Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 13 July 2021
Dr. Judith Curry has treated the world to a marvelous 5-minute synopsis of climate science on her blog Climate Etc. It is absolutely brilliant and makes a great bit to share with friends, family, neighbors and colleagues who would benefit from a more pragmatic view of the Climate Science field.
With her permission, I share it here — just the synopsis without her introduction.
“Let me start with a quick summary of what is referred to as the ‘climate crisis:’
Its warming. The warming is caused by us. Warming is dangerous. We need to urgently transition to renewable energy to stop the warming. Once we do that, sea level rise will stop and the weather won’t be so extreme.
So what’s wrong with this narrative? In a nutshell, we’ve vastly oversimplified both the problem and its solutions. The complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity of the existing knowledge about climate change is being kept away from the policy and public debate. The solutions that have been proposed are technologically and politically infeasible on a global scale.
Specifically with regards to climate science. The sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide has a factor of three uncertainty. Climate model predictions of alarming impacts for the 21st century are driven by an emissions scenario, RCP8.5, that is highly implausible. Climate model predictions neglect scenarios of natural climate variability, which dominate regional climate variability on interannual to multidecadal time scales. And finally, emissions reductions will do little to improve the climate of the 21st century; if you believe the climate models, most of the impacts of emissions reductions will be felt in the 22nd century and beyond.
Whether or not warming is ‘dangerous‘ is an issue of values, about which science has nothing to say. According to the IPCC, there is not yet evidence of changes in the global frequency or intensity of hurricanes, droughts, floods or wildfires. In the U.S., the states with by far the largest population growth are Florida and Texas, which are warm, southern states. Property along the coast is skyrocketing in value. Personal preference and market value do not yet regard global warming as ‘dangerous.’
Climate change is a grand narrative in which manmade climate change has become the dominant cause of societal problems. Everything that goes wrong reinforces the conviction that that there is only one thing we can do prevent societal problems – stop burning fossil fuels. This grand narrative misleads us to think that if we solve the problem of manmade climate change, then these other problems would also be solved. This belief leads us away from a deeper investigation of the true causes of these problems. The end result is narrowing of the viewpoints and policy options that we are willing to consider in dealing with complex issues such as public health, water resources, weather disasters and national security.
Does all this mean we should do nothing about climate change? No. We should work to minimize our impact on the planet, which isn’t simple for a planet with 7 billion inhabitants. We should work to minimize air and water pollution. From time immemorial, humans have adapted to climate change. Whether or not we manage to drastically curtail our carbon dioxide emissions in the coming decades, we need to reduce our vulnerability to extreme weather and climate events.
With regards to energy. All other things being equal, everyone would prefer clean over dirty energy. However, all other things are not equal. We need secure, reliable, and economic energy systems for all countries in the world. This includes Africa, which is currently lacking grid electricity in many countries. We need a 21st century infrastructure for our electricity and transportation systems, to support continued and growing prosperity. The urgency of rushing to implement 20th century renewable technologies risks wasting resources on an inadequate energy infrastructure and increasing our vulnerability to weather and climate extremes.
How the climate of the 21st century will play out is a topic of deep uncertainty. Once natural climate variability is accounted for, it may turn out to be relatively benign. Or we may be faced with unanticipated surprises. We need to increase our resiliency to whatever the future climate presents us with. We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we sacrifice economic prosperity and overall societal resilience on the altar of urgently transitioning to 20th century renewable energy technologies.
We need to remind ourselves that addressing climate change isn’t an end in itself, and that climate change is not the only problem that the world is facing. The objective should be to improve human well being in the 21st century, while protecting the environment as much as we can.”
I couldn’t agree more. I might adjust a few details but would share this with anyone who wanted a straight shooting from the hip version of the climate situation.
Thank you, Dr. Curry.
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Yeah! We don’t know how big the problem is, or how to solve it if it does exist, but appropriate vast sums anyway!
Global cooling started circa 2007 at the end of strong SC23 but just for a few years, PDO went negative (cold mode) for these few years, there were many extreme cold events, and then PDO rebounded positive.
Global cooling again started Feb2020 at the end of weak SC24, as we correctly predicted in 2002. Global avg UAHLT dropped 0.6C in the last 16 months to June 2020.
It is obvious that increasing atmospheric CO2 plays NO significant role in global temperature – that was fraud – it’s ALL water vapor, driven by solar activity.
Alleged fossil-fuel-driven Climate Crisis Cancelled – total false nonsense – a fifty-year-old pack of lies.
New climate crisis – solar-driven global cooling has already started – hundreds of new extreme-cold events all over the planet – crop failures. vital energy systems compromised by green energy scams… See Electroverse.net for hundreds of record-cold events.
How long global cooling lasts is estimated by some to extend to ~2050 – and humanity suffers greatly during cold periods.
Next steps:
Imprison the warmist fraudsters and adapt quickly to the new reality.
Quickly repair the damage to energy systems and bundle up!
_______________
Told you so – 19 years ago:
Our 2002 Predictions – #1 and 2 were easy.
Prediction #3 for global cooling to start by ~2020 was more difficult – and also correct.
See Electroverse.net for hundreds of record-cold events all over the planet. Bundle up – it’s getting colder out there.
In 2002, co-authors Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton U, Ottawa and Allan MacRae, P.Eng. (now retired), McGill, Queens, U of Alberta, published:
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Allan MacRae published in the Calgary Herald on September 1, 2002, based on communication with Dr Tim Patterson:
3. “If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
MacRae updated his global cooling prediction in 2013, based on cold events that occurred starting circa 2008 near the end of Solar Cycle 23:
3a. “I suggest global cooling starts by 2020 or sooner. Bundle up.”
