Cancel culture in climate change

by Robert Wade

A microcosm on the ‘morality’ of cancel culture: the aborted conference on ‘Global Warming: Mitigation Strategies’, hosted by the Italian scientific academy the Lincei.

My essay ‘What is the harm in forecasting catastrophe due to man-made global warming?’ [link] placed the debate about human influences on the climate in the context of a larger process of polarization common when scientific disagreements become public. As described by sociologist of science Robert K. Merton [link], each group then responds to stereotyped versions of the other:

“They see in the other’s work primarily what the hostile stereotype has alerted them to see, and then promptly mistake the part for the whole. In this process, each group … becomes less and less motivated to study the work of the other, since there is manifestly little point in doing so. They scan the out-group’s writings just enough to find ammunition for new fusillades. 

Karl Popper’s epistemological basis for knowledge – knowledge advances by disconfirmation — goes out the window, for the birds, as what scientists believe to be approximately true becomes a function of their group identity. See also Anne Applebaum,  ‘The New Puritans’, recently published in The Atlantic.

The result is what I call a ‘syndrome of exaggeration’: each side is inclined to exaggerate evidence in its favour and downplay evidence against, which justifies the other in exaggerating evidence in its favour and downplaying evidence against; and back again. It is a syndrome in that the behaviour of each side confirms the negative expectations of the other. Members of each side often go at each other ad hominem, like adolescent school boys, including people who regard themselves as serious scientists.  In the digital era members are able to quickly find each another and the enemy, and communicate without editing.

Global warming and climate change provides fertile ground for these social processes, not least because many scientists, journalists, activists and others regard global warming as the impending catastrophe, the existential threat to humanity and life on Earth, and see it as their supreme duty to warn humanity and to help mobilize countervailing action globally, nationally, locally; while a small but vociferous set of scientists and others believe that to be a big exaggeration.  Amped up through the syndrome  of exaggeration, each side becomes predisposed to draw conclusions on individual issues (eg extreme weather) less from the evidence of those individual issues and more from packaged-up ideological visions, the better to maintain clear moral battle lines; disagreement becomes moral heresy

Unfortunately, the Merton polarization dynamics tend to squeeze out non-polemical consideration of intermediate arguments. In contemporary terminology, the dynamics could be called ‘cancel culture’, defined in Wikipedia as ‘a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles … a form of boycotting or shunning involving an individual … who is deemed to have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner’.  In climate change, the dominant side, by far, is the side which says that the ‘catastrophe’ scenario of humanity’s future is likely enough that we must use it to mount major changes in public and private resource allocations and changes in individuals’ behavior all around the world over the next several decades, with the overriding aim  to reach ‘net zero by 2050’. Almost all the attention for avoiding catastrophe is on cutting emissions so as to minimize global warming; questions of adapting to climate change are confined to the margins.  This side’s members commonly embrace the morality of cancel culture when it comes to those whom they call ‘deniers’, regardless of scientific qualifications.

Recently I read on Climate Etc. (the blog hosted by climate scientist Judith Curry) ‘A climate of dialogue’, a pacated dialogue between two scientists who have rather different approaches to issues of climate change.  (‘Pacated’ means to make less hostile, peaceful — an unfamiliar word that deserves wide currency in these polarized times.)  One of them was Andrea Saltelli. Through him I learnt of a conference that was to be hosted by the main and oldest Italian scientific academy,  Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, titled ‘Global warming: mitigation strategies’, on Environment Day  12 November 2019. Professor Saltelli was to be one of the speakers. But then the Lincei cancelled it, without official explanation.  Unofficially the reason was the backlash from invited participants at the inclusion of a paper (one of 14 papers ) challenging the evidence given in support of the hypothesis that current global warming is caused almost entirely by human activities. One of its seven co-authors (among whom were climatologists and physicists) was a professor of physical chemistry and reputed “denier”.  Through Saltelli I contacted Dr Monica di Fiore, who wrote an essay questioning the wisdom of cancelling the conference, published in an Italian academic discussion journal. With her help I reconstructed the following account of cancel culture in action.

From many submissions (all by scientists), a host committee of four selected 14 papers to be presented. One of the papers had seven authors, including climatologists and  physicists. The paper, ‘Critical considerations regarding the anthropogenic global warming theory’, took issue with the argument that current global warming is due almost entirely to human causes, spelling out why the kind of evidence given in support of the hypothesis is insufficient to confirm it. Its thrust was in line with the Popperian principle of falsification as the route to get closer to the truth.

 The newspaper Repubblica ran a story (18 September 2019) focused on the fact that one of the seven authors of this paper, Franco Battaglia, had not published about climate in peer review journals (he is professor physical chemistry at the University of Modena). Repubblica said that the Lincei was lowering its standards by including this paper with ‘denier’ Battaglia as a co-author.  The Lincei sent a short article to Repubblica explaining the reason for the conference and the inclusion of this paper, which Repubblica refused to publish.   

When some intending participating scientists read the Repubblica article, they disinvited themselves on account of not wanting to be in any way associated with Battaglia and his (and six co-authors’) argument. Some also said that the question of ‘attribution’ ( the extent to which global warming is due to human causes) lay outside the scope of a conference on mitigation strategies, and should not be included in the program. Some also affirmed  that there is simply no room for doubt – all reputable scientists accept that current global warming is due almost entirely to human action, so it would be a waste of everyone’s time to hear the paper (as though it was arguing that the earth is flat).  None had seen the disputed paper.

In response to the hostile Repubblica article and the wave of protest from intending participants, the Lincei decided to cancel the conference altogether – informing only the participants, giving no public notice.

Later (30 September 2019), Repubblica published an article titled ‘Clima, la fronda degli scienziati italiani che negano la scienza’(‘Climate, the fringe of Italian scientists who deny the science’), about the petition signed by over 145 scientists supporting the legitimacy of challenging the man-made global warming hypothesis, where it mentioned the cancelled conference.  

Monica Di Fiore (National Research Council) published an essay in ROARS, an online discussion journal for Italian academics,  6 March 2020, titled ‘Il silenzio dei Lincei. Cui prodest?’  (‘The silence of the Lincei. Who benefits?’), in which she questioned the wisdom of cancelling the event.   Her essay attracted 24 comments. The large majority supported the Lincei’s decision, and the large majority were expressed in polemical, ad hominem language, with little or no engagement with either the argument of the paper or the ethics of the Lincei’s decision. 

What could be the net benefit of cancelling the whole conference in order to prevent discussion of one out of 14 papers, one of whose seven co-authors was a reputed “denier” ?  Notice the title of Repubblica’s article, ‘Climate, the fringe of Italian scientists who deny the science’. This  converts ‘the science’, as an approach to knowledge, into The Science, a body of knowledge with the status of Revealed Truth.  

Cancellation of the Lincei conference on mitigation strategies is a microcosm of the morality of cancel culture in the scientific establishment.  It was canceled to prevent the presentation of a paper questioning whether full-on mitigation — big cuts in carbon emissions — is imperative to save humanity; and to block the voice of an outspoken ‘denier’ (a professor of physical chemistry).  The fate of the conference illustrates the danger that the Merton dynamics in global warming focus the attention of scientists and science on the fight against the other and away from dispassionate analysis and assessment of the goodness or otherwise of models, data and mechanisms. And also away from other pressing environmental concerns which cannot be treated simply as reflexes of climate change,  including collapse of insect populations and fisheries, atmospheric pollution, plastic pollution, endocrine disruptors, and several others of global scale – issues which are relegated to second- or third-order, once it is accepted as true beyond doubt that humanity is on the path to catastrophe unless we reach net zero by 2050 or maybe 2075.

Meanwhile, we the global public have to realize how useful the ‘climate emergency’ is for political leaders to be able to pledge their undying commitment to – and divert attention from more awkward topics. Imagine the relief of the G7 heads of government meeting in Biarritz, August 2019: their officials had prepared the way for a G7 discussion of how to make capitalism ‘fairer’ and reduce income and wealth inequality, but  the heads of government gratefully let the discussion of climate, with its class-free and more distant horizons, marginalize how to create a fairer capitalism. 

More than this, the Lincei case illustrates the dangers of scientists blurring the responsibility to ‘inform’ with the more political task to ‘persuade’. As informers they are morally obliged to follow Einstein’s dictum: ‘The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true’. As persuaders they are not, and their incentives too easily produce Merton polarization dynamics with sharp lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’, between ‘heresy’ and ‘Truth’. The public should be beware that evidence and conclusions are affected by these politics, not only by ‘the science’.

Several friends who read this essay in draft and my long essay cited cited above have been upset by them and implicitly or explicitly urged me not to publish, because they give succour to the ‘deniers’. One, a highly respected investigative journalist based in London, wrote:  “you are in the very dubious company of climate deniers.  I am just wondering Robert, where you got your material.  Did you find this all yourself – or were you given it by someone else? No, you don’t need to give me an answer but you should ask yourself what you are doing and how you are doing it. And ultimately, whose fight you are fighting.”  I am struck that people (westerners) advocating fast exit from fossil fuels seem to be little aware of the situation of the large majority of the populations of developing countries; little aware of global energy demand as population in developing countries rises and standards of living rise (especially Africa). They imply that there is a pathway from today’s 80% of global energy from fossil fuels to 2050’s near zero, as though by magic; or else that ‘Africa and large parts of the rest of the developing world have to remain poor, their total energy use limited to renewables, because continued use of fossil fuels brings – we know — the ruin of humanity’.  

About the author: Robert H Wade is Professor of Global Political Economy, London School of Economics

187 responses to “Cancel culture in climate change

  1. Well it seems a longer essay about a short question: Should skeptical questions allowed in climate science?
    For any scientist the answer should be very easy.

    Let me just mention one fact, for which I find particular astonishing that it is not published widely:
    In https://climateaudit.org/2021/08/11/the-ipcc-ar6-hockeystick/
    S. McIntyre argues that
    “Precisely why local Cape Ghir (offshore Morocco) temperatures were going down is somewhat of a quandary. Rather than figuring out this quandary, Neukom and the woke just turn the series upside down, following the example of Upside Down Mann by orienting the series according to its correlation with target instrumental temperature, even in their “CPS” reconstruction ”
    This is a relatively simple fact that if true is outrageous as it is used to mislead the politicians!
    Not only scientists should have a clear opinion on this and in my opinion it should make headlines in any press, why doesn´t it?
    Maybe you can discuss this with your friends, it is likely a simpler example than the conclusions drawn by Battaglia.

    • I posted a similar comment at RealClimate under https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/deciphering-the-spm-ar6-wg1-code/

      And got an answer from Gavin pointing to a paper by H. V. McGregor (DOI: 10.1126/science.1134839) which abstract says
      “… Upwelling-driven SSTs also vary out of phase with millennial-scale changes in Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies …”
      and Gavin saying that “…so I’m not sure that Neukon really has much to say about it.”

