Reposted from The Fabius Maximus website
By Larry Kummer, Editor / 12 February 2020
Summary: The climate policy debate ran for 30 years but produced little action (it ranks #17 of the public’s top 18 concerns). Now it has died. The autopsy reveals not just who killed it but also disturbing insights about America. This is post #404 in a series about climate change that I began 12 years ago.
ID 27423027 © Tom Wang | Dreamstime.
Bottom line: the climate activists are decisively winning. The science no longer matters in the public policy debate. Activists have moved beyond it and the major science institutions no longer defend it against the activists’ exaggerations and misrepresentations. There are rumors are that the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will break with the past and fully embrace the hysteria. Meanwhile, skeptics are talking to themselves, like characters in Alice in Wonderland – vocal but effectively locked out of the news media.
The climate wars are in the “pursuit” phase of battle, during which the victorious side runs down and destroys their broken foe. Understanding how we got here reveals much about America’s dysfunctionality (i.e., its broken OODA loop). But first, know that this was not inevitable. See this remarkable op-ed in the BBC: “Science must end climate confusion” by eminent climate scientist Richard Betts on 11 January 2010.
“Of course, we know that these things {extreme weather} happen anyway, even without climate change – they may happen more often under a warmer climate, but it is wrong to blame climate change for every single event. Climate scientists know this, but still there are people outside of climate science who will claim or imply such things if it helps make the news or generate support for their political or business agenda. …
“{D}o climate scientists do enough to counter this? Or are we guilty of turning a blind eye to these things because we think they are on ‘our side’ against the climate sceptics? …Climate scientists need to take more responsibility for the communication of their work to avoid this kind of thing. Even if scientists themselves are not blaming everything on climate change, it still reflects badly on us if others do this.”
But Betts, and his fellow peers who are dedicated to science, remained mostly silent in the public policy debate – other than the occasional quiet remark. Of course, they were smart to do so. This is a moral panic. Once the leaders of society embrace it (for their own purposes), it becomes a virulent epidemic. Like a zombie apocalypse, those scientists in its path had only three good options: flee, collaborate, or hide. The ugly consequences to those (e.g., Pielke Sr. and Jr., Judith Curry) who chose a fourth option – carefully and selectively fighting the panic – are described below.
I have personally seen this dynamic play out as I have documented this increasing dysfunctional debate since 2008. But few cared in 2008. In 2015 I wrote one of the early critiques of the RCP8.5 scenario (perhaps the first): Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No! I followed with Manufacturing climate nightmares: misusing science to create horrific predictions. Afterwards, I tried to find a climate scientist to coauthor an article in EOS or WSJ op-ed about the misuse of RCP8.5 – when it might have had an impact. But the ones I contacted were too smart to do so.
Now even Nature and the hard-core alarmist BBC says this. But RCP8.5 – and more broadly, climate science – no longer matter. The debate has moved beyond science to the exaggerations of the Climate Emergency and the fictions of the Extinction Rebellion. It is all politics and mass hysteria.
The climate policy debate is interesting as an example of our society’s growing dysfunctionality. Larger political forces (e.g., who wins the presidency in 2020) will determine who wins the debate. On a longer time horizon, the weather will choose the winning side. Meanwhile, the American people watch their screens and chatter.
An example shows how we got here
“The owl of Minerva takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.”
— G.W.F. Hegel in the Preface to The Philosophy of Right(1820). See Wikipedia.
Roger Pielke Jr. has written an article adding to my favorite genre: forensic pathology, examing the climate policy debate’s corpse to determine the causes of its death. His article describes the creation of shock troops for climate activists, using the Skeptical Science website (SkS) as their base. These people attack the opponents of activists – using lies and smears to discredit these eminent scientists. These are people whom activist scientists can support without getting their own hands dirty by smearing their peers.
The troops at SkS have been immensely successful in a narrow sense, helping activists dominate the public spaces in America. But when you read this, remember the big truth which explains the gridlock in US climate policy.
This is not what scientists do when they have
decisive evidence of an imminent global threat.
This is how they act when they do not have decisive evidence,
but for professional or political reasons want the public to believe them anyway.
Many Americans understand that, at some level.
“A Climate Blacklist That Works:
‘It Should Make Her Unhirable In Academia’”
By Roger Pielke, Jr.
Pielke describes the dramatis personae of this sad story.
The writers at Skeptical Science – A massive donation supported website. Like most good propaganda mills, it mixes useful information with misinformation. Very few of its authors are climate scientists.
Pielke describes its authors’ smearing of Roger Pielke Sr. and Judith Curry. See this debunking of the SkS page about Pielke. See his publications, also his positions held. His publications have an H-Index of 95. See Curry’s publications; they have an H-Index of 67. Compare that to media darlings James Hansen (96), Michael Mann (83), and Katharine Hayhoe (47). It is how science crashes during a moral panic.
Conclusions
“It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.”
— Voltaire in his The Age of Louis XIV.
Simple and sensible measures could have been taken long ago with broad public support to prepare for a better future and break the policy gridlock (perhaps gaining support for bigger bolder actions). But that requires our involvement to make it happen – since neither the leaders of climate science nor US elites have any interest in either. We do not appear to be up to this challenge.
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a story about our future: Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, all posts about the RCPs, and especially these …
- About the corruption of climate science.
- The noble corruption of climate science.
- Climate science has died. The effects will be big.
- After 30 years of failed climate politics, let’s try science! – A proposal to break the policy gridlock.
- The guilty ones preventing good policy about climate change.
- Toxic climate propaganda is poisoning US public policy.
- An obvious solution to the climate policy crisis.
- A demo showing our broken climate policy debate.
Activists don’t want you to read these
Some unexpected good news about polar bears: The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened
To learn more about the state of climate change see The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change
Larry
“There are rumors
arethat the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will break with the past and fully embrace the hysteria.”4 more years of Trump ought to Trump their plans.
re “4 more years of Trump” and “On a longer time horizon, the weather will choose the winning side.” :
The battle is on, and the weather won’t decide anything. The free world has to elect the right leaders, or the political left will take such control that the whole of science (and weather) will be irrelevant. Four more years of Trump is absolutely critical, but with leaders like Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison playing it each way at best, and with nearly all other national leaders much worse, it’s going to be a closer run than Waterloo. The Prussians arrived in the nick of time at Waterloo. With Angela Merkel on the way out, can they do it again?
Only in the west.
In addition to Trump in the USA, you have Xi in China, Modi in India, Putin in Russia, and a whole slew of skeptics in developing countries that are rocketing up the CO2 emissions charts. They are going to determine the future direction of global CO2 emissions, not the western world. The only thing the west is going to impact is their own ability to compete in the global market if they choose to kneecap themselves in the name of their climate religion.
Spot on. And if we frame the argument such that “carbon taxes” are a tax on the poor, we’ll have legions behind us and against the effete western liberals.
“There are rumors are that the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will break with the past and fully embrace the hysteria.”
Not just rumors.
“Climate Models Are Running Red Hot, and Scientists Don’t Know Why: The simulators used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time.” by Eric Roston on February 3, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why
There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3° Celsius. … there’s been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations. Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as before and came back with far worse outcomes. Some produced projections in excess of 5°C, a nightmare scenario.
… The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century. Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year.
* * *
One question modeling can help answer is called “climate sensitivity,” an estimate of how much warmer the planet will be once it has adjusted to atmospheric CO₂ at double the pre-industrial level. (At current rates, CO₂ could reach a doubling point in the last decades of this century.) This is the old, reliable number that’s come out to 3°C for 40 years. It was as close as anything gets to certainty.
* * *
The model run by NCAR, one of American’s main climate-science institutions, started producing unusual data last year while trying to reproduce the recent past. “We got some really strange results,” Gettelman said. The scientists went on to try 300 configurations of rain, pollution, and heat flows—something they can do as gods of their own digital earth—before matching the model to history. But by solving that puzzle, Gettelman’s team sent future projections upward at an unheard-of rate. NCAR found that CO₂ doubling would lead to 5.3°C world, a 33% jump from the model’s past reading on global warming. Soon there were multiple teams at other institutions putting out new climate-sensitivity numbers that looked like worst-case scenarios on steroids. The Met Office Hadley Center, the U.K.’s main research group, found a doubling of CO₂ would deliver 5.5°C warming. A team at the U.S. Department of Energy ended up with 5.3°C, and the Canadian model topped out at 5.6°C. France’s National Center for Meteorological Research saw its estimate jump to 4.9°C from 3.3°C.
