Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
The title question is rarely, if ever, asked of people who are skeptical of human-induced global warming and climate change…for obvious reasons. If persons are skeptical of a future filled with climate catastrophes, regardless of whether they are caused by nature or by emissions of manmade greenhouse gases, then there should be few reasons for them to be fearful of future climate.
For example: some persons may most fear the future possible rise in sea levels, understanding that surface temperatures are above the threshold at which the seasonal mass losses from glaciers and ice shelves exceed those of seasonal mass gains and that those temperatures have been above that threshold since the end of the last ice age; but they temper that concern with an understanding that even the UN’s political report-writing entity, the IPCC, acknowledges the oceans will continue their inland march regardless of whether or not we limit the emissions of manmade greenhouse gases…that it’s just a matter of time. (See Figure 13.27 on page 68 of 80 of Chapter 13 of the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report. The blue curve is for the “optimistic” RCP2.6 emissions scenario and the red curve is for the worst-case RCP8.5 scenario.)
What scares me?
My fears are that:
- activist climate scientists and agenda-driven politicians who fund climate science have tainted all related fields with unjustifiable certainty of a future filled with pain and suffering,
- to manufacture those predictions of gloom and doom, the sole focus of climate science has been and continues to be on human-induced, not naturally occurring, global warming and climate change,
- the climate science community will come no closer to understanding the natural contributions to global warming and climate change until there is a total change of mindset, and
- it will take decades of that completely new mindset to overcome the present groupthink.
With that said, what are your fears about global warming and climate change?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Pretty much exactly what you wrote…
The “Climate” itself doesn’t bother me, not even a little. It’s the attempted “remedies” for a non-issue that, frankly, terrify me.
Yes indeed Code. Professor Tim Flannery, John Holdren and company advocating sulfurous compounds to cool the sun’s penetration of the atmosphere: just plain mad. Make the sky purple?! But I fear nuclear war these days. This type of end makes global warming whither into insignificance.
Funny thing about that sulphur thing is back in the ’70s, we spent billions on power plant scrubber to take the sulphur oxides out of the atmosphere.
Paul Jackson
I refer you to a post I very recently made in another WUWT thread. This link jumps to it.
Richard
I certainly agree.Fear is simply a tool of control and it has been used over an over again by governments ,dictators and so on and so on for Millenia The war on terror. recently The war on drugs The war with climate change.The enemy is sensationalised to inflame the sheeple and then it begins.Mass distraction, disunity disillusionment ,maybe a real war…the question is why.To create an environment that continues to generate wealth by stealth for the psychopathic elite.Our greatest minds are always looked to for the answer,we give them prizes scientific social,what’s it done for humanity…..big pat on the back. Well done.We have stopped listening to ourselves we have allowed ourselves to be disenfranchised we don’t communicate with our neighbours so mass revolt is minimised and love and understanding is foreign apart from hopefully the immediate family and even then that’s fragmented.
My fear is that the “government” will use it as an excuse to waste insane amounts of resources (buying influence) and to further reduce personal liberties.
They will do that anyway, so maybe climate is the best diversion of these idle minds that we can hope for.
My fear is that if they didn’t have CAGW, climate change, or anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is it is now known, apparently, then Warmunists would come up with something even worse.
My personal vote is that these busybodies start boosting for taxpayer funded sex change operations. Here is Time Magazine’s take (Always a thought leader!).
http://cbmw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/transgender-cover.jpg
My thinking is, at the outside this issue will only apply to some fraction of a percent of the population, so maybe the deep-thinkers will be too distracted to pester the rest of us.
I couldn’t wait to read Time 50 years ago. I have changed, but they have changed even more. What a worthless, irrelevant bunch of cut up trees.
Exactly, and in so doing, neglect addressing real problems (for example, fixing poverty by stopping the confiscation and waste of the money people earn, and by slashing job-killing regulations and bureaucracies). They could fix the “environment” by removing all those nasty windmills — make those who received government money to put them up remove them.
