Guest essay by Richard S. Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bill Nye looks forward to the death of skeptics in this Huffington Post essay. There is a sound basis for his wish.
While the politicized climate issue dates back to the 60’s, things really took off after the Clinton-Gore administration assumed power and funding for climate increased by about a factor of 15. This was far more than a small backwater and very difficult field could absorb, and led to a vast increase in the number of scientists who claimed their work was related to climate in order to cash in on the windfall. Moreover, the institutional structure for support of alarm was already in place with the United Nations creation of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) – both exclusively concerned with only human impacts on climate. Added to this were the wild enthusiasm of the well-funded green advocacy movement, and the motherhood nature of environmentalism.
It is, therefore, informative to look at who the skeptics (not of climate change, but of climate catastrophism and the need for specific action) were when this explosion of support began. Here is a very brief set of examples (for those who have died, the year of death is listed):
- William Nierenberg: Director of America’s foremost oceanographic research institute, Scripps Oceanographic Institute of the University of California, San Diego. The Institute is located at La Jolla. Nierenberg was also a member of the National Academy and he chaired the massive 1983 NRC (National Research Council of the National Academy) report on climate. He died in 2000.
- Frederick Seitz: Often regarded as one of the fathers of condensed phase physics, he was a professor at the University of Illinois, President of the National Academy of Sciences, and President of Rockefeller University. He died in 2008.
- Jerome Namias: Professor of Meteorology at Scripps and former head of NOAA’s long range forecasting. Namias was also a member of the National Academy. He died in 1997.
- Robert Jastrow: First chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, Founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Upon retirement, the bulk of the institute was moved back to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. However, a rump group headed by James Hansen successfully fought to remain in New York. Jastrow continued as Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. Jastrow died in 2008.
- Aksel Wiin-Nielsen: Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Michigan. Director of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather-Forecasting (Europe’s preeminent atmospheric research center), Director General of the World Meteorological Organization, and Professor of Meteorology at the University of Copenhagen. He died in 2010.
- Lennart Bengtsson: Head of Research at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Director of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.
- Henk Tennekes: Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, Director of research at the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute. Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. A leading expert on atmospheric turbulence and aviation.
- Reid Bryson: Founder and first chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Meteorology and Center for Climatic Research. He was the first director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (now the Nelson Institute) at the University of Wisconsin. Global Laureate of the United Nations Global Environment Program. He died in 2008.
- Joanne Simpson: President of the American Meteorological Society, Director of Project Stormfury while chief of the Experimental Meteorology Branch of the Environment Satellite Services Administration’s Institute for Atmospheric Sciences. NASA’s lead weather researcher. Member National Academy of Engineering. Interestingly, she kept her skepticism private until she retired from NASA. She died in 2010.
- Robert White: Director of the United States Weather Bureau, administrator of the Environmental Science Services Administration, the first administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and president of the National Academy of Engineering. He also was the first chairman of the World Climate Conference in 1978. He died in 2015.
- Hubert Lamb: Pioneer in historical climatology, Founding Director of the Climatic Research Unit established in 1972 in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He died in 1997.
- Paul Waggoner: Chief Scientist, Soils, Climatology, Ecology, Director, and Distinguished Scientist at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Member National Academy.
- S. Fred Singer: Professor of Physics and the University of Maryland, the University of Virginia and George Mason University. Founding Dean of of the University of Miami School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences. Established the National Weather Bureau’s Satellite Service Center. Deputy assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, and chief scientist for the Department of Transportation. He is credited by many for the first prediction of the Earth’s radiation belts.
These were hardly fringe scientists (as opposed to Nye who is no scientist at all). On the contrary, they were leading figures whose deep interest in climate long pre-dated the Global Warming Hysteria and the subsequent explosion of support for those endorsing alarm. So, Bill Nye is right. The newcomers are younger, and with death of many of the previous generation, they have come to dominate the field – to the great detriment of the science, itself. Those, among the older generation, who are still alive, are the subject of constant public abuse and libel, leading several of them like Bengtsson and Tennekes to withdraw from the field. Singer went so far as to sue for libel, winning his case and obtaining a public retraction from Justin Lancaster (http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/0817939326_283.pdf ).