      For me that means that I have more questions than answers.
      Looking at the original data for this series https://climateaudit.org/2014/11/25/new-data-and-upside-down-moberg/
      Assuming that Morocco and Cape Ghir at the same series, it fluctuates in a small range around 19.6°C for more than 2000 years before dropping recently by 2°C, which IMHO should mean not only this does not fit McGregor´s description, but also Neukon must justify his choice for this series as it seems to dominate the results of his reconstruction and McShane pointed out more than 10years ago, that such choices produce uncalcuable uncertainties for the results.

      Jgnfld answered my post “… When you see someone throw down a cherrypicked factoid …”
      to which I repleid that this knife cuts both ways and climate science should be grateful for McIntyres contributions exposing the flawed statistics in Mann´s Hockeystick reconstruction in 1998, which so far Mann did not find time to correct or withdraw.

      So far this reply did not make it on the RealClimate website, beside me trying to follow all forum rules, so I am afraid that they still censor valid scientific questions which do not support their consensus view, I thought they abandoned this practice by now.

  2. When after a while it was obvious to the teachers of global warming that they were wrong they simply changed their stories.

    “Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status.” ~Karl Popper

    • Start earning today from $600 to $754 easily by working online from home. Last month I generated and received $15663 from this job by giving this only a maximum 2 hours a day of my life. Easiest job in the world and earning from this job is just awesome. Everybody can now get this job and start earning cash online right now by just following instructions, just open the web and visit please……………….➤ http://www.ExtraRich1.com

  3. A good question about falsification. The hypothesis that no changes to climate stability and no threats to the way we live come about from release of amounts of CO2 in volumes hithertofore known. How are we on that one?

  4. Socially politically and culturally, global warming alarmism is killing Western civilization. However, as a simple matter of natural science, the ‘stability’ of the climate over the last 10,000 years is beyond question considering a variation of less than ±1%.

    • You mean that stable climate over the last 10k years that resulted in plant communities moving a few degrees in latitude and/or a few thousand feet in elevation?
      Or the stable climate that resulted in the drying of the Pleistocene lakes of the Great Basin?
      Or the stable climate that is so stable that many dominate plant species stopped sexual reproduction over the last 10k years?

      BTW, the above has a sarcasm component…

    • melitamegalithic

      Part quote “the ‘stability’ of the climate over the last 10,000 years is beyond question considering a variation of less than ±1%.”

      Yet near every 1000 years there was a global civilisation collapse (pretty certain for the old world). It looks like CO2 had nothing to do with those events.

      There appears to be two extremes in population fixations, the ‘freaked out’ for the wrong reason (CO2 had no part in the past collapses), and the indolent. Yet the dragon king exists.

    • Hmmmm…..

      This is kinda interesting.

      If one characterizes ‘climate change’ by simply the local ice core proxy temperature data, it appears that there is an inverse correlation of variance with temperature.

      Warmer = more stable

      This is contrary to the narrative of tipping points.

      But then, reality is often quite different than the narratives by which we think.

      In any event, this provides an opportunity for a simple analysis:
      how does an objective measure of proxy temperature variance depend on proxy temperature?

  5. Thank you, Morfuo03. For those, like me, who had got out of the habit of frequently checking what’s new on cimateaudit.org, it’s good to see that Steve McIntyre has taken a little time off from Twitter. In the last 4 weeks (since 11 August) he has published 4 new blog posts, one concerning the IPPC’s latest report, the other three on PAGES2K 2019. Science in action!

  6. Thank you Dr. Wade for writing this piece and to Dr. Curry for publishing it.

    A good example of cancel culture, which likes to circle the wagons and live in an echo chamber.

    I was struck by the dis-invitation of nuclear energy from the latest COOP conference. I mean nuclear has to be part of a non-carbon future and they just want to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. As if solar and wind can actually replace coal, natural gas and oil. Google took a look at it years ago and figured out it wasn’t practical in about a week. How hard is it to look at data and think?

    Oh well – eventually reality will smack some people in the face and this whole sorry anti-science phase will be over.

  7. ” . . all reputable scientists accept that current global warming is due almost entirely to human action, . .”

    Wasn’t it only a handful of years back that it was presented that the ‘consensus’ view was only that it was likely that most of GW since mid-20th Century (w/ many suggesting since the 1970’s) had a anthropogenic footprint in it. In fact I saved this from NASA’s Climate home page back in 2017 ‘ish.

    Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations [note: 16 of the 18 say nothing about prior to 1950]. Examples:

    American Geophysical Union (ACS): “Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years.” (2017 – 50 =’s 1967)

    American Meteorological Society: “that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases . .

    The Geological Society of America : . . “that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.”

    International academies: Joint statement from 11 academies: “It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001).”

    U.S. Global Change Research Program: “The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases.”
    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change : “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely* due . .”

    However, at the top of the page, NASA says, “over the past century.” And, of course, they quote Cook’s 97% nonsense to boot.

    How’d we get from attributing 0.25+ C of the ! C being man-made to this, “all of it?”

  8. Mark’s essay is the same litany of concerns as usual:

    – But CAGW
    – But Consensus
    – But Modulz
    – But RCP
    – But Debate Me

    There’s even a But 12 Years in the footnote!

    The index nominum includes the usual suspects:

    – MikeH
    – DavidL
    – NicolasS
    – RossM
    – Judy

    We need better scholars. We need better contrarians.

  9. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change – Climate- Science.press

  10. No U, dearest RG.

  11. Robert, thanks for an interesting look inside an insidious trend in science—silencing the opposition. Scary stuff.

    And Dr. Judith, thanks as always for your blog, a crucial forum for important voices in the ongoing discussion about science in general and climate science in particular.

    Best to you and yours,

    w.

    • Surely this is well known and already well documented. Perhaps it is entertaining to read yet another such story.

  12. As someone who is not a tenured academic, but who understand the academic research scene well, the arguments which ‘the 97%’ must address honestly and without the right to silence are these:

    1. If the vast majority of grant funding for climate science assumes AGW to be the dominant mode of global warming in the past 200 years, which tenured academics are actually going to publish research which questions that postulate?

    The postulate to be falsified is that academics’ research is driven by the ability to bring in income to do research, rather than curiosity-led dispassionate investigations….

    2. If computer modelling does not lead to falsifiable hypotheses being tested by experimental scientists, how can any reputable ‘scientific journal’ publish studies based solely on computer modelling, without explicitly saying that all that has been published is a ‘falsifiable hypothesis’?

    The ability of a computer modelling study (which is in effect analagous to management consultants carrying out a ‘Scenario Planning’ exercise) in a ‘science journal’ transmogrifying into a ‘scientists state that…..’ in a national newspaper is regrettably far too common.

    The hypothesis to be falsified is that the Mainstream Media are actively denigrating the reputation of climate science research through publishing things which would undoubtedly have severe adverse career consequences had they been published directly by the scientists….

    3. If the IPCC claims that ‘the science is settled’, then it is indubitably true that no further research on the ‘settled science’ needs to be funded. The only funding in future needs to be in areas where the science is NOT settled.

    The hypothesis to be falsified is that a large rump of academic climate ‘researchers’ have been spending large amounts of taxpayers’ money for 30 years carrying out work which is not leading to falsified hypotheses being ditched…..

    I have to say that my former arena of research, namely medical virology, is currently going through precisely the sort of politicisation of ‘science’ that climate science has endured the past 30 years. I am absolutely appalled at the way that slapdash and shoddy ‘tests’ are being routinely used to ‘diagnose cases’, when the definition of a ‘case’ is in effect a perfectly healthy human being who is infected by a virus without clinical complications.

    PCR is undoubtedly one of the biggest step-change inventions in molecular biology in the past 70 years, but it has been absolutely subverted by political scientists in a way which is quite grotesque.

    Much like ‘climate deniers’, ‘anti-vaxxers’ are now labelled as flat-earth ‘dangers to humankind’, when actually all they started out doing was expressing legitimate doubt that the proposed actions were not the best on offer.

    You know:
    1. If cheap off-patent drugs will treat 80% of mildly sick people very effectively, then that makes more sense than treating no-one but vaccinating everyone. It costs 1% or less of the cost of a national vaccination campaign.
    2. If those cheap off-patent drugs really work very well, then why do we need to develop new expensive on-patent ones in big pharma?
    3. If 99.7% of us will not die from a viral infection, that really doesn’t make the disease ‘an existential threat to mankind’, does it?
    4. If the science on wearing masks, maintaining social distances are equivocal to say the least, then it is reasonable to question why groups at almost zero risk from the disease should be required to be ‘out on license in a global open prison’, isn’t it?
    5. If Governments would rather trash entire economies, notably the small business sector, for the sole benefit of the hyper-rich and the extremely large corporations, then shouldn’t the cost of that trashing ($400bn odd in the UK alone in terms of one-off government ‘spending’) be borne by the hyper-rich and the corporations, not the ordinary people whose financial prospects have been damaged?

    None of those questions are closed, they are all of the nature of IF A is true, then what about B? Which allows both sides to consider firstly whether A actually is true or not, and then whether ‘if A then B’ is a worthy conclusion to draw…..

    The polarisation of the vaccine debate is just as extreme now as that described in this article in climate science.

    And the biggest elephant in the room in the UK is simple: the last General Election had nothing to do with Covid, but we now have an authoritarian rule which has got Parliament to castrate itself, leaving the nation without any form of democratic accountability.

    This is in fact the thing which is irritating the ‘anti-vaxxers’ the most right now: the continual attempts by the Government to extend the ’emergency legislation’ which was passed when it was just conceivable to claim that Covid19 was a serious threat. Now it absolutely is not a serious threat in existential terms, the ‘skeptics’ want the emergency legislation repealed.

    Surprise, surprise, the Government want to keep it.

    And as they have bought the media through hugely expensive advertising/propaganda campaigns, there is no-one in the media who will actually fight for the ordinary man and woman to hold the Government to account.

    The best we can do is launch a petition calling for the Repeal of the Coronavirus Act and get 100,000 people to sign it. For, you see, in the UK, if that happens, then Parliament is legally obliged to debate it.

    Of course, politicians can ‘debate’ something then trash it. But at least the public will know that 100,000 people signed it.

    I signed it this week….

    • Richard Greene

      rtj
      A very intelligent comment.

      You have to understand the leftist lust for power
      and control — for rule by leftist “experts”.

      This lust for power requires the general public
      to live in fear, and demand that their leftist
      government “do something”.

      That’s exactly what leftists want to hear.

      Whether the fear is from a fake crisis
      (climate change), or a grossly exaggerated
      crisis (COVID), leftists have the “answers”
      … which always include
      more political power for them,
      more government spending,
      more government regulations, and
      less freedom for the general public.

    • There are also various crowd funded legal actions challenging the governments rights to impose various rules

      Tonyb

    • It seems offtopic here, but since you brought it up.
      IMHO you are correct, that many people experience mild symptoms when infected with Corona, but more people seem to suffer and die in regions with low vaccination rates.

  13. The behaviour described undermines the credibility of the thesis of anthropogenic global warming. Perhaps this is what the eminent society wanted to do?

