May 04, 2017 | Ted Nordhaus
[…]
This disturbing and memorable story has kept coming back to me the last few years, as a cadre of climate activists, ideologically motivated scholars, and sympathetic journalists have started labeling an ever-expanding circle of people they disagree with climate deniers.
Climate change, of course, is real and demons are not. But in the expanding use of the term “denier,” the view of the climate debate as a battle between pure good and pure evil, and the social dimensions of the narrative that has been constructed, some quarters of the climate movement have begun to seem similarly unhinged.
Not so long ago, the term denier was reserved for right-wing ideologues, many of them funded by fossil fuel companies, who claimed that global warming either wasn’t happening at all or wasn’t caused by humans. Then it was expanded to so-called “lukewarmists,” scientists and other analysts who believe that global warming is happening and is caused by humans, but either don’t believe it will prove terribly severe or believe that human societies will prove capable of adapting without catastrophic impacts.
As frustration grew after the failure of legislative efforts to cap US emissions in 2010, demons kept appearing wherever climate activists looked for them. In 2015, Bill McKibben argued in the New York Times that anyone who didn’t oppose the construction of the Keystone pipeline, without regard to any particular stated view about climate change, was a denier.
Then in December 2015, Harvard historian and climate activist Naomi Oreskesexpanded the definition further. “There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late,” Oreskes wrote in the Guardian, “one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs. Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists, who insist that we must now turn to wholesale expansion of nuclear power.”
Oreskes took care not to mention the scientists in question, for that would have been awkward. They included Dr. James Hansen, who gave the first congressional testimony about the risks that climate change presented the world, and has been a leading voice for strong, immediate, and decisive global action to address climate change for almost three decades. The others—Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira, and Tom Wigley—are all highly decorated climate scientists with long and well-established histories of advocating for climate action. The four of them had travelled to the COP21 meeting in Paris that December to urge the negotiators and NGOs at the meeting to embrace nuclear energy as a technology that would be necessary to achieve deep reductions in global emissions.
So it was only a matter of time before my colleagues and I at the Breakthrough Institute would be tarred with the same brush. In a new article in the New Republic, reporter Emily Atkin insists that we are “lukewarmists.” She accuses us of engaging in a sleight of hand “where climate projections are lowballed; climate change impacts, damages, and costs are underestimated” and claims that we, like other deniers, argue “that climate change is real but not urgent, and therefore it’s useless to do anything to stop it.”
[…]
Mr. Nordhaus,
As a luke warmer geologist and frequent contributor to Watts Up With That, who thinks that humans are only responsible for 20-40% of recent warming, that the climate sensitivity (TCR) is less than 1.5 C, that there is almost no chance of catastrophic climate change (short of the end of this interglacial stage) and that N2N (natural gas to nuclear) is the only viable pathway to low carbon-emission energy, I say…
Welcome to the “club”!
Maybe we need a betting pool for which activist is the last to be labeled a “denier.”
Happy Independence Day! … a couple of days early.
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Given the quasi-religious nature of the climate change movement, as a sect of the larger green movement, any disagreement from the catechism makes one a heretic. There are unfortunate parallels to socialism, which started as a political/economic tendency, and diverged into a competing aggregation of followers of various theorists turned secular prophets.
More a direct line of causality than a parallel. Climate change is part of the far left’s Zeitgeist. At a time when the moderate left dissolved because they had nothing left to believe in (after their embrace of “neo-liberalism”). So all the old far-left tactics no-platform, persecution of pariahs, … were incorporated into climatist politics.
There is a good parallel with the Pol Pot regime which, as times got harder, started to execute people on the fringes of the party, and when they got harder still, started to spiral the executions inwards to closer party members, so that by the time the regime collapsed there were only a handful of party leaders still alive, all looking over their shoulders.
Not sure I agree with that.
I have long been labelled with that term but have never been a right-wing ideologue.
The term has long just been used as an excuse to avoid debate. It is used to silence anybody that wants to understand the issues rather than rely on faith.
Yep. As zealots tighten the circle of faith, the ratio of faithful to heretics inevitably shrinks.
Holocaust denier is used to label people as mad, because holocaust deniers don’t accept evidence.
Climate deniers however ask for evidence, which there is not. Yet we are labeled mad, while warmists ask for accepting non evidence based science, which is a mad proposition in itself.
We must fight the label denier with all means possible. We deny nothing, we ask evidence.
Scarface I couldn’t agree more. Computer models are not data.
No problem with the label “denier” here. Embrace it. Deny that there is evidence of dangerous effect, and make them come up with [they can’t]. They will come up with only a list of superstitions.
