by Judith Curry
The damaging effects of generating eco-anxiety in children. Climate Etc. as an antidote.
Earlier this week, I received this letter via email:
To the Esteemed Dr. Judith Curry:
You don’t know me but I am a frequent reader of your articles and find them to be fascinating, as well as eye-opening. Unsure if it is at all welcome to offer you some words of encouragement, but first I would like to explain in detail why I decided to contact you by e-mail with this rather strange method of offering a message. It is because you changed my mind about global warming and climate change entirely. Rest assured, I am not the only one who is beginning to see things in a different more scientific light.
I grew up in the 90’s ‘era’ of ‘acid rain is going to kill us all!’ ‘all the trees are going to be cut down!’ ‘people do more harm than good for the environment!’ Any kind of frightening prediction that you can think of and immediately name, I was subject to it, and at an age where I didn’t fully understand the meaning of ‘question what you hear’. I fully believed–literally, until this very year–that the Earth was going to perish in flame, the oceans would be covered in oil, the rainforests would all vanish and that Earth would very much resemble every circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. It also didn’t help matters considering I grew up with a very, VERY Jehovah’s Witness aunt and uncle, who kept repeating to me that the world would end! Add frequent news reports to the mix (I was not in any position to disregard it–my late mother would blare it through the house) and you have quite the sizeable ball of anxiety. No, seriously, I was diagnosed with GAD along with depression during my middle school years.
I wince now seeing all the younger people (I’m in my early thirties) acting exactly as I did–going forth with the mentality that humans are a plague and that they ruin EVERYTHING good. That was the first twinge of ‘something isn’t right’. We live in the least polluted country out of them all, our air quality has improved drastically, the forests are mostly intact, MORE greening is happening, and endangered species are making comebacks that I never could have imagined in my younger years. So why then, are we constantly bombarded with ‘humans are the disease’ messages? The constant blaring siren of ‘DO SOMETHING!’ wore me down to the point where I was seeking some kind of reassurance–not the best way to deal with an issue, but it was my method–and I happened upon your site. My ‘side’ frequently sneered at scientists who either try to douse the figurative flames created from their panic or better yet, prevent the fires from spreading. Why wouldn’t anyone want to hear, “Good news! The planet is NOT doomed!’?
I heard so much about these ‘climate deniers’ and I felt anxious upon coming to your site as if I was actually viewing the forbidden fruit from afar, thinking that at any moment, I would be struck down by an avenging angel for disobedience. (Again, grew up in a somewhat Christian household, didn’t exactly help matters…) Nothing of the sort happened. I scoffed at first thinking, “This person is entirely wrong. The climate is bad, people are going to die, there’s flooding happening over the ocean SOMEWHERE–” And then I stopped myself remembering that I once lived, for over twenty years of my life, NEAR A TOWN NEAR THE OCEAN. Nothing of that sort even vaguely happened! In fact the ocean’s level near my old hometown hasn’t risen by much. We’ve had only a handful of hurricanes hit in the course of two decades.
If climate ‘deniers’ were so deranged and so into helping ‘big business’ then why is it that their sites depend solely on donations, and why are their arguments so clear and concise? You don’t sound deranged at all, being a scientist (someone who actively USES THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO OBSERVE! Yes I know so many caps, but I wish there were individuals in the back who could hear this!), so why is it the goal to dehumanize the people who are actively studying the effects of climate and climate itself? It made no sense. Then I went to Watt’s Up With That?, Not A Lot of People Know That, CFACT, Farm Babe, the list goes on and on, and I wanted to challenge my own views (as if they were my own views…they were not, they were impressions slammed into me at the tender age of ten…) and I found a wealth of points that were more sound and less theatric than, say, shouting the world is on FIRE. How sad it is for actual science that its true practitioners get the boot in favor of junk science. (“Because it’s settled and we say so, so there!”)
Meanwhile the actual deranged ‘scientists’ are people like Bill Nye (it hurts me to type this because I actually liked him very much as a child–his show was quite entertaining and informative) insisting that people must DIE in order for the planet to survive. I can safely say I’d much rather avoid talking to them than to someone who says “Fossil fuels burned by humans aren’t changing the planet and here’s why.” At least the ‘denier’ doesn’t want me dead simply for breathing
Please, please, PLEASE…keep doing what you do, and I hope you and your peers succeed in changing many more minds before this madness can come to fruition! You don’t know this but you bring people hope rather than despair, you and Michael Schellenberger, Roger Pielke Jr., Paul Homewood, and many others I’m sure I have left out due to faulty memory (or lack of research, if you could point me to many others I may have missed, please let me know if you are so inclined.
JC comments
The strategy of ‘scaring the children’ is absolutely reprehensible. I grew up in the late 1950’s-1960’s. The children-scaring tactic of that period was the Russians – they were ready to take over the U.S., we would be bombed (remember the bomb shelters of that era?), we would lose our freedoms, your neighbors could be Russian spies (anyone see the TV show The Americans? It is superb). This scare was conveyed to me by a Catholic nun, which was amplified in the school yard. At the ripe old age of 8, I ended up with stomach ulcer, worrying about all this. My doctor told me not to worry about this stuff, it was all silly politics, and to just enjoy my childhood. I said ‘Ok’, and I was pretty much done with all that. But explicit government sanctioned and academic efforts in ‘cli-sci communications’ (climate ‘crisis’, ’emergency’, ‘extinction’) to scare children over climate change for political purposes is absolutely reprehensible.
Such scare tactics will backfire, as children grow up and they see the scary prophesies to be unfulfilled. We’re breeding generations of people that are learning to distrust scientists. More harm is being done to children with scary climate stories than any consequence of climate change in their lifetime.
In the meantime, Climate Etc. and other blogs are acting as an important antidote to such unjustified, reprehensible and damaging rhetoric.
I am afraid that Greta is damaged beyond repair.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, George.
You won’t live what will happen.
Greta: poor parenting
I think that the environmental movement haven’t realized yet that they lost a lot of respect when they went for children. It is nothing new, the Apartheid regime had the Ossewabrandwag and Stormjears, the Nazis had the Hitler Jugend, the Soviets had Pavlov Morozov and Robespierre the Jacobins.
Every generation has their list of fanatics that tries to go for children first and I think that once a lot of these kids grew up they will realize that they were also being abused for an older man’s ideology.
The only advice I can give (as someone being 30 and clearly immunized) is that speaking out is not as dangerous as people think it is. I have written numerous articles questioning the fanaticism and talked to a few prominent skeptics on my youtube channel, the consequences (at least in South Africa and France) is rather minimal, apart from a few nasty emails that I just laugh at.
The most difficult challenge has been to talk to people that aren’t numerate about this stuff and the only way I have managed to steer the conversation is to try and compare scientific predictions to doomsday prophets. I am convinced that if Nostradamus lived today then he would have used an excel spreadsheet or a computer model.
Regards
Hügo
I actually pity her deeply. Someday she’ll understand how she’s been duped into those beliefs and that understanding will probably destroy her more than her worst critics believe they are capable of.
Greta Thunberg has Asperger`s syndrome. One trait of Asperger`s is obsessive behavior. Activists have likely sentenced this young woman to a life of internal anxiety to further their political agenda. The words don’t exist to describe how morally bankrupt it is to use her, and damage her psychological development, to push their politics on society.
You have no excuse to post that kind of crap, Doug.
None whatsoever.
That’s not a very convincing argument Willard. Just call anything you don’t like “crap” and walk away like you have proved you point. ( What was you point BTW ? )
If St Greta of Thunderberg is a fragile child with a mental handicap and no one is supposed to mention it, then why are her parents pushing into world politics before she’s out of school.They are endangering the mental well-being of their child to advance their own political agenda. That is child abuse and exploitation.
You do not criticise that, why not?
Since Doug is very likely correct, he needs no excuse.
Subterfuge:
That to which a person resorts for escape or concealment; a shift; an evasion; artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/22/as-an-aspie-im-worried-about-greta/
Greg –
> If St Greta of Thunderberg is a fragile child with a mental handicap and no one is supposed to mention it,
Doug has absolutely no knowledge, whatsoever, on which to make a judgement about her personal mental health. What we see here is sheer exploitation of her mental health status, to make a political statement.
Doug’s grandiose and condescending fantasy that he’s in a better situation to assess what’s best for Greta’s mental health status as compared to her parents, or Greta herself is quire remarkable.
Of course, it won’t actually make any difference whatsoever what Doug thinks. It won’t affect her even in the slightest if Doug climbs up to his faux “concern” perch of sanctimony.
For that reason, I actually find it kind of funny to see such a transparent gambit. It would be different if somehow it actually mattered.
Joshua: nice.
Subterfuge:
That to which a person resorts for escape or concealment; a shift; an evasion; artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument.
There is no argument in Joshua`s comment.
Troglodyte:
Troglodyte seems to have emerged from the mists of time untouched by human evolution. Devoid of a single progressive idea and lacking the slightest awareness of social and cultural advances, Troglodyte has developed an incoherent political philosophy that he characterizes as “conservative” or “libertarian”, but which could be more accurately described as “bigoted narcissism”. His aggressive posturing often frightens off weaker, more timid Warriors. In pitched battle, however, Troglodyte easily loses control and his attack quickly degenerates into a rant.
Doug is turning into a troglodyte.
Lol you’re becoming unhinged.
You guys seem confused about the subject of this blog post.
Sure, Doug. Your “but Greta” spychology isn’t unhinged at all.
It’s spychology, btw. There’s no typo.
Doug –
My argument was clear.
Just to add, Doug – Thunberg’s mental health status improved considerably from when she was younger, coinciding with her climate activism. She’s considered as a role model by many with Asperger’s. She’s done a lot to help remove a stigma associated with Asperger’s.
On the other side of the fence, she’s mocked for her Asperger’s by many people who disagree with her about climate change.
Your faux “concern” for her mental health status doesn’t add up. Its a flimsy and transparent cover you put over your own antipathy for those who disagree with you about climate change. You’re seeking to condescendingly exploit her condition for the sake of political expediency – as if she isn’t aware enough of her own welfare and she needs some dude on a climate “skeptic” website to step up as her champion. Notice you express zero “concern” for how she’s mocked and condescended to by people who share an attribute of disagreeing with the focus of her activism.
She seems like a pretty strong young woman. She’s responded forcefully to the mocking and condescension. Fortunately, it looks like the antipathy and condescension directed towards her doesn’t have a negative impact.
Regardless, your opinion make no difference.
But if it makes you feel better to wring your hands and pretend your “concerned” about her future – knock yourself out.
Greta’s Asperger’s Syndrome is common knowledge. She herself has boasted that it’s her “superpower”. Using children as spokespeople is bad enough if they’re “normal”, but using a child who has particular mental difficulties is terrible. As someone who’s in the Asperger’s ballpark, and who’s been around plenty of autistic and learning disabled people, I can tell you that this “superpower” has it’s own kryptonite. You can be really good at some things, and really bad in others, and if you don’t take into account what you are bad at, and focus on improving or working around your weaknesses, you can end up in a bad place.
My observation is people with learning disabilities or other mental problems are often attracted to moral crusades, both on the left AND right. It feels like a very “black and white” situation at first glance, and as long you keep it simple, you are actively encouraged by your comrades to let your passions run rampant, something learning disabled people don’t get to do as often as they’d like. Plus you get to feel like you’re “making a difference”, and forget about the other problems in your life, for at least a little while. Unfortunately this passion can turn into zealotry, which ultimately hurts yourself, and the cause you’re fighting for.
Hi Gamereg,
Don’t forget there are many ideas essential if mainstream views are correct on climate change which make sense even if it were a damp squib, temperatures fell or a major food crop failed. Less waste, restoring fish stocks, combining conservation with careful (but potentially profitable) use, alternatives to fossil fuels due to pollution and reducing the numbers and/or impact per head of conventional livestock. If she can get changes made in these areas, what’s not to like?
Did you know that Aspie was not even a valid diagnosis anymore, Gamereg? If you had the authority to opine on this, you could risk losing your license right now. Be lucky you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Willard: In any case, Hans Aspberg was instrumental in providing the Nazis with defective children for extermination.
Who is “using” Greta Thunberg? What I’ve read about her parents, they say her activism is all her own initiative. You assume she can’t be passionate about this issue all on her own. What Joshua is writing is spot on and eloquently said.
