The Next Environmental Crisis

Posted on November 11, 2021 by | 298 Comments

by Judith Curry

Are our current solutions only a short term fix?

On Monday November 15, I will be participating in an iaiLIVE debate on The Next Environmental Crisis. From the iai website:

The new clean energy economy, endorsed by governments and campaigners, promises to save usfrom environmental disaster. But worries are growing that we could be heading to a new future crisis.  In decades to come some argue we will be struggling to contain the huge environmental damage caused by billions of highly toxic and unrecyclable solar cells and car batteries, along with newly commissioned nuclear plants, while the internet itself, bitcoin mining included, consumes uncontrollable amounts of energy.

Are the problems of the environment even more challenging than we think? Will the new economy save us, or are the current technical solutions a short term fix? Is relentless consumption and growth itself to blame for our environmental issues?  Or can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve the next crisis that we may be in the process of causing now? 

Cosmologist, astrophysicist, and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, award winning economist and Professor of Environmental Economics Thomas Sterner, and controversial climatologist Judith Curry join us to ask if we’re heading towards a new environmental crisis.

This should be a very interesting event. Each of the panelists has been asked to respond to the following questions

Will the new, green energy economy ushered in by governments save us from environmental disaster?

  1. Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?
  2. Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?
  3. Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind?

A draft of my responses is appended below:

Will the new, green energy economy ushered in by governments save us from environmental disaster?

For the past century, fossil fuels have been the backbone of our energy and transportation systems, providing the engine for our ever-increasing prosperity.

Even without the mandate associated with global warming and other environmental issues, we would expect a natural transition away from fossil fuels over the course of the 21st century, as they become more expensive to extract and continue to contribute to geopolitical instability.

The problem is with the urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels, driven by fears about global warming.  By rapidly transitioning to this so-called clean energy economy, we’re taking a big step backwards in human development and prosperity. Nations are coming to grips with their growing over dependence on wind and solar energy.  Concerns about not meeting electricity needs this winter are resulting in a near term reliance on coal in Europe and Asia. And we ignore the environmental impacts of mining and toxic waste from solar panels and batteries, and the destruction of raptors by wind turbines.

To thrive in the 21st century, the world will need much more energy. Of course we prefer our energy to be clean, as well as cheap.  To get there, we need new technologies.  The most promising right now is small modular nuclear reactors.  But there are also exciting advances in geothermal, hydrogen and others. And the technology landscape will look different even 10 years from now. 

For the past two decades, people have equated environmental disaster with manmade global warming.  We’ve been hearing about the climate crisis, climate catastrophe, existential threat and most recently a code red for humanity.  Note that the IPCC itself does not use the words ‘crisis’, ‘catastrophe’, or even ‘dangerous’; rather it uses the term ‘reasons for concern.’ Apart from the scientific uncertainties, the weakest part of the UN’s argument about manmade global warming is that it is dangerous. The link to danger relies on linking warming to extreme weather events, which is a tenous link at best.

I have an old-fashioned view of environmental problems, focused on pollution of air, water, soils and the oceans, and also on land use that destroys habitats and diminishes species diversity.

In 50 years time, we may be looking back on the UN climate policies, and this so-called green economy, as using chemotherapy to try to cure a head cold, all the while ignoring more serious diseases.   In other words, the climate crisis narrative gets in the way of real solutions to our societal and environmental problems.

Theme 1: Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?

In 2018, World Health Organization stated that “Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.”  From the perspective of 2021, after almost two years of fighting Covid with over 5 million deaths, this statement seems unfortunate at best.  We should be asking the question as to whether the WHO’s focus on climate change contributed to the world being ill prepared for Covid-19.

Climate change is just one of many potential threats facing our world today, a point made clear by the Covid-19 pandemic. Why should climate change be prioritized over other threats? There’s a wide range of threats that we could face in the 21st century: Carrington events are solar electromagnetic storms that would take out all space-based electronics including GPS and electricity transmission lines; future pandemics; global financial collapse; a mega volcanic eruption; a cascade of mistakes that triggers a thermonuclear, biochemical or cyber war; the rise of terrorism.  It’s almost certain that we will be surprised by threats that we haven’t even imagined yet.  Vast sums spent on attempting to prevent climate change come from the same funds that effectively hold our insurance against all threats; this focus on climate change could overall increase our vulnerability to other threats.

So, how do we prioritize among the threats facing humanity?  For the most part, we can’t.  The best insurance against any and all of these threats is to try to understand them, while increasing the overall resilience of our societies.  Prosperity is the best the indicator of resilience.  Resilient societies that learn from previous threats are best prepared to be anti-fragile and respond to whatever threats the future holds.

Theme 2: Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?  

I’m not sure what our current predicament actually is, other than the one manufactured by the global politics surrounding climate change.   More prosperous societies overall have a smaller impact on their environment than countries that engage in whole-scale exploitation of their environment just to survive.  

Environmental problems have been defined as problems of population growth.  Population increase has been enabled by technological and medical advancements.  In the early 21st century, population is growing most rapidly in less developed countries, while Japan and many countries in western Europe having fertility rates that are well below replacement.  Apart from changes in population, as countries develop, their consumption increases.   

Developing countries don’t just want to survive, they want to thrive. We need much more electricity, not less.  Going on an energy diet like we did in the 1970’s is off the table.  We need more electricity to support innovation and thrivability in the 21st century.   Consumption and growth will continue to increase throughout the 21st century.  We need to accept this premise, and then figure out how we can manage this growth while protecting our environment.  
 
 Theme 3: Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind?

Humans are the most adaptable species that has ever existed on Planet Earth, a species so sophisticated that it can survive in outer space.  The planet has been warming for more than a century.  So far, the world has done a decent job at adapting to this change.  The yields for many crops have doubled or even quadruped since 1960. Over the past century, the number of deaths per million people from weather and climate catastrophes have dropped by 97%. Losses from global weather disasters as a percent of GDP have declined over the past 30 years.

It’s an enormous challenge to minimize the environmental impact on the planet of 8 billion people.  I have no question that human ingenuity is up to the task of better providing for the needs and wants of Earth’s human inhabitants, while supporting habitats and species diversity.  But this issue is the major challenge for the next millennium.  It’s a complex challenge that extends well beyond understanding the Earth system and developing new technologies – it also includes governance and social values.

To make progress on this, we need to disabuse ourselves of the hubris that we can control the Earth’s climate and prevent extreme weather events.  The urgency of transitioning from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy under the auspices of the UN agreements has sucked the oxygen from the room. There’s no space left for imagining what our 21st century infrastructure could look like, with new technologies and greater resilience to extreme weather events, or even to deal with traditional environmental problems.

Under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we’ve oversimplified a very complex problem. The causes of climate variability and change are complex, and any predictions of 21st century climate change are associated with deep uncertainty. We stand to make the overall situation worse with the simplistic solution of urgently replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar, which will have a barely noticeable impact on the climate of the 21st century.

Humans do have the ability to solve future crises of this kind.  However, they also have the capacity to make things much worse by oversimplifying complex environmental issues and politicizing the science, which can lead to maladaptation and poor policy choices.

JC note: You need to register (and pay) to hear this live. I understand that a youtube will be prepared of the highlights, and the full recording will eventually be made available on the iaiLive website.

I look forward to your comments on my remarks.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

298 responses to “The Next Environmental Crisis”

  1. Curious George | November 11, 2021 at 8:34 pm |

    I wonder if all the gloomy projections are based on models. Thanks to Mr. David Appell, I discovered that even the latest CAM5.0 model assumes a constant latent heat of vaporization of water, which overestimates the transfer of energy by evaporation from tropical seas by 3%. That model is included in CMIP6, and apparently produces projections as good as any other model. That does not really instill confidence in CMIP6.

    • davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 9:38 pm |

      As discussed earlier, your error analysis is wrong, and in any case you’re blowing in the wind, because climate models get the right answer:

      “We find that climate models published over the past five decades were skillful [14 of 17 projections] in predicting subsequent GMST changes, with most models examined showing warming consistent with observations, particularly when mismatches between model‐projected and observationally estimated forcings were taken into account.”

      “Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections,” Hausfather et al, Geo Res Lett 2019.
      https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085378

      figure:
      https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1202271427807678464?lang=en

      • Keith Harrison | November 11, 2021 at 9:50 pm |

        John Christy has charted weather balloon and satellite observations in comparison with model predictions for over a 40 year period. Model prediction are way off the chart while the observations closely mirror the other. Models are not great predictors of the future all they can be useful if appropriately conceived and judged to test “what if” specific scenarios to test a hypothesis. Predictions of the future by these inadequate and highly tuned and CO2 biased mathematical concoctions have led the world and its politicians to take highly suspect and unscientific policies which lead to the current energy crises currently being exeperience, and to be perpetually repeated thanks to these poorly conceived policies promoted ” science” of so many scientists who are more politician than scientific professionals interested in facts not political fiction.

      • davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 11:09 pm |

        Keith, John Christy lumps all climate models together without regard to their various areas of specialization or degrees of computation, so that graph he produced is scientifically meaningless, which is why he never submitted it to a peer reviewed journal.

      • Keith Harrison | November 12, 2021 at 9:20 am |

        DA, Ever the apologist for climate models, their errant predictions, and your predilections. As for climate science John Christy outshines your warped view.

      • Richard Greene | November 11, 2021 at 11:50 pm |

        Are you the original Mr. Apple,
        or a clone?
        The climate alarmism is the same.

        We’ve lived with ACTUAL global warming
        for the past 45 years/
        It was mild and harmless warming.
        Most affected colder areas of the N.H.
        Mainly during the six coldest months of the year.
        Mainly at night.
        That is climate change reality.
        Pleasant for many people.

        You live in the fantasy world where
        a climate crisis is always coming,
        but never shows up.

        I have found that children
        who loved scary storied
        grow up, and like to tell scary stories.
        That’s what you do
        Climate fear porn !
        Do as I say, or everyone will die !

      • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 2:35 am |

        David, Climate Models are all over the place, clearly, after the fact, you can go back and pick one that had the best fit, you have correlation but you cannot and have not proved causation.

        As to peer reviewed journals, the people who publish in peer review journals about climate are a clique who, you approve my paper and I will approve your paper and we will not approve any who disagree or who are not inside the clique. I know a couple people whose paper was rejected, then they spelled their names backwards and resubmitted the same paper. It was published and received high praise.

        Peer Reviewed Consensus Proves there is no Science in Climate Science. Real Science is always skeptical and is always listening and discussing and debating the actual data and facts.

        Climate Science reached a peer reviewed consensus before it became climate science and they have followed the alarmist script. No actual thinking is required of them, the script was already written. Their main science, real science, is the science of scarring people so they can be taxed and controlled. Huge amounts of money keep the consensus group inside the 97%. It is only 97% and not 100% because it takes time to kick someone out who disagrees.

      • stevenreincarnated | November 12, 2021 at 8:51 am |

        David, how can you have a model with a climate sensitivity of 1.5C and another with a climate sensitivity of 4.5C both get the right answer and still claim success? It would be much more convincing if only a few of the models got the right answer and their climate sensitivities were closely grouped.

      • John M | November 12, 2021 at 9:38 am |

        Not even the old reliable alarmists agree with the claim that climate models are “getting it right” as claimed by Appell. (As I understand it, the Hausfather article uses slight of hand by NOT using the more complex general circulation models that the IPCC based it’s original projections on & that they continue to use today in their projection-based scenarios [and that have been exaggerating warming when compared to observations since CMIP5—CMIP6 models exacerbate the overheating]. Instead of GCMs, he used energy-balance models to make it appear that the models have been accurate in their projections, not the actual models used by the IPCC for their projections/scenarios.)

        When the alarmists finally climb on board with those scientists that have been pointing out the problem for several years (it’s been quite obvious), you know the models are seriously out of wack.

        Here’s some bullet points for the takeaways in a recent Science magazine article:

        “U.N. climate panel confronts implausibly hot forecasts of future warming” (Science, 27 July 2021):
        [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/un-climate-panel-confronts-implausibly-hot-forecasts-future-warming, retrieved 9 Aug 2021]

        Some Take-aways:

        ◍ “The climate models that help [scientists] project the future have grown a little too alarmist. Many of the world’s leading models are now projecting warming rates that most scientists, including the modelmakers themselves, believe are implausibly fast . In advance of the U.N. report, scientists have scrambled to understand what went wrong and how to turn the models, which in other respects are more powerful and trustworthy than their predecessors, into useful guidance for policymakers. “It’s become clear over the last year or so that we can’t avoid this,” says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.” …

        ◍ « The models were also out of step with records of past climate. For example, scientists used the new model from NCAR to simulate the coldest point of the most recent ice age, 20,000 years ago. Extensive paleoclimate records suggest Earth cooled nearly 6°C compared with preindustrial times, but the model, fed with low ice age CO2 levels, had temperatures plummeting by nearly twice that much , suggesting it was far too sensitive to the ups and downs of CO2. “That is clearly outside the range of what the geological data indicate,” says Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the work, which appeared in Geophysical Research Letters. “It’s totally out there.” » …

        ◍ “For now, policymakers and other researchers need to avoid putting too much stock in the unconstrained extreme warming the latest models predict , says Claudia Tebaldi, a climate scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and one of the leaders of CMIP’s climate projections. Getting that message out will be a challenge.”

        ◍ “Already scientific papers are appearing using CMIP’s unconstrained worst-case scenarios for 2100, adding fire to what are already well-justified fears. But that practice needs to change, Schmidt says. ‘You end up with numbers for even the near-term that are insanely scary—and wrong.’”

        ⋙ [HINT: Your CO2 models are far too sensitive to CO2 & ignore natural variability.]

      • George Turner | November 12, 2021 at 4:25 pm |

        ‘This code generates 20 models that predict the current temperature rise ‘to within 0.1 degrees, for any observed temperature change from -2 C to ‘8 C. The 20 models that gave the exact answer being sought can then ‘be cherry-picked for press releases.

        modelNumber = 0
        for deltaT = -2 to 8 step 0.1
        for i = 1 to 20
        modelPrediction(modelNumber) = Temp1970 + deltaT
        modelNumber = modelNumber + 1
        next i
        next deltaT

        Notice how much computation time I saved, getting the right answer, without even using fudge factors, by not pretending that it’s okay to ignore lots of known and unknown factors, not worrying if the mesh was sufficiently fine grained, not worrying about Coriolis forces, cloud feedbacks, ocean heat transport, and upper-level aerosols.

        It’s a more direct approach that does the same thing as most of the big models. To beat it, a modeler would have to show why each element of their model is physically accurate, and that they haven’t omitted other significant factors. Basically, that they haven’t used my algorithm but with 50,000 lines of extra code. That’s where things get sticky.

        Maybe I’m just cynical.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) | November 19, 2021 at 8:27 pm |

        stevenreincarnated wrote:
        David, how can you have a model with a climate sensitivity of 1.5C and another with a climate sensitivity of 4.5C both get the right answer and still claim success?

        Did you read what I wrote? All climate models aren’t created equal. Many specialize in subareas, and Christy is wrong to lump them all together.

        That’s why he has never published his graph in a peer reviewed journal. Why have you never asked yourself this question?

        Beyond this, there are certainly uncertainties involves with top-shelf climate model results. That’s simply the state of the science. It’s how life is. It can’t be avoided.

        So what?

        Scientists are being honest about what their models can do. And here you seem to be criticizing them for that. Why?

        ======

        I’m no longer permitted to log in with an account that emails me comments, so it’s likely I will never see responses to this comment. Thanks Judith, for blocking me yet again.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) | November 19, 2021 at 8:34 pm |

        John M wrote:
        (As I understand it, the Hausfather article uses slight of hand by NOT using the more complex general circulation models that the IPCC based it’s original projections on & that they continue to use today in their projection-based scenarios [and that have been exaggerating warming when compared to observations since CMIP5—CMIP6 models exacerbate the overheating].

        LOL. So write a letter to the editor of the journal Hausfather et al’s paper was published in, instead of making snide and unverified claims on a blog comment nobody will read and that doesn’t matter.

        In other words, do some actual science.
        ==
        Emailed comments again blocked by Judith.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) | November 19, 2021 at 8:37 pm |

        I’m sorry, I’m done with this site until Judith unblocks me and treats me just as any other commenter. Until she deletes all the comments of those who insult me just as she says she blocks my comments which she says insult others — which are few and far between.

        Deniers always react like this when I post on their blogs — they can never handle anyone posting consensus science. Never. I always get piled on. I always eventually get blocked.

      • Keith Harrison | November 19, 2021 at 8:39 pm |

        Goodbye and Good Night!

      • stevenreincarnated | November 19, 2021 at 9:14 pm |

        Ali would be jealous of that dodging and weaving. All he is saying is once we adjust everything we can make almost anything fit. Now, he may not be saying that very clearly but my question that you avoided actually answering shows that to be exactly what he is saying.

