Iowan stands by his 1988 testimony today more than ever.

“I think the story is a lot stronger, a lot clearer than it was 10 years ago,” he said.

His 1988 warning was followed by powerful evidence: Average global temperatures in 1990 were the highest in recorded history, and that record was then broken in 1995. Still, Hansen concedes, the public seems to regard climate change as something remote.

But that may not last.

“If our model is right, we should just in the next two or three years see temperatures that are above the 1995 maximum,” he said. “We are getting to the point where the effects should be noticeable to the person on the street.”