  14. Richard Greene

    The biggest problem with “climate change” is that it is not real science at all.

    There may be many scientists playing the climate fear game, but not with real science.

    “Climate change” is repeated, always wrong predictions of a coming climate crisis. How can one refute a prediction? Especially if the people making the predictions refuse to debate the science. If you don’t debate the science, you can never lose a debate (that’s leftist logic).

    The scary climate predictions began with oceanographer Roger Revelle in 1957, stated quietly, and with uncertainty.

    Remember that 1957 was 17 years into a global cooling phase, that lasted until 1975, so in the 1950s and 1960s it would have been difficult to get media attention about a coming global warming crisis.

    A global cooling period from 1940 to 1970, was originally stated by government officials (NCAR) as -0.5 to -0.6 degrees C., back in 1974.

    That cooling has since been “adjusted” away, and almost no cooling remains — inconvenient temperature data tend to gradually disappear, because they don’t support the coming climate crisis narrative.

    So we have been hearing about a coming global warming crisis for 64 years!

    The predictions were wrong for 64 years.

    Therefore, it is obvious climate scientists do not have the ability to predict the future climate.

    As a result of so many wrong predictions, the predictions of the future climate are not science at all — they are climate astrology.

    The climate models over predict global warming for a reason.

    Their goal is to scare people, and support the coming global warming crisis narrative.

    Accurate predictions are obviously not a goal.

    If accuracy was a goal, the model that over-predicts global warming the least, the Russian INM model, would get the most attention.

    In fact, it gets almost no attention.

    If accuracy was a goal, the average climate model would have been getting more accurate over the past four decades.

    In fact, it appears the latest batch of models, CMIP6, will be over predict global warming even more than that last batch, CMIP5.

    Most important:
    Real climate science has to focus on past and present climate change, simply because no one has the ability to predict the future climate.

    A better understanding of exactly what caused climate change in the past is needed before climate predictions have a chance of being accurate.

    There are eight billion witnesses for some, or all, of the ACTUAL global warming in the past 45 years.

    That warming was mild and harmless — completely unlike the rapid and dangerous warming predicted by “climate scientists” in every year since 1957.

    You can enjoy the current, wonderful climate, or fear some imaginary future climate crisis, that is always “coming” … but never shows up. Your choice.

    The coming climate crisis can never be falsified, unlike real science.

    How could you falsify something that’s always coming in the future?

  15. It seems we’ve got to the stage where objecting to appalling bad research is now regarded as cancel culture. You could argue that those who object to poor research are now being cancelled, but that would just be silly.

  16. Matthew R Marler

    and Then There’s Physics: It seems we’ve got to the stage where objecting to appalling bad research is now regarded as cancel culture.

    Which appallingly bad research are you referring to?

  17. KEN V KONETSKI

    It is a wonder to me that each well known nonbeliever or skeptic does not bring forth the following challenge:

    To all AGW believers: Show one scientifically-based paper which convinces you (not necessarily proves) that 20th century warming was principally caused by fossil fuels.

    Now, a predictable response might be that such believer responds with a general reference to IPCC, NOAA, EPA, NYTimes, The Guardian, etc. That of course, would be a obvious admission that they have not seen such a paper, especially since none of these have published such a paper. Also some would argue that it is too complicated to put into one paper; ok, then they should be able to explain HOW a number of papers convinces them.

    • One of the first was this paper, but there have been many more since then. A more recent one is this one.

    • Ken …

      > To all AGW believers: Show one scientifically-based paper which convinces you (not necessarily proves) that 20th century warming was principally caused by fossil fuels.

      One could also ask where is the actual proof that warming, regardless from whence it came, has been ‘bad’ for humanity? Answer: none. Polar bears, penguins, coral … ? Answer: none. Drought? Answer: none. Landfall hurricanes? Answer: none.

      The only answer from the climate community is that the ‘problem’ is in a stage of ‘becoming’. Or … it’s coming. Curiously funny, as the climate change community is distinctly non-religious. But maybe that’s from my own prejudices.

    • Richard Greene

      KVK
      You can take all the climate change attribution papers, and use them to line the bottom of your bird cage !

      To a leftist, a peer reviewed, published paper by a fellow leftist with a science degree automatically creates truth.

      That is nonsense — that belief is a symptom of the “Rule by Experts” dream that leftists worship (as long as all the so called “experts” are leftists)

      There are too many variables to know exactly what CO2 does in the atmosphere (my list below) along with unknown feedbacks.

      The lab experiments suggest rising CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to cause mild global warming.

      The actual experience HAS BEEN mild global warming in the past 45 years, as CO2 levels rose.

      But the the actual experience from 1940 to 1975 was global COOLING as CO2 levels rose,

      And the excuse for that cooling — air pollution blocking some sunlight — was pitiful !

      Did all the air pollution suddenly fall out of the sky in 1975, when a new global warming trend began?

      Of course not.

      Air pollution barely declined in the next few years and was still significant in 2000! So the air pollution excuse was nonsense.

      We know one thing for sure: Climate science is not settled, and there is no published study that has the answers !

      My own list of likely causes of climate change:

      The following variables are known to influence Earth’s climate:
      1) Earth’s orbital and orientation variations

      2) Changes in ocean circulation: ENSO and others

      3) Solar Irradiance and activity

      4) Volcanic aerosol emissions

      5) Greenhouse gas emissions

      6) Land use changes
      (economic & population growth, crop irrigation, etc.)

      7) Changes in clouds and water vapor

      8) Stochastic variations of a complex, non-linear system

      9) Unknown causes of climate change

      The variables above are not all independent.

    • “To all AGW believers: Show one scientifically-based paper which convinces you (not necessarily proves) that 20th century warming was principally caused by fossil fuels.”

      Hello Ken.

      Though the theories were predicted long ago ( Arrhenius, Fourier and others ), I find the most insightful work by Manabe.

      Manabe and Strickler, 1964 performed an experiment:

      1.) Consider two isothermal atmospheres, one at -100C, the other at +100C, both of the same components (CO2,H2O,CH4, etc)
      2.) Heat or cool the layers of each based on radiative transfer
      3.) Iterate step 2. until each atmosphere reached equilibrium ( stopped changing )

      Remarkably, for both a -100C and +100C atmosphere, the results converged somewhere around what’s observed. I have reproduced this result to my own satisfaction using an old simple radiative code.

      Next, they changed the constituents ( CO2, H2O, etc. )

      Increasing the CO2 resulted in warming the troposphere and cooling the stratosphere. This was not yet measurable in the brief RAOB Era record of that day, but has since been born out, including the cooling stratospehre.

      So this paper is mist significant to me because it made predictions before observations were available.

      You addressed the question to AGW believers, which would include me. Had you addressed ACC ( Anthropogenic Climate Change ) believers, that would still include me, though much more specifically defined.
      Manabe also created among the first general circulation models which made some predictions about some aspects of climate. I’m going to assess these soon here: https://climateobs.substack.com/

      Manabe did predict some testable aspects ( an Arctic maxima of warming, consequent decrease of Arctic sea ice, etc. ) but unfortunately, other aspects of precipitation and soil moisture, as Manabe observes, are not testable because the observations are still insufficient. Still other popular ideas of destruction are neither predicted, nor observed.

      Many of Manabe’s experiments involved a quadrupling of CO2. While this clarified signals in models, it may be unrealistic. Per capita emissions have been falling in an increasing number of countries and fertility rates are falling in all countries, so a quadrupling wouldn’t seem to be realistic or imminent concern.

      So, I’m in a nuanced position. I believe the evidence, which has theories of causation, supports both AGW, and ACC, but is both constrained by demographics, and is not necessarily even net negative.

      Hence, climate change is real, but exaggerated.

      Unfortunately, because climate change is in the untestable future, politicians can use it to scare voters to do their bidding. The results of this – politician power through big spending and control – are self evident.

    • “To all AGW believers: Show one scientifically-based paper which convinces you (not necessarily proves) that 20th century warming was principally caused by fossil fuels.”

      Hello Ken.

      Though the theories were predicted long ago ( Arrhenius, Fourier and others ), I find the most insightful work by Manabe.

      Manabe and Strickler, 1964 performed an experiment:

      1.) Consider two isothermal atmospheres, one at -100C, the other at +100C, both of the same components (CO2,H2O,CH4, etc)
      2.) Heat or cool the layers of each based on radiative transfer
      3.) Iterate step 2. until each atmosphere reached equilibrium ( stopped changing )

      Remarkably, for both a -100C and +100C atmosphere, the results converged somewhere around what’s observed. I have reproduced this result to my own satisfaction using an old simple radiative code.

      Next, they changed the constituents ( CO2, H2O, etc. )

      Increasing the CO2 resulted in warming the troposphere and cooling the stratosphere. This was not yet measurable in the brief RAOB Era record of that day, but has since been born out, including the cooling stratospehre.

      So this paper is mist significant to me because it made predictions before observations were available.

      You addressed the question to AGW believers, which would include me. Had you addressed ACC ( Anthropogenic Climate Change ) believers, that would still include me, though much more specifically defined.
      Manabe also created among the first general circulation models which made some predictions about some aspects of climate.

      Manabe did predict some testable aspects ( an Arctic maxima of warming, consequent decrease of Arctic sea ice, etc. ) but unfortunately, other aspects of precipitation and soil moisture, as Manabe observes, are not testable because the observations are still insufficient. Still other popular ideas of destruction are neither predicted, nor observed.

      Many of Manabe’s experiments involved a quadrupling of CO2. While this clarified signals in models, it may be unrealistic. Per capita emissions have been falling in an increasing number of countries and fertility rates are falling in all countries, so a quadrupling wouldn’t seem to be realistic or imminent concern.

      So, I’m in a nuanced position. I believe the evidence, which has theories of causation, supports both AGW, and ACC, but is both constrained by demographics, and is not necessarily even net negative.

      Hence, climate change is real, but exaggerated.

      Unfortunately, because climate change is in the untestable future, politicians can use it to scare voters to do their bidding. The results of this – politicians seeking power through big spending and control – are self evident in the bills in the name of ‘climate change’.

      • VIVIAN ALVES TRAJANO DE OLIVEIRA

        Theres a problem with climate science: we still dont have the technologies to make actual experiments in this area. I believe that climate scientists might be doing “their best” , to make their models . But their best is just not enough to make govnerments of all around the world to spend money because of it.

        A proper experiment could only be performed by a much advanced civilization that controled at least 2 similar planets and increased the Co2 in the atmosphere of one of the planets , and then observed everything: natural disasters, actual warming. Then, they should decrease the Co2 levels and observe the results. And then repeat it many times.

