Jennifer Marohasy
The Sun did come out for the first morning – Monday morning. The inaugural conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship was in Greenwich just a few miles downriver from Westminster in London.
I hadn’t managed to get any sleep Sunday night after arriving late on a series of flights beginning in Rockhampton (to the immediate west of the Great Barrier Reef) via Dubai (on the edge of the desert of the eastern Arabian Peninsula) arriving Heathrow over more than 24 hours with no sleep.
I nevertheless sat up into the early hours of that London morning after finally being allocated an hotel room, penning a first blog post, which has been republished at WattsUpwithThat.
Then it was time to have breakfast and meet up with John Roskam and also Bella d’Abrera – another IPA colleague, in the hotel foyer. It was Bella’s idea we catch the cable car rather than the tube. So, we arrived from Docklands by going over the Thames rather than under it. I thought it a most wonderful way to arrive.
On the other side of the river, and down a few streets, we found a long line of academic types, snaking their way very patiently to a very large black shed known as the Magazine London. Described as a purpose-built destination, the largest of its kind in London, this shed was able to accommodate the 1,500 plus delegates from over 70 countries, and an orchestra – all gathered for this inaugural conference. But everyone first needed to get through security.
This first ARC conference was going to be more than a series of lecture. We got to hear a rabbi play from the horn of a ram/shofar, Joshua Luke Smith recite poetry, and on and on it went, and that was just the first morning.
At the first morning tea I got to meet some truly brave people who had travelled almost as far as me, including the founder of Rebel News, Ezra Levant from Toronto, who does not flinch but rather provokes on the toughest of issues.
The recurring central theme on the first day, and throughout, was that we in the West are facing a civilisational crisis, driven by external and internal forces. Considering external forces, historian Niall Ferguson said we are in the most difficult strategic environment since World War II. Internally, at the level of culture, we heard about the ‘radical left’s’ capture of our institutions, the divisions in society stoked by the grievance industry, and the collapse in traditional family structures.
Jordan Peterson was a significant presence throughout the three days and promoted continually as the wisest man – with all the answers.
This was a key mistake, because, while Peterson has an important message, which mostly begins and ends with the biblical stories, he seems unable to publicly acknowledge this his Christian faith and that Western civilisation’s greatest success is science following from regard for the rational without demeaning the important roles of religion and faith. To be clear, and in the interests of getting to a core issue that the ARC conference was purportedly about, I am going to suggest that Jordon Peterson doesn’t actually understand, or have any empathy for, science beyond clinical psychology. His obsession is with biblical stories and culture and how we can best live as individuals within families. This is all so very important, but it is not central to the success of Western civilisation – it is but a part of the story. And if the West is to survive it will need to maintain its technological superiority, that I will discuss in Part 3 of this series.
Western civilisation’s success can be attributed to the innovations that followed men who became curious about the natural and physical world beyond their families and communities. Men, it was mostly men who were given the opportunity, to understand nature, natural systems extending even beyond our solar system and describing this universe mathematically and empirically.
Jordon Peterson’s genius is understanding the nature of humanity, but not necessarily what was special about even our first and most important scientists in the western tradition beginning perhaps with Johannes Kepler. Kepler’s First Law states that planets move in elliptical paths around the Sun. He also discovered that planets move proportionally faster in their orbits when they are closer to the Sun; this became Kepler’s Second Law and is critical to understanding climate change over geological time.
Rather than name, and so acknowledge, the most important of these first scientists in the Western tradition, in the conference handbook, Jordon Peterson laments as he did on stage:
Five centuries of ascendant reductionist Enlightenment rationality have revealed that this starkly objective world lacks all intrinsic meaning. A century and a half or more of corrosive cultural criticism has undermined our understanding of and faith in the traditions necessary to unite and guide us …
‘We find ourselves, in consequence, inundated by a continual onslaught of ominous, demoralising messages, most particularly in the form of environmental catastrophism ..
In Peterson’s opening address, and subsequently, the nature of this catastrophism is never discussed or assessed.
This is something that the early scientists puzzled over and described empirically and mathematically. Jordon Peterson could have explained this if he took the time to consult more widely, if he had any interest at all in the history of science that is fundamental to understanding the success of Western civilisation.
Science and its central role in the success, particularly the military success of the West, was hardly acknowledged at this inaugural ARC conference, with Peterson and other delegates preferring the comfort of biblical stories and talk about families and communities. But these can only persist if they can keep the barbarians beyond the gates, at least in part through military superiority. Such is the nature of how individuals, communities and nation-states arrange themselves.
There was no rational discussion and debate about the very issue, human-caused global warming, that is driving so much individual anxiety and causing a growing weakness in our national security across nations that have a Western tradition. In the next post in this series I will explain how concern about global warming is undermining energy security and thus national security.
