Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Former NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan is worried some media outlets do not provide sufficiently apocalyptic climate views.
Americans ‘under siege’ from climate disinformation – former Nasa chief scientist
Fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, says former head of US space agency.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Friday 9 June 2017 00.15 AEST
Americans are “under siege” from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa’s former chief scientist has said.
Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.
“We are under siege by fake information that’s being put forward by people who have a profit motive,” she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. “Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”
During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.
“The harder part is this active disinformation campaign,” she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. “I’m always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say ‘It could be volcanoes’ or ‘the climate always changes’… to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry.”
Stofan added that while “fake news” is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an “erosion of people’s ability to scrutinise information” across the political spectrum. “All of us have a responsibility,” she said. “There’s this attitude of ‘I read it on the internet therefore it must be true’.”
…
Even using IPCC estimates, there is a real possibility we do not face a climate emergency. From IPCC AR5 Chapter 10 page 871;
… Estimates of the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) based on multiple and partly independent lines of evidence from observed climate change indicate that there is high con dence that ECS is extremely unlikely to be less than 1°C and medium con dence that the ECS is likely to be between 1.5°C and 4.5°C and very unlikely greater than 6°C. These assessments are consistent with the overall assessment in Chapter 12, where the inclusion of additional lines of evidence increases con dence in the assessed likely range for ECS. …
Read more: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
The lower IPCC estimate for a plausible equilibrium climate sensitivity is an unexciting 1.5C per doubling of CO2. Even 1C per doubling is considered possible.
CO2 is currently growing at around 3ppm / year, according to observations from Mauna Loa.
Starting from 2016 / 404ppm, project the CO2 level by 2100;
404ppm + 3ppm * (2100 – 2016) = 656ppm
Calibrating for 1.5C / doubling (CO2 forcing is logarithmic) – determine the value of k;
1.5C = k log10(2)
k = 1.5C / log10(2) = 4.98
Determine the equilibrium temperature anomaly for 656ppm;
T = k log10(656ppm / 280ppm) = 1.8C temperature rise above pre-industrial temperatures.
Note this is the equilibrium sensitivity calculation – the transient climate sensitivity is likely to be even less.
Since we have already experienced around 1C of temperature rise without any noticeable ill effects, an additional 0.8C by the year 2100 is a big nothing burger.
Obviously everyone can debate the likelihood of various climate sensitivity estimates, or the possibility that the rise in atmospheric CO2 level will accelerate as China complies with their Paris agreement commitments, by building hundreds of new coal plants, but my point stands;
The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency. Using the IPCC’s own climate figures, there is a real possibility anthropogenic CO2 is not a big deal.
Calling people who point this out purveyors of “fake news” is pure climate alarmism.
As for what happens after the year 2100, frankly that is their problem. By the year 2100 humanity will know whether CO2 is causing climate problems – and will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Fake news spread by those with a profit motive …… ”
Are all renewables sellers registered charities?
The renewables industry in the UK is full of serial liars and people who spread fake news. The profit in the renewables industry is massive due to the huge subsidies they receive. They are prepared to say anything to keep the gravy train going.
The renewables industry is just making money with the tax breaks and incentives put in place for that purpose. They are NOT to blame. So who is standing to make money … ?
$100bn / year EVERY YEAR? That is not the oil or coal industries it is the UN Green slush fund. So it is the UN and World Bank who are going to be gaining massive donations of free money with which they will buy influence and dictate policy.
She is right. and who stands to make the most from the alarmist disinformaiton : follow the money.
Frankly she makes me angry by pretending that anyone who does not jump on the AGW alarmist bandwagon is on the payroll of oil and coal industries and by lying about the science being “unequivocal” .
But it is interesting that she picked up on my article about the possible warming effect of major volcanoes. It proves that climate sceptic blogs are getting the message across.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/uah_tls_365d/
Looking forward to a scientific rebuttal, not some no-brainer geologist calling it “nonsense”.
The group with the greatest profit motive in fake news is wealthy green charitable NGOs like the Sierra club, etc. Continuing tales of climate alarmism has greatly boosted the donations and paid memberships they receive. “You Can Save The World”—that is a powerful recruiting message.
