By Robert Bradley Jr.
“A few days ago, a recent Washington Post article highlighted the growing chorus of scientists who increasingly view climate change as an emergency. I count myself among them. What has shifted my perspective? …” (- Andrew Dessler, last month)
“The worst-case scenarios of climate change are truly terrible, but even middle-of-the-road scenarios portend environmental change without precedent for human society.” (- Andrew Dessler, 2012)
So professor/activist Andrew Dessler now believes we are in a climate emergency? I think not. He has been alarming for many years, if not for decades. Dessler has been exaggerating for so long that he now wants a “it’s-real-this-time” do-over. Buyer beware.
A First Impression
The Andy Dessler I met for lunch on Monday, January 18, 2010, in College Station told the table (Gerald North presiding) that humans would be living underground because of anthropogenic global warming.
Twelve years ago, Dessler opined to the readers of the Houston Chronicle that Texas’s “hellish summer of 2011” would be the new normal. “Get used to it,” he said. “The weather of the 21st century will be very much like the hot and dry weather of 2011.” Another outlier finally happened in 2023, but for reasons that scientists are still trying to ascertain since the “greenhouse signal” is less about Texas summer afternoons than Siberian winter nights.
So when was the climate not in red alert? Dessler opened his text Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2012) with this paragraph:
Future generations may well view climate change as the defining issue of our time. The worst-case scenarios of climate change are truly terrible, but even middle-of-the-road scenarios portend environmental change without precedent for human society.
Deep Fried Alarmism
In 2019, Andy tweeted on “climate dystopia”:
If “some humans survive” is the only thing we care about, then climate change is a non-issue. I think it’s certain that “some” humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.
Future humans, as they live in a climate dystopia: “I thought he cared about the environment”.
I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.
In public, the alarmist’s alarmist tones it down just a bit (don’t want to lose the audience, just discomfort them). But not that much. Also in 2019, Dessler editorialized in the Houston Chronicle: “With continued fossil fuel use, we might see warming over the current century sufficient to literally remake the Earth’s environment and our place within it.”
You get the story. Dessler’s alarm is old vinegar in a new bottle. In view of the historical record, his readers should be cautious.
Conclusion
Andrew Dessler’s substack posts are polite these days. But here is what this hot-tempered professor (even out of step with many of his colleagues), really thinks and says when folks are not looking:
Hey assholes. We’ve been telling you for decades that this was going to happen if we didn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You didn’t listen and now it’s all happening. We hope you’re happy. Enjoy the heatwaves, intense rainfall, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and many other things, you fucking morons.
What an embarrassment … to Texas A&M, the science profession, and himself.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Dessler is an activist disguised as a scientist. It’s surprising to see a scientist engaging in what appears to be emotionally charged rhetoric and fear-mongering tactics
If Wine turns to Vinegar as it gets old, I guess as Vinegar gets older it turns to Whine
“old vinegar”
Old acetobacter…..
old pi$$ ….
I would say that he’s a moron, disguised as an activist. He gave up pretending to be a scientist years ago.
>> Dessler is an activist
I am afraid I disagree, like Kerry, Dressler believes he knows what other people should do, they themselves are above such notions. I think the correct term is “philistines”.
>> old vinegar in a new bottleI am afraid I disagree to this too, as “Preaching Water But Drinking Wine” is a better description, for example Desslers statement when they discussed grit security, hem mentioned that he has a generator at home. Which allows to make conclusion about the size of this home (not activist friendly) as well as his lack of understanding of the topic.. privately using generators is not solving the problem or is an efficient solution, it would be far better by any metrics beside generator sales to avoid blackouts using the proper technology (hint is not huge amoutns of wind and solar)
>> We’ve been telling you for decades that this was going to happen
I am afraid I disagree with t hat one as well.. Okay, they have been saying it, no question.
But as we now know their past statements stem from a lack of understanding, older models were wrong, there is nothing to be proud about!
If anything Dessler and his cohort should explain, why they made statements on uncertain data in the past, distorting facts!
