Quotes from James Hansen

The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.

What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

Policy decisions on climate change are being deliberated every day by those without full knowledge of the science, and often with intentional misinformation spawned by special interests.

Some Democrats deserve to be criticized.

I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.

As a government employee, you can't testify against the government.

We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life.

It's as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.

Talking nice about sun and wind and green jobs is just greenwash.

We're running out of time.

How long have we got? We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree... We don't have much time left.

Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King - and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights.

Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed.

Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career.

The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon.

A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.

Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.

Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.

I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university.

Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.

Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate.

Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater reserves. We must stop using it.

The United States did not sign Kyoto, yet its emissions are not that different from the countries that did sign it.

We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.