Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to New Zealand Academic David Hall, climate deniers actually accept the climate crisis on some level, but can’t face reality.
Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn’t real
David HallSenior Researcher in Politics, Auckland University of Technology
October 9, 2019 5.56am AEDTWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?
At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong.…
Negating reality
Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna were the great chroniclers of denial. Sigmund described this negation of reality as an active mental process, as “a way of taking cognisance of what is repressed”. This fleeting comprehension is what distinguishes denial from ignorance, misunderstanding or sheer disbelief. Climate change denial involves glimpsing the horrible reality, but defending oneself against it.Contemporary social psychologists tend to talk about this in terms of “motivated reasoning”. Because the facts of climate science are in conflict with people’s existing beliefs and values, they reason around the facts.
When this happens – as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt memorably put it – they aren’t reasoning in the careful manner of a judge who impartially weighs up all the evidence. Instead, they’re reasoning in the manner of a defence lawyer who clutches for post hoc rationalisations to defend an initial gut instinct. This is why brow-beating deniers with further climate science is unlikely to succeed: their faculty of reason is motivated to defend itself from revising its beliefs.
…
Undoing denial
In sum, denial is repressed knowledge. For climate change, this repression occurs at both the psychological level and social level, with the latter providing fodder for the former. This is a dismal scenario, but it shines some light on the way forward.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-some-people-still-think-climate-change-isnt-real-124763
What is this awful reality we are supposed to be trying to escape?
If CO2 was a genuine issue, all we would need to do to dramatically cut CO2 emissions is copy the 1970s French nuclear programme. France generates over 70% of their electricity from nuclear. Sweden generates 35-40%. Sweden and France are living proof that going nuclear is affordable, safe and effective; the rest of the world could easily do the same.
Why is the prospect of going nuclear supposed to be so traumatic? I’m a fan of nuclear power. If I thought there was the slightest chance CO2 was a problem, I would be campaigning hard for more nuclear power.
Suggestions that climate skeptics can’t cope with the societal adjustments which would be required to substantially reduce CO2 emissions are lazy intellectual absurdities.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
New Zealand academic, David Hall – who hides there because he can’t face reality – tries to force reality through the prism of predetermined progressive talking points.
‘Senior researcher in politics’. Nuff said.
New Zealand academic, David Hall, a senior researcher in politics, evidences that deep down CAGWarmists know it is all crap but just can’t face the reality. This would explain the increasing hysteria of the St Greta, Extinction Rebellion and similar movements.
Provided via the virtual reality of modeling.
I stopped reading at “New Zealand academic… “
An important time saving clue, easily overlooked.
Kudos!
He has a Doctorate in Philosophy (so apparently he does some thinking every now & then), AND an arts degree (BA) in Geography?????? Since when was Geography a study of the arts, I always thought it was a science? Well, at least it was a science back in the old days, but this Globul Warming buisiness seems to be affecting everything that used to be a science & turning it into art forms previously unknown to mankind!!!!!! I fear that these inhabitants of Disneyland will invent all sorts of creating shinanigans just to make a name for themselves for 15 minutes (that sounds familiar?)! Be afraid, be very afraid, Orwell was bang-on in his book, “1984”! 😉 AtB
I studied physical geography in college in the 1980s, including a bunch of classes in meteorology and climatology, and was considering a degree in that area, possibly hydrology.
Up until sometime in the mid 1990s, geography was taught in the humanities department of most if not all universities in the US.
Made not a lot of sense.
For one thing, the general distribution requirements for any humanities degree are completely different than for a degree in any natural science. Hardly any math required, hardly any sampling of natural science classes, etc.
And you had to take a lot of other classes in the humanities having nothing to do with geography or any natural science. Just like a chemistry degree required lots of classes in other areas within the College of Natural Science.
As for a BA, most schools BA degrees in sciences or math.
It simply means that the classes required are more broadly based outside of hard sciences and include more liberal arts credits. Somewhat less narrowly focused. And you might be allowed to take somewhat less rigorous classes outside your major.
For example, a BS in chemistry requires that the physics classes you need to take are the ones taken by physics majors, but a BA in chemistry allows one to take non-majors level physics classes to meet that requirement.
To N. McG:
Many scientists think of geography as only being the study of Earth’s landforms and other surface features, including the atmosphere, and their interactions. But that study is the core of geomorphology taught in geology), and makes up only a part of geography. Geography used to include much study of human and societal interactions with the Earth, with agriculture, and with other cultures relative to local environment. That was the relationship of geography to humanities.
