Guest Editorial: Dr. Tim Ball
I thought about making this my last article on climate for this or any other website except my own. I planned the action some time ago, but it was the recent headline in the Telegraph that triggered this penultimate move. It said, “Climate change is a risk investors can’t ignore: Black Rock latest to sound the alarm on environment.”
Climate change is not a risk factor. Current climate and climate changes are normal and well within the pattern of change over history, certainly the last 10,000 years. The world believes otherwise, despite efforts by me and others to make the correct information available.
This means that after 50 years (1968-2019) of trying to educate the public about the weather, global warming, and climate change I achieved little or no change in understanding, attitude, or most importantly, policy on the world stage. My attempts to counter the massive deception that began as human-caused global warming (AGW) and later shifted to human-caused climate change, fell short. The deception is now what people accept, although they don’t necessarily believe. Because of that it is now the underlying reason for all policy on energy and environment that are the mainstay of these business-world views, indeed all views.
The only risk is not climate, but the one that governments created by the pseudoscience of climate science. All elements of society from energy to the environment and from industry to business and daily living are based on completely unnecessary and expensive limitations. The sad irony is that the climate change risk the investors face is a shift to colder weather when all governments are warning them to prepare for warmer conditions. This false basis for society thinking and planning is so pervasive that it is unlikely to change.
I am frustrated by the success of the deception, but I am angry about the waste of time, money, and opportunities lost. I think about the trillions wasted on a non-existent problem while real problems go wanting. For example, it is likely that enough money was wasted to provide clean water and adequate sewage for the entire world.
Apart from my overall failure, there was one failure restricted to the skeptics that might create different results. Skeptics are people who recognized the false science used to create the threat of human-caused global warming. It’s a group that slowly grew in numbers over the years but achieved little impact in the wider community. A major reason is the division of that community into approximately 15% who are competent and comfortable in science and 85% who are not. While I achieved some recognition in this group of skeptics, I failed to convince them that the wider public would never understand climatology. Worse, I failed to convince them that even if they could identify all the bad science, manipulation of data, creation of false and misleading reports, and deliberate exaggeration of stories to amplify fear that they wanted, it would do little to spread the truth and correct the story. I failed to convince the skeptics that without explanation of the MOTIVE, people would not listen to their critiques and warnings.
Recently, I received the charge through my web site that I was just “another conspiracy theorist.” Other attempts to marginalize included the term global warming skeptic or climate change denier. These were effectively what I call collective ad hominems, but the fall back dismissal was usually that you are a ‘conspiracy theorist.’
It is encouraging that a recent article appeared on the WUWT website that proposes a motive for the misuse of climate.
But the Left seeks far more. In fact, its goal is nothing less than total control of every aspect of human life, which we call “totalitarianism”, justified by fear of climate change.
The types of commentary that article will engender are predictable. They will indicate why people have not considered motive in the discussion to date. It is a classic Catch 22 you must provide a motive and marginalized or don’t provide one and get no traction with the wider public. It is critical to remember that you are asking people to believe that a small group of people managed to deceive the world into believing that a trace gas (0.04% of the total atmosphere) was changing the entire climate because of humans. In addition, that group convinced many others to participate in the deception. The public view is that deceiving so many is just not possible. The trouble is it was possible. To paraphrase Lincoln, they effectively fooled most of the people and marginalized the few not fooled.
After 50 years of combating hysteria over climate change, it is time to take a new direction. I say a new direction because the last 50 years attempted to educate the people to the lie that is human-caused global warming and effectively changed nothing. It especially did not change the unnecessary, ineffective, and massively expensive energy and environment policies that control everything in the world. When I see a car advertisement identifying its low CO2 output as a major selling feature, I know how badly I lost. Millions of more people now believe in AGW than when I began. Now, most governments believe and act on the AGW belief compared to the few when I started.
The first 10 years of the 50 involved dealing with the threats about the end of the world due to global cooling. The last 40 years dealt with the same threats about warming. In recent years, I used the quote from Lowell Ponte’s 1976 book The Cooling to illustrate how similar they were.
It is cold fact: the global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species.
Change the seventh-word “cooling” to warming, and it applies to the entire 50 years. What happens going forward? What are governments preparing for? Is it appropriate? Are we victims of the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? Will governments prove once again that they always make a situation worse?
In the 1970s I knew that the cooling trend would end because it fit the overall pattern. This included the longer-term emergence from the nadir of the Little Ice Age circa 1680 and shorter cycles since. The world warmed from 1900 to 1940, cooled from 1940 to 1980, warmed from 1980 to 1998 and has cooled slightly from 1998 to the present.
Fortunately, the idiots we call leaders did nothing about the climate when cooling was the trend in the 1970s. Unfortunately, after the 1980s they began to succumb to the lies, misrepresentations, and pressure of the eco-bullies; those who used the environment and later climate for a political agenda. We needed the paradigm shift to environmentalism because it doesn’t make sense to soil our own nest. However, as with all such shifts, a few seized it for the power and financial rewards it provided. They were able to obtain power up to the UN General Assembly. They introduced the full environment and climate change plans at the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 as Agenda 21.
The movement appeared to falter at the international level when even Greenpeace announced that Rio +20 was a failure. This was not a falter but exactly as Maurice Strong and the proponents of Agenda 21 planned. The entire objective of Agenda 21 is firmly ensconced in all societies through the municipal level of government.
The climate plan that isolated and demonized CO2 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was designed and implemented at the national level through every weather office in nations throughout the world. This puts the idea and control of those countries almost completely in the hands of the deep state and beyond the control of international and national politicians. They then promote the concepts of the environmental and climate plans through the Climate Action Plan imposed at the Municipal level. This puts the original plan of thinking globally and acting locally into practice at the lowest political level. A conference in San Francisco in July 2018 explains the objective.
California Governor Jerry Brown has announced that a Global Climate Action summit will be held in San Francisco in September 2018, in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord.
