By Thomas Lifson at American Thinker
The increase in the atmospheric trace gas of CO2 has so far failed to deliver the catastrophic consequences predicted by the alarmists like Al Gore. The headlines about “the end of snow” are now an embarrassment after a winter of abundant frozen precipitation. At least a decade ago, the fraudsters relabeled their purported peril “climate change,” allowing any unusual weather to be blamed on mankind’s use of fossil fuels.
Now another rebranding is being proposed. Michael Walsh noticed, at PJ Media:
The Left, in the form of the think thank RAND, has gone full Luddite:
Since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, society has organized efforts to limit the magnitude of climate change around the concept of stabilization – that is, accepting some climate change but holding it within acceptable bounds. This report offers an initial exploration of the concept of climate restoration – that is, approaches that seek to return atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to preindustrial levels within one to two generations. Using a simple integrated assessment model, the analysis examines climate restoration through the lens of risk management under conditions of deep uncertainty, exploring the technology, economic, and policy conditions under which it might be possible to achieve various climate restoration goals and the conditions under which society might be better off with (rather than without) a climate restoration goal. This report also explores near-term actions that might help manage the risks of climate restoration.
“Luddite” is a good term, for it connotes opposition to the Industrial Revolution, which was (and remains in its “Information Age” version) dependent on the combustion of carbon-based fuels for electrical generation and transportation. The longing for some imagined paradise of living in harmony with nature is even more pervasive in modern history.
Of course, anyone even slightly familiar with the history of the Earth’s climate knows there is no one climate to be restored. We have had ice ages that covered much of the land on which Americans now live in glaciers. Is that the climate we wish to be restored?
Proponents claim they merely want to get rid of the “pollutants” – i.e., CO2, which is necessary for life and is used by plants to grow. (Higher levels of atmospheric CO2 already are increasing crop yields.) But buried in this phraseology is the hidden assumption that the atmosphere, not solar activity, controls climate. This is a ridiculous assumption on its face, since the ultimate source of our energy – atmospheric and carbon-based deposits – is the Sun.
By the way, solar activity is crashing now.
“Climate restoration” is the “New Coke” of climate alarmism.
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I suggest we restore the MWP prevailing climate when European tree lines were much higher.
So what we have to do is grab the tree line and hoick it up a bit?
“Climate restoration”??? Man, those folks are getting desperate …
w.
Onward! Into the past.
The Same as it never was….
Well, the existence of time as a separate dimension is an assumption that is consistent with. The linearity and directionality of “time” is an assumption that is consistent with. The progression (i.e. monotonic change) of “time” and evolution of matter is an assumption that is consistent with. Our “scientific” (i.e. circumstantial) and mythical (i.e. historical) beliefs about origin (e.g. spontaneous conception, reproductive succession) are consistent with. We live our lives in the scientific logical domain (i.e. limited frame of reference), but there is nary a human that does not speculate to the edge of our solar system and beyond.
nn Can you speak plain English for us morons please?
Pre industrial levels…Wasn’t that 280 ppm?
Since 280ppm is insufficient to grow sufficient quantities of the needed food supply to feed the current 7.5bn populace, I guess their intention is to have >60% of the world population starve to death. Really UNcaring ANTIsocial people.
We just need to return the population levels to the pre-industrial levels. The process will essentially drive the economic levels down backwards and the life expectancy will drop accordingly as well.
Heck we’ll all become Amish and drive around in horse carriages. Of course all those Thee’s and Thy’s would have to go.
280 ppm would be very risky for an interglacial, as the amount would drop way below that figure during the next ice age, possibly leading to mass CO2 starvation of plants.
Obviously. This is New Age hippie spirituality dressed up as science.
They do not have the facts, just the irrational desire for…’simpler’ times.
Okay, given we’re a ‘stone age’ species and modern life can be a bit stressful, but still doesn’t excuse Luddism. Certainly doesn’t excuse lies.
Ironically for a group that likes to throw around the label of ‘Climate Denier’, their major issue has always is that they are fundamentally conservative in nature. They’ve hitched their wagon onto the climate because fear of change for them goes as naturally with the environment as it does human civilization, but fundamentally I suspect it’s just an irrational fear of modern life, society & civilization.
Still, understanding their fears does not justify them. Certainly doesn’t justify bad science and doom-mongering. Even in a climate without human involvement at all, if we just…popped out of existence, the climate changes. WE understand this. We also understand on human time scales that change is largely benign, manageable, and a fact of life regardless. In the Alarmist’s fear of change however, they support policies and projects which could actually make things worse for ourselves.
We can’t return to ‘simpler times’. It’s not going to happen. Not without a lot of anarchy & violent scary change that will cause much suffering and ultimately for no gain.
Anyway, Alarmism is an interface of the greedy who know better, and the useful fools with honest intentions but flawed perspectives & understanding. We perhaps can’t realistically do much about the knowingly greedy, but we can hopefully enlighten the confused and scared. Perhaps.
Just got to keep stating the truth and hope Alarmism eventually & finally goes away, as the next pseudo-scientific fad comes into vogue.
Shouldn’t “Greenhouse Effect!” top that list?
The lies, deceit, misinformation, and alarmism are catching up.
If it was real they would not have to keep renaming it to try and make it seem less laughable.
“Oh look, the Emporer has a new panties on!”
Irritable climate syndrome…
Latitude,
Just perfect!!
Good one!!
Climate Restoration As Policy
Crap recycling as policy
Now they are attempting to replicate the good will Conservation used to own.
Somehow, “climate restoration” has neither the proper image or succinct message of benefit.
“Climate restoration” smacks of climate desperation.
