By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: The advocates for a massive public policy response to climate change have overwhelming political power, far greater than that of conservatives and skeptics opposing them. Temporary factors have prevented their victory, but weather or politics could change the situation quickly and soon. The illusion of winning keeps skeptics disorganized and ineffective. Skeptics have the ability to influence the debate now, and should use it while they have it.
Who is winning? That determines your strategy.
The histories of politics and war have many sad examples of people believing that their side had won — before a shattering defeat. In June 1863 many in the Confederacy believed they were winning the war; then came their defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. In May 1942 the Japanese believed they were winning WWII; then came Midway. In 1952 the French believed they were winning the Vietnam War; then came Dien Bien Phu. In 1967 Americans believed they were winning; then came the Tet Offensive (a devastating 4GW attack against US morale at home). In all these cases events revealed that the “correlation of forces” was against them.
False belief in a superior position leads to sloppy planning, weak organization, and failure to aggressively seek allies. It turns a weak position into a losing one. As it has done with the skeptics in the debate over America’s public policy response to climate change. The skeptics have almost every imaginable positional weakness, yet most believe they are winning.
The world’s major institutions of all kinds oppose them, seeking policy action. Almost every science institution. Major governments, as seen in their dedicated websites: Canada, Australia, the European Union, and the United States (the EPA, NASA, DoE, and many more Federal, State, and local units). The major international agencies, such as the UN (and its many agencies) and the World Bank. The major news media, such as the New York Times and The Guardian — and alternative media (e.g., Take Part. A large fraction of the West’s non-governmental organizations push for climate policy actions such as environmentalists (e.g., the WWF, the EDF, and Greenpeace) and science-related institutions (e.g., science museums, such as the American Museum of National History). Many of the world’s churches, such as Roman Catholic Church.
It’s an endless list, source of the massive flow of funds advocating climate policy action.
Relative to this the skeptics have a trickle of funding from conservative think tanks and foundations plus corporations (who tend to financially support both sides, as they do both parties, although unequally). The skeptics’ websites look (and are) amateurish, supported by advertising and donations — unlike those of activists (glossy, well-staffed, often professionally written). They’re astonishingly effective (especially Anthony Watts’) despite the lack of funding, but they reach only the tiny sliver of the public closely following this issue.
Where have the vast sums gone supposedly funding the skeptics’ movement? The most visible evidence (and perhaps the best use of the funds) are the Climate Depot website (daily links) and conferences to plan and coordinate their work (e.g., those by the Heartland Institute).
Why has the US taken so little action to fight climate change?
The obvious answer: because there is little public support for such intrusive and costly programs. While a slim majority of the public says they “worry” about climate change — polls show that they consistently rank it near or at the bottom of their policy concerns (also see this asking about “concerns about national problems”, and this asking about the “most important problem”).
Many factors have contributed to this failure in one of the most intensive and longest (28 years, dating from James Hansen’s famous Senate testimony) political campaigns in modern America. Americans are properly skeptical, having been consistently lied to about major policy issues (see these about foreign affairs). Our confidence in America’s institutions has been falling for 40 years. The Republicans have controlled some combination of the Presidency and one or both houses of Congress. The public policy campaign has been conducted incompetently, marked by exaggerations and misrepresentations beyond that supported by science (e.g., using RCP 8.5 to predict nightmares). — allied with doomsters who have a near-perfect record of being wrong.
Probably the most important factor: the weather has supported the skeptics during the past decade. The rate of warming has slowed since roughly 1998. Also, most kinds of extreme weather have diminished in frequency or intensity — or both (see the IPCC’s AR5, this by Prof Botkin, and testimony to Congress).
Public opinion can change quickly
The big battalions pushing for policy action have a slow but relentless effect, as shown in the latest Gallup poll (following a record warm wet winter in the US). The somewhat contradictory data shows a confused public, with the skeptics’ support slowly eroding. The key third graph suggests that it might be eroding fast. The climate policy debate might not remain deadlocked forever.
What might decisively change public opinion?