“Individuals with Asperger syndrome typically have an intense interest in a few topics. They focus on these topics so intensely that they become expert in these areas. This characteristic of Asperger syndrome has given rise to the (mistaken) popular notion that all individuals with the syndrome are savants.
People with Asperger syndrome often have difficulty initiating or maintaining a reciprocal conversation, partly due to their intense focus on a few favored topics.”
In high functioning autism – into which Asperger’s syndrome was folded – there is no sign of cognitive deficits and language is acquired easily. Asperger’s is the new normal.
Gamereg –
> As someone who’s in the Asperger’s ballpark, and who’s been around plenty of autistic and learning disabled people, I can tell you that this “superpower” has it’s own kryptonite.
So how did you get appointed as Greta’s spokesperson, let alone spokesperson for people on the spectrum in general?
> You can be really good at some things, and really bad in others, and if you don’t take into account what you are bad at, and focus on improving or working around your weaknesses, you can end up in a bad place.
So maybe she’s good at being an activist and you’re bad at being a spokesperson for people on the spectrum? Maybe you should start working on your weakness?
Apparently nobody told Greta that Asperger’s isn’t a valid diagnosis. If that’s true, then she can’t use it for brownie points, can she? Again, we are going by HER OWN WORDS. You can’t say that she deserves to be part of adult conversations, and then go “why are you picking on this poor child?” when she get’s criticized the way any other adult would in her position.
And yes, she is being used. She’s not kicking down doors and crashing meetings. People are giving her a platform and writing articles putting her on a pedestal. They do this because she’s an easy figurehead. Yes, she’s technically put herself out there on her own initiative, but it’s the initiative of a child pumped with environmental propaganda. She hasn’t written up any scientific papers, come up with any new ideas, or said anything that would convert those who aren’t already converted.
Gamereg –
>… and then go “why are you picking on this poor child?”
When you find someone actually doing that, please point it out.
> Apparently nobody told Greta that Asperger’s isn’t a valid diagnosis.
Apparently you have no idea how these things work at all.
The term is not in the DSM since at least 2013. Greta was probably diagnosed before that since she was born in 2003. There are some countries where it has still currency. It might be the case in Sweden:
https://www.autism.se/in_english
The label does not matter much. My point isn’t about the label, but about the spychologists that persevere at Judy’s. Since Doug likes definitions, here’s one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableism
Ableism can easily transform a neurological disorder into a disability. The first thing one needs to consider let the person with autism (note the expression) say they’re autists if they feel like it. They don’t have a syndrome; they’re not their disorder. What they have is first and foremost a brain that does not work the same way as those with neurotypical brains.
Also, please consider who you’re dealing with. Albert Einstein. Nikola Tesla. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Jerry Seinfeld. Hans Christian Andersen. Henry Cavendish. Michelangelo. Paul Dirac. Bobby Fischer. Bill Gates. Tim Burton. Thomas Jefferson. Andy Warhol. James Joyce. Charles Darwin. Alfred Kinsey. And that’s just a very small list from one site. The list goes on and on.
Our in-house spychologists seem to fail to recognize that autism that there are merits to the idea that autism can provide assets when properly channeled. One of them, ironically, is a set of tools to manage anxiety. For anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders, the DSM has other chapters.
It’s obvious that Greta does not suffer from anxiety like some people with autism do. Like anyone does, for that matter. She would not be doing what she does if that were the case.
“But Greta” has no place here.
Gamereg, activists don’t write scientific papers. They do things like sit in their town square every Friday no matter what the weather until people pay attention to them.
They continue and continue until they annoy people like you into paying attention to their message. Greta Thunberg has clearly succeeded.
In high functioning autism – into which Asperger’s syndrome was folded – there is no sign of cognitive deficits and language is acquired easily. Greta does not have a mental disability. She is intense, she is focussed on detail, persistent and impatient with small talk. Recognised traits by the way. Eh – that’s not a disability – that’s a superpower.
https://twitter.com/gretathunberg/status/1167916177927991296?lang=en
Regardless of her diagnosis the fact that she is an international symbol of the AGW religion is a disgrace. That so many adults put credence into what an adolescent says indicates how desperate the warmists are. At age 8 she wondered why more was not being done. Age 8. The leaders of nations representing billions of people sat enthralled listening to an adolescent who at age 8 figured out the world needed to do something. Shame on the adults for being so gullible and naive.
Greta is an uninformed, brainwashed acolyte of the AGW religion. She is like those boy preachers.
> the fact that she is an international symbol of the AGW religion is a disgrace.
You’re a big boy, kid.
Suck it up.
Gamereg,
The article I linked, written by someone with Aspergers, agrees with the points you have made. I would not even consider Greta`s condition to rise to the level of a mental handicap, as that term is normally used. It is more a person who tends to obsessive behavior being encouraged in that obsession rather than shown that the obsession is unwarranted…like offering an alcoholic a drink.
I watched a bit of the documentary ‘I am Greta’ – I get bored easily. Her father was caring and solicitous of his daughter’s welfare. She is strong willed, opinionated, self reliant and beautiful. Precisely the sort of children we want to raise. Whether they are right or wrong matters less than their character. And she has done more to give children hope than any of you with your misguided nothing to see here attitudes.
The sight of grumpy old men making much ado about this is unedifying to say the least.
dougbadgero commented :
It is more a person who tends to obsessive behavior being encouraged in that obsession rather than shown that the obsession is unwarranted…like offering an alcoholic a drink.
Encouraged by whom?
What’s the evidence of such encouragement?
Unwarranted why?
According to what criteria?
“Whether they are right or wrong matters less than their character.”
Let’s say she was a coal miner’s daughter, speaking about the people environmentalists want to put out of work:
“You have stolen my childhood, making my father to struggle to put food on the table How DARE you take away his livelihood for a catastrophe that could take a century to happen! How DARE you talk about the effect climate change will have on people, and ignore the effect your polcies will have!”
Would you still think she and those giving her a platform to speak are praiseworthy?
And from TIME magazine:
“She was 11 years old when she fell into a deep depression. For months, she stopped speaking almost entirely, and ate so little that she was nearly hospitalized; that period of malnutrition would later stunt her growth…“I couldn’t understand how that could exist, that existential threat, and yet we didn’t prioritize it,”
Sounds like she has suffered the kind of eco-anxiety our host is talking about.
Gamereg: Thanks, You are correct. Our host has highlighted an exceedingly important issue. And global warming is not the only issue driven by media fear porn. I think (or hope) most of our children will recover to become thinking adults, but forcing their developing brains into hypoxia for hours a day with the face diapers worries the hell out of me.
“You have stolen my childhood, making my father to struggle to put food on the table How DARE you take away his livelihood for a catastrophe that could take a century to happen! How DARE you talk about the effect climate change will have on people, and ignore the effect your polcies will have!”
Sadly, tragically mistaken. The free market has put her father out of business. All hail capitalism!
Let’s say that Tom is someone who writes for Spiked things like:
– Neurodiversity is failing the most vulnerable
– How woke culture hurts disabled people
– Autism is a disability, not an identity
https://www.spiked-online.com/author/tom-clements/
Let’s say that Tom tweets that kind of tweet:
https://twitter.com/tclementsuk/status/1202727360375771137
Would you say that Tom is a neutral observer interested in issues related to autism?
If any contrarian does, I have a bridge to sell them.
David Appell | May 9, 2021 at 5:46 pm |
“You have stolen my childhood, making my father to struggle to put food on the table How DARE you take away his livelihood for a catastrophe that could take a century to happen! How DARE you talk about the effect climate change will have on people, and ignore the effect your polcies will have!”
Sadly, tragically mistaken. The free market has put her father out of business. All hail capitalism!”
Sadly – Capitalism has has brought forth more wealth & prosperity on this earth. Sadly capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than all other economic structures.
I have great hopes for the 21st century. What is central to renewal is an affirmation of the age old knowledge from the dawn of humanity. The collective, the tribe, the clan, the farmers’ and fishermen’s cooperatives is where the power for global ecological renewal is found. It is the space between governments and markets where landscapes flourish or decline. It is a profound reality that balancing the human ecology on a global scale can only be realised by working together on the ground we walk on. It succeeds with prosperous and resilient communities in vibrant landscapes. Technology we are good at. Technical innovation is the great strength of the technological monkey.
It is puzzling that some in thrall to truth-seeker corruption seek to curtail energy technology at the level of the steam engine. They will ultimately be relegated to the history of dead ends like the Luddites of old.
Anxiety is a terrible thing.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/12/18/the-psychology-of-climate-change/
A pattern in climate change fearology is that future fears are derived from what scares people in the present. For example in the 9/11 era of our fear of terrorism the forecast was climate terrorism.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/05/05/climate-change-forecasts-fof-the-year-2020/
Chamjamal – your psyche.co link says: “The increase in global temperatures over the previous century has led to more frequent and more violent extreme weather events in the past 20 years, such as floods and hurricanes.”. And that’s part of the problem – extreme weather events have not become more frequent and more violent. So the people waking up to the problems caused by the alarm are still spreading the alarm.
Good point. Thank you Mike.
Another book questioning the size of global warming
How big is Global Warming?
https://www.amazon.com/How-Global-Warming-Kiwi-Aardvark-ebook/dp/B093FKB1Y2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ORESSTU9AC95&dchild=1&keywords=kiwi+aardvark&qid=1620380863&sprefix=kiwi+aa%2Caps%2C329&sr=8-1
Thank you
Excellent
Some useful insights from Wiki I thought I would post even if redundant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_impact_of_climate_change#:~:text=Some%20people%20have%20reported%20experiencing,publicly%20discussed%20her%20eco%2Danxiety.
Excerpt:
Some people have reported experiencing so much anxiety and fear about the future with climate change that they choose not to have children.[16] Attention paid to eco-anxiety grew rapidly after 2017, and especially since late 2018 due to the Greta effect, with Thunberg having publicly discussed her eco-anxiety.[1][17]
Prevalance
2018 surveys conducted in the United States found between 21%[18] and 29%[19] of Americans said they were “very” worried about the climate, double the rate of a similar study in 2015. The condition has become especially common among children and young people – in some universities over 70% of students have self described as suffering from eco-anxiety, though as of early 2021, validated ways to assess the prevalence of climate or eco-anxiety are not well established.[20][21][13]
Thank you (again) Dr. Curry for making it possible for so many of us to “question what we hear”.
Australia’s CSIRO Climate experts have no evidence of carbon dioxide being harmful to humans and do not claim temperature rises are ‘unprecedented,’ so why the need to limit emissions, close coal-fired power stations then produce intermittent expensive electricity? Sheer madness!
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Excellent post and “JC Comment”. Thank you.
The author says: “MORE greening is happening”. I agree. All the evidence points to that. Below are some points and references (this comment reproduced from a comment on the previous thread).
Impact of global warming on Ecosystems
The integrated assessment model, FUND, projects the highest negative impact of global warming is energy consumption, and the third highest is ecosystems. Lang and Gregory (2019) [1] analysed empirical data of energy consumption and found, contrary to the FUND projection, global warming substantially reduces energy consumption; that is, it has a positive not negative impact on the world economy.
https://www.mdpi.com/energies/energies-12-03575/article_deploy/html/images/energies-12-03575-g015-550.jpg
Figure 15. FUND3.9 projected global sectoral economic impact of climate change as a function of GMST change from 2000. Total* is of all impact sectors except energy.
[Read Sections 4.7 and 4.8 for further explanation]
Quote from Section 4.7: “With energy impacts excluded, FUND projects the global impacts to be +0.2% of GDP at 3 °C GMST increase from year 2000. With the energy impact functions misspecifications corrected, and all other impacts are as projected, the projected total economic impact may be more positive.”
[Read Sections 4.7 and 4.8 for further explanation]
Regarding the impact of global warming on Ecosystems, many studies report biomass increased since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and over intermediate periods since the Pre-industrial period and between 1970 and 2016. Gao et al, 2019 [2] (Figures 4a and 4b) finds the Leaf Area Index (LAI) increases over all periods and the rate per year is about three times higher in tropical latitudes than between latitudes 23° and 45° (north and south), which indicates that biomass productivity is higher at higher temperatures. Zhu et al. (2016) [3] analysis of satellite LAI data sets find the global greening trend for the period 1982 to 2009 was 0.068 +/– 0.045 m2m-2yr-1.