* * *
Klaus Wyser’s group “switched off” some of the new cloud and aerosol settings in their model, he said, and that sent climate sensitivity back down to previous levels. A new research paper co-authored by Zelinka from the Lawrence Livermore National Lab likewise pointed to the role of virtual clouds in determining the results.
It’s not as simple as reverting to older versions of these simulations. The challenge ahead, Gettelman said, lies in figuring out how tweaks to models can introduce such turmoil into the final results. “What really scares me is that our model looked better for some really good physical reasons,” he said. “So we can’t throw them out yet.”
* * *
AR6 is going to go full Greta on us.
The models are nothing more nor less than mathematical onanism. The boffins who create and run the models are computer gamers not scientists. A fact that has been obfuscated.
Hindcasting is not logically capable of verifying models. It can falsify them, but so what. The models are perfect examples of Von Neumann’s quip about parameters.
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
Clearly the powers that be are hoping to use AR6 to drive the election towards the Democrats.
Fortunately, the economy has stayed in robust good health, the Democrats badly botched the impeachment, and they are going to nominate someone who will make Trump look like a model of probity and good sense. Trump is a lock to be reelected.
Something dark to go with your breakfasts, crushing any optimism that might come with the dawn.
It’s not “the end”, but it is bad news in several ways.
Yes, another depressing post here at WattsUpWithThat.
Steve,
This reminds me of Churchill’s speeches during the late 1930s. Very stirring, quite futile.
But apathy and passivity always earn their natural reward. It’s the Great Circle of Life, just like in the Disney films.
Disney – perhaps the number one propagandists in the world.
Aimed at children, of course.
Meanwhile, out here in Reality-Land, “climate action” ranks No. 17 on Gallup’s recent polling of people’s life concerns.
Most people aren’t even thinking about this. We need to beware our own bubble.
My heating oil delivery just arrived; $2.79 a gallon. You know anyone who’s willing to go back to $4.75 for “The Climate” tm? Nah. Me, neither!
Bingo!
I visit a few Political forums with large climate subsection, in every one the alarmist/warmist get soundly smashed by actual scientists and researchers and plebes like me.
The alarmist/warmist continually employ the numerous fallacies, especially consensus and education fallacies as their argument base, while climate/Weather realists use a lot of science research and clean databases to blow their endless stupid fearmongering bull crap.
I don’t agree with Larry, since Alarmist/Warmists arguments are junk and stupid, it doesn’t matter if their current infatuation with a child is real or not, they have no valid debate for their stupid climate delusions.
Kyoto in America down in flames BEFORE it even started.
Paris Accords was NEVER a legal force in America, since it didn’t go through the Senate approval.
National Carbon Tax and other foolishness never reached the Presidents desk.
No Alarmists have failed utterly in America.
Alarmists have failed everywhere.
The economic debate was decisively won by the Sceptics. This was acknowledged when the Kyoto Agreement said that developing countries could prioritise economic growth over emission cuts.
Game Over. We won that debate.
The political debate was decisively won by the Sceptics. This was acknowledged when none of the signatories to any of the COPs took action to reduce their emissions. Indeed the only country which did, achieved that by accident through technological innovation of non-state actors. This because everyone knows we are in competition with developing countries.
Game Over. We won that debate.
The scientific debate was never had. The Alarmists refused to debate.
Game Cancelled. So that’s a draw.
The media debate was decisively won by the Alarmists. This is because the end of the world in news. But the same old things keep happening is not. However, the media is collapsing as technology is destroying the revenue streams (it’s all Zuckerberg’s now).
Game On. This can’t continue for much longer. Most Alarmist art and news stories are ignored or laughed at.
Sunset Tommy
Sounds interesting.
Do you know any Australian political forums?
Thanks
None Waza, but I have there two I visit often:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/environment.84/
https://www.debatepolitics.com/environment-and-climate-issues/
They are the subforums links where the climate change/global warming are discussed a lot.
When they resort to an abused child, you know they are in panic mode! And such little chidren will lead them nowhere because the adults are laughing, or shaking their heads, or wagging their fingers, or clicking their tongues, or just too busy working to recognize it for anything but folly!
Face it, most prople have better things to do!
I generally agree, but those same people needs some pushback, usually in rational debate, if it doesn’t help them, it can help the fence sitters who are looking in.
It is a major reason WHY I continue to be at those forums I listed above, to generate exposure and help those who are being lied and manipulated, to see what is really going on.
Larry you need to Google Sky News Australia. The regional areas get it for free but unfortunately it’s largely pay TV. The audience for this network is growing here in Australia and it has some excellent journalists.
A few of the top journalists on Sky News Australia are Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin, Paul Murray and many others.
From the article: “Bottom line: the climate activists are decisively winning.”
Only until they try to implement their insane Green New Deal-type plans. We’ll see who wins then. I’m just waiting for some American politician to tell me I have to give up my gasoline automobile, or says I have to pay a tax on carbon dioxide. I’ll try not to be too rude to him/her, but I won’t agree to either. I bet there are hundreds of millions of Americans who look at it just like me, in that regard.
I hope you are right, Tom. Up here in Canada (minus 31 C at my house with the sun shining on the thermometer, and I’m only a 2 h drive north of the U.S. border)) most WANT a tax on CO2. As a country, we have collectively lost our minds.
Bruce, go find the MacKenzie Brothers and see if they can get Canada back for you! Let us know when the back bacon is on the Coleman. Good luck.
Bruce Ranta,
I posted this from Terence Corcoran yesterday, but didn’t hear back from any Canadians. We in big trouble. https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-attack-of-the-green-carbon-counters-as-business-world-reduced-to-tallying-emissions
Only until they try to implement their insane Green New Deal-type plans.
Berkeley CA has banned natural gas hook-ups in new residential construction, and as near as I can tell, the pitch forks and torches have remained in the shed.
Steve,
“Berkeley CA has banned natural gas hook-ups in new residential construction”
That’s a great example of marginal policy-making. There is little new residential construction in Berkeley, so this affects few people.
Radical policy would be forcing conversion to other energy sources. Unlike frogs, people can be boiled if the pot is heated slowly enough (metaphorically speaking).
Like everything else that ban will spread and grow. The Greens have said they want to ban fossil fuel. The Berkeley ban is a step in that direction. How long before you can’t sell your house or buy one unless the gas is permanently shut off?
…so let them eat cake!… or more accurately, cake batter because there’s no fuel for the oven or elctricity, either!
Raw cake is not tolerable!
Steve and Larry, it’s Kalifornia. Berkeley is not the heart, its the terminal digestive system area. I love certain parts of Kalifornia, but personally have no hope unless Northern California breaks free.
I suggest a better analogy would be that they are more like the appendix. A vestigial organ that has surpassed any relevance yet can still cause serious conditions when inflamed with sepsis.
Ron Long February 13, 2020 at 9:25 am
Steve and Larry, it’s Kalifornia.
It’s going to be the rest of the world rather quickly:
Since June, a dozen cities have banned natural gas equipment in new buildings. Berkeley, California, was the first, followed in the state by San Jose, Mountain View, Santa Rosa and Brisbane. A half-dozen other cities have passed laws to strongly encourage all-electric construction without banning fossil fuels outright.
On the East Coast, Brookline, Massachusetts, in November became the first city in the state to ban new gas hookups. Dozens of other cities, from Cambridge and Newton in Massachusetts to Seattle, are considering similar bans.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cities-are-banning-natural-gas-in-new-homes-because-of-climate-change/
Tom,
“I bet there are hundreds of millions of Americans who look at it just like me, in that regard.”
Most Americans are already paying taxes on their fossil fuels. Increasing them slowly is, imo, unlikely to produce the civil disobedience that you expect.
In any case, taxes or such on carbon are only a small part of the Green New Deal. Much of it will be quite popular – such as the large infrastructure projects (the workers and business owners who gain from these are vocal in their support).
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2019/01/21/all-about-the-green-new-deal-dreams-given-form/
More importantly, the public’s reaction depends on how and with what speed it is implemented. Climate activists have brilliantly played the long game so far – building support in a wide range of institutions. I doubt they will imprudently rush their victory.
I doubt they will imprudently rush their victory. Larry, when their position (i.e., belief system) is based solely on emotion and not logic they eventually move to virtue signalling. This then leads to total irrationality, even comical positions and self destruction of the movement. I have yet to lose all faith in the ability of mankind to eventually recover a modicum of rationality. However, at 77 I do wonder if I’ll be around long enough to see the movement crash.