The big, centralized approach will never have the capacity to address local preparations for unusual weather events, and will, in fact, reduce the availability of money for doing so.
It’s inexplicable to me how the silicon valley progs believe that swarms of autonomous computers have greater intelligence than a big, central computer, yet don’t believe that swarms of autonomous, intelligent people will exhibit greater decision making ability than a central govzilla.
I never minded the wind generators until my money was wasted on them
PP,
Very good points. Individual action is like crowdsourcing. It tends to get the right answers quickly.
latecommer, I never minded the windmills, until they caused the price of my electricity to skyrocket — and until they destroyed the pristine beauty of the Northern California coastal hills with hundreds of non-working, raptor-chopping monstrosities.
Other than those objections, they’re fine… for places like the old Soviet Union.
I have no fear of global warming. In fact I encourage more of it, more co2 please. Here’s why.
What I am fearfull of are the ‘remedies’ proposed: windmills galore, energy poverty, stunted economic growth etc. Another fear is that evern if the world cooled they will blame co2 and demand greater measures. Just like the reaction of those engaged in the Cattle Killing Cult.
“Historic parallels in our time: the killing of cattle -vs- carbon”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-parallels-in-our-time-the-killing-of-of-cattle-vs-carbon/
“The Dead Will Arise, Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa….”
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2637402?sid=21105218911101&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=4&uid=70
We’ll bankrupt ourselves switching to alternate energies that, as they exist, will not meet energy needs. This, compounded by the huge investment, will crowd out investment in real solutions and leave us cash strapped to deal with a real crisis when it emerges. This will result in increased poverty, decreased life expectancies and civil unrest.
Another concern is that by polluting the climate history and research with agenda driven goals, we will blind ourselves to advancing our understanding of how climate cycles operate and this will impair our ability to forecast climate events in the future. Another Ice Age, mini or otherwise, will come and if we are prepared for Heat how will we be able to adapt our civilization for Cold.
Burying our treasure in the ground for no benefit.
Isn’t that the truth but no doubt will fall on deaf ears….after all the lowest common denominator is todays touchy feely way to go. There in lies the death of todays civilization. Go ask the Romans where members of the Senate sold their soul for the *next* election. The barbarians are knocking on the gate.
Climate ‘scientists’ are just pawns in the hands of the elites. The object is control of the sheeple. And they will use anything and everything to create their UN / IMF / World Bank / BIS centrally planned government. If temperatures ever go down it will still be the ‘fault’ of humanity and another set of useful idiots will be shouting: doom, extinction, more regulation, more tax, more government.
Since AGW and CAGW are nothing more than theories, I place them in the same “sphere of concern” as;
Collisions with asteroids,
Being hit by lightning
Being inundated by a tsunami
My building being struck by earthquake
withstanding a hurricane
And all other natural disasters.
Any expenditure on “prevention” is patently absurd and this I do fear.
Governments of every persuasion have a duty of care to ensure taxpayers funds are subject to the utmost consideration NOT baseless fear-mongering and gross misconduct as is the case of so many regimes right now.
Sorry, being hit by lightning is a fact with a definite, finite probably of occurring. AGW is not, being as you say a theory.
Valid point, Robert. Perhaps the scared politicians should be grounded.
To cnxtim: You meant well, but note that a theory has a large degree of acceptance. AGW and CAGW are only hypotheses.
Ian M
I HAVE been hit by lightning and it hurts…a lot.
See? You’re more likely to be hit by lightning than by climate change.
Hit by life-killing regulations and technologies is another matter. That is what I am afraid of.
Are the doctors hopeful you will recover anytime soon?
One of my soldiers was sleeping to close to a telephone line that got hit by lightning, he woke up 3 feet in the air. Surprisingly he was OK except we had to send him to the Medics for an erection likely to last for more than 4 hours.