IPCC (2007), Donohue et al. (2013) [4], Zomer et al, (2016) [5], Jeltsch-Thömmes et al. (2019) [6] and Chen et al.(2019) [7] all find that terrestrial biomass carbon mass increased over various periods between LGM, pre-industrial and 2016 (i.e. as GMST increased). Spawn et al. (2020) [8] provide biomass carbon density data per 1 degree latitude x longitude grid cell for year 2010; these demonstrate that the carbon density increases as temperature increases. Sharlemann et al. (2014) [9] provide biomass carbon mass in topsoil, subsoil and phytomass per IPCC climate region. The data shows that the mass is about three times higher in the tropics than in the extra-tropics. Hansel et al (2009) [10] provide the density of dissolved organic matter in the ocean at 30 m and 3000 m depth. These show that the density increases towards the tropics – i.e. as ocean temperatures increase.
In summary, all these sources indicate that the total mass of biomass increases as GMST increases (and as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase).
References:
1. Lang, P.A.; Gregory, K.B. Economic impact of energy consumption change caused by global warming. Energies 2019, 12, https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183575.
2. Gao, X.; Liang, S.; He, B. Detected global agricultural greening from satellite data. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 2019, 276-277, 107652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.107652.
3. Zhu, Z.; Piao, S.; Myneni, R.B.; Huang, M.; Zeng, Z.; Canadell, J.G.; Ciais, P.; Sitch, S.; Friedlingstein, P.; Arneth, A., et al. Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nature Climate Change 2016, 6, 791-795. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3004.
4. Donohue, R.J.; Roderick, M.L.; McVicar, T.R.; Farquhar, G.D. Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments. Geophysical Research Letters 2013, 40, 3031-3035. https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50563.
5. Zomer, R.J.; Neufeldt, H.; Xu, J.; Ahrends, A.; Bossio, D.; Trabucco, A.; van Noordwijk, M.; Wang, M. Global Tree Cover and Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land: The contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets. Scientific Reports 2016, 6, 29987. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29987.
References (cont.)
6. Jeltsch-Thömmes, A.; Battaglia, G.; Cartapanis, O.; Jaccard, S.L.; Joos, F. Low terrestrial carbon storage at the Last Glacial Maximum: constraints from multi-proxy data. Climate of the Past 2019, 15, 849-879. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-849-2019.
7. Chen, J.M.; Ju, W.; Ciais, P.; Viovy, N.; Liu, R.; Liu, Y.; Lu, X. Vegetation structural change since 1981 significantly enhanced the terrestrial carbon sink. Nature Communications 2019, 10, 4259. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12257-8.
8. Spawn, S.A.; Sullivan, C.C.; Lark, T.J.; Gibbs, H.K. Harmonized global maps of above and belowground biomass carbon density in the year 2010. Nature, Scientific Data 2020, 7, 112. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0444-4.
9. Scharlemann, J.P.W.; Tanner, E.V.J.; Hiederer, R.; Kapos, V. Global soil carbon: understanding and managing the largest terrestrial carbon pool. Carbon Management 2014, 5, 81-91. https://doi.org/10.4155/cmt.13.77.
10. Hansell, D.A.; Carlson, C.A.; Repeta, D.J.; Schlitzer, R. Dissolved organic matter in the ocean: A controversy stimulates new insights. Oceanography 2009, 22, 202-211. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24861036.
References (cont.)
6. Jeltsch-Thömmes, A.; Battaglia, G.; Cartapanis, O.; Jaccard, S.L.; Joos, F. Low terrestrial carbon storage at the Last Glacial Maximum: constraints from multi-proxy data. Climate of the Past 2019, 15, 849-879. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-849-2019.
7. Chen, J.M.; Ju, W.; Ciais, P.; Viovy, N.; Liu, R.; Liu, Y.; Lu, X. Vegetation structural change since 1981 significantly enhanced the terrestrial carbon sink. Nature Communications 2019, 10, 4259. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12257-8.
8. Spawn, S.A.; Sullivan, C.C.; Lark, T.J.; Gibbs, H.K. Harmonized global maps of above and belowground biomass carbon density in the year 2010. Nature, Scientific Data 2020, 7, 112. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0444-4.
9. Scharlemann, J.P.W.; Tanner, E.V.J.; Hiederer, R.; Kapos, V. Global soil carbon: understanding and managing the largest terrestrial carbon pool. Carbon Management 2014, 5, 81-91. https://doi.org/10.4155/cmt.13.77.
10. Hansell, D.A.; Carlson, C.A.; Repeta, D.J.; Schlitzer, R. Dissolved organic matter in the ocean: A controversy stimulates new insights. Oceanography 2009, 22, 202-211. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24861036.
Along the same lines, children are being traumatized with anxiety and fear over COVID (in my youth it was polio and nuclear war). As I walk around outdoors without a mask and fully vaccinated, masked children accompanied by their masked parents look at me askance.
Steve makes a good point with his comment –
polio for the youth was far more devastating than covid. Nuclear armagedon was much more likely in the late 50’s and early 60s (remember the cuban missile crisis for one). the destruction of the earth via climate change is still 3-4 centuries out.
both steve and I along with most others over age 60+ to 70+ have already gone through 10-15 world ending events, neither covid or climate change ranks among the top ten world ending events during my like time.
Thank you, Dr. Curry. You have educated me in climate science, a subject of which I knew nothing. Always curious, but mostly interested in the biological sciences, you have been a breath of fresh air with your scientific rigor and integrity. I am of your era. Sputnik was launched when I was in fifth grade, but mathematics, for which I had a special gift, was undervalued and poorly taught, despite the hair-pulling at the Russians leaping ahead in space (read “Operation Paperclip”), so I ended up an English major. Even when I was teaching, decades later, mathematics was generally poorly taught at the elementary level. But it became the means for my poor, limited-English-speaking students to excel, bringing all of us great joy and confidence, because I learned how to teach this beautiful universal language (and all children are intelligent, though not all realize it; the crucial role of an elementary school teacher is to convince them that they are). Thanks again. You have a bigger impact than you will ever know.
“… but mathematics, for which I had a special gift, was undervalued and poorly taught …”
An excellent comment which was echoed in W W Sawyer’s book ‘Mathematician’s Delight’ (Penguin 1943) given to me by a caring Mum when I struggled with maths in my early secondary school years. It is still in print and is a wonderful way of giving an individual permission to explore a subject rather than simply satisfy an annual examination in it. It absolutely nailed all the road blocks I encountered.
UK-WEATHER LASS:
Thanks! “A Mathematicians Lament” is next on my list.
Another good site to visit is Jo Nova’s site:
https://joannenova.com.au/
The best defense is offense–as time to state that settled climate science (what is known) is positive for CO2, and the unsettled science (strong positive feedback effects) is what gets alarmism into play. And the rest of a good story for the green greenhouse gas
https://www.aier.org/article/climate-co2-optimism/
Hi judith,
I too want to encourage you on my behalf and on that of my many friends in the ‘born in the ‘early 40s’ bloc.
Just a small clarification on your recent reply to stress causing stomach ulcers when you were eight. Our Dr Marshall (Nobel Prize) proved rather conclusively that they are caused by bacteria. Stress certainly will inhibit the healing process, hence the association.
Here is an article from the US for your info.
https://health.usnews.com/conditions/articles/does-stress-cause-stomach-ulcers
Keep up the good work!
Di: And like many others before him and since, Barry Marshall was relentlessly attacked, until proven right. Witness today the deafening silence from government and media concerning the exceedingly worrisome injuries and deaths from all four emergency use vaccines (see Tucker Carlson’s segment from May 5). In four months as many as were reported over a fifteen-year period for all vaccines.
> Witness today the deafening silence from government and media concerning the exceedingly worrisome injuries and deaths from all four emergency use vaccines
Perfect.
How could we find the antidote to the stress of modern society without being able to read comments fear-mongering about COVID vaccines?
Clkmafe Etc., does such a pubkic service!
To be fair Carlson doesn’t ‘fearmonger’; he acts quite resonsibly. He simply asks the question as to why people are not being informed by the relevant authorities when they have not been so reticent about other vaccine statistics where ‘harm’ may be a consideration responsible people might want to talk about.
I think the government has a tendency to overreact with an overabundance of hysteria.
Mike Keller: These past 15 months we have been bombarded with the same sort of propaganda campaign for a virus no more deadly than a bad seasonal flu (like 2017) that we have had for decades for global warming. Fear porn. And with that, the social media companies censoring any content which doesn’t fit the government narrative and political speech which isn’t reliably leftist. And guilting the entire population into taking untested, unapproved and unnecessary vaccines which are making the producers billions. Vaccines which are liability-free. If a defect in your car, or any other product, except nuclear power plants and vaccines, injures you, you can sue. This is an incentive to design safe products. Vaccine makers have no such incentive. If you’re injured, you’re on your own. Nor is there any post-marketing surveillance system except VAERS, which captures <1% of adverse events. I think it's not too much of a stretch to say we are witnessing the beginning of the collapse of Western Civilization.
GO
As I understand it the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine is being supplied at cost and no profits are being made on it.
Dave Andrews: What is your source for this information? Pharmaceutical companies generally don’t do good works.
Hi Di,
Dr. Marshall was absolutely vilified by colleagues if I remember rightly. Yet he was determined to find out what was true instead of pursuing or accepting a dogmatic position.
What a complete load of ancient codswallop. We live in a nonlinear world and we are pushing diverse Earth systems into new territory. As Judith knows in relation to climate at least.
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/images/18.3110ee8c1495db74432636f/1459560224012/PB_FIG33_media_11jan2015_web2.jpg
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/planetary-boundaries/about-the-research/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBjB-w5HD_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLV4wjdac8A
I have spent too much time here discussing pragmatic solutions to want to reprise it. But solutions are all that will quiet the noise, calm the children and win power to implement them.
https://watertechbyrie.com/2021/05/01/capability-browns-oblique-approach-to-climate-policy/
Human society organization may have more tipping points than the climate system. Yet we are more obsessed with a trace gas rising from 0.035% to 0.070% than with changing the Supreme Court justice numbers from 9 to 13.
“We live in a nonlinear world and we are pushing diverse Earth systems into new territory.” RIE
That is true but it has always been thus. What is different now is that on rather flimsy and highly questionnable evidence we have been convinced by science that we are pushing against nature’s CO2 ‘control knob’. Isn’t that not the same thing as saying we are displeasing heavenly and unseen authorities and believing they will punish us if we do not reform?
We have had solutions for energy for over half a century and we shun them. If we really do believe we are in ‘control’ don’t you think politicians would want to show real commitment to real solutions just to prove it?
We know far less than we care to admit and IMO that is a dreadful conceit for human beings to have.
We know far less than we care to admit
What physics do we have wrong? The radiative laws of blackbodies? Or the radiative properties of greenhouse gases?
Please enlighten us with your distinguished erudition.
The fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, for starters.
The fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, for starters.
Why are these big, overlooked factors?
I was talking diverse limits and nine boundaries. If you have a look at the graphic – climate change is not yet in the red zone. How precise can we be?
It was not always the case – humans are in control now.
To the original emailer – I mirror a similar story having gone from watching the day after tomorrow with Denis Quaid and thinking “oh god we are doomed”. In fact, I remember getting into an enormous argument with someone I went to high school with (I was on AGW side, he was not) to the point of ending a friendship only to periodically cringe myself to sleep at the thought of my ridiculous behaviour toward someone else that had a different view – actually, if I could, I would apologize to him. Anyway, I share much the same sentiments about fighting the good fight and it gives me hope visiting sites like this.
Thanks God Climate Etc., is around to provide the antidote to stress in modern society!
Where would we be, how could we heal, if we couldn’t read essays calling Bill Nye deranged?
One can only imagine without Climate Etc., how many more people there would be out there wishing other people dead simply for breathing.
Joshua
There are two articles in that vein in your favourite web site today.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/todays-update/
I disagree with them both, as from my own experience I can se no evidence of the end results claimed. If lots of people were becoming very sick or dying in a community, as a result of the vaccines, that would tend to be noticed and commented on in the local coffee shops and social media and MSM.
