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.
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The cult of CAGW created what is called a ‘Straw Man’ . …. the straw man is created by selecting the weakest so called Skeptic comments and then answering their own question.
The cult of CAGW are 100% incorrect in terms of the science.
If the science is 100% incorrect it is not possible to be a denier.
A denier is someone who does not repeat what the cult of CAGW are saying.
There is now unequivocal observational evidence, analysis (multiple independent methods), and linked physical logical evidence that supports the assertion that humans are responsible for no more than 5% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2.
It is a fact that the current atmospheric CO2 have changed track planetary temperature changes not anthropogenic CO2 emission.
In addition, planetary temperature changes do not follow atmospheric CO2 changes.
These are some of the independent analysis that have shown that human CO2 emissions are responsible for less than 5% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2.
Sources and sinks of CO2 Tom Quirk
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/EE20-1_Quirk_SS.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257343053_The_phase_relation_between_atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_and_global_temperature
Remember that the science is so settled that it has made no progress in 30 years.
The uncertainty in climate sensitivity has not reduced since the first IPCC report.
We have improved the computers. We have improved the measurements (ARGO buoys, satellites). We have improved the (number of) researchers.
But no progress.
It is worth asking why such faith in a branch of science is justified when that branch has hit a dead-end?
Indeed it’s almost like CO2 is not the most significant factor controlling the global climate.
The problem is that some people are still allowed to make physical measurements. IRL measurements are so prone to falsifying the dogma, whereas if we would limit ourselves more reasonably to using computer models exclusively, then we could quickly prove that ECS is exactly 6.66 and that the oceans are boiling acid cauldrons devoid of life.
As you may know, it has been known for a while that it is the sun that drives our climate. The planet could probably do with more CO2 in the atmosphere at present as we slip into solar minimum and get hit by more cosmic particles as a result.
”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. ”
If no doubt exists, why bother writing this? How much energy is wasted serving this article to us?
6. Solar and wind are intermittent.
7. There aren’t enough batteries in the world to compensate for that.
Well, that was a long article that can be refuted with a short reply: Bullsh!t!
The $200M lobbying claim is an article from Forbes describing a report from a climate change lobbying group “InfluenceMap”. They count direct brand advertising as “lobbying against climate change action”.
How “The Con” thinks this is in any way convincing is beyond belief.
“How “The Con” thinks this is in any way convincing is beyond belief.”
I think they count on most people not taking the time to do an in-depth review of their claims. They expect most people to accept what they say at face value.
Mark Maslin demonstrates his academic moron status by writing, “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.”
High prices for electricity and fuel kills — whether it is for A/C or heat. And the climate idiots like Maslin support energy schemes that makes energy ever more expensive to push renewable energy scams that will enrich the billionaires who have invested in these schemes. This Maslin guy is literally a moron if he doesn’t see that. Heat waves are now less common, and we have the technology for people to mitigate those effects as long as the vast majority can afford the electricity. Idiots like Maslin want pure socialism-communism where everyone (except the elites) lives in government house blocks and someone tells them when they can have heat or A/C.
This Maslin guy wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a debate with a knowledgeable sceptic. He uses half-truth arguments. He’d be running for the door, hands over his ears so he would hear climate blasphemy as he’d be unable to defend his idiotic positions, so he’d just run away.
Mine will be shorter.
The pillars of Climate Change Doom.
Carbon Dioxide, the gas that feeds all plant life which then sustains the rest of all life on earth, is a pollutant.
Massive adjustments of recorded temperature data. Large downward revisions to old temperatures followed by increases to newer temperatures. Making a false increase in temperature where none existed before.
Ever more scary predictions about climate doom that is just around the corner, but never actually present, thus far always falsified once the future becomes the present and past.
False attribution of blame for bad weather.
Indoctrination of children rather than education of children.
The erasure of history by getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Climate Optimum and the Holocene Climate Optimum. Downplaying of the dark ages and the more recent little ice age. A complete whitewash of the impending ice age of the 1970’s.