There was no opportunity for any consideration of the underlying physics nor the empirical data that would enable some assessment of whether the core theory of catastrophic climate change is supported by the evidence, or not.
Jordon Peterson concerned himself in this opening address with the story of Job in the Bible, a man who suffered because of his faith rather than because of any natural catastrophe – manmade or otherwise. Peterson’s final address included the claim we have such power over nature, we can green the deserts.
There is a biblical tradition, that recognises deserts as places to wander, fast, and where one can find God. I’m not sure if that will be as easy if they all become places for easy fishing, or at least relative safety where one can escape the heat and sand and all that can make our existence seemingly unbearable.
On the first morning Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in conversation with former Australian Prime Minister John Anderson and British philosopher Os Guinness said,
Western Civilisation is a cut flower, and cut flowers die… but we have the remnants, the symbols of western heritage, and their seeds. All we have to do, those of us who inherited it, is to go and see them, grow them, nurture them, water them – and when they’re attacked, fight for them.
“Western Civilisation is a cut flower, and cut flowers die… but we have the remnants, the symbols of western heritage, and their seeds. All we have to do, those of us who inherited it, is to go and see them, grow them, nurture them, water them – and when they’re attacked, fight… pic.twitter.com/4BE22K5oKc
— The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (@arc_forum) October 30, 2023
In fact, it is not nearly this simple.
There is a need for debate, but not between the ignorant, there is a need for those with expertise in both mathematics and science to be able to reconnect with the roots of Western Civilisation that means being allowed to be curious about the earth, and also the Earth, in which the seeds of the flowers might be planted.
There was hardly any mention of science at the conference, and instead of including the most imminent scientist who was at the conference, Richard Lindzen, on a most important panel session on the evening of the second day we had to suffer the ignorance of both Jordon Peterson and Alex Epstein when Dennis Prager asked an important question: Is Antarctica melting or not?
As Magatta Wade and Michael Shellenberger also on this panel ducked the question, Alex Epstein, but only after Dennis Prager pressed the point, claimed, ‘Antarctica is melting, but slowly.’
I felt a need to interject from where I was sitting at a table toward the back of the room at this ‘ARC in the Evening – Sector Dinner’ advertised as ‘Energy and Environment: Fuelling the Future and Powering Progress’.
‘Incorrect,’ I called out.
After hearing for two days about the importance of the truth, I was not going to be silent.
Jordon Peterson, also on the panel, on stage, saw and heard me clearly and took over from Alex Epstein commenting, lifting his microphone after running his hand over his face as he had a habit of doing across the three days, he said into his microphone, ‘The problem is that we don’t know when it [the melting at Antarctica] began or when it will end.’
‘Incorrect,’ I called out again.
This time Peterson, asked me directly from the stage, ‘Why? How do you know [when the melting will start and end]?’
‘The physics of the universe,’ I called back, ‘There are cycles. We can forecast when they will begin and when they will end.’
I went on to mention the ‘Milankovitch cycles’, the 100,000-year cycles, that can be described mathematically relating to the orbit of the Earth about the sun and its changing eccentricity. This can be seen empirically in the ice-core data including from Vostok at the Antarctic. I could have gone on to explain that we are only now beginning to understand the likely effect of falling sea levels and changing orbits on submarine volcanism that likely increases dramatically, precipitating the end to each of the last half dozen or so ice ages.
Peterson turned back to the panel and they wrapped up. If I had been given a microphone, I could have elaborated further about the importance of understanding scale and also phase alignment, but no one was going to give me a microphone.
Across the three days there were no roving microphones – none.
Discussion was limited to each panel, and their preordained experts.
These experts are listed across six pages of the inaugural ARC conference handbook, beginning with Agu Irukwu, a Senior Pastor of Jesus House for All Nations in London and ending with Winston Marshall, a grammy award-winning musician.
There were scientists in the audience, very few, but notably Richard Lindzen. He was at this dinner.
And so, my final act of defiance, was when Denis Prager at the suggestion of Michael Schellenberger called for Bjorn Lomborg to stand-up toward the very end of the panel session. Calling for Lomborg to stand-up because we should acknowledge him as a great advocate for the truth on this issue of ‘energy and the environment’. And so I could but call out again from the back of the room,
‘Then let’s also acknowledge the presence of Richard Lindzen’.
Denis Prager could not see me, and he asked for clarification, as to whose name had been called out. A gentleman from a table closer to the stage called back, ‘Richard Lindzen’.
And so, after political scientist Bjorn Lomborg was cheered as a campion of the truth because he is clearly Michael Shellenberger’s’ favoured wiseman, there was opportunity for atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen to stand and also be applauded by the several hundred of us at that dinner.
Early in the panel discussion Shellenberger had specifically commented that ‘scepticism’ must be closed-down and ‘the science’ of the IPCC accepted as true. This is perhaps the intention of Bjorn Lomborg, and it would seem other intellectual drivers of this inaugural ARC conference. Though I would argue they are not really intellectual, but more political in their aspirations and motivations.