________________
Yep, whatever CO2 effect is there is lost in the noise of weather.
Water, in all it’s states is the control knob of climate and it is out of our hands.
Judith Curry makes a pretty good job of it in such a short time. The one big failing IMO, is that she failed to challenge the “clean” energy lie as it is usually used to mean low CO2.
Yes, I’m all for “clean energy” too but that has NOTHING to do with an odourless, tasteless, invisible trace gas which is totally non toxic at any level we are conceivably going to encounter.
Saying “everyone would prefer clean over dirty energy. However ….” is tacitly accepting the whole anti-carbon diatribe. An unfortunate and unnecessary concession.
Saying “everyone would prefer clean over dirty energy. However ….” is tacitly accepting the whole anti-carbon diatribe. An unfortunate and unnecessary concession.
Perhaps she was referring to real pollution, not CO2.
We must fix it. Send money.
Speaking as an OBE [over bloody eighty] the climate today has never been better, my farm has never been greener, sea levels at our old sea-front house are lower today than they were in 1946 and whether this is down to natural climate variability or climate crisis, I’m afraid I couldn’t say but it’s OK.
spangled drongo ==> Share which country and state you live in?
Kip, Queensland, Australia.
The official mean sea levels on the east coast show the latest reading as 2 inches lower than the first reading 107 years earlier.
Not much climate crisis here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
Good luck tonight with the state of origin spangled drongo , it will be hard to roll the blues for their 3 nill series win.
The problem with all science institutions at the moment is their all threatened by the truth. Graham Hancock explains it pretty well in this short video.They Feel So Threatened By The Truth | Graham Hancock – YouTube
Yes, the scientists are scared stiff that they will lose their funding if they don’t say what the politicians want.
The main problem we have is that there is no political party in the UK which does not subscribe to the CAGW meme, so who can we vote for to bring a bit of sense back into the discussion?
I hear you Stephen, It’s crazy how our lives are controlled and manipulated by PENCE and CENTS, instead of sense, some where along the line we’ve got wealthy and worthy mixed up. The only way to create change is to stop doing what were been doing first. But people are scared of change and the pence and cents aren’t going to give up the stranglehold on our everyday lives. One thing I do know IS you can’t trust a system that locks up whistle blowers like Julian Assange or Dr Judy Mikovits,
It is hard to believe how these so-called scientists can hide from the real world the way they do.
Football players can’t, why should scientists?
I think you should change your name to spangled emperor. Hey Stephen It’s a shame you cant put an old head on young shoulders, who was it that said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
jmorpuss,
On the State of Origin Football,I follow Eddie Maguire’s advice on all football-
“Never fall in love with a football team.The Highs are too few and the Lows are too low!”
These ‘committed’ scientists have much more than ever to be afraid of on more than one front in the climate industry. Six years and counting of serious cooling that could raise the spectre of becoming an extension of the Dreaded Pause that stressed them out for 18+years while CO2 marched briskly on, leaving T behind and actually led to the career- ending “Climate Blues” clinical depression for many.
The second gut wrenching fear is the virtual certainty of CO2 accelerating in the atmosphere and surpassing 600ppm before 2100. Five billion non-Western folk are pushing for prosperity using coal power. Over 4000 new coal power plants, many completed, under construction or on the drawing board for completion in the next several years. These folk will not stop this development as some, like Bangladesh, are now enjoying 15%+ annual GDP growth and their fertility rate has dropped from 6 children to just under 2 in 6yrs!!
Climatly scientists are head in the sand over this. We are going to do the big CO2 experiment and we are going to know ECS to several decimal places. Their 100% failure rate on projections and calamities has added to niggling worries that CO2 is perhaps benign (Great Greening ^тм, bumper crops and greatly expanded natural habitat) and there is a good chance that we will meet the Paris Accord without doing anything. After all, 1.5°C is just double what we got in the last hundred years.
They know they will have laid at their feet the trillions wasted and lost opportunities, the unnecessary idiocy of renewables, and millions of deaths from induced poverty around the world including those in the Western world.
Really? No wildfires in Queensland rain forest now? No tropical cyclones affecting you?
Omg griff, you’re right of course. Fires and cyclones are unprecedented and currently decimating Australia. Is anyone still left?
So, in which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
Haven’t had a serious cyclone here since the 1970s and provided they let me strike a match to cool-burn the extra fuel load from authorities not doing doing their job, wildfires are no different from what they have ever been.
I’m guessing that your troll handbook didn’t include these facts, but there have always been wildfires and cyclones in Australia. There is nothing unusual about the size or intensity of the recent ones.
Yeah, tell him Griff!
Spangled from another OBE. That drop in sealevel might be tied to cooling. Our spring and summer temperatures Canada this year and in the east have been cooler than average by most often over -5 to -10°C. We had frost in early June at night in Ontario east. I’ve called it the “year without summer”. We virtually always have some 31-33C days in June and July. It warmed up to 25-27 after mid July from a cold first half of the month. Same in east half of US and in Europe.
Yes Gary, and in the SH, that the Pacific is not rising is supported by the fact that atolls are increasing more than decreasing in area, too.
There obviously must be net land ice gain from more cooling than warming.
Middle of France. Midday temp 17.3°C. This is the lowest midday temperature for any day in July since we moved here 11 years ago. MeteoFrance are quoting it as 11 degrees below the “normal” figure for July. Rainfall for the week so far 115mm, the highest figure for any July week since we started measuring it four years ago.
Plum and pear crop totally wiped out by late Spring frost.
Now I know all this is weather and I know 11 years is close to irrelevant but to my way of thinking that level of rainfall (and most of Eastern France is under at least a yellow alert for heavy rain or raised river levels) suggests a cooling atmosphere not a warming one. The general consensus locally is that, to date, this has been the worst April-July in living memory.
