Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; John Cook has released a new video which attacks a climate skeptic straw man, to try to bolster his 97% climate consensus claim.
Watch the video, judge for yourself.
What do I mean by “climate skeptic straw man”?
When John Cook claims 97% of climate scientists believe humans cause global warming, he is likely absolutely correct. The straw man is Cook’s suggestion that climate skeptics do not believe humans cause global warming.
Most climate scientists whom opponents identify as “climate deniers” believe anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I believe anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming. Suggesting that most skeptics do not believe CO2 causes global warming is nonsense.
But there is a huge difference between believing humans cause global warming, and believing that humans cause significant global warming, or that humans are the ONLY cause of modern era global warming.
Believing that humans cause global warming is not the same thing as believing that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are leading us towards an imminent climate catastrophe.
For anyone interested, the “Herr John Cook” image comes from a set of creepy images Cook published on Skeptical Science.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/49302/
That(John Cook’s Skeptical Science) is probably the worlds biggest climate science disinformation site.
They take a field(climate science) that few people understand or have data for and use a bunch of real climate science combined with anti science to spin a fake climate crisis out of a climate optimum.
Then, they pretend that they are the complete opposite of what they are and accuse those that disagree with them of doing what they do.
Supposedly objective and open minded, they are the exact opposite of that. They start with a climate crisis and interpret(spin) all data to support the crisis, with very little skepticism or objectivity and one of the top priorities, is to discredit people like me (so called deniers) that are actually using scientific skepticism and letting the data lead us vs subjectively interpreting data so it only supports one thing and ignoring all data that doesn’t show it.
They even did a bogus (manipulated) study that supposedly showed 97% of climate scientists agreed on the climate crisis.
John Cook, who runs it, has probably contributed to more people getting dumber about climate and CO2 using internet sources than any one person on the planet.
John Cook and his team looked at tens of thousands of papers that mostly don’t support his position but he twists them to make you think they do. 97% of climate scientists(including me) believe that humans have caused varying amounts of global warming/climate change, some more than others. This is what he found. If that was his position……………….no problems. But he believes that we are having a climate crisis from the beneficial warming. This is NOT what those 97% stated at all. Only a small fraction of them believe that we are having a climate crisis and the vast majority, like me DISAGREE with his view.
I actually PROVE that we are indisputably having a climate OPTIMUM for life on this greening planet with all my empirical data/research. Not despite climate change/global warming but BECAUSE OF IT.
Keep in mind, for the past 38 years, almost every day, all day long, I analyze the global atmosphere and have spent the past 2 decades studying climate and applying this to the real world that includes predicting crop yields/food production and energy use.
I haven’t published any peer reviewed stuff using the information that I’ve observed and learned and I’m not as smart at math as some of the PHD climate modelers that program computers to simulate the weather/climate for the next 100 years using mathematical equations but I have, instead published 3 dozen articles/discussions, generously sharing it here with others that want the truth.
You will not find the truth in global climate models, that have all been too warm for decades and been discredited by all objective sources………….but continue to be relied on as evidence of the crisis. You will find the truth by observing what has been happening in the REAL atmosphere for the last 100 years and how its affected the REAL life on this REAL planet……………not a simulated world and from people using worst case and exaggerated scenarios that don’t match up with the REAL world. Almost all of their apocalyptic predictions have been wrong for more than 3 decades now.
Funny thing. 3 decades ago, I actually believed much of it about the crisis. Fortunately for me, my profession as an operational meteorologist allowed me to understand the atmosphere better than those continuing the catastrophic predictions. I have learned a tremendous amount during that time because the science is NOT settled as many insisted 15 year ago(Gore for instance). But what about Joe and Jill non climate experts that only get their information from the gatekeepers?
One of those gatekeepers is John Cook the climate charlatan. I would love to have a debate with him or anybody else that represents the fake climate crisis.
Ironically, he spends a great deal of time trying to convince everybody that people like me are the ones spreading misinformation:
Understanding and countering misinformation about climate change
John Cook George Mason University, USA
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Cook_2019_climate_misinformation-1.pdf
It’s convincing sounding scientific frauds like him………that have a 10,000 times bigger following than I will ever have that make my mission to enlighten people with the truth(about the fake climate crisis) a futile effort but still worth it since, at least, some people have come to better understand authentic, climate truths based on science not politics .
This is my stuff:
…using data, from the viewpoint of an atmospheric scientist that has analyzed weather and climate almost every day for the past 38 years. I’m just reporting how the atmosphere and life on this planet is responding…….and how/why the politics hijacked climate science for global socialism/Marxism.
Climate Reality discussions-new article 2-24
Started by metmike – April 15, 2019, 4:10 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27864/
So John and skeptical science talk a convincing sounding game using words and sometimes cherry picked data as well as leaving out most of the wonderful benefits that this climate optimum is having for most life. (Don’t you ever wonder why you don’t read about the benefits associated with climate change?……….oh, except for ticks and roaches and mosquitoes and weeds and virus’s……somehow, all bad life flourishes on climate change but the same climate change………kills all good life. Weird.
Actually, if you have some objective brain cells you know that can’t possibly be the truth. Only in politics, is the beneficial gas CO2 defined as pollution and the current climate optimum defined as a crisis………..wait, the latest word that sounds even more scary is the climate emergency.
Less than 10 years to go before we destroy the planet. Better do what they say this time (-: They didn’t really mean it the last 31 years, when they said the exact same thing every year. This time is for real (-:
You know that story, “The boy who cried wolf”?
If he cried wolf 31 times in a row and the village people came running to him each time, with no signs of a wolf 31 times in a row, instead of it being a lesson to children to not give false alarms or you will never be believed when you tell the truth, the lesson would be much different.
People can be gullible creatures that will believe/buy anything and forget common sense if you package the product with the right marketing scheme(s)………..”saving the planet”…..after all, who could possibly be against saving the planet………..outside of us deniers that don’t believe in the climate model fairy tale forecasts!
U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked
PETER JAMES SPIELMANNJune 29, 1989
https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
“Don’t you ever wonder why you don’t read about the benefits associated with climate change?”
A recent paper by the Harvard Forest research facility, “Carbon budget of the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site: pattern, process, and response to global change”. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343425030_Carbon_budget_of_the_Harvard_Forest_Long-Term_Ecological_Research_site_pattern_process_and_response_to_global_change.
This paper says that forests have been growing much faster in the past few decades.
Scientists coming out of the woodwork-no climate crisis!
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41293/
In 1939 Germany the support for the little guy with the ridiculous mustache was also 97 %. However after the war you could not find a single German that would admit having been a supporter.
The same will happen after the climate war is over. At least in the case of John Cook we have the picture as proof.
Yep, this will start to happen when scientists in unrelated fields realize that this is affecting them and their ability to fund their own science projects, and lives in general.
Alas, the lessons of actual history are lost on the agw boosters.
Perhaps that’s what happens to folk who only see the world through their lens of fantasy models.
Realities don’t get a seat at their table. And it shows, viz – “professor” John Cook.
Yes and the other 3 percent who refused to sign the pledge were sent to the earliest versions of the concentration camps. Their names and photos are documented at some of the camp museums to remind visitors of the domestic political aspect of some arrivals. As the cleansing of ‘Good German Science’ progressed even the inventor of mustard gas weapons from WWI was sent fleeing because of his ethnicity and the early researcher into the unique potential of uranium for fissionable reactions lost her standing.
Much of the support for the little guy is, similar to the support for CAGW currently.
Bad things will happen to you if you don’t.
This damned 97% BS CAGW scientific consensus lie is, and always has been, bogus….
All good Leftist government propaganda contain an element of truth and CAGW’s” 97% consensus” BS is a perfect example.
100% of empirical evidence show: 1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas that absorbs photons with a frequency of 15 microns, 2) CO2 forcing does cause SOME global warming, 3) we’ve enjoyed about 1C of beneficial global warming recovery since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850….
The big lie is, 4)” 97% of all scientists believe CO2-induced warming will be “catastrophic” which is complete lie.