        Of course , the experiment I described above would take decades or centuries to be made . But its the only way you could justify the use of big amounts of public money to cut co2 emissions. When I say this, people usually use Venus as an example. But Venus has over 90% of Co2 on her atmosphere , and its also 90 x thicker than Earth´s atmosphere. Mars would be a better comparison , because if you took almost all other gas from Earth´s atmosphere, and left only Co2 there it would become similar to Mars atmosphere. But Mars would still have more co2 concentration. Would Mars be colder if it had less Co2? I dont know. Mars has frozen Co2 on its poles , and it is becoming gas again because Mars poles are warming for… unknown reasons. Im not using Mars as a proof that humans arent causing global warming. And nobody should use Venus as a proof that we should cut co2 emissions. Im just saying that we still dont have the tecnology to prove that cutting Co2 emissions would really benefit people.

        Now Biden will spend over 2 trillion dollars to ” fight climate change”. I dont live in USA, I live in Brasil, but if I lived in USA, I would be mad. The problem with USA and European presidents is that they try to force the other countries to do what they want them to do. The money that Biden is spending to “fight climate change ” is over 2 times Brasil´s GDP. And the” cutting Co2 is saving lives” hypotesis is not falseable. In every public measure, you can compare your city, state or country with others that didnt take that measure to see how effective it is. Its not true to Co2 cutting. The supposed effects arent local, and would only take effect if everyone did the same, so you cant compare to anyone. If changes stop, they will say that its because we cut co2. If changes continue, they will say that it would be worse if Co2 emissions continued, or that it will take more time to feel the effects of co2 cutting.

  18. We should resist getting all dark ages from these climatic cancel culture dealings. Consider the bright side, blasphemy in prior centuries led to burning at the stake.

    While particular advocates within the CAGW judicial branch advocate capital punishment for sacrilege, it so far only pertains to ones loss of livelihood; otherwise we’re civilized for the most part.

    Once natural variability and economic viability is banned from the vernacular in consideration of the net zero mantra, what remains is misdemeanor. The moral of the story for survivors; one should not question the unquestionable laws of consensus, anachronistically it’s so flat earther.

  19. If you’re wondering why Italy is so angry at “deniers,” it is because they just won ~$100 billion from the EU to increase their CO2 emissions cut pledge from 33% to a 60% reduction by 2030.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-climate-minister/italy-says-it-plans-to-cut-carbon-emissions-by-60-by-2030-idUSKBN2B31ML

    How can you spend $100 billion of other people’s money on Easter Bunnies if people are allowed to ask questions?

    That pledge, by the way, would require Italy to reduce emissions by three times the amount they reduced emissions over the last 30 years. In a third of the time.
    https://www.climatescorecard.org/2021/07/italy-reduced-its-emissions-by-19-4-between-1990-and-2019/

    Allegedly serious people and their mainstream media claim to believe this, which is why people around the globe are less trustful of “serious people” and the mainstream media.

    One thing we all know is that, by 2030, the $100 billion will be gone, but the emissions won’t. Just like the story of the last 30 years.

    • And I guarantee some Italian families made the government an offer they really couldn’t refuse to ensure that agreement was signed.

  20. Thanks for the interesting article, exposing the mechanism of the anti-Popperian cancel culture in the one event.

  21. But I seem to remember in late 1970’s early 1980’s an alarm that we are all getting colder! What happened to that?

    • It stopped cooling and started warming.

    • Richard Greene

      Mr. Farmer:
      That coming ice age alarm was from a small number of scientists who got a HUGE amount of media coverage.

      But the 1940 to 1975 global cooling trend ended before the ink dried on the stories.

      The large majority of scientists expected a global warming crisis at some time in the future, but would not make such a prediction until a few years after an actual global warming trend began (in 1975) .

      Scientists in those days also had uncertainty, which seems to have disappeared from the profession.

      But the “global warmers” had learned how much media attention a scary climate prediction would get, from the small coming global cooling crisis minority, and they never forgot that.

      By the 1980s, scary global warming predictions were more common. Climate science debate ended in 1988, with the creation of the IPCC.

      Climate predictions turned hysterical in 2018. In 2020, all bad weather became “climate change”, and all good weather remained just just “weather”.

      The actual climate change in the past 100 years, as CO2 levels rose, was mild and harmless. But there is no money in that !

  22. Frankly I am puzzled by people’s outrage. The huge policy implications have politicized the science. The abhorrent behavior is standard political action.

    Also are people unaware that environmental issues have been just like this for at least 60 years. Climate just happens to be by far the biggest to date (as they have become steadily bigger). Anyone who is surprised by what is happening does not know the history of environmentalism’s ever growing power. It was only a matter of time before they targeted fire.

    We are all politicized. Act accordingly.

    • Richard Greene

      Every prediction of a coming environmental crisis in the past 60 years HAS BEEN wrong. However, that does not prove the NEXT prediction of a coming environmental crisis WILL BE wrong. … Just like flipping a coin 60 times, and getting heads 60 times in a row, does not prove the coin has heads on both sides. … But it probably does have heads on both sides !

  23. Without much doubt we are changing the composition of the atmosphere without much idea of consequences – hot or cold – in our nonlinear world. Although there some fairly ordinary contrarian science to the contrary. Along with a plethora of even weirder ideas.

    Poor wee willie objects to my agenda. His agenda is waiting for the advent of the AI economic overlord. Mine is economic growth. Economic growth provides resources for solving problems – conserving and restoring ecosystems, better sanitation and safer water, better health and education, reducing pollution, 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.

  24. Here is some new scientific ammo. A study finding a CO2 sensitivity of just 0.5 degrees. So good the Milloy posted the whole report on his JunkScience website:
    https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/10.11648.j.ijaos_.20210502.12.pdf

    • Bjarne Bisballe

      That paper, David Coe et al. 20121 – What is your opinion? junk or not?

      • David Coe, a physicist who studied at Oxford then founded a company that makes sensors that use IR spectra to measure atmospheric gases, has a lifetime of experience. His paper makes one assumption, that atmospheric greenhouse gases have raised earth’s temperature from 255k to 288 k. The rest is based on facts and measurement using the HITRAN database.

        He calculates the individual contribution of four greenhouse gases to the 33k warming then goes on to calculate ECS and water vapour forcing.

        Perhaps the use of facts and measurement is a step too far for some of the climate community.

    • Bjarne Bisballe

      Strange – The article David Coe et al. 2021 is no longer available – how come?

    • Bjarne Bisballe

      An acquaintance is in e-mail contact with David Coe who wrote to him today
      “Dear xxxx
      You may realise that the paper you refer to has today been retracted by the journal with no explanation and no opportunity to respond to the decision. This is a very disturbing turn of events. I have asked the editors to offer a detailed explanation but so far with no answer. We intend to pursue this censorship as vigorously as possible. I will keep you informed. We can only assume that we have hit a nerve somewhere!
      David Coe”

  25. Staying with the times, Australia have cancelled their climate net zero target.
    When pressured to repent by a UN representative, here was the reply from Australia’s climate spokesperson:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-58476891

  26. I can’t believe some of the nonsense that some of their so called scientists BELIEVE.

    Here Willis Eschenbach looks at the DATA and easily finds that there is no emergency at all.
    Of course we know that some people prefer their fantasy world, but why not check the DATA from the real planet EARTH and leave their fantasies to all the other silly religious fanatics?
    And Dr John Christy tested their so called CAGW claims and arrived at the same conclusion as Willis.
    Big surprise NOT.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/

    • ngard2016 –

      > I can’t believe some of the nonsense that some of their so called scientists BELIEVE.

      Can you believe that Willis BELIEVED that no countries would exceed an 0.085% population fatality rate from. COVID?

      • Joshua you seem to be having a “2 bob each way bet” with your comment. Sorry I’m an Aussie.
        But can you find where Willis is wrong in his quest to find their climate emergency?
        And I’d like to see a link about his so called death rate claim for cv-19.

      • How can one be wrong by Just Asking a Question?

      • Joe - the non epidemiologist

        Willis underestimates the death rate by 2-3x –

        Ferguson overestimates the death rate by 4x

        So why is willis condemned? He wasnt setting policy

      • ngard –

        I was pointing out the problem with arguing from incredulity.

      • Joe –

        > So why is willis condemned?

        Who condemned him?

        When Willis made his PREDICTION, he was saying population fatality would not get any higher, in any country, than just a small % higher than where it was already in some countries when he made his prediction. In fact it went higher by 200%, 300% in quite a few countries and exceeded that level in some 70 or so (and counting). He wasn’t even close. Because his analysis was terrible. He looked at some lines on a screen and thought he understood how to make a prediction about a very complex topic. He didn’t.

        Ferguson made a CONDITIONAL PROJECTION not a prediction as alia did. They aren’t the same so your comparison is bogus.

        Even if Ferguson had made a prediction, him being wrong doesn’t make Willis any less wrong. Can you BELIEVE how Willis believed what he believed?

      • “ Ferguson overestimates the death rate by 4x”

        IF no interventions were made.
        Got that?
        No. No. NO INTERVENTIONS were made.
        There were.
        So it was a “prediction” that was never acted out … as he knew it wouldn’t

        Yet, as with AGW – the myth sticks.

      • “IF no interventions were made.
        Got that?”

        And yet, here we are in a world where nations with the strictest “interventions” have as high or higher death tolls as nations with few “interventions.”

        Speaking of myths and Covid… this summer’s spike in American cases is as high as the one last year when everyone was insisting that the president was doing an awful job on Covid. But now nobody is saying that. And the spike came after the deadline (Fourth of July Holiday) that the new president said would be the end of Covid – a claim that just 12 months ago the media and disease experts would have told us was a dangerous downplaying of the risk and “fact checked” as “false.”

        Isn’t it amazing what a political party change can do to “expert” leadership opinion? Isn’t is amazing how little “expertise” there is in our leadership?

      • An interesting thing about case numbers and hospitalization rates this year. Those numbers appear to be getting less meaningful. (Links to the studies themselves not in the text, but they should be easy to look up if you want to get deeper into the data.) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/

    • Richard Greene

      You’ve LIVED with global warming for some, or all, of the past 45 years, (with rising CO2 levels for the past 100 years) so you already KNOW global warming has been mild and harmless, without any data.

  27. BTW here’s Dr Christy’s talk to the GWPF where he puts all their claims to the test.
    Little wonder that he couldn’t find the APOCALYPSE or EMERGENCY or CRISIS or Biden’s so called EXISTENTIAL threat.
    In fact everything is improving for Humans since the use of Fossil fuels, just check out Dr Rosling’s 200 countries over 200 years video I’ve linked to a number of times.
    And again he’s used proper DATA and EVIDENCE.
    Of course their mitigation claims are bogus, just check out the soaring emissions from China and developing countries over the last 25 years.
    And Dr Hansen has told us that PARIS COP 21 was just more BS and FRA-D and that the BELIEF in S & W energy is like a belief in the Easter bunny and the Tooth fairy.
    See his Guardian interview in DEC 2015. When will these fools WAKE UP? Over to Dr John Christy.

    https://www.thegwpf.com/putting-climate-change-claims-to-the-test/

  28. > Global warming and climate change provides fertile ground for these social processes, not least because many scientists, journalists, activists and others regard global warming as the impending catastrophe, the existential threat to humanity and life on Earth, and see it as their supreme duty to warn humanity and to help mobilize countervailing action globally, nationally, locally; while a small but vociferous set of scientists and others believe that to be a big exaggeration.

