Guest essay by Charles Battig
“The only thing we have to fear is change itself”
Climate change is heralded as a most pressing challenge and potential danger to mankind. Many politicians have responded to an outpouring of writings by scientists eager to supply evidence for such claims. Such scientists are coincidentally eager to maintain governmental funding, and their jobs. Our Federal government imposes arbitrary environmental regulations, based on selective interpretations of tortured data. As a result, the public now suffers from politicized climate change angst.
Command-and-control politicians seized climate change as a new opportunity to be seen responding favorably to the concerns of their constituents. In implementing governmental policies claiming to alleviate the claimed climate change, they affirm H. L. Menken’s oft cited dictum that: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
This surely is an age-old example of a feedback loop, albeit this time in the political, sociological realm. Forget the nuances of climate sensitivity, the mathematical sign, + or -, of cloud feedbacks, solar influences, and geological and astronomical cycles. For the public at large, a worrisome scare story will oft outdo the best efforts at logical refutation. Consider how much greater is the effort to calm a panicked theater audience once someone has falsely cried out “fire,” as the frightened mob rushes for the doors. Logical argument is trampled underfoot.
Amongst the imaginative list of climate induced impacts claimed are those detrimental to both our physical and mental health. In the spirit of post-normal science, also known as “abby-normal” science, I offer an explanation for the public’s fear of climate change…one based on our current cultural mores.
The Hollywood self-adulation and eternal youth culture is supported by a plastic surgery industry, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals…both traditional and herbal. Life-prolonged mental clarity and youthful dexterity are goals of Zen yoga. The public has become mesmerized by images of (nearly) non-aging stars, and wants the same for itself. They might be termed the “Botox® generation.” No wrinkles,
no sags with the passage of time, no physical changes as one chronologically ages. Aging shall be free from the threat of senility. Public expectation is that one is able to “non-age” in the fulfillment of philosopher/mathematician Leibnitz’s proposition that “we live in the best of all possible worlds.” This best is now; no change needed; change is bad; change is “abby-normal.”
Juxtaposition of the two only moderately worrisome words “climate” and “change” has produced the killer app “climate change.” Of the two, change is the more emotionally charged word. The current cultural notion that traditional biological change can be altered at will is at the heart of the receptiveness of the public to concern over manmade climate change. Undesired change is experienced as bad for us as individuals, and bad for all species. If biological non-aging can be human goal, why should the physical world not be changeless? Why must we endure climate change?
Thousands of years of climate adaptation by untold numbers of biological species is now viewed by climate alarmists as an obsolete process, as they assume that the global climate environment has reached its ultimate optimum state of “now.” Changes to this optimized “now” environment are viewed as insurmountable challenges of survival rather than part of the fabric of biological adaptation. No matter where on earth one is living, that environment is now held to the new standard of “no change.” Species extinction has become viewed as a manmade crime against mother Gaia. Weather patterns are now to remain confined to a stable narrow range of not too hot, not too cold. Not too many nor too unusual tornadoes, hurricanes, or sea level rise lest there be a hint of change.
For the “Botoxed generation,” the thing they fear is change itself. Try to change that.
Charles Battig, MD , Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com
On a related note
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/06/11/blinkered-thinking-in-academia/
Silicon is perfectly safe ya know. (;
Thanks CB a clear, concise explanation that (hopefully) even the currently deluded can follow.
100 is the new 15.
I have no end of fun pointing out how cr@p most people’s regional climate is.
Here in Hervey Bay, Australia, in winter, the weather is sunny, I’m wearing short sleeves, it’s almost warm enough to go swimming. In Summer, almost every day is above 90F, and the water of the Coral Sea is like a warm bath.
So suggestions that say Toronto will suffer if the world warms a little – I mean , seriously folks.
If CB is wrong, we are screwed. There is no adapting to a 4+ deg C world for most species. We die.
If CB is right, but we take drastic action to mitigate CO2, we spend maybe 5% of our GDP to have an ocean far less polluted with mercury, a less toxic ocean PH level, 100’s of thousands of lives saved from respiratory disease, 5 times as many energy jobs that stay at home with money spent at home, etc.
If a 4 degree change is spread over a century, never doubt we would prosper! The best quality of the human race is adaptability.. We have survived worse.
Rod. You worry too much about extremely remote possibilities!!