Nearly 200 nations have signed the 2015 agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are widely thought to be responsible for rising temperatures, and Brown is one of a number of local and regional leaders working to build coalitions without Trump.
Here is what one mayor wrote about what occurred in San Francisco.
The Global Climate Action summit in San Francisco began on Wednesday. This year’s goal: “Take Ambition to the Next Level.”
What is that next level? As part of the We Are Still In, Mayors Climate Alliance, and other city climate-action efforts, many U.S cities are creating their first ever climate-action plans; others are rewriting theirs to meet more ambitious goals. The next level is ensuring that these multi-year plans integrate equity considerations or risk perpetuating an unjust life for millions of already marginalized Americans.
The original intention of the CO2 pseudoscience deception was purely political as this quote confirms. Note the word “equity.” It confirms quotes that were around before the deception reached the world stage. Former US Senator Timothy Wirth who went on to head the UN Climate Foundation said,
“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
Former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart said,
“No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits…. climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
What those quotes really mean is that we must use the climate for total political and economic control. If people continue to buy the false science story so much the better. For example, on April 13, 2019, US Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren promised,
Besides an executive order barring new fossil fuel leases on public lands on shore and offshore, Warren said Monday that she would work toward boosting U.S. electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.
This is planned despite the failure of such actions everywhere they are applied.
The climate deception and the climate debate are complete and, though they will continue, they are irrelevant. The Paris Climate Agreement is almost dead. At the 2018 meeting of the Green Climate Fund, the Director resigned.
Howard Bamsey, an Australian diplomat who served as the GCF’s executive director since January 2017, resigned after a “difficult” meeting in which no new projects were approved, according to a statement released after the gathering in Songdo, South Korea.
There are many charges and warnings of corruption and misuse of funds against GCF. The institutions associated with climate change at the international and national level are collapsing. It creates an illusion that the skeptics are winning. It distracts from the fact that the entire focus quietly shifted to the municipal level and is infiltrating through the world. Much of the funding for the San Francisco meeting came from the World Bank.
I agree with the author who claims the misuse of climate was originally a left-wing agenda for control. However, I think the idea is so attractive because it is under the cloak of ‘saving the planet’ that it fits the platform of all politicians. They all want control. The only difference is in the degree and method. Of course, the ultimate irony is that the massive cost of this anti-CO2 system is only possible because of the one thing it demonizes, fossil fuels.
As a result of this train of events, I decided to stop trying to educate people about the global deception that is AGW. It is a firmly established false fact. Most skeptics know this because many are stunned by the strong hostile reaction they get when they state their position publicly. In many cases, they become ostracized in their family. The challenge now is to help people understand the differences between deceptively derived policies, and what is the best, most adaptive, most profitable, and most rewarding strategy for survival of the individual, business, or industry. In this age of the big lie, survival and success strategy is more important and challenging than ever. I want to help people bridge the gap between the false world of government and the real world. I will not achieve that through explaining the corrupted science but providing a credible motive.
You are right Tim, many many people have asked me ‘Why would reputable scientists lie about the data? If what you claim is correct, why do they not see what you see? So the motive has to be adherence to Agenda 21 a la Maurice Strong. Not by everyone but by the ‘leaders’; there will be countless adherents that believe what they have been told and are genuinely frightened, and genuinely think we are the loonies; it is these footsoldiers we need to awaken; the cabal is beyond reach
The real loonies are becoming so obvious that even an elementary school child can see it.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/20/pint-sized-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-impersonator-cracks-up-the-internet/
Yes, thank you Doctor Ball, excellent. That’s how I feel. I like to think there is hope, and in that light the video at the link below starts with an excellent piece-to-camera, totally agreeable, by someone who has done some research to find what corporations are backing the 12 years to catastrophic climate drill – we see it in top gear at the moment at 3 big London climate rallies. This video notes how the rallies are extremely well oiled, while there are volunteers, there is money and power behind organizing, orchestrating. To do the same sort thing; protesting and activism in, say workers’ rights, it would be promptly shut down. The journo suggests the overriding plan is to channel superannuation (approaching 2 trillion in Australia) to the sustainable energy technological boom that they want to build to fight climate change. I have written about Trio Capital a USA owned corporation that stole $200 million of super money, over 3 years. They set it up for that purpose. A vehicle to siphon money out of super. The companies that these enterprising climate sustainable (whatever that is) projects hae superannuation invested to finance their heroic save the planet action, and they also take the profit and all sorts of other hedge fund, derivatives based deals, and they change the monetary laws to facilitate this. He then goes on to interview people These interviewees are well-meaning, well educated, but they are total believers, prepared to do anything to save the planet, including he suggests; giving up a large percentage of their super.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWISiJJUHpU&feature=share
Spot on. He gets it across better than I. He has hair, is younger and is an Englishman.
The problem is there is not one set of motivations or one group or global conspiracy, there are many players each with their own interests and motivations. A conspiracy of intent, rather than a conspiracy.
Climatologists and universities are on the gravy train and don’t want it to slow down or stop.
Politicians use climate ‘policy’ to prop up the banks and manipulate the population.
Big business says “hey look up there : pollution” to prevent us noticing the real pollution is all around us not up in the sky.
U.N. sees it as a way to grasp more control over world governments and create a Green Slush Fund as the treasury for their new world order.
Many common folks have fallen for the wall to wall propaganda which has been going on for nearly two generations now, many truly believe they are doing the right thing.
Part of the problem of explaining motivations behind the climate fraud is that it is so diverse. There is not quick clear answer.
The motive can ultimately be reduced to these two, intimately linked, objectives:
1) a global tax on the air we breathe.
2) a global currency for collection of said tax and attendant monitoring of all monetary transactions.
Together, this totalitarian monetary system will assure complete control over human society, down each and every person (who is not part of the control mechanism) and down to the penny that each and every person spends, including how and how fast, negative interest rates (amid the removal from physical cash) assuring that nothing is saved (“hoarded”) and is instead spent (“invested”) with all deliberate speed.