The Green New Deal will cost Americans 75,000,000 jobs, not generate 75,000,000 jobs!
Even if such a civilization-ending monstrosity is passed, it will never get implemented except in select areas that will quickly turn into food deserts!
Here in Ohio the gasoline tax was increased by 5 cents per gallon this summer to fund more road repairs and reconstruction. There has not been a noticeable increase in the price of gasoline, and projects like the new 670-270 interchange make it look like a good idea. I hope they add another 5 cents next year so they can three lane 70 all the way across the state.
oh mate your bloody green dud deal crap is now being promoted in Aus by the lunatic ABC of course
no mention of the massive costs it incurs to even begin it
and when the climate doesnt change or gets colder I hope they hang em all very high
Whoa there, ozspeakup, “bloody green dud deal crap” is a poor substitute for “tie me kangaroo down, sport”. Jeez, I’m having fun spreading love and warmth all over the place.
I have to agree with you Tom. I think the author is making the mistake of hearing the vocal minority and not the silent majority. I have consistently read both here and on other sites, after 30 years of screaming the sky is falling, they’ve made virtually no inroads with the American electorate, add to that the constant whining of the alarmist that we need to do something and nobody is listening… have they won in terms of getting people to believe that man has an impact on the climate? Sure, that’s by and large true and I’ll defend that, but when you ask people to make genuine sacrifice ($$$) the vast majority of folks say no. That’s not a victory.
I think you summed it up quite well, John.
They are going to do it the very second they can – here in Oregon, I’ll bet at least a third of the population centers are all for it.
But remember – anytime these people do anything at all it’s ‘just a bare beginning’.
They’ll look for something else to attack in the morning – they need to stoke that warm-fuzzy, because all this is really just a personal indulgence.
And consequences are irrelevant – they’ve already got any blame pre-directed away from themselves.
Look for a “carbon tax” to be coming soon to a gas station near you.
Perhaps it should be added but carefully worded as
Not more than 1/10 cent per gallon, permanent and excluding any increased or additional levies.
If a Tax exists no one can say it Doesn’t exist. If the tax cannot be modified it can’t be increased. If the tax is limiting and exclusive, no additional carbon taxes can be levied.
It will always remain at 1 cent per 10 gallons at the pump and can never be increased or superseded by alternate or additional carbon taxation.
Get them before they can get us
“Look for a “carbon tax” to be coming soon to a gas station near you.”
The first thing I would be asking is: Why is it necessary to tax carbon dioxide?
No good answer would call for organized resistance. And they don’t have a good answer.
Gasoline is already heavily taxed! How would adding another tax make it popular, or even acceptable? And to what social cause would that additional tax go?
“Gasoline is already heavily taxed!”
I was listening to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday and he was talking about a new infrastructure bill that is being worked on in the Senate and he mentioned that a gasoline tax increase might be part of that bill.
So, it’s time for us to notify all our Republican Senators that an increase in the gasoline tax is the worst idea evah! Gasoline taxes not only harm the poorest members of society the most, they also increase the cost of everything in society because everything is dependent on the price of gasoline.
If they need money for new infrastructure they should get it from somewhere else. Anywhere else but increasing the gasoline taxes, which would increase the cost of living for everyone.
Write your Senators now before they put this ridiculous gasoline tax in the bill.
Every reduction in the price of gasoline of about $0.80 is equivalent to increasing U.S. GDP by one percent. One percent of U.S. GDP is a huge number. Conversely, every increase in the price of gasoline of about $0.80 decreases U.S. GDP by about one percent. Why do Republicans want to reduce the GDP of the United States?
When you mess with the price of gasoline, you are messing with the U.S. economy. Don’t mess with the U.S. economy, Republicans.
Of course they’re winning…..the skeptics are idiots and trying to argue the science….”you’re not a scientist”
Argue the $c@m….we pay developing countries to increase their emissions….and all of the increase has come from China and the rest of them
repeat it over and over…we have not contributed to any increase…and almost all of it is from China
Latitude, “…almost all of it from China”. China’s emissions are largely from manufacturing the energy intensive products that we in the West refuse to do because we want to virtue signal about how clean we are. We should be buying steel from our own facilities and reaping the jobs and taxes. Instead we have immense trade imbalances and increasing debt. We are being very stupid.
China’s emissions are from the fact they don’t believe in global warming at all…and they know it’s a $c@m to put us back..and move them up
Unless something thinks they are so backward they don’t know about it…or are suicidal
…they could manufacture all of that stuff cleaner if they wanted to
..and no …. it’s from their push to electrify their country….by building more coal plants and burning more coal
to make the $c@m ever worse…..China is promoted as a leader in renewable energy….when the truth is almost all of that is from building dams, destroying rivers, and displacing millions of people
Latitude, you’ve got the longitude right on your China comments! They cheat and we play by the rules, guess who’s going to win? We will win because the coronavirus is payback for eating vampire bats. Jeez I’m having fun.
Not bats, pangolins. Maybe.
Pangolins have the ability to stitch HIV segments into a new virus?
Biological weapons research labs woud be impressed!
From the article: “Afterwards, I tried to find a climate scientist to coauthor an article in EOS or WSJ op-ed about the misuse of RCP8.5 – when it might have had an impact. But the ones I contacted were too smart to do so.”
It’s a shame that this is the state of affairs we find ourselves in. The Climategate Charlatans created this situation.
I agree that doubt about the climate catastrophe story is severely punished, mostly by slurring the doubters as either dumbbells or frauds. You just can’t win. I have written many letters to newspaper journalists, patiently explaining the basis of my doubts. One of them actually wrote me back a temperate, reasonable and courteous reply. The first thing he asked me was, was I a denier. He used that word, and when I said, sure, I was a denier in the common, pejorative sense that it is used although “doubter” is my preferred term), that was pretty much the end of the exchange because to this man (who was not a bad guy at all) there was no point in even attempting to argue with a denier. They get you with a label, and that’s the end of the (prejudicially truncated) debate.
Incidentally, climate change catastrophe doubt is only one of my apostasies. I also doubt the Theory of Evolution. (The process that produced animal intelligence is itself devoid of intelligence? Come on.) I can debate that one with reasonable arguments, but no one can hear them. When people find out that you think that the world as we know it bears the hand of an intelligent creator, you are immediately and vigorously ignored, because you are considered too stupid to understand Evolution (and that would be pretty stupid, as Evolution is a very simple theory that can be taught to high school students in less than an hour), or that you are a religious fanatic who thinks that the Book of Genesis is a factual account. You are just dismissed, because the doubt of Evolution has been successfully characterized as the province of the stupid. Also, many of the active proponents of Evolution are militant atheists, and militant atheists are very enthusiastic in their scorn for anyone who believes In any divinity.
The Apocalypse of Slightly More Pleasant Weather it will be called in the future, when people look back in amazement at the insane bout of mass hysteria which has taken hold of the minds of the people in our time.
Hokey Schtick,
“the insane bout of mass hysteria ”
Yes, that’s how people see moral panics in hindsight.
The political victories won during the hysteria won’t be seen so lightly.
The complacency of skeptics – laughing and mocking while the activists built their strength – might get a humorous footnote in the history books.
My progressively shortening growing seasons do not qualify as Slightly More Pleasant Weather!
Tom,
As I have been documenting here for several years, climate activists have played the long game. Building strength in institutions, extending their reach and power, gaining allies.
Now, slowly, they see the time when they can move to the “implementation” phase – having destroyed, deplatformed, or marginalized their opponents.
As Jefferson would say, “nature’s god” rewards hard work intelligently directed. They have earned their victory by that harsh standard.
Very deep pockets of money.
A review of the “investors” at CERES.org reveals where this money came from and continue to flow from to enable a well coordinated climate scam propaganda campaign.
It explains a lot of what has and is driving the climate hustle: the lure of vast fortunes to be made in Wind and Solar energy shackling the middle class with ever higher electricity costs. Whether its underfunded CalPERS and CalSTRS, the insolvent States of Illinois or Connecticut treasuries, or a billionaire’s hedge fund, the lure of a rich ROI by fleecing the middle class is just too great an investing opportunity not to participate in for the morally bankrupt Left.
Environmentalists have been coopted. Scientists have been coopted. The save the world crowd has been coopted. The plan was to fix the climate? No, that was the come-on. The real goal was something else. Send money. Socialism. Politics. Power. The usual stuff.
+1M We, the world, has been misdirected with a grand scheme and although it seems to be winning the real truth will come when successful people are forced to reduce their lifestyle to enhance another’s that has squandered theirs.
