Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Despite the complete failure of COP26, Russia’s veto of the UN Security Council Climate Resolution, and Senator Manchin killing President Biden’s Green New Deal, Climate Activists at Discover Magazine claim everything is going their way.
Did 2021 Deal a Fatal Blow to Climate-Change Denial?
Data and extreme weather events are making it harder than ever to ignore our warming world. But climate change denial has also taken on a new form.
By Tom Yulsman Dec 22, 2021 3:15 AM
From brutal heat in North America and Siberia to devastating flooding in China and Europe, 2021 delivered worsening climate extremes of the kind long predicted by scientists. Streetcar cables melted in Portland. A raging river swept away entire homes in Germany’s lush Ahr Valley wine region. And wildfires have set records across the globe in the past two years.
For many people, recent disasters have transformed human-caused climate change from a theoretical, far-off risk to an undeniable reality. And this summer, the United Nations dropped a landmark climate report, emphasizing that avoiding even worse impacts will require deep, rapid cuts in greenhouse gas pollution. But does that mean 2021 will be remembered as the year denial of climate change all but died?
At least one renowned environmental scientist believes so. “I think you have seen a seismic shift,” says Jonathon Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit that advances climate solutions. “Most of the conversation now is really more about what we should do, not denying whether or not climate change is happening.”
…
Surveys show rising alarm about climate change. In a 2021 poll by George Mason and Yale universities, 70 percent of Americans surveyed said they were worried about global warming. A similar poll also showed growing bipartisan support for climate action, with 6 in 10 voters voicing support for ambitious climate and clean energy infrastructure legislation.
“I do think our country and world have changed in important ways,” says Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. “We’re now in an inevitable transition to an economy in which we are no longer emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
…
Read more: https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/did-2021-deal-a-fatal-blow-to-climate-change-denial
What can I say – people who see the end of the world in normal weather likely believe a lot of other things as well.
Not a chance.The cult of warmism is over, done, finished.
It is as dead as the Monty Python parrot: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwqnp
No one today speaks of “nuclear winter” or global-cooling.
Indeed. I am reminded of the Black Knight.
If someone has had a right brain stroke, they may deny that their left arm is paralyzed. When you hold it up so they can see it and ask them to move it, they will claim it belongs to the guy in the next bed. link
University education these days trains people to use only their left hemisphere. They develop a disconnect from reality that mimics schizophrenia. They also develop inappropriate optimism like the Black Knight (linked above).
The natural climate deniers are literally not in their right minds and can’t even recognize that they’re wrong.
‘Tis but a scratch!
“link”
So much trash. Waste of reading…
To wit, that article references this piece of crap:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/
And neither Iain McGilchrist (psychologist) nor the author Bharat Azad (journalist) are neuroscientists… or understand any of the findings from neuroscience.
That is simply not true. McGilchrist has done many things that would be considered lifetime achievements for most human beings.
He taught literature at Oxford. The vast majority of people can’t even get into Oxford let alone land a teaching job there.
His curiosity led him to become a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry and neurology. Again, the vast majority of people can’t even get into medical school.
He also became a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
link
Doesn’t sound like a neurosurgeon. That degree and title takes years at school and interning.
The “neurology” likely means neural psychology. A very soft science.
e.g., Stephan Lewandowsky is a cognitive psychologist…
He’s a medical doctor. He’s not a neurosurgeon, but they aren’t actually the ones who know the most about the functioning of the brain. His fellowship at Johns Hopkins was in neuroimaging. As far as I can tell, he knows as much about the functioning of the brain as anyone outside of a select few. His medical degree and title did indeed take years. His research took many more years. His book, ‘The Master and His Emissary’ is often described as groundbreaking. A few liberals who are smart enough to understand the implications might disagree. Otherwise I haven’t seen much criticism by people actually familiar with neurology.
When I was a pup, a degree in psychology had less prestige than an education diploma. When one of my buddies was doing his BEng, he took a psychology elective thinking it would be a ‘bird’ course. They deliberately made the course as hard as possible because they weren’t happy with their reputation. All they managed to do was increase the necessary study time a bit thereby cutting into the engineers’ drinking time. 🙂
The interesting thing about McGilchrist is that he went into medicine after starting a career as a professor at Oxford because he had questions that required that background. There’s nothing ‘soft’ about him or his qualifications.
The truly sad part is that they lock themselves up in their own dungeons, whether it’s a dwelling or their minds, and refuse to see the real world.
They will never enjoy the real world, things like finding a bird in your area that doesn’t normally pass through and getting its photo, or finding a leopard frog cleverly disguising itself as an odd leaf in a pond, because it blends right in with the other leaves.