Yes I am sure it does, but the government doesn’t really do much to prevent people fro being hit by lighting, other than warn when storms are coming and suggest that people go inside. So the government shout do even less about climate change, since that is even less likely.
Aren’t theories formulated to explain observations involving real-world data? Anthropogenic Climate Change involves observation of the selective output of falsified mathematical models of a virtual world- a virtual world formulated to exclude effects of real-world phenomena that are known to be causal factors in climate change.
Phantasies would be a better descriptor for such explanations, and mania a better descriptor of the associated “scientific” method.
The general progression is: observation > hypothesis > testing > refinement > theory > testing > refinement > law. You can insert “testing > refinement” after “law” as well. It’s a highly recursive process. Right now CAGW is, at best, in the beginnings of the “hypothesis” stage. Activists, however, treat it as if it were in the “law” stage. So not true.
I agree with Hawkins. In fact, before or concurrent with “observation” is “conjecture”, the first step in the hierarchy:
Conjecture
Hypothesis
Theory
Law
Both AGW and CAGW remain conjectures at this point, because there are no measurements quantifying either one [I happen to think that AGW is valid, although minuscule]. Without measurements, they amount to speculation; to ‘what ifs’.
It is amazing that an enormous idustry has sprung up based on a mere conjecture.
Really? CAGW is a struggling hypothesis at best. There’s little doubt of the reality of the others in your list.
Eamon.
While I agree that AGW is nothing to worry about, I would argue that some of the other items in your list are more likely, from a historical perspective if not theory.
Collisions with space objects is no theory. Earthly evidence: http://meteorcrater.com/
My home has been struck by an earthquake. Not a very big one, but the Cascadia fault is supposedly overdue for a whopper.
My state coast has been inundated by a tsunami … admittedly 300+ years ago, when the Cascadia ripped last time.
My fear echos those already stated, that the government will waste insane amounts of money to solve a “problem” that doesn’t even exist and drive this once great nation into a state of fiscal insolvency from which we will never recover.
KD to which nation do you refer?
USA, $18,000,000,000,000 in debt and growing.
Make that a $18,102,486,000,000 debt and also $93,786,493,000,000 in unfunded liabilities …… and growing.
Blame the Central Banking system and Fiat funny money for that. Impossible to pay back currency plus interest when the institution you borrowed it from has a monopoly on printing it. Unless of course you borrow more, which is what every country on the Planet has done for decades now.
I think POTUS already accomplished that mission. But ditto.
The last time the fantasies of activist scientists ran riot it led to the deaths of millions of people.
Catastrophism is a moral slippery slope. If you truly believe the future of the world and everyone you love hangs in the balance, no crime or atrocity is unacceptable. Because how could the death of a few million people, or a little tyranny, possibly be worse than the end of the world?
Exactly Eric. I believe the whole exercise has been engineered as a method of population reduction. The original prediction for SC24 was that it would be more active than any previous cycle ensuring a continued rise in global temperature. This would have ensured a more complete change over to renewable energy and horse and cart technology. When the cold did come and the population found themselves starving they would not have the wherewithal to raise effective protest.
My only fear is of the cost of arguing from ignorance.
We have had it so well and for so long that the Chicken Littles no longer can cry “The Sky Is Falling!”, but now cry The Sky Is Gonna Fall, Soon, Really! N. N. Taleb warns of prophets without doxastic commitment. See the Pareto Distribution, power law on geophysical phenomena.
My main concern is that unintended consequences of legislation to ‘fix’ the climate will do more damage to mankind and the environment than climate change ever could.
Bloke, I agree with your statement except for that I’m not sure the consequences you speak of are unintended.
I also agree that these things are intended. Everything that is bad for the West is promoted, and everything good is ridiculed and demonized.
Once or twice might be coincidence. But in every case, year after year after year? That’s enemy action.