Skeptics fail to understand the first rule of insurgency: defenders of the status quo need to win every day while insurgents only need win once. Public policy measures are difficult to enact but are also difficult to reverse. What might defeat the skeptics?
First, we might get one or more major extreme weather events (not just a fraction of a degree rise over several years in the global average temperature). For example, a few large hurricanes hitting cities on the US East Coast, or East Asia — of course attributed to CO2 (whether scientists’ analysis eventually concurs is politically irrelevant). It could stampede public opinion into supporting new laws and regulations.
A second scenario of a decisive political change is a realignment election in the US that put the Democrats in power. This could happen in November, with major public policy action on climate change following in 2017.
What skeptics could do while they still have strength
Skeptics should use their political strength while they still have it. The 2016 campaign provides an opportunity that might not come again.
Their political supporters have only weak answers when asked about climate change. They give half-understood technobabble (any technical reply is babble to the general public), mumble about a conspiracy of scientists, and wave the uncertainty flag. Senator Inhofe tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to show that the Earth is not warming. These are pitifully weak rebuttals to the well-polished arguments of those advocating climate change.
There are clear, powerful answers that skeptics could give their political allies. For example, they could advocate for a fair test of the climate models (models are the basis for the predictions of climate catastrophe). This would force their opponents to explain to the public why the models should not be tested. Here is a description of such a test; this explains why it is needed under the norms of science and by the words of major scientists.
Or they can continue on their present course, and probably lose.
Effects of skeptics’ defeat after bouts of extreme weather
Political defeat following an election might change little for the skeptics. Defeat following weather-related disasters — billions in damages, perhaps deaths — might change skeptics’ lives for the worse. The insults and demonization from their foes that they experience today are like Spring rains compared to the thunderstorms of massive public blame and condemnation.
The damage might extend to conservatives and the Republican Party. That possibility is worth avoiding.
Who is right about the public policy response to climate change?
It’s an irrelevant question when forecasting near-term political events. We have no way to answer that now, and my experience suggests that both sides in the policy war are confident and intransigent — and so uninterested in research to answer it. It will become an important question for future generations of historians and political scientists.
This question will only become politically important if we force it into the debate. Congress can require NOAA or the NSF to test the models with independent oversight (i.e., a neutral multi-disciplinary team of experts). The results would tell us much.
Or we can wait for the weather or politics to decide the policy debate.
Conclusions
This is my 350th post about climate, ending this long series (as usual) with a prediction and recommendation. This post goes on my Forecasts page, and will eventually move to the list of hits or list of misses. My success rate is quite high, and I am confident this will add to that list.
My thanks to those who reposted these articles, especially Anthony Watts and Professor Judith Curry, and to the many climate scientists who generously assisted me — especially Professor Roger Pielke Sr.
Other posts about the climate policy debate
This post is a summary of the information and conclusions from these posts, which discuss these matters in greater detail.
- How we broke the climate change debates. Lessons learned for the future.
- My proposal: Climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
- We can end the climate policy wars: demand a test of the models.
- There will be little public policy action by the US to fight climate change – until the weather decides the debate.
- How climate change can help the GOP win in 2016.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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Well, if my provincial government doesn’t want me to warm my home with fossil fuel during the cold months, I have 150 trees surrounding my home that I can cut down and burn in my fireplace, at least for a few years.
Honestly though, were will the energy to replace fossil fuels in B.C. come from? Heating homes in winter is mostly via Natural Gas, transportation with gasoline and diesel. Solar won’t work in winter and the many, many cloudy days throughout the year. Hydro-electric power? That isn’t considered renewable in most greeny circles for some reason, though site-c damn is now being constructed that will supply electricity (but not heating and transportation) for an additional 400,000 soles, 9 years from now.
Wind turbines? In tourism dependent B.C. ? Several million hectares of trees burn on average every fire season in Canada, I guess we could burn those trees in our factories instead of having them burn naturally.
It’s a damn dam, darn it!
Right ! And your feet will be warm 9 yrs from now ?
