Top NASA scientist says oil lobby controls the government

In shocking and completely unexpected news, NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen, was quoted by Daily Galaxy as saying that fossil fuel companies have a stranglehold on the United States government.

This probably isn't news to any of you; after all, Dick Cheney is in charge of U.S. energy policy. Nonetheless, it's nice to see a prominent (and government-employed) EcoGeek speaking out about the infiltration.

According to Hansen, our planet has reached dangerous levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere, and Big Oil is doing its best to keep people uninformed.

Hansen has some ideas on what needs to be done to save us from our current crisis, though. His wish is for all coal-fired plants to be phased out by 2030 and taxing them until that happens. Also, he wants new plants to have to conform to the criteria of trapping and segregating their CO₂ emissions.

As he says, however: "The problem is that 90 percent of energy is fossil fuels." This goes right back to the aforementioned stranglehold and is the reason why his wishes probably won't come true without a fight.

How many times do we have to be reminded that we have no power before we decide to take that power back, eh? Something needs to happen...

Via Daily Galaxy