Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Psychology Today contributors Sara Gorman, Ph.D., MPH, and Jack M. Gorman, MD, psychologists are united in their determination to help climate “deniers” face the need for urgent climate action to prevent imminent human extinction, though they are uncertain about how to deliver group therapy to millions of people in the same session.
Climate Change Denial
Facing a reality too big to believe.Posted Jan 12, 2019
Sara Gorman, Ph.D., MPH, and Jack M. Gorman, MD
Denying to the Grave…
But there are also many points that are clear and not subject to legitimate debate. We can affirm without doubt that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon that is already apparent and will, if not mitigated, cause terrible suffering and destruction before this century is over. A recent report from the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us we can still hope to avert some of the catastrophic consequences of climate change, but only if we “abandon coal and other fossil fuels in the next decade or two.” Scientists may disagree about how fast the atmosphere is warming or what the best solutions are, but except for a small number of outliers, none doubt that we are rapidly approaching climate catastrophe.
That a few misguided politicians believe climate change predictions are exaggerated or even fabricated is lamentable. But perhaps more puzzling is the lack of alarm among the general public. As monumental hurricanes lash out in Houston and Puerto Rico and California forests burn out of control, it would seem that the evidence that climate scientists are right would be clear enough. Almost annually meteorologists tell us we have just experienced the warmest year in recorded history. Yet even people who experience extreme weather events often still refuse to report the experience as a manifestation of climate change. Polls tell us that many people are worried about climate change, but that does not seem to motivate much willingness to take action to mitigate it. Others deny that climate change is either occurring at all or that it represents any significant threat to civilization.
…
Too Large to Believe
Among the myriad reasons that we shun this problem is its enormity. We aren’t “merely” being told that unless we take action our identities will be stolen, we will lose thousands of dollars, or even that it will take a few years off our lives. What the climate scientists are telling us is that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels the human race faces extinction. The fact is that many people born this year will not survive global warming if it continues at the current pace and exceeds 3.50C by 2050.
…
Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand. Of course, the concept of denial itself is well understood. Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defense mechanism.
But despite the fact that psychologists know a lot about denial, they have never had to face denial on this scale before. Millions of people share the phenomenon of climate denial. This is clearly not something that is amenable to individual or even group psychotherapy.
…
Organizations like Climate Psychiatry Alliance and Climate Psychology Alliance have been formed not only to point out the severe consequences of climate change for emotional and behavioral health but also to lend expertise in determining how best to overcome climate change denial. For these and similar organizations, climate change denial constitutes an emergency that demands immediate attention. We need urgent attention to developing and implementing the best practices for overcoming public despair and inaction and increasing the motivation to demand large-scale climate change mitigation action.
Read more: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/denying-the-grave/201901/climate-change-denial
If Dr. Sara Gorman and Dr. Jack Gorman had even the most basic grasp of the science, they would know that the “current rate” of global warming, between 1-2C / century depending on how you measure it, is not even remotely on track to hit 3.5C by 2050. An enormous acceleration of the current rate of warming would be required to hit 3.5C by 2050.
The evidence for imminent climate catastrophe is far from unequivocal.
Even the IPCC leaves room for doubt about the significance of global warming. The IPCC’s lower bound climate sensitivity of 1.5C warming / doubling of atmospheric CO2 would make global warming a complete non-event, even if we burned every scrap of recoverable fossil fuel on the planet.
There is substantial peer reviewed evidence climate sensitivity is even lower than the 1.5C lower bound provided by the IPCC.
By making unsupported assertions about climate science and the future fate of the human race, and by attempting to dispel legitimate doubts about the urgency of the alleged climate crisis, in my opinion Dr. Sara Gorman and Dr. Jack Gorman are potentially doing unspeakable harm to the lives and wellbeing of people within their sphere of influence. Let us hope Sara and Jack realise the enormity of their error.
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Anyone who uses the word ‘the’ before ‘myriad’ ‘the myriad’ should be ignored.
Not sure you are right here Gbees. Myriad may be used as a noun; so is entitled to have “the” before it. It refers to the sum of 10,000 from its greek origin.
Psychologists who repeatedly use the word “denial” as opposed to the more appropriate word “scepticism”, are unconsciously revealing their unscientific bias. I suggest they spend some time examining their own distorted opinions and less on my rational, science based ones.
Careful, you almost insinuated psychology is a ‘science’ there, you don’t want more people getting that sort of idea.
No, for once they are using the term denial in a correct clinical way. However, this conclusion is based on their total ignorance of climate science and hubris that knowing something about psychology means they can make repetitive claim about “the fact that …..” which is not a scientific but some sound bite which they cut from a newspaper article.
The talks about “the climate scientists” like this is one homogeneous body with only one opinion. Their breathless commentary is hardly the stuff of a serious work in any science. It is more politics masquerading as science.
Here, here WX, the first warning from my inbuilt bullshit detector was the first word in the title “physchologists…”
Might as well say “bullshit artists*…”, the involuntary eye rolling would be triggered either way.