This will not end well, of course, and will instead result in global socioeconomic collapse and political disintegration so massive that it will be a wonder if humanity survives it.
Happy Easter.
For most of my career I was a conservationist though often labeled an environmentalists by the media. I served on the board of a prominent chapter of a prominent environmental group. In the early to mid-1980s, a group, organized team of far left socialists showed up out of the blue. Their leader took me to lunch at a fancy restaurant and picked up the tab. He was a devout radical socialist and his group (which I never could determine) had convinced him that environmentalists could be a great recruiting ground for people and money. Socialists and environmentalist should be in partnership. If they only had a cause that “appealed” to everyone. They saw the “air pollution” causing global warming as that rallying cause; the cause that would bring the socioeconomic left with environmentalists. The environmentalists were good for a place to recruit people but also tap into donations. That was only one experience of several I had about the same time working with other groups.
Let’s be clear socialists are well organized, well funded, and their leaders want power it is no conspiracy it just a fact of life. We made the really bad assumption that some how when the USSR was dismantled that socialism/ communism, and marxism had somehow disappeared as well. The organized socialists’ goal is to take down capitalism world-wide starting with the USA. They want to be in control of the richest, most powerful country in the world. The Left were already preaching that we are all racists, bigots and greedy, etc but it wasn’t getting the job done fast enough, so for them All Hail Climate Change was the answer. And as we have seen they have blamed everything bad in the world on the USA and climate change.
Wow, that video gives an idea what we are up against.
I loved the guy who is convinced that there are reptilians aliens wandering around on Earth, yet is still more worried about climate change than anything else.
Doesn’t he realise that global warming is CAUSED by the reptilians !?? They need a planet like the Earth was 100 millions years ago. Much warmer and higher levels of CO2.
/sarc … just in case 😉
Many prominent “climate” scientists do, in fact, lie about the data. This was revealed in the ClimateGate emails. They cherry-pick and misrepresent. Others are just really bad at statistics. The majority though are deluded into thinking that climate models can predict future temperature trends. Every dire prediction about future climate is derived entirely from computer models. Measured temperature trends and sea level rise show nothing dire or even worrisome.
When you encounter someone doomsaying about climate, test his knowledge. Ask him how much the global average temperature has risen in the last hundred years (1° C). How much in the last 20 years? (Almost nothing, warming appears to be slowing, contrary to predictions.) How much has sea level risen? (About 7 inches, and also appears to be slowing). Then ask what the big deal is.
Regarding the motives of the radical greens, see my recently-published article:
“HYPOTHESIS: RADICAL GREENS ARE THE GREAT KILLERS OF OUR AGE”
at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
9. Conclusion
The evidence strongly supports my hypothesis that “Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”.
The number of deaths and shattered lives caused by radical-green activism since ~1970 rivals the death tolls of the great killers of the 20th Century – Stalin, Hitler and Mao – they advocate similar extreme-left totalitarian policies and are indifferent to the resulting environmental damage and human suffering.
______________________
Thank you Tim for all your good work.
“SILENT SPRING AT 50: THE FALSE CRISES OF RACHEL CARSON”
(Reassessing environmentalism’s fateful turn from science to advocacy)
By Roger Meiners et al — September 21, 2012
https://www.masterresource.org/silent-spring-at-50/silent-spring-at-50/
“Carson made little effort to provide a balanced perspective and consistently ignored key evidence that would have contradicted her work. Thus, while the book provided a range of notable ideas, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance.”
– Roger Meiners, et. al (cover insert)
Widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement when published 50 years ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring has had a profound impact on our society. While Carson was not the first to write about the dangers of pesticides or to sound environmental alarms, her writing style and ability to reach out to a broad audience allowed her to capture and retain the attention of the public.
Yet this iconic book, hardly scrutinized over the decades, substituted sensationalism for fact and apocalyptic pronouncements for genuine knowledge.
Our just released 11-author study, Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson, reexamines Carson’s historical context and science, as well as the policy consequences of Silent Spring‘s core ideas. We assembled scholars from different disciplines and asked them to evaluate Carson’s work given the state of knowledge at the time she was writing. What information was available that she ignored? Where did she deviate from accepted science of the day?
Our findings are unsettling. Carson made little effort to provide a balanced perspective and consistently ignored key evidence that would have contradicted her work. Thus, while the book provided a range of notable ideas, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance.
Despite her reputation as a careful science- and fact-based writer, Carson produced a best-seller full of significant errors and sins of omission. Three areas are particularly noteworthy:
· Carson vilified the use of DDT and other pest controls in agriculture but ignored their role in saving millions of lives worldwide from malaria, typhus, dysentery, among other diseases. Millions of deaths, and much greater human suffering, ultimately resulted from pesticide bans as part of disease-eradication campaigns. Carson knew of the beneficial effects of DDT, but never discussed it; her story was all negative.
· Far from being on the verge of collapse, American bird populations were, by and large, increasing at the time of Silent Spring’s publication. Although Carson was active in the Audubon Society, she ignored Audubon’s annual bird count, which had long been the best single source on bird population. Instead she relied on anecdotes claiming bird population was collapsing. It is inconceivable that Carson did not know about the annual bird count–some of which occurred in the locations she asserted were in collapse.
· Cancer rates, exaggerated in the book, were increasing largely because far fewer people were dying from other diseases. Further, once statistical adjustments are made for population age and tobacco use, the apparent rise in cancer rates that so alarmed Silent Spring readers disappeared. Although writing at a time when scientists had come to agree that tobacco was a major cause of lung cancer, Carson ignored tobacco and relied on peculiar theories about its origins. She specifically ignored Public Health Service data on this point.