The Guardian will print anything–literally ANYTHING that furthers the leftist agenda. They’d say the sky was purple and the grass black with equal conviction. Just like the NYT these days, you have to consider the source. And sounds like Ms. NASA is pissed that her snout will soon be out of the trough! One of the biggest ongoing howlers of course is that skeptics are all profit-motivated, but alarmists operate out of pure, unalloyed altruism. NOTHING could be further from the truth!
Isn’t it amazing how so many “real” scientists and their followers are sooo concerned about the people who will be inhabiting the planet 100 years from now, but won’t lift a finger to ease the plight of thousands of innocent refugees fleeing the war torn Middle East. There the same hypocrites to fly by the thousands to endless climate change conferences, leaving a trail of CO2 behind them when they could just as easily use teleconferencing. It’s all so pathetic. I just hope a few “real” scientists, especially Ms. Stofan read this.
Trebla, it’s like nobody has heard of “video conferencing” or “webcasting”, right? I mean why would a true alarmist believer do that, when they could leave a carbon footprint a mile long instead? Oh…wait…
Just remember that a prophet who needs others to validate his prophecy is not not really sure of it himself.
The scientific answer Greg, Is that this poor wretch of a woman is suffering from a severe mental disorder caused by massive cognitive dissonance, which causes her to attribute to others the exact set of behaviors and attitude and misapprehensions that she herself is deep in the sway of.
Every single sentence and word she speaks on the subject. is in fact what she and her fellow warmistas are doing, thinking, and saying.
To the letter.
It is very strange if she is unaware of this…because the people she works with are the ones actively corrupting data sets, selectively editing and censoring both historical information and new research, baffling the public with BS doublespeak on any and every issue with any relation to the weather or climate of the Earth whatsoever, and on and on. In fact, she may very well be one of the data corrupters and/ or fake news editors and/or professional bullshit artists herself.
Nothing unusual or unprecedented has happened or is happening, everything which has ever been written or known about the climate history of our civilization and the Earth has been rewritten, erased, disappeared, or covered up…including the very graphs, maps, arguments and findings of the first IPCC reports which showed no net warming had occurred as of the late 1990s, and the 1930s was the hottest decade by far and several decades of sharp cooling had occurred since then.
To ignore all that has been altered, lied about, obfuscated and just plain gotten wrong must take either a massive brain tumor, or a mental state that causes bewildering hallucinations to form spontaneously inside one’s psyche and be transferred into the conscious self, in order to avoid the ego-crushing realities that one’s entire life is based on telling ridiculous untruths, and she is truly as clueless as a box of rocks about the very subjects that give her ego any sense of self-worth at all.
Either that or she is a deliberate and willful purveyor of a confabulation of junk science, scare mongering, and money-grubbing, self-enriching speculations…no more than a shameless head-bobber to the whims of her political paymasters.
To go into the specifics in any sort of comprehensive manner is now a compendium of wrongness that would fill a very thick book if described in detail. Global ice cyclicality, the lie of sea level rise acceleration, conflating weather events with climate change, the utter failure of GCMs, sweeping the benefits of higher CO2 under the rug, made up nonsense about the non-thing dubbed ocean acidification, concealing and/or ignoring the true aims of the UN and the IPCC, the international wealth transference schemes that masquerade as an environmental cause, the whole notion that humans can adjust the future temperature of the planet like one adjusts a wall thermostat, ignoring the scientific method entirely on any subject tangentially related to climate or even weather…
Maybe instead of naming hurricanes after the President and his family, we could name methods of reviving the unconscious, or slapping a person out of a stupor, after people such as Ellen Stofan and Jeffrey Sachs, and all the rest of the lickspittle climate sycophants and jackbooted panic whores.
But what will actually happen is that for all of history, the names of the worst of the climate liars will be synonymous with fraud and deceit and calumnies of every description.
I have always found this line of reasoning to be hilarious. Big oil with their greed will be replaced by what exactly?