The crazy thing is that when I categorically present the clear evidence that the climate sensitivity is low, the natural variabilities of temperature and CO2 are higher than presented, the abject failures of the models, the inconsistencies between instrumental and proxy data and the fraudulent nature of the 97% “consensus”, I get called a “climate”, “climate change” or climate science denier”… When I ask what it is that I am specifically denying, the response is usually a complex logical fallacy (ad hominem, ad populum, ad vericundian, etc.).
Sure, their frustration is that they thought they were done, that it is simple, and that the science is settled. The prospect of studying a lot more does not appeal.
Still, it is worth engaging these people to whatever extent you can tolerate their bile. They have an idea that every skeptic is an ignorant coal miner out of a job. I’m very happy to show them otherwise, to accept their label, and to explain to THEM very specifically what I am denying.
Scarface,
First I was labeled a denier and I accepted that. Next came deplorable. I actually embraced that label and considered getting a t-shirt but I could not get the combined label right; ‘deplorable denier’ just doesn’t grasp the depth of my depravity and ‘dastardly deplorable denier’ seemed a bit presumptuous, almost as if I were an archvillian. Then, in an epiphany, It hit me. I am simply ‘despicable’. Despicable me:..
Unless I’m very wrong about you and your father’s comments I’ve read, you honestly believe that a socialist form of government would be best for Mankind. You honestly believe that. But you can’t stomach dishonesty being used to accomplish it.
PS Guys, please don’t start a subtopic about socialism vs “whatever”.
Pretty much right.
The use of dishonesty shows that you daren’t refine your ideas in the bright fire of reality.
That can’t be good in the long term.
Regardless of your position on the political spectrum, there cannot be a justification for that position without a love of the truth. And that truth cannot be found without challenging it…. to prove it isn’t wrong.
Claiming “97%” and refusing to debate is not honest.
Deniers of ever more stripes are accused of heresy because they question the impending catastrophic effects of purportedly dangerous levels of CO2.
Your comment is evidence of high blood gas levels of N2O..
“PS Guys, please don’t start a subtopic about socialism vs “whatever”.”
Um, you just started it. socialism *is* the most correct form of human government and nearly all humans from Borneo to New York City practice some forms of it. It is a very loosely defined word.
Cooperative living is wonderful; command and control tends to be resisted. But when people do not willingly subscribe to a cooperative ideal that leaves abandoning the experiment or forcing your view on others. It seems that humans choose to force their views on others; which if there’s only a few “holdouts” makes some sense; but as the pincher tightens its grip, fewer and fewer people willingly subscribe.
The parable of the Little Red Hen is instructive. Many people want the benefits of socialism but not so many are willing to work in the hot kitchen to make it happen.
There’s a big difference between voluntary and forced participation. A Government forcing individuals to pay for others benefit is servitude that’s just shy of slavery. …When you are not given the choice.
M
Agree. + lots.
Auto
Closing down debate is EXACTLY what the most of the activist left does. (as against normal people with left-leaning views) They don’t want to debate so instead shut it down with ad homs. Pretty feeble imo.
Yes. It certainly doesn’t help the debate to repeat these untruths or irrelevancies. If people funded by fossil fuels are so bad they must be called “deniers” and ignored, then surely the equal argument applies to zealots whose funding DEPENDS on catastrophic climate change being a non-fictional possibility.
Right.
Agreed. I’d like them to name names. Who were the, “right-wing ideologues, many of them funded by fossil fuel companies,…,“? I don’t know of any. Peter Gleick claimed to know, but his evidence was a fairy tale.
I searched that phrase, and found The Ideology of Climate Change Denial in the United States written by Jean-Daniel Collomb and published in “The European Journal of American Studies.” The article is full of smug phraseology about American climate denial.
Jean-Daniel’s scholarly sources proving that corporations cynically fund climate deniers and that,
“Wealthy right-wing ideologues have joined with the most cynical and irresponsible companies in the oil, coal, and mining industries to contribute large sums of money to finance pseudoscientific front groups that specialize in sowing confusion in the public’s mind about global warming.”
are, … wait for it … Naomi Oreskes and Al Gore.
Just proves that when deliberate BS is rolled down the cultural hill, it snowballs into an avalanche of mindless certainty.
I’m a right-wing ideologue on national defense and foreign policy, but fairly libertarian otherwise. And I’ve been “funded by fossil fuel companies” since 1981.
The “fossil fuel companies” paid me to explore for oil & gas.
My skepticism of AGW and rejection of CAGW is mostly due to my geoscience education and experience.