If ARC is to be truly successful in saving Western civilisation, then it is going to need to move beyond politics and reconcile itself with the very nature not only of man, but man’s place within the Universe. This is at the heart of science as it is still practiced in places like Russia and China.
If Western civilisation is to persist, it needs more than anything else to save its science, because otherwise our civilisation will be conquered and replaced. This is the reality of history: boys don’t only need to be able to set the table, a theme of Jordon Peterson’s final closing address, but they also need to be able to fight wars and win them. We thus need energy security for national security, a theme that I will discuss in part 3 of this series.
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The “ignorance” of Jordan Peterson”
Jennifer you are a legitimate star. But, but this man has, at great cost (he’s been cancelled and been discredentialed as a professor and clinician, and his health is, and has been poor), very effectively and for longer than most,
identified in detail the underlying ugly ideological roots of what has undermined to an advanced degree our civilization, culture, the family, our history and the fruits of the Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution.
Perhaps paradoxically, Jordan Peterson is actually not a religious man per se, but he credits our Judeo-Christian heritage for the creative miracle of the West. Please dig a bit deeper. You have labeled this man completely wrongly. Read his books, watch a selection of his videos (. He is very deserving of the high esteem you noted. 100s of millions who are on our side of the issue, have heard and watched this man.
I’m a scientist and engineer myself, and even studied paleoclimatology in the 1950s as parts of stratigraphy and paleontology courses, but I recognized a few years ago that objective science has pretty much done all it can to rebut post normal politicized climate ‘science’. They’ve actually falsified the crisis theory. Dissenters of Crisis Anthropo Climate, however have have been effectively marginalized and are being ignored.
Continuing the war against the crooked science when it is only a false front for an unimaginably horrific ulterior purpose imperiling literally billions of people, won’t make a ripple. The Dark Side is making considerable gains in their diabolical campaign. Moreover, it is naive to think the Dark Side scientists actually believe in the Global Warming bogeyman. The fact that much of their work is jiggering and making up data to support this outrage is all the evidence one needs to understand this truth.
Jordan Peterson is a religious man. But he refuses to acknowledge this publicly, he wants to be popular and it is not fashionable to be a Christian. He takes from the bible, but he won’t own the label. This may be politically smart, but longer terms it is not helpful.
We must own what we believe, and standup for what we cherish.
They spoke for three days about needing a new and better story, and one based on truth.
Then acknowledge the importance of the bible, and also the importance of science to Western civilisation.
Mention the early scientists and the now great men who are still honest to that tradition.
Do not place on the stage false idols.
Do not ask me to be silent when Michael Shellenberger says: ‘We need to do away with scepticism.’
This is entirely consistent with what he writes, and who he is. It is just that most on our side seem blinded by his prose and his propaganda.
Peterson is more complex. I’m sorry he is condemned for the important message that he has. But making him into the great hero is misguided.
We are all flawed, Peterson more than most.
Jennifer, I admire you greatly but I disagree with your approach here. Everyone who opposes the Net Zero political revolution is an ally to be cultivated. There are too few of us and the stakes are too high to alienate any ally. We do not have the luxury to demand agreement on that which is not essential. When we disagree with an ally such as Lomborg or Shellenberger we ought to focus on embracing first our common ground which is that energy poverty is not a solution to anything.
Lomborg is not an ally. He is a useful idiot to climastrology.
Quote Lomborg….”climate change [caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions] is real”
Lomborg opposes the Net Zero solution to the non-existent problem that unfortunately he thinks is real.
I don’t care if you believe there’s a Sun god but he’s benevolent, or you believe that there is no Sun god. You’re my ally if you don’t believe that the Sun god demands that my beating heart be cut out of my chest on an altar.
Dear Jennifer,
What a terrible judgement of Jordan Peterson. Further, Michael Shellenberger did not say ‘We need to do away with scepticism.’ In fact, having watched his presentation at https://watch.adh.tv/arc-conference-2023, Shellenberger spent much of his presentation tipping water on claims by extremists.
Jennifer spends too much time attacking people who express views she does not agree with, rather than presenting, standing-behind and defending her contradicting viewpoints. For instance, on what basis can Marohasy claim “We are all flawed, Peterson more than most”. Perhaps she was asleep, chasing for a selfie or a starring role.
She never explained why she was there or what she expected from the conference in the first place.
While she herself may be flawed, with all his alleged faults, Peterson’s presentation, which out of interest I also watched on adh.tv, was a useful prelude (which was not about climate change or analysing temperature data).
Finally, it matters nought that Jordan Peterson is a Christian, or that if Marohasy has a belief system, she is something else; feminist for example.
The Book of Job drawn on by Peterson, is Old Testament and part of the Quran. While the Prophet Job had lessons for humanity, those lessons are not strictly ‘Christian’ (i.e., post-Christ).
