Last week, amid the cacophony of reactions to Greta Thunberg’s appearance before the United Nations Climate Action Summit, a group of self-proclaimed “prominent scientists” sent a registered letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The letter, headed “There is no climate emergency”, urged Guterres to follow:
…a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.
The group, supported by 75 Australian business and industry figures, along with others around the world, obviously rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. But this missive displays remarkably different tactics to those previously used to stymie climate action.
The language of climate change denial and inaction has transformed. Outright science denial has been replaced by efforts to reframe climate change as natural, and climate action as unwarranted.
However, this is just another way of rejecting the facts, and their implications for us. Denial can take many forms.
Shades of denial
The twin phenomena of denial and inaction are related to one another, at least in the context of climate change. They are also complex, both in the general sense of “complicated and intricate”, and in the technical psychological sense of “a group of repressed feelings and anxieties which together result in abnormal behaviour”.
In his book States of Denial, the late psychoanalytic sociologist Stanley Cohen described three forms of denial. Although his framework was developed from analysing genocide and other atrocities, it applies just as well to our individual and collective inaction in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence of human-induced climate change.
The first form of denial is literal denial. It is the simple, conscious, outright rejection that something happened or is happening – that is, lying. One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, among others, have at one time or another maintained this position – outright denial that climate change is happening (though Senator Hanson now might accept climate change but denies any human contribution to it).
Interestingly, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday blamed “climate change deniers” in his own government for blocking any attempt to deal with climate change, resulting paradoxically in higher energy prices today.
It is tempting to attribute outright denial to individual malice or stupidity, and that may occasionally be the case. More worrying and more insidious, though, is the social organisation of literal denial of climate change. There is plenty of evidence of clandestine, orchestrated lying by vested interests in industry. If anyone is looking for a conspiracy in climate change, this is it – not a collusion of thousands of scientists and major science organisations.
The second form of denial is interpretive denial. Here, people do not contest the facts, but interpret them in ways that distort their meaning or importance. For example, one might say climate change is just a natural fluctuation or greenhouse gas accumulation is a consequence, not a cause, of rising temperatures. This is what we saw in last week’s letter to the UN.
The most insidious form of denial
The third and most insidious form is implicatory denial. The facts of climate change are not denied, nor are they interpreted to be something else. What is denied or minimised are the psychological, political, and moral implications of the facts for us. We fail to accept responsibility for responding; we fail to act when the information says we should.
Of course, some are unable to respond, financially or otherwise, but for many, implicatory denial is a kind of dissociation. Ignoring the moral imperative to act is as damning a form of denial as any other, and arguably is much worse.
The treatment of Thunberg, and the vigour with which people push away reminders of that which they would rather not deal with, illustrate implicatory denial. We are almost all guilty, to some extent, of engaging in implicatory denial. In the case of climate change, implicatory denial allows us to use a reusable coffee cup, recycle our plastic or sometimes catch a bus, and thus to pretend to ourselves that we are doing our bit.
Almost none of us individually, or we as a nation, has acted as we ought on the science of climate change. But that does not mean we can’t change how we act in the future. Indeed, there are some recent indications that, as with literal denial, implicatory denial is becoming an increasingly untenable psychological position.
While it is tempting, and even cathartic, to mock the shrill responses to Thunberg from literal and interpretive deniers, we would do well to ponder our own inherent biases and irrational responses to climate change.
For instance, we tend to think we are doing more for the planet than those around us (and we can’t all be right). We also tend to think literal deniers are much more common in our society than they in fact are.
These are just two examples of common strategies we use to deny our own responsibility and culpability. They make us feel better about what little we actually do, or congratulate us for accepting the science. But they are ultimately self-defeating delusions. Instead of congratulating ourselves on agreeing with the basic scientific facts of climate change, we need to push ourselves to action.
HT/Clyde Spencer
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Lysenko must be rolling in laughter…
The worst denier is Mother Nature.
Communists always dreamed of commanding winds and rains.
King Cnut was more knowledgeable about environmental change 1,000 years ago, than most of our recent college graduates.
!!
Was your spellchecker turned on as you typed that comment?
Note to Messer Walker and Ms Leviston,
IF, as you imply, climate science skeptics are amongst a trivial minority then your solution is simple and requires no laws to be passed.
Simply stop utilizing Fossil Energy Sources and Fossil derived products and services.
1) Place Solar Panels on your rooftop and yard space sufficient to supply the energy you require daily. (If you don’t source your power from the grid you will not inadvertently utilize fossil sourced power.)
2) Eliminate your ICE powered vehicles and buy new electric vehicles (the cost doesn’t matter because “Climate Change”)
3) Install sufficient battery backup at your home to both supply personal needs and recharging however many EVs you add per #2.
3) Immediately stop using any materials created from or sourced by fossil fuel (Petroleum products include transportation fuels, fuel oils for heating and electricity generation, asphalt and road oil, and feedstocks for making the chemicals, plastics, and synthetic materials that are in nearly everything we use. In 2018, of the approximately 7.5 billion barrels of total U.S. petroleum consumption, 46% was motor gasoline (includes fuel ethanol), 20% was distillate fuel (heating oil and diesel fuel), and 8% was jet fuel. The remaining 26% are used to make things used daily like plastics, roads and car tires and insulation on house wiring)
4) DIVEST your selves personally from fossil fuels.