My advocacy against the CAGW propaganda is due to my libertarian philosophy and my geoscience education and experience.
So, Nordhaus’ original definition of “denier” is a non sequitur… nothing follows from fossil fuel company funding.
While the accusation that they were funded by big oil was frequently made, the number of people who actually were (such as yourself, indirectly) were few and far between.
I say indirectly because your paycheck deals with exploring for oil and gas, not for frequenting sites such as this.
I don’t know about being few and far between, Mark. A decent number of us on this board (myself included) are in the employ of oil companies at our day jobs. Whether it’s direct (we support our companies) indirect (we see the issues from the light of our day jobs) or secondary (engineers tend to be conservative, tend to work for oil companies, and tend to distrust modeling).
I do know that I’m not being paid for this. That’s why I don’t use my last name.
I do have one of those “point” cards from a gas station, but aside from that I’ve never gotten a dime from “Big Oil”.
My pay comes from “Big Water” via a local government.
Good thing “CAGW” ignores water vapor.
If I defended Di-hydrogen Monoxide ( http://www.dhmo.org/), I might be out of a job!
I don’t know any right-wing ideologues who have been paid by fossil fuel companies. I am an Electrical Engineer for whatever that’s worth, but it is interesting how the left is only good at shouting down people who do not submit. Their belief system is not based on real science and evidence, but on political ideology. One of their operational tactics is to fabricate historical records to effectively re-write history in order to control the future. Orwell’s 1984 had it right. Our job is to fight these bums at every turn.
LoL!
Activists should calmly be asked to articulate exactly what is being ‘denied’ by said ‘deniers’; most will become quiet upon being challenged by rational (as opposed to dogmatic) argument.
‘Nuff said: “We can transition to a decarbonized economy,” Oreskes claimed in the Guardian, “by focusing on wind, water and solar, coupled with grid integration, energy efficiency and demand management.” Watch out for that ‘demand management’ – to these people it usually translates into a bullet in the brain.
Demand Management means the elites like Obama and the government officials and movie stars can still live the good life with huge carbon footprints in huge yachts and private planes however , the average worker will have to ride is small cars, live in small homes, no vacations, sporadic expensive electricity, eat no beef, etc.
I refuse to ride an Ass to work. The company logo looks like hell, I’m tired of shoveling their manure whilst they complain about the barn door being open and…..wait a minute! What if I plug one of them in!
I remember the reports of demand management of water supplies to houses in California during the drought. Million dollar homes of the Elite with there water features were exempt. Restrictions on the poor were tightly controlled. It’s all about how to “best” manage the limited resource.
Ride an Ass to work? I don’t think most Democrats are strong enough to be ridden.
A small price to pay if it maintains the incorruptible purity of the Priesthood.
Apparently Mao Zedong had some quite innovative ideas on Demand Management as applied to the Chinese rice harvest in the late 1950’s.
What level of analysis do you expect from a neo-Marxist history prof at Harvard?
Demand Management = PC Codetalk for “One for thee, three (or more) for me!”
The lyric from the Beatles “Taxman” was “one for you, nineteen for me–I’m the taxman”
Extremists, such as Ms. Oreskes, sow the seeds for growth of the forces that will destroy CAGW. Rigid dogma deviates from the facts on the ground relatively rapidly. Enforcement of dogma leads disinterested observers to question “truth.”
“…highly decorated climate scientists…”
Is that like decorating a Christmas tree? ‘Cause that’s the image I’ve got stuck in my head…
It is like decorating a Christmas Tree, a very special tree, a single unique pine tree.
“it’s useless to do anything to stop it.”..so far all of their solutions are useless
BTW….this really needs a space……sexpanded
I thought the same thing! In connection with Oreskes, it made me shiver….
Ditto…I did a triple- take on that.
“As a luke warmer… who thinks that humans are only responsible for 20-40% of recent warming, that the climate sensitivity (TCR) is less than 1.5 C, that there is almost no chance of catastrophic climate change… and that N2N (natural gas to nuclear) is the only viable pathway to low carbon-emission energy, I say… Welcome…!”
What he said.
My best guess for climate sensitivity is closer to 0.2C to 0.5C.
Ironically, the alarmist definition of “denier” fails to include the real deniers – those who deny that mainstream climate “science” is anything but.
Oreskes will never adjust her position no matter the evidence. Her emotional bias supersedes her reason, always will. She’d fit in perfectly during the inquisition.
Mr. Layman here.