Here in the South West of England we have a very high percentage of people vaccinated and other than sore arms or feeling under the weather for a few days, there is no talk whatsoever of anything more serious befalling themselves, friends, relatives or strangers suddenly getting ill.
tonyb
Evenin’ Tony,
As luck would have it I have just Twatted a summary of this household’s varied experiences with the rebranded “Vaxzevria” jab in (currently) soggy South West England:
https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1390755634564501511
Tony –
> that would tend to be noticed and commented on…
I already explained this.
They’re shipping all the bodies to Mars. That’s why they’re embedding those microchips in the vaccines – to make it easier to do the tracking during the shipping.
Joshua
But surely someone would notice the hundreds of rockets needed to take the bodies to Mars?
tonyb
THe author writes;
“It also didn’t help matters considering I grew up with a very, VERY Jehovah’s Witness aunt and uncle, who kept repeating to me that the world would end.”
The belief in climate change is akin to a religious fervour in many younger people, taking their cue from Greta.
They are not taught sequential history let alone climate history and seem unable to do their own research, question what they are told and put things into a broader context.
Looking back at my thousand years of UK records it is obvious that at times weather was interpreted in a religious manner. This makes some of the early data unreliable . However manorial records are especially good and it is apparent there is no such thing as ‘normal’ weather and that the nature of seasons changes regularly over the centuries.
One year can be hot and sunny and the next cold and wet. We see that this year in the UK whereas last spring was exceptionally warm and sunny whereas this spring, today will be the first day we have not had the central heating on in the morning. We would normally hope to turn it off by Mid March.
We ‘average’ our weather which is no proper guide, missing out the peaks and troughs, in the same way we ‘average’ sea level change , thereby failing to see the nuances that some places have a falling sea level, others it is static and in others rising rapidly.
So we are controlled by Evangelicals who brook no discussion and won’t look at the broader context.
tonyb
‘Since “panta rhei” was pronounced by Heraclitus, hydrology and the objects it studies, such as rivers and lakes, have offered grounds to observe and understand change and flux. Change occurs on all time scales, from minute to geological…’
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02626667.2013.804626
It depends on whether you believe in red noise or something much more likely. Hurst-Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics puts perpetual change in a context of frequent and intense change and a future that is uncertain and unpredictable. As Wally Broecker said 40 years ago – climate is a wild beast, and we are poking it with sticks.’ That is now the dominant climate science paradigm – do not confuse it with religion.
The graphs compare red noise with real data at scales from moments to millennial. In the real world there is a fractal continuum of turbulent flow on scales of micro-eddies to planetary waves.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/koutsdoyianis-fig-7-.png
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/koutsoyiannis-fig-9-.png.
I see climate as several wild beasts – pressure, wind, sunshine, rainfall, temperature etc – as weather tells us. It is forever changing and incredibly difficult to predict except from closer up to an event happening. The resolution of our planetary view has improved but it is still nowhere near, say, the quality of an autopsy and we only have the one body to study. We may poke at our suspect wild beast (e.g. CO2) and find that it was a mistake to do so because it only served to stir up even more savage beasts that we hadn’t reckoned with.
Plants love CO2 and provide us with food. Are we choosing to commit suicide via climate policy because we have become so scared of dying natural, if premature deaths? Have we become so weak we cannot take change in our strides and accommodate it without drama? It isn’t good for human beings to live in fear – we know that from all our histories. We fight back against known foes and not imagined ones.
Broecker’s wild beast is a metaphor for deterministic chaos. And there is little risk of plants running out of carbon dioxide. What we have done is deplete agricultural soils of carbon and enrich the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, steel making and cement production – from 1750 to 2011 – was about 365 billion metric tonnes as carbon (GtC), with another 180 GtC from deforestation and agriculture. Of this 545 GtC, about 240 GtC (44%) had accumulated in the atmosphere, 155 GtC (28%) had been taken up in the oceans with slight consequent acidification, and 150 GtC (28%) had accumulated in terrestrial ecosystems. Soil scientist Rattan Lal estimates that some 500 GtC has been lost from terrestrial systems since the advent of agriculture. The balance can be restored to deliver the increase in farm productivity needed in the next 30 years.
https://watertechbyrie.com/2015/11/06/restoring-agricultural-soils-for-profit-biodiversity-and-climate-resilience/
Hi Robert,
Excellent point and post about the potential for agriculture to act as a carbon sink while Gabe Brown in North Dakota is one of many regenerative farmers doing good work. He also amusingly put me in my place. I asked if he had considered methane-reducing feed additives like Asparogopsis taxiformis for his ruminant livestock but he wondered whether they were necessary given the methanotrophic activity his methods build up in soil.
Pingback: Dr Judith Curry – Support Her! – Sustainable Geoscience
‘Scaring the children’ and the general public will continue as long as science is not stopped using the layman’s word climate, as done since ever.
“Weather and climate are everyday slang words and misleading when used by science.” at http://www.whatisclimate.com/index.html
“Has the climate debate turned into a horror scenario because climate means anything and nothing?” at http://www.whatisclimate.com/2019_a_big%20issue.html
The pre-IPCC prominent meteorologist H.H. Lamp (1913 – 1997) regarded the definition of climate as “average weather” quite inadequate, mentioning (1969) that until recently climatology was generally regarded as the mere dry-as-dust bookkeeping end of meteorology.
H.H. Lamb, “The New Look of Climatology”, NATURE, Vol. 223, September 20, 1969, pp.1209ff;
John Locke: “The achievement of human knowledge is often hampered by the use of words without fixed signification” British philosopher, 1632-1704.
The difference on ‘climate’ between layman vs science summarized in an image http://www.whatisclimate.com/2019_b/_table%201_.jpg
this was written: science is not stopped using the layman’s word climate
Science is not saying all this climate alarmism junk.
Scientists are skeptic, these alarmists are not in any way resembling real scientists.
Read the last paragraph of Judith Curry’s post on Time Magazine: Climate is everything (shorten) https://judithcurry.com/2021/05/02/climate-is-everything/
QUOTE: Climate change has thus become a grand narrative in which human-caused climate change has become a dominant cause of societal problems….. (cont) ..misleads us to think that if we solve the problem of manmade climate change, then these other problems would also be solved. This belief leads us away from a deeper investigation of the true causes of these problems. … cont//
And so, climate becomes everything. UNQUOTE
Scientists must do better! The evident ignorance on defining clearly and in a useful and understandable manner what climate is all about, “…leads us away from a deeper investigation of the true causes of these problems.”
Misusing a layman’s term has a “damaging effects of generating eco-anxiety in children.” (see JC text above)
At last there’s signs of hope that the scientific source of eco-anxiety in children is being reigned in by truth-seekers:
….
A group of whistleblowers has asked three funding agencies for a misconduct investigation into a series of 22 research papers, many of them on the effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior and ecology. The request, which they shared with a Science reporter, rests on what they say is evidence of manipulation in publicly available raw data files for two papers, one published in Science, the other in Nature Climate Change, combined with remarkably large and “statistically impossible” behavioral effects from carbon dioxide reported in many of the other papers. The papers’ two main authors emphatically deny making up data, and James Cook University, Townsville, in Australia has dismissed the fabrication allegations against one of them after a preliminary investigation. But multiple independent scientists and data experts who reviewed the case flagged what they said were serious problems in the two data sets, as well as in two additional ones co-authored by one of the accused scientists. The case isn’t just about data and the future of the oceans. It highlights issues in the sociology, psychology, and politics of science, including pressure on researchers to publish in top-tier journals, the journals’ thirst for eye-catching and alarming findings, and the risks involved in whistleblowing.
….
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6542/560.summary
James Cook University was controversially involved in the sacking of Professor Peter Ridd.
“In response to the ‘reproducibility crisis’ that affects many scientific disciplines19, the scientific community is demanding that studies are rigorously conducted and independently replicated before drawing broad conclusions and implementing management measures, particularly when describing widespread phenomena of global importance20.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1903-y
One could never accuse ‘Neutron Star’ Lowry of leaping to conclusions.
Kudos to the email author. All that is required is some critical thinking skills to see the holes in the narrative that we are bombarded with daily. The more research I have done the bigger the hole. Last night it was about the polar amplification. There are still uncertainties about it. The list of uncertainties are never ending.
I grew up in the 1940s-1950s. The list of failed predictions is endless. At some point the things have to sink in.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-02-15190822_shadow.jpg
The term “Freaking Out” was introduced in 1837.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-02-26052109_shadow.jpg
1983! I did not know the scare was that old.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/graph/land/fires/divstaticgraph.png
That in winter in NA the trend in snow is not down. Self evident.
Another one bites the dust.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018_03_04_19_45_19-down.png
Jim
I’m looking out for the skiers. They ski in winter and for decades they have been told their sport is going down the tubes. I don’t want any of them to pawn their skis or goggles thinking the snow is going to disappear.
Tell them there’s no need to be anxious! According to the IPCC’s AR5 North American section:
This higher level of global temperature change is likely to cause decreases in annual precipitation over much of the southern half of the continent and increases in annual precipitation over much of the northern half of the continent. {26.2.2.2}.
This higher level of global temperature change is likely to cause decreases in annual precipitation over much of the southern half of the continent and increases in annual precipitation over much of the northern half of the continent. {26.2.2.2}.
Science is about experimental results of testable hypotheses.
Do you know of any observational verification or validation of this claim?
Unfortunately, hydrologic variables don’t appear ready for accurate analysis, leaving this an interesting, but unsubstantiated claim.
Precipitation is dependent on water vapor availability ( which is largely unconstrained over the three quarters of the earth covered by oceans ). But it is also highly dependent upon motion ( borne out by the large areas of ocean surface which experience very little precipitation ).
Do you know of any reason to believe atmospheric motions are predictable beyond the few days of numerical prediction beyond which chaotic unpredictability prevails?
Certainly, Manabe has suggested that the subtropics might experience an increase in evaporation but an even greater export of water vapor. This certainly bears watching, but we should ask why we believe it without evidence.
An early model of a a very unlikely CO2 quadrupling yields this:
https://i0.wp.com/climatewatcher.webs.com/ManabePrecipEvap.png
These are marginal, perhaps unobservable changes.
Evenin’ Eddie (UTC),
Do you know of any observational verification or validation of this claim?
Well, there’s Ceresco’s clone of “Steve”/Tony’s snow extent chart above. And/or the North American equivalent thereof?
https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=namgnld&ui_month=2
ArndB/TobyB: you may find this link interesting relative to climate change study in Germany during the war years. Hermann Flohn in particular is an interesting study, having written one of the first peer reviewed papers on global warming; subsequently he was awarded the position of chief meteorologist for the Luftwaffe.
jungle trunks
Did you mean to provide a link?
tonyb
My apology, Tony, This post is the wrong spot. I reposted it in the convo you were having with ArndB in the “Climate is everything” thread, it touches on climate study during the war years. It’s hung up in moderation (the link has the N*zi word in it). But it’s entirely relevant to the discussion you both were having; so if you’re interested, keep an eye out.
They were right about the rioting. ;)
Hello Jim.
I was thinking in terms of precipitation, not accumulated snowfall.
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,…….”
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/nhland_season1_shadow.png
I don’t know what you think that chart proves Ceresco, but you could at the very least use a more up to date version:
https://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rutgers_nhland_spring_2020.png
Cereskid & jim hunt
one chart is for Winter – the other chart is for spring.
Well spotted Joe!
I’m still wondering what Ceresco thinks the implications are though.
Or your thoughts for that matter?
joe – the non climate scientist | May 7, 2021 at 4:29 pm |
Cereskid & jim hunt
one chart is for Winter – the other chart is for spring.
Jim Hunt | May 7, 2021 at 5:13 pm |
Well spotted Joe!
The point is that both charts provide conflicting data and neither chart provides any substantive insight.
Jim Hunt – I just went to your website – “the great white con”
Noticeably absent from any of your graphs were the years 1900-1970. Most all your graphs started in 1980.
