by Judith Curry
A 20 minute presentation on Climate & Uncertainty and Risk (including some content from my forthcoming book)
This was presented at the ICCC Conference. Here is a link to my complete presentation with audio [presentation]. Lindzen and McKitrick also gave excellent presentations in this session (I assume the presentations will be made available online in a few days).
Most of this material will be familiar from previous blog posts, here is the text of my presentation with some images.
What we know, versus what we don’t and cannot know
Even people that don’t know much about climate science have heard that 97% of climate scientists agree. But exactly what do they agree on? Not nearly as much as is portrayed in the media. Everyone agrees that:
- Surface temperatures have increased since 1880
- Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and
- Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases have a warming effect on the planet
However, there is disagreement on the most consequential issues:
- How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans
- How much the planet will warm in the 21st century
- Whether warming is ‘dangerous’
- And how we should respond to the warming, to improve human well being
The first two points are in the realm of science, requiring logical arguments, model simulations and expert judgment to assess “whether” and “how much.” The issue of “dangerous” is an issue of societal values, about which science has little to say. Whether reducing CO2 emissions will improve human wellbeing is an issue of economics and technology. This is also contingent on the relative importance of natural climate variability versus human-caused global warming for the 21st century.
Nevertheless, we are endlessly fed the trope that 97% of climate scientists agree that warming is dangerous and that science demands urgent reductions in CO2 emissions.
Why do scientists disagree?
The most fundamental source of disagreement regarding the theory of human-caused climate change is natural climate variability. Why do climate scientists disagree on the relative importance of natural versus human-caused climate change? The historical data is sparse and inadequate, particularly in the oceans. There’s disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence, notably the value of global climate model simulations and paleoclimate reconstructions. There’s also disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence. And finally, there’s little acknowledgement that some climate processes are poorly understood or even unknown.
Science works just fine when there is more than one hypothesis to explain something. In fact, disagreement spurs scientific progress through creative tension and efforts to resolve the disagreement.
Perils of consensus
In the 1990’s the IPCC made a fateful decision to formulate their reports around consensus. The IPCC arguably adopted a “speaking consensus to power” approach that sees uncertainty and dissent as problematic and attempts to mediate these into a consensus. The speaking consensus to power strategy acknowledges that available knowledge is inconclusive and uses consensus as a proxy for truth. The consensus to power strategy reflects a specific vision of how politics deals with scientific uncertainties.
The IPCC’s manufacture of consensus has done incalculable harm to climate science and the policy making that is informed by climate science.
- An explicit consensus building processes has enforced overconfidence and belief polarization.
- Consensus beliefs are serving as agents in their own confirmation
- Dismissal of skepticism has been detrimental to scientific progress
- Overreliance on expert judgment has motivated shortcuts in reasoning and hidden biases
- Narrow framing of the climate change problem has provided a basis for neglecting research in certain areas
Framing the climate problem
So, how did we come to the point where we’re alleged to have a future crisis on our hands, but the primary solution of rapid global emissions reductions is deemed to be impossible? The source of this conundrum is that we have mischaracterized climate change as a tame problem, with a simple solution.
The climate change problem is framed as being caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which can be solved by eliminating fossil fuel emissions. Both the problem and solution are included in a single frame. This framing dominates the UN negotiations on climate change.
The framing on the right addresses climate change as a complex, wicked problem. This framing shows two separate frames, one associated with the causes of climate change and the other associated with solutions that can help reduce vulnerability to climate change. The larger frame on the right also includes natural causes for climate change such as the sun, volcanoes and slow circulations in the ocean. This framing is provisional, acknowledging that our understanding is incomplete and that there may be unknown processes influencing climate change.
The frame on the left is about controlling the climate, whereas the frame on the right is about understanding the climate. Further, the framing on the right acknowledges the futility of control. Solutions on the right focus on managing the basic human necessities of energy, water and food. Economic development supports these necessities while reducing our vulnerability to weather and climate extremes.
My own understanding of climate change and human well being is squarely in the framing on the right.
The Climate crisis isn’t what it used to be
The climate “crisis” isn’t what it used to be. Circa 2013 with publication of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the extreme emissions scenario RCP8.5 was regarded as the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with expected warming of 4 to 5 oC by 2100. Now there is growing acceptance that RCP8.5 is implausible, and RCP4.5 is arguably the current business-as-usual emissions scenario according to recent reports issued by the COP 26 and 27. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that followed RCP4.5 with 2 to 3 oC warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2 oC seems to be in reach, the goal posts were moved in 2018 to reduce the warming target to 1.5 oC.
Climate catastrophe rhetoric now seems linked to extreme weather events. For nearly all of these events, it is difficult to identify any role for human-caused climate change in increasing either their intensity or frequency.
Misperception of climate risk
The main stream media is currently awash with articles from prominent journalists on how the global warming threat is less than we thought. The rationale for continuing to increase the alarm is that the impacts are worse than we thought, specifically with regards to extreme weather. Attributing extreme weather and climate events to global warming is now the primary motivation for the rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
This rationale commits the logical fallacy of conflation. There are two separate risk categories for climate change. The first is impacts of the slow creep of global warming on sea level rise, contribution to regional water shortages and hypothesized tipping points. The second is extreme weather events and interannual climate variability, which has little if anything to do with global warming.
The proposed management strategy for both risk categories is to eliminate CO2 emissions. This strategy may have some incremental benefits in the 22nd century, but will not help with the emergency risks associated with extreme weather events. The appropriate way to deal with the emergency risks is fundamentally regional, through economic development and vulnerability reduction.
The urgency of addressing emergency risk is being used to motivate the urgency of reducing the incremental risk from emissions. Ironicallly, attempts to reduce emissions are exacerbating energy poverty and unreliability, which is increasing emergency risk.
One would logically think that if warming is less than we thought but impacts are worse, that the priorities would shift from CO2 mitigation towards development and adaptation. However, that hasn’t been the case.
Perceptions of risk
How did we come to the point where the world’s leaders and much of the global population think that we urgently need to reduce fossil fuel emissions in order to prevent bad weather?
Not only have we misperceived the climate risk, but politicians and the media have played on our psychological fears of certain type risks to amp up the alarm.
Psychologist Paul Slovic describes a suite of psychological characteristics that make risks feel more or less frightening, relative to the actual facts. In each of the risk pairs on the left half of the slide, the second risk factor in bold is perceived to make the risk worse than it actually is.
For example, risks that are common, self-controlled and voluntary, such as driving, generate the least public apprehension. Risks that are rare and imposed and lack potential upside, like terrorism, invoke the most dread.
Activist communicators emphasize the manmade aspects of climate change, the unfair burden of risks on undeveloped countries and poor people, and the more immediate risks of severe weather events. The recent occurrence of infrequent events such as a hurricane or flood produces elevated perceptions of the risk of low probability events. This then translate into perceptions of overall climate change risk.
The cultural theory of risk proposes that our views on risk are filtered through culturalworld views about how society should operate. Our perceptions of climate risk have been cleverly manipulated by propagandists.
Even if the initial harm from climate change is small, the social risk is being greatly amplified by the collective responses and irrational behaviors of individuals. The response to climate risk, driven by alarmism and “extinction” rhetoric, has arguably crossed the threshold to actually increasing the social risk associated with climate change, including increasing risks from energy poverty.
We have mischaracterized climate risk
Leading risk scientists and philosophers, who don’t have a particular dog in the climate fight, have expressed their concerns about how all this has evolved and where it is headed.
Norwegian risk scientist Terje Aven has this to say:
“The current thinking and approaches have been shown to lack scientific rigor, the consequence being that climate change risk and uncertainties are poorly presented. The climate change field needs to strengthen its risk science basis, to improve the current situation.”