The belief that the sun is ultimately responsible for all the long-term changes in climate seems to be as strong and unsupported as the idea that CO2 is. I can almost hear Leif Svalgaard sighing in resignation from across the Atlantic.
Very few skeptics are definitely saying it is the sun. Most skeptics keep an open mind. However they all know it isnt CO2.
I don’t know that it isn’t CO2. I only know that there is zero evidence that it is CO2. There appears to be a warming trend that extends back to at least 1800 A.D. and the so-called anthropogenic CO2 fingerprint does not raise its head above that line. No way! No how!
All efforts to establish the facts as otherwise are created out of whole cloth by activists masquerading as scientists or politicians trying to create phony issues to surf on for the sake of their ambitions. Creeps, charlatans and Socialist fools, sometimes combining multiples of those tragic character faults!
It is getting colder now, as many have predicted on the understanding a that we are in a cyclical peak that is probably similar to the Medieval Warm period and/or Roman Warm period and/or the Minoan Warm period. The imitation scientists who run around screaming that the sky is falling and the so-called science is settled have no idea whatsoever what caused these earlier warm episodes. They take the utterly dishonest approach that they didn’t happen when there is ample evidence that they did!
So, if the plan is to restore the climate to preindustrial levels, which preindustrial age should we restore the climate to ? How about when CO2 levels were as high as 6,000 ppm ? Or how about the last ice age ?
They forgot Gorebull warming.
Carbon Based Life Form yearns to throttle the Carbon Cycle of Life?
They’re a bit late. All the spare Climate Change cash has been use up on Carbon Trading…
What amazes me is that many using their smart phone, their tablet, their laptop, etc don’t understand how such technology came about in the first place or why. As some scream to save the planet from the evils of carbon, as they troll blogs, they really don’t have a clue how much energy is required to produce and run the systems they are using. Some are of course convinced it can all be done by wind and solar though certainly no nuclear or hydro which they believe are both obviously extremely evil.
Climate Restoration is the beneign sounding goal to justify Geoengineering a not-so-beneign sounding word that requires much money.
The folks I worked with at RAND are hardly leftists. Need to rethink that part of the story. Next you’ll tell us that the Aerospace Corporation and MITRE are leftist?
The times they are a changing. Many companies that you think would lean right are now full of resource departments infested with Social Justice Warriors. Most likely since you have retired things have gone down the tubes but I would have no way of knowing if it is true of RAND. It is however, happening all across corporate America.
Dinosaur restoration is the next step.
Now that would be a Jurassic Flop
How about the term “Climate Absolution”?
We could all buy “CO2 pardons, hot from Rome” – from Pope AlGore the First.
Chaucer saw through this scam – and so should we.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/01/pope-francis-apparently-doesnt-know-ipcc-climate-objective-contradicts-catholic-doctrine/#comment-1849580
The Canterbury Tales – The Pardoner’s Tale
‘Nay, nay,’ quod he, ‘than have I Cristes curs!
Lat be,’ quod he, ‘it shal nat be, so theech!
Thou woldest make me kisse thyn old breech,
And swere it were a relik of a seint,
Thogh it were with thy fundement depeint!
But by the croys which that seint Eleyne fond,
I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
In stede of relikes or of seintuarie;
Lat cutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
Thay shul be shryned in an hogges tord.’
Surely we should all purchase “climate indulgences” from Pope AlGore to rescue us from “climate purgatory” and get us to “climate heaven”..
“Carbon Offsets” are the current eco-indulgences, but only the correct “approved offsets” are legit. All other environmentalism is heresy, traife, haram …
How about “Climate Renovation”… Or “Climate Remodeling”… Or “Climate Spring Cleaning”… I got it! “Climate Spa Day.”
climate makeover…….the sequel to this old climate
+100
Good one, Lat!
Jim
Climate refinancing, more likely.
I suggest ………. “AGW Flagellants”.
“…Flatulents”
I am always interested in knowing what is the perfect decade we need to aim for that was free of mans influence and that we need to restore.
Surely not many ‘pre industrial’ decades as there were very many cold periods and I doubt if enough food could be grown in these cold conditions for our approaching 9 billion population. That is without even examining where we would get the energy from.
so, what is the ‘optimum’ decade?
tonyb
So many potential HGTV program ideas I don’t know where to start.
It’s an effort to make Climate, great again.
“…approaches that seek to return atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to preindustrial levels within one to two generations.”
I believe we are well on our way. The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor and when it’s cold, there is less of it in the atmosphere. So when the globe cools… Victory!
Paul Atreides: This is part of the weirding way that we will teach you. Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being the equivalent to a form. Through sound and motion, you will be able to paralyze nerves, shatter bones, set fires, suffocate an enemy or burst his organs. We will kill until no Harkonnen breathes Arrakeen air.
I guess that’s one way to improve the atmosphere.
Let’s work on restoring logic, reason, and the rule of law first.
Increasing atmospheric CO2 from 0.03% to 0.05% is not a threat to anything.
Conversely, the planetary flora flourishes with higher atmospheric CO2 content!
Earth is restoring a more abundant biosphere… Win – Win!
Nobody in power wants to do that!
The primary motivations toward power are first, POWER – then, RICHES. The RICHES can only be accumulated through SCAMS, which can only go unpunished through ABUSE of POWER; therefore, every 1%er seeks to perpetuate the game, so his followers leave the table in their turn with enough skeletons in their closet that they don’t dare come after HIS riches, lest theirs be endangered.
” The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me”
George Orwell, 1984
It’s Whack-a-Mole time again!
Version 349,412,309 and counting.
I vote for a climate that is warm and dry in the fall, cool and dry in the winter, warm and rainy in the spring and hot, humid and wet in the summer.
………LOL