These posts are intended to be read as a series. Part 1 explores some of the reasons for doubt regarding the notion of man made global warming. Part 2 considers the economic and political forces behind the prominent environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion, the famous activist Greta Thunberg, the mainstream media (MSM) and the intergovernmental bodies who promote global warming alarmism. Part 3 looks at the influences behind the globalist movement which has created the perception of the ‘climate emergency.’
The once respected Guardian newspaper recently announced an official house style change. It will no longer be using the term ‘climate change’ and will now be using phrases like ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating.’ This change in language has followed the emergence of the environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion and the Internet sensation Greta Thunberg who insist we must act urgently to reduce CO2 emissions if we are to avert global catastrophe. In keeping with this theme the online news outlet the Independent published a story based on a report by the Australian think tank the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration predicting huge sea level rises and the end of human civilisation by 2050. “Be afraid, be very afraid” appears to be the MSM mantra.
However, the Guardian’s change of language also extends to how they refer to those who challenge the alleged scientific consensus on man made, CO2 driven global warming (anthropogenic global warming – AGW.) Anyone who questions the AGW hypothesis is now to be referred to as a “climate science denier.” The Guardian are one among many MSM outlets uniformly espousing this rhetoric. This is all supposedly based upon the premise that the science of AGW is ‘settled’ and beyond all reasonable doubt.
Science is not settled by committee. It is based upon evidence and the analysis of empirical data; the scientific method interprets the results of experimentation, searching for consistency, no matter who carries out the experiment; science requires verifiable data analyses and documented observation, always striving for objectivity.
Doubt is the primary principle of empirical science. A hypothesis is formed, tentatively explaining an observation. Apparent global warming for example. The real scientific method dictates the hypothesis is tested to breaking point. It must be robustly challenged. If no experimental, analytical or observable evidence emerges to refute the hypothesis, only then, after thorough peer review, does it become a scientific theory. Even after it becomes an accepted theory the science is constantly reviewed. If new observations contradicts the theory then it returns to hypothesis status, because the evidence refutes it, while further scientific research is undertaken.
The evidence which contradicts the notion that CO2 ‘causes,’ or is even a significant contributor to global warming is extensive. It is important to recognise that climate is constantly changing. By looking back over millennia we can see that climate has fluctuated greatly.
The Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP) shows that, in the Northern hemisphere at least, there have been numerous periods throughout geological history when the climate has been significantly warmer than it is today. These changes have been seen throughout relatively recent human history. Over the last 11000 years global average temperature has varied by as much as 5C, rapidly warming and cooling. By comparing this with estimated C02 levels, researchers at the University of Oslo Department of Geo-sciences, led by Professor Ole Humlum, demonstrated that increased CO2 apparently had no causal relationship to global temperature at all.
The long range weather forecaster and climate scientist Piers Corbyn challenged the BBC, leading advocates of the AGW hypothesis, and the UK climate scientists at the University of East Anglia to cite just one peer reviewed paper which proves C02 is the driver of climate change. To date no one has cited any such paper.
Typically the response from AGW believers is that it isn’t a simple as that, as the AGW hypothesis relies upon numerous components, each contributing to the overarching hypothesis. However, the fact remains, that no scientist has published any paper, based upon empirical (measured) data, which firmly established any causal link between CO2 and global warming.
AGW is barely a sustainable hypothesis, let alone a cohesive theory. By insisting that AGW is ‘the truth,’ the Guardian’s new house style suggests a woeful understanding of empirical science has infested their editorial policy. It appears the Guardian are the science deniers.
However, there is reason to suspect, rather than scientific illiteracy, it is an economic and political agenda which underpins the Guardian’s absolute refusal to report science honestly. We’ll look at these influences in more detail in Parts 2 and 3.
Something wholly absent from all MSM climate emergency ‘alarmism’ is the economic and political context of the modern CO2 climate change narrative. It is as if the powerful corporate, political and financial forces behind groups like Extinction Rebellion, the IPCC and prominent individuals like Greta Thunberg, are entirely irrelevant. MSM investigative journalism, asking questions of power, is virtually non-existent when it comes to the climate change ‘science.’ The question is why?
So let’s briefly look at some reasons to doubt the AGW hypothesis, explore the power structures driving climate change alarmism forward, and consider if there is more to the AGW theory than just science. We may as well, it is obvious no one in the MSM is going to do it.
Some Scientific Reasons To Doubt AGW
Very broadly the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis states that man made CO2 emissions add ‘an additional amount’ of CO2 to the ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere. Energy from the Sun first passes through the atmosphere and heats the Earth. The ‘greenhouse effect’ traps the returning solar energy as it is radiated from the Earth, primarily in the form of infrared radiation.
This ‘additional man made CO2’ absorbs and in turn emits infrared radiation back into the atmosphere in a process called ‘positive radiative forcing.’ This causes changes in the energy balance in the troposphere (the part of atmosphere we live in on Earth) measured in Watts per square meter (W/m2.) Positive radiative forcing means the ‘imbalance’ produces a heating effect in the troposphere and therefore additional planetary or ‘global warming.’
The AGW hypothesis claims that natural warming is exacerbated and amplified by the ‘additional CO2’ emitted by us. Natural climate change occurs no matter what, regardless of our activity. This natural climate cycle’s effect, over the last 400 years or so, has been warming. The Earth is currently in a relatively cool period having recently emerged from a mini ice age called the Maunder Minimum. This coincided with extremely low solar activity. As solar activity increased, the planet warmed but, according to the AGW hypothesis, we have significantly increased the rate of this warming and this, say the alarmists, is both unprecedented and dangerous.
It is the envisaged effects of AGW which leads to fears of impending doom. These include melting ice sheets, huge sea level rise, a devastating increase in extreme weather events, food scarcity, seismic population shifts and so on and on.
The first thing to note about the AGW hypothesis is that it assumes the greenhouse effect is a fact. There is solid scientific reason to doubt it. There is always doubt with good science.
In 1859 the Irish physicist John Tyndall was credited with first discovering the radiant heat capacity of atmospheric gases, despite the earlier work of Eunice Foote and others. This was soon followed in 1896 by the work of Swedish physicist and chemist Svante Arrnhenius (an ancestor of Greta Thunberg) who more accurately quantified the thermal properties of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, the greenhouse effect hypothesis was largely ignored by science throughout the 20th century.
The modern AGW hypothesis is largely based upon research of NASA scientist James Hansen who reinvigorated Arnnhenius’ theories and suggested that this CO2 radiative forcing was ‘causing’ additional global warming. His work coincided with a number of economic and geopolitical drivers which also support the AGW hypothesis. Something we’ll discuss in Part 2.
The problem is ‘the greenhouse effect,’ as it relates to the AGW, has a number of unresolved scientific questions hanging over it, most notably from physicists. These include an apparent, relative disregard of convection and conduction as a methods of atmospheric heat transfer; no acknowledgment of atmospheric volume expansion and contraction (pressure differential) as a heat mitigating factor; a seemingly false assumption that global radiative emissions are uniform; disagreement about the radiative baseline; extreme difficulty in even measuring average global surface temperature and no recognition that global air temperatures can also be explained through the normal thermodynamic properties (thermal gradient) of atmospheric gases, no greenhouse effect required.
According to Hansen and others, CO2 drives temperature. Therefore CO2 must rise first, causing temperatures to follow. However, there is significant evidence this is not the case. For example, the Journal Nature published a paper in 1999 which looked at the Ice core records for the Last 420,000 years in Antarctica. This showed that atmospheric CO2 levels lagged behind temperature change by approximately 800 years.
These are just a few of the scientific objections to ‘certainty,’ a wholly unscientific principle, regarding the greenhouse effect, supposedly underpinning of the AGW hypothesis. For example a recent study by two Ph.D scientists (Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller) found, what appeared to be, a direct correlations between planetary atmospheric pressure, solar radiance and surface temperature, with the Earth’s surface temperature fitting precisely to the observation. A number of other papers have supported such findings.
The IPCC have stated that current CO2 levels are ‘unprecedented’ in human history. They have used the Ice core records to demonstrate this. Yet again, there is doubt these claims are accurate. Historical CO2 levels need to be calculated using proxies, no one was measuring it until the last century. Ice core data is one method, another is the density of plant stemata, which vary inversely with atmospheric CO2. By looking at accurately dated fossil records, stemata density, and thereby CO2 levels, can be derived.
When the stomatal records were analysed by scientists from Stockholm University its showed a massive divergence from the Ice Core CO2 averages. In a 3000 year period, while ice core proxies showed CO2 levels between 235 – 255ppm the contemporaneous stomatal record indicated a range between 170-430ppm. Suggesting not only periods of higher total CO2 but also much greater variability. This brings the IPCC’s claim of unprecedented levels into question.
My point here is not to state one theory trumps another, but rather to highlight the fact that to claim the science of AGW is ‘settled’ is incorrect. For the Guardian and other MSM outlets to assert all who question AGW are “climate science deniers” is complete gobbledygook. Unless the Guardian is staffed by idiots (highly unlikely) it seems the change of language is designed to convince readers that the AGW hypothesis is a certainty, in the full knowledge that it isn’t.
You don’t need a Ph.D in physics to wonder if the AGW hypothesis is sound. Simple logic will do. AGW suggests that the additional CO2 emitted by mankind represents the ‘additional greenhouse gas’ driving climate change. It states that our industrial activity and energy consumption is the controlling factor for the Earth’s climate. That’s why we all need to reduce our carbon footprint, pay more tax and have our energy ‘usage’ monitored by the state.
