Humans are likely causing some warming, but substantial scientific disagreement exists on whether there will be significant impacts
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (November 8, 2022) – A new poll of scientists conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that only 59 percent of respondents think global climate change will cause “significant harm” to the “living conditions for people alive today.” That is far short of the “97 percent consensus” narrative pushed by climate alarmists and their media allies across the globe.
The survey, conducted in September and October 2022 by Fairleigh Dickinson University and commissioned by The Heartland Institute, polled only professionals and academics who held at least a bachelor’s degree in the fields of meteorology, climatology, physics, geology, and hydrology.
The key question of the survey asked: “In your judgement, what will be the overall impact of global climate change on living conditions for people alive today, across the globe?” Fifty-nine percent said “significant harm.” Thirty-nine percent said either “significant improvement,” “slight improvement,” “no change,” or “slight harm.” Two percent were not sure.
Among respondents with the most experience – those at least 50-years-old – less than half expect significant harm for people alive today. Scientists 30-years-old and younger were the only age group for which more than 60 percent expect significant harm.
Like prior surveys of scientists, the new poll shows the vast majority of scientists agree the planet is warming. On average, respondents attributed 75 percent of recent warming to human activity. More importantly, scientists disagree among themselves on whether future warming will be much of a problem.
The poll also found only 41 percent of respondents believe there has been a significant increase in the frequency of severe weather events. The majority say there has been no change or only a slight increase.
In reality, objective data show hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, drought, and other extreme weather events have become less frequent in recent decades.
“The scientific method requires that we engage in science by testing and analyzing theories according to objective data rather than asking for a show of hands,” said James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute, who speaks often in the media and in testimony before legislators. “However, to the extent people are curious about what other scientists believe, there is substantial disagreement among scientists themselves regarding whether climate change poses serious threats, or even merely significant ones.
“This newest survey destroys the oft-repeated propaganda that 97 percent of the world’s scientists believe climate change is a serious problem requiring immediate action,” Taylor added.
“While the media and climate advocates claim that there is a ‘97 percent consensus’ on climate change, this poll illustrates that there is less consensus and a broader scope of differing opinion,” said Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Anthony Watts. “Climate change is almost always framed as something bad, this poll finds 30 percent said climate change will produce only ‘slight harm’ to our standard of living and eight percent stated they believe our standard of living will improve or remain unchanged due to climate change.
“Just 44 percent of scientists over 50-years-old believe climate change will reduce our standard of living in our lifetimes,” Watts added. “Further, they were unconvinced that severe weather events have increased, at just 38 percent. The results suggest that the draconian solutions such as net-zero being pushed by the left, even if they actually worked, are aimed at a non-problem.”
“This survey, once again, explodes the myth that 97 percent of climate scientists believe humans are causing catastrophic climate change,” said H. Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. “Although, on average, most respondents attributed 75 percent of recent warming to human activity, nearly 40 percent of those surveyed said they believe climate change will cause only slight harm, no harm, or even improve living conditions.
“So, climate change? Yes. Humans responsible for most of it? The poll says, ‘yes.’ Catastrophe? No agreement,” Burnett said. “Interestingly, it seems the more experience one has as a researcher the more skeptical one becomes of extreme climate claims, with less than half of those surveyed who were 50 or older believing either that humans were responsible for the vast majority of climate change or that climate change threatens significant harm to those living today.
“It seems, years of indoctrination have succeeded in brain washing younger, less experienced climate scientists into believing, data to the contrary, that humans are causing a climate catastrophe,” Burnett added.
“This survey shows that, at least among those surveyed, there is a correct consensus belief that the Earth’s climate does in fact change, but it’s clear that the science on attribution to human causes, or the severity of impact, is not quite settled,” said Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken. “This is good news, and there should be a robust and enthusiastic debate without fear of losing funding or career prospects; no perspective can be ignored outright without testing. It is particularly notable that some scientists surveyed believe that there are increases in extreme weather events like hurricanes, despite the fact that data show that is not the case.
“To me, this result indicates that many opinions are being influenced not by scientific data, but by sensationalist media coverage,” she added. “Scientists are, after all, human like the rest of us, and are just as susceptible to bias and non-scientific propaganda as anyone else.”
The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank founded in 1984, is one of the world’s leading organizations promoting the work of scientists who are skeptical that human activity is causing a climate crisis.
Heartland has hosted 14 International Conferences on Climate Change attended by thousands since 2008 – and is hosting the 15th International Conference on Climate Change in Orlando, Florida on February 24-25.
Heartland has also published the six-volume Climate Change Reconsidered series by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and for 21 years has published Environment and Climate News. Heartland has published several popular books and studies on the climate, including Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed (2022), Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming (2015), and Seven Theories of Climate Change (2010).
