James V. Hansen: “It makes a lot of difference. They do not clearcut as much as they used to in the past. They cut it back.”

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

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.

I remember the days that James Watt walked in as the Secretary of Interior and the gas position that some of our colleagues had regarding that. Some folks did not think he lived up to it. I remember when our current Secretary of Interior…