Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Ideas such as thickening sea ice to prevent collapse … may once have seemed extreme. …”
We passed the 1.5C climate threshold. We must now explore extreme options
David King
Mon 7 Apr 2025 19.00 AESTWe do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibility
As a lifelong scientist, I have always believed that if something is possible, we can find a way to achieve it. And yet, one of the starkest realities we now face is that the world is failing to meet its climate goals. Last year marked a historic and deeply troubling threshold: for the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Without drastic and immediate climate action, this breach will not be temporary. The consequences – rising sea levels, extreme weatherand devastating loss of biodiversity – are no longer projections for the distant future. They are happening now, affecting millions of lives, and likely to cause trillions in damages in decades to come.
But we must think beyond our immediate horizons. When I read The Iliad, I am reminded that it was written 2,800 years ago. I often wonder: in another 2,800 years, what will people – if humanity as we know it still exists – read about our time? Will they see us as the generation that failed to act or one that made the choices necessary to safeguard the planet for the future?
…
One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is that many of the necessary levers to regain control are uncomfortable, even controversial. Ideas such as thickening sea ice to prevent collapse or brightening marine clouds to reflect sunlight may once have seemed extreme. Yet, as we contend with an escalating crisis, we must at least explore these possibilities. We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions outright before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibility.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/climate-solutions-extreme-options
…
We hit 1.5C by some measures, but there are no climate disasters, except in the imagination of scientists like Professor David King. Nor will there be any climate disasters, even if temperatures climb higher.
Face it Professor King, you and your friends are wrong – a warmer world is a more benign world for humans.
The proof is that our monkey ancestors thrived in a much hotter world. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 5-8C hotter than today, was the age of monkeys. Our monkey ancestors thrived on the abundance of the hothouse PETM, and colonised much of the world, as far as Greenland and Siberia, only retreating when the cold returned.
The only thing I fear is our benign warm climate might soon come to an end – not in my lifetime, but way too soon for a human race which is only beginning to embrace its full potential.
Geologically the Earth is still locked in the Late Cenzoic Ice Age, which began 34 million years ago and still holds our planet in its frozen grip.
The last ice age was so cold it may have almost been an extinction event.
As we approach the end of the Holocene Interglacial, global cooling is a far greater long term threat than global warming. Winter is coming, and we don’t have enough coal to drive back the ice.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Yet he believes in the impossible climate catastrophe. Methinks I have little use for what else he thinks is possible.
Like making the H-Bomb? Creating Sarin gas? Or bioengineering the SARS virus to make it more virulent and harmful to humans?
Spot on.
The impossible he has always believed is bringing the developed world to its knees, except for the elites of course. Sadly it’s working.
And nobody died, so the evidence shows you’re talking bullshit.
They’ll be reading the lessons learned from allowing a small cabal of scam artists to take over academia and politics and how the Misleadia so easily cons the sheeple.
if something is possible, we can find a way to achieve it.
That statement reminds me of this one from Jurassic Park:
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should
Prior to trying to achieve/address any ephemeral possibilities, a scientist should have an innate feel for the cost/benefit (risks & trade-offs) of the endeavor; and should follow through and provide proof of benefit prior to forcing (or even asking that) the costs to be bourn by others.
Well, most people don’t have the luxury of getting paid to investigate solutions UNLESS there is a well defined, accepted, and proven problem.
In support of Professor King, I suggest humanity cease all activity and simply disappear.
The reduced heat input to planet Earth could save as much as 20% of the annual sea ice melt in the Arctic Ocean. Surely, that is worth the sacrifice of humanity!
It may be worth the Left 50%
Let the true believers go first.
And show us how it is done!
Maybe Professor King can figure out how to stop you being a bold narcissist.
Q) How exactly does one go about “Thickening Ice”?
Does Mr King propose Nuclear Vessels with Desalination facilities and hardened for pack ice to be stationed in and around the Arctic Ocean spraying a mist of Fresh Water over the surface of the frozen north?
See here: https://www.climaterepair.cam.ac.uk/refreeze-arctic
Seems like using straight sea water sprayed over the surface would do nothing but spread a layer of SALT over the surface which would actually MELT the ice instead of thickening it. As it freezes from below isn’t the SALT forced out of the sea water and into the surrounding liquid beneath?
and, turning a non-solid something into a solid something involves getting the energy out of the non-solid.
what do we do with the energy taken out of the non-solid? put it the atmosphere, or put it in the ocean?
Nuclear powered freezers stationed about the perimeters of the Canadian north, Greenland, and the Antarctic. Surely that project would cost less than net zero.
Probably by a factor of 97%
“Typically seawater with a salinity, or salt content, of 35 parts per thousand (or 3.5%) will have a freezing point of around -1.8° C.”
“Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth, with an average annual temperature of around -43.5°C (-46.3°F) in the interior, while coastal regions are slightly warmer, averaging around -10°C (14°F).”
So the salt gets excluded from the ice and, if sprayed on top would leave the salt on the surface in a brine form which, if salty enough, could act to hinder ice formation.
Thanks for that explanation.
