Component/Shutterstock
The fossil fuel industry, political lobbyists, media moguls and individuals have spent the past 30 years sowing doubt about the reality of climate change – where none exists. The latest estimate is that the world’s five largest publicly-owned oil and gas companies spend about US$200 million a year on lobbying to control, delay or block binding climate policy.
Their hold on the public seems to be waning. Two recent polls suggested over 75% of Americans think humans are causing climate change. School climate strikes, Extinction Rebellion protests, national governments declaring a climate emergency, improved media coverage of climate change and an increasing number of extreme weather events have all contributed to this shift. There also seems to be a renewed optimism that we can deal with the crisis.
But this means lobbying has changed, now employing more subtle and more vicious approaches – what has been termed as “climate sadism”. It is used to mock young people going on climate protests and to ridicule Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old young woman with Asperger’s, who is simply telling the scientific truth.
Statista, CC BY-SA
At such a crossroads, it is important to be able to identify the different types of denial. The below taxonomy will help you spot the different ways that are being used to convince you to delay action on climate change.
1. Science denial
This is the type of denial we are all familiar with: that the science of climate change is not settled. Deniers suggest climate change is just part of the natural cycle. Or that climate models are unreliable and too sensitive to carbon dioxide.
Some even suggest that CO₂ is such a small part of the atmosphere it cannot have a large heating affect. Or that climate scientists are fixing the data to show the climate is changing (a global conspiracy that would take thousands of scientists in more than a 100 countries to pull off).
All these arguments are false and there is a clear consensus among scientists about the causes of climate change. The climate models that predict global temperature rises have remained very similar over the last 30 years despite the huge increase in complexity, showing it is a robust outcome of the science.
Read more:
Five climate change science misconceptions – debunked
Carbon Brief, CC BY
The shift in public opinion means that undermining the science will increasingly have little or no effect. So climate change deniers are switching to new tactics. One of Britain’s leading deniers, Nigel Lawson, the former UK chancellor, now agrees that humans are causing climate change, despite having founded the sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2009.
It says it is “open-minded on the contested science of global warming, [but] is deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated”. In other words, climate change is now about the cost not the science.
2. Economic denial
The idea that climate change is too expensive to fix is a more subtle form of climate denial. Economists, however, suggest we could fix climate change now by spending 1% of world GDP. Perhaps even less if the cost savings from improved human health and expansion of the global green economy are taken into account. But if we don’t act now, by 2050 it could cost over 20% of world GDP.
We should also remember that in 2018 the world generated US$86,000,000,000,000 and every year this World GDP grows by 3.5%. So setting aside just 1% to deal with climate change would make little overall difference and would save the world a huge amount of money. What the climate change deniers also forget to tell you is that they are protecting a fossil fuel industry that receives US$5.2 trillion in annual subsidies – which includes subsidised supply costs, tax breaks and environmental costs. This amounts to 6% of world GDP.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that efficient fossil fuel pricing would lower global carbon emissions by 28%, fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 46%, and increase government revenue by 3.8% of the country’s GDP.
3. Humanitarian denial
Climate change deniers also argue that climate change is good for us. They suggest longer, warmer summers in the temperate zone will make farming more productive. These gains, however, are often offset by the drier summers and increased frequency of heatwaves in those same areas. For example, the 2010 “Moscow” heatwave killed 11,000 people, devastated the Russian wheat harvest and increased global food prices.
Maulucioni/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA
More than 40% of the world’s population also lives in the Tropics – where from both a human health prospective and an increase in desertification no one wants summer temperatures to rise.
Deniers also point out that plants need atmospheric carbon dioxide to grow so having more of it acts like a fertiliser. This is indeed true and the land biosphere has been absorbing about a quarter of our carbon dioxide pollution every year. Another quarter of our emissions is absorbed by the oceans. But losing massive areas of natural vegetation through deforestation and changes in land use completely nullifies this minor fertilisation effect.
Climate change deniers will tell you that more people die of the cold than heat, so warmer winters will be a good thing. This is deeply misleading. Vulnerable people die of the cold because of poor housing and not being able to afford to heat their homes. Society, not climate, kills them.
This argument is also factually incorrect. In the US, for example, heat-related deaths are four times higher than cold-related ones. This may even be an underestimate as many heat-related deaths are recorded by cause of death such as heart failure, stroke, or respiratory failure, all of which are exacerbated by excessive heat.
National Weather Service, CC BY
4. Political denial
Climate change deniers argue we cannot take action because other countries are not taking action. But not all countries are equally guilty of causing current climate change. For example, 25% of the human-produced CO₂ in the atmosphere is generated by the US, another 22% is produced by the EU. Africa produces just under 5%.
Given the historic legacy of greenhouse gas pollution, developed countries have an ethical responsibility to lead the way in cutting emissions. But ultimately, all countries need to act because if we want to minimise the effects of climate change then the world must go carbon zero by 2050.
Nature. Data from the Global Carbon Project
Deniers will also tell you that there are problems to fix closer to home without bothering with global issues. But many of the solutions to climate change are win-win and will improve the lives of normal people. Switching to renewable energy and electric vehicles, for example, reduces air pollution, which improves people’s overall health.
Developing a green economy provides economic benefits and creates jobs. Improving the environment and reforestation provides protection from extreme weather events and can in turn improve food and water security.