To consider this we need to be clear about what a ‘greenhouse gas’ is. NASA, the IPCC and other organisations who support the AGW hypothesis, always report greenhouse gases as primarily composing of CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane) and N2O (nitrous oxide). Remember, according to the theory, greenhouse gases are the ones which both absorb and emit infrared radiation, thereby warming the planet, with man made CO2 allegedly tipping the balance and controlling climate change.
However these organisations consistently ignore the most abundant greenhouse gas H20, the water vapour which eventually forms clouds. The AGW hypothesis states that rising global temperatures increase evaporation and therefore atmospheric H2O. AGW believers claim CO2 acts like a thermostat control nob, through positive radiative forcing. The problem is, like all greenhouse gases H20 also reflects the Sun’s energy, thereby cooling the planet through ‘negative radiative forcing.’ So more clouds could also reduce global temperatures. That’s why it is generally colder on a cloudy day. To say the science is unclear on this subject would be an understatement.
Even if you accept the greenhouse effect as an undisputed fact, these gases are undoubtedly formed through two processes. Naturally occurring and man made emissions. For example, as the oceans warm they expand and emit CO2 (Henry’s Law) and they absorb it when they cool and contract. If climate is ‘controlled’ by the greenhouse effect then a percentage of climate sensitivity will occur through such natural processes and a percentage through mankind’s activity. So what percentage of these greenhouse gases are contributed by us?
The amount of water vapour in atmosphere is constantly changing, but estimates fluctuate between 90% – 95% of greenhouse gases. Of the remaining 5% – 10% of greenhouse gases (dependent upon H2O variability) approximately 60% can be attributed to CO2. So CO2 represents between 3% – 6% of the all greenhouse gases. However, the percentage of CO2 contributed my mankind’s activity is approximately 4% of total atmospheric CO2.
This means that man’s contribution to the greenhouse gases which, according to the AGW hypothesis, is pushing us towards global catastrophe is between approximately 0.12% – 0.24% (depending upon water vapour variability.) If we are generous, that’s between 2 to 3 10ths of 1% of all greenhouse gases.
Even if the greenhouse effect is correct, should mankind’s total carbon footprint become zero, there would still be at least 99.6% of remaining greenhouse gases to contend with. The AGW hypothesis suggests that less than half of 1% of the entire greenhouse effect is destabilising the whole global climate. It isn’t quite that simple, because different gases absorb and emit infrared radiation at different rates. In addition, the CO2 cycle or ‘resonance time,’ the rate at which the planet recycles CO2, is much slower than the H2O cycle. Again, there is considerable scientific debate about CO2 resonance. However, it isn’t unreasonable to consider that 75% of AGW is attributable to H2O (vapour and clouds) and 20% to CO2 (with other greenhouse gases making up the difference.) Therefore, mankind’s CO2 emission count for an estimated 1% of net warming.
Something never mentioned by the alarmists is the potential benefit of increased atmospheric CO2. It is plant food after all. Without it there would be no life on Earth as we know it. That’s why we commonly turn CO2 levels up as high a 1500 ppm in greenhouses. It also possibly explains why we are currently witnessing planetary greening, as deserts give way to plant growth. Referring to it as a pollutant seems preposterous. Without it we would all be dead and we breath it out while we aren’t.
As with all climate related science the picture is complex. Plants (along with algae and cyanobacteria) use photosynthesis to convert CO2 and H2O into the sugars required for energetic growth. Plants do this along slightly different ‘pathways’ and can be categorised accordingly as types C3, C4 and CAM. Their capacity for carbon capture, impact upon the water and CO2 cycle, prevalence within ecosystems and relative competitive advantages and disadvantages vary. These aspects contribute the overall assessment of their influence on both global biodiversity and climate change. What cannot be said, with any certainty at all, is that the greening of the planet is ‘bad.’
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to ask questions about the AGW hypothesis. Doing so certainly does not make you a ‘climate science denier.’
Further reason for doubt springs from the clear discrepancies between the predicted climate change ‘computer models,’ from which all alarmism springs, and the actual measured data. The IPCC, which isn’t a scientific organisation, uses computer models to supposedly inform its Summary for Policy Makers. This is then used by politicians to form the policies that impact upon us all.
Empirical science isn’t so concerned with prediction. It is based more upon observed measurements. Conclusions can then be drawn from analysis of this measured data. This is far more reliable than prediction because it is based upon what actually happened rather than what might, or could happen.
The IPCC formed in 1988 as fears, prompted by NASA scientist James Hansen’s research, rose. The IPCC started predicting what would happen as a result. Consequently we now have more than 30 years of actual, real measured data to compare with the projections.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gets its temperature data from government scientists and government bodies. Satellite temperature data sets come from the UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) and the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) analyses of satellite and balloon temperature data. Both UAH and RSS are U.S government funded. Other IPCC data sets come from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies – GISS (U.S government funded,) and the HadCRUT data sets from the UK government funded Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. Oceanic temperature data sets are fed to the IPCC by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) funded by the United Nations. Data for weather events largely comes from the U.S government funded National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the UK government funded Met Office.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the data is untrustworthy but political influence must be considered if you are rational.
The satellite temperatures indicators, which measure radiation levels not temperature (this is calculated from the data,) are considered to be more reliable than average surface temperature measurements, which have a greater susceptibility environmental variance. This indicates the difficulty in even calculating average global temperature as there is considerable divergence between the data sets.
Hansen predicted additional CO2 would cause runaway global warming, if nothing was done to reduce emissions. As we all know, since then, C02 has steadily increased to 412 parts per million (or 0.04%) of the atmosphere, with man’s CO2 emissions reaching a climate controlling 0.0016%. Yet the measured temperature data does not match either the IPCC’s or Hansens predictions. There is reason for scientific doubt about the predictions.
Furthermore, when we look at the prophecies of catastrophe, arising from the AGW hypothesis, in the light or real world data, this again provides reason for scepticism.
Some Reasons To Doubt the Impending AGW Apocalypse
Virtually none of the horrifying prediction made by the IPCC and other AGW proponents have materialised. In 2005 the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), founders of the IPCC along with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), claimed that massive sea level rises would create 50 million ‘climate refugees‘ by 2010. In 2003 the Pentagon released its terrifying document “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.” In it they claimed, unless action to limit CO2 emissions was taken (and no meaningful action has been taken) the catastrophes we should have seen by now include California being flooded with inland seas, parts of the Netherlands becoming “unlivable,” and polar ice completely vanishing in the summer. None of which has come to pass.
In fact ice sheets on Greenland, in the Arctic and the Antarctic have been thickening for decades. The IPCC has warned repeatedly of the dangers threatened by the collapse of the Antarctic Peninsula, now scientist acknowledge these predictions were wrong. All of these provably false predictions were trumpeted by the MSM.
In 2000 David Viner, the senior research scientist for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, told the UK media, who dutifully reported it without hesitation, that snowfall would virtually disappear in the UK. Snowfall records across the northern hemisphere continue to show an increase, not a decline.
Yet, despite the fact that these kinds of alarmist claims have been proven to be precisely that, we still see people working themselves up into a frenzy as more and more spill forth. The latest has followed the IPCC’s most recent Summary For Policy Makers claiming we have just 12 years to save the planet unless we cut CO2 emissions. This has been picked up by the pressure groups like Extinction Rebellion, who amplify the message, though presumable it’s now only 11 years. Hence the Guardian’s, and others, insistence we all accept the ‘climate emergency.’
What these erroneous predictions and wildly inaccurate doomsday revelations all have in common is that they never err on the cooler, less dramatic side. This is understandable for the MSM. Saying “it probably won’t make much difference” sells nowhere near as much copy, or advertising space, as “the end is nigh” soothsaying. However, you would have thought the climate science, an extremely complex field, published by bodies like the IPCC or the CRU, would occasionally revise some predictions downwards. Yet they never do, they consistently assert a worsening overheating, melting, burning apocalypse.
Frankly, for science, this is weird. As new evidence is revealed it constantly adapts and shifts its position. While the direction of travel may generally be consistent, you would expect some variation in the opposite direction from these supposedly scientific bodies. It is not as if there isn’t any evidence to at least wonder if the current state of CO2 induced panic is warranted. Yet those organisation, portrayed as the ‘world’s leading climate experts’ never cease to ramp up the hysteria.
For example, between 1997 and 2015, while approximately 33% of all alleged man made positive radiative forcing has supposedly occurred, data from the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) showed no net warming at all. From a scientific standpoint it is untenable to insist the world is doomed, because of CO2, while at the same time ignoring all the evidence that it isn’t. Yet that is precisely what the IPCC and various other government agencies, such as the Pentagon, do.
We are constantly told there is a ‘consensus’ about the AGW hypothesis. Why? We arc not continually reminded of the scientific consensus that the Earth orbits the sun; scientists don’t insist we believe waves have frequencies; there’s no lobby group of concerned scientists demanding we accept H2O is water or that electric current conducts. Yet, when it comes to the AGW hypothesis, we are encouraged to accept that the alleged consensus is evidence, which it isn’t.
This reveals the most unscientific of traits. An agenda.