*a couple of mates of mine are psychologists, the reason for entering that branch of astrology? There were plenty of hot chicks studying psychology (and biology it turns out, but to succeed in biology you have to do more than memorise the collected memoirs of a demented nutter who fancies his own mum) and the slick talking they teach you in pyschology school can help when chatting up girls at the bar.
When their title states “Psychologists “Affirm Without Doubt” the Evidence for Imminent Climate Catastrophe”, my first thought was ‘how does a conceited bullshit artist presume to lecture me on the made up evidence for climastrology?’ Next they’ll be ‘affirming without doubt’ that despite physical evidence to the contrary (http://www.angelfire.com/crazy2/coolsite0/humor/santa.html) that Santa Clause really does deliver everyone’s presents on Christmas eve. So you’d better be good and stop arguing, or else…
Just for a laugh, I started reading and it sounds like a copy-paste effort from the guild of Gullible Warming useful idiot’s handbook and I stopped wasting time reading further.
These clown shrinks wrote:
“What the climate scientists are telling us is that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels the human race faces extinction. The fact is that many people born this year will not survive global warming if it continues at the current pace and exceeds 3.50C by 2050.
…
Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand.”
_______________________
First, ~85% of global primary energy is fossil fuels, unchanged in decades. Eliminate fossil fuels and ~everyone in the developed world dies within a few weeks of starvation and exposure.
Next, there is no global warming crisis, based on a large body of credible evidence.
The only consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 is increased plant and crop yields, and possibly some minor, net-beneficial warming.
Psychologists, used car salesmen and government bureaucrats have something in common — they can’t be trusted.
While the future is unknown, and unknowable, we have already had about 20,000 years of recent global warming to study.
About 20,000 years ago, my property in Michigan was covered by a mile of ice.
Today there is a dusting of snow, after an unusually cold November 2018, only about 1/2″ of snow in December 2018, and very little snow so far in January 2019, although cold.
After 41 years in Michigan, 31 years in my current home,
I’ve observed very little global warming — I wish we had more warming here in Michigan.
The warming in the past 20,000 years has been good news, and according to the UAH weather satellite data, there has been very little warming since the 2003 peak.
So there is no sign that global warming is accelerating and strong evidence that the brief period of warming from 1975 to 2003 is slowing down … a lot.
So you have two choices:
(1) Observe the beneficial global warming
in the past, and celebrate that good news, or
(2) Fear the fairy tales of a future climate catastrophe
never before experienced on this planet …
( that we’ve been warned about for many decades)
… that will never come.
Choice (1) is for people with common sense.
Choice (2) is for leftists and other stupid heads
The correct choice for a real scientist was not listed:
“The future climate is unknown, and unpredictable,
but based on past cycles, the next important
climate change is likely to be a return of the glaciers
that used to cover southeastern Michigan.
People living in that region should learn how to ice skate!”
My climate science blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Maybe for $250 an hour they can help people cope with their fears. In some ways this is like a fireman setting fires so he can be paid to put them out.
You got that right, Steve O.
Put the “fear of God” in them ….. and then charge them $250/half hour for their weekly scheduled “de-programing” appointments and give them a “free” Lorazepam pill to swallow at the end of each “session”.
But after their article was published in the Psychology Today magazine, Sara and Jack Gorman’s “BIG MONEY” will be made from all the “speaking” engagements that they will surely be paid handsomely to perform.
Yup, While the consistently clumsy overstatements of verifiable climate science ever so adequately reveals their actual competence in assessing that particular subject matter, what meanwhile readily passes notice by these self-proclaimed “therapists of an entire population” (that in its wisdom has irritatingly judged that all this alarm just doesn’t meet their sniff test of decades of broad life experience)? Isn’t it indeed the proper primary caution of their trade (and mine) that should at the least be within their grasp, “First of all do no harm.”?
When you authoritatively peddle such ‘doubtless’ hysterical doom, what are the foreseeable discouraging, depressing, and even suicide-promoting psychological effects upon the very hearers you portray such tender concerns about?! The professional cognitive dissonance of this kind of power hungry political activism at all costs is deafening.
Yes, psychologists suffering from cagw delusions should try introspection, ala Wilhelm Wundt.
Nope, “the” is not required. Indeed the language is more economical than most speakers realize. We say “There are some apples in the bowl” when “There are apples in the bowl” will do. You would use “some apples” if there was a mix of fruit in the bowl and it wasn’t obvious apples were there.
Climate science’s frilly, careless language is telling.
Some indicates a small quantity rather than a lot , it infers a little more information that just “apples”.
A man without eyes saw apples on a tree.
He took no apples, and
He left no apples.
Now how could that be?
Whilst on the subject of grammar, I notice how often these days the word ‘enormity’ is used out of context in both the written and spoken word. The word is misused in both the above article and in Eric Worrall’s reply piece. Enormity has nothing to do with enormous or size, but everything to do with sinful acts, atrociousness, vicious crime or guilt. Check the dictionary for the correct description.
Interesting, I had not been aware of the negative connotation of the first two definitions as greatly immoral.