“I have 150 trees surrounding my home that I can cut down and burn in my fireplace, at least for a few years.”
My parents are in their 80s and live in Ontario. They have no company pension, some savings, and live off government pensions.
As the Auditor General has pointed out, people in Ontario have paid $37 BILLION more on energy in the last 6 years than we should have.
The government announced that Ontarians could apply to get a rebate for what they pay for energy. Despite their tight income (see above) my parents were DENIED. They apparently make too much money.
The !@ur momisugly$@ur momisugly$ hilarious thing is that the government is also trying to bring in a provincial pension. Why? Because there are apparently people LIKE MY PARENTS who have a tight income.
In other words, they would be used a poster children for the pension, but are denied a rebate for their energy costs. Too rich for one government hand, too poor for the other.
Oh, but they have 97 acres of trees. So there goes the carbon budget. They are simply burning more wood.
What’s up with the graph symmetry? Maybe I missed something.
Meanwhile the world is getting ever smaller from Muslim terrorist attacks.
And North Korea is testing missile ejection from submarines.
Maybe I am too trusting but I was always amazed why pro-AGW persons got all giddy when there is a major weather event. It’s not that they are sadistic but it is their hope this could be the next policy tipping point.
I think the Ancient Greeks were familiar with the concept of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They called it Hubris with Nemesis following on its heels. often at the nadir of opposing side.
Yes, too often I have heard things like:
“this is the last nail in the AGW coffin”
” AGW is collapsing”
“We have them on the run NOW”
“just wait until the next election”
“No one except fanatics believe AGW”
“Science has proven AGW false”
This obviously ignores the enormity of the powers (and treasure) which is determined to remake the planet into a brave new world. The power of propaganda does not rely on the accuracy of facts! Nor does world governance depend on the participation of the governed masses.
We (skeptics) ARE fighting a losing battle, but it is a battle that must be fought. People should speak out – before no one can speak freely again. There isn’t much time left for dissent and the world is blissfully asleep, while their closed eyes, crust and scale over. Weep for humanity. GK
To most people here, AGW is a theory/hypothesis that is dying, collapsing because the planet is not cooperating with it. The powers that be probably hoped that their tactics would work faster and further than they have, and figured they’d have everything in place before the cooling starts so they could claim to have saved us all (and the planet) making their next moves more appealing. “Since we were right about THAT….you should trust us on….”
It’s an age old cycle that we can’t seem to shake, no matter how enlightened or advanced we become.
“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! ”
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
Pretty well spot on! The fact that Global Warming cannot be plausibly separated into its natural and anthropogenic components is lost in what passes for debate. For this reason, if the planet can be shown to be warming, the impetus will return to the warmist campaign. All that is needed is a couple of unusually hot summers and a couple of not-very-cold winters. The public has an attention span comparable to that of a goldfish, so if people believe that they can feel the trend then it will seem real.
The only thing likely to save the sceptic case is a demonstrable cooling trend. The science is largely irrelevant and is used mainly to bolster opinions already held.
I’m still amazed at the traction obtained by “carbon pollution”, the lack of understanding of underlying phenomena and the cavalier dismissal of solar influences.
We may win the scientific debate hands down but we are always at risk of losing the political war even if 99% of the population do not believe in AGW.
We only need to look at the Wall Street and Big Bank bailouts that occurred during the Mortgage Meltdown. Letters from Main Street to Congress were running over 95% against the bailout. The politicians overruled their constituents and went ahead against their wishes.
Bob Dachman: , Director , Little City . Palatine IL , NOV.1988
We’re not there yet , but it’s inevitable .
The problem being, that it’s a long, hard, vicious slog back from the failure of all things to a place where logic rules. Every time.
yes and yes.
morality is the science of choice based on a standard of values and it requires reason and understanding.
ignorant and immoral men act for their survival only when they have no choice.
when men rediscover the nature of values = renaissance.