Whatever the climate experts (and griff) like to claim!
Dr Curry could have added that Earth has been in geologic Icehouse conditions for the last 2.5 million years, there’s no reason to believe that is changing soon, and relatively warm periods in the past 12,000 years have all been highly beneficial to the human race
Great, spot-on summary of the uncertain science
The change in the past hasn’t been as rapid, nor were there as many people of a technical civilisation living in densely packed cities along sea coasts.
I think the historic droughts in the US mid west displaced the native American populations there, the Mayans and residents of the S American W coast certainly had civiliations ended by climate change.
griff
Three millimeters per year rise. Going on 175 years. Despite data manipulation, not actually accelerating. Slight multi-decadal fluctuations in rate, nothing more. The Netherlands largely below sea level yet not yet annexed by Doggerland.
You reference natural climate change in western US from eight or nine centuries ago. It does illustrate that subsistence farming in an arid climate is not preferable to having technology and abundant affordable energy from fossil fuels.
So, in which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
1) The actual evidence shows that climate has changed much more rapidly than at present many times in the past.
2) As your example of they Maya, etc. shows, climate is quite capable of changing without the help of man. You have yet to demonstrate that any of the recent changes aren’t completely natural in nature.
3) The drought that ended the Anasazi culture was much more intense than anything experienced in recent decades and lasted for over a century.
“I think the historic droughts in the US mid west displaced the native American populations there, the Mayans and residents of the S American W coast certainly had civiliations ended by climate change.”
Yes, *natural* climate change did that, Griff. No CO2 involved.
Keep that in mind the next time you try to claim a drought in California is being caused by CO2. California has had longer and deeper droughts in the past, absent CO2, than they have had since California became a State.
Droughts and wildfires are normal parts of the climate picture in California. There’s nothing unusual there. Nothing CO2 related. That’s according to the IPCC, Griff.
From Encyclopedia Brittanica about Young Dryas “In this second warming interval, average global temperatures increased by up to 10 °C (18 °F) in just a few decades.”
So your first sentence is way wrong as far as rapidity.
Thank you. Sounds like “griff” needs the admonition: You’re entitled to your own opinion, just not your own facts.
Since those events happened hundreds if not thousands of years ago, it is clearly not a CO2 problem.
“The change in the past hasn’t been as rapid”. Oh yeah? From 20,000 years BP to 6000 years BP, sea level rose about 130 metres, or about a metre per century. I.e. about 5 times faster than the 17cm this century. So if you haven’t done that bit of basic geological research you’re either lazy or stupid. Take your pick.
“The change in the past hasn’t been as rapid…”
Wrong.
Just, plain, flat-out…wrong.
“…nor were there as many people of a technical civilisation living in densely packed cities along sea coasts.”
Yeah, and so what does that prove?
Why are so many people choosing to live at coastlines?
There are many more of us in every type of place than ever before.
We have tens of millions crowded into deserts.
And along rivers.
And were these places coastlines and deserts and rivers before people moved there, or have they only since them becoming massively populated, did they acquire their distinctive characteristics?
Whatever the reason or reasons may be for people choosing to live in such places, does that mean we have magically acquired the ability to control the weather of a planet?
We cannot control the weather of a single inch of the Earth for even a single minute.
What delusion makes you think we can control the long term averages of weather over an entire planet?
What gives you the ridiculous idea that human beings have the ability to decide what sea level will be?
Griff is immune against common sense
How do you justify the “hasn’t been as rapid” assessment? Any reconstruction has a temporal limit which precludes judging how “quickly” something happened.
“Whether or not warming is ‘dangerous‘ is an issue of values, about which science has nothing to say.”
That statement is not true. Danger, or hazard, or risk, is a subject much studied by medical doctors, actuaries, economists, engineers, and other scientists and scientific disciplines. Science and/or The Science has a huge amount to say about risk. “Values” are also much studied, as in cost/benefit analyses, appraisal, budgeting, and other research.
I get what Dr. Curry is trying to say. She clarifies somewhat in the rest of that paragraph. The IPCC, that bastion of The Science, cannot find a “robust” predictor of certain hazards, and the Market appears to dismissive of climate alarmist dire forecasts — the most vocal alarmist leaders all own beach front property, for instance.
But science does have a role in assessing risk. The problem is that excessively politicized agenda-driven fake science has made unsupportable — indeed false — claims or “findings” regarding climate “change” risk. It’s bad science, junk science, not science intruding where it does not belong.
The climate has changed continuously during the whole of human history (and prehistory for that matter). It’s not a new thing. It’s not something recently discovered. Humanity has learned and adapted continuously since we rose up on our hind legs. It’s not a new challenge. It’s not even a difficult challenge given that people have lived, survived, and thrived in every conceivable climate the Earth has to offer.
The risk posed by potential climate “change” can be measured. It is nil. There is zero cost to a warming world. There is no problem — there are only benefits and marketing opportunities.
You say there is no risk when large chunks of the USA are burning and in drought and seeing heatwaves.
which ARE climate change.
Griff, you still don’t know the difference between weather and climate. Or perhaps you don’t want to know.
Grifter doesn’t know it’s arse from it’s elbow.
He can only do what the Guardian tells him to as they are the fount of all knowledge and only speak The Truth in his World.
Are you sure that you’re not being paid by Anthony Watts to discredit the alarmist viewpoint? If not, he’s getting a free ride.
In which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
I’ve often wondered if Griff posts here to get rational responses to his inane comments. A paid skeptic shill?
You have yet to demonstrate that these fires and droughts, which are well within the range of normal, are the result of CO2 and not nature.
Droughts are a regular feature of California’s climate. How is that climate change? If they stopped having droughts, then *that* would be a climate change.