Mann’s nature trick. Hide the decline. Lack of debate. Spiking of studies that refute Climate Alarmism.
The terrible science thought process that past changes in climate were natural but recent changes have to be man made.
No real correction for the urban heat island effect at airports and cities. Instead, the adjustments take heat island corrupted temperature trends and imprint them on uncorrupted rural temperature trends.
The oceans are hiding the heat!
Also there’s:
Rent seeking cargo cult scientists demanding more money to keep studying the issues and modeling them with junk models.
I always find it interesting to see how warmists try to make China seem like the good guys and US the bad guys. They do this by expressing emissions in terms of per head of population. The number of people is irrelevant if one country increases emissions at a rate far greater than the rest of the world is cutting theirs. The reality is that whilst everyone is frenetically trying to reduce their footprint China goes on blissfully building their coal fired power stations. When Trump said that Global warming was a scam invented by the Chinese the way it has played out suggests that whether it is true or not , it is the Chinese who are the global villain but it is the US that has been villified.
“I always find it interesting to see how warmists try to make China seem like the good guys and US the bad guys.”
Well, its mostly TDS.
Which is why when Trump merely continued to ban travel from the same list of countries that Obama used it was a “Muslim ban”, and the hysterics screamed…and when China actually throws Muslims into concentration camps and tries to destroy their entire religion…crickets.
But you don’t really expect morality and logic from these guys, do you? That would give the game away…
Caligula
+1
I followed the Statista link and found this: “The research also found that the five companies listed support their lobbying expenditures with a financial outlay of $195 million annually for focused branding activities which suggest they support action against climate change.. So $195 of the supposed $200 million is spent on promotions that look like they support action against climate change. Well, to my mind, that should be counted as spending in favour of action against climate change. If you pump out the message that you support action against climate change, surely anyone seeing or hearing it will be induced to think that you support action against climate change.
People who read WUWT know that what Mark Maslin is writing is wrong, but the majority of people do not and will believe what is written because it falls into the the framework of deception that has been brain washing our youth and uninformed for so long.
This was a very effective article.
The indoctrinated will spread the word to the less indoctrinated, who in turn will become believers; and unless you have a very sound arguement to counter each pillar; you will lose.
Someone needs to write a counter arguement to it and get it published immediately. And there lies the problem. The sceptics to not have the cooperation of the media. Scaring people is big money for the media.
And so we keep losing ground and at the same time have the better arguements.
Maybe someone can point out to him that all the fires in Australia burning in virgin rainforest that has never been touched by fire in recorded history are all the result of greenie arsonists? Even the remote ones miles from civilization. These greenie terrorists will stop at nothing to alter public sentiment.
The graph in denial #4 does not make sense to me.
China has per capital of 7 tonnes. That gives 9.5 billion with a population of 1.4 billion folks.
USA has per capita of 16.6. That gives 5.5 billion with population of 326 million.
China has total almost twice USA but they have us at 25% and China at 13%.
Maslin’s piece is replete with irrelevancies, half-truths and falsehoods it’s difficult to know where to start, here’s one ‘hot-whopper’:
“… 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 …”.
Either Maslin knows that is untrue or he’s an idiot incapable of doing the most superficial research:
“… Adaptation is at the heart of Lawson’s case. He does not question the existence of the greenhouse effect, or of man-made climate change, only its extent and the balance between human and natural factors …” (Nigel Lawson The Guardian 2 May 2008):
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/may/03/climatechange.greenpolitics
Huge huge applause for WUWT for publishing an article by a real scientist on global warming!
You forgot the sarc tag.
I am a scientist myself so no /s tag was needed.
Clearly you are a political scientist.
You’ll find there’s a lot of scientists here, so you won’t be intimidating, converting, or impressing anyone.
NorEastern, “I am a scientist myself”
Climate models have no predictive value, NorEastern:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full
The global air temperature record is riven with neglected non-normal systematic error:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Frank/uncertainty_in%20global_average_temperature_2010.pdf (869.8 KB)
After all of that, there is no physical theory to covert a tree ring metric into an air temperature:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abstract/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.391
It’s all false precision.