5) No More Flying Anywhere and no Cargo Vessels that aren’t strictly wind powered
If, as you in tone, the “vast majority” of people believe that
Climate Change is happening
It is mostly caused by anthropogenic sourced CO2
It will be bad (Apocalyptic)
It needs to be dealt with immediately
AND the vast majority are believers like yourselves then by having 97% simply voluntarily stopping your/their personal use of fossil fuel sourced energy and petrochemical sourced products will solve the perceived problem without any legislation necessary. Surely if 3% of the populace had continued use of fossil fuels there would be a 97% decrease in anthropogenic sourced CO2 and the problem would cease to exist.
I am fairly certain that people of the ilk of these authors have no intention of changing single thing about the way they conduct themselves and live their lives, except to do ever more to try to control other people.
Bryan A., YOU ARE RIGHT ON except that the solar panels & e-cars require mass amounts of fossil fuels both for production and operation. But, sadly, REASON has no effect when one BELIEVES!
which of course the left never does.
He should have read chapter 2 of Psychology for Dummies where it explains how “projection” works.
Authors of the above imbecilic screed are:
Iain Walker, Professor of Psychology, University of Canberra – with zero or negative scientific competence.
Zoe Leviston, Postdoctoral research fellow, Edith Cowan University – no comment.
Their analytical approach is to start with a blatant falsehood, then to hypothesize with god-like superiority on the alleged failings of those who state that the falsehood is… false.
O yes – to clarify for the green-brownshirts, I was asked to sign the petition and I did so – it is well-written and accurate.
Regards, Allan (aka Allen) MacRae
ALLAN MACRAE
My abiding regret is, I wasted three minutes of my life reading that drivel.
This article is a diabolical form of ad hominem attack. They can’t win the debate with logical argumentation, so they resort to labeling their opponents as mentally defective.
They are also condemning their own True Believers, although not quite so vigorously or with the same degree of opprobrium, when they say that simply having the “correct opinion” on the issue is not enough.
They are subtly raising the stakes for everyone: Whatever it is you are saying or doing, it is no where near enough.
they resort to labeling their opponents as mentally defective.
SOP in the communist dictatorships. They’re just following that playbook.
@Nicholas McGinley
This will inevitably devolve into a Marxist purity spiral, each round will purge those that were not the Truest of True Believers, until there are none left at all. After all, Communism is always one purge away from utopia.
Thomas,
I would bet that they have no actual insight with which to engage in any substantive debate.
Without reading more of what they believe or know, and just going by this article, there is no evidence that have any factual knowledge at all.
Just assumptions, the first of which is that they are correct, and any who differ with their beliefs need to be silenced.
– And they missed one form of denial – the most important one:
– Trollic Denial –
Which is, “Denying just to troll them, spin them up, pi$$ them off, drive them into hypertension and trigger irrational outbursts, thus showing everybody else how unhinged the alarmists really are.”
its the conversation
think of it like an aussie Onion
though the onions prob saner
and its pretty much an ABC aus media backdoor
and theyre rabidly warmist
Me too, and I’m forced to pay for it.
Three minutes? I spent barely 1:30 on it, asking at the end “Is this dingaling serious?”
Then I realized that it was serious and the author(s) is/are blind to their own deceit.
Sara
I had to read it twice as I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading. I should have quit after 1:30.
There are three types of stupid in increasing order of severity- plain stupid, pet hamster stupid, and psychology prof stupid, (Jordan Peterson excepted).
What struck me as the inability of the authors to see the arguments presented apply to themselves far better than people who have a clue what climate change is about.
It reads like an op ed in a political newsletter where facts are malleable and the argument is structured so that none of the base claims should be examined. Full of confidence, sneering, and a heartfelt opinion that even if it were all shown to be false, they could easily construct a second argument that would better fool the mob because “We are just so clever!”
What a fluffy waste of electrons. I agree that describing the matter (climate change) is more like three or four levels of ignorance. Absent any understanding of the way science is conducted would be the first. Look at all the references to a consensus, “overwhelming” and so on. This doesn’t deserve our attention. They don’t even understand psychology.
Agree 100%.
Starting with a lie, and peppered with insults and condescension, their screed is sickening.
People like this are insufferable fools, who would lord over the world if they had their wish.
On climate only engineering graduate or similar votes should be allowed. I do not believe even a scientific training is enough as it clearly does not cover the idea that the donkey work of good data foundation is essential. As a young engineering student I did some data work on the acid rain investigations. When the work was published we did not even get a mention and the what now would be climate scientist researcher bluntly said that is only donkey work and you don’t give a donkey credits.
That attitude is still widespread in academia so much work rests on poor foundations , more so in some areas than others. The peer review fails to even show any assessment of how many measurement points are necessary for the claimed accuracy now it is regional not global so would fail even the cheapest product QA standards.
