Climate scientist goes off the rails: 'climate change is like an asteroid strike'

From the “send the men in the white coats” department. It seems that this already alarmist climate scientist has gone off the rails and sees climate change as an ELE (extinction level event).


In an online article titled Climate Change Like An Asteroid Strike appearing in Germany’s national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), journalist Alex Rühle reports on the outgoing director of Germany’s alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Prof. Hans-Joachim “John” Schellnhuber.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Prof. Schellnhuber, widely known in Germany as the Climate Pope, is considered in Europe as the leading climate science authority and the architect of the Master Plan for transforming global society – dubbed The Great Transformation – which aims to make global society climate compatible through draconian, surrealistic measures. Moreover the plan calls for all of it to happen in just a matter of a couple of decades!

A number of critics have called the whole idea detached from economic reality and dystopian.

Risks mounting “by the hour”

Schellnhuber is also the father of the “2°C climate target”, a warming that the world must never exceed, he claims, lest it’ll tip hopelessly into a state of rapid, irreversible climatic collapse.

The SZ article reports how the outgoing Schellnhuber believes the planet is in fact approaching the climatic catastrophe at “a crazy speed” and that the risks “are mounting quasi by the hour”.

The alarmist Potsdam Institute professor has been known for a number of shrill comments made in the past, but in this most recent SZ article, Schellnhuber’s shrillness arguably reaches a whole new level that shoots beyond the realms of reason.

Rapid, epic disaster of geologic dimensions

Now that Schellnhuber is stepping down as director of the Potsdam Institute after 25 years as its director, he reflects back, telling the SZ how he feels about the overall “disinterest with regards to the consequences of climate change” that has swept across the public globally.

More at No Tricks Zone

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Jacob Frank
May 16, 2018 11:15 am

Science, the mastery of hyperbole with accompanying graphs and formulas

Thomas Homer
Reply to  Jacob Frank
May 16, 2018 11:26 am

And/or apparently, a large globe.

Bryan A
Reply to  Thomas Homer
May 16, 2018 12:10 pm

Prof. Schellnhuber, widely known in Germany as the Climate Pope, is considered in Europe as the leading climate science authority and the architect of the Master Plan for transforming global society – dubbed The Great Transformation – which aims to make global society climate compatible through draconian, surrealistic measures. Moreover the plan calls for all of it to happen in just a matter of a couple of decades!

Didn’t some other German already have a “Master Plan for Transforming Global Society”?, some guy named Adolph?
Given his Chutzpah, perhaps he should change his name to Schellenhubris

Gordon
Reply to  Thomas Homer
May 16, 2018 2:30 pm

Roll that Globe around 180 degrees and all you will see is water of which we have a trivial information of its temperature and current history. In other words one of the key drivers for climate we know almost nothing.

Felix
Reply to  Thomas Homer
May 16, 2018 2:44 pm

Gordon,
The Water Hemisphere is approximately 89% water, 6% dry land and 5% polar ice cap.
The Land Hemisphere still has more water than land, ie 71% = (89% + 53%)/2.
The Southern Hemisphere is pretty close to the Water Hemisphere, with 81% water.

Rob
Reply to  Thomas Homer
May 16, 2018 4:42 pm

Sings, “Dah dah Da da da da dah dah!”

John harmsworth
Reply to  Jacob Frank
May 16, 2018 2:29 pm

An idiot of spectacular dimensions. Quasi relevant, yet not. A buffoon of ill deserved achievement in a field of negative value for humanity. His tombstone is waiting for him with the words, “Nope! He wasn’t kidding! Pretty crazy,huh?”, inscribed on it and lit in neon. Bury him outside the clown college and raise a statue made of nutbars.

Felix
Reply to  John harmsworth
May 16, 2018 5:03 pm

“Climate science” attracts third and fourth rate “scientists”, often computer programmers and math grads, while real climatology has been worked on by first rate scientists, such as Bryson, Gray, Lindzen, Dyson, Happer and Giaever (in retirement, in his case). Plus Feynman’s sister.

philincalifornia
Reply to  John harmsworth
May 16, 2018 9:00 pm

Felix, that’s an insult to third and fourth rate “scientists”.

Felix
Reply to  John harmsworth
May 16, 2018 11:53 pm

You’re right. I take it back. They’re not scientists of any level, since to be a scientist, one must practice the scientific method.

Roger Knights
Reply to  John harmsworth
May 17, 2018 10:17 pm

A mod scientwist.

Rick Wells
Reply to  Jacob Frank
May 16, 2018 3:49 pm

Essentially proves that “Green (Climate Change) is the New Red” – the position that the only means of ensuring the survival of the planet is state control of EVERYTHING!
Derived from the fact that Socialism is the opiate of the intelligentsia.

Komrade Kuma
Reply to  Jacob Frank
May 16, 2018 4:31 pm

Just another example of a life wasted by narcissism and an addiction to the funding hunt.

Stephen Richards
Reply to  Komrade Kuma
May 17, 2018 1:24 am

But he will retire on a huge publicly funded pensions and large speaking fees

rufus3698
May 16, 2018 11:15 am

SJWs always double down.

