Climate scientist will deliver warning on warming

From an article by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Organizers of the annual Renewable Energy Summit next month in Milwaukee have landed a high-profile keynote speaker – outspoken climate scientist James Hansen.

Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an arm of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was among the first climate scientists to speak out about global warming, warning about the problem in testimony to Congress in 1988.

In recent years, he has become more outspoken about the need to address global warming. In 2006, he criticized his superiors in the Bush administration for efforts to limit his comments to the media about climate change.

Hansen agreed to address the Wisconsin energy event on March 25 after receiving an invitation from George Stone, an instructor of physical science at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Stone introduced Hansen at a Geological Society of America conference last fall.

The involvement of Hansen in the event comes as the Obama and Doyle administrations are considering legislation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Organizers of the energy summit say Hansen's involvement will help raise the profile of an event that has doubled in attendance every year for five years. At least 2,500 people are expected to attend this this year.

Said Stone: “It just elevates the stature of the conference because we have a leading world figure in the field of climate change and he has changed his attention now in the last couple of years from trying to simply convince people of the science of global warming and the inevitability of the climate change that is coming to focusing on mitigation: What we must do and how soon.”

Posted in: Climate change,Renewable energy