“The group, supported by 75 Australian business and industry figures, along with others around the world, obviously rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. But this missive displays remarkably different tactics to those previously used to stymie climate action.”…..
There is no “scientific consensus“….PERIOD !
and what is the difference between “Outright science denial” and “to reframe climate change as natural, and climate action as unwarranted”.
They had 3 times to try to get it right, but missed all three times.
Climate changes, always has, always will. So there’s that.
The only thing that is contested is that any perceived climate change is due to the 20 PPM of CO2 that humans emit every year. The other 380 PPM of CO2 is emitted and absorbed by the earth each year.
THAT is what ‘climate denial’ is about.
The annual increase of CO2 is about 2 ppm; I had read somewhere that from worldwide estimates of total fossil fuel consumption humanity emits about 4 ppm of CO2 (this may be an old number, and currently it’s somewhat more). This is a lot smaller that your 20 ppm. But the important fact is the annual increase in the atmosphere is ~ 2 ppm, and the rest of that emitted from fossil fuel consumption is absorbed mostly by the oceans, which lowers the pH by a tiny unmeasurable amount.
Mayor of Venus
I’ve read several times that it’s 2ppm.
I believe the amount of CO2 being created is enough to raise the atmospheric concentration by 4ppm/yr. However the actual increase is only 2ppm/yr. The difference is mostly being absorbed by the biosphere.
It has been since the Murry Salby videos posted here by our fine host Anthony that I have delved that deeply into the Carbon Cycle.
The Consensus View is that half of the “missing CO2 emissions” goes into a sink of terrestrial plant life whereas the other half is absorbed into the inorganic carbonate system in the oceans. There is compelling evidence for this division because not only is analytical chemistry accurate enough to track the atmospheric CO2 concentration, there are extremely precise measurements of atmospheric O2.
The organic, terrestrial photosynthetic sink returns O2 to the atmosphere whereas the inorganic ocean sink does not.
Of course there is the strong evidence from the Wood for Trees site of temperature-driven CO2 emission, but what I said about the net balance is as reliable as anything about the Carbon Cycle can get.
More on Salby and the carbon cycle
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/31/the-carbon-cycle-measurement-problem/
Do plankton respond to increases in CO2 in the same way as land based vegetation?
I.e. An ocean greening effect.
I have given the WFT site a miss as I have found that their historic temperature data is being fiddled with. Also their sunspot graph is data from radio flux and not sunspots. I have pointed this out on a few occasions with nil response.
Pouring concrete emits a lot of CO2. Humans pour a LOT of concrete every year. It’s not just the burning of “fossil” fuels. There are other sources caused by human activity.
Not that I’m suggesting CO2 is a bad thing, as the plants love the stuff, and we could use a lot more of it.
I’ve read that concrete re-absorbs that CO2, or most of it, over the years.
Yes it does. Some years ago, emissions from making concrete exceeded emissions from fossil fuels in the UK. The Chinese don’t care, they built a 1400km+ water channel as well as many cities. And the Ethiopians are building the biggest dam in Africa.
All the concrete structures in the world reabsorb CO2 on a long term basis, which would more than compensate for the pouring concrete for new structures being built.
Maybe for pouring but not in the making of the raw components.
In 1850 it was 280 ppm, now is around 410 ppm, so average over 170 years is less than 1 ppm per year, though they say it’s about 2 ppm per year now. Whatever the count, I find it difficult to get excited about.
The rate was a lot lower up until 1950 or so.
The 280 ppm figure was an estimate based on proxies, so dubious IMO. CO2 “concentration” is now measured and is around 413ppm/v. All of that increase is attributed to human activity without a shred of evidence.
From an accounting perspective, atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing at a rate actually lower than emissions from burning fossil fuels. We are emitting CO2.
At least CO2 rise is correlated to our emissions.
Some of the increase can be attributed to use of fossil fuels, that is universally proven, but not ALL of it.
@Scissor – “At least CO2 rise is correlated to our emissions.”
No, it’s not:
https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2997420
The disconnect is the death knell of this theory.
We can estimate the increase in CO2 concentration due to human emissions by a mass balance on the atmosphere.
Average atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 101,300 Newtons/m2. Dividing by the acceleration of gravity (9.807 m/s2) means that the mass of the atmosphere above 1 m2 of the earth’s surface is about 10,330 kg. Estimating the radius of the earth as 6,370 km = 6.37(10^6) m, the surface area of the earth would be 4 * pi * [6.37(10^6)}^2 = 5.1(10^14) m2. Multiplying this by 10,330 kg/m2 gives the mass of the atmosphere as 5.27(10^18) kg.
Since CO2 concentrations are measured in volume ppm (= mole fraction for gases), the average molecular weight of the atmosphere is about 29 kg/kmol, and the atmosphere would contain 5.27(10^18)/29 = 1.82(10^17) kmol.
Anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are frequently measured in gigatonnes per year, or multiples of 10^12 kg. CO2 has a molecular weight of 44 kg/kmol, so 1 GT/yr is equivalent to (10^12)/44 = 2.27(10^10) kmol/yr. If all the human-emitted CO2 remained in the atmosphere, 1 GT/yr of CO2 emissions would increase the concentration by 2.27(10^10)/1.82(10^17) = 1.25(10^-7) = 0.125 ppm. , or roughly 1 ppm of increase per 8 GT emitted.
Global anthropogenic CO2 emissions for 2018 were estimated as 37.1 GT/yr, so that if all the emitted CO2 remained in the atmosphere, the CO2 concentration would have risen by 37.1/8 = 4.64 ppm/yr.
But actual CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa are increasing at a rate of about 2.5 ppm per year, meaning that about 46% of human emissions of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere by natural processes, including absorption by the oceans and photosynthesis.
Hundreds of experiments have shown that plant growth rates increase when the CO2 concentration increases, so that photosynthesis rates (and CO2 removal rates from the atmosphere) will likely increase in the future due to rising CO2 concentrations. Due to the Henry’s Law relationship between the air and oceans, the absorption rate of CO2 into the oceans will also increase in proportion to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. When the CO2 removal rate catches up to the CO2 emission rate, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will likely stabilize at a higher concentration than now, but due to the increased plant growth rates, the Earth will be greener and more fertile than it is now.
Even if there is a slight warming of the atmosphere, it will not be nearly enough to melt the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica (due to the enormous latent heat required to melt ice), but it could lengthen the growing season in temperate climates by a week or two per year, which would also increase agricultural production.
Contrary to Greta Thunberg and other climate alarmists, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is not a threat, but a promise for a greener and more abundant future.
IMO, when they talk about climate change and global warming, what they essentially mean is climate catastrophism. That is the true and essential orthodox faith. As long as we don’t commit the heresy of denying that core doctrine, we can have all kinds of differing opinions on the matter and still be considered orthodox and acceptable by the tribe.
Yes!
They are not just talking about what they assert are “the facts” regarding the climate regimes of the planet, but the entire end of the world doomsday monger ideology that they believe must necessarily go along with it.
Once again we hear from people who assert to be talking about other people and groups, but what they are saying is exactly and completely true only of themselves and the group with which they identify.
The first form of denial is literal denial
such as when climate alarmists deny that climate changes naturally and instead claim it’s all man’s fault?
The second form of denial is interpretive denial
such as when climate alarmists interpret every “extreme” weather event as a result of man’s CO2 emissions?
The third and most insidious form is implicatory denial
such as when climate alarmists implicate a “conspiracy of big oil” for why everybody doesn’t agree with their first two forms of denial?
Once again, leftist/alarmists project their own behaviors onto the other side.
Yes – the first clue is that they call themselves “The Conversation”, while denying opposing opinions, or you know, having a conversation
The emergent usage to “have conversation around x” replacing plain spoken “have a talk about” puzzled me at first, until it slowly dawned that “x” was usually some form of wrong thinking as in, “We need to have a conversation, Comrade…”
It’s like when leftists say “we need to have a conversation about race!” but what they really mean is white people need to collectively and without talking back admit how bad they are and how bad their ancestors were over and over and over while black people talk about slavery and Jim Crow, things that ended long before most of us were even born.
Yup, it’s the “Con” in “conversation”! (like the con in “consensus”)
Good one Greg61!
It’s worse than that, they actually have a position of actively censoring any comments (conversation) that goes against the alarmist narrative.
From the horses mouth:
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-deniers-are-dangerous-they-dont-deserve-a-place-on-our-site-123164
They do not have a conversation because they are too full of their own SH*T!
They are the CONSTIPATION 🙂 🙂
Projection is the hallmark of the progressives and left. If they are accusing people of some action, you can be certain they are deeply invested in exactly that action. You know, denial of science in areas they don’t like, lying, deceiving, industry corruption. It’s well over that 97% they attribute to consensus. It’s virtually 100%.
‘If they are accusing people of some action, you can be certain they are deeply invested in exactly that action.’
That’s why they thought of it!
Joel Snider
They are so dishonest they don’t realise they are doing it. Most of them are psychopaths, and most of those without the endearing characteristics of a typical example.
Oh, I think there’s a large portion that know very well – mostly in the upper echelons. The trick to being a fair-minded person is deciding who’s who, in order to treat them accordingly. Although stakes are high enough that it’s hard to be patient with the rank and file marching brooms.
It’s hard to blame people for what they’re taught, but that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate it.
It’s all they’ve got, they can’t imagine that there is any other world view.
In their mind; if they’re doing it, then everybody else is also.
Someone posted a Tucker Carlson monologue recently in which he said it quite plainly: Whatever the left is accusing others of, we can be sure of at least one thing: They themselves are doing exactly that thing.
Absolutely! One example that stood out to me was this…
shrill responses to Thunberg
Greta was the party making faces and pointing fingers in an over the top holier-than-thou performance, complete with “how dare you!”’s.
We just laughed at her, and anyone who takes her seriously. Nothing shrill. We don’t do shrill. That’s the M.O. of alarmists.