“Big Oil” are energy companies, if/when the oil dries up or legislation mandates, do environmentalist think these multi-billion dollar companies are just going to shrug their shoulders, say “we had a good innings” and close the doors.
Exxon has said it stopped funding climate-skeptic think tanks a decade ago. Probably most other Big Oil companies are now non-funders too. As for lobbying, it and other oil companies are on board with the carbon tax idea and have protested Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord.
On some level ALL leftists’ ultimate “problem” is with capitalism. My own theory is that their kindergarten teachers told them the world is supposed to be “fair” and “even-steven,” and they still believe it subconsciously. My answer is, if you don’t like capitalism, turn all your interest, dividends, and capital gains over to the government; now you can feel like a righteous Socialist.
One better hope not. These big energy companies are massive tax payers and without those tax revenues, everyone will be far poorer, particularly those on modest to low income who rely upon government/welfare handouts.
The socialists always want to spend other people’s money, but when this dries up and the tax dollars are no longer received from the big energy corporations, the socialist will be the first squeal at the ensuing austerity that they will be forced to endue..
I thought it was classic when the head of Goldman Sachs game out denouncing Trump’s Paris exit.
Hmmm.. first thought, GS had a lot of money bet on the implications. If you don’t think GS is motivated by profit (aka “greed”), you aren’t thinking it through. The fact they came out against Trump tell us all we need to know – Paris is all about selecting winners to make money, not about saving the world from climate change.
Doesn’t an academic whose career, promotions, and tenure rely on bringing in grants have a profit motive when he applies for grants only available to CAGW doomsayers?
More psychological project from the hypocritical left.
She should move to France. They will roll out a red carpet and pay her up to 1.5M Euro. They already are getting rid of meteorologists who spread fake news.
They are the new plantation owners and oil barrons. Billions of dollars profit and little benefit to anyone other than themselves.
Good one, Joe Public!
She’s a blind idiot who can’t see the glaringly obvious.
The people have awakened to the fact that experts aren’t credible. That’s why they have tuned out on climate alarmism.
It isn’t necessary to have some evil covert well funded propaganda campaign to prejudice the people against CAGW religion. It’s actually an own goal.
Folks are noticing that science is in trouble. In some fields, Eroom’s Law has set in. New breakthroughs aren’t coming, science is stagnant in those fields. “Sloppy science creates worthless cures, crushes hope, and wastes billions.” link
The constant parade of contradictory studies has become a joke. Any scientist who still thinks science still has any of its former credibility is living in cloud cuckoo land.
commieBob
I do not think she is an idiot,. She is probably not blind. She is however obliged to support the status quo. ANSA has dug itself in so deep they have no way out. They have claimed, without evidence, that Svensmark is wrong, cannot be right, and it is all about CO2. Yet Svensmark is so right, there is nearly no room left for human effects.
How embarrassing for a Nationals Space Administration! Of all the organisations that should be leading the enquiry into the effects of extra-terrestrial phenomena on the climate, NASA should be leading. Instead, we get this silly droning about how it is almost all due to man’s evil ways, and that the Garden Of Pre-Industrial Eden is being wrought into wasteland.
‘Science’ is not in trouble, climate science is. Science is a tool box. NASA climate science is the misapplication of those tools. It is not even complicated. As the tree line inches north to where it was a few centuries ago, we should be rejoicing as the forest regrows and the tundra is transformed. What do we get instead? Howling about ‘methane’ from old biomass stored in the permafrost! Excuse me….biomass?? And how it is get there? Did the Flying Spaghetti Monster put it there to confuse the skeptics?
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. CAGW is not science as anyone normal person understands it.
[ANSA ? But, perhaps an NSA may, somewhen and somehow, be able to recover NASA’s original files and purpose. .mod]
The evidence is approaching a thunderous din. Here’s exhibit A: Why Most Published Research Findings are False John P. A. Ioannidis
Lots of people cite Ionnadis and I haven’t seen a single attempt to refute his work. Things are actually quite bad IMHO.
Crispen,
“Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. CAGW is not science as anyone normal person understands it.”
If so (and it seems so to me), why do you think the general “scientific community” is not screaming bloody murder, so to speak, regarding what is going on in the “climate science” realm?