The IPCC says none of it is caused by human-derived CO2, which refutes your claims that the droughts and burning and heatwaves are caused by human-derived CO2.
You need to study “the science”, Griff. Let the IPCC be your guide.
Wrong.
Since these events have always been a fact of life in the places having them, it is not climate change, it is in fact climate same.
A warmer world is a wetter world.
And CO2 puts out fires, it cannot cause them.
But obviously we need a lot more of it.
Weather Griff, weather!
I’m sure everyone here has seen this except you, Griffey… blob:https://wattsupwiththat.com/5dc1e11d-0684-49b9-98e8-185957c133a8
Griff, as pointed out in the Curry synopsis, even the highly politicized IPCC hasn’t found any evidence of increased droughts or wildfires. And as a related post forcefully points out, the recent heat waves were primarily a weather event, not evidence of climate change. Are you trying to argue that the IPCC is wrong?
“That statement is not true. Danger, or hazard, or risk, is a subject much studied by medical doctors, actuaries, economists, engineers, and other scientists and scientific disciplines. Science and/or The Science has a huge amount to say about risk. “Values” are also much studied, as in cost/benefit analyses, appraisal, budgeting, and other research.”
I do believe you are in error here. The fact that there have been publications that both address scientific matters and assess value impacts does not mean science has anything to say about values. It patently does not, and there are good reasons for it.
Science is the search for Truth. I use the capital letter “T” to indicate that the goal is to find the explanation for it all. In Einsteins words, it is the search for the simple underlying principles that will lead to understanding everything by pure deduction. It is not achievable, but it is the goal non the less.
The Truth is also what is to be known regardless of the prevailing values, ethics and morals. It is not the “good” truth, the “economically best” truth, the “humane” truth. It is plain and simple Truth.
This is the main reason you need training to try yourself at science. Most of us have what is known as human traits and will fall into the pit of trying to describe truths rather than Truth. Even with training most do.
Risk, danger and hazard are not scientific disciplines. They are engineering disciplines.
Cost/benefit, appraisal, budgeting are not scientific disciplines. They are economic and engineering disciplines.
Values are, by definition, outside the realm of science. One of the main problems we struggle with today is that somehow a lot of “scientists” do not like this and want science to include values. They encounter all sorts of problems when they try to mix the two, but have so far been able to suppress the all to apparent shortcomings that follow. This will change in the future, since time is on the side of science. The question is how much damage is done before the tide turns?
Mike,
When I first saw the statement:
My initial reaction was the same as yours. I spent my entire career studying risk, and her statement sounded like she was dismissing those contributions. However, I thought about it a little more and while I won’t pretend to speak for Judith, I have some thoughts on the point she was trying to make. If it can be proven that man-made CO2 contributes to changes in climate, that will be a net cost to some groups of people and a net benefit to others. For example, a higher sea level might displace some people, while others will benefit from higher crop yields. Those groups of people are not likely to be the same groups, so society might ask whether those who benefit have a moral obligation to help those who bear the costs. Answering the narrow question is a question of values, about which scientists have little to contribute, but if the societal consensus is “yes”, scientists will be in a position to calculate the costs and benefits. I saw Curry’s response as speaking to the narrow question.
Unfortunately, this gets heavily wrapped up in politics. One of the classic examples is islands asking for reparations due to rising seas while not being able to point at actual evidence of harm.
“The objective should be to improve human well being in the 21st century, while protecting the environment as much as we can.”
Isn’t climate change its goals all about “environment ” climate and the environment are both inextricably linked according to governments and environmentalists, are not climate measures ,laws ,regulations ,essentially the same as so called environmental measures “ban co2 producing cars to save the climate “you also save the environment, heavily regulate farming less meat = less ch4 (another so called climate bad gas) reduce farm land rewild .
All measure for climate and environmental protection are inextricably linked there not about climate there not about the environment there about control you agree with one eg the environment you agree with the narrative of climate change. Both have been inextricably linked by propaganda, government policy and activism. Environmental policy is another chapter out of the climate bible .
It is not at all clear that “climate” policies and “environmentalist” policies are identical, or even compatible. (See: Planet of the Humans”) I know of no environmentalist who would prefer clearcut hills to forests (biofuels), or hundreds of acres of solar panels or hundreds of thousands of acres of “wind farms” to tens of acres of power plants with much shorter power lines. There’s even the struggle between hydropower lakes and the loss of valley farmland.
I surgest you read my post again, what part of banning cars do you not understand being inextricably linked to climate and environmentalism, what part of governments legislating in the name of climate and the environment do you not understand.
You yourself have just given a example of climate and environmental legislation go hand in hand “know of no environmentalist who would prefer clearcut hills to forests (biofuels), “. Of course you don’t every government in the world is planting trees to offset co2 (climate) and to clean the air ,rewild and wooded spaces for piece of mind.the two reasons are inextricably linked by governments through mandates, as for biofuel, not for people nearly every country i know of are banning the use of wood for domestic heating ,
You really need to understand climate and environmental legislation are inextricably linked.
“There’s even the struggle between hydropower lakes and the loss of valley farmland.”
Ridiculous.
Dams prevent floods, and also alleviate the effects of droughts.
Every lake created by a hydropower dam provides irrigation for vastly more arable acreage than is lost by the creation of the lake.
Every part of this assertion is false.
The struggle is between ridiculous jackasses and sane people.
Between the ignorant and the educated.
Between sensible and senseless.
Between smart and stupid.
Lets turn the CO2 into good paying full time jobs and money. Waste is Not Waste if It Has A Purpose. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo
Hmmmm …
Yes, and let’s break all the windows everywhere across the land. Think of the high-paying jobs for glaziers and glass factory workers!