And what portion of the 59 percent do not have tenure at the time of the survey?
Exactly. Being digitally saavy, the younger respondents, even if assured their response was anonymous, would know that they could be traced and might vote accordingly.
Bottom line:
There is, as of today
1. There is no data proving human CO2 emissions cause significant shifts in the climate zones of the earth.
2. The climate simulations indicating AGW exists are all unskilled.
I hope someone does a study of this survey. It so strongly supports the lukewarm, non-data-driven, point of view, that it appears to be more a means to keep the whole controversy going, not to end it.
What would Heartland’s interest be? In keeping it all going… . And one of Heartland’s most prominent voices, Linnea Lueken’s lukewarm position is clear from this comment:
“… the science on attribution to human causes … is not quite settled.”
Not QUITE settled?!
It’s not even CLOSE to being “settled.”
:
Yes, but even if they have tenure any perceived skepticism might
ruin future grant funding or getting published. The climate thought
police also hold the purse strings.
Science is not consensus, so polls are little more than entertainment.
Politics is consensus
Politics + Science = Politics
Science is scepticism
Belief is religion
I believe you are right.
I believe I have doubts?
science is about proof
I have my doubts.
According to surveys, approximately 86% of clergymen believe in the existence of God. The rest are atheists or agnostics. Of course, only trained clergy have the requisite credentials to render a valid opinion on the subject per the modern consensus scientific process. /s/
Besides that, this poll is fatally flawed from the start.
There were only two options given for the question of ‘gender’.
The question should have been restated, similar to a medical questionnaire I recently had to fill out which now asks “Gender at birth:____”.
Now you are denying newborns the right to decide for themselves what gender they will be. You Nazi. /sarc
You’re right… Just thought there might be a minimum age for use of a scalpel :<)
And, regardless of the phrasing, the question implies that there may be a scientific difference of opinion, based on whether or not the respondent had testicles (or not) at birth.
(I still can’t get past the contrasting groups of people that claim there are no differences in men and women; and those people that adhere to the idea that there is a spectrum difference that is all important; and that both those groups of people are so hateful of yet another group that they are still trying to work together. Who can figure out the Dems?)
That would be the kind of thing that would make me real tempted to (if there was space permitting) right next to that question: “Species at birth ________”, and then write in “homo sapiens”!
I thought most were indeterminate until fully developed :<)
Fairleigh Dickinson University my Alma Mater
David M is going to be annoyed, no geologist on the list! they have the longest view of climate.
my bad read to fast they are there.
True, but no oceanographers, but used to be not a bachelors. Belief is closer to religion than science. Us old Texas Aggies as freshman could not think or believe, only cogitate. Taught correct statistics also, they especially should be on the list.
It’s good that 72% are meteorologists. This is mainly a poll on what scientists in that field think.
They have a wonderful understanding of how models work and what their biggest limitations are.
Most importantly, operational meteorologists must constantly reconcile models to reality every day with every forecast. Then,constantly make adjustments to the prediction because model output from just a few days earlier is ancient history in many cases.
Climate models are a bit different in many regards but by the time today’s/2022 climate models predicting conditions for the year 2100 get a skill score, all the climate modelers will be dead.
So there’s no accountability/skin in the game. They can use bad physics/math equations and justify it as theoretically possible, then use the output for political agenda to justify spending many trillions of dollars via government supported crony capitalism.
The spending is not rooted in weather/climate realities but instead, theoretical, extreme case model outcomes, along with blaming climate change for every extreme weather event that’s being caused by the same natural variation which caused that type of weather since before humans existed.
Can you imagine a meteorologist, when displaying their 7 day forecast, always giving you the absolute extreme, very low probability worst case scenario’s…………and representing them as being the ones on their graphic display?
They would be wrong 98% of the time and out of a job quickly.
With distant climate prognosticators, those same types of extremes that will likely be wrong are the exact ones being used to decide energy and other policies.
Meteorologists favor the most accurate weather models.
Climate scientists avoid the most accurate INM climate model.
Interesting?
Telling.
A lot of meteorologists are heavily influenced by “sensationalist media coverage” coupled with their paychecks and are firm believers in human caused CAGW, e.g. Weather Channel’s meteorologists.
I know lots of geologists, none of them are members of the anthropogenic doomsday religion.
Brilliant quote by an (unfortunately) unnamed geologist that I read on the site years ago and who summed up the “climate” nonsense perfectly:
“If CO2 could do what they say it can do, then the oceans would have boiled away or frozen over a long time ago.”