So that apply in a world where billions of people base their lives on beliefs that must be wrong, i.e., conflicting religious beliefs? The capacity of people to believe in nonsense is almost limitless. The ability to discern the truth is not an important survival trait compared to the advantages of belonging to an identifiable group. The power of the group far outweighs the power of logic in terms of its immediate effect on survival and well being. While the skeptics limp along on donations, the AGW believers continue to live off the fat of the land. I guess the operative word is “fails”. When AGW fails to achieve anything of use on a scale that becomes embarrassingly stupid (like Y2K), then logic will prevail. Cold comfort.
Given the state of our bureaucracies and those who hold elected offices, we lost a few decades ago, probably with the “temporary” personal income tax.
CAGW/CC are just extensions of the Big Lie that a well established government of thieves by thieves (Kleptocracy) must sell.
No sale means no easy living at other peoples expense.
The creation,promotion and continued protection of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Meme, has been a work of our kleptocracy.
The Guild Of Parasites are now so well established they consider their theft to be normal, business as usual and the right of all those born to the elite.
Freeloaders heaven that is the vision of the UN control of CO2.
Taxing air.
Being so gullible or mendacious enough to promote such a scheme, is a sign.
One every tax payer should heed, the mark of one too stupid to hold any office.
Anthony: Hansen’s paper published.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/
Anthony: accepted text.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acp-2015-432-manuscript-version5.pdf
What’s amusing is that so many alarmist commenters now want to deny than anyone ever talked about catastrophe. The dissonance is deafening.
================
Yep, was driving on the road yesterday, missed it. Thanks.
Figueres already admitted openly that she wants to destroy capitalism and replace it with a socialist bureaucracy.
Because socialist economics are great right? ROFL
These nuts essentially want to micromanage humanity because they “know best”
Weep for the destruction of scientific reverence for raw data
Certainly, one method toward “victory” is to keep safe havens pure. Definitely cannot have informed alternate views undermining the collective will. Appears that St0kes is the latest to be silently 86ed … I suspect M0sher may be next. Hausfather better watch his step.
… on to the justification.
Good point, John. Purity of belief must be maintained. An important advance in this respect is the appropriation of the word “Skeptic”. A few decades ago this word meant “suspending judgement on the basis of insufficient evidence”, but now we fighters for the truth have appropriated the word skeptic to mean “opposed to”. Through such etymological legerdemain lies the path to victory.
Where was St0kes “86’d”??
Not where, why. Anthony can choose to un-86. Hope he does as St0kes is a technically experienced and knowledgeable poster.
So the proper way to answer my question would be “Here”. I am unaware that Nick has been banned from posting here at WUWT. If he was, then he really must have crossed a major line because it doesn’t happen very often here. Anthony tolerates a whole lot more than most of us would, and a crap load more than most of the AGW sites will.
[Reply: Nick Stokes is free to comment. -mod.]
Aphan,
Nick Stokes posted a comment at WUWT on March 15. Perhaps he’s just taking a few days off.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/15/one-graph-proves-that-record-high-year-of-2015-and-record-months-of-2016-are-not-agw-driven/comment-page-1/#comment-2166867
John,
Perhaps N*i*c*k St0kes is just taking a few days off. He last posted a comment at WUWT on March 15:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/15/one-graph-proves-that-record-high-year-of-2015-and-record-months-of-2016-are-not-agw-driven/comment-page-1/#comment-2166867
Also, it appears that comments with his name are blocked.
@Editor of the Fabius Maximus website March 22, 2016 at 4:42 pm
All correct, Editor … except the “days off” part.
==> http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/banned-again.html
[Reply: Anthony notifies mods when a commenter is banned. Nick Stokes is free to post here. Why he is claiming he’s been banned, only Nick knows. ~mod]
John,
Thanks for the link to the answer for this mystery!
Nope he isn’t 86’d, banned, or whatever you might call it. But, we do get attacked daily by posers, fakers, and spambots. Keeping comments running (especially since I’ve been on the road the last several days) has been a challenge. I looked and he and some others were flagged unintentionally in an update to the spam list. That’s been fixed.