Silent Spring presented nature as a benign happy place that was “in balance.” Man was guilty of upsetting the balance and causing environmental catastrophes. As shown in the chapter on that issue, nature is far more nuanced and resilient than Carson understood. Her view that “natural” pests, such as wasps, could be used to control other bugs that were harmful in crop production, was not only short of the mark for agriculture, but overly optimistic about how benign such “natural” pests can be.
Carson’s “you can’t be too safe” standard is seen today in the “precautionary principle” that helps to retard the adoption of superior technology that would benefit people and the environment. Her simplified view of risk appears to have impacted the drafting of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that set impossible standards in some areas not remotely related to human health or technical feasibility.
An intellectual, and public policy reconsideration, of Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring is long overdue.
————————–
ABOUT THE EDITOR AUTHORS
ROGER MEINERS is the Goolsby Distinguished Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Texas at Arlington and a senior fellow at the Property and Environmental Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.
PIERRE DESROCHERS is associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto. His main research areas include technical innovation, business-environmental interactions, economic development, and energy policy and food policy.
ANDREW MORRISS is D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene A. Jones Chairholder in Law and Professor of Business at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and is a senior fellow at the Property and Environmental Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. He has authored or coauthored more than 50 book chapters, scholarly articles, and books.
Dr. Ball
Please continue writing as you feel motivated. Eventually someone is going to point to your body of work and say; Gee this guy was right.
Yes, you’re tilting at windmills (ha ha). If you can’t explain to someone that there are only 2 sexes, you’ll never counter climate claims. However, I see some cracks appearing. Nothing solid is happening yet but people are starting to talk skeptically about climate, economy, imperial wars et.al.. Topics that were totally off limits even 5 years ago. Thanks for being a sane voice in the wilderness.
Good article Tim! Here are the real explanations for this SCAM. You are right they want YOUR MONEY and control of YOUR life.
2Jan2015
At a news conference [22Jan2015] in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework be adopted Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but to DESTROY CAPITALISM. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said . Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will at change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors DOTcom/ibd-editorials/021015the Paris climate
-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3RXh5Tujn
IPCC official, Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010: “But one must say clearly that we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth by climate policy. … one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth…” “This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy, anymore.” http://www.nzzDOTch/aktuell/startseite/klimapolitik-verteilt-das-weltvermoegen-neu-1.8373227
The Buffett Rule
The billionaire was even more explicit about his goal of reducing his company’s tax payments. “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” he said. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Think about that one. Mr. Buffett says it makes no economic sense to build wind farms without a tax credit, which he gladly uses to reduce his company’s tax payments to the Treasury. So political favors for the wind industry induce a leading U.S. company to misallocate its scarce investment dollars for an uneconomic purpose. Berkshire and its billionaire shareholder get a tax break and the feds get less revenue, which must be made up by raising tax rates on millions of other Americans who are much less well-heeled than Mr. Buffett.
This is precisely the kind of tax favoritism for the wealthy that Mr. Romney’s tax reform would have reduced, and that other tax reformers want to stop. Too bad Mr. Buffett didn’t share this rule with voters in 2012.
From the WSJ
Poland Bans Wind Turbines in 17 years
Now we have the nation of Poland examining the health damages of Wind turbines. They have discovered that the low frequency noise given off by wind turbines, affects cellular development and mimics heart problems. They are going to force REMOVAL of ALL wind turbines in 17 years! Check this out, https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=poland+%2Cwind+turbines and read to the end and check the comments of Sommer, and watch the youtube video for a real education in the subject.
Excellent post Dr. Ball.
I could not agree more with your analysis; must admit I see no viable way out of this political hysteria.
As the AMO turns over, the hysteria will grow colder and colder. Eschatology has been a concept in the human race forever as near as I can figure. It is well to remember given that Easter is tomorrow that Paul ran around saying that the end would be within his lifetime. I am sure somebody before him said the same thing. Lots of people since him have said it. There was a real Y1K thing a thousand years ago for instance. Millerite sects are with us today too. mountain or not. Reality has never been a big runner with these people. Somebody someplace will invent a new cargo cult and history will repeat itself.
Trying to educate people about this topic is a losing proposition I am afraid. When 40% of college graduates on answer 2 or less questions correctly on the test on page 15 of https://www.salliemae.com/assets/about/who_we_are/Majoring-In-Money-Report-2019.pdf Trying to get them to think in adiabatic lapse rates is a enterprise in futility. Sadly, these people vote.
Agree, there will always be another hobgoblin waiting around the corner when this one is seen off, there’s no ‘win’ in that process, it’s just management of the reining delusion of the day that’s being used by those who can to control those who accept the most popular delusions of the day. Education is mostly the injection of popular delusions, rather that the tools to detect and negate them.
The ‘motives’ and delusions are perpetually evolving.
…Paul ran around saying that the end would be within his lifetime.
Hmm. Not sure where this comes from. It’s tempting to respond, but that would take us well off topic. Even so, since Paul is mentioned, I will venture to commend his attitude as expressed in a letter to Christians in Philippi:
…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead… I press on toward the goal…. NIV
If Dr. Ball sees a need to make a radical change from past strategies and press on in a different direction, more power to him, and appreciation for his efforts to this point.
F. Ross – How about this for a way out: Give the alarmists exactly what they want – less atmospheric CO2. Find a reputable scientist to publish a paper that proposes a theoretically feasible (but not necessarily practical), low cost way of turning very large amounts of CO2 into something useful, like a fuel, as a way of lowering CO2. Then point out that the manufacture of this wonderful new source of fuel will have to be carefully managed, because actually lowering atmospheric CO2 below about 200 parts per million would be catastrophic, because all plants would then die. Then watch the alarmists tie themselves in logical knots trying to resolve the contradiction of either denying the world a low cost, almost infinite source of energy, or seeing their long-claimed aim of lowering CO2 being achieved at the expense of the end of life on earth. This is what politicians call a policy ‘wedge’. Worth a try?
Watermelons.
Eco-fascists.
Statists and collectivists.
Their tyrannical intentions have been known for decades. But with a populace that embraces the all-encompassing State as their “savior” and guardian, the truth has been ignored and evaded for most of my life.