Now get this on to the BBC etc
That right there is the problem – the media doesn’t want to know
The BBC would still squeal “Consensus”, like science is a democratic decision.
59% are Morons that are paper PhDs. I thought Heartland would at least include Industry Professionals rather than just Academics. Commissioning a University was Heartland’s first mistake.
The post says professionals and academics.
It is too bad that the poll didn’t ask the respondents “What measured climate variable has been the most significant for increasing in the frequency of severe weather events.”
And “D’oh!” does not count.
Even this survey question, though well intentioned, is still pretty squishy. How about asking the respondents to name the “significant harm” that global warming will create? Be specific.
Is energy going to cost more, or less if global warming occurs? Will energy be rationed if global warming occurs? Will the freedom of individual travel be reduced or increased? Will you die of heat stroke? Will you starve, or feast? Will your enjoyment of life be increased, or reduced? Will your favorite places to go be destroyed, improved, or not changed at all?
I am pretty sure that very few actual scientists could even name the specific harms, let alone quantify them, associated with global warming. Especially those who are familiar with geology, geohistory, and astrophysics and therefore the changes that this planet has successfully experienced in the last 4.5 billion years.
In the past before I was a retired lazy bum, I designed some corporate employee surveys for engineers. It is very difficult to develop a simple question that does not bias the answer in some way. I found the most informative responses were at the end of the survey when I merely asked respondents to write out a paragraph telling us exactly what they think.
The surveys were anonymous, or that would not have worked.
“Ring of Fire”, Orogeny, oceans closing, ocean floor spreading, Chicxulub, super volcanoes, Yellowstone is just one of multiple super volcanoes, Deccan Traps, Siberian Traps, tsunami, “Little Ice Age”, Freaking real Ice Age that we happen to be in a very brief interglacial, etc. etc. are just a few geohistory or geology impacts to Gaia.
People weirding out over a very slight very brief Optimum climate during modern times are very tiresome.
It is as if they must have some overweening drama queen hysteria in their lives no matter how trivial said hysteria is compared to world history or even modern history.
The Siberian Traps were larger, but are estimated to have erupted for a shorter period of time, 800,000 – 900,000 years.
e.g. 2, Continents colliding are called orogeny. Very often the highest mountain ranges are caused by continents colliding, Alps, Himalayas, Rocky Mountains, Appalachian Mountains and many other mountain ranges uplifted and eroded away.
e.g. 3, A Yellowstone Super Volcano eruption covers the majority of the United States with ashfall. The closer the deeper.
An alleged global temperature average anomaly badly calculated for Earth is alleged to be several tenths of a degree Celsius is supposed to be alarming?
🤣 😂 🤣 😂
“How about asking the respondents to name the “significant harm” that global warming will create? Be specific.”
Yeah, these fearmongers need to be specific. Spewing gloom and doom isn’t good enough, and it isn’t evidence of anything.
These 59 percent have no evidence to point to that would prove their claims that CO2 is dangerous. They are guessing and speculating and asserting and assuming and none of it is supported by any evidence. They can’t point to one bit of evidence showing CO2 is anything other than a benign gas.
That’s what we want: One bit of evidence showing CO2 is not a benign gas.
The 59 percent can’t do it. The 100 percent can’t do it, either, because there is no evidence for it, after all these years of searching for it.
Human-caused Climate Change is just delusional people assuming way too much. And scaring the children along the way.
Salute!
Absolutely shocked so many think/feel human activity is responsible for 75% of climate change, if I read that correctly. Oh well……..
Gums sends…
That’s what I was thinking too… the survey did ask for their names so maybe they thought they had to answer that way just in case they wouldn’t get in trouble. Just a theory :>
“fields of meteorology, climatology, physics, geology, and hydrology.”
What have these fields got to do with climate harm?
CAGW is a house of cards confidence trick. It fails if anyone of the cards fails.
Once again, 0% opinion from scientists on the effects of termites on climate. It’s as if they don’t exist.
“This survey, once again, explodes the myth that 97 percent of climate scientists believe humans are causing catastrophic climate change,” said H. Sterling Burnett,
H. Sterling Burnett is a great writer. I read every article wity his byline and am never disappointed
The 97% survey questions are worded so anyone who believed in AGW or CAGW gets lumped together in the 97%. In fact, I believe the correct number is 99% or even 99.9%. All you have to do is believe in the greenhouse effect, and that manmade CO2 is part of it, to get in the 97%. I’m in the 97% and I support a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere to spur plant growth, and believe CO2 enrichment so far has been beneficial — yet I still fit into the 97% based on how the questions are asked.
I always assumed a minority of scientists believed in CAGW, since it has never existed and predictions of CAGW have been wrong for over 50 years. If it is true that “only 59%” believe in CAGW, I am shocked. 59% is not “only 59%” — it is a huge and disappointing percentage.