Hell, there is ZERO empirical evidence showing CAGW’s assumed ECS (global warming per CO2 doubling) is anywhere close to the 3C~5C, which is based ENTIRELY on disconfirmed and bogus climate model projections.. ZERO.
Even if CAGW’s assumption that “most” (>51%) of the 1C total global warming recovery we’ve enjoyed since 1850 is CO2 induced (Legates el al shows only 0.3% of all climatology peer-reviewed papers make this specific claim, not 97%), that’s just 0.5C to date, for an ECS of around (0.8C ~ 0.9C–because CO2 forcing is logarithmic), which not only isn’t a problem, it’s a net benefit…
All empirical evidence show CO2’s actual contribution to total global warming recovery is closer to just 0.3C since 1850 (Linden and Choi et al supots this), for an ECS of around 0.5C~0.6C…. Oh, my…
CAGW is believed by so many primarily because of 3 logical fallacies: argumentum ad populum, argumentum adveredundiam and post hoc ergo propter hoc….
Bottom line, CAGW is already a disconfirmed hypothesis. If we did NOTHING to reduce C02 emissions, we’d enjoy around 0.9C of CO2 induced warming by 2100, and have: longer growing seasons, increased crop yields from CO2 fertilization, earlier springs, less crop frost loss, fewer deaths from exposure, more agriculture output in Northern latitudes, more dense forests, less drought, more rain, less severe winters, etc…
CAGW is just a Leftist hoax concocted to destroy capitalism and steal $100’s of trillions and take control of every aspect of our lives through unneeded and economy-killing CAGW regulations…
Excellent analysis and one that I would concur with. I just hope there is a smidgeon of warming because that is an insurance policy on any temporary dip in temps to some forcing such as VEI 6-7 volcanic eruption that disrupts agriculture temporarily. Any little extra warming will hopefully tide us through any dip that could be a problem for agricultural output for a season or two. With 7-8 billion people on the planet at any one given time, there is a risk of things not always going to plan and that could be a problem, even if temps recovers to normal within a few years as it usually does.
Earthling2-san:
Yes, we’re due for VEI 6+ eruption since the last one was Pinatubo about 30 years ago.
Ironically, the biggest threat to humanity is Leftist government hacks actually wasting $100’s of trillions on bogus CAGW mitigation and starving humans of energy, which could lead to a global economic collapse….
Ah, yes, the Immutable Law of Leftist Irony rears its ugly head again…
A few years ago, I read the blow-by-blow of how the original ‘97% consensus’ paper was created, and the vast errors in procedure during the literature survey part of the ‘work’, up to and including ‘reading only the Abstracts of the papers’.
My conclusion at the time was that the team played fast-and-loose with the methodology, so the result was highly questionable… that is, until it was cited by President Obama.
A quick visit to the site show that the source materials have been greatly expanded since that time.
For close to 1,300 years 100% of educated westerners believed in the Ptolemaic view of the earth and Aristotelian physics. Then came along Copernicus, Galileo and Newton.
Then for about 300 years 100% of educated people believed in Newtonian Physics then came along Maxwell, Einstein and Schrodinger.
For the last 80 years any body 100% of people with even half an education believed in General Relativity and QED. Unfortunately, they both can’t be right as they have a completely different view of how information is preserved (or not).
My view is that anyone who claims that consensus validates a scientific theory is simply ignorant of history.
Generally they don’t even teach history in schools these days, and reading is largely a forgotten pastime, as almost everybody I see these days has their nose stuck in a mobile phone screen, watching some trivial inane TV show, or playing in some LARP game, or typing out a few fatuous phrases into Twitter etc.
But “History” IS after “His Story”… It is what “He” told or wrote. Who is “He” ? That depends much on where you are located, and which society you inhabit as an individual. There are very many “Histories” but they are mostly all propaganda of some sort, tailored to suit the narrative of your present day authoritarian entities. The proletariat must be controlled, or else they’d rebel if they knew the real truth.
