James V. Hansen

We have a global emergency.

Republicans in the House Agricultural Committee have already voted to slash $33 billion from the food stamp program while leaving farm subsidies unscathed. This is unconscionable in our present economy. Please consider all our citizens…

By failing to place limitations on crop insurance subsidies and to re-attach soil erosion and wetland conservation requirements to crop insurance programs, the Committee has failed to do the full reform that is needed.

The Obama administration is being forced into a political compromise. It has sacrificed a strong position on mountaintop removal in order to ensure the support of coal-state legislators for a climate bill.

We are on a warming planet, the climate is destabilizing, we are getting in trouble and people are dying.

If we phase out coal, the coal mining jobs are gone.

We cannot burn all fossil fuels releasing the waste products into the air without handing our children a situation in which amplifying feedbacks begin to run out of their control.

The greatest injustice is to our own species--our children, grandchildren and the unborn, and people who live with nature.

The tax is much more honest. Unfortunately, the main reason for a cap is for the sake of pretending that it is not a tax.

If we continue to burn most of the fossil fuels we will leave our children a deteriorating situation out of their control.

We are robbing money from our children's pockets and piggybanks, borrowing money from our children to fund subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.

Until someone is brave enough to call you out as saboteurs to our future, or to haul you into court, or to win a lawsuit--and that may happen soon--until then, just shut-up.

We must put a price on carbon emissions, a rising price.

The fossil fuel industry has enormous power over our governments, through their lobbying and 'campaign' contributions.

It should be pointed out they will suffer more from climate change than we will. They have a few hundred million people living near sea level.

I have a hunch that if we are serious about where your state and my state is going to be 10 years from now, 15 years from now, it is going to require that we frankly, yes, invest in nuclear.

This tax gives a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure.

You have to give all the money back to the public or they are not going to allow such a high tax.

We have a planet in peril. The President recognizes this.

With regard to China and India and the likelihood that they would cooperate, it should be pointed out they will suffer more from climate change than we will.

We must put a price, a rising price, on carbon emissions.

I think it is essential that we give back 100 percent of the money that we take in the tax.

I think everyone hopes that increased energy efficiency--and that would be encouraged by a higher price on carbon emissions, and renewable energies--could do the job.

We cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without setting in motion a process of climate disruption that threatens the very existence of many species.