They will never get a catch in their throats when a squadron – several flocks – of geese and cranes and ducks flies over their heads, on the way south to warmer climes, or north to the marshes and lakes.
They will never ever get a chill when the loons call to each other in the morning mist.
Saddest bunch of nitwits on the planet.
+100
Thank you, commieBob. I will stick to my guns (and my camera) and hope I leave something behind that will emphasize how the real world works.
Some (unknown to me) famous people have said things about that.
You can’t use logic to change someone’s mind when they didn’t come to their current mindset through logic.
You can’t change someone’s mind when their social standing, their pay, their self-esteem all come from maintaining their current mindset.
When you have a tiger by the ears and are are riding its back, you have to keep your courage up by more than whistling. They will keep believing until they are eaten.
When I was young it was one of my favorite magazines but,I stopped reading Discover over a decade ago because they had clearly drunk the Kool-aid by the bucket-load. This latest proclamation just goes to show I made the correct decision all those years ago.
Editor in chief of Discovery magazine is Becky Lang. Editor in chief of Scientific American is Laura Helmuth. Editor in chief of National Geographic is Susan Goldberg. The editor in chief of Popular Science is Corinne Iozzio. See a pattern here? Each of those magazines were my favorite reads while I was growing up. Now they are almost unreadable.
and of all things- a logger magazine, “The Northern Logger” is also managed/edited by a female. She’s doing a sort of OK job but I do notice a softening of attitude in the magazine which I used to like very much because it was edgy and down to Earth and very reality based compared to less than reality based “professional forestry journals” – now it’s moving in the PC direction
I also notice that most of the assistant editors of Scientific American are also females and well more than half of the article’s authors are females. I have nothing against females but this looks like reverse discrimination to me.
Which reminds me- anyone notice that in almost all TV advertisements, the vast majority of the actors are “people of color” and/or gay and/or female? I’m certainly not against any of them- but this is a new trend which I find disturbing. What really amazes me is that I’ve seen nobody mention this.
I’ve mentioned it a few times. Just yesterday, for example.
Most people are afraid to address the issue for fear of being called a racist.
You are correct, the ratio of races shown in tv commercials is definitely skewed to favor minorities. The white people they include are usually portrayed as dumb hicks and are the object of ridicule.
I think the radical Left, which controls all this media, is on a crusade to marginalize white people and change the culture of the United States, and one way they do that is to portray white people as a minority, and the way they do that is to not show many white people in their commercials, or their tv programs, or their leftwing news.
I love conservative minorities on tv, and can’t stand leftwing minorities on tv. And it’s all about the content of their character, not the color of their skin, for me.
If it were truly about character with you, would you have even noticed the change in personnel?
Lame!
The converse applies here if you insist on that standard Gregory. If as you imply, it is racist to notice the ethnicity of actors, then how do you explain why the woke producers think it is necessary to cast non-white actors in numbers far disproportionate from their membership in society? Are they not racist for noticing and preferring to cast ethnic minorities?
Or perhaps you claim that they are not doing that? Just a coincidence, right?
I’ve noticed that it is now to be expected that even in dramas set in periods and locales where the population would have been devoid of non-white inhabitants, the cast often has a higher proportion of non-white actors than the current population of the place.
For an example, last night my wife was watching a modern version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol where Bob Cratchitt’s wife Mary was a Black woman. The show was generally enjoyable but the anachronism is jarring.
I’ve also seen any number of shows where medieval or older tribal folk are portrayed as having diverse races, even though they would have been in reality a monoculture.
In my opinion this sort of mis-casting is counterproductive to the laudable goal that the race of characters should be irrelevant to our view of their character. In a show set in modern or future times, it is fine to cast ethnic minorities in roles they have not often filled in the past in real life. There is no believability gap in that. But when portraying a historical period, I prefer realism.
“The show was generally enjoyable but the anachronism is jarring.”
The recent Anne Boleyn movie had a black Anne. There’s an anachronism – changing the race of a historical figure.
From what I’ve heard, that show isn’t “generally enjoyable”.
All you need to do is watch ‘Black Panther’ to see what is being done … a superior, parallel (fantasy) world hidden from the view of the white oppressor … that could easily destroy us, but remains benign. Intersectionalism has found its way into everything now. By the time they’ve filled out the cast with a representative from every minority group, there’s no room left for the dominant culture. We’re being “educated” so vigorously these days it’s inescapable. Just wait till they introduce the proper quota of from the rainbow/alphabet world into the mix.