The one I am familiar with (third definition) does read: “the quality or state of being huge” : immensity
The article uses enormity in reference to “the problem” as outlined earlier in the article. Since the authors claim to believe that “the problem” is going to result in the extinction of mankind, the use of enormity to describe it is not unjustified.
Eric’s use of enormity is clearly in the realm of sarcasm.
Indeed, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/enormity
enormity
[ih-nawr-mi-tee]
noun, plural e·nor·mi·ties
1.outrageous or heinous character; atrociousness:
– the enormity of war crimes.
2.something outrageous or heinous, as an offense:
– The bombing of the defenseless population was an enormity beyond belief.
3.greatness of size, scope, extent, or influence; immensity:
– The enormity of such an act of generosity is staggering.
Usage note
3. Enormity has been in frequent and continuous use in the sense “immensity” since the 18th century: The enormity of the task was overwhelming. Some hold that enormousness is the correct word in that sense and that enormity can only mean “outrageousness” or “atrociousness”: The enormity of his offenses appalled the public. Enormity occurs regularly in edited writing with the meanings both of great size and of outrageous or horrifying character, behavior, etc. Many people, however, continue to regard enormity in the sense of great size as nonstandard.
Thanks George, I learn something new and unexpected every time I visit this site.
Alasdair, Gbees point is correct, although not particularly impactful, and yours is incorrect because these two lamentably misguided social “scientists” are using “myriad” as an adjective here, not a noun.
The way it’s used here …. the myriad reasons. Myriad means “a great number” or ” a lot of”. There is no need for the “the” in front.
Well ahead of you: stopped reading at “Psychology Today”.
Anyone who brings psychology to the table as a tool to interpret the science pertaining to the climate and the proper interpretation of the scientific evidence is more than a bit of a nutjob or maybe just a self important wannabe. Evidence for that takes the form of Stephan Lewandowsky IMO.
I sleep just fine every night, even after reading the laughable “we are doomed soon” wailings every day.
I deal in reality which is why I am not fooled by their overblown propaganda of a doomsday future over a he he… ha ha ha, trace gas with a very small IR absorption window.
I always wonder why Canadians and Americans from the northern states re worried about global warming. I’m sure no-one has that problem in Siberia or Inner Mongolia etc.
Seems to me that the Canadians most of all to consult a shrink.
Anyway in case you guys haven’t read it yet, is an excerpt from my blog which lays out the science simply and clearly.
https://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/ever-been-told-that-the-science-is-settled-with-global-warming-well-read-this-and-decide-for-yourself/
Cheers
Roger
RENEWABLES AND CLIMATE POLICY ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE
Date: 09/12/18 Dr John Constable: GWPF Energy Editor
ANOTHER GREEN FIASCO: THE SOLAR PANEL TRAP THAT MEANS YOU CAN’T SELL YOUR HOME
Date: 09/12/18 The Sunday Telegraph
GREENLAND ICE SHEET SIXTH HIGHEST ON RECORD
Date: 07/12/18 Polar Portal Season Report 2018
As a Canadian, I also cannot understand a fear of global warming or climate change either unless it is destined to become colder.
That said, although most people that I know acknowledge that some warming may be occurring, none seem to be concerned with consequences other than a few righteous politicians concerned with their own agendas.
A layperson (the word a slight concession to a Trudeau obsession) view can be found at my website https://goo.gl/9Ns3ux
Rick K, although this thread and site have myriad good posts, I must celebrate your comment here. I would add that Canadian policy, in part driven by climate hysteria and the consequential political posturing and pandering to “the Canadian as the good guys” meme is causing serious damage to this country. Together with a lack of political will to stand up to vocal but minority dissent by those with an axe to grind against projects of national implication, we are left unable to export our riches to markets except the US. In addition we subject ourselves to new taxation in an irrational guilt fest. The politicians complicit in this scam point to Canada’s high “per capita” CO2 emission; this an inevitable consequence of a cold, thinly populated, huge landmass. Fact is one could accept the most exaggerated warming hypothesis and Canadian emissions up or down would have negligible effect on the climatic outcome.
PS I started reading your website and find it well written. PSS, I live in Quebec and the politicians here are even worse than Trudeau when it comes to climate hypocrisy.
It’s about changing the story to suit the intent. Australian Greens also talk about the “per capita” because it sounds big and scary. If you talk about actual emissions people would realise that what Australia (or Canada) do to emissions is like a fart in a windstorm. It doesn’t matter.
JohnB it would be amusing if it was just the “greens” that used the deceptive measure of “per capita” emissions for Canada; however this is actually part of the political discussion in Canada vis-a-vis policy discussions — notably the “need” for the Carbon Tax. Simply posturing on the world stage for Trudeau. Going back to the original topic of the WUWT post, those that question this “need” are pigeonholed in the psychotically denying dustbin. Scary.
the article does not mention doom or catastrophe.
the earth will endure
humans will endure
They suggest that. “The fact is that many people born this year will not survive global warming if it continues at the current pace and exceeds 3.50C by 2050.” is hardly a statement of fact (“many”??) and is not supported by IPCC statements.