MOST AMERICANS’ VIEW OF THE “CLIMATE CHANGE” ISSUE: HO-HUM.
A Pew Research 2019 survey reported that “Climate Change” ranked in 17th place out of 18 “important issues” in a recent poll of Americans. The issue ranked second-to-last going back to 2014. A disgruntled article in ClimateDepot.com had to admit: “Moral of the story: There has never been any evidence that climate change is a top concern for most Americans. This is not a crowd-pleaser or a vote-getter.”
And what was the issue of greatest concern to Americans, according to the Pew poll? It’s the economy, stupid!
The battle lines moved at least in 2015 to financial policy, and the GND grew out of that.
Now, either climate scientists, not just Mann, want the debate to remain a rear-guard action, rather suicidal narcissist I would venture to say, or cannot muster courage to face the real issue, the physical economy.
And that brings us to the American System of Economy, which President Trump does mention. This is most certainly not the monetarist Keynes nor Friedman, nor Hayek incantations that London likes to foist upon us, while playing both sides with the GND.
Now let us see exactly who the charlatans really are!
The most important poll is the election in November. It is vital that President Trump wins re-election. It is also vital that the Republicans win control of the House and the Senate. Fortunately, the odds are that Trump will win. example
The best thing skeptics can do is encourage their buddies and family to get out and vote. People who didn’t have jobs before and do now, should vote to prevent going back into unemployment. The possibility of a Democrat win should scare the daylights out of working Americans.
The forgotten people owe Trump a debt of gratitude. Anyway, they don’t want to be forgotten again.
“There has never been any evidence that climate change is a top concern for most Americans. This is not a crowd-pleaser or a vote-getter.”
How about this ……
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/for-the-first-time-the-alarmed-are-now-the-largest-of-global-warmings-six-americas/
“Nearly six in ten (58%) Americans are now either “Alarmed” or “Concerned” about global warming. From 2014 to 2019, the proportion of “Alarmed” nearly tripled.”
If you ask explicitly about something you will get an answer about that thing.
If you ask, “What worries you most?”, you will get a different answer.
Usually, CAGW is way down the list of things people worry about. As of January, 4% of people thought ‘environment/pollution/climate change’ was the most important problem facing the country. Gallup ongoing poll.
If you ask people how worried they are that bat-infected termites could spread Corona virus through beer, a bunch of people would be really worried.
OMG, I’ll check my beer carefully.
LOL – The thought of it!
You can get any result you want from a survey (Sir Humphrey explained how), particularly if you can be selective with the answers (eg. Doran and Zimmerman turning 75 into 97% of 10000).
Banton
On the other hand, speaking of “six in ten,” — “Six in 10 Americans say they are better off than they were three years ago when he took office, …” That counts for a lot. It seems strange that the same percentage are supposedly “alarmed” about global warming yet feel better off under a president that doesn’t support the idea.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-6-10-americans-feel-150836030.html
You say they are winning. Yet, every major industrial country outside of mainland Europe has turned conservative. They aren’t winning. Bernie Sanders isn’t likely going to be the next president, the farther they push the more pushback will come. Losing the war in the news and the papers, saving the planet does sell papers/clicks and everything has gravitas when you push out that it all is a symptom of the end of days. This has always sold, until it doesn’t then it’s on to the next thing to sell papers/clicks. Papers are a tough business right now and selling your integrity isn’t new but for some it might feel that way. Things will self correct as they do. Then they will talk about how it all went wrong and sell a few more ads.
Canada is not in the Conservative fold. Trudeau is right at home with the loons of Europe. Some provinces are Conservative, but even some of them are ‘Progressive Conservatives’, an oxymoron for sure.
Trudeau will soon be abandoned by the loons of Europe as the EU collapses from friendly insurrection as voters turn back to nationalism!
The process began years ago and is irrevesible!
Let Tudeau vacation in Cuba for all I care!
RockyRoad
Notice how little the press has had to say about the “Yellow Vests” in France!
Are we letting them win? Can we do nothing to fight back? Having truth and reality on our side should be useful tools. I’d be interested to join and to the extent I can finance a counter attack on the climate disinformation.
Skeptics need a sympathetic news media. Where can we get one of those?
The Alarmists have the Leftwing Media pushing their alarmist message far and wide, day after day after day. Skeptics need something like that. I know, that’s not going to happen. The good news is reality will eventually win the day, Leftwing Media or no Leftwing Media. Although reality may not win the day soon enough to cause some nations to bankrupt themselves in a futile effort to control the Earth’s weather.
In Australia we still have hope. Sky news with the likes of Andrew Bolt, Paul Murray and the likes really stick it up the alarmists and other lefty media outlets such as our ABC. It is getting a huge following and the lefties hate it. Unfortunately it is pay TV so it has its limitations.
Most nations, especially the big ones, are already bankrupt!
In fact, it would take them $Trillions upon $Trillions just to get back to zero!
And for most, their unfunded liabilities are three to four times their current debt!!
The only solution is to default and start over!
Yes, the activists most certainly have won the war of words – they have created a hysteric movement in the media – but in the real world, the world of actual things happening in real time, nothing much has happened. Globally all nations (Britain is one of the only nations to have passed binding legislation) are only paying lip service to the cause – all the yearly COP conferences have produced nothing but empty air and powerless decisions. The Greens are forever accusing their governments of doing nothing – and, of course, they are quite right.
The all important economic powerhouses of China, India, Russia and now the United States are happily continuing using fossil fuel to create more vital energy for their societies. Not many nations (except the EU) have created economically damaging taxes; they are only shooting themselves in the foot – and over the next year of Brexit decisions we will see Boris Johnson make a 180 degree about turn in his climate change policy (Britain’s circumstances will force him).
The western media’s mass hysteria with the growth of the climate change cult really means very little in the real world.
The media’s shutting down of debate about climate change is similar to the shutting out of doubt about the necessity of invading Iraq in 2003. No one in the media wanted any debate about Iraq, and therefore none was allowed. Within a few weeks of the fall of Baghdad, it became obvious that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist. (The invading forces had captured dozens of high level captives, all of whom would have powerful incentives to direct the invaders to the weapons, had they existed.) It took a year after the fall of Baghdad for the Washington Post to admit that there had never been any weapons, and this was only after a formal admission by the government in the Duelfer report. The media does not admit mistakes, and they aren’t going to admit their mistake about climate change, even after it becomes obvious that the whole thing is a false alarm.
The important thing to keep in mind about the Iraq war was not that no active weapons of mass destruction were found, but that practically the whole world was in agreement, a consensus, if you will, that Saddam Insane *did* have active weapons of mass destruction programs. All the western intelligence services said so.
The reason they were convinced is because that’s what Saddam wanted them to think, thinking that if his enemies thought he had weapons of mass destruction, then that would deter them from attacking him, and this also had an effect on his own generals, keeping them in line.
So Saddam put out the word that he had active WMD programs, and everyone believed him because he had used them in the past and there was no reason to doubt this beligerent, murderous dictator.
This WMD disinformation campaign of Saddam’s didn’t have the effect Saddam thought it would, it had just the opposite effect and ended up with Saddam hiding in a hole in the ground and then being executed by the new Iraqi government. They should have slowly lowered his living body into a vat of acid like Saddam did to his enemies, that would have been justice, but the Iraquis let him off easy and made his end quick. Maybe Satan is lowering his body into a vat of acid right this minute.
They questioned Saddam’s generals after the war and many of them sincerely believed that Saddam had an active WMD program.
And the Leftwing Media didn’t promote this war. The Democrats certainly were against it and the Leftwing Media follows their lead. The Left’s and the Leftwing Media’s main focus during the Iraq war was in tearing down George W. Bush in whatever way they could manage. Kind of like they are doing to Trump now. Tearing down Republicans is always the main focus of the Left.
It’s on the record that Bush II said that WMD was chosen as reason for invading only because it was easier to put across than his – also on the record – statement that Iraq was the key to exposing the Muslim ME to the benefits of secularization. It was expected that there would be a domino effect breaking the power of Mullahs and freeing nations. The huge blunder was in the permitting of a new Iraqi constitution establishing an Islamic state. Had the US stuck with the plan and moved .. say .. most of her Germany and Japan military assets into Iraq there would never have been an ISIS and Iran might have been liberated by now.
“It’s on the record that Bush II said that WMD was chosen as reason for invading only because it was easier to put across than his – also on the record – statement that Iraq was the key to exposing the Muslim ME to the benefits of secularization.”