Relative to chemistry, majors in chemistry, physics, chemical engineer, and pre-Med take the same chemistry courses (in most schools), but many others, including agriculture, home economics, general BA studies, etc. often take separate, less vigorous courses.
Political geography and physical geography are very distinct.
I only took classes in physical geography, and there was nothing at all that was not related to the physical aspects of the Earth involved in the course material.
Physical geography includes meteorology, climatology, hydrology, etc.
So, yes, it makes sense that political geography is a humanities field, but no sense that physical is.
I imagine at some point someone had to make a decision, and it was originally decided one way.
But this changed in the 1990s.
My guess is that it was recognized that this previous arrangement made no sense.
For Alan the Brit (not sure if this post will appear above or below)…
Geography courses/majors, in Canadian universities (and as far as I know Australian and New Zealand) fall into the Faculty of Arts, broadly speaking, or with the social “sciences”. It has been this way for a long time, I took my physical geography course in the early 1980s at a Canadian university (‘arts’ requirement). The physical geography course was like a geology-lite course. The human geography course equivalent was more of a sociology exercise.
It may interest many to know that “climate courses” at many Canadian universities are taught under the umbrella of the Department of Geography. I have a niece with a degree in geography from UBC and considers her major to have been ‘climate science’. Somehow she managed to take precisely zero courses that fall under the umbrella of “hard sciences” notably no math, chemistry, physics, statistics or even biology. I do enjoy the fact she remained unemployable until she went and took a GIS mapping course at BCIT. That aside, that’s why much of climate science is flawed IMO in that those with those degrees are often really just geographers coming out of the faculty of Arts with at best a social science degree.
As for 1984 you couldn’t be more bang on. I recently re-read it and in particular the “youth leagues” outting their parents seemed to ring a strangely familiar bell of late. It’s almost like 1984 is being used as a guide book. Oddly my daughter read this in high school so it is still required reading but I don’t think the kids are taught to think deeply or much at all about the metaphors that are relevant today.
Here is a link to University of South Florida website, and I am gonna quote the descriptions of majors in a BA in Chemistry vs a BS in Chemistry.
BA Chemistry:
“The Chemistry B.A. gives students exposure to analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry while providing the flexibility to take additional elective courses. Students interested in professional, law, or graduate school or those who anticipate working in careers related to secondary education or business will find this degree attractive. The B.A. student whose goals include graduate study should supplement this curriculum by addition and/or substitution of a selection of advanced courses from the B.S. program. The Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry provides opportunities for curricula individually tailored to meet many career objectives.”
BS Chemistry:
“The Bachelor of Science in Chemistry is designed for students wishing to continue with graduate training in chemistry and closely allied disciplines and the degree is certified by the American Chemical Society.The Bachelor of Science in Chemistry provides a firm foundation in all five disciplines of chemistry: organic, physical chemistry, inorganic, analytical and biochemistry. Students interested in research, the pursuit of an advanced degree, employment in the chemical industry, or who want to teach at the secondary education level may find this degree attractive. The curriculum for the B.S. degree in Chemistry meets the requirements for degree certification by the American Chemical Society.”
The same rationale applies to BA vs BS degrees in other fields.
In either case, a student takes a lot of chemistry and these are largely the same classes for each degree.
Another reason for pursuing a BA instead of a BS is for students who decide to major in chemistry after having taken several semesters with another major in mind, as there is more flexibility in terms of integrating credits in other disciplines without having the spend extra years before moving on the grad school.
http://ugs.usf.edu/catalog/?catyr=1819&category=majors&display=detail&maj=CHS°=BS
Alan le Brit said: “He has a Doctorate in Philosophy (so apparently he does some thinking every now & then)”
As a philosopher one would expect him to question the basic assumptions on which the claim of a climate crisis or emergency is based, not swallow them sequaciously. Maybe he’s in denial.
New Zealand academic is an oxymoron. But the one looks like a real moron.
The real freudian denial going on is that fact that the models on which the whole scam is based are warming far faster than any real change in observations and the upper tropo hotspot which is the key fingerprint of GHG diven warming is bearly even detectable in observational data.
They are in denial about the fact that what this movement is really about is destruction of western capitalist society ( the one which funded their comfortable, secure liberal world ).
They parrot on about “the science” but would not know the first scientific fact about climate if challenged.
They should dig a little deeper in their copy of “Freud for Dummies” and refer the chapter on projection.
So did I. I’m from New Zealand.
Hey that’s not fair. There is some excellent scientists here doing amazing work. Don’t disparage them because of this ignorant person.
Where someone is from has little to do with any of this.