I could be wrong so please show peer reviewed papers supporting these statements – I cannot find any.
The word “fact” is thrown around rather carelessly in the consensed climate science community.
An “adjusted” temperature is not a “fact”. An “infilled” temperature is not a “fact”.
A range of values for climate sensitivity does not make any value within the range a “fact”.
A spaghetti graph of climate model outputs does not make any single output a “fact”.
Wish I could vote this comment up. Well said.
No people will survive global warming. They will mostly die from age-related causes
Profound
And that absorption window, from13 to 17 microns, corresponds to a temperature range from -51 to -103 degrees C, i.e., well below Earth’s surface temperatures!
David Bennett Laing – do you not find it odd that a 8micron CO2 laser can cut wood/plastic/glass? 8u peak is even cooler than a 13u peak.
I think I am correct in stating that most on here believe in the green house effect of CO2
While I believe in the greenhouse effect, with a sensitivity around 0.3C to 0.5C, yours is not a good example.
The laser cuts not because the source is hot or cold, but because there is a lot of energy coming out of the source.
The earth isn’t radiating much energy between 13 and 17 microns, so there is not much energy there for CO2 to redirect.
Anyway, 13 to 17 microns is not the only band that CO2 absorbs in.
” 8u peak is even cooler than a 13u peak”
NO. A micron is unit of length ( in this case wavelength ), not of temperature. So it can be neither warmer nor cooler.
If your “peak” is in a measure of intensity or power flux , two peaks of equal size would carry the same power. Neither would be “hotter” or capable of inducing a higher temperature in some medium through which they passed.
I single photon of 8 micron is more energetic that one of 13 micron wavelength. ( size isn’t everything. )
Do the math. What wavelength photons are emitted from the sunlit surface of the earth at 30C?
This magazine has an estimated 2015 circulation of 250,000, of which I’d bet a sizable percentage are doctors’ and dentists’ waiting room coffee tables. Not exactly a major influencer. Of course, if someone here wanted to write an op-ed rebuttal to the article, they probably wouldn’t print it.
Just one more megaphone wielded by kool-aid drinkers.
If more people had better math skills, fewer people would be worried about most headlines.
The media rely on the fact that most people can’t tell how much difference there is between 0.01% and 0.001%.
Or what an error bar is.
Isn’t that a place where mistakes go to drown their troubles?
A computer model walks into an error bar…
Unbelievable! Obviously trying to drum up business.
Do they have a 1 800 hotline up yet? A number we could all call up to get our delusions straightened out?
Yep, I didn’t know my “delusion” was that serious. Oh no! I am a “climate denier”! Who can I call? Are those shrinks working pro bono?
One of those bright sparks will come up with the idea of a concentration camp. Convert people ten thousand at a time.
Don’t laugh. There are elites conducting meetings in their private rooms working on putting that together as we communicate. They just need the pesky majority to vote the politicians, they paid for, the power to set these up.
This is why they are so distraught over that mess in France. They are losing their grip on the under educated public school masses. So plan B: let’s put them in mass extinct…ahhh, indoctrination camps and get their minds right.
I was going to post that but you beat me to it.
Obviously the resolution to climate denial should be an Endlösung.
Or maybe in the proud tradition of clinical psychology, lobotomy and shock therapy.
One Eight Hundred, Ninety Seven, Ninety Seven.
Call us now for consensus on your denial.
(calls may be charged at 17% of your first world nation’s GDP)
Yep, they keep pushing their talking cure.
Could also be the inmates are running the asylum. The psychologists need to be better informed. An effective self-help program already exists for these tortured souls.
Fortunately, there is help for climate alarmists. They can join or start a chapter of Alarmists Anonymous. By following the Twelve Step Program, it is possible to recover and unite in service to the real world and humanity.
Step One: Fully concede (admit) to our innermost selves that we were addicted to climate fear mongering.
Step Two: Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves causes weather and climate, restoring us to sanity.
Step Three: Make a decision to study and understand how the natural world works.
Step Four: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, our need to frighten others and how we have personally benefited by expressing alarms about the climate.
Step Five: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our exaggerations and false claims.
Step Six: Become ready to set aside these notions and actions we now recognize as objectionable and groundless.
Step Seven: Seek help to remove every single defect of character that produced fear in us and led us to make others afraid.
Step Eight: Make a list of all persons we have harmed and called “deniers”, and become willing to make amends to them all.
Step Nine: Apologize to people we have frightened or denigrated and explain the errors of our ways.
Step Ten: Continue to take personal inventory and when new illusions creep into our thinking, promptly renounce them.
Step Eleven: Dedicate ourselves to gain knowledge of natural climate factors and to deepen our understanding of nature’s powers and ways of working.
Step Twelve: Having awakened to our delusion of climate alarm, we try to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
That there is a keeper
+10.
You are visionary.
As opposed to the delusions of the climate obsessed.
Can you send your steps to the Gormans? The shrinks are are in desperate need of help for their mental state.
Ron,
Great idea. Great card.