Evidence of an Agenda
We are told that ‘scientists’ have proven we are entering the 6th mass extinction period as a result of mankind’s’ CO2 emissions. In truth, this claim is extremely dubious. It was the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) who released their ‘Summary for Policy Makers’ which announced the latest prediction that we’re all going to die. Groups like Extinction Rebellion and ‘thought leaders’ like Greta Thunberg, presumably spurred on by their terror, then embarked upon global panic campaigns to ram home the message. Ably assisted, as ever, by the mainstream media.
The IPBES produced their terrifying statistics by showing all species loss as a cumulative percentage increase over 19th and 20th century. They took the raw data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) record of species loss, called the Red List. By carefully reinterpreting this data, apparently to suit an alarmist agenda, the IPBES produced its horrific nonsense.
What the actual data shows is that forced extinction peaked at the end of the 19th century and has been steadily in decline ever since. It is also notable that mankind’s CO2 ‘emissions’ really took off in the post WWII industrial boom. So, if CO2 has any relationship to species extinction (which doesn’t appear to be the case) it is an inverse one. The precise opposite of the scary claims.
In 2009 the CRU were embroiled in the Climategate Scandal. Leaked emails, probably from a disgruntled insider, showed systematic data manipulation (scientific fraud) at the heart of the CRU. The emails revealed collusion between supposed scientists to hide, alter, misinterpret and otherwise manipulate raw data to ‘prove’ their seemingly politically motivated AGW hypothesis. This was absolutely contrary to the scientific method and the global scientific community, though seldom reported by the MSM, were appalled.
The emails showed that wealthy political Non Governmental Organisations (NGO’s,) such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) were influencing the allegedly hard science of the CRU. Asking them to ‘beef up’ certain data and overlook other, less convenient, evidence. That the CRU apparently complied, shows they were not acting as scientists but rather political spin doctors.
The whole basis of the AGW hypothesis alarmism is that the current warming period is unprecedented. This, according the alarmists, must be because man made CO2 is adding an additional 0.4% load to existing greenhouse gases. So any evidence that the warming is not ‘unprecedented’ would require a reassessment of the whole AGW concept. Consequently the CRU colluded with other ‘leading climate scientists’ around the world to hide the inconvenient truth.
While the emails reveal all manner of obfuscation and agenda setting, instead of empirical science, it is the acknowledgments of uncertainty and deliberate side-lining of counter indicative data which stands out. The CRU scientists recognised that the current warming period may not be ‘unprecedented.’ The same can be seen in the so called medieval warm period, which occurred around 1000 – 1400 CE, before any CO2 producing industrialisation. Similarly the data showed a period of extended global cooling in the late 20th century. This didn’t ‘fit’ with the AGW hypothesis.
Ironically, the actual problem was the uncertainty about the proxy data used (such as tree rings) prior to modern thermometer readings. This uncertainty didn’t necessarily ‘disprove’ the AGW hypothesis but rather questioned the value of some historical data, thereby making it difficult to ‘prove’ unprecedented warming. It was obvious from the communications that there was no consensus about the ‘dangers’ of AGW but rather broad agreement that the AGW hypothesis should be promoted, no matter what.
One of the IPCC posters for AGW is the Hockey Stick graph produced by climatologist Michael E. Mann. The CRU emails revealed that this had been produced by altering the way the average “smooth” was displayed. He truncated the timeline of some data, to hide the divergence between data sets and give the impression of more rapid, significant, recent warming. He mixed data sources, using the questionable ice core record for historical temperature data (ignoring stomatal record contradictions) then used questionable ‘average global temperature data sets’ to separately indicate recent warming. Referenced as ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ in the emails, the real shocker was that CRU scientists were impressed with the subterfuge and so adopted it themselves. Producing nothing even approaching science, but rather propaganda.
That the scientists at the CRU were caught out fiddling the science was bad enough, but that many of the same scientists have continued to provide the HadCRUT data which supposedly informs the IPCC climate models is a firm basis for both lay and scientific scepticism. However, it is far from the only reason to doubt the accuracy of climate alarmism. Other instances of scientific fraud, error and deception in climate research are plentiful. Similarly this has allowed MSM to report abject nonsense as ‘evidence’ of mankind’s collective suicide mission.
For example, there is no doubt at all that the warmest decade of the 20th century in the U.S was the 1930’s. This presents a problem if you want to demonstrate a recent warming trend, especially if you claim this was caused by the rapid growth of CO2 emissions in the post WWII period. So the temperature data sets provided to the IPCC go through some ‘adjustments’ prior to submission. These consistently reduce historical temperature records and increase more recent data.
This upwards inflation of modern temperature records, and simultaneous reduction in historical temperature averages, was highlighted in 2017 by a team of independent Ph.D scientists who reviewed the statistical data sets. They highlighted a reasonable concern that the global average surface temperature (GAST) data is wholly untrustworthy. They concluded:
“ The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments, that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever –despite current claims of record setting warming.”
Alarmism Straying Into the Absurd
Such scientific doubt is rarely reported by the MSM. However, they do report a never ending stream of frankly ridiculous ‘fake news’ stories which always add to the AGW hysteria. A big favourite is the rapidly approaching extinction of the Polar Bear. This reached a crescendo last year when National Geographic released a real tear jerker of a video showing a starving Polar Bear with the caption ‘This is What Climate Change Looks Like.’
If you forget the fact that the polar bears survived the total disappearance of summer sea ice in the recent (Holocene) geological past, or that the filmmakers actually said “this is what starvation looks like;” even if you ignore the fact that sea ice loss doesn’t really threaten an animal that can swim for hundreds of miles without stopping, then surely the fact that the Polar Bear populations is thriving should prompt pause for thought? It did for National Geographic who printed a retraction but probably not for the estimated 2.5 billion people who have seen the video, thanks to the MSM’s avid promotion. It is the imagery and symbolism that will stick in their minds, something all good propaganda plays upon.
There is even doubt that there has been any ‘additional warming’ in the Arctic. Once again we encounter the massaging of historical records and fiddling of measured data to produce a false impression. In keeping with the warming in the U.S in the 1930’s the data shows temperatures rose sharply in the Arctic during the same period. Arctic monitoring stations have measured an annual cooling trend ever since. So it appears GISS have upwardly adjusted temperature data from 19 of the 23 monitoring station and forgotten to mention the pre-war warming period.
A favoured trick of the MSM is to deliberately confuse weather with climate change. No matter what the weather event the MSM always claim a link to climate change. Often with the assistance of government agencies who seem equally keen to sound the alarm. The BBC have just reported widespread flooding in Wainfleet in Lincolnshire. They eagerly cited claims from the UK government’s Environment Agency that this is ‘unprecedented.’ Except it isn’t. A heavier deluge fell on the area in 1960. Similar dross has sprouted from the reporting of the recent European heatwave. The BBC reported that France had recorded it’s highest ever temperature of 45.9C. This wasn’t true either. In 1930 temperatures as high as 122F (50C) were recorded in Paris. Again, it is as if the past never happened. Well, a warmer past anyway.
The idea that ‘extreme weather events’ are getting worse is a central tenet of AGW alarm. This is a major consideration for the engineers who build bridges, sewers, skyscrapers and so on. They keep a close eye on climate trends and predictions in an attempt to future proof their infrastructure projects. In 2016 a team of engineers from Cambridge University analysed the weather records of the last century. They stated:
“It is widely promulgated and believed that human-caused global warming comes with increases in both the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. A survey of official weather sites and the scientific literature provides strong evidence that the first half of the 20th century had more extreme weather than the second half, when anthropogenic global warming is claimed to have been mainly responsible for observed climate change.”
They aren’t alone. Even the IPCC admit that they only have low confidence that extreme weather events are linked to climate change. So where do MSM stories such as the Guardian’s handy visual guide “Deadly Weather: The Human Cost of 2018’s Climate Disaster” come from? This appears to allow the Guardian, among others, to claim that ‘extreme cold’ is also a sign of global warming. When snow and ice is attributed to ‘global heating’ we really are entering the realms of the absurd.
If we consider (see Part 2) that there may be an economic and political agenda at play here, in light of the divergence between climate model predictions and real empirical data, falling temperatures also needs to be squeezed into the narrative. Despite the obvious lunacy, ‘extreme weather,’ as part of the ‘climate disaster,’ provides the necessary wriggle room. There is mounting evidence that we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum prompting significant concerns of rapid cooling, which is always more hazardous for life than warming. Regardless of the fact that the IPCC have claimed the Sun, the source of all energy on Earth, has little to do with climate change, perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that many scientists disagree.
The MSM also have a habit of reporting climate alarm which, when proven to be utter rubbish, they seldom retract or, if they do, that correction is relegated to the minor pages, months later. Recently The Independent publicised a report, published in the respected scientific journal Nature, that claimed thermal uptake in the oceans had been underestimated by 60%. According to the Independent this had massive implications for the climate models. Unfortunately the paper was mathematically incoherent babble based upon fundamentally flawed calculations.
However, in the world of climate change alarmism, such trifles don’t matter. Knowing this paper to be simply ‘wrong’ the Independent have, to date, printed no retraction at all. Even ‘Nature’ have left the paper on their site and, having partially acknowledged the huge calculation error, deceptively state:
“We are working with the authors to establish the quantitative impact of the errors on the published results, at which point in time we will provide a further update.”
Eight months later they haven’t managed to work this out. Something which should concern anybody who values ‘Nature’ as a respected reviewer of empirical science.
Another MSM ploy is to highlight celebrity endorsements to convince the public to be terrified. Who needs to understand the science when world leading climate experts like Radiohead say they’re worried?