People are about the same everywhere, and are also different in the same ways, everywhere.
The crap spewing from this guy is no different than what is spewing from the same sort of person all over the world these days.
Jesse: You are, of course correct, but I would venture there are very few of them under the heading of ‘political science’ – not under THIS topic.
The awful reality of CAGW being a load of crap is that the international credit of western liberal democracy will be savagely wounded and the likes of Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Jong Un et al will have good cause to simply laugh it off as a passing fad that has had its day like the hoola hoop and that they represent reality. Even if there is some AGW and we over react with renewables and wreck/degrade our economines much the same will result.
Trump, Brexit and the rise of ‘right wing’ parties in Europe are signs of exactly that. Thanks for nothing you incompetent leftards. Its not about the ‘right’ being the solution, its about you leftards being a bigger problem.
Why is it that a person whose expertise is politics passes himself off as an expert on fraudian, I mean Freudian, psychology?
Besides for that, I find it fascinating how people like this write and publish entire elaborate exercises in mental gymnastics to conceal their own cognitive dissonance from themselves.
I should probably keep it specific to the person doing it, so…to himself, I should say.
Here is what this would say if it was written by a rational and objective person. Instead of:
“Why do people still think climate change isn’t real?
At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong.”
It would say:
Why do people still think CO2-induced catastrophic climate change is real?
At its heart, climate change crisis belief is a conflict between facts and values. People hallucinate a climate crisis because, to them, it just feels good to virtue signal to their in-crowd.
Additionally, it would be an ego shattering mental crisis if the brain allowed such self-centered narcissists to directly confront the fact of their own incredibly deep rooted ignorance and miseducation.
This is a very revealing story but not for the reasons that the author thinks. We know that if he had sought out, read and understood the evidence that is contrary to his preconceptions then if he was a rational human being he could not be so confident in the myth. This points to several possibilities including: he is lazy, he is lying for ulterior reasons, he is incapable of understanding scientific publications, he has a serious brain malfunction, all or any of the above. Whatever the case, it reinforces all of one’s darkest thoughts about academics. One of the first rules of academics has to be “study the viewpoints that are contrary to your own more than you study the ones that support it”. Are you listening CBC journalists (l fear that seeking out opposing views is a concept that has become completely alien to journalists)?
More simply: Groupthink is easy to go along with. Once accepted, all reality is interpreted through the groupthink model.
The climate alarmists are actually alarmed, just like the denizens of Orwell’s 1984 actually hated all those targets of the 30 minutes of hate that they participated in. A kind of group psychosis—-but emotionally satisfying to the groupthinkers who get a sense of communion with their fellows and a sense of moral superiority over those targets of hate.
This NewZealander has drunk the Koolaid of “climate truth”, the groupthink of the woke left.
Because he is an expert in politics he feels he can conflate ‘climate change’ with ‘climate crisis’ then expect everyone to bow to his view of how the world should operate.
He also seems to think there is only one reason for us ‘deniers’ being deniers and that is due to our ‘feelings’ that something is wrong. He obviously has not asked us for our actual reasons (poor data, mal-treated data, missing data, cherry-picked data, follow the money, etc). He just ‘knows’ why we don’t follow the herd.
The fool that calls him a drongo is no idiot.
Denial is the repression of indoctrination. we do not deny the climate changes as it has been changing long before man’s discovery of fossil fuel.
To your point John, we deny the political propaganda that demands giving over all individual freedom and power to the central totalitarian authority of the Wizard in order for him/them to control our lives.
How is the climate in OZ john? I’m guessing the Wizard has the Munchkins groveling for favors and handouts. I am sure that courage, and knowledge are in short supply but that emotions are running amok.
“Additionally, it would be an ego shattering mental crisis if the brain allowed such self-centered narcissists to directly confront the fact of their own incredibly deep rooted ignorance and miseducation.”
Additionally, to directly confront their own ignorance would require confronting the fact that governmental authorities are not so authoritative and they might have to think for themselves.
But ultimately, it is fear that causes denial. Alarmists claim that the horrifying reality of the climate emergency is so terrifying that we sceptics can’t face it. I claim that the horrifying reality that so many so-called experts could be wrong is too terrifying face.
His whole argument assumes that his assumption that he is correct is in fact correct.
That is the whole problem with arguments in catastrophic climate change – it starts with the assumption that the acts of man are destroying the planet and then work backward from there until they find a plausible (to them) mechanism that they can sell to the non-science educated public. Then once they have latched on to that mechanism (CO2 as a proxy for industrialization) they make programs that will generate the effect and display those as representing reality even though they are based on the assumption their hypothesis is true.