Now what?
You need to really research the junk that is climate science then, Pre-2011 I just accepted climate science claims without looking behind the curtain. When I did I was horrified to really read the Climategate emails, the behaviors of this corruption and lack of ethics in the top “climatologists”.
The never-ending, very troubling adjustments to many decades old surface temperature data sets, and most especially an [adjusted – raw] temp data versus MLO CO2 with an r^2> 0.98. They are adjusting data to meet theory, it couldn’t be more clear the game being played with temps to keep making “hottest ever” claims when the daily max temp trends are all flat or down. Those are temps they can’t adjust. The inconsistencies are everywhere that they can’t adjust out. The tangled-web thing when they started lying about one thing in a connected global climate, it just unravels everywhere.
The GCMs are junk all the way down. GCMs are layer after layer of junk science that only looks like science to a casual observer. Once you get into what they do and how they go about model validation, you quickly realize what a farce climate modelling is today.
Educate yourself Nor’eastern. Use some critical thinking skills.
Joel, PhD
Yes, a well written and irrefutable roasting. Not so palatable for this audience but a pretty incisive dissection and explanation of the reasons for 30 years of climate change inaction. Inaction that has been so effective that CO2 concentration is STILL rising exponentially. Hundreds of replies, lots of unpersuasive, echoed opinion, plenty of zombie myths and pet theories but no substantive rebuttals. Surprise, surprise. So-called sceptics.
Loydo, it has already been refuted. Sorry that of all this simply goes over your head.
[catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change #HateLovesAbortion
This article by Mark Maslin of UCL is composed of almost 100% of the usual ‘Climate Warming’ nonsense in support of ‘The Cause’, but it is interesting to get a window into the command headquarters of the enemy.
This is from “The Onion” right???
Simple thermodynamics tells us that CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere leads to a hotter earth. The physics is trivial. Simple probabilistic analysis reveals that the chances the last four years have been the hottest in the last 145 years without an external influence (CO2 and NH4) is a 434 million to one long shot. CO2 content in the atmosphere is currently the highest in the last 3.2 million years when the oceans were 70 to 100 feet higher and the earth was 9 degrees F warmer. The climate tipping points are obvious and if one occurs Katy bar the doors.
Are you serious? LOL
1- List all climate forcings, order them from most to least effectual, and then quantify them all.
2- Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.
There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here. For 4,500,000,000 years climates have always changed, naturally. This means there has been a set precedent, and the burden of proof falls on natural climate change deniers like yourself.
” List all climate forcings”: I have no idea what that means.
“one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability”: They all do kid.
There are no longer global warming skeptics. There are only Luddites who deny it.
I’be never denied climate change in my life. It is what made me study geology and climatology at a major university.
Now how about answering my questions genius.
NorEaster
You said, “I have no idea what that means.” Tell us something that isn’t obvious.
Simple Thermodynamics is the rationale of the scientifically inept. It works only if nothing else in the climate changes.
Fritz Möller pointed that out in 1963 during his debate with Gilbert Plass, but asserters such as you, NorEastern, have studiously ignored that ever since.
You’re assuming without any evidence that the extra atmospheric kinetic energy added by the collisional decay of CO2 appears immediately and only as sensible heat. That is a physically unjustifiable assumption.
A 0.1% annual change in cloud fraction alone is enough to offset the forcing due to CO2 emissions. Neither you nor anyone else has any idea whether that happens or not.
Satellite observational resolution is not good enough by a factor 100 to see a change of that minimal size, and the resolution of climate models is far more than 100 times too coarse to simulate the itty-bitty cloud response, if any, to the thermal flux of CO2 forcing.
The same ignorance obscures resolving any change in the rate or intensity of convection, or in the power of the Hadley circulation. Or any change in the intensity or extent of precipitation or tropical storminess. Any or all of which can adjust slightly to easily offset any extra forcing due to CO2 emissions.
In a hugely dynamic climate, you assert a case resting on stasis.
You, like all the others of the scientifically inept assertional coterie, are jumping to the conclusion that suits your prejudice.