Do you have a link to those statements? I don’t recall Bush ever saying any such thing.
Ian Coleman
You said, “…, it became obvious that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist.” To be more accurate, none were found. It is difficult to ‘prove’ a negative.
However, there were a couple of notable exceptions. An empty warehouse had a single artillery shell with (I believe) nerve gas. There were tons of Yellow Cake that was sold off and shipped to Canada.
In any event, Sadam made of point of trying to convince the world powers and neighbors that he was a danger. Then, he interfered with UN inspectors that could have proved he was not a threat. The outcome was predictable.
“There were tons of Yellow Cake that was sold off and shipped to Canada.”
Saddam had about 500 tons of yellowcake, if I recall correctly.
I heard that all ended up in Iran.
The Iran Nuclear Deal needed feedstock!
I am a long-term optimist. It is some sort of mental illness I guess. It is true the public stage has been filled with idiots and they have control of the microphones but, on the other hand, when voters are asked about priorities they tend to list real issues well ahead of a climate apocalypse. Yes political leaders and media hacks have gone full imbecile on climate fear in wealthy western nations but other nations are still looking after the job of developing and bringing their populations a better life. And then there is the arc of history that tells us that inevitably, over the longer time frame, humans are inventive and creative creatures who ultimately find a better way. Even now we can see what voters feel about climate madness when it starts to affect their quality of life. The backlash when costs rise, freedoms diminish and choices disappear is fast and furious. The very same people who lived a live of comfort and safety from their day of birth are ill equipped to see any of their toys removed from the playpen. They squawk loudly and demand to change the channel when they reap the rewards of their own magical thinking.
The “eco-Nazi” movement has already succeeded once with a false scam: The Ozone Hole/CFC fraud!
They succeeded in banning perfectly benign, non toxic, non flammable refrigerants and propellants, and degreasing solvents. And all to mitigate a natural phenomenon – the Antarctic ozone hole.
You do know what all your spray cans now use as propellants? Propane and butane instead of CFC’s!
And the big chemical companies were happy to jump on the bandwagon – as they could rape consumers with far more expensive “alternatives”. Just look at the latest automotive refrigerant horse schist:
YF1234 – it is now a flammable gas, igniting in accidents and burning isn’t the worst issue, it generates hydrogen flouride when burned – which can eat glass, let alone your lungs and skin if you are trapped….
Do not underestimate the harm this movement has, can, will inflict without conscience to the casualties!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
On the other hand their slow pace of boiling us frogs with the Climate Scam – might become a panic implementation attempt on their part if the real climate keeps cooling.
Then a “yellow vest” movement may erupt, making the French one look like boy scouts starting a campfire by comparison.
***Bottom line: the climate activists are decisively winning. The science no longer matters in the public policy debate. Activists have moved beyond it and the major science institutions no longer defend it against the activists’ exaggerations and misrepresentations. (…) Meanwhile, skeptics are talking to themselves, like characters in Alice in Wonderland – vocal but effectively locked out of the news media.***
– – – Sadly, I have come to the same conclusion a few years ago. Friends and family no longer want to discuss the absolute veracity of man-made climate change, have fully embraced the new religion, and look at me with pitiful condescension if I try to breach the subject.
– – – It’s Game Over. The Madness will have to run its course.
…maybe it already has!
Insanity would be the next step and that won’t last long!
This finding is grim, but in my heart of hearts, I’m afraid Kummer’s right. The climate change brigade controls ALL the institutions, from the schools to the boardroom. Every political body, national and international, is controlled by people who think like them. Even the pope (nitwit) is in their pocket. The sad thing is that any failure on their side doesn’t alter their beliefs or their behavior. Nothing changes. They march ahead, like climate zombies. Which is why the whole western enterprise has to collapse first before any sort of sense will set in. And, of course, by then it will be too late. We will be living in Canticle for Lebowitz land.
titan28
One might observe that up until the time that the Bastille was stormed, the king of France controlled ALL the institutions. It is interesting how suddenly things can change when the people are pushed too far.
“They march ahead, like climate zombies.”
climate lemmings 😉
Larry, it’s inexcusable for anyone following climate politics to ignore the elephant: Nothing will be done even if the hype had it right about climate.
1) India, China , Africa and most of the rest of the Third World are going ahead with plans for electrification with mainly coal. The only ones making all the noise, Europeans, Australia, Canada, have emissions that are already hugely offset by the new ’emitters’.
2) The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Ag. was essentially the end of it all. Like a chicken with its head chopped off, the energetic leaps and bounds of the headless bird are the death-throws, not a final push to victory. There will be no chance for a Democrate comeback to the rescue. This party has had its head cut off, too. Trump will win a second term handily and if there are any brains left in the brand new Republican Party that has been crafted by Trump, the presidency is theirs for a generation after Trump. New blood in the Dems will eventually rise from outside the wreckage of their party and they will jettison all this marksbrothers routine.
2)The EU is already under stress from Brexit and the rise of Trumpians in their midst. Oh they’ll put on a show for a while, but the futility of their posturing on CO2 and the deadly cost to their collapsing economies won’t continue in the face of a surging US economy, which is a beacon and a lesson to be taken up by new blood in Europe.
3) No matter what may be done in the near future, we are helpless to avoid the big CO2 experiment. Even bigger “business as usual” will be done. We will know precisely what CO2 sensitivity is. We will know whether it is a big problem or not, because there is no stopping it.
My take from evidence so far after 40 years of the hype is warming has been a fraction of what was to be, despite shifting of goalposts and cooking data. The Great Greening of the planet and attendant bumper crops (and increased habitat for flora and fauna) have put CO2 squarely and unequivocally in the benefits column. This, with peak population in the second half of the century, the best bet is that we are unwittingly ushering in Garden of Eden Earth.
You make an interesting, and hopeful, point, especially re the third world and energy. Odd that in the end, we might–might–be saved by what are truly horrendous environmental policies in China and Africa.
“using the Skeptical Science website (SkS) as their base. These people attack the opponents of activists – using lies and smears to discredit these eminent scientists. ”
So why hasn’t anyone sued them?
This is the progressive agenda metastasizing – this was always where they were headed.
“There are rumors are that the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will break with the past and fully embrace the hysteria.”
I can confirm this and the copy I reviewed was chock full of over hyped hysteria in every chapter. The chapter on sensitivity and feedbacks is purported to be the scientific justification for alarmism, but there was little, if any actual science in that chapter. The very first sentence in that chapter was a blatant misrepresentation and it only got worse. It’s an embarrassment to science that this crap is even called science.
co2isnotevil,
Did you view a copy of the full Assessment or of the Summary for Policy Makers? The latter in past Assesssments have always been skewed and even contradict what is in the full report. The Fifth Assessment’s full report had backed off some of the more exaggerated points and I’m surprised this hasn’t continued.
It was the technical assessment, but it read like the summary for policy makers. To me it seemed like they were doubling down, not backing down. In my technical review, I pointed out dozens of errors, misrepresentations, exaggerations and outright lies, but I doubt any will be addressed in the final assessment. Of course, it will be on the record that they knew of the many faults in their ‘science’ and some inevitable future discovery will find that it’s not that Exxon knew, but that the IPCC knew.
…just as the Democrats in the US have broken with the past and have fully embraced communism!
The public is not amused!
I agree with your bottom line.
There is no hope of reason being heard unless young minds are opened and engaged. Sadly, however, the following generation has been brainwashed from infancy.
As those old enough to remember “wild weather” from their youth and, as a result, having the perspective that we are not seeing anything unprecedented, grow older still and pass away, the climate emergency will become the new norm of life and it will govern every freedom and action of all bar the elite who will enjoy ever greater privilege.
If the entire developed world(Europe, the Americas, and Japan) ceased burning any coal 10 years from now,
The amount of coal burned then would be double that of today.
This will be the result of developing countries, mainly China and India, needing far more energy than today.
The climate is warming, as it has for 30,000 years. We need science to help us live in a warmer world.
“We need science to help us live in a warmer world.”
Actually NO, we’ll do just fine in a warmer world. They didn’t call those previous warm climate periods, all of which were warmer than today, “climate OPTIMUMS” for nothing. It is a colder world that is cause for concern.
Yes Larry, it is very depressing to think that they have won.
But they have only really won in a a smallish segment of the population, the urban, liberal elite, which includes most of the mainstream media, most of the politicians in most of the “western world” and most of the entities that dominate the internet.
