By CFACT Ed
WATCH NOW
Decades of consensus around so-called climate catastrophe are now running into new economic, technological, and geopolitical realities.
Mix in AI and its unprecedented demand for large-scale electricity generation, and we have a global climate conversation that demands to be reckoned with. Victor Davis Hanson breaks down how the foundations of decades of “green orthodoxy” are shifting on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”
“The people who have been the avatars of climate change, never suffer the consequences of their own ideology. Barack Obama said the planet would be inundated pretty soon, if we didn’t address global climate change. Why would he buy a seaside estate at Martha’s Vineyard or one on the beach of Hawaii if he really did believe that the oceans would rise and flood his multimillion-dollar investment?
“The inconsistency of the global warming narrative, the self-interest in the people who promote it, and the logic that they have not presented, empirically, the evidence that would convince us that we have to radically transform our economies on the wishes of a few elites that do not have the evidence, but do have a lot of hypocrisy in the process.”
From The Daily Signal
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Is this the real Victor Davis Hanson..?
Yes. Physically, the fake ones have fewer wrinkles, speak with smooth flow of speech and generally don’t make mistakes in diction.
Wow. He is a few months older than me but looks to be decades older.
Actual farming is a hard life.
I had to check Wikipedia to see what else he’s been about.
Short:
Californian PhD historian from big name schools, retired professor, podcaster, conservative, war-centric, author of many books involving ancient Greece and Western democracy, former farmer.
Slander and negativity only taint about 10 percent of his Wikipedia entry as of this morning. Let’s see how it holds up.
His entry survived the whole day. Last criticism appears under the “talk” section:
“This bio reads as if it violates NPOV as it portrays Hanson’s work as serious and notable when it is mostly fringe and biased in favor of extreme and radical conservative interest groups” from January 2025
This is why I give Wiki the big old middle finger every time I see them begging for money.
It probably can be said that the environmental movement started with Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962. Since then DDT Global Cooling, Acid rain etc. have been pimples on our collective backsides. Climate Change is a carbuncle and it’s going to take an enormous event bring it to a close.
The USSR collapsed Christmas 1991 you can bet that lots of those old Bolsheviks are out there fanning the flames of Climate Change. They aren’t giving up. It isn’t a mystery that modern Climate Change hysteria began in 1992.
OK enough rambling on, Yogi Berra said, “It’s not over ’til it’s over”
“Climate Scientists are 90% mental.The other half is physical “
97%
as one former head of the UNIPCC said – the real goal of the climate movement is the destruction of capitalism – so it’s all just a bunch of communists ceaselessly pursuing their earthly nirvana through destruction – nothing new here
The goals of the IPCC are for the continued funding and maintenance of the IPCC and to provide the UN the justification for the distribution of donor funds, via the UNFCCC and the UNCOP, from the rich countries to the poor countries to help them cope with alleged harmful effects of global warming and climate change.
That’s one tool used to further the goal William stated.
If you destroy capitalism, then there is money for the UN, the UNFCCC, the UN COP and the IPCC. The workers of these organizations have been living off the global warming gravy train since 1988.
Yes, but there’s another bunch of capitalists who can see a fortune to be made. Saudi, Russia, Nigeria might presently be getting the petro-dollars, but Wall Street reckons it’ll be getting the electro-dollars. Elites don’t go away, they just get replaced. Really the Commies are just Elon Musk’s useful idiots.
Steve ==> We have to be careful with the propaganda-meme that conflates Environmentalism and Climate Chane — it is a false equivalency. Everyone wants clean air, clean water, abundant wildlife and natural areas. Nobody wants abandoned industrial wastelands.
None of that is climate change.
The Climate Alarmists have been pushing that meme forever — Climate Realism/Skepticism = Anti-Environment. Total propaganda.
I want a clean and healthy environment. You probably do too.
But we don’t want our economy — national and personal — destroyed by irrational Net Zero policies.
