CNN Climate Expert: “Shouting into the apocalypse”… because climate change

Guest (fill in the blank) by David Middleton

Shouting into the apocalypse: The decade in climate change
Opinion by John D. Sutter

December 29, 2019

John D. Sutter is a CNN contributor and a National Geographic Explorer. He is director of the forthcoming BASELINE series, which is visiting four locations on the front lines of the climate crisis every five years until 2050. Visit the project’s website and sign up for the BASELINE newsletter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) What’s that worn-out phrase? Shouting into the wind? Well, after a decade of rising pollution, failed politics and worsening disasters, it seems the many, many of us who care about the climate crisis increasingly are shouting into the hurricane, if not the apocalypse.On the cusp of 2020, the state of the planet is far more dire than in 2010. Preserving a safe and healthy ecological system is no longer a realistic possibility. Now, we’re looking at less bad options, ceding the fact that the virtual end of coral reefs, the drowning of some island nations, the worsening of already-devastating storms and the displacement of millions — they seem close to inevitable. The climate crisis is already costly, deadly and deeply unjust, putting the most vulnerable people in the world, often who’ve done the least to cause this, at terrible risk.

The worst part? 

[… This is as far as I read …]

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

The “worst part” is that CNN would regard a pinhead with a BA in journalism & international studies as a climate change analyst… No, wait… The “worst part” is that Real Clear ENERGY carried this meatheaded CNN climate crap as if it had jack schist to do with energy.

EMMY nominated documentary director, producer, writer and journalist. Currently: National Geographic Explorer and CNN climate analyst. I’m developing a documentary series called “Baseline,” which tells the story of the climate crisis beyond a human lifetime. Former senior investigative reporter for CNN. Livingston, Peabody and Murrow aw… see more

LinkedIn

Why would anyone with at least two functioning neurons between their ears want to “see more”? Although, curiosity made me read just a little bit more of the CNN climate crap…

We’ve known about this for a very long time. The climate emergency may seem like the issue of the moment, a new thing, a 2020 Democrats thing or a Greta Thunberg thing, but check out this 1958 educational film that mentions “tourists in glass-bottomed boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami;” or coverage of the first Earth Day in 1970, 50 years ago this coming April, when millions hit the streets; or NASA scientist James Hansen’s 1988 testimony before the US Senate stating the era of global warming had begun.It bears repeating that scientists have looked at the evidence, and more than 97% of them agree that humans are warming the planet, primarily by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. The warnings from scientists are only getting more dire as we peel decades off the calendar. …

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

The gist of this CNN climate crap seems to be that railing against climate change is like urinating into the wind: “A really futile and stupid gesture” … Might as well just play this scene from Animal House over, and over again…

“Scientists have looked at the evidence, and more than 97% of them agree that humans are warming the planet”

More like 67%…

Figure 1. According to a recent survey of the American Meteorological Society (Maibach et al., 2016), only 67% of scientists “agree that humans are warming the planet.”

The same survey found that 50% of scientists can’t say that the warming of the planet is necessarily bad…

Figure 2. Only 50% of “scientists” characterized climate change as being dangerous (primarily or exclusively harmful impacts) over the next 50 years. (Maibach et al., 2016)

It also found that most scientists agreed that there wasn’t much point in trying to prevent the weather from changing.

Figure 3. Only 18% thought that we couldlprevent the weather from changing. Fully 41% of “scientists” indicated that climate change might as well be “ignored.”

Stenhouse et al., 2017 tells us that the scientists agree that there is no consensus on the subject of climate change.

This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists.

Stenhouse et al., 2017

More than 97% of scientists would agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. However, there are widely diverging scientific opinions as to how much it has, or will, warm the planet and no consensus at all regarding what, if anything, we should attempt to do about it.

What if “humans are warming the planet”?

This was the climate crisis du jour as recently as the late 1970’s:

Figure 4. Science News March 1, 1975 “The ice age cometh?”

Assuming, arguendo, that the climate models are accurate, if humans hadn’t been warming the planet, it would be colder now than it was when Science News asked if “the ice age cometh?”