This use, or is it abuse, of celebrities reached its pessimum when much loved natural history journalist David Attenborough was convinced to narrate a ridiculous film alleging walruses were falling to their deaths because of climate change. Attenborough stated that climate change had forced the walruses to ‘haul out’ en masse in “desperation” due to sea ice loss, caused by AGW. With the director Sophie Lanfear stating “This is the sad reality of climate change.”
This was monumental tripe. Mass ‘haul outs’ of walruses have long been known as a strong indicator of population health. Far from signs of walrus demise, the increasing size of ‘haul outs’ indicate an abundance of food and a growing population. Nor does this stunning natural event seemingly have anything to do with receding sea ice. Huge ‘haul outs’ have been recorded as far back as the 1930’s, when the extent of the sea ice was greater.
However, an abundance of walruses also means an abundance of food for the abundant polar bears. While no one really knows why walruses climb cliffs, perhaps they follow scent trails, evading feasting predators also seems a reasonable guess.
These are just a few of the copious examples of scientific fraud and baseless fear mongering which characterise climate change alarmism. Despite the allegations of the MSM and others, those who highlight these problems are neither ‘denying climate science’ nor suggesting climate change shouldn’t be a concern.
What they are saying is that the counter evidence, frequent incidents of scientific skulduggery, widespread manipulation and misreporting of data and repeated MSM fear mongering, based upon falsehoods, raise legitimate reasons for doubt. There is an apparent agenda unnecessarily heightening public alarm and over emphasising one hypothesis (AGW) at the expense of all the other scientific reasons for environmental caution.
In order to understand why that agenda exists, we need to look more closely at the money behind it, which we do in Part 2 . In Part 3 we consider the ideology underpinning the story of the AGW climate emergency.
Please consider supporting my work. I really need your help if I am going to continue to provide the research and analysis that you value on a full-time basis. You can support my work for less than the price of a cup of coffee via my donor page or alternative become a paid subscriber to my Substack.
I extend my gratitude to my editor, who has provided invaluable contributions to my articles since October 2021 (but who, for personal reasons, prefers to remain anonymous).
Please feel free to share anything from iaindavis[.]com excluding any and all third party content. I use a Creative Commons License. All I ask is that you give credit to the author and clearly mark any changes you make. Please share my work widely. Censorship is increasing and we need to get this information out there. If you value what I do then please consider supporting my work. Many thanks.
IF the science behind AGW was right, what does that imply about everything else you wrote? (I did not check out Part 2 and 3, and debunking parts of Part 1 was time consuming enough, and I worry it worry it’s not fruitful). Rather than debate science, let’s reduce air pollution by reducing fossil fuel use. Let’s invest in R&D to make clean forms of energy cheaper, and support a clean energy economy (I’m leaving “clean” vague intentionally to have a broader umbrella). And let’s invest in infrastructure and technology that allows us to be more resilient to extreme weather (whether that weather is getting more extreme or not). There is room for agreement on how to move forward. Please lend your voice to shaping a future we all would benefit from!
Regarding your post:
The challenge about citing a paper that CO2 is THE driver of climate change – there’s so much that goes into that conclusion, I wouldn’t expect it to be in one paper. But the papers that cite CO2 as A driver of climate change, you already alluded to – the work of Tyndall and Arrnhenius.
You then list “unrseolved scientific questions” about AGW without any links to peer-reviewed literature. Regarding the blog posts you link to: You refer to “physicists” and link to Dr. Latour, a chemical engineering. Does he have any peer reviewed climate literature? I couldn’t find any. And from his writings
https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/authors/c/clifftent-inc/latour-p-r
for hydrocarbon processing, I’m inferring he’s involved/was involved in the fossil fuel industry. This would imply he has a direct monetary incentive to doubt the scientific consensus. In his short blog post, he’s claimed to falsify all of AGW… I frankly couldn’t follow along with what he was saying (could you?), but he does appear to get something fairly basic kind of wrong/incomplete (so I feel okay not having to decipher the rest, not that I necessarily could – I’m not a climate scientist, which is why I defer to peer-reviewed literature and the scientific consensus/community).
Latour claims “Blankets, jackets and clothing reduce the rate of heat transfer between your body and air by reducing heat transfer coefficient.” and goes on to describe the equation for heat transfer BY CONDUCTION. But heat transfer by RADIATION is ignored/as important. The second result for Googling “Why do clothes keep us warm?” yields:
http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/thermal-radiation.htm
” From these pictures, we can deduce that both clothes and hair act as insulators: the hottest parts of the image are on the side of the neck where the neck is partially protected by the collar. But the collar itself is quite cold, because here there are two thickness of cloth with an air space between them. Note that the shirt is hottest in places where it is single thickness and touching the body. This tells you something interesting about clothes: the fabric of clothes does not provide much insulation: it is the air trapped between you and the fabric (or inside the fabric of parkas, sweaters etc) that provides the insulation. Hair—even eyebrows—helps hold air in place and so provides some insulation.” Air is a good insulator, so if we’re not wearing clothes, I don’t think it’s by conduction that we feel cold. And when there’s a lot of people in a room, the room warms because of the heat transfer by radiation (again, because air is a good insulator).
Your link regarding “no greenhouse effect required” is again a blog post. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say (do you?)- he was making this connection between heat transfer and resonance, and I assumed he was making an analogy but it seems like he’s trying to establish it as an actual thing – heat transfer by radiation IS resonance.
He write: “Radiation is resonance enabled by the interaction of what we think of as electric and magnetic fields via line of sight where what we think of as the velocity of light is proportional to the very short time required for resonance to occur.” Wut. He didn’t explain why radiation is resonance. This sounds inconsistent with the basics of black body radiation: a black body can emit radiation into space without any worry about what, if anything, absorbs or resonates with the radiation (and that rate of transfer can be described by the Stefan-Boltzmann law)
He continues: “Greenhouse gases cannot act as a blanket warming Earth because a blanket has no way to increase the amplitudes of oscillation at every frequency of oscillation required to cause a higher temperature” – Frankly, I don’t get what this means. Temperature can be increased without needing to increase the amplitudes of EVERY frequency of oscillation – microwaves heat up water in food by emitting in just a particular range of frequencies. And see previous link for why a blanker can warm things by trapping air.
As far as determining the average global temperature, this BBC series superficially described some of the mathematics behind that number: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jsdrk. A summary if anyone wishes to dive deeper: there’s Kalman filtering, to homogenize data and clean data that has points that are likely to be erroneous, Kriging algorithm to account for spatial gaps in temperature data, and essentially a T-test to determine whether temperature today is really different from temperature data 130 years ago – all of these were techniques developed, and used outside of climate science, and are well understood in other fields.
Ultimately, I don’t personally understand all the pieces but I trust the scientific community and their overall conclusion. I agree with you on the need for skepticism, and the 3% or so of publishing climate scientists that are skeptical of the consensus play a vital role (but you didn’t link to their papers!). But there’s a difference between unreasonable skepticism and genuine skepticism – you don’t wake up in the morning and check that the floor is still there even though in theory it might not be. You don’t test EVERY glass of water you drink for lead or bacteria contamination even though in principle it could be contaminated. There has been decades of genuine skepticism over AGW. After a certain point, you gotta move on and start to worry about other things like how to decarbonize safely and cost effectively.
Thanks Matthew for your excellent comment. You are correct that I didn’t link to numerous PR papers, though I did link to some, but I hope you appreciate that would be tricky in a blog post. I think you may have missed the point of the article somewhat, as it is the first part of a series. I wrote:
The purpose of the post is to highlight that silencing of the debate and the suspicious activity of those who seek to silence the debate. To understand why I suggest this is ‘suspicious’ I urge you to read Parts 2 and 3. I hope you will continue to offer your responses on those too.
Thanks for noticing the physcist link to a chemist. That was an error and I’ve now corrected it.
I agree with you that there is every reason, regardless of so called global warming, to invest in and develop cleaner more efficient technologies. I make no argument that shouldn’t be done and I am in no way ‘defending’ the ravages of the so called ‘fossil fuel industry.’. I also think we should seek a moratorium on 5G, halt rampant deforestation, make a global effort to clean up the oceans and many other environmental measures, I am certainly not opposed to environmental causes.
You use the term “debunking” which indicates a belief that one opinion is valid and another not. This is antithetical to logical inquiry. We may debate opinions, sometimes scientific opinions, but the crucial factor is the evidence not the opinion, as we each struggle to form meaningful opinions, hopefully based upon that evidence. There is no debunking in a functioning dialectic. the point is do you wish to engage in the dialectic?
Clearly you do, which I welcome. However many proponents of the AGW hypothesis not only refuse to engage in debate they accuse any and all who challenge their unshakeable certainty of being “climate science deniers.” This is essentially the issue I highlight in Part 1.
I expand on this in Parts 2 and 3 so I do hope you read them with the same degree of thoughtful, critical analysis.
All the best.
Hi Iain, thanks for the reply.