The belief in CAGW can not be based on facts, data and logic, because there is no evidence of CAGW in our planet’s history. Much of the alleged CAGW is an unproven huge water vapor positive feedback that allegedly takes 400 years, that has never existed with CO2 levels up to 10x higher than today.
An unlimited positive feedback would have caused runaway global warming long ago. Never happened. CAGW is a fantasy.
I believe a 12 year old child could understand that CAGW has never happened before, and is just a prediction that has been wrong for over 50 years. We desperately need a team of 12 year old children to explain this to 59% of the scientists !
I fully concur Richard. CAGW is taking us all for a ride to energy oblivion.
The sooner the hip picket nerve starts reacting to rising energy bills, cost of living increases etc due to CC mitigation policies, we will see a major reaction from the general public to recind these stupid policies, a punish those responsible for creating or demanding them.
A Republican house will be able to start the deconstructing process to rid us of regressive Green energy polices, holding back the nation.
CO2 increase in 3.3 decades [21], 1988 to 2021: 417 – 348 = 69 ppmv
Average global water vapor increase trend from Figure 3, which is a graph of NASA/RSS TPW data, is 0.04188/29 * 100 * 10 = 1.44 % per decade.
From Figure 2, at 30 degrees latitude (area to pole = area to equator) average global WV = 10,000 ppmv. WV increase in 3.3 decades = 0.0144 * 10,000 * 3.3 = 479 ppmv
WV molecules have been increasing 479/69 ≈ 7 times faster than CO2 molecules.
(Refs and Figs are from http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com )
Humanity’s contribution to warming, if any, is from water vapor increase, not CO2 increase. WV increase has been substantially faster than possible from just feedback.
After yesterdays foo-fah-rah, when I saw WV, the first thing that came to mind was West Virginia.
Water vapor is a climate change feedback resulting from a change in the temperature of the troposphere. It is not a cause of climate change — it is an effect climate change.
It’s a sad fact that anything that mentions Heartland is immediately going to be written off by any of the ‘believers’. Farleigh Dickinson University will also be painted by these people as shills of the oil industry. Unfortunately, that just means this is highly likely to be ignored by the people who are currently trying hard to influence people’s opinions in the other direction 🙁
There is absolutely no doubt that it will be “climate actions” that causes far more harm than any natural climate variability.
As for human induced global climate variability.. is there any evidence for that ?
“As for human induced global climate variability.. is there any evidence for that ?”
Nope. No evidence.
Alarmists should be embarrassed to be shown up so easily. Just request that alarmists provide evidence and they go silent.
We know why: Because they don’t have any evidence..
The power of brainwashing. If you look at the actual evidence, there is none.
How many papers demonstrate that human CO2 is the dominant cause of catastrophic or even dangerous global warming/ “climate change” worthy of declaring a “climate emergency” as it has now morphed in to?
The answer is zero. It is all smoke and mirrors, semantic manipulation and sophistry.
If you look at the most comprehensive consensus review, the 2013 Cook et al review of 11,944 abstracts over a 21 year period, NONE state all the conditions that justify declaring a climate emergency or radical “climate action.” If you read the 65 “Holy Grail” abstracts, they are not terribly convincing. Many appear to be framing assumptions (to get funding) and do not appear to be the result of the authors’ hard research. The “quantified conclusion that human CO2 is the dominant driver of global warming” status that underpins the consensus conclusion is based on background reading.
I don’t have the resources to go through the 65 papers (hopefully someone can provide us with the 24 papers that did not actually mean the words in the abstracts to reduce the work load) to find the common references and to establish which papers used unverified sources/ assumptions in their abstracts. Those papers in the Holy Grail pile that have unverified statements claiming human CO2 is the (over 50%) driving force behind global warming/ “climate change” must be eliminated from that cohort of papers. I suspect the Holy Grail pile will be winnowed down significantly.
Then, we must review the handful of papers from which the quantified conclusion that human CO2 is the driving force of global warming/”climate change” was derived. This will be a vastly smaller sample of papers which will need more qualified scrutiny. This collection of papers which form the core science are the only ones that should be on the Holy Grail list and that is before they, like all valid science, are scrutinised. How “large” will the Holy Grail pile be then?
Of course, the consensus forming Holy Grail abstracts say nothing about catastrophe or danger.
The progressive winnowing down of the Holy Grail to Holy Fail will make a great documentary .
Do note, the database with the 65 Holy Grail abstracts is copyrighted, but what constitutes fair use?
It wasn’t the papers Cook examined, it was only the abstracts.