Russell Cook (@QuestionAGW)
Reply to  rufus3698
May 16, 2018 6:47 pm

Further proof of AGW – it causes such doubling down efforts to increase in proportions that could be observed as hockey stick-style graph results. Just look at the suddenly rising numbers of global warming lawsuits.

gnomish
Reply to  Russell Cook (@QuestionAGW)
May 16, 2018 9:36 pm

yep. that lotto look- the glazed eyes bugging out, the gaspy breathing, the twitching and palpitations are all shared with any ordinary gambling addict.
they will keep doubling the bet in the belief that they only need to win once to get over all of it.
but hey- they’re paid to go on the casino junkets. they wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t take your money and waste it.
being as how nobody is accusing them of being responsible people- how long before the inquisitor’s gaze follows the money to the source?
well, inquisitors are funny. when they are the source, they look for a goat.
spectrophobia kills goats! but nobody cares about the goats…

Peter Morris
May 16, 2018 11:16 am

Well, it’s kind of hard to be interested in upcoming disasters when they’re all imaginary. I mean they might as well say CO2 will cause Godzilla to emerge from the oceans.

James Bull
Reply to  Peter Morris
May 16, 2018 11:44 am

Well it’s more likely than what this guy’s spouting!
James Bull

Joe Wagner
Reply to  Peter Morris
May 16, 2018 1:14 pm

Oh noes! Not Godzilla as well!
Maybe Mothra as well.
All hail the mighty CO2!

Goldrider
Reply to  Joe Wagner
May 16, 2018 6:04 pm

Zombies. You forgot the zombies!

Felix
Reply to  Joe Wagner
May 16, 2018 6:08 pm

Yup. In the original monster movies, it was nuclear testing. Now it’s climate change that brings monsters from the deep.

Sara
Reply to  Peter Morris
May 16, 2018 3:24 pm

It is time Chthulhu got some action here, isn’t it?

philincalifornia
Reply to  Sara
May 16, 2018 9:03 pm

…. and Ed Wood’s giant squid, if ocean acidification hasn’t already killed it.

Tom Halla
May 16, 2018 11:16 am

Temperatures increasing by “5 degrees per century” according to Shellnhuber. Easy to make an argument for imminent disaster when one pulls numbers from one’s nether regions.
He does come across as Germany’s equivalent of James Hansen.

Ron
Reply to  Tom Halla
May 16, 2018 11:34 am

“Schellnhuber is also the father of the “2°C climate target”.
This morning in Toronto at 8:a.m. the daily predicted high temp was 21C. By 12:00 the revised high temp was 19C a “predicted” difference of 2C in less 4 hours. Climate scientists claim the earth may warm by 2C by 2100. The sad thing is people actually believe these scientists!

Reply to  Ron
May 16, 2018 12:14 pm

People act as though 2C, assessed as an average increase over the whole Earth, is a description of one and only one scenario. Think about it, though — THE WHOLE EARTH … an AVERAGE ! How many different combinations of regional temperatures could produce such an “average” ? And why would this average computed from one configuration of regional temperatures, in any way, equal this average computed from a DIFFERENT configuration of regional temperatures ? Yeah, the number might be equal, but the circumstances that could produce this number are NOT unique, with ONE UNIQUE MEANING.
The average of 1 + 9 is 5. The average of 5 + 5 is 5. The average of 7 + 3 is 5.
Numerically, does 1 + 9 = 5 + 5 = 7 + 3 ? Yes, of course, … NUMERICALLY. But is 1 + 9 the same expression as 5 + 5 or 7 + 3 ? No. The components of each expression, and the configuration of each expression are different. The average says nothing of its components or how its components came to be in relation to one another BEFORE the average was calculated. There might be something very noteworthy about the “9” being a “9” in the first expression, as opposed to a “5” being a “5” in the second expression. The average tells us nothing about this.
2C, then, is pretty meaningless, let a lone a cause for economic overhaul or psychological distress.
When will people wake up from these mathemagical spells cast upon them ?

John harmsworth
Reply to  Ron
May 16, 2018 2:42 pm

In Saskatchewan it is 27C today. The record for this day, as it is for many days, is from the 30’s. 32.2C in 1934. The low for this day is also from 1930. -7.8C. This is what we call weather in my part of the world.
I am reminded of a story I heard about a tourist in Texas driving along on a very windy day. He stopped and asked a local if there was any chance of a tornado. “No”, the fellow said. “A tornado would be perfectly helpless in a wind like this”

Stephen Richards
Reply to  Ron
May 17, 2018 1:25 am

Some people do for sure but politicians? Nah. They are just thieves and are using global warming as key to your wallet

Tom Halla
May 16, 2018 11:17 am

Bad spelling. Schellnhuber

Bill Powers
May 16, 2018 11:20 am

Time and again I have received push back from alarmists that Catastrophic does not mean to imply “End of Days” This guy is really putting a kink in their argument.

wws
Reply to  Bill Powers
May 16, 2018 11:28 am

There is absolutely no difference at all between what this guy is saying and if he wear saying “And On that Day he will return with Terrible Lighting and a Flashing Swift Sword, and The World shall Burn, and All shall be Judged, and on that day, Woe to ye, O Ye Unbelievers! For Ye shall be cast into the pit or eternal flame!!!”
I am starting to realize that there are some people who just have to have this, who want to believe in it. Always have been. it just keeps changing its disguise and its name from generation to generation.