I am only partially invested in the dialectic, mainly because I am curious what it would take to convince you (or skeptics generally) that AGW was real? I am disinterested in the “debate” because the scientific consensus is clear (http://theconsensusproject.com/), many myths have been disproved (this website does an excellent job cataloging them: https://skepticalscience.com/), and I believe people don’t really have a problem with the scientific consensus – they have a problem with the proposed solutions and perceived agendas (which I think you describe a bit in Pt. 2 and 3). I’d rather talk about solutions you like than on trying to establish that CO2 emissions are indeed a problem (For example, what about a carbon fee that was divided amongst the population? See here: https://energyinnovationact.org/). And in defense of the environmentalists, the scientific consensus puts a deadline on emissions reductions, so hours spent “debating” are hours not spent actually working on the interesting, exciting stuff – the solutions. And if there’s no end to the debate in sight, then that puts an anxiety and despair amongst those working to address this problem (the scientists that study the climate are increasingly dealing with climate despair: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/)
You say you’re worried about silencing debate. I guess I’m worried about the quality of debate. And the highest quality tends to be amongst peer-reviewed climate scientists. Bloggers can make valid points, but they’re more likely to make uncorrected mistakes (which I’ve tried to point out). A lot of the science you describe in this post is an incomplete description. I’d be more okay with you asking for an explanation, rather than giving your description as if it was fact because you are presenting all of this info as if there isn’t a good explanation for why the AGW consensus is well founded. It’s analogous to the scientific consensus on vaccines, or GMO’s, or the link between smoking and cancer. The scientific consensus has much more weight than the opinion of non-experts because these things are complex and it’s easy to misunderstand or make mistakes. You’re welcome to have your doubts (I encourage readers to check out skepticalscience.com to learn more!). But these viewpoints should not be held on equal footing – there can be consequences to ignoring the scientific consensus, and sometimes lives are on the line (like with vaccines). What I’ve tried to show with some debunking of the blog posts you link to is that the alternatives are weak enough that a scientifically literate lay person can find actually fault with them. It’s so much harder to do that with peer-reviewed literature (when you understand the context and what scientists are actually saying), and that’s why when there is a strong consensus among scientists, there’s so much more weight to that description of reality than alternatives.
Furthermore, the alternatives are inconsistent, and warrant just as much skepticism as is applied to AGW. Quoting from Dana Nuccitelli:
“You may have noticed another characteristic of contrarian climate research – there is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming. Some blame global warming on the sun, others on orbital cycles of other planets, others on ocean cycles, and so on. There is a 97% expert consensus on a cohesive theory that’s overwhelmingly supported by the scientific evidence, but the 2–3% of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other. The one thing they seem to have in common is methodological flaws like cherry picking, curve fitting, ignoring inconvenient data, and disregarding known physics.”
(Guardian article with link to the paper here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers)
Dana Nuccitelli and other climate scientists do the hard work of challenging peer-reviewed research. That’s the whole endeavor of science (it’s NOT perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got). So I’ll continue that work a little by challenging some more of your links because the picture you’re painting is not consistent either:
Is there a Greenhouse Effect or not? Wattsupwiththat seems to think so. But the Nikolov-Zeller study you link to thinks not. The “physicist” (he calls himself climate scientist) you updated your link to, Robert Holmes also is at odds with the Greenhouse Effect, and there’s a Wattsupwiththat post that claims to show the paper to be wrong:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/31/giving-credit-to-willis-eschenbach-for-setting-the-nikolov-zeller-silliness-straight/
Robert Holmes is actually active on the comments. Who should we believe? Do I really need to understand Spencer’s argument myself? In my opinion, asking regular people to do that is unreasonable. (I don’t generally trust Roy Spencer because he disagrees with the scientific consensus, but if he’s debunking other things, he’s earned some points in my book). My point: if you’re going to urge people to doubt the scientific consensus, do so consistently and carefully. It seems like you’re linking to things that seem to pose doubt about AGW without applying the same level of skepticism to what you link to, and I think this is a disservice to readers and leaves them less informed.
You say “In fact ice sheets on Greenland, in the Arctic and the Antarctic have been thickening for decades.” and link to ONE decade of data. But when you look at the the minimums over thirty years, it’s clear and obvious that there is a decrease. (I assume you can’t show the trend before thirty years because the data wasn’t being collected before that, but I don’t know). But if you (or the blog you link to) has the data, you should show it – it’s misleading not to. (See NASA’s page here: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/)
For your graph of temperature, if you ignore the 1998 peak, the trend is there in your own graph. Why make the graph start in 1997? Why not 1980, or even further back. Then it becomes clear and obvious that there is indeed a warming trend. To neglect to do this is misleading – whether intentionally or not (see NASA’s page for the longer timeline: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/)
I’d give you the benefit of the doubt if this was one mistake, but it’s a series of mistakes all in the same direction – doubting the scientific consensus. And by linking all over the place, you’re mixing up gobbledygook with genuine skepticism, and readers are worse off for it. The problem is real. We need to be talking about solutions! (Warmed my heart and got me excited when you mentioned environmental measures you support!! I’m eager to support evidence-based policies and solutions to those challenges – market based, government based, whatever works in my opinion) I don’t know your political leanings but I’m assuming you’re right leaning, and there is a need for your voice at the table to advance that discussion of solutions (see https://www.republicen.org/).
Thanks Matthew for another thoughtful response.
You wrote.
Obviously I can’t speak for others but in my case, having looked at the science for and against (from a lay perspective,) quite a bit. The AGW hypothesis seems to be fundamentally flawed to me. As you have previously acknowledged there is no paper which empirically proves that CO2 causes climate change. Perhaps when a scientist writes one, I’ll be more convinced.
You also wrote:
……and
All of which is somewhat confusing. Presumably there would be little point at sitting at a table to discuss ‘potential solutions’ if you fundamentally disagree on what the problem was.
Why would anyone be interested in discussing CO2 mitigation if they don’t think CO2 is the issue? Surely agreeing a definition of the problem is essential? Are you suggesting that sceptical voices are welcome to the debate providing they abandon their scepticism at the3 door and accept the ‘consensus’ forced upon them? It appears so.
I agree we should be looking at solutions. For example, if CO2 is the problem then widespread reforestation would seem an obvious solution. Yet there is very little support for that among the United Nations (the political assembly who created the IPCC). Instead the offered ‘solutions’ are all the same. Centralised control and taxation. Undoubtedly to create the $100 trillion global carbon trading scheme, subsidised by tax payers, from which investment bankers can profit.
In any event there is no discussion. The United Nations and the corporations who fund it have already decided what the solution is, one I assume you support. It is encapsulated in the Agenda 2030 and its sustainable development goals. Which means the centralised control of the Earth’s resources by an enriched (via taxation subsidised carbon trading) financial oligarchy.
Personally I don’t really see how any of that benefits mankind or the Planet. Especially seeing as all we really need to do is plant more trees. Inexpensive, practical and realistic. Combined with cleaner technologies the solutions seem very simple. So why aren’t we deploying them? Increased taxation seems utterly redundant as a proposed ‘solution.’
However, instead the whole world agrees (apparently) that the solution does mean higher taxation. What a surprise? Certainly XR are in full support. Are you? Your support of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (another tax) suggests so.
You link to the Consensus Project (based upon Cook et al dubious paper) and readers are immediately faced with an utterly disingenuous statement.
Which is tantamount to saying….
From the outset it completely deceives and wholly misrepresents the argument. Yet you say you are ‘worried about the quality of debate.’ A good first step in that effort would be to avoid distorting it, as the Consensus Project does. The actual debate is about what causes global warming, not its existence.
This whole consensus approach seems unscientific to me. Especially when silly papers like Cook et al are used to illegitimately substantiate it.
I fully agree with your assessment that there is no single cohesive alternative theory as to what causes global warming, rather a range of possibilities. In fact I am surprised there is any counter scientific evidence at all given the horrendous bias in research funding, the deep rooted problems in the peer review process and the numerous examples of data tampering which infests so called climate science.
You say you encourage readers to visit skepticalscience.com (one of the main contributors to the Consensus Project) to learn more. Of course the name itself is deceptive. It is far from sceptical and defends the claimed consensus without question. So let’s look at so called Skepticalscience.
Firstly it is endorsed by, among others, David Suzuki, who doesn’t know where the IPCC’s data sets come from, and Michael Mann who created the Hockey Stick using “Mike’s nature trick.” Hardly an auspicious start. The site was created by John Cook, whose paper on the consensus is frankly comical. Hardly surprising given that he is a cartoonist not a scientist.
I suspect, from what you have written (and I have looked no further,) that your grasp of science far exceeds my own. So I thank you for your insights which I will look at carefully. Perhaps you will change my mind.
However, as I have repeatedly alluded to across all three posts, my point is not that one theory trumps another but rather that my suspicions are aroused both by the silencing of the debate and the proposed solutions which you seem to support.
With respect, as demonstrated by your advocacy of skepticalscience.com, what you haven’t addressed is the broader political perspective. The science does not exist in isolation of the political and economic forces funding it. If all we do is point at papers, without considering the influences upon them, we get nowhere.
It fascinates me how often AGW supporters point to suspected ‘big oil’ funding of AGW sceptics when the IPCC itself was created by the Rockefellers. Arguably the most powerful oiligarchs ever.
This is why I have written 3 posts not one.