This 97% AGW consensus by Cook has all been looked at years ago and refuted by experts who ended up reporting a 3% belief in AGW, using the same data.
So, the old story about lies and statistics is true.
It’s good to have an updated survey of climatologists and related scientists, but they need better questions to elicit more relevant responses, as to what they really believe is going on.
Once again, the weasel word “significant”. To most laymen, the term is equivalent to “extensive” if not “devastating”. To a scientist the term means anything that’s “non-trivial”.
Surveys about anything are difficult.
But if one excludes those scientes working for government, the results would change drastically.
One does not bite the hand that feeds you.
Michael VK5ELL
Am I to understand that 90% of the respondents replied that global warming will have either significant or slight harm to people living today, with no indication of attitude toward future generations?
I don’t think skeptics want to be touting this one as a win.
Is it also correct that just 26 respondents hold a doctorate in their field of study, and is it not true that a doctorate is a minimum requirement in most scientific fields for people doing and publishing research? How many of the respondents are publishing scientists?
Opinions on any subject are like backsides – everybody has one, but they’re all just that bit different.
Considering the utter crap that gets “published” about “climate” (see every version of the repeatedly discredited “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction), I wouldn’t hold THAT up as any kind of “standard” by which to judge scientists’ opinions.
It’s not true
Anyone can submit a manuscript to a journal for review and publication.
Re: this being a “win”
You are absolutely correct. It PROMOTES AGW/CAGW far more than it exposes the fact that there is no evidence for it.
Honestly if I were the Heartland Institute I would try to quietly sweep this one under the rug lol not pin it to the top of WUWT.
So only 57% of the “97%” which was about 12% … There’s a larger margin of error in how much a chicken is worth in Wales.
“–“This survey shows that, at least among those surveyed, there is a correct consensus belief that the Earth’s climate does in fact change, but it’s clear that the science on attribution to human causes, or the severity of impact, is not quite settled,” said Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken. –“
“Not quite settled”?
Here’s a survey question I’d like to see: Do you consider the large-grid, discrete-layer, step-iterated, parameter-tuned general circulation models, or any one of those models, capable of reliable determination of past influence of non-condensing GHGs on global surface air temperatures? Second question: If yes, on what grounds have you come to that conclusion?
This would reveal a lot, would it not? Reliable attribution is the core issue.
I would like to see a survey which asked how many scientists believed CO2 affected the temperature.
It’s a legitimate question, Sea Dog, but, it would, with all due respect to you whom I admire very much, yield no meaningful information and could easily yield mis- or anti- information.
To a scientist, “affect” could mean unmeasurable, but, with some infinitesimal, unmeaningful, affect and would answer “yes.”
“effect” 😖
Yes! Sorry for commenting above before I read your comment, Mr. Dibbell.
“Not quite settled” is in accurate to the point of indicating a motive to deceive.
Bit disappointed they surveyed geologists but not geophysicists.
And what about oceanographers?
A snapshot of the extent of delusion in academia.
41% said that there has been a significant increase in severe weather events when there has been none. This shows that many scientists are not immune to the constant alarmist propaganda in the media.
There can be no doubt humans are causing warming. Energy consumption in industrialised regions has increased 4-fold over the last 60 years. That is a massive increase in heat input to mostly small areas. They have to warm up as a result.
Then there is the temperature homogenisation process. This is entirely human influence to cool historic temperature records to increase the warming trend.
Then there is the transition to electronic temperature recording, often at airports, that can respond in milliseconds to the blast from a jet engine. That will lift average temperature and flights have bigger more frequent and engines larger.
So it is not “likely” a human influence, it is certain.
Yes, if we’re talking about “thermometer readings” as opposed to “climate” per se.
You are talking about human influence on a local and city scale with the urban heat island effect and homogenization- data manipulation supposedly to correct it. This is all real, but it is not a global scale issue that CO2 emissions are supposedly causing to warm the atmosphere by IR absorption- the greenhouse effect. The latter effect may be happening in a minor way but is overcome by natural forcing by water vapor and the cloud effects that have cumulate negative feedback and moderate tropospheric temperatures.
So runaway hothouse warming is a myth along with CAGW. Current global warming is therefore slow natural, benign and beneficial. So, it does not need mitigating, as the corrupt IPCC declares must happen, their global policies need to be publicly rejected ASAP.
This can be a useful poll. An effort was made to poll people in the climate/meteorology field with training in that field. That is a good thing. The sad thing is that even people working and trained in the field are under the impression that our bad weather is more severe and happening more often. Proper evidence clearly says the opposite. If they can’t be bothered to check out something as simple as this why should I care what they think about the rest.