Where is the step involving getting up in front of the room full of people, and saying …
Hi, my name is John Doink and I am a climate alarmist.
“We can affirm without doubt that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon that is already apparent and will, if not mitigated, cause terrible suffering and destruction before this century is over.”
If this claim could be CONFIRMED by facts they would have grounds for the rest of the article.
That they use the word “affirm” means they know they do not actually have confirming facts.
Thus the rest of the article is meaningless drivel.
It’s freaking awesome when people who have no professional knowledge on relevant science and technologies, like energy, economy, agriculture, go forward and give their professional opinion (no, their affirmation without doubt) on what is going to lead to terrible suffering without comparing adaptation to mitigation — because they have no clue on the scale of the problems in suggested mitigation. They don’t know the question, yet they affirm their answer.
Doomed, doomed, they shout, unless you do what we tell you to do. No need to show the effieciency of the given policy, as long as you take our leftist world government as a cure to the extent of the problem we imagine.
How leftists have managed to frame the question on global warming so that it is a question about if you deny or not, totally refusing to listen to any good news and uniformly applying their own ‘solution’ to a problem which is highly complex and beyond their understanding, I just wonder.
We don’t, after decades of scientific work by a huge crowd, know how sensitive the atmosphere is to doubling of the CO2 (IPCC: 1.5-4.5 centigrade), we don’t know how much emissions reaching doubling means, we don’t know how much ‘terrible suffering’ 1.5 degrees would cause, and we don’t know how to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions growth that happens in the third world. We don’t know how to reduce energy consumption without severely hurting economy and causing a collapse that would cause ‘terrible suffering’, to loan their own words.
The question is not about affirming one’s faith, it is a genuine and complex question on what to do, exactly, to avoid risks all actions and inactions will cause.
Now now hugs, we know it’s too big for you to believe, but we AFFIRM it without doubt.
…we believe in one molecule, Carbon Dioxide (bow), destroyer of heaven and earth, and in the IPCC, our only true hope…
We once had a neighbour who was a psychologist/psychiatrist. He said that you needed to be mad to be one!
The above would seem to indicate that he was right.
Psychology is an attempt to quantify and normalize current social values. The really cool part of it is that you can make up any shit you want.
Psychologists/psychiatrists are specialised in brainwashing, they’ll do only their best.
Who can people turn to for help when they need to undo their brainwashing?
I was hoping psychologists would step in and work with such victims because the impact on their psychological state is devastating.
There’s a cruel saying that no one is crazier than a shrink except his kid.
Not that cruel. Probably true.
We had friends and she was a shrink. Crazy lady. Had a nervous tic and everything. So one day at our house her kid is jumping up and down on our living room sofa, as if it was a trampoline. I was livid at the kid and ready to yank him off when she comes in yelling at him… “DON’T JUMP ON THAT SOFA”!! You could fall and hurt yourself on that coffee table. JUMP ON THIS ONE INSTEAD…
In college the standing joke amongst friends was that the psychology majors were there to try to figure out their own mental problems.
My ex wife was pretty mental herself. Quess what major she chose.
The fact is that many people born this year will not survive global warming if it continues at the current pace and exceeds 3.50C by 2050 …
=========================================================
Alternatively they could shift about 10degrees latitude away from the equator or about 500 meters higher.
“Medice, cura te ipsum”.
If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measurable change in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened. It is the convective greenhouse effect caused by gravity, the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the depth of the troposphere that is responsible for the warming effects of the atmosphere. Derived from first principals, the convective greenhouse effect causes the surface of the Earth to be approximately 33 degrees C warmer than it would be otherwise. 33 degrees C is the amount derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. Additional warming that would be caused by a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed. A radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction.
William – the surface is heated directly by solar insolation and in turn it heats the atmosphere. You have omitted that factor in your analysis.
Any atmosphere will be warmer at the bottom that the top, if there is a heat source. The sun is that heat source, and not the pressure. If you remove the GHG’s from the atmosphere, the surface is heated more powerfully (about 100% more) because at the moment they are “in the way”. That increased heating of the air near the surface in the daytime is significant. At the top it will still be cooler, of course, until reaching the rarefied upper regions (which are hot).
There is no convective greenhouse effect, but there is heating by the surface which is convective cooling. The cooling of the atmosphere, on the other hand, is controlled by radiation from GHG’s into space. If you remove them, the atmosphere would not be able to cool. Consider for a moment the consequences of heating without cooling. Will it really be 33 degrees C cooler?
“The cooling of the atmosphere, on the other hand, is controlled by radiation from GHG’s into space. ”
All atmospheric gases radiate to space because all objects radiate IR according to their temperature.
A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the class limits cooling by convection. There is no radiant greenhouse effect that keeps a greenhouse warm, instead it is a convective greenhouse effect caused by the glass. So to on Earth but instead of glass there is gravity that limits cooling by convection. Derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect causes the surface of the Earth to be 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is what has been derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. No additional warming has been observed that could be attributed to a radiant greenhouse effect. The convective greenhouse effect has been observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres. An additional radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system.