What is the truth? Someone once asked that question long ago, and we are still searching for the answer, or at least that’s what honest scientists with integrity are doing. The trouble is that spouting lies to support the diktats of your current oligarchs and plutocrats pays much better than honest research.
Follow the money, and see who’s paying for the lies. You probably won’t change anything, but you will know who is telling the truth. They will be the people that are scraping away with outdated equipment, and meagre resources, toiling to even have their hypotheses read, or published in the scientific journals.
Humans cause global warming, they do not cause Global Warming. 🙂
+97 🙂
Before all this political AGW, 97% concensus, pseudo scientific collective back slapping came along, I remember that real scientists used to bend over backwards to try and prove their theories wrong.
Scientists would steel man the heck out of their ideas to make them stronger.
I don’t understand these “climate scientists” today who should normally be defending their ideas from perfectly valid points of contention, but instead prefer to dismiss all critics as heretics.
In my mind it makes their theories look much weaker than they might otherwise be.
You have to call in to question the mental stability of someone who deliberately photoshopped themselves to be an SS officer.
Nothing to question really. It’s all on show.
The late great humorist Art Buchwald authored “ You Can fool all the People all the time” in the eighties, one of the many books collecting his syndicated columns.
Mr. Cook obviously entertains the belief that this is an ideal to work towards.
Does anyone even visit his website?
I see no comments on his latest entry…and it’s been up for 2 days (NZ time).
The little thumbs haven’t registered much traffic either.
When John Cook claims 97% of climate scientists believe humans cause global warming, he is likely absolutely correct.
And when I say at least 99% of Catholic priests says god really exist , I am also absolutely right , but that does not mean the 99% are .
“97% of climate scientists…”. Amateur hour-all old Soviet Politburo members received at least 105% of the vote….
I’m trying to put my finger on what it is that makes John Cook’s face the most punchable on the planet.
I’m trying to put my finger on what it is that makes John Cook’s face the most punchable on the planet. Almost makes me wonder if his groin is equally kickable?
99% of people once believed the earth was flat. That did not make it so.
John Cook sounds as if he is trying to turn an indefensible position into a rout.
Is it just me, or is John Cook every day looking more and more like Col. Klink?
I quite believe the 97 % consensus but dispute that it is something to be proud of. I first became conscious of the climate change issue when I found out a colleague on our computer modelling team was actually trained and a climate scientist rather than in engineering. It transpires he queried whether it was valid to use data selected specifically not to include all types of conditions as input to a climate model and what were the implications in terms of errors. He found not only was the project turned down but no other one he suggested subsequently was acceptable, got the message he was not wanted and decided on an alternative career. I recognised some other names of his associates and found they also were now working in business management marketing or sales and I had come across them already. If I as a single person know of nine altogether how many others have been removed?
Will future generations learn the true meaning of
to Cook the books?
If ALL energy received by the planet from the is radiated back to space (and evidence from the cold, dead rocks flying around our solar system indicates that it eventually is) then “temperature” as we humans view it, is merely a function of the time delay between absorption and radiation. An average of the rate of absorption divided by the rate of radiation expressed for a given period of time, as it were. Thus, the argument is not “what is the temperature” but rather “are we increasing the delay between absorption and radiation due to the increase in the proportion of CO2 to other gasses in our atmosphere”. The secondary argument is this; “does it even matter”, given that ice ages exist and we are still in one. I will argue that it doesn’t matter. Not one bit. Given the negligible ability of CO2 to retain energy within a narrow frequency for a any significant period of time, at its current level of energy saturation, and its “trace gas” status within our atmosphere, it is highly unlikely to have EVER played a measurable role in the delay of energy return to space. Nor will it ever play a roll, even at four or more times the current concentration. Its effect is immeasurable when compared to the rest of our atmosphere. The tail cannot wag the dog.
Any model which shows temps increasing with CO2 concentration increase is wrong. Any theory which insists we’re all going to die from increased CO2 is wrong. Any belief system which calls the other side “deniers” is blatantly wrong and has demonstrated that they’ve lost the ability to think rationally.