In addition, there are many outstanding scientists who have bothered to actually examine this issue, and have come to the obvious conclusion that there is much less to the story of gloom and doom than is popularly asserted. Many started as supporters of alarm but came to change their minds. Here are a few of them:
- Ivar Giaevar: Nobel Laureate in Physics, Member National Academy, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Professor Emeritus, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Professor at Large, University of Oslo.
- Freeman Dyson: Distinguished theoretical physicist and mathematician who played a key role in the development of quantum electrodynamics and mathematical methods of quantum field theory. But he also maintained a strong interest in applied science and was one of the designers of the hugely successful TRIGA nuclear research reactor. Freeman spent most of his career at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Member National Academy.
- William Happer: An experimental physicist who spent most of his career at Princeton and Columbia Universities. He is the inventor of the sodium guide star that is used in most big modern telescopes to compensate for atmospheric turbulence with adaptive optics. He was a pioneer of medical magnetic resonance imaging with laser polarized noble gases. He served as the Director of Energy Research at the US Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993. Member National Academy.
- James Lovelock: Fellow of the Royal Society, President of the Marine Biological Association, Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Lovelock actually endorsed alarmism, but eventually changed his view.
- Daniel Kleitman: Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT and former chair of the Department of Mathematics at MIT.
- Edward Teller: He was a co-founder of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and was both its director and associate director for many years. Known as father of the H-bomb. Member National Academy. He died in 2003.
- Robert Adair: Former Chair Department of Physics and director of the Division of Physical Sciences, Yale University. Member National Academy.
…….
When, today, one hears of overwhelming support for alarmism and for the control of Carbon Dioxide as the unique and precise solution to a largely unknown and uncertain set of phenomena, we should all realize the individuals promoting such narratives have not studied the underlying science, have decided to cash in on the windfall, are politically and economically motivated, fear expulsion from the ranks of the politically correct, and/or are intent on befuddling the public. In brief, we are in the midst of a very unhealthy situation for both this issue and science in general.
Prince Albert’s AGW mentor changed his mind about CACA, but the Team have tried to cover this fact up. They even recruited his daughter to d@ny it, after his death.
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/gores-global-warming-mentor-in-his-own-words?source=policybot)
Written by Fred Singer.
Interesting bit of history.
I also was an alarmist until some years ago and now I 100 % agree with you, Richard Lindzen.
You and me both. What a huge crock of crap it is that’s being pushed and it’s incredible how may otherwise smart people spend so much effort to ignore it. Many (esp around Cambride, MA where I live) couldn’t speak openly about this w/o losing their peer group.
That problem and the Oreskes hire is why my three times alma mater will never see another nickel of contribution from me. Office of Major Gifts finally stoppd sendingbpeople to visit when I took the last one to lunch on the Intercoastal and explained she was wasting her time until Oreskes was gone.
Ditto.
I think your story is not uncommon. The idea that “sceptics are going to be extinct” ignores that new people keep converting to scepticism.
The problem is that the new skeptics are kept out of the ‘mainstream’ climate science by the ensconced gatekeepers. They system is set up to promote cronyism and punish dissent. I mean seriously, who wants to kill the golden goose. (The goose of course being the massive funding that Dr. Lindzen mentions early on in his article.)
This is a superb response to what has become a pseudoscientific paradigm. I addressed the traditional role of skepticism in this space in June (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/22/what-happened-to-the-traditional-role-of-skepticism-in-climate-science/). Thanks to Dr. Lindzen for providing the names of many distinguished scientists who practiced the skepticism once expected of all scientists.
The contrary of skepticism is, of course, gullibility!
As usual, Richard Lindzen hits the nail squarely …
w.
Except that he has difficulty in recognising that there is a world outside the USA.
” things really took off after the Clinton-Gore administration assumed power ”
Things really took off after Thatcher peddled Global Warming to the UN.
I can thoroughly recommend “The Age of Global Warming: A History” by Rupert Darwell for a good .. uh … history
to paraphrase
‘The reports of death of the Scepticism are greatly exaggerated.’
The old generation of skeptics is sadly dying off, This great man is missing from the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray
But the alarmist generation is now also dying off in its turn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider
Science progresses one death at a time.