JohnKnight
Good question: why the silence. I believe (having seen the inside a bit for a decade) that the main reason is the unique way that the university system (thus professoriat) works. Universities are not like corporations, however many assertions there are about them working like greedy businesses blah blah. They are much more like a collection of little kingdoms with a host of little vassal kings working under the protection of a Bog Brother that functions somewhat like an Athenian ruling council. Lots of rules to be exploited.
A professor has a great deal of latitude to teach what he wants and to protect his narrow topic (usually) and there is a social contract between them – if you challenge the core of my being (his PhD) I will resist to the death. They have invented ‘tenure’ as a way to protect their space to allow them to say what they want and take a whole lifetime to work out the details.
This, when connected to the funding available from private corporations, is a recipe for disasters, a series of them. It is very similar, structurally, to the organisation of Islam, where there is no official priesthood, but a series of mullah each of which has convinced a group or followers that he sees the divine light in just the right manner. They receive money for this, from the followers in the case of Islam. In the case of universities, it is collected by the ‘collective’ and shared according to rules.
The term ‘climate mullah’ is quite appropriate – probably more appropriate than most realise as few know how mullahs actually become influential. For an American or Nigerian parallel, a TV preacher would perhaps be the parallel. If you stick to certain formulae, you can pretty much say what you want.
The greater science community, if it is professional, knows what they know and knows what they do not know, and they keep quiet about things in which they have little expertise. Climate science is filled with people working far their specialities and understanding. Climate science’s ridiculous and unsupportable claims rarely come from people who are experts at the narrow topic encompassed by the blame-point.
So there is a built-in resistance to alarmist claims made by other scientists where the work in question is not the area of speciality of the listener. And that is long before we get to the points about ridiculous connections of cause and effect which are too numerous to mention. A real prof knows that making idiotic and, in the end, disproven claims, will be career suicide. I know many who are just watching the alarmists throw themselves onto the pickets, hurling themselves over the ramparts, with no chance of surviving the inevitable undoing that will surely follow. Climate madness is an industry suffused with ego. It is the leaven that holds it together. People have dug themselves in so deep there is not way back, having chained their careers to the mast of a sinking ship.
The greatest risk is from Svensmark. He and his team really do deserve the Nobel Prize. His theory and proofs are excruciatingly detailed and predictive. The excursion of the jet stream that is bringing snow to California right now can be traced to large scale atmospheric effects of solar influence. A piece of the puzzle is provided by Prof Lu of the Univ of Waterloo with his work on ozone and GRC’s.
As the crops start to fail in China and Pakistan, Argentina and Canada in the coming cold, the mullahs of warming will be trampled by the mobs rushing to acclaim the mullahs of cold. Humanity just loves a good horror story.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Crispin.
Let’s not forget the hundreds of billions of dollars in grant money I mean confiscated tax dollars. Yeah, no profit motive there for alarmists.
Me thinks the pot calls the kettle black from Ms. Former NASA Chief.
Isn’t she guilty of what she claims the other side is dong?!
Yes, it’s called projection in psychology.
Who is paying this woman? I’m sure she is not silly so I bet whatever she is getting paid is an impressive amount!
Are all NASA leaders competent and unbiased in determining if CO2 increase temperatures or if increasing temperatures cause increased CO2 concentrations?
If only those who support catastrophic increases in temperature from increases in CO2 concentration receive support from the Green Blob, then who has the profit motive, who is responsible for fake news?
We are on track for 0 (F or C, take your pick) over the first 20 years of the 21st century. Somebody send her a calculator with zero X already entered and a note telling her to try any extension of the trend she likes.
Since when is CO2 “carbon”?
The carbon cycle is enumerated in tons or gigatons of carbon. CO2 is the dominant carbon compound exchanged between the atmosphere and the land, water and biosphere.
At least she is a “former” Chief Scientist. NASA must get out of the climate scam, and get busy on advancing space exploration. We practically lost eight years under the feckless Obama.
Guess she start to feel Trump might slash her funding and I really hope he will.