I don’t know why people are proposing all these schemes. Everyone could just leave the doors of their freezers open and that would cool the earth and solve the problem! (Do I really need to say sarc/?)
A different and less hysterical view
edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/minimal-future-warming-from-co2-ch4-n2o/
A warmer world means I can eat homegrown tomatoes longer.
It also means Larger Homegrown Tomatoes as well
Correction –
One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is removing consensus heads from sphincters and engaging in the world of reality and rationality.
I don’t hold out great hopes for such a challenge being overcome any time soon.
Well removing ones head from ones own Anal Sphincter would certainly be “uncomfortable” and likely require a “Necessary Lever”
We’re experiencing a veritable epidemic of proctocraniosis.
The words that jump off the page for me are “necessary levers to regain control”.
When, can someone tell me, in the history of the world, have humans controlled the earth’s climate.
It is, I think, one of the great lies promoted by the alarmists.
Exactly. And they can’t tell you what it will look like when climate change has been “defeated”. Idiots all.
Wikipedia
Sir David Anthony King (born 12 August 1939)[1] is
a South African-born British chemist, academic, and
head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG).
Climate Crisis Advisory Group Not much point in
reading any further on that one.
No wack job like an old wack job.
‘Ere now! ‘E’s read the bleedin’ Hiliad, ‘e ‘as! An’ Oi’m holder ‘n ‘e ‘is. Oi’m heighty foive! Still got me a memory loike one o’ them big grey hanimals, Oi do!
And some of his academic credentials:
“King first taught at Imperial College, London, the University of East Anglia, and was then Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry (1974–1988) at the University of Liverpool. He held the 1920 Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge from 1988 to 2006, and was Master of Downing College, Cambridge, from 1995 to 2000: he is now emeritus professor.”
Also from Wikipedia
I wonder whether he has studied enough physics to know what “radiation” means, and therefore to be able to spot the lies of the “climate scientists” about it…
Has the guy gone all-in Biden? I can’t believe that someone with his scientific career could have willingly come up up with that garbage. Anybody on here know him? Senior abuse ??
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/trump-zings-joe-biden-after-he-signs-executive/
😉
Re “Anybody on here know him?”
On these questions, perhaps I could help you out.
That’s barely the beginning of the rap sheet on King. This moron recommended that civil lockdowns be continued until the incidence of Covid-19 had declined to less than one per million. He was completely oblivious to the very real health hazards and mortalities being inflicted by the lockdowns. So this lunatic doctorate has been directly implicated in advocating for killing people by government policy decision. The political implications of Dr. King should be obvious.
Oh, how I wish there was a public debate on this. A series of public debates, actually.
“Harry and Louise” was a $14 to $20 million year-long television advertising campaign funded by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) – a predecessor organization which merged into the AHIP – a health insurance industry lobby group, that ran intermittently from September 8, 1993, to September 1994 in opposition to the Clinton health care plan of 1993 and Congressional health care reform proposals in 1994. Fourteen television ads and radio and print advertising depicted a fictional suburban forty-something middle-class married couple, portrayed by actors Harry Johnson and Louise Caire Clark, despairing over bureaucratic and other aspects of health care reform plans and urging viewers to contact their representatives in Congress. Wikipedia
There’s more than fourteen examples of dishonest climate science and media bias that a reincarnation of Harry and Louise could talk about.
Just trying to keep the gravy train going?
“…We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions outright before we have thoroughly investigated their risks…”
Sure, let’s screw around with the global climate system. What could go wrong? What, Me Worry?
At first reading I thought the same. It’s an ambiguous statement – does he mean we should not reject the “solution” before a thorough investigation, or that we should implement the “solution” before a thorough investigation?
“Ready Fire Aim” was a popular corporate buzz word phrase in the ’80s. Along with “Inventory is Evil. and “Just in Time”.
We tried that with COVID. Lots of things went wrong because our betters didn’t take the time to thoroughly investigate the risks, starting with gain of function research.
“rejecting solutions”
there is no climate problem…. so you don’t need solutions ..
Poor Dr. King. He’ll go crying to Mama when the sea ice doesn’t disappear. The Arctic Ocean and Greenland will retain their ice until the Isthmus of Panama becomes the Straight of Panama. The Isthmus keeps the Atlantic Ocean saltier than the Pacific. The salinity of water in the Gulf Stream becomes too high for the warm water to reach the Arctic. The Gulf Stream dives into the depths prior to reaching Iceland and Greenland. No warm water to melt the Arctic ice.
The same is true for the Antarctic ice. The Southern Ocean keeps Antarctica cold. Only when Antarctica rejoins South America will the ice disappear.
Sorry, Dr. King, your fantasies won’t come true until plate tectonics rearrange the continents.
The usual ‘global warming means more extreme weather’ dogma that no alarmists are able to question.
The earth has been warming for the last 300 years, ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. Recent warming over the last fifty years has been a bit faster, with some of the additional warming possibly due to increasing CO2 emissions.
