James Hansen, the grandfather of global warming, is one of the nation’s most influential and distinguished scientist dealing with climate issues. In his book titled Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe and our Last Chance to Save Humanity suggests the idea that if we do not take immediate and drastic actions to save the environment, the next generation will experience more powerful and more damaging storms. As a scientist exhausted with the silence and ineffective government, he describes his long journey seeking for environmental justice and makes a stand in order to avert the predicted disaster. He was never one to associate himself with policy, however, he realized that in the future he did not want his grandchildren to look back and tell him “Opa understood what was happening, but he did not make it clear” (3). He also brings up the topic of “greenwashing” which is where the government expresses their concern about environmental issues such as global warming yet takes no action to resolve or preserve the environment. Another point he mentioned is the idea of the government having a “let’s compromise” (2) approach to environmental issues, these decisions are being made every day by people without complete knowledge of science and who are usually filled with misinformation generated from special interests. With each chapter of the book, Hansen describes an event or an experience that occurred during his journey. For example, in the first chapter entitled The Vice President’s Climate Task Force, he talks about his encounter – along with two another scientists – with cabinet members, national security advisor, EPA administrator, and the Vice President where they explained the current knowledge on climate change and the correlation of humans with global warming. He also advocates fourfold attitude towards issues dealing with climate change: a “fee and dividend” plan, the rapid phasing out of coal, reforestation, and a call for the rapid development of alternative energy sources. Throughout his book, he discusses his story yet walks the audience through important scientific information such as the relationship between temperature and CO2 levels, human and natural forcings, and climate sensitivity.
As I read Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity, I began to make connections between the book itself and important ideas learned in class. First, the Introduction to Sustainability class has a whole agrees on the definition of sustainability is “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations” which relates back to the reason why Hansen began his journey, his grandchildren. He wanted to provide a life for them that was sustainable, where his generation did not take much more than what was needed. Secondly, in class we have discussed the topic of wicked problems which is a problem that can never really be solved, it changes over time, and is very complex. While reading this book, I realized that Hansen was dealing with a very serious and still current wicked problem of climate change and global warming, by reducing health-damaging air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, also known as his “alternative scenario” (12), in order to produce climate effects that may still be significant but far less damaging compared to what was predicted. As a wicked problem, there will likely be many stakeholders that have differing views on what is necessary to combat global warming thus the government having a compromising approach rather than a “Yes, we can” (2) attitude. Thirdly, we have discussed in class about the roles that models play which can be seen as simplified generalizations. Hansen mentions the use of models in order to represent and explain their ideas in front of people with authority such as the Climate Task Force, he realizes that models are very significant as they help define importance of certain process, observations that are necessary, as wells as how me may reduce our impact into the future. He states that “Models are no better than the representations of processes that are put into them” (54), they aid interpretation and are necessary in order to create predictions for the future and project future changes.
While reading the book, I have realized that there is a bigger obligation to fight for environmental justice the way James Hansen did. He has made a series of accurate predictions about climate change since the 1970s, therefore his predictions are basically a foreshadow of my generation’s future. He was willing to sacrifice his credibility in order to pursue his goals of creating a better environment for his grandchildren to live and thrive in and he devoted many years of his life to do so. Additionally, I was never aware of the term greenwashing but as he introduced and explained it, I realized how true and prominent it is to this day. It ignited my passion for environmental justice as well as my dream to pursue a degree in environmental law. Also, this book was able to change my perspective on nuclear power, in the beginning, I did not support nuclear power as an energy source, mainly because I did not have full knowledge of it and that it had a negative connection in my perspective. However, Hansen made me aware of the need for efficient nuclear power that reuses about 99% of its waste for electricity generation. Lastly, it made me further realize that there are still people on this earth who do not believe in climate change and the roles people have it in like Richard Lindzen, from MIT, who debated Hansen in front of the Climate Task Force. Therefore, pushing me to want to prove them wrong and show how much they are preventing the people who do believe from making any significant, long-lasting change.
Throughout the book, one can clearly tell that James Hansen believes what he preaches. He continues to advocate the idea that if we remain on the course we are currently on, his predictions will transform into reality right in front of our eyes. On the other hand, Hansen still sees hope in the human race and our ability to still make a change with the limited amount of time we have. However, when I first saw this book, it gave me the impression that this book will solely be about an urgent call to save the Mother Earth, but as I continued to read it I realized that this book consisted of mostly his story and experiences, like a memoir, with some added actual science. This book was very strong in getting Hansen’s point across – seeking a better world for his grandchildren through his alternative scenario. Despite that small flaw, I still considered this book to be very educational and motivational for, almost making me feel like I have done little to no part in helping the environment become better and more sustainable for future generations. I would recommend this book to people who are either curious about the issues regarding climate change and global warming or people who want to dig deeper and have more knowledge on the situation dealing with the environment and what could be done to provide for a sustainable future. In all honesty, this book may be difficult for some including myself to get through due to the various technical and scientific aspects of this book, but it is still a must read in order the understand the situation of the climate change and the role humans play in it.