The Earth’s atmosphere operates as an insulator that reduces the rate of cooling of the Earth’s surface. This cooling can be characterized by the temperature profile of the atmosphere. The lapse rate is a function of gravity, and the heat capacity of the atmosphere. H2O’s moving heat energy via the heat of evaporation affects it but not the LWIR absorption properties of trace gases. If CO2 really did affect climate, one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measurable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. At the top of the atmosphere, more so called greenhouse gases cause cooling because they are more efficient radiators to space than the non greenhouse gases. However, LWIR absorption band radiation to space is dominated by H2O and the contribution from CO2 is insignificant. Heat transfer in the troposphere is dominated by means other than LWIR absorption band radiation. We also must consider that good absorbers are also good radiators so the so called greenhouse gases do not really trap heat energy. In fact it is the non-greenhouse gases that are more likely to trap heat energy because they are such inefficient radiators to space.
For those that still believe in a radiant greenhouse effect, calculations performed decades ago estimated the climate sensitivity of CO2 to be 1.2 degrees C, not including feedbacks. A recent study based on temperature data since 1850 showed that if all the global temperature gain was caused by the increase in CO2 during that time that the climate sensitivity of CO2 could not be more than 1.2 degrees C, including feedbacks. Another researcher showed that the original calculations of the climate sensitivity of CO2 neglected the fact that a doubling of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause a slight increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. This change in the dry lapse rate reduces the climate sensitivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20. so that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is less than .06 degrees C, a trival amount.
Then there is the question of feedbacks. The AGW conjecture argument is that CO2 based warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes more warming to happen because H2O is also a greenhouse gas with LWIR abortion bands. This argument ignores the fact that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the troposphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the the heat of vaporization. Evidence of the over all cooling effect of H2O is that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. So instead of providing a positive feedback, H2O provides a negative feedback. Negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve because we are here.
CO2 does affect climate. Few people deny this, even among us the skeptics and/or lukewarmers.
The problem with your statement is that you have forgotten the key caveat of the basic hypothesis you have asserted the “truth” of. Let me remind you of the basic hypothesis (and you must take into account every word, not only those that you like):
ALL OTHER THINGS HELD EQUAL, if the atmospheric CO2 level is doubled, then the temperature, on average, would be about one degree Celsius higher than it was before the change in CO2 level.
So the basic hypothesis basically says that IF NOTHING ELSE CHANGES, then under THOSE circumstances, and ONLY under THOSE circumstances, the atmospheric CO2 level was doubled, THEN, and ONLY then, CO2 “would” as you say, “affect the climate.”
Here in the real world, however, “all other things” are NOT “held equal,” the feedbacks are negative, offsetting feedbacks (which we know because the Earth’s climate history shows long periods of stability which would be IMPOSSIBLE if the climate system reacted to changes in CO2 level, which has changed much more in the past, with positive feedbacks), and the net effect of CO2 on temperature is indistinguishable from ZERO. Even IF the “greenhouse theory” is accurate.
So no, there is no “certain” relationship “CO2 affects climate.” And the Earth’s climate history shows the assertion to be false on multiple time scales. The notion that CO2 level drives temperature is nothing more than “hypothetical BS.”
AGW is not Science–
I agree with most of what you said. There are negative feedbacks that maintain earth’s homeostasis within certain ranges despite any positive feedbacks from a radiative greenhouse effect. Unlike William, you don’t deny that CO2 delays the loss of heat from the atmosphere ceteris paribus. I’m not convinced that the net effect of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero, but would agree that it’s never going to have a catastrophic impact.
You don’t subscribe to the Nikolov-Zeller hypothesis I trust?
Counting people as being for or against is not an argument because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated though a voting process.
William,
I see that you’re pushing Nikolov and Zeller’s hypothesis again, whereby a higher rate of molecular collisions in a dense gas will generate heat in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics. We might begin to suspect that you are a troll whose job it is to promote discredited theories on WUWT so that alarmists can point to all the crazy ideas posted here.
And it’s “principLES”. The first principALS would be the guys who ran the first public schools I guess.
No I an not doing that. It is all a matter of how CO2 affects the insulating properties of the atmosphere. For example the lapse rate is a measure of the insulating properties of the atmosphere. The lapse rate is unaffected by the LWIR absorption properties of component gases. If the IPCC really knew how CO2 affected the insulation characteristics of the atmosphere they would quote a single value for the climate sensitivity of CO2 rather than the wide range of guesses that they have published. More than two decades of effort has not allowed them to reduce the range of their guesses one iota. They have learned nothing that would allow them to do so.
… or turn the air conditioner up a bit, or the heater down.
If the heater or AC is running off a thermostat, it will turn itself up or down.
It’s like studying in Brisbane and getting a job at Emerald. Oh, that’s a 20C temperature change. It’s a wonder anyone survives at Emerald.