He should beg for forgiveness, withdraw his false statements of the past and explain how his current statements could be any more trustworthy than what he said in past, what we now know without doubt to be wrong or at least given with a wrong certainty!
I (miraculously) lived through the boiling climate in 2023 and I’m good with all that stuff.
What I (and the world’s most vulnerable) can’t accept is rampant inflation, unreliable and inaccessible energy, and fascist policies put in place by the paternalistic climate elite jet-setting around to conferences where they decide how to (further) spend my tax dollars.
Most of us who lived comfortably through the summer of 2023, if we were in a hot place, did so with the help of fossil fuels and modern conveniences like air conditioning. I bet Dessler did too. I haven’t heard much about the activists in south Texas suffering heat stroke on those reliably hot summer days. Spare me the sanctimony.
Hmm, there was no ‘Summer of 2023’ – I remember we went straight from Spring to Autumn around early June but that’s about it. If there was much in the way of hot weather then I obviously blinked and missed it.
No doubt some alarmist troll will pop up soon with the usual ‘nth warmest on record in Southern Tanzania’ propaganda silliness which I am fast running out of patience with.
Richard, maybe not where you are but here in Texas, it was terrible. No Spring and no Fall. I lived thru 2011 too but we had several years of drought before 2011. We still have the scars of all the fires from that year.
I am going to assume, Mason, that one thing that kept you going in the predictably hot summer in Texas was fossil fuels. We had some hot days in Kansas, no records, but hot at times, and the fossil fuel power plants kept the lights and Acs running. It sure wasn’t the wind or lack thereof.
An emergency for you funding, and the UN and WEF world govt plans
My comments are on his substack page here. TL:DR version?
I pointed out that the IPCC said there was not only no emergency, there was no sign of global warming in almost all phenomena.
He said if I posted again I’d be banned from his substack.
This is just tap dancing. He first claims in the head post and then quotes to me that “Rather, the decision whether it’s an emergency is a mix of the scientific evidence combined with personal judgment.”
But when I asked for his scientific evidence of an emergency, suddenly I was the bad guy “trying to argue scientific facts for a value judgment”.
The best part?
“If you respond, you’re banned”.
And if I can’t respond, I’m effectively banned anyhow.
Pathetic.
w.
A bunch of people should visit his page and copy/paste your thread (with a link) into his page
Asking him if he has seen the thread at WUWT. Perhaps several hundred would do. He might not have such a pointy nose afterwards.
Never argue with idiots!
Sometimes we must when the idiots are running the show.
The cretin would like to believe that by banning Willis he won the argument, but I doubt that even any one of the voices in his head will be kind to him on that one, let alone anyone who reads the exchange.
Well done Willis – clearly every truth-bomb hit the target.
Thank you, Willis, for dealing with such cretins in a polite and respectful manner. You’re starting to take on the appearance of a modern super hero!
“Faster than spewing bullshitter! Able to leap over huge piles of unrecycled solar panels and turbine blades in a single bound! Willis E.; champion of Truth, Justice and the Scientific Method!”
He’s a child, thinks like a child, throws a tantrum like a child, blusters like a child. It’s pathetic. But the real question is, Did you respond?
Willy November 11, 2023 4:13 am
Not yet. Been considering it.
w.
Can you spot the “science denier” in this exchange? I sure can. Willis wins by technical knock out – multiple times.
My prediction is that the next AR wont make the mistake of spelling out the scientific facts in a convenient table even though it was obscured within the bulk of the enormous report.
Activists such as Dessler and Mann have been given enough rope for long enough and the results are speaking for themselves.
The thing about Table 12.12, AR6, WGI is that the analyses of future emerging events are all based on the extremely unlikely RCP 8.5 scenario.
Wonder what that table would look like if RCP 4.5 was used?
What an embarrassment … to Texas A&M, the science profession, and himself.
If the press or his own academic institution would hold him accountable for his continually being wrong in his supposedly chosen field, then things might be different. But “climate change” is not about climate and weather and the press is not about accurate unbiased reporting and the academic institutions are not about teaching critical thinking and so on we go.
He has no idea what an emergency is. An emergency is if he was surrounded by a howling mob of Hamas supporters.
