Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Camille Parmesan is a US / UK based scientist who has accepted President Macron’s challenge to President Trump, Macron’s offer of funding for US climate scientists who move to France. Camille thinks climate “deniers” live in a world of fiction – but she does not present any real evidence to back her claims.
Camille Parmesan: ‘Trump’s extremism on climate change has brought people together’
Interview by John Vidal
Sun 31 Dec ‘17 18.00 AEDT
The climate scientist on leaving the US to work in France – with funding from President Macron – and why she believes Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement will backfire on him.
Camille Parmesan, a biologist at the universities of Texas and Plymouth, is one of the world’s most influential climate change scientists, having shown how butterflies and other species are affected by it across all continents. She is one of 18 US scientists moving to France to take up President Macron’s invitation of refuge after Donald Trump’s decision to cut science funding and withdraw the US from the 2015 Paris agreement.
What has made you leave the US?
The impact of Trump on climate science has been far greater than what the public believe it has. He has not only slashed funding, but he’s gone on the attack in any way he can with his powers as the president. University researchers are buffered from this, but scientists working at government agencies have really felt the blow. They have been muffled and not allowed to speak freely with the press, they have had their reports altered to remove “climate change” from the text, and are being told to leave climate change out of future reports and funding proposals. This degrades the entire climate science community. Scientists are fighting back, but Congress needs to exercise its constitutional powers and keep the executive branch in check. This is not a partisan issue – this is about the future of America.
Are you angry?
None of us expected Trump to win. It was a real shock. It was horrifying to have him as a candidate. He was so extreme. Frankly, I am not just angry at the far right, extreme Republican groups but also with [some] liberals who bought the Russian propaganda and who are not taking responsibility. And with people who didn’t vote. Good lord. You need to vote! It was a bit like Brexit. Many young people did not vote. I understand they did not want a mainstream candidate but they got Trump and Brexit.
…
When do you expect the major impacts to take place?
Things will shift to the extremely negative in the next 50 years. Climate scientists are doing decadal projects and it starts really shifting about 2070-2090. That is in my children’s lifetimes. They will have to deal with it. That’s what makes me angry. Policymakers are mostly in their 50s and they will be dead by then. The worst impacts will hit their grandchildren. That’s what annoys me about young people not voting. They will be the most severely impacted.
…
What about the deniers?
People like believing in fiction in the face of reality. We’ve had many climate disasters and they haven’t woken up the minority who are still living in a fictional universe. People want to believe this lie and I don’t know how to get through to them. But hurricanes like Harvey and Katrina have woken up middle-of-the-road people. It’s not that they were denying climate change, but it was unimportant to them. These people are beginning to understand it is impacting whole countries and regions.
…
Camille, if you want to “get through to deniers”, you could try offering some real evidence to back your claims.
Hurricane Katrina and Harvey are not evidence of imminent climate catastrophe. Powerful hurricanes occurred before the industrial age, and they will continue to occur regardless of what we do about CO2 emissions. If anything, long term there has been a decline in strong hurricanes making landfall on the continental USA.
The incontestable stream of climate disasters Camille predicts will not strike until 2070 – 2090, by which time most of us will be dead. Her climate claims are not falsifiable on any reasonable timescale.
Camille’s 2070 – 2090 timescale seems a bit of an advance on most climate disaster predictions. Is it just me, or does the settled science date of this “imminent” climate disaster always seem to be galloping off further into the distant future?
Update (EW): Hilited “this is not a partisan issue” (h/t BallBounces)
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Is it just me or is the Global Warming/ Climate Change narrative changing again in the amount of time for total destruction due to climate change. Al Bore was predicting 2012 in 1998, 2015 in 2003,and more recently 2025 and 2050 as the years of the end of all. I notice this woman is pushing a new narrative of 2070 – 2090 time line. If you had predicted that man would have flown at Mach 3 regularly before the year 2000 while watching the Wright brothers flying in 1903 they would have called you crazy. This type of alarmist must think we are all too stupid to keep track of their narrative. Reminds me of some Doomsday cults trying to predict the end of the world. Oops 2012 did not happen well I meant 2025.
I’m used to seeing dates out to 2100 or so… for whatever it’s worth.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
“Things will shift to the extremely negative in the next 50 years”. Yes, the next Little Ice Age is coming.
I kind of doubt that anyone’s funding got cut in FY17 since that was Obama’s last ‘budget’ and we are under a continuing resolution so far in FY18. Trump probably has had no effect on funding so far.
Archie-
Maybe the amount of funding hasn’t changed. But what it is spent on definitely is changing, See:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/epa-now-requires-political-aides-sign-off-for-agency-awards-grant-applications/2017/09/04/2fd707a0-88fd-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.html?utm_term=.1cc9639f733e
A quote from the article:
“The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the unusual step of putting a political operative in charge of vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually, assigning final funding decisions to a former Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience.
In this role, John Konkus reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued. According to both career and political employees, Konkus has told staff that he is on the lookout for “the double C-word” — climate change — and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations.”
It’s yet more lies and propaganda from the Grauniad.
Camille Parmesan? She sounds kind of cheesy. Who is feeding her and WHAT!
@menicholas: short of armed insurrection, would love to hear a better idea. Not intil tomorrow though, I’m done for 2017. 🙂
That’s what makes me angry. Policymakers are mostly in their 50s and they will be dead by then.