How about the musical, “Hamilton”. The following is in Wikipedia:
Commercials today look like they are for the audience in the Republic of Congo. The rare white man is portrayed as a fool or idiot. And modern movies distort history, for ex. “Robin Hood”, there weren’t actually any black people in medieval England.
You’re not wrong. If the advert requires a slightly gormless subject, the white guy often takes that role.
Here’s a beauty that we’re subjected to in NZ (am I allowed to post links?)…
If that doesn’t work, just search YT for “chorus ad”
Generally when I mention the elephant in the room, my post gets ‘mislaid’. I wonder how many female loggers there are. I spent two years ‘in the rigging’ and another 3 in the felling and bucking dept, living in bunkhouses. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t attract many women (though I’m sure the guys would appreciate it).
In my almost 50 years as a forester- I did come across a woman logger working with her husband in eastern NY state. I think she was driving a forwarder- not using a chainsaw to cut timber. Big timber needs big chain saws if you’re cutting by hand and they are dam heavy. Of course some women are strong- but few want that job. But, here in MA, there are now quite a few female foresters- who, get this, get top priority for all forestry jobs in state government! In fact, in MA, females get top priority in all state jobs. The top official, a cabinet level job, is head of the Energy and Environment Agency. A woman of course and her top people now managing the state’s transition to becoming pure of all carbon emissions are 2-3 Asian women. The state of MA is, I suggest, even more PC than CA and NY and any nation on Earth. Extreme reverse discrimination here is now the norm- but you’ll never see this reality mentioned in the MSM- despite MA thinking of itself as the most sophisticated place on Earth with all its universities.
I’m from British Columbia and logged on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlottes. The standard chain saw had a 40 inch bar and we kept a 60″ in the pickup. We regularly see 8′ – 12′ fir, hemlock and spruce. I’ve cut cedar over 20′ at the butt. Sure there are strong, tough women, but as you say, even they aren’t drawn to the work. Here, on the Coast, it’s steeply mountainous, very wet and a challenge for even the toughest men. I enjoyed the work, but I doubt many women would.
LOL … with Elizabeth (Pocahontas) Warren and Ed Markey I don’t imagine it could be any other way. There is strong, intersectionally based, preferential treatment here too.
I dropped my SciAm subscription sometime in the late 1970s when their lead article, the first or second one and always more of an opinion piece than actual science, was a serious comparison of communist (not dictatorship!) and capitalist capital cities. His thesis was that communist cities were better organized, less harmful to the environment, more efficient, happier, etc etc etc,and his prime example was the two Koreas, illustrated by pictures of the two.
The Seoul picture was even then full of color — advertisements, clothing, shop windows, buildings, cars — and people — crowds galore. The Pyongyang picture might as well have been black and white, with nary a person to be seen. And he claimed Pyongyang was a better city!
I was so disgusted that when it came up for renewal, I dropped it, Martin Gardener notwithstanding.
I’m glad I missed that one, but I gave up on Sci-Am around that time as well. I used to have to read each article several times and look up words ( no internet back then) and then go back and read it again until I could parse out the meaning of enough sections of the article to understand it. As they steadily dumbed it down, I lost interest. that was even before they adopte4d a cause of the week political stance and became intellectually pathetic.
That was my experience too … and when you got through an article it felt like a real accomplishment.
I spent some time in the Soviet Union, in the early ’70s. Unless one had access to foreign currency and could shop at the Beriozka shops, life was pretty grim. Recently I watched a special series on North Korea, hosted by Michael Palin. The most impressive sight was the 8 lane freeway out of Pyongyang … with a lone bicycle heading off into the distance. One has to wonder about the amount of propaganda (or magical thinking) required to make a favorable comparison with free market cities.
The most impressive sight was the 8 lane freeway out of Pyongyang … with a lone bicycle heading off into the distance.
Consider the possibility it was actually an airstrip in disguise.
. . . possibility?
Certainty, I suggest.
And Singapore also has freeways – wide roads – that are intended to double as landing strips, at least.
Other countries?
Russia, and possibly the UK, for starters.
I am sure there are others!
Auto
Switzerland
Women are a curse in many professions. Not all, surely. But male attitudes are more fact based and that’s what you need over feelings as an editor.
I tend to agree. Certainly feelings are important, but not to the extent we’re being schooled to emphasize them. When a job description must be substantiallyaltered to accommodate the applicant, you know they’ve got it back asswards.
So, 7 billion human fatalities required?
And all the animals, bacteria, and fungi too. Wait a tic! Plants emit carbon dioxide at night when they metabolize their hydrocarbon stores. So a vast, empty planet it is. Job well done, greenies.
Mr. are you suggesting what we might think of in the scenario below as a bug is actually a feature?