MarkW
Reply to  wws
May 16, 2018 12:36 pm

There’s a very big difference, the Bible thumper won’t throw you in jail if you fail to believe.

Reply to  wws
May 16, 2018 1:48 pm

MarkW: Not now days. There was a time…

MarkW
Reply to  wws
May 16, 2018 8:03 pm

Hundreds of years ago, pretty much everybody did things that offend modern sensibilities. Not just the religious.

MarkW
Reply to  Bill Powers
May 16, 2018 12:34 pm

And it’s not like he is a little nobody who just posts responses on an on-line blog.

Edwin
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 12:47 pm

Mark, for long periods of history people were thrown in prison and worse for “not believing” the orthodoxy. To the modern Left those were evil times back then, but NOW it is vital that all non-believers in this modern orthodoxy be persecuted at least.

Felix
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 1:22 pm

This is the last known person sentenced by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy to death by burning, in 1781:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_de_los_Dolores_L%C3%B3pez
She confessed en route to the stake, so her sentence was commuted to strangulation.
Never let it be said that the Church isn’t merciful!

Latitude
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 1:52 pm

I think you guys just said the bible thumpers evolved….
….what does that say about the rest

Felix
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 1:58 pm

Latitude,
No sooner did the Church stop killing heretics than did the French Revolutionaries take up the practice, however with the modern guillotine rather than old-fashioned stake and garrote.
Then the Communist and Fascist socialists continued the True Believer tradition of murdering those who disagree with you. Now the Church of CACA is of the same totalitarian mindset.

John harmsworth
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 2:47 pm

MarkW- That’s the real curiosity here. Apparently, for years people were sitting around tables listening to this dingbat spit inanities about climate with zero evidence to back up his statements and nobody said a word in opposition. He got funding and wide-ranging support for ideas and statements that a 3rd grade science paper would be laughed at for.
How is this possible?

Felix
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 2:48 pm

John,
Because his insanity and ignorance served the purposes of his political pay and puppet masters.

Felix
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 2:54 pm

Of course today acts of faith involving burning would be banned, as using up too many valuable carbon credits, so naturally the CACA Inquisition prefers blowing up the heads of skeptical children.
I suppose that’s more merciful than torture to death by the strappado. Progress marches on!

MarkW
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 8:04 pm

Edwin, et. al. Around the same times racial bigotry was the norm and slavery was an accepted institution by everybody.
The idea that modern people of any strip should be judged by the behavior of people hundreds of years ago is a nonsense argument.

Goldrider
Reply to  Bill Powers
May 16, 2018 6:06 pm

Yesterday afternoon it was 83 degrees F. here. A thunderstorm came through, and all day today it never went above 54. Friday night it’s supposed to go down to 49. And I’m supposed to lose all the advantages of 21st century living for a ~theoretical average~ temperature change of 1.5 degrees? These people are the biggest argument I’ve ever seen for a return to teaching BASIC remedial math, not to mention biology.

May 16, 2018 11:24 am

It was at around 2C warmer during the Climatic Optimism.

John harmsworth
Reply to  Sunsettommy
May 16, 2018 2:49 pm

Bring it on ,baby! I’m a Canadian. I’ll hit the beach at 55F!

Alasdair
May 16, 2018 11:25 am

Needs counselling and a good dose of thermodynamics. The Cognitive Dissonance will have to dealt with later.

RWturner
May 16, 2018 11:28 am

Just another sign of the Dark Ages of the natural sciences.

Goldrider
Reply to  RWturner
May 16, 2018 6:09 pm

Just a sign that we Deplorables will soon lose all trust in the agit-crap that is currently masquerading as “science” in the popular press. Imagine! A return to unrestrained use of F-150’s, bacon, bourbon, and grilling steaks. Oh, wait . . . ! /sarc.

Felix
Reply to  Goldrider
May 16, 2018 6:12 pm

Dually F-450. Please!
More power! More carbon!
It’s good for plants and other living things.

WXcycles
Reply to  RWturner
May 16, 2018 10:49 pm

At least he’s not standing on a street corner with sandwich boards that say, “The End is Nigh”.
Probably where he should be though.

Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 11:41 am

Well, I went and read the “Great Transformation” summary at the appropriate website.
As I read it, whole brain cells started committing suicide.
The summary of the summary is this;
1. Nuclear power bad, but that’s ok because we will limit future growth of energy.
2. People are spoiled brats who should be forced to buy less stuff, use less energy and eat no meat.
3. The acceptable solutions involve taxing all carbon, producing less energy, creating a carbon trading scheme on a global basis and forcing people to stop eating meat. Oh, and force everyone to “buy in” on the global responsibility to the future – probably through re-education.
Over all its pretty neato, especially if you have a hankering for a nice dystopian future. I suspect that guys like this will soon start coming to the conclusion that since the world’s population won’t embrace this voluntarily they will just have to do it by force. Or genocide, since that would provide the same results and have the added benefit of less people on the planet.