5. Crisis denial
The final piece of climate change denial is the argument that we should not rush into changing things, especially given the uncertainty raised by the other four areas of denial above. Deniers argue that climate change is not as bad as scientists make out. We will be much richer in the future and better able to fix climate change. They also play on our emotions as many of us don’t like change and can feel we are living in the best of times – especially if we are richer or in power.
But similarly hollow arguments were used in the past to delay ending slavery, granting the vote to women, ending colonial rule, ending segregation, decriminalising homosexuality, bolstering worker’s rights and environmental regulations, allowing same sex marriages and banning smoking.
The fundamental question is why are we allowing the people with the most privilege and power to convince us to delay saving our planet from climate change?
Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science, UCL
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
We seeing this to remind us how how crappy their “arguments” are?
It’s a classic case of projection.
Mark Maslin posted on Linkedin with a link to this article: “The fossil fuel industry, political lobbyists, media moguls and individuals have spent the past 30 years sowing doubt about the reality of climate change – where none exists. The latest estimate is that the world’s five largest publicly-owned oil and gas companies spend about US$200 million a year on lobbying to control, delay or block binding climate policy….”
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6606117368064204800/
David Hagen response: “Reality Check: This effort directly contradicts the essential high standard of scientific integrity detailed by Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman that is essential to science. See Feynman’s 1974 Commencement Address to Caltech “Cargo Cult Science”.” http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
Mark Maslin: “Spoken like someone who really does not really understand science nor the scientific method. As soon as someone quotes Feynman you know they are ignorant of the basic rules of science which involves increasing weight of evidence and continual testing of ideas and theories.”
David Hagen: “Mark Maslin Where is Physics Noble Laureate Richard Feynman wrong? “…scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought … of utter honesty…leaning over backwards. eg, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid … other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked…
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them…if you know anything … possibly wrong—to explain it. If you make a theory, eg & …put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. … When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition… give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another” http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
David Hagena: “Mark Maslin
John Von Neuman: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” How many parameters are there in IPCC’s global climate models?
Thomas Kuhn detailed the “Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition” 2012. When predictions of climate models with numerous parameters diverge from independent radiosonde and satellite data, I’ll stick with the data – and await the revolution quantifying the real foundational science. Are you really following climate science?
Or the Climate Lemmings enticed by the Climate Piper?
http://bit.ly/34DDvXE
David Hagen: “This imposes Lysenkoism again via asserting political “consensus”. That destroys the very foundations of the Scientific Method of Test All THings, & Take Nobody’s Word for it. https://www.genetics.org/content/212/1/1 “
Mark Maslin: “Again you really really do not understand the science method. Next you will be quoting the ‘Galileo’ argument saying that just because tens of thousands of scientists over 180 years have tested anthropocen climate change again and again – may be the politically motivated climate change denier might be right!”
David Hagen: “Mark Maslin Apollo NASA scientists & engineers motto: “In God we trust. All others bring data”. Every model used had to be proven against data. They landed a man on the moon and brought him back safely. Apollo NASA scientists & engineers at TheRightClimateStuff.com developed the only validated accurate climate model. I recommend you study the methodology and the model to understand the real scientific method. https://www.therightclimatestuff.com/trcs-reports.html
Mark Maslin Per the scientific definition of climate as a 30 year average, climate has been changing for 4 billion years. Every forest converted to a field, every road and city affect climate. CO2 is one of 11 “greenhouse” gases absorbing and radiating energy. Fossil fuel use increases CO2. What have I “denied”? The IPCC’s global climate models still stand “Not proven”, failing their most sensitive prediction with > 200% TypeB errors for the Anthropogenic Signature.
Reality Check: This violates the very Foundation of Science = Test All Things – Take Nobody’s Word for it, per the Royal Society’s Motto. The IPCC models “Anthropogenic Signature” of Tropical Tropospheric Temperatures fail, by running ~ 275% hot.
McKitrick, R. and Christy, J., 2018. A Test of the Tropical 200 to 300 hPa Warming Rate in Climate Models. Earth and Space Science, 5(9), pp.529-536.
Varotsos, C.A. and Efstathiou, M.N., 2019. Has global warming already arrived? Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 182, pp.31-38.
https://bit.ly/2wFXtRN https
Mark Maslin per the Scientific Method, I referred you to two peer reviewed published papers by two independent groups. Each show that IPCC’s most sensitive prediction – Anthropogenic Signature of Tropospheric Tropical Temperatures- is running hot > 200% tested against independent Satellite & Radiosonde Data. Your challenge per the scientific method is to show identify the 275% Type B errors between models & data per BIPM’s GUM http://bit.ly/2OzESRG
I acted on IPCC warnings in 1991 with a 330 p review of solar thermal technology to redress global warming. Now IPCC models fail with predictions diverging > 200% from long term data.
Apparently having neither science nor data, you descend to ad hominem logical fallacies of asserting the moral depravity of a Holocaust Denier. By “Climate Change” you appear to further commit equivocation, implying “catastrophic majority anthropogenic global warming.”
Will you rise to Feynman’s standard of scientific integrity?
Or descend to gutter journalism?