Really Jennifer, strive to do better. At least listen those you criticise.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
One of the criticisms of the New Testament is that the writers believed in Jesus and accepted that he was a manifestation of god and the true promised Messiah. Therefore, they jiggered their writing to conform with that truth. The sacred truth had to be true. Therefore certain events must have happened.
I believe the consensus climatologists are of the same mind. That CO2 is a warming gas must be true. Therefore certain explanations must be correct. So, they jigger the data and models to express that truth. The jigs are selected and the jiggering is disguised as objective adjustments. All in good conscience.
They are an extreme case of Feynman’s warning against self-delusion.
The left has taken over and the religious right is fighting back. Science is still dormant.
Hi Mike, the religious right thinks it will be most effective if it embraces the faux science because it actually cares nought for the real science. They are lazy and they will lose until they honestly embrace the messy truth within the history of Western civilisation. Michael Shellenberger thought he was amongst friends when he let slip: ‘We need to do away with scepticism’. He is not my friend, nor are the religious right if they want peace rather than debate when it comes to climate science.
Well if he said that he is also a useful idiot as Lomborg above. If anyone is willing to throw in the towel regarding the fight for empirical proof of AGW, we owe then nothing.
THEM!!!!
I agree.
The most important battle to be engaged and won i.m.o. is not the CO2 atmospheric effects debate, but rather the political effects that the whole CO2 shltshow is having on energy policies all around the world.
Let Jennifer and other climate scientists stick to their lane and bang heads about CO2 and temps, but ‘adaptists’ (like me) need to be more focused on supporting rational energy engineering policies that position humankind to weather whatever nature might throw our way.
Mr.
You want to be relevant, you are not rational. If you were rational you would see the need to sort the science, rather than back particular ‘energy engineering’ policies.
If you want to understand weather, then engage with the science and learn to anticipate the cycles.
I think the 2 matters can be addressed in parallel.
Why can’t engineers be proceeding with solutions for utility-scale power generation & distribution while climate scientists split the atom over CO2’s role in the air.
Engineers’ disciplines aren’t constrained by what the weather might be like in various parts of the world in 50 years time.
SMRs are able to operate just as well on 35 degrees days as they do on 5 degrees days don’t they?
If we do not prioritize defeating the political movement, Jennifer, we will never have the freedom to follow the scientific method to arrive at the unbiased truth. It is naive to imagine that we can avoid that fight and stick strictly to our scientific studies. Even more naive to believe that just a little more science will change the minds of tyrants and rent-seekers, and brainwashed true believers.
Certainly we can try to do both in parallel, but failing to assemble a broad coalition against the collapse of western civilization would be the end of true science.
We have already sorted the science (as far as I’m concerned). There’s no climate emergency. There’s a mild beneficial warming that may be all-natural or may be an extra dividend of our industrial society. The problem is that those in political power cling to myths that help them maintain power and get rich.
It’s not that I have no interest in further understanding the details of climate. It’s just that I understand that we must defeat the irrational Net Zero ideologues or descend into poverty and bondage (or more likely just die).
Hear hear!
Dear Jennifer,
ARC was not a science conference. It was not even billed as a science conference. While scientists were there, including psychologists, biologists, entomologists (including yourself) and climate scientist Dr Richard Lindzen, like CPAC it was essentially a political outreach conference.
And yes, it is true that without testing the hypothesis using objective, replicable methods, too many ‘thought-leaders’ including Jordan Petersen, Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger openly or covertly build ‘warming’ into their narratives. Where was Patrick Moore?
However, as their sphere of influence is political, they are almost obliged to wrap their messages around … we know the world is warming … but; or ignore it altogether.
Reaching such people requires a bit more than data-picking, Excel linear regression and squabbling amongst ourselves, which is where I believe the counter scientific/empirical evidence-based approach has failed. In that respect, I fail to see the relevance of 100,000-year Milankovitch cycles when it is claimed that most of the ‘warming’ has occurred in the last 50 to 70 years. If cycles are involved, they must have a period less than 100-years, and they must be definably different to stochastic events. Their effect must also be measurable against a very noisy background.
Some of the more important presentations at the ARC conference have been made available at https://watch.adh.tv/browse.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Scientific or technological progress or superiority does not guarantee responsible, flourishing, or free societies. Neither does the scientific method Science and technology without morality to guide its use quickly leads to monumental disaster and societal collapse. The Soviet Union was technologically superior to the U.S. in some areas but their rejection of religion shackled them because it amounted to thought policing and enforced oppression. Same with China today.
