Merchants of Doubt

by

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway

James E. Hansen Character Analysis

James E. Hansen is a leading climate scientist and global warming activist. He is well-known for his widely broadcasted 1988 testimony to Congress, which helped make global warming a matter of widespread public concern. Robert Jastrow, Fred Seitz, and William Nierenberg seriously misrepresented Hansen’s data in their lobbying work at the George C. Marshall Institute.
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James E. Hansen Character Timeline in Merchants of Doubt

The timeline below shows where the character James E. Hansen appears in Merchants of Doubt. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
Science, Trust, and Public Policy Theme Icon
Certainty, Doubt, and the Scientific Method Theme Icon
...caused the ozone hole by cooling the stratosphere. He cited researchers like V. Ramanathan and James E. Hansen , who agreed that climate change was cooling the stratosphere—but attributed this to human greenhouse... (full context)
Chapter 6
Science, Trust, and Public Policy Theme Icon
Media Bias Theme Icon
...the “White House Effect.” In 1988, a severe drought ravished the globe, and climate scientist James E. Hansen publicly testified that human-caused global warming was already observable. Global temperatures had already increased by... (full context)
Science, Trust, and Public Policy Theme Icon
But Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg’s argument was based on a serious distortion of James Hansen ’s data. Hansen showed that three factors explain most historic temperature change: CO2 emissions, volcanic... (full context)