      • CKid | November 19, 2021 at 10:02 pm |

        02

        You are hilarious. Nobody is censoring or blocking you. You’ve never said anything important so why should they.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) | November 19, 2021 at 10:43 pm |

        stevenreincarnated wrote:
        Ali would be jealous of that dodging and weaving. All he is saying is once we adjust everything we can make almost anything fit.

        A statement devoid of even the slightest details, therefore meaningless. Laughable.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) | November 19, 2021 at 10:52 pm |

        CKid wrote:
        Nobody is censoring or blocking you.

        You know nothing and have no way of knowing. None of my logins work anymore. If they do, I can’t be notified of comments — the “Notify me” box can’t be checked. That’s Judith. Don’t speak of what you don’t know.

      • CKid | November 20, 2021 at 5:06 am |

        02

        It sounds like your “I’m not paranoid box” doesn’t work either. It’s a quirk in the system. Several months ago I wasn’t able to see what I was typing in the comment box. I didn’t blame Judith. It was an error in the program.

      • Curious George | November 20, 2021 at 7:32 pm |

        DA: “All climate models aren’t created equal. Many specialize in subareas, and Christy is wrong to lump them all together.”

        Only CMIP6 is allowed to lump them all together.

    • RS | November 14, 2021 at 7:06 pm |

      Who in their right mind would credence models after noted alternative Covid medicine and salmon fishing guide Willis Eschenbach, showed that sea level rise is caused not by humans, but parrotfish.

      https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2021/11/covid-authority-blames-sea-level-rise.html

  2. Angela Le Mare | November 11, 2021 at 8:55 pm |

    Much food for thought here. It is good to read a ‘calm’, reasoned article on this subject.

    • Richard Greene | November 13, 2021 at 12:53 pm |

      Some items not yet mentioned in the comments:

      Computers “project” whatever the programmers tell them to project.
      The owners of the program decide what they want to tell the world.

      Wrong predictions do not seem to matter — they are never publicized, and only climate liars claim they are accurate. At least one comments frequently here.

      The predictions have not become more accurate over the past 40 years, evidence that accuracy does not matter.

      The one climate model that over predicts global warming by the least amount — the Russian IMN model — gets no special attention.
      It’s projections are buried within a group of several dozen models that over predict global warming by even more.

      An average of climate model predictions is one way to represent the consensus of climate scientists — the obviously wrong consensus on rapid dangerous global warming — that we are patiently waiting for.

      Climate change is nothing more than 64 consecutive years of always wrong predictions of a coming climate crisis … that never shows up — starting with oceanographer Roger Revelle in 1957.

      There have always been a few scientists predicting climate doom, but 1957 included Revelle and some other very serious scientists. By “serious”, I mean they made no scary predictions to the media, and admitted to being uncertain (that was science in the good old days)..

      The coming climate crisis is imagined, not real.
      EVERY environmental crisis predicted since the 1960s …
      never happened.

      The climate models, that I call “computer games, are designed to supplement the always wrong predictions of climate doom.

      40 years of consistently wrong predictions are not real science.
      Real science requires RIGHT predictions.
      And sometimes even they can be a lucky guess.

      The best way to refute Climate Liars
      is to ignore them and enjoy your life.
      In many nations a little warming has been
      good news. The mild, harmless warming
      since the mid-1970s was enjoyed here
      in Michigan USA, where I live.
      We’ll take more of that warming … please !

    • popesclimatetheory | November 15, 2021 at 12:21 am |

      Roger Revelle changed his mind, but too late, he got his student, Al Gore started on one of the most evil crusades that this country ever had, until they came up with Covid.

  3. Odysseus | November 11, 2021 at 9:14 pm |

    My God, rational argument, so rare and refreshing to find these days!

  4. Robert I. Ellison | November 11, 2021 at 9:20 pm |

    Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?

    – 65% loss of population in 1000’s of charismatic species in a few decades can’t be good. Not caused by climate change either.

    Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?

    Growth and relentless consumption are inevitable – unless poor wee willies AI economic overlord takes over.

    Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind?

    Entrepreneurs in free markets can solve anything.

  5. Keith Harrison | November 11, 2021 at 9:32 pm |

    Over at the GWPF Donna Laframboise has a relevant and revealing paper (https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2021/11/Laframboise-Pielke.pdf?mc_cid=5f514b9f6e&mc_eid=4961da7cb1) where MSM and scientists and politicians afraid of an alternate view attack a very reasonable and accomplished academic in Roger Pielke Jr.

    Here is a rational scientist who describes global warming issue to be delat with, and as such is ridiculed in such a disgraceful fashion simply for having differing views on climate and major weather events from the politicized scientists who are more PR sloths than scientists.

    Professor Pielke Jr is experiencing somewhat similar behaviour to that which you experienced as a dissenting academic, pushing you sooner to your commercial enterprise. Perhaps you can find some way to support this valuable voice in the climate discussion.

    • davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 11:12 pm |

      Keith, you realize Pielke Jr is a political scientist, right, and not a climate scientist? One who arrogantly takes pride in congratulating himself for being an “honest broker.” That’s not the attitude of a rational academic making rational arguments. Pielke Jr’s goal is to goad and provoke, not explain.

      • Keith Harrison | November 12, 2021 at 9:23 am |

        DA, Wrong again proving you did not read or cannot when studying his education and experience. Katherine Hayhoe, a favourite of yours and climate change promoters actually is a political scientist.

      • jungletrunks | November 12, 2021 at 9:24 am |

        And the local DA shouldn’t flout stacks of dog-eared bubble briefs while poking others for being ideological; such represents an ambulance chaser, not an honest broker.

      • jungletrunks | November 12, 2021 at 9:30 am |

        “…flaunt”, that is.

  6. davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 9:35 pm |

    Globally ban bitcoin mining. Bid for new bitcoin on a bitcoin market. Or ban bitcoin’s use and trade in as many countries as possible.

    • jacksmith4tx | November 11, 2021 at 10:55 pm |

      Blockchain is here to stay. I want to use blockchain to sell my excess solar production. What we should do is ban energy intensive POW (proof of work ie. bitcoin) and support the much more efficient POS (proof of stake) technology. https://www.powerledger.io/

      • davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 11:14 pm |

        Jack, I’m not talking about banning blockchain, which is indeed very useful. I’m talking about, as you write, banning ridiculous energy intensive algorithms like bitcoin’s for generating new bitcoin.

      • jeffnsails850 | November 12, 2021 at 8:12 am |

        “…banning ridiculous energy intensive algorithms….”

        You can’t ban your way into a less energy intensive Internet. And you certainly can’t do it by pulling the old progressive trick of saying the regs “affect everyone except you! You can can stream video on fifteen devices, we’re just going to go after the 1% who bitcoin mine!”

        You need to plan for a billion more people using the world wide web, for everything. The only reason you don’t is because climate campaigners’ ideas on electricity production are nonsense.
        So you plan for some authoritarian regime that will make solar panels “work” by obsessively monitoring and throttling people’s electricity use.

      • antonk2 | November 16, 2021 at 2:45 am |

        “…banning ridiculous energy intensive algorithms….”

        Like the > 20 “global” climate models that result in very different outcomes, non correct.

      • jacksmith4tx | November 16, 2021 at 9:22 am |

        We are going to need a lot of electricity to create the Metaverse for 7+ billion people too.

        More blah, blah, blah:
        https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/epa-national-recycling-strategy-circular-economy-environmental-justice/
        The recycling scam was exposed when China stopped taking our sh1t.

      • jeffnsails850 | November 16, 2021 at 9:42 am |

        All those young people campaigning for climate action have smart phones, unlimited data plans, and stream video and games with their wifi. I traveled to a central American country this year and was surprised by the quality and extensive availability of high speed wifi and cell data coverage. Banana pickers making $2/hour were looking at their smart phones.
        It makes sense when you think about it- if you don’t have telephone and cable television wires all over your nation, this is how you enter the 21st century overnight.

        Recycling is what can happen when you mandate something and then assume you’ve created a market. They can’t convince people to be cashiers for $20/hour in my town, much less sort your trash. So they paid China to sort it and all that plastic we “recycled” is now floating in the Pacific Ocean.

    • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 12:08 am |

      Good idea Mr. Apple.
      Crypto-currencies are a waste of electricity.

  8. Peter Lang | November 11, 2021 at 9:59 pm |

    JC, thanks for this excellent post. It’s been a long time coming.

    I am hoping COP26 will be a complete failure – A DISASTER!!!

  9. Norman J Page | November 11, 2021 at 10:00 pm |

    Here is the Abstract of my paper at
    http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2021/08/c02-solar-activity-and-temperature.html
    “Abstract

    This paper begins by reviewing the relationship between CO2 and Millennial temperature cycles. CO2 levels follow temperature changes. CO2 is the dependent variable and there is no calculable consistent relationship between the two. The uncertainties and wide range of out-comes of model calculations of climate radiative forcing arise from the improbable basic assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the major controller of global temperatures. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between the phases of cyclic processes of varying wavelengths and amplitudes. At all scales, including the scale of the solar planetary system, sub-sets of oscillating systems develop synchronous behaviors which then produce changing patterns of periodicities in time and space in the emergent data. Solar activity as represented by the Oulu cosmic ray count is here correlated with the Hadsst3 temperatures and is the main driver of global temperatures at Millennial scales. The Millennial pattern is projected forwards to 2037. Earth has just passed the peak of a Millennial cycle and will generally cool until 2680 – 2700. At the same time, and not merely coincidentally, the earth has now reached a new population peak which brought with it an associated covid pandemic, and global poverty and income disparity increases which threaten the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. During the last major influenza epidemic world population was 1.9 billion. It is now 7.8 billion+/. The establishment science “consensus” that a modelled future increase in CO2 levels and not this actual fourfold population increase is the main threat to human civilization is clearly untenable. The cost of the proposed rapid transition to non- fossil fuels would create an unnecessary, enormously expensive. obstacle in the way of the effort to attain a modern ecologically viable sustainable global economy. We must adapt to the most likely future changes and build back smarter when losses occur. ”

    The effect of C02 on temperature is immeasurably small. There is no CO2 caused climate crisis.

  10. Andrew Roman | November 11, 2021 at 10:07 pm |

    Has most mainstream climate science become political science?

    • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 1:10 am |

      Actually, climate science was never science.

      Those people used to be Meteorologists, climate science was introduced by the people promoting alarmist and their view of the science was already settled.

      They do not study ice ages, they never mention ice as playing any part in natural alternating climate cycles. They never do dynamic modeling of alternating warm and cold periods. Their Energy Balance Charts are always Static Energy Balance, with no energy storage in the oceans that can be carried to polar regions where energy there is changed to IR out by evaporation and conversion of water vapor to ice which is sequestered for use for cooling when the ice is pushed into the tropical saltwater current where it chills the water to below freezing and forms the sea ice.

      IR out in warmest times in polar regions does no immediate cooling.
      It forms ice which causes cooling in cold periods, hundreds or thousands of years later.

      • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 1:17 am |

        The absolute best Climate Scientists actually still call themselves Meteorologists, or just engineers or just people who have studied and understand.

        Some of them make really good long range forecasts because they really do understand natural climate change. Many do not speak out on climate but some write papers that explain what happens.
        They do not get attacked because they do not call it climate science but it is really the best.

  11. Donald Morton | November 11, 2021 at 10:35 pm |

    A major uncertainty in all the climate projections is the fraction due natural causes along with non-greenhouse effects such as changes in land use. We could spend all our resources trying to replace the burning of fossil fuels and still have have significant global warming.

    • davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 11:16 pm |

      Donald, the science says all of global warming is anthropogenic, with about 90% from fossil fuels and 10% from land use changes.

      In fact, about 110% of warming is anthropogenic — because there is cooling from anthropogenic aerosols.

      • Richard Greene | November 11, 2021 at 11:53 pm |

        The IPCC asserts whatever percentage it wants to.
        Real science proves no such percentage. is known.
        You are misinforming people with your climate alarmist
        visions of doom.

      • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 12:04 am |

        The author says: “Climate change is just one of many threats facing our world today, a point made clear by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

        The author fails to explain why climate change is a threat.

        We have had 45 years of mild, harmless global warming.

        Another 45 years of similar warming would be mild and harmless.

        The author has no evidence that future imagined global warming will be a threat, while past real global warming was not.

        The author’s beliefs are not based on experience with global warming.

        The author mat not think so, but she is a climate alarmist.

        Actual global warming and atmospheric enrichment with CO2 in the past 45 years has been good news. Predictions that future climate change will be different, is a threat, is speculation, not science.

      • B A Hedman | November 12, 2021 at 2:19 am |

        David, where did all natural climate change go? If, before the 1960s, all climate change were natural, and suddenly now 100% is man made. What made the natural climate change dissapear, according to you? The annual man made contribution re CO2 is 4-5%. By the way, there is no such thing as “The Science”.

      • CKid | November 12, 2021 at 4:00 am |

        02

        “… with about 90% from fossil fuels and 10% from land use changes.”

        Then we have to ban the LIA, and while at it, send the hundreds of climate scientists who cite it in their work to a re-education camp. Sorry, 02, but some of the warming since 1800 was natural since that was when the GMSLR began, and for the last 40 years ban any reference to the AMO and PDO and ENSO.

      • thomaswfuller2 | November 12, 2021 at 10:23 am |

        That’s inaccurate, Mr. Appel. Lobbyists and NGOs say that 100% of warming is anthropogenic. 66% of scientists say that half or more of global warming is due to anthropogenic causes. See Verheggen et al 2013 or Bray, von Storch 2010. They both came up with the same percentage.

      • John M. | November 12, 2021 at 10:50 am |

        David Appel: “the science says all of global warming is anthropogenic.”

        That’s one of the most bizarre claims I’ve heard. The science says nothing of the sort (opinions aren’t science). There are plenty of peer reviewed articles pointing to natural variability as a major player, including the fact that GCMs, when compared to observations both past and present, far overshoot temperature declines during the last Ice Age (turning the CO2 knob down & running the models produces reductions in temperatures in the models that are twice that of the paleoclimate record). Likewise, GCMs overshoot current observations based on their assumptions of CO2 sensitivity when the CO2 knob is turned in the opposite direction to project future scenarios in the modern period. The Russian model, with the lowest sensitivity of all CMIP5 models or close to it, is the only one that comes close to replicating observed temperatures during the modern period.

      • DCA | November 16, 2021 at 1:20 pm |

        Mr. Appell asserts with “the science says” as if it were a fact and not opinion. Anyone who thinks their opinion is fact doesn’t know the difference, must be a psychopath.

      • Max Beran | December 3, 2021 at 12:30 pm |

        Davidappello2 is right so long as he keeps that definite article in front of “science”. “The Science” refers here to the IPPCC remit which is to report on how man’s activities affect global temperature and to advise on what can be done about it. In the language of probability, its scientific content may be expressed in the form – given the truth of the theory (man’s activities are responsible for global warming), what then is the probability of the observations. The answer is of course massively high seeing as that is how, in accord with the IPCC remit, the observations are selected.

        This is where “the science” with the definite article differs from “science” without it and how the scientific method is conventionally understood. Proper “science” without the definite article poses its question the other way round – given the observations X what is the probability that the hypothesis Y is true? Probability can help here though thanks to Bayes’ formula which reverses the order of probability, in other words allows us to pass from Prob(X given Y) to Prob (Y given X). Doing so involves two other sets of probabilities – those arising from observations X that do not support the hypothesis and those arising from how observations may also be explained by alternative hypotheses. An obvious example of an extra X is that key poster children changes like temperature, sea level rise, glacier retreat preceded the rise of CO2. An equally obvious example of another Y is natural variability.

        The upshot is that Prob (Hypothesis given observations) is much much smaller that the Prob (Observations given Hypothesis). The IPCC approach goes under the moniker of the “Prosecutor Fallacy where high probability of the evidence given the culpability of the suspect is conflated with the probability of culpability given the evidence. Counterevidence and other suspects will play havoc with an initial supposition of guilt.
        . .

  12. angech | November 11, 2021 at 11:02 pm |

    Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?

    Humanity’s greatest threats.

    A broad canvas.
    We are here now so it is fair to assume that all previous greatest threats faced were overcome.
    Practically speaking there are an extremely large number of greatest threats to come that we are just not aware of, and many of them could eliminate humanity.
    It would be best then to limit such threats to ones we can conceive of and attach probabilities to them and management strategies only where we are able to manage them.
    No need to assign risk ratings as they are all “greatest threats” and as such rank by probability.

    I would put war, Nuclear war and artificial intelligence with mechanization at the forefront of the risks.
    Overpopulation can hardly be regarded as a risk to humanity.
    Plagues , viruses and pestilence as such are are fairly low down the list because we do have a lot of knowledge on how to cope and survive.
    Religion would rank moderately as a threat with war and conquest though the end result would be survival of humanity just not as we appreciate it. The exception here would be nuclear arm Armageddon by a religion or religions believing that the world [and humanity] should end.