Then burn down the cities. That will provide millions of high-paying jobs for construction workers.
Wasting most of the energy content in coal sounds like a great plan, too.
There you go pimping your get rich quick scheme again.
Have you no integrity?
Carbon Dioxide does have a purpose in the atmosphere. It feeds all the plants and animals that humans need to survive.
I could only give you 1 up-vote, so here’s 32768 more!
32768 – Love it Paul. Now do it in binary.
And Marketing EV’s to the masses is . . .?
In that case would you suggest hiring people to break windows so we can create more window repair jobs. Regarding video does it return more to soil then it removes? If not then it will require more fertilizer to replenish soil. Waste vegetation is often used to feed animals thus it already has a purpose. Those animals feed millions. Which poor countries do you suggest that we starve so we can create “clean” jobs?
Good paying full-time jobs: Have unionized government employees use spoons to fill in cold-related roadway potholes.
From the linked post:
Okay then. So she’s on a panel with some renewable energy experts and she has this to say:
And then she elaborates a bit:
I would love to know how the other panel members (all folks involved in renewable energy) responded to that. Holy cat among the pigeons Batman.
Everyone else will have started with the assumption that renewable energy is nothing but good. I’m guessing that they’re not used to having that assumption challenged.
I wish I’d been there.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail….
More like when you really desperately want to use your wrecking ball (stop burning fossil fuels to dismantle capitalism), every problem looks like a decrepit house.
And when every thought one has is an insane delusion, the truth sounds like the ravings of a lunatic.
That is where we are today vis-a-vis the alarmistas.
The Market ensures that a truly transformational technology supersedes older technology remarkably rapidly (who remembers electric typewriters today?) If Renewable Energy were even half as good as its promoters assert, it would have replaced every single thermal or nuclear power station in the World by now.
Well it is over the 40% mark for electricity generation and rising in multiple European countries…
Griff, all that demonstrates is the insane level of subsidies that renewable energy currently receives in Europe.
Which afternoon was that now?
In which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
Think you need quotes around, and a “supposedly” before, “Dangerous.” Other than that, spot on!
Yes, I suppose you’re correct, but I need each choice to fit on one line even when viewed on a phone. So it’s limited in the number of characters. Think of it as accepting the griffster’s premise for the sake of argument.
Invariably he’s telling us that CO2 is causing some horrific damage here and now. But he knows that he’s infinitely better off than he would be in the depths of the Little Ice Age. So he can never answer this.
Russia is building a second gas pipeline( Nord Stream 2) into Europe via Germany, the first runs through the Ukraine. Why do you think that is happening? The short answer is Germany has stuffed up their energy supply -windmills just don’t cut it and they now have put themselves in the invidious position of becoming dependant on Russia for energy. A few years ago the Ukraine and Russia had a falling out over costs, so Russia turned the gas off in the middle of winter with disastrous consequences for many Ukrainians.
I wonder how long it will be until the Russian ambassador starts advising the EU, that unless they want the gas cut off, they had better start changing their policies.
Too late,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57833807
From your link:
There’s a low carbon jet fuel? 😉
Fools and their freedom are soon parted.
I see griff is still trying to pretend that faceplate power is what renewables actually produce.
Faceplant power?
A bird killing windmill rated at 5 KWH for example the faceplate rating is the 5 KWH actual production is in the range of less than 10% of that number.
Griff, you need to start getting your facts straight. Is that you giggleteets?
Where do you get the 40% figure from?
According to Wind Europe’s ‘ 2020 Statistics and the outlook for 2021-2025’
“wind energy met 16.4% of demand across EU and UK” in 2020.
Oh, and your favourite Germany “saw the worst year for installations since 2010.”
And yet it has not led to any reductions in CO2 production, and has only raised prices for power through the roof for tens of millions of people, plunging formerly prosperous individuals into energy poverty.
Great first act.
The encore is bound to leave ’em dead.
If solar panels were truly economically more sensible than coal plants, why on earth would China ever export a solar panel? (In case you were wondering, yes I understand Ricardo’s concept of comparative advantage, but that would apply only if China were producing more panels than they could consume, which is not the case.)
Holy cat among the pigeons Batman. Oh, that’s good!
That’s how most alarmist arguments go-start with a false premise and make the other side refute it. Don’t play that game-make then prove their premise first
The CAGW narrative sadly demonstrates the degree to which science can be corrupted by the greed for money and power needed to drive activist agendas in politics and environmentalism and enhance the health one’s bank account. The scope and longevity of it was made possible by silencing scientists in academia and elsewhere with threats to their careers and pocketbooks if they were to speak out in agreement with Dr Curry’s assessment posted above.
Politicians and the media with a leftist bent and with little or no understanding of how scientific discourse works are of the mindset that leads them to readily accept this scare narrative regardless of the serious problems with it (if they are even aware of them). It provides confirmation bias for their existing beliefs as regards the evils of humanity and fossil fuels in sympathy with environmentalism.
Others have said that this could go down in human history as one of the most massive frauds we have ever seen, and I do not argue with that. The huge amounts of money, time and effort poured into it can lead one to that conclusion. Viewed as a religion, its longevity is probably not
surprising as cults generally do not tolerate dissent if the cult’s existence is threaten by it.
I don’t know if I will live long enough to ever see this end, but I pray that I will.
Yep. When future generations look back, Tulip Mania will have been replaced by Global Warming as an example of human folly.
When the democrats achieve one party rule it will end and be forgotten. Who was that dingbat character on Saturday Night Live who’s shtick was to say, “Never mind”
Emily Latella
Aka Gilda Radner
What’s all this I hear about…
Violins on television
Soviet jewelry
Youth in Asia
Glow bull-warming?