It’s much older than that. And the Reds believed in an modern industrial transition to help Russia out of poverty. Stalin certainly tried, not always succesfully.
People on this platform in general are pretty ignorant about Russia. Spoonfed from birth.
I like Victor Davis Hanson and his well-founded, historic perspective!
He has a voice that is easy to listen to, free from ers, ums, and all the other hestitions.
Wow, this is pretty good.
The lunacy of the “climate action” menu of self-inflicted pain is becoming more and more obvious to public figures like VDH.
I hope the EPA follows through soon on its proposed action to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding. It can be withdrawn solely on statutory grounds, I suppose. But a more compelling case against regulation of CO2 emissions is that the underlying claims of harmful warming have been unsound all along.
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194-0305
I encourage all skeptics of climate alarm to more fully appreciate that the static radiative effect is massively overwhelmed by dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation. Lorenz described the fundamentals. ERA5 computes hourly values as the “vertical integral of energy conversion” parameter. So the modelers know there never really was a good reason to expect any harm to come from emissions and rising concentrations of any of the IR-active trace gases.
Thank you for listening.
According to IPCC….CO2 forcing is 5.35 LN(C/Co)…..so works out to about 6 watts/sq.M…after multiplying by Ln 2 and IR ground to TOA of 390/240 to allow for greenhouse effect…Still 6 watts…about that of a laptop computer fan….at the bottom of a square meter by 12 km high column of air that weighs 10 tonnes and already has an integrated convective and advective energy that is a randomly-varying-up- to thousands of watts per square meter of surface….so practically speaking, when you consider that ALL that kinetic energy is caused by the Sun’s heat causing convection and Coriolis forces causing weather fronts……an additional 6/watts solar absorption from doubling CO2 will have very little effect, except possibly increasing convection rate somewhat and a slight change in lapse rate…since most of the heat energy from dissipation of the kinetic energy ends up being emitted at much higher elevations than down here where we live……”atmospheric column integrated kinetic energy” for those seeking more background.
Actually, David Dibbell, the above commenter, has done a good job of reviewing it, with an important ”read.me” file and graphics here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/
1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=sharing
….the money shot being (check that y-axis)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDurP-4gVrY
the other trivial wattages (compared to the integrated column kinetic energy), courtesy Willis Eschenbach are on the following graphic. Note net IR radiation (blue) from surface is 71 W/M^2 for those confused by “back-radiation” of which 53 escapes the troposphere through the “atmospheric window”. So no Climate crisis due to man-made CO2 anytime soon.
“There’s this big weight, pressing down in me…”
not to mention that the only CO2 that can be removed from the atmosphere is the man made portion which is only a tiny percentage of the total
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
“CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of Air”
Shown in chart (See below) is plot of the average annual temperature in Adelaide from 1857 to 1999. In 1857 the concentration of CO2 in dry air was ca. 280 ppmv
(0.55 g CO2/cu. m.), and by 1999, it had increased to ca.368 ppmv (0.72 g CO2/cu. m.), but there was no increase in air temperature in this port city. Instead there was a slight cooling from ca. 1940 to 1999. In 1999, the average annual temperature was 16.7° C.
This empirical data is sufficient to falsify the claim by the IPCC that CO2 causes warming of air and hence global warming. There is another observation that CO2 has no effect on weather and climate: Winter. Turn the TV and watch the reports of the storms battering Canada and the US.
To get an update on recent temperature in Adelaide, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/adelaide/average-temperature-by-year. Displayed in a table are Tmax and Tmin data from 1887 to 2024. Here is average annual temperature from 2020:
Year—–Tavg Temperatures are ° C
2024—–17.4
2023—–16.7
2022—–16.9
2021—–16.6
2020—–16.7
In 2024 the concentration of CO2 at the MLO was ca. 423 ppmv
(0.83 g CO2/cu.m), a 15% increase from 1999. However, the increase in the concentration of CO2 in air did cause increase in the air temperature in Adelaide.