Rod Leman
There is no adapting to 4+ deg world…
What utter nonsense. Most species adapt every time the season changes to much larger swings in temperature.
With an average annual temperature of around 25c, I’m already living in a much warmer climate than you likely experience. Life is good.
Rod Leman says:
There is no adapting to a 4+ deg C world for most species. We die.
That is a classic example of a baseless assertion.
Next, Leman says:
If CB is right, but we take drastic action to mitigate CO2, we spend maybe 5% of our GDP to have an ocean far less polluted with mercury, a less toxic ocean PH level, 100′s of thousands of lives saved from respiratory disease, 5 times as many energy jobs that stay at home with money spent at home, etc.
1. Where did you get your “5% of our GDP” number? Links, please.
2. What does mercury have to do with the “carbon” scare?
3. Oceans are not “acidifying”, which is another baseless assertion.
4. “Respiratory diseases” is another assertion.
5. “5 times as many energy jobs” is yet another assertion.
Where do you pull these wild-eyed scares from? Your fundament? This is a science site. Try to provide a basis for your True Beliefs.
BTW: there is no way the planet is going to warm by 4ºC in our lifetimes, or our childrens’ lifetimes, or our great, great grandchildrens’ lifetimes. The real concern is global cooling, which would cause much more loss of life than anything you can imagine. A 4ºC decline would be a planetary disaster.
About species adaption – in the South of Australia, you see seagulls everywhere, eating scraps, pecking for bugs, surviving, thriving.
Up here in the warmer North, you see hardly any seagulls – instead you sea Ibises everywhere, eating scraps, pecking for bugs, surviving, thriving.
Even further North, closer to the Equator, Ibises give way to birds of paradise.
Does it really make a pink fig of difference to my life, what kind of bird pecks at the bugs on my lawn?
The skeletal, sunken eyed, hunter gatherers, unwashed, barely clothed with dead animal skins, stumbled upon an artifact of seeming importance. With calloused, filthy hands, they scraped and wiped away several decades worth an accumulation of dust and detritus to expose the following three [phrases] chiseled into the stone artifact, and with this discovery of these three words they immediately understood from where they came:
Climate change.
Secretary of State John Kerry.
Botox.
Rod, are you serial?
cn
Rod, where is there more life and biodiversity?
In the Amazon Forest or in Siberia?
At Galapagos or the Weddell Sea?
Where do American wealthy people move to when they retire? Alaska or Florida?
Eric Worrall says:
June 11, 2014 at 7:25 pm
Does it really make a pink fig of difference to my life, what kind of bird pecks at the bugs on my lawn?
——————————————————————
I like the taste of a properly prepared bird harvested from my back yard. We call them turkeys.
Just not sure what a parrot might taste like. So, with me, adaptation could be an issue. I might need more data.
Who said it would be 4C+?
You say there is “no adapting to a 4+ deg C world for most species.” Humans live from the Arctic to the equator. Some hominids evolved in one of the hottest, geologically active locations on the planet, which is still inhabited today (Afar Depression, Awash Valley).
Let’s go back into time and see what happened when the world was warmer than 4C.
The links for all the abstracts I quoted can be found below.
Kathy J. Willis et al – Systematics and Biodiversity – Volume 8, Issue 1, 2010
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14772000903495833#.U5lNh5zmcmE
ZHAO Yu-long et al – Advances in Earth Science – 2007
http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-DXJZ200704001.htm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/04/claim-modern-ocean-acidification-is-outpacing-ancient-upheaval-study-suggests/#comment-1655057
Furthermore Rod, AGW says that MOST of the warming will be felt most in the higher latitudes in winter! How does this lead to us dying? How does it lead to widespread species extinction? Treelines were higher in the past, why? Would longer growing seasons in Canada, northern Europe, Russia, northern China be a bad thing? What do you think happens to vegetation in those countries as their climate generally get warmer? Life generally prefers the warmth.
LOOK AT THE PAST.
Rapid climate change? The Botox Generation will like this.
LIFE PROCEEDED TO THRIVE after the rapid temperature rise and ‘catastrophic’ changes. Life, in general, is well adapted for rapid climate change – it simply changes and adapts.
Rod Leman says:
June 11, 2014 at 6:49 pm
If CB is wrong, we are screwed. There is no adapting to a 4+ deg C world for most species. We die.