Philosopher Thomas Well has this to say:
“The global climate change debate has gone badly wrong. Many mainstream environmentalists are arguing for the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons, and so long as they continue to do so, they put all our futures in jeopardy.”
Mixing politics and science
One of the reasons that the global climate change debate has gone badly wrong is that we have created problems at the interface between climate science and policy making.
Encroachment of politics into socially-relevant science is unavoidable. Problems arise from many sources, and scientists, policy makers and the media are all culpable.
Climate science is far from the only area of science that has been politicized. Others include COVID19, gender studies, and genetically modified food. Cancel culture is alive and well in the sciences, where scientists that disagree with an interpretation that supports desired policy objectives are ostracized, with some even losing their jobs.
Wicked science
The wickedness of the climate problem is related to the duality of science and politics in the face of an exceedingly complex problem. There are two common but inappropriate ways of mixing science and politics.
The first is scientizing policy, which deals with intractable political conflict by transforming the political issues into scientific ones. The problem with this is that science is not designed to answer questions about how the world ought to be, which is the domain of politics. The second is politicization of science, whereby scientific research is influenced or manipulated in support of a political agenda. We have seen both of these inappropriate ways of mixing science and politics in dealing with climate change and also the pandemic.
There’s a third way, which is known as wicked science. Wicked science is tailored to the dual scientific and political natures of wicked societal problems. Wicked science uses approaches from complexity science and systems thinking in a context that engages with decision makers and other stakeholders.
Wicked science requires a transdisciplinary approach that treats uncertainty as of paramount importance. Effective use of wicked science requires that policy makers acknowledge that control is limited and the future is unknown. Effective politics provides room for dissent and disagreement about policy options, and includes a broad range of stakeholders.
Climate Uncertainty and Risk – the book
I have a new book that is in press, entitled Climate Uncertainty and Risk. The subtitle for the book is rethinking the climate change problem, the risks we are facing, and how we can respond.
This book encompasses my own philosophy for navigating the wicked problem of climate change. As such, this book provides a single slice through the wicked terrain. By acknowledging uncertainties in the context of better risk management and decision-making frameworks, in combination with techno-optimism, there is a broad path forward for humanity to thrive in the 21st century.
JC note: Quick update on my book. Currently in copyediting and indexing phase. New and improved cover (check it out in my presentation slides). Update on paperback edition: will be published simultaneously with hardcover edition.
“Narrow framing of the climate change problem has provided a basis for neglecting research in certain areas”
The proper climate change framing that follows natural law is ‘the sun warms the ocean, the ocean warms the atmosphere, the ocean regulates CO2, and emissions don’t warm the climate.’
The CO2 control knob framing is 100% wrong but the UN doesn’t want to hear any challenges as no one makes any money and they lose a major control lever. My sun-climate research for instance is in the very area neglected & suppressed by the IPCC, the solar forcing of ocean warming and ML CO2 regulation:
https://i.postimg.cc/769RYf0b/S-B-Equation-and-Sun-Climate.png
https://i.postimg.cc/Gt1tyQJ5/CCF-of-12ma-Chg-in-Eq-OHC-anomaly-vs-12ma-Chg-in-ML-CO2-anomaly.png
IPCC scientists and politicians worldwide don’t recognize that humans can’t alter natural climate change by cutting emissions.
The wicked science and society problem is getting everyone to understand everyone was wrong about the need for Net Zero, decarbonization, and everything associated with trying to stop something that was completely out of our hands to begin with.
The real societal risk is the continued expansion of any and all policies that are based on the flawed, wrong IPCC CO2 science.
Because climate is now proven to be absolutely solar-driven, society deserves a ‘climate peace dividend’ so to speak; ie, Joe’s $350B climate bill won’t change the climate.
None of the draconian Net Zero policies were ever necessary, and the fight against hydrocarbons can and should end now. Part of this dividend should be a drastic reduction in climate spending at the university level as most of the current effort on climate change is misplaced and redundant.
e climate is now proven to be absolutely solar-driven,
Not True
Climate is proven to be NOT solar driven, according to NASA satellite Top of Atmosphere solar energy measurements in the satellite age. That energy has slightly declined, so could not possible account for even +0.1 degrees C. of global warming since the 1970s. If you have better data, please provide it.
thecliffclavenoffinance | February 25, 2023 at 9:50 am –
“Climate is proven to be NOT solar driven, according to NASA satellite Top of Atmosphere solar energy measurements in the satellite age. That energy has slightly declined,”
Cliff – that seems to be a common misrepresentation of the actual facts and science.
Solar energy has declined somewhat since circa 1950’s through today (as measured by TSI) , though solar energy today still remains higher than during the mid to late 1800’s.
I suspect long term changes in TSI may not be reflected in surface temperatures for 20-40+ years. I dont think the solar energy works like an instant thermostat, partly due to the ocean effect. I have not seen any coherent scientific discussion of this topic.
The only discussion on the effect of changes in solar energy is from AGW advocates who argue that the changes in solar energy should be immediately reflected in earth surface temps, thus there should be cooling since the 1950’s. Since there has been no cooling, then the only reason for the continued warming is solely due to increases in CO2.
Would love the hear coherent scientific discussion on this topic. Perhaps JC could weigh in
Richard Greene, I already provided better data & interpretation.
https://i.postimg.cc/769RYf0b/S-B-Equation-and-Sun-Climate.png
@ Joe: “I suspect long term changes in TSI may not be reflected in surface temperatures for 20-40+ years.”
This is exactly the point of my S-B Sun-Climate plots. However, instead of solar heat storage circulating for just 20-40 years, it is actually for 120 total years of solar activity, or during 11 solar cycles.
“Would love the hear coherent scientific discussion on this topic.”
This also is what would scare a hell of a lot of people.
This is exactly what I bring to the table.
This is what I’ve been banging on about since 2014.
The Stefan-Boltzmann emission law
Jemit = σT⁴ W/m² is NOT the RADIATIVE ENERGY absorption law!
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Thus, the Planet Effective Temperature Equation:
Te = [ (1-a) S / 4 σ ]¹∕ ⁴ (K) Hansen et. al., (1981)
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_ha04600x.pdf
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The Planet Effective Temperature Equation is NOT the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, it is a MATHEMATICAL ABSTRACTION!
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https://judithcurry.com/2023/02/15/new-yorks-good-environmental-intentions-unsullied-by-reality/#comment-986647
@Christos
It is powerful for a mathematical abstraction, despite your linked post where you called it a mistake without justification.
Perhaps you didn’t see that this special application derived from Stefan-Boltzmann, what Hansen and you call the “Planet Effective Temperature Equation”, was used to recover the exact observed 30ya SST change as shown in my graphic for the period 1890 to 2010 by using just TSI changes.
Perhaps you could make an effort to recognize I am talking in Jim Hansen’s language and showing he is wrong by using it.
Bob:
“Perhaps you could make an effort to recognize I am talking in Jim Hansen’s language and showing he is wrong by using it.”
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Yes, I recognize you are talking in Jim Hansen’s language and showing he is wrong by using it.
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Of course, as you say, THE SUN CONTROLS CLIMATE ABSOLUTELY!
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Bob:
“Perhaps you didn’t see that this special application derived from Stefan-Boltzmann, what Hansen and you call the “Planet Effective Temperature Equation”, was used to recover the exact observed 30ya SST change as shown in my graphic for the period 1890 to 2010 by using just TSI changes.”
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Yes, I see it was used to recover the exact observed 30ya SST change.
Also, a “special application derived from Stefan-Boltzmann” is a good “working” name. Maybe to call it “the Hansen’s Equation”…
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****
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Hello there!
May I kindly point to Javier Vinós Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis, which he published on this blog (just scroll down on Judith´s main page).