While Mark Maslin expounds on climate deniers, China has pragmatically added 43 GW coal power in last 2 years. China now has 195.6 GW coal power under active development (with 121.3 GW under construction and 22.6 GW permitted). Compare Germany’s plans to close 43 GW coal power by 2038. Roger Pielke Jr.’ Iron Law dominates: People are willing to spend some on the environment but not much. #Climate #Power #Economy #CO2 #China #IronLaw https://www.powermag.com/china-ramping-renewables-and-building-more-coal-plants/
My how time flies!! It is April 1 already.
one year closer to the Tipping Point…
If this is in fact true, then the solution is simple…
The 75% of Americans who “Think” humans are causing climate change simply stand behind their beliefs and stop using fossil fuels, draconian legislation and carbon taxation would be unnecessary. Their personal actions would bring an end to fossil fuels as a power source as the 25% minority would be an insufficient driver to keep the industry solvent
Exactly. If 75% of Americans “all agree”, then why don’t they take affirmative action, by disconnecting their house from the grid. Then put in some solar panels and batteries.
So why aren’t droves of people fleeing the fashionable enclaves of Brooklyn or Kensington and “returning to the land” to live that animal-powered, vegetable-diet technology-free 11th century “lifestyle” as if all their lives depended on it?
Oh . . . wait.
Oboma has just bought a large mansion right on the sea front. No sea rise or global nonsense going on there it seems.
In fact I’m so certain that no doubt exists that I can make such a sweeping , categorical statement without even defining what I mean by “climate change”. Whatever it means its REAL. So there !!
the past 30 years sowing doubt about the reality of climate change – where none exists.
In fact I’m so certain that no man made climate change to speak of exists that I can make sweeping categorical statements like “Toujours Bolleaux”
Yeah I wonder if they live in the Goundhog April 1 day cycle that runs 365 days of the year……
These misleading poll claims are silly since it is a SINGLE ISSUE poll, thus big numbers can be claimed, but try using multiple issue polls and BOOM! the climate change concerns tumble to the bottom of such polls.
Here from a forum exposing what happens when MULTIPLE concerns are listed:
“New Gallup Poll: Americans do not even mention global warming as a problem – 36 ‘problems’ cited, but not climate
LINK
The replies against it are stupid.
And we all know how reliable leftist polls are, just ask Hillary.
After I stopped laughing, I thought to myself, these fools need to read the book, Factfullness. As a Science educator I feel sorry for the lack of Science knowledge by these individuals.
And economic knowledge too. When you trot off to find out how they got $5.3 trillion a year in subsidies you wonder why they stopped there. The methodology would allow $53 tr or $500 tr or even $50 bucks.
They are just a gang of motivated liars.
Now, if we are the cause of the bad weather what is the cause of the nice weather? Because this really has become all about the weather hasn’t it.
Mr. Vaughn
You can start laughing again … at your own comment.
There is no knowledge to teach about the climate 100 years from now — that future climate is a mystery, and can not be predicted — not even whether the average temperature will be warmer or cooler than today
The lack of science knowledge ABOUT THE FUTURE CLIMATE allows anyone to make predictions that can not be proven wrong in their lifetime.
Not that any human on the planet has a track record of accurate climate predictions … beyond a few weeks !
The problem here is that real climate scientists study the past and present climate, TRYING to figure out how to explain the climate changes that have already happened.
But the climate alarmists — junk climate scientists — just make wild guess, always wrong. predictions of the future climate.
And they have been doing so for the past 50 years.
50 years of claiming global warming in the future will be 100% bad news … the opposite of the actual global warming in the past 325 years — probably up +2 degrees C. since the 1690s — which has been 100% good news.
The 325 years of intermittent global warming since the 1690s has resulted in nearly the best climate this planet has ever had for human life — maybe not as good as the Holocene Optimum about 10,000 years ago, but near the best.
Perhaps half the people on this planet overlook the wonderful climate THEY CURRENTLY LIVE IN, because they are fearful of a coming climate crisis — coming for the past 50 years, but never shows up — the climate just keeps getting better !
Of course it’s said half the people have an IQ under 100, and maybe that explains everything?
“Not that any human on the planet has a track record of accurate climate predictions … beyond a few weeks !”
Not true. I have a track record of predicting the next summer, and I do this every november. 😉
It isn’t “science.” It’s MARKETING. The whole damn thing, from the rotten fish-head all the way down.
Whats an obedient little cult slave to do ….
pass the Kool-Aid ?
Looks to me that they make their own very good argument for skepticism.
And besides, God is in control.
He’s doing a lousy job.
Sometimes you have to let the enemy win a few in order to position yourself and them for your ultimate victory.
It really amazes me how many people actually believe that unless they personally understand God’s plan, than it’s proven that their is no God or that his plan’s are no good.
ROTFL! Sadly, I know such people.
As I’ve said before too many leftists ‘fact-check’ religion and ‘believe in’ climate science’.
Ain’t that the truth!
Keep saying it.
Oh, come on, Brother Mark! What atheist ever said “not understanding God’s plan” is the reason for their atheism?
What’s actually amazing is the reality: most atheists don’t waste any time at all thinking about your idea of god.
The Universe is wide and full of wonder. Why try to narrow it down to make it fit with plagiarized Bronze-age myths?
But since you brought it up… (I’ve read the KJV cover-to-cover at least five times. So this is first-hand reporting.) There really isn’t much of a “plan.” What there is, is a laughable amount of internal self-contradiction, mixed in with god-ordered incest, torture, slavery and murder. (Yes, even the New Testament.)
Oh yeah, and more birth announcements than any sane person should have to endure.
To end on an optimistic note: I am 100% with you that C.A.G.W. is a false belief. As false a belief as… Well, you know…
You must not know many atheists. All the time I’m told that a good God wouldn’t allow evil to exist, therefore there is no God.
There’s a difference between reading for understanding and reading looking for things to criticize.
One other thing that amazes me is how evangelical your average atheist is.
Take Back:
I have been an atheist since I was old enough to understand what the word meant — roughly age 6. That would make me an atheist for 60 years.
I don’t waste any time thinking about religions or gods — religions are strange, and gods are imaginary in the absence of proof that they exist.
There is far more evidence that etraterrestrial space craft have visited this planet than proof in the existence of a god or goods.
Yet many people laugh at UFO’s, in spite of the evidence, and believe in a God, in spite of no evidence.
I’m a “prove it” person, so the claims about a coming climate crisis have no effect on me.
I don’t know what the climate will be like in 100 years, nor does anyone else.
There are many unanswered questions — I am perfectly comfortable with unanswered questions — But I’m uncomfortable when people invent a story to explain an unanswerable question.
Some people invent answers for those questions — perhaps a bible or a religion.
They have faith, not science.
The climate change “religion” also has faith, and not science.
Because wild guess, always wrong, predictions of the future climate have nothing to do with real science.
God ≡ Universe – i.e. the universe itself is the embodiment of God in the sense of Strong AI.
Speaking of plagiarized bronze-age myths, let’s not forget a steady-state universe and spontaneous generation.
Nope, George Patton would never let his era’s totalitarians win one, I’m not giving these people who want to control every aspect of my life one inch.
sendergreen
It appears that you are not a chess player.
He didn’t leave us, we left him. He’ll be back when He is good and ready, and when we have totally ass’ed it up on our own.
Jeff, I understand how you feel (I once VERY strongly held your position), but no, we (mankind) are to blame for all that is wrong in the entire Universe, for mankind thru Adam and Eve caused “the fall”. Since the fall nothing is as it should be. And Satan has for this time been allowed to be “prince of the air” (have certain control over this world’s people). But since God created the (fallen) angel Satan and everything, God has ultimate control over all things, and in time thru Jesus, He will put all things right again.
God knows CAGW, along with many other fallacies of mankind, derive from mankind’s pride.
Well yes, you are technically right, but we are not directly responsible for acts of nature including “climate change.” Now there ‘acts of nature’ which the media would have us believe man had nothing to do with, like the flooding and deaths in New Orleans after Katrina, when it is well documented that the mayor had warnings in his hands of flooding from NWS at least 6 hours before it happened and he did nothing. Then there were the decades of corrupt state officials diverting money to maintain the levees to their pockets. (See https://tinyurl.com/rlq6x9t). Thousands of people died because of incompetent government (all levels). But is government to blame? Noooo, it was climate change.
If, as you say, “God has ultimate control over all things, and in time thru Jesus, He will put all things right again” why did he let things go out of control? Sleeping on the job?
Sorry, Clay. I don’t believe in any of the myths you believe in. No evidence.
I’m guessing you don’t believe life could exist anywhere else.
“an office temp with a bad attitude” – George Carlin
They correctly state many skeptic arguments. For each of these arguments they merely state that the argument is wrong but they provide no evidence.
So, they don’t even pass the Monty Python sniff test.
Thanks commieBob – for using the term ‘skeptic” I got sick and tired of the repeated “Climate change deniers”.
“God is in control.”
I wonder why He likes floating islands of garbage?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
Did you even read the article you linked to?
“Despite the common public perception of the patch existing as giant islands of floating rubbish, its low density (4 particles per cubic meter) prevents detection by satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area. This is because the patch is a widely dispersed area consisting primarily of suspended “fingernail-sized or smaller bits of plastic”, often microscopic, particles in the upper water column.”
What’s the critical problem? There’s all kinks of “stuff” floating in the oceans and it doesn’t hurt anyone. Plastics are just one more set of “stuff” that will break down in the sunlight and with the help of microbes. Read some real information, not just Wikigarbage.
@Trying to play nice
You caught me slacking. I should have read the article before using it as an example. Those photos of floating garbage? They’re real, but most are of Manila Bay. Some were taken in the Caribbean, near the shore.
That’s not to say plastic in the ocean is not a problem.
Once again, since God refuses to behave in the manner that you believe to be appropriate, in your mind you actually believe you have disproven the existence of God.
Not what he said at all.
On the upside… a fine example of a straw-man argument, which climate alarmists are also frequently guilty of.
No. But no believer has proven the existence of god. Therefore there is no reason to believe.
No atheist has ever proven that God doesn’t exist, so there’s no reason not to believe.
His hand is on the thermostat, not ours.
“His hand is on the thermostat, not ours.”
Right. And all this time I thought the UHI was caused by all those buildings and cement.
He’s in charge of the thermostat.
We’re in charge of the thermometers, and their placement.
if X happens God is in control
if !X happens, God is in Control.
Nothing can falsify this claim it’s perfectly anti scientific
Faith based science, only at WUWT
As opposed to fake based science that you operate under.
Is that really it, Steven? Of ALL the comments on this topic, that’s the one you choose to respond to?
Really, that exact same point can be made about CAGW: is there something, anything that can falsify that hypothesis?
How about the existence of a few hundred weather stations that have flat or cooling trends over the last 30 years, mixed right in with stations that are warming? If the warming is global, if greenhouse gases are this big comfy blanket trapping the heat from the Sun, then why do these exist?
Poor Steve, his paycheck is being threatened and he’s panicking.
How long has been since Steve last tried to make sense?
“Faith based science, only at WUWT”
Naturlich . . . but it sounds like you’re criticizing the notion.