    In general most problems are self solving especially the difficult ones though wicked problems do take a while longer. It just takes time.Humanity itself is not at great risk from any human induced crisis, environmental or otherwise.

    I do not think there is a predicament, only a situation with solutions.
    Humans do have ability to solve situations but also to create them. Humanity will generally get by regardless.

  13. davidappell02 | November 11, 2021 at 11:08 pm |

    Judith wrote:
    Climate change is just one of many threats facing our world today, a point made clear by the Covid-19 pandemic. Why should climate change be prioritized over other threats? There’s a wide range of threats that we could face in the 21st century….It’s almost certain that we will by surprised by threats that we haven’t even imagined yet.

    Because climate change is certain, at a known amount, if we burn a certain amount of fossil fuels. The threats that “we haven’t even imagined yet” aren’t at all certain, and if we can’t imagine them we can’t prepare for them anyway.

    Really, Judith, this is a very lame argument.

    • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 12:05 am |

      And you are an expert
      on l a m e arguments.

    • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 1:00 am |

      David, you wrote:
      Because climate change is certain, at a known amount, if we burn a certain amount of fossil fuels.

      Climate change disaster is only a prediction using computer models and the people writing the models have said they do not know why many of the past climate changes occurred.

      When it comes to understanding natural climate change, they have not even studied that, it is not that they do not know, they do not even suspect.

      The threats that “we haven’t even imagined yet” aren’t at all certain, and if we can’t imagine them we can’t prepare for them anyway.

      Out of a hundred threats that we haven’t imagined, we should look in history and prepare for what has happened in the most recent ten thousand years, and adapt to what does happen.

      Much of the Gulf Coast of Texas was trying to evacuate for Hurricane Rita, the evacuation attempts killed many more people than Rita.

      The green energy fixes for Climate change will clearly kill many more people than climate change. The February Freeze in Texas killed more people in a few days due to the Green Energy changes than climate change has caused, the proven deaths in Texas due to Climate change cannot be proved to be more than zero.

    • JMurphy | November 12, 2021 at 10:31 am |

      Agreed, very weak. What about asteroids, aliens, god’s return, etc. etc. All possible things which could happen (maybe) so let’s ignore climate change and give more money to fighting against them… Just in case.

    • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 10:02 pm |

      To Mr. “climate change is certain” Apple:

      5.5 billion years before the 1800s
      Global warming and global cooling
      — No man made CO2 to blame

      1910 to 1940
      global warming
      — CO2 level rose slightly

      1940 to 1975
      global cooling *especially before the arbitrary “adjustments” in past 40 years
      — CO2 level rose moderately

      1975 to 2021
      global warming
      — CO2 levels rose faster than from 1940 to 1975

      Which correlation is “correct”,
      Mr. Apple?

    • PJ Agle | November 12, 2021 at 11:28 pm |

      There are several problems with your argument:
      1. There is no evidence that global warming/climate change is on net bad. 40-45% of our food comes from fossil fuel CO2 and warming. There is no harm demonstrated that approaches that benefit in value. To reduce or limit CO2 is to risk future starvation. 500-520 PPM of CO2 will cause food production to increase another 60% over the current 410ish PPM CO2 production level. And that is predictable.

      2. The Antarctic had its coldest 6 month winter season in all of recorded history this year.

      3. Ceres data shows 2/3rds of 21st warming is cloud related.

      The “CO2 is a thermostat” meme has failed. I’m unaware of any global warming prediction that has been correct. The Greenland ice mass loss is far less than Hansen predicted. The USCRN shows the US if anything is cooling. The Arctic sea ice volume hasn’t changed in 10 years.

      Unless you can correctly predict some harm that equals the benefit of more CO2 it is pointless to do anything about rising CO2. Starving people just to virtual signal is unwise.

  14. popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 12:25 am |

    The new, green energy economy ushered in by governments has already caused MANMADE environmental disasters?

    In February, The Texas Freeze shut down power and water to much, or even most, of Texas. I was without power and water for about 4 days. Major Hospitals in Downtown Houston had no water service. Closing Reliable, low cost Coal Power Plants and replacing them with “so called” green energy and a too complicates, frail grid caused that disaster. A lot of people died as a result. The people who made the laws and rules that caused this are invested personally and otherwise and when the cost of power went up orders of magnitude, over a few days, some companies made billions and other companies went bankrupt. When there are disasters, each region needs to have adequate, power generated locally so that regions can operate independent. Large complicated grids with power coming from far away are going to fail, it is not a matter of if, it is just a matter of when and how often. Out domestic and foreign enemies and natural disasters, or even hackers can easily disrupt or hijack the grid. A major pipeline was shutdown by ransomware this year.

    Destroying vegetation on hills above places people live and work and grow food and other crops, with roads and structures to mount windmills and solar panels has already caused more flooding, which they blamed on Climate Change. Building codes require you provide water retention for the areas you prevent water retention. With massive wind and solar farms, it is not possible to protect anyone downhill from worse floods.

    They get away with it because the just say, “we told you there was going to be more floods with climate change”, but they knew that they destroyed the vegetation that used to hold the water.

    The new green energy ushered in by governments is pure EVIL.

    • davidappell02 | November 12, 2021 at 12:32 am |

      Of course, the claim that sustainable energy failures were responsible for the Texas power failure has been debunked MANY times by now. Many times.

      “No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages,” Texas Tribune, 2/16/21
      https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/

      • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 9:45 am |

        I will always defend Mr. Apple is right,
        which is not a lot of defending.

        The Texas energy infrastructure, even beyond electricity generation, was not prepared for, and did not operate properly. in unusually cold weather.

        That also happened in February 2011, with very little wind power at the time. It is very likely to happen again with unusually cold weather.

        Large investments in wind power, with nameplate capacity up about 8x since 2010, did not solve the problem.

        Investing in more fossil fuel powered electricity, instead of windmills, might have prevented the blackouts But based on rolling blackouts that affected 3.2 million Texans in 2010, that would be wishful thinking.

        Considering the EXPECTED low output from wind power in February in Texas, the actual wind power output averaged about two thirds of estimates, in spite of iced windmill blades (optional blade heaters were not purchased to save money).

        It is true that wind power was near zero for a few hours before the blackouts, but that happens once in a while with windmills.

        Unfortunately, back up fossil fuel power was not sufficient and Texans suffered.

        Windmills must have 100% fossil fueled backup, if and when required, even if only for an hour or two in a week. That back up power has to be available and working when needed — t was not sufficient in Texas, which also had unusually low spare capacity in their grid — about half the US average.

        The windmills did what they were designed to do.
        They are the least reliable sources of electricity,
        for an electric grid where reliability is the top requirement..

      • joe the non climate scientist | November 12, 2021 at 10:26 am |

        davidappell02 | November 12, 2021 at 12:32 am | Reply
        Of course, the claim that sustainable energy failures were responsible for the Texas power failure has been debunked MANY times by now. Many times.

        “No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages,” Texas Tribune, 2/16/21
        https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/

        Twice in 11 years, electric generation from fossil fuel failed for a 2-3 day period . Feb 15th 2021 lost approx 35% electric generating capacity for 36 hours.

        For a 9 day period Feb 12, 2021 until Feb 19, 2021, electric generation from wind and solar lost 60%-90% .

        70+% Loss of electric generation from wind and soloar happens 2-3 times a month (often for 2-3 days at a time).

        Mr. Appell – Is wind and solar the real solution

      • Barnes Moore | November 13, 2021 at 1:32 am |

        I think Alex Epstein said it best. “While wind turbines were only part of the problem, they were none of the solution”. A reliable grid must meet two basic requirements. 1. To provide baseload power that is always available to meet our basic energy demand. 2. To provide dispatchable energy when demand exceeds our basic needs. Wind and solar can’t meet either of these requirements.

      • ghl | December 3, 2021 at 8:48 am |

        Mr Appell
        The correct word is “denied”, not “debunked”.

    • davidappell02 | November 12, 2021 at 1:19 am |

      If all you see is environmental damage from green energy you sure aren’t looking very hard. Look at the toxic mess oil refining has made of the Texas coast. Look at how mountaintop removal has decimated hollows and streams in the Appalachians. Look at how groundwater has been ruined by fracking in many places. Look at how offshore drilling failures have polluted coastlines in the Gulf of Mexico, California, and Alaska. Fossil fuel pollution prematurely kills 1 in 5 people around the world, and ruins ecosystems, including of birds fossil fuel enthusiasts suddenly seem to care so much about now when they never did before. Global warming, ocean acidification, climate change, species extinction, etc. So spare us the sad songs.

      • B A Hedman | November 12, 2021 at 2:38 am |

        You really suffer from confirmation bias. You really have a one-sided view based on, what it seems, the corporate media. The oceans are alcaline. The global temperatures has risen about 1 degree since the 1880s. Coming from the LIA, it seems reasonable and has been good for crops and yield. Species extinction, the data from the paper released 2019 was from a small population in Africa and then negotiated. NEGOTIATED. Thats not science, not even close. etc. So spare us your drama and please, check the data.

      • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 2:57 am |

        Fossil fuel pollution prematurely kills 1 in 5 people around the world, and ruins ecosystems, – That is a totally made up number by the alarmist crowd to scare people. The particulates that are supposed to be causing this is not based on real science. Our EPA started out as a good thing, now it has evolved into an alarmist army led by the evil alarmists. It is necessary to scare people in order to tax and control them.

        Fossil fuel has raised the standard of living Billions of People. Fossil fuel has made it possible to feed Billions of People. I can believe a really huge battery bank could power a farm tractor for a few minutes pulling a plow

        Without fossil fuels, Billions will die, that is the actual goal of the population control faction.

      • joe the non climate scientist | November 12, 2021 at 10:16 am |

        popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 2:57 am |
        Fossil fuel pollution prematurely kills 1 in 5 people around the world, and ruins ecosystems, – That is a totally made up number by the alarmist crowd to scare people.

        Your response would be considered “arm waving ” with no data to support your rebuttal.

        Yet the claim that 1 in 5 deaths are due to fossil fuel polution with no data to support the claim is pure unadulterated science.

      • Mike Keller | November 12, 2021 at 11:52 am |

        Without fossil fuels, mankind would never have existed. Billions of people never born. Looks like the pluses of fossil fuels vastly outweigh the minuses.
        02, You really need to use common sense and stop with the hang-wringing emotional drivel.

      • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 6:22 pm |

        Fracking almost never has an effect on ground water. That is a myth.
        You are misinformed.

      • bigterguy | November 14, 2021 at 9:16 am |

        “Fossil fuel pollution prematurely kills 1 in 5 people around the world”

        That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens.

    • jacksmith4tx | November 12, 2021 at 8:16 am |

      popesciencetheory,
      >”When there are disasters, each region needs to have adequate, power generated locally so that regions can operate independent. Large complicated grids with power coming from far away are going to fail, it is not a matter of if, it is just a matter of when and how often. Out domestic and foreign enemies and natural disasters, or even hackers can easily disrupt or hijack the grid. A major pipeline was shutdown by ransomware this year.”

      I went through winter storm Uri too. Never lost power or water because I was on a segment of the grid that had filed the paperwork to notify ERCOT that we had critical infrastructure on it (cell phone towers, city water pumps). I never heard a reason why ERCOT didn’t use their wireless smart meters to control demand at the individual house level. They could have shed load to match production with short (4 hour) blackouts instead of shutting down huge parts of the grid for days. If we can’t trust the grid maybe we should take a look at microgrids?

      Here is a comprehensive analysis of the Texas grid during winter storm Uri published in July 2021.
      https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/51825_5_1138886.PDF

      By the way, How much of the increase in food production is due to draining our underground water aquifers? After the 2011 drought Texas used eminent domain to seize 16,641 acres and flooded it to create the new Bois d’Arc Lake because we lost a lot of surface water that year. Too bad they under estimated the population growth the last 10 years (The 2020 U.S. Census showed Texas continued to surge in population, growing to 29,145,505 souls, an increase of 4 million in 10 years and the largest number of any state. Oct 26, 2021)

  15. popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 12:38 am |

    Even without the mandate associated with global warming and other environmental issues, we would expect a natural transition away from fossil fuels over the course of the 21st century, as they become more expensive to extract and continue to contribute to geopolitical instability.

    What? Newer equipment, new techniques, new discoveries, have continually made fossil fuels cheaper to extract. Pipelines have made fossil fuels easier to transport.

    The transition to green energy is destroying that which has got better and better and better, orders of magnitude, and replacing it with totally unreliable junk that could not survive without subsides and tax credits while penalizing the fossil fuel industry.

    The King has not clothes on. Wake up, It is too late, but we can turn this around and reduce the bleeding.

    A large number of family and others I know, have bought their own generators for the first time. Where is the overall savings of that. A reliable coal plant, new coal plants burn clean and filter out the particulates and CO2 is NOT ANY KIND OF POLLUTION, IT ONLY CAUSES PLANTS TO GROW BETTER USING WATER MORE EFFICIENTLY. Wind and Solar Farms destroy vegetation, the roads and strictures destroy habitats that would otherwise be protected, cause flooding downhill from their locations because the loss of vegetation and adding of roads and structures.

    The transition to green energy is PURE EVIL!
    I have written that somewhere else, if you agree, echo the message.

    • davidappell02 | November 12, 2021 at 1:22 am |

      popesclimatetheory wrote:
      CO2 is NOT ANY KIND OF POLLUTION, IT ONLY CAUSES PLANTS TO GROW BETTER USING WATER MORE EFFICIENTLY.

      Seems not:

      “Our baseline model indicates that ACC [anthropogenic climate change] has reduced global agricultural TFP [total factor productivity] by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth. The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.”

      “Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth,” Ariel Ortiz-Bobea et al, Nature Climate Change, vol 11 pp 306–312 (2021).
      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 2:21 am |

        David

        It is behind a pay wall. It refers to weather having an impact but in the abstract makes no mention of CO2. It also reads that it has slowed growth not reversed it.

        tonyb

      • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 2:38 am |

        Satellite Data Shows the Earth Has Greened As CO2 Increased.

      • popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 2:40 am |

        Crop yields have improved in almost every major crop

      • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 7:08 am |

        Mr. Apple’s false claims are contradicted by over 3,000 studies of the positive effects of CO2 on plant growth, published over the past 50 years. Add to that: Positive experiences of greenhouse owners who invest their own money for CO2 enrichment systems inside their greenhouses. NASA satellites have also clearly measured the greening of our planet, as shown in their Vegetation Index and Leaf Area Index. Mr. Apple may want to learn more about the subject before cherry picking some minority opinion, non consensus study as his bible to The Truth.

        People like Mr. Apple who deny the obvious benefits of CO2 enrichment are only making themselves appear to be biased science deniers — anti-CO2 zealots.

        CO2 is the staff of almost all life on our planet. Not pollution. More CO2 in the atmosphere improves growth of plants used for food, with less water required too, which supports more life on our plant. Anyone who is anti-CO2 is anti-life. Not a person worth listening to.

  16. popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 12:44 am |

    We need to burn Coal to make Oil and Gas last longer, we use them for much more than just energy.

    This is all about power and money, leaders get very rich off of the subsidized schemes they pass laws and rules to promote. Leaders get very powerful when they scare the people to the point they will turn off their heat or air conditioning to save the planet.

    Frightened people will give up their freedom for protection.

    Someone said, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death. Patrick Henry, I think.

    • Dave Andrews | November 13, 2021 at 11:55 am |

      “We use them for much more than energy”

      For example petrochemicals provide the chemical building blocks for most medicinal drugs. Nearly 99% of pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents are derived from petrochemicals.

      Petrochemicals are also essential to medicine in other ways ; keeping medical equipment sterile, providing inexpensive disposable syringes, tubing and single use supplies to reduce the risk of infection, and producing implants and other advanced materials that can be used inside the body with lower risks of infection.

      Without petrochemicals our health services would be in very dire straits.

      • bigterguy | November 14, 2021 at 9:23 am |

        Coal can be substituted for petroleum for many things. SASOL (S. African Synthetic Oil Co) started in 1955 making liquid fuels from coal, and now makes hundreds of chemicals as well. Production from coal is less efficient and more expensive, but nevertheless technically viable and proven at massive scale. As oil becomes more expensive coal can make up the difference, and at some point becomes economically competitive, even favored.

    • jimmww | November 15, 2021 at 3:48 am |

      Actually, Pope, it’s now: Give me liberty or give me debt – your choice!

  17. popesclimatetheory | November 12, 2021 at 12:48 am |

    The current events are following the history of Germany in the 1930’s.

    Scare people, divide them, get them to tell on their neighbors, take away their guns. Promote Brown Shirt Groups to force their agendas and disrupt every one or group that could stop the madness.

    • bigterguy | November 14, 2021 at 9:24 am |

      The tactics of authoritarian, oppressive, intolerant groups are the same everywhere. The differences are largely due to changes in culture and technology.