Figure 5. The black curve represents one version observed temperature changes since 1900. The blue curve is what the models conclude the temperature observations would have been without anthropogenic forcing.

At this point, I decided to read on…

A more striking way to think about this is to look even further back in time. More than half of all industrial greenhouse gas pollution since the Industrial Revolution has been created in the past 30-some years. And, again, we’ve known about the crisis, along with its causes and solutions, for longer than that.

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

We just covered this bit of nonsense… The “past 30-some years” of “industrial greenhouse gas pollution” has barely lifted us above “the ice age cometh.” So, let’s go back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (IR). The IR began during a climatic phase known as The Little Ice Age (LIA). This was most likely the coldest climatic period of the Holocene Epoch. In Central Greenland it was roughly the same temperature as it was during the Bølling-Allerød glacial interstadial.

Figure 6. Note that that in Central Greenland the Little Ice Age was as cold as the last Pleistocne glacial interstadial, the Bølling-Allerød. Older is toward the left.

I wonder if the CNN climate analyst is aware of the fact that the “industrial greenhouse gas pollution” began at a time when Earth was colder and more ice-covered than at any point since the end of the Pleistocene Epoch.

Little Ice Age
JUNE 5, 2015 / K. JAN OOSTHOEK

[…]

During the height of the Little Ice Age , it was in general about one degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe. Winters were bitterly cold and prolonged, reducing the growing season by several weeks. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and in some regions population decline.

The prices of grain increased and wine became difficult to produce in many areas and commercial vineyards vanished in England. Fishing in northern Europe was also badly affected as cod migrated south to find warmer water. Storminess and flooding increased and in mountainous regions the treeline and snowline dropped. In addition glaciers advanced in the Alps and Northern Europe, overrunning towns and farms in the process.

Iceland was one of the hardest hit areas. Sea ice, which today is far to the north, came down around Iceland. In some years, it was difficult to bring a ship ashore anywhere along the coast. Grain became impossible to grow and even hay crops failed. Volcanic eruptions made life even harder. Iceland lost half of its population during the Little Ice Age.

Tax records in Scandinavia show many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams. Travellers in Scotland reported permanent snow cover over the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland at an altitude of about 1200 metres. In the Alps, the glaciers advanced and threatened to bulldozed towns. Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people. As late as 1930 the French Government commissioned a report to investigate the threat of the glaciers. They could not have foreseen that human induced global warming was to deal more effective with this problem than any committee ever could. \

[…]

Environmental History Resources

“Many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams”… “Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people”… Sounds like an actual climate crisis to me.

History of Glaciers in Glacier National Park
The history of glaciation within current Glacier National Park boundaries spans centuries of glacial growth and recession, carving the features we see today. Glaciers were present within current Glacier National Park boundaries as early as 7,000 years ago but may have survived an early Holocene warm period (Carrara, 1989), making them much older. These modest glaciers varied in size, tracking climatic changes, but did not grow to their Holocene maximum size until the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) around A.D. 1850. While they may not have formed in their entirety during the LIA, their maximum perimeters can be documented through mapping of lateral and terminal moraines. (Key, 2002) The extent and mass of these glaciers, as well as glaciers around the globe, has clearly decreased during the 20th century in response to warmer temperatures.

Climate reconstructions representative of the Glacier National Park region extend back multiple centuries and show numerous long-duration drought and wet periods that influenced the mass balance of glaciers (Pederson et al. 2004). Of particular note was an 80-year period (~1770-1840) of cool, wet summers and above-average winter snowfall that led to a rapid growth of glaciers just prior to the end of the LIA. Thus, in the context of the entire Holocene, the size of glaciers at the end of the LIA was an anomaly of sorts. In fact, the large extent of ice coverage removed most of the evidence of earlier glacier positions by overriding terminal and lateral moraines.