“David Hall Senior Researcher in Politics, Auckland University of Technology”
I like it. Politics? Does he manufacture his facts by vote or by underhand whispers or by marvelous oratory?
David – You are in the wrong game to be regarded as an expert in this field!
Try reading and understanding this!
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/
David!
Politics especially extreme politics rarely help people.
Lets name some wonderful modern politicians shall we?
How about Karl Marx. Stalin, using Marx as an excuse, kills millions of people for his quest to stay and expand his power. Try reading what happened to the Kulaks in the 1930’s.
Mao Tze Tung starves whole provinces between 1959 and 63. Between 1949 and 58 things were looking up and then his politics kills possibly as many of 36 million people.
Hitler was a marvelous politician – How many did he kill?
What is happening in Venezuela right now?
One can go on!
In other words – Exactly who do you think you are?
Climate denial is the realization that a huge agglomeration of scientists, bureaucrats, and politicians are united in forcing the world to accept a junk science crisis in order to take over the world. Yeah, that is indeed a horrible reality.
It’s real that there are evil forces out there that clearly do not have the welfare of mankind or the planet in consideration.
as soon as he used Freud i started laughing even harder,
nice self portrait of himself though
“The Conversation”…. lol
I’ve thought it was pretty funny that they think they know what is happening in our heads. At the same time rather scary since they want to do something to “fix’ it. They don’t seem to realize it is their thought processes that are denying that in reality, there isn’t really a problem.
I also think it is a power grab, using fear to get us to give up what we have. It used to be tongue in cheek that we’d say they want us back to the stone age, but now they are clearly trying to do just that. The green nude eel as proposed by the U.S. politicians would make the U.S. just as dark as North Korea. And they don’t seem to care that it would make 300 million people as miserable as the North Koreans.
A “senior researcher in politics” knows best as always. What exactly he knows best remains a mystery.
He knows how to studiously avoid discussion of anything like evidence or proper scientific methodology.
A look at his other recent writings is instructive.
This gem is typical:
“Why our response to climate change needs to be a just and careful revolution that limits pushback”
-David Hall, Auckland University of Technology
“Climate change is a super-wicked problem. With a growing sense of urgency to act on climate change, it is vital we strike a balance between encouraging action and limiting pushback.”
Got that?
Climate change is a “super-wicked” problem.
I feel that I am on solid ground disregarding anything that purports to be scholarly from someone who uses the phrase “super-wicked” in the intro.
Nicholas, Check Judith Curry on wicked problems, you might learn something.
I am only interested in disparaging super-wicked problems.
Or more precisely the ranting of people that use the phrase.
Besides, that is rather vague for my liking.
Check Judith Curry on wicked problems?
Huh?
If you think you know of something I need to learn, you could always just say what it is.
No need to be cryptic.
What, I am needing to get busy now, enough said?
Judith Curry coined the term” Wicked Problem”. she however was referring to parts of climate science where even the best scientists simply haven’t got a clue how to even begin to formulate an answer. because it is too complex. a wicked problem indeed,
Note that Hall calls the problem super wicked, but then asserts that there is urgency to act.
IOW…no need to get things sorted out first.
But the real insight into the mentality is the last part:
“… it is vital we strike a balance between encouraging action and limiting pushback.”
So, it is “vital” to limit pushback?
This sounds like the idea is that no dissent can be tolerated.
How exactly does one person “limit pushback” from other people who have a different view on some issue?
Obviously such opposition must be controlled somehow, either by some sort of bullying, marginalization, flat out ignoring them, declaring the matter settled, demonization, etc.
IOW, everything we are seeing.
It is all part of the plan, enunciated in advance.
The “wicked problem” that Hall is speaking of is how to make sure than he and his like minded ilk retain full control of the entire issue. And since this is a planetary emergency, that means full control of everything, period. Including anyone not on the team being controlled by making sure they have no ability to interfere with the plan.
Nick, Simon, Griff, Steven…do you think you bear any responsibility for this dilusion?
They are out on an XR protest, they are the self guilt type and getting up to right age.
LOL. allergic to hemp, don’t you know!
“igmund Freud and his daughter Anna were the great chroniclers of denial. Sigmund described this negation of reality as an active mental process, as “a way of taking cognisance of what is repressed”. This fleeting comprehension is what distinguishes denial from ignorance”
Yet there is a third possibility… the initial theory was wrong from the start. Maybe the warmists are in that denial.