  18. climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 2:36 am |

    Let us agree there is an environmental crisis as we too readily chop down trees, use vast quantities of water, take little account of the creatures other than man living on the planet.

    That is a different matter to the climate

    As for green energy, which mostly translates to weather dependent renewables, that can not possibly come to the rescue

    Within 20 years we (in the Uk) will need up to 3 times as much energy as at present, once we include transport and heating and cooking, and during that time intend to banish fossil fuels whilst dramatically ramping up renewables .

    There is an optimistic belief, shared by many –including the govt-that with fossil fuel ‘cancelled’ something else will turn up in the next couple of decades to power a world of 9 billion people, where currently only 5% of total energy production comes from renewables . As scientists have confirmed, this huge amount of additional energy can not all come from renewables, nor be backed up by batteries, to counter the long periods when renewables do not work.

    Professor Sir David Mackay, (former chef scientific advisor of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change), said in 2016 that the concept of powering a developed country with Weather-Dependent Renewable energy was:

    “an appalling delusion”. and also remarked:

    “there’s so much delusion, it’s so dangerous for humanity that people allow themselves to have such delusions, that they are willing to not think carefully about the numbers, and the reality of the laws of physics and the reality of engineering….humanity does need to pay attention to arithmetic and the laws of physics.”

    So lets pick that apart. Solar farms have an installed capacity of 12GW but only 1GW actual output, so they typically work effectively for 11.5% of the year. Solar provides no power at all at night of course, and the amounts reduce as light levels drop after the peak summer months..

    Installed capacity is 16 GW for onshore wind, actual generation 3GW, with 24% efficiency. Off shore wind 9GW installed, output 3GW, so 35% efficiency . Conventional power generation provides up to 90% efficiency. Our Govt estimates we will need at least 120/160GW of power by 2040.

    Year to date average contribution to our energy mix are as follows;

    Solar 4% (min monthly input to grid 0.86% max 7.2%) Wind 18.79% (min 9.50% max 27.96%) Biomass 4.93%, Hydro 4.17%, Gas 40.81% (48.62 max%) Coal 1.71%, Nuclear 17.25%, Interconnectors 8.29% (max 14.61% mostly French nuclear) The French consistently threaten to turn these off unless we give them more fish.

    There are not enough rare earths in the world to supply future demand for the manufacture of renewables, batteries, EV’s or to facilitate the manufacture of steel or replacement of gas using green hydrogen. To complicate matters, the vast majority of these scarce and environmentally and socially damaging rare earths are owned by the Chinese. Replacements for rare earths do not currently exist.

    As Lomborg pointed out in his book ‘False Alarm,’ when we look back we seldom fixed big problems by telling people to live with less of everything they wanted. People don’t want to go backwards, they want to progress. He cites the example of whale oil for lighting, which was the fifth biggest industry in the United States for a century until the mid 1800’s when it was supplanted by a superior, cheaper, better smelling and longer lasting product, kerosene from petroleum. In other words people readily accepted change if a better alternative was available, but that isn’t renewables.

    Lomborg is also scathing about the exaggerated role given to renewable energy, which he describes as a “fantasy.’ He is a not a climate sceptic and his book is exceptionally well referenced.

    I have previously proposed an Apollo style 10 year energy programme with a £10 billion a year budget attracting the best brains in the World to Britain. Its sole purpose would be to find new sources of energy, improve existing ones and to exponentially develop battery storage.

    In the meantime, during this 10 year hiatus, I hope the ceaseless climate propaganda will cease and be replaced by the provision of better historical context . For example, by explaining to our grandchildren that with CO2 much lower than now, throughout the 12000 year long Holocene we have often had much warmer, wilder and wetter weather than today, sea levels have been higher and glaciers smaller.

    Whilst we may disagree as to how dangerous or not CO2 is, hopefully we will recognise that science tells us that putting all our future energy eggs into such an ethically, environmentally and economically broken basket as renewables would be rather foolish, and we need to look for alternatives.

    There is no urgency, despite the hysteria emanating from those celebrities jetting into COP26, as according to the International Climate Database from 1900 onwards, that deaths due to natural disaster (such as drought, floods, extreme weather, extreme temperatures, landslides, wildfires, volcanoes and earthquakes) peaked at around 3.5 persons million in 1930 and have averaged some 50000 p.a. this century.

    Many countries including Europe have focused too much on renewables and allowed more reliable sources to run down, including nuclear. Unfortunately it is only recently that environmentalists like Shellenberger and Michael Moore have recognised that nuclear will need to play a vital role in any future energy equation, let alone one where fossil fuels ae sidelined.

    I hold no brief for fossil fuels but replacing them with something worse is a surefire recipe for the world to regress to the pre industrial age the IPCC is so find of referencing. Quite why we want to revert to that part of our recent history that was much colder than today is baffling, as is the concern that we are slightly warmer than that bone chilling time.

    tonyb

    • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 11:13 am |

      Good afternoon Tony (UTC),

      “An appalling delusion”

      Do you by any chance have a link to your quotation from the late, great, David MacKay?

      Here’s one that I prepared (much!) earlier:

      https://V2G.co.uk/2016/02/what-should-be-in-sewtha-2-0/

      According to Jeremy Leggett many moons ago:

      “I think this is the criticism that people like me have of, you know good guys like David MacKay with his book. They’re still flogging the idea of these vast centralised, humongously expensive centralised power plants, nuclear in particular, that take 10 years to construct.“

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 12:20 pm |

        Jim

        https://skepteco.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/professor-david-mackay-and-the-renewables-delusion/

        He also gave a very good TED talk which was online 2 weeks ago.

        I would like to see modular nuclear reactors but that is some years down the road. We should have been planning our energy system 20 years ago and every year we delay makes the likelihood of a catastrophic energy gap ever larger. We do need to be much more self reliant.

        I am not against alternatives to fossil fuels at all but renewables plus biomass are not the answer.

        I was down your way earlier in the week at Mawgan porth near newquay and Truro.

        Like us in Devon the locals were vastly irritated by being swamped by tourists over the summer remarking how unpleasant many were, and like us here they are annoyed by the number of second homes and air b n b’s which remove long term rentals from the locals.

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 2:43 pm |

        Thanks for the link Tony,

        I was of course hoping for the Grauniad! Lets see if this works?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCyidsxIDtQ

        “Humanity really does needs to pay attention to arithmetic and the laws of physics – we need a plan that adds up.”

        Which is indeed the case.

        It is also the case that emmets and especially second home owners are not very popular down yer, except possibly if you’re in the business of taking money off them?

        I hope you didn’t go swimming at Mawgan Porth before November 7th?

        https://twitter.com/DavidstowInfo/status/1456929240973254658

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 3:11 pm |

        Don’t worry, I went nowhere near the sea for swimming. Interesting about the sewage. Hopefully these events will become increasngly rare.

        Tonyb

    • bigterguy | November 14, 2021 at 9:33 am |

      “I have previously proposed an Apollo style 10 year energy programme with a £10 billion a year budget attracting the best brains in the World to Britain. Its sole purpose would be to find new sources of energy, improve existing ones and to exponentially develop battery storage.”

      Totally unnecessary. We already have much more money being spent on all sorts of ideas for finding new sources of energy by oil companies, utilities, governments, chemical companies, universities, innumerable startup companies, and others. A single large centralized project will, of course, be much less inventive and much more bureaucratic than what we have already.

      The one thing that governments could do that would be extremely valuable would be to support new nuclear generator development AND conduct a campaign to counteract the horrible and unfair reputation that the press has given the industry.

      • climatereason | November 14, 2021 at 10:10 am |

        Cern would not have happened if it had not been centralised and nor would the apollo project.

        It needs a focus and finding substitutes for the mostly useless renewables, as well as developing new and existing technologies would at least provide a global focal point that was more constructive than the COP celebrity shows. It might also find new ways of battery storage.

        I agree with nuclear having been demonised as it could have provided all the green energy we could have ever wanted, but have been continually frustrated by those very groups demanding green energy

        At least left wing environmentalists like Shellenberger and Michael Moore have seen the nuclear light, but it will be decades before there are large sources of supply again

        tonyb

      • Rob Starkey | November 14, 2021 at 10:29 am |

        In fact the world is building more nuclear power plants today than at any rate over the last 50 years. Imo, the problem is that only China is building these plants and thoughtfully preparing for the future.

  19. climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 2:39 am |

    Judith

    I just made a long post with many facts and figures which was quite long but contained no links, which has disappeared. Could you see if it has fallen through the cracks of your system? Thanks

    Tonyb

  20. CKid | November 12, 2021 at 4:27 am |

    “…. and controversial climatologist Judith Curry .”

    What a sad commentary that a preeminent and distinguished scientist should be labeled controversial. I’ve read this blog for 10 years and Judith has never written anything but logical, objective, science based and circumspect pieces just like this. How can anyone disagree with any of these well reasoned thoughts. But then, look what she is up against.

    • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 5:16 am |

      Ckid

      I smiled at that description. But that exactly fits with the definition of a scientist who should be sceptical as has been the Royal Society’s motto for 350 years

      ‘Take nobody’s word as final.”

      tonyb

      • CKid | November 12, 2021 at 6:28 am |

        Good to hear from you Tony. Whenever I read about the potential “energy crisis “ in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, I think of you and others on your side of the pond. I hope all goes well. Given the uncertainties about transitioning from the old to the new energy sources and possible disruptions in availability, warm is better than having internal variability do what it will inevitably do over the next few decades.

        Misguided policies over here are mucking things up and it feels like the 1970s, with inflation and energy dislocations all over the place. Expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in the late 1960s started the inflationary ball rolling and then the oil shock compounded it and it ended badly in the early 1980s. The difference today is that Debt Held by the Public (Debt) in the 20+ years after WWII increased by only 10%. In the last 20 years Debt has gone from $3.4 Trillion to $24 Trillion. An incredibly uncertain future even without the issues covered by Judith’s outstanding post.

        Anticipating higher home heating bills in the next few months, we have lowered the thermostat and I am wearing 3 layers of clothing inside. Is 6 in my future? For now raking the billion leaves in my backyard does help with the body temperature.

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 12:25 pm |

        Ckid

        I think the US debt clock is frightening. The US has got away with it due to being a reserve currency but things are changing and you can’t rely on this status for ever.

        The money Biden is spending at present is mind bending, but that comes with having a marxist like Sanders in charge of budgets.

        I live in a mild part of the UK where extreme cold and snow are rare so 2 layers of clothing are the norm and when the cold gets worse I wear warm fleece lined trousers.

        tonyb

      • CKid | November 12, 2021 at 1:29 pm |

        Tony

        The geopolitical dynamics can only get more tense in decades to come if too many countries place too much faith in renewables too soon, and then realizing the planned transition can’t happen at the expected magnitude, panic to get reliable sources.

        “ What is the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline?
        The pipeline is owned by Russia’s state gas company Gazprom and measures more than 2,600 miles. It brings Russian gas from the giant gas fields of the Yamal peninsula and western Siberia to Poland and Germany via Belarus. The pipeline does not directly lead to other European countries – but it helps to feed Germany’s huge gas storage facilities, which are used by energy companies and traders across the continent.

        Why is this pipeline important?
        Russia remains Europe’s biggest supplier of gas and about one-fifth of these supplies travelled through Belarus last year, mainly through the Yamal pipeline, making it an important conduit for European gas imports and for Russia’s gas revenues. The threat by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, to cut deliveries of gas to Europe via the pipeline in retaliation against any new EU sanctions would be a major concern for European energy companies on top of the looming winter gas crisis.”

        https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/11/belarus-threats-yamal-europe-pipeline-gas-prices

    • curryja | November 12, 2021 at 12:30 pm |

      Logical, objective climate science is controversial :)

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 12:38 pm |

        Judith

        You need to be uncontroversial like Michael Mann! Not correct mind you, just uncontroversial

        I am counting down the minutes to the end of the giant celebrity fest known as COP26. The BBC and the Govt have been droning on endlessly for the last 2 weeks with numerous tv programmes.

        Please may it end on time and everyone can jet back to where they come from and the BBC can stop their hysteria.

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 2:51 pm |

        Au contraire Tony,

        Personally I have found remotely attending COP26 to be extremely enlightening!

        Mostly on V2G business of course. However by way of one small example, earlier today I was “retweeted” twice by Neil Gaiman himself. It seems he is currently in Scotland for the recording of the next series of Good Omens:

        https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1459149583435640834

        “Science and art both model the world, but in different ways“

      • jungletrunks | November 12, 2021 at 2:35 pm |

        “I am counting down the minutes to the end of the giant celebrity fest known as COP26”

        Tony, I suspect sleepy Joe Biden feels the same way; he has declared climate change an existential threat, yet he fell asleep at least once during the COP26 conference. There’s nothing less invigorating than hearing ones own propaganda, who wouldn’t want to take a nap when repeatedly hearing the same carefully crafted drone fodder.

      • climatereason | November 12, 2021 at 3:13 pm |

        Jim

        I liked that picture you linked to. Who did it and what is it of?

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 3:27 pm |

        The painting is by Kasia Turajczyk.

        It seems that I miscaptioned it. The title is actually “Boltzmann Brain”. A surreal impression of a thermodynamically generated consciousness at a random point in the cosmos.

        Some of Kasia’s work is currently on display in Camelford Art Gallery:

        https://Davidstow.info/2021/06/kasia-turajczyk-camelford-art-exhibits/

        However she considered that particular piece to be too advanced even for Camelford!

      • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 3:34 pm |

        Good evening Tony (UTC),

        My reply to your enquiry seems to have disappeared into moderation.

        Whilst waiting for it to appear you could always try going to the Davidstow web site op. cit. and searching for “Kasia”.

      • jim2 | November 12, 2021 at 3:35 pm |

        “Science and art both model the world, but in different ways“

        Art probably does a better job than climate models.

      • Jim Hunt | November 12, 2021 at 3:37 pm |

        Of course whilst I was typing my original comment suddenly thermodynamically sprang into being out of nowhere!

      • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 10:07 pm |

        Always wrong predictions of climate doom are what is left of consensus climate “science” ! No controversy there !

      • jimmww | November 15, 2021 at 4:02 am |

        Alas!

    • Joshua | November 12, 2021 at 1:45 pm |

      Kid –

      > Judith has never written anything but logical, objective, science based and circumspect pieces just like this

      Thanks. That’s beautiful.

      • CKid | November 12, 2021 at 2:12 pm |

        J

        I thought so. But more importantly, absolutely accurate. Some, who are in their self induced haze, are incapable of being objective enough to recognize what is self evident for normal people.

      • Joshua | November 12, 2021 at 6:42 pm |

        Kid –

        Yup.we can strike a line right down the middle of the climate debate. One side abnormal and incable of being “objective.”

        Once again, that’s beautiful.

  21. CKid | November 12, 2021 at 5:50 am |

    Some thoughts in trying to make a smoother (not smooth) transition from the old to the new sources of energy.

    “ Availability is the single most critical feature of any energy infrastructure, followed by price, followed by the eternal search for decreasing costs without affecting availability. Until the modern energy era, economic and social progress had been hobbled by the episodic nature of energy availability. That’s why, so far, more than 90% of America’s electricity, and 99% of the power used in transportation, comes from sources that can easily supply energy any time on demand.”

    “ It costs less than $1 a barrel to store oil or natural gas (in oil-energy equivalent terms) for a couple of months.Storing coal is even cheaper. Thus, unsurprisingly, the U.S., on average, has about one to two months’ worth of national demand in storage for each kind of hydrocarbon at any given time.
    Meanwhile, with batteries, it costs roughly $200 to store the energy equivalent to one barrel of oil.Thus, instead of months, barely two hours of national electricity demand can be stored in the combined total of all the utility-scale batteries on the grid plus all the batteries in the 1 million electric cars that exist today in America.”

    There are about 8.5 million electric vehicles in the world. If there are 400 million electric vehicles in 2040 in the world it “would thus replace about 6% of petroleum demand.”

    https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf#page=20

    https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM-img1.jpg

    • Dave Andrews | November 13, 2021 at 12:35 pm |

      Update on EV figures.

      IN their Update on Electric Vehicles, Aug 23rd 2021 the International Energy Agency said that at the end of 2020 there were 10m EVs in the world and 1.7m (BEVs & PHEVs) in the US.

      Interestingly they said the market in Japan had declined by 25% in 2020 and it had fallen in absolute and relative terms every year since 2017.

      In a report in May 2021 on ‘The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions’ the IEA said that on their best scenario they expected there to be c. 72m EVs in the world by 2040.

      Compare that to the around 1.4 billion ICEVs in the world today a total that will continue to grow at a faster rate than EVs over the next 19 years as people in Africa, India, China etc become more prosperous.