If so, don’t you contradict yourself?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/18/climate-science-has-died-the-effects-will-be-big/#comment-2850041
“He’s in charge of the thermostat.
We’re in charge of the thermometers, and their placement.“
Well, it makes sense to split up the work.
I’m curious, though, were these duties previously announced, or were they gleaned in prayer after reading my comment?
“I’m curious, though, were these duties previously announced, or were they gleaned in prayer . . . ?”
Thanks for your query professor. You know, there’s just not enough curiosity in the youth these days; thus I say, “Bravo to you young lady!”
I reckon, however, I’ll have to go with option three; mistakenly absent from your MCQ:
“None of the above.”
Does it really surprise you? This blog is full of low IQ nutters. It’s no surprise nobody takes them seriously.
OMG,
The climate is cooling off and we’re supposed to reduce foodstuff-producing CO2?????
This author should try self-administered asphyxiation because that’s what he’s recommending for the plant kingdom!
That, or let him go three days without food and see if that changes his attitude! (What happens to a gentleman who goes 12 meals without eating? He becomes a terrorst!)
“What happens to a gentleman who goes 12 meals without eating? ”
Written by someone who has never actually tried it or even talked to someone who has tried it !
He learns what fasting means and discovers to his amazement that hunger does not get worse and worse every day but stops after 24-48h.
My last fast was 20days , water only , and I hardly killed anyone. !
Everyone who sleeps, wakes and has food in the morning is “breaking their fast”, ie, breakfast.
@sycomputing
“I reckon, however, I’ll have to go with option three; mistakenly absent from your MCQ:
“None of the above.””
*******
Acting as God’s spokesman, Steve Attack explained to us how the workload in question has been divvied up. I’m just wondering how and when he came upon this information?
Hey there you are! Heck just almost missed ya! Why for you to reply all the way over hya?
“ I’m just wondering how and when . . . ”
Hmm, not sure there friend. I suspect I wouldn’t be the best source for that info. You prolly ought to ask him. 🙂
“I wouldn’t be the best source for that info. You prolly ought to ask him. 🙂”
Darn, …..you presumed to speak for him in your last comment, “None of the above.”
I was counting on your mind reading skills to answer the more recent question.
“ . . . you presumed to speak for him in your last comment, ‘None of the above.’”
Oh I gotcha. Since you thought you were quoting me in your reply you thought I thought I was speaking for whomever you thought you were quoting in mine. No, I was answering your question directly. Occam’s principle, you know.
Glad we cleared that up!
“I was counting on your mind reading skills to answer the more recent question.”
Apologies if I’ve disappointed. In my defense, I’ve had to use all my available mystic intellectuals just to figure out where from where yer gonna reply next! Is it here; is it there; is it in the next article three back maybe? Who can know for sure?
Hey I’m just ribbin’ ya a little bit. Actually, you did very well this time. I suspect you’re gonna get the hang of it soon. Remember, practice makes perfect!
🙂
It says vulnerable people die from not being able to heat their homes. How will pushing up energy prices help them?
Making electricity less available will not help vulnerable people cool their homes either.
Ralph Dave Westfall
In the Uk winter of 2017/2018 there were 50, 000 Excess winter deaths, of a population of 60m.
It wasn’t a particularly cold winter.
In the 2017 Indian summer, during an ‘unprecedented’ heatwave, of a population of 1.3bn, more than 10% of whom live below the poverty line (so 130m), 222 people died from heat related conditions.
Yep, two hundred and twenty two.
Poverty, as measured by Indian standards, does not exist in the UK.
So how come so many ‘wealthy’ British people died if cold were not a far more effective killer than heat?
They claim to be concerned about “vulnerable people” when that supports their policies. On the other hand, you tend to be skeptical about such concern being expressed by people who want to substantially reduce the human population.
Those are killer statistics, HotScot, and I do not doubt them, but they’d be a lot more useful to me if you could provide sources/references for them.
Thanks in advance!
Please, HotScot?
Here in the UK we rarely (even now) have to worry about cooling our homes.
yeah and calls that a social problem?
well I guess if society allows the idiocy of making fuel and power so expensive it cant be afforded than it could be said
but its morons like these pushing for high prices and unreliable power doing the killing to my mind.
its saturday here and one of the 2 days a week I can afford to turn the heater on for a few hrs and overnight last night was 2.7c just before summers official., my arthritic joints are giving me hell.
Huh? It takes just one computer program to “adjust” all the reading the thousands of scientists in more than 100 countries take.
No need for a conspiracy: non-stop propaganda plus herd instincts are quite sufficient.
I does not need an organised conspiracy, it a conspiracy of intent. They all know that if fail to object and denounce unscientific “corrections” like the infamous Karlisation of SST records, they will ensure more panic , more political interest and MORE FUNDING.
You don’t need conspire you keep you mouth shut and allow the golden age of funding in your research field to continue.
Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science, UCL seems to clearly understand the principal and can’t wait to fan the flames of “global heating” to keep his funding on the boil.
You beat me to it Greg. It took one guy pretty much – Trofim Karl, to fake the “pausebuster” data.
As was famously said ten years ago on WUWT, “A conspiracy is unecessary when a carrot will suffice.”
You have a very good memory, Roger!
It was one week short of ten years: Dec. 8, 2009, by Paul Vaughan:
Anthony wrote about it a few days later, here:
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/perhaps-a-conspiracy-is-unnecessary-where-a-carrot-will-suffice/
I almost fell for it then I read
“Greta, who is simply telling the scientific truth” 😂😂😂😂
After all the normal “oil is the devil”, the truth comes out…
“Switching to renewable energy and electric vehicles, for example, reduces air pollution, which improves people’s overall health.