HotScot
Reply to  Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 12:11 pm

Andrew
Genuine climate Na*zism then.
“I vill convince you ze climate I vill force ze planet to conform to is ze future for you non Arayan’s. I vill survive becauze I exercize naked viz ze nubile, uniformed fraulines viz ze vhips und dildo’s. I vill lead you all to Valhalla, just follow my red arze.”
Lunatic!

Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 5:45 pm

I don’t think Shellnhuber is interested in fraulines.

Felix
Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 5:50 pm

He has a Frau, but no Kindern, so you could be right.

Stan Vinson
Reply to  Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 12:44 pm

Our survival hinges on our ability to perceive the intentions of others, and to act accordingly. I perceive that the socialist/warmist has no limit on what they are willing to do to bring about their utopia.

Joe Wagner
Reply to  Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 1:17 pm

You’re forgetting that they probably exempt themselves from any restrictions because they’re the enlightened ones.

Goldrider
Reply to  Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 6:11 pm

Stop everyone eating meat and see what happens to human fertility, not to mention brainpower. We’re already known to be de-evolving compared to our Paleolithic ancestors–let’s speed it up, what could go wrong? These people are secular DEMONS.

WXcycles
Reply to  Andrew Cooke
May 16, 2018 10:50 pm

The unabomber did that already.

ResourceGuy
May 16, 2018 11:47 am

The ‘policy force’ is strong in this one.

Kurt in Switzerland
May 16, 2018 11:50 am

Some suggested that Schellnhuber was like Germany’s Jim Hansen.
I would say Germany’s Harold Camping.

James Bull
May 16, 2018 11:52 am

I wonder which Muppet is going to take his place probably some equally rabid nutter, but what the hey you get what you pay large amounts of money for.
James Bull

HotScot
Reply to  James Bull
May 16, 2018 12:18 pm

James Bull
Having referred to various idiots over the years as Muppets, it was pointed out to me recently that Kermit et al were largely a bunch of cuddly, adorable characters that brought pleasure to the lives of many.
There is no comparison between this climate apocalypse zombie and Fozzie Bear.
Kindly don’t insult the Muppets!
🤣

Juan Slayton
Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 3:34 pm

Don’t underestimate Oscar.

Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 10:41 pm

Kermit et al were largely a bunch of cuddly, adorable characters that brought pleasure to the lives of many.

But they were not in government or positions of authority when they did it.
the original muppets were in Sesame Street
The millennial replacement which has permanently damaged the millennial brain with subversive eco propaganda and validation of emotional nonsense narratives is this.

Andy Ogilvie
Reply to  James Bull
May 16, 2018 12:45 pm

Fozzie Bear? No wait, at least Fozzie was funny!

MarkW
Reply to  Andy Ogilvie
May 16, 2018 8:06 pm

wakka wakka

ResourceGuy
May 16, 2018 11:53 am

The kinetic energy of the strike was so great it punctured the fabric of believable science. Check for shatter cones in the MSM. This amounts to the late stage bombardment of the truth by advocacy science.

Tom in Florida
May 16, 2018 11:54 am

Perhaps if you translate his name into English it means Harold Camping.

Andy Ogilvie
Reply to  Tom in Florida
May 16, 2018 12:47 pm

Thats funny, I translated it as Richard Head 😀

TomO
May 16, 2018 12:09 pm

“off the rails” eh?
I think flat out bonkers is closer.
I’ve looked at his output over some years and like Andrew Cooke above I’ve come to the conclusion that he is not only mad but dangerously so given his elevated status in both German academia and political circles – where he seems to be presented as some kind of irrefutable sage by some.
Unhinged

May 16, 2018 12:10 pm

It is good to have these wacko alarmists in charge. That way people can contrast their hysteric alarmist claims with the reality they feel every day. This cold winter in Europe has given people plenty to think on their own about the modest reality of climate warming. In Spain we haven’t seen so much snow in a couple of decades.

HotScot
Reply to  Javier
May 16, 2018 12:21 pm

Javier
In the UK we had a week or so of the beast from the east this winter, that was it. I rather enjoyed the mild weather. May it get ever milder thanks to climate change.

May 16, 2018 12:22 pm

Talking about climate change like an asteroid strike is like a hemorrhoid strike to intelligent people.

Wrusssr
May 16, 2018 12:25 pm

Once he was human, as human as you and I. Humor him.

Neo
May 16, 2018 12:26 pm

Climate Change is like a bank robbery. No matter what happens, you get to pay.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Neo
May 16, 2018 5:15 pm

So true. They don’t need to hear the question. The answer is always the same: stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
The earth is headed into a new ice age. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
The forests are being destroyed by acid rain. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
The earth is headed for runaway heating. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
There are too many storms. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
There is not enough wind. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
We’re having a drought. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
There’s too much rain. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.
We’re out of beer. stop using fossil fuels, we need more socialism.