Maybe there is a cross section of warmists and deniers that recognize what this scare campaign is all about – destruction of capitalism and wealth redistribution.
Maybe they are in denial and using projection as a coping mechanism. Deep down, they realise that they are wrong, but can’t let go of their belief in CAGW. To cope with this, they project their insecurities onto those who hold an opposing view on the matter.
Bingo, Mark.
I think projection is the inability to understand that someone else has a different perspective on a subject.
They simply believe that everyone believes as they do; and if anyone does say something differently then they are knowingly lying.
It’s simply beyond them to grasp the concept of a different point of view.
That pay be one component of the pathology of some people who employ projection is a defense mechanism.
But it is not what “projection is”.
What it is, is clear enough.
In plain language, It describes what is occurring when an individual ascribes to other individuals some mentality or thought process or trait that the first individual is themselves suffering from or in the thrall of.
It is generally regarded as a defense mechanism employed by those who have a fragile state of mind coupled with an inflated ego or sense of self worth.
In other words, and in a case such as this, it is when weak minded fools who are sick in the head talk about other people to deflect attention away from themselves, whether said attention be their own self-reflection or the attention of other people.
People who do it the most and the loudest, will be found to have some seriously messed up crap they are covering up inside their own minds and lives.
I have named one particularly severe branch or manifestation of this phenomenon the “Jimmy Swaggert Syndrome”, after the disgraced televangelist who captured so much attention when his story came to light.
Denial is an autonomic process in which the protective part of the brain intercepts unpleasant or dangerous input and diverts it from the conscious mind. Note that the optic and auditory nerves do not go to the frontal cortex, but through the limbic system and associated protective regions.
Knowing what to make of this is facilitated by knowing that the limbic system is the part of the brain that processes and integrates emotions.
Although it is also very important in the formation and recall of memory.
As an aside, this is why particular odors can often elicit intense emotional reactions and recall of long ago memories.
Thanks, I always wondered why the smell of a field of cattle instantly reminds climate alarmism.
Now I know it’s the limbic system. Cool.
Occam’s Razorburn
The cognitive dissonance experienced when the simplest explanation is ideologically unacceptable. To deflect the burn for as long as possible, any other avenue of explanation, no matter how convoluted or insulting to the intelligence, is enthusiastically pursued.
Couldn’t agree more with your comments. If the existence of mankind depended on reducing CO2 the only real solution is to go 100 % nuclear. The risk of deaths from nuclear is minuscule compared to the end of human existence. This failure to embrace nuclear is the absolute proof that the warmist agenda is not about reducing CO2 but about transfer of power and wealth under the guise of a climate emergency.
The Left’s opposition to nuclear seems to be an extremely pertinent example of what Hall is talking about. That is far more so than anything most people in the climate skeptic community are doing.
Exactly.
They actively oppose the only real “solutions” to what they view as a world ending crisis.
Which all by itself is highly instructive as to their actual goals and intent, far more so than what they say.
Nuclear power solves the problem – assuming there really is one – and allows economies to keep functioning. That is why the socialists hate it.
Seems to me that New Zealand Academic David Hall has it just “bass ackwards”
But the distal alimentary meatus is *supposed* to emerge dorsally. That’s just anatomical best practice. Perhaps you meant this ducking funce’s farse faced orwards.
No that is how the delusional start, everyone else has the problem not them.
CAGW climate change should be categorized as a mental disorder. It has certainly manifested itself that way with many of the protesters these days, although that can easily be summed up by the fact that they are using climate fear as an advocate to promote hard core socialism and wealth distribution schemes across the planet. Of course some people and even countries are going to believe in all this clap trap, if they are in on getting a lot of free money and/or power and sticking it to the rich colonizing powers. Follow the money and power traps, and it is easy to see that this is all a ruse to bring down the have nations, who also happen to be mostly Caucasian. This is payback for the last 200 years and sadly, a lot of our own useful and useless idiots have fallen for the trap.
How very pro-choice. No, another projection from the twilight fringe.
Yet another clear case of psychological projection from an alarmist. It’s clearly the alarmists who can’t accept the scientific reality that the ‘warming’ from CO2 is far less than claimed and in fact, so small as to be unimportant. The reason they have trouble accepting the scientific truth is that it’s in conflict with their political identity which requires them to accept the global warming meme without questioning it. This is faith based pseudo-science not unlike the pseudo science used to try and claim that the Universe is only a few thousand years old in order to be consistent with the Bible.