That’s funny. I remember each of those skits – back when SNL was funny.
And all classics. There is no good comedy anymore; if you are funny, you get cancelled. Humor is no longer allowed. You know your country is in trouble when they start killing the clowns.
Correction…….IT WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS ONE OF THE GREATEST FRAUDS WE HAVE EVER SEEN.
Hmmm… who, exactly, is getting all the money in climate change? Scientists are not well paid…
there are multiple centrist and right govts in Europe who accept the science of climate change and who back climate action. It is not a ‘leftist plot’, is it?
Griff, I accept the science of climate change and I am a sceptic of the religious cult of catastrophic man made global warming because it has zero scientific support.
The blind squirrel finds a nut.
The climate scam has parasites who are not all unwashed loons of the Left. Thinking of large corporations that sell both windmills and the gas turbines needed to back them up as an example.
Whether there’s a leftist plot or not, there’s also a multitude of others who are responding rationally to the economic incentives facing them.
Climastrology “scientists” don’t all get paid like the execrable Michael Mann, but they all depend on whatever salary they are getting. And they all know what the “right answer” is. Does the McDonalds burger flipper tell each customer that this food is killing them? No, they either shut up about it to keep their crappy job, or they are clueless, so there’s no conflict for them.
Congratulations though griff, you almost got one right.
In which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
Griff seems to have forgot about folks like Jagadish Shukla. His fraudulent activities were covered on WUWT. Did you forget?
https://climateaudit.org/2015/09/28/shuklas-gold/
Some scientists aren’t well paid. But most of the leaders of the AGW cult live in very nice houses. Houses that can be afforded on even an average salary.
Only in Europe can a socialist be considered a centrist, and someone who like socialism, but just wants to scale it back a little, be considered far right.
There are no “right” and barely any “centrist” governments (only Hungary maybe though that’s also been called “Populist” which is just another word for Leftist-Collectivist) in Europe any more.
Griffy-poo:
“Hmmm… who, exactly, is getting all the money in climate change? Scientists are not well paid…”
I admit I do not have any numbers readily at hand. But the climate modelers swear by the scientific soundness of their models, and the whole CAGW foundation is rooted in those models (among other things). The modelers’ careers, prestige and paychecks depend on people believing them and their models. The institutions they work for have no doubt benefited financially from govt funds that have been spent chasing after the CAGW narrative, and that is the incentive to silence the dissenters.
“there are multiple centrist and right govts in Europe who accept the science of climate change and who back climate action. It is not a ‘leftist plot’, is it?”
Politicians are not scientists Griffy-poo….did no one tell you that? If they believe it is in their political interest to hop on the alarmist bandwagon, they will certainly do it. Their scientific illiteracy precludes them from doing anything else. The CAGW narrative has become (as much as anything else) a good vs. evil crusade against fossil fuels, and any such crusade is seen by politicians as a great bandwagon to hop on for votes and political support. It does not matter if the alarmist science is sound or not….that is beside the point. You apparently do not understand politicians very well.
To some degree, the good vs. evil nature of the alarmist narrative precludes CAGW from being about the science of the Earth’s climate. Good must defeat evil (fossil fuels), so the science that shoots down CAGW is to be silenced, discredited and ignored. Griffy-poo, CAGW has all the elements it needs to succeed regardless of the serious scientific issues with it.
You will not accept the problems with CAGW (that have been well documented here) because, as I said above, CAGW provides confirmation bias for your existing beliefs about fossil fuels, the companies that produce them, and so-called “green energy”. For you, the confirmation bias is all that matters Griff. That type of thinking is religion Griff, not science. You remain unable to understand that, and that is why you are at odds with all the excellent scientist/commenters here at WUWT who continue to peck away the the faultiness of CAGW.
Other trolls here (like Loydo) have the same problem I suspect.
“Hmmm… who, exactly, is getting all the money in climate change? Scientists are not well paid”
Some are, some are not, but all of them *are* paid. As long as they go along with the climate change program. See how that works?
Griffy-poo is like “Nowhere Man”:
He’s as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Good one, Bruce.
Or maybe the Boxer:
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest – Paul Simon
Money for nothing Griff! Too many of them sucking at taxpayers teat and producing useless research. Why? Because that’s where the funding is. And funds are distributed by people with delusions of grandeur
Have you checked out Al Gore’s house? A lifetime in government service yet manages to own mansions.
“Physical scientists (all other) had a median annual salary of $107,210. What they do, according to O*NET: This job category includes geologists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists, and astronomers. Jun 1, 2021″ And it doesn’t include pension, life and health insurance and other non-pay benefits and other perks, like sabbaticals, free transportation and meals, vacations at exotic resorts to attend “conferences,” etc.
Do you have any idea how many PhDs and Candidates, University income streams, government (and NGO) bureaucracies, tax collectors, and all the hangers on would lose everything if this all stopped? This starts to look like a LOT of money! Not necessarily leftist at it’s core, but the political side is decidedly so. It’s like one of the biggest jobs programs scam in history. C’mon man, the thing!
At this point I think we should consider banning Griff. The inanity is becoming overwhelming and even if we’re using him as the “straight man” in these discussions, the fact that he never responds, unlike our other trolls has become tiresome.
Dr. Curry is the most reasonable voice in climate science. We could use more like her and fewer who are seeminy driven by politics and the need for funding their climate change proposals.
Dr Curry’s opinions are political opinions…
she herself has recognised that by moving from research to a political stance
Griff, so anybody who disagrees with you is not a scientist. You seem to live in a little bubble with people who have the same views as yourself. What exactly is your occupation?
Professional troll? Macedonian content farmer?
griff is stupid enough to believe that ‘global warming’ is about science and not that the whole thing is political right from the start via Maurice Strong. He will deny that the UN have confirmed this from their own mouths and it is well documented, because it would never feature in the Guardian.
griff’s occupation? You just read it.