We recently experienced a global pandemic initiated by careless, amoral scientists playing with technology to increase the transmissibility of a bat virus without giving thought to the (lack of) value of the research or weighing its potential deadly consequences. Curiosity and hubris unrestrained by morality drove them. Religion and philosophy is the source of morality. The most widespread religions in the world today all derive from the same Judeo-Christian ethic. That ethic, reduced to its essentials—honor God and respect your fellow beings—is codified in various forms in the constitutions and laws of the most free and technologically advanced countries today; guaranteeing protection of certain unalienable rights like freedom of expression that allow a society to flourish. But freedom without moral restraint will inevitably lead to many of the pathologies we see in societies today. Societies decay when individuals stop practicing the religions or philosophies that teach them self-control and respect for others and elevate unbridled freedom and self-gratification over self-restraint and selflessness.
Sounds like a gospel meeting.
Good to see Earth’s orbit getting a mention – even if not any real recognition.
Biblical stories are ‘not central’ to the West’s success? Perhaps you should read Hooykaas ‘Religion and the Rise of Modern Science’ for a correction of this.
I’ve read Hooykaas, and this Dutch professor was a committed Christian, even if like Jordon Peterson he had trouble admitting as much publicly.
At Bengello Beach, longest-running coastal study in Southern Hemisphere finds ‘nature is the best healer’ (msn.com)
and you also need moral clarity-
Canberra bureaucracy ‘out of control’ and in need of ‘serious pruning’ (msn.com)
As Emma Tognini reports in The Australian-
A family of four. Two young children, a boy and a girl, six and eight years old. They sat at their breakfast table and were made to watch as their father had his eyes gouged out in front of them. Then someone cut off their mother’s breast. The same savages turned then to the little girl, the eight-year-old, and cut off her foot before turning to her little brother. Just six years old. They sliced the fingers from his hand. Only then was this family killed. After their execution, the Hamas terrorists sat down and helped themselves to a meal………
Something about this past month, the terrible events of October 7 and the response of large parts of the Western world have shaken me. In fact, it’s not just about what happened on October 7 that has brought me to this conclusion; rather, the response to it from many in Australia’s political, academic and cultural elite.
And perhaps, in a perverse way, the response to it is a reflection of our own culpability. All of a sudden, a phrase such as “Free Palestine” is being used to justify the most horrific things.
A crisis of courage. Courage to stand. Courage to adjust course. Courage to count the cost of truth and, in one of the great Australian colloquialisms, the courage to call bullshit on a wide range of things we know not to be true but, for whatever reasons, have been tolerated. Things like the bitter, deceptive lies that underpin identity politics in all its forms. That all we have is identity, that the colour of our skin or our sexuality matters more than a person’s character. That we have no agency. That resilience doesn’t matter. A culture that celebrates, honours and even venerates victimhood in all its forms……….
The West hasn’t faced a serious threat since 9/11. I don’t recall anyone calling for restraint then. Have we already forgotten? It could be argued that we have forgotten our history, our story, become lazy.
Focused on consensus at all costs. Favoured the road most travelled. Avoiding conflict. Avoiding those things that might require courage.
Many good points, observa, but how do you apply this to the question at hand? The Net Zero ghouls are playing the part of Hamas, not Lomborg, Shellenberger, or Peterson. We must call bullshit to the greater evil, not to the minor errors.
There are no minor errors at play here.
If you want to skewer ‘net zero’ then be honest to the temperature data, especially maximum temperatures.
Net zero is prefaced on the idea that we need to keep temperatures within 1.5 degrees C.
The data shows that there was MORE than 1.5 degrees Celsius of cooling to 1960 considering maximum temperatures globally, and then more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming since 1960.
We have already exceeded the net zero criteria and objectives, let’s acknowledge that rather than pretending we can keep global temperatures within 1.5 C and achieve net zero.
:-).
A couple of points of clarification, for those determined to misrepresent me including Bill Johnston.
I am NOT referring to Michael Shellenberger’s speech in the 3 o’clock session on day 1/Monday, that went to plan. I am referring to what Michael Shellenberger said in frustration at the dinner as part of a panel on Tuesday evening.
And nowhere have I suggested that the conference should have been all about science, except that at a conference purportedly about Western civilisation and the importance of drawing from this history, it needed to acknowledge the importance of science and it could have acknowledged the importance of healthy scepticism for science since the Enlightenment.
Instead Michael Shellenberger in frustration said:
‘We need to do away with scepticism’.
I was taking notes, even at the dinner.
Also, as per my blog post, the final question in the session on the Tuesday EVENING was quite specific and valid: Is Antarctica melting?
The panel was Magatte Wade, Alex Epstein, Michael Shellenberger, Jordan Peterson. None of them wanted to answer the question. None of them are particularly interested in science or questions concerning the natural environment.
Denis insisted, so Alex Epstein eventually stated: ‘Its melting, but slowly’.
Clearly he has no idea. He said something more-or-less consistent with the IPCC position and consistent with the policy position that Lomborg, Shellnberger and others want to progress … here I am surmising. They want to promote the idea that climate change is an issue, something we should be concerned about, but not a catastrophe. Nuclear is the energy solution because it is low emissions. I reject this approach completely.
