Guest essay by Robert Bradley Jr.
The Onion’s recent satire on climate science, “Climate Researchers Warn Only Hope For Humanity Now Lies In Possibility They Making All Of This Up,” presents a paradox worth solving.
“Saying the time to act has come and gone,” the piece begins, “a group of researchers from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned Tuesday that any hope for the future of humanity now hinges on the possibility that scientists like themselves are simply making all of this up.” The spoof continues:
After reviewing our climate models and projections of worldwide CO2 emissions, we have come to the conclusion that the only scenario in which the human race survives is if our thousands upon thousands of meticulous empirical studies on climate change turn out to be something we’ve been lying about all along,” said climate scientist Philip Vanderwall…. “The evidence indicates our planet still might stand a chance of averting a complete climate catastrophe as long as my colleagues and I belong to a cabal of charlatans who are secretly paid huge sums of money to trick everyone into believing excess greenhouse gases will precipitate record-breaking natural disasters and worldwide famine. Otherwise, we’re all doomed.
Have a chuckle, then note the paradox. A bevy of mainstream climate scientists has sounded the alarm—and for thirty long years. Many models back up their prognostications. And it is not a bad dream or made up.
Yet, global food production is at an all-time high, and climate-related deaths have declined precipitously as fossil-fuel consumption and population have soared in the last century. Virtually all human welfare indicators are positive in capitalistic countries in the manmade greenhouse gas era, as documented at HumanProgress.
So, what gives with the so-called scientific consensus on problematic, even catastrophic, climate change? Why the false “consensus”? Part of the answer is a deep-seated bias against humankind’s quest to tame and overcome the limits from nature, the latest manifestation being climate alarmism.
The Malthusianism Virus
Climate angst is another verse of an old lament. Today’s melancholia can be traced to a 1798 pamphlet, An Essay on the Principle of Population, which mathematically determined a future of subsistence living. Its simple model compared a geometrically increasing population to an arithmetic increase in food supply. “The argument is conclusive against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind,” Thomas Robert Malthus declared, and “decisive against the possible existence of a society, all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and comparative leisure.”
In the last half-century, popular Malthusian scares have gone from the population bomb of Paul Ehrlich to resource exhaustion of the Club of Rome, oil and gas exhaustion (Peak Oil, Peak Natural Gas), and even global cooling. Elevated fears of genetically modified foods and other mini-scares add to this list.
The “Cabal of Charlatans”
The population bomb, resource famine, and Peak Oil/Gas were consensus science for Association of the Advancement of Science, “the world’s largest general scientific society,” and its flagship publication, Science. But a “charlatan” article in that magazine in 1980, “Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of False Bad News,” inflamed the membership. Paul Ehrlich asked: “Could the editors have found someone to review [Julian] Simon’s manuscript who had to take off his shoes to count to 20?”
The consensus was an inverse relationship between people and the environment, captured in the model I = PAT, where (negative) environmental Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology.
Simple model—except that the very opposite has proven to be the case. Per Simon, environmental improvement and prosperity (including safety) is positively correlated with the same three factors in a regime of private property, market exchange, and the rule of law.
Julian Simon was a shining example of the adage, one plus the truth equals a majority. But (contrary to Onion), a “cabal of charlatans,” top scientists all, has ruptured the alleged consensus. Judith Curry is the most active dissenter from the climate-crisis troupe, and such high-powered scientists such as John Christy, William Happer, David Legates, Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, and Roy Spencer, among others, are effectively challenging the high-sensitivity estimates from climate models run by establishment scientists.
Conclusion
The Onion is right-on regarding the sirens of climate alarm. “We have at most ten years” to act, stated James Hansen twelve years ago, echoed by Al Gore’s predicated “point of no return.” And just last week: “We are pushing the planet toward an irreversible ‘Hothouse Earth’,” stated Joe Romm. “And we may be much closer to the ‘point of no return’ than most people realize.”
Laugh at the Onion piece but unmask the irony. Climate models may enjoy “consensus,” but they are not science. Physical science is prediction, independent replication, and potential falsifiability, not Malthus-in Malthus-out modeling.
When it comes to the climate “consensus,” just remember that the same people with the same agenda and with the same confidence and zeal proclaimed global resource famines, mass starvation in American streets, and Peak Oil and Gas. Humility, anyone?
The real laugh is on Malthusian consensus, past and present, not on the critics of doom-and-gloom.
Read it carefully. The Onion is satirising AGW skepticism not (so-called) climate science.
Quelnaif: A little bit of the Icy winters caused by global warming idea. Gotcha.
Quelgeek, while that is indeed the Onion’s intention, that doesn’t negate that the result can also be viewed the opposite way.