Developing a green economy provides economic benefits and creates jobs. 😐
The initial idea of throwing money at the green energy sector, was for that money to spawn invention and development. But we haven’t seen any new development at all, other than the windmills getting bigger and bigger.
I’m sure of a lot of off-grid and micro energy needs have benefited. The grey-nomads are loving it, having good power for their mobile homes. But every large scale green idea has failed: Wave, wind and solar.
75% of Americans think humans are causing climate change…
Let them all scrap their ICE cars and buy new EVs. This should have a dramatic effect on the nation’s carbon footprint and air quality without any need for a GND legislation.
If the emboldened clip from the article is true, then the faithful will drive the remainder simply by adhering to their vaunted principles
“75% of Americans think humans are causing climate change”
And apparently, 22% of Germans believe that plastic bags cause climate change…
As a German I’d be surprised if it really was that low. Whenever climate change is discussed, it usually takes less than 5 minutes until somebody mentions that he or she tries to do his/her part by buying fruits and vegetables not wrapped in plastic.
There’s a HUGE difference between believing that man is capable of influencing the climate, and believing that the changes being caused by CO2 are going to kill us all.
In 2021, the EU will in case of low power in the grids reduce power in private charging stations.
German link
not the complet article
You need to get your wife to the hospital? Tough luck, you should have planned ahead and bought a second car that you always keep charged for emergencies.
With an EV you can have energy delivered to your car at your house, work, dentist, or shopping mall for way cheaper than you can buy it at the ‘station’ and keep it mostly ‘filled’ all the time.
The EU is talking about someday having to restrict the fill rate, perhaps to a ‘gallon’ an hour instead of three.
You’d always get your ten ‘gallons’ before morning or by the end of your workday regardless.
You’d keep a ‘gallon’ or two in the ‘tank’ all the time even if it meant going out if your way to a charging station. Maybe a little more if your wife was 8.7 months pregnant.
Do you even have the foggiest clue as to how much the system you are proposing is going to cost?
The only reason why electricity is cheaper is because government hasn’t figured out a way to tax it yet. Well over half the cost of gasoline is the various taxes.
Smart meters achieves this.
LOL. “Developing a green economy provides economic benefits and creates jobs” the same way that taking away backhoes and shovels from constructions workers and, as an alternative, outfitting an army of ditch diggers with SPOONS “creates jobs.”
These idiots don’t understand that “creating jobs” by reducing productivity destroys an economy, it doesn’t build up an economy. Ask Portugal, I believe it was, who lost 3 REAL jobs for every “green job” they “created” with Eco-Nazi mandates.
In September, “The Conversation” announced that the only opinions they would permit to be expressed in article comments are those in support of climate hysteria. They wrote, “the editorial team in Australia is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics. Not only will we be removing their comments, we’ll be locking their accounts.”
That’s not really shocking. The Conversation has long had two moderation policies: the official written one (“their Community Standards,” which are basically Quora’s BNBR + “Be Constructive”), and the actual one (“Be Leftist”).
For instance, no matter how nice, respectful & constructive you are, and no matter how thoroughly you document your claims, suspicion of casting doubt on the climate emergency has long been grounds for deleting your comments at The Conversation. But no matter how vicious ad hominem attacks are, they’re acceptable if they are directed toward someone skeptical of the climate emergency.
So, really, not much has changed. They’ve just made it official.
However, I’m still waiting from them to officially change their name to “The One-Sided Conversation.”
+infinity-1
+infinity-1 is still infinity .
but just in case I’ll raise you +1 .
Just taking a cue from Hitchhiker’s Guide…
Here in Canada, our version of the New York Times ended its comment section (after failing to keep out the riff-raff, i.e., non-progressives)
As a (much too) frequent contributor, I questioned the business practice. I mean, if they are counting clicks (and they are)…and I click a half-dozen times (and I, unfortunately, often did), and now, I would click only once to read (or, more often, not click at all as I don’t read it)…how is that gonna make them more money?
Stock price is now at 46 Canadian cents.
52-wk high 1.06
52-wk low 0.45
But, hey, its heading in the right direction.
Go woke, go broke.
“The Sermon”
They don’t seem to realise that you can’t have a conversation in an echo chamber.
but since when was any journalist interested in a “conversation”. They are there to tell you what to think and believe, no matter what side they are on.
Better yet: “The Monologue”
It’s inevitable…
The Conversation finally listens, bans comments
PS Charles, you forgot to quote the funniest part of any article by Mark Maslin: the disclosure statement.
“It’s hard to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
—Upton Sinclair
Wow! Thank you for that, Brad.
One of his past funders deserves special mention. JLT Re is a reinsurance company. When you think of Big Climate, you probably think of wind and solar energy companies, and perhaps electric car manufacturers. But for the reinsurance industry, climate alarmism is like money in the bank: it drives up demand for their product, and enables them to charge more for it. That’s why a German reinsurance giant, Munich Re, funds über-alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf and the Potsdam Institute (PIK).
With a $1.5 Trillion industry which is dependent on politicians and their supporters “not understanding it,” we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s plenty of money hyping the product. But the rivers of money that support climate propaganda are still truly impressive.