I agree it is only a hypothesis, but it nicely deals with your assertion that the sun would be proven NOT to drive the climate. For that statement to be true you would have to disprove his hypothesis (among other things) and given the depths of his presentation, at least I consider it well rooted in facts and science, so your tasks can certainly not be accomplished in one liners!
Judy, this is another outstanding piece. Thank you for publishing it.
Judith I know it’s petty but misusing entitled for titles detracts from your considerable influence imo. Books aren’t entitled.
Sorry, titled not titles
“Entitled” is the older usage and still fine. e.g. see Grammarist.com.
Yes they are. That’s how they get titles.
As a volunteer, helping provide firewood to the needy, I am pleased to provide plant-food in Central Virginia.
The one line I agree with is climate is absolutely solar driven. Presently I believe the surface average of the sun is cooling.
Do you believe the lowest temperature in the oceans is 28 degrees farenheight going under the ice blocks and 32 degrees on the bottom of the ice blocks coming out?
I would hope that by now, 97% of climate scientists would agree that there’s much we don’t know and cannot know.
Compare the relativity of the knowing and purposeful fakery for a noble cause with an honest broker of truth like Freeman Dyson — a denier of fake climate science — who cannot tell a lie. That’s what it has come down to: an honest man must sometimes take a stand. Science has been so politicized that it is no longer self-correcting. Men of honor understand that. Dyson readily admits to what he does and does not know–e.g., he cannot understand how the media has been ‘brainwashed.’
Excellent presentation Judith. I do think that covid and the garbage science and policy it engendered accelerated the crisis in science and is making it increasingly difficult to deny the crisis. I’m hoping skeptic will once again become a term of honor if a sufficient number of scientists start trying to address the science crisis. Keep up the resistance and good work.
Walter Kaufman wrote a book in 1958 called “Critique of Religion and Philosophy”. One of his main themes was the shallowness and dishonesty of the theology that dominated that period. He opines that perhaps in the future critique will once again be a word of honor. I would recommend this book for its directness and honesty even though many of the theologians he critiques have been forgotten. The sequel is “Faith of a Heretic” which is also good and ranges further afield.
“Effective use of wicked science requires that policy makers acknowledge that control is limited and the future is unknown.” I’ve been arguing this in the media for over 20 years. All politicians should read this post.
Unfortunately acknowledgment that control is limited and the future is unknown is irrelevant to the left leaning political class. For these CAGW is unequivocally presented as scientifically proven known knowns; defined politically under the umbrella of scientific consensus, purposefully ill defined; conflated. Political expediency makes it so.
The political class are willing to metaphorically break the knees of the opponent, especially those bright minds attempting to educate them on facts they have no interest in. The charade will continue to go in circles because constituencies are malleable by the consensus presented by the left leaning media gatekeepers, the playground for politicking, where truth is relevant, spun and measured for attitudinal relevancy. Sadly, at least half of all politicians will read and condemn this essay without any consideration, it’s the other half that must be reached. It isn’t easy, but it’s an important battle.
When politicians get out of hand (if they are ever again likely to be perfectly handled by us individuals who make up an electorate) then we can always spot the democratic issues and problems this causes to policy being driven by consensus within a party rather than acknowledging the beneficial (to those in the electorate) sides of those parties who embrace polemic and avoid policy that steers towards ill conceived consensus. Parties represent people and should not be tyrannical by demanding agreement.
The problem with bureaucracies such as the United Nations is that they wish to remove themselves from conflict and end up imagining an unreal rather than a real world. That the UN then finds ‘figure heads’ in science who will support them is not hard to understand when one follows the money.
The answer must be better democracy and democratic process which embraces and represents all people and does not seek to silence anyone – since we are all equal (at least according to our right to vote and be represented by whomsoever wins that election regardless). If large numbers of voters feel disenfranchised and not represented then democracy has a big problem and so, therefore, does humanity and all its several groups professional, technical, manual etc. including politics and policy. There should never be consensus. There should always be agreement to disagree and the process to follow which attempts to reconcile those differences via sensible communication.
“Consensus” is that shallow weakness we have fought wars over since the very beginnings of differences of opinion with those we love. If we care we care about truth and our love is strong enough to deal with differences to find an acceptable truth – if we ignore truth we are weak and we don’t care and we deserve to be beaten into submission by the consensus.
The problem with the UN, which should have been wound up years ago, is that it is dominated by people who see it as an avenue for wealth and power, not for the advance of the human race as a whole. It began in infamy: Britain went to war to defend Poland, at the Yalta conference Roosevelt went behind Churchill’s back and traded Poland to Russia in exchange for Stalin’s support for his pet project, the UN. Most members are not effective democracies.
Why can’t there be honest debate? The answer is easier to see from 30k feet rather than from within the climate debate per se, it centers on cultures. Western culture grew out from the enlightenment period. Classical liberalism was fundamental to the advancement of all western cultures, from the industrial revolution, in all the sciences, to today.
Dennis Prayer correctly distinguishes between leftism and liberalism, I do not overstate when I say most people don’t see it, or can’t see it; the intent here is not to get into a discussion about the differences between US founding principles of classical liberalism (conservatism); neo liberalism, or progressivism; but rather to distinguish these from leftism; representing various flavors of socialism/fascism and communism. Prayer states: “Truth is not a left-wing value. It is a liberal value, and it is a conservative value, but truth has never been a left-wing value. From Lenin to today’s left, lying, especially about opponents, is morally acceptable as long as it serves the left’s goals of defeating opponents and attaining more power.”
“…in virtually every instance of a Left-Right difference, the Left is lying.” … “There is no important area of left-right difference in which the Left — not liberals; the Left — does not call for shutting down dissent.” Sound familiar?
Why does the before matter in the debate about climate consensus? He is not saying that the right doesn’t lie, BTW. Prager’s meaning has deeper relevancy, his explanation is founded on undeniable, demonstrable truths about political cultures that are as important to understand as this essay is by Dr. Curry. If you want to know why we can’t have an honest debate in the sciences anymore you must turn to culture to understand why. Leftism is precisely the cause of the West’s cultural division.
https://dennisprager.com/column/does-the-left-value-truth/
Climate consensus is a tactical political device, understand this and everything else begins to make sense; truth is precisely NOT the point. Much of climate science, by the time it filters through the political class to global electorate’s, is obfuscated by various means to create a specific outcome; we easily see this today. This is why honest debate is not only shut down, but where it does exist (CE) it’s kept away from the public eye en masse. The MSM is decidedly weighted to the Left. Honest brokers don’t shut down debate.
“Truth-tellers welcome debate.”
https://dennisprager.com/column/between-left-and-right-how-do-you-know-which-side-isnt-telling-the-truth/
jungletrunks
Thoughtful comment. I often wonder what some of those who were considered liberal in the 1950-60s would think of the left today. They are not the same. I suspect many of those who supported FDR, HHH and JFK would be appalled at the ideology and tactics of the contemporary left.
Jungletrunks, CKid, and others interested in “truth”. If you are interested in what we know about establishing what is true, I recommend Jonathan Rauch’s book “The Constitution of Knowledge. A Defense of Truth.” This fabulous book, written by a self-described conservative, explores how we learned to create knowledge, despite our severe cognitive weaknesses. First, he tells us that scientific research had confirmed David Hume’s that, in our natural “tribal” state, human reason is the slave of our passions and “can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”. Reason is like the navigator in the passenger seat of a car, but our emotions and moral intuition s are in the driver’s seat. It turns out that reasoning – from a survival of the fittest perspective – is very useful trait in a tribal society for persuading others. He quotes Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind): Reasoning is like a press secretary whose goal is to justify whatever position her boss has already taken.” In matters that arose strong moral reactions, people care more about looking right than BEING right.
