James Hansen: the RMS of Climate Change

Under the rather, er, dramatic headline "Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist", we have the following:

In Hansen's view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the compromises that rule the world of elected politics. "This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

Wow: someone whose refusal to compromise matches that of RMS. Respect.

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The Man Who Would Not Compromise

Here's another journalist who has discovered RMS's impressive rigour when it comes to free software:

But once I notified Richard Stallman of my desire to proceed in converting and uploading also the Ogg Theora video files he wrote back:

"Yes, that is the right solution.

In the mean time, please delete the clips from YouTube. They were never supposed to be posted on YouTube."

I felt bad again, immediately. I understood the man had ideals and principles that went beyond my interest to inform and share rare to find information.