Just found out hopping a bus is a Venial (if not Mortal) Sin in the Church of Gaia. ‘Bout time actual scientists stood loud and proud to discredit this moonbat religion.
Perfectly stated. Thanks.
another:
When communists try to equate carbon / C, a solid, with carbon dioxide / CO2, a gas.
Denial of the sun in all aspects, denial of clouds, denial of ocean cycles, denial of cosmic rays, short: denial of facts 😀
Let us not forget Krishna, that the philosophical basis of the Cult of Global Warming/Climate Change is Postmodernism/Postnormal Science. A basic tenet of this cult is that facts do not matter.
We believe, we don’t need no stinkin’ facts! You fact monger! 😇
I always love when people tell me what I am, based on their own predetermined opinions.
How exactly have progressives managed to cast themselves as anti-bigotry? Seems to me, they represent a totality of bigotry. Certainly of hypocrisy. Absolute and without fail.
I find it had to believe, the 2 authors of this garbage article have received funding from CSIRO.
See CSIRO.au
Utterly and completely missing the point: the term denier has been used and was coined to associate anyone questions global warming/climate change/climate emergency with those that deny the Holocaust. It’s a pejorative term from the outset and oddly enough is essentially, in my mind at least, an instant “Godwin” violation that renders anyone using it as unwilling to have meaningful discussion. The first thing you do is hurl an insult? Yeah, you’re really rational.
Now, how many types of climate Believers are there?
Let’s see, we have:
the bandwagoners
the brainwashed
those paid to Believe
those wanting to act out
the congenitally stupid
I’ll stop there. Too many to count.
I’d break them down into two much simpler categories – followers, and leaders who give them enemies to hate.
The charlatans.
I’m the CO2 efficacy denier.
However, climate change could be catastrophic particularly if leads to another long overdue ice age.
We know that climate changes with irregular intervals based on historical and physical myths. It may be inferred that there will be monotonic change, certainly; but, there is no evidence that it is a progressive process within an observable frame of reference. I suppose we could indulge the precautionary principle, and preemptively engage in planned population and similar policies to reduce the anthropogenic footprint.
Which the elimination of fossil fuels would make particularly difficult to deal with.
It is interesting that in these kinds of articles (and there have been many), the underlying, unstated assumption, is that CAGW is real. Therefore, those who disagree must be wrong. The best defense that is usually presented is the “consensus” argument. Based on the unsupported belief that skeptics are wrong, these psycho-sleuths then engage in projection and denial to defend their belief. Unfortunately, it is not unlike the behavior of children who have issues of self-esteem and try to make themselves feel better by denigrating others. So, instead of presenting us with facts, they present us with insults. They are really making the case that they are wrong, and have no evidence to support their belief. Strangely, they don’t see how pathetic they are.
I especially like how they dismiss the “self-proclaimed” prominent researchers out of hand and then rely on the word of a brainwashed 16 year old.
They don’t see how pathetic they are because they stay in their echo chamber of dunces and gaslight each other. If only we could drag some media-proclaimed prominent researchers out of those circle jerks for some sort of public debate with the self-proclaimed prominent researchers to settle this.
I was thinking that they themselves are self proclaimed experts and deciders of what is true.
A moment of thought on this makes it obvious why they find this so galling.
Their own self proclaimed expertise and omniscience is the keystone of their self -granted (and completely and obviously unjustified) authority to pontificate.
I can’t let this quoted comment slip by unmodified , …….
Clyde I agree. As I read this article I had to keep reminding myself that it was written by an alarmist because much of it fits quiet nicely with explaining an alarmists irrational denial of observational facts.
Actually, it’s also interesting how the underlying, unstated assumption is that deniers believe the climate isn’t changing or don’t believe there’s a change that requires attention and adaptation. Whether or not you think there’s an emergency, no one denies that it’s happening and that we’ll need to adapt.
The alarmists always manage to make skeptics look stupid by consistently phrasing the question as:
“Is Climate Change Real?” or “Is there a Climate Emergency?” as if anyone denied the reality of climate change or the necessity of adapting to it.
Make no mistake: While the climate has always changed, and sometimes dramatically, most of what they are talking about is weather, and most of the changes shown by their graphs and charts is manufactured via alterations and plain old making crap up.
There is very little change in recent years and decades, and none once one looks at the true range of natural variability over the past 100-140 years of so.
We are in a remarkably stable and clement period.
Obfuscating that happy fact is among their most successful lies.
And perhaps the second-most necessary prerequisite of alarmist.
The first-most is the notion that global warming is what is dangerous, and all change is bad…unless it is a return to the disastrous cold of the preindustrial LIA…which would apparently be good.
After all, any warming which has occurred is relative to the recent past, which is demonstrably the worst cold spell since the onset of the current interglacial period of the ongoing ICE AGE we are in.
It is so rare for the believers to mention “adaption”. It’s almost dismissed out of hand. No consideration on if it’s possible or feasible, just non-existent in their minds.
At present, I do not see any evidence there is anything to adapt to.
The entire alarmist/warmista playbook is a pile of lies and false assertions, IMO.
Whatever is coming, people will be able to make do, as long as we remain prosperous.