Unless I’ve misunderstood, over the years those who want to control Man via CO2 emissions have tended to ignore water vapor. I wonder why?
https://youtu.be/uQJ8WrKnLUs
There is a sect (call them “Calvinists” that agree on the end point of everything with the original “Lutherans,” but differ on the fiddly bits). This sect admits that rising CO2, by itself, can only cause a very tiny change in retained heat. Their religious dogma is that this very tiny change will leverage a much large increase in water vapor, which will leverage even more water vapor, the cycle continuing until we are Venus.
A mildly more rational dogma, although still false to fact.
Water vapour is a greenhouse gas after all.
Writing Observer misrepresents the lukewarmer position: “Their religious dogma is that this very tiny change will leverage a much large increase in water vapor, which will leverage even more water vapor, the cycle continuing until we are Venus.”
This lukewarmer believes that laboratory studies of GHGs provide reliable absorption cross-sections that allow scientists to calculate that a doubling of CO2 would reduce the flux of thermal infrared to space by about 3.7 W/m2. A blackbody near 255 K or a graybody with an emissivity of 0.61 near 288 K would need to warm 1.0 K and 1.15 K to emit an addition 3.7 W/m2 of thermal infrared. This isn’t a “tiny change”, nor one as large as the IPCC projects. It is more useful to say that these black- and graybody models for the earth emit 3.8 and 3.3 W/m2/K of thermal infrared upon warming. AOGCM’s predict an increase of 3.2 W/m2/K if warming is artificially introduced and nothing else changes (no-feedbacks). .
It is well known that water vapor at equilibrium with liquid water (ie near the ocean and near clouds) increases by about 7%/K around 288 K. An increase of this magnitude is enough to reduce outgoing LWR by about another 2 W/m2/K, which is enough to double the above warming, but not convert the planet into another Venus when CO2 doubles. However, water vapor is not in equilibrium with liquid water. It’s concentration at various altitudes depends on turbulent mixing, large scale convection, and precipitation, phenomena that can only be modeled AOGCMs via parameterization. Furthermore, changing temperature and water vapor will change the lapse rate, clouds and surface albedo. In simple and complex models, the change in lapse rate with absolute humidity and surface temperature increases outgoing thermal infrared by 1 W/m2/K, negating about half of water vapor’s effect as a GHG.
CERES monitors outgoing thermal radiation as MGST (not the anomaly) rises and falls every year. It observes that outgoing thermal IR from clear skies (where only WV+LR feedback operates) increases about 2.2 W/m2/K very close to what we expect from the graybody model or AOGCMs with no feedbacks and calculations. However models disagree with observations and with each other about what happens to LWR emitted from and SWR reflected by cloudy skies and about reflection of SWR from the surface. The SWR changes don’t appear to vary linearly with temperature. And there are problems equating the feedback associated with seasonal and global warming.
CERES shows that 2.3 W/m2/K more thermal radiation is emitted from cloud skies during seasonal warming, essentially the same as clear skies, where both models and observations agree closely. That is equivalent to an ECS of 1.6 K/doubling – which is certainly nothing like Venus. In fact it is just about what energy balance models predict. Positive cloud feedback and surface albedo could cause this value to increase, but it is hard for negative cloud feedback to drive ECS below 1.0 K/doubling without improbably big changes in planetary albedo.
Now you don’t have have make misleading statements about the beliefs of the lukewarmer sect.
Does she knit?
Yes… but she’s only sew – sew at it.
Reminds me of the euphemism for prostitute. She’s a seamstress… hem, hem.
Don’t have to go back to the Inquisition. Oreskes being a text book Marxist-Leninist,, Soviet kangaroo courts are a more appropriate example and closer in time.
I’ve always wondered about that phrase. What did kangaroos do to us that we libel them that way? I went ti law school and never saw a kangaroo at all.
Her chief weapon is surprise. And fear. Fear and surprise. Ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to Karl Marx.
I recall someone asked what happened to her…
https://judithcurry.com/2017/07/03/what-is-red-teaming/
Could this be it…?
This is all very reminiscent of the Committee for Public Safety in France during the Revolution. They expected you to support “freedom”, but they only had one idea of what that meant. Even those who wanted to maintain the monarchy or (gasp) were members of the Roman Catholic religion were tarnished as opposing freedom. Even strong supporters of the revolution (including Lafayette and Thomas Paine) were accused of crimes against freedom because they did not support Robespierre’s views.
Back then, the Reign of Terror did not last long, but it caused enough damage.We need somebody to call out Oreskes-pierre of the modern Reign of Terror. If there is only room for one, very narrow set of beliefs, that is not freedom.
Post Modernists don’t believe in Liberty, nor in Logic, nor Science (it’s a construct of racist ‘dead white men’ you see). They are not interested in Fact-Based Reasoning (Empiricism) nor the Scientific Method except where it can be used to achieve their goal.