Craig
May 16, 2018 12:31 pm

Not just the “climate pope,” isn’t this the guy who got Pope Francis all wound up about global warming or climate change or whatever you call it.

Felix
Reply to  Craig
May 16, 2018 1:02 pm

Wonder how many other militant atheists and Gaia worshipers are on the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?
Its president from 2011-17, Swiss microbiologist Werner Arber, a theistic evolutionist, was the first Protestant to hold that position.

MarkW
May 16, 2018 12:32 pm

Originally, the 2C rise since the depths of the LIA was just the difference between then and the warmest it got during the MWP.
They acknowledged that up to 2C was good, as shown by the MWP, but more than 2C was unknown territory.
Then this “evolved” into more than 2C and bad things start to happen.
Now this nutcase declares that more than 2C will lead to environmental collapse.
Sheesh, if they couldn’t change their story, they would have no story at all.
PS: The Holocene Optimum was between 3 and 5 degrees warmer than the bottom of the LIA, and the world thrived. So much for the claim that warmer than the MWP is “unexplored territory”.

Felix
Reply to  MarkW
May 16, 2018 12:51 pm

Yup. The Roman (2 Ka), Minoan (3 Ka) and Egyptian (4 Ka) Warm Periods were also hotter than the Medieval (1 Ka) and Modern WP (so far in the latter case). The Minoan and Egyptian were about as warm as Holocene Optimum peaks (5-8 Ka).
Note that the intervening cool periods are associated with cultural collapse, barbarian invasions, famines, pandemics and constant warfare. The warm periods OTOH are named after high civilizations.

John harmsworth
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 3:14 pm

Careful, Felix. Dealing in the truth could get you burned at the stake in the modern world.

Felix
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 5:01 pm

It has been threatened, or the 21st century equivalent thereof.

HotScot
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 5:08 pm

Felix
And still the Romans moaned about the miserable Scottish weather on Hadrians wall!

Felix
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 5:15 pm

With good reason. Especially in their last century there, when the Roman Warm Period was ending, sliding into the Dark Ages Cold Period.
It would have been even worse had the Wall been in Scotland rather than England. The closest it comes to the Border is in the west at Bowness-on-Solway, about one klick south. Much farther away in the east.
Pity the poor legionary buggers who had to camp out on the Antonine Wall, deep in Pictland, among the wild, tattooed natives of Caledonia.

Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 10:46 pm

Note that the intervening cool periods are associated with cultural collapse, barbarian invasions, famines, pandemics and constant warfare. The warm periods OTOH are named after high civilizations.

Well we are past that stage, we have achieved all of that in a warming world, too!

Felix
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 11:51 pm

Leo,
No, we have not.
Warfare since the end of WWII, when CO2 took off, hasn’t been a pimple on the ass of the wars of the LIA.
Nor have our pandemics claimed even a tiny fraction of the percentage of humans of those of the past. Which is why there are eight billion of us now, as opposed to one billion during the Dalton Minimum.
Ditto famine.

thomasJK
Reply to  Felix
May 17, 2018 5:36 am

A few notes of rationalism from a rationalist. I love it because it has become so infrequent,.especially when the topic has anything to do with global climate and/or global sea level. .
Rationalist def. :a person who bases their opinions and actions on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response:
(Personally, I prefer ‘rationalist’ and ‘rationalism’ to ‘skeptic’ and ‘skepticism.’ I think they provide a more useful and more accurate depiction of the scientific method. )

Pat Frank
May 16, 2018 12:41 pm

It’s a peculiar phenomenon, isn’t it, a highly intelligent guy like Schellnhuber can seriously, even frantically, entertain utterly fatuous ideas.
There’s clearly a disconnect between intelligence and common sense.
The first doesn’t imply the second, but the second always seems to go with a fair amount of the first.
Herr Dr. Professor Geheimrat Schellnhuber is doomed to be remembered as a millennialist zany. Along with Paul Ehrlich, by the way, and Jim Hansen.

Reply to  Pat Frank
May 16, 2018 10:58 pm

I have spent a lot of time trying to understand that point, and it is a serious point. My conclusion is the same as yours but expressed differently. Intelligence is the ability to manipulate elements of a world view consistently logically and accurately. Common sense is having a world view that is not inconsistent with reality ( as it presumably is) in the first place.
They are orthogonal qualities. One may have one and not the other, or both.
AGW is a belief system – a world view – or part of one – founded on faux principles but fashionable in the New Left philosophy.
A flawed philosophy that implicitly considers that since people are what they think, by and large, so to is the world, and therefore it can be changed by ‘right thinking’. This implicitly denies the world a reality beyond the Left mind’s perception of it.
Which in terms of society and human issues is not a bad approximation, but is deeply dangerous when considering the natural world (i.e. that that lies outside the power of human imagination to alter).

Rich Davis
Reply to  Leo Smith
May 17, 2018 3:23 am

Nicely put, Leo.
To the Left, if you self-identify as something, that is your reality and it’s your human right to be affirmed in your feeling.
Schellnhuber identifies as the savior and master of the world apparently. Reality doesn’t enter into it.