  22. UK-Weather Lass | November 12, 2021 at 7:22 am |

    The best summary of humanity’s perceived problems I have read, Dr Curry. Thank you so much for your ongoing insight and rational approach to such divisive and muddled subjects. Climate change mitigation (and much else) will have many unknown (or known unknown) consequences when doing even the right things.

    If we do the wrong.things because the overall problems involved have not been properly understood, allowed for, or joined together in the thought processes who knows what shocks there will be. But, perhaps, one such shock will produce a lucky break for humanity.

    • GeoffW | November 12, 2021 at 8:21 pm |

      Agree completely. Best summary of the issues I’ve yet seen.
      However, since this is all political, I don’t expect Dr. Curry’s thoughts to be well received.
      GeoffW

  23. David Wojick | November 12, 2021 at 8:22 am |

    Telling them that their questions are the problem might be fun, but they will probably just talk around you. We shall see.

  24. David Wojick | November 12, 2021 at 9:28 am |

    Two views of COP 26 not found elsewhere:
    https://www.cfact.org/2021/11/11/cop-26-planet-saved-now-what/

    https://www.cfact.org/2021/11/12/cop-26-with-bidens-help-the-cop-goes-wild/

    The present promises meet the Paris target but the Euros and Biden want way more. Big fight looms.

    Silly gets sillier.

    • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 9:49 am |

      BREAKING NEWS
      COP name to be changed in for future meetings
      because leftists hate cops. New name will be “CLAP”
      Climate
      Liars
      Annual
      Party

      or CLAP

  25. John Holbrook Jr | November 12, 2021 at 9:29 am |

    Mankind does affect climate, but not in the way most people think. God controls the climate and uses (a) good weather to bless people and nations who honor him and obey his commandments and (b) bad weather to curse people and nations who dishonor him and disobey his commandments. Read Deuteronomy 28 and Job 38-41. God makes changes to the weather every day – and has since he created Universe. The idea that Mankind is responsible for changes in the weather is ludicrous. Psalms 2:4-5 speaks of God’s reaction to such nonsense: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. (KJV)

  26. Ulric Lyons | November 12, 2021 at 9:38 am |

    “Apart from the scientific uncertainties, the weakest part of the UN’s argument about manmade global warming is that it is dangerous. The link to danger relies on linking warming to extreme weather events, which is a tenuous link at best.”

    The reality is that major heat and cold weather events are discretely solar driven and are a cause and not an impact of global climate variability. And that weaker solar wind states since 1995, have driven a warm AMO phase via the NAO/AO, which has reduced low cloud cover, and the warming this has produced is being fitted up as being man-made.

    The idea that heating the globe can radically increase the frequency of major heatwaves is absurd and comical. We need to understand their discrete solar forcing to understand climate change better.

  27. jungletrunks | November 12, 2021 at 10:11 am |

    Thank you for the post, Dr. Curry; yours is a very well reasoned perspective. The exponential growth of technology is virtually ignored by alarmists.

  28. Burl Henry | November 12, 2021 at 11:46 am |

    Everyone on this thread, and especially Dr. Judith Curry, are overlooking the actual cause of our warming climate!

    In their discussion of atmospheric aerosols, NASA states that “Stratospheric SO2 aerosols (from volcanic eruptions) reflect sunlight, reducing the amount of energy reaching the lower atmosphere and Earth’s surface, cooling them”.

    And, anthropogenic SO2 aerosols, (from the burning of fossil fuels) “absorb no sunlight but they reflect it, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s ”

    Thus, their climatic effects are identical.

    These facts need to be considered by every honest researcher.

    In doing an analysis of average anomalous global temperatures, 1850-2019 it was found that every temperature decrease or increase ,correlated with an increase or decrease in SO2 aerosol emissions. There was no indication of any additional warming due to greenhouse gasses.

    Consequently, there is no need to attempt to abandon the burning of fossil fuels due to their increased CO2 emissions. Their burning produces both CO2 (no effect), and SO2 aerosols, which cool our planet.

    If net-zero is implemented, its effect will be to increase temperatures, because of the removal of industrial SO2 aerosols from the atmosphere. As a result the 1.5 deg. C. threshold will quickly be exceeded, unless there are sufficient volcanic SO2 aerosols to save us..

    Dr. Curry has stated that Climate Change is a “wicked problem”, but it actually the result of a single variable.!

    • David Wojick | November 12, 2021 at 12:20 pm |

      Is this published anywhere? How do you/they determine aerosol volumes back to 1850? Not to mention that the temperature statistics are junk.

      • CKid | November 12, 2021 at 1:11 pm |

        “ Not to mention that the temperature statistics are junk.”

        Especially prior to 1900 when there was only 12% coverage of the Southern Hemisphere, and no consistent measurement of SST for millions of square miles in the oceans.

      • Burl Henry | November 12, 2021 at 9:03 pm |

        David Wojick:

        I have a published, editorial-reviewed paper “A Graphical Explanation of Climate Change”

        http://www.skepticmedpublishers.com/article-in-press-journal-of-earth-science-and-climatic-change/

        Gridded Industrial SO2 aerosol emissions are available for the years 1750-2019 from the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) of the University of Maryland.

        Regarding temperature statistics, IT DOES NOT MATTER what is reported

        The ONLY important thing is proper identification of the actual cause of our changing climate (which is changing levels of SO2 Aerosols in our atmosphere), so that corrective action can be taken, if necessary.

    • Keith Harrison | November 12, 2021 at 4:05 pm |

      If life and climate were only as simple as you portray them, then why the need for folks like Dr Curry?

      You would do yourself credit by reading up on some physics.

      I recommend Dr Schwarzschild for starters and then for a contemporaneous discussion seek out Dr William Happer.

      • Burl Henry | November 12, 2021 at 10:47 pm |

        Keith Harrison:

        Climate is really as simple as I have stated. The “model” of SO2 aerosols being the Control Knob of the Temperatures of our planet is falsifiable (empirically testable), and is validated by every large (VEI4 or larger) volcanic eruption.

        When they erupt and inject volcanic SO2 aerosols into the stratosphere, temperatures cool down. And when their aerosols eventually settle out of the atmosphere, temperatures warm up. Both as predicted.

      • Keith Harrison | November 13, 2021 at 11:29 am |

        Burl,

        I have no basic disagreement with your characterization of volcanoes emitting large quantities of gases, SO2 included, and particulate which collectively have a cooling effect as history has shown.

        What you avoid recognizing is that there far more factors affecting climate than SO2. Please expand your study of climate by reading and listening to physics experts described in my previous comment.

        The confounding complexity of climate would be revealed if more folks on both sides of this controversial subject took some real effort to explore the physics of atmosphere, water vapour, the Sun, galactic rays, CO2, Milankovich cycles, earth’s obliquity, ocean currents, plankton interaction with ocean CO2, saturation of CO2 bands and the minimal effect of CO2 that an 800 ppm world would have on temperature beyond what we experience today, to name a few.

      • Burl Henry | November 13, 2021 at 4:53 pm |

        Keith Harrison:

        Let me tell you what I have done, and see whether I can change YOUR mind.

        I printed out a smoothed Woodfortrees.org plot of average anomalous global temperatures for the period 1850-2019, using the HADCRUT4 data set.

        It showed many temporary temperature increases and decreases in temperatures, as well as a gradual increase in overall temperatures.

        I then determined the cause of each temperature change, and found 2 causes:for decreased temperatures, and 4 causes for increased temperatures .

        The temperature decreases were caused by SO2 aerosols from VEI4 and higher volcanic eruptions usually causing a La Nina, and SO2 aerosols from increased industrial activity. (3, also causing a La Nina)

        The temporary temperature increases all resulted from decreases in atmospheric SO2 levels. caused by:

        1 Reduced industrial activity during American business recessions .(34/34),
        10 of which resulted in an El Nino.
        2 Volcanic-induced El Ninos (23)
        3. Reductions in SO2 levels due to Global Clean Air efforts (3)
        (6 MT less, 1969-70), (7.7 MT less, 1996-97), (23 MT less, 2014, 2016)
        4. Volcanic “droughts”, where there are no volcanic eruptions for 3 years, or
        more (at least 7).

        The gradual increase in temperatures was due to Clean Air reductions in Industrial SO2 aerosol emissions, which fell from 139 Megatons in 1979 to 72 Megatons in 2019. NO additional warming due to CO2 was observed.

        The correlation for a change in atmospheric SO2 levels (of ~0.5 MT), and a change in average anomalous global temperatures is ~100%.

        None of any of the various other factors which you mentioned, thought to affect our climate, showed up in the temperature plot. Their effect, if any, was too small to be detectable.

      • Keith Harrison | November 13, 2021 at 5:20 pm |

        Burl, I have not much to say and cannot speak to your SO2 theory for global warming. Perhaps a query to Dr Curry directly would be worth your while as she would have a better handle on the issues you raise. Out.

    • bigterguy | November 15, 2021 at 6:20 am |

      Correlation is not causation.

      • Burl Henry | November 15, 2021 at 8:36 am |

        “Correlation is not Causation.

        This is true of the apparent correlation between rising CO2 levels, and our rising temperatures.

        However, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, whenever there is an increase, in global atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels, from either volcanic or Industrial activity, temperatures decrease

        And whenever there is ,a decrease in atmospheric SO2 levels, temperatures increase. This IS 100% correlation.

        In 2019, there were 72 Megatons of industrial SO2 aerosols emitted into our atmosphere. If net-zero activities remove those cooling aerosols, temperatures will quickly soar well beyond the targeted 1.5 deg. C.increase. ..

  29. Burl Henry | November 12, 2021 at 11:58 am |

    Test post. (my recent post never showed up)

  30. co2islife | November 12, 2021 at 12:04 pm |

    Modern batteries use “rare earth” elements. Rare is the key word. You need to move a huge amount of earth to find these rare elements. They are also toxic to dispose of. Many many many children will be exploited, many people enslaved, countless rivers and streams polluted, and land mined and destroyed. Watch the movie Blood Diamonds to see how rare earth elements are discovered. Claiming the Green Economic is Green is absurd. Watch the documentary “Plant of the Humans” and “Burned, is wood the new Coal?”

    • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 5:13 am |

      Meanwhile in China:

      https://www.catl.com/en/news/665.html

      “As another milestone of CATL in the exploration of basic science and technology, sodium-ion batteries will provide a new solution for the use of clean energy and transportation electrification, thus promoting the early realization of the goal of carbon neutrality.“

      • climatereason | November 13, 2021 at 11:05 am |

        Jim

        Its 30 years away if it ever becomes feasible on a large scale.

        In the meantime during our trip to Cornwall it was noticeable how the many wind turbines i saw weren’t even turning and the weather was dull so little solar power.

        So on a serious note, what will we use for energy to charge up your car, and all the other need for much more electricity in future as we double or triple current energy needs whilst phasing out fossil fuels?

        We have been too blind to build nuclear so even if modulars work, there is a 20 year energy gap unless we stop retiring our fossil fuel power stations

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 2:09 pm |

        Tony,

        “Its 30 years away”

        Whereas according to Bloomberg:

        https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-13/the-next-best-electric-car-battery-is-here-and-it-s-sodium-ion-based

        “The Next Best Electric Car Battery Is Here, Cheaper Than Ever….

        CATL has said it will have a supply chain in place by 2023. Other companies like HiNa Battery Technology Co. already have projects in progress.”

        I have plenty of videos of wind turbines spinning in Kernow I could show you. This one highlights a different problem to the alleged “lack of wind” however:

        https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1442213664833028099

        Electricity prices “limit up” even when our numerous local turbines are spinning at high rpm.

      • climatereason | November 13, 2021 at 2:16 pm |

        Jim

        Of course wind turbines spin. Very often they don’t as well. Very often there is very little solar power. What response do you have to my penultimate paragraph?

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 4:20 pm |

        I “responded” almost a decade ago Tony,

        https://V2G.co.uk/2012/07/renewable-energy-is-the-work-of-generations-of-engineers/

        “It is impossible to displace [the world’s fossil-fuel-based energy system] in a decade or two – or five, for that matter. Replacing it with an equally extensive and reliable alternative based on renewable energy flows is a task that will require decades of expensive commitment. It is the work of generations of engineers.”

        Isn’t it a shame that the required “transition” didn’t get underway a decade or two (or five) ago?

      • Tonyb | November 13, 2021 at 5:02 pm |

        Jim

        Our energy situation in the UK started to cause concerns at the turn of the century and each successive govt just kicked the can down the road.we refused to build nuclear reactors and instead blew up coal fired power stations , we have two left, whilst pretending that Drax was green.

        It is difficult to understand where the govt believes energy will come from for all the Ev’s, heat pumps, electric cookers ec etc .

        Renewables won’t do it amd fossil fuel won’t be allowed to and nuclear is sidelined.

        Energy rationing either in fact or by price seems the likely scenario

        Tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 5:13 pm |

        Evenin’ Tony,

        When my latest comment on the “science” thread emerges from moderation you will no doubt see that I broadly agree with you on the “energy policy” front.

        However that doesn’t change the laws of physics.

  31. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 12, 2021 at 12:07 pm |

    Forecasts indicate that Greenland may experience the lowest recorded temperatures in the first half of November.
    https://i.ibb.co/q9kPLBJ/gfs-arc-lea-t2min-3-day.png

  32. Cynic | November 12, 2021 at 12:18 pm |

    All the questions wallow in alarmist connotation because their lack of specificity deprives their terms of denotation.

    Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?

    “the environmental crisis” what environmental crisis? which environmental crisis? to what present conditions in the {presumably global} environment is the word “crisis” being applied? why are we being asked how we decide this question after some such crisis has tacitly been assumed to be in existence ab initio?

    Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?

    “relentless”? rank connotation, what is “our” “current predicament”? unspecified “us” and unspecified “predicament” beg the question of why anyone or anything should be targeted for “blame”.

    Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind? “future crises”? why should “we” concern ourselves with such a question when the “kind” of crisis in question is unspecified and, if one thinks about it, whether we “solve” the present crisis “of this kind” will best predict whether we will be able to “solve” any such “future crises”.

    All the questions invite you to drink the cool-aid before you sit down to engage in the discussion.

  33. Dietrich Hoecht | November 12, 2021 at 12:46 pm |

    In all this hoopla on the future of zero or near-zero fossil fuel burning let us forget the two realities which sack all those dreamy walks on the yellow brick road. The switch-over to electricity-only power for vehicles requires more than double the presently available total power. Where would that come from? Seriously – even more wind and solar? The existing electrical grid does not support this demand, either.
    Then, the electrical vehicles battery metal reserves worldwide cover only a minute fraction of what would be needed. That is, in Lithium. Never mind any expectation of battery back-up for the grid. We can’t wish for new light weight metals to be invented, and steel or lead will ‘sink’ you in every way. No, hope for a battery technology fix does not override basic chemistry.
    BTW, I just invested in a Lithium stock.

  34. crypto666 | November 12, 2021 at 1:35 pm |

    Having already participated in discussions with this administration on climate and energy, I can tell you it is a waste of time. They are so far down the road of religious belief and fantasy that there is no reasoning or logic to be had.

    We had four questions to answer as a group, two were geared towards the idea that these people truly think they can control climate, and two questions were based around social justice.

    People actually think that putting solar panels on the roof of a government office will somehow improve the climate or stop the climate from changing.

    This is insanity. Science is dead.

    • Richard Greene | November 14, 2021 at 4:50 pm |

      With leftists, that is true of all subjects.
      Climate change was first subject I noticed that characteristic, in the 1990s.
      Leftist minds only change when moving further left.

      Which is easier, (A) or (B) ?
      (A) Changing a leftist mind with debate
      (B) Teaching your dog geometry
      Correct Answer: (B)

  35. Pingback: The Next Environmental Crisis – Watts Up With That?

  36. jim2 | November 12, 2021 at 2:07 pm |

    We may see a test of “green” energy resolve real soon now. If the price of oil soars, we won’t be seeing only some deaths from cold, although we will see a lot more of those too; we will see the global economy collapse into a recession or even a depression. Hopefully, it will be blamed on the leftest politicians and globalists who are pushing this nonsense off on the poor and middle class.

    With the world gripped by high energy costs and soaring inflation, oil options that would profit a buyer from Brent crude hitting $250 a barrel are changing hands.

    The equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent $250/$300 call spreads traded late on Thursday. The contracts would make money if oil rallies to levels that no analysts have called for since prices hit a record in 2008. Those contracts followed 8 million barrels of $200/$215 West Texas Intermediate call spreads and 4 million barrels of Brent at the same level for December 2022, the latest in a spate of options wagers on sharply higher prices.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-12/trader-makes-large-250-a-barrel-oil-bet-in-the-options-market

  37. Robert I. Ellison | November 12, 2021 at 2:43 pm |

    Low and falling cost for wind and solar is good – but battery costs are 10 to 20 times too high to cost competitively supply the duck curve.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYLzss58CLs

    Surging oil and gas prices were predictable – but to substitute alternatives for power, industry and transport requires tremendous amounts of heat and electricity from somewhere.