You assert on zero scientific grounds. And then call yourself a scientist.
Nice rebuttal, Pat.
NorEastern sounds more like the latest ID of “Lyodo” than an actual scientist.
Of course, it is possible that he/she is just the sort of ignorant pseudo-scientist “graduated” from our leftist indoctrination “institutions,” come to preach eco-nazism to the masses.
So…what happened late in the 1800’s and early 1900’s when it really was hotter? Actual thermometer readings repeatedly show this and it is extremely well corroborated by newspaper articles of the day. So out the window goes your premise that it is the hottest evah…People who want to use simple thermodynamics and “science” should try to get the facts straight first- the easily attainable ones at least.
The world’s atmospheric temperature was much cooler in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. If you know how to use Google you can look it up.
That’s called the LIA. What caused the MWP NorEastern? Please tell.
The Roman Warm Period.
Your belief Nor’ is exactly Mann, Jones, and their co-conspirators tried so vainly to erase the LIA.
Your homework Nor’: Why did temperatures rise 1910-1945 when CO2 was still below 300 ppm? That was a warming pulse very similar to 1980-2015 warming.
Pls explain, I’ll wait.
Really ? Cite your data sources please .
What is that smell in the air ?
The IPCC report which you cannot understand.
Yet another deflection. So convincing! LOL
Trivial physics is for simpletons. If you think the physics is trivial then you get the wrong answer. The physics is far from simple and the climate models have it wrong, fundamentally (wrong.
Thermodynamics is trivial. It only uses differential equations a few times. Take a course in the physics of relativity or quantum mechanics to find out what is not trivial.
NorEastern
You must think that you are conversing with your inferiors. I have news for you. You are coming across as someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about and is bluffing. You are not going to convince anyone here that they are wrong if all you do is deflect questions.
I did. And I remember it well. Learned my QM from Martin Veltman. Check it out, early 1970s. I must have had better teachers than you because I recognized a pseudo science and crap data when I saw them.
My advice: when in a hole stop digging.
Run for the hills!! The methane has turned into ammonia!!!
Nah,
That’s just NorEastern just stinking the place up,
I chuckled about that typo too, but didn’t want to seem pedantic in my response.
Please be kind enough to tell us (a) the “simple” thermodynamic principle/law/theory/whatever that tells us “CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere leads to a hotter earth”, and (b) does the same “simple” thermodynamic principle/law/theory/whatever apply to water vapor?
NorEastern
Are you Maslin using a pseudonym? What you (and many others) fail to understand (or at least acknowledge) is that what is important is the rate and amount of warming from CO2. If I claim that by spitting on the ground I have lost weight, technically I’d be correct. However, it is of no consequence other than offering up a Red Herring argument. Few skeptics ‘denye’ that there is a theoretical contribution to the rate at which energy is radiated resulting from increasing CO2. What is critical in the debate is the magnitude of the warming for a doubling of CO2. The physics of that is not trivial. And you say that you are a scientist? In what field did you get your degrees?
Nor,
Your “the last four years have been the hottest in the last 145 years “ statement.
Seriously, that is some fine picked cherries. How about the MWP at 900 yrs ago, the RWP at 1,900 ya, the Minoan WP at ~ 3K ya, or the Holocene Thermal Optimum at 8 Kya?
Were those CO2 driven? Why is this one, the Modern WP, due to CO2? Use some critical thinking man.
You’ve been suckered into believing in junk science. Really.
Joel
He’s not a scientist, in spite of his self-promotion. He doesn’t even know what “all climate forcings” means.
“The physics is trivial”
Well, as soon as I hear that ridiculous claim, I know I’m dealing with a charlatan. If the physics were trivial, we wouldn’t need models or supercomputers to predict the overall effect on the Earth’s surface temperature. Obviously, there are myriad secondary effects and sinks that need to be accounted for, and even more uncertain is how a small temperature increase will affect the biosphere. The UN wants $100 Billion per year, and US politicians want to place punitive taxes on fossil fuels that will make it more difficult for people to heat their homes and feed their families. Meanwhile, former president Obama, who was touting the climate emergency as hard as anyone, promptly buys himself two large homes, each of which produced more CO2 emissions than the average US residence. Why should anyone willingly reduce their standard of living when our leaders clearly aren’t doing anything to reduce theirs? Why would anyone send money to the UN when the Green Climate Fund is using their first round of funding to build a port for the island nation of Nauru?
