This episode of The Green Interview features James Hansen, a preeminent scientist formerly with NASA who, in 1988 shocked the world with his research findings. In his testimony before U.S. Congress, he explained that his research had demonstrated that rising emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities were dramatically increasing the temperature of the global climate and had the potential to make the planet uninhabitable, not only for humans but for many other species. Hansen’s testimony marked the beginning of widespread concern about climate change and he subsequently resigned from NASA to work fulltime on the climate change issue. He is now the Director of Climate Science and the Climate Science Awareness and Solutions program at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He is also a proponent of carbon fee and dividend, a system that would see the price of carbon reflect its true costs, encouraging the development of alternative energies, while the public would receive a dividend collected from the fossil fuel industry. He is also involved with Our Children’s Trust, an organization involved in a landmark federal climate lawsuit against the U.S. government.