The ancient Greeks were brilliant at deducing the rules of geometry from a set of postulated, but hopeless in science where an appropriate set of postulates was non-intuitive. The heroes in the search for knowledge were the scientists who developed the scientific method of making hypotheses and testing them. Since then our knowledge has grown enormously. The success of scientists in challenging false beliefs from the past prompted Enlightenment thinkers to challenge other dogma from the past and discover what is true. Fundamentally democracy is based on the assumption that individuals also can learn enough about what is true to pick leaders (better than any other method).
To be a member of the realist-based community, Rauch proposes to fundamental principles. 1) The fallibilist rule: You may claim that a statement is established as knowledge only if it can be debunked, in principle, and only insofar it has withstood attempts to debunk it. Given known human fallibility, you must hunt for your own and other’s errors, even if you believe you are confident you are right. Knowledge is always provisional2) The empirical rule: No one has personal authority. You may claim that a statement has been established as knowledge only insofar as the method used to check it gives the same result regardless of the identity of the checker and regardless of the source of the statement. If you method is only valid for you and your affinity group, you aren’t a member of the reality-based community.
The Constitution of Knowledge postulates that knowledge is what WE know, not what you or I know. It doesn’t require everyone to see the world in the same way or acknowledge the same facts. It relies on these differences so that we can test our ideas and facts AND SURMOUNT our biases. Even when the process doesn’t result in consensus , it organizes our disagreements so that we at least can be talking about the same thing. (Do face masks work? What do we mean by “work”?)
Rauch first takes on college cancel cultures, which by their very nature don’t fit his definition of a reality-based community. One might argue that consensus-based climate science isn’t part of a reality-based community because it refuses to publicly engage its qualified critics and relies on an artificial consensus, but it does engage with its critics in the scientific literature, though not always fairly. Rush Limbaugh, who Rauch quotes is certainly not a member of the reality-based community: “Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has been corrupted. None of what they do is real. It’s all lies… We live in two universes. One universe is a lie, The other universe is where WE are, and that is where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it.”
In journalism (Rauch began his career as a journalist), Rauch says it is unrealistic to expect a journalist with normal human biases working on a deadline to get every story 100% right. The organizations that go through the painful and embarrassing job of issuing retractions and correction are the ones that actually care about telling their readers the truth. Sometimes reporters are fired reporters for egregious behavior. However, Trump told his followers that corrections are proof that these organizations always publish FAKE NEWS. The Dominion libel case has shown us how much FOX personalities, Sidney Powell and others cared about the truth!
One last passage: Explaining Trump’s 2016 victory , tow of his senior campaign aides boasted that authenticityhadm trumped accuracy. It didn’t matter to the people whether the boss had gotten the details correct. His words had capture the way they felt. HIs was a language the left couldn’t understand Actually the left understood Trump’s language perfectly well, having done much to invent it. For decades, a gaggle of influential academic doctrines – subjectivism, postmodernism, perspectivism, intersectionality, and more – had denigrated the idea of objective accuracy and the privileging of factuality… Of course, relying on subjective feeling can not root out biases, it only entrenches them. SUBJECTIVISM IS THE OPPOSITE OF LIBERAL SCIENCE, whose entire purpose is to transcend “your own feelings” by outsourcing reality to interchangeable strangers.
Thanks for the response, CKid.
HHH represented the epitome of what a left leaning big government liberal was in his day; yet he was an individualist, not a collectivist. Whether one is an individualist, or a collectivist is the central distinction of whether one is a liberal, or leftist; the chasm between political philosophies is huge. The US was founded on a philosophy centered on classical liberalism. One could lean left (usually meaning a bigger federal government), or right (less power to the federal government), yet all embraced individual liberty and freedom in the day; individualism, liberty and freedom is fundamental to classical liberalism. Federalists, or anti-Federalists fought over the size of government, both groups were classical liberals. Classical liberalism fell out of favor in the late 19th century, this is when neo liberalism/progressivism began, both the latter are bigger government (leaning left) philosophies. Conservatism isn’t a philosophy technically speaking, it represents a sympathetic appeal to an early philosophy, in the US it’s sympathetic appeal is to classical liberalism, the principles behind the founding of the nation, strict adherence to the Constitution, etc. I might add it’s the reason why conservatism does not technically mean one leans either left, or right; though this distinction has obviously been lost. Or has it been lost? Circa 1960 neo liberal leftism is now at the center, politically speaking. AOC would call JFK a hard righter; this is not a flippant statement.
Getting back to HHH: Humphrey stated: “You can be a liberal without being a Communist, and you can be a progressive without being a communist sympathizer, and we’re a liberal progressive party out here. We’re not going to let this left-wing communist ideology be the prevailing force because the people of this state won’t accept it, and what’s more, it’s wrong.”
One of the heroes of WWII, FDR, is another question entirely. He likely would embrace todays Left. Most people are astonished to learn he was highly sympathetic to Fascism, and N@zism in the earlier years, way before it became apparent that a war was looming. Roosevelt himself once called Mussolini “admirable,” adding that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” Mussolini returned the compliment with adulatory praise, writing of Roosevelt’s many reforms, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices … Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” https://dailycaller.com/2016/12/13/fdr-praised-mussolini-and-loved-fascism/
The North Star to US hard Leftism, New York Times, was openly supportive of Benito Mussolini: Anne O’Hare McCormick: “Mussolini, Hope of Youth, Italy’s Man of Tomorrow,” “a leader without political precedent,” “Italy’s man of tomorrow,” … “revolution makes all other changes seem possible,” “have faith in the fascist gospel of national salvation.” In the early 1930s, Mussolini’s own writings made their way into The New York Times, and the newspaper devoted nearly a full page for Mussolini to explain why “fascism [was] the doctrine of the century.” https://badgerherald.com/opinion/2017/11/28/the-new-york-times-once-embraced-fascism-today-they-humanize-nazis/
The Left has had a sweet tooth for Fascism since the beginning, but Fascism for obvious reasons became an ugly philosophy, it’s unusable under its original moniker. The Left and academia have spent decades trying to redefine it on the one had, while reinventing it on the other; sans its proper name. What do we want as a country, individualism, represented in liberty and freedom, or collectivism, represented in … there’s no good role model.
I appreciate the post, Franktoo. There’s a mixed bag of good (front-end loaded) and bad in what you say, much of it from the mouth of Rauch.
“Fundamentally democracy is based on the assumption that individuals also can learn enough about what is true to pick leaders (better than any other method).” Very good.
Then further downstream: “Rush Limbaugh, who Rauch quotes is certainly not a member of the reality-based community”.
What’s a reality-based community? If you’re a communist in China this represents your reality-based community, lying by party leaders is the way of life.
The nice thing is that as individuals we get to pick leaders; whereas in the drive for want of a collectivist society this would no longer be welcome. Perhaps, Franktoo, you don’t want a collectivist society, but if this is the case then you’re blinded by nature of supporting those who demonstrably pull the wool over your eyes. Collectivism is by nature how absolute power corrupts absolutely. The latter makes your earlier opine not possible: “individuals also can learn enough about what is true”.
Unicorns are fun to dream about, most people seem to forget they have a sharp pointy spear that they use to their advantage exceedingly well when grouped together.
Lastly; “Subjectivism is the opposite of liberal science”. The is exactly the point of Dr. Curry’s essay, much of todays climate science is in fact not science at all, it’s subjectivism.
“If we care we care about truth and our love is strong enough to deal with differences to find an acceptable truth – if we ignore truth we are weak and we don’t care and we deserve to be beaten into submission by the consensus.”
This is a good thought. I would only hope that we don’t deserve to beaten into submission regardless of the ends. The enlightened policy is to persuade the ones we love by showing that love by respect, humility and a willingness to follow facts wherever they lead without selectivity.