There won’t be any substantial pushback from the larger population until it really starts to hurt. When people are told that they cannot buy a car with an internal combustion engine; when people are told they have to take out their natural gas-fired central heating and replace it with electric heat at 2× or 3× the operating cost; when they start having no electricity supply for days at a time to power the EV they are forced to buy and the electric home heating they are forced to have. That may be when the tide starts to turn.
I hope.
“when people are told they have to take out their natural gas-fired central heating and replace it with electric heat at 2× or 3× the operating cost ”
Six times more expensive where I am …. thank you , solar and wind .
Describing the death of the climate policy debate – the short version.
For a decade one of their leaders was John Cook, riding the cause to academic degrees and honors – at least pretending to know climate science.
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/portfolio-view/john-cook/
That was then. Now they give us Greta, who knows nothing but what she has been told.
That’s the move beyond science. Beyond rational debate.
Our ruling elites believe that we are sheep, deserving only to be treated contemptuously. Time will tell if they are correct.
Just looking at that photo of John Cook gives me the creeps.
The mantra of Skeptical Science is to be “skeptical of climate skeptics”. So, I posted a comment there that it might be useful to be skeptical of people who are skeptical of climate skeptics. I then got a warning that any more posts like that and I’d be locked out!
They are not very skeptic-friendly over there.
People who think they have it all figures out don’t like it when someone suggests they don’t. So rather than arguing their weak case, they run skeptics off so they don’t have to deal with them. It’s kind of pathetic, and it is really damaging to science. Censorship and real Science are not compatible.
Larry
I can’t help but wonder if Greta handles the finances for her family. If not, why not? After all, she behaves as if she understands economics well enough to advise for financial changes for the entire world.
So, how many of you attend the public meetings of the activists?
When Algore dispatched his trained volunteers to show his slide show, did you go to those presentations to confront the misinformation?
I do.
It is a lonely hobby, with no friends, to date. How do you think it was for the left when they started this.They had the media on their side, you say? Go back further.
If you want push back, you must get out and do it.
There is ugliness when facing the left, but occasionally others actually seeking to be informed.
There’s an interesting symbiosis in the activist community between climate activism and gender/identity activism. The whole gender/identity thing is a much more recent invention than climate change and it seems to have metastasized much more quickly. And we (climate realists?) may benefit from the way that gender/identity politics is polarizing society. The activists may have taken on a battle that they cannot win.
Gender/identity politics seems to have gained most traction in the UK, where ordinary people have lost their jobs and even get criminal prosecution for saying things that wouldn’t even have been controversial a decade or so ago.
The difference from the climate movement is that the 90 percent (at a minimum) of the population think the whole thing is absurd, and they tend to get angry when it starts to get forced on ordinary folk, just like them.
And this is leading to the very real possibility that the BBC, which is at the forefront of the gender/identity movement, may get defunded. BoJo has hinted that his government might cancel the TV licence fee. Without public funding, the BBC will either go down the tubes or become a very fringe player in the media world. And if the BBC goes down the tubes, the Guardian might well follow.
Which would all be good for us.
‘people have lost their jobs and even get criminal prosecution for saying things that wouldn’t even have been controversial a decade or so ago.’
They didn’t throw the Jews in the camps the first day. They spent about ten years justifying first.
Fascism works wherever it’s tried.
In WUWT beginnings the “let’s kill this debate with science” crowd was prevalent. Most of the threads were highly technical but productive only to the technoids (not demeaning them). Slowly the realization formed that politics was the driving factor and here we are today. I miss all the in depth technical discussions because I learned a lot (not that they disappeared). But you can’t fight fire with fire if you don’t have any and the media controls the narrative. The only remaining weapon against AGW hysteria is the vote and seeing what has happened with carbon tax in France and America I say the skeptics are winning. Everyone wants to save the world until it affects them directly and only then do they start asking the relevant questions and making a stand for their rights. GND? It’s like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and the people know it. Have faith in the people but remain vigilant. I say skeptics are slowly winning despite the lack of media support because people are smart, not stupid.
The rabid Marxist Media is on the ropes! One more Trump election will seal their fate!
They have been hemorrhaging viewers for quite some time!
I Had a Nightmare Last Night About Canada
By Steve Heins
I woke up and remembered that Climate Change rhetoric has already created a large new genre for funding bias;
It has funded 1,000s and 1,000s of politicized climate reports; It funds over 5,000 active environmental lawsuits in US and Canada;
It has created and funded enough environmental attorneys to strain the entire US and Canadian legal system;
It provides billions of dollars in donations and government grants annually; It allows climate activists to be scofflaws and lawbreakers with impunity, think Canadian blockades;
It allows climate activists to use the “necessary defense” to justify their actions;
It has provided the justification for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, Waters of the US, IPCC and EU Emission Trading Scheme (with emphasis on Scheme);
It provides a “moral code” for many groups of environmentally activists throughout the world, think European Union and Canadian pipeline schizophrenia;
It has helped justify the poorly written and executed Emission Trading Scheme by EU in 2005, which doesn’t include energy efficiency, but does allow wood chips;
It continues to doom the poorest 1/6 of the world to destitution and energy poverty and brutishly short lives they are enduring right now;
And finally, it may allow environmental zealots to overthrow democracies without a shot being fired.
Then, I awoke just in time to watch the country-wide anarchy and uncivil protests at construction sites and railroads in Canada.
####
“I have seen the future and it’s murder,” sayeth the bleak Canadian poet Leonard Cohen.
The darkest hours is just before the dawn..
The “debate” never occurred, so there can’t be a corpse.
In a free society, the truth eventually comes out. Looking back at the past, there have been numerous movements that promoted a pseudo-scientific “truth” and eventually collapsed. This particular one just happens to be very political and about power (and of course money) which keeps the promoters interested.
The belief that trace amounts of CO2 control the global temperature is akin to the belief in UFOs. People want to believe…it’s scary…it fits into our need to believe in supernatural causes. And after 80 or 90 years, there are still people convinced that UFOs are real and aliens are kidnapping us.
(Real) Scientists believed in the Ether for a long time because they had no other way to explain wave behavior (of light) in a vacuum. Now they believe in Dark Energy (again because they have no other way to explain observations). The lack of an explanation is a powerful force in believing weird things. We can’t explain natural warming.
Eventually, when the world doesn’t end, most people will simply move on from climate science. They will likely find some other ridiculous belief to focus on.
I don’t “believe” but I do try to understand things like UFOs, Yeti, etc. It is fun. That said there is more evidence for bigfoot than for CO2 controlling the climate. Just saying 🙂
“The belief that trace amounts of CO2 control the global temperature is akin to the belief in UFOs. People want to believe…it’s scary…it fits into our need to believe in supernatural causes. And after 80 or 90 years, there are still people convinced that UFOs are real and aliens are kidnapping us.”
After thousands of years people are still convinced that gods are real and that there is some overarching plan for all of us. Lack of evidence be damned.
In a free society, the truth eventually comes out.
Are we a free society ?
“(it ranks #17 of the public’s top 18 concerns)”
If the “public” made their own list of “top concerns,” “climate change” wouldn’t even be on the list of the “public.”
“Bottom line: the climate activists are decisively winning.”
No they’re not – they’re losing. Because they’ve been crying wolf for 3 decades, and not a single one of their “scary” predictions has come to pass. The hysteria you’re seeing (and will see in AR6) is their desperation, not some victorious “mop up.”
“The climate wars are in the “pursuit” phase of battle, during which the victorious side runs down and destroys their broken foe.” – Uh do you remember the Mongol Horde tactics?
Appear to be losing, ride like crazy to escape with your enemy in pursuit and then when you get to the point where the horses are exhausted ….
The horde would have fresh rested horses waiting. Dismount the tired, mount the fresh, turn 180 degrees and it didn’t end well for the pursuers with their tired horses.
Just keep demanding predictions for 2020 to 2040. If they don’t make predictions they can’t call it science. Constantly point out all the failed predictions and what that means to a scientific idea/theory.
The state of Climate alarm is U S.:. Tom Steyer is running for President on a platform of Climate Hysteria . . . . count the votes in Iowa and NH.
‘Nuff said.
The 30 year run of the alarmists isn’t going to turn around overnight.
I agree with your characterization of the media penetration, but this same media (and technocrat oligarchy) clearly no longer represents an acquiescent overall population.
So I think it is more than a little premature to declare a loss.
Winning Larry?
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
How does amping up the Hysteria and Lies become winning?
Becoming ever more shrill convinces whom?