Some of them actually burn kerosene to keep warm. I still can’t believe that somebody living in a country that gets so extremely cold in winter that snow actually stays on the ground, could possibly worry about a bit of warmth.
Unfortunately, the Klimate Kult isn’t going to runout of socks anytime soon
The combination of the kung flu madness and the climate whatever fits the moment crap just paints all “scientists” with the broad brush of distrust. It even extends to those in the medical professions we all count on for our general health who are pushing the phony vaccines which are either gonna kill ya or maim ya.
A magazine proclaiming declaring victory over climate deniers is just more of the leftists wishful thinking, or saying often enough and loud enough in hopes someone will believe it.
Those who are not “sheeple” see what is going on and will continue to resist the balderdash.
Maybe its just me.
Why should the ‘solution’ come from governments forcing people’s behaviour? Since so many of these consumers (ie everyone) believes that 1 extra molecule of CO2 in 10,000 will kill all life on Earth, they should be more than willing to change their behaviour to prevent yet another molecule of CO2 in 10,000 is emitted, Shirley?
I suggest that all Climate Worriers stop all of their emissions of CO2 immediately.
Or, is it just possible, that there’s another agenda?
Wow! So there should be lots of evidence to back up these assertions, yes? Griff? Where’s griff when you need it?
“Every inhabited region on Earth is now experiencing climate changes not seen in thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of years, the report revealed.”
So, in other words, it has happened before in the past, & in all probability will happen again, & again, & again!!! All Human beings can do is adapt to that changing world, unless of course the warmistas want to pump some ghastly gas or chemical into the atmosphere to block out sunlight, but of course that means polluting the atmosphere which we are told is a real no-no for greenalists!!!
I’m wondering how they would know these “changes” have not been seen in thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years. Were they, or anyone they know, there? I don’t think so.
This is just another unsubstantiated assertion made by climate alarmists as a means of selling this climate change hoax.
“Why should the ‘solution’ come from governments forcing people’s behaviour?”
A year or so ago, the state of MA “energy czar” said, in a zoom event with enviros up in VT, that the state will need to “break the will of the public” over this issue. When word of this got out- he resigned in order to not get his ass kicked out of the state. Not that the state isn’t going nuts over this- it’s now got a net zero by ’50 law, it’s just that the state officials can’t say what they really think and plan to do.
Petty dictators pop up everywhere, don’t they. Power corrupts many people.
These petty dictators seek power because their egos crave it. The power they achieve only enables the dictatorial behaviour that is already there.
“Why should the ‘solution’ come from governments forcing people’s behaviour? Since so many of these consumers (ie everyone) believes that 1 extra molecule of CO2 in 10,000 will kill all life on Earth, they should be more than willing to change their behaviour to prevent yet another molecule of CO2 in 10,000 is emitted, Shirley?”
This is a problem for the alarmists. When they do polls about climate change, they may get a majority that says they think climate change is a problem, but when these same people are asked to spend their own money to fix this problem, a vast majority do not want to spend more than $10 on it. So that ought to tell you how seriously most people take the climate change “crisis”.
I think it comes down to a sort of intellectual laziness coupled with cultural conformity that explains why a majority will aver that there’s a problem, but do not support that assessment with any practical action.
They clearly do not worry much if at all about any personal impacts, but they imagine that maybe somebody else might be impacted. They’re not willing to do a little research. To be fair, if they do, they will encounter a hundred EurekAlert! articles that are more likely to mislead than to inform.
So in the end, not being willing to invest the time to make their own assessment of facts, they just accept and adopt what they imagine “everybody else thinks”. But since they see no significant risk to them personally, it’s someone else’s problem.
Do you get the feeling the alarmists are trying very hard to convince themselves as much as the public that there are no cracks in their façade? They keep repeating their mantra and never address any problems in their arguments.
“If we just flap our arms hard enough we won’t fall!”
Absolutely.
“Do you get the feeling the alarmists are trying very hard to convince themselves”
I definitely get that feeling, especially lately. I think we are getting an overreaction to the COP26 debacle.
“Surveys show rising alarm about climate change. In a 2021 poll by George Mason and Yale universities, 70 percent of Americans surveyed said they were worried about global warming. A similar poll also showed growing bipartisan support for climate action, with 6 in 10 voters voicing support for ambitious climate and clean energy infrastructure legislation.”
*************
Here we go again. Climate alarmist organizations polling Americans (and the leftist media reporting) about subjects which require scientific literacy in a climate field. It’s like polling the cleaning staff in a hospital about the surgery the patients require. And, to make matters worse, the article’s author(s) again confuse meteorological events with climate as is done so often (are you reading this Griff?).