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Let us hope this tour de force receives the broadest attention. Ontario is proposing the same kind of suicidal policy to eliminate peaking natural gas generation as NY, but at least with expanded nuclear generation at the core of its net zero plan. Ontario has committed to doubling nuclear by 2050 and is building its first stationary SMR at Darlington.
I think it will turn out to be a good thing that Germany has volunteered to be the “green” energy crash test dummy. Already, its lack of electrical capacity and high electricity prices have hobbled its industrial base. (And make no mistake, these negatives are due to Germany’s rush to shut down fossil fuels, not Russia per se. After all, if Germany had continued to push fossil instead of “green,” it would likely have all the energy it needed, just as before the Climate Doomers took over.)
At any rate, even if they succeed at the implementation of the proposed plan, it likely won’t work anyway. Perhaps the world can learn this one TRILLION dollar lesson sponsored by Germany.
Germany has set aside more than €260 billion ($275 billion) to deal with the immediate risks of an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the ultimate fix will be much costlier — if the country can pull it off at all.
The pending price tag for future-proofing the country’s energy system is projected to amount to over $1 trillion by 2030, according to BloombergNEF. The costs include investments in upgrading power grids and above all new generation to manage the phase out of nuclear and coal plants, handle increased demand from electric cars and heating systems, and meet climate commitments.
The transition will require the installation of solar panels covering the equivalent of 43 soccer fields and 1,600 heat pumps every day.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-25/germany-faces-1-trillion-challenge-to-plug-massive-power-gap
@ jim2 | February 25, 2023 at 9:07 am in suspense.
I would add to the most consequential issues list:
Is the climate a self-regulating system. If so, CO2 is less an issue.
It’s not polite for me to come to a nice person’s website and complain about her article. Fortunately, I am not a nice person sp that doesn’t n bother me.
I stopped reading after this phrase at the beginning of a sentence:
“The climate change problem … ”
I can not take not take an author seriously after reading that phrase.
There is no climate problem.
The current climate is wonderful and has been getting better since the coldest decade of the Maunder Minimum period — the 1690s.
The global warming from 1975 to 2015 made the climate better, with more moderate temperatures in colder nations, particularly in the six coldest months of the year and at TMIN.
A continuation of the 1975 to 2015 pattern and timing of warming would be further good news.
The collapse of warming in the 2015 to 2023 period (UAH data), in spite of the largest 8 years increase of CO2, is disappointing
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere accelerates C3 plant growth and that means more food for humans and animals
In my 25 years of climate and energy reading, now up to speed reading up to 24 related articles every morning, I have never found a climate problem, except one:
People who falsely claim there is a climate problem.
Never reading articles by people who disagree with you is a very comfortable position. You will not find that here so you are in the wrong place. We debate.
I read your articles and do not complain about them even though you have claimed AGW does not exist, which is wrong. No one is perfect. If your articles claimed there is a climate crisis, I would stop reading them too.
I use my judgement to decide which authors know what they are talking about. Ms. Curry seems to believe there is a climate problem that must be addressed. So her articles are difficult for me to take seriously.
My Rule of Thumb is that half of what one hears and reads is baloney. The tough job is determining which half. I believe I do a decent job of separating the authors spouting baloney from the authors who know what they are talking about. It makes absolutely no sense to read everything when half is baloney (scientific term).
There is no debate needed on whether there is a climate problem, because there is absolutely no evidence of any climate problem in the past 100 years.
I have 69 years of experience with actual climate change, and 25 years reading about climate science and energy.
If there was a climate problem I would have noticed it by now, or read about it by now,
In fact, the climate here in Michigan has significantly improved since the 1970s.
My study of climate proxies strongly suggests the current climate is the best climate for humans, animals, and especially plants, in the past 5,000 years, since the Holocene Climate Optimum ended,
It would not be logical to read articles by people who claim a climate problem, or crisis, exists, who fail to define what they mean by that.
Ms. Curry skips a step of the assumption ladder by assuming a climate problem exists, without even trying to prove that a problem exists. In my opinion, that is bad science.
Fortunately. Ms. Curry allows better writers to have space here, such as Planning Engineer, so there are good articles to read. She also allows negative comments, which some conservative blog hosts would censor. I hope this comment passes moderation!
Ok, I’ll respond to this since you keep saying it. Climate has always changed, humans have struggled to adapt and they have regarded this as a problem. With regards to human caused climate change, everyone agrees that it is a “problem”: either because of climate change impacts, or policies being invoked. Pretending that the climate “problem” – broadly defined by both perceived impacts of climate change and attempts to “solve” the problem , which is a preoccupation of virtually all national governments on the planet– does not exist, is fatuous.
Simply because you haven’t personally noticed a climate change problem doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. As outlined in my presentation, this is largely a matter of risk perception.
If you want to see the unmitigated Climate Doomer narrative, tune in to Bloomberg TV on Sunday morning. There is talk about sea level rise refugees, and other awful (catastrophic?) things that simply can’t, today, be pinning on man made CO2.
cliff …
> Ms. Curry skips a step of the assumption ladder by assuming a climate problem exists, without even trying to prove that a problem exists. In my opinion, that is bad science.
I think you miss the point of her book. It’s about risk and risk perception, which manifests in public policy. You could substitute covid for climate change and the message would be the same. The ‘problem’ is the assessment, not the nature of the problem.
I understand (and share) your frustration with the current social designation that climate change is a problem, but to accuse Judith of ‘bad science’ … Judith’s attempts to engage always emphasize open discussion. That is the foundation of good science and good public policy.
“Simply because you haven’t personally noticed a climate change problem doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”
This reminds me of a blog exchange I had about eight years ago with climate scientist Dr. Robert Way, a Canadian native Inuit. When I was pointing out the benefits of fertilization and mild winters he clapped back that AGW was impacting the native Inuit’s way of life. It was a real problem that their snowmobiles were getting stuck in previously reliably frozen ice.
I politely let his comment stand without response. But I was struck by the wide breadth of perception of what can be defined as a problem. In hindsight I might have asked him where he thought snowmobiles came from.
More than 97% of climate scientists don’t know anything about the discrete solar forcing of heat and cold waves, or the inverse solar forcing of the AMO. So their opinions on weather events and regional climate variability have no value, and are likely to misdirect and misinform. Like with the latest IPCC projection for a wetter Sahel in the 2030-40’s, it will turn drier again with the next cold AMO phase.
I’ve been reading here for a couple of years and this is my first reply. The thing that disgusts and infuriates me most about the climate debate is this: “speaking consensus to power strategy”. This has no place in a scientific discussion. I’m sick and tired of the doomsday narrative and suspect it is a global ploy to reorder the world’s distribution of wealth.
Speaking consensus to power is a policy discussion, not a scientific one. Science is the topic but we are not doing science.
As a logic nitpick, this bullet is seriously ambiguous:
“And how we should respond to the warming, to improve human well being”
What is “the warming”? The past warming, which exists (and has been responded to)? Possible future warming, which may not exist? It can also be read as claiming there will be more warming. Does it?
Great! Really liked the conflation section – well done!
While cogitating on the “framings,” had an odd thought. Godel’s theorem proves that for any logical framework there are questions that are “askable” but not answerable within that framework. One way to look at the climate change question is to consider it an example, i.e., to conclude that it can’t be decided within the confines of science. However, it could be decided in the context of a meta-science that combines climate change with some sort of logical ethics. I know – too much square root of ether for a Saturday!
Godel’s theorem only applies to axiomatic deduction. Most of science is induction, where it does not apply.
In practice a body science e.g. climate science, constitutes a formal system with a truth function and rules of inference. In this case climate science will be powerful enough to have undecidable propositions in the Godel sense.
However the problem here is more that around the way we represent the formal system, typically by climate models, and how well they represent the actual system. Just as formal logics don’t necessarily represent colloquial language, GCMs have limitations with the climate.