    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/energy/nuclear/russia-to-supply-fuel-for-chinas-fast-neutron-reactor/23031

    • Richard Greene | November 12, 2021 at 9:53 pm |

      I agree with everything Mr. Ellison wrote. except for the word “lpw” in the first sentence.

      Solar and wind energy costs are not low when you consider all costs over a long period of time.

      The usual calculations ignore many mandatory costs for wind and solar energy:

      Government subsidies and tax credits

      100% fossil fuel power plant back-up

      New, long transmission lines

      Sunk costs of fossil fuel power plants,
      if retired before the end of their useful life

      Lifetime Asset Costs:
      — Off shore in salt water windmill turbine lifespan of 15 years

      — On land windmill turbine and solar panel lifespan 20 years

      versus

      Natural gas power plant lifespan of 40 to 60 years

      Nuclear power plant lifespan of 60 to 80 years

      For one example, roughly four sets of new wind turbines are required over 80 years versus one new nuclear power plant.

      The usual calculations ignore the long term (aka “lifetime”) asset costs … and also the disposal costs of old solar panels and windmills.

      With all costs included, in an honest analysis, wind and solar power are not “low” priced.

      I did not include any “costs” for the huge increase of CO2 emissions from mining and manufacturing to build windmills and solar panels.

      Or the costs of a less reliable electric grid with a higher percentage of windmills and solar panels.

      For an electric grid:
      — Nuclear energy is a step forward.

      — Windmills and solar panels are a step backwards.

  38. Pingback: The Next Environmental Crisis – Watts Up With That? – Adfero News

  39. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 12, 2021 at 3:26 pm |

    A strong stratospheric strike over the Great Lakes is in the forecast. It’s going to be a hard freeze.
    https://i.ibb.co/5MMpcS0/gfs-o3mr-150-NA-f024.png

  42. jim2 | November 12, 2021 at 4:06 pm |

    Keeping California’s Last Nuclear Plant Can Save Money, Climate: MIT-Stanford Study

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-08/keep-california-s-last-nuke-to-save-cash-fight-warming-study

  43. jim2 | November 12, 2021 at 4:10 pm |

    France has vowed to build more nuclear reactors in order to be carbon neutral by 2050.

    President Emmanuel Macron, making the announcement in a nationwide address on Tuesday, said it would also help the country achieve “energy independence”.

    Unlike many of its European neighbours, which are moving away from nuclear, France will build its first new reactors in decades.

    https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/10/france-vows-to-build-new-nuclear-reactors-to-meet-climate-goals

    • CKid | November 13, 2021 at 3:44 am |

      I take back all the bad things I’ve said about the French over the last 60 years. Reminds me of what Churchill said about us.

      “ You can always count on Americans ( the French) to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

  44. jim2 | November 12, 2021 at 4:15 pm |

    Whatever problems with nuclear energy, it has one thing over “green” energy, it works 365/24/7 – other than for maintenance. (Yes, I know one shut down due to cold in Texas – irrelevant)

    The first small modular reactor (SMR) in Europe could be built in Romania, and Bulgaria is also interested in the technology. The two countries have signed agreements with American partners on the development of projects for the new type of nuclear power plants.

    According to an agreement signed at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP26 in Glasgow, United States–based NuScale Power and Romania’s state-owned Nuclearelectrica will build a 462 MW nuclear power plant consisting of six small modular reactors (SMRs) of 77 megawatts each. The plant will be commissioned as early as 2027 or 2028, the two companies said.

    https://balkangreenenergynews.com/romania-bulgaria-intend-to-build-small-nuclear-power-plants/

  45. Bill Fabrizio | November 12, 2021 at 8:11 pm |

    Judith …

    I tried posting this before. I must have done something wrong. Trying it again.

    Maybe this is a minor point, but we see how there are those who seem to delight in pointing out minor inconsistencies, etc.

    You wrote:
    Note that the IPCC itself does not use the words ‘crisis’, ‘catastrophe’, or even ‘dangerous’; rather it uses the term ‘reasons for concern.’ Apart from the scientific uncertainties, the weakest part of the UN’s argument about manmade global warming is that it is dangerous.

    I assume you interchange IPCC and UN as the same. If so, if the IPCC doesn’t use the word dangerous, then how can the UN use the word? So, I’m not sure what you meant. I hope this helps.

    Good luck on your presentation!!!

  46. Geoff Sherrington | November 12, 2021 at 11:14 pm |

    Judith,
    Thank you. Once more, you express precisely my positions.
    You write ” the climate crisis narrative gets in the way of real solutions to our societal and environmental problems.” I agree. This is a serious point.
    In my work in mineral exploration and mining, we had groups that examined future needs and wants. Sometimes I headed our group, so I know the detail and thought that went into this. It was not simple.
    Fortunately, we found materials able to satisfy the main needs of society as we saw them, then planned our next targets accordingly. (This included fossil fuels as a given).
    In the late 1900s, we provided well for society. Then came this complication that fossil fuel was bad. It absolutely corrupted the free enterprise methods that we were using. The direction of resource needs was set by pressure groups with little idea about resource science, economics or finance.
    Therefore, as I see it, the imperative is to get the resources sector free from amateur distortions, back to doing what it knows to do best. Interference by regulators has to be minimized to close to zero.
    This might seem a trivial point to make, but mineral people (apart from some wooly heads in the new breed) know of the harm being caused. Geoff S

  47. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 13, 2021 at 7:26 am |

    “After a stretch of generally mild weather last week, residents across the East may be wondering if December has come early as a blast of Arctic air infiltrates the region. A southward dip in the jet stream is ushering in chilly conditions to the Eastern states, accompanied by periods of wintry weather across the Great Lakes and Northeast.
    Forecasters say that temperatures can drop 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit below normal from Sunday through Tuesday across the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, which will be a noticeable change from the above-average temperatures observed this past week.”
    https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/wintery-chill-to-grip-eastern-states/1047171

  48. Turbulent Eddie | November 13, 2021 at 7:37 am |

    This has long been observed, but “Climate Change” shows up in the chart of new religions:

    ( see ‘taxonomy’)

    https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-wokeism-is-a-religion

    Perhaps Nietchze was right?

    • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 9:59 am |

      Wokeism personified?

      “The Sea is Rising and so are We”

      • climatereason | November 13, 2021 at 10:59 am |

        The sea has been rising since around 1740 and there have been several high and low water stands over the last 2000 years with seas being both higher and lower than today.

        B Cracknell explains it well in his book ‘Outrageous waves”

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 13, 2021 at 1:32 pm |

        Good evening Tony (UTC),

        Irrespective of the SLR “science” Senara makes great videos, and that was a great piece of performance art. IMHO!

      • Geoff Sherrington | November 13, 2021 at 9:03 pm |

        Jim Hunt,

        Did you also spot the two Russian agents and one Chinese in the red rags?
        Amusing that the red clothes were probably made red with a coal tar dye.
        A few nice views of what looks like the Gold Coast, happy memories of surfing, sunbaking, eating fresh cooked mud crabs and drinking what was then named Champagne as a prelude to happy sex in one of the many motels. Why do these malcontents want to do their acting instead of more of such fun?
        Besides, the seas started rising long before people burned much fossil fuel, so what is their logic?
        Geoff S

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 4:25 am |

        Good Morning Geoff (UTC),

        North Cornwall, not the Gold Coast.

        And at that distance you’re probably not familiar with the back story?

        In the not too distant past XR were using one of Senara’s videos without permission, so I was intrigued to see that one bearing the XR “brand”.

        I was also intrigued to discover Breakthrough Boy Mike S. using the “red rags” of which you speak as emblems of “wokeism”. What is his logic do you suppose?

      • Girma | November 14, 2021 at 4:39 am |

        Hi Jim

        How do you insert an image in a comment?

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 6:23 am |

        Good morning Girma (UTC),

        On my own blog it’s possible to upload an image and/or insert one in a comment using HTML. As far as I have been able to ascertain it is no longer possible to do that here, but I will give it a try.

        The current surf scene in North Cornwall?

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 6:39 am |

        As I feared, that didn’t work very well! Try this instead:

        https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1459833492804620293

      • climatereason | November 14, 2021 at 5:54 am |

        Jim

        Don’t put “science” it is SCIENCE.

        Those ludicrous red skirted campaigners have no knowledge at all of the way that the sea has risen and fallen over the Holocene. It is doing today what it has always done, as can be witnessed by sea Bench marks, Levels of marine life in strata, the numerous records of sea dykes built and destroyed, towns and villages once ports and now inland or destroyed as sea levels rose hundreds of years ago and thousands of references to storms etc.

        To believe the current very modest sea level rise is unique is scaremongering but no more than would be expected coming from Roger Hallam.

        I spoke to some of them when they did their performance locally. It is like speaking to someone from a religious cult.

        Sewage in seas etc is another matter.

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 6:34 am |

        Mornin’ Tony,

        It’s a little known fact that I’ve personally performed acclaimed PERFORMANCE ART at the Exeter Phoenix, so perhaps our sensibilities differ in such matters?

        Were the performers you spoke to Red Rebels, or Ocean Rebellion, or XR, or?

        Getting back to SCIENCE, what if Tim Lenton’s “tipping point” theories come to pass in Greenland and/or West Antarctica?

        https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/cop26-why-climate-change-tipping-points-that-could-lead-to-runaway-global-warming-keep-me-awake-at-night-professor-tim-lenton-3427699

        “Tipping points can happen thanks to what scientists and engineers call feedback loops: A small initial change has consequences that feed back to amplify it. Then the now-larger change goes around the loop and gets further amplified, and so on.

        For example, as Arctic sea-ice melts, it exposes a much darker ocean surface that absorbs more sunlight, warming things up and melting more sea-ice, which warms things further.

        Usually, such feedbacks are constrained: the initial change is amplified, but not enough for the whole thing to ‘runaway’ out of control. However, sometimes the feedback gets strong enough to propel change from one state to another. (You may have experienced such runaway feedback at a gig where the band puts a mic too close to a speaker.)“

      • climatereason | November 14, 2021 at 8:52 am |

        Jim

        I don’t dislike performance art but I don’t like virtue signaling when they don’t even know the science of what they proclaim..

        it was the same group with he same sea level messages

        After they finished they put on their petroleum derived coats and drove off in their cars.

        I have also spoken to XR who know even less of the science behind the message they shout.

        Its an act, which is fine, but if they want to believe what they sloganise and to influence impressionable minds then they need to make the effort to learn the science.

        As for yet another ‘what if’ as regards Antarctica, as you know they have just experienced the coldest 6 month period on record.

        tonyb

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 5:11 pm |

        Good evening Tony (UTC),

        It’s been a busy day here on the shores of North Cornwall. Air ambulances and everything:

        https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1459989890049925132

        And whilst we’re on the topic of SCIENCE, what about recent water temperatures on the shores of West Antarctica?

        https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/underwater-robot-reveals-how-warm-water-is-melting-thwaites-glacier/

      • CKid | November 14, 2021 at 6:48 pm |

        Hi Jim

        Note they say warm water. They don’t say warmer water.

        “ These were the first measurements ever performed beneath the ice front of Thwaites glacier.”

        There is no evidence that this impact on Thwaites is anything new. In fact, for decades scientists have believed the area is inherently unstable. Studies have linked the variability of the water’s impact to ENSO.

        There is new and exciting evidence in the last few years, however, that previously unknown geothermal heat is affecting this glacier complex. I’m confident that in years to come models will reflect this previously unknown dynamic.

      • Jim Hunt | November 14, 2021 at 8:09 pm |

        Hi Kid,

        Note that the BAS article makes no mention of air temperature, coldest EVAH or otherwise. Which was my point.

      • Geoff Sherrington | November 14, 2021 at 8:58 pm |

        Jim Hunt,
        My bad, sorry, I did not mean this was the Gold Coast, those offshore rocks I do not recall.
        I should have written that the setting brought back memories of the Gold Coast. Geoff S
        :

    • angech | November 15, 2021 at 1:59 am |

      Jim,
      a month ago the ice was exciting
      gerontocrat
      Re: 2021 Sea ice area and extent data
      JAXA ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT: 7,361,258 KM2 as at 22-Oct-2021

      – Extent gain on this day 152k, 18 k more than the average gain on this day (of the last 10 years) of 134k,
      Average remaining extent gain (of the last 10 years) would produce a maximum in March 2021 of 14.81 million km2, 0.93 million km2 above the March 2017 record low maximum of 13.88 million km2, which would be 19th lowest in the satellite record.

      Now it has slipped a lot so I will go back to sleep.

    • jimmww | November 15, 2021 at 4:18 am |

      Actually, Einstein was right: Only two things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity. And I’m not so sure about the universe.”

  49. alan cannell | November 13, 2021 at 7:47 am |

    The elephant in the room (or rhino if you prefer Ionesco) is the size of the population. Dealing with this and the consequences of aging, migration, forest clearance, and mass urban unemployment will be far nastier than messing with electricity grid sources. As Robert mentioned, there are many smaller nuclear options available (fission, thorium, etc.). While the COP bunfest is going on, France is busy supplying the UK with the nuclear electricity.that the greenies claim to despise. Lithium reserves are vast (Bolivia alone has the huge deposits of the Salar) and we will all be leasing our household battery units soon after the the next minor Carrington Event (about 7 every ka). Hopefully not in a NH winter…
    On the other hand, concentrating the ira of the looney left on carbon does distract from the real problem of the thousands of migrants stuck on the border of Poland and now freezing to death (not enough warming there), or the thousands of migrants stuck on the Texas border. Trumpeting about methane and useful idiots glueing themselves to the highways is a useful distraction.

  50. Javier | November 13, 2021 at 1:06 pm |

    Judith, I understand that you cannot be pessimistic for such an occasion, but just make sure you are not wrong.
    The situation is as described here:
    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/11/10/our-fossil-fuel-energy-predicament-including-why-the-correct-story-is-rarely-told/

    What follows is not a recommendation of what you should say, but of what you should be aware of.

    “Will the new, green energy economy ushered in by governments save us from environmental disaster?”

    Obviously not. The environmental problem (not disaster) is a by-product of population number and population growth. The increase in energy use over the past century has been accompanied of increasing environmental destruction at a global level. We have used the energy to make more humans appropriating a bigger share of the planet’s primary production and drastically reducing biodiversity for many species. Biodiversity cannot be recovered, it has to be generated over tens to hundreds of thousands of years for complex species.

    “Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?”

    No. The greatest threat for humanity is the energy descent that has already started. Energy consumption per capita on a global basis has peaked for centuries to come. The climate emergency, Agenda 2030, and so on are the political and elites response to try to convince people that accepting de-growth is better for everybody and the planet. It won’t work, because it cannot work.

    “Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?”

    There is no blame. We just did what we are programmed by evolution to do. Like bacteria in a culture we just grew, and grew, and grew. If a bacteria decides to grow more slowly it is wiped out by the ones growing fast. It was absolutely inevitable and we saw it coming. We just didn’t want to hear about it. Infinite growth in a finite planet is not possible. We greatly enlarged our niche through the use of fossil fuels and knowledge and now it is going to shrink.

    “Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind?”

    No. The physical and thermodynamic nature of the situation makes impossible any solution. You can’t negotiate with thermodynamics. When energy growth becomes impossible, economic auto-organized systems undergo a disorganized simplification commonly known as collapse. It has happened over and over. It is impossible to negotiate a voluntary organized simplification as people do not cooperate to de-grow.

    We are incredibly lucky to have first-row seats to such a momentous time in human history. We may not like it, but since there is nothing we can do, we might as well observe how humanity turns around and regresses, near the end of the interglacial. We will get an insight that nobody else before and after could.

    • Peter Lang | November 14, 2021 at 11:30 pm |

      Javier, you said:

      “When energy growth becomes impossible”

      Energy growth is not an will note become impossible. The world has almost unlimited energy available from nuclear fission and fusion.

  52. climatereason | November 13, 2021 at 2:55 pm |

    Seems as if coal has been let off the hook as the climate agreement is signed amidst disappointment from some delegates

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59253838

    tonyb

  53. Pingback: The Next Environmental Crisis – Climate- Science.press

  54. Darel Preble | November 13, 2021 at 6:02 pm |

    The world need much more energy – Clean, Reliable, Cheap, Unlimited, 24/7 always-there electric power – not pseudo-random intermittent power, such as windmills and roof-top solar. The most promising energy alternative technically available now is Space Solar Power.

    The technology landscape will look little different 10 years from now. Meanwhile CO2’s annual peak will rise from 419 ppm this year to 46 ppm in 2031, as it is increasing by about 4.7 ppm per year, currently.

    Fusion, for example, is always 50 years in the future – but the sun’s unlimited fusion furnace is available now and for the next Billion years; before the sun’s growing heat incinerates earth, as many astrophysics project.

    See our new SSP video at Linkedin (under Experience) also at Youtube — https://youtu.be/qR4Oc4oqWO0.