Anyone else get the feeling that this line is borrowed from someone bemoaning the damage done to academia by alarmists and SJW
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2017/12/the-year-reheated.html
Another Nobel Prize winner. (From the link above) “She has been involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in varying capacities for more than 15 years (e.g. as Lead Author, Reviewer), and was an named official Contributor to IPCC receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007”
M. Wuebben
In fairness that quote, which I noticed too, does not claim she ‘won’ a Nobble; ‘Official Contributor’ only.
IIRC – one or more of Michael Mann’s paeans of self-praise (did he call it a CV?) specifically said he had won the Nobble for – whatever!
I certainly have a decent claim – as a citizen [for fifteen months more, only ;-)) ] of the EU when it won a Nobble for Accountancy and ‘Economics’ – the most unaudited unapproved accounts ever, I think – so I suspect I deserve one-five-hundred-millionths of the (unmerited) applause.
Happy New Year to All – even the much medalled Michael Mann!
Will he, this year, get a gong for – I don’t know – geomancy, or garnishing salads?
Auto
I was instrumental in getting her downgraded to ‘contributor’ on the Plymouth uni website. They were calling her a Nobel prize winner until I intervened.
Is this the ‘butterfly effect’?
Goodbye Camille and please don’t come back. Kindly convince your friends Oreskes, Mann, Schmidt, Nye, Hansen, John Cook, etc. to go with you. Who else should we put on the wish list?
Wow! Trump looks BETTER AND BETTER..all the time. Happy New Year everyone!
And a Nappy New Year to the French ….[ incontinent ]
Sorry, I know, that’s almost as bad as –
The Parisian who jumped in the river, was declared in Seine
How long have you been waiting slip that one in?
It had whiskers on forty years ago . . .
Auto
For a bit of French butter,
away she will flutter.
The Parmesan grater,
the fake science hater,
the Paris defeater,
has forced her to eat her
macmeals in France.
How’s that for a Trump-thumping stance?
Furthering my Exploration of England, I’ve found self in Letchworth (Hertfordshire) this morning. Isn’t the combination of dirty diesel and VW great for that sort of thing?
Have quit collecting science Nobels (for today) and am having coffee in the ‘3 Magnets’ Wetherspoon pub
You could not make it up. From a poster on the wall in this very pub…
sigh Over a century late. Story of my life innit.
Wait.. There’s hope. Think I’ve just seen Seattle Sarah walking by!
This could make for One Very Interesting Date….
😀
PS Just set some Cheddar in a cool dry place. lightly covered (NOT in the fridge) to make your own Parmesan. Works an absolute treat
How can a language that is only spoken by a few hundred people be considered “universal”?
Nobody understands it, or why you would learn it! That’s universal! Lol!
That Parmesan cheeses me off.
Great she is leaving, we don’t need topay irrational scientists who were blind to the numerous failings of Democrats like Hillary.
Note she references the Russian propaganda released via Hillarys emails which showed Hillarys thugs and their attitude toward deplorables yet she was capable of overlooking all these flaws as well as her lies about the private server with classified material and Bengazi deaths. Given this obvious weakness one suspects her ability as an objective scientist is also impared.
If you are a nation with 80% nuke power generation you would want all the greeniacs to cause other nations power generation costs to soar. Naturally you would be willing to fund a band of useful idiots to help the cause. Macron may simply be cynical and devious.
That is exactly correct! Political entities which lack fossil fuels always promote the AGW agenda. They seek to eliminate the economic advantage of those who have cheap energy. This is an important aspect of the conspiracy of self interest that drives AGW.
Socialists who seek control of the economy by attacking industry
Environmentalists who believe that 8-9 billion people can survive on this planet without bending a blade of grass, or alternatively, a few billion have to go
Activist academics who make nice careers by participation in a politically supported manipulation
Politicians who use the threats of future disaster to manipulate the public for the benefit of their political supporters.
We must keep saying “one more CO2 molecule (from 3 to 4) in 10,000 is not going to incinerate the world.
She has merely ‘chased the money ‘ and given the quality of her ‘research’ you can see why after all climate ‘science’ does provide a comfortable home for third rate academics with no requirement for good science or hard academic work so on that account she fits right in. And if that is the quality France want to pay for, they are welcome to it. Frankly once the money goes so does she .
The Climate movement is very adept at ‘moving the goal posts’ with their predictions of disaster.
They sound like they make predictions but don’t actually do so.
Not a real job..
..C’est la récréation
You will recognise the tune!
having shown how butterflies and other species
≠======
pseudoscience. phrenology, freudism, eugenics. these were all proven true in the exact same. manner.
chance creates positive examples of any theory. both crackpot and valid theories. at the 95% significance level used by climate science, drinking water causes cancer 1 time in 20.
will not strike until 2070 – 2090
≠=============
no need to worry. the US will have long before collapsed under the weight of the national debt.
She must be the only butterfly/climate scientist that knows, not only what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in China but also just when the chaos caused will strike!
Her move suggests she can read the writing on the wall.
And so the USA loses one more perfectly good snowflake…
Can she speak French? If not, serious collab probs!!
She’s a collaborator of the finest French tradition.
+10!