If we are impoverished, people will die in large numbers.
And some of us are in that state of denial, not because of anything to do with the science, but because of the morally bankrupt behaviour of the theory’ proponents. After all, mendacity and hypocrisy leave a bad taste.
The worst thing I’ve read is an article from a psychologist in Germany who as leader of the German Psychiatry Society “diagnosed” such “deniers” as people in urgent need of therapy. He even mentioned that he and his colleagues should be ready to treat these people against their will “for their own good”! I immediately began to think about the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of “The Gulag Archipelago”, who was imprisoned in an asylum. Fortunately, this Psychologist was not supported by his colleagues….
By the way here is an abstract of it ( in German…) : https://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/2019/10/13/bayerische-psychotherapeutenkammer-klimaleugner-psychisch-krank/
I see that it’s no longer climate denier, but climate liar (Klimaleugner), lest anyone have doubts about motivation or culpability.
I do not deny that they are delusional.
“These are just two examples of common strategies we use to deny our own responsibility and culpability. They make us feel better about what little we actually do, or congratulate us for accepting the science. But they are ultimately self-defeating delusions.”
Hey even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in awhile. But in this case the “squirrel” is literally too dumb to realize it’s an acorn.
Amusing how these folks think they’re diagnosing somebody else while they have no clue they’re looking in the mirror.
“… most insidious form is implicatory denial. What is denied or minimised are the psychological, political, and moral implications of the facts for us. We fail to accept responsibility for responding; we fail to act when the information says we should.”
If we take this at its intended meaning, then every IPCC author/scientist who flies multiple times to meetings around the world is a denier. They fail to act accordingly when the information (their own information) says they should. Even Shrill Greta failed to take responsibility for the sail boat crewmembers’ carbon footprints from flying between Europe and NYC, so she is denier.
This hypocrisy (do as I say, not as I do) of course exposes the vacuous nature and intellectual stupidity that underpins the entire global Climate Change alarmist movements. Their climate alarmists near universal rejection of nuclear power exposes the movement for what it is — socialist, anti-capitalist, authoritarian.
The best policy action is to ignore Climate Change alarmist claims. And then when elections come around, vote out of office any politician who falls under its sway, for they are merely using it for their own power advancement against reason, against individual liberties, and accepting a collectivist movement for their own personal advancement.
A “denier” with self injuring behavior: Obama who buys a multimillion dollar ocean front property….
If these people really believed in CAGW, they wouldn’t do that….
The carbon footprint of 0’s private jet travels between his multi-million dollar homes in DC and MV, and the Secret Service personal protection/security detail that goes along, is a billionaire’s level carbon footprint.
It’s an elitist’s attitude that unequivocally says, “The Climate Change sacrifices demanded are for the little people”. That is, you and me, not thee.
One plane for Obama, one for Michelle and the girls, and one more plane to transport the family pet dog.
I do hope that the 92 volcanoes under the unstable West Antartic ice shelf erupt soon…..
Sigh.
“It is the simple, conscious, outright rejection that something happened or is happening”
The thing that has happened and is happening is the weather.
I’m repeatedly and perpetually reminded that climate isn’t weather.
By definition, climate NEVER “happens”! You have to calculate and then imagine it, for God’s sake!
Andrew
And … don’t forget, there is no such thing as a “global” climate. The weather in the tropics is way different that that of the arctic/antarctic. Portland is way different than Florida. No comparison between the Rain Forest and the Sahara. THUS …. not only does Climate never happen … GLOBAL CLIMATE is flat out impossible.
It’s all B.S.
You are quite correct, Dr. Deanster. You get my Gold Star * for today!
Andrew
Portland?
Not a real place.
Oh …. I’m sorry Oz …. Oregon. Better?
IMO, most CACA skeptics accept that CO2 is a GHG, but recognize that the global climatic effect of adding a fourth molecule of plant food per 10,000 dry air molecules is negligible. The biological effect however is highly beneficial to plants and other living things.
Over the vast majority of the planet, H2O swamps the temperature effect of the fourth CO2 molecule, as it would a fifth and sixth, were they to enrich our atmosphere. In the wet tropics, water vapor is 100 times more abundant than CO2, and on average across the whole globe, some 50 times or more. Over the high, dry South Pole, where its effect should be greatest, no warming has been observed since records have been kept there.
John
Just to be the Devil’s Advocate, how do you justify dismissing the effects of CO2 on temperature, while acknowledging the beneficial effect on plants?
It is possible to run a very simple experiment and prove the beneficial effects on plants.
I am unaware of a demonstrable proof of concept (at the correct scale) for atmospheric warming by additional CO2. Further, even if you demonstrate warming, I believe warming is net beneficial at this point.
My careful reading suggests he did not deny any effect on temperature.
Indeed. He specifically stated an acceptance “that CO2 is a GHG” but that “Over the vast majority of the planet, H2O swamps the temperature effect of the fourth CO2 molecule, as it would a fifth and sixth, were they to enrich our atmosphere” In other words the temperature effect is extremely small and negligible compared to the effect from H2O
Clyde, it’s simple plant biology. CO2 is the building block of carbon-based lifeforms.