For example, there’s a relatively new 501(c)(3) “educational charity” in NYC called the First Street Foundation, created to hype sea-level alarmism. They popped up in late 2017, with an initial paid staff of about ten people, and quickly expanded to fifteen.
Someone obviously wrote a very big check! There certainly isn’t that kind of money supporting climate realists.
The First Street Foundation works with leftist professors at Columbia University, and their M.O. is to publish junk science in obscure journals, accompanied by flashy press releases, blasted out to every media outlet on the planet, with the general theme that wildly accelerated sea-level rise dooms coastal communities, because of climate change.
(On a humorous note, they’ve created a web site called FloodIQ.com, to tell you how deep the water will be where you live — and, according to their map, a Cat 3 hurricane would put President Obama’s mansion under more than three feet of water.)
Haha, I just got around to reading “The Conversation finally listens, bans comments.” It’s a good thing that I wasn’t sipping a beverage at the time, or I’d need a new keyboard!
The Conversation doesn’t like nutters.
I think you have that backwards. Their conversation is limited to nutters.
Yes all of the mainstream scientific establishment is in on the big conspiracy and only you really know the truth. It’s not that you’re too thick to understand how science works or you’re a conspiracy driven nutjob.
Steve, if you decide you’d like to learn about actual climate science, beyond the Climate Industry’s PR talking points, here’s a list of high-quality resources:
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html
It includes:
● accurate introductory climatology info
● in-depth science from BOTH skeptics & alarmists
● links to balanced debates between experts on BOTH sides
● info about climate impacts
● links to best blogs on BOTH sides
Anyone who disagrees with me is a nutter.
Liberalism in action.
First they ignore you, then they ban you, then they lock you up.
How about “Stalin’s Conversation”?
Dave
I wrote to them and suggested that they adopt the name The Monologue. I did not hear back from the editor.
+1 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
These appear to be 5 jokes by a high priest of the climate death cult. It is an early April Fools.
I personally don’t believe the numbers stated in the article and would love to see where they come from. Probably just total money spent on all communications activities but attributed to fighting CAGW only. And how much money has been spent lobbying and advertising and financing CAGW activities. Probably a staggering sum.
This article is pretty funny. It’s not worth the paper it was printed on.
Well, with over $1.5 Trillion at stake annually, it’s no surprise the Green Blob won’t go down without a fight. (I knew the article was junk as soon as I read the part saying Greta “is simply telling the scientific truth” – yeah, right!)
“Well, with over $1.5 Trillion at stake annually, it’s no surprise the Green Blob won’t go down without a fight.”
Source?
*******
These folks won’t go down without a fight, either:
“According to market research by IBISWorld, a leading business intelligence firm, the total revenues for the oil and gas drilling sector came to $2 trillion in 2017. This sector is composed of companies that explore for, develop, and operate oil and gas fields. It is also sometimes referred to as the oil and gas exploration and production industry, or simply as E&P.”
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030915/what-percentage-global-economy-comprised-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp
Love the apples and oranges comparison.
It’s almost as if you set out to deliberately deceive.
If you want an honest comparison, let’s compare that $2T revenue of all the world’s oil companies to the total amount of money spent by all the governments of the world.
Indeed. The Oil & Gas industry makes products that are essential for modern life, so they needn’t fund disinformation to trick people into buying them. The $1.5 Trillion Climate Industry, OTOH, is completely dependent on politicians making public policy which incentivizes or compels purchase of their products.
Environmental NGO’s s spend billions of dollars a year, almost none of which they have to report. In fact, the other 4 points apply much more to the climate change agitprop voices than the private sector oil and gas.
The rhetorical devices used in this piece are far from a practical discussion on these five points. In addition, the following so-called effects of climate change can’t stand much scrutiny, either: “Scientists” estimate that current targets would lead to up to 3 degrees Celsius of global heating and cause catastrophic changes across the globe, including floods, cyclones, long-lasting heat waves, and record-breaking wildfires, among others.
Ever wonder something basic?
Why don’t all the NGOs concerned about climate change fire their staffs, en mass, and devote 100% of their income to purchasing and donating solar panels to homeowners? 100%. All their income. Just give them away. It’s a crises after all. Aren’t they being selfish spending time on conferences, and advertising, and office space and staff while this crises is brewing? Why do we need any additional studies? Why do we need lobbying? Just start pouring your own money into fixing the problem, one house at a time. Imagine the millions of homes that could receive this free upgrade. Heck, I’ll bet you could get matching funds from any number of wealthy individuals and corporations. Various states and cities might kick in money to have you come to their town to do all the homes for free.
Funny how that never occurs to them….
The five pillars of climate change alarmism:
– a false quasi-scientific hypothesis.
– fopsy-turvy economics of ‘renewables’.
– shameless use of human missery as supporting ‘the cause’
– recruiting a scientifically illiterate political class with inuendo of climate change porn.
– scaring the living daylights out of the young and the gullible with ever more extreme fantasy disaster scenarios.
Five Pillars of Rational Climate Change Debating:
1 You stole our childhood
2 You stole our dreams
3 How dare you
4 How Dare You
5 HOW DARE YOU
The CC propaganda is so deeply embedded and successful that it will take another LIA or catastrophic consequences from cessation of fossil fuel use to overcome it. The fear mongers have successfully moved the goal posts for the past 50 years so what’s to stop them from continuing this scam indefinitely? Don’t give up.