Sorry, but the claim that the physics is trivial is a lie, and it’s only the smallest part of the argument for climate action. It’s not a coincidence that CO2 is the target of anti-capitalists who have always tried to undermine western civilization. Nothing else has such a clear connection to the strength and well-being of a modern, prosperous nation, and if they succeed in artificially limiting CO2 emissions, they also reduce the efficiency and productivity of the world’s most prosperous nations. A neat trick, if they can find enough people to spout nonsense about the physics being trivial.
It’s hard to believe that anyone is falling for it.
“Why should anyone willingly reduce their standard of living when our leaders clearly aren’t doing anything to reduce theirs?”
A very good point that needs more emphasis.
The Elites decry a CO2 crisis yet they change nothing in their lifestyles. A CO2 crisis only applies to the “little people” who are required to give up their standard of living under the Green New Deal and other crazy proposals from the alarmists.
“Simple thermodynamics tells us that CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere leads to a hotter earth.”
Bullshit. It may tell us that increasing the amount of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere, all other things held equal leads to a hotter earth, but then here in the REAL world, “all other things” are most certainly NOT “held equal,” the “feedbacks” are net NEGATIVE, and the effect on the earth’s temperature is essentially nil.
“The physics is trivial.”
IF “all other things” are “held equal.” They are not (see above).
“Simple probabilistic analysis reveals that the chances the last four years have been the hottest in the last 145 years without an external influence (CO2 and NH4) is a 434 million to one long shot.”
First of all, that assumes, mistakenly, that the so-called “data” is accurate. It is not. In point of fact, what they are pointing to as “data” now isn’t even “data” any more. “Data” is what the thermometer readings were, not the “adjusted,” “homogenized,” (supposedly) “corrected” crap they call “data” now.
Second of all, an “external influence” is not something that is IN the Earth’s atmosphere. The fact is the “average temperature,” meaningless metric as it is, is well within the range of NATURAL variation, and there is nothing remarkable about it.
“CO2 content in the atmosphere is currently the highest in the last 3.2 million years …”
More bullshit, based on the scientific incompetence of comparing “proxy” records with modern atmospheric measurements, which is like comparing apples to spiders.
“…when the oceans were 70 to 100 feet higher and the earth was 9 degrees F warmer.”
Which has nothing to do with the CO2 content in the atmosphere. The Earth entered a full blown ice age with ~10 times the amount that is in the atmosphere now – the Earth’s temperature is indifferent to the atmospheric CO2 level.
“The climate tipping points are obvious and if one occurs Katy bar the doors.”
There ARE NO “tipping points.” Earth is a WATER planet, and the levels of other so-called “greenhouse gases” are meaningless. Atmospheric CO2 doesn’t “drive” jack shit. Present empirical evidence that it does! You can’t – because no such evidence exists, and plenty of evidence to refute the notion that CO2 “drives” temperature DOES exist.
‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed’, except perhaps in humanities courses and in politics.
The so-called expenditures on promoting denial by the big 5 oil companies sound a bit phony to me, but in any case, they are trivial in the context of the budget of these companies. BP is said to have spent $53M which represents just 0.3% of its annual profit of $16.7B or just 0.017% of gross income for 2018
And if you take a minute to look at their annual reports, the oil companies are heavily invested in “renewables”, spending far more than they do in “promoting denial”.
Hard facts are in short supply at the Conversation.
“Hard facts are in short supply at the Conversation.”
Boiling it down to the essence (short and sweet). 🙂
Half of Australia is on fire currently. Rainforests that have never burned in recorded history are on fire. But I’m sure it’s just natural variability.
Hey, Steve.
Try persistently poor forest management, then you’ll get your true answer.