The omission of the older period is deceptive, misleading and is partaking in what climate scientists accuse skeptics of doing – cherrypicking data
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/debunk/un/global-disaster-trend.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AlpineGlaciersDisappearing_shadow.png
Wild weather Down Under in 1846.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Image730_shadow.png
Recollections of the good Ol days in Europe
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2017_07_21_20_20_35-down.gif
American Extremists
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Image1767_shadow.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CiYXSS1UoAArQct.jpg
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2016-06-26194220-1024×88-down-452×1024.gif
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018_03_17_18_45_47.png
In 1963 they noted a reversal of trend in sea level rise and temperatures. By the 1970s some were discussing a new ICE AGE.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SealevelRisingLessRapidly_shadow.png
In Australia magpies were dropping like flies. 1878
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Image0409342019.png
Kif –
Has it sunk in yet how certain you were about how badly Biden was going to do in the election? Has it sunk in yet how certain you can be about wrong conclusions?
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/figure-gd-1-10.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2018_01_09_08_21_27-down.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Freak_shadow.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-01-at-6.48.38-AM-down.gif
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-04-16090548_shadow.jpg
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NorthPoleMelting1923_shadow.png
> The more research I have done the bigger the hole.
You’re simply copy-pasting teh Goddard’s, kid.
http://climatlas.com/tropical/global_major_freq.png
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/image-80.png
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/large/public/2016-07/drought-figure1-2016.png
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Screen-Shot-2017-03-17-at-7.34.43-AM.gif
TIME MAGAZINE as ever prescient extraordinaire
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018-07-17174527_shadow.png
You were getting so much better, kid. Two more graph from teh Goddard.
I guess a regression to the mean was to be expected:
https://tonyhellerakastevengoddard.com/
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2018-01-01044917_shadow.png
Ceresco
Thanks for that fascinating series of newspaper reports, which are not made up by the local journalists as some seem to believe, but reflect press releases from govt agencies, famous explorers and scientists, plus others who have a great deal of knowledge of their topic.
The Bundaberg Mail faithfully carries on that tradition on Mount Sermiento which, due to its position, was well known and documented, including by the Famous FitzRoy- founder of the Met Office- Charles Darwin and intriguingly was used by Jules Verne in a story.
The following edited for brevity;
“Its twin peaks were a centerpiece of Robert Fitz Roy’s narrative, who, together with Phillip Parker King, unveiled most geographical secrets of the southernmost end of America during the British Admiralty expeditions between 1826 and 1836 on board of H.M.S. Beagle and Adventure.
Among countless discoveries, they realized Sarmiento’s mountain was in fact not a volcano, and renamed it Mount Sarmiento after its unlucky discoverer.
In spite of the praises by Fitz Roy, Parker King and Charles Darwin who called it “the most sublime spectacle in Tierra del Fuego” the legendary fame of Mount Sarmiento arose later in the 19th century, when steam powered vessels made the Magellan Strait the most popular pass between the Atlantic and the Pacific, a golden age that lasted until the opening of the Panama channel in 1914.
At that time, thousands of travelers knew about that magnificent mountain always hidden behind stormy clouds, and the few who had the luck to see it, spread the word about its surpassing beauty and colossal size, as it was at that time perhaps the only place on earth were a city person could
contemplate an ice wall launched vertically for more than 2000 meters at just few kilometers from the sea shore.
Many travelers enthusiastically lauded its sight:
“…we were fortunate enough to enjoy one of the most impressive scenes that my memory has recorded. …set as in a frame, rose the magnificent peak of Mount Sarmiento, the Matterhorn of this region, springing as it appeared from the shore to a height of 7,000 feet. Sole sovereign of these
Antarctic solitudes, I know of no other peak that impresses the mind so deeply with the sense of wonder and awe.
“Even Jules Vernes drew upon it on his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1860.”
Glacial advances and retreats over the last 1000 years are well documented by Le Roy Ladurie in his book ‘Times of feast times of famine”
Tonyb
TonyB,
I do not want to miss saying hallo to you,
The following text was published in 1993
• “The present century has been marked by such a widespread tendency towards mild winters that the ‘old-fashioned winters’, of which one had heard so much, seemed to have gone forever”.
• The sudden arrival at the end of 1939 of what was to be the beginning of a series of cold winters was therefore all the more surprising. (underline added)
• “Never since the winters of 1878/79, 1879/80 and 1880/81 have there been in succession three so severe winters as those of 1939/40, 1940/41 and 1941/42.”
• “Since comparable records began in 1871, the only other three successive winters as snowy as the recent ones (1939/40, 1940/41 1941/42) were those during the last war, namely 1915/16, 1916/17 and 1917/18…”. , (Quarterly Journal of Royal Met. Soc., 1943, details see Ref. at the end).
Drummond, A. J.; (1943); “Cold winters at Kew Observatory, 1783-1942”; Quarterly Journal of Royal Met. Soc., No. 69, pp. 17-32, and ibid; Discussion: “Cold winters at Kew Observatory, 1783-1942”; Quarterly Journal of Royal Met. Soc., 1943, p. 147ff.
Taken from a post in April: https://oceansgovernclimate.com/the-first-climate-criminal-adolf-hitler-1889-1945/
The link to the following first two images indicate why Drummond was surprised. The third image is presumably still the result of WWII, although the discussed cooling was coming to an end.
All the best, ArndB
https://oceansgovernclimate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/3c-.jpg (Jan 1940 UK)
https://oceansgovernclimate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/109.jpg (Jan 1940 Northern Europe)
https://oceansgovernclimate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.jpg (1975 Cooling may be ahead)
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod1024x768.htmx
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=680-140
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=170-011
To the author:
Can I just trot out my usual comment here that many ideas essential if mainstream views are correct make sense even if climate change were a damp squib, temperatures fell (e.g following a major volcanic eruption like Tambora in 1815), weather just became more unpredictable or a major food crop failed. Actions like restoring fish stocks, combining conservation with careful use, regenerative agriculture, silviculture/ silvopasture, less waste and reducing the impact per head and probably numbers of conventional livestock all make sense regardless. Methane-reducing feed additives have existed for decades and some boost growth so these are a specific example of a win-win idea.
These actions need time, money and effort up front of course and those are less popular than the non-stop bickering which has been a feature of the Climate debate for decades. Given the choice of effective action (e.g. manning the pumps to stop a ship sinking) or squabbling about why it is doing so and whose fault it was, humanity has generally picked the idiot option.
Did you see this?
https://judithcurry.com/2021/05/02/climate-is-everything/#comment-948925
I think this fits the scare narrative:
https://www.cfact.org/2021/05/07/a-good-example-of-a-bad-environmental-justice-study/
A good example of a bad environmental justice study
By David Wojick
The beginning: “Biden’s so-called environmental justice push is going to bring on a big wave of bogus research. A really big report just came out so I want to chop on it a bit. Not just for its specific fallacies, but also as typical of what we are going to see a lot of. As with the climate scare, there is a careful combination of bad modeling plus goofy statistics.
In fact the term “environmental justice” just means unhappy environmental statistics with a racial or ethnic focus. That the situation described is somehow deliberately unjust is assumed but often false. It certainly is false in this case. The concept of environmental injustice tends to be more emotional than rational.”
There is a lot more in the article. Environmental justice tends to be a nonsensical concept.
Wow. Nothing but wall to wall confirmation bias. I’m wondering when the failure to put climate minutia into a sound theoretical framework becomes a lie? Or if Judith has succumbed to the pandemic truth seeker corruption syndrome?
I suspect it’s rather the antithesis of the “truth seeker corruption syndrome”; it seems many who previously had succumbed to the climate theoretical framework are now awakening from a severe case of catastrophic GW Stockholm Syndrome coma.
I suspect that your great awakening has no basis in reality.
I have no doubt you would say that to the subject of this thread.
Human emitted greenhouse gases bias a chaotic system to a warmer state. There is implicit in chaos the risk of dramatic and rapid change in the Earth system – atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere. That much should be accepted as truth in line with Isaac Newton’s 4th rule of natural philosophy. And I have canvassed pragmatic solutions before. They are consistent with SSP 5 with accelerated technical innovation.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016300711
I think you know that most on CE acknowledge that there’s at least some amount of AGW going on in tandem with natural variability. But it’s not the thrust of this post.
You mean amidst the mad unscience repeated endlessly? Effectively managing anthropogenic pressures on the Earth system would do much more to reassure the children than any truth seeker narrative.
@Robert Ellison
Yep seeing historical data which your corrupt masters are busily deleting or rewriting is definitely confirming something and it’s not bias.
You have nothing, just lies built upon lies and so you have to resort to smear tactics and no doubt you have your notification set to on for Tony Heller’s youtube channel so you can hit the report button.
How much are they paying you or are you that far gone? Because it has to be one or the other because no sane man can still believe in this fraud when presented with the historical data.
They are serious questions – and you are far from a serious person. Ask Judith about Hurst-Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics – based on a millennia of Nile River data – if you don’t believe me.
e.g. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2015.1125998
Climate science has been assigned a central role in a culture war that has been going on for a very long time between those who want a social and economic reset and those who instinctively resist change. Both sides feel empowered to tell themselves and others tales superficially in the dispassionate idiom of science. Both sides marshalling arguments that support the cause – certain of their moral and intellectual superiority and in arrogance, ignorance and conceit condemning the enemy in bitter animosity. It is socially corrosive and perhaps more worryingly undermines foundations of the scientific enlightenment. Moreover – the stalemate has stalled sensible progress.
https://watertechbyrie.com/2021/05/01/capability-browns-oblique-approach-to-climate-policy/
Interesting, Robert. Both sides? And science as the victim? If science ignored the culture war, then there would be no fodder to propagandize, no culture war centered around climate science; unless the preponderance of evidence suggested actual CAGW. But I don’t think you, or most climate scientists align with this belief as a probable outcome. The reality is that science itself is not above reproach; there are those in the scientific community who are in fact activists, those whom are perfectly willing to fuel the flames for ideological goals, simpatico with: media, oligarchs, politicians; anyone who will advance their narrative for the purpose of gain either monetarily, or ideologically. You can’t deny this, so please stop with the purist scientific enlightenment nonsense, implicitly shielding science as if science is agnostic to the debate. Science isn’t a pollyanna puristic profession, though everyone would wish it were so we could stop the charade of being influenced as otherwise.
Anthropogenic changes to Earth systems are superimposed on change in the complex dynamical system at all scales. This creates risk not certainty. Risk management solutions are consistent with SSP5 with accelerated technological innovation – as I have noted before.
As I saw in the discussion on Hayek – you are practiced at truth-seeker rants but not so good at grasping the big picture.
‘Remember, then, that scientific thought is the guide to action; that the truth at which it arrives is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we can act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.’ William Kingdon Clifford, The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885)
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/download/18.10119fc11455d3c557d6928/1459560241272/SRC+Applying+Resilience+final.pdf
Verified and replicated science is incorruptible by design. It is corrupted when abused by those who are truth seekers or have noble causes. The rest of us are concerned that the real objectives of humanity are not lost sight of. It is simple in practice to take the initiative on the broad front of population, development, energy technology, multiple gases and aerosols across sectors, land use change, conservation and restoration of agricultural lands and ecosystems and building resilient communities.
What we really want – and the children need – is much more clarity on effective policy responses – a focus on the real issues of global economic progress and environmental protection. Emissions of greenhouse gases or loss of biodiversity are far from intractable problems.
Again, you position science as being above reproach. We await this verification “…and replicated science is incorruptible by design”. The models are that good, eh?
You’re as full of BS as you are digestible posts not requiring a laxative, this represents another one of the former.
Yes – both sides and models.
https://watertechbyrie.com/2021/05/01/capability-browns-oblique-approach-to-climate-policy/
You are unable to disentangle the game of science from the players. You merely confirm your prejudices in contrarian echo chambers – as seemingly the subject of the post does. You then play the man and not the ball. The path of least effort – it is easier than trying to comprehend geophysics.
Oh bother!
An article about induced anxiety meets RIE who opines inter alia that “Climate science has been assigned a central role in a culture war …”
What assignment, what war, what central role, what (credible) science?
“Once upon a time, there were three bears …”
Feel anxious about that baby bear tale and its ilk, Robert, and leave Dr Kolmogorov to RIP. Geoff S
There is a culture war between socialism and free markets. It is the same culture war as ever. They just like to talk about it superficially in the objective idiom of a science they fondly imagine is credible. There is lots of credible science – but one needs to be familiar with a literature other than Goldilocks.