What an immature excuse for an educator
I wouldn’t call him an “educator”. I would call him a indoctrinator and propagandist.
That is precisely what today’s so-called teachers are. In a word; activists.
One can understand his point of view. It’s born of an agonising sadness, a desperate disappointment, almost a panic because his life’s work has collapsed around him
Nope. I still can’t understand the mentality. You follow the data and, if the data changes, you adapt and change with it, hopefully finding out why it’s changing. If Dessler’s life’s work is this fragile and brittle then he should have become a used car salesman not a climate enthusiast.
Heard the one about wood being more expensive than an heat pump?
“”Wood burners are a more expensive way to heat homes than gas boilers or heat pumps, research shows.””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/11/wood-burners-more-costly-for-heating-than-gas-boilers-study-finds
I can display my vice with my fireplace and now that it’s down to 5C. I will
‘Research’ always seems to conveniently support the current crisis de jour.
Lol! First sentence: Wood burners are a more expensive way to heat homes than gas boilers or heat pumps, research shows.
Later in the article:
The latest research, carried by Global Action Plan for Impact on Urban Health, found that the perception among the public was often that wood burners at least offered a cheaper source of energy.
However, that was only true when wood was sourced for free, the study found.
As if the people, like me, that will make the effort to use wood and tend a fire and clean out the ash, aren’t the same kind of people that will seek out free sources of wood, cut it, split it, and store it and cure it.
No my wood is not “free”. There are the hours invested in cutting and splitting and stacking. And the cost of running my chainsaws, and splitter.
My fireplace insert does save me quite a bit of money off my gas bill and the simple fact is there is nothing like the heat from burning wood.
Further, no mention of catalytic inserts or stoves which significantly reduce smoke and pollution.
The old adage comes to mind – “You get what you pay for.”
You can actually HEAT your home with wood burning, no matter how cold it gets.
Below a certain temperature, the heat pump is basically trying to “get blood out of a stone,” another old saying.
So even IF the heat pump is cheaper, it would never be my choice, as similar to their non-solutions to electricity generation (i.e., wind and solar), it’ll need “backup.”
And two separate systems to do the same job IS NOT CHEAPER.
Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow….
While always before the alarmists equated snowfall to temperatures and declared the end of snow with rising temperatures; I look for them now to change their tune and the party line to be that snowfall is not a proxy for temperature or climate change. I would bet there will be “peer reviewed” “scientific” studies coming out saying exactly that and others claiming that more snow is due to the “climate change”.
More Global Warming:
Professional Skier Intentionally Triggers Early Season Avalanche (msn.com)
Montana Agency Reports First Human-Triggered Avalanche Of The Season (msn.com)
Resorts in the Alps Are Starting to Report Big Snowfall (msn.com)
rah,
Will the Climatistas blame climate change for increased cold and snowfall, or will they really jump the shark and claim that it is causing an increase in glaciation and threatens to intensify our current Quaternary Ice Age!? Wikipedia states that anthropogenic green house gases may delay the next period of glaciation like that is a bad thing! What do these people use for brains!?
Maybe the question should REALLY be what do they HAVE for brains?!
💩💩💩💩💩
Snow means temperatures of 0C (32F) or below.
Mostly.
But 3 weeks ago parts of BC Canada had ~ 3 inches at nearly sea levels when the temp was 2 – 3C.
Humpty -Dumpty.. sat on a wall.
Time the egg-head had a great fall !
Terminally WRONG about basically everything to do with climate.
darn typos!!! WALL !
Wouldn’t it be great if there was only some way to edit the frequent typos introduced by SmellCheck!?
Fixed. I hate typos.
w.
You can’t teach an old climate barker new tricks.
Andrew says:”…environmental change without precedent for human society.”.
Is Andrew unaware of going into and out of glaciation periods? Younger Dryas? Holocene Optimum?
He is, but he hopes others are not.
Living in houses is functionally like living underground.