I agree entirely. As an engineer there is nothing I fear more than the folks pushing geo-engineering. The same unthinking crowd calling for polluting the air with SO2 aerosols and for polluting the ocean with iron oxide are the ones that sold us on turning food into ethanol fuel, outlawing incandescent light bulbs with low performance mercury-containing compact fluorescents, and covering the countryside with the eyesores of inefficient wind turbines and solar panels. Man’s inhumanity to man.
Perhaps the ‘power’ that controls the powerful knew all along what the real science was and manipulated it via the UN IPCC to go this route. The knew full well that there would be a cooling phase at some point. Having wasted trillions of dollars, gutted our power systems and replaced the with useless wind farms and solar, they have set in motion the demise of millions once the cooler temperatures hit because we would lack the infrastructure to cope and by the time we realize what is happening and start building proper power stations again, by the time they come on line the untold millions of casualties will have been accomplished.
What other scenarios do they have in mind? Have the preliminary starts for these other scenarios already been launched? The immediate results may not not reduce the population by 90% but it’s a good start for them. And this may be just step 1 or it’s already at step 7 of a 17 point plan. Who knows? There is so much we sheeple do not know about the ‘real elites’, their plans for us and how they will achieve it but achieve it they are determined to do.
The Green Mob and the Ministry of Truth.
Even if nothing climate-related is changing or will change, they are slowly rewriting history, making new myths and changing society. Where and when does it stop. Nobody knows.
Human society prospered by learning from history, expanding the use of inventions/new technology that worked (not the ones that didn’t), through science revealing “truth” and abandoning myth. The Mob is taking us backwards on all of that just because of some theory that doesn’t work.
Another of my fears is the destruction of science in many fields ,not just climate, and taking decades to unsnarl it.
A little ice age.
I like Polywell Fusion.
My biggest fear is “opportunity cost”, all those funds spent on climate politi…, sorry, scientists, could have been used to (potentially) save many thousands of lives doing useful research.
I don’t fear climate change, I fear the brainwashing of our children. A student of mine said the other day :” we’re going to run out of oil by 2050.” Another said: “The polar bears are dying because of the North Pole melting.” Whe asked, they said they heard it from their “science” teachers.
Liz: I think you’re quite right. A young relative of mine (aged about 9 or 10 at the time) was set some homework.
He was asked to ‘devise a low carbon breakfast’!
Lest you wonder, I sent a very pointed letter to his headmistress with some basic biochemistry explained. We need to challenge this sort of nonsense whenever it is peddled.
I am happy to report my kids are being told the truth and to challenge their indoctrinated teachers. They mock the entire premise. Good kids!
The reduced levels of civilisation that will be enjoyed by my children, grandchildren etc.
MY main fear is that we might expend large amounts of time on wasted thoughts, analysing faulty statistics, writing responses, taking part in arguments that lose friends – all for nothing. Or have we already done that.
My worst fear is that nothing changes regarding the issues raised this report and that the EPA et al will continue unabated making rules and regulations that breaks the bank.
Senate Minority report from mid 2014: “The Chain of Environmental Command: How a club of billionaires and their foundations control the environmental movement and Obama’s EPA”. It is an eye opener, at least it was for me. Ever felt like a puppet? I did after reading this.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAc…
My greatest fear is that, by treaty, scare-mongering, or otherwise, governments will, in vain attempts to contain or reverse global warming, deny access to cheap and plentiful carbon-based energy to developing countries, thereby keeping billions of people in poverty unnecessarily, including all the health problems that result from indoor burning of biomass. The supposed cure is far worse than the alleged problem.
My greatest ‘fear’ of:
Global Warming- The devastating, and useless, economic impact.
Climate Change- It will get cold.
My fear is the collection of REAL reasons for this alarmist scaremongering. The lies are less subtle, and more frequent, preposterous and blatant now, in the teeth of good contradictory evidence to disprove them, yet still the warmists persist.