    • Peter Lang | November 13, 2021 at 11:30 pm |

      Solar is not the solution and never will be. Nuclear power is the solution to provide most of the world’s energy, including for producing transport fuels.

      • Peter Lang | November 13, 2021 at 11:34 pm |

        Read: Lang, (2017) Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en10122169

      • Peter Lang | November 14, 2021 at 12:53 am |

        Irwin, T. The Case for SMRs in Australia (2nd Edition) (2021). SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd: Sydney, NSW, Australia. http://www.smrnuclear.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-case-for-SMRs-in-Australia_Aug2021.pdf

        Irwin, T. SMR Global Status Report (2021). SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd: Sydney, NSW, Australia. http://www.smrnuclear.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SMR-GLOBAL-STATUS-REPORT-March-2021-Final.pdf

        SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd. (2021). Corrected Overnight Capital Cost in Australia of Nuclear Power, Renewables and Fossil Fuels with CCS (figures in AUD). http://www.smrnuclear.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_9_Cost-of-Nuclear-Power-and-Renewables.pdf

        World Nuclear Association, Weekly Digest (2021-11-14).
        1. Rolls Royce ‘small’ reactor gets UK government backing in new venture
        2. France announces plans to build more nuclear capacity
        https://wna.informz.ca/informzdataservice/onlineversion/ind/bWFpbGluZ2luc3RhbmNlaWQ9MTMwNTQ5NSZzdWJzY3JpYmVyaWQ9OTEyODQwODIz

      • Darel Preble | November 15, 2021 at 1:40 pm |

        Yes, Peter; the safest, cleanest, most reliable, least fresh water impact NUCLEAR power comes from our sun’s nuclear fusion power – collected by solar power satellites(SPS) in high GEO orbit and beamed back to major grids – rectennas – on earth. By the way, Peter, I did the nuclear burn software for plant Vogtle when I worked for Southern Company, until I left to charter the Space Solar Power Industry, a 501(c)3.

        SPS is NOW the major driver for the global cis-lunar space development and the only available reason to justify operating a moon base, for example, – to supply parts and materials for SPS construction at GEO. China is currently the leader in this race, with the U.S., Japan, Europe, and a host of other players, such as India also in this global space race. Our huge existing commercial COMMUNICATIONS satellite industry is being effectively used by Musk and others, to forge the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) industry. RLVs are the foundation stone for the coming commercial POWER satellite industry.

        “The thrust of China’s project is to bring down the weight of construction materials to be launched to space, so that more materials can be launched at lower cost. This has strategic implications for China’s Space Solar Power (SSP) plans, which will require in-orbit assembly of SSP satellites to collect solar power in space and beam it back to Earth.”
        https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/chinas-shenzhou-13-mission-and-its-long-term-impact/

        Our major US power grids continue failing to respond effectively to climate change – rising CO2… CA, TX, NY, FL power grids continue just “kicking the can down the road” to use a phrase in the bitter fight now going on over New York’s race to 70% Renewable Power Standards (RPS). The major reason is because Congress has failed to charter a public-private POWER satellite company, which is how Congress chartered COMSAT Corp in 1962 creating a public-private COMMUNICATIONS satellite company and effectively building our global COMMUNICATIONS satellite industry.

      • Peter Lang | November 16, 2021 at 6:04 pm |

        Darel Preble,

        Have you any idea of the costs and risks of such a scheme to power the world’s ever increasing electricity demand?

        1. How many satellites would be required?
        2. What area of solar panels would be required to provide the world’s peak demand?
        3. How often would the satellites have to be replaced?
        4. What’s the cost?
        5. How would the power be beamed to receiver stations on Earth?
        6. How many receiver stations would be required – e.g. located in the tropics at about 10 to 15 degrees longitude separation?
        7. What’s the cost?
        8. What’s the cost of a world-wide transmission system to conduct electricity from the receiver stations on the sunny side of the planet to all the residents in all countries everywhere, including on the dark side of the planet as it rotates?
        9. What is the cost to the world when the transmissions system is hijacked and taken down?

    • popesclimatetheory | November 14, 2021 at 4:18 am |

      Every Region needs Coal and Nuclear in the Region such that the Region can operate independently.

      Large grids with power coming from far away that is coming from wind, solar, space power, natural gas produced far away, can all be disrupted by foreign or domestic terrorists or even just hackers and by natural disasters.

      Huge grids that include much of a state or multiple states or multiple countries are always at great risk and will fail, not a matter of if, but just when and how often and how long and bad are the outages.

      Every Region needs Coal and Nuclear in the Region such that the Region can operate independently.

      • UK-Weather Lass | November 17, 2021 at 2:35 am |

        Thanks PCT for a succinct and, at this time and, given the technology we already know works reliably and relatively efficiently, entirely comprehensive satement of our needs for not just now but for the foreseeable future. Anything else is a COP out or virtue signalling.

    • justin | November 17, 2021 at 4:45 am |

      Sapce solor is not promicing. there is almost ZERO advancement to completing such a feat…and WHY do it, when we could invest in safe, efficent, and plentiful Thorium reactors. Thorium is the MOST promicing solution to energy, BY FAR.

  55. Darel Preble | November 13, 2021 at 6:06 pm |

    (typo) 466 ppm in 2031,

  56. Nabil Swedan | November 13, 2021 at 7:58 pm |

    Dr. Curry,

    Your essays are based on trust me, believe me, etc.. No references or numbers whatsoever. I do not know how this will be effective.

    What is definitive is that the science based on which these policies are enacted is wrong, and we are climate ignorant. Ignorance precipitates fear and fear produces crisis that may not exist in the first place. Nabil.

  57. Robert I. Ellison | November 13, 2021 at 8:05 pm |

    These are factory made, helium cooled, fast neutron reactors in a pod. Connect on site to a Brayton cycle gas turbine and a heat sink. This one is planned to operate for a decade and then get recycled back at the factory. Because of the convert and burn possible in a fast neutron rector – fuel can be cycled many times getting out two orders of magnitude more of the available energy. Existing nuclear waste can be burned leaving about 3% as shorter lived fission products.

    ‘Framatome and General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced plans to collaborate on the development of a next-generation, helium-cooled, 50-MW fast modular reactor.

    Due to its advanced modular design, the reactor can be built in a factory and assembled on-site, which helps to reduce capital costs and enables incremental capacity additions.’ https://www.euronuclear.org/news/framatome-general-atomics-fmr/

  58. Geoff Sherrington | November 13, 2021 at 8:54 pm |

    First, you have to accept the proposition that (puny) people have the ability to cause a global climate crisis.
    Those who say yes tend to create definitions of a climate crisis that can be argued as plausible, with extremists claiming it is under way.
    Those like me who think it both impossible and unlikely might have been trained in the concept of geological time scales of events, concluding that Earth has survived, no matter what has been thrown at it, without reason to think that a few decades of human thought and activism will change that course. That word “hubris”, again. Geoff S

  59. Dan Pangburn | November 13, 2021 at 9:36 pm |

    The theory that CO2 started the planet warming which increased temperature causing water vapor to increase is a mistake because water vapor has increased about twice as fast as possible from just planet warming. A comparison of the measured increase of water vapor to what it would be from just temperature increase (HadCRUT4) is at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RPru1Nb-o_A7azVVF5P7dyeaGHHUHmHG/view?usp=sharing

    • Geoff Sherrington | November 14, 2021 at 11:44 pm |

      Dan,
      Go to WUWT for an important article on global water by chance league Ric Williamson.

  60. Geoffrey Williams | November 13, 2021 at 10:15 pm |

    An excellent and comprehensive summary of our current predicament.
    Climate change is not the problem that many make it out to be, there are other serious and pressing issues that must be addressed.

    • popesclimatetheory | November 14, 2021 at 4:31 am |

      Problem or Not, Climate changes in natural, self-correcting cycles that we can not and do not control.

      There was a Roman Warm Period with a Cold Period After, caused by ice advancing from the snowfall in the warm period. That cold period ended when the ice was depleted and retreated.

      There was a Medieval Warm Period with a Cold Period After, referred to as the Little Ice Age, caused by ice advancing from the snowfall in the warm period. That cold period ended when the ice was depleted and retreated.

      It is warm now because it is supposed to be warm now, look at History and Ice Core Records from Greenland.

      The Southern Hemisphere has the same kind of alternating warm and cold periods but they are out of phase with the alternating warm and cold periods in the Northern Hemisphere.

      There are longer term self-correcting factors that depend on more snowfall in warmest times with IR out in warmest times that causes cooling hundreds or thousands of years later when the ice spreads and cools by thawing and reflecting.

  61. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 14, 2021 at 2:53 am |

    Stratospheric intrusion brings frost to northern Alabama and Georgia.
    https://i.ibb.co/yNzgy4Q/mimictpw-namer-latest.gif

  62. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 14, 2021 at 5:18 am |

    Tomorrow, an even stronger stratospheric wave will reach the Great Lakes, with stronger frost.
    https://i.ibb.co/LrLN7S5/gfs-o3mr-150-NA-f048.png

  63. CKid | November 14, 2021 at 7:36 am |

    Notification on my IPAD this morning from WAPO. “Nations reach deal at COP26, but it is not enough to head off catastrophic warming.”

    Sometimes the fear mongering is just too much. Newsrooms across the globe are devoid of critical thinkers.

  64. voza0db | November 14, 2021 at 9:12 am |

    Are our current solutions only a short term fix?

    The answer was written right after that question…

    The new clean energy economy

    Our degenerate uman civilization will never be able to generate anything clean.

    Reality is that dirty energy economy will persist as long as uman animals are alive and destroying.

    In the meantime it appears that we do enjoy to earn a few bucks and attend a few shows to keep pretending that we care!

  65. voza0db | November 14, 2021 at 9:18 am |

    Reality check…
    Is the environmental crisis the greatest threat that humanity faces, and if so, how do we decide this?
    No. Greatest threat is the uman animal itself. And clearly we do not want to address this fact.

    Is relentless consumption and growth to blame for our current predicament?
    No.

    Can we rely on humanity’s ability to solve future crises of this kind?
    Clearly, after millennia of evidence, the answer is No.

    Go Go COP27+n… [n=1 to ∞]

  66. CKid | November 14, 2021 at 10:39 am |

    While some of the descriptions of the energy problems and inflation might be a little over the top, this article demonstrates the public reaction and impact of government policy disincentivizing investment in fossil fuels before a backup source is completely available and reliable. The public will not forget nor forgive a few years of rising food and energy costs.

    It puts a new and disastrous meaning to getting “load, aim, fire” bass ackwards.

    https://www.npr.org/2021/11/13/1055315389/inflation-president-biden-groceries-gas-food-energy-prices

  67. David Wojick | November 14, 2021 at 12:13 pm |

    Here’s my take on COP 26. The decision was a nice failure but some heavy duty promises got made along the way. This ain’t over.

    https://www.cfact.org/2021/11/14/cop-26-radicals-lose-on-every-issue/

    • jim2 | November 14, 2021 at 1:20 pm |

      If there’s one thing we’ve learned about “climate change,” it’s that promises are as ephemeral as clouds.

    • Richard Greene | November 14, 2021 at 4:41 pm |

      Great summary of COP26
      In the article the word “gas”
      should have been “has”.
      Can’t find any other faults !

  68. Robert I. Ellison | November 14, 2021 at 2:16 pm |

    Shared socioeconomic pathway 5 is a fossil fueled powered economic growth scenario. Oil, coal and gas are a reality – there is no instant alternative. Transition will be rapid when technologically feasible – as creative destruction in capitalist markets. Just because the technology is so well understood – factory built, mass produced, fast neutron, helium cooled nuclear fission engines are the closest to commercial reality. Put them in a bunker and burn for a decade. They’ll come in a range of colors and sizes.

    https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0959378016300681-gr3.jpg

    So if high economic growth is possible and desirable – not to say inevitable in a free world – the idea is to pull the purple cloud in the graphic linked down and to the right. Economic growth with population peaking midcentury. Wealth provides resources for health, education and the environment.

    • Richard Greene | November 14, 2021 at 9:42 pm |

      “Transition will be rapid when technologically feasible”

      That statement is already wrong. Nuclear power is technologically feasible yet there no transition to nuclear, except in China.

      Transition will be at a speed determined by a combination of technological feasibility, economic return on investment and government regulations and mandates. But the most important variable may be social approval — nuclear power does not have that now, even though is is the obvious solution for lower CO2 emissions, if you think that is a serious problem.

      High economic growth is not likely in many developed nations because the population growth / labor force growth has been quite small starting about 20 years ago, and the birth rate is not increasing. Real growth is a combination of labor force growth and productivity growth. Productivity growth has not increased enough for even 3% real growth in the US.
      3% real growth is difficult to accomplish with an aging population.

      Nuclear energy is progress, when replacing aging fossil fuel power plants after they reach the end of their useful lives. Windmills and solar panels are anti-progress, unless you consider spending a huge amount of money to get a less reliable electric grid to be progress.

      • jungletrunks | November 15, 2021 at 8:13 am |

        “Transition will be rapid when technologically feasible”

        I believe Robert is describing a “formula” based on observable technological advancement; implicitly based on many fronts of research, beginning with “all the above” as the path towards prosperity, while pointing to near-term possibilities for what could initiate a paradigm shift for clean, cheap energy. I think holistically he’s accurate. Technology is advancing exponentially, the only threat to this is draconian social engineering the crushes economic growth and prosperity.

        Humans have a propensity to visualize narrowly. There will come a time when there really will be a climate control knob, just not in my lifetime. I have no doubt wonderous technologies, unimaginable today, are forthcoming assuming we can survive the fascist lurch by the Left. If we survive we’ll laugh at todays hysteria. Within 50 years time there will be a global paradigm shift for cheap, clean energy that will jumpstart struggling poor countries, if we remain free, and survive; it will have nothing to do with todays hysteria. Technology has been organically advancing, exponentially, since the beginning of the industrial age.

      • Burl Henry | November 15, 2021 at 9:02 am |

        There ALREADY is a” Climate’ Control Knob””, which is the amount of dimming SO2 aerosols circulating in our atmosphere, which are needed to prevent our temperatures from drastically rising..

        “Clean energy” is desirable, but we have to somehow devise a cooling method to replace the SO2 aerosols. when there are no strato-volcanic eruptions for 3-4 years.

      • jeffnsails850 | November 15, 2021 at 10:00 am |

        “I have no doubt wonderous technologies, unimaginable today, are forthcoming assuming we can survive the fascist lurch by the Left. ”

        The bad news is that COP26 affirmed the lurch publicly.

        The good news is that everyone is flying home from COP26 in their private jets laughing at the lurchers privately.

        The great news is pretty much every analyst is expecting the mid-terms to be a massive shift.

        The big question re survival is whether we can live through the massive financial windfall the climate crusaders just gave to the Russian and Chinese militaries.

  69. popesclimatetheory | November 15, 2021 at 12:10 am |

    a species so sophisticated that it can survive in outer space.
    And so stupid that it can destroy the fossil fuel that made it successful.

  70. angech | November 15, 2021 at 2:01 am |

    Elon Musk getting out while he can? What does he know?

  71. jimmww | November 15, 2021 at 4:28 am |

    Judith, that is very close to perfect.
    It’s assertive but not aggressive, and not demure.
    Many hope for a Lochinvar with sword and shield, but this is much more effective and we can all hope it may have some effect.
    When I say close to perfect, I mean that I have no idea how I or anyone else would improve it.
    But…Einstein may be right.

  72. Pingback: It will be a good day when Judith Curry is better known than Greta Thunberg – Point of Order

  73. agnostic2015 | November 15, 2021 at 9:09 am |

    Dear god, it is so refreshing to come on to this site and read a post like this. The voice of reason in a world of histrionics. I agree with everything in this post and it summarised so well. Good luck with this, I hope this get some people thinking.

  74. jim2 | November 15, 2021 at 10:15 am |

    Of course, the economics only works if you take into account “damage” from CO2. This masks the true and high cost.

    The study, performed by California-based researchers, looks at the possibility of electrifying rail-based freight. It finds that the technology is pretty much ready, and under the right circumstances, the economics are on the verge of working out. Plus, putting giant batteries on freight cars has the potential to create some interesting side benefits.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/can-we-run-our-trains-using-big-batteries/

  75. Wagathon | November 15, 2021 at 10:20 am |

    Miners of calamity are always looking for data to reinforce their apocalyptic projections. Everyday, we wonder what the next Big Lie! will be. Off we go, from using the Russia meme to hijack a presidential election, all paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and hung around Trump’s neck for 4 years, to the next lie-upon-lie-upon-lie about a looming global warming catastrophe.

  76. Robert I. Ellison | November 15, 2021 at 1:16 pm |

    Ground truthing for radar altimetry calibration and validation.