The reason CO2 cause no warming of air is quite simple: There is too little CO2 in the air to absorb out-going IR light emanating from the earth’s surface to warm up the large mass of the atmosphere.
The chart was obtained from the late John L. Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com.
From the home page, page down to the end and click on:
“Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map” click on “Australia”. This brings up a lists of stations. Finally click on “Adelaide”. John Daly found over 200 weather stations that showed no warming up to 2002.
MB: If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment text.
That is a flat earth model, of course.
Funny that the surface reflected EM does not get absorbed in any percentage yet the incoming EM is.
Or, not … Sorry, David, but we’ve had a nice experiment recently ran by Mother Nature. The eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano appeared to lead to a global reduction in clouds. This correlated well with a measured increase in solar energy by CERES mission satellites.
Was this small increase in energy “massively overwhelmed by dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation“? Nope, planet Earth warmed.
Some of that warming is still with us in 2025. I’d conclude Earth is more than happy to warm if it receives more energy at the surface. That would mean the small increase in the absorption of energy by CO2 would be treated the same as this solar energy.
But, we don’t see this happening. What is see is Earth is more or less warming from the amount of solar energy while ignoring the IR energy absorption by CO2. We need another explanation.
I’ve mentioned this in the past. As CO2 increases it also induces a reduction in high altitude water vapor which counters the energy gain from CO2. There is no increase in total IR energy. No other mechanism is required.
Thanks for your reply.
The “nice experiment” did not establish causation for the chain of influences you propose.
I agree with you on the point that, if absorbed solar radiation is confirmed to exhibit an increasing trend, one reasonably expects the land and oceans and lower atmosphere to experience sensible heat gain.
How does CO2 reduce the amount of H2O in the upper atmosphere?
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is ca. 424 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,290 g and contains a mere 0.83 g of CO2 at STP.
In air at 21° C and 70% RH, the concentration of H2O is
17,780 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,200 g and contains 14.3g of H2O and 0.77 g of CO2.
This small amount of CO2 has too little “molecular muscle” to have any effect on H2O.
“the static radiative effect is massively overwhelmed by dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation”.
This goes to the heart of the matter. It is paramount.
“This goes to the heart of the matter.” I appreciate your supportive reply. The tide seems to be turning against the misguided policies, so my aim is to help expose the misconception and to clearly state the reasons why the concern about CO2 was unsound all along.
The Great Global Climate Nintendo Con is gasping its final gasps, brought down in the end by the sheer weight of its’ own lies, and by reality. AI just happened to have come along at the time when the climate narrative was already collapsing, which made it perhaps the final nail in the climate change coffin.Trump has also played a big part in the take down. Let the Climate Liars Nuremberg Trials begin. You know, the ones the Climate Liars wanted for the Climate Realists.
Hoist by their own petard, they are.
The changing view on catastrophic climate change is most noticeable in news coverage of the current cold spell in the U.S. in the recent past we would seen news report how the cold and snow was consistent with global warming. I watched various news reports yesterday and none had “experts” explaining why the cold was a temporary aberration and that warming would soon return. Indeed, I probably saw more commentators advising listeners to prepare for a long, cold winter. As much as I hate cold weather, I am praying that a abnormally cold winter Wii be the final nail in the climate change coffin.
Same. I think they spent their creative capital popularizing the term “Polar Vortex”. Once senior citizens started using it to describe opened the freezer in the kitchen (grand-dad jokes), the movement was doomed.
Thus a great strength of the mindset, the ability to coin catchy phrases, lent to the movement’s downfall.
It is freezing cold out there. Where is CO2 when needed it? Actually we need lots of CO2, because CO2 puts the sparkle in soda pop, beer, and champagne, and leavens baked goods like donuts.
I dont think it will. Alarmistas will say that A: more snow= climate change and B: that the occasional cold snap is an anomaly in an overal warming trend.