And what is their true goal ?
POWER – the ability to impose their will on other human beings. This is the true nature of goal of the Left, everything else is tactical positions that will be abandoned if another route to power opens up (eg. for gay rights, women’s rights, Jewish Rights, but now flipped on its head as the Left has decided that fast-breeding Muslims that hate all the former are the new route to power).
Now Oreskes is probably neither smart enough nor well-enough read to understand the themes of Post Modernism, but she does take her cues from those that do.
The power between the Individual and the State is a Zero-Sum Game. The State only gains power by taking it from Individuals. and Individuals gain Liberty only by reducing the power of the State. From Communist Socialism (Extreme Left, State has all the power, individuals have none) to Anarchy (Extreme Right, Individuals have complete freedom, no State except spontaneous and temporary coalitions of citizens) we all lie on the spectrum somewhere.
There are those who are convinced that the only way to make progress is for the State to gain power (stripping Individuals of Liberty). They are so convinced they are right and so self-righteous in this belief that they are prepared to lie, deceive and even to subvert the scientific process to do this. These people are dangerous and the enemy of Free People.
I agree entirely.
However, I might add something to Moa’s excellent summary of the current situation by commenting on the “Free People” mentioned at the end of the piece.
The citizens of Western democracies are ostensibly ‘free’ in that we have certain rights and liberties and we can topple governments at the ballot box.
But it’s that last bit which will ultimately be our undoing.
I subscribe to the view that democracy carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. As soon as the people realise they can vote themselves ‘free money’, the corruption of the system is assured.
About half of the U.S. voters at the last election voted Democrat (socialist) – i.e. essentially they voted for a welfare state – despite the fact that the Democrat candidate was – and is – arguably one of the most corrupt politicians in recent history.
Here in Australia, our so-called ‘conservative’ coalition recently delivered a socialist budget in an effort to appease as many left-leaning voters as possible – voters who will not countenance any erosion of government handouts whatsoever, even though our federal debt is at all-time highs and ballooning ever higher.
Regardless of the Global Warming debate (or lack of one), the totalitarian Left, now disarmingly termed ‘socialism’, is very much in the driver’s seat. Behind the scenes in democracies all over the world, they’ve done their work patiently, quietly, and assiduously, ever since Mao and Stalin made communism a dirty word.
And they will almost certainly achieve their aims quite soon now.
Welfare recipients, and people who aspire to be, don’t have any idea what they’re voting for. But voting is something they won’t have to concern themselves about for very much longer.
During the impeachment controversy over Bill Clinton, one prominent leftist pronounced that she would gladly give Clinton oral sex in exchange for keeping abortion legal.
Interested wrote: “Regardless of the Global Warming debate (or lack of one), the totalitarian Left, now disarmingly termed ‘socialism’, is very much in the driver’s seat. Behind the scenes in democracies all over the world, they’ve done their work patiently, quietly, and assiduously, ever since Mao and Stalin made communism a dirty word.”
I think that sums it up pretty good. The question is: Is it too late to turn it around? I don’t think it is in the United States. I think Trump’s election is a sign that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the Left’s agenda.
I don’t know that we can turn it around without Trump helping us to push back on the Totalitarians. I think the Totalitarians know this and this is one reason they are fighting so hard against Trump. My money is on Trump. 🙂
America’s Founders had the right idea when they originally extended the right to vote only to property-owners, ie. the people with an actual economic stake in the country’s future, however large or small. The seeds of democracy’s destruction lie in universal suffrage, extended regardless of one’s ability to cast a thougtful vote.
During the Terror 2-3% of the entire French population was arrested and imprisoned as “deniers” and approx.1% were guillotined – in today’s US that would be just over 3 million executed.
In the end the “Oreskes” of the day were overthrown, and to stick with the tried and true, were all guillotined – their leader Robespierre facing up, as a special thank you gesture from the “deniers”.
Now who says that some stories don’t have a good ending…?
Are you sure it was that high, or that it was for all of France and not just Paris and environs? If you have a link or a reference, that would be appreciated.
Simply respond by characterizing the global warmists as “climate deniers,” who refuse to accept the fact that the climate is not warming
As an Engineer with over 50 years in the energy business including renewables and carbon capture among others, I can definitively say that Naomi Oreskes has no clue as to the folly of eliminating fossil based energy for many decades. To further claim to no need Nuclear further illustrates her ignorance.