Skeptics shall rise again. If Trump cuts funding as Dr. Lindzen recommends, that could happen sooner rather than later.
Gloateus said:
” If Trump cuts funding as Dr. Lindzen recommends, that could happen sooner rather than later.”
Always remember that the President proposes, but Congress disposes. The current refusal to let go pork may well continue to support alarmism for many years. Look at the results of trying to cut NASA’s SLS pork fiasco, and you will see how hard they cling to it.
Tom,
You could well be right, but Trump isn’t the only incipient CACA skeptic. Key figures in his administration are more ardent than he, as are important GOP members of Congress.
But, as a committed pessimist, I’m inclined toward your view, while hoping for the best.
Prior to Richard Nixon’s downfall, the Congress proposed and the Administration was not obligated to spend. Following his resignation, Congress passed a law that all monies appropriated must be sent and Ford signed it. It’s been downhill ever since.
Sister of renowned physicist Richard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Feynman
I have the highest regard for Dr. J. Feynman; on numerous occasions we corresponded by email for nearly 15 years, last time few months ago, mainly relating to solar activity and its effects.
The climate alarm movement will die the same way previous alarm movements died – when their prescriptions for nirvana don’t work out, and when people get bored and move on to some new scary narrative.
When being green is no longer a major vote winner.
I give it another decade. In the meantime, hopefully we can minimise the damage.
Eric you may be correct with respect to climate alarm but there are a host of equally noxious initiatives from the United Nations and other movements, either poised or actually in the process, to take its place.
To wit. UN Agenda 21 or 2030, ICLEI, the Rockefellers “resilience” campaign just to name a few.
My blog at http;//www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com outlines a number of these things in my blog.
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Cheers
Roger
Have you delved into the history and activities of UNEP-FI? Originated about the same time as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
As soon as the mean temp. of the planet drops a little the game will be over…
True, but the world would need to hear of it…
flynn/Wharfplank
You miss the essential nature of the alarmists.
They would promote global cooling as evidence of their success.
They would distort the truth that CO2 will still rise, whilst temperatures fall.
As they have distorted the true nature of CO2 itself, as a life giving, trace gas.
Their objective is not to win a science argument.
Their objective is to win, irrespective of the cost, or the argument.
And the cost is democracy, not science, or climate change.
The objective is to impose socialist, autocratic domination of an entire planet to deliver a future that suits their ideal, not the ideal of the population.
That is the stated intention, vocalised by a UN member, Christina Figueres.
China and the former USSR are emerging from it, Europe is, once again, descending into it, and America is resisting it.
Trump acknowledges China and Russia’s efforts, his hawks don’t.
If the western world is not to descend to subservience, and the far east, and eastern bloc not become distorted capitalist global leaders, we can only hope that Trump succeeds in demonstrating that capitalism is the future of humanity.
Not that China and Russia are the problem. They are young democracies, facing many of the problems of conversion the west did in building a democratic, capitalist environment.
The west is the problem, if we continue the blind march to socialism.
For the west will become, what the east was.
And we all lose.
You would think so. But it’s literally cold at night (in early August!) in the Boston area and all you hear from major media outlets is about heat! It’s unreal. People love being lied to…so long as the lie fits w/o conflict to their world view, or some deeply held belief. Self-lobotomies are very much the fashion of our day.
But they won’t be able to get away with it, if the drop is substantial and prolonged. They’ll just twist in the wind. This was already starting to happen until the 2016 El Niño came along. The Pause and the Otto paper were having an effect. The El Niño has given the alarmists a second wind, but it may be only temporary. It may be a Last Hurrah.
It already did…and it wasn’t. (1997-2014)
The left is “all in” on this
Genuine climatology teaches that warming concentrates at higher latitudes, reducing the thermal contrast with the tropics, and hence reducing the extreme weather like the LIA produced. CC-alarmists predicting extreme storms are actually forecasting COOLING!
Hotscot: “The objective is to impose socialist, autocratic domination of an entire planet to deliver a future that suits their ideal, not the ideal of the population.”