It is exactly like the old Marxist rhetoric from over a century ago and then dusted off, buffed up with new words in the 50’s and 60’s and here it comes again. I know, it never really goes away. But it is still tiresome, sorting out the BS. Each time though, the new audience is less equipped to think rationally.
If there’s a LIA they will blame co2. If there are consequences of renewables like blackouts or transformer fires they will blame the energy company.
They’ll blame evil “Capitalism”.
“The CC propaganda is so deeply embedded and successful that it will take another LIA or catastrophic consequences from cessation of fossil fuel use to overcome it.”
OTOH, I think 1) the argument that developing nations’ continually rising emissions will dwarf any cuts we make will have a big impact on public enthusiasm for climate action. 2) So will mass protests against green measures, such as by farmers. 3) So will electoral defeats of the architects of higher electricity costs.
Wow! Talk about making pretzels out of reality and projection.
There is something in this that I like. I am writing this from Canada.
Under the heading on Economic Denial it is stated that $860 Billion, or 1% of global GDP, would solve the climate issue. That is $86 Billion a year. I assume they only want the richer countries to pay, so lets assume 40% for the US, 40% for Europe, 12% for Japan and the rest divided between Canada, Australia and NZ. I am in Canada, Canada’s share would be $3.44 Billion for 10 years.
Between EV car subsidies, give aways to other countries, subsidies for renovations, technology credits and so on by the federal government and provinces Canada already spends more than that, to say nothing of the economic disruption caused by all of the other climate change policy and regulation. So rather than argue about whether climate change policies are causing more harm than climate change itself, why don’t we all commit to do what this article suggests? We could permanently solve a problem, get rid of a whole bunch of disruptive regulation, get the preaching/insulting greens off our back and significantly cut spending on climate change, all in one go.
Unless, of course, the article is intentionally misleading, and the writer is twisting figures to make the proposed solutions sound less expensive than they are.
Also writing from Canada. I have never seen a public project whether municipal, provincial, or federal that has ever come in less than double the original estimate. Now add in the ultra corruption of the globalists, and UN control, and I don’t think there’s a snowballs chance in the hot place (certainly not Canada today) that cost estimates will come in less than a hundred times the initial projections. The bureaucratic mantra has always been “lie like hell to get the project contracts signed, and the first shovel in the ground, then let the cost spirals begin” !
After all when climate change is anything, and everything they say it is … we know the “crisis” will never end.
Professor of Earth Systems Science Fiction perhaps…
What are you saying? He uses big words like taxonomy. How could it not be true?
The ‘greens’ want to tax everything … now it’s our ‘onomys to be taxed; is nothing sacred !!!
Interesting parallel, that “smoking” thing. Let’s see – lavishly funded “Scientists” DEFENDED IT to protect (an assumption on their motives, mine) their gravy train. That’s the story as commonly understood.
This one will be told the same way – we “KNOW” it’s not natural variation (how? what extent?), we “KNOW” the impact it will cause (all bad, greener Earth and more crops be damned), and we “KNOW” what are being proposed as “solutions” will WORK. And they JUST SO HAPPEN to include yet more funding for Climate Research, wholesale change of societies, and leave out the Chinese.
Yeah … how INSANE to be “Skeptical” on this matter. Not like it’s any big deal tho. UGH.
Since the science is “settled” we can stop funding research, send all climate scientists an enormous “Thank you” along with a pink slip and a map to the Unemployment Office.
1. School climate strikes
2. Extinction Rebellion protests
3. national governments declaring a climate emergency
4. improved media coverage of climate change
5. an increasing number of extreme weather events
Wow.
1. uneducated children
2. those in #1 who grew up and became rich white people with too much time on their hands
3. politicians who love empty statements that do nothing except spend other people’s money
4. see #1 and #2
5. an absolute, provable lie
This is gonna be easier than I thought…
Is it just me? WTF? Just because they say something doesn’t make it true. The insanity is growing.
Chaswarnertoo
Yes, the insanity is growing. Part of it may be desperation. However, I’m afraid it isn’t always about money. I’m afraid that some people, such as Maslin, may actually believe the things they say. And, they are given the responsibility to ‘teach’ the next generation. That is scary!
They are all salt and need to be toppled asap. New scary words, desperate children screaming at us, Glued youngers to the ground , Football games being stopped. The denial has been so much fun watching as the fools try so hard to make us believe. I for one will stay happy in denial until the BS just stops. How many predictions can not come true and how many kids can be scared in school each day. Again I ask what is the end game and why would I want to suffer to find out. Global climate warming change is a hoax and for one I will not defend my way of thinking, but just pass the word of it non existence. Take your ideas and put them where the sun does shine on my wonderful and non anti human earth which has supplied us with all we need to exist.
Of course we don’t actually know how much of the “$200M” that the gas and oil companies (who do billions of dollars of business annually) spent on PR (most likely) was actually supporting climate crisis skepticism, but it pales in significance to the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent by our government on “global warming/climate change” over the past 20 years. How much is spent in the private sector by various politically oriented billionaires and the media on “climate crisis” reporting/editorial/articles and the like is anyone’s guess.
The rest of the article continues as a basic 101 course in how to use numbers and graphs in propaganda articles. The standout for me is the “tons of CO2 per capita” chart. Nothing on the chart gives you the population used. China, who is agressively pursuing modern energy intensive development based on fossil fuels, has 4X our population, yet their land area is only slightly under 2% larger than ours!
Unfortunately the media will jump on this article, exaggerate the already biased conclusions and leave out even this skewed data, leaving the non-science involved person to believe it!