Edwin
May 16, 2018 12:50 pm

Personally I am beginning to believe that CAGW crowd are all suffering from mental illness. It is possible since they hang out together that some virus or prion has spread amongst them.

rishrac
Reply to  Edwin
May 16, 2018 1:36 pm

There was A Russian scientist, Alexander Chizhevoky, ( about solar cycles making people .. um.. not quite right ) that made that claim as well. He later backed off when prison time was in the offing in the new Soviet Union of 1917. I was going to comment on Eric Holthaus that he is probably suffering under the same symptoms. After talking to true believers in AGW, it’s not a far stretch to say that they have some kind of mental condition that is afflicting them. … I don’t want to live in the hell hole that they are attempting to drag the rest of humanity with them.

John harmsworth
Reply to  rishrac
May 16, 2018 3:21 pm

It could just be a symptom of a more general depression. They seem to compulsively see only the bad. They believe without question anything that indicates we’re all going to Hell and just as reflexively reject any positive news even when it comes with irrefutable evidence.
Plus, bad news is never bad enough for them! They always go straight downhill to the worst possible scenario even when it rests on the shakiest ground. Which it always dose!
They can’t believe warmer is better, They can’t believe it was just as warm in the past and things were fine. They can’t believe we’re not headed for “the worst case scenario”. They can’t believe the world is getting greener. they can’t believe more food is being grown on less land. It would really be laughable except they really, seriously want to screw up our good times.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Edwin
May 17, 2018 4:19 am

I think it is genetic – there is something to be said for the argument that those who think every shadow is a lion will have an advantage over those who dismiss the threat. Their genes will spread but the optimists will get devoured more often.
It’s not strong selection, and there may sometimes be selection for optimism too, so we end with a mixed population. But there is a natural tendency for people to listen to the pessimists.

Bill Illis
May 16, 2018 12:55 pm

Schellnhuber will now retire in a much warmer area south (you know 20C warmer where lots of plants grow so easily and animals live out long lives and with awesome beaches and no snow).

ResourceGuy
May 16, 2018 12:56 pm

It was a near miss of advocacy driven policy over reach instead.

Neo
May 16, 2018 1:24 pm

Climate Change is like a drunken Indian … you never really know what is coming

John harmsworth
Reply to  Neo
May 16, 2018 3:22 pm

Leave the Indians out of it. Like a drunken anybody.

Reply to  John harmsworth
May 16, 2018 11:06 pm

Then don Genaro laughed and said that I ran thumping, like a three-hundred-pound flat-footed Mexican.
“Why a Mexican?” don Juan asked.
“A flat-footed three-hundred-pound Indian doesn’t run,” don Genaro said in an explanatory
tone.

Carlos Castenada “Tales of Power”
Some Indians are smarter than you think 🙂

Felix
Reply to  Neo
May 16, 2018 5:00 pm

Unless the Indian is Patchurcuchie!

rishrac
May 16, 2018 1:26 pm

I can see why there is no interest in ” Climate Change “. How many predictions can you get wrong and claim that ” by the hour” it’s getting worse?
The real disservice people like this are doing in the field of science, is that some day there will be a wolf and nobody will listen.

willhaas
May 16, 2018 1:39 pm

But the reality is that, based upon the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. The AGW conjecture is based upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s climate system, or anywhere else in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well. Climate change has been going on for eons yet it is currently so slow that it takes networks of very sophisticated instruments decades to detect it. We must not mix true climate change with weather cycles. If the future is anything like that past, the current interglacial period will eventually end and it will be followed by another ice age. This is all the work of Mother Nature and mankind does not have the power to change it.

Rich Davis
May 16, 2018 2:57 pm

Kognitive Dissonanz!
How is it possible to hold in your head the concept of an Asteroid strike powerful enough to wipe out most of the species on earth, but that was not ultimately an irreversible climatic collapse with the absurd assertion that a mere 2°C would tip us hopelessly into a state of rapid, irreversible climatic collapse?
Despite all of the catastrophic events that this planet has experienced, no matter how much the perturbation, it always returns to our habitable home. The best analogy I’ve ever heard is that it is like a marble in the bottom of a large bowl. You can push the marble away from the center of the bowl, but it will roll right back. Push it gently, push it vigorously, it just rolls back. Schellnhuber would have us think that it is like a ball bearing balanced on the head of a pin, with the slightest perturbation leading to a runaway calamity. If that were so, and the planet is 4.5 billion years old, how could it not have failed irreversibly eons ago?
You would think that recognizing just how homeostatic this planet is in reality, nobody could believe this Scheiße.

John harmsworth
Reply to  Rich Davis
May 16, 2018 3:24 pm

Hang onto that marble. This Schellenhuber fellow appears to have lost all his.

Reply to  Rich Davis
May 16, 2018 11:08 pm

Precisely the same argument my Phd paleogeologist used for dismissing AGW.