    That’s freakin’ hilarious.

    This problem with polarization is really a problem on both sides. It’s a huge problem on both sides. What we need is for both sides to act more maturely. On one side we have people crying about impending catastrophyand on the other side we have a small set of scientists just saying that the other side exaggerates just a teensy, weensy, tiny little wittle bit.

    And whatever you do, ignore the folks on the other side who complain (daily in these threads) about the impending disaster that will result from those waring about a climate catastrophe.

    Reminds me of the selective logic in those who complain abut cancel culture.

    Oh.

    Wait…

  29. IKE warned us the government would corrupt the universities … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V71-kXuQhTo

  30. Even Dr Hansen knows that Paris COP 21 was just more BS and FRA-D as the Guardian interview shows in DEC 2015.

    In DEC 2015 the co2 level was about 400 ppm but today that has increased to about 415 ppm. Just look up the data and note that by DEC 2021 the co2 level would be 415 ppm or an increase of about 2.5 ppm per year since Paris Cop 21. DUH, what is it that the L W loonies don’t understand about the DATA over the last 5.75 years and the NON OECD SOURCE ( China, developing countries etc) of that DATA since 2015?

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud

  31. AGAIN, Dr Christy puts their so called CAGW claims to the test and agrees with Willis.
    And he again checks out their so called HOT SPOT and finds ZIP to be concerned about. But he covers all of the claims in his talk at the GWPF in London and on that trip he delivered this talk in Paris as well.

    https://www.thegwpf.com/putting-climate-change-claims-to-the-test/

    • Ah, the good ol’ days:

      This post gives just few quick notes on the methodological aspects of the paper.
      1. They select data with a weak climatic temperature trend.
      2. They select data with a large cooling bias due to improvements in radiation protection of thermometers.
      3. They developed a new homogenization method using an outdated design and did not test it.

      http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2016/05/christy-mcnider-time-series-summer-surface-temperature-alabama.html

      MikeR will be here in a minute.

    • ngard2016 wrote:
      AGAIN, Dr Christy puts their so called CAGW claims to the test and agrees with Willis.
      And he again checks out their so called HOT SPOT and finds ZIP to be concerned about.

      1) what’s the importance of the hotspot?
      2) how does its measurement compare between RSS and UAH?
      3) what’s the uncertainty of its measurement?

      I bet NOBODY here will touch #3,

  32. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change – Watts Up With That?

  33. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change |

  34. Ireneusz Palmowski

    We see a huge waste of human energy. It would be more practical to focus on space exploration and protection from closely flying asteroids.

    • Richard Greene

      Space exploration is mainly a waste of money.
      We have no technology to change the course of asteroids.
      Those are two more money / human energy wasting suggestions !

      How about supplying the one billion people living in poverty, with no electricity, with free small solar panels for cooking, rather than having them burning unhealthy wood, coal or animal dung?

      • Ireneusz Palmowski

        I wrote that space studies, including solar activity, would be more practical than statistical games with global temperature fluctuations.

  35. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change - Times News UK

  36. Ireneusz Palmowski

    An example of the waste of human energy is the approach to tropical systems entering the eastern US from the Gulf of Mexico. I think most realize that the cool eastern Pacific (when La Niña is forming) favors the occurrence of such systems. However, instead of using the experience of previous years, it is better to talk about increasing rainfall in the east and severe drought in the western US.

  37. Ireneusz Palmowski

    Note that the oceans are an excellent temperature regulator near the Earth’s surface. The temperature in the open ocean cannot exceed 32 degrees C and fall below -2 C (at this temperature the salt ocean freezes). It is probably no coincidence that the average of this temperature is 15 degrees C?
    https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/contour/global_small.c.gif

  38. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change – Watts Up With That? - Blue Anon News

  39. The offensive paper is nowhere to be found, but the same authors wrote and sent a petition previously to the political leaders of Italy. The thrust of their argument can be read there. My post provides the text in english.

    https://rclutz.com/2021/09/08/italian-climate-conference-cancelled-lest-skeptics-be-heard/

  40. That many of those fretting about “cancel culture” overlap politically with many of those seeking to fire teachers for talking to students about institutional racism or family members from talking to women about getting an abortion, is a work of art and a thing of beauty.

    • On the one hand, contrarians can’t get anything published.

      On the other, Pierre compiled 100+ Papers on it’s the Sun stoopid, 130+ papers on Low Sensitivity, and 285 on “But the 70’s” cooling:

      https://notrickszone.com/

      It’s really hard to win against a contrarian Dutch book. Hence why I suggest:

      https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/can-contrarians-lose/

      • Willard –

        I”m sure that you know that “papers can’t get published” and “peer review is pal review” only excepting those papers that get published that have aspects “skeptics” like.

        When papers get published that have aspects that “skeptics” like then it’s absolutely gob-smacking that they got published.

        Except when “skeptics” are tabulating just how many papers there are with aspects they like that get published. At which point there are soooooooo many of them.

        At which point “appeal to authority” disappears into the woodwork and those articles are written by brave, and Galileo-equivalent scientists.

        And, of course, those papers also prove that it’s all a hoax

      • J,

        I suppose the next step is to cry Omertà: who will take on my favorite paper published by a contrarian megaphone?

        It’s “But Debate Me” all the way down.

        A pity for our favorite spectator sport that science is more of a race than a boxing match.

    • … well, there’s no accounting for taste.

      • My father used to say “That’s what makes for horse racing” and “That’s why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream” and “No one every went broke underestimating the taste of [people who disagree with me.]”

    • “That many of those fretting about “cancel culture” overlap politically with many of those seeking to fire teachers for talking to students about institutional racism or family members from talking to women about getting an abortion, is a work of art and a thing of beauty.”

      Three falsehoods in four lines of text! The cult of the Swedish teen is on a roll!

  41. Pingback: Cancel tradition in local weather alternate – Watts Up With That? – All My Daily News

  42. Pingback: Cancel culture in climate change – Climate- Science.press

  43. Pingback: Italian Climate Conference Cancelled Lest Skeptics be Heard – Climate- Science.press

  44. This is really good. Thank you. Posted to Facebook. And J, I have not forgotten about you. Look into a 1% Povidone Iodine solution used as a nasal spray. We aren’t getting any younger.

  45. Up until some 40 years ago CO2 was a temperature feedback – although not as ocean outgassing. Oceans are a sink with both the chemical and biological carbon pumps.

    High economic growth powered by fossil fuels changed that. I’m all in on economic growth – but can’t predict what happens if CO2 concentrations reach levels last seen in the Eocene by 2100.

    But both sides argue interminably on what are little more than scientific sounding factoids. Both sides of the climate battle continue to insist on a certainty that is impossible – and continue a battle in which one side is heavily outgunned. The climate change cabal is all of the global scientific institutions, the liberal press, governments, major scientific journals, etc. Opposed is a ragtag collection of a few marginalized cheer leaders for curmudgeons with crude and eccentric theories they insist is the true science. I don’t think either are worth debating.

    The rest of us are concerned that the real objectives of humanity are not lost sight of. It is simple enough 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. Emissions of greenhouse gases or loss of biodiversity are far from intractable problems — but economic growth and technological innovation is the foundation of any practical measures.

    • Geoff Sherrington

      RIE.
      Translated, the paid promotion of poor science has overwhelmed a gullible populace and press and politicians who would not know Arthur or Martha about the topic of global warming.
      And you want to side with them?
      Why?
      You cannot or will not describe actual harm that you have felt from this fearsome climate change.
      Is this mere opportunism? Geoff S

      • I gave a very few fundamental facts and clearly said that I cannot predict the future. We can continue to make significant changes to a system capable of large and rapid responses. Or we can recognise the risk and respond accordingly. Pragmatically there are two paths to the future. A socialist transformation of economies and communities. Or we can build prosperous communities in vibrant landscapes. Either way – the world will move on without contrarians and their simplistic analysis of a complex and dynamic Earth system.

  46. “Global warming and climate change provides fertile ground for these social processes, not least because many scientists, journalists, activists and others regard global warming as the impending catastrophe, the existential threat to humanity and life on Earth, and see it as their supreme duty to warn humanity and to help mobilize countervailing action globally, nationally, locally…”

    The effect of those social processes cannot easily be measured within the enterprise of science or the field of journalism. But can be measured in global publics, and to a certain extent for activists. And indeed whether for or against the narrative of catastrophe, over many years now global publics have and do react culturally / emotively to the topic of climate-change, not upon the basis of rationality or the climate literacy that would assist rationality. Whatever the progress of those social processes within mainstream science, it does not claim ‘certain global catastrophe’. But this is frequently claimed on its behalf. And the global public reaction is an emotive response to that narrative. Nor is simply ‘for or against’ the narrative of catastrophe adequate as a full description of global reaction; for instance those nations having the greatest public concerns in the world about climate-change harms, are also the ones in which publics express the lowest priority in the world for action on climate-change. Oppositely, concern about climate-change harms in say Sweden or Denmark or Norway are among the lowest in the world at a fraction of the above concerns, while also their publics are among those expressing the highest priority in the world for action on climate-change. Emotive / cultural reactions often feature major contradictions.

  47. Ireneusz Palmowski

    Can the level of discussion be appropriate when the complex climate is reduced to a trace gas in the atmosphere?
    For example, let’s look at the current weather in North America. You can already see a cold front moving in from Hudsona Bay and meeting a tropical wave from the Gulf of Mexico. A hurricane is approaching in the Atlantic. This could mean increased downpours in the southeastern United States. So why is global warming being blamed for the catastrophic downpours when a circulation pattern is evident here.

  48. Ireneusz Palmowski

    How does convection work in the troposphere? Very simply. Warmer and lighter air (the more water vapor, the lighter) rises upward gradually giving off heat. If there is enough water vapor, such air can reach the tropopause, where the temperature drops below -70 degrees C.
    https://i.ibb.co/vDhdHZM/9ddc359f-befe-45de-b7ea-31805b178b65.jpg

  49. The Merton polarization dynamics archetypes are illuminating, but too kind. All I see is the hubris and vainglory of “Expert Syndrome” on steroids, with its rejection of dissent and its total consensus.
    It is formalised with the dictum: Climate ~ therefore Weather, acting as the perfect sentinel against investigation of the discrete solar forcing of heat and cold weather events driving climate change. The dictum is seamlessly extended to extrapolate increases in weather extremes with global heating.
    I don’t see why rising CO2 forcing should noticeably affect weather variability. It may exacerbate a major heatwave by 0.3°C, but not influence the frequency or duration of heat events. And given its modeled influence on the Northern Annular Mode, it should be reducing meridional jet stream patterns driving US heat domes, European Saharan plumes, and Siberian hot plumes. Scientists who spin these as products of global heating, would typically like to get on the front cover of Rolling Stone.
    How do they get away with claiming that major heatwaves, like 2003 and 2018 in Europe, will increase by 30 or 170 times, without explaining any major heatwaves in history? Do they really believe that a little more CO2 forcing has overwhelmed natural variability to the degree it will make the climate system generate a massive increase in major heatwaves?
    There’s conceit and corruption, and their dictum is sending them and their audience crazy.

