From Climate Uncensored on Substack today:
"Freedom of speech was a reality then. An intense period of education about climate policy arose from a failed government attempt to violate my right of free speech"
'NASA Public Affairs told me that I must inform them of every media interview request and allow NASA the option of naming a “more appropriate” spokesperson. After they exercised that option several times, I informed Andy Revkin of the New York Times of this process, described by lawyers as “prior restraint.” Prior restraint is a violation of the Constitutional right of free speech.'
EXCERPT:
The 1980s were difficult for the group of young scientists that I led at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, as we battled continual attempts to move us to Maryland and refusal of NASA to upgrade our decrepit (1967) computer. Yet we were nourished by our rich environment and the pleasure of finding things out,[6] as we developed our approach at climate analysis based on the combination of paleoclimate data, global modeling, and modern observations. Nevertheless, I was jolted by the reaction of fellow scientists to my congressional testimony in 1988, in which I asserted that a significant effect of humans on global temperature had begun. Skepticism of any assertion is good science, but I was surprised by characterization of my testimony as “Hansen vs. the World.”[7] That reaction seemed to be an almost-angry assertion that I had “jumped the gun.”
In fact, my testimony was well justified, as I will describe in the relevant chapter, but I was not capable or effective in oral debate and I preferred to work on research. Also, the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization formed an organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to address climate change and advise the United Nations. Therefore, after my congressional testimony, I declined interviews with the media for more than a decade. That approach worked well, as we resumed the pleasure of finding things out; my colleagues and I wrote many significant papers in the 1990s.[8] IPCC’s third assessment report (TAR), in 2001, made scores of references to our papers.
By that time, shortcomings of the United Nations political approach to climate change (the Kyoto Protocol) and of the UN’s scientific advisory body (IPCC) were apparent. In a review,[9] I raised two issues. First, IPCC estimated that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets would contribute only 5 centimeters (2 inches) to sea level rise by 2100 in their main greenhouse gas scenario, in which atmospheric CO2 reached 700 ppm[10] by 2100. Such a CO2 level would dwarf anything that has occurred on Earth in millions of years. IPCC’s sea level estimate was based mainly on GCMs (global climate models). However, paleoclimate data and modern observations suggest that sea level rise is a more serious threat. Second, non-CO2 climate forcings – methane, ozone, black soot and other air pollutants – may together play a role in climate change almost as great as that of CO2, so they deserve greater attention.
This was when I began to realize that I was a maverick....
See the full post here:
"Mavericks" James Hansen Jan 22, 2026
https://open.substack.com/pub/jimehansen/p/mavericks?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
[KE: Everything scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster]
can't wait for the movie version, what a story he has to tell