Whatever ……
My personal estimate, based on past patterns of global warming, is that the earth will reach approximately +2C above preindustrial by the year 2100. Maybe a bit more. IMHO, warming will continue for another century or so and might reach a downturning inflection point roughly in the year 2200.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
China, India, and 3rd World developing nations will not give up their dependence on fossil fuels. Not a chance. But there is another way to cool the earth, one that is all but certain to work: climate geo-engineering using solar radiation modification (SRM).
SRM can be done for as little as ten billion dollars annually, maybe a hundred billion annually at the very outside — quickly reducing global mean temperature by as much as 2C in a timeframe as short as five years.
OK, here’s the deal:
Make me CEO of Let’s Keep Our Cool LLC, a government-funded enterprise which will manage an SRM program of injecting fifteen million tons annually of solar-reflecting particles into the stratosphere.
My salary plus incentives would total fifty million dollars annually. I can promise I would earn every penny of it.
My compensation package would include a remote fortress location in Argentina plus an armed security force in case thousands of victims of a series of worldwide SRM-induced crop failures decide to seek revenge for what was done to them.
Beta Blocker:
Solar-reflecting SO2 aerosol pollution levels from China and India are currently rising, doing what you suggest, and the current wild weather around the globe is the result.
What is needed is to LOWER those levels of pollution, not add to them, at this time.
(Global atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels can be viewed and compared on the “Chem Maps” of the NASA/GMAO Re-analysis organization).
Uh, he was being sarcastic
“ and the current wild weather around the globe is the result.”
The weather is the same as it’s always been. What’s wild are your alarmist fantasies.
Jeff Alberts
Were do you live–in Hawaii?
The ENSO meter on this site has just moved closer to La Nina conditions–always caused by higher levels of SO2 aerosol pollution.
BB,
Please, do not accept The Establishment estimates of pre-industrial global temperatures, hence their estimates of how much warming has happened, hence the rigour of whether 1.5 C has already happened. All you are doing is to endorse poor science.
The greater probability is that the uncertainty bounds on pre-industrial temperatures are close to +/- 1.5 C, so nobody knows even the sign of the terror-filled 1.5 C, which is little more than a device from the green advertising industry. Geoff S
“One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is that many of the necessary levers to regain control are uncomfortable”
When did we lose control? Was it before the industrial revolution or just last year at the dreaded 1.5C threshold? How will we know when we have it all controlled again?
King is an utter loony.
Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government’s chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/why-antarctica-will-soon-be-the-only-place-to-live-literally-58574.html#
Bonkers.
Just goes to show that no matter how smart one is, they can still be stupid about human-caused climate change.
The guy is hysterical about CO2, yet there has never been any evidence to support the claim that CO2 is connected to any weather event, or is changing the climate, but Dr. King sees a climate crisis all around himself.
It’s really delusional, but i guess it doesn’t matter how long you have been around, you can still be wrong.
Dr. King’s world must be a very scary place for him. If he knew the truth, he could sit back and relax, like I do. 🙂
“King is an utter loony.”
I thought you said “The King is an utter loony.”
Correct either way !
Both of ‘em are
“One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is that many of the necessary levers to regain control are uncomfortable, even controversial.”
One might consider that he is talking about the climate but if you think a little more sinister, he might be talking about levers and control are the media, freedom restrictions, choice in energy source, eliminating the current POTUS, etc instead.
Just a thought.
Climate Disasters ? when it rains thats not climate, when it snows thats not climate … there is no such thing as a Climate disaster …
We Must Consider Extreme Climate Solutions
Always ask, when reading stuff like this:
Who is this WE that you are talking about?
Good question.
In reality, zero people must think about extreme climate solutions.
Is he on drugs?
Back in the 70’s, we were promised that within 20 years, we could grow oranges in the South.
55 years later it’s still not possible.
” in the South.”
If you mean Florida as the South, then it is done. I suspect you mean the south of Great Britian. In that case, Duck Assist says: “… varieties like Hamlin and Clementine that are more tolerant of the cooler climate. They typically need to be planted in pots and brought indoors during winter to protect them from frost.”
There is also this: “A study led by Dr. John Redhead, a spatial ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, forecasted that orange trees could grow in England due to …” [? date ]
Did you have a different reference?
For nine days wroth Putin rained drones down upon the Ukrainians
On the tenth, Zelensky summoned an assembly.
White-armed Kamala put that thought into his mind.
My guess is, our history will read like all history before us. ‘Zwar immer so.
When I read the Iliad, I’m reminded that it would be a good idea to let people know I’ve read it. They’ll be very impressed. Impressed, that is, until they read:
“We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions outright before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibility.”
When they read that, people may think I’m barmy in the crumpet, calling thorough investigation a “luxury.”
Until I start seeing climate model predictions that include the possibility of a return to another glaciation I don’t believe any of them. The fact that they have a linear output predominantly driven by CO2 tells me that they are programmed to do just one thing, increase temperature.
In the words of the great Bugs Bunny; What a maroon! What an ignoranimus!
Very nice Eric. You don’t have to look any further than David King to understand why so many people have less respect and trust in science and the scientific community.
It was snowing this morning here in Wokeachusetts. Yet, this state is loaded with climate fanatics.
Q: What do you get when you cross a Climate Alarmist “Scientist” with a rooster.
A. You get Whackadoodle-doo!