The remarkable thing is that their methods do not ‘suit their ideal.’ In other words, they cannot achieve what they say they desire by doing what they are doing! Socialism, in all it’s many forms, is founded on ideas that are not realistic. The concepts of socialism are contrary to human nature and even mother nature in the long run. The application of socialism will always lead to an overall reduction in the quality of life. If enough socialism is applied, it will lead to a complete economic collapse. The only reason why this economic collapse has not yet happened in the West is the amount of capitalism that is still happening; keeping things afloat for now.
HotScot
Most of what you say is accurate except for promoting China and Russia as democracies.
China Russia and Iran are allied to bring us a version of the world that would exist if Hitler and Stalin allied to conquer the world in WW2.
These societies are authoritarian and borderline totalitarian. They pose a greater threat than the totalitarian Nazis and Communists because China has organized its economy using a centrally planned market oriented structure based upon the Japanese experience.
In the best scenario, it will be the US, Europe, Japan, and India versus China, Russia, and Iran. If the Chinese economy is 4 times the size of the US economy by 2050, the game will be over for the most part.
What will kill the alarmist movement is the cost of the prescriptive medicine. People will go along and lend moral support to concepts and precepts they don’t understand. Ask them to spend $1500 a year from their own pocket on a prescriptive remedy, they’ll want more proof. So politicians brake those costs up in little pieces and hidden in bills that are already being paid. In Europe, those bills are beginning to inflict significant financial and economic pain. In the US, the pain is not yet felt because energy costs have declined but they will soon be felt in California. I suspect in a couple of years when gasoline prices are a dollar more per gallon than what people pay in neighboring states and many people in the inland valleys have trouble paying their electric bill in the summer, they will wonder why they’ve been chosen to storm the beach in the battle against climate change. They won’t be bored, they’ll be angry. Perhaps angry enough to start paying attention to what their elected officials are doing to them.
If you use the ticket sales from the latest Al Gore horror movie people are already bored and moving on.
what you call the climate alarm movement is business as usual for the world’s large companies and nearly all world governments outside the US, Australia and N Korea.
The physical evidence of a changing climate continues to come in and will increasingly make the trend obvious.
(what will this year’s arctic sea ice extent low show? I don’t think it will be a recovery or an imminent ice age)
Renewable energy is an immensely strong economic driving, being installed at an increasing pace.
The world looks different outside the Us/Australia.
So no less than R. Feynman lists eminent scientists who say they are skeptical of (what Griff calls) business as usual for alarmists and the business/political leaders they have forced to bow before the CAGW idol. [aside-Griff, what is with “US, Australia and N. Korea”? this guilt by association attempt is a pretty wide miss, as Aus. shuts down coal plants to go renewable, and NK has no elec or ic engines to speak of]. So we should be persuaded by world’s large companies and governments, as against the body of work of Feynman et al.? Why are you an enemy of science? Yes, I bet the world does look different to you.
Brian Hall says, “Genuine climatology teaches that warming concentrates at higher latitudes, reducing the thermal contrast with the tropics…”
Richard Lindzen addressed this subject in a lecture available on Youtube,
https://youtu.be/-RLPdEMjphM
ow! Not Feynman, Lindzen.
Paul, can you tell me what Fenman actually said about climate change and climate science? I have seen lots of people claiming he would support their position, but that is just hot air. What did he actually say about it?
So now you no longer believe that a new record summer low for Arctic sea ice is a “sure thing” this year, as you previously so confidently predicted?
Since the governments of the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, are burning ever more coal, how exactly can you think that only the US, Australia and North Korea ignore the “climate alarm movement”?
Giff-san:
The 2017 Arctic Ice Area Minimum will be about the 6th~ 7th lowest since satellite data went online in 1979.
Polar Ice levels are sinusoidal and follow 30-yr PDO/AMO warm/cool cycles. since both the PDO & AMO will both be in their cool cycles from 2019, polar Ice will soon start showing recovery for the next 30 years.
The coming Grand Solar Minimum will add to the cooling and expanding polar ice.
Wind and solar are dead. without government subsidies, they’ll soon suffer an extinction event.
LFTRs will eventually replace fossil fuels because they’re cheaper than gas/coal and there are 10’s of thousands of years of thorium available around the globe.