Tree-ring based climate records and historic photographs indicate the initiation of frontal recession and ice mass thinning between A.D. 1860 and 1880. The alignment of decadal-scale climate anomalies over the early 20th century produced a period of glacial recession somewhat analogous to conditions experienced over the past few decades. The coupling of hot, dry summers with substantial decreases in winter snowpack (~30% of normal) produced dramatic recession rates as high as 100 m/yr from A.D. 1917-1941 (Pederson et al. 2004). These multidecadal episodes have substantially impacted the mass balance of glaciers since A.D. 1900.

USGS

The glaciers of Glacier National Park reached their maximum Holocene extent about 150 years ago.

Figure 7. Chaney Glacier, Glacier NP. The magenta line is the maximum extent of the glacier, around 1850. (USGS)

Glaciers are always advancing or retreating. Advancing is bad, always bad.

Most alpine and valley glaciers formed after the Holocene Climatic Optimum and generally advanced until the early to mid 1800’s. This period is known as Neoglaciation. Since the end of Neoglaciation most alpine and valley glaciers have been retreating. Neoglaciation ended long-before CO2 levels had risen much above 280 ppm.

The following graph overlays atmospheric CO2 and northern hemisphere temperatures on Oerlemans’ stacked glacier length plot.

Figure 8. Which came first? The “industrial greenhouse gas pollution”? Or the warming and ice melting?

45% of the ice loss occurred before 1900, when atmospheric CO2 was still below 300 ppm. By 1950, 75% of the ice loss had occurred. Only 25% of the ice loss has occurred since humans allegedly became the primary drivers of climate change. At the time of “The Ice Age Cometh” (1975), 90% of the ice loss had already occurred.

Arctic sea ice also reached its maximum Holocene extent during the LIA.

Figure 9. Holocene Arctic sea ice extent gross-section A-A’. Higher PIP25 values indicate greater ice extent. High and low at the bottom of the cross-section refer to Northern Hemisphere insolation. (Stein et al., 2017)
Figure 10. Location map of sediment cores and cross-section A-A’. (modified after Stein et al., 2017)

One would think that a CNN climate crap analyst might have been cognizant of the context of his climate apocalypse… Of course, had he actually been aware of the science, his CNN climate crap opinion piece would have been much shorter.

Amazingly, the CNN climate crap analyst’s opinion piece actually became stupider as it went along.

“We basically dillied and dallied and squandered the last 40 years, and you can’t just keep kicking the can down the road,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and a senior research scientist, told me.

[…]

“The longer we wait the more impossible it becomes.”

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

“The longer we wait the more impossible it becomes.”

Figure 11. Aeuhhh????

How could something become “more impossible”? And if it’s already impossible… why do they continue to nag us about it?

“The world is in a far more perilous place at the end of 2019 compared to 2010 as climate impacts are being seen and felt all over the world,” Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a research group, said in an email. “We have used up nearly half the carbon budget we had remaining in 2010. Fossil fuel emissions are 10% higher, and still increasing. Sea level rise is accelerating, and global temperature is increasing at 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.”

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

“Fossil fuel emissions are 10% higher, and still increasing.”

Then go annoy Red China and leave us the hell alone…

Figure 12. Global, Red China and US carbon dioxide emissions (BP Statistical Review of World Energy)

“Sea level rise is accelerating”…

Riiight….

Figure 13. Sea Level – NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The y-axis is sea level variation (mm), “with respect to 20-year TOPEX/Jason collinear mean reference”. I do not include the GIA adjustment because it is fake science. In the data download, NASA includes the standard deviation. I had no idea it was that large.

The alleged acceleration is a joke…

If this acceleration was maintained through the 21st century, sea level in 2100 would be 310 ± 30 mm higher than in 1990, overlapping with the central range of projections in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (IPCC TAR) [Church et al., 2001].

Church & White, 2006

310 mm of sea level rise from 1990-2100 is less than 3 mm/yr… Not much of an acceleration relative to what sea level was already doing.

Figure 14. Jevrejeva et al, 2014 and Church & White 2011. 310 mm is less than the length of an Estwing rock pick. The green curve is CW11’s pentadal (5-yr) average. The red curve is J14’s pentadal average. The CW11 y-axis is shifted up 100 mm to tie J14.

“And global temperature is increasing at 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.”