Greg, when I worked in Oman we endured 55C day in and day out. I returned to Oz and 0 deg on July in the Adelaide Hills,my Canadian colleagues went from 30 degC in winter to -40 deg at home. After break we all came back to Oman happy, mainly because we avoided psychologists. We did this every 4 weeks much to the amusement and wonderment of our friends who thought we were nuts. Point is, people can get used to anything.
The valued psychologists are also welcome here to evaluate what difference, if any, -13C and -11C have to lifelong important questions, like ‘should I wear longjohns’, or did the banana plant freeze to death. Yeah, I still see no end of snow shovelling despite the horrible Arctic amplification.
(sarcasm intended, but I was much friendlier than what I could have been)
This is just so awesome.
The fact is, people who claim >2.0C in 30 years have not internalized the bible (IPCC AR5).
But as it is said, a sucker is born every minute. I guess Greenland could start selling property for rich people who believe in that kind of scenarios which will make Greenland the second-to-last inhabitable place. They could make some good money before the rich people realize the land under snow and ice is pretty useless without a right to pump oil and gas from it.
By basic logic standards, that is an “and” statement (as contrasted to an “or” statement for example.)
That logic statement would return “FALSE” because as already noted the two conditions are contradictory; if (temps) continue at the current pace, they will NOT reach 3.5C by 2050.
Their own opening statement the remainder of the piece is meaningless. They need to review logic as well as climate science before attempting another article.
Thus, at least 2 self negating statement in their premise.
SR
“We can affirm without doubt that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon that is already apparent and will, if not mitigated, cause terrible suffering and destruction before this century is over.” But this is all not true and it is a matter of science and not a matter of politics. The reality is that, based upon the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero, This is all a matter of science.
The AGW conjecture appears plausible at first but upon a closer evaluation one finds that the AGW conjecture is based upon only partial science and cannot be adequately defended in terms of science. For example, the AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere. or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well. This is not a matter politics but rather science.
There is no evidence whatsoever for Transient nor Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity! All based on an assumption, well actually two assumptions: 1) All climate change since 1880, or 1850, or some year, is due to CO2, and 2) Natural climate variability has for some reason ceased.
Let us cross this bridge when we come to it. If sea level rise swamps a beach close to a large city, and appears to be inexorable, we can: A, build a wall, as the Dutch have shown us all how to do, or, B, abandon prosperity and revert to the 19th century, what a blast that was.
Do these people never consider the conditions for which they advocate???
CO2 is a trace gas, comprising 0.04% of the atmosphere. A trace gas has only trace effect on the surrounding molecules of air. Trace means insignificant. Either English is not well understood by the psychologists, or that tidbit of scientific fact has been conveniently overlooked.
They are the ones that need help, not the general population. Mad as a box of frogs.
I disagree:
A box of frogs will have a predictable chaotic, mostly bleating noise, but benign behavior when opened.
The Progressive chaps will be psychotic maniacs, imaging all sorts of hobgloblins, and screaming the sky is falling whilst pushing everyone else off the cliff, save themselves.
Best to just keep the lid closed and turn-up the fire to “parboil” until the croaking stops.
Ouch. The stupid contained herein is painful. Book smart idiots.
Dr. Nassim Taleb coined the term “Intellectual Yet Idiot” (IYI) to encapsulate this class of highly credentialed yet woefully stupid people.
Educated beyond their intelligence.
And Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are also real… to a 6 year old.
Which is about where these clowns operate at mentally. And it is also about the same the developmental age of most Progressives in their ability to handle the realities of the Real World.
There must be a provision in the Dem’s budget for Psychologists to tap into the Governmental AGW Teat. These two just want to be first in line.
Who wants to suck the hind tit?
Even piglets and climatists know that simple rule.
Hogswill!
Is this a large enough number to be considered a consensus, which is supposedly the arbiter of truth?
Millions of people thinking for themselves is a phenomenon? I find people AFFIRMING that to be the phenomenon.
There is something very wrong with these people.
Well that’s nice of them to affirm an alternative reality for us plebs. Your last paragraph is really the point here. We’ve already seen people go off the deep end from how the scam is being promoted. The murder/suicide in Europe (i think) for example.
It was one thing to analyse totalitarianism from the outside, how does it feel everyone – looking at it from the inside?
Up is down, right is wrong, cooling is warming yadda yadda yadda.
Ohhhhh Dear…Psychologists of course have a hopeless track record of being scientific in their endevours..
When & If any of us skeptics need their ‘assistance’ , we can always give them a call…But till then the best suggestion is to tell them to “Bugger Off” !
tsk tsk, then you’d get labelled as “oppositional defiant”
join the club;-)
theres a LOT of us apparently
1) Scientists disagree on the rate – so if you don’t know the rate, you don’t know what is the correct action, if any is required to solve or mitigate the problem.
2)You don’t have agreement on solutions, so you don’t know what to do about what you don’t know the rate of.
3) Small number of outliers, does not eqate to “none doubt”. They just said some doubt, where does “none” come from?
4) Plenty of people that have studied the evidence for this conjecture think we are not “rapidly approaching climate catastrophe”. The data does not even correlate over many decades between the growth in CO2, and the global temperature record which is “produced” by climate activists.