I certainly hope that you are right Mr. Worrall. As a father to a 4-year-old and with a wife who teach high school science courses I have paid close attention to what materials are being disseminated in our education system. From toddler books and TV shows all the way up to colleges, the narrative has invaded every aspect you can think of with regards to the next generation’s education. I have made several visits to the local national parks, zoos and other educational outings lately, having just moved to the Seattle area of Washington, and everywhere I turn the concept of climate change is mentioned.
I can only speak for America since I have not visited other countries recently, though I suspect it is as bad or worse. Our next generation is being raised to take CAGW and several other leftist ideals as the mainstream. I work with my wife to offer alternative views to CAGW at every possible junction in her classroom, but I fear it has already been embedded in the minds of her students and the facts of the situation are ignored as inconvenient.
My only hope is that as you and others have mentioned people who are critical thinkers eventually begin to see the tear in the fabric of the narrative and switch to the skeptical viewpoint. I certainly intend to help my son to see these flaws and to search for the truth hidden from view on this and several other topics popular in today’s media.
Same thing in UK schools!!
And Australian schools too!
Thank you. This is important.
It matters not which generation believes what.
It only matters what the observations indicate.
The fact that the warming in the first half of the 20th century is of the same rate as the warming in the second half of the 20th century… well that just debunks the “CO2 is dominant” hypothesis.
In the end the politics will have to adapt to the reality. It always does.
Even if that adaptation can be costly (like the failure of eugenics in 1940s Germany). It’s failure was still assured by the reality.
By the reality and a world war in which tens of millions died.
That this is Political Science rather than Climate Science should concern us all. What politics is doing to the truth in the 21st century is alarming and they have control of the future generations of malleable minds of mush through public school indoctrination and it will take a complete collapse of government to undo the mess the socialist left has made. Some of the most radical alarmists are the youth. The don’t question they just take up arms to defend with religious zealotry.
“Some of the most radical alarmists are the youth. The don’t question they just take up arms to defend with religious zealotry.”
Therein lies our salvation.
Indoctrinated children grow into sceptical adults.
It may take a generation, but there will be an army of sceptical adults when the planet hasn’t changed one jot from what it was 40 years ago.
Gotta make skepticism cool and sexy…they watch a change come about.
Don’t sell the yutes short. My nephew is 20, and mighty conservative; a skeptic about AGW, genderism and leftist twaddle in general, he attends “the reddest college in the bluest state of the Union.” Go Buccaneers!
The more bovine excrement is deposited, the higher the new shoots sprout above it.
Just being the butt of every science joke wasn’t paying Bill Nye’s rent. So after having landed a couple of cameos on The Big Bang Theory, it was the perfect time for him to launch himself as yet another climate alarmist slut…
The Green Dragon needs to be slayed – it is already gobbling up too much of the world.Lindzen may be just the man to do it.
?w=640
Actually, I think he cooked his gandered goose pretty well with the recent YouTube stunt, flitting through the woods on Beltane, wuzzit? 😉
I’d be tempted to put Michael Creighton’s eloquent voice on technology and science. His absence has kept State of Fear from the silver screen; and I’m sure he’d have had more to say.
Dr. Lindzen is correct about the Clinton-Gore era.
Check out the White House Archives for January & March 1997. Key words: Maurice Strong + White House Archives.
Have already viewed these Archived webpages.
President’s Council On Sustainable Development, June 1993 – June 1999
Publications Index: Download or View.
https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/PCSD/Publications/index.html
Barbara – do you happen to have a link? I struggle a bit with finding the relevant stuff.
These wise, elder scientists studied bicarbonate dissociation, Henry’s law, and knew of retrograde temp co2 solubility. Co2, of which 97% is produced by plant decomposition, animal exhalation, and occasional volcanic outgassing, has little if anything to do with determining atm. temperature. High school and college texts do not emphasize this important science, unfortunately.
Bullseye!
It should also be noted that many of the youngest “alarmist” were taught by those such as Professor Mann.
They aren’t “evil”. They just haven’t yet thought beyond what they were taught.
Many will just as many have.
Gunga Din
Very true. Our indoctrinated children are the future sceptics. And there will be an army of them in the not too distant future.
If they are (eventually) as pissed off as I am about being lied to and having my good faith used, then I should think there could be a spike in productive science that finally washes this garbage down the drain.