Since these sheep have never really cared about freedom and rights and justice and truth (after decades of relativism and its know-nothing cousins), it is hard to convince them that “Earth Day” is a scam that will cost them dearly.
As the saying goes, too many folks “know” what ain’t so…
Tim I’m sorry but you are so wrong.
We have won.
Why is the Paris Agreement such a shambles? Because Macron can’t even convince his own people of its value.
Why have carbon trading schemes around the world failed? Because nations put self interest before climate “virtue”, and issued too many carbon credits to avoid electoral backlash.
Why did Trump win? Because millions of Americans don’t think climate change is the most important issue.
Why is even Germany pulling back from climate action? Because they no longer see the point.
Groups like Blackrock are happy to mouth the words, but how many of their executives avoid air travel and family holidays for the sake of the planet?
Why are state politicians pushing back against carbon pricing, even in Canada?
Its not the kind of victory we maybe hoped for, at least not yet, but maintaining the status quo, the utter and ongoing failure of climate politicians to engineer the kind of societal transformation they wanted, is well worth the effort.
We are not winning in Canada. We might yet win, but there is no guarantee. The media is onside and there is not a single political party that has taken the tact that CO2 is not an evil that must be reduced. It’s just ridiculous, especially considering Canada is the coldest country in the world.
Things have turned around a bit the last 2 years. USA is headed by a sorta skeptic. Brazil’s new president is a skeptic. India and China are not stupid. The hoax will eventually fail, because the most populous nations are disregarding the alarmism. Belgium can go carbon neutral and it won’t matter. They, like other “green” countries, will export their manufacturing to Asia, which will focus on making money. After that Africa will worry about prosperity and they will disregard alarmism. In a generation or two, about 10% of world (at most) will have gone carbon neutral and the other 90% will have focused on prosperity. At some point, the newly impoverished 10% will give up on the hoax.
All Human Rights stuff has also been successfully gutted from the IPCC rules leaving country sovereignty over the issue. Later this year should see the death of the concept of historic reparations which will leave the lefties and green blob crying.
Yes Eric, I believe you hit the nail on the head : We won! We are watching the last death-throes of all the idiocy now they are sending silly kids out to glue themselves to buildings. Very soon some little boy will appear shouting, “But the Emperor has nothing on!”. And I would not be surprised if it possibly will be the IPCC themselves – who will finally begin to moderate their stance just enough to begin a real awakening.
Skeptics can’t fail to win.
Time and nature itself will show the world that climate alarmism is false – and when people realise they have been made fools of, then what?
I have always advocated that the problem isn’t the climate (activists) – it is the MEDIA. Without their total and complete capitulation the whole concept would fall flat at the first mainstream article disputing the so-called facts.
Yes, but it is only our western media who (almost) all are on that bandwagon. The Russian, Indian, Chinese, African, etc. are not. You will find no alarmism there. So you are right : time and truth will eventually prove us right – and all us westerners will have eggs on our faces. Serves us right!
We cannot sat that in Canada until we defeat Trudeau and McKenna in the election this fall.
I think you’re right.
Most young people I know are climate skeptics. Despite being force fed the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ movie every year in school, they still reject it all. Amazing.
None of them have any interest in becoming environmentalists. It’s a generation that is walking away.
Modern environmentalism has done tremendous damage to the environmental movement.
Then who are these children and young people shutting down London etc?
Idiots.
I really doesn’t take that many to make a big stink.
Most people stayed home.
A thousand people is hardly a mass movement. You could get that many just by offering a free coffee.
It also helps that your police are social workers in uniforms.
Lol. “Its just a flesh wound. Come back, I’ll bite your legs off”
And with that, good knight to all.
“We have won.”
The SJW left have infested large organizations all across the West. We may have a provincial government opposed to a Carbon Tax, but the city government is still pushing ‘sustainable development’ and all that crap (aka bus lanes, bike lanes, and refusing to let people build the kind of suburban houses they want to live in, rather than living in the ‘diverse and inclusive’ downtown with the crazies, junkies and bums).
Boeing can no longer build airliners that don’t crash.
Intel can no longer build CPUs. At least, it can’t build the new processes to build them, where it used to leave the rest of the world by several years.
The Catholic church is now neither Catholic nor Christian.
The best government schools are merely dysfunctional, while the rest are Marxist indoctrination camps.
Hollywood is now all about ‘diversity’ and only very rarely about telling good stories.
Just about every major institution is heading toward failure. We may have temporarily stopped the Global Warming nonsense at a national level, but that doesn’t help when society collapses beneath us.
We’re a long way from winning, if that means saving the best parts of the West.
We have won nothing.
These people are powerful at imposing their agenda against anybody’s will.
After Climategate we also won…
They will stop at nothing to do their deed… while trying to steal Eurasia’s huge resources.
No one asks NATO to use solar bombers and wind powered tanks…
Until Greta does just that -and she won’t since she serves them-…
The World emissions went up 2.6% last year it will go up 3% this year.
What is happening in reality trumps what anyone writes or thinks … reality does not care for opnions or take sides.
Nice thoughts, but wrong.
The world has a ‘savings’ crisis. In 2008 when Central Banks initiated QE, it created trillions of dollars which eventually has to go somewhere.
The ‘disruptors’ have seen the opportunity of riding on the back of the ‘AGW’ religion and see risk free rewards to investing in useless infrastructure. Backed by nearly every western govenment, and therefore their tax bases, they get the reward without significant risk.
This is supported by every insurance company and bank now being forced to use the BIS inspired criteria for investment evaluation which includes the ‘climate mitigation’ factors.
Its is as Dr Ball says , a war that cannot be won by questioning the dubious science, because no one is interested. Least of all the investors who support the global brainwashing.
Unfortunately the only thing left to do as individuals is to tack in the wind, reduce personal exposure to the new energy costs being imposed, the new travel restrictions that will inevitably occur when the ICE is finally phased out.