  50. This discussion reminds me of Milan Kundera’s first novel, The Joke. It is less about telling of a joke that lands one in a work brigade, but more about the cowardly self-serving that prompts someone to turn on others.

    It is about cancel culture in the early 1950’s.

    Communism spread through East Europe more by cowardliness than political violence.

  51. This incident and the endemic shifting mores in the climate scientific community would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. Instead of pursuing truths and advancing our knowledge about climate, the overriding motivation is to protect the sacred narrative….at all costs.

    The perverted infestation of replacing political goals in place of scientific goals is the elitists version of taking your ball and going home. It shouldn’t be surprising though, given the current obsession with deep sixing history and 58 genders.

    • Keep yelllin’ at those clouds, kid. It won’t change anything but it’s prolly cathartic.

      • Be careful, Joshua. Eventually they may come for you.

        I’m not a fan of Piers Morgan, but it seems parts of the MSM are showing cracks …

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9973427/PIERS-MORGAN-woke-destruction-great-educator-terrify-one-us.html

      • As long as it’s not Piers showing his, Bill, we shall survive.

      • Bill –

        My rule of thumb is to take any particular individual’s account of such issues with a grain of salt. I know that I can’t make an evaluation unless I hear more than one perspective (please note, it’s possible but rare to hear multiple perspectives laid out by one individual or by people only on one side of the issue – and when that happens I take note and consider it a marker of quality).

        IMO, the whole “cancel culture” pearl-clutching is mostly political theater. Yes, some people have been unfairly, materially harmed but…

        (1) So what else is new?
        (2) How does that balance out in the big picture (against more people gaining agency that they’ve always been denied previously).
        (3) What’s more disturbing to me is a (potential) trend of people constantly playing the victim and presenting issues in bad faith.

        On point on (3). The recent bruhaha about the doctor reporting overrun emergency rooms because of Ivermectin is a good case in point.

        Yes, there was sloppy reporting, largely influenced by political ideology (on the left). However, there was sloppy reporting about the sloppy reporting (many of the very people complaining about the reporting (and pushing a related victimhood agenda), reported falsely that a reporter made the whole story up or that there really wasn’t any doctor who linked over-crowding and lost medical services to people taking Ivermectin)…

        Everyone is loaded for bear and ready to go off half-cocked at the drop of a hat. I find it quite disheartening. Maybe I’m getting sentimental in my old age.

      • BTW –

        Pointing out that it’s not new isn’t meant to diminish the harm that occurs.

      • Oh, and this is funny:

        > Be careful, Joshua. Eventually they may come for you.

        In being somewhat-hippie adjacent with long hair back in the day, and a Jew, and a lefty, and an urban-dweller, with family that was active in the civil rights movement and other kinds of political activism, it’s kind of amusing that you assume that “they” haven’t already come for me in the past (particularly since you have no idea whether I might be gay).

        Not that I don’t appreciate the concern, Bill.

    • Joshua … You made an assumption that ‘Eventually they may come for you.’ means I disallowed the possibility they hadn’t. Rest assured I was just being polite.

      Boghossian’s story in academia is far from unique. But, even if it was I’d say it would be cause for concern. As I said to you a while back, the individual is in opposition to bureaucracy. Political affiliation matters not.

      • Bill –

        > Joshua … You made an assumption that ‘Eventually they may come for you.’ means I disallowed the possibility they hadn’t. Rest assured I was just being polite.

        Sorry for the mistaken assumption. But rest assured, because of my life experiences I don’t need a warning to know I have reasons to be careful.

        > But, even if it was I’d say it would be cause for concern. As I said to you a while back, the individual is in opposition to bureaucracy. Political affiliation matters not.

        I just read his letter. I’d say that concern is a reasonable response.

        On the other hand, I also see a one-sided portrayal from him and some potential signs that he’s long been pushing an agenda that incporporates bad faith. A quick scan of Wikipedia reinforces that impression. He seems to perhaps be largely in the business of marketing victimhood.

        And I say that despite as an educator being fully on board with his pedagogical approach. I don’t know the details, but it’s pretty rare for me to find someone who make statements of fundamental educational philosophy that so closely align with my own.

      • Joshua …

        > He seems to perhaps be largely in the business of marketing victimhood.

        Who can be sure? One thing though, in this day and age speaking up against perceived attacks is not only to defend ones self but implies speaking for others. It’s also hard to think a philosopher would take a critique without responding.

        As for victimhood, you posted a comment about parents’ reactions to what materials teachers expose their children. How much of the material you were thinking about is victimhood? And how do you square that with the teaching philosophy you say you shared with Boghossian? At what age can students be given materials to sift for ‘truths’ even if they were given an adequate representation of all sides?

      • Pertinent to Climate Etc.,
        Begohsian did give us some peer reviewed science on climate change:

        https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/conceptual-penis/23311886.2017.1330439.pdf

      • Bill –

        > Who can be sure?

        I can’t.

        > One thing though, in this day and age speaking up against perceived attacks is not only to defend ones self but implies speaking for others.

        This is not a new development.

        > As for victimhood, you posted a comment about parents’ reactions to what materials teachers expose their children. How much of the material you were thinking about is victimhood?

        I don’t know. Obviously, that’s goings to be subjective.

        > how do you square that with the teaching philosophy you say you shared with Boghossian?

        Not sure I understand your question.

        > At what age can students be given materials to sift for ‘truths’ even if they were given an adequate representation of all sides?

        I stared t with young kids, curated to a greater extent than with older kids. With young kids youre might do it in a different context where you give them reason ans opportunity to wall through different perspectives on an issue that has resl meaning, like whether it’s “fair” foe them to have rules like “no vegetables, no ice cream.” It doesn’t mean that you acquiesce.
        It means you create awareness and reinforce metacognition. You don’t expect mastery, or even necessarily understanding, but the establishment of a learning curve. You develop a language and vocabulary to discuss perspective. You develop a sense of agency and accountability.

        They get older and you enlarge the context beyond their own direct self-interest. Is it fair for teachers to disallow phones in the classroom? Older still, you begin to demonstrate that experience helps to shape perspective.

        I have a suspicion that Boghossoan doesn’t actually give full representation to all sides. I get the sense that he has an ax to grind. I may well be wrong,of course, as I don’t know the details. But his letter suggests as much to me. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be able to express a view – but it does color my perspective on whether he should be taken seriously as a free speech avenger.

      • > That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be able to express a view – but it does color my perspective on whether he should be taken seriously as a free speech avenger.

        C’mon, we’re all ‘dirty’, Joshua. Holding people to impossible personal standards seems like a bad trick at diverting attention from the common issue that person clearly represents for us all.

      • Bill –

        > C’mon, we’re all ‘dirty’, Joshua. Holding people to impossible personal standards seems like a bad trick at diverting attention from the common issue that person clearly represents for us all.

        That’s it? All that pithy stuff and your only response is to worry that Peter is a victim?

        Impossible standard? On the one side if this we have people who really are victims in a disturbing way. On the other we have people who are antagonists and provocateurs. On the one side we have people whose free speech is being encroached upon (I haven’t seen many actually being “censored.”) On the other side we see people who are exploiting real issues of free speech to push an agenda. I don’t think expecting someone to make it clear that they aren’t at the extremes of either end is an impossible standard. I see a lot of people biding behind ambiguities and false binaries and zero sum games.

        People have a right to be advocates for their cause. They have a right to exploit ambiguities. But that doesn’t have to earn my respect. I consider that form if advocacy to actually do substantial harm because it leverages tribslism at the expense of real issues.

      • > I have a suspicion that Boghossoan doesn’t actually give full representation to all sides.

        Why should he? Do you? It’s not incumbent on anyone to give full representation to all sides. Is that even possible? What’s your definition of full? Boghossoan states his case.

        I’ll stay with my suspicion that you used a bad argument to castigate someone with whom you don’t agree, or with those who point to his example. You hid behind a criticism of supposed non-equanimity which deflects from his ‘victimhood’. You basically ‘shamed’ him because he didn’t present an equally robust argument that he deserved censure.

        It’s like you threw some rotten tomatoes at him from the safety of your garden. Shame on you. You can do better.

      • Bill –

        > Why should he? Do you? It’s not incumbent on anyone to give full representation to all sides

        Incumbent? I’d course not. I never suggested it’s incumbent.jn fact I said the opposite. He’s entitled to advocate as he sees fit. But I don’t find one-sided arguments intersting. They’re a dime a dozen.

        > . Is that even possible? What’s your definition of full? Boghossoan states his case.

        Of course it’s possible to present an argument in the context of a good faith effort to interrogate the naysayer argument. Imo, arguments are interesting when that is done, boring when it isn’t done, especially when you’ve seen the same one-sided arguments many times in the past. Of course you may not perfectly convey counter-arguments but that’s not a reason to not try or to not do it imperfectly.

        >I’ll stay with my suspicion that you used a bad argument to castigate someone with whom you don’t agree, or with those who point to his example.

        Castigate? Again with the snowflaking of Peter. I criticized his presentation and said that I would not consider him a good free speech advocate to the extent he doesn’t give a full representation of the situation.

        > You hid behind a criticism of supposed non-equanimity which deflects from his ‘victimhood’. You basically ‘shamed’ him because he didn’t present an equally robust argument that he deserved censure.

        Lol. So now I’m “shaming” him because I (softly) criticized his presentation based on a quick read which I acknowledged wasn’t comprehensive? Is this a snowflake version of someone being “Cancelled?” Mild criticism? Not even really personal criticism? I’ve “shamed” him because I said it didn’t appear to me that he presented a full picture and this I wouldn’t consider him a champion for free speech? Wow. I guess I really ought to self-censor some more, eh?

        > It’s like you threw some rotten tomatoes at him from the safety of your garden. Shame on you. You can do better.

        It rained all day yesterday and today I found many cherry tomatoes split on the vine. I kept some – I figure to roast them with some tomatillos tomorrow. I didn’t throw them at anyone.

      • Because they taste too good.

    • Tragically the most cognitively vulnerable of our population have been duped into believing the Grand Narrative. First they got rid of the MWP because thinking people would have wondered how this climate was any different from 1,000 years ago. Then they tried to banish the AMO, because of the imminent flattish temperatures in the next few decades. Then they sent Natural Variability to Never Never Land, since its presence interferes with the new messaging efforts and their upstream marketing strategy.

      On the horizon, seeking out and destroying any and all ancient documents referencing hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, sea level rise, heat waves, cold snaps, blizzards and forest fires. Then they can legitimately say everything is unprecedented.