@ur momisugly Anthony Watts, March 23, 2016 at 1:34 pm
That’s reassuring. Thanks for the response, Anthony. I also haven’t seen recent posts by some other regulars, like R Gates, for example … Are others in unintended purgatory somewhere?
[Reply: Anthony notifies mods when a commenter is banned. Nick Stokes is free to post here. Why he is claiming he’s been banned, only Nick knows. ~mod]
???? Waaahhhh?
“But, we do get attacked daily by posers, fakers, and spambots. Keeping comments running (especially since I’ve been on the road the last several days) has been a challenge. [b]I looked and he and some others were flagged unintentionally in an update to the spam list. That’s been fixed.[/b]” (just a few posts up)
~ Anthony Watts ~
John,
Why do you believe Nick Stokes has been banned from comment here? A comment under his name was posted on March 15. Perhaps he’s just taking a few days off.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/15/one-graph-proves-that-record-high-year-of-2015-and-record-months-of-2016-are-not-agw-driven/comment-page-1/#comment-2166867
The goal in politics is to make your opponents look silly. To overerextend the term, “politics” covers all human interactions. Science is a human interaction. Consider how Freudians are now regarded in psychology–vaguely silly when not ignored.
CAGW is a mass movement, like fascism. The trolls on this site should try to read up on the politics of the early 1900’s on eugenics and the intersection with politics. The green movement has a similar political force associated with it, and has been used a a talking point by most Western political parties (Damn you, Nixon and Thatcher).
The problem is how to do a good propaganda/sales job to counter this mass movement before the inevitable collapse it’s policies will cause take effect.
this is so wrong on so many levels…
the goal of politics is to take your stuff by force or fraud.
cagw is just another boojum to hold your attention while the hand you don’t see is picking your pocket.
the problem is not to convince anybody of anything.
you just have to keep your stuff.
if you lose the plot, you will lose your stuff until you no longer own anything- not your body, not your mind, not that which you produce – nothing.
if you believe anything else matters, you will simply submit, by degrees, as you relinquish all claim to your own humanity – until you, yourself, know that you are not worthy of the life you have affronted by the utter abdication of everything you were born with and endowed by nature.
The failure does not entitle you to any honor by virtue of your victimhood.
Instead, it damns you for the monstrosity of allowing yourself to twist and deform your own mind.
Persuading others is really a desperate evasion of responsibility by blaming others and a psychopathological method of persuading the remnants of your self.
Gnomish, I am a small “l” libertarian, not an anarchist. Government is a necessary evil, and politics is how people relate in anything past small groups. Sure, there are some times when violence, indeed organized violence is required as an ultimate response to some behavior to others, but I was trying to describe what happens before it becomes a resonable option.
This is still political season, and the green blob has not won yet.
Gnomish, “Persuading others is really a desperate evasion of responsibility by blaming others and a psychopathological method of persuading the remnants of your self.”
Don’t be silly. It’s laudable when one displays enough patience to persuade others. If YOU’re not sure, don’t project your uncertainty on the rest of us, please.
Thanks
I can see both sides of the persuasion argument. The problem is pretending to know the motivation of the persuaded. There is a big difference between being able to teach/inform others, and trying to manipulate people as a means to an end not revealed to them.
The word persuade is not defined as something evil in and of itself, and people can be persuaded to do both good and evil, or even benign things.
I think Finnish objected to the same sentence I did…using a “good propaganda/sales job to counter this movement …”. Both terms repulse me and make me want another shower today.
What I meant by “good propaganda/sales job” is trying to keep a very serious issue politics, not civil war. Equally silly propositions like eugenics have led to tyranny.
The illusion of winning keeps skeptics disorganized and ineffective.
########
Lack of any explanation for the state of the climate will necessarily lead to disorganization. Skeptics think ABC – – anything but co2 – – – is an organizing principal.
[Mosher, please stop your broad brush generalizing, not all skeptics think like that. I sure as hell don’t, and your drive by potshots like this belie your own lack of understanding – Anthony]
Ready, willing, and able to take on CO2 as an effective GHG based in its quantum properties. Basically it is too good. It’s fundamental bending mode extinguishes earthlight within a kilometer of the surface in a range of transitions encompassing 90% of its potential radiative energy.