A new semi-feudal future awaits us all.
Thank You, Eric . . . couldn’t have said it better.
And by the way:
(1) Nobody has yet put a meter on my thermostat, forcing me to live in a cold house.
(2) Nobody has told me I have to get rid of my V-8 pickup truck.. Or come for my bacon.
(3) CAGW as a political issue is at the very bottom of people’s priorities in every national and global poll.
(4) You don’t see Russia, India, African nations, or China getting fluffed about this in the slightest. Why?
(5) Outside of the weather/energy interested folks’ bubble, these arguments get almost zero attention.
(6) The “Elites” use it to virtue-signal, while visibly living the extreme opposite of their “belief.”
(7) Winter is Coming. 😉
Methinks everyone needs to pour themselves an Easter drink and just chill.
We are not winning in the greater Seattle area and much of Washington state. Aspects of Agenda 21 are deeply entrenched in municipal regulation and more are being implemented in the school districts.
“Groups like Blackrock are happy to mouth the words, but how many of their executives avoid air travel and family holidays for the sake of the planet?”
The point is what they do with Blackrock funds, not their personal behaviour
Yes, we’ve won. On 4-21-19, CNN posted a piece titled, “We’re Losing the War on Climate Change,” by John D. Sutter. I hated to give CNN a single click, but I just had to see what it was saying. Of course, Sutter references the ever inimical McKibben. We all know McKibben is a loon, but Sutter simply couldn’t avoid referencing McKibben. Sutter also mentions the Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg and talks about how she’s “schooling world leaders” on climate policy. When a group parades children for a cause, that’s called propaganda. These people will use any possible apocalyptic story, no matter how outlandish, as an excuse to seize power. In this existential extinction event induced by anthropogenic climate change, we have to be saved by any means necessary. It starts by making sure we’re sufficiently frightened. This will ensure we actually welcome, no, clamor for the totalitarianism of our world-saving overlords.
I’m sorry for the rant. I know I’m preaching to the choir.
Cheers
“Most skeptics know this because many are stunned by the strong hostile reaction they get when they state their position publicly. In many cases, they become ostracized in their family. ”
Indeed.
A colleague went to an event where Christiana Figueres was presented with an award. I didn’t let him know what I thought about her or her role and policies until after the event. Afterwards he was shocked when I stated that I didn’t share his admiration for her.
Domestically, my dear wife simply can’t understand why I don’t agree with the CO2 = climate change thing. When I was taken to task for questioning the co-option of children such as Greta Thunberg into ‘the cause’, I asked if it was likely that Greta or I knew more about the subject. No answer.
Sometimes we have to tread carefully.
The big difference between you and Greta Thunberg is that you use logic and understanding whereas she feels really, really strongly about it while knowing diddly squat.
“Climate change/Global Warming’ is a risk that investors can’t ignore because it is driven by an obsessive group of Luddites that wish to destroy modern civilisation and democracy. Black Rock would be well advised to sound the alarm on environmental Ludditism.
Dr. Tim Ball please keep on posting, we need your ideas now as much as we ever did.
Of course you can’t educate people. Most people don’t want to be educated. They want to live the easiest lives possible. They want to enjoy good things and avoid difficulty. They know bad things can happen, sometimes to a lot of people all at once. They will believe a warning about bad things possibly happening. Ironically, they usually won’t take precautions to prevent/avoid/ameliorate the bad thing. They think emotionally, look for approval, and avoid reasoning. The older ones let much of the alarmism wash over; life is too busy to pay much attention. The young are too inexperienced to tell a lie from the truth. Unfortunately, they’re often still emotional infants, startled by every imagined threat. It’s always been that way (see the Bible book of Proverbs written 3 millennia ago) and always will be.
Dr Ball – Thank you for you past efforts and your new endeavor.
I agree, Thank you Dr Ball for your very clear, understandable an invaluable explanations of the real science behind the discussions. You have contributed more than you perhaps know to your cause. Even though YOU don’t believe you convinced enough people to make a difference, I disagree. I think many like me feel a lot more comfortable in our own opinions simply because you have done such an outstanding job of explaining. And there are more of us now than even before.
The game is not over! Eventually scientific reality will prevail. [remember Galileo, no matter how much the Church said the sun went ’round the earth, reality didn’t change.] As an engineer I know this to be true. No engineer who wishes to build anything ever ignores real, verified science – and we are well aware of the statistical traps that can catch us.
Be well and KEEP ON THINKING!
Don’t be a quitter.
Noble decision and your contribution to diminishing AGW hysteria will be missed. Thank you and I wish you well with the new direction of your efforts to enlighten.
Survive and exploit the walking unfocused.
Excellent post.
What is so sad is that AGW etc. Is a construct of European, North America and Australasia elites who are bent on destroying their countries and their economies. Russia, China, India and Japan will become the “powers” of the future leaving the progressives to freeze in the dark.
China and Russia seem to hold the lights at the end of the tunnel. Our descendants will find a wholly new world when they eventually emerge. It is ironic that for hope for humanity we may have to rely on nations who are presently regarded as our potential enemies.
China and Russia are probably funding most of the ‘Global Warming’ groups. I believe the KGB funded many of the original ‘environmental’ groups as a means of attacking the West…. names may change but the game remains the same.
And it looks as though they are winning.
And here is their plan
https://youtu.be/QJ2fMeer5Mw
Dr Bill ,another great article. You may not change minds here , you don’t t need to , but what you do is reinforce what we know. Thank you
Well, yes, sort of. The danger isn’t the climate per se. The danger is the governmental response to the perceived climate change risk. People talk about fossil fuels becoming stranded assets. That means the government would make it uneconomic to develop those assets.
Even the stranded asset argument isn’t very likely. link Fossil fuel consumption isn’t going to level off before the middle of the century. Even most of those who push CAGW realize that and admit it. Of course, when they do that they’re tacitly admitting that the twelve year (or whatever) deadline is bunk.