I still say any organization toeing the climate scare party line should be required to go off grid and run exclusively on wind and solar. It would be so fun to see their reaction. George Mason and Yale would have to learn to teach courses without electricity much of the time. Sounds like an executive order for Biden to sign.
When polled they all say that because they don’t want to appear NPC and deal with being made to feel guilty. It’s a bit like polling asking someone if they are racist. Given anonymity you get very different answers and voting itself shows that.
You get much different results when you poll people on how much they are willing to pay to fight “climate change”.
And their answer to how much they are willing to pay to mitigate climate change is: Not much. About $10 is what I saw in one poll.
“Should you buy carbon offsets?
Aviation has a hefty carbon footprint but are carbon offsets the answer? CHOICE investigates.
The numbers don’t lie
According to Qantas and Jetstar, only one in ten passengers choose to pay to offset the emissions from their flight, and the company says it has the largest passenger carbon offsetting program in the world.
Virgin says that less than 1% of its emissions were voluntarily offset by passengers in 2014/2015.
For the same period, Qantas and Jetstar’s results were proportionally similar, with 1.2% of emissions offset by passenger-purchased carbon offsets.”
https://www.choice.com.au/travel/on-holidays/airlines/articles/should-you-buy-carbon-offsets-for-flights
I particularly noticed the use of polls (again) relating to climate change. People will tell pollsters all kinds of things. It’s easy to say you’re worried about climate change, but will people accept the extreme and ruinous “solutions” proposed by the alarmists? When it starts to affect people’s lives and pocketbooks, then they will show how they really feel about alleged climate change.
I particularly like your suggestion about organizations being required to run on wind and solar. Let them lead by example!
Candidates for local offices knock on my door looking for my vote and a campaign contribution. I ask them a simple question: “Is carbon dioxide CO2 a pollutant?” I find out quickly if they learned anything from high school biology. It’s amusing to see the confused look on their face when told that CO2 essential to all life.
Often recorded in the atmosphere of submerged submarines CO2 level can be as high as around 8,000 ppm with no harm done to crews on board.
Many already claim that they do. Carbon credits don’t ya know?
Polls and opinion surveys. People will answer the questions truthfully, but whether you get an answer that reflects their true position depends on the question.
The Peugeot 1007 small car was developed in part on the back of opinion surveys on what a small car should be. It bombed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_1007
Not sure at all about that. People very often give the answer they think sounds best rather than what they actually think.
How many people say they want all the climate change action imaginable, then don’t do anything at all when it costs them only a small amount?
“It’s easy to say you’re worried about climate change, but will people accept the extreme and ruinous “solutions” proposed by the alarmists?”
I don’t think they will accept anything less than the current status quo. I wouldn’t.
I think the alarmists will experience increased resistance from the public the farther down this road to eliminate CO2 they go.
Another problem with polls: how do you adjust for the people who refuse to engage pollsters?
I don’t participate, and I would fall in that “30%”. And I suspect that people who agree with me are also more likely to not participate.
You can easily create a poll that gives any result you want.
If you just ask folks what worries them the most, climate change will be around tenth on the list (as long as you lump it in with the environment and pollution). link
Not in Australia. The sheep there have been trained to say climate change first. And there are a lot of sheep.
Australia and New Zealand are tied for being the two most disappointing countries on the planet … and we Canadians are rapidly catching up with them.
But noting that Australia rejected the demand for an end to coal mining and use of fossil fuels during COP26 Glasgow, and refused to sign up for net zero emissions or raising the already agreed Paris emissions target and timing of 2030.
Yes the Conference was told that Australia has “an aspirational goal” to achieve net zero but with no commitment, and based on research and development of new technology, if possible to achieve that.
Being a wealthy nation, but only around 2% of the global economy and with two major allies being the woke at present UK and US governments urging Australia to do more, Australia has done well to resist and exit gracefully without signing up.
They want a country that will never flood or have a drought. Good luck with that.
You could extend that mandate to all wind turbines and solar panels are to be manufactured with solar power and wind power.
But no way the Greens in government are going to stop flying to COP27 28 etc
Unless they are in electric air planes made with renewable energy !!!..
It was not that long ago that climate change was the least of the general public’s concern .
I smell a dead rat in this report
So far light aircraft have been converted to electric motor power from a heavy battery pack and flight duration of an hour or two including required by law safety margin of flight time.
Based on those pioneer engineering attempts a commercial aircraft even of Boeing 737 capacity would be too heavy to take off.
I can only wonder what NASA is preparing for future space missions – an electric powered rocket?