Modtran would have these bands magically reappearing at about 5km by spontaneous regeneration. In the words of the HEDGE: dogshoot wrapped in cowshoot (loosely rendered).
Both of these graphics, the first based on a 1995 LBLRTM and the second based on measurements by nasa on a Learjet mounted spectrophotometer, clearly show a radiation gap in the fundamental bending mode region of the CO2 spectrum. If you zoom in you can see his region at the bottom demonstrated by Hitran interpretation of the 667.4 fundament and the weaker constructive and destructive rotational harmonics to the right and left, respectively.
This region DEFINES zero transmission to the tropopause.
Not just naysaying. Naysaying with reason.
The other public policy disaster in play….
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160322100420.htm
The war is lost, and public education is one big reason. Consider the “young adults”, if you can call them that, coming out of the public school system. They are scientifically illiterate, and believe CAGW theory as given fact. WHY? Simple, they have been taught CAGW as given truth since their earliest days. They know nothing else. Worse, they are the enlightened ones, and so think of unbelievers as knuckledraggers and uneducated rubes. Therefor, they cannot be reached. They occupy a position of moral superiority and do not have the scientific ability to evaluate even the simplest facts. Now going on two generations, people in this group constitute a sizable, and growing fraction of the adult population. And They Vote.
In response to all this, we have a call to “Test the Models”. Again. As a strategic move to win the war. Given the situation on the ground, I can not think of a more useless proposal. Testing the models is not even useless, it is irrelevant. People don’t know and don’t care about “models”. The models have been tested and failed. It did not make any difference then, it wont make any difference now.
And just see how fast those Millennial sheltered ones crank up the thermostat in their “safe spaces” next winter when La Nina gangs up with the solar minimum. One thing universal about “elites,” they don’t do discomfort I assure you!
You cannot win a religious or politically motivated movement by arguing complex facts. The majority of people do not have the time, will, interest and in some cases capacity to come to their own fact based conclusions – so they rely on their feelings about a subject. Their feelings are easily manipulated by people possessing charisma – like actors, politicians, and in the last 50 years activist leaders.
What is so depressing about this is that many people who claim to be scientists – and who are competent in their own fields – allow themselves to be sweep forward based on how they feel about climate change instead of investing time and energy to actually understand the facts. Those that eventually take the time generally become skeptics, which is to say they don’t agree that global warming is Cataclysmic.
Meanwhile, I find it repugnant to even suggest that skeptics employ the same tactics. Winning people to a cause through manipulating their feelings just isn’t being truthful.
Skeptics would have to start by changing an education system that doesn’t teach many (maybe most) graduates how to think for themselves – and the really sad part is they don’t even know the difference. Having an opinion is not the same as being informed. Agreeing with a charismatic person is not the same as thinking for oneself. Group-think is much easier than thinking.
I like to think my politics are middle-of-the-road, and in my book “activist” has lately become synonymous with “arsehole.” I doubt I’m alone . . .
Not only are they not taught to think for themselves, they are taught that by adhering to the party line they ARE thinking for themselves, and that those who haven’t been similarly indoctrinated are stupid or ignorant fools who aren’t capable of thought.
And they won’t listen to any argument to the contrary.
News flash we have lost. The horse is so far out of the barn right and wrong dont matter to people in control.
You have to fight simply for finding the truth as far as the answer at hand. If you think you are going to turn around a train that is not even being driven on what the actual answer is, the IMO you are focused on the wrong thing. I have long abandoned the idea that if I am right about the global temperature, it would make a difference in something that none of created ( the mentality that is the AGW movement, intersecting with so many different motivations but ending with one, an elitist attempt at control) nor we can control. The sad fact is the question we should be concerned about, how much does man contribute and is it a detriment to his progress( my answer, immeasurably small, and no its not harmful to the advance of mankind) has very little to do with what our opponents consider when pushing this
That does not mean you quit though. It means you are realistic about your motivation to fight
I look at these words all the time when considering this matter:
“I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If I’m wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make a difference.”