Well if she didn’t get the memo before resigning in December, I don’t know what rock she was hiding under.
Maybe this is just a way of letting the reader know she has got her fingers crossed behind her back, and not to believe a word of what she says.
If she doesn’t know about the election results for a month or more, who left her in charge of ANYTHING?
She lived a month on the moon, whose climate she studied at that time. On the opposite side of the earth.
Technically that quote is correct. The election was held on Nov 8th, but the Electoral college met an cast their votes on Dec 19th and those votes were certified by the House of Rep on January 6 2017. So the election was not official until Jan 6th.
There were millions “hoping” to turn aside the election (by lies and news media pressure) in the Electoral College on Dec 19-20.
We were fortunate that they (Both the American voters and the Electoral College representatives those voters selected) actually voted as the law required. Not as the mass media desired.
Outside the Left’s marshmallow cloud and unicorn ranch filled fantasies, there was no chance the electoral college would vote for anything other than the Nov. 8 results or that the Reps would certify anything other than the electoral college results. That’s a tool of fake news purveyors…technically it COULD happen, but in reality there’s not a chance in hell.
Very senior people, like chief scientists, don’t put in their resignations just prior to leaving. She had probably tendered her resignation in September or October, to allow her boss to find a replacement before she left.
Out curiosity, just wondering well educated person would freely make such absurd remarks.
I could have been looking in the wrong areas, but Brown University shows one Ellen Stofan presenting a dissertation:
From: https://library.brown.edu/theses/browse.php?type=author&letter=S
Though a general search for “Geology of coronae and domal structures on Venus and models of their origin” does locate a references to the Brown University Doctorate awarded to Ellen Stofan.
Neither thesis or dissertation are resounding atmospheric science markers, which aligns with Dr. Stofan’s public outrage.
Venus models and Venus maps are such solid Earth knowledge education.
I was amused to find Brown University selling AGU T-shirts and advertising AGU meetings. Identifying sources for the CAGW Kool-Aid.
Again, from Brown University:
And there is another mystery!
A graduate student leaps from doctorate thesis success to s deputy position at NASA.
Nepotism, from what an earlier commenter was pointing out.
It does not get much worse than this.
‘Stofan resigned from her post at the top of Nasa in December, before the US election results. “It wasn’t anything to do with it, but I’m glad I’m not there now,” she said.’
“…wasn’t anything to do with it…” – my ass.
Maybe the swamp is beginning to drain itself.
Nah, just wishful thinking.
If the science was truly unequivocal, I would also be an alarmist. But it isn’t. Therefore, I’m not.
Same here–I’d be the first to jump on board if someone, anyone, could disprove the null hypothesis.
Dang, everything evolution ever did was ‘natural’ until we came along.
We are the unluckyest species ever.
I was an alarmist until it became clear that the science was anything but unequivocal. That was many years ago. We all make mistakes when young.
I am alarmed at what they call science!
Everyone who calls themselves “Scientist” must follow the scientific method defined by Dr. Richard Feynman.
If the science was “unequivocal”, why still spending billions dollars per year in “climate research”???
To silence any other viewpoints and ensure it remains “unequivocal” 😉
ohhh good one, Greg.
So you correctly describe the nefarious objective the Alarmists are undertaking–to brainwash the masses using their own tax dollars.
How very introspective, Greg.
Real climate research indicates how wrong the Alarmists actually are.
“why still spending billions dollars per year…?”
“To silence any other viewpoints and ensure it remains “unequivocal” ;)”
Even simpler and slimier…to get paid.
Fat stacks.
A classic case of projection , there indeed a lot of fake news on ‘climate doom’ and to much pushed by NASA itself in the name of ‘the cause ‘ by people like Stofan .
Bottom line it is another call for ‘deniers’ to be silenced something never needed when the science is really ‘settled ‘ .
Right? You don’t see tons of debate about gravity, or the speed of sound.
Nasa’s former chief scientist Ellen Stofan. On the contrary, misanthropogenic misinformer siege is in process of being lifted. You are a proof of it.