On the other hand this poll is far more believable than the one bandied about by the green devils. We must use it to show people that the belief in CAGW has gone down 38% since the last poll. That is big, it is nonsense but it is big.
An important addition to the poll questions is, if you believe man is responsible for all additional CO2 and therefore warming what evidence have you seen that convinced you.
You need to broadcast everywhere that the belief that man has caused catastrophic global warming has dropped by 38%.
There NEVER was 97%. The “consensus” has not dropped. The above article is attempting to RESURRECT the “consensus.”
“…The ‘97% consensus’ article is poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly executed. It obscures the complexities of the climate issue and it is a sign of the desperately poor level of public and policy debate in this country [UK] that the energy minister should cite it. – Mike Hulme, Ph.D., Professor of Climate Change, UEA (University of East Anglia).
Numerous articles have refuted the 97% nonsense:
For example, “… A later analysis by Legates et al. (2013) found there to be only 41 papers (0.3%) … ”
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/12/97-articles-refuting-97-consensus.html
(Source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/19/97-articles-refuting-the-97-consensus-on-global-warming/ )
Einstein put the issue of “consensus” in its place brilliantly. When he introduced his Theory of General (I believe it was) Relativity, he got vehement push-back from other scientists. A bunch got together and published a pamphlet titled “100 Scientists Against Einstein.”
His response to this summed it up perfectly.
He said “Why 100? If I was wrong, ONE WITH A GOOD ARGUMENT WOULD BE ENOUGH.”
THAT is the essence of scientific inquiry.
Your timeline is muddled a bit. That publication happened in 1931. And Einstein was not denounced for General Relativity, but for propounding “Jewish sciece”. The attack on him was led by 2 prominent German physicists who were known for their vigorous anti-Smitic views. Scientific American, otherwise generally useless these days, has a chapter excerpt from a book on the subject.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-2-pro-nazi-nobelists-attacked-einstein-s-jewish-science-excerpt1/
Here’s Lomborg’s latest article about the present and future climate change and of course all Humans will be much HEALTHIER and WEALTHIER by 2100.
BJORN LOMBORG: SUPPRESSING GOOD NEWS IS SCARING OUR KIDS WITLESS
noviembre 7, 2022
15/09/2022 | By Bjorn Lomborg | Financial Post
You might be hearing nothing but bad news but you aren’t hearing the full story
Polar bears were once used to highlight the dangers of climate change, but polar bear numbers have been increasing.
Polar bears were once used to highlight the dangers of climate change, but polar bear numbers have been increasing. PHOTO BY COURTESY DENNIS FAST
It’s easy to believe life on Earth is getting ever worse. The media constantly highlight one catastrophe after another and make terrifying predictions. With the never-ending torrent of doom and gloom about climate change and the environment, it’s understandable why many people — especially the young — genuinely believe the world is about to end. But the fact is that though problems remain the world is getting better. We just rarely hear about it.
We are incessantly told about disasters, whether it is the latest heat wave, flood, wildfire or storm. Yet the data overwhelmingly show that over the past century people have become much, much safer from all these weather events. In the 1920s, around half a million people were killed by weather disasters, whereas in the last decade the death toll averaged around 18,000. This year, like both 2020 and 2021, is tracking below that. Why? Because when people get richer, they get more resilient.
Weather-fixated television news would make us think disasters are all getting worse. They’re not. Around 1900, about 4.5 per cent of the land area of the world burned every year. Over the last century, this declined to about 3.2 per cent In the last two decades, satellites show even further decline: in 2021 just 2.5 per cent burned. This has happened mostly because richer societies prevent fires. Models show that by the end of the century, despite climate change, human adaptation will mean even less burning.
And despite what you may have heard about record-breaking costs from weather disasters — mainly because wealthier populations build more expensive houses along coastlines — damage costs are actually declining, not increasing, as a per cent of GDP.
But it’s not only weather disasters that are getting less damaging despite dire predictions. A decade ago, environmentalists loudly declared that Australia’s magnificent Great Barrier Reef was nearly dead, killed by bleaching caused by climate change. The Guardian newspaper even published an obituary. This year, scientists revealed that two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef shows the highest coral cover seen since records began in 1985. The good-news report got a fraction of the attention the bad news did.
Not long ago, environmentalists constantly used pictures of polar bears to highlight the dangers of climate change. Polar bears even featured in Al Gore’s terrifying movie An Inconvenient Truth. But the reality is that polar bear numbers have been increasing — from somewhere between five and 10,000 polar bears in the 1960s up to around 26,000 today. We don’t hear this news, however. Instead, campaigners just quietly stopped using polar bears in their activism.