Cheers,
Dreadnought.
Hey Dreadnought- why are areas 100s of miles from civilization that have never been managed and never been burnt all on fire all of a sudden?
Dryness. And no, drought has nothing to do with the 0.8 degrees warming.
What else you got?
Right… Reread your post again and then have a think about what you’ve said…
Lightening? If you can’t see the smoke, is something burning?
Maybe it’s darkening.
Yes lightning only began in modern times as part of a conspiracy by the greens.
And how far back do records go?
You gullibles will believe anything your alarmist coaches tell you. Gullible as Hell…
But such fires predate climate change: “A bushfire in Lamington National Park today swept through a grove of 3000-year-old Macrozamia palms,” The Cairns Post reported on October 25, 1951. “These trees were one of the features of the park … the fire has burnt out about 2000 acres of thick rainforest country.” That is rainforest burning in Lamington National Park 70 years ago.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/not-unprecedented-fires-at-all-so-why-these-false-claims/news-story/b30996d6a360cce0e6141018205a8a4d
Ive a lovely bridge for sale, and it fights climate change.
So let me get this straight, your argument against AGW is that half way into the last century (when global average temperatures had increased 0.2 to 0.3 degrees due to AGW since the turn of the century), an area that hadn’t burned in the last 3000 years was suddenly burning?
I thought you said it never burned before. LOL
Try reading the article before commenting. Then you can move goalposts, and be wrong once again.
Not the brightest are you? Probably why your wife left you and you failed in life.
News of my wife abandoning me would shock my entire family, and my wife. And the house I built 17 years ago, that sits 1 mile off of one of Americas most scenic byways is completely paid for. I now work to pass the time and pay trivial bills.
And many thanks Steve, for admitting that you have no more arguments, and must resort to baseless attacks on me.
“(when global average temperatures had increased 0.2 to 0.3 degrees due to AGW since the turn of the century)”
So you’re one of those who think the climate NEVER changes all by itself. Not too bright, are you.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/24/world-heritage-queensland-rainforest-burned-for-10-days-and-almost-no-one-noticed
Thanks for proving my point Bill.
At least one third of those fire were lit by arsonist. Indeed, that’s not natural variability.
Yes Im sure that all those fires in rainforests in the middle of nowhere that haven’t burned for millions of years are the result of arsonists.
”Rainforests that have never burned in recorded history are on fire.”…Recorded history in Australia would be around what, two hundred years or less. How many years do you think the wild fire history would be Steve? Tens of thousands , hundreds of thousands? How many times did the Aborigines do burn offs when they noticed the fuel loads getting too high? Certainly more than whats happening now.
Hey Steve,… ”Unlike Binna Burra, O’Reilly’s is surrounded entirely by rainforest. O’Reilly’s manager, Shane O’Reilly, says there was no need for evacuation; the nearest fires were 15km away: “The rainforest here doesn’t burn. It was pretty much eucalypt country that burned … There’s a lot of emotion surrounding this.” https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/false-alarm-the-great-rainforest-fire-that-wasnt/news-story/1c24f7245f6ff74385be112567c79198
Hmmm,… ”there’s a lot of emotion surrounding this”. Somehow sounds familiar.
They thought the area around Binna Burra wouldn’t burn too. Same with Japoon national park and the Mount Hyland Nature Reserve. And it’s not even an El Nino year. Fire season is now starting earlier and lasting longer. So says, the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, and the Bushfire/Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre. Best not to put any credence to what Uncle Rupert or his minions write.
I don’t know who ”They thought” were, but they thought wrong. This from the same source,…”Binna Burra Lodge is not encircled by rainforest, as was claimed repeatedly. The lodge is surrounded on three sides by eucalypt woodland; it came close to being lost when a control burn 20 years ago got away. This time, explains Binna Burra chairman Steven Noakes: “The fire went tearing up a steep slope through eucalypt woodland and we’re perched on a ridge at the top. With those winds there was nothing we could do.”
Sounds a bit more credible than ABC or Guardian alarmism or who ever ”they thought” is.