You can do a simple experiment to see for yourself. Take two greenhouses regulated at the same temperature. In one greenhouse have a high concentration of CO2 (as most greenhouse operators do) and in the other greenhouse have a lower concentration of CO2. Observe in which green house the plants grow best.
More CO2 in the air not only promotes plant growth, but saves water, so vegetation can spread into drier regions. A plant can leave its leaf stomata open for less time and still get the CO2 it needs to make sugar. Thus, it loses less water, the other sugar feedstock, and source of the O2 we animals breath.
…. and to add to the above comments, the decline in added radiative activity of CO2 is logarithmic (governed by an approximation of the Beer-Lambert Law), whereas assimilation of CO2 into plants via the Calvin cycle is linear.
That’s easy. No-one denies that without CO2 all plants, and therefore all animals die. There is no need to acknowledge that. But quantifying the effect of CO2 on temperature is very much a matter that can ce debated.
Some people do deny this and even try to say that more CO2 is not necessarily good for plant growth.
Warmistas deny it every day.
Maybe you need to get out more.
They are being actively taught that the idea that CO2 is any any way beneficial to life, is a lie.
There are a lot of people who think that CO2 is just pollution, and many more who think there is too much of it, and even some who literally have no idea how photosynthesis works.
I don’t dismiss possible temperature effects. Indeed, it’s possible for a fourth CO2 molecule to warm or cool its locale, depending upon location and local conditions. I just don’t think that significant global warming from CO2 enrichment is in evidence.
Humans also do other things to affect local and regional climate besides adding a bit more trace gas, vital to life, to the air. IMO we can’t state with confidence even the sign of net human influence on global climate. But in any case, it’s not a major factor.
The beneficial biological effect of more plant food in the air would be enhanced by slight warming, where, when and if that happens.
Clyde, I believe we’ve had this very discussion multiple times before on this website.
Context is everything. As an analogy, How do you dismiss the effect of having a million $ in the bank on a runner’s ability to win the Boston Marathon, while acknowledging the effect that million $ has on his ability to get a date?
SR
Clyde, easy. One can be measured, the other can’t.
It’s about the wavelengths.
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/595px-atmospheric_transmission.png
This shows that there are some wavelengths that CO2 absorbs that H2O does not. You can argue the impact of these wavelengths, but no amount of water vapor will ‘over power’ the effects of CO2 in these wavelengths.
Two of CO2’s three absorption peaks overlap water’s, including its major peak at 15 microns. The other that roughly coincides with one of water’s lows is minor.
Please read Clive Best’s whole article from which you posted the bands comparison to see why the atmosphere is effectively saturated, such that the effect of doubling CO2 would be negligible.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=1169
I’m an Outspoken denier.
I don’t care WHO is around, or WHAT other people think of me.
As far as possible, I try to discern the difference between facts and fallacies. I reject fallacies. I accept facts.
The question is :
– what facts are they talking about ?
Climategate ? The Hockey Stick ?
The fact that they are convinced of it. That fact.
To them, the voices in their heads only deal in facts.
It would be sad, except that it will manifest itself in some other form of denial that normal people will have to deal with. These sociopaths will never accept responsibility for their actions, even if Judges make them pay the reparations, for example to the children whose lives they have massively negatively impacted.
“The question is :
– what facts are they talking about ?”
It would have to be the fraudulent Hockey Stick they are using as “evidence”. What else is there?
There’s a greenhouse gas theory but from that, noone can figure out how much, if any, net heat additional CO2 would add to the atmosphere. There is a possiblity that no net heat is added by CO2.. So that can’t be their evidence. The Global Climate Models are way off. And they are not evidence of anything anyway, they are just predictions of the future. So that’s not evidence. No tropical hot spot as predicted by the alarmists. No evidence there. The True Global Temperature profile is the one represented by the unmodified U.S. surface temperature chart where the 1930’s was as warm as today which, in itself, blows up the human-caused climate change speculation, so no evidence there.
There is no evidence for human-caused climate change/global warming as far as I can see.
Someone ought to challenge these authors to provide some of this evidence they are so sure exists. They couldn’t prove humans are affecting the Earth’s climate if their lives depended on proving it. Tell them I said so. 🙂 Tell them (or any other alarmist) to prove me wrong. Their certainty is based on nothing but delusional thinking. It’s delusional when you claim there is evidence and there is no evidence.
If anyone could prove it, or even give strong evidence, then they would.
The way they behave is strong evidence they do not really believe it.
And this apparent lack of belief is evidence of the veracity of what many have been quoted as saying outright: The real agenda has nothing to do with the purported one, which is merely a means to an end.
There have been many projections based on climate “settled science” and its climate models.
I do not deny that what they’ve said should have happened by now, hasn’t happened.
Therefore, I deny there is any “settled science” to support drastic and economically destructive actions to prevent yet more projections.
Grrrrreta can scowl and say “How dare you!” all she wants.
(She should say that to herself in front of mirror every morning.)