There are so many bad-news stories that we seldom stop to consider that on the most important indicators, life is getting much better. Human life expectancy has doubled over the past century, from 36 years in 1920 to more than 72 years today. A hundred years ago, three-quarters of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, less than one-tenth does. The deadliest environmental problem, air pollution, was four times more likely to kill you in 1920 than it is today, mostly because a century ago people in poverty cooked and heated with dung and wood.
Despite COVID-related setbacks, humanity has become better and better off. Yet doom-mongers will keep telling you the end is nigh. This is great for their fundraising but the costs to society are sky-high: we make poor, expensive policy choices and our kids are scared witless.
We also end up ignoring much bigger problems. Consider all the attention devoted to heat waves. In the United States and many other parts of the world heat deaths are actually declining, because access to air conditioning helps much more than rising temperatures hurt. Almost everywhere, however, cold quietly kills many more people than heat does. In the U.S., about 20,000 people die from heat every year, but 170,000 die from cold — something we rarely focus on. Moreover, cold deaths are rising in the U.S. and our incessant focus on climate change is exacerbating this trend because politicians have introduced green laws that make energy more expensive, meaning fewer people can afford to keep warm. Lacking perspective means we don’t focus first on where we can help most.
On a broader scale, global warming prompts celebrities and politicians to fly around the world in private jets lecturing the rest of us, while we spend less on problems like hunger, infectious diseases and a lack of basic schooling. When did politicians and movie stars ever meet for an important cause like de-worming children?
We need balance in our news, but that doesn’t mean ignoring global warming: it is a real problem humanity has caused. We just need perspective. To know what to expect from a warming planet, we can look at the damage estimates from the economic models used by the Biden and Obama administrations, which reveal that the entire, global cost of climate change — not just to economies, but in every sense — will be equivalent to less than a four per cent hit to global GDP by the end of the century.
Humanity is getting more prosperous every day. The United Nations estimates that without global warming the average person in 2100 would be 450 per cent better off than today. Global warming means people will only be 434 per cent richer instead. That is not a disaster.
Climate change fear is causing life-changing anxiety. You might be hearing nothing but bad news but you aren’t hearing the full story.
I think people living in urban areas living the lifestyle of total dependency for good and services on global corporations are more susceptible to climate change propaganda, especially in the massive coastal heat sinks. My children grew up from infants outside in our subsistence farm. Our family life was governed by the 4 seasons of Pennsylvania…. growing food for ourselves and working hard in the soil. My kids observed since their infancy the enduring patterns of spring flowers, strawberries in June, Raspberries in July, Blackberries and tomatoes in Augusts, peaches and applies in Sept, pears in Oct etc….. Every year it got cold, hot warm and mild, the pattern of climate and agrarian life in our area has not changed since immigrants arrived from Alsace in 1630. My children could predict what they were going to be doing each of the 13 weeks of every season. What was on TV seemed like another reality of positive and negative entertainment. They lived in both worlds, home and supermarkets, Restaurants 1% and home cooking 99%…. they had their feet in both worlds. Now they are in college and the only anxiety they feel is when they can get back on their phones LOL…those poor children.
Not if our socialists have anything to say about it. After this past Tuesday, it looks like they are winning.
>> only 59 percent of respondents think
I am pretty sure that there are questions around climate which have 97% or 59% of the scientists answer in a certain way.
This question here, however, uses a wrong word. “think” needs to be replaced with “believe”, whoever came up with this question has a significant lack of understanding in regards to our knowledge and uncertainties around critical parameters needed to have a scientific answer to this question.
Which turns the whole study into anti-science, sorry.
Not worth the paper this thing is printed on!
If you are a skeptic, I believe you should be particularly critical of other skeptical work.
97% is it derived from a barmy Obama speech derived from Cook et al (2013) which is ‘multiply fraudulent’. Did I hear that the Queensland police took a brief interest!
O’Bummer stopped the seas from rising so he could own two oceanside mansions after he left the White House. He said so in 2008, but never mentioned his future real estate plans.
Ask Scientists when you are talking Science!
So what. Polling is not science. Even if only 5% , so what.
Well they would say that now wouldn’t they-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/increased-levels-of-co2-are-proving-to-be-too-much-of-a-good-thing-for-plants/ar-AA13Semg
“polled only professionals and academics who held at least a bachelor’s degree in the fields of meteorology, climatology, physics, geology, and hydrology.”
Oooooh dear!
Surely they needed to poll those with degrees – or experience, or at least opinions – in street pharmacology, drama, emotional oceanology, feminist glaciology, golf course management, creative writing and environmental journalism, gender differentiation in the leisure sphere, and other, wider and rather more inclusive subjects now – absolutely rightly – taught, or indoctrinated, at a school, college or university near you.