Making even more idiotic end of the world proclamations is real effective,really convinces people.
Gang Green is a gift,inherent in their Cult Like Movement is the collapse of government institutions.
This blatant propaganda and open attack on the norms of our society,by government agencies seals their fate.
Appeals to authority,using false flags and unsupported beliefs, end in the destruction of that authority.
Human nature has not changed.
Once the Gullible hold power,they destroy the things that make our technological civilization work.
Grinding civilization to a standstill really focuses the citizens attention.
Politicians and Parasite really should learn from history.
The last thing they want,is the citizens undivided attention.
Government control of electric Utilities is already resulting in Black Outs and system failures..all in the name of Gang Green “Sustainability”
And grid electric supply kW/hr rate costing more than a personal generation plant.
Which is rapidly destroying the rational for having State Controlled Utilities.
All our institutions,brought into being to prevent misinformation and public fads wasting taxpayers time and money,have been hijacked to promote the Cataclysmic Climate Meme.
Demonstrating the abject failure of government and the myth of competency in bureaucracy.
So if the “Concerned Ones” are winning, why are they so hysterical?
Whether climate skeptics have lost the debate is itself up for debate. True, we have major media outlets celebrating ignorami like Greta Thunberg as Person of the Year, but when she shouts “How Dare You [continue to use fossil fuels]”, the adults in the room pay her lip service but don’t agree to DO anything except vote for non-binding resolutions that don’t require the big emitters (China and India) to do anything.
Even if they voted for a “binding” resolution, everybody knows (including the alarmists, except Greta) that China and India will just ignore it. How do you force a nation with over a billion inhabitants and nuclear weapons to do something which they know is not in their national interest? Tell them to cut their CO2 emissions or else they get a slap on the wrist with a piece of paper?
Right now, while they ride private jets with impunity, it’s easy for someone like Bernie Sanders or AOC to say that they want to impose a Green New Deal that would cost trillions of dollars a year and tank our economy in the name of “saving the planet” from some calamity predicted for the next century. But if any of them really took power, trying to pass the Green New Deal through Congress would be nearly impossible, since people like their cars, and keeping their homes warm in the winter, and electric power to run their washers and dryers and microwaves and computers, and don’t want their taxes doubled to live like the Amish in the 19th century.
If a state government (California being the most likely) tried to impose draconian restrictions on fossil fuels, people would “vote with their feet” and move to more energy-tolerant states. If a national government tried this, there would likely be a massive popular revolt, and the opposing political party would take over the government after the next election.
In the meantime, nothing is being done, the CO2 concentration keeps rising, but average temperatures (seasonally adjusted) are going sideways, and the average voter is wondering why should we spend trillions of dollars solving a non-problem.
SKS is an instrument of propaganda for profiteers of doom. Its mission is to mis-inform, defame, and intimidate dissent from the party line. This outfit is not science; it’s anti-science.
Its operator, John Cook, is eminently qualified to comment on climate or any physical science – After all, he holds a degree in.. psychology. But then that degree is from western Australia. And here’s the best part: Although he disavows public support, in truth, Cook is now being funded by the US National *Science* Foundation, through the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/portfolio-view/john-cook/
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1713450
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/us-senate-launches-probe-of-nsf-climate-grants
Corruption of science and public policy – by the Deep State, for the Deep State – all at public expense.
Your tax dollars hard at work!
Larry
one too many “are”….
“There are rumors
arethat the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will break with the past and fully embrace the hysteria.”Yeah Yeah. The public faithfully parrots Climate Change propaganda. But skeptics still have the last laugh. No matter how brainwashed the public might be, the vast majority of Americans (app. 65%) still refuse to pay carbon taxes or green new deal boondoggles.
Drump will ride to re-election by rejecting carbon taxes and energy boondoggles proposed by his opponents… and the majority of Americans will agree with Drump.
All of which drives the High Priests of Climate Change absolutely bonkers. This recent cover article in the WAPO shows how desperately inconsolable the hysterics are.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/27/americans-like-green-new-deals-goals-they-reject-paying-trillions-reach-them/
There is a lot of truth in this article by Larry Kummer but it makes the mistake of hearing the loud minority drowning out the silent and disgruntled majority. The Chicken Little Sky is Falling Theme has been blaring out for thirty years. However, whenever the public is asked to pay, the public loses interest rapidly. The election of Trump, Morrison, and Brexit was a sign of this. There is constant whining from the Warmistas that we all need to do something big and nobody is doing anything except listening. The Warmistas may have succeeded in getting people to believe that CO2 has a severe impact on the climate but when people are asked to pay they lose interest rapidly if not instantly.
You might consider this counterpoint from Mark Twain, a noted anti-imperialist:
“The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first …. The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: “It is unjust and dishonourable and there is no need for war.”
“Then the few will shout even louder … Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it ….
“Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies … and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will, bye-and-bye, convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception.”
Now, this was about war, but it could easily refer to any popular, emotive issue — and I think we may agree that Climate Change is popular and carries a lot of emotional baggage (and precious little science).
In any case, I think that Mr Kummer is fundamentally correct in his depressing “bottom line” and that the only thing likely to save the sceptical position is fairly sudden, undeniable global cooling. Until that blessed(?) event occurs, the sceptics will be condemned to perpetual rearguard actions. Interestingly, it will then turn out that very few people actually ‘believed in Climate Change’. Aren’t people funny?
Here in the UK, Larry is right. New diesel, petrol and hybrid cars will not be sold after 2035 and possibly not after 2032. I think that’s a clear win for alarmism. [no discussion at all about how the electricity to charge them will be provided]
Even the Financial Times is alarmist without qualification.
Most people in the UK regard Trump as beyond the pale [usually in terms that are not printable on WUWT] and he only serves to reinforce alarmism here.
The car policy was announced by Boris Johnson our Prime Minister, who is regarded as a mini Trump by many here. Yet he sat by Attenborough and announced this crazy decision.
Now that the UK has [or is in the process of] leaving the EU, this country is increasingly irrelevant, so perhaps what is happening here doesn’t matter much.
What I am not seeing on any sceptical site is practical ideas to push back against alarmism. We preach to each other but do not reach the uncommitted.
I send letters to my local paper and they print them. I try to be sarcastic, humorous, or informative, not didactic. The paper is paywalled for non-subscribers, so I also post some of my letters to my blog: https://verdeviews.wordpress.com.
A recent visitor ‘like’d 2 recent posts, one of which exposes Tom Steyer’s local game, the other a commentary on flooding in Venice. The posts are anti-alarmist, but the ‘like’s link to an alarmist blog, the managers of which must have found my blog with a robot. I can’t figure out if they are trying to convert me or are misreading my intentions.
So, the science cannot reach a [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate cooling… warming… change conclusion, forced by [anthropogenic] CO2; but, sociopolitical scientists, with backing from interested and kneeling industries, special and peculiar interests, have reached a consensus, and we have passed the point of no return. What we are confronting is, in fact, a veritable zombie apocalypse, which remains viable despite rational and reasonable mediation.
The warmists are not warmists they are communists masquerading as warmists. They are not coming after climate change they are coming after YOU. You are their target. If the Warmest communists ever do gain ascendancy you will never be able to get rid of them. This is the nature of communism. You will become their slaves for life and your children’s lives and your grandchildren’s lives. Their aim is a One World communist government.
In 50 years, possibly sooner than that, the world will look back at this time frame and the topic of the fake climate crisis with the same impression we do today at the medical procedure called “blood letting” by physicians hundreds of years ago.
Medical ignorance/a lack of understanding what causes illness’s as well as appreciating the profound value/benefits of what blood supplies to our bodies were a couple of reasons for this.
In this age, we have understood the benefits of increasing CO2 and global warming for over a century. We are measuring a massively greening planet with most life doing well from the best weather/climate in the last 1,000 years(the last time that it was this warm).
The coldest places, at the coldest times of year are warming the most………..similar to the Holocene Climate OPTIMUM from 9,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Temperatures in the Arctic during that time frame were several degrees warmer than they are now and there was less ice than what is there currently.
If we went back to 60 years ago, when all of science knew those warmer conditions were optimal for life and asked scientists then, if our planet’s ideal temperature should be warmer or colder than the temperature in 1960, probably 97% would have said with confidence WARMER!
That’s why they called it the “Holocene Climate OPTIMUM” not the Holocene Climate CRISIS” or the “Holocene Climate EMERGENCY”.