  52. Two weeks ago, I was sitting in a gazebo adjacent to the Lake’s water edge along with a friend and his wife. The relevant topic was: our changing climate. My friend’s view was that I was espousing a perspective of a “flat earthers”; where was I getting my information? His wife, traipsed him over to my abode the next day for him to apologized for his accusations stated in such a disrespectful manner. I was taken aback at the apology. My friend has witnessed the receding Arctic sea ice. Witnessed the loss of glaciers of his boyhood and from this perspective he has formulated his views on climate change based upon such data. The earth is warming. As far as I was concerned, his emotions and perspective were coming from lived experiences. I have no quarrel with this. Actually, my quarrel is with his wife, exercising her power in their family to address “feelings” and not the specifics of our climate discussion. By the apology, my friend’s views were discounted because of some social convention and bias to which I do not subscribe. My friend’s tongue was loosened by imbibing the usual social lubricant. His views are sincere and from a perspective of direct observations.

    This recent experience regarding power politics is a metaphor for the on going cancel culture influence so hurtful to discussions on climate change.

  53. Over several years I have found at Climate Etc. a goodly amount of information pertaining to climate science and peripherally related topics that has been of particular interest to me. I have found that I can learn not only from the contents from the lead post of a thread but the comments that follow. Unfortunately I have found that too many of the following comments could be classified as off-topic and/or of a personal nature which in turn leads to a time consuming filtering process in order to find the discussion related to the main thread. I wonder how much these impediments bother others who post and read here.

    I have included in my post Judith Curry’s first 3 of 5 blog rules for Climate Etc. I suspect that enforcing these rules can be a time consuming job that an otherwise active blog owner might not have the time to do in a way the owner might deem equitable and particularly to those posters with dissenting voices. I think a number of those who violate these rules do it more or less inadvertently or do not see the bother the rule avoidance causes and that further these posters appear to be capable of contributing to the thread of the main post.

    I have always wondered, in these blog posting situations of which I see at other blogs, if those posters who are frequently and blatantly off-topic and/or too personally oriented were suspended and given an opportunity to return if they could change their posting habits, the posting atmosphere would improve.

    1. Respond to the argument, not to the person. What another participant stated on another blog in another context should not be used to discredit or otherwise challenge the participant. Changing your mind in response to new evidence and arguments is valued here.
    2. Only respond to comments that you feel are deserving of your attention, and ignore the rest. By being ignored, commenters who are not deemed interesting by others will give up and go elsewhere.
    3. Don’t take criticisms personally, don’t rise to “bait” or attempts at “gotchas.” Make the points YOU want to make.

    I have made this post on this thread because in my view these bad habits can, in effect, cancel the opportunity to delve more deeply into the topic of the thread.

  54. Great to see Mark Morano educate another clueless DEM about extreme weather events.
    He easily refutes the Biden donkey’s nonsense about the latest Hurricanes etc.
    The DATA and evidence WINS every time.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/09/marc-morano-demolishes-biden-campaigners-extreme-weather-claims-on-tv/

  55. I’m glad Robert Wade has laid down the law stating that conference organizers and conference participants have no say in the scientific standards regarding their participation of their own time and effort in the scientific cultural process.

    Should make things much clearer going forward. This is definitely how science should be done, yes sire for sure. Thank you, Mr Robert. You have def done us all a great service ser.

  56. Thank you Robert.
    Indeed the entry to science literature should be based on data and evidence, not acceptability.
    I am appalled that the Italians have so behaved. But then I remember…
    Un’ italiano, un’opinione
    due Italiani, disputazione
    tre Italiani, Duce, Duce, Duce!

    • Consider that many climate science papers today rely on projections by computer models. Computer models do not produce real data.

      And projections of the future climate have been notoriously inaccurate.

      So inaccurate that I believe projections of the future climate are closer to climate astrology than climate science.

      We’ve had enough always wrong wild guesses of the future climate.

      We need a much better understanding of the present and past climate before there is a hope of making an accurate prediction of the future climate.

      • So if the models are all so wrong, then it could be that things are even much much worse than most climate scientists think.

      • James Cross
        “could be that things are even much much worse”
        Classic sky-is-falling message. Could be, might be, should be, may be, can be, etc.

      • joe - the non climate scientist

        Richard Greene’s comment – “We need a much better understanding of the present and past climate before there is a hope of making an accurate prediction of the future climate.”

        Concur – which is why understanding prior climate is so important, especially the HS when so many low resolution proxies are used (many of which conflict with well known temp proxies such as higher tree lines in the past, just to name one of the multitude of conflicting proxies)

        One question that is never answered is why did the earth go from 300+ year cooling trend circa 1850-1880 to a 170 + year warming trend when co2 went from 285ppm to 288-290ppm. That is a huge shift from cooling to warming with a very trivial change in co2.

        The shift circa 1850-1880 certainly wasnt caused by the 400ppm in the year 2010. The physics of CO2 certainly wasnt powerful enough to cause the shift

      • joe

        1850-1880 isn’t 300+ years. What did you mean?

        If you are referring to the period around LIA, then that is generally accounted for volcanic activity is my understanding. Nobody claims that CO2 is the only driver of climate.

      • joe - the non climate scientist

        James
        From circa 1450 to 1850/1880, the earth was in a cooling trend. Circa 1850/1880, the cooling trend shifted to a warming trend. The cooling trend was in the range of .2c-.4c per century. The warming trend for the next 30 – 50 years was in the range of .3c-.4c per century. The shift is almost as big as the current .8c per century warming trend.

        The question is what caused that shift.

        If the volcanic activity was the cause of a short term cooling period, then it was only a short term delay in the start of the warming period , but still doesnt explain the shift from cooling to warming.

        If the volcanic activity was the cause of the 300+ years cooling of the LIA, then a big piece of the HS blade is due to the rebound from the lack of 20th century volcanic activity. If so, then we therefore should be measuring the warming since circa 1450 until today instead of measuring the warming from from 1850.

        Richard Greens’s point remains valid. We need to have a better understanding of prior temps and causes of the prior temps, We likewise need a better understanding of why there was a shift from cooling trend to warming trend. (See Curry’s frequent comments on the need for a better understanding of natural varibility.

      • Joe,

        That was what I thought you meant.

        My view is something like this.

        Likely since the early Middle Ages orbital influence has been on a cooling trend.

        Super-imposed on that overall cooling trend is population and volcanic activity.

        Volcanic activity and population growth will tend to go together but in opposite directions. Low volcanic activity means multi-year good agricultural yields which results in more more population growth, more land clearing, more animals, more green-house gases. High volcanic activity is likely to cause crop failures which can have multi-year negative influences on population which leads to reforestation and more carbon sequestration. I’m assuming that relatively small changes with low levels of green-house gases can have a significant influence on temperature change and that as amounts of green-house gases become larger there is a gradual diminishment of effect.

        The Middle Warm Period was the result of reduced volcanic activity and human population growth.

        High volcanic activity combined with the Black Death and the massive lost of life in the New World from European contact pushed all of the those trends in the opposite direction. So we have the LIA.

        Low volcanic activity and population growth turned the trend in the opposite direction in 1850-1880 period.

        Of course, industry and green-house gases have dominated the climate since with the exception perhaps of the post WWII period when pollution from industry effectively acted like volcanic activity.

        There isn’t any “rebound”. It is simply orbital influence, volcanic activity, and human activity.

  57. Ireneusz Palmowski

    Weak spikes in geomagnetic activity due to weak solar wind in the 25th solar cycle affect rapid changes in the northward jet current circulation. Currently, geomagnetic activity has decreased and the Atlantic jet current is descending southward. This will pull the remnants of the hurricane over northeastern Canada and possibly bring heavy snowfall to Greenland.
    At the same time, very cold air from the north will again flow over Europe. Early snowfall in Europe is possible.
    https://i.ibb.co/nMR2kmS/pobrane.png

  58. Ireneusz Palmowski

    There is a lot of talk about melting glaciers in Greenland forgetting about geothermal heat.
    “Geothermal heat flow in several regions – notably central East Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula – is routinely doubled in glacial valleys and correspondingly halved along ridges.”
    https://promice.org/2021/01/29/study-presents-new-view-on-geothermal-heat-flow-in-greenland-and-antarctica/

  59. Hi guys, Seriously I don’t know why So many people hesitate to try this, This is purely a great chance to earn money in such a pandemic . I work two shifts, 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening…And I get a check of $12600. What’s awesome is I’m working from home so I get more time with my kids. For more info Visit…..PayBuzz6.cf

  60. But cancel culture:

    https://xkcd.com/1732/

    • This will not age well, just like all of the AGW hypothesis/narrative. I see the northwest passage mentioned, but in 2021, “Ice Persists in the Northwest Passage”.

      “Since about 2006, the Northwest Passage has become navigable for a short period late in most summers. So far this year, that hasn’t quite happened.”
      https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148802/ice-persists-in-the-northwest-passage

      “Arctic sea ice extent declined more slowly during August 2021 than most years in the past decade, and as a result, this year’s September minimum extent will likely be among the highest since 2007.”
      http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

      • Ireneusz Palmowski

        In fact, the increase in Arctic temperatures during the winter season means that the planet is cooling because it means that warm air from the south with water vapor content is breaking through the polar vortex and radiating heat energy into the stratosphere and into space. This is because during the winter season, the stratosphere inside the polar vortex sinks very close to the surface.
        http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2021.png
        https://i.ibb.co/xFkcxJ7/zt-sh.gif

      • Cherry-picking on steroids.

        The pace of ice loss for the month was much slower than in recent years but still near the average pace for the reference period of 1981 to 2010, leading to the tenth lowest August of the satellite data record. Through 2021, the linear rate of decline for monthly mean August sea ice extent is 10.4 percent per decade (Figure 3). This corresponds to 75,000 square kilometers (29,000 square miles) per year. The cumulative August ice loss over the 43-year satellite record is 3.15 million square kilometers (1.22 million square miles), based on the difference in linear trend values in 2021 and 1979. The loss of ice since 1979 in August is equivalent to about twice the size of the state of Alaska.

  61. Cancel Culture at work ??

    During the last 4 months I submitted my paper “Net Zero threatens Sustainable Development Goals” to a number of the main Scientific Journals
    see https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com

    The original title was “CO2,Solar Activity and Temperature. Population and Sustainable Development”
    Here are some rejection responses :

    12th August 2021

    Dear Dr Page,

    Thank you for submitting your Article entitled “CO2,Solar Activity and Temperature. Population and Sustainable Development” to ………………. Regretfully, we cannot offer to consider it for publication.

    We receive many more papers than we can publish, which means we must decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. Decisions of this kind are made by the editorial staff when it appears that, even if certified as being technically correct during peer review, there would not be a strong case for publication in …………………….Among the considerations that arise at this stage are the immediacy of interest for the wider climate research community, the degree of advance provided, and the like.

    I am sorry that we cannot respond more positively, and I hope that you will understand that our decision in no way reflects any doubts about the quality of the work reported. I hope that you will rapidly receive a more favorable response elsewhere.