    New ‘SWOT mission aims to provide SSH measurements in two dimensions along a wide-swath altimeter track with an expected effective resolution down to wavelengths of 15–30 km.’ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.679844/full

    • Curious George | November 15, 2021 at 7:22 pm |

      “an expected effective resolution down to wavelengths of 15–30 km.”
      What does this have to do with a “radar altimetry calibration and validation”?

  77. Robert I. Ellison | November 15, 2021 at 4:31 pm |

    Closing the nuclear fuel cycle by wasting 3% short half life fission products. Recycling heavier and longer half life actinides into further burn cycles. Utilise energy in existing nuclear waste stockpiles and DU for 1000’s of years power.

    https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/nfc0811.pdf

    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/REMIX-fuel-ready-for-final-test

    Works in any reactor – but well suited to a fast neutron, helium cooled, convert and burn reactor core.

    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/REMIX-fuel-ready-for-final-test

  78. Robert I. Ellison | November 15, 2021 at 4:32 pm |

    Earth’s oceans and atmosphere are fractal fluid flow eddies from micro to planetary waves – driven by planetary spin and a nonequilibrium thermodynamic system. One changing constantly but slowly. But with rapid and intense change entirely possible.

    I’m guessing to the cold side in coming decades – based only on solar intensity.

    ‘Earth System Science
    is the study of the interconnected components of our environment—the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere—and how they interact to produce an integrated whole. It utilizes the fundamental disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology and applies them in the context of human activities and landscapes to understand the Earth, at scales ranging from single watersheds to the entire globe.’ https://geography.berkeley.edu/geography-studies/earth-system-science

    • Burl Henry | November 17, 2021 at 10:54 pm |

      Robert I Ellison;

      Absolute nonsense!

      • Robert I. Ellison | November 18, 2021 at 2:17 pm |

        Which bit would that be? Fractal turbulence?

        https://www.me.iitb.ac.in/~awdate/other1.html

      • Burl Henry | November 18, 2021 at 9:02 pm |

        Robert I. Ellison:

        Yes, that, and the other nonsense from Berkley Earth that you quoted

        Earth’s climate is extremely simple. It is totally controlled by the amount of SO2 aerosols circulating in the atmosphere, of either volcanic or Industrial origin.

        Increase them, and it cools down. Decrease them, and it warms up. They over-ride any changing solar effects (if any exist).

        Because of their random nature, it will never be possible to make predictions of future temperatures.beyond a few years.

        However, it can be predicted that, if SO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are eliminated, and there are no volcanic eruptions for more than 3-4 years, temperatures will quickly soar well beyond the desired 1.5 deg. C. threshold.

        At least 7 such volcanic droughts have occurred since 1850, but there were always industrial SO2 aerosols present to prevent extreme temperatures.,

        The nuclear approach that you propose may provide Clean Energy, but SO2, or some other type of atmospheric pollution, will be needed to prevent scorching temperatures when there are no volcanic eruptions.

  79. jim2 | November 15, 2021 at 5:58 pm |

    There’s a reason India and China defended coal’s future at the Glasgow climate summit: no nations have added more coal-fired power-plant capacity in the past decade than these two major emitters.

    China and India are currently mining a combined 14 million tons a day of the dirtiest fossil fuel. Coal not only remains crucial to their current energy needs but it looks set to have a role for decades to come. That’s even as the two Asian giants install huge volumes of renewables and chase targets to zero out greenhouse gas emissions.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/14-million-tons-a-day-show-why-china-and-india-won-t-quit-coal?srnd=premium

  82. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 16, 2021 at 10:20 am |

    La Niña index may fall to -1.5 C in November.
    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino12.png

  83. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 16, 2021 at 1:37 pm |

    10:24 PM AKST on November 15, 2021 (GMT -9)
    Elev 27 m, 64.56 °N, 165.22 °W
    Nome, AK Weather Conditionsstar NOME STATION
    –° | -20°
    -40 °C
    LIKE -47°
    https://www.wunderground.com/weather/us/ak/nome/KAKNOME22

  84. RS | November 16, 2021 at 9:11 pm |

    “There’s a reason India and China defended coal’s future at the Glasgow climate summit:”

    Its future looks bright because they need it to run their air conditioners.

  85. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 17, 2021 at 3:35 am |

    Canada’s colder low could bring lots of snow to the Great Lakes.
    https://i.ibb.co/3SXDNQ0/mimictpw-namer-latest.gif

  86. co2islife | November 17, 2021 at 9:19 am |

    The Next Environmental Crisis will be the collapsing US Economy. Environmental Regulations, Energy Shortages and the resulting inflation directly attributable to the Green Infrastructure and regulations will eventually crush the US economy, and drive both the bond and equity markets far lower. Poverty will be the next Environmental Crisis.

    • Burl Henry | November 17, 2021 at 12:58 pm |

      co2islife:

      ALL of this could be avoided if the contrarian climate change community would simply accept the fact that the Control Knob for Earth’s temperatures is the amount of SO2 aerosols circulating in the atmosphere. This can easily be proven, and used to show that CO2 has NO climatic effect—and therefore there no need for any Green infrastructure!.

    • Burl Henry | November 17, 2021 at 10:48 pm |

      co2islife:

      Unfortunately, a very good synopsis of our future, if nothing is changed..

      However, ALL of the above could easily be avoided if the contrarian Climate Science community were to recognize that the Control Knob for Earth’s climate is simply the quantities of dimming SO2 aerosols circulating in our atmosphere, and not CO2, and to act upon that fact!.

      There is NO need for any “Green Infrastructure”

      ,

  87. Robert I. Ellison | November 17, 2021 at 1:36 pm |

    The decline of populations of 4,392 monitored species since 1970 is an early Anthropocene risk.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-living-planet-index

  88. Bill Fabrizio | November 17, 2021 at 1:43 pm |

    41,000 people a year are admitted to hospital emergency rooms for …

    being bit by …

    humans.

  89. Wagathon | November 18, 2021 at 12:46 am |

    An infrastructure bill that would pay for electric car charging stations throughout the country without building nuclear power plants is pretty stupid, right?

  90. jungletrunks | November 18, 2021 at 9:18 am |

    Except for natural causation, all other potential causes for the next environmental crises will center on a lack of diverse environmental thought. The next environmental risk will be driven by ideological causation; just like the current perception of environmental crises is; it’s all firmly rooted in hegemonic education.

    The next environmental crises will still be woke; the roots are Neo Marxist based.

    Solutions can only come from freedom of thought and expression; it’s fundamental to prosperity. Hopefully this educational trend proliferates:
    https://www.uaustin.org

    • Richard Greene | November 18, 2021 at 11:39 am |

      I predict the next
      environmental crisis
      will NOT be predicted.

      That prediction is Based on
      100% wrong predictions
      of coming environmental crises
      since the 1960s. it is obvious
      that humans lack the ability
      to predict the future.

      I also predict there will be brand new
      imaginary coming environmental crises
      … that never show up.

      I can’t prove any of my own predictions
      will be correct. In fact, I have a theory
      that it is impossible to prove anything,
      but I can’t prove it.

  92. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 19, 2021 at 4:15 am |

    Galactic radiation levels indicate very low solar activity (weak solar wind magnetic field).
    https://i.ibb.co/cDPjFK1/onlinequery.png

  93. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 19, 2021 at 4:43 am |

    In a few days, a powerful high will cause temperatures in northern Canada to drop to levels now being recorded in Alaska.
    https://i.ibb.co/k3Zf4MH/gfs-uv250-namer-21.png

  94. jim2 | November 19, 2021 at 8:52 am |

    Here’s some alarmist blather (AKA BS).

    Global Warming Is Destroying Crops. Can It Be Stopped In Time?

    https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ARdopHJe75o/stephanie-flanders

    So, I searched for countries where crop yields are falling due to global warming and found none. Unfortunately, the podcast has no transcript, so I’m having problems understanding some of it, but right off the bat, they start talking about a fertilizer shortage which is currently becoming a problem. However, this isn’t a global warming issue, it’s an id-eee-oots in charge problem. At any rate, none of this stops Stephanie Flanders from the loud headling that warming is destroying crops. It’s a lie. And it’s disgusting.

  95. Christos Vournas | November 20, 2021 at 2:51 am |

    JJBraccili

    “All that happens, as you rotate a planet faster and faster, is the local surface temperatures approach the average temperature of the planet, which is the same whether the planet is rotating or not.”

    No JJBraccili, with FASTER ROTATION a planet RISES its average (Tmean) temperature !!!

    Tdark rises higher, than Tsolar lessens – and, consequently, the Tmean with faster rotation rises too.

    Tdark↑↑→ T↑mean ← T↓solar

    The faster a planet rotates (n2>n1) the higher is the planet’s average (mean) temperature T↑mean.
    So we shall have:

    Tmean2 > Tmean1

    As a result, a faster rotating planet is a WARMER planet

    https://www.cristos-vournas.com

    • Christos Vournas | November 20, 2021 at 12:12 pm |

      Planet solar side and planet dark side are NOT two IDENTICAL Hemispheres the IR emitting behavior wise.

      The planet solar hemisphere IR emission intensify is a result of Hemisphere’s interaction with the incident Solar Flux’s energy. The Solar irradiated Hemisphere does not emit IR energy at the exact Stefan-Boltzmann emission law.
      The Solar irradiated Hemisphere emits IR energy in a different, the INTERACTION PROCESS determined way.

      On the other hand, the planet Dark Hemisphere emits IR energy in accordance to exact Stefan-Boltzmann emission law.

      Let’s assume a rotating planet at radiative equilibrium. Let’s estimate the planet’s average surface temperature.
      What we can do is to take the average Tsolar of solar hemisphere and the average Tdark of dark hemisphere, summarize them and divide by 2.
      Thus we shall have
      Tave1 = (Tsolar1+Tdark1) /2

      And it is the planet Total surface area average temperature.

      Let’s now have the same planet rotating faster (n2 >n1)
      When rotating faster the average Tsolar2 lessens by (-ΔTsolar)
      And the average Tdark2 rises by (+ΔTdark)

      Tsolar2 = Tsolar1 -ΔTsolar
      Tdark2 = Tdark1 +ΔTdark

      The two hemispheres (the Solar and the Dark) are NOT identical IR energy emission wise.
      Thus:

      ΔTdark >> ΔTsolar

      Thus
      Tave2 = (Tsolar2+Tdark2) /2 =
      [(Tsolar1 -ΔTsolar) + (Tdark1 +ΔTdark)] /2 =
      (Tave1 -ΔTsolar +ΔTdark)] /2

      Consequently, when planet rotates faster (n2>n1) it is on average surface temperature a WARMER planet,
      and
      Tave2 > Tave1

      https://www.cristos-vournas.com

    • Christos Vournas | November 22, 2021 at 9:16 am |

      JJBraccili

      “The first law of thermodynamics states:

      The change in internal energy = energy in – energy out

      If the internal energy of a planet doesn’t change, the temperature of a planet can’t change. That’s about as fundamental as it gets in science.

      You claim that energy in always equals energy out. If that’s true, the internal energy of planet can’t change and its temperature can’t change. Yet, you claim somehow it does. That’s about as ridiculous as it gets.”

      JJBraccili, what you do here is to confuse solar flux’s W/m² with heat’s cal.

      W/m² is not cal/m²…

      When we say for Planet Radiative Energy Budget
      energy in = energy out

      then what we refer to is the radiative energy.
      Radiative energy is measured in W/m² unit.
      W/m² is radiative energy intensity measure, it is not an amount of heat added to planetary surface, as you might think.

      The not reflected portion of the incident on the planet surface radiative energy does not get ENTIRELY absorbed AS HEAT .

      What radiative energy does is to INTERACT with the surface’s matter.
      The planet average surface specific heat cp and the planet rotational spin N are of the major factors in the “radiative energy – planet surface” INTERACTION PROCESS.

      In planetary surface Radiative Equilibrium the entire incident solar radiative energy is re-radiated out.

      1). On the spot and on the very instant the partial SW Reflection (specular and diffuse) of the incident radiative flux.
      2). On the spot and on the very instant IR emission of a transformed from SW into LW fraction of the not reflected portion.
      3). On the very instant and on the spot the rest of the not reflected and not IR emitted solar radiative energy gets accumulated in form of heat in the surface’s inner layers.
      The amount of heat accumulated in the surface’s inner layers will later (at the night time hours), it will also be IR emitted as outgoing energy.

      The amount of heat accumulated in the surface’s inner layers is what varies for planet’s variations of “the planet average surface specific heat cp and the planet rotational spin N” products.

      When INTERACTING with planetary surface the energy is reflected, IR emitted and accumulated at the same time. Only a fraction of EM energy is accumulated in form of HEAT for the later IR emission.

      When at nighttime hours surface does not interact with solar flux. At nighttime hours surface emits IR EM radiative energy as the Stefan-Boltzmann emission law requires. Surface’s spots emit at nighttime hours as previously warmed blackbody spots which they are then.

      Conclusion:
      There is not any violation of The first law of thermodynamics, when a faster rotating planet appears to be on average surface a warmer planet.

      https://www.cristos-vournas.com

  97. Ragnaar | November 20, 2021 at 4:04 pm |

    The paragraph containing this is good:
    “By rapidly transitioning to this so-called clean energy economy, we’re taking a big step backwards in human development and prosperity. Nations are coming to grips with their growing over dependence on wind and solar energy.”
    You might want to frame things as theory versus practice. We have all the climate science. Lots of theories of future problems. A more tractable thing is practice. We have been waiting on high energy prices. They are here now. The argument for fossil fuels is practice. Successful grids use affordable dispatchable and baseload. I think that practice overpowers theory. Theory can be held in place with government money and mandates. But the act of holding them in place, wastes resources. You’re correct. We are going backwards or at best sideways. Probably creating problems with theory.

  98. Michael Cunningham aka Faustino aka Genghis Cunn | November 20, 2021 at 11:25 pm |

    I missed this blog post. I have to agree, as I’ve been making many of these points for 20 years.

  99. Ireneusz Palmowski | November 21, 2021 at 1:03 pm |

    If anyone thinks that the polar vortex will strengthen, they are sorely mistaken. The ozone blockade in the north of Pacific will strengthen again, which promises a harsh winter in eastern North America.
    https://i.ibb.co/SfWNCYw/npst30.webp

  100. David Dunham | November 21, 2021 at 6:36 pm |

    Glaciers have been melting all my life and the planet has been warming for 10,000 years. 10,000 years!
    We are still in the transition from a great ice age where there entire top of the planet was frozen. Why do we think that the earth would just stop at some transition between frozen and warm
    Most of us get to age 75, we have only recently discovered that we should wash our hands often, and are only slightly past burning witches at the stake and rejecting the earth is flat.

  101. mikeedwards13 | November 23, 2021 at 10:36 am |

    I found it amusing that the iaiLive site featured a documentary “The Disappearing Delta”, on the erosion of the Mississippi delta. The blurb squarely pins the blame on “sea-level rise”, which seems to me about as wrong-headed as it can get.

    The major problems for the Mississippi delta are man’s interference with the natural flows of water and the sediments that they carry, which build and maintain the delta in the first place. Between levees and dams, there has been a reduction in sediment and a straightjacket placed on where the sediment can reach. Without the fresh sediment, the delta suffers from erosion and from subsidence.

    Entirely a man-made problem, but not much to do with sea level rise and climate change.

  102. McGee | November 25, 2021 at 10:33 am |

    “Finally we shall establish, as a psychological principle, the exaggeration of probabilities by the passions. Something that is feared, or that is keenly desired, seems to us for that reason to be even more probable. Its image, strongly etched on the sensorium, weakens the impression of contrary probabilities, and sometimes obliterates them to the point of making one believe that the thing has happened.” (Laplace, 1825, p. 111)

    It strikes me that this applies to visions of climate change.

    To be sure, there is reason to believe in increased radiative forcing from which global mean temperature increase would follow. But it is not abstract temperature numbers which activate human amygdala’s. Rather, it is imagination of increased:

    * extreme thunderstorms and tornadoes ( contraindicated by observation )
    * intense tropical cyclones ( not observed )
    * increased drought ( not observed )
    * barren desert wastelands ( contraindicated by satellite data )
    * global fires ( contraindicated by satellite data )

    These events, which have occurred through out human history, are visceral, indicating their appeal to out instinctual rather than analytical selves.

    One can imagine storm and cyclone winds and the apocalyptic destruction. One can imagine the heat and parched lips when one walks the cracked earth of a dry lakebed.
    One can imagine the heat, smoke, and destruction of a fire.

    These events become reified because of instinct, not because of reason.

  104. jimmww | December 8, 2021 at 1:16 am |

    Very good indeed, Judith. I would suggest though that instead of “The planet has been warming for more than a century” we say that the planet has been warming for the last 14,500 years since the end of the LGM, when London and NYC were under mile-thick slabs of ice. And that it’s not even near as warm as 8,000 years ago at the Holocene Optimum. And that CO2 has not been in control of any of that.