Even IEA warns that development of renewable will not even meet the Paris Accord Accord Agreement which is modest compared to California plans. Who is refusing to accept the real facts, Her.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/09/energy-technology-is-not-advancing-fast-enough-to-meet-climate-goals.html
The US has spent a fortune on Obama’s objective without results, OBAMA’s big failure, by deciding to double down on the same failed technologies, building commercial plants without addressing problems in pilot plants with more tax payer dollars! We need something new and innovative not the same old stuff.
Does anyone realistically think we could switch to electric cars, even if a suitable battery is developed which is questionable, assuming that the electrical grid can handle the significantly increased load? Biofuels have also failed and the Navy is spending hundreds of dollars per gallon for scarce fuel.
For extra perspective, the mileage of a modern aircraft carrier is roughly 6 inches per gallon.
I believe that Mankind’s burning up the Earth’s very finite supply of fossil fuels is not such a good idea and I would like to use AGW as another reason to conserve but the science is just not there. Climate change has been going on for eons and for eons the cause of climate change cannot have been mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, climate change has not been any different then climate change before the industrial revolution. Since the early 1700’s we have been warming up from the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, much as we warmed up from the Dark Ages Cooling Period more than 1500 years ago. According to the work done with models, the climate change we have been experiencing correlates with an integral of total solar activity and ocean related cycles and not CO2. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. If CO2 really did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. The radiant greenhouse effect upon which the AGW conjecture depends has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth, The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction hence the AGW conjecture that depends upon the radiant greenhouse effect is also science fiction.
I am 100% percent sure you are 100% right, well maybe. Are we absolutely sure fossil fuels are very finite? I think there may be some doubt. I would like to see at least 3 more attempts to drill for abiotic oil, $20 million per? Seems cheap if it MIGHT be right!
Economically recoverable fossil fuels are finite – although not “very” finite. Best projections I’ve seen take us into the next millennium.
“Abiotic oil,” on which I am not qualified to offer an opinion as to its existence, is likely to not be economically recoverable in sufficient quantity to continue our energy consumption rate past the year 3000 or so – at least not when compared to alternatives (no, not solar, wind, or bio – nuclear of either the present fission variety or a future fusion technology).
Writing Observer, no. We will not run out suddenly or soon, but the peak in oil production is about 2025 despite the current fracked shale glut. And what remains will dwindle toward ‘zero’ over ~150 years. Natural gas is much better off (more large relatively untapped reservoirs and gas shales. Coal still better off than natural gas, but there are several reputable studies (look up Dave Rutledge of Cal Tech) that say even peak coal production could happen by 2060-2080 thanks to thinner seams, deeper seams, less strip minable as the good stuff is used up first. And some vast coal resources like Norway’s Haltenbanken have no conceivable way to extract anything. The deposit lies 4000 meters under the seafloor under 1500 meters of ocean
According to Tommy Gold’s well-argued theory, abiotic oil IS of course economically recoverable, because that is a lot of (most of?) what we are using NOW. What might be at issue is the rate at which the shallow pools refill automatically. It certainly does seem that the pools are larger than expected so they may be getting a percolating resupply from in-place deeper pools. If so, it’s a matter of seeing if we can wait for it to come up rather than drilling down for it. Who can say. But people who read this blog are already known for considering non-consensus views.
Hey Ristvan
There is way more coal than we could conceivably use. With increasing levels of automation, what was once uneconomic will become viable.
The North Sea alone is slated to hold a resource of up to 23 TRILLION tonnes. Annual global consumption is around 7-8 billion tonnes.
I know of numerous multi-billion tonne resources that are not currently being mined but are currently viable.
P.S. I am currently working on ways to mine very deep and very thin seams esp those that are undersea in water-filled environments.
The Earth is finite in volume and mass hence it’s resources must be finite. A few hundred years or a few thousand years is really a short time span. Advances in technology may allow us to get at more of the Earth’s fossil fuel resources but eventually these resources will run out too. Actually new fossil fuel is being created but at a much shower rate then we are using it up. Before the fuel runs out mankind must switch to alternate sources of energy and must reduce our population so that the alternate sources of energy will be sufficient for our needs. Conserving on the use of fossil fuels gives us more time but it has no effect on climate.
Nuclear could easily support 10 times the current population for millenia.
By then we will probably be mining the asteroids.
I wonder if methane could be extracted from the rivers and lakes on Saturn’s moon, Titan. With less than a quarter of Earths mass, it should be in a shallower gravity well (perhaps there are even shallower sources). Perhaps it could be pipelined into space. Giant tankers could glide to Earth space shuttle style with occasional mishaps yielding spectacular fireworks displays.