According to Wiki she is a geologist – her Dad was a NASA rocket scientist – anybody get a whiff of nepotism here? IF CO2 is guilty of the massive thermal effect attributed to it competent physicists could demonstrate it in the lab. She frankly is not qualified to speak since as a geologist she seems oblivious to the geological record which shows no correlation between CO2 and temperature. She certainly has no physics to form her OPINIONS.
According to Wiki she is a geologist
According to Sheldon Cooper:
The geology department kicked his @ur momisugly$$!
😎
She is like Al Gore in this regard – regarding the climate she knows all the wrong stuff with great certainty. She is self-baffled and can’t get beyond it.
“Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”
We know that!!
Be very careful what you put in that head of yours for you will never, ever get it back out. — Cardinal Wolsey
Climate alarmists have counted on that for decades.
Former NASA Chief
Scientistactivist Ellen Stofan is worried some media outlets do not provide sufficiently apocalyptic climate views.It needed correcting.
5 ancient civilizations that were destroyed by climate change | MNN …
Vs
World population to hit 11bn in 2100 – with 70% chance of continuous rise
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/18/world-population-new-study-11bn-2100
hmmm,
So here we are faced with a real ‘Scientist’ who actually studied Venus as a planetary system (see her wiki) who buys into the ‘Venus had Beaches’ argument without noting that,, , if so the Earth, due to relative solar proximity, would have been a frozen ball of ice at the same time. Perhaps she buys into the rcp8.5 sensitivity?
Since I can’t actually do the math, just visualize it, I have no answer. Except to note that not all scientists, along with doctors and lawyers, are actually competent in their fields. Some are good test takers.
To further illustrate, look how long it took science AFTER the invention of the microscope, to understand the concept of sperm/ovum reproduction when they had the example of chicken eggs there all along.
http://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientists-learned-how-babies-are-made-by-dressing-frogs-in-pants/
Fascinating read.
Yeah. Totally agree.
I think she should retire to a beach on Venus–really good place for her!
She should take Stephen Hawking along and fulfill his prediction that we must find another planet “within 100 years”.
I worked outside all yesterday on the yard, the pasture, and our orchard and between the gentle breeze, spectacular sunsets, and amazing plethora of biological activity and balance, Mr. Hawking can have Venus.
I’m very satisfied with Earth and convinced a better planet can’t be found.
MAGA will Make the Earth Great Again!
I often make a similar point with respect to Mars and the problem with the so called weak sun parody. Whilst no one knows when Mars lost its atmosphere; it is thought that most of it had been lost about 3.5 billion years ago, so this gives very little time for running water on the planet. The window of opportunity for running water lies say sometime between the period 3 to 4 billion years ago. IF in the early period of the solar system, there was a weak sun as proposed, then Mars would not have had an opportunity to have had running water over much of its surface. Either our time lines are wrong, or the sun was not as weak as people suggest.
I have no hope for Mars being a viable planet for more than a scientific presence with the people being rotated back to Earth on a regular basis. There is a zero chance of having another viable planet in the next hundred years. Without Star Trek technology we are stuck here forever.
Planets are not the only place to live, got the entire Solar System with its VAST amounts of resources. Free your mind, your ass will surely follow.
If you study the political history of the Scablands in Washington State you will see everything that is wrong with scientific consensus and how easily butt-hurt published but wrong scientists are. It was the invention of the epiphany that gave scientists the necessary tool to come through the wall of righteous ignorance with their careers intact.
The beauty of the word “former”. The Trump Effect – making America smile again.
Thanks for pointing that out. Brilliant. I do like to smile again.
Speaking to the Guardian…
Says it all, really.
By the year 2100 humanity …. will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.
That sounds like a foregone conclusion, but it at present it remains an article of faith or a piece of wishful thinking.
We pretty much already have the capability to decarbonise the economy, using nuclear power. France decarbonised their electricity system in the 1970s. The rest of the developed world could do the same.
2100 might bring other options such as viable, inexpensive nuclear fusion – but viable fusion power isn’t necessary for what I say to be true. One thing for sure is our engineering capabilities will be far more advanced by 2100.
But, but by then the oceans will likely be 3 inches higher.