An increase in CO2 only ever leads to an increase in carbon sequestration by the biosphere. It is plant food; essential to photosynthesis, essential to human life as we do like to eat plants and animals who like to eat plants.
We should be actively considering how to create MORE of it, to better aid food production on this frozen rock we call home.
Was it Einstein who said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result? The physical properties of Carbon Dioxide make it incapable of causing our atmospheric temperature to increase because its net radiation time delay effect is bowled over by every other molecule, factor, or forcing in the atmosphere. This is why the “missing heat” cannot be found. That is the only fact which should be hammered home in schools and internet forum discussions about this entire farce!
Mere opinion is of interest to scientific novices who don’t know what the science says, but that science trumps opinion. When it comes to CO2-driven AGW, when will the world wake up to the basic radiative physics facts based on Planck’s Radiation Law which make atmospheric CO2 unable to melt an ice cube with its 15 micron radiation, the same as dry ice? Dry ice is cold, and cold is not heat and can’t heat anything. CO2 can’t heat anything higher than -80C, just as 5500C solar radiation can’t heat anything higher than 5500C. The Earth’s surface temperature range is -50C to +50C, therefore CO2 therefore can’t absorb heat from Earth’s surface, and can’t emit heat to heat anything. If CO2’s absorption/wavelengths covered a golden basket from 30C to 50C, say, the CO2 warming theory might have something to it, but -80C is outside all of Earth’s surface heat, which is removed daily by a number of processes in which CO2 can’t play a role or interfere. The leftist-run U.N. IPCC picked the wrong getaway driver for their mad plan to steal the world blind to save them from an imaginary problem, which doesn’t have to demonstrate results and won’t refund their money.
There’s no “mild” warming effect from CO2. There’s NONE. Here’s the physics presented step-by-step if you went to college. If you have a crushing disproof of my analysis whip out your Ph.D. and take me on, but there’s only one Planck Radiation Law and it covers all cases in radiative physics unless you’re claiming it doesn’t apply like they do with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
http://www.historyscoper.com/thebiglieaboutco2.html
There is no such thing as a greenhouse gas. Atomic resonance in the infrared light frequency range produce atomic spectra that emit or absorb at those frequencies. Nett heat transfer by radiation is from hot to cold (relative). Heat transfer is irreversible. If the greenhouse effect was true, the lapse rate in the lower troposphere, where it is claimed to exist would be superadiabatic, to account for back radiation. Back radiation does not exist. Energy is transferred upward as indicated by the average lapse rate being less than the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Water vapor is also not a greenhouse gas, H2O is responsible for the upward transfer of energy due to water vapor in air reaching saturation at higher elevations, as pressure and temperature drops, resulting in the release of latent heat.
Actually, the theory of greenhouse gas warming is solidly based on molecular (not atomic) dipole moments being able to be excited into (mostly) discrete vibrational and rotational modes by photon absorption at certain frequency bands within the visible to far infrared portion of the EM spectrum. These vibrationally-excited molecules will likewise radiate a single photon of energy at the same frequency as the photon just absorbed (or emit multiple photons at lower discrete frequencies), assuming that vibrational energy is not fist transferred to other atmospheric gasses, as translational or vibrational energy, during collisions.
In particular, it is the characteristic of certain molecular gases, such as CO2, that the they absorb and radiate EM energy in spectral bands located almost exclusively MWIR-LWIR spectrum (say, 2.5 to 20 microns wavelength) where Earth radiates due to its approximate 210-310 K range of surface temperatures, while at the same time being essentially transparent to the incoming solar spectrum, that is the physical basis for “greenhouse gas warming” of Earth. CO2 freely allows solar energy to reach Earth’s surface in its shorter wavelength spectrum, but absorbs (“blocks”) and then re-radiates back toward Earth’s surface a portion of the MWIR-LWIR radiation from Earth that would otherwise pass directly to space.
The predominate greenhouse gas is water vapor (the molecule H2O). It has far more absorption/re-radiation bands across the MWIR-LWIR portion of EM spectrum, and thus produces far more re-radiation of IR energy (aka “downwelling radiation”) from Earth’s atmosphere onto Earth’s surface.