Why are children scared? Because the state education system is teaching them to be scared. The government is responsible for this and supporting the fake AGW theories. The schools are also teaching children not to respect their parents and other adults, and this is made worse by the breakdown of traditional family life.
I didn’t fully understand the meaning of ‘question what you hear’…
Such skepticism is even more important when the public education complex is stabbing Western civilization in the back and abandoning the scientific method to further ideologically motivated objectives, no!?
Climate change has become a Left vs right issue, mostly with the Left serving the interests of The Chinese Communist party. Unfortunately, known mostly for their general incompetence, modern-day politicians on both sides of every issue generally are expected only to reaffirm an easily alarmed publics’ anti-nuclear, global warming anxieties, fears, superstitions and stupidity if it serves their own personal agenda.
Energy Balance of the Climate systems is Dynamic.
Solar Energy heats the oceans, the energy is stored in the upper layers, the oceans cool by IR out and Evaporation. There is little IR out or Evaporation cooling of oceans covered by ice shelves or sea ice. When oceans get deeper, area of the upper layers and volumes of the upper layers grow more than lower layers. The area of ocean that can receive solar energy increases and the volume of water in the upper layer that stores the energy is increased.
A way to lower the temperature of the Climate system is to increase the area of ocean that is cooling by IR out and Evaporation. Over the most recent fifty million years, this was done by blocking the flow of tropical currents around the equator and forcing warm tropical currents into Polar Regions. That did increase IR out during times the Polar Sea Ice was thawed.
In polar regions, there is IR out and evaporation from the surface, convection of water vapor, IR out from forming of clouds and ice which is precipitated and sequestered on land.
The land ice spreads and does some cooling from more reflecting and thawing, but no major cooling comes from the sequestered ice until it is pushed into the oceans or spreads into places warmer places where thawing area and thawing rate increases.
The ice volumes and weights and flow rates increase until a substantial amount of ice is pushed onto the oceans as ice shelves and pushed into the ocean as icebergs, sometimes whole ice shelves break off.
The large areas of ice that contacts warm saltwater currents, thaw and chill the water and sends cold water in currents back to the tropics. Ice dumped into the oceans increases until the chilled saltwater is cold enough that sea ice forms on top. This stops the IR out and Evaporation of the warm tropical ocean currents, the currents are now only chilled by the continuing supply of ice. The Climate system stops removing extra energy by IR out in the Polar Regions. The climate system uses the thawing ice to keep the system cold until the stored ice is depleted. Then the cycles repeat.
The primary cooling of the climate system is IR out from the hottest places.
The auxiliary polar cooling is primarily by thawing ice and the ice is rebuilt periodically as needed. More ice spread over larger areas has increased Albedo, which has lowered the long-term temperatures of these alternating warm and cold cycles.
Polar cooling cycles have thermostats, snowfall starts when sea ice is removed, independent of whatever causes sea ice thawing, snowfall stops when sea ice forms, thermostat control.
IR out produces ice, and cooling by thawing ice, is inside the atmosphere but cannot be ignored for energy balance calculations because the IR out and the cooling by thawing ice does not happen during the same time periods. IR out, during warmest, thawing, during coldest, many years apart.
Intrigued; I was just listening to something ‘similar’.
But first, quote ” I grew up in the late 1950’s-1960’s. The children-scaring tactic of that period was the Russians – they were ready to take over the U.S.”
I grew up in the fifties. The scaring then was that devils will crawl out of the walls and carry us to hell bedstead and all. There were even picture of such acts. And they had not yet invented rawlbolts.
However, I had been listening to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV4tMvr7xZY
Some years ago I overheard a man explaining why some things no longer could be corrected; because today’s generation are a generator of ‘egoists’. I had observed that tendency in younger leaders.
Maybe the problem is not the scaring, but something more fundamental socially.
Dr Curry: ” I ended up with stomach ulcer, worrying about all this.”
Ironically your stomach ulcer was NOT caused by worry as per the consensus for a long time. It’s actually caused by a heliobacter and this was proved by two scientists at the University of Western Australia – my alma mater.
It’s ironic because they had to fight very hard against a consensus that anxiety was the cause of stomach ulcers. I had one when I was 12 and I was told that if I was anxious enough to have an ulcer at my age I wouldn’t live to see 30. No one at the time beloved it was possible for bacteria to survive the harsh conditions of the stomach.
I actually point to that as one of the proofs that “consensus” does not equate to “true”. Ironic you should mention it here. :)
There’s still the possibility of anxiety increasing the likelihood of a stomach ulcer though, isn’t there? It’s common knowledge that our overall wellbeing & bodily health is related to our mental health, especially where the gut is concerned.
Alan Lowey: Correct. We tend to think in linear terms. A causes B. One cause, one disease. But it is not true, since a far greater percent of the population has H. pylori than ulcers. Nearly everyone, every year, is exposed to influenza viruses, but only a fraction become noticeably ill. Anxiety indeed can dampen immune function.
For sure. In my case I was just a normal kid. The diagnosis of a stomach ulcer and the gastroscopy confirming, also ironically, caused me and my family a lot of stress. Most stomach ulcers can be treated with antibiotics.
relevant here…
https://judithcurry.com/2019/07/29/child-prophets-and-proselytizers-of-climate-catastrophe/
…includes some cover of the psychological pressure from catastrophic climate culture in the public domain, on children.
Eco anxiety is a function of age and experience. As we age we develop a better filter for alarmist exaggerations.
At my age (78) I have seen numerous apocalyptic alarms come and go. So when I read about the existential crisis of CO2 my response is “here we go again”. But younger people without that experience, from Greta’s age onwards, see this as unique and terrifying.
I can only hope that by the time these young people have understood this false alarm they too will grow out of it, and before madly costly government programs to prevent a non-existent crisis have destroyed their lives.
AR,
Recall also how the world was to fear the onset of an epidemic of cancers caused by man-made chemicals, the scare du jour about 1980, courstey mainly government medical researchers in the USA. Geoff S
“ The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H L Mencken
Why would we expect anything else? The only difference today is that the media are along for the ride, and social media are a greater multiplier.
And why are the media (all of them) cooperating with the government? What is the evidence they are?
Nonlinear Earth systems are being pushed past the limits of good stewardship. Wildlife populations crashing. Blue-green algae in
waterways. Coastal anoxic zones expanding exponentially.
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/images/18.3110ee8c1495db74432636f/1459560224012/PB_FIG33_media_11jan2015_web2.jpg
Not carbon dioxide ever is a blinkered groupthink emerging from truth-seeker corruption. A narrow view that fails to take in the big picture. Climate science has been assigned a central role in a culture war that has been going on for a very long time between those who want a social and economic reset and those who instinctively resist change. Both sides feel empowered to tell themselves and others tales superficially in the dispassionate idiom of science. Both sides marshalling arguments that support the cause – certain of their moral and intellectual superiority and in arrogance, ignorance and conceit condemning the enemy in bitter animosity. It is socially corrosive and perhaps more worryingly undermines foundations of the scientific enlightenment. Moreover – the stalemate has stalled sensible progress on problems that have been recognised for decades. Little wonder that the young are anxious when our generation has failed them.
Being good stewards of the Earth is the foundation of solutions. Increased agricultural productivity, increased downstream processing and access to markets build local economies and global wealth. Economic growth provides resources for solving problems – conserving and restoring ecosystems, better sanitation and safer water, better health and education, updating the diesel fleet and other productive assets to emit less black carbon and reduce the health and environmental impacts, developing better and cheaper ways of producing electricity, replacing cooking with wood and dung with better ways of preparing food thus avoiding respiratory disease and again reducing black carbon emissions.
Come on now RIE,
“Coastal anoxic zones expanding exponentially”.
You know that an exponential function means nothing much unless you define its limits which are otherwise infinite. Scientists do not talk this way. Geoff S
Actually – many scientists speak that way in describing accelerating rates of change. But you have to be familiar with a literature other than Goldilocks.
Wonder what will happen when people finally learn even the GHE is a hoax. Interesting times ahead..
To the original OP, go sub to Tony Heller’s youtube channel if you really want to see just how corrupt the climate institutions have become.
The Biden admin is literally editing past articles on government websites and just removing others so they can push this climate change scam.
I’ve been paying attention to this fraud ever since the UK government announced it would be increasing taxes on motor fuel to curb global warming way back in the 80s. As soon as something affects me in the pocket my natural instinct is to find out if it’s justified.
Thanks to the internet more and more people can now see the lies which of course is why today’s overlords and their minions are doing the best to censor the truth online.
Tony Heller. You believe Tony Heller. You are officially a chump. Congratulations.
Mr. Heller’s Arctic prognostications on his YouTube channel, and indeed his (un)Real Science blog, are nothing but a endlessly recycled sequence of cherry picked irrelevancies.
See Ceresco’s visual Gish Gallop above for several examples. Or see this image:
https://econnexus.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2013-07-02_arctic_io.jpg
“Steve Goddard” as he then was assured his disciples at the time that it showed sea ice forming in the vicinity of the North Pole. In actual fact the alleged “ice” was cloud.
Mr. Goddard was not best pleased when I explained his no doubt inadvertent error to him:
https://econnexus.org.uk/how-to-upset-a-global-warming-sceptic/
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I’m amazed that this person, who probably lives thousands of kilometers away from me, had the same experience as I did. This mail is like reading my own experience: I’m also a child of the 90s, also lived that same anxiety from a young age, also believed in the mainstream story of doom and misantropy. I was certain that by now, being 33, I would be living in a post-apocalyptic world, or be dead, but instead I am happily married, with a newborn baby and living a “normal life”. It was in 2017, after a series of panic attacks and being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, that I stumbled upon this blog and many others and could finally see the damage it was done by the catastrophists to me and so many other people. Thanks Dr. Curry !
This reply is in all sincerity. I’m sorry what you went through. My kids ages straddle yours. Because I have gone through so many scares and hypes and failed predictions about many issues, it never occurred to me that some who are younger have taken the impending doom. Since I lived through so many weather related disasters I knew what has been happening isn’t unprecedented.
Take care. I hope following this blog and doing your own Research will give you comfort.
“..have taken the impending doom so seriously.”
I have a temporary bum eye.
Francisca wrote:
I’m also a child of the 90s, also lived that same anxiety from a young age, also believed in the mainstream story of doom and misantropy. I was certain that by now, being 33, I would be living in a post-apocalyptic world, or be dead
It’s your own damn fault, for not understanding what the science says. You’re ignorant — stop blaming others for your ignorance, and accept responsibility. That’s what adults do. Grow up Francisca.
Don’t mind Dave, he is a little cranky since seeing the temperatures dropping off the table recently and he sees the light in the tunnel bearing down on him. That light is the AMO express and his fantasy world is about to crash.
“Temperatures dropping off the table recently” Ceresco?
Except in the Arctic of course:
https://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/T2Anom-20210508.png
You’re welcome:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/
Global temperatures are down because of the La Nina. As always with a La Nina. They will rebound.
Greta Thunberg ‘curing’ mental illness with the ‘medication’ of climate activism
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6250269656001
Just to remind everyone that: “Her father Svante Thunberg, is an actor, and is a descendant of Svante Arrhenius, a scientist who came up with a model of the greenhouse effect. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903.”
Similar to Einstein, two great follies of mankind were bestowed upon the world around the same time.
Alan: do you have a critique of Arrhenius’s model? Or of Einstein’s work? It doesn’t appear so, so you should just shut up the F up until you do.
The work of Arrhenius was based on ice age theory which required ‘feedback loops’ with CO2 as the driver of glacial termination. Although there’s a host of inconsistencies with this conclusion, it grew into established ‘fact’ because no other solution was available.
If an alternative theory of gravity is used in combination with this:
https://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8329
Then the true driver of climate change can be established.
Alan: do you have a critique of Arrhenius’s model? Or of Einstein’s work? It doesn’t appear so, so you should just shut up the F up until you do.
So says the Commander of the Army of Equation Addicted Acolytes. The problem with Dave is that he is a decade behind on what the science says so he is as out to lunch as anyone.
Alan Lowey wrote:
The work of Arrhenius was based on ice age theory which required ‘feedback loops’ with CO2 as the driver of glacial termination.