Here’s some more rainforest that’s not meant to burn: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-08/from-space,-the-ferocity-of-queenslands-bushfires-is-revealed/10594662
but sure, go on believing what uncle Rupert tells you.
“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.”
Where to start with this..? I mean, really?! It makes me sick to the stomach to read this kind of thing. It’s very sad. Very, very sad.
}:o(
in the mid/high latitudes life is still most challenged during the numerous cold months of the year by a very wide margin.
Some life has an opportunity to head south for the Winter to save itself from the killing cold and lack of food.
Much of life will go into a hibernation mode to survive these cold months. Life that is exposed to the elements all Winter suffers thru great adversity and remains in survival mode, celebrating in the Spring when it can recover as warmth brings food and health recovery and opportunities to procreate.
All animals eat plants or something that ate plants. Many to most plants either go dormant to survive the long harsh Winters or they die and come back from seeds germinated by the return of life giving warmth in the Spring.
This is why authentic science has always defined our current climate as a climate optimum on this greening planet that will continue to increase benefits to most life for the next 100 years at this rate of warming………which affects the coldest places at the coldest times of year……..maximizing the benefits to life.
Climate science was hijacked for the political agenda 40 years ago and the climate crisis/emergency is completely manufactured with fake/junk science.
If you asked scientists 50 years ago, what the optimal temperature of the planet is for life, the vast majority of them, possibly close to 100% would have stated a temperature that was warmer. None would have claimed colder. This is why the Holocene climate optimum over 5,000 years ago that was much warmer than this is referred to as an optimum.
Somehow, today, we hear that 97% of scientists are telling us the complete opposite of what nearly 100% of scientists agreed on 50 years ago.
The authentic science hasn’t changed. Life hasn’t changed. The effects of weather and climate on life hasn’t changed in 50 years.
The manufactured narratives telling us what to believe based on agenda and political belief systems via the hijacking of climate science are what changed.
Large areas of our planet are surpassing global warming of 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C). 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) global warming will occur by 2035. Realist climate scientists understand that a warming of 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) is our best shot at setting a limit on global warming. I am their peer and I talk to them several times a year. 5.4 degrees F of global warming is massively hot.
There is nothing unusual taking place.
1- List all climate forcings, order them from most to least effectual, and then quantify them all.
2- Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.
There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here. For 4,500,000,000 years climates have always changed, naturally. This means there has been a set precedent, and the burden of proof falls on natural climate change deniers like yourself.
If you claim expertise, commenting under you real name would be honest. Take it from this PhD (1979, physics & math) that those temperature increases are utter nonsense.
Hell Ed, he probably can’t even pronounce your last name.
The peer of a fraud is a fraud. Congratulations! You are as dishonest as the grantologists you laud.
1- List all climate forcings, order them from most to least effectual, and then quantify them all.
2- Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.
There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here. For 4,500,000,000 years climates have always changed, naturally. This means there has been a set precedent, and the burden of proof falls on natural climate change deniers like yourself.
You are a peer of “Realist climate scientists ” .
Well , that explains a lot of your unsupported claims ……
What university are you employed by ?
Are you Mickey Mann?
”I am their peer and I talk to them several times a year”
That’s a remarkable series of imprecise statements for a scientist. If you and your peers happily chat amongst yourselves in these terms I’d suggest getting out and talking to scientists that know a bit more about uncertainty.
Stats are a specialty of mine. Global warming caused by CO2 and NH4 is now at 5 sigma probability of being correct. That equates to a 99.999999999% probability that it is happening now.
Go on then specialty stat man, go through your math for us – as slowly as you like. We’ll be here. Could you also let me know what is the probability of me being at a higher elevation if I walk up the hill by my house?
…… and please, please stop typing NH4. It’s even more cringeworthy than your claim to be a scientist.
That 5-sigma: an assertion based on climate models, that cannot predict the climate.
It’s actually a considerably worse assertion than that Pat.
I’m all ears, Phil 🙂
He’s proved using statistical methods that when the temperature of the earth is increasing, the higher temperatures are the most recent ones. Most people just look at a graph. From his other posts, he seems to have also proved that correlation = causation.
