Twelve Reasons Why I Don’t Believe There’s a Climate Emergency

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

BY RUSSELL DAVID

I’m not a scientist. But I have reasons why I don’t fully trust the ‘climate emergency’ narrative. Here they are:

  1. Looking back through history, there have always been doomsday prophets, folk who say the world is coming to an end. Are modern-day activists not just the current version of this?
  2. I look at some of the facts – CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere; humans are responsible for just 3% of CO2; Britain is responsible for just 1% of the world’s CO2 output – and I think “really“? Will us de-carbonising really make a difference to the Earth’s climate?
  3. I have listened to some top scientists who say CO2 does not drive global warming; that CO2 in the atmosphere is a good or vital thing; that many other things, like the Sun and the clouds and the oceans, are more responsible for the Earth’s temperature.
  4. I note that most of the loudest climate activists are socialists and on the Left. Are they not just using this movement to push their dreams of a deindustrialised socialist utopia? And I also note the crossover between green activists and BLM ones, gender ones, pro-Hamas ones, none of whom I like or agree with.
  5. As an amateur psychologist, I know that humans are susceptible to manias. I also know that humans tend to focus on tiny slivers of time and on tiny slivers of geographical place when forming ideas and opinions. We are also extremely malleable and easily fooled, as was demonstrated in 2020 and 2021.
  6. I have looked into the implications of Net Zero. It is incredibly expensive. It will vastly reduce living standards and hinder economic growth. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I know that economic growth has led to higher living standards, which has made people both safer and more environmentally aware.
  7. Net Zero will also lead to significant diminishment of personal freedom, and it even threatens democracy, as people are told they must do certain things and they must not do other things, and they may even be restricted in speaking out on climate matters.
  8. What will be the worst things that will happen if the doomsayers are correct? A rise in temperature? Where? Siberia? Singapore? Stockholm? What is the ideal temperature? For how long? Will this utopia be forever maintained? I’m suspicious of utopias; the communists sought utopias.
  9. If one consequence of climate change is rising sea levels, would it not be better to spend money building more sea defences to protect our land? Like the Dutch did.
  10. It’s a narrative heavily pushed by the Guardian. I dislike the Guardian. I believe it’s been wrong on most issues through my life – socialism, immigration, race, the EU, gender, lockdowns and so on. Probably it’s wrong about climate issues too?
  11. I am suspicious of the amount of money that green activists and subsidised green industries make. And 40 years ago the greenies were saying the Earth was going to get too cold. Much of what they said would happen by now has not happened. Also, I trust ‘experts’ much less now, after they lied about the efficacy of lockdowns, masks and the ‘vaccines’.
  12. I like sunshine. I prefer being warm to being cold. It makes me feel better. It’s more fun. It saves on heating bills. It saves on clothes. It makes people happier. Far few people die of the heat than they do the cold.
4.8 103 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

195 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Neo
May 20, 2024 12:48 pm

Why does a Climate Change alarmist like Joe Biden still ride in a fossil fuel limo that guzzles gas faster than I count, fly in a gas-guzzling Marine One to a gas-guzzling Air Force One. If this truly was an existential crisis, he wouldn’t be using them.

0perator
May 20, 2024 12:49 pm

All I need to know about the climate alarmist side is their prescriptions are more government, more taxes, less freedom, less speech, less travel, less humans, etc. They want their one world government and they think this is how they can implement it.

Bob
May 20, 2024 1:45 pm

Russell is exactly right. CAGW is not about CO2 or the average global temperature of the earth. It is purely politics, CAGW is merely a vehicle to move society in the direction the control freaks want. It is all about power and control.

Reply to  Bob
May 20, 2024 2:28 pm

— “The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” —  Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations.
 
— “We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports.

— “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation.

— “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony. … climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment.

May 20, 2024 2:42 pm

Atmospheric CO2 Math

Ins: 4% human, 96% natural
Outs: 0% human, 98% natural.
Atmospheric storage difference: +2%
(so that: Ins = Outs + Atmospheric storage difference)

Balance = Atmospheric storage difference: 2%, of which,
Humans: 2% X 4% = 0.08%
Nature: 2% X 96 % = 1.92%
where 1.92% : 0.08% = 2400% “

Reply to  Ron Clutz
May 20, 2024 7:29 pm

Well stated… except I’d present the final percentage as a ratio… 24:1… natural:human.

Reply to  bnice2000
May 21, 2024 6:49 am

Agreed.

Atmospheric CO2 Math

Ins: 4% human, 96% natural
Outs: 0% human, 98% natural.
Atmospheric storage difference: +2%
(so that: Ins = Outs + Atmospheric storage difference)

Balance = Atmospheric storage difference: 2%, of which,
Humans: 2% X 4% = 0.08%
Nature: 2% X 96 % = 1.92%

Ratio Natural:Human =1.92% : 0.08% = 24 : 1

Jay Querry
May 20, 2024 5:00 pm

If today is Layman Comment Day, then count me in as well. The post struck a chord with me because I’ve had similar thoughts about this supposed “crisis” for decades. But while I am not one who can follow some of the complex science discussions here with any real understanding, I can say I was a weather freak as a kid and used to graph out daily temps from a couple of dozen sites. Most people, I’ve learned, haven’t got a clue about what ordinary weather is where they’ve lived all their lives … I was the annoying kid who used to quiz people on such things. They don’t know monthly averages for temps, rainfall, heat waves and cold waves, you name it. So, I’ve noticed that nonsense claims in the media about weather events don’t send up red flags for typical folks … they just seem to buy whatever they read or see on TV. Here is a good example from 2018 in NYT: https://nyti.ms/2Vije8b

It asks you to plug in your hometown and birth year … and then drastically lowers the number of 90 degree days from that year. In my case, it said 8 per year for NYC. Considering that about 18 is the norm, I knew this was total BS. So I looked up stats from several decades and got these numbers for 90 degree days per year: 1940s: 20.2 1950s 17.5 1960s: 18.1 1970s: 16.3 1980s: 19.5 1990s 19.7 2000s: 12.3 2010s (so far) 19.1.

People with sense know that there is a desperate sales pitch going on.

May 20, 2024 6:44 pm

Climate emergency is an oxymoron.

Coeur de Lion
May 20, 2024 11:45 pm

Can anyone explain the killer fact that when we had the period of COVID deindustrialisation it did not show up on the Keeling curve. Look closely at the expanded sawtooth peaks and troughs. Note that the idiosyncratic shapes do not change. Get out your ruler and lay it against the three or four peaks and troughs . A dead straight upward line. Conclusion – man made CO2 is trivial and always has been.

May 21, 2024 12:45 am

It’s worse than that, it’s dead Jim! When programme planners and broadcasting corporations impose strictures on their own output in favour of a local beliefs or suggested, supposed, demands by their audiences the planting of ideas spoken of matter of factly in scripts, if repeated often enough can prove all pervasive. One of the tenets of propaganda is repetition. No matter how benign broadcast media (and the New York Times, who must have a vast climatological department and immense research facilities) once they have concluded, in that enigmatic editorial way they have, that this is our principal and we stand by it, you are inclined to think of Groucho Marx and his admission,’ these are my principals, if you don’t like them I have others.’