Completely wrong. It had nothing to do with ice age theory, it was about the radiative properties of the Earth and atmospheric CO2. Clearly you have never read his paper. Near the end he tried to apply that to the ice ages, but his work wasn’t “based on” such theory.
https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
The unedifying spectacle of two grumpy and foolish old men – each of whom champions mutually exclusive but equally weird science – disparaging a young woman for expressing her views.
I have the greatest respect for Greta and her misguided generation. It’s not even Arrhenius or Einstein I have a problem with. It’s simply Newton’s era of high theism which he buried within his gravitational equation. I’m merely raising the point that a mechanistic solution *is* possible, that gravity as a strong force *is* possible. Therefore a *scientific* ‘theory of everything’ *is* achievable.
It’s psychology more than rocket science.
There are mechanisms observed over a long time and using increasingly sophisticated instruments. Including for what is defined for good reason as the weak force of gravity. You pile speculation on supposition on conjecture. It is far too late to pretend it’s rational now.
“There are mechanisms observed over a long time and using increasingly sophisticated instruments.” – RIE
No, that’s simply wrong. Newton declared the “spooky action at a distance” which kept the Moon in orbit to be unknowable and therefore “the hand of God”. Einstein merely expounded this basic idea with more complex & convoluted mathematics. A mechanism is a ’cause & effect’, which can only be achieved by a radiated spinning corkscrew graviton.
The rest of his work was inspirational. It’s a shame that he missed this mechanistic solution. The history of humanity would have been so much different.
I was thinking more along the lines of work starting with Tindall and advanced by Arrhenius. Newton conceived gravity as a force. Spooky action refers to quantum entanglement. Einstein regarded the space/time continuum as curved. Gravitons exist only in the imaginations of physicists. Spinning corkscrews describe what happens in your brain.
Tyndall of course…
” Einstein regarded the space/time continuum as curved.” – RIE
But it doesn’t exist in reality – it’s just a mathematical construct. That’s where the problem lies.
It has been verified experimentally – that is the point of science.
“Spooky action refers to quantum entanglement.” – RIE
It originally was used by Newton to refer to the force of gravity keeping the Moon in orbit. The leading advocate of Intelligent Design, promoting his new book The God Hypothesis talks about Newton’s theism with great clarity.
Einstein’s reuse of the phrase in quantum entanglement is due to the mechanism requiring particles that travel faster than the speed of light.
Newton’s ‘force’ of gravity was action at a distance – quantum entanglement is what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” And no it is not about ftl particles.
But neither is at all relevant.to climate geophysics.
Ellie, you’re a proudly staunch theist and I was wondering whether you are a follower of Stephen Meyer, author of the God Hypothesis?
https://youtu.be/z_8PPO-cAlA
RIE:
“disparaging a young woman for expressing her views”
The irreversible tipping point within ten years that threatens our survival is not her own view. Extinction Rebellion founders had the same brief, but I cannot find this view in the science anywhere.
” Einstein regarded the space/time continuum as curved.” – RIE
But it doesn’t exist in reality – it’s just a mathematical construct. That’s where the problem lies.
General relativity is a *model*, not a “mathematical construct.” Yes, the model uses mathematics, but it also has a physical interpretation. And it includes real, tangible energy and matter.
GR has never made a wrong prediction. Hence physicists conclude the model does a good job of representing reality, viz. spacetime is curved.
Yet what you said was about mental illness with reference to a couple of creepy old Australian talking heads.
I didn’t say anything, I just quoted from the link. Greta causes the mental illness (eco-anxiety) with her brief, and she now claims that the cure is activism rather than rational and honest science.
Ulric now denies responsibility for the words he posted and the link to a couple of asinine talking heads who define anger as mental illness. What Greta actually was that the best medicine for anger and anxiety was to take action. Eh – she is right you and the asinine talking heads are not.
Meanwhile – Lowry scampers down another rabbit hole.
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Making children depressed, anxious, and angry over an imaginary catastrophic climate tipping point is psychological terrorism, especially when they commit suicide over it. The call to action as a cure is even worse, it’s weaponising them while they are vulnerable. Exactly the same tactics which XR employ.
Tipping points in the Earth system are ubiquitous. But you are so far from understanding that it is like beating a dead horse and expecting a different outcome.
Reducing anthropogenic pressures on Earth systems is simple and cost effective.
‘The Paper therefore proposes that the organising principle of our effort should be the raising up of human dignity via three overarching objectives: ensuring energy access for all; ensuring that we develop in a manner that does not undermine the essential functioning of the Earth system; ensuring that our societies are adequately equipped to withstand the risks and dangers that come from all the vagaries of climate, whatever their cause may be.’
https://watertechbyrie.com/2021/05/01/capability-browns-oblique-approach-to-climate-policy/
Rapid warming occurs from glacial conditions into D-O events and inter-glacial periods, and while in an inter-glacial period ENSO and the AMO stabilise the climate by acting as negative feedbacks. It can’t tip.
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Some light reading about the covid vaccines:
https://anthonycolpo.com/pfizer-earned-3-5-billion-in-q1-covid-19-vaccine-sales-moderna-earned-1-9-billion/
Meanwhile the actual deranged ‘scientists’ are people like Bill Nye
Bill Nye is NOT a scientist. He is a TV clown actor playing a caricature of a scientist.
If he was a scientist he would have been able to design an experiment to produce warming with a jar full of CO2 instead of having to FAKE the video evidence because he did not know that glass blocks infra-red radiation.
Greg: How much warming should a jar of CO2 produce? Specify the jar’s CO2 concentration C in ppm, the upwelling IR from the jar’s bottom surface, and calculate the expected deltaT in the jar’s air temperature as a function of time. Be clear about all other assumptions you make.
Show your work.
DA,
Those promoting a hypothesis are the ones to conduct the reasonable tests, usually before trying to make others believe. Ask them about this heating example. Geoff S
That there are greenhouse gases is true in accordance with Newton’s 4t rule of natural philosophy. Proving there are not by reference to Bill Nye is as dumbed down as it gets.
Greg: Bill Nye’s field is engineering. While engineers can do amazing and useful things, engineering is not a scientific discipline.
‘In response to the ‘reproducibility crisis’ that affects many scientific
disciplines19, the scientific community is demanding that studies are
rigorously conducted and independently replicated before drawing
broad conclusions and implementing management measures, particularly when describing widespread phenomena of global importance20.
Establishing a robust and independently replicated database of the
effects of ocean acidification on fishes is essential to gain a reliable
understanding of the consequences of climate change on marine ecosystems21.’
The latest poster child for the failure of self-correcting and replicated science apparently.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/ocean-acidification-does-not-impair-the-behaviour-of-coral-reef-fishes.pdf
Judith merely assumes, without any attempt at proof whatsoever, that today’s climate change situation is equivalent to her 1950s experience regarding the cold war with the Soviet Union.
That’s not an analysis, Judith, it’s just your emotions. Do you have anything more to offer here?
climate change, if true, will cause a world ending event in 2-4 centuries from now. Kennedy and Kruschev had the world on the brink for 5-7 days back in 1962.
those 7 days probably created a lot more eco anxiety
climate change, if true, will cause a world ending event in 2-4 centuries from now.
You completely misunderstand the issue, which is not about “ending the world,” whatever that means.
David Appell | May 8, 2021 at 6:49 pm |
climate change, if true, will cause a world ending event in 2-4 centuries from now.
“You completely misunderstand the issue, which is not about “ending the world,” whatever that means.”
The issue is creating “eco-anxiety ” – Just comparing and contrasting real reasons for eco-anxiety vs irrational assessment of risks and the related paranoia
The issue is creating “eco-anxiety ”
This and the rest of your bullshi!t is too stupid to even engage you on.
Further US reactors licensed to 80 years operation
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved an application by Dominion Energy’s Virginia subsidiary for a 20-year extension to the operating licences of the twin-unit Surry nuclear power plant. This will enable the two 838 MWe pressurised water reactors to operate until 2052 and 2053, respectively. Surry is the third nuclear power station to receive a subsequent licence renewal from 60 to 80 years from the NRC, following Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point units 3 and 4 and Exelon Generation’s Peach Bottom units 2 and 3. The NRC is reviewing a similar application for Dominion’s two North Anna units and for NextEra’s Point Beach 1&2. Before all these, the NRC had renewed the licences for 94 reactors, taking them to 60 years of operational life.
WNN 5/5/21. US NP
https://wna.informz.ca/informzdataservice/onlineversion/ind/bWFpbGluZ2luc3RhbmNlaWQ9MTI2OTcwMyZzdWJzY3JpYmVyaWQ9OTEyODQwODIz
US government to support SMR exports
The US State Department has launched the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme. After three decades of government indifference to development and export of US nuclear technology, this is to build “on more than 60 years of US innovation and expertise in nuclear energy”. FIRST provides capacity-building support to partner countries developing nuclear energy programmes to support clean energy goals “under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, and non-proliferation”. It envisages support for small modular reactors in particular.
WNN 29/4/21. US NP
https://wna.informz.ca/informzdataservice/onlineversion/ind/bWFpbGluZ2luc3RhbmNlaWQ9MTI2OTcwMyZzdWJzY3JpYmVyaWQ9OTEyODQwODIz
High-level US discussion on nuclear subsidies
The Biden Administration is considering support for tax credits for nuclear power nationwide, the same as those subsidising wind and solar power – currently $18/MWh. Since it started in 1992 the PTC has ranged up to $23/MWh, applied for the first ten years of a plant’s operation. Unusually compared with other subsidies for renewables, it is borne by taxpayers rather than electricity consumers. The Energy Secretary says that “We are not going to be able to achieve our climate goals if nuclear power plants shut down. We have to find ways to keep them operating.” Levelling the playing field in an era of cheap natural gas will help. The proposed support for nuclear is tied to the $2.3 trillion climate infrastructure legislation being considered in Congress, which has some problematic aspects.
The question is not resolved, nor any wide subsidy assured, but it is remarkable that this discussion is occurring at high level and it is encouraging that it is in a Democrat Administration. Any support for nuclear power will be opposed both ideologically from the left and by natural gas interests.
US NP
https://wna.informz.ca/informzdataservice/onlineversion/ind/bWFpbGluZ2luc3RhbmNlaWQ9MTI2OTcwMyZzdWJzY3JpYmVyaWQ9OTEyODQwODIz
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From GWPF:
International science scandal erupts over claims of fraud involving 22 papers
Science needs more whistleblowers and more questioning
Quote:
We need a formalised system for replicating important science results – especially if it is being used for public policy decisions. The present system of peer review, which is now well known to have, roughly, a 50% failure rate, is a pathetic apology for a quality assurance system. The major institutions are deceiving the public about the reliability of their work. We are supposed to trust them but how can we? –Dr Peter Ridd, GWPF Science, 7 May 2021
What we are seeing today is a bad science experiment, seeing what happens when it is mixed more than ever before with politics, public money, publicity, the desire for influence, and institutional bias. It’s my view that science journalists should be shaking this tree in a scientifically literate way, not trying to climb it. –Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Observatory, 7 May 2021
Read the full articles and more here:
https://mailchi.mp/bc72b3aebbd8/international-science-scandal-erupts-over-claims-of-fraud-involving-22-papers-181602
An interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
I listen to this as an antidote to eco-anxiety or more specifically, life’s problems in general:
https://youtu.be/mZTb8WxEW78
The title of the song is Icelandic for “jumping into puddles”
We reap what we sow. The indoctrination, rather than education and development of critical thinking skills, leads to a generation of “programmed” PHDs. They do not conduct research. They enter studies with the schooled answer in hand, cherry pick data to confirm their deeply held beliefs, ignore contrarian info and torture the remaining data until it confesses. Journalism is dead…science is on life support. We program children to “man is a blight”…and when they reach adulthood they merely set out to prove it. No matter that it is BS.
Steve, what do you know about PhDs? Do you have one? Have you gone through a PhD program? Have you ever even taken a graduate class? Done any graduate research? Postdoctoral research? Published? Refereed papers? Do you know any PhDs? Do you talk to any? What’s the basis for your claims? Your evidence?
It’s obvious to me ( though observations can of course differ ) that global warming is being exaggerated to further political agendas.