― Abraham Lincoln
That’s depressing, but Lincoln’s quote is inspiring, all the same. Thanks.
As someone pointed out above, two generations of school indoctrination are going to be hard to overcome. The obvious place to start is in the schools. Any teachers here?
/Mr Lynn
Joe,
“News flash we have lost. ”
What is your basis for saying that? The US has taken almost no large-scale public policy measures to fight climate change.
The only measure of any size is Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which was justified largely on traditional air quality grounds (correctly imo, given how much dirtier coal is than alternatives such as nat gas). And that might not survive court challenge — and estimates are that it would have a trivial effect.
CAGW alarmists are currently basking in a number of recent lucky breaks: 1) KARL(2015)’s erroneous “pause bustier” “adjustments” were immediately added to raw temp datasets to make the lines go up, 2) a strong El Niño cycle caused a spike in global temps, 3) The 2015 “The Blob” kept Northern Pacific ocean temps, and contributed to a spike in global temps in 2015, 4) the California drought got a lot of MSM coverage, 5) the Paris Climate Leftfest was perceived as a major victory for CAGW 6) the Northern Hemisphere enjoyed a mild winter from the El Niño/”The Blob” temp spike.
With the exception of KARL(2015), all these lucky breaks have already ended and will be replaced by: 1) a 2017/18 La Niña event, 2) the PDO 30-yr cool cycle, 3) the AMO will start its 30-yr cool cycle from around 2020, 4) The Arctic Ice extent has been recovering since 2007 and will continue to do so as the AMO 30-yr cool cycle approaches, 4) NASA formally announced in October 2015 that Antarctic land ice is growing at 100 billion tons per year since 1992, 5) the sun is in its weakest solar cycle since 1906, 6) the next solar cycle starting around 2022 will be the weakest since 1790, 7) there is growing evidence a Grand Solar Minimum event will start from 2035.
All these cooling events are converging together, so it’s only a matter of time before “The Pause” returns and there will soon be 25 years without a significant global warming trend, leading to a growing disparity between CAGW projections vs. reality that will soon exceed 3 standard deviations.
As the disparity between satellite/radiosonde temp data and land-base data widens, eventually the Karl(2015) “adjustments”‘ will have to be discarded. I also think the Congressional FOIA request on NOAA’s KARL(2015) internal e-mails is going to discredit the paper, but there is a chance all damaging e-mails have already been purged..
Anyway, courage, boys….
“Truth is the daughter of time”.
Exactly. I would go further and say (again) that AGW is a gift to the foes of Mordor. Along with the ROP, this could (I’m really tempted to say “will”) be the petard that will hoist the girls and boys who are so determined to fashion a New World Order.
GK
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065938/quotes
To paraphrase one of the biggest offenders of all – our ‘humble’ president and the very definition of hypocrisy: ‘The other side doesn’t play quite fair.’
Joel,
“The other side doesn’t play quite fair.’”
I doubt anyone with experience in politics will tell you that “fairness” is a factor. People that play fair are washed out quickly.
Hence the term, ‘hypocrisy’.
Polling orgs depend on OPM; how can they be trusted!
test
How many times do we have to say that this has nothing at ALL to do with the science? It is all about POLITICS, which means it is ALL about power, specifically the power of one group to impose its will on other groups.
WWS,
Great point! I’ve been writing about the public policy debate about climate change for years — and a majority of the comments are usually “I know the science and it says XX”. As if that makes a difference.
The “science” (broadly defined) is just one input into the public policy machine.
An emphasis should be put on forth generation nuclear. The lackluster performance of wind and solar also needs to be spotlighted. Don’t let them get away with larding their figures with hydro and biomass. Whenever you hear the phrase “renewables like wind and solar”, about 30% is going to be dams and burning stuff, which is nothing like wind or solar.
Of course maybe Lockheed Martin’s fusion will pan out and make the whole thing moot.