Why on earth cannot these folk just come out and say that the climate is always changing but CO2 has nothing (or very little) to do with it, the atmospheric CO2 effect is logarithmic and almost saturated and all this “clean energy” stuff is a total waste of OUR money and must be stopped forthwith.
Logarithmic?
Don’t obfuscate the issue with math and physics.
The thresh hold for the saturation effect of the absorption of IR light by CO2 is ca. 300 ppmv. This occurred in 1920. All the global warming since then is not due to CO2, but most likely due to the reduction of air pollution.
Air pollution is a factor, of course. Smog = smoke (particulate carbon) and fog.
But it is the sun and orbital mechanics that have the biggest influence.
To add a bit more context to Obama –
I’ve never seen any windmills not even solar panels on his huge compounds
but there are 2 huge gas tanks (is this even legal to have them at the environmental bourgeoisie beachfronts?),
and when DeSantis sent a bus full of illegals to Marths Vineyard they were sent away,
and no Barack nor Mitchell crying out “racism” in heartbreaking pain to keep them there,
though their Martha compound has enough space for 200 tents + the 8 bathrooms should be enough to keep the poo at bay.
And an interesting correction btw –
The Obamas have recently sold their Vineyard Mansion with a 200% + profit within just 6 years.
Just as Bidens brother who bought some property next to Epstein Island(Joe was smart enough to not use the Lolita Express) and sold 1/3 for the price he paid for the whole property.
Seems that 200%+ profit is the average payment for doing politics with a desired outcome.
The city planner profession participated in the narrative, while carefully ignoring the urban heat island effects of all their hot parking lot requirements for shoppers that no longer come.
But the third world of developing countries also buy from China and also build industrial plants and ports by Chinese construction companies. So industrial Europe and the US are shadows of their former place in addition to being asked to pay for reparations within already tight budgets and borrowed money.
VDH is late to the party, but his school, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University is not. At least not in the case of Thomas Gale Moore (1930-1984), emeritus senior fellow at the HISU.
Moore was an economist and a member of Pres. Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1985 to 1989. He taught at Michigan State, Carnegie, UCLA, and Stanford before joining the Hoover Institution.
Moore was an early critic of CAGW, long before the slur “denier” was coined. He wrote the (now classic) essay “Global Warming: A Boon to Humans and Other Animals” in 1995. He also wrote “Global Warming and Globaloney” (1997), “Happiness Is a Warm Planet” (1997), and many other works debunking Al Gorebalism before everybody else.
You can find Thomas Gale Moore’s essays at the HISU.
I disagree: VDH was not late to the party. It’s just now that the party is no longer able to ignore him and others, such as Anthony Watts. There are now too many Lion kittens for the alarmists to drown them all at birth.
“Thomas Gale Moore (1930-1984)… He wrote the (now classic) essay “Global Warming: A Boon to Humans and Other Animals” in 1995. He also wrote “Global Warming and Globaloney” (1997), “Happiness Is a Warm Planet” (1997)”
He wrote them after he died?
There is no such phenomena as climate change because most of the earth’s surface is water, rocks, sand, soil, ice and snow. Activities of humans can have no effects on the vast Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, the Alps, Andes and Rocky mountains, or the Sahara, Gobi and Mohave deserts. Activities of human in cities can effect local weather and climate due to the UHI effect. In some countries, the stripping the land of plants for food and firewood and for feed for animals has led to desertification.
Correct. Climate change is not a phenomenon. It is statistics.
And when the majority of the doomsday scenarios predicted never materialize or turn out to be much less serious than forecast, people start ignoring them. In addition, when preventive action has to be taken by consumers, businesses, industries, municipalities, etc. it’s the type that is just precautionary anyway and nothing drastic, so why lose sleep over nothing more than extreme warnings that really pose few threats/
Tons of respect for Victor Davis Hanson.