Scientists haven’t even figured out how to get the methane from our ocean floors yet… And you’re talking about other planet’s?
johchi7, yes they have: https://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/tokyo/japan-plans-second-offshore-methane-hydrate-output-26666470
Thanks. That’s news to me. I’ll look into it.
Carbon-based compounds are green and renewable in limited concentration and over unknown periods, respectively. Ironically, “green” technology including photovoltaic panels and windmills are neither green nor renewable, but there is a conflation of converters and drivers that has forced a popular misconception promoting a very profitable development misalignment.
Re: “Not so long ago, the term denier was reserved for right-wing ideologues… who claimed that global warming either wasn’t happening at all or wasn’t caused by humans. Then it was expanded to so-called “lukewarmists,”…”
Lukewarmists are counted as part of the “consensus” when polling to show how marginalized the evil “deniers” are. But lukewarmists are considered evil deniers in all other contexts.
Re: “As a luke warmer… who thinks that humans are only responsible for 20-40% of recent warming, that the climate sensitivity (TCR) is less than 1.5 C…”
The IPCC thinks that anthropogenic GHG emissions are responsible for >100% of recent warming (but that some of the warming has been masked by aerosols), and their central estimate for ECS is 3.0 °C.
AR4: “It is likely that increases in GHG concentrations alone would have caused more warming than observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have taken place.” [Synthesis Report, Section 2.4]
AR5: “…There is high confidence that aerosols and their interactions with clouds have offset a substantial portion of global mean forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gases.” [Summary for Policymakers, Section C, p.14]
Since they don’t say how much more than 100%, I’m just going to use 100%.
3.0 °C ECS would put TCR (which is said to be about 2/3 ECS) at about 2.0 °C.
The IPCC’s sensitivity estimates are based on the assumption that 100% (or more) of recent warming was caused by anthropogenic forcings (mainly GHGs). If only 40% of recent warming is actually anthropogenic, then ECS should be about (40%/100%) × 3.0 = only about 1.2 °C, and TCR should be only about 2/3 of that, or 0.8 °C.
Obviously those are not scary numbers.
Calculating the weighted-average U.S. broadcast meteorologist opinion, as measured in the latest AMS poll, yields a “central value opinion” that 56% of the warming over the last fifty years was anthropogenic. That would suggest that ECS is 0.56 × 3.0 = about 1.7 °C, and TCR should be only about 2/3 of that, or 1.1 °C.
Still not at all scary.
http://sealevel.info/AMS/2017_Survey_Report_bar_chart.png
Refs: http://sealevel.info/AMS/
BTW, I think that meteorologists are particularly well-suited to make that judgement, because they are well-equipped to distinguish between climate and mere weather, yet they have no “skin in the game” to bias their judgement. I’d say that a mainstream judgement is one consistent with their average opinion: i.e., that (very roughly) half of the reported warming over the last fifty years was due to anthropogenic GHGs.
Eventually, everyone will be lukewarmers. It’ll probably take a while, though.
Observational energy budget ECS is ~1.65, and the corresponding observational TCR is ~1.3.
Many of my WUWT posts would probably be counted as “implicit” endorsements of Cook’s cooked 97% consensus.
I’ve stated several times that I would probably have answered yes to all of the questions in that first survey. The only question being, since “significant” wasn’t define, what definition would I have picked on that day. It depends on the mood I was in.
Perhaps.
Consider that in the context of polls that ask how many people actually care.
In every poll I’ve seen, climate change comes in stone motherless last on the list of fourteen things people worry about.
Even the UN conducted a world wide poll and found the same thing with a response of millions.
And yet, 97% of scientists say the earth is warming catastrophically based on examining a sample size of one . . just one.
I reckon the “deni*r” meme is just another version of the “basket of deplorables – same tactic.
don’t you have to have warming to actually be a lukewarmer ?
I would think you would have to have warming that is outside natural variation in order to be a lukewarmer.
I would think that one would have to assume natural variation until proven otherwise.
We have had two warming periods since 1910, both of which are about the same magnitude, and the earlier warm period is not attributed to CO2, yet some people want to attribute today’s warming to CO2 when it isn’t any different than from 1910 to 1940.
It sure looks like natural variation to me, and that’s the way I will consider it until proven otherwise. That’s the way everyone should look at it. Assuming a certain amount of CO2 net warming is pure speculation.
Some three decades ago a now deceased attorney friend, reinforced by others in their business since, told me how bad it would get. He thought it was from their starting advertising, but it still seems to be a question of which is the cause and which the effect. Called a skeptic in print (not about climate), never a denier that I know of, but I know of similar name calling by frustrated loser science types, even up to plagiarism and worse. These sorts of things are often so ludicrous as to be jokes, but they have caused lots of misery. It may not be fair, but one has to wonder about the quality of their science when they do this. Oops, loser is probably a pejorative.