You are apparently not up to snuff on nuclear technology. The clear emerging revolution is all about molten salt reactors (China, India, Moltex Energy, Transatomic Power, Terrestrial Energy, etc) – producing power cheaper than any other technology, constructed in factories and ready to roll in months, not years. Totally safe. Or the likely further sharp reduction in lithium battery prices due to mass production/cheaper(and superior) cathodes and anodes. Prices are already sub-$200 per KWhr. When they go below $100 , the gasoline powered personal vehicle era is over.
David A: You’re a prognosticator, are you?
arthur4563
You are right about the molten salt reactor — though it still needs a lot of work. It is not yet a sure thing.
As for batteries — Electric cars, just like their little brother golf carts, will find a limited useful niche.in society. The muscle is just not there for sustained service.
And electric cars, dependent on electric power provided largely by the oil and gas industry, are not sustainable — until molten salt reactors come on line to provide electricity .– if they ever do.
So going into the future which will be cheaper — powering your car by electricity created by burning oil and gas — or — filling up your tank with gasoline?
Eugene WR Gallun
.
NASA has no intention in their report on climate?
Starting Arctic’s report on 1979-the year with the most ice coverage.
Showing water levels from two different measures where one, gouges show less, and one shows more and cuts the linear trends and propose there is a change!
I would be shamed if I where employee.
You wouldn’t last a year as an employee. Honest people find it difficult to work for such institutions. I lasted just over a year working for government, and walked out on Friday without giving notice and never came back. I could not watch the incompetence, the waste of money, etc anymore. No one cared about doing things right, only who had the most seniority and who was greasing whose palm. It was intolerable. That’s why such agencies are a mess—good people just can’t work there.
bravo, sheri.
Many large corporations are the same way, which give new corporations a chance to replace them, thankfully.
Sheri, one of the major problems with government bureaucracies is that once Congress starts screwing with their budgets the competent people move elsewhere. That leaves the mediocre to take the promotions and eventually run the place. From a book that came out in the ’60s or early ’70s (i.e., The Entrepreneur’s Handbook if I remember correctly): “First rate managers hire first rate people. Second rate managers hire third rate people.” I’m afraid that holds equally for both government and business. Sounds like you got out just in time to protect your sanity.
I bet “Mankind causes apocalypse due to non-compliance with the left-leaning seance civil servants preferences”TM-message is even tougher to peddle from outside. Perhaps Grauniad can offer some carbonless tissue to wipe the sweat off.
The consensus is scattering even in the left-leaning spectrum? Roger that. Count me in. Time kick in a new gear.
You highlighted my favourite part`
“a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.”
Skeptics use a constant barrage of half truths……
Alarmists use unequivocal science that predict potentially dire consequences.
What alarmist don’t use is the unequivocal science that predicts potentially no dire consequences…… because that is what the skeptics use.
Noble cause corruption IMO. Don’t let on that it might not be a big deal, because you are letting the side down.
So sayith the: Reasonable Skeptic June 11, 2017 at 3:45 am
“WOW”, …… just “WOW”.
The Reasonable Skeptic is bragging about his/her constant barrage of half truths
Sam,
You have a very ‘reasonable’ observation there!
Samuel:
You may have mistaken “Reasonable” with the “Really”, but actually trollop.
Reasonable asks why the alarmists fail to reach non-dire conclusions.
ATheoK:
Please clue me in, …… is the person with the “screenname” of Reasonable Skeptic ….. a reasonable thinking person who is a self-proclaimed Skeptic about the claims of AGW or CAGW, ……. or is that person a self-proclaimed Skeptic about the claims of AGW or CAGW who considers himself/herself a reasonable thinking person?
So I guess my next question is, …….. which half part of his/her “screenname” is the “truth” part ……. and which is the fictitious, lying or “half-truth” part?
Iffen you never tell a lie ….. then you will never have to unlie it.
Cheers
@Samuel, to make this easy
Both side are promoting the science that supports their position. Only one side denies that the other has a position based in science.
No, the religion of Human Caused Globall Warmining is a lie. Defending it diminishes you.