Who told you this, Rod? That’s a serious question, I reaay want to know. Who told you this?
Rod is evidently a devoted follower of xkcd/i>.
I propose that CB being right or wrong has nothing to do with us being screwed. The screwing comes from the existence of Rod Leman’s baseless, articulated thoughts becoming policy.
And I’m serial!
Who told you this, Rod?
===========
The voice of authority. Don’t ask questions, do as you are told. Growing up, how may times were you taught this lesson? Until as an adult it is automatic.
I can forgive Rod’s alarmism if he is a teenager or young adult (sounds like he is). After all, he’s been brainwashed by the climate industry and their academic/corporate/Hollywood partners his entire life. The good news is that he is here, and can perhaps start the path towards a normal life by learning the truth about climate at WUWT.
From Rod Leman on June 11, 2014 at 6:49 pm:
http://blueocean.org/documents/2012/07/boi-mercury-report.pdf
PDF page 9:
2320 / 350000 * 100% =
0.66% total yearly human contribution to global ocean mercury.
Since all of human activities produce less than half of the emissions that Nature itself gives to the oceans, and the “drastic action to mitigate CO2” is freely interpreted at meaning closing the coal-fired energy plants or perhaps stopping all fossil fuel use thus is only a fraction of human emissions, how long until we get “an ocean far less polluted with mercury”?
Which by itself labels mercury a pollutant, even though it is overwhelmingly there from natural sources thus not a pollutant. Much like carbon dioxide is a pollutant that’s naturally not a pollutant.
PDF page 12:
PDF page 13:
So first we stop burning the solid and liquid fossil fuels that naturally contain mercury. Then we stop producing metals, as the ores naturally contain mercury.
No cheap fossil energy, no new metals as we recycle what we have, which will naturally decrease from oxidation and wear on objects until our remaining metal will be from natural sources like copper nodules we might be able to pound into something useful, between rocks.
We also need to stop cement production due to both CO2 and Hg emissions. We do not need concrete and cement as building materials, Nature supplies trees for lumber and clay for bricks.
We also must stop burning waste, including discarded flesh. We will need to designate dumping grounds, which will be within walking distance as there’s no metal for vehicles with engines. Everyone gets to live near their very own New Jersey.
Drastic action, indeed.
Poor Rod, he must live in a climatically controlled environment and never, ever go outside. Rod, here’s a clue – most species experience >delta 4C every day. What makes you think they can’t adapt over 100+ years?
Rod, you must have forgotten the most important practice modern humans MUST have at their finger tips in this governed world we live in. The guts and methods to never trust and always verify. Lest you find yourself in a dictatorial lifestyle where others tell you whether or not you can be born, who you are, what you eat, where you live, what you do, who you love, what you own (if anything at all), how many can be of your loins, and when you die.
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CFLs. In their quest to eliminate “carbon pollution” from our world they have increased “mercury pollution”.
Tuna fish sandwich anyone?
(Hmmm….who makes CFLs? Who makes the equipment to recycle CFLs? Who owned the network that was at the forefront of promoting CAGW? Who owns The Weather Channel?)
So in summary, Rod Leman is either a troll or incapable of independent thought. The +4C (I actually thought it was +6C) and the 5% WGDP are mainstays. Give us your money and die is the objective.
Seriously though, at what point would “We die.” +20-30C, no. +40-50C not sure. +100C, probably, though Antarctica would start looking pretty nice. It would still snow there and I’m sure we could grow crops on most of the continent.
Food for thought…
I’m assuming Rod is a minor, but I hope he has learned a valuable lesson here. You can rest assured, young man, there is no scary climate monster hiding under your bed. Tell your friends about how you learned some real science here on WUWT.
Eamon.
” 5 times as many energy jobs that stay at home with money spent at home,”
Ok let’s take this at face value. Assume energy production stays about the same to support the present population in the style to which they have become accustom. This means the amount of labor needed to produce one unit of energy goes up by a factor of five and unless these additional energy jobs pay starvation wages, the cost of energy must also go up by a factor comparable to five.
Still taking the original premise at face value, employment takes a big hit because of the increase in energy prices.
The alarmist side of this argument would be easier to take if they thought through the consequences of the policies they insist are mandatory.