Here is what James Hansen said on November 19 2008 when he shared the stage with and made a speech in support of Andy Revkin on the occasion of Andy receiving the 2008 John Chancellor award:

“… I now consider Andy to be the best science writer that I know.”

I find Andy very disturbing at times but I recognized his ability soon after I became aware of him. The Chancellor award was intended to recognize a significant contribution over many years. To my mind, it also represented something of a milestone indicating some kind of a shift in the minds of the movers and shakers of journalism who seem at last to be on the way to trying to bring climate change as an issue in from the cold in their consciousness.

Note that Jim mentions Walter Sullivan in his letter to Andy reprinted by Joe above. Jim made a bit of a roast out of his speech about Andy, and he brought up Sullivan.

“I’ve known Andy quite a long time. One time quite a few years ago he asked me to speak at his Columbia university class and in my usual blunt fashion… I made the comment to his students that the best science writer that I knew was Walter Sullivan….”

Andy, when others wouldn’t touch it, got Jim’s story that NASA was muzzling him onto the front page of the paper he was working for.

When the Chancellor award event was about to end, Jim got everyone’s attention to make one last point: He said “I got a call from Pete Seeger last night, and he said to congratulate Andy. And I said, for his writing or his music? He said he was a great fan of his. And I said, for his writing or his music? And he said both”

Jim is big enough to grant due respect to Andy for his past work and it may be that wherever Andy is headed off to the last while will eventually be understood by more of his present critics.

Best,

d

Also, and maybe this is telling, the commenters on his blog seem to almost always be the same people and frankly I’m not nearly as interested in what they say as what people comment on here on this blog. The commenters there seem to find it necessary to just post a pro-forma statement of agreement and then put their signature at the bottom with a a URL. It is more venting than discussion.

Here, maybe because Joe is willing to take controversial stands, it seems as though many more of the comments (though not all) are worth reading (in my book).

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2352

I agree – very little seems settled. For me it’s all about the trend lines. And I’d wager that 6 degrees is too conservative.

“Rampant Negativity – No Reason to be so Glum – Predictably, as scientific evidence clarifies that the dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 is at hand, there are cries that it is impractical to avoid climate catastrophe. Such negativity is part of the playbook of those who stand to gain from business-as-usual. A recent report by the Scripps Howard News Service claims that I stated “we must reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent within 12 years or it will be too late to prevent a climate catastrophe”. What nonsense.”

Read it all here –
http://www.columbia.edu/ ~jeh1/ mailings/ 20080324_Rampant.pdf

While my gut tells me it’s more dire than Hansen generally relates it, I for one think “the worst” can be avoided and we can stabilize levels and so too the climate. My humble contribution to fighting it is this checklist
http://checklisttowardzerocarbon.wordpress.com/
Download it, edit it for your local conditions, make it your own, and pass it on.

A blog is bylined and appears regularly under that byline, so it seems to me the rules for it should be the same as for a column: one’s own opinion, not subject to “slant” from the editorial board — unless otherwise stated, so that we are all forewarned.

Hopefully Andy does have a public position, and will tell us what it is, or, if the blog’s position is that of the power structure, that he will tell us so. To mix a couple of metaphors, knowing exactly whose voice is on the other end of the line is important when the Panzers are coming over the hill.

Oh, my opinion? That Mr. Hansen has earned the right not to gratuitously spun. I’m still hoping that’s not what happened here. I’m glad he’s reading and responding here, and I look for great things from him and/or from The NYT as we enter possibly the most dangerous period in human history.

Risa Stephanie Bear