Is there a rumor/innuendo/defamation index? If so I suspect it has increased greatly in science (academia, society, in general?).
As a Libertarian/Conservative Deplorable I’m a Denier Heretic. Funny how that seems to be the case with most Right-Wingers as labeled by the Leftist. I can’t look it up at the moment, but I saw an article that showed more Conservatives knew more about science than Liberal’s. It made the point that Liberals tend to just believe what they are told to believe in, while Conservatives actually researched to find the facts. Which is why I label the Leftist as “Drones” in most of their ideologies, because like insects they follow a leader without questioning what they’re saying. Which is why the Right-Winger’s have lots of problems in politics, because they have independent thought’s and opinions about issues, where the Leftist vote in a hive minded way on issues.
Only a fool would deny the climate has warmed since the end of the LGM and even the LIA. But no measurable amount of that warming can be blamed upon fossil fuels to the extent that Alarmist herald and government’s found another form of gaining massive incomes from their populations…that globally socialist founded those like the Paris Agreement to destroy capitalism and spread the wealth from the better off to the less productive countries to create a global equality by their New World Order ideologies. The real Science Deniers are the extreme Leftist Environmental-cases that are misanthropist that blame humans for all of the problems on Earth…yet don’t take the lead and practice what they preach.
To be fair, the AP style book this year or last made a recommendation to not use “denier”; it suggested “doubter,” IIRC. And I think I’ve seen the term used less in the MSM since then.
“Dissenters” or “disputers” or “deviationists” or “contrarians” would be better than “doubters.”
“Disbelievers” is good too.
CLIMATE CURMUDGEONS!
TCR = 0.
Probability (Catastrophic Climate Change) = 0.
Budget in the UN Green Climate Fund Allocated To Bureaucrats = 100%; The amount went up to $1 Billion thanks to Obama, which was quickly used to hire more Bureaucrats (and buy real estate in up-state NY – France – Switzerland), but money in-flows to the fund = 0.
The real problem here is the labeling and name calling. It’s used as a substitute to substantive debate. In fact its used as a means to avoid discussion completely. Peter Glieck had a message a few months back to anyone who would dare disagree on climate… STFU! I’d love to tell him that he’s doing much more damage to his cause than advancing it. Instead, I’ll just remember what a friend once said when you opponent is stuck in a hole and just digging themselves in deeper, just let them continue digging.
Not so secular and far and away from scientific. The projections are coming fast and furious from the Church that preaches denying lives deemed unworthy and other Pro-Choice policies
nn – I assume you think that choices are OK if you are the one making them.
Leftivists think choices are sacred, as long as you make the “correct” ones.
Wrong, wronger, and flat-out lies. It was used for any and all Skeptics/Climate Realists, the vast majority who stuck their necks out in the interests of supporting the truth, and in support of actual science, not pseudoscience. The whole “funded by fossil fuel companies” is a straight-out lie., and you end with a straw man argument. Nice.
Activists don’t know when to stop. It reminds me of Joe McCarthy.
Their voices become more and more shrill. They start attacking too close to the real power. Things don’t end well.
Notwithstanding the above, McCarthy may have been right about Soviet spies.
Though vigilantes (even political ones) don’t get off the hook for being right.
“Not so long ago, the term denier was reserved for right-wing ideologues, many of them funded by fossil fuel companies, who claimed that global warming either wasn’t happening at all or wasn’t caused by humans.”
I’ve heard these claims many times but just who are these right-wing ideologues that are funded by the oil companies to throw cold water on the CAGW narrative? Sounds like Fake History to me.
I just started obsessing on the wording, “Green Climate Fund”, and I’m thinking that it is a really strange name.
Even using the word, “green” metaphorically to mean “environmentally friendly”, it implies a level of human control in making the environment more friendly that seems, how should I put it, “anthropoarrogant”.
Climate has always had a brutal aspect to it, right? And so to create a fund that favors getting rid of the brutal aspect of it is just infantile fantasy funding.
This is a fund that the rich contribute to, as they bask in their large-carbon-footprint lifestyles to generate the necessary disposable income to support the fantasy.
I propose a “Black Climate Fund” to raise awareness of the dark side of climate and to fund economically realistic endeavors that aim to adapt to all aspects of climate as opposed to trying to eliminate the actual harsh realities of it.
In this respect, “Green Climate” is racist, because it oppresses “Black Climate”. Black Climate Matters!