More like 0.13 to 0.17 °C… And so what?

Figure 15. HadCRUT4 and IPCC climate models.

Finally, the CNN climate crap analyst got something right

But the end of the fossil fuel era is not yet in sight.

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

No schist Sherlock!

Figure 16. It’s a fossil-fueled world! (Data from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy)

Then the CNN climate crap analyst veered off the road into Lalaland…

There’s evidence that only certain chunks of society are getting the message.

Only 52% of American adults say they are “very” or “extremely” sure global warming is happening, according to a report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, which is based on a 1,303 person survey conducted in November 2019. Yale’s been asking that question for a while now. Go back a decade, to 2009, and the rate is about the same: 51%.

In other words: Despite the increased sense of urgency, public opinion is flat.

On the political left, however, people view the issue quite differently than they did a decade ago, according to Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale program. Liberal Democrats view global warming as their No. 3 voting issue, with environmental protection as No. 2, he said. Compare that to conservative Republicans, who rank global warming dead last on a 29-issue list.

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

If the CNN climate crap analyst was actually aware of the science, the political dichotomy wouldn’t have been a surprise. Those who favor collectivism (AKA Marxism) also tend to view the weather as a climate crisis. While those who favor individual liberty and prosperity, tend to view the weather as something to dress for.

He then finishes in the most hilarious fashion…

There’s hope, though

OK, so about that hope.The bright spot — and it truly is a bright one — is… Greta Thunberg, the…

Darth Vader: “This is CNN.”

Greta Thunberg, the disgruntled, misinformed and probably abused teenager…

“Help us Greta-Wan-Kenobi! You’re our only hope!”

Happy New Year! Welcome to the last year of the second decade of the twenty-first century!

Is anyone else annoyed by all the new decade nonsense? There was no Year Zero, except in the classic Ray Milland movie. All millennia, centuries and decades Anno Domini begin with one, not zero.

References

Alley, R.B. 2000. “The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland”. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:213-226.

Alley, R.B.. 2004. “GISP2 Ice Core Temperature and Accumulation Data”.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2004-013. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

Church, J. A., and White, N. J. ( 2006). “A 20th century acceleration in global sea‐level rise”. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826.

Church, J.A., White, N.J., 2011. “Sea-level rise from the late 19th to the early 21st Century”. Surv. Geophys. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1.

Jevrejeva, S. , J.C. Moore, A. Grinsted, A.P. Matthews, G. Spada. 2014.  “Trends and acceleration in global and regional sea levels since 1807”.  Global and Planetary Change. %vol 113, 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.12.004 https://www.psmsl.org/products/reconstructions/jevrejevaetal2014.php

Maibach, E., Perkins, D., Francis, Z., Myers, T., Englbom, A., et al. (2016). A 2016 National Survey of American Meteorological Society Member Views on Climate Change: Initial Findings. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication.

MacFarling-Meure, C., D. Etheridge, C. Trudinger, P. Steele, R. Langenfelds, T. van Ommen, A. Smith, and J. Elkins (2006). “Law Dome CO2, CH4 and N2O ice core records extended to 2000 years BP“. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14810, doi:10.1029/2006GL026152.

Moberg, A., D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén. 2005.  “Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data”. Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613-617, 10 February 2005.

Oerlemans, J. “Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records”. Science (80-. ). 2005, 308, 675–677, doi:10.1126/science.1107046.

Stein, R. , Fahl, K. , Schade, I. , Manerung, A. , Wassmuth, S. , Niessen, F. and Nam, S. (2017), Holocene variability in sea ice cover, primary production, and Pacific‐Water inflow and climate change in the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas (Arctic Ocean). J. Quaternary Sci., 32: 362-379. doi:10.1002/jqs.2929 stein2017

Stenhouse, N., A. Harper, X. Cai, S. Cobb, A. Nicotera, and E. Maibach, 2017: Conflict about Climate Change at the American Meteorological Society: Meteorologists’ Views on a Scientific and Organizational Controversy. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 98, 219–223, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00265.1

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Warren Inman
January 1, 2020 6:07 pm

National Geographic ‘Explorer”??? HAHAHAHA!! Explorer who stays in hotels every night ot has his camp sites built for him before he gets there. National Geographic has gone down the toilet totally in the last 10 years. Never watch there shows anymore or buy the magazine. Climate alarmists.