Put another way, in trying to satirize AGW skeptics they’ve inadvertently also satirized (so-called) climate science.
Putting climate change in the same class as, “whatever !”
That seems appropriate.
Well, they misspelled “Slave”
Proof that it is all the product of a cabal of charlatans lies in the fact President Trump could cancel CAGW and the Parisite Accord with a few Tweets, a short speech on the Whitehouse Lawn and a signature or two.
I’ve tried to locate a classic photo of Trump mocking sea level rise with index finger and thumb an inch apart, but the Silicon Valley Revolutionary Guards have deep sized it in their search engine prison.
You DO realize that we “deniers” are the butt of The Onion’s joke?
meticulous empirical studies … cabal of charlatans … secretly paid huge sums of money to trick everyone
That you’d have to be a conspiratorial nutbar to “believe” such far-fetched notions. They are mocking OUR healthy, reasoned, intelligent, skepticism as … utterly ridiculous. As much as I enjoy The Onion, they’ve bought into the Lie.
Indeed. The onion is pretty lame these days as the types of simpletons that fall for Chicken Little sky is falling scaremongering generally aren’t capable of good humor.
“You DO realize that we “deniers” are the butt of The Onion’s joke?”
Yes we do. What the Onion thinks doesn’t change the science, or lack thereof. If they really knew the score they wouldn’t be making fun of skeptics.
Mods I take exception to deep sizing my modest post. Is it because I used the word “charlatans”, which was in the title of the article?!
Maybe it’s because you keep “deep sizing”, whatever that is.
Seriously, the Progressive left – particularly in regards to Climate Change – is literally a gold-mine for a genuine comedian – you couldn’t WRITE material like they’ve been coming up with.
I’m trying to imagine a Sam Kinison routine.
Boy I miss Kinison and Carlin. I think my forever best Kinison routine is the one sending U-Hauls to the people starving in the desert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKNoJ2BzSRU
Moove… mooove … MOOOOOOVVVVEE!!!
Too funny
My suggestion for an Onion headline:
New Poll Shows 97% of Climate Scientists Say they are in the 3% that Don’t Believe it’s Dangerous
“After reviewing our climate models and projections of worldwide CO2 emissions, we have come to the conclusion that the only scenario in which the human race survives is if our thousands upon thousands of meticulous empirical studies on climate change turn out to be something we’ve been lying about all along,””
Unfortunately their “thousands upon thousands of meticulous empirical studies” really only consists of “thousands upon thousands of computer models” that have thus far spectacularly failed at modeling the actual climate (hence the even widening gap between model predictions and actual temps)
“Unfortunately their “thousands upon thousands of meticulous empirical studies” really only consists of “thousands upon thousands of computer models” that have thus far spectacularly failed at modeling the actual climate (hence the even widening gap between model predictions and actual temps)”
And the same small group of people using the same bad statistics with the same lame proxies. And then they call those studies “independent” verification.
Jolly well said!
Just because it hasn’t happened yet is no guarantee it won’t. We are pushing the limits faster than population is rising right now. But it’s a very Red Queen sort of game*.
CO2 and fossil fuel ain’t the problem. In 100 years fossil fuel may be.
In Southern Africa, water is a problem.
In other places food.
Or warmth. Or space for houses.
We need to slow the pace a bit and sort out what we want.
*”Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Just a comment on the cartoon at the beginning of the post.
The default should have been “Save the World from XX!
Then the other sandwich board catastrophes could be able to be hungover, so to speak.
Many models back up their prognostications. Really? I don’t think so, provide one.
This is a little off the presence subject but I think it is important.
I wanted to know where a lot of the AGW warmers thinking comes from so I did an overview of philosophy by RC. One thing which came out of it was the thought of skepticism.
Today we live in a world of skepticism coupled with the postmodernist view of truth, ‘truth is what you make it.’ ‘Your truth and mine might differ.’
Therefore you get many ‘experts’ without facts.
Just recently I heard of two people who didn’t have any idea but who just supported AGW policies regardless of the cost.
It comes back to the old ‘if you hear it often enough you will believe (anything) it.’
It is quite ironic that many of the ‘experts’ on AGW will not debate a denier (so called) on TV or anywhere there is an audience.
……Hmmmm…
The Daily Onion is making fun of skeptics.
That it accidentally shows how full of nothing burgers the consensus argument is, is beside the point.
‘Believers’ should be highly suspicious of terms like ‘consensus’ and ‘denialism’. They should consider these simple questions:
How can there POSSIBLY be consensus on a prediction for which there is no precedent??? How can there POSSIBLY be consensus about the behaviour of a system that is so complex and so poorly understood?