Thanks for the response. I’m a science teacher so when I’m reading your post and response, it looks like science but needs clarification to be “quality debate” or true scientific skepticism. By really outlining “this is what would change my mind”, that makes it a clear bar of skepticism that could theoretically be met. Before plate tectonics was an accepted theory, it was largely ignored. I’m not a historian but that’s sort of how science is done – clear objections are raised that can either be supported or sufficiently addressed through further experiments. And once enough experiments are done pointing towards one explanation AND refuting others, a consensus emerges. (Which is why AGW is so compelling to me – any competing explanation needs to ALSO explain why CO2 is NOT causing an increase in global temperatures, like illustrated here: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)
To require ONE published paper that empirically shows CO2 causes climate change is not how peer-reviewed science works. Scientists publish pieces of the puzzle and over time a consilience of evidence emerges from which we can draw conclusions. Summary reports like from the IPCC synthesize that research, so there ARE documents that outline the reasoning.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
So I’d like to ask you to introspect: What would really convince you? (I don’t think that’s an easy question to answer, but I think that’s the only honest way to have a “debate” – to elaborate on what would change your mind – and obviously it has to be reasonable, otherwise there’s no way to progress. My own bar for changing my mind is pretty high: after looking at the lines of reasoning, it seems like the claim is sound. So I’d need explanations for why those lines of reasoning were incomplete/wrong. And I’d be most convinced if scientists that worked in the field that took a stance one way changed their minds and gave compelling reasons. And what would seal the deal from me would be if the IPCC came out with a statement to that effect, though if a significant number of scientists made the claim, my mind would start to shift too)
Regarding your comments about who to trust: I would personally be skeptical of what fossil fuel industries publish, but that alone does not dismiss the comments themselves. You need to double check their work, and understand the proper context – are they cherrypicking? Are they ignoring certain results? Is it clear how their data wass collected? Is it transparent and accessible? Are they interpreting the data properly? Is there anything they’re missing? Having a direct monetary incentive makes bias more likely, but it doesn’t falsify what is raised automatically. In principle, it doesn’t matter who provides the evidence, which is why Cook, who doesn’t have a long background in science, shouldn’t be dismissed just because of that. The lines of reasoning on skepticalscience are outlined very clearly, so any criticisms of the site should be direct and about the evidence presented.
If you look at the FAQ on the consensusproject, they address their methods. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got so far, and from what I see in related articles, similar attempts at quantifying consensus yield similar results.
You wrote,
“It seems unscientific to me. Especially when silly papers like Cook et al are used to illegitimately substantiate it.”
Please elaborate. This is something I think is worth writing out: What’s your threshold for establishing consensus? (and is it reasonable?) What are your criticisms of the paper? This is published, so your criticisms could theoretically be published too, to have other researchers respond.
(The paper is here:https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024)
Regarding sitting at the table…I should clarify: >from everything I see<, the scientific consensus is clear: the climate is changing, it's bad, and it's human caused. There are uncertainties, but they're largely about how bad it'll be and when those impacts will happen. Therefore I'm eager to have those right leaning voices at the table to discuss solutions that you'd support. I am NOT in favor of big government or centralized control. I AM in favor of doing what works. And planting more trees is NOT enough. See Drawdown.org for a list of solutions that exist right now and could be implemented with multiple benefits.
I'd also like to clarify from: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
"A tax has the primary purpose of raising revenue. By contrast, a fee is a payment in exchange for a service or privilege. Since CCL advocates for revenue neutrality and a policy that doesn’t grow the government, it’s reasonable to characterize our carbon price as a fee rather than a tax."
The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is endorsed by some Republicans because it doesn't grow government. The money collected would be returned to the population, and would help lower income folks because higher income people spend/buy/travel more and would pay more of the carbon fee, which is then divided up equally per person. My point is that from everything I see, the science is clear on climate change and clear that our net emissions need to be basically 0 by 2050. BUT how to get there is an all-hands-on-deck endeavor. We need markets and innovation and top-down solutions and bottom-up solutions and middle out.
Thanks Matthew.
I’m not right wing btw. I’m a former Union Steward and left wing activist. I am no longer. I don’t recognise the divisive Right and Left labels anymore.
What would convince me is an open public forum where both sides can present and debate the evidence. I would like to see policy makers then base their policy decisions on the outcome of that debate which I suggest should be something akin to a public hearing or inquest.
I am not convinced by consensus. For example, not so long ago the scientific consensus, as you have mentioned yourself, was that smoking was harmless. Science is no less corruptible than any other human endeavour.
https://stream.org/doubt-scientific-consensus/
Cook et al 2013 arrived at a conclusion which was not evident in the data he presented. There is a good discusiion on the actual figures here. The post title is misleading and it is the comment section that is relevant in my view.
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/03/16_not_97_agree.html
I agree that the climate is changing, it is constantly changing. I do not agree that this is ‘bad.’ Warming is rarely bad, rapid cooling is always bad.
However, if accepting the CO2 problem were ever a prerequisite for any ‘discussion’ then the solution is extremely easy, cheap and pleasant. There is absolutely no need for any Tax hikes at all and certainly no need to fundamentally change the global economy.
Plant trees. It really isn’t rocket science.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/76
Problem solved. So let’s see XR, the IPCC, UNFCCC, WWF, Greenpeace and all the other prominent global warming alarmists throw their weight behind this stark glaringly obvious solution. One even I, a layman, have thought obvious for decades.
When they don’t (and they won’t) perhaps then you will realise that the purpose of the climate change alarm is not to reflect genuine scientific concern. It is to manufacture a scientific ‘consensus’ to change the global economy because that, and not environmentalism, is why governments and oil cartel created the IPCC in the first place.
https://iaindavis.com/a-climate-emergency-fit-for-a-parasite-economy-part-3/
Again, thanks for the response. Apologies for mislabeling.
Some criticisms:
What would that open public forum look like? Are there similar forum like things that would be sufficient? If it’s just scientists talking to each other about their research, I don’t see how the public can meaningfully follow – this stuff needs to be translated. I would say a similar forum is what happens in journals – where people have time to think and double check and respond to data. There are hundreds to thousands of people involved. Is there any precedent for what you’re calling for? There’s just so much at stake to leave to a single live event so I don’t see that happening.
You wrote:
“I am not convinced by consensus. For example, not so long ago the scientific consensus, as you have mentioned yourself, was that smoking was harmless. Science is no less corruptible than any other human endeavour.”
To be clear, I never said that the consensus was that smoking was harmless. Consensus is such a hard thing to establish so it’s not often done explicitly – I imagine scientists care more about finding new results in quantum mechanics rather than investigating the number of scientists leaning towards string theory or some other approach – the latter is just not a very intriguing question for many physicists. I haven’t looked at details on consensus on smoking in depth but I’d imagine there was uncertainty about a link before enough research could establish a significant link. And if there was a consensus on smoking being harmless – how robust was it, and how long did it take for that to change?
I’d imagine it was very different from the climate research consensus which has occurred over decades, and still AGW remains the most thorough explanation. You say science is no less corruptible but it self corrects (companies in a sense do that, or else they go out of business. Insurance companies that stay profitable are an interesting signal in that sense: https://www.wsj.com/graphics/climate-change-forcing-insurance-industry-recalculate/). Our modern society depends on science being a true description of reality – you can’t be corruptible about GPS locations and coordinates, or packets of information or the structure of the Internet – it either works or it doesn’t. The climate science works – not perfectly, but >>>it’s the best description we’ve got<<<<This is complex stuff>what to do about it<<.
Hahahahahah! looks like you trawled the internet to find every crank pseudoscience blog you could to cobble together in this hilarious ridiculous blog post. All while studiously avoiding science.
You really are trying very hard to keep yourself ignorant and stupid to protect your bizarre beliefs.
What a complete waste of your life.
Thank you for your comment. I have actually cited a number of scientific papers and scientific articles, published in peer reviewed academic journals, which question the AGW theory itself and bring the notion of a climate emergency into question. Such as:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379113000553
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rx4413n
Of course you are free to consider the scientists, statisticians and data analysts etc, who question both the data underpinning AGW and it’s interpretation, as pseudoscience bloggers and cranks if you like. However, that rather illustrates the whole purpose of this blog post. Which was clearly stated as follows:
I hope you read the other two posts with an equally critical eye and look forward to your further, illuminating comments.
All the best.
No, you haven’t cited ANY peer-reviewed published papers from reputable science Journals that support the crank nonsense claims you’ve cribbed from junkscience conspiracy blogs.
Why do you think every single major science institution on the planet disagrees with the utter rubbish you posted? Why don’t any University level textbooks support your parroted crank pseudoscience?
eg
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/basics-of-climate-change/
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18730/climate-change-evidence-and-causes
Is it all some “lizard man” global conspiracy? LOL!
Thank you for your comment. I can assure you that “Stomatal proxy record of CO2 concentrations from the last termination suggests an important role for CO2 at climate change transitions” is peer reviewed. Similarly “Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica” was published in Nature.
I agree with you, in part, this doesn’t lend them any particular credence but they are peer reviewed and published in authoritative scientific journals, which I know is something of importance for you. Your denial of these facts is difficult to understand.
There are also a number of papers you may find interesting (cited in the article) referenced here:
https://principia-scientific.org/17-new-scientific-papers-dispute-CO2-greenhouse-effect-as-primary-explanation-for-climate-change/
You make a good point about why so few papers questioning the AGW consensus make it to peer review and / or are published. Certainly the IPCC, whose remit is specifically designed to promote AGW and nothing else, won’t consider any paper that doesn’t fit with their predetermined narrative. Of course, this is the antithesis of science. However, they aren’t overly reliant upon peer reviewed science themselves, with nearly half of the evidence they cite coming from environmentalist blogs, articles and press releases.
Clearly there is a problem with the peer review process and you may find this discussion of interest:
https://www.corbettreport.com/sciencecrisis/
I suggest to fully understand why the published science is so overwhelmingly biased towards a single, highly questionable hypothesis, and denies virtually all who question it you need to consider the wider political and economic drivers. Unless you are suggesting that funding has nothing to do with scientific research. I don’t know, perhaps you are?