It worries me more than climate change, that people can express such complete incomprehension on a subject, and then proceed to analyze those that know more than they do. And use science from sources that have a severe conflict of interest as equivalent to science that is reproducible by unbiased sources.
Maybe they just wanted to write something controversial to get attention for themselves. My diagnosis is : Histrionic personality disorder (HPD).
“1) Scientists disagree on the rate – so if you don’t know the rate, you don’t know what is the correct action, if any is required to solve or mitigate the problem.”
I think these doctors are getting their CAGW “facts” from newspaper headlines and articles and not from scientific studies, otherwise they wouldn’t make such a claim as “none doubt that we are rapidly approaching climate catastrophe”. Even the IPCC doesn’t make such claims.
The doctors wonder why millions of people don’t believe in CAGW. It’s because the people don’t see it happening in their lives. The doctors would point to hurricanes and wildfires as evidence of CAGW but the people have seen these things before and they are not unusual to them.
So until we see some unusual weather, noone is goig to get too excited about CAGW. All the bad weather we see today was just as bad or worse in the past, and statistics show that all forms of extreme weather are fewer in number and less severe than in the past.
It’s business as usual. Nothing unusual going on here. People are acting rationally based on what they see with their eyes.
What the climate scientists are telling us is that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels the human race faces extinction.
Oddly, when I read the actual IPCC reports and what the actual climate scientists actually say, I can’t find words to that effect.
That’s probably because, like most of the deluded idiots that share their point of view, they only read the political agenda pushing “summary for policymakers,” not the underlying summaries of anything resembling any actual science (though even THAT is suspect, based on “selectivity” and “amendments” to make it more “supportive” of the “summary” bullshit).
Of course, their ridiculous statement is so over the top that even the “summary for policymakers” probably doesn’t include words to that effect.
Seems like they need some serious therapy.
the world is WARMING, shouts the crowd.
See the article I found about Hitlers propaganda, reads very similar to what we are hearing from the warmists.
1. Keep the dogma simple 1 or 2 points.
2. be forthright and powerfully direct, speak only in telling or ordering mode.
3. As much as possible reduce concepts down to stereotypes which are black and white.
4. Speak to peoples emotions and stir them constantly.
5. Use lots of repetition, repeat you points over and over again.
6. Forget literary beauty, Scientific reasoning, balance or novelty.
7. Focus solely on convincing people and creating zealots.
8. find slogans which can be used to drive the people forward.
http://brainblogger.com/2008/11/04/hitlers-guide-to-propaganda-the-psychology-of-coercion/
Need I say more, we all know what happened to Germany and its people and victims.
Thankfully we have other sources of information and can educate ourselves. This frustrates the propagandists to no end.
It must embarrass/annoy Nick Stokes to no end knowing that these two are batting on his team.
Has anyone challenged these “psychologists” to debate the AGW vs CAGW theories? If not, they are doomed to wallow in their own ignorance.
If it embarrassed Nick Stokes one would think he would have the balls to stand up and say something…
Let’s not attack Nick before he says anything. It’s unseemly and rude.
Speak not the name of he Devil, lest he take notice and come hither.
The day ‘greens’ and other ‘eco-fanatics’ get behind harnessing some form nuclear process to generate electricity is the day I will believe they are serious in addressing this issue.
Dr. Jack M. Gorman had stunned the staff at the Harvard-affiliated hospital in May 2006, resigning after just four months on the job for undisclosed “personal and medical reasons.” It turns out that Gorman was having such guilty feelings about his relationship with the patient that he quit his job, according to the Gorman associate. At about the same time, Gorman reported himself to medical regulators in his home state and attempted suicide, said the associate and a New York official.
In an astonishing fall from grace, Gorman, 55, signed a consent order last month with the New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct admitting that he had inappropriate sexual contact “on more than one occasion” with the patient, violating a cardinal rule in psychiatry. He surrendered his license to practice medicine indefinitely, effective yesterday.
http://www.psychsearch.net/psychiatrist-jack-m-gorman-admits-sex-with-patient/
Yes, it’s the same guy. There is a photo and that page and on the climate article.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/denying-the-grave/201901/climate-change-denial
Oh the delicious irony of using your fathers authority to promote your book after it backfires when it becomes public knowledge that he was deregistered and is unlicensed after admitting to sex with a patient and attempted suicide many years before it was written!
Talk about Medice, cura te ipsum! She would be wise to attend to her own defects and those of her own family before those of the world and in others!
Just the type of person I’d take moral advice from.
The politicians and movie stars are big on telling everyone else to cut back. But they don’t cut back so why should we?
Of course they want us to get out of our cars and take buses. That would free up the traffic jams and the fat cats could zoom around traffic free.
They must get really pissed at having to wait in traffic like everyone else. So of course they are going to pay Dr Judas Fruitcake, PhD to write a report with Big Words that says WE are the problem.
Well obviously Professor Jordan B Peterson will have to be sent to a re-education camp!
https://youtu.be/v7dnGWB8l0s
https://youtu.be/pBbvehbomrY