Dear Dr Ball
I will finish your post later. But right now I wanted to leave this comment.
I have devoted the last several years to searching and investigating and reading and attempting to understand just as much as I can about climate change. Your post have played a major part in helping me to understand what is and is not happening to global climate. I understand that you may feel as if your efforts have not changed enough minds but know that your efforts have assisted in bringing me to a more complete understanding of not just what we know but what we do not know regarding the behavior of the global climate. I learned late in life that I was not the slow dumb individual that I was told that I was. In fact I learned that my intelligence was greater than most MDs and PHD candidates. Your post have helped me to come to a much fuller understanding of the field of climate science. I share your frustration anytime I engage others on this topic. I just need you to understand that your efforts have made a significant difference in one mans understanding.
I agree with Robert. I am not a scientist but a business man and entrepreneur now retired. I always thought Al Gore was a pompous ass. When he wrote “An Inconvenient Truth”, later turned that book into a movie and subsequently won an Oscar, I thought what is this all about? If Al Gore thinks CO2 is causing global warming I need to look into this. As I started my research, the internet led me to all the articles stating that 97% of scientists agree with the AGW concept. Further research led me to WUWT, Climate Depot and other blog sites. I read WUWT every day. If there is a post by Dr. Ball I go to that post immediately. I don’t always understand some of the more complex scientific posts but I am learning. I Just read Marc Morano’s “The Politically Incorrect Guide To Climate Change” which is a wonderful review of the issues without being overly scientific
To Dr. Ball’s point, don’t give up. Educate yourself, talk to your friends and family, you can make a difference. I start with the 97% consensus and explain where that came from and why it is bogus. I the discuss the fact that 400 parts per million of CO2 equals .04% of the total atmosphere and an increase to 800 parts per million is actually insignificant. I am making progress one person at a time.
Today the Washington Post Magazine was entirely devoted to climate change. A conglomerate of unsubstantiated doom and gloom with a plug for the Green New Deal (GND) at the close.
Dr. Ball is right this issue is political not scientific. If we lose, it will destroy the USA. So we must keep making our arguments and try to convince the alarmists with facts. Please keep providing those facts Dr. Ball to those of us in he trenches that need ammunition. Importantly we need another four years of Trump. He’s not my favorite but as far as I can tell all or most of the Democrat candidates support the GND. From what I have read there is a good chance the climate will cool as a result of low solar activity in the next six years. While I would prefer a warmer climate a cooling trend might help us persuade the many with an open mind on this issue.
Please DO NOT quit the battle – the whole world needs you and many more like you.
Tim is correct. However I believe that 40 to 50 years ago people were more independent in their thinking and did not get taken in by every fake story. But as Tim said, the UN and the IPCC changed that by pretending to be experts in climate change. In addition the proliferation of high speed media meant that bad news travels faster. The media in their constant efforts to make money continue to push AGW and CAGW. It is hard to find a media person who questions it. And the politicians are the worst. Whether they actually believe AGW is still a question, but they accept the principle because it fits their agenda. Howard above asks why would scientists lie? Well n the USA universities it is big bucks.
A Manitoba Member of the Legislative Assembly told me one problem with the members is that almost none of them are educated in science so it is easy to accept statements such as “the science is settled”, “linked to”, “highly likely”, etc if it is coming from people in authority at Universities. You can check the web site of the Prairie Climate Centre in Manitoba if you want to see misleading information and exaggerated forecasts of the temperature for the rest of the century.
The only University scientists who will speak out are the ones near retirement. I pity the poor students in most universities who have to tow the line in any earth sciences in Manitoba and many other locations.
Well, you tend to get the result you pay for. For some forty years all the financial and professional incentives have been on the side of increasingly dire “scientific” findings. The results are just what should have been expected.
https://twitter.com/ATomalty/status/1119543366859890689
The one graph that proves that CO2 induced global warming doesn’t exist. I met Tim Ball when he came to Ottawa for a presentation on global warming. He is an honourable man that has been in an honourable fight against this biggest financial scam of all time.
“The one graph that proves that CO2 induced global warming doesn’t exist. ”
Except it doesn’t….
For a start it not the Globe.
Maximum ice coverage does not show the extent of temperature trends. Ice thickness needs to be accounted for. The duration of melt is a function of ice thickness and in turn a function of winter cold.
This shows that (declining trend) ….
http://glisa.umich.edu/media/images/Great%20Lakes%20Ice%20Cover(1).jpg
(If “not found” put the “.jpg” on the link manually).
From…
http://glisa.umich.edu/climate/great-lakes-ice-coverage
In turn from ….
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/2011JCLI4066.1
“The total loss for overall Great Lakes ice coverage is 71%, while Lake Superior places second with a 79% loss. An empirical orthogonal function analysis indicates that a major response of ice cover to atmospheric forcing is in phase in all six lakes, accounting for 80.8% of the total variance.”
“I decided to stop trying to educate people … I want to help people bridge the gap between the false world of government and the real world”. LOL. I think they are the same thing Dr Ball. The situation is certainly very depressing. As Charles Mackay observed back in 1841, in his book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, people go mad in crowds, but tend to come to their senses individually.
I hope you will continue with your efforts. I have numerous “keepers’ from your material, which I can use when I am asked for advice by people who are having second thoughts about the veracity of the current climate change meme, and perhaps more urgently, when I am asked for help from parents who have a child who is so dispirited by this climate alarmism that they are becoming disengaged or even suicidal.
There are a large number of Greta Thunbergs out there, and most of them don’t get any help with what in my view is child abuse.
From the point of view of those trying to stem the tide of climate panic, Tim Ball stands as a giant in our midst, and I wish him progress with his new initiative. For me, I’d like to see more effort to find ways to help vulnerable people, not least children, who are victims of the scaremongering. So I was pleased to read your comment, Martin Clark, and learn that you are tackling this, and finding Tim Ball’s writings helpful for your efforts.