When will the denier attribute be applied to those who are actually denying something? In order to accept the claims of the IPCC, you must implicitly deny the data, the SB Law, Conservation of Energy and the obvious linearity between forcing and emissions, as both expressed in the same units of W/m^2 and no Joule is any different than any other when it comes to the work of warming the surface.
Not to mention ignoring all of earth history and everything known from human historical records and contemporary first hand accounts and those documented by journalists at the time.
Simply put, you have to have the worst case of selective attention possible in order to be a warmista.
Mass psychosis is what is occurring, in real time and before our very eyes.
It is truly astounding to be living through it and see what such a thing, which is literally impossible to reconcile with the view that people are mostly rational.
”Science Denier” has been used to describe the Alarmists, for some time now. At least, it’s more accurate than claiming someone denies that the climate changes.
Among those who’ve done the proper due diligence, yes, but the media has yet to recognize which side is actually denying science and unless that happens, most people will remain ignorant enabling fear to replace common sense.
Funny. That means that initially I accepted reality when I was functional and normal (because I used to believe in impending climate catastrophe) but then I discovered the truth and my brain must have shrunk and withdrawn under the sheets into a state of terror.
Climate Change Deniers are the equivalent of “Doubting Thomas” – we will believe it when we see it.
(Actual nobody denies that climate changes – it always has. What we deny is that climate change would stop at
an ideal point if we stopped emitting CO2. In fact Climate Alarmists are the actual Climate Change Deniers).
This is exactly the political abuse of psychiatry that happened in the Soviet Union. link Anybody who does that kind of thing should have their license yanked … if they have one.
I think that, in the long run, moving away from fossile sources of energy probably makes sense. Of course, current nuclear technologies are quite a good option if everything is considered.
But I think nuclear fusion will be even better, and if new reactors will be built on a large scale, this should rather be done with nuclear fusion.
In case nuclear fusion does not work out in the next decades, Thorium-based reactors probably also offer significant advantages – and they are already on the way in India and China.
If one took the currently fashionable extreme climate alarmism, which is not supported by the data (about 0.15°C per decade, even if it is due to CO2 is certainly not an emergency), the rational consequence would be that options are more restricted and the construction of a large number of nuclear reactors would have to be built immediately instead of better technologies.
It seems that most of the climate alarmists want to use slightly modernized variants of pre-industrial technologies like windmills – with intermittent supply, much lower energy density and more need for space and materials per amount of energy (which is also an ecological problem). I don’t exclude that it might eventually work to use these pre-industrial methods in an improved way as the sole source of energy, but it would certainly be much more costly, time-consuming, and complicated (among other things because of the need for large-scale energy storage). That is not what an otherwise rational person who really believes that we are currently in a climate emergency would suggest.
I think the climate demonstrators who claim that “we don’t have time” would have to acknowledge that the practical consequences of their claims would be an expansion of current nuclear technologies and that what they are mainly protesting against is taking enough time for nuclear fusion or improved fission technologies.
The immediate problem being that there is currently no such thing as a fusion reactor, no one has any idea how to build one, and there has been no progress on this despite many decades and enormous expenditures.
In fact, none of the current research is geared towards building anything like an operational power source, but merely to try to make baby steps at some momentary condition in which for a brief instant more energy is being liberated than input. Not counting the energy expended prior to and after that brief instant of course and unfortunately.
In fact it may well be the case that no such power plant will ever be possible, and so even considering it as a realistic possibility is not even wishful thinking, but simply, at present, a fantasy.
No need to take my word for it though.
People who spent their entire lives on the effort say so.
Insofar as a fusion reaction can be controlled, it cannot produce an energy profit. Insofar as a fusion reaction produces an energy profit, it cannot be controlled.
This is the design catch-22 that one must break to build a practical fusion plant. So far none have succeeded.
And this are the financial abuses of psychiatry that happened in the US:
https://www.google.com/search?q=financial+abuse+of+psychiatry+that+happened+in+the+US&oq=financial+abuse+of+psychiatry+that+happened+in+the+US+&aqs=chrome.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNSXKyAb_nWWw6nIdKnYjHvTLPt03w:1571404082473&q=political+abuse+of+psychiatry+in+the+united+states&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicnYmx8KXlAhXHG5oKHcvcDusQ1QIwEnoECAoQAg&biw=360&bih=574&dpr=3
_________________________________________________
https://www.google.com/search?q=pointing+fingers+3+fingers+pointing+back&oq=pointing+fingers+3+fingers+pointing+back&aqs=chrome.
Looks like a case of projection if you ask me. ACC proponents are so up tight about the perceived Boogyman CO2 that they want to see others as BAD and Climate as something that should have a stasis point that never changes (A Utopic Stability). They refuse to comprehend that the climate Always Changes and has never been a Utopic Nirvana.