Mark Broderick
January 1, 2020 6:13 pm

David Middleton

“It also found that most scientists agreed that there wan’t wasn’t much point in trying to prevent the weather from changing.”

Happy New Year !

Mark Broderick
Reply to  David Middleton
January 2, 2020 5:04 am

“D’oh!!! You missed one… But I fixed it.”
Well, I didn’t want to start off the New Year by looking too snarky ! lol

Mark Broderick January 1, 2020 at 6:13 pm
Notice how long it took my post to show ! (7 hours)

(You have been in moderation for a long time, thus all of your comments requires moderator approval, we are being busy with holiday activities to come around to see if your comments are approvable) SUNMOD

Rich Davis
January 1, 2020 6:30 pm

Happy New Year David! It’s the last year of the 202nd decade AD, first year of the 2020s. (yes, it’s both of those. Don’t let it annoy you, there’s more important stuff to stress on)

Curious George
Reply to  David Middleton
January 2, 2020 7:51 am

In that case, keep “visiting four locations on the front lines of the climate crisis every five years until 2050.”
Happy New Year, even if it does not annoy you.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Curious George
January 2, 2020 9:31 am

A: “visiting four locations on the front lines of the climate crisis every five years until 2050”

Q: “What is the CNN equivalent of watching paint dry?”

January 1, 2020 6:38 pm

It’s 2020. The Climate Scammers are about to ramp up the alarmism and propaganda to another level.
They’ve spent the last 6 months focus group testing ads and stories and propaganda campaigns. Ad accounts are loaded up with hundreds of millions from the GreenSlimers and are ready to go.

For the Climate Change Zombie Troglodytes at CNN, NYT, LATimes, NBC, WaPo…
“Must.Defeat.OrangeMan.
OrangeMan.Bad.
OrangeMan.Deny.Climate.
Must.Defeat.OrangeMan. ”
(repeat ad nauseum until November 3rd)

Be ready. Here it comes.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 2, 2020 12:15 pm

For the Climate Change Zombie Troglodytes at CNN, NYT, LATimes, NBC, WaPo…

LOL, reminded me of the old gem (Troglodyte (Cave Man)):
https://youtu.be/BCV6paTXyCU

donb
January 1, 2020 6:45 pm

GIA is not fake science. It’s just a different way of measuring the ocean– as its volume rather than its water level.

Reply to  donb
January 2, 2020 1:09 am

donb January 1, 2020 at 6:45 pm
GIA is not fake science. It’s just a different way of measuring the ocean– as its volume rather than its water level.

Uh huh, here’s the link to Colorado University’s Sea Level Research Group
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Where their graphic from 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20151127204121/http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
used to say “GIA Corrected” Now it doesn’t say that, but it still is.
Here’s the LINK where they tell us “In essence, we would like our GMSL time series to be a proxy for ocean water volume changes.” So why don’t they label their graph “Ocean Volume” instead of “Sea Level”?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  David Middleton
January 2, 2020 10:22 am

Donb

Ocean volume has little practical relevance to the concern about encroaching or transgressing seas. What is important is whether the coastline is moving inland, and what role (if any) anthropogenic-induced thermosteric volume increase plays in shifting the shoreline. That is, if there is a volume increase, but it is compensated by depression of the ocean basin, then it is a non-issue. It is of academic interest only. It is primarily the subsidence of land at the water/land interface that is a problem.

In any event, shorelines and coastal features are ephemeral. They are always changing and can do so quite rapidly during storms. We build harbors on the shore out of necessity. However, anyone who builds homes or business structures along the shore should be prepared to repair them frequently, or abandon them entirely before the normal end of usefulness for buildings built farther inland. Like most of the issues related to AGW, anthropogenic sea level rise is a tempest in a teapot.

donb
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
January 2, 2020 4:30 pm

I agree that GIA is of little relevance to tidal gauge data as to what sea level does at individual coastlines, and it is not commonly applied.
Satellite data measure the open ocean, and being more concerned with the source of increasing water volume there (from both thermal expansion and ice melting), applie a GIA correction to correct for change in ocean basin volume.
Tidal gauge and satellite data measure different aspects of the ocean for somewhat different reasons, and they should not be directly compared.