Griiff is a bot hence his having failed the Turing test multiple times.
That reminds me, have you apologized to Dr. Crawford yet? For declaring that she knows nothing about polar bears.
For those here interested in observational-type science, here is textbook example of progressive projection. Going back to Hansen, Clisci’s have used politics and political tactics, pushing scientists like J. Curry out of her research position. They know these tactics are considered wrong by actual scientists, but the team used them for a great cause. When J Curry responds by identifying these tactics as wrong, she is “politicizing”, which is wrong. That’s how we know griff knows it’s wrong, and he knew that for the past fifty years but said nothing while progressives “politicized” it. What I find singularly disgusting about this one is, he knows J Curry didn’t “leave”, she was pushed out. Presenting it as her “choice” is really quite loathsome.
Griff,
Your opinions are the incoherent babbling of a jackass.
See what I did there?
I said something demonstrably true.
You ought to try it sometime.
Ho … Ho … Ho! Dr. Curry moved from a politicized academic culture to her own private business to continue with real science.
“Systemic racism” works too.
Dr. Curry’s article will never be shared in the mainstream establishment media.
No scary clickbait headlines, no ranting, too much rationality.
(I secretly suspect, however, that her position on manmade climate change has a lot more “silent majority” supporters than the political opinion polls report)
Climate change is a grand narrative in which manmade climate change has become the dominant cause of societal problems.
For the record, I would like it to be known, that as a man, I do not take this attribution personally, and if I were a woman, feel left out. In fact, I find it refreshing that normal people, most people, do not indulge color judgments.
We need to remind ourselves that addressing climate change isn’t an end in itself, and that climate change is not the only problem that the world is facing. The objective should be to improve human well being in the 21st century, while protecting the environment as much as we can.
Risk management in a world that too often avoids conservative philosophy and practices, science, and religion (e.g. morality, ethics, law), and bends to extremism.
Cold weather is racist, colonialist, imperialist, the LIA lead to massive waves of emigration from Europe.
Warm weather means times of plenty, less starvation means less migration.
The last time we had “climate refugees” was in the LIA, the modern world is the result.
Fight the cold, emit CO2, the opposite of racism
riiiight… nobody ever migrates because of drought and cyclones/hurricanes…
(Guatemalan and Honduran migrants trying to enter the USA recently were driven out by 2 hurricanes in one year, I have heard)
Griff, the only climate refugees that I am aware of are the large number of people who migrate from cold countries to warmer countries when they retire. Understandably, many people want to move from poor countries to rich countries to improve their standard of living. These people are clearly economic migrants, not climate refugees as you have ludicrously attempted to claim.
The states which have added most people in the last ten years are Texas and Florida. The states which have been hit by most hurricanes are Texas and Florida. So migrants are actually flocking towards hurricane prone states, not being displaced by them.
I still griff still suffers from the delusion that anything he reads in the Guardian is proven truth.
“Guatemalan and Honduran migrants trying to enter the USA recently were driven out by 2 hurricanes in one year, I have heard”
That’s ridiculous.
The people are coming to the United States because they see large, personal financial gains in doing so.
At the expense of the American taxpayers. No problem, Biden says.
Oh griff
Obviously the penniless peasants that the demrat party is so keen to import as voters are economic migrants. In your dishonest little heart of hearts, you know that.
In which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1759
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
Griff-they come here because we have income inequality, not to get away from it. Where they come from most make equally nothing. Here there’s at least a chance to make more.
In perfessors they trust-
UTS professor ‘sent herself underwear’ (msn.com)
Climate Voodoo is what the Idiots in Climate Shaman-Science are now practicing.
Chicken bones and rattles, voodoo rituals, sacrifices to the climate gods, all in a claimed attempt to tame the weather.
Like this:…
Here… I’ve obtained exclusive video coverage of Drs Mann, Schmidt, Trenberth, and Santer coordinating their Climate Change message for the average Joe.
Nah that’s not them. They have far too much class to be the aforementioned Drs.
““First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied,
“Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”
Startled by this sobering analysis, I moved on to Professor Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of NCAS at the University of Reading. Professor Sutton said that many scientists are, as of this moment, examining the complex patterns in the North Atlantic, and trying to work out whether the current run of inclement European winters will persist.
When pressed on the particular outlook for the British Isles. Professor Sutton shook his head, moaned eerily unto the heavens, and stuffed his fingers into the entrails of a recently disembowelled chicken, bought fresh from Waitrose in Teignmouth.
Hurling the still-beating heart of the chicken into a shallow copper salver, Professor Sutton inhaled the aroma of burning incense, then told the Telegraph: “The seven towers of Agamemnon tremble. Much is the discord in the latitude of Gemini. When, when cry the sirens of doom and love. Speckly showers on Tuesday.”
It’s a pretty stark analysis, and not without merit.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100222487/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-we-have-to-trust-our-scientists-because-they-know-lots-of-big-scary-words/
See, de hot come go, come go.
That “analysis” was hilarious! 🙂
Looks like a much more useful activity than what laughingly passes for “climate science” these days…
See also
https://wp.me/sTN8Y-postbag
Can’t speak for Noo Zulland but here in Oz we certainly welcome any guilt largesse from you northerners. Yuan dollars yen rupees euros and even bitcoin if you must.
Why do so many people – including ”experts” – continue to conflate the impact of our pollution with our impact on the climate?
Do they even read what they write?
This piece is all very well but is rather disappointing. Skeptic Lite.
We need an attack dog hovering over all the train-wreck claims of the alarmists and the researchers they feed from.