So if you are interested in considering these broader influences I suggest you read Part 2 and 3 of this series in which I explore exactly that. There is no mention of lizards, in fact I am at somewhat at a loss to understand why you think that’s relevant. Perhaps you could explain? Anyway, here are the links if you are interested.
https://iaindavis.com/a-climate-emergency-fit-for-a-parasite-economy-part-2/
https://iaindavis.com/a-climate-emergency-fit-for-a-parasite-economy-part-3/
All the best and thanks again for the comment.
Iain,
What you did there was just beautiful!
Where do you find the forbearance?
I’d have called him (her?) something very rude and left it at that.
I’m a recent reader and subsequent fan of your work. With every article that I read I find myself more grateful for your diligence in opposition to what is tantamount to global enslavement. Most of what you espouse via many hours of reading isn’t a tough sell for me, if at all. If people would take more time to recognize the wider body of your work, I feel that they would be more accepting of the prospect of potential ‘rigging’ of the wider “climate consensus”, as it were. But whatever. Some people can be led to ‘trees’ but they won’t see the ‘forest’, will they?
I don’t know if the offering is of any value but I happened upon a 5-minute youtube video just a few months ago that stuck me as highly irregular. Again, it could be nothing… but the very first detail stated in this Climate-change-based video was exasperating. Why was this peculiar detail/method employed to curtail a scientist’s current effort? [ The highly controversial plan to stop climate change | Russ George for Heretics ]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Hnv_ZJSQY
Again, love your work.
Thanks for the encouragement John. I appreciate it.
The framing of a deceit or in modern terms; psyop, is a carefully and cunningly crafted and prepared target.
Having responded to the bait by reacting in the frame of its setting, you may find yourself invalidated by the attempt to engage reason or indeed humanity! For deceits are actively attacking or undermining and substituting for both.
But in simplest terms there are signature features to the nature of deceits. Fears are baited, triggered and induced, guilt is insinuated and mitigated or compensated by a provided ‘righteous identity’ in hate that presents itself as saviour or willing sacrifice and willingness to sacrifice others to mitigate and forfend the evil outcome. Likewise others will exert manipulative pressure to recruit or induce compliance or conformity from the mass agreement that the ‘Evil’ MUST be countered NOW!.
NOW! is a very important component – because with no time to think, there is no time to connect beneath emotional reaction in the heart of stillness. The mind is thus captured by shock and horror to operate as a proxy for manipulative intent.
“No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”
~ Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
It is simply impossible to reach the mind of another who is marketised and weaponised by the mind of guilt and fear until they are willing to face their own. The Corporate expertise is in the outsourcing or dumping of toxic consequence onto others – so as to reap a private and indeed parasitic reward. H.G Wells ‘Time Machine’ – predicted humankind splitting into a predator class set over farmed prey – but perhaps like Orwell, using a futuristic framing to conceal an already operating reality (Orwell wanted to call it 1948). So some of this pattern of identification in power struggle is – I suggest – part of the human condition-ing – which runs fallacies in its core identification resulting in such an insanity as can no longer be masked over and hidden. At some point the cost of the mask becomes greater than the fears that it promises to hide.
Self-hatred is the cultivated ‘Green’ mindset, and population reduction is part of setting energy and guilt-based economy control on the global corporate sector for the sustainability of protected illusions or lies that can no longer be hidden under the ongoing compression – and so must effectively reveal themselves as the denial of truth as the consciousness and alignment within reality.
Illusions that could be played out in the phase of expansion, generate painful and dissonant disturbance under compression – and shall be in a sense squeezed out as unworkable. But that doesn’t prevent the choice to persist in them against all reason – as if our survival depends on subjugating all reason to their dictate.
The mind of a sense of lack and disconnect – SEEKS power in terms of possession and control and generates lack and disconnect. And so self-conditions a perpetuity in conflict or perpetual war.
The broad spectrum of influence is of such a nature that facts will not be allowed to come into the mainstream mind.
But the belief in making reality to manipulate outcomes via narrative control must corrupt the mind of those who are seduced to its lure of power or protection.
Recognising our own insanity is the only point of opening TO a Sanity that is not manufactured, socially conditioned or split off and cast out from separation trauma.
Love of Life as the willingness of an intimate embracing in life and of each other and our world is NOT at all in the ‘Green Consensus reality’. Life support is demonised as a cover story for persisting destruction for private gratifications.
Mainstream Cosmology – as the context for climatology – is a computer modelling of gross banality. The idea that the Sun’s radiation is the primary effect into (and out of) an otherwise closed system, is a metaphor or vignette of the closed mind.
the electric-magnetic force is primary to physical structure and density. But the old Model demands sacrifice against the end of its Era in the same way as appeasements and sacrifice to gods of Antiquity – all around the globe. In terms of a core archetypal casting, nothing much has changed. Token sacrifice of the so called fossil fuels is offered as a pivot to total global – and granular – energy – and speech – control – under the Internment of Things.
Recognition that Science is corrupted is the opportunity for it awakening and realignment. Who pays the piper, calls the tune.
Thanks for such an illuminating comment. Much to think about and well said.
Hi Iain,
Since you find Brian Steere’s comment illuminating, perhaps you can privide me with your interpretation of what he has said. I have taken a look st several of his comments elsewhere and for me it’s like reading sanscript. I haven’t a clew what he is going on about.
Having communicated with Brian a bit I certainly don’t wish to speak for him. For me, there’s a stream of consciousness within Brian’s writing and It takes some time to ‘tune in.’ But worth it I suggest. He writes ‘in the now’ (which I think he’ll agree is all we have). I love it, and find it absolutely fascinating. Check out some of his work HERE Reminds me a bit of William S. Burrows.
The comment above says we cannot judge the actions of the “parasite class” in humanistic terms. They have slipped beyond that. They exploit our human emotions but are themselves strangers to them. The sense of urgency (climate emnergency) isn’t real. It is merely a control mechanism. However, if we adopt the emotional framework created for us by essentially non human minds (not literally but in effect) we become our own cage. We are unable to see beyond its bars. No matter how often we are guided to see that the shadow on the cave wall is just a shadow, no amount of telling will convince the cage dweller otherwise.
In this case he likens this to the CO2 environmentalist mindset, but expands it to all of us who are limited by a reductionist view of reality. Trapped in this limited, material and materialistic paradigm we are condemned to fall for the same deception time and time again. Only by seeing beyond this can we truly discover real emotional, intellectual and spiritual freedom.
It is very poetic for me. Like I said, I’m a fan. I recommend having another go at engaging with Brian’s writing, comments blog etc. The process of simply trying to see things the way Brian does is worth it in my view.
Hi Iain, Thanks for making the time to interpret Matthews words into plainer English.
Have you given any consideration to a possible connection betwern the “parasite class” and the founding/significant members of Extinction Rebellion, who appear to me to be simp,y using the “climate energency” fantacy as a means to replace global economc and political systems with what I see as anarchy.
(see http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2019/04/spotlighton-extinction-rebellion.html)
Don’t know if you watch UK Column Pete but they have used the Policy Exchange report to draw the Home Offices attention to the fact that we have an organisation going into schools to teach children how to break the law and what to do if they get arrested. If that’s not radicalisation what is? Some excellent research in your post Pete and yes I have considered the parasite class connection to the leadership of XR. See A Climate Emergency Fit For A Parasite Economy – Part 2 and Part 3.
I haven’t looked so much at their political philosophy (Hallam, Barda) but have looked at their corporate and government/policy think tank connections (Bradbrook, Yamin). They are a state construct in my view. Their purpose is to create the social hysteria necessary to convince people to accept huge tax increases. Did you see the IMF’s recent claim that it is necessary to increase energy bills by 45%?
As for anarchy Pete, I think you might mean chaos. I mean no disrespect but people often confuse the two. I am not a statist, I don’t believe we gain any benefit at all from being governed by a state. Most would call me an ‘anarchist.’ However, anarchy is just an umbrella term for a whole range of non-statist political philosophies. Personally I favour a free market form and the rule of law via the creation of an Agora. Leftist anarchists would call this AnCap (anarcho capitalism) but it isn’t really. You may find Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) an interesting chap. Look him up if you have the time.
LewRockwell and the work of the Mises institute is an excellent resource for understanding genuine free market economics (catallactics).
Thanks for the comment and excellent link. Keep going mate, it’s all we can do.
I think Brian Steer is alluding to the biblical concept of the ‘original sin’ . We are all made to feel guilty for the manifestation of climate change. ‘Its our fault so we should pay’ etc. This guilt leads to fear of the consequences of our actions and fear is the most successful way of controlling large numbers of people. This is borne out by the modern creation of the climate change agenda by the Club of Rome created for this purpose in the 1970’s. This elite globalist think tank stated, “In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, 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… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself,” ( The First Global Revolution, 1990). Prominent members have included David Rockefeller. Maurice Strong and Al Gore. Gore is most famous for his film depicting the end of days climate change emergency that woke most modern societies up to the topic. Al Gore subsequently became a billionaire from his carbon off setting investments. The truth is stranger than fiction unfortunately.
If a little convoluted!
Hi Matthew (Sarker),
I find your responses to Ian’s excellent article rather surprising, considering that you are a teacher of physics to high school students. You seem to equate the small potential increase in global temperatures that COULD arise from our CO2 emissions (all other factors such as cloud cover, solar activity, etc. assumed to remain unchanged) with a catastrophic change in the different global climates.