Clyde Spencer
January 1, 2020 7:00 pm

“… and worsening disasters …”

I don’t know what he is smoking, but I strongly suspect that he could earn more by being a distributor of it than by working as a science-fantasy (actually an oxymoron) writer.

Jeff Alberts
January 1, 2020 7:58 pm

“Glaciers are always advancing or retreating. Advancing is bad, always bad.”

Unless you own property in Florida.

Pillage Idiot
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 1, 2020 8:12 pm

Do you have a good realtor for all of the Florida land from current MSL to 2 meters below MSL?

Chris Hanley
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 1, 2020 8:57 pm

Worried about rising sea level in Florida?
As Judge Judy might say: Move!

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Chris Hanley
January 1, 2020 9:33 pm

You misunderstand, Chris. If glaciers are advancing, that means lower sea levels, more land in Florida, and more people moving there because their cities in the north are slowly being crushed. So my Florida land will be worth a LOT more.

January 1, 2020 8:01 pm

Only 52% of American adults say they are “very” or “extremely” sure global warming is happening, according to a report from the Yale Program.

Starting with that 52%, what % believe it is primarily due to Man? Of that %, how many believe the warming will be more harmful than beneficial? And, finally, of that %, how what % believes we should make extreme changes to our civilization to moderate climate change, rather than adapting to it? I suspect at least 75% would say, whatever warming we have, we can just learn to live with.

It is not lost on people that the places with the warmest average climates are tropical rainforests. The only need is adequate water, and we can build irrigation systems.

Chris Hanley
January 1, 2020 8:54 pm

“Travellers in Scotland reported permanent snow cover over the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland at an altitude of about 1200 metres …”.

This report from the BBC starts by implying that there was a long-term glacier in the Cairngorms until the modern industrial era but further down: “scientists had speculated that glaciers may have re-formed in the Highlands around the time of this Little Ice Age”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-25824673
A scientist is prominently quoted: “present climate warming means there is little chance of a return of glacier ice to the Highlands for the foreseeable future” as if that were a bad thing.

LdB
January 1, 2020 8:54 pm

You don’t have the two most important graph

1.) Are you prepared to pay a tax or direct payment to fund action against climate change?
2.) Do you activists on climate change should lead by example and minimize all emissions they make?

John F. Hultquist
January 1, 2020 9:58 pm

visiting four locations on the front lines of the climate crisis every five years until 2050.

Why not 40 locations?

The probability that I will still be around in 2050 is nearly zero.
I suggest we each pick a favorite pub or two or three
and visit each on a rotating one month interval.
Therein the “non-climate crisis” can be cause for a beer or two.

Question: Will the baseline series folks get to make just 2 more visits before the world ends?

Susan
Reply to  John F. Hultquist
January 2, 2020 1:44 am

The man’s an optimist by climate crisis standards: he expects his frontline sites to be still around in 30 years time. Obviously doesn’t read the Guardian.

January 1, 2020 10:29 pm

Excellent article David. Thanks.

I too have been grumpy at all the references to the”new decade.”

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who can count.

Phillip Bratby
January 1, 2020 10:39 pm

No lie is too big in order to keep the climate change scam going and the research money rolling in.

January 1, 2020 11:33 pm

“The climate crisis is already costly, deadly and deeply unjust, putting the most vulnerable people in the world, often who’ve done the least to cause this, at terrible risk”

… and putting the most uneducated and uninformed people in the world, often who’ve done the least to study the data in a rational and scientific way, to preach this brand of idiotic nonsense. As for example The Bald Guy on Youtube. (TBGY).

https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/16/global-warming-melting-greenland/

Ron Long
January 2, 2020 2:28 am

Thanks, David, great way to start 2020! If you think CNN is bad, you should see CNN International. CNN International, which does share a fair amount of broadcasts, is outright anti-American, not just anti-Trump. Their Climate Change Hysteria has been elevated to daily major breaking news status. Watts has fans all around the globe, many of them are seeing this if they tune in CNN International. I’m personally hoping for some variety of Little Ice Age to wake the masses up.