On your tax payments.
Then they’d get the right answer.
Auto
One should keep in mind that the 97% number has been demonstrated false many times.
As mentioned in the article, many people are influenced by “sensationalist media coverage”, not facts and scientific method.
A result that identifies they are not responsible scientists, no matter what their degree status is. That 59% would be far far smaller if those lazy gullible 41 percent are eliminated from the tally.
“To me, this result indicates that many opinions are being influenced not by scientific data, but by sensationalist media coverage,” she added. [Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken.]
The most cogent comment I’ve seen in a long time about AGW.
Worthless survey. Main stream media absolutely hates Heart land Foundation and survey participants have to identify themselves. And AGW debate these days is a blood sport.
When the terms consensus and science are used in the same sentence, and often paragraph, then it is a certainty that it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics and the power and money that spring from it!
“significant harm”. Do they mean serious, or simply something measurable? Will this ‘significant’ harm outweigh the enormous benefits gained from FF?
“Believe”. Very good. This is where feelings driven science has got us to. I guess that’s why feeling like a girl when you’re a guy trumps biological science.
From the article: :ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (November 8, 2022) – A new poll of scientists conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that only 59 percent of respondents think global climate change will cause “significant harm” to the “living conditions for people alive today.”
How delusional is our climate science today? The truth is there is no evidence that CO2 is causing, or will cause, any harm to human beings, yet here we have 59 percent of “scientists” thinking there is such evidence.
This is just plain delusional. Not one of those 59 percent could offer sufficient proof to claim CO2 is a dangerous gas. They are all depending on the word and opinion of others, not on facts or evidence which they have garnered.
It’s mass delusion.
I choose not to take part.
These surveys never ask all the right questions to get the reasons behind what their targets are thinking. like have they always held these views and what made them change.
Also, the hip pocket questions, how much would you be willing to pay annually to help solve the climate crisis – or whatever.
You have to make them really consider their values, whats it worth to you ‘to save the world’?
Most practical geologists don’t have to compete for academic budgets, peer approval etc, so they would tend to be more sceptical of AGW and unwilling to sacrifice good money on bad policy like net Zero. It’s the academics that are supporting the status quo.
Even if I were a staunch environmentalist which I am, (a non-anti-anthropomorphic environmentalist…that is the more people the better!), I always know that I am being played by people who use argument by consensus because it is a fallacious argument.
Argument by an exaggerated consensus is a fallacious lie.
Fallacious lies are not motivated by scientific inquiry, they are motivated by power and money.
A few comments.
Most of these folks probably don’t have an in depth education in thermodynamics or radiation of heat. Most have not seriously delved into the math or dynamics involved. I know even when I was in college, there were things the professors espoused that were simply taken as a given because students had neither time or money to do independent research.
I have recently seen a reel on Instagram where a professor was covering some concept in fluid flow and a student proposed it was wrong. The professor jumped his case and told he should tell the author. So he did. Then the author confirmed the error and exclaimed that he couldn’t believe no professor had contacted him!
Errors do propagate!
The media has hyped the catastrophic outcomes to the point that a lot of under 30 crowd truly do believe in CAGW even though they have no idea what, why, or where. I deal with some younger high school teachers who truly do believe it. The media will reap a whirlwind one of these days when the prognostications fail to occur and rightfully so. The boy crying wolf story wasn’t born of someone’s imagination!
Lastly, following Geoff’s lead I am embarking on finding how temperature changes are made. My preliminary work tells me that database changes go no lower than daily averages and some are at the monthly or higher level. That means changes are being made based on entirely subjective decisions. No investigations to the actual recorded temperatures is being done and no corrections to those temperature recordings are ever made. That basically means the changes aren’t based on science but instead are based on what someone thinks the average should be.
Nick Stokes could probably verify this in a heartbeat, but I don’t expect any comment one way or the other.
“Humans are likely causing some warming,…”
A statement with no scientific basis. And which concedes the ground to alarmists, extremists, and charlatans.
This really is an old chestnut. Still has no credibility. Disappointing that it’s still given oxygen.
Spot on ! Human activity does not cause the earth’s climate to change.
Since the 70s and the 80s when this nonsense first appeared (first the coming ice age and then the coming global warming) all the zealous alarmists have ever said is that “the evidence is overwhelming” yet they never provide any. Decades of this same ridiculous dissembling and yet they persist undeterred. What do these younger people with science degrees see that makes them think there’s even a climate situation occurring let alone one that is an existential threat? The actual existential threat comes from people like them that are pushing the incredibly ecologically destructive renewable energy technologies as the answer to solving a problem that doesn’t exist.