Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Does the world truly not care about how they feel?
Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
By Chris Mooney & Brady Dennis
6 October 2018 — 12:00amIn Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of more than 130 countries and about 50 scientists have packed into a large conference centre going over every line of an all-important report: what chance does the planet have of keeping climate change to a moderate, controllable level?
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“It’s the biggest peer-review exercise there is,” says Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It involves hundreds or even thousands of people looking at it.”
The IPCC, the world’s definitive scientific body when it comes to climate change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago and has been given what may rank as its hardest task yet.
It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change – but how close they have brought us to the edge. And by implication, how much those governments are failing to live up to their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
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“Half a degree doesn’t sound like much til you put it in the right context,” says Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “It’s 50 per cent more than we have now.”
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“The pledges countries made during the Paris climate accord don’t get us anywhere close to what we have to do,” says Drew Shindell, a climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report. “They haven’t really followed through with actions to reduce their emissions in any way commensurate with what they profess to be aiming for.”
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“There are now very small number of pathways [to 1.5C] that don’t involve carbon removal,” says Jim Skea, chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III and a professor at Imperial College London.
It’s not clear how scientists can best give the world’s governments this message – or to what extent governments are up for hearing it.
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I once visited South Korea, lovely people though there are some interesting opportunities for cultural misunderstandings.
If there was any place in the world capable of changing their lives because climate it would be South Korea. Their history is full of stories like, one day the king decided he was fed up with using the Chinese writing system, so the entire country adopted a new alphabet the king designed, the system they still use today. Or take the walls of Suwon, Hwaseong Fortress. The king was fed up with court, wanted to live away from all the politics – so he ordered everyone to drop everything and build this insanely long wall around his new capital. I walked that fortress wall, it was tall and solid, in most places way too high to jump off. They didn’t stop building because a mountain got in the way of their planned wall site, they just chiselled away parts of the mountain and looped the wall over it. Took a good half day to complete the walk around that wall.
Koreans have a long tradition of cooperating to achieve extreme goals set to them by their leaders.
Yet even South Korea has so far failed to make the Paris Agreement work.
I’ll read the article in just a minute, but first this:
The headline reads, Commit to the Paris Agreement or More Climate Scientists Might Cry
… which immediately made me think in parallel, The Paris Agreement is so stupid that it makes me cry out for more climate scientists to be committed to psych wards.
If you offer money for someone to cry and scold you there will always be someone willing to take your money.
More climate “scientists” might cry?
I can live with that.
So that’s where their forecast sea level rise is going to come from.
“Cry me a Sverdrup, please.”
(1 Sv equal to 1,000,000 cubic metres per second)
You mean the “up to 70m inland” change in coastline?
This calls for a little Brooks-ism.
Eric Holthaus holds his index finger up to his temple and yells “cut your emissions or I swear I’ll waste this crybaby!”
“Hold it men, he’s not bluffing.”
“Listen to him, men, he’s just crazy enough to do it.”
Good post Eric. The South Koreans can’t make the Paris Agreement work because it’s not supposed to work, it’s supposed to re-distribute money. The big polluters (Emerging Nations, sort of like a butterfly deal) get a pass and nothing changes, but money flows all over the place. Good work, President Trump!
Thanks :-). Certainly looks that way.
……”it’s supposed to re-distribute money. : And it doesn’t work because it is a natural impossibility for governments to transfer and redistribute an amount of prosperity without at the same time redistributing transferring an amount of poverty that is greater than the amount of prosperity that is being transferred.
To quote The Walrus: ‘I weep for you’..’I deeply sympathize’, With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size. Some good news though is that The Maldives are still with us, despite some similar UN circle jerk predicting they’d be gone by October 2018. Go Gaia!
“climate scientists” ..have so overplayed their hand
religion is veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy powerful.
“A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with light weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain.”
― William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
Here’s a leaked draft of the report in question (I think):
http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/
It’s just a draft now, so the final version will probably look different.
Seems to be from 2012!?
So these “scientists” are trying to figure out how to convey the bad news to world leaders. So, as a start, I have the perfect opening line for them: “Listen up, you poopy heads”. That should get their attention. Let them know that they mean business. This is serious now, and they are jeapordizing the planet. Then, run through the whole shebang of “planetary” disasters that are happening now, including floods, droughts, fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, insect infestations, disease, pestilence, wars, people dying of hunger and thirst, and everything bad. Because climate. Think of the children. Just really push the shame and blame game to the hilt.