January 2, 2020 6:12 am

You really want to laugh check out the credentials of Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication at https://environment.yale.edu/profile/leiserowitz/

Curious George
Reply to  Roger Caiazza
January 2, 2020 7:54 am

Are you making fun of diversified Ivy League schools?

January 2, 2020 6:20 am

Thanks David. Happy New Year.

John Bell
January 2, 2020 6:39 am

Those visits every 5 years will be by walking/canoe/bicycle or car/helicopter/jet? Oh that is right, the elites can use petrol for their transport.

Tom Abbott
January 2, 2020 7:13 am

From the article: “However, among members who saw an unproductive side [to debate and diverse perspectives], there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public.”

No, it actually sends a clear message to the public that the “science of climate change” is *not* settled.

But that is a message that those who believe in human-caused climate change don’t want to send, even though it is the truth. Debate of the subject shows the holes in their arguments so they seek to control and limit the debate when they can because it serves their political or personal needs.

Claiming “the climate science is settled” ought to be the first clue that someone making such a claim is trying to fool you. Science, including climate science is never settled. There’s always something new coming along to change the picture we have of the workings of the universe. No reasonable person would deny this.

BFL
January 2, 2020 7:50 am

CNN viewership has been in the toilet for quite a while and I wonder what viewership would be without the airports which costs them about 6 million a year.
“The network has enjoyed a monopoly on dozens of airport televisions since 1991, despite suffering from low ratings that have managed to erode even further in the Trump era. That problem even made headlines last month, when the network’s prime time lineup hit a three-year low for the week of Nov. 25. CNN drew 643,000 viewers for the period, compared to 1.3 million for MSNBC and 2.2 million for Fox News. That means CNN drew just 15 percent of the available audience, compared to 53 percent for Fox.”
https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/17/takala-cnn-viewership-airports/

Reply to  BFL
January 2, 2020 11:23 am

The low viewership doesn’t matter, CNN will be propped-up/paid for by the marxist billionaires and/or NGOs.

George Daddis
January 2, 2020 8:46 am

“tourists in glass-bottomed boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami;” 1958

The warnings from scientists are only getting more dire as we peel decades off the calendar. …

Am I the only one who sees the logical flaw of these two quotes being in the same paragraph?!?
Are they not undermining the credibility of the alarmists they are attempting to support?

Last time I was in a boat in Miami Beach we weren’t trying to avoid running into luxury beachfront hotels.

Steve Z
January 2, 2020 1:15 pm

I was in Miami Beach last week, and the bases of all those towers were still high and dry, to the west of a long walkway, which itself was to the west of sand dunes overgrown with tropical vegetation, about 6 feet above sea level. At 3 mm/yr, it would take about 600 years for the sea to reach the base of the towers.

Who should I believe, CNN or my lying eyes?

Melvyn Dackombe
January 2, 2020 1:29 pm

‘ More than 97% of scientists would agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas ‘
Do the remaining 3% think it is not ?

Rudolf Huber
January 2, 2020 2:53 pm

A BA in journalism & international studies is a Climate Expert for CNN. Probably one of the scientists that support the 97%. And the real scientists get called deniers. We live in a world that thinks with its butt.

James R Clarke
January 2, 2020 4:00 pm

It is very interesting that the AMS position paper on man-made climate change is somewhat at odds with the opinions of its membership. That is precisely why I am no longer a member of the American Meteorological Society. I left over 10 years ago after they published a position paper on climate change without asking any of us what our position was.

January 2, 2020 5:44 pm

” four locations on the front lines of the climate crisis every five years ”

You can stop right there. Front line? Is climate change a wave coming from one direction? Does it affect certain places more than others? Does it affect some places before others?

Total, utter, made up garbage.