After I called out from the floor, Jordan Peterson, tried to clarify by adding to their implicit policy position: that weather and climate is chaotic.
(I am extrapolating here, but perhaps this is his general view of the natural world. And what is the title of his first book:
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
In reality there are climate cycles and they can be forecast. I’ve done so much work in this space, but neither the right nor left of politics want a solution, they are not being practical. They are obsessed with the political.
Also, we know when the Antarctic has melted and when it has gained ice in terms of millions, thousands, hundreds and decadal time scales. The proxy temperature record and instrumental temperature record for Antarctica is known, even if this record is mostly ignored.
Through most of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century Antarctica was gaining in ice/mass, until 2016 when there was dramatic ice loss at Antarctica.
To suggest there has been a slow and steady loss of ice since industrialisation is a misrepresentation of the facts. It is convenient, it fits somewhat with IPCC narratives, and it is not science.
Anyone who has spent time in the natural world, the world that I love, can’t help but see patterns, beauty and where there is life it tends to complexity.
The natural world is not chaos, nor something to be frightened of, nor something to try and always change. I dislike the hubris of the IPCC and these faux environmentalists including Lomborg and Shellenberger.
There is a place for humility. I wrote this in part 1 of this new series, https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/10/reconciling-with-nature-god-and-qantas-part-1-arriving-london/
When does your book appear, Jennifer, in which all this is laid out? 🙂
JM wrote:
Perhaps you would clarify your view on this? I certainly agree that nuclear power isn’t immediately necessary and that there is no real problem to be solved by eliminating CO2 emissions. Is your position that you are fundamentally opposed to nuclear power?
If so, why? And if not, why do you reject the compromise of using it to maintain our industrial society if the only other choice is energy poverty as we foolishly curtail the use of fossil fuels and substitute unreliable environment-ravaging alternatives?
I have not fundamental problem with nuclear. I am just think that for those who understand their is no climate catastrophe to be embracing a nuclear solution because of pure politics, very political. Let’s acknowledge that nuclear is about politics and that nuclear is actually very expensive.
The ATL article put it this way instead.
To me … and, judging by some of the comments above, several others here at WUWT … a “panel discussion” by default consists of 4 to 10 people on a raised stage “debating” an issue while a large audience listens attentively … without distractions like “dinner” !
The sharp reactions this sentence generated may be, at least partly, explained by my (and other WUWT-ers ?) “built-in assumptions” when reading it.
_ _ _ _ _
Please don’t lump in the entire WG-I team with “the IPCC”.
Most of the WG-I “working at the coalface” climate scientists do good work (IMNSHO), and the main body of their assessment report includes various indications of “uncertainty” and honest “likelihood” estimates (see my first post above).
The vast majority of problems arise with the SPM resulting from the “line-by-line consensus agreement by government appointees“, i.e. the only 32 pages out of the 2489-page report that politicians around the world are even remotely likely to actually read, which has had (almost ?) all mentions of “uncertainty” and “likelihoods” meticulously removed.
For the IPCC’s WG-II (Adaptation) team, however, the rules of the game are different.
From section 1.1.4, “What is New in the History of Interdisciplinary Climate Change Assessment”, on page 131 (of the WG-II assessment report) :
For Working Group Two, the “focus” is no longer on the “historic” scientific method, but on what a small number of (carefully selected) “associated scholars” have to say.
For the WG-III (Mitigation) team … the people who decide on the “emissions pathways” that WG-I gets to run through their climate models … the reasons for clinging on to RCP8.5 are openly stated despite WG-I effectively declaring it to be “counterfactual”.
At the end of Box 3.3, “The likelihood of high-end emission scenarios”, on page 317 (of the WG-III report) :
It is “important” for us to realise that RCP8.5 is politically “useful”, as a justification for their “climate policy” proposals, and so therefore “cannot be ruled out” …
_ _ _ _ _
I personally have a much greater interest in the “down in the weeds” details of the mathematical part of “climate science” that the political and societal aspects, a “bias” that I suspect at least some other WUWT posters (and readers / “lurkers”) share.
The “sharp” reactions you got in previous comments here (including mine) may well be the result of a “talking past each other” situation.
No Jennifer, I do not believe I have misrepresented anything.
Your openly hostile ad hominem attacks on people you do not agree with are not warranted under the circumstances. Religious views and personal mannerisms have no bearing on what they said or the stories they told.
With reference to Michael Shellenberger, you now clarify that he said ‘We need to do away with scepticism’ in frustration during the dinner on Tuesday evening. This is different in context to your earlier comment, and it differs considerably from the views he expressed during his talk. So why was he frustrated. What led up to him making that comment? And why would you yell at those people from the floor?