May 16, 2018 3:25 pm

Sometimes I could scream
ZEIT: Were you afraid of losing ground?
Schellnhuber: The last two years before graduation were critical at times. At that time I read Kant, Einstein and Marx at the same time, it was a phase in which I thought sleeping was a complete waste of time. I felt I could turn into a one-hundred-percent intellectual weapon. I shot past the finish, and for a short while my mental health was at stake. It has been an apprenticeship to this day: The body and the mind need phases of charitable idling.

Source out of an interview in ZEIT online, a german newspaper 26/03/09 – quote via google translate – page 4 of 7
Intro on page 1 :

Will it be possible to save the world from the climate catastrophe? Hanns-Bruno Kammertons and Stephan Lebert in conversation with the Potsdam researcher Hans Joachim Schellnhuber about hesitant politicians, the opportunities of the economic crisis and the time that still remains

So you have an idea about Schellnhuber, enjoy !
😀

May 16, 2018 3:33 pm

Not to forget to mention the interviews intro:

DIE ZEIT: Mr. Schellnhuber, you once answered yes to the question of whether you despise politicians.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber: That’s right, I remember that.
ZEIT: Your reasoning was: I despise politicians if they do not do anything about the threat of climate change, even though they should know better.

Page 1 of 7 – intro

Sara
May 16, 2018 3:40 pm

If there’s attention to be found for saying scary bad things, these guys go for it, don’t they? They are SOOO gonzo bonkers about it, too!
Well, okay, I’m still running my furnace, for Pete’s sake, and it’s the middle of May, and everything confounded thing is later than my last paycheck, BUT — to the south of me, right about the county line, it is following the average for the area, so I know that it’s just W-E-A-T-H-E-R. Maybe I can turn the furnace off by July???
It appears that he has to have that last bit of the spotlight as it fades and he gets pushed off stage center. So why not try to scare people to pieces, eh? They don’t listen anyway. At least, we all know that he’s consistent about what he says.

Joel Snider
May 16, 2018 3:50 pm

This was an old 80’s movie – Heaven Help Us – and I think of this speech almost every time one of these eco-nuts open their mouths.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yfp-t&p=heaven+help+us+speach+at+dance#id=2&vid=48f2393e6d0fe80f95a201b78a3011b6&action=click

knr
May 16, 2018 3:53 pm

One can only hope that following his retirement he lives long enough to see his life’s work held up as joke and his ‘science ‘ to be given the same status as numerology.

Curious George
May 16, 2018 4:41 pm

Professor Schellnhuber did not hesitate to publish a novel equation for a sea level rise, assuming an unlimited supply of water.

Felix
May 16, 2018 5:08 pm

Of what exactly do these existential threats consist?
Granting for the sake of argument that rising CO2 has any negative effects at all, which it doesn’t in the real world until at least above 1200 ppm, and probablu not until 10,000 ppm, what bad things does Herr Professor imagine could happen at two degrees balmier than AD 1850, ie the end of the life-threatening LIA?
Sea level rise? No problem. More rain? No problem. Less rain? More of a problem, but warmer is wetter in most places. More storms? Not happening. Worse storms? Not happening. Less ice? Good thing.

HotScot
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 5:21 pm

Felix
Sea level rise only affects those that are stupid, or greedy enough to risk their futures by building properties on river banks, estuaries or coastlines.
But they did, and they reaped the benefit. Perhaps now is the time to pay the piper.
And so convinced is the UK government that sea level rise is a problem, that they are embarking on a staggeringly expensive refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament. Guess where that’s situated Yep, you guessed it, right on the banks of the river Thames.

Felix
Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 5:27 pm

Too bad the present Houses were built during the LIA.
London would benefit from a return to Eemian heat. Who wouldn’t want hippos bathing in the Thames at the Bridge?

Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 11:12 pm

Who wouldn’t want hippos bathing in the Thames at the Bridge?

Anyone who has experienced these animals in the wild. IIRC they are the no 1 animal killer of humans in southern Africa, well beyond snakes or crocodiles or big cats

Felix
Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 11:44 pm

Leo,
Sorry, but nonsense!
The leading animal killers of humans in Africa are other humans and mosquitoes.
Hippos are only a problem if you mess with the males. Londoners could afford to leave them alone.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/africas-most-dangerous-animals-1454125

Felix
Reply to  HotScot
May 16, 2018 11:45 pm

Puff adders also kill more people than do hippos.
Besides which, it’s easy to avoid hippos.

Felix
Reply to  Felix
May 16, 2018 7:48 pm

Maybe he buys into Jim “Venus Express” Hansen’s boiling oceans.

John Bell
May 16, 2018 5:35 pm

He should try to solve the problem by jetting to some more conferences.

Goldrider
Reply to  John Bell
May 16, 2018 6:15 pm

I hear there’s one in the Ebola zone, right now!

u.k.(us)
May 16, 2018 6:56 pm

….”it is even worse than it appears” …
===========
Hate it, when that happens.

michael hart
May 16, 2018 7:36 pm

Pity the poor asteroid scientists. What do they get to compare an asteroid strike with when they want to exaggerate wildly? Supernovae?

philincalifornia
Reply to  michael hart
May 16, 2018 9:20 pm

Marcott et al., and the extrapolated current temperature of planet Earth maybe?

hunter
Reply to  chaamjamal
May 17, 2018 3:29 am

Great site!
Your take down of the TCS is very good.
And the song parody you link to is hilarious.
Thanks.

zazove
May 16, 2018 8:15 pm

So many arm-waving experts in one echo-chamber! Dunning and Kruger must be proud.