Temperatures fluctuate (It’s been warmer (Holocene Optimum) and colder (Glaciation) than it is today)
Hurricanes happen (1780 Caribbean Sea saw the worst ever with 24,000 deaths and multiple islands scrubbed clean)
Flooding happens (1861 California Sacramento Valley under FEET of water)
Drought happens (1930’s Dustbowl, 200 Year Megadroughts)
Sea Level fluctuates around 400′ (Doggerland flooded under 150′ of sea level rise thousands of years ago)
We are the idiots that build our “Permanent Structures” in Flood Planes along rivers and at the Shoreline then claim we can stop both the flooding and the prior natural climate change states from occurring in the future through the manipulation of a single magic molecule
Well, not so “we” as “they”.
The fact that he is a senior researcher in politics tells me everything I need to know about his grasp of the issue on a scientific level.
When one knows nothing about anything, it’s time to trot out Freud.
The only light shining for this guy is from one ear through to the other.
Since the advent of this catastrophic global warming, can someone tell me what if any Climate Zones have been moved or adjusted in recent years, decades? None? oh…ok, thanks. So this begs the question….what is everyone squawking about?
Poor sod. I genuinely feel sorry for him.
The cure for that is to read more about what he thinks about you and me and anyone else who does not hold to his views.
An interesting but light-weight essay from one of our lighter weight educational institutions.
“If CO2 was a genuine issue, all we would need to do to dramatically cut CO2 emissions is copy the 1970s French nuclear programme.”
Given NZ power production in round figures is more than 80% hydro and geothermal and when the Aluminium smelter at Bluff which uses the production of the Deep Cove Hydropower station is decommissioned in the medium term NZ will have a 15% surplus of renewable hydropower. Why would we need nuclear? According to Roger Pielke the world needs to open a nuclear plant every day until 2050, fat chance of even one opening in NZ we are proudly, but mistakenly, nuclear-free, with a scientifically and financially illiterate Leftist Green Government.
I’ve seen the geothermal plant at Lake Taupo. Ruined a beautiful geyser, sucked the heat out of it for the sake of a little green virtue signaling.
Like wrecking Yellowstone park for the sake of a few megawatts of “clean” energy.
The Wairakei geothermal plant was built (and still going but additional bores drilled) in the 1960s long before green virtue signalling. The country has 80% renewable energy , mainly from Hydro built in the 60s to 80s. Makes a great stability mechanism to the wind farms now used as well for parts that have regular wind.
And remind me about how good hydro is? Sarc
Hydro is not really renewable energy.
Hydro dams have limited lives because of the build up of silt in the hydro lake.
I believe that the expected life of a hydro plant is about 50 years.
Don’t see any replacements yet for our aging system.
Better order another million windmills! 🙂
50 years?
Hoover dam, built in the 1936.
Glen Canyon Dam, 1966s.
Grand Coulee, 1942
I could go on and on.
There are over 2,4000 hydropower dams in the US, and I think nearly every single one is over 50 years old (Tellico completed in 1979) , and some going on 100 years if not more.
None that I have ever heard of ever silted up.
But you know, they got this thing called dredging…
Hey, maybe they could just dredge the lake if one ever did silt up. Nah…ridiculous…just shut it down and dynamite the thing.
Cheap power with zero emissions, flood prevention, irrigation, water storage…those are just fads!
Did you know, BTW, that there are over 80,000 dams in the US that do not generate any hydro power, and if they were tapped for that purpose, they could generate over 12,000 megawatts without building a single new dam? Golly! 45 terawatt hours per year going to waste!
The largest producer is the Grand Coulee in Washington state, but one was proposed and never built in Alaska, one dam mind you, on the Yukon river, that could be producing over 5,000 megawatts?
More than Hoover and the Niagara power stations put together.
Damn!
But you know, saving the planet is a minor concern stacked up against the horror of a lake silting up in a few hundred years, and then needing to get dredged.
And what would they do with all that silt?
Use it for topsoil or fill or something dumb like that?
How about some facts?
The average dam in the US gather silt at a rate of about 0.2% per year, but some are as low as half of that and some as much as 0.5 % per year.
Building the Glen Canyon dam gathered most of the silt that might have eventually filled up Lake Mead. The dams on the Columbia river silt up particularly slowly, especially the ones at the lower reaches of the river.
One thing is for sure, when large reservoirs fill with sediment, solutions will be implemented, considering that people have come to depend on the water, the power, and the lake itself for recreation.