So climate science had already advanced enough, many decades ago to know that we are currently on the cusp of enjoying another climate OPTIMUM for life on this greening planet.
So, in 50 years when they look back at this age, people will not think “oh, climate science had not advanced far enough for them to understand important things, which caused them to call a climate optimum a climate emergency.
Authentic climate science had already advanced far enough to know this more than 60 years ago and in fact, for hundreds of years prior to that!
What they will be amazed at is how climate science was hijacked for a political agenda………on a global scale. With world governments, many scientists, the media and others playing a key role as gatekeepers of information to sell a model manufactured climate science projection based on a speculative theory but sold as “settled science” as in almost as sure as gravity.
A time when empirical data/observations and anything that contradicts model projections gets rejected.
A time when top scientists who questioned the theory were condemned and labelled as deniers.
When the MSM made an intentional effort to use many extreme weather events(that have always happened in the past) as examples of the fake climate crisis.
When we were told that the increase in beneficial CO2 and warming was going to destroy the greening planet in 12 years.
When they used an anti science spewing 16 year old high priestess, saying insane, easy to verify as false statements to recruit young people into the climate crisis religious cult……………by using very scary words, expressed convincingly with her unique charismatic style.
Education about authentic climate science went backwards. Climate change and human caused climate change were synonymous. Used and even taught interchangeably because the natural cycles of authentic climate science got in the way of the agenda.
This is what they will attribute it to:
1. A push for Global socialism.
2. Huge funding for scientists.
3. Massive funding for green projects.
4. Massive revenue for governments via carbon tax schemes and
5. Via lobby money to politicians for green projects.
6. Increased ratings by sensationalizing the weather for the media as well as imposing the progressive activists (dominating journalism) belief system on to millions that watch/read the stories.
7. Reigning in the over consumption of natural resources of developed countries with the “sustainable consumption” model for our future world based on the United Nations goals.
All that, counted much more than telling the world the truth about the weather/climate/science/biology/agronomy and widespread benefits of CO2 to life.
“illness’s”
I think that word needs a good bloodletting.
Larry,
“The debate has moved beyond science to the exaggerations of the Climate Emergency and the fictions of the Extinction Rebellion.”
Dr. Myles Allen Lead Author of the UN IPCC is worried by the fact that orthodox climate scientists and the climate change movement has lost control of reality which has moved into Post-Normal Science.
Greater publicity should be given to Allen’s article in the Conversation (republished in The Guardian) of 19 April, 2019 entitled “Why protestors should be wary of ‘12 years to climate breakdown’ rhetoric”.
According to Dr. Allen there will be no climate catastrophe by 2030 nor thereafter.
While he expresses concern at every half degree of warming, he calls out the extreme alarmists.
This should be headlined as often as possible to embarrass Greta and Extinction Rebellion who know as much about climate science as a kindergarten child knows of nuclear physics.
I don’t believe the alarmists have won; I think they are losing.
Yes, governments pay lip service to straw bans and carbon footprints for everyone but them. But celebrities are the butt of jokes, and like the poll says, people rank the “climate crisis” as dead last of things that bother them.
The Dems touting the Green New Deal may as well wish for unicorns farting rainbows; their projects can’t be done, even with all the money in the world, and any government trying to actually raise taxes high enough would be out on its ear.
The alarmists real problem is that they are all lying. They are like socialists who destroy prices and then flounder around trying to allocate resources and wonder why factories produce screws too big to be useful and wondering why people won’t buy the crap that is available. They shout and shout and no one believes them (dead last in the polls, remember?) The recent coral news is typical: instead of trying to reconcile theory which says they should all be dead, and reality which says they have been surviving for hundreds of millions of years, they start with the all-too-common scientific expert attitude that if something isn’t proven or known, then it must be impossible.
The alarmists will gradually fade away. They will make a mess in the meantime (Solyndra), but they have no more chance of winning than the Soviet Union did.
This;
“The climate policy debate ran for 30 years but produced little action (it ranks #17 of the public’s top 18 concerns).”
seems to be in considerable tension with this;
“Bottom line: the climate activists are decisively winning. “
Tax money was officially meant to solve ‘tragedy of common’ problems.
But once pile of stack of cash grows, it turns to be tragedy of common: groups of thugs start fighting for access by any means necessary causing destruction and mayhem to anyone but few psychopaths win.
Solving the root problem would mean drastic reduction of taxation rate.
But even on that forum nobody crosses that line: without tax slaves, who would finance NASA and their “pale blue dot” photos?
Odd to describe an autopsy of something that never was living. What policy debate? Prior to Trump the world leaders monotonously all proclaimed their devotion to Doing Something, while confining themselves to fairly expensive and extremely ineffective virtue signaling. And at no time in the past few decades have alarmist shown the least bit of interest of actually debating any shade of skeptic.
Nor is “the science no longer matters” some new development. The science has *never* mattered, from the time that 2C from “pre-industrial” was pulled out of someone’s hindquarters. For decades the alarmists have been pushing public policy that they find desirable independent of climate change, without scientific support for said policy being a better option than simple adaptation.
“Major science institutions no longer defend [science] against the activists’ exaggerations and misrepresentations”. No longer? They never did. For decades now, major science instutions have routinely weighed in with their belief in the “consensus” against skeptics while turning a blind eye to exaggerations and misrepresentations. Climate scientists as a body not only have ignored reckless exaggeration, but many themselves engage in it, framing climate change as an existential crisis when the science (such as it is) says nothing of the kind. Practically every impact study I’ve looked at has a press release going far beyond what the paper shows, and an abstract significantly more alarmist in tone than the contents actually justify.
Perhaps there would be a more healthy situation now if alarmists actually had been willing to debate, and if scientists actually did step up and speak out against reckless alarmists. But that’s not the world we live in, and that’s *not* the fault of the skeptics.
The bottom line is that the activists are “decisively winning”? Well, they’re decisively winning in the mainstream media, but that’s *always* been the case. The adulation given to St. Greta today is not fundamentally different than the praise for Al Gore decades ago. The alarmists were awarded the gold medal before the race ever stated. And yet, the sort of radical changes Greta is demanding is still not happening.
The 2020 election will determine whether the President will be skeptic or alarmist, and will govern how much money will be spent virtue-signalling in the next four years. But it’s telling that *not one senator* was willing to *actually vote* for the Green New Deal when McConnell put it up for a vote. If you want to know what a person really values, it is not what they say but what they do that is most telling. No one is *acting* like it is a crisis.
Including mother earth. If AR6 embraces full alarmism (the SPM has *always* been significantly more alarmist than the actual contents) it will hardly matter as long as mother Nature doesn’t play along. In a world where the actual warming we’ve had hasn’t even inconvenienced anyone, apocolytic hand-wringing becomes its own refutation.
No, you haven’t added anything new. In fact, your various pontifications have probably hurt more than they’ve helped. Here’s the real story (I’m going by memory, so some details may be slightly off).
The projected CO2 emissions in the RCP 8.5 scenario are essentially no different from the CO2 in the A1FI (A1 “Fossil Intensive”) emission scenario:
https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/multimedia/emissions-concentrations-and-temperature-projections
The A1FI scenario was introduced way back in 2001, as part of the Third Assessment Report (TAR). I think I recall that there were some shenanigans, such that the A1FI scenario was actually added at the last minute after the review process had been completed. But my memory is fuzzy on this issue. I’m pretty sure Pat Michaels knows the details, as my hazy memory is that he protested the late addition of such and extreme scenario.
In any case, there were papers by Stephen Schneider in Nature in 2001 and by Tom Wigley and Sarah Raper in Science in 2001 that both tried to actually establish probability distributions for emissions and resultant temperature increases. If “climate science” were really science, those pathetic attempts would have been quickly improved upon. For example, in probably less than 40 hours of work, I was able to come up with predictions that I think will be clearly better than Wigley and Raper’s paper in “Science”. The trick is that Wigley and Raper assumed that all scenarios had equal probability of occurring. But even a decent college student ought to be able to puzzle out that all scenarios can’t possibly have the same probability of occurrence.
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2006/04/complete_set_of.html
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2017/07/mark-bahner-vs-wigley-and-raper-science-2001-vs-ipcc-rcps.html
The reason your commentary has actually probably done more harm than good is that you have mistakenly insisted that the IPCC and the climate change “scientific” communtiy put forward the RCP 8.5 and other RCP scenarios in good faith, when they clearly haven’t.
So thus far, you have been more a part of the problem (failure to call out climate change scientists as engaging in massive pseudoscientific fraud) than a part of the solution.