Global warming has plunged the planet into a crisis and the fossil fuel
industries are trying to hide the extent of the problem from the public, James
Hansen, seen here, NASA's top climate scientist says. In a paper he was
submitting to Science magazine on Monday,
Hansen calls
for phasing out all coal-fired plants by 2030, taxing their emissions until
then, and banning the building of new plants unless they are designed to trap
and segregate the carbon dioxide they emit. The major obstacle to saving the
planet from its inhabitants is not technology, insisted Hansen, named one of the
world's 100 most influential people in 2006 by Time magazine.