On February 3, 2025, renowned climate scientist (and CPR Initiative Board Advisor) Dr. James E. Hansen and 17 colleagues published a remarkable study entitled “Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?” The study is freely available here.
In addition, a video presentation by Dr. Hansen and colleagues, was made and sponsored by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). We link to that program below. It is moderated by Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned diplomat who also serves as President of the SDSN. In the course of his program moderation, Dr. Sachs provided his own brief and piercing diagnosis of our present dual political and climate crises. See minute 45:47 below.
In both their paper and presentation, Dr. Hansen and colleagues argue that the observed especially-rapid warming of the last few years is not inexplicable, as some Earth scientists have concluded, but in reality is comprehensible as a deadly combination of fossil fuel emissions that remain at record highs in conjunction with a reduction in atmospheric aerosols. Along the way, they also dispel the myth that we can still prevent warming of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. In 2024 we basically busted through that guardrail, so that the question becomes how much deeper into dangerous climate change territory will we descend before we awaken to attend even minimally to our own long-run self interest.
In an epilogue that he authored alone, Dr. Hansen offers several penetrating observations about the causes of our far too-tepid to-date response to the climate crisis, including important roads not taken (imposition of a rising price on carbon, for one, and global cooperation on large-scale investment in nuclear power, for another).
Dr. Hansen ends on a sorely-needed optimistic note, explaining his hope for and belief in “young people” who “have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to affect politics without taking any money from special interests.” They can and should rise to create and support viable alternatives to our presently moribund politics. One such alternative that Dr. Hansen points to — ranked choice voting — aims to both incentivize “bi-partisan behavior and counter[] polarization.” Such citizenry engagement and movement is key, according to Dr. Hansen, to saving “not only our democratic system, but our climate and all that entails for humanity and nature.”