Statements such as ‘existential threat’ and ‘the planet will literally bake’ seem to me perfect examples of Mencken’s:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
I would wish those anxious to reflect upon this quote as a way of assessing how politicians may be playing them.
Given that negativity bias may be significant, it would seem likely that calm rationality will lose out. That inspires me to tell what I see in order to have the ‘I told you so’ credential. To be sure, that can be a source of bias, but it also imposes a focus on observations.
A perfect quote for this thread. Thank you.
TE –
> To be sure, that can be a source of bias,
That’s not the only source of bias evident in your comment. Just immediately above your comment:
> The indoctrination, rather than education and development of critical thinking skills, leads to a generation of “programmed” PHDs. They do not conduct research. They enter studies with the schooled answer in hand, cherry pick data to confirm their deeply held beliefs, ignore contrarian info and torture the remaining data until it confesses. Journalism is dead…science is on life support.
There are tons more in this thread and virtually every other at this site is filled with exaggerations to fulfill political agendas, with descriptions of existential threats and those who are anxious.
Where’s you calm rationality that might lose out? Your dedication to telling it like it is
Joshua … curious, why would you think Mencken’s quote is an exaggeration?
BIll –
It’s paranoid. There’s always an element of truth in rhetorical overstatements. No doubt there’s truth. But who REALLY thinks that there’s only one “whole aim” of practical politics? Politics is complicated, comprising conflict and complex individuals with complex and inconsistent motivations. The trick with such rhetoric is to see is as an allegory. If you get stuck in it, you’ve been suckered.
Joshua … Thanks for your reply.
I agree that, “The trick with such rhetoric is to see is as an allegory. If you get stuck in it, you’ve been suckered.” But that’s how I see Mencken’s witty statement. And … this thread on the paranoia of emotional eco-anxiety.
No?
Sure – Mencken’s wit is of value. But people sometimes quote him as if it’s proof of something grand. Which amounts to confirmation bias.
I like to remind people that he as an elitist, a racist, and pretty likely an antisemite. The elitist part being the most noteworthy, I think, given how people like to leverage his quotes in political frames to decry elitism. That doesn’t diminish is wit, but it does put how people try to leverage his wit into a good context.
As for paranoia “emotional eco-anxiety.”
I guess it’s a real thing, to some extent. But the extent to which it’s real is deeply buried beneath cherry-picking and confirmation and tribalism in threads like these. Honestly, there’s a cynicism here that I find exploitative in a fairly reprehensible manner. Ironically enough.
LOL!!! Well, maybe there’s a bit a Mencken in you as well! I’ve noticed how you relish exploiting peoples’ posts in a ‘fairly reprehensible manner’. But I also noticed the link you posted the other day on ocean carbon uptake(?) and the inconclusive affects on certain aspects of marine life, which happens to be a big issue for a liberal friend of mine.
Enjoy your day!
What’s reprehensible about it, Bill?
Not reprehensible in the least. In fact, it was very fair minded of you.
Keeping fully amortized aging nuclear plants operating as long as possible is not the critical issue. Cost competitively expanding the nuclear fleet with advanced reactors is. With abundant and cheap energy – transport fuels can be manufactured, industrial process heat provided and wealth created to address other pressures on the Earth system. Solutions are the way to ameliorate eco-anxiety.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf301/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.ebf301/files/Revised_folder/Lesson_01/US%20Primary%20Energy%20Consumption%20by%20Energy%20Source%202019.png
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/medium/public/2021-04/total-ghg-2021.png
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/medium/public/2021-04/gases-by-source-2021.png
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This is the scandal of our age. Real science::
https://www.virginiastoner.com/writing/2021/5/4/the-deadly-covid-19-vaccine-coverup
Thanks for sharing that letter Dr Curry. Many of us share the author’s sentiments about the state of climate science and the importance of your continued contributions to the debate.
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Children can be ‘brainwashed’ by almost anyone, if they have access to their attention and they know how to manipulate.
Children can also be put into emotional captivity, a state where they do not believe the brainwashers but are powerless to escape from their presence, their views, their prejudices. This is most common if the brainwasher(s) are parents.
My experience across a large number of fields, over several decades, is that those most prone to project their own prejudices onto children are narcissists, whilst those most prone to manipulate others for brutally selfish reasons are the psychopaths.
One of the things about narcissism is that it is often co-segregating with quite high performance amongst ‘mavericks’, ‘loners’, ‘entrepreneurs’ etc. That makes them initially very believable by innocent, inexperienced youth. Trust is after all the default mechanism of the infant and ‘becoming adult’ actually involves resetting that to trust being earned.
Narcissism involves deep internal spiritual insecurities where the primary objective of all activities is the gaining of admiration. Note I used the word admiration, not respect. One thing I learned the hard way with several high performing narcissists is that respect is the last thing they want. Respect implies someone retains total independence of mind, thoughts and deeds. Narcissists are a bit like a Pied Piper of Hamelin, collecting strays and admirers, those so obviously less talented so much more likely to be true disciples.
One of the biggest problems of western societies is the ‘hierarchical organisation’ which also predisposes certain types of narcissists ending up at the top of them. The top of a ‘top down’ organisation is absolutely where a risk-averse narcissist wants to be. The bottom of one is absolutely the worst place for a young but independent-minded thinker to be.
The way a narcissist deals with an independent-minded original thinker is:
1. Insult their incompetences (which may be freely admitted to be legion, even if their mind is independent).
2. Project onto the original thinker what their narcissistic hopes and dreams would be in the thinker’s situation, without concerning themselves with whether the thinker actually sees the situation that way.
3. Shamelessly misappropriate the original thoughts of the thinker if they ever share them.
4. Use power to prevent the thinker from becoming independently successful, unless they are ‘protected’ by the narcissist.
When children are being ‘co-opted’, things are of course much simpler. Children aren’t the same size, they aren’t ready to use adult wiles to counteract the narcissist and so they usually just end up believing the mantras, because life is so much simpler if they do.
I have met narcissists in education, in academic research, in small business owners and in the world of finance.
My life would be much happier if I hadn’t met any of them to be honest.
Nobody should be under any illusions that narcissists simply desist when they are exposed.
They simply keep quite a while, then recycle the same old stuff in different guises.
The more talented they are, the harder it is for the narcissism to ever go away.
Why?
It is in no-one’s interest to sacrifice themselves to expose the truth.
Because that is the way the western world works.
You expose a narcissist, you get it between the eye sockets….
Hello, I wrote a story about an incident in elementary school during the last years of the Cold War: “The Day the Russians Bombed my Sawmill Camp. A Survivor’s Memoir.” If anyone is interested, it’s about a 5 minutes read. http://pam-mentations.com/2019/05/14/the-day-the-russians-nearly-dropped-an-atomic-bomb-on-a-sawmill-camp-a-survivors-memoir/
This out-of-the-blue incident had a profound effect on me, leaving me with a sense of dread for some time. What of the effects of a constant narrative of doom?
Some people become inured to frequent warnings. Such as ‘alert fatigue’ in pharmacy where so many trivial warnings pop up on a screen, the pharmacist begins to filter them out and so sometimes misses a flag with serious consequences. So one possible outcome of constant messaging of threats that don’t manifest, e.g. continually pushing up the ‘time we have left to do something’, is that people will tune out the warnings. Hence, the doom rhetoric increases in response and a feedback loop manifests. Something like an arms race. This isn’t the whole picture, of course.
Another possible outcome of constant doom narratives is, for some, a sustained state of stress and anxiety. In the case of AGW, the politicisation has lent to broader stress and anxiety. And with politicisation, other belief sets are clawed in to co-travel with AGW. For some, these belief sets contribute to the different kinds of solutions people have to particular problems, for others they contribute to the attitudes people have toward each other. Often both.
Some think one solution is to, let’s say ‘inculcate’, children with particular beliefs with the notion that children are more amenable to giving uptake to these beliefs. As one school superintendent told me “because the parents aren’t doing anything and we have to act.” AGW is nothing new in this regard. Education has always been a battle ground of beliefs, including moral education. Read Malthus’ Principle of Population (Ed. 2 or 7 — not is small first edition of 1789) for his suggestion of educating poor children about their own responsibility for their poverty. Children derive some of their beliefs from school, some from their parents, other family, popular media, and especially friends. At some point, a group of anxious friends will have more effect on a child than any reassurances from her parents.
(Compare with children in war zones, some of whom are remarkably resilient, others who are scarred perhaps for life.)
As for my own children, my eldest came home from school in tears, at about age 11. The teacher told him the world is coming to an end and it’s all his fault. Whatever she said, that’s what he heard. That’s the day I had to break his idealistic bubble about teachers. They are just human, and not everything that comes out of their mouths is qualified. I gave him the go-ahead to respectfully disagree or ask for further evidence from his teachers, and he did. Sometimes it meant me going to the school to back him up.
When I was in school, without preaching, we had a well-used recycle box in the classroom and the last one to leave the room shut off the lights. Just as wearing seat-belts, there are little habits that can be instilled without issuing a grand narrative.
From my own perspective, studying belief acquisition, I worry about whatever it is some educators think critical thinking means. Whatever it is that prohibits or discourages counter-examples is not critical thinking. Unless what is meant is an ad baculum, believe or else!
I’ll end this musing here. A quick word about Thunberg.
“Think of the children” arguments are very powerful rhetorical devices. Thunberg’s age and appearance are in an ambiguous zone where she can be construed a precocious child or a young adult. This ambiguity can readily be played for either narrative. That she is a diminutive female and that she might have a disability adds a little rhetorical wallop. None of this has anything to do with the falsity or facticity of any of the propositions underpinning the AGW consensus.
If anyone is interested, I also wrote a piece exploring the conceptual field underpinning ‘children’. By exploring this conceptual field (beyond my own investigation), one can gain some insight into the leverage the concept wields in rhetoric. Particularly political rhetoric, which is concerned with the future. If anyone is interested, I warn you this entry is a longer read. 10-15 minutes.
http://pam-mentations.com/2020/06/18/the-political-orator-and-the-future-6-2-b-children/
p.s. I should have mentioned that the incident in elementary school was an introduction to duck and cover — with no forewarning! I lived in a remote northern village, nukes were the farthest thing from our minds. Bears yes, bombs no,
Hi pammentations,
Can I suggest a different approach? There are many sensible ideas out there like less waste, restoring fish stocks, regenerative farming, silviculture, combining conservation with careful use (See E O Wilson’s The Diversity of LIfe), providing clean water & sanitation in poorer countries, cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels and reducing the impact per head (and probably numbers) of conventional livestock. If mainstream views are correct they are vital but they also work pretty well if the whole thing were to be a damp squib, temperatures fell (check out Tambora’s effects after the eruption of 1815) or a major food crop failed. Such win-win scenarios make sense no matter what – think positive!
It’s not all win-win. There are trade-offs in energy costs, ceasing pollution in one avenue only to increase it in another…https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/05/10/nyt-will-electric-cars-become-an-environmental-catastrophe-n388950
I’m all for finding alternative energy sources, cleaning up the planet, etc. But there are no quick fixes. Getting people worked up about doomsday can lead to solutions that end up being worse than the initial problem.
Hi Gamereg,
Good point but of course the problem with flagging the time, effort and money required to fix problems is the frenzied attempts by those best placed to provide them (especially the cash) to wriggle out of doing so.
Iain
“Whatever she said, that’s what he heard.” pammentations.
This reminds me what Eric Berne wrote about when dealing with disturbed patients. He was so precise as to understanding what words were
unconsciously remembered by the patient when listening to A.N. Other, and, therefore, indelible from their mind. Thus a sentence ‘You must not drink alcohol’ may be heard as ‘you must drink alcohol’. His books fascinated me.
I have really enjoyed reading stuff on your website and loved the excellent artwork for your cartoons especially the hands carrying the ember – my favourite, Thankyou.
Dear UK-Weather Lass,
Thank you for taking the time to read/view my work. I’m so glad you enjoyed doing so, and thank you for your kind words. The hands carrying embers are my favourite, too. On many levels.
Thank you also for your comment and for reminding me about Eric Berne. I think. My summer reading pile is beginning to tower and I’ve promised myself I’d show some restraint. I won’t! Actually, Berne is important for my research. I’m not reading lightly.
Kind Regards
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Presumably the thrill of the gaming tables distracts from the ecological anxiety? Curious post.