THAT’s the scary thing.
Well, some individuals have a deluxe cabin in the anthropogenic climate titanic. Although it may guarantee a seat in the life-boat, understandable panic is spreading at this stage. This is of course sad for those directly concerned. For all the rest this is a blessing: a more intellectual fear could have lasted a life-time.
In line with the above statements…Which has caused more hardship and suffering for the human race over the last 100 years, man-made climate change or politicians and leaders with ‘noble causes’? Well it isn’t even close, is it? Man-made climate change over the last 100 years is not even discernible, while the blood-soaked pages of our political history make up an ever-increasing library of shame and horror!
I don’t worry about climate change. I worry about the people who worry about climate change!
“I don’t worry about climate change. I worry about the people who worry about climate change”. I wish I wrote that. The only tipping point I worry about is an economic one. We cannot maintain a strong military without a strong industrial economy. When we had a weak military in the past, bad things happened.
+1
– education pollution
– denuded ridge lines of futile, expensive, non-productive, radioactive waste pit, whirligigs
– energy poverty
– MSM
– rape of developing countries’ resources
– more evangelical politics
– scientific reduction
more, I’m sure, plus what you said
I think this is a very good idea for broad distribution, but it would be best to confront a big list of supposed things to fear – I think a crowd-sourced list and discussion would be perfect. People are supposed to fear all the elements of extreme weather (put up the data on worst storms, floods, droughts and when they happened), encroachment of tropical diseases on the temperate zone (the Rideau canal builders in eastern Ontario, just after the war of 1812, died in numbers for malaria and yellow fever), failure of crops with increasing CO2 itself plus the warmth its supposed to cause (bumper crops around the world, the greening of the Sahel, tree growth, plants more drought proof because elevated CO2 reduces evapotranpiration) , disappearance of the ice (stopped, polar bears thriving – 3200 of them found in the Kara Sea where they hadn’t been seen before, NW passage frozen shut last year and thick ice in the strait right now, Antarctic ice new satellite era record extent each year, lost penguins found in abundance).
A good idea to talk about the pause. Also to list and give a brief account of the debunked global warming cause of the death of golden toads and other creatures (scientists infected frogs and toads – caused world decline in amphibians because of unhygienic sampling of populations looking for hormones for pregnancy tests! Probably saving on rubber gloves). Sloppy studies of butterflies because of lack of understanding of their habitat – the checkerspot doing just fine…..Yeah, I think a readable book or booklet. Include all the quotes about no more snow, no more ice, fires, droughts, extinctions….
My main fears are broader:
-Too much acceptance of “authority”
-Too little questioning
-Not enough Nullius In Verba
If politically-motivated activists confirm that science can be manipulated to attain Machiavellian aims, science will be forever compromised.
John W. Garrett
Yes! I stand with you on this.
My greatest fear resulting from the global warming scare is that the reputation of science will be seriously damaged by the pseudoscience promoting the scare.
Richard
The reality of much science is money-motivated prostitution. The reputation of science is higher than reality and must drop. That is anguishing.
On that topic, to me the scary thing ? It is history repeating it self and we’ll end up in the dark ages all over again.
John, you say your main fear is that “… science will be forever compromised.”
That has been my fear for many years. Government funded “science” done by “consensus” where the “consensus” is driven by political means has damaged the very idea of science.
We have even gone so far now that some skeptic sites will not permit certain skeptical viewpoints to be mentioned in the threads. We must at least pay lip-service to the magical molecule CO2 and “back-radiation” to be part of the “cool kids”.
We know that the “data” has been manipulated until it is darn near useless in many ways. We know that basic laws of thermodynamics have been ignored repeatedly in this drive to demonize CO2.
The entire Jim Hansen theory of how the climate works is bogus. He was doing politics from the very beginning. If a person finds he believes anything Hansen has said, then he needs to closely re-examine that part of his understanding.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself,”