PS Speaking of Grrrreta, remember those “Where’s Waldo?” books? Maybe a Google Maps sidebar for “Where’s Grrrreta?”? 😎
“Maybe a Google Maps sidebar for “Where’s Grrrreta?”
Complete with fossil fuel use tracker of her travels..
The language of climate Belief and proposed action changes so often, no one can keep track, not even the Believers themselves. They are continually falling over themselves. It’s hilarious.
This article illustrates the remarkable advancement the left has made in ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority. There is no actual substance to the article at all, much like the climate change crisis itself. Iain and Zoe could have saved a lot of ink by just writing: “People who disagree with me on climate change are poo-poo heads, because my mommy said so!” That is really what they have written, but with a lot more big words, to hide the fact that they are behaving like ill-mannered 5 year olds.
Plus infinity!
I took a look at the original article in The Conversation and noted the following advisement”
“Comments are open for 72 hours but may be closed early if there is a high risk of comments breaching our standards.” That is followed by the first moderator comment: “Comments on this article will be open during business hours. This is to ensure we can actively moderate them in line with our community standards.”
Now how do they determine “high risk?” I suspect that they make that determination if there is a ground swell of critical comments that they feel compelled to delete. Consider “moderate” to be equivalent to “delete.”
Put my comment on Goebbels there and see high risk.
High risk means not truthy, as Bush used to say, but truthful.
What makes Goebbels blush in other words.
They have constructed a deliberately engineered echo chamber.
They are scared to death of facts appearing on their pages, because given information, a certain percentage of people will arrive at the truth on a ongoing basis.
Truth does not need an echo chamber to prevail.
But lies do.
There is a solution to Global Warming. If the “consensus” is correct, and AGW is real, then CO2 emissions by humanity must be reduced. One way to do this is to convert to modern (Gen IV) and safe Nuclear Power. No CO2 emitted by Nukes. No particulate emission. No danger of meltdown. No intermittence problem as with wind or solar.
There is a solution to Global Cooling. If the “consensus” is wrong, in fact backwards, then an Ice Age Cometh. Nuclear Power works to provide the needed warmth.
If the Climate just drifts along, Nuclear Power, is viable. In fact, if, due to the magnetic disruption on Earth, a CME (worse than the Carrington event) were to come, Nuclear Power enables smaller disconnected grids reducing the damage from such an event.
“In the last 30 years, the rate of distance that the magnetic north pole moves per year has sped up from about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) per year to around 55 kilometers (34 miles) per year. ” — NOAA.gov
The last 100 years the pole moved approximately 2000 km. If the current speed doesn’t change, a further 5500 km the next century to northern Russia. If, however, the acceleration were to continue, a century would find it in the Bay of Bengal. The south magnetic pole is moving toward the Bay of Bengal. Go figure.
Magnetic Reversal? Catastrophic? Dunno.
The fact that almost no climate alarmist is insisting on immediate development of Gen IV nuclear is a clear indication that the are not really concerned about a climate crisis.
As a lukewarmist, I can agree that AGW is real. But it does not follow that CO2 emissions must be reduced at this time, because the changes are small and net beneficial for the rest of this century. There is no current “climate emergency”; our decedents should reconsider the “net beneficial” aspect at the beginning of the next century if CO2 exceeds 600 ppm by then. A lot of people seem the believe that the world as it is today is as good as can be, and any change will be scary and bad, especially if the change can be attributed to human activity.
If history is any guide, we will need the power in any case. I think Gen IV Nuclear is a fine solution, and can be not only portable but deployable incrementally. In a pinch, we could even retrofit some Nuclear submarines, sail them upriver, park ’em, and plug them into the grid infrastructure, perhaps even venting heat in Winter, where it might be beneficial.
If one really wants to implement the ‘precautionary principle’ with a ‘very ‘ long term view, going all the way up to and including the next glaciation, that would be the ticket. With the right amount of such power, we could make our own HydroCarbons if we needed to.
In practice, the application of the Precautionary Principle has lead to a tremendous amount of harm. The harm indicates that the concept is not precautionary, as the attempt to avoid a calculated harm with a blanket idea is often harmful. The concept becomes self-contradictory and consequently does not qualify as a principle.
The Precautionary Principle is a linear concept derived from linear thinking that has no place in a complex, non-linear world, like the one we live in.
It would be best if we could remove the horrible idea of the Precautionary Principle from our collective consciousness, and replace it with an appreciation for adaptability, innovation and imagination; three tools that work very well in chaotic, nonlinear systems!
We humans will eventually develop Gen IV nuclear and beyond, or come up with something completely unexpected and better. The question is how much damage will the linear-thinking, liberal Malthusians do before they get out of the way and let our species do what we do best?
Exactly, James.
The phrase itself is a misnomer.
The sophistic logic employed by anyone who uses it to argue for one thing, could be just as logically used to argue for the opposite of…whatever is being argued for.
As usual, this entire blather-ridden essay is based on the incorrect assumption that any measurable “Climate Change” is manmade, and something that needs to be corrected…even beyond any of the theoretical amounts caused by mankind.
It is a load of dung.