“What alarmist don’t use is the unequivocal science that predicts potentially no dire consequences…… because that is what the skeptics use.”
Correct.
Because after 40 years of AGW crap the only observable effect of increased atmospheric CO2 on the planet is that it’s greening.
Also, we’re ‘glass half full’ kind of people.
So Trump DRAIN(S) THE SWAMP of this drip and it runs off to a friendly legacy media outlet to carp.
Eschew dumb mass media infotainment pushed, in favor of pulling agreeable information streams. Science is not politics and there is no commitment to balance.
“Americans ‘under siege’ from climate disinformation”
She was totally correct.
Americans HAVE been under siege from climate disinformation… under the guise of alarmist AGW non-science.
Donald Trump has started to lift that siege.
“Those with a profit view” ??! Please, no, not those words coming from a climate scientist… I stopped reading there. Because this all alone is enough to consider her whole hate speech as completely unfounded.
“Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.” Yes mam it sure is! Was she an Obama appointee?
She is absolutely right! The Human Caused Globall Warmining religionists are disinforming Americans. And more and more Americans understand they are lying.
Indeed–look how the world suddenly came to an end the minute President Trump pulled the plug.
(Although it probably ended for the grifters that were brainwashed into supporting it and were counting on it financially.)
“The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency.” Amusingly, Ellen agrees with you, “… potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions.”
If the science is irrefutable, why are the “dire consequences” only “potential”?
Exactly.
Great point. And it made me laugh, which makes it even greater. 🙂
Looking at the text under the image. Close encounter with a planetary mind like Stofan’s may have resolved one of the greatest puzzles ever since the Council of Nicea or even before: the firmament is neither solid nor liquid. It’s amorphous like in a greenhouse.
Is it just my browser, or is some computer gremlin converting “fi” to ” ” in your block quote above?
I must not be very smart. I couldn’t figure out what “con dence” meant.
The sheer short sightedness of the climate alarmists is astounding. Does this woman really believe that 50 years from now (or even 20 years from now) we will still be driving gas powerd cars? Or using anything other than molten salt nuclear reactors to make power, cheaper than any other energy technology? Ms Steffan is obviously out of touch with emerging technologies We are well aware of the large number of folks who make a living spreading climate catastrophic scenarios, but who exactly is “profitting” by denying the notion of a climate armegeddon? It is embarrassing to think that this simple-minded purveyor of future catastrophic climate events ever held such a high position in our govt. Exactly which credentials does she have to buttress her opinions about future climates? A degree in astronomy?
arthur4563 June 11, 2017 at 5:14 am
Iffen I were to venture a guess, …… then I would hafta say, ….. first and foremost, she is a good looking, attractive, well proportioned “blonde” …… and secondly, her daddy was/is a high ranking NASA employee with apparently a lot of friends in “important” positions of NASA management.
Sorry, but she’s not a “good-looking” blonde. She’s average.
Samuel Cogar, her credential is the revolving door. She left NASA for employment at a job for a tiny research firm that appeared to exist only through government contracts. Then that revolving door butted her right back into government employment during the second reign of Obama the Maggotificent.
“Sorry, but she’s not a “good-looking” blonde. She’s average”
But, but, but, …… RockyRoad, ….. the preferred job qualification of grey-headed and/or aging managers and supervisors in their hiring of female employees tend to be more preferenced toward “well proportioned” physical attributes.
“A degree in astronomy?”
Nope.
A degree in Astrology.
She is desperately trying to get a new job.
Well, Obama need someone to clean up the guest houses in the anthropogenic weather hick-up zones.
Unfortunately, she has no marketable skills outside of government and academia… And government isn’t an option over the next 4-8 years.
I thought NASA scientists relied on DATA. Has she looked at it??? I am very puzzled by this.
She doesn’t agree with these 20 or so ex-NASA scientists. Why?:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/team-of-ex-nasa-scientists-concludes-no-imminent-threat-from-man-made-co2/
Here’s another WUWT reference with an even longer list of NASA skeptics:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/
“half-truths”…………….”despite the science being unequivocal”
Does that mean she and others are telling half-lies?