I like it. Unfortunately logical ethics ≠ politics
Most certainly! I was coming from a more esoteric direction. Like so many “buzzwords,” “wicked ____” has become very vague. My Brownian thought process was something like “Is there a relationship between Godel incompleteness and wickedness? Are wicked problems instances of Godel incompleteness?” Potentially, that would mean that we could develop a wicked problem toolbox – strategies to “solve” wicked problems.
Great insights! Even so, you’ve suggested a logical approach for an organization and their supporters intent on primarily funding only one side of the science to reinforce their favorite hypothesis.
Until we have an objective and impartial organization leading the charge, humanity will only be led astray by their leadership.
Yes, Judith, you are definitely refining the topic nicely to the logical rudiments. I particularly like this:
This is very clearly true and also reveals the political influence at the same time.
>”One would logically think that if warming is less than we thought but impacts are worse …”
That simply tells politicians that they are on the right track, ie. warming is abating but impacts are just delayed.
Further, pointing out that severe weather events are not increasing in frequency is either ignored (the MSM does that deliberately) or used as evidence that “reducing emissions” is working.
When science is politicised, the result is always a damaging mess.
More accurately, “… funding only one side of science to line their own pockets at the expense of the poor and middle class.”
Also, why is it necessary to have an objective and impartial organization leading the charge? Is this organization selected by God and endowed with god-like powers, or perhaps selected by the rich and powerful? Better to have an open, free, and and fractious democracy, with the inherent checks and balances.
Yes, we have a democracy that ought to be “open, free and fractious”. Yet, when the elected organizations use their authority to miscommunicate the science to the broader, mostly uninformed population, they essentially highjack the political process.
Few of us believe that Dr. Curry’s analysis will reach the masses, the media will mostly skirt it anyway. Hopefully more of the climate priestwood can follow Dr. Curry’s conversion to a more honest dialogue that will modify the narrative.
The climate model results for what worth those results are in predicting future climate can only be used politically in a rather abstract manner about future manifestations of humankind that are not sufficiently in the normal mode of politicians spurring voters’ attention. That normal mode historically has been the making of a real or imagined problem one of an immediate crisis.
I have stated in the past many times on these blogs that reference to weather as extreme and caused by climate change would be the primary tactic of politicians wanting to use government mightily in attempts to mitigate climate change. This problem or the making of it a problem can be presented to the voter as both immediate and one that can be readily made into a crisis.
Science can write papers about weather and its relation to climate change that in turn can be parsed by the media in reporting the papers and parts of papers that fit an agenda without presenting an overview of the literature on the subject that might indeed give a more muted and uncertain assessment of the causes of extreme weather.
This information touches on only a small percentage of the overall issue of climate change. The 97% analogy, is actually more accurate than not…as those are actual climate scientists…there are 70,000 world wide…nay sayers lump in other types of scientists and or business people with no background in climatology to dispute the number. I have witnessed our changing climate first hand, living in Canada…where it seems to be happening faster than most other areas. Ice caps on the rockies are less every year. Overall temperatures all over the country are higher in both summer and winter. Ice on lakes and rivers is getting thinner, and have shorter seasons. Last but not least is Glacier park in Alberta. The glacier there has decreased in size every year since 1940…expected to be gone in less than three decades. I have seen and recorded these over 40 years, and it can’t be disputed.
Brad wrote: “The 97% analogy, is actually more accurate than not…as those are actual climate scientists…”
Climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry’s post:
Brad, you may not be aware that most of the warming occurs in winter nights in the coldest places, (except in Antarctica strangely). How is this hurting Canada, except for the ice road truckers? I would think that it’s making real estate more habitable.
What about the added fertilization of CO2? Is that hurting crop yields? No, it’s helping. Right? This leave sea level rise as the main concern. We have seen no significant acceleration of the natural sea level rise that has been steadily ongoing for 10K years (except during the Little Ice Age 200-500 years ago, the coldest period in the last 10K years).
Antarctica obviously does not warm from more CO2
There are three potential explanation but knowing the correct explanation does not matter, because 90% of the world’s ice in one Antarctica and it is not melting. That’s all we have to know.
Likely reasons:
High elevation of most of Antarctica
Temperature inversion over most of Antarctica
Unknown causes
There is some local warming of ice shelves and the peninsula from undersea volcanoes. That local warming could not be caused by CO2. Cooling of most of Antarctica from more CO2 has offset that local warming.
Here is one explanation thaI I
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide actually cools part of Antarctica
Local weather conditions, altitude to blame for counterintuitive trend
NASA
In a world where most regions are warming because of increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), central Antarctica has been cooling slightly in recent years. Greenhouse gases such as CO2 typically trap heat radiated back toward space from the planet’s surface, but large swaths of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (the broad pink mass on the right side of the image) are, on average, actually colder than the upper layers of the atmosphere for much of the year—the only place on Earth where that’s true. When the team looked at the overall balance between the radiation upward from the surface of the ice sheet and the radiation both upward and downward from the upper levels of the atmosphere across all infrared wavelengths over the course of a year, they found that in central Antarctica the surface and lower atmosphere, against expectation, actually lose more energy to space if the air contains greenhouse gases, the researchers report online and in a forthcoming Geophysical Research Letters. And adding more CO2 to the atmosphere in the short-term triggered even more energy loss from the surface and lower atmosphere there, the team’s climate simulations suggest. The topsy-turvy temperature trend stems, in part, from the region’s high elevation; much of the surface of the ice sheet smothering East Antarctica lies above an elevation of 3000 meters, so it is much colder than it would be at lower altitudes. Moreover, that region often experiences what meteorologists call a temperature inversion, where temperatures in the lowest levels of the atmosphere are cooler than those higher up. For the lower-altitude fringes of the icy continent, and for the rest of the world (even Siberia and Greenland), the greenhouse effect still works as expected.
Brad
You have touched on the less important aspect of the issue. Is it warming? Yes. There are questions about how much since 1850, but only at the margins.
So, let’s address the actual issue. Whether the warming is caused by only CO2. That is the real debate. Skeptics say that you can’t ignore the evidence about variability of the climate during the Holocene. There is ample evidence of prior warm periods. The Holocene Thermal Maximum was several thousands of years ago. But that probably was related to insolation changes.
More recently there are the Roman and Medieval Warm periods. Despite the propagandists assertions, these were most likely global. Then we have the Little Ice Age. Most likely one of the coldest periods of the Holocene and based on massive scientific literature probably global.
Skeptics would also point out for the last few decades, we have been in the warm phase of the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation.
The real issue is not if it’s warming but how much is from CO2 and how much from natural causes. No one really knows. It’s probably unknowable. But it’s not a slam dunk. Only time will decide who is correct.
The only thing I am confident in is that we don’t have a crisis as portrayed by activists, politicians and the media. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
The climate model results, for what worth those results are in predicting future climate, can only be used politically in a rather abstract manner about future manifestations of humankind. The normal mode of politicians spurring voters’ attention has historically been the making of a real or imagined problem one of an immediate crisis.
I have stated in the past many times on these blogs that reference to weather as extreme and caused by climate change would be the primary tactic of politicians wanting to use government expanded power in attempts to mitigate climate change. This problem or the making of it a problem can be presented to the voter as both immediate and one that can be readily made into a crisis.
Science can write papers about weather and its relation to climate change that in turn can be parsed by the media in reporting the papers and parts of papers that fit an agenda and do it without presenting an overview of the literature on the subject that might indeed give a more muted and uncertain assessment of the causes of extreme weather.
Relatively wealthy Europe, gripped and crippled by Climate Doomer energy policies, is causing more coal to be burned.