    Yours sincerely,

    My response was :

    Dear …;
    Re my article “CO2,Solar Activity and Temperature. Population and Sustainable Development” you say : “Among the considerations that arise at this stage are the immediacy of interest for the wider climate research community, the degree of advance provided, and the like.”
    You cannot possibly believe with COP26 upon us, that this manuscript lacks immediacy of interest. The possible degree of advance is enormous because the article shows that global temperature is controlled by a natural millennial cycle and not by CO2 and that earth passed the peak of the most recent such cycle early in the current century. I believe that the reputation of science as a whole and ……….. in particular would be enhanced by peer review of the article by …………. and ensuing open discussion of the questions which it raises. It is unfortunate that the all major Journals have acted mainly as gatekeepers of the establishment consensus climate science as opposed to encouraging the free exchange of ideas. Since you also say ” the decision in no way reflects any doubts about the quality of the work reported” I urge you to reconsider your decision and at least send the manuscript for peer review and see what the reviewers recommend.
    Best Regards Norman Page

    A different editor replied:

    Dear Dr Page,

    Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled, “CO2, Solar Activity and Temperature Population and Sustainable Development”.

    As you may know, we decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. We appreciate your study, but the decision on whether to move forward is dependent on a variety of factors, including editorial capacity and current journal priorities. While the topic you cover is certainly of interest, it is not one that we can pursue at this time as we are quite pressed for space and must therefore make very difficult decisions. Although we can’t be more positive on this occasion, we thank you for your interest in ……….

    Please be assured that this editorial decision does not represent a criticism of the quality of your work, nor are we questioning its value to others working in this area. We hope that you will rapidly receive a more favorable response elsewhere.

    I am sorry that we cannot respond more positively on this occasion, and hope that the negative outcome in this instance will not deter you from submitting future work to ……………..

    Kind regards,

    Here is another rejection from a different journal

    24-Jul-2021

    Dear Dr. Page:

    I write you in regards to manuscript # ……….. entitled “CO2,Solar Activity Cycles and Temperature Forecasts.
    Population and Sustainable Development” which you submitted to
    After careful evaluation of your manuscript and the previous studies in the field of research area, I regret to inform you that I do not find your manuscript suitable for publication in ………………. because it does not meet the novelty and impact requirements of the journal. There should be some solid theoretical evidence provided to support your proposed idea was a better method which should lead to some scientifically significant results. In addition, regional/local case studies and mathematical articles are not recommended in …………………….
    Please note that will not consider a resubmitted version of the rejected manuscript.

    Thank you again for your interest in………………. and we are sorry that your submission was unsuccessful on this occasion.

    Sincerely,

    The paper is based on empirical data therefore the reply is irrelevant to the paper. The rejection letter was received 3 days after they got it. I doubt anyone read beyond the Abstract

    And one more again received after 3 days:

    Apr 21, 2021, 8:41 AM

    21st April 2021

    Dear Dr Page,

    Thank you for submitting your manuscript, which we are regretfully unable to offer to publish.

    It is………………………policy to decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. Decisions of this kind are made by the editorial staff when it appears that papers are unlikely to succeed in the competition for limited space.

    In the present case, while your findings may well prove stimulating to others’ thinking about such questions, I regret that we are unable to conclude that the work provides the sort of advance in understanding that would warrant publication in …………………..We therefore feel that the paper would find a more suitable outlet in a specialist journal.

    I am sorry that we cannot respond more positively on this occasion, but I hope that you will rapidly receive a more favorable response elsewhere.

    Yours sincerely,

    So I just put the Paper out on my website where the Facebook and Google algorithms will downrate anything that too obviously questions the Consensus. That’s life these days. Share the Link.

    • Mr. Page
      Thanks for the link.
      Your paper was very interesting.
      Real science always is.
      I recommend it to others here.

      I don’t waste my time any more with so called “studies”
      based on computer models, that lead to always wrong
      predictions of a horrible future climate. As if the future
      climate can only get worse.

      Maybe to get your paper past pal review —
      start the abstract by predicting a climate
      disaster in 15.6 years. That decimal point
      with impress fellow scientists.

      Lots of science paper abstracts
      don’t honestly summarize
      the related study.

      The pal reviewers will get so excited
      by a prediction of a climate disaster,
      that they will not bother reading the
      paper, thinking that you are a fellow
      Climate alarmist. It could work.

  62. We can continue to make significant changes to an Earth system capable of large and rapid responses. Or we can recognise the risk and respond accordingly. Contrarians may imagine there is no risk. I disagree. So do most of the people on the planet. Nor do I think that AGW is much more than 0.3 K – most of that in the past 40 years.

    The climate blogosphere is not representative of the world at large. Both sides claim the imprimatur of objective science. At some risk to science itself. But it is overwhelmingly BS. Climate factoids presented with no adequate theoretical context and with impossibly exaggerated certainty.

    Pragmatically there are two paths to the future. A socialist transformation of economies and communities. That requires – as far as I can make out – tales of catastrophe. Arguing science factoids with them is playing the game by their rules. Destined to fail – despite protestations of being cancelled. No one cares except those doing the victim protests. Or we can build prosperous communities in vibrant landscapes.

  63. how about they look at the study of 400,000 years of Vostok ice core data which proves that higher CO2 FOLLOWS warming and not as the commie, al gore, said and got that award for?

  64. Only about 25% of the recent increase in CO2 was from human activity according to Dr Ed Berry’s preprint 3 at https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/preprint3. Berry’s findings are consistent with mine at https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com

  65. There is a rise in CO2 concentrations in the modern era well in excess of levels in past interstadials. Coincident with increased human emissions.

    Suppose we have a bathtub that’s half full. It has been filling and emptying at more or less the same rate for millions of years. Then we turn up the tap. What do you think happens? I think that overthinking a simple problem is a sign that you are on the wrong track.

    • Ireneusz Palmowski

      CO2 still remains a trace gas dependent on natural variability and seasonal changes.
      https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/patterson/loc=60.042,-78.349

      • Ireneusz Palmowski

        Let’s look at southeastern China. When the typhoon gets there soon – CO2 levels there are now 392 ppmv at the surface (100 ppm/ppmv means 100 parts in 1,000,000 parts, or 0.01%) – CO2 levels over China will continue to fall.

      • Factoids with no theoretical context and expressed with dogmatic certainly. Even if it were not – Ireneusz is not about to convince the crucial middle ground.

    • I’ve recently argued with several climate change skeptics that there IS a greenhouse effect, CO2 IS part of it, and there is no other explanation for the increase of CO2 from approximately 300 ppm to 400ppm, other than fossil fuel emissions.

      Failing to change their minds on basic climate science, I can’t them to pay attention to my primary points:

      (1) We have lived with global warming for the past 45 years.
      It has been mild and harmless.

      (2) Many people have enjoyed the warming, because the locations with the most warming (colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere), and the timing of the warming (mainly during the six coldest months of the year, and mainly at night), are good news for many people.

      (3) If a similar pattern of warming continues for the next 45 years, that would not be an emergency, or a crisis, or even a problem. Considering the greening of the planet from more CO2 in the atmosphere, I believe more CO2 and more warming would be more good news.

      Money and labor should be directed away from unstoppable climate change, to real environmental problems, such as air pollution over Asian cities, one billion people in poverty with no electricity, and developing safe modular nuclear reactors.

  66. Ireneusz Palmowski

    The distribution of surface CO2 of the winter season in the northern hemisphere is quite different. You can see how vegetation blooms in the southern oceans.
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/01/03/0000Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/patterson=0.00,0.00,208

  67. UK-Weather Lass

    If Earth is getting warmer then what is warming it?

    Is it possible that the industry of 7bn human beings occupying a very small surface area of Earth in mostly densely populated cities is capable of warming the vast planetary expanse of water it does not occupy simply because we are here in greater numbers than we understand were ever present before?

    The fossil fuel generated CO2 argument is seductive only because we do not seem to be interested in finding ANY other explanation. Instead ‘we’ have been conceited enough to state ‘we’ know what ‘we’ have done after generations of knowing what ‘we’ are doing because ‘we’ have been clever enough to do it when all along ’we’ had no idea what ‘we’ were doing … until today.

    What is new and has never happened before (as far as we know) is we have started to keep more and more data and information and studies; we can access and store it on computers which can also help us play around with stuff; we believe we have a ‘better educated population’; we are able to claim instant fame and make money out of researching proof of how clever we are because we know that we are causing the climate to change!

    How many times have ‘we’ been in this place before thinking ‘we’ know enough of something to relate it to a planet that ‘we’ have lived on for a very tiny part of that planet’s lifetime?

    Just how many times have we been wrong about something/everything before? …

  68. To UK Lass – From Liverpool Lad
    Judith says under the 15 minutes thread “We need to recognize that how the climate of the 21st century will play out is a topic of deep uncertainty. Once natural climate variability is accounted for, it may turn out to be relatively benign. Or we may be faced with unanticipated surprises. ……..Climate change is better characterized as a wicked mess. A wicked problem is complex with dimensions that are difficult to define and changing with time. ”

    The uncertainty arises because the sample lengths in the IPCC reported model studies are too short. The models retrofit from the present back for only 100 – 150 years when the currently most important climate controlling, largest amplitude, “solar activity” cycle is millennial. The relevant system for comparison should include the entire Holocene.
    Most importantly the models make the fundamental error of ignoring the very probable long- term decline in solar activity and temperature following the Millennial Solar Activity Turning Point and activity peak which was reached in 1990/91 as shown in Figure 5. in my paper ” Net Zero threatens Sustainable Development Goals” see the Fig 5 at
    https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com

    • “ The uncertainty arises because the sample lengths in the IPCC reported model studies are too short.”

      Agreed. There is ample evidence of significant climate change over thousands of years. Inferences from a microscopic slice of time are worthless.

  69. Cancel culture at work and riding high

    High Courts usually give 100 days to let the steam blow off an issue and release their findings on a Friday.
    Look out for a result at the end of the month.
    If only there were still judges of integrity the University action would be thrown out holus bolus.

    “A lot rides on the case of Ridd v JCU, which was heard last Wednesday, June 23, 2021, in the High Court of Australia.

    The case is to determine whether an academic can criticise other academics at the same institution for their academic work without breaching the university’s Code of Conduct and being liable to be sacked.

    If Ridd loses, then, without remedial action by the government, academics become mere cyphers of their universities, unable to strenuously critique the work of their colleagues. Instead of fearless seekers after the truth, their role will be as little more than publicists for their respective institutions, and whatever work is produced by their colleagues, good, bad, or indifferent.

    The ills arising from this are not trivial. If Ridd is correct that significant portions of the research on the Great Barrier Reef done by James Cook University researchers is sloppy, and not objective, then JCU is playing a central role in efforts by UNESCO, and perhaps even the Chinese government, to destroy the reputation of the reef by listing it as endangered.”

    Worth an article on its own , Judith.
    Comments from the Spectator