I have a question about that. I have a very rough Excel chart I put together some time ago that shows the length of time for prolonged periods of cold and ditto for warm periods. We’re in a warm period now (in case nobody knew that), and it’s lasted about 18,000 years so far (not precise, not meant to be).
So if I printed that out, when it clearly shows that we’re in the shortest warm period in the past 600,000 years, and handed those prints to people on the street corner, what might happen if it clearly shows that the ecohippies and Greenbeaners are full of baloney? Like I said, it’s a rough chart, but it’s plain enough to show that the cold periods are LONGER than the warm ones.
Would that make a difference to the Warmians, or would they have a fit and sit in it over something like that?
Just thought it might make an interesting experiment, that’s all.
Just who are these climate deniers?
I personally have never met anyone, no matter how engaged or disengaged the person might be with climate alarmism or any state milder than that.
Did Griff get a new gig?
I guess it is at least 10 years ago that I saw the ridiculous transformation of a formerly interesting general science magazine into a proselytizing megaphone for climate alarmism. I emailed Discover and explained why I was cancelling my subscription.
Deniers of reality
This is why I plan to never stop with the retribution – that and the fact that it’s fun too, of course.
Obviously, Discover Magazine thinks if it calls BS on normal Americans it can gaslight them into thinking the Climate Change scam is real. Another insult to our intelligence from a publication of the garbage elite who can’t tell a boy from a girl.
“ A raging river swept away entire homes in Germany’s lush Ahr Valley wine region. And wildfires have set records across the globe in the past two years.”
These were caused by bureaucratic incompetence that cost people their lives. It infuriates me that people can yell “climate change” and get away with clear and obvious negligence.
It happened in Australia too.
Before the 2019 bushfires started in December the climate cranks started declaring a climate emergency situation and their deceptive claims became even more ridiculous as the bushfire season continued.
The reason for the bushfires was summer heat, a long drought of years before and related very dry conditions and lack of preparation by land management clearing fuel on the ground and burning fire breaks in the cooler months.
And Australia is a land of “droughts and flooding rains” long before British Empire colonisation from January 1788.
And the 2019/20 bushfire season was not even top of the record list of worst bushfires in pas history.
“…people can yell “climate change” and get away with clear and obvious negligence…”
It’s a feature, not a bug. No matter how badly the idiots in government screw up all they have to do is yell climate change and move on. So from their perspective, what’s not to love? They get to write new regulations, increase control, raise taxes. enrich themselves and when it all comes tumbling down around their ears they just blame it on the boogeyman.
The entire town was built in the river flooding area. It happened periodically for centuries. You can easily see the area of the previous floods in the air photos.
Hmm…. The UAH global temp anomaly is currently at a blistering +0.08C, and will likely hit -0.3C by April 2022, compared to CMIP 6 average computer model projection of 1.35C, which is about 4~5 standard deviations devoid from reality.
Oh, the humanity!….
CAGW is actually on the ropes.
When the PDO/AMO soon reenter their respective 30-year cool cycles (the PDO cool cycle may have already started), global temps will continue to fall, and CAGW will become as big of a laughingstock as Baghdad Bob…
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2021-0-08-deg-c/
Even if the weather cycles do change and make a measurable difference, it won’t convince a single one of them.
Well there was a basically flat-line period in temps from roughly 2000 to 2015 that climate alarmists basically tried to explain away – the heat is hiding in the deep ocean – and happily doubled down on the green stupidity when El Nino came back for a double performance. However, let’s hope a longer period of pronounced cooling will shut them up.
I feel really bad hoping for cooling, with the pain and suffering that brings. The current ~0.15°C warming per decade that the Earth is experiencing has been very gentle and beneficial.
“I feel really bad hoping for cooling, with the pain and suffering that brings.”
Me, too. I hate cold weather.
“Even if the weather cycles do change and make a measurable difference, it won’t convince a single one of them.”
Yes, Michael Mann has already dismissed any future cooling of a decade or two, saying cooling doesn’t mean CO2 overheating isn’t real.
He can say that now, but if the temperatures continue to drop, he will look sillier and sillier, along with all the other alarmists.
The temperatures have already dropped 0.6C since the 2016 highpoint, and yet you won’t hear one alarmist saying anything but “it’s warming”. They are hanging onto the trend by a fingernail. A liitle more temperature decrease, and the alarmists won’t even have a warming trend to point to. That will be fun. 🙂
Andy-san:
On top of the cooling global temperatures and noticeably colder winters, Leftists made a colossal mistake by wasting $trillions of taxpayers’ money on expensive, intermittent, and unreliable wind/solar which will continue to cause spiking utility rates, higher costs on everything and will soon cause massive blackouts and brownouts and economic and social turmoil..