Have you made use of the MODTRAN tool to see the impact on surface temperature of atmospheric CO2 content as it increases from 0 – 50 – 100 – 200 – etc etc etc. ppm? and what conclusion have you come to? Can you give me some examples of catastrophic global climate change experienced over the past 70 years? ( I’ve been around for a lot longer than that and recognise only a slight warming trend, with all of the attendant benefits.
As a physicist you should also have some understanding of diffusion of gases through porous solids, so you may be able to respond to some of the points raised in my article “Fractionation of Carbon Dioxide from Air “trapped” in Ice” (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/12/smogbound-on-molecular-fractionation-in.html).
The claim of CACC supporters that pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels remained below 300ppm is dependent upon the claim that CO2 molecular diameter is greater than the magic 3.6Å. Although its collision diameter is 3.9Å its kinetic diameter is 3.3Å, well bellow the magic level at which it is claimed no preferential fractionation occurs.
BTW, I understand that the 97% scientific consensus that you seem to be so impressed by is simply that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, not that we are heading for global climate catastrophe arising from our CO2 emissions. Very few of the CACC sceptics that I have corresponded with since 2007 deny the former, but reject the latter on the basis of no convincing evidence.
Hi Iain, thosing criticising either don’t understand your article or don’t appreciate their beliefs challenged. I learnt years ago anyone believing in the 97% consensus or peer review are ignorant of the science behind AGW. It’s a waste of time engaging because they are incapable of accepting anything that questions their belief.
Thanks for the comment Russell. You may well be right but I’ve got my own confirmation biases too, so it is worth engaging with people who disagree with my perspective. I am frequently wrong myself.
Iain, i’ve been a skeptic more 15 years and engaging with those that don’t agree with me for almost as long. Comments by Michael Sarker are nothing knew and it’s a waste of time engaging because an open mind against ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy will only end in frustration.
“The people who are supposed to be the experts and who claim to understand the science are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence…I hope that a few of them will make the effort to examine the evidence in detail and see how it contradicts the prevailing dogma, but I know that the majority will remain blind. That to me is the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that the whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”
– Freeman Dyson
”Rather than debate science, lend your voice to shaping a future we all would benefit from,”…. he then goes on to dismisses ”Dr. Latour” because he’s a chemical engineer, has no peer reviewed climate literature, involved in the fossil fuel industry and this ”would imply he has a direct monetary incentive to doubt the scientific consensus.”
”I’m not a climate scientist, which is why I defer to peer-reviewed literature and the scientific consensus/community” Michael later quotes of all people,”Dana Nuccitelli.” A radical environmentalist who wrote whacky green opinion pieces for the guardian, co-authored the 2013 paper that found 0.5% consensus to the effect that recent global warming was mostly man-made and reported it as 97.1%. The same Dana Nuccitelli who had vested interest in ”OIL and GAS.” He was employed by ”TETRA TECH,” and who are they…….
”We support oil and gas exploration and production; gathering pipelines; transmission pipelines; compressor and pumping stations; processing facilities; refineries; above and below ground storage facilities; and rail, truck, and marine terminal import and export facilities.”
You can read all about Dana Nuccitelli and Michael’s settled science at link below,
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=Dana+Nuccitelli
These fanatics like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. The peer review is corrupted, they promote slogans such a “The science is settled” when real scientists know that science is never settled. The 97% “consensus” study has been rebutted and proven to be outright fraudulent. Climate models (computer programs) are not facts and will say whatever they are programmed to say. Climate alarmism only survives by suppressing dissent & spending trillions of dollars of public money year after year on pseudo-scientific propaganda. How this mad suicidal cult and its preachers obtained so much power in the academia, media & government is obvious if you follow the money. Iain, this is why it’s a waste of your time engaging because the Michael Sarker’s of this world aren’t interested in the facts.
Thanks Russell. I appreciate the comment and I know what you are saying is true. It probably is a waste of time. However, you quite rightly identified the problem (or quoted it.)
“It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that the whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”
I suggest this is largely attributable to feathering the career nest but rank corruption and simple error also creep into it.
More importantly how have the vast majority of the public been convinced to accept absurdities as indisputable fact? Again I am sure you and I could identify a whole range of reasons for this, mainly under the umbrella of propaganda.
But most importantly, what can those of us who are sceptical do about it? The only way I can see is to challenge it and never let those who try to use the full gamut of logical fallacies to ‘prove’ their questionable assertion get away with it. Hence the blogs and the frequent social media arguments. I never withhold comments (other than spam) so it is beholding upon me to address them on this site. If I encountered such comments on others I probably wouldn’t bother.
Thanks again.
All the best.
Climate change is man-made but CO2 is not the cause. In the ongoing debate between alarmists and deniers, government financed weather modification programs never seem to be addressed. The United States spends at least 5 billion dollars a year on the “New Manhattan Project” and daily operations are run by the CIA and the US Air Force. For the best website for information on this, look up GeoengineeringWatch.org and Dane Wiggington. Since the oligarchy couldn’t get their global carbon taxes firmly established, they came up with the COVID 19 Plandemic. This will be used as a pretext to usher in their Green New Deal. Get ready for the Davos Reset.
Thanks L. Charles Burch for the informative comment. I have written about some of the history of various geoengineering and weather modification programs in Chemtrails Exposed – The Science, The History and the Propaganda which you may find interesting. I suspect you are right about the failing Net Zero narrative and the delivery of exactly the same policies on the back of COVID 19. This is something I am currently looking into. For more on geoengineering I heartily recommend the work of Peter A. Kirby.
I will certainly look up your suggestions, Iain. You may want to look up THE MANUFACTURING OF GRETA THUNBERG by Cory Morningstar. Also, look up Pandemic Panic To Usher In The UN’s 2030 Agenda Ten Years Early – Technocracy News. Dig around Technocracy News for other articles on the Cronyvirus agenda. Other alt journalists have been saying the same thing. ☺
Thanks L.Charles Burch for the recommendations. Both Cory and Patrick Woods are excellent I also recommend Whitney Webb, James Corbett, the Last American Vagabond (forgotten his name), UK Column, 21st Century Wire and for some really challenging stuff on climate change The Climate of Sophistry. I think there is a reason why so many alt journalists are broadly saying the same thing. It is where the evidence leads. It is a shame most in the MSM don’t report it.
Chapeau, Iain.
Thanks for sending the link to this article out.
Excellent research and excellent writing.
Science is first and foremost, based on observation. Many hypotheses can be formed from those observations and can be tested against the data. The AGW hypothesis falls over at every hurdle. I have never read any ‘buddy reviewed’ paper which shows a correlation between a trace gas (CO2) and temperature variations where they have been measured, let alone a paper which proves causation.
AGW is a perpetual motion machine in fancy dress.
As soon as some imbecile tells you that the science has been settled, you know it’s a lie.
Your welcome Finn. Yep it is truly remarkable how the world has been convinced by the AGW deception. As you point out, the evidence simply isn’t there.
Hence, the never ending avalanche of propaganda.
Everyone needs a metaphorical snow shovel, these days.
Or maybe a pooper-scooper?
For anyone who may be interested – The Guardian receives the majority of its revenue from adverts. The higher their online engagement (comments, shares, retweets etc) the higher their revenue. If you want to share an article without adding to their online engagement, you can access an archived copy by placing ‘dump’ before ‘theguardian’ in the URL. This creates a hyperlink that directs traffic to the archive as opposed to The Guardian website.
Thanks Kim. I have been doing this now for some time but unfortunately not when I wrote this article. I also use archive.today links and wayback machine for as many MSM links as I can. In addition to not supporting them this has become increasingly necessary as MSM articles are by no means permanent online anymore. If proven false they do not apologise for their errors they simply remove or change the disinformation without comment.
Please do not enter into long technical debates about Climate Change nor the Scamdemic. Just explain in a couple of sentences why they are both scams. Pick the very best arguments and maximum only one graph to debunk each scam.
A big part of the reason why these two scams have been so successful, is that those who knows they are in fact scams, engage in long technical discussions. Instead, close down the technical discussions fast and effective, and move on to exposing the criminals behind the two scams and their motives.
Thanks Morten. Sound advice.
So, the Summer of 2023 has ended. Heatwaves and heat domes around the world (even in Antartica during their winter), continent-wide wildfires, crop-killing droughts (central US, west and north Africa, British Columbia, Spain and Portugal, Lithuania, parts of Brazil), flooding (northeast US, several states in India, northern Italy, northern China, California, central Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, western South Africa, Greece) that destroyed crops and drove up food prices.
Would anyone here like to rethink their position that the climate emergency is some sort of scam? Or is empirical evidence not proof enough?
Thanks Greenhearted – Climate change, that is a shifts in the climactic system, is not disputed. What causes it and our ability to adapt to it, and the claim this constitutes an “emergency,” is disputed. You reference empirical evidence and list some weather events. So please share the empirical evidence you have that shows that extreme weather events are increasing and that, if there is an increase, this is caused by human’s Co2 emissions and that this, in turn, is causing an increase in weather related mortality to the extent that it constitutes an “emergency.”
For example the empirical evidence from the Canadian arboreal Forests shows no such link or indeed any increase in wildfires nor related mortality.
https://iaindavis.substack.com/p/the-infuriating-climate-alarm
Many thanks in advance.