That’s the ticket.
This is sweet:
https://www.iceagenow.info/10-foot-tall-tweety-confronting-cats/
Climate change is causing drunkenness in birds.
Early frost in Canada resulted in birds eating fermented berrys and getting wrecked.
If it’s climate change causing it then I guess it should be stopped. What’s the equivalent of one beer for a birdie?
… ever see bees sipping from a dripping can of discarded beer?
The only Paris would work is if it is placed in File 86 and doused liberally with Lighter Fluid.
Then it would work well to start a Marshmallow Cook off for S’mores.
‘Twould also work well if the pages were square and turned into Origami.
But any agreement that allows one Person, Country to do one thing that is viewed as Bad for another person, Country to do is an agreement that is destined to failure anyway. 1 cut all cut…I stop all stop…1 pay all pay equally
“…. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago and has been given what may rank as its hardest task yet. ”
Adjusting the temperatures upward. It’s a difficult task, but I’m sure they are up to it. Think of all the green energy projects that are depending on the hottest year ever! Or the grants needed to study the last rodent on a remote island off Australia ! Or taking a cruise in the Arctic! ( If only that incompetent captain hadn’t run aground) Yes, “climate” scientists need lots and lots of your money… no disclosure or transparency need, just trust them…. they’re Scientists!
So…What do you make of the Paris Agreement?
As the chartroom saying goes, weather kills, not climate. We know, we deal with it on a daily basis.
I can’t find much on wind or solar power generation in North Korea and so I assume the north is not buying the carbon dioxide scam or give so called man made climate change much concern at all. However, the IPCC seems to have no concerns that just across the border, literally within sight of their meetings, the North Korea people are completely oblivious to the UN climate scaremongers.
Where is the outrage? When they criticise the US, Australia etc for doing too little why aren’t they condemning NK for doing nothing?
A professor blamed President Trump for the lack of progress in North Korea, apparently sanctions against the Kim regime means its more difficult to send money to pay North Korea to sequester carbon.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/12/claim-climate-action-could-help-heal-the-rift-between-north-and-south-korea/
North Korea is one of those poor developing countries that the rich signers of the Paris Accord are suppose to give money and technology to. So they are not the ones who will be condemned. In fact, the carbon footprint of the poor, starving people of NK is the standard that extreme environmentalists want all countries to aspire to. Getting rid of fossil fuels would make us all like NK where the masses are cold and starving but the elites live a life of luxury. The useful idiots on the left are all for that because they foolishly believe they would be among the elites. It would be funny if it wasn’t putting us all in danger.
When a woman is starving to death, near-freezing to death in the dark each winter’s night, afraid to say anything even to his neighbor each afternoon for fear of being shot in the morning, the “fear” of CO2 causing an immeasurable increase in the global average temperature fades to nothing.
It’s all crocodile tears. The only thing that would make climate scientists cry real tears is for the level of government grants to stop rising. There is no increase in sea level that could compare with that catastrophe. That is what all the stories of climate gloom and doom are meant to prevent. And those horror stories are the only things that are actually “accelerating” due to climate change.
Shall we revive the Roman (and apparently Victorian) custom of catching the tears shed in bereavement to show our concern? I believe that they are chemically identical to tears of mirth, so those serious folks concerned about all this will never know (or understand, for that matter!).
Christian Aid were in the UK papers today moaning that sea rise is threatening London, they claimed the Thames barrier has to be raised more these days. Since the barrier was built, the highest monthly measure recorded at that location has only been exceeded by 5mm, albeit the mean sea level has risen by the length of my little finger!
My birth town has been ‘protected’ by a sea wall at multi-million pound cost because the environment agency used alarmist sea-level rises 10 times reality. The joke is that the scheme stopped just before the point on the coast road that has been inundated periodically for at least 100 years!
The Thames Barrier. It was designed in the early 70s, when cAGW was not thought of, and took ten years to build. The last storm surge in the Thames estuary was in 1956 and killed many people when sea defences were overwhelmed and islands swamped. The surge went on up the river but caused no flooding.
A few facts:
1. A flood barrier should be built across the mouth of the river or, if narrow enough, across the mouth of the estuary and a high wall built from either end of the barrier. The Thames Barrier is way upstream to just below the Dome (the last of the Important features) and no walls down each bank to the estuary.