You also seem to be confused about the many branches of science that have bought all of us out of the WWII/pre-1950s dark ages. You seem to ignore on the one hand the investments that made it possible, and on the other the resulting benefits of two to three generations of accelerated scientific progress.
We communicate via the internet, and we can make deserts bloom. More people are living longer than ever before, we can dig coal in the Hunter Valley and put the landscape back to looking like it was, and instead of vehicles using 10.8-litres per 100 km, they are now safer, more comfortable and they use only 6.8 to 8 litres/100 km. You can even afford to fly to London to go to a conference in what, 23-hours.
I would argue that despite on-going religious wars in the Middle East, communication and travel have overcome many cultural barriers. Such benefits are all part of the package known as science. Climate catastrophism on the other hand is a religion – a negative force bordering on Marxism that should be resisted. The recent 60:40 vote against The Voice hopefully marks turning toward more civilised, constructive debate and actions to address disadvantage in Australia. Now we need a debate about the demise of our democracy, net zero and more.
I also remain to be convinced that theories related to cycles can be used to predict the imminent future climate (or should that be weather). Seasonality aside, I am more a fan of Demetris Koutsoyiannis, mainly because in real life, climate/weather is stochastic/chaotic, which means unpredictable (for a lead-in, see for instance Koutsoyiannis, Demetris, 2011. Hurst-Kolmogorov Dynamics and Uncertainty. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(3):481-495. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00543.x)
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Thanks Bill.
Alex Epstein came to the conclusion ‘Antarctica is melting, albeit slowly’ because that is what they want to believe.
In reality, Antarctica has been gaining ice for most of the last 2,000 years … read my chapter in the last CCTF2020 book, with John Abbot. And also gaining ice for most of the 20th Century through until 2016. In 2016, it didn’t ‘melt slowly’ it lost a hell of a lot of ice over one summer.
As regards Michael Shellenberger’s position, you and others close your eyes to all the inconsistencies. He rarely comes out and says exactly what he thinks because it is all too difficult.
I called out from the floor, because I will not be silent on these issues of such importance at a conference that claimed to care so much about Western civilisation and its proud history.
‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’
Who wrote that?
Dear Jennifer,
You say “Alex Epstein came to the conclusion ‘Antarctica is melting, albeit slowly’ because that is what they want to believe.”. However, that could also be the extent of his knowledge. So you don’t actually know “that is what they want to believe”. You are just putting your interposition on him.
You also say “Antarctica has been gaining ice for most of the last 2,000 years … read my chapter in the last CCTF2020 book”. Actually I have, and without going into the detail, I’m not convinced. Using a statistical model of modeled T-data, and artificer intelligence, you and Abbott talk about temperature, but not ice accumulation/loss.
You also say that “you and others close your eyes to all the inconsistencies … “. But hang-on, I did not close my eyes as you accuse. I was sufficiently curious to watch Shellenberger’s talk on http://www.adh.tv. Closing the argument, while I don’t have the reference, if you are interested, Jordan Peterson interviewed Richard Lindzen some time ago.
So why attack the presenters and me, or shout from the floor, when the conference was not about climate-science in the first place.
Yours sincerely,
Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Hi Bill
The conference was not about climate-science, so why was the last question to the panel on the Tuesday evening: Is Antarctica melting?
This is fundamentally a question of science. And I edited a great book that included a whole section on exactly this question. The first part of ‘Climate Change: The Facts 2020’ was about climate change at Antarctica and explored the proxy and instrumental records in some detail showing that considering the last 2,000 years and also the last 60 years, there has been overall cooling.
If Alex Epstein did not know the answer, why did he respond: ‘It is melting, albeit slowly.’
ARC perhaps wants to skip the science and embrace political activists including Lomborg, Epstein and Shellenberger to wedge the left on the issue of nuclear.
So they want to manufacture a political/consensus response that is an insult to the real science.
I shall continue to standup for the evidence and the scientific method, even if this means I must continue as a lone voice from the back of the room.
Hi again Jennifer.
I have long appreciated your dedication and work on calling out the bullshlt about the demise of the GBR by Hughes et al.
That’s more than a full-time job for anybody with your expertise.
But this statement – “I must continue as a lone voice from the back of the room” – is redolent of the Greta Thunberg school of discourse.
Please don’t go there.
Ta, and all the very best wishes.
Dear Jennifer,
Anyone who disagrees, is apparently ‘misrepresenting’ you, including my handsome self. However, disagreeing with you is not a hanging offence.
The Chapter you referred to (Chapter 9 in CCTF (2020) by Abbott and yourself) contains no mention of ice melting in Antarctica. You present a methodology for deconstructing temperature changes based on cyclical analysis that in my mind is probably contentious, However, this is not the place to go into details.