After a year of fighting, Europe’s gas reserves are bulging and its leaders are moving forward with ambitious plans to green their economies. But it’s starkly different thousands of miles away, where poor Asian countries are scrounging for fuel after liquefied natural gas cargoes were rerouted to wealthy European markets.
Some nations, including India and Indonesia, have resorted to burning more coal — a setback for the global fight against climate change. Others, like Bangladesh and Pakistan, have endured blackouts due to abrupt fuel shortages.
One year into Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, deep fault lines are being exposed in the global energy system — especially between rich and poor nations. Those that can afford to pay rising prices are buying up energy resources such as natural gas, while preparing for climate change by developing renewable power such as wind and solar. Those that can’t are slipping back into the grip of dirtier fuels — or going dark.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/25/why-russias-war-is-causing-blackouts-in-asia-00084435
@ jim2 | February 26, 2023 at 10:20 am in suspense.
Commenting used to be much more user friendly on this site.
But where skeptics wholeheartedly disagree is with the idea of a “climate crisis.” It’s one of two little-known facts that the media fails to report on.
Daily Sceptic:
The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is not widely accepted, but partisans shout about it. It is a very vague claim and hard to define or prove. By Reuters standards shouldn’t this include a balancing view? Certainly, many people believe that there is such a crisis, but lots of people don’t. The idea climate change threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people worldwide is an assertion, not a fact.
The other little-known fact — something that only a close reading of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports would reveal — is that while 90% of climate scientists agree the climate is warming, far fewer are sure that CO2 is the culprit.
My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.
My reporting reflected the wide range of views, with Reuters typical “on the one hand this, on the other, that” style. But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/02/26/former-reuters-editor-says-he-was-misled-on-climate-change-n1673897
@jim2 | February 26, 2023 at 10:38 am in suspense.
If half of my comments show up, it has been a good day
Not really.
J Curry, I see that my unedited and edited posts both were finally posted. I was hoping after I reread the unedited version that you had deleted it for the good cause of readability..
China must not believe in Man-made Global Warming Catastrophe. While the West strangles itself.
Bloomberg) — China massively accelerated its coal power plans in 2022, quadrupling the number of new permits and approving new capacity equivalent to all the UK’s plants combined.
Local governments permitted 106 gigawatts of new plants, the most since 2015, according to a report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor. Construction has already begun on 50 gigawatts, six times more than in the rest of the world combined, the researchers said.
“China continues to be the glaring exception to the ongoing global decline in coal plant development,” said Flora Champenois, an analyst at Global Energy Monitor. “The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months.”
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/china-approved-enough-coal-plants-000100765.html
RCP8.5 is implausible because the world is actively trying to reduce emissions.
Peoples don’t understand this serious issue . Little Contribution towards reduction of carbon dioxide can give relief to all. Consumption of less heat energy and fuel .
For queries visit us on Energy Environmental Solutions http://sourcetester.org/
The “97% of scientists agree” statistic seems (and if anyone has an earlier mention of this, let us know) to date to a 2009 survey (Doran & Zimmerman) which consisted of two questions;
1 – When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 – Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
To which 75 of the 77 respondents the survey used answered “risen” and “yes”.
Which isn’t quite the same as saying the world is going to end if we don’t immediately stop using fossil fuels.
Apparently, over 10,000 people were sent the questions, just over 3,000 replied but the survey compilers decided only 77 of them counted as climate scientists which begs the question as to why the others were sent the survey in the first place.
Put forward as yet another solution to “climate change,” the 15-minute city has been getting some press, good and bad. This piece from Bloomberg discusses the issues at some length. Notably missing from the discussion is the crime element. If you walk anywhere in a s-hole city; you risk assault, robbery, or death.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-27/no-15-minute-cities-aren-t-a-threat-to-civil-liberties
Add aluminum to the list of metals that ravage lands far away from the EV owner.
Yet its impact can be heard a world away — in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. That’s where the Ford F-150’s troubled trail of aluminum begins.
Aluminum used to frame the truck’s passenger compartment can be traced back from Ford Motor Co.’s historic Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn, Michigan, to a parts manufacturer in Pennsylvania, to a smelter in Canada and, ultimately, to Brazil. There, in the heart of the Amazon, rust-colored bauxite is being clawed from a mine that has long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation. And, near where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic, a refinery that processes the ore stands accused of sickening thousands of people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-f150-electric-car-rainforest-damage/?srnd=premium
Jim 2
A very interesting article that made my list of read and recommended climate science and energy articles today.
Thanks for the link.
https://honestclimatescience.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-best-climate-science-and-energy_27.html
So there’s a mine in Brazil “ravaging the land” to produce the Aluminium to make all these EVs! What a stupid statement from I presume, a scientist. Have you ever stopped to think where all the “stuff” you have, we all have, your cars, phones, computers, windows, wiring, cutlery, crockery, tables, chairs, tools, TV, House, roads, buildings etc etc all came from a mine or quarry somewhere. If not, it was from an oil well or a plantation. You may be the exception living in a bark humpy but how did you access this forum? If you think 7.5 billion people can live on this Earth and not have an impact you need to seriously take a look at yourself. Mankind is just as natural an animal if the Earth as all other animals who have an impact on their environment. Yes you say but we are sentient and can minimise it and we do. But try banning mining and see where that goes. And as for CO2 ending the world as we know it..what a load of BS. We don’t know!
Here is a thoughtful article concerning heating homes with hydrogen. It’s not a good idea.
The reason is simple: Hydrogen is a less economic, more resource-intensive method of heating than alternatives such as heat pumps and solar thermal. A recent study found that using hydrogen for heating could nearly double the cost of heating a home by the end of the decade compared with natural gas. Sure, installing heat pumps is an eye-wateringly expensive undertaking, but so is converting to green hydrogen, which will require every distribution pipe to be refurbished, every gas-burning appliance to be upgraded and rigorous safety checks to be made.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-23/climate-change-hydrogen-isn-t-the-cleanest-way-to-heat-our-homes
J Curry responded to my earlier comment in her usual polite way, but there was no reply button. So I will repeat what she wrote here, and then tear it apart like a junkyard dog goes after a bone, I am not polite. But I do appreciate that she does not censor my comments.
“Ok, I’ll respond to this since you keep saying it. Climate has always changed, humans have struggled to adapt and they have regarded this as a problem. With regards to human caused climate change, everyone agrees that it is a “problem”: either because of climate change impacts, or policies being invoked. Pretending that the climate “problem” – broadly defined by both perceived impacts of climate change and attempts to “solve” the problem , which is a preoccupation of virtually all national governments on the planet– does not exist, is fatuous.”
The climate has always changed but there was no struggling to adapt in the past 325 years because the climate has been improving for 325 years since the Maunder Minimum coldest decade of the 1690s. Himans live with climate change and always have adapted. It’s in our DNA. So what?
Not everyone agrees that human caused climate change is a problem. I dont agree. No one with sense agrees. There is no climate problem. Which means a problem with the current climate.
And even if there WAS a current climate problem, no one on this planet knows what percentage of climate change has manmade causes. Evidence suggests some of the 1975 to 2015 warming was caused by manmade CO2 emissions. No one knows exactly how much. That warming period could have had 100% natural causes too. And there has been no global warming in the past 8 years (UAH data) in spite of the largest 8-year rise of manmade CO2 in history.
The actual climate itself, and climate scaremongering, are two different subjects. There is no climate problem. There is a big problem with the gross overreaction to a non-existent climate problem. The real problem is a government problem — governments using climate scaremongering to increase their political power and control. You are confusing readers by calling the specific government climate politics problem a “climate problem”.
So I will encourage you again to actually say the current climate is not a problem, but the scaremongering about an imaginary future climate problem, for devious political purposes, is the real problem. And I will keep saying that until the cows come home (a scientific term, and ou are a scientist).