McLovin’
I think it will be simpler than that, they will vote with their feet for political parties that don’t toe the AGW line. I don’t believe science will ever be enough to change it’s direction. Despite there being not one credible, empirical study that proves CO2 causes atmospheric warming over the last 40 years, they are still steam-rolling through.
Who better to praise the death of skepticism than Bill Nye, the narrator for a fraudulent science project intended for young people that was faked in post production video editing by Gore’s team. The only thing you can learn from that is serial bad behavior becomes predictable with lack of remorse or punishment. Now you can add Huffington Post as an accessory to science fraud.
Lindzen is truly valiant – take it to them.
?w=640
Dragons cause global warming. Did you see Game of Thrones? That nasty blond chick was frying everything
and she looked really good doing it!
Skeptisism over at skeptical Science –
SkS has a post from yesterday showing number of days various major cities will have with temps over 105f. The post specifically cited Dallas DFW. I pointed out that based on current warming trends that average summer temp will need to increase by 6degrees F between now and 2050. I also pointed out that that rate of warming is 3x the current rate.
The “corrected” my back of the envelope computation by stating that the Experienced climate scientist obviously know more than I do.
Is it science or is it a religion?
Definitely a religion at SkS. I’m surprised that you can post there. If you challenge their dogma and offer better alternatives, you’re instantly excommunicated (banned from posting).
Been there. Done that . . .
Yes – I have been previously banned/ account closed/blackballed Sk S
Got back in under different username.
Absolutely any prognostication extrapolating linear trends is pure poppycock and should be dismissed out of hand by anyone who’s made it out of the 8th Grade.
Not that I set that much store by status – more on verifiable evidence me …. but Nye struts and scolds and presumes to authority in a way that is exceedingly tiresome as is his brazen revisionism – it would be of little importance ere it not for hs prominent position as a pop-sci “communicator” poisoning the well.
The mendaciousness, conceit and plain nastiness of many “climate communicators” in the alarmist crew is the cherry on the putrid cake of ideologically driven evidence making that the eco movement has baked and is trying to force on everybody.
I would ignore Bill Nye except that he is played ad naseum in my daughter’s classroom at school. Government indoctrination is a powerful thing.
I recall my supervisor cautioning his research group that he didn’t expect infusions of federal cash by the dumpster-load any time soon, and that we should behave accordingly.
By contrast, that is exactly what seems to have happened to climate researchers. It must have quite unnerving initially, until they were calmed by the alpine mists and flower meadows of their first ‘working’ trip to the Bernese Oberland, which is a fantastic way to justify any expenditure.
The present climate alarmism will not die for a long time, they have really sunk their teeth in to this, it is the MOTHER of all eviro-leftist issues and they will beat the horse long after its death.
Until something else “sticks against the wall”.
Next thing’s going to be “mass extinction,” possibly via asteroid.
“Next thing’s going to be “mass extinction,” possibly via asteroid.”
Nah… you can’t blame humans for that. The new religion of Mother Earth Worship demands that humans are sinners. Asteroids are natural so won’t work for the religious crowd.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
– Leo Tolstoi
Oh, so true, John; Griffie has hit upon the truth of it: The massive flows of monies in academia, government bureaucracies and crony capitalist industry will continue to corrupt the debate into the indeterminate future.
Until the failure of IPCC climate models (upon which the whole CAGW edifice stands) is made manifest to a majority of decision makers, we will continue in the current pattern. Evidence the upcoming U.S. Assessment that is a rehash of the old “the second half of the 20th Century pattern proves a CO2-driven climate” will persist. Minor changes to climate parameters related to the beneficial warming from the Little Ice Age will continue to be exaggerated in official propaganda “projections.”
I used to think that the next 3 to 5 years of actual weather patterns would settle the debate one way or the other. Now I think the estimate of 10-plus years of cooling or steady temperatures would be more likely required to slay the money machine. Hoping to live that long, I’ve upped my heavy aerobics to an hour a day, three times a week. Like always, however, the future is unknowable no matter how much time or money one throws at it.
Richard,
Skepticism will never die because the absurdly high sensitivity claimed by the IPCC conflicts with the requirements of first principles physics and the physics will always prevail. The unfortunate thing is that for all the many reasons you cite that sent climate science into the abyss, we will waste trillions of dollars mitigating a problem that can never occur.
The next, inevitable, ice age will change minds, as a km thick glacier bearing down on the North-East US, Northern Europe and Russia will be a lot more inconvenient than a few cm of sea level rise or an insignificant increase in the global average temperature which by then will be all that will have been attributable to CO2 emissions. An event that will happen sooner than this will occur around 50-100 years after we eventually run out of fossil fuels and mankind’s biggest concern will be how to enhance atmospheric CO2 in order to prevent the crash of agriculture. If the alarmists have their way, this could be sooner than later.
I don’t think it will even take that long as the high sensitivity claimed by the IPCC is readily falsified, the errors in their foundational science are readily identified and all that’s missing is a more definitively settled explanation for quantifying the sensitivity and this is where the incontrovertible and immutable laws of physics come in to play.
George
I disagree. Whether high or low the magnitude of the climate sensitivity is not falsifiable.
Terry,
A high sensitivity is easily falsified. The sensitivity factor claimed by the IPCC is 0.8C +/- 0.4C per W/m^2 making the low end is 0.4C per W/m^2 and even this is falsifiable.
A sensitivity of 0.4C per W/m^2 means that a 1 W/m^2 increase in post albedo solar energy will increase the average surface temperature from 288K to 288.4K. At 288K, the surface emits 390 W/m^2. while at 288.4K, the surface will emit 392.25 W/m^2, for a increase of 2.25 W/m^2. One W/m^2 of this is being replenished by the W/m^2 of forcing, while 1.25 W/m^2 of energy in excess of the forcing must still be supplied to the surface or else the increase emissions will cool it. The claim is that this comes from the ‘feedback’, except that any system whose positive feedback exceeds the forcing is unconditionally unstable. Even the low end of the IPCC sensitivity predicts an unconditionally unstable system that would be in a runaway condition. Even the low end of the IPCC sensitivity range is unambiguously falsified!!!
Consider that each of the 240 W/m^2 of post albedo solar forcing that preceded the incremental 1 W/m^2 of forcing contributed 1.6 W/m^2 each to the surface. 1 W/m^2 from the forcing and 0.6 W/m^2 from the ‘feedback’. If the last W/m^2 of forcing only contributed 1.6 W/m^2 to the surface, how can the next one possibly contribute 2.25 W/m^2?
Although as I have said many times, Bode’s concept of feedback was wildly misapplied to the climate by Hansen and Schlesinger who failed to honor any of Bode’s preconditions for applying his analysis.
co2
Thank you for taking the time to respond. 0.8C is the change in the spatially and temporally averaged surface air temperature at equilibrium but this quantity is not observable. That it is not observable has the consequence that whatever proposition is stated in regard to this quantity is not falsifiable.
And of course, the much more modest but hugely effective warriors for truth and integrity in science, education, politics and for freedom of expression, our own Anthony Watts who created the best science blog in the world for which he has received multiple top international awards in a ‘climate’ that largely favors his detractors and adversaries in high places. I hope this could still happen in the future.
“the motherhood nature of environmentalism”
Actually ‘the nannyhood nature of environmentalism’ imo.
A mother genuinely wants her child to grow and prosper into a happy and fulfilled adult whereas the ‘enviro-mentalists’ want the child to remain a child for them to nanny forever ‘cos that’s their daily bread and they have no other purpose.
Actually, to me it appears to be a new religion.
Mother Earth Worship.
…suffering
… tithing
… sacrifice
… repentance for sin
… intolerance of dissent,
etc
I feel in my bones that the scam is being driven by business interests. The Insurance providers will make a lot.
Recently they have made offers to Insure a reef in Cancun, Mexico. I think they said they would insure it against sea level rise. The local business owners have taken the bait. The main profit will go to the Reinsurance Providers. Follow the money .. that is what politicians do! Find out who owns the Re Insurers .
The establishment of a new religion is announced in IPCC AR4, report of Working Group 1, when the doctrine is stated that falsifiability is outmoded and has been replaced by peer-review In this religion the priests are to be called “scientists.”
I am far more swayed by the thousands of “engineers” at the pinnacle of their respective fields who all share the rare ability to understand “systems” who nearly all reject the CAGW premise.