“Does all this mean we should do nothing about climate change? No. We should work to minimize our impact on the planet, which isn’t simple for a planet with 7 billion inhabitants. We should work to minimize air and water pollution.”
Environmentalism – ie minimizing air and water pollution, does not address climate change. Nothing can be done to stop climate change as it is out of our hands.
My summary: –
Climate change / Anthropic global warming is politics not science.
–“Let me start with a quick summary of what is referred to as the ‘climate crisis:’
Its warming. The warming is caused by us. Warming is dangerous. We need to urgently transition to renewable energy to stop the warming. Once we do that, sea level rise will stop and the weather won’t be so extreme.
So what’s wrong with this narrative? —
Everything.
We are living in an Ice Age. 15 C [59 F] is cold.
Don’t set your thermostat for 15 C, it’s too cold.
Most of US is fairly warm, but average temperature is less than 15 C.
The average temperature of Europe is about 9 C, and crazy Europeans imagine they are
too warm. If US average temperature was as cold as Europe, we would have something to
complain about, though the State Alaska average temperature is colder than Europe.
India’s average temperature is about 24 C- and roughly been around this average temperature for thousands of years.
Global warming is largely about warming places like Europe, Europe would be lucky if it’s average temperature was 15 C. And how Europe could possible get average as high as the cold temperature of 15 C is by having much warmer winters. Or since India is in tropics, it doesn’t have winters, it’s wet and dry seasons.
Serious or significant global warming would be if all arctic polar sea ice melted in the summer.
Anyhow we in an interglacial periods and in past interglacial period, in warmer parts of these time period, all polar sea ice melted in the summer. And sea levels rose 4 to 9 meters higher then our present sea levels. Also earlier in present interglacial period, polar sea melted in the summer. This time period is call the Holocene optimal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Our interglacial period is called Holocene. Note is was not called Holocene Disaster and during this period, Sahara desert was grasslands rather than vast dry sands we have currently. And there has kooky ideas that humans were responsible making the Sahara into
a desert, but it was the drier global conditions which made Sahara into a deserts.
Or global warming is wetter world- it has higher global water vapor.
So in Ice Age, in latter part of interglacial period which cooler and drier than in earlier part of
our interglacial period. Or we may have past our interglacial peak.
Everyone knows we going back to the colder and drier part of the Ice Age. We known this for over hundred years, and people were worried that this could happen, soon.
And it didn’t happen soon and may take a few thousands before it happens.
So, not end of world if all polar sea ice melts in the summer, it was predicted it would happen and it didn’t, and it’s possible in might happen within next hundred years- and also possible the Sahara desert might green a lot more than it has.
But unlikely to be as warm as during the Holocene optimal, but if want to spend trillions of dollars, humans might able to make grasslands and forests in Sahara desert. Having forest and arable land instead of sand, would make world a better place.
Looking at one effect of a situation while ignoring all others is not a good way to arrive at the truth. GHG’s do reduce energy loss to space to some degree but they also do some other rather important things. By creating a cold junction at the tropopause which can radiate energy to space they allow the atmosphere to function as a heat engine. That is what creates weather on Earth. More directly, it allows convection and surface evaporation of water which between them (According to NASA earth energy balance diagram) allow 86.4 + 18.4 = 104.8 watts/sqM of surface cooling. Also, by allowing evaporation it allows precipitation and hence clouds which reflect a significant amount of incoming solar energy and thus stop it reaching the surface. Again according to NASA – around 77 watts/sqM. Thus they reduce surface energy balance by 104.8+77= 181.8 watts/sqM. This is hardly a second order effect, more like a primary impact. Without GHG we would have a static atmosphere vertically isothermal and saturated with water vapour. No wind, no clouds, no rain.
Noonday summer temperatures inside a car even in the mid latitudes reach levels which kills children in minutes. They do so because convection and evaporation are prevented. Without GHG’s the entire environment would be like the inside of a closed car. Without GHG’s non daytime temperatures would be 70C-80C and night time temperatures would be like those on the antarctic high plateau. Not quite as extreme as on the moon because the “day” is 24 hours not 28 days and the surface does have some thermal mass but still extreme. So the presence of GHG’s ameliorates temperature extremes (lowering daytime maxima and raising night time minima) making life on Earth possible. In which case, why should a small increase suddenly exacerbate them. Is there a point of inflection wrt to the impact of GHG’s where the impact of change in GHG concentration suddenly reverses? If so why does does such a point of inflexion exist and at what total GHG concentration does it occur? Which side of such a hypothetical point of inflexion are we on?
That was one dull talk
Why do I see clickbait ads on WUWT?
Lately it’s been weird floating articles above an ad, then it was weird floating articles with no ad underneath, just white space. I still have to get aggressive when I log on to cancel the ad sources before they manifest, like the one at the bottom of the page that will totally ruin my experience because it’s my electric company and will force huge ads on the page even if I try to quit them. WUWT is becoming an aerobic sport.
I see a lot of ads for condoms…
Do advertisers know something about Watts readers I don’t?
Griff, those adverts are probably personalised adverts directed specifically to you because of your internet history. A lot of people don’t realise how adverts are targeted on the internet.
Ole Griff is telling us something about himself. 🙂
Griff probably needs a script blocker, too.
Ads are targeted. They know you’re a d#ck…
It shows that we are popular with the ladies?
Mr. griff: Does it make you wonder if there are other things you don’t know about us? “Cause we sure wonder what could make you wonder.
Personalized ads in hopes that you don’t reproduce.
No griff. Google knows something about you that you just told “Watts readers”
If you’re not too busy doing a Toobin Zoom call, maybe you could tell us: in which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
“Why do I see clickbait ads on WUWT?”
You need a script/ad blocker. NoScript for Firefox is what I use.