I am disappointed that you called me “fatuous”. I have gained a few pounds this winter, but have not reached fatuous yet. I’m sorry that I could not just come here and tell you that you are great, and I agree with everything you say. Maybe I will do that on April 1. ha ha Science is always controversial, not a popularity contest.
My actual name is Richard Greene and I live in Bingham Farms, Michigan. The Cliff Clavin of Finance is a moniker I gave myself in 2008 when I launched a finance blog. For some reason it followed me here, and I can’t get rid of it. If I log out of Word Depressed to make a change, i don’t remember my password to log in again. Everywhere else I’m Richard Greene
Richard you have it perfectly backwards. The climate has always been a major life threatening problem. It’s gives us life and death. We could not survive without it. And that problem will never disappear or be man handled. The primary folly is imagining we could control the climate and that it poses such an inordinate risk to our survival.
Russell and Roger … it seems there’s some movement addressing fossil fuel plants being removed from the grid. Hope it continues …
https://www.wsj.com/articles/s-o-s-for-the-u-s-electric-grid-pjm-interconnection-blackout-supply-renewables-subsidy-report-fossil-fuel-4cbdd56e?st=msnu58m951sb6rw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
So in the UK, price caps causes and energy company to go bankrupt, and the government makes over 1.5 billion. Such a deal.
Bulb went into administration in November, when the regulator’s price cap forced it to sell energy at a loss as wholesale prices soared. Teneo Inc. was appointed to run the company with taxpayer money until a buyer could be found.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-28/uk-s-big-energy-short-pays-off-with-1-2-billion-windfall
Meanwhile, the German government is buying 4 companies that are part of its grid. All in the name of “green” energy. This is one of the boldest experiments in prescribed “green” energy. It is probably destined to fail.
Germany’s government is accelerating efforts to merge four high-voltage grid operators because it believes that’s the quickest way to modernize power lines for a coming influx of renewable energy, according to people familiar with the matter.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet is in talks with the Dutch government to pay more than €20 billion ($21 billion) for the local unit of Dutch operator TenneT Holding BV. Negotiations for stakes in rivals 50Hertz Transmission GmbH, TransnetBW GmbH and Amprion GmbH also are underway, with the eventual goal of forming a single unit, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-28/uk-s-big-energy-short-pays-off-with-1-2-billion-windfall
I’d be interested in seeing a comparison of the costs and deaths from earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes over the past century compared to weather related disasters. Quickly googling this they seem to have been more deadly and more costly. Yet there is no declared global earthquake emergency. Why is that? Let me know if you can find a less risky planet to move to.
Chris Lang of Redd-Monitor recently wrote that “WWF finally admits that “carbon credits won’t solve the climate crisis”. I then suggested that WWF read Judith’s blog.
https://reddmonitor.substack.com/p/wwf-finally-admits-that-carbon-credits
Chris replied:
“Desmog and SourceWatch have produced detailed critiques of Judith Curry’s climate denialism: https://www.desmog.com/judith-curry/ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Judith_Curry However, Curry has a point when she says that, “Solutions [to the climate crisis] may have surprising unintended consequences that generate new vulnerabilities. In short, the cure could be worse than the disease.” I think both WWF and Curry should study Kevin Anderson’s overview of mitigation as if climate mattered – here are my notes of a presentation Anderson gave in January 2018: https://reddmonitor.substack.com/p/nature-cannot-be-fooled-kevin-anderson
Comments?
Yet another shortage of a resource critical to “climate change” mitigation. Climate Doomers are doomed to fail!
Electricians, the essential workers in the transition to renewable energy, are in increasingly short supply. They are needed to install the electric-car chargers, heat pumps and other gear deemed essential to address climate change.
Electricians say they are booked several months out and struggling to find enough workers to keep up with demand. Many are raising wages and prices and worried that they won’t be able to keep up as government climate incentives kick in.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-is-trying-to-electrify-there-arent-enough-electricians-4260d05b
After the pandemic collapsed the education system you could say the same thing for most productive sectors of the economy. I wonder if we will ever catch up for those lost years.
Anyway, It’s all about the energy transition.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/business/energy-environment/oil-gas-renewable-energy-jobs.html
“Solar, wind, geothermal, battery and other alternative-energy businesses are adding workers from fossil fuel companies, where employment has fallen.
…
Oil and gas companies laid off roughly 160,000 workers in 2020, and they maintained tight budgets and hired cautiously over the last two years. But many renewable businesses expanded rapidly after the early shock of the pandemic faded, snapping up geologists, engineers and other workers from the likes of Exxon and Chevron. Half of Fervo’s 38 employees come from fossil fuel companies, including BP, Hess and Chesapeake Energy.”
When it comes to electricians, I think people are just afraid to get their hands dirty. It’s easier to get a degree in social “sciences” then draw welfare.
major gap in basic economic knowledge.
Fewer workers to produce more is a sign of efficiency
Needing more workers to produce less is a sign of inefficiency.
Needing more workers in the renewable industry vs the fossil fuel industry is a sign of the inefficiencies in the renewable sector.
The EU Komrades are having a spat over ICEV.
Germany and Italy are threatening to block a European Union ban on new combustion-engine cars, putting at risk the bloc’s green goals.
The countries are demanding the EU executive come up with a promised proposal to exempt vehicles that use climate-neutral synthetic fuels.
Poland and Hungary have also signaled their opposition to the plan, which requires carmakers to reach a zero-emissions target by 2035. Member states had provisionally agreed on the plan last year.
Germany successfully lobbied for a loophole in the rules, under which the European Commission agreed to make a proposal for registering vehicles running exclusively on CO2-neutral fuel after 2035.
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing said Wednesday that the Commission had failed to deliver the proposal, so the government in Berlin is unable to give its approval for the wider plan in a final vote by EU government ministers due March 7.
https://europe.autonews.com/environmentemissions/europes-2035-combustion-engine-ban-opposed-germany-italy
What if the big uncertainty we have with warming/cooling is that we have the premise the wrong way around and burning fossil fuel has been an absolute plus to nature?
Nature’s short term reactivity is a mixed bag of stuff as she prepares herself for longer term highly beneficial changes that will lead to a much greener and better planet for life forms all around. There she is shouting ‘Don’t Stop Now for Heaven’s Sake!’ and there we are as a human majority making faces at her and shouting ‘Can’t Hear You’ to a background of deadly low frequency rumbling noise and lots of whales in agony or already dead …
I love the sound of Climate Doomers failing in the morning …
Global CO2 emissions rose to a record last year as the combustion of fossil fuels continued to put the world on track for a dangerous level of global warming.
Data from the International Energy Agency show the biggest increase came from Asia’s emerging markets, in large part due to coal-fired power. Yet a decline in industrial production in China and Europe meant an even worse outcome was avoided.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-02/global-co2-emissions-hit-record-in-2022-even-as-europe-s-dipped
The people you need to worry about are the ones who are going to fix it with geoengineering.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/re-carbonizing-the-sea-scientists-to-start-testing-a-big-ocean-carbon-idea/
“The Earth’s global ocean is an unparalleled carbon storehouse. Covering 70.8% of the world’s surface, the ocean stores around 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and about 20 times more carbon than every plant and plot of soil on land combined. For this reason alone, many scientists are looking to the ocean as a tool against climate change.
…
Scientists call this ocean alkalinity enhancement, or OAE, and some believe it could be a vital tool for drawing down and securely storing a portion of the 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 that we’ve added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, not to mention the billions more we’ll add before we hit net zero.”
“These conditions were rare in the past, but climate change is altering precipitation regimes over Europe and making these extremes more recurrent and intense,” said Andrea Toreti, coordinator of the Copernicus drought observatory. (The Times, 3/3/2023, “Europe’s warm winter could mean food shortages in UK.”) Perhaps a CE reader could set them straight?