2. No containment above the barrier, so if the river is in spate a barrier would make this worse.
3. No pictures of all these storm surges that have been stopped. Hundreds of pics show the barrier from every conceivable angle, all light conditions, open and closed but no surges. There are cameras on the barrier so surely the official website would have dramatic videos and pics?
So…what was the barrier actually built for before being hi-jacked by the climate scammers?
With ever increasing population in London combined with the (normally) warmer, drier weather in the SE of England water use has been increasing and Thames Water draws a lot from the river. When the flow reduces too much the level in the Important Parts of London look unsightly and river traffic is impaired. Politicians need London looking good for VIPs so a raised barrier prevents this. London has no real flood protection and a major storm way upriver resulting in very high water will surely flood London.
I would be very interested if anyone has managed to get pics of a storm surge at the barrier. The best I’ve seen is slightly choppy water due to high winds.
“king decided he was fed up with using the Chinese writing system, so the entire country adopted a new alphabet the king designed, the system they still use”
If you’re a techie you might relate to this information about Korea’s Hangul writing system:
“Some linguists consider it the most logical writing system in the world, partly because the shapes of its consonants mimic the shapes of the speaker’s mouth when pronouncing each consonant.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
Don’t some cultures pay mourners to wail and cry as hired bereaved attendees?
Maybe the IPCC has cottoned on to this?
Yes, and not only that, some cultures pay actors to stand at the bottom of an escalator in the lobby of a building to cheer on, and hold signs for someone that will announce his intention to run for political office. The snake oil salesman at his finest.
“Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like
When scientists cry “
So the Korean climate conference had 50 scientists plus 130 countrues sent their representatives. So who writes the reports telling us what they think we should do to save the Planet ?
I bet they checked each comma and full stop. Must make sure that the evil Western nations keep
on sending us money.
MJE
Someday, in a saner world, there will be a diagnosis that the climate hysteria was a neurosis. The so-called “Climate Blues” of half a dozen years ago terminated the careers of a goodly number of climate scientists. They said they were depressed because they were seeing the end days for the planet and no one was listening. However, the Elephant in the room was the “Dreaded Pause^TM”, though and these researchers were in psychological D*nile. Here warming stopped during a period in which CO2 increased 30%! They couldn’t face having wasted 10yrs of study and half a lifetime of research that their inner mind was trying to tell them was wasted. What did psychologists do with this, one of the best known causes of clinical depression? They commiserated and enabled them rather than cure them, missing the best teaching moment of their careers.
Yes, quite – well said!
Half a degree doesn’t sound like much
Oh my. The narrative is now half a degree.
At this rate, perhaps they’ll start talking about how far past the “safe level” we already are?
What is half of a Ph.D?
We’re going to need a global-govt program to supply free hankies to snowflakes.
Seems to me like those 130 countries have sent way too many representatives. If they each sent just one or two then the large conference centre wouldn’t be at all packed. But then again, perhaps I’m missing the point of this conference. Perhaps it’s just really a competition to see who can send the most freeloading “representatives” to achieve the least amount of anything useful.
CAGW doomsayers first prophesied that world governments must waste $76 Trillion (2008 U.N. estimate) over the next 40 years to keep CO2-induced Global Warming below 2C per CO2 doubling, or we’re all gonna die….
The problem with that prophesy is that empircal evidence and physics show world governments could waste $0.00 on CO2 sequestration, and ENJOY 0.6~1.2C of CO2 warming per CO2 doubling…. OOPS…
Since even loony Leftists can figure out the logical and economic absurdity of this, they unceremoniously moved the goalpost to 1.5C, but we could still waste $0.00 on CO2 sequestration and seasily put the football through the moved goalposts… OOPS.
I guess Leftists will eventually have to move the goalpost to 1C, to perhaps save 0.2C of CO2 warming, but the underlying absurdity still remains..
CAGW… the stupid hurts…
What a complete load of nonsense. The IPCC is a political, not a scientific body. Half a degree is 50% of what?
Zaelke is evidently one of those scientific illiterates (or do I mean “innumerates”) who thinks that 10°C is twice as hot as 5°C. There is a way to deal with them which is to ask them whether 50°F is twice as hot as 41°F and how they reached that conclusion.
Stand well back in case their brains explode! One wonders sometimes whether they managed to pass a grade school math exam (still less a science one!)f
When I was a kid and got overly dramatic to try to get my way, my father would say, “keep that up and I’ll give you something to cry about”!
“It’s the biggest peer-review exercise there is,” says Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It involves hundreds or even thousands of people looking at it.”
I knew there was something wrong with it.