Well, I’m expanding my cave. 12′ x 19′ four season sunroom on the back off the living room and a 24′ x 30′ attached garage with a 10′ covered apron in front. Four inch slabs and walk are poured and framing begins next week. That and helping my neighbor and best friend build his log cabin in the back field are keeping me busy. I retired from trucking in March and now this retiree is busier than ever.
A sweaty, neurotic mess of a man, who demonstrates better than any that one can either be a scientist or an activist, but not both.
His overwrought, borderline hysterical prediction that humans of the future would be forced underground by AGW ought to be enough to kill his credibility, if not his career. Not the kind of guy you want as a standard-bearer for your movement.
Yeah, and now we know that it will be impossible to escape the inexorable descent out of the Holocene by using atmospheric carbon dioxide, we actually should be thinking about how humans will survive the bitter cold that is coming. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s going to involve nuclear, although I’m not sure about the food.
Maybe we can start by keeping destructive nitwits like this out of our domes. They want depopulation don’t they?
The azhole and farking moron in the room would appear to be Dessler himself. He won’t argue actual facts or science. All he has is hysteria, which he clings to as a badge of honor.
wow wonder how he really feels about his fellow man that is more concerned with providing for his family than what the earth’s temperature will be in 100 or so years
“Andy Dessler I met for lunch” He clearly likes a bit of lunch. Whats his carbon footprint, a couple of McDonalds worth? He clearly consumes more than he needs, perhaps he should take his own advice and reduce it a bit!
Dessler published a paper in 2010 purporting to show a positive cloud feedback. The only problem was his r^2 was 0.02. Perfect shotgun pattern. No effect at all. NOT a good professor.
I suspect you mean his r^2 was 0.2, but what do I know?
w.
No. It really was 0.02!
I watched Dessler on Rogan and at the Soho debate against Steve Koonin. My biggest Xmas wish – as a retired litigation lawyer – please Santa give me 20 minutes to cross examine this guy. He’s a fool, a guy so self impressed he’s an absolute sitting duck.
Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf both called. They want the rights to their alarmist schtick back.
Science can’t go on trial like that. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. No jury could be qualified to hear the case, and it’s likely fools like Dessler would win because so many younger people are thoroughly indoctrinated.
Climate science isn’t about observation and logic. It’s religion and modeling the religion.
Watching the Dessler/Koonin debate from a while back… Koonin was about 1% engaged – he’s a terrible debater and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Yet Dessler still lost badly – because it’s a religion he’s arguing. His opening statement was that if it’s getting warmer (it probably is) and there’s more CO2 in the air (there is), then no possible good could come from that in any form. That’s not a scientific point. It’s not even a tiny bit correct. And yet Koonin didn’t respond to it.
In other words, Dessler lost the debate in front of a group of people interested in the subject and willing to listen because he is Chicken Little and can’t back up his religion with facts. He’s the low-hanging fruit. Meanwhile, a politician can’t get elected unless he or she pledges alliance with the Climageddon Cult.
Hopefully, things get so bad in Germany or the UK that people wake up… before it’s too late here. But it’s rapidly becoming too late here to rescue the economy and the stability of our power grid.
Dare I say it…. Andrew Dessler is as much, if not more, a disgrace to his profession as Michael E. Mann.
Dare, dare.
ok… he is
I dunno, that’s a tough call.
Maybe a draw.
Votes, taxpayers and anyone interested in the welfare of society and ongoing human progress should take note. Dressler is a “Professor”. He represents what much of western academics has become. There is no adherence to scientific rigor. There is no attempt to avoid bias and error. All that matters to these charlatans is to gain attention by raising alarm and making astrological predictions of no validity that will put money and prestige into their hands. If my kids had not already survived our “modern” academic education system and launched successful careers, I would be highly tempted to direct them to agriculture or primary production industries to get a real education about how things work. Those are industries where decisions and their outcomes drive critical thinking and where idiocy is promptly punished by reality.
All his dire predictions (“projections”, if you prefer) will only happen as politicians get away with using rhetoric such as his to gain power (and cash) to control Mankind in the name saving Mankind.
All for “The Cause”.
(They’ve invented an “enemy”, an “existential threat” to undermine that only “they” can save us from. All it cost us is everything.)