Game Over for Climate Change

May 31, 2012 NYT Op-Ed: "Game Over for the Climate" James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and author of “Storms of My Grandchildren,” recently wrote a compelling New York Times op-ed piece on his worry about Canada's plan to exploit its vast tar sands. As he puts it, "If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate." Canada's tar sands, Hansen points out, contain twice the amount of CO2 emitted by global oil use in our entire history. Exploiting the tar sands, while simultaneously burning conventional fossil fuels at current rates, would raise the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere to levels that would create global climate catastrophe. "If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control." Read "Game Over for the Climate" by James Hansen.