Monumental errors have monumental consequences.
Leftists are screwed and Biden’s complete ineptitude is laying the foundation for a massive backlash against Leftism.
People are already getting completely fed up with Leftists’ insane programs, massive spending, inflation, rising crime, open borders, high inflation, failing schools, high gas prices, high regulation costs, corruption, high taxes, Wokeism, censorship, and soft tyranny.
This too will pass.
Don’t give up.
A alarmist said about the oil companies “look at Edward Teller”. So I went to the alarmists chief site, not the one he quoted, that was Desmogblog. From 1959 -“It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York.” I told him CO2 has risen by more and New York is still there. You can’t fix stupid.
The demise of Arctic sea ice has been greatly exaggerated.
Project Drawdown, a non-profit that profits from spreading climate change fear.
Fixed it for you.
I presume we all think that it’s CO2 that produces global warming that produces climate change? But CO2 is inexorably going to go on increasing at c. 2ppm a year. So let’s relax and stop all this argument. It’s pointless. Nothing can be done by activists. No point in trying to convince them. Let it just run and do some gardening instead.
You can declare and believe in Jesus all you want. It still won’t keep ISIS from beheading you.
The heat is brutal in Siberia. Known for it, is Siberia.
It’s proverbial, like the Saharan Tundra.
This is like those scam emails you get. They start with an obvious error to weed out those to smart to fall for it. That way no-one thinks about or discusses the scam except the victims.
All these climate alarmists are doing is exploiting the fact that people have short memories and a lack of knowledge.
None of their natural disasters are unprecedented, that’s a blatant lie.
Human history is littered with such incidents, and often far far worse.
Show me the “Goldilocks” period of time when floods, drought, and storms were not the norm on this planet.
When people comment about how hot an Australian summer day is my builder son replies that they should work outside away from air conditioning and better appreciate weather conditions.
“None of their natural disasters are unprecedented, that’s a blatant lie.”
That’s correct. All the alarmists have to hang their hat on is a bunch of lies.
Human-caused Climate Change is fact-free science.
Tom lives in cloud cuckoo land.
“Data and extreme weather”
OK how about the actual data about the actual extreme weather events?
https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters
Oh that’s right, numbers of people dying from these events have completely collapsed over the last hundred years or so, even though the worlds population has exploded and there are way more people packed into the areas affected by these events.
Perhaps everybody has learned to swim!
Why does no one ever challenge these bozos with actual facts and watch their faces as their memes unravel before their very eyes?
People aroung here try to challenge the bozos.
You did a pretty good job of it. 🙂
Well, as western society is continuing on the path towards more authouritarianism I would agree that they are reaching their goals. It was never about climate.
Best way for climate activists to stop emitting CO2? Stop breathing!
As Benny Peiser says the debate has changed because the cost of alarmist zero emissions absurdity is becoming clear.
There’s one born a minute
Bad weather and a few arson-induced fires are not climate change. Period. Real climate change does not come overnight, but these twits refuse to believe that it is not spontaneous and instantaneous. They are too wrapped up in their own conceit to understand anything that does not provide instant gratification. They also have no idea how to appreciate the bountiful stuff this planet lets us provide. They are nuts.
I pity them.
From the article: “Data and extreme weather events are making it harder than ever to ignore our warming world.”
The Data shows it is 0.6C cooler now than in 2016, the warmest year in the 21st century.
There is no established connection between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and extreme weather events.
The people at Discover are not very good at discovering things.
From the article: “Streetcar cables melted in Portland.”
You mean metal cables can melt at a temperature a little over 100 degrees F?
I live in the Portland area and it was really hot so they must be right! /s
BTW Trimet (the Portland metro area transit authority) is truly one of the most incompetent government entities that has ever graced this planet. They created a light rail system (“Max”) that fails when the temp is above 100F or below 32F – not that they could avail themselves of knowledge that others, who live in areas that routinely exceed those temps, used to build rail systems that can still operate in those conditions. ODOT (the Oregon Department of Transportation) can give them a run for their money though as they are famous for (a) disposing of a beached whale by blowing it up, (b) using recycled shredded tires as a “sustainable” road base (what could go wrong under compressive loading?), and (c) an experimental deck material for a drawbridge that peeled off when the bridge was raised (apparently nobody thought to test that scenario). Not that Oregon has a monopoly on stupid but it is also known for the brilliant concept of “ceiling heat” where resistive heating elements are buried in the ceiling (rather than e.g., placed along the baseboards) b/c everyone knows that hot air descends!
From the article: “For many people, recent disasters have transformed human-caused climate change from a theoretical, far-off risk to an undeniable reality.”