Maybe not in poor countries, but here in the US, ingenuity will prevail…of that I am certain.
Sand and gravel can be simply pumped. Silt and other cohesive sediment must be dredged, or as an alternative, the lake can be drained and the material just scooped up and driven away.
Nothing in the world is renewable if you define that to mean maintenance free.
When was the Hoover dam built?
The Porjus in northern Sweden was built 1910 to 1915.
“The construction of the Porjus power station out in the wilderness is considered a pioneering achievement. The material for the founding work had to be carried in backpacks over a 44 km (3000 feet) trail in uninhabited land before any infrastructure was built.”
The dam is still there.
Oh, sorry about that typo.
No such number as 2,4000. Should be just 2400.
Hydro relies on falling water to create power.
A dam silting up doesn’t reduce the height of the dam, all that is reduced is the storage capacity of the dam.
The silt will eventually block the intake of the power plants.
On bad designs, the intakes are very low on the structure.
Why are global warmers so obsessed with those who disagree? We aren’t trying to force anyone to do anything or believe anything; we simply object to their efforts of forcing change on us. They want to reduce the use of fossil fuels? They are more than welcome to stop using them. If enough people believe as they do and followed their lead, power plants will cut back, less petrol will be sold, less jet fuel used, etc., and the issue is moot.
If they are correct in their analysis, the proper course of action is to present the evidence and convince a majority on the need for action. Insulting and threatening those who disagree only suggests they have neither sufficient evidence nor support.
Do they not see that going down this road – with disruptive protests, promoting temper-tantrum children with mental impairments, threatening ‘non-believers – result in LESS public support? If they don’t understand that, it’s hard to imagine they would understand the complexities of climate.
I imagine there are a lot more people today than yesterday who would rather burn on Earth than to give these whiney, self-absorbed egoists control of anything.
A ‘senior researcher in politics’ claims to know what’s going on between my ears — a marvelous perspicacity for someone I’ve never conversed with. What’s up with such proud ‘academics’ these days inverting everything about the motives and knowledge base of everyone else in their driving will to erase them? Most of what comes out of their mouths (propelled by 40,000 ppm exhaled CO2 no less) is a fine self-description of their own hatred driven motives, twisted knowledge base, and power hungry manipulative political methods. In all due intellectual humility how much have they figured they don’t know that makes inquiry a continuing delight to the mind? Sure makes me want to puke all over the alma mater of my own advanced degree.
Serially-absurd Sou tried this explanation on a few years ago, heroically venturing far above her pay-grade into the world of barstool neuropsychology, where she came to the Nobel-worthy-if-true conclusion that we skeptics were *more* afraid of climate change than alarmists—hence both sides’ behaving, speaking and lobbying as if the exact opposite were true. That’s the day I became (apparently the first commenter to be) exiled from the paradise that is Sou’s blog, just after proving her wrong about everything. (Of course, correlation is not causation and I’m sure she had some other, non-cowardly reason.)
https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/02/downside-of-conservative-brain.html?showComment=1361079538537#c541374164549021902
Brad you are doing God’s work. That person you were engaged in debate was quite interesting
Completely off topic, but this is just so unbelievable.
Farmer is feeding charcoal to his cattle to reduce emissions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-49970863
. . . . and just how is charcoal made?
“. . . . and just how is charcoal made?”
No problem – it come in a bag ready to use
It is not that we don’t think it is real. It is that it is not anywhere as extreme as they claim and, more importantly, man’s contribution is non-measurable.
Trump approval still at 2019 highs. That must be killing the impeachment bound Dems. We know he behaved inappropriately but don’t care. Crazy is better that dangerously stupid.
I automatically ignore anyone who quotes Freud. Freud has been thoroughly discredited by actual neuropsychological science. He was wrong about everything, as near as I remember.
He’s still popular with Language Arts academics and other non-scientists who still titter when they hear the word penis.
These people aren’t serious.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
This yet again is showing how worried the establishment are,there simply not getting the surport they think they should get, saying there is no climate crisis does not mean I dont acknowledge a climate nor that it changes,I disagree the climate is in crisis ,perhaps this professor can demonstrate a climate crisis, perhaps he could come on here and debate with one of the knowledgeable ones on here. What does the professor could explain why there is no debate in any public forum (ie climate scientists on both sides of the debate with a mediator) what is the professors view on a complete blanking by the MSM on a opposing view,would he think that’s a form of denial by the media in both senses of the word.time the professor confessed that hes talking nonsense, he and his paymasters are the ones in denial.