In contrast to your alleged ‘cooling’ Roy Spencer’s Chapter 6 Figure 6.8 shows no detectable T-trend since 1979. His graph of Arctic sea-ice extent (Figure 6.7), shows declines, particularly in September In contrast, his Figure 6.9 for the Antarctic shows slight increases from 1978 to 2019 My overall take home message is that nothing remarkable is happening. Further, whether any of these proxies (including satellite measurements) is believable is another question that overhangs this ‘science’ (see also Howard Brady’s Figure 2.3).
Ken Stewart (Chapter 7) found no overall Antarctic temperature trend over the last 30 years. Whether linear trends are significantly different to zero-trend is another question that is beyond resolution here. Finally, in Chapter 8, Jaco Volk found no evidence of warming or cooling at Mawson, where data commenced in 1954. He also made the point that measuring devices and Stevenson screens have not remained the same. In my view, trends are so small relative to noise that they are probably not meaningful.
I don’t think anything in CCTF (2020) proves or disproves Alex Epstein’s response that ‘It [the Antarctic] is melting, albeit slowly’. Furthermore, having reviewed the chapters, I don’t see any evidence upon which strong conclusions could be drawn either way.
From Wiki:
Alexander Joseph Epstein (/ˈɛpstaɪn/) is an American author[1] and climate change denier[2][3] who advocates for the expansion of fossil fuels.[4][5] He is the founder and president of the Center for Industrial Progress, a for-profit think tank. Epstein is the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (2014) and Fossil Future (2022), in which he argues for the expanded use of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas.[6]
Yours sincerely,
Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
What a mess this comment section is — and much of the mess the fault of the author, Dr. Marohasy, who included attacks and denigration of those who she should rightly consider as allies. She attacks them because she doesn’t agree with their opinions. She attacked them based on their religious beliefs and then denies she did so. Others attack her for her uncivil actions, and then the comments devolve into a cat-fight over religion and science — even over who has a proper claim to say that they themselves are religious! (and who could know better than a person about themself?)
If it were me — I’d delete half the comments as violating the house rules of WUWT.
Did we both read the same article? I don’t recognise your comments as being relevant in any way to the article I read. ‘Attacks and denigration?’ I read her fairly measured criticism of several speakers but you’d have to be as sensitive as a snowflake to view that as ‘attacks and denigration’.
What, exactly, is your bias in this, Mr. Kip Hansen?
“Attacks and denigration” or “hostile ad hominem attacks” seem to me to be an overly harsh judgment of what I would call strongly worded unfortunately counterproductive remarks.
Rather than censoring people’s comments why don’t we attempt to deescalate the rhetoric?
Kip,
You misrepresent me. I simply point out that Shellenberger, and Lomborg are not my friends, they would like to do away with scepticism and for us all to embrace IPCC science and nuclear energy because it is low emissions.
As far as I can tell there is no climate crisis and even a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide would have not significant effect on global temperatures.
Further, the IPCC historical temperature reconstructions are entirely contrived. They ignore the significant cooling from 1920 to at least 1960.
As regards religious beliefs, I have the greatest respect for Christians, Agnostics and Atheists alike.
I though I most clearly articulate my position in Part 1 of this series, including when I endorsed the comments from Thomas Huxley written in the late 1800s that:
Sorry, Jen, but I think you are missing the primary point.
Science and industry flourished in the West because Western philosophy and religion created an environment in which they COULD flourish.
Science is crippled whenever it is not acceptable to challenge accepted beliefs and paradigms. Science and innovation did not create freedom, freedom allowed people to research and innovate.
Cart…. Horse…. If we do not get the order right, then we will go nowhere.
peter.
Peter W.
I more or less endorsed the position that science is downstream of culture (part 1, https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/10/reconciling-with-nature-god-and-qantas-part-1-arriving-london/ ). I am not sure why you would suggest otherwise.
My contention is that while the Enlightenment did facilitate reason and science, that is no longer the case.
Dr Marohasy,
Perhaps I offended by addressing you too informally? Or perhaps my point was too repetitive? For whatever reason, you have ignored all of my comments while addressing most others.
Do you not acknowledge that we face a political disaster and need to cooperate with people with whom we have disagreements, even stark ones, on science?
It was my intention to be polite and you remain a person whose achievements I greatly admire. For any offense, I do apologize most abjectly!
Hi Rich
I did not mean to ignore your comments, I am still travelling with limited internet and I perhaps skipped over the more political commentary.
The political disaster is real, and I have no problems cooperating with people with whom I disagree.
If ARC want to promote Shellenberger and Lomborg as a political solution, because they want to wedge the left on the issue of nuclear, I will be remain silent, if not supportive.
But once they declare that what they really want is to silence scepticism, and just make it up when it comes to the temperature record for Antarctica, I will speak up.
The end never justifies the means.
Science is a precious gift, that is particularly relevant when faced with a political disaster.
That disaster would not exist if good men and women from the conservative and centre right side of politics had been honest to the evidence from the beginning.
Kindest regards,