NH4? That must be new stuff altogether.
‘Stats are a speciality of mine’. Any publications on the subject? just for comparison, I have 4.
NH4? You sound like someone I had a discussion with some years ago that claimed CH4 (Which I think you actually meant) had, and I quote, “Four carbons”, I kid you not.
NEScientist,
Your posts are made up out of whole cloth.
If you are a scientist, explain to us the difference between a dipole moment and an induced dipole moment, and why this makes water vapor such a vastly more effective greenhouse gas. And then, explain to us just how much higher is the altitude at which the Atmosphere is freely able to radiate to space because CO2 has grown from maybe 280 ppm to maybe 410 ppm, and just how much more energy will be retained in the atmosphere because of this, and just how much the so-called Global Average Surface Temperature will rise, and when…
One of the delights of being a graduate student back in the 1970s was that you were lumbered with tasks like communicating to the public. Answering questions as good as one could in writing or on the phone, that sort of thing. You soon learn of a special group of callers, crackpots who want to sell you their own theory of relativity or their unique value of the Hubble constant. After a while you get a good nose for them because they have their own idiosyncracies, special use of woolly language, special attention for irrelevant detail, numbers to great accuracy with many decimals. Language to bamboozle you into awe.
Our friend NE ticks most of the boxes.
NorEastern
5.4 deg F above the global average might seem “massively hot” to someone who has not experienced 120 deg F. However, if you were as acquainted with the topic as you try to convey, you would understand that there is more warming going on at night and in the Winter, than there is in the day and in the Summer, and it is warming more in the Arctic than elsewhere. They all contribute to an increase in the average global temperature, but don’t mean that we are going to fry.
You sound like a stereotypical, hand-waving, Chicken Little who is incapable of doing “trivial physics.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/06/the-gestalt-of-heat-waves/
All of what you state is trivial.
I see it, now. You are a child looking to argue and pretend to be an adult. Give yourself a few more years to grow. When your brain matures take another look at the science of global warming.
This Noreaster troll has been around here for couple of days now. His posts are all baseless assertions, not one backed up with references or facts. And he will never respond to challenges directly or engage in civil debate.
Don’t feed the troll.
NorEastern
All of what you state is unsupported opinion. You haven’t succeeded in convincing anyone that your claims of being a scientist have any basis in fact. Nor do you actually seem to have anything other than a superficial understanding of the problems. Why do you waste your time when you don’t have any substance to offer?
NorEastern,
Have you ever taken a look at the global temperature data? The NOAA Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) version 4 has temperature records from over 27,000 weather stations around the world. According to their website:
That’s really impressive — maybe the most comprehensive temperature record of Earth ON Earth.
Some people feel the GHCN Monthly summaries have been altered and manipulated too much to provide a true picture of Earth’s temperature regime, but I figure it’s what we have, and what everyone works with; so let’s take a good look at it to see what we do have.
I’ve been a database s/w developer for about 30 years now, and have done a lot of data warehouse design; I’m pretty comfortable mining data from big piles of it like this one. Just to keep things simple, I’ll point out a couple of items that deserve an explanation, and that aren’t about adjustments.
One of the standard baselines for generating is the 30-year period from Jan 1981 to Dec 2010. Out of those 27,000+ weather stations, there are only 1088 that have a complete record throughout that time, with no missing months of data and no quality issues. Of those 1088 stations, 77 of them show a flat or negative trend over the most recent 30 year period. If the data quality is relaxed a bit, to allow 6 months of missing data from a 360-month series, that proportion goes up to 1/3, with 877 stations showing a cooling or flat trend, and 2383 stations warming.
How can those nice graphics showing “unprecedented warming” across the poles be created from such sparse data?
Seems to me that the grand global average anomaly is but a whitewash of the actual great diversity in temperature trends in the world. I think we’d know a lot more if we focused in closely on smaller regions, rather than trying to get a one-size-fits-all average anomaly.
Greta has no clue of the truth!