Both “denialism” and ‘consensus’ only make sense regarding events that have been proven to have already occurred (and even then there will be debate), or future events that can be reliably predicted, due to reliable, long term patterns. We infer from the past all the time what is likely to happen in the future and reach consensus. For example, one might be said to be in denial if they stated that the coming summer will be colder than the winter, or that night temperatures are usually warmer than day temperatures.
The true ‘denialism’ therefore is from those who refuse to accept the historical data and all the long term geological patterns which show that CO2 has NEVER been the driver of climate. The true ‘denialism’ is from those who ignore the fact that even predictions made less than 30 years ago have failed to eventuate. Why do people ‘believe’ that longer term future predictions will be accurate, given the already failed predictions?
People are so gullible. I think it’s interesting that many ‘believers’ think they are better at critical thinking, and are more challenging of authority…speaking ‘truth to power’. It’s the exact opposite. It’s frightening how deferential, easily cowed and manipulated and uncritical most people are, and how they cleave to orthodoxy.
Sylvia
How can there POSSIBLY be consensus on a prediction for which there is no precedent???
Exactly – there is no precedent for CO2 driving temperatures in climate history, the opposite is found, CO2 follows temperature and is nothing more than a proxy of temperature.
It is surprising indeed how many unquestioningly follow the AGW story. The left have found a successful vehicle for channeling people’s anxiety about a crowded and polluted world and taking them to a place of moral superiority. That is too sweet for most of them to let go despite evidence to the contrary.
An important vulnerability of this belief structure may prove to be the global greening issue. The evidence of profound benefit to the ecosystem from CO2 fertilisation keeps getting stronger. The AGW priesthood is finding it necessary to corral the faithful with increasingly earnest and dubious arguments about why more plant growth is actually bad (just “bad” is not even enough, apparently it’s “terrible” – see Kip Hansen’s recent WUWT posts on this.) Reasonable thinking people are coming closer to a place where they will realise they are being deceived.
CO2 is a simple molecule and only absorbs in three wavelengths (2.7; 4.3; 15 micrometers) that amount to 8% of what the Earth emits. And that the CO2 re-emits randomly only about half of that will be heading back towards the earth. I’m not sure but it seems like losing 96% > receiving back 4% @ur momisugly 410PPM.
…..“one plus the truth equals a majority”.
So Professor Freeman Dyson plus the truth(“ the impact of greenhouse gases on the climate has been grossly exaggerated”) is a majority!
I always thought so.
[snip . . OT . . mod]
Indeed, overwhelming consensus proved witchcraft was fact.
“Saying the time to act has come and gone,” the piece begins, “a group of researchers from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned Tuesday that any hope for the future of humanity now hinges on the possibility that scientists like themselves are simply making all of this up.”
A Russian saying is very applicable to this:
“In every joke, a little bit is joke and the rest is true”.
Peak oil is very real and represents what is found in all oil field production, a bell curve. However, what the book failed to add is that if you keep adding bell curves to your oil production as new sources and new types of energy extraction come online, then you get a complex trend of their summation. As production of a world bell curve declines causing prices to increase, then previously uneconomical locations and methods become feasible and thusly, the bell curve is extended. These are new production bell curves. The first scare of the end of oil I am aware of is the story from my father who stated that in 1935 it was widely circulated all world oil had been found, and production was declining to our doom. He lived through that scare. That was before drilling for deep oil was possible, using drop hammer bits instead of drill bits with diamonds, no offshore exploration except the Louisiana swamp on shallow platforms in 10 ft of water, before Arctic drilling, and now before fracking. Each wave created its own peak oil curve.
some mindsets will go to their grave believing the agw scam. I met one this week
i was informed i was ignorant because? the ARCTIC was on fire!
and she really thinks it is
the smallish sections of sweden that are IN the arctic circle had some bushfires..but shes a AVAAZ member and she knows the truth..
i just said enjoy the cool-aid n left;-)
The beauty of satire. It shoots in both directions at the same time.
There is an old adage. “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.”
Climate is the average of weather over 30 years. And when you average out all this talk without action over a period of 30 years you get the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Climate is the average of weather over 30 years. And when you average out all this talk without action over a period of 30 years you get the Paris Climate Agreement.”
I think someone just pulled that number out of their butt ox. I don’t see any reason to think 30 years is any better than any other number.
For those in any doubt, The Onion was onto the charlatans last year:
“When reached for comment, the committee expressed its hope that the report would be used by governments around the globe to help them make forward-thinking, evidence-based decisions about how and when to euthanize their populations.”
https://www.theonion.com/new-climate-change-report-just-list-of-years-each-count-1819580403
Should the Leftist rallying cry be: “Malthus is dead. Long live Malthus.”