You also stated: “Nett {sic} heat transfer by radiation is from hot to cold (relative)”. That is actually immaterial to the theory of greenhouse gas warming. It is a simple fact that greenhouse gasses, especially during night time, reduce the amount of energy that Earth would otherwise radiate directly to deep space (at ~3 K). It is also a fact that a cold substance can radiate energy to a relatively warmer substance.
Here is what NOAA has to say on the subject: “The average surface temperature of the Moon, which has no atmosphere, is 0°F (-18°C). By contrast, the average surface temperature of the Earth is 59°F (15°C). This heating effect is called the greenhouse effect.”—source: https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/energy
Contrary to what you state, the scientists at NOAA certainly believe there is such a thing as “greenhouse gases”.
This same NOAA website also shows graphically the daily average earth-atmosphere energy balance. It notes that 23% of the energy arriving from the Sun is immediately absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere and clouds, while at the same time noting that the equivalent of 98% of that arriving energy is radiated from Earth’s atmosphere and clouds down to Earth’s surface. Seems impossible, right? The explanation is two-fold: (1) greenhouse gas re-radiation from the atmosphere and clouds of upwelling surface radiation, and (2) Earth receives incoming solar energy only on a hemisphere, while it radiates over its entire surface (i.e., both day time and night time).
From the article: “But there is a huge difference between believing humans cause global warming, and believing that humans cause significant global warming, or that humans are the ONLY cause of modern era global warming.”
Yes, humans produce CO2, and that CO2 might just lead to cooling rather than warming, after all feedbacks are accounted for.
So if CO2 is causing increased warming that ultimately causes the Earth’s temperatures to cool after feedbacks, then is it correct to say that CO2 causes global warming?
I believe it is Moeller who says a two percent increase in clouds would offset CO2 warming completely.
The science isn’t settled.
“This paper says that forests have been growing much faster in the past few decades.”
Thanks Joseph Z!
Any authentic study/paper on tree growth, shows the exact same thing. We just don’t hear about it very often and almost never from the main sources that tell us what they want us to think about this topic.
Here is irrefutable evidence using empirical data to show that the increase in CO2, by itself is causing a huge increase in crop yields/world food production………all plant growth.
We can separate the CO2 effect out from other factors effecting crops and plants with many thousands of studies that hold everything else constant, except CO2.
Observing and documenting the results of experiments with elevated CO2 levels, tell us what increasing CO2 does to many hundreds of plants.
Here’s how to access the empirical evidence/data from the site that has more of it than any other. Please go to this link:
http://www.co2science.org/data/data.php
Go to plant growth data base:
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
Go to plant dry weight(biomass):
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php
Pick the name of a plant, any plant(or tree) using its starting letter. Let’s pick soybeans. Go to the letter S,
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject_s.php
Then scroll down and hit soybeans. This is what you get:
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/g/glycinem.php
Glycine max (L.) Merr. [Soybean]
This tells us that there were 238 studies with the CO2 elevated by 300 ppm. The mean increase in plant biomass was 48.3% from all those studies.
The individual studies are listed below that.
In the real world, in US soybean fields, yields have doubled in the last 30 years. During that time, CO2 levels have increased by something like 80 parts per million. Global temperatures have also increased by several tenths of a deg. C.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/soyyld.php
The law of photosynthesis has not be repealed:
Sun +H2O +Minerals(from soil) +CO2–COVERTS TO–Sugars(food) +growth +O2
Since CO2 has been a limiting factor on the left side(plants were experiencing CO2 starvation before we rescued them), adding this beneficial gas is boosting the products on the right side. This will continue for CO2 levels up to more than double the current ambient atmospheric levels(for many plants).
The data at the link above for soybeans has been updated and I had not updated it on my computer in the last year. I apologize:
As of September 6, 2020:
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/g/glycinem.php
Glycine max (L.) Merr. [Soybean]
This tells us that there were 290 studies with the CO2 elevated by 300 ppm. The mean increase in plant biomass was 47.9% from all those studies.