No, what’s transformed thoughts, if they have been transformed, is the relentless climate change propaganda and distortions that the public is fed on a daily baiss. And this article is a perfect example of that. They make unsubstantiated assertions that cannot be backed up with facts.
From the article: “At least one renowned environmental scientist believes so. “I think you have seen a seismic shift,” says Jonathon Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit that advances climate solutions. “Most of the conversation now is really more about what we should do, not denying whether or not climate change is happening.””
Talk about denying reality. This looks like a lot of wishful thinking on Mr. Foley’s part.
Discover went to s— back in 2007. It should have folded.
Naomi Oreskes telegraphed this a few months ago at COP26 when she asked why they are still funding climate science, something like: all studies show the Earth is warming so further funding is a redundancy.
There is an impatience here on the part of the Great Reset elites to get on with the spending (“build back better”) with the understanding that climate scientists are under increasing pressure to explain how cold weather is caused by Global Warming.
Well, I agree that we should stop funding “climate science” in its present iteration.
If they squint their eyes, and really really Believe something’s true hard enough, then voila, it becomes true. Like magic!
I used to read Discover Magazine. I gave up on it about 20 years ago or more. It’s a rag. Used to be a good “science light” magazine. Science and Nature are about the only 2 bigger “good” ones left. Scientific American is now probably the worst, where it used to be my favourite 25-30 years ago. It’s very interesting how these reasonable and responsible publications gave up their credibility, all about the same time. Can anybody explain how and why this happened? it’s hard not to see it as some kind of deliberate and joint effort.
CO2 is going to rise at about 2ppm a year for ever, well, let’s say 30 or 40 years inexorably. How does that affect things?
Discover magazine is in the process of discovering what it is to be totally irrelevant.
Eric’s states “What can I say – people who see the end of the world in normal weather likely believe a lot of other things as well.” – they are trying to convince people of absurdities.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. – Voltaire
The sense of denial is greater than ever coming from activists as their world comes crumbling around them. Even those countries that made commitments at COP 26 made such vague commitments that no normal human being could describe the result as action on climate change. Rather than admit their indoctrination has failed abysmally they use rose coloured glasses to avoid expressing the absolute devastation they really feel about the lack of real action. The only ones who can’t see that the emperor has no clothes are the activists. Everyone else plays lip service to avoid the faux outrage that will hound them if they divert from the created narrative. Don’t ask people what they think about global warming but ask them what they really think? Most people actually couldn’t care less. I would count that vast majority as deniers.
So they think that rising alarm equates to winning the debate? LOL
“environmental scientist ” – there is no such thing, it is an oximoron.
Specious strawman.
Discover magazine has been an embarrassment for decades. It’s poor writing in general and makes glaring scientific errors all of the time. It’s like someone took popular mechanics and bolted gender studies onto it.
As has been pointed out many times in the past, what questions are asked during a poll, and how they are asked, can lead to a seriously skewed result – probably just what the organization paying for the poll wanted.
Oh, and Merry Christmas to one and all – and may ’22 be significantly better than ’21.
From the above fluff excerpts taken from author Tom Yulsman of Discover magazine:
Really? Streetcar cables, the kind used to pull streetcars along streets, are typically steel wire woven over a center of hemp rope . . . the kind of cable first verified to develop sufficient long-life flexibility and made famous in the streetcars of San Francisco (ref: http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/the-cables.html )
In San Francisco, and presumably in Portland, OR, the cable used measures 1 1/4 inches in diameter and is made of steel with a hemp center to increase flexibility. The cable itself is composed of six steel strands of 19 wires each that are wrapped around the sisal rope center. It has an average life of 6 to 8 months, and if it becomes worn, the system is shut down at night and a splice is made in the powerhouse.
“It has been shown that thermal degradation of natural fibres generally occurs in two stages: one at 220–280°C temperature range and the other at 280–300°C range. The first range is associated with degradation of hemicellulose, whereas the second range is associated with degradation of cellulose and lignin. For hemp fibres, Prasad et al. have shown that heating the fibres between 160°C and 260°C results in softening of lignin leading to opening of fibre bundles into individual fibres.”—source: “A Study in Physical and Mechanical Properties of Hemp Fibres“, https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amse/2013/325085/
So, it is IMPOSSIBLE that global warming, especially recent hot spells in Portland, OR, would be responsible for melting steel (m.p. >= 2500 deg-F). Also, hemp (sisal) rope would be expected to be unaffected by temperatures below 160 deg-C (320 deg-F).
Bottom line: Discover magazine, via author Tom Yulsman, has no idea what they are talking about.