Read Orwell’s “Animal Farm” the pigs won.
And in Aldous Huxley’s utopia novel Island, the despots won. We pick our battles and mine has always been Energy though it is now inextricably linked to Climate (politically not actually) because taking a path away from nuclear energy is a path towards globalism/collapse/war/a new Dark Age/slavery again/disease again/depopulation… forgive me for being Tribal and implying that the United States is a crucial persuader keeping forces of darkness at bay… “It’s my job!”
Russia today resembles the post Civil War 19th Century United States in many ways, a self-sufficient practical Oligarchy with democratic and capitalist overtones. As a world power they are more closely aligned with US than many would admit. China is another matter. The EU is another matter. EU would rule the world with a clumsy hand, China with an iron hand.
The first country to mass produce and ship out practical and scalable commercial nuclear technology will rule the world. Which is why Andy’s video trying to reach the GOP in America on Climate and Energy Both is precious and important. It’s where the rubber hits the road.
Andy’s video deserves to be linked every time it is mentioned and I noticed that just as I posted. I will light a candle for the return of Edit.
This is me again, trying to LINK to the video.
Okay, I give up. WUWT filters out links to WUWT articles. Go figure.
After some testing I’ve discovered that WUWT does not parse A HREF with URLs that have trailing slashes properly unless they are “quoted”. So I should be able to LINK to Andy’s video now without error. Whew!
Science runs in fads. You do what is right for you as you want to live your life. What other do is not relevant.
Don’t feel too bad Dr Tim.
After all, half the world believes in some sorts of religious dogma, and CAGW is just another one of these.
In time, CAGW will be “old hat” and supplanted by something else that will offer humanity “salvation” from a concocted threat that only ever existed in the minds of some cabal or other (just like CAGW)
Having said that, I did have a soft spot for the “72 virgins” proposition.
(that didn’t come out quite right, did it?)
“72 virgins”
was a miss-quote it should read … ‘A 72 yr old virgin’
And as Billy Connolly said – “72 virgins? Who needs that kind of grief? Give me a fire-breathin’ whore any day!”
The 72 virgins turned out to be 72 Catholic Nuns.
The best course of action is to back and promote generation IV nuclear. It’s the only technology that can practically replace fossil fuels over time. There are no downsides to gen. IV, it’s a win/win regardless of anyone’s opinion about the political hoax of climate change.
I’m really beginning to believe the Alarmists might win …and I’m pretty sure that AT BEST it will be a pyrrhic victory with no winners…everybody loses…really big.
A real dystopia is possible…even probable.
Sit down and really think about what would likely happen as we phase out fossil fuels. Sounds simple does it? IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT.
There are a whole lot of very powerful and important chess pieces in this game:
• The Economy
• The Constitution
• The Military
• Real Americans that won’t surrender freedom easily or ever
• Agriculture and food distribution
• Fossil Fuel Industries (PLURAL)
• The Stock Market
• Capital Markets
• Everybody’s life savings
Do these dumb Fradulent Alarmist asses think that they can fundamentally interrupt and disrupt EVERYTHING without an unimaginable calamity erupting?
They are playing with nuclear fire that nobody will be able to tame.
Any efforts to phase out fossil fuels will be interesting. It sure as hell won’t be done voluntarily. I predict that there might be a little bit of conflict between the Alarmists/Deep State and the fossil fuel industries that have some $40 Trillion in hard earned productive assets in place and a few $Trillion more in product “in the ground” at stake. That conflict cannot turn out well. There is no possible way to pull this off cleanly. At best…the fossil fuel industry will pick up and leave the country to the extent they can taking a vast amount of wealth with then. Then they will sell fuel to the Chinese. IT WON’T STAY IN THE GROUND. They will probably go on strike and interrupt product (fuel) delivery. The backlash won’t be onto the industry…everybody will probably have lost their life savings by this time (stocks have crashed). Lots of angry eyes are aimed at the perpetrators by now…in Washington.
The stock market will totally collapse with an economic disruption with the scope of phasing out the fossil fuels industries.. you can’t command that stocks keep their value during MAJOR DISRUPTIONS. Capital will flee the country. Business all over the country will fail…causing a cascade of economic depression. Credit markets will shut down.
When the stock market completely collapses all hell will break lose.
The Military won’t just sit on the sidelines.
Do the Alarmists/Deep State whackos believe that they can dictate some kind of plan and everybody is just going to fall into line to make it happen? I won’t…and millions and millions of others won’t. The Alarmists/Deep State won’t get control of the Military… I can’t even begin to picture our servicemen bending the knee to these pussies and turning military power against the population. Won’t happen.
Is anybody starting to see the scope of the level of EVIL the friggin Fraudulent Alarmists intend to unleash on the world? A few more inches of Sea Level Rise might not look so bad by comparison.
The 2020 elections could put a damper on the Alarmist’s plans if they are forced to show their hands too soon. Trump needs to force them out into the open somehow…to expose the vastness of the amount of damage that the Alarmist/Deep State plans will inflict on the country.
For Docsider – it’s even simpler than that:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/23/childrens-climate-case-pushing-an-injunction-against-all-fossil-fuel-extraction/#comment-2639140
Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. For most people in the developed world, fossil fuels provide you with everything you need to survive – your food, your warm home, your car, your computer, your TV, and your mobile phone.
If fossil fuels are eliminated, all this will soon go away, and almost everyone in the developed world will be dead in about a month from starvation and exposure. Other than that kids, it’s a terrific plan…
Tim,
The main stream media sided with the alarmist, I assume because alarmism sells. You were fighting a hoax perpetuated by the press. Politicians (I’m not going there). Thank you for all your hard work.
Garland Lowe
The media sided with the alarmists because the alarmists are Marxists and so are the majority of modern journalists. They’re on a mission to Save The World by bringing it to socialist utopia.
Walk toward the fire, don’t worry about what they call you!