Felix
Reply to  zazove
May 16, 2018 11:47 pm

So, you truly believe that “climate change” is an existential threat.
Please explain your reasons for holding this purely religious belief on blind faith.
Thanks!

zazove
Reply to  Felix
May 17, 2018 12:42 am

Do I think the probability is non-zero? Of course, only a fool wouldn’t.

Rich Davis
Reply to  zazove
May 17, 2018 3:09 am

Ah, clever non-answer. Instead of giving any compelling evidence, you give us an implicit demand to prove a negative.
Do I think it’s a non-zero probability that there are unicorn-riding Sasquatch hiding in the rain forests of Sumatra? Well, no actually. But can I prove it with peer-reviewed research?
The question was what evidence can you give for why you think CAGW is more likely than not.
Nice try, care to give it another go?

hunter
Reply to  zazove
May 17, 2018 3:31 am

Pointing iut that a corrupt alarmist hack is also pushing nonsense dressed up as science is hardly arm waving.

toorightmate
May 16, 2018 8:48 pm

Planet Earth is warming because the learned Prof has his hand on it and is transferring his body heat to our poor globe.
I think I know what he is holding in his other hand, and it aint a piece of chalk.

tom0mason
May 17, 2018 12:14 am

As Marx, the world’s greatest social commentator and philosopher, said —

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

ˇ
ˇ
ˇ
ˇ
Groucho Marx that is.

hunter
May 17, 2018 3:21 am

Tyrants rely on hyperbole and deception.
But this creep looks like he wants to take things to a new level…
https://youtu.be/YqyQfjDScjU

May 17, 2018 3:39 am

And the past reality

May 17, 2018 5:23 am

What a great load of science denying claptrap. Grow you bunch of blind idiots and go back to physics 101.

May 17, 2018 5:26 am

What a great heap of science denying claptrap. Never seen such unsubstantiated rubbish in all my career. You all need to go back and do science 101….

May 17, 2018 6:03 am

Another crazy German guy…….

May 17, 2018 7:35 am

After having founded the PIK, Schellnhuber was brought to the UK in 2002, to assume the post of Research Director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich. He was also brought on to the Oxford University Physics Department and the Environmental Change Institute.
In early 2004, Queen Elizabeth II considered Professor Schellnhuber as the best man for a sensitive operation to pressure President George W. Bush into agreeing to the anthropogenic climate-change swindle. Schellnhuber traveled to Washington, D.C. along with Prime Minister Tony Blair’s top science advisor, Sir David King, who is now the British Crown’s Special Representative for Climate Change, appointed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Sept. 2013. The Bush White House reportedly complained to Blair about this mission.
Also in 2004, the Queen traveled to Berlin to open the German-British Climate Conference, on which occasion she dubbed Professor Schellnhuber a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In 2005, Blair turned to Schellnhuber to organize a conference on “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change,” at the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The proceedings, edited by Schellnhuber, with an introduction by Tony Blair and IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri, were published by Cambridge University Press.
With Professor Schellnhuber as chairman of the advisory board, the European Climate Foundation (ECF), from 2007 on, generously funded German “climate activists” from the above-named sources, while at the same time, Schellnhuber was working with the EU Commission on guidelines for the reduction of CO2 emissions.
As Angela Merkel’s energy advisor (fired in 2014), Shellnhuber bears the main responsibility for inducing Merkel to make the climate-change question the top agenda item during Germany’s presidency of the EU in 2007–something which not only wrecked Germany as an industrial nation, but also seriously compromised Merkel’s personal integrity as a scientist.
In 2009, Schellnhuber, in close collaboration with Prince Charles, coordinated preparations for the Copenhagen Climate Conference. Preparations included another mission to Washington, this time to personally press the Obama administration on the urgency of the monarchy’s global “decarbonization” intent, Obama’s Science Advisor being fanatic depopulation champion John Holdren, a long-time associate and collaborator of Schellnhuber’s. The Copenhagen conference nonetheless failed, after representatives of developing and emerging countries–and the Vatican–realized that the intention behind the climate question was massive population reduction.
And in 2011, in his capacity as chairman of the WBGU, Shellnhuber presented a master plan for a “Social Contract for a Great Transformation,” a proposal for establishing a worldwide eco-fascist order.
The author who sold the encyclical Laudato Si’ to Pope Francis is working for the British Royal Family. The Vatican endorsed the population reduction zealot (1 billion people ist his limit).
Strange how none of this British OBE pedigree appeared anywhere in WUWT.

Hocus Locus
May 17, 2018 8:10 am

I’ve gone off the rails too. Only an asteroid strike is like an asteroid strike. Earth defense is Space Job One. Check out this boldly assertive letter I’ve been sending around. Keywords: Apollo, Moon bases, Kinetic Response, Lunar Missile Battery