Climate shrinks pimp themselves to the government and its agencies. But behind the nano-thin veneer of academic respectability is a failed science wrapped round a tired political project.
There are many widely agreed facts about climate that remain out of the common knowledge due to the prohibition of threatening the orthodoxy with any educated and reasoned discussion.
1) The theoretical warming of the Earth's surface by a doubling of CO2 is hotly contested and has a huge uncertainty acknowledged by the UN to be from 1.5C to 4.5C.
2) The uncertainty of CO2's warming power has made little progress since the 1978 Charney commission report. The UN models apparently have contributed little knowledge, likely because they have so many guessed variables.
3) If doubling CO2's warming is just 1.5C (we are now at half way) it's actually turns of to be lucky beneficial effect. It may be just enough warming to counteract the more dangerous natural cooling that is scheduled to end our pleasant little interglacial, which civilization enjoyed for the last 10K years.
4) The surface has been cooling for ~7000 due to astronomical cycles. Just 400 years ago (the little ice age) was the coolest point in the last ~10,000 years as we came out of the last glaciation. So, since we have only been putting significant amounts of extra CO2 into the air for the the last 100 years our current warming actually started naturally ~300 year before that.
5) If civilization had not formed there's a virtual certainty that reglaciation would begin in the next 5000 years and perhaps would have have begun as early as 100 years ago. The tipping point is still not well understood.
6) Storms have not gained strength or frequency within any statistical confidence in the last 150 years. Diddo for wildfires.
7) CO2 is causing deserts to green and crop yields to increase because the Earth's atmosphere had developed a sub-optimal level of CO2 over the last 100 million years. This CO2 starvation may or may not have caused the Quaternary Ice Age we have been in for the last 1.8 million years. It might also be due to the closing of the North and South American land masses, restricting circulation to the arctic (meridional transport).
Great article Ben. I think academic psychology is a busted flush after Lockdown. The fear tactics employed were awful and won't be forgot by many (but a good proportion of people still love the technocratic authoritarianism - i'm convinced they like to align themselves with illiberal elites as they believe it elevates them to a higher intellectual plane). That idiot Cameron brought the Nudge Unit to the heart of Govt and look where it has got us to... Great swathes of the population still living in fear of catching Covid very single day. Never under-estimate the damage politicians can do. Here's a thing... most AGW believers seem to want to suspend the climate to the state it was back in c1850. If anyone seriously thinks the climate can be held in suspension they are surely a denier. It's them, not us.
There are many widely agreed facts about climate that remain out of the common knowledge due to the prohibition of threatening the orthodoxy with any educated and reasoned discussion.
1) The theoretical warming of the Earth's surface by a doubling of CO2 is hotly contested and has a huge uncertainty acknowledged by the UN to be from 1.5C to 4.5C.
2) The uncertainty of CO2's warming power has made little progress since the 1978 Charney commission report. The UN models apparently have contributed little knowledge, likely because they have so many guessed variables.
3) If doubling CO2's warming is just 1.5C (we are now at half way) it's actually turns of to be lucky beneficial effect. It may be just enough warming to counteract the more dangerous natural cooling that is scheduled to end our pleasant little interglacial, which civilization enjoyed for the last 10K years.
4) The surface has been cooling for ~7000 due to astronomical cycles. Just 400 years ago (the little ice age) was the coolest point in the last ~10,000 years as we came out of the last glaciation. So, since we have only been putting significant amounts of extra CO2 into the air for the the last 100 years our current warming actually started naturally ~300 year before that.
5) If civilization had not formed there's a virtual certainty that reglaciation would begin in the next 5000 years and perhaps would have have begun as early as 100 years ago. The tipping point is still not well understood.
6) Storms have not gained strength or frequency within any statistical confidence in the last 150 years. Diddo for wildfires.
7) CO2 is causing deserts to green and crop yields to increase because the Earth's atmosphere had developed a sub-optimal level of CO2 over the last 100 million years. This CO2 starvation may or may not have caused the Quaternary Ice Age we have been in for the last 1.8 million years. It might also be due to the closing of the North and South American land masses, restricting circulation to the arctic (meridional transport).
Great article Ben. I think academic psychology is a busted flush after Lockdown. The fear tactics employed were awful and won't be forgot by many (but a good proportion of people still love the technocratic authoritarianism - i'm convinced they like to align themselves with illiberal elites as they believe it elevates them to a higher intellectual plane). That idiot Cameron brought the Nudge Unit to the heart of Govt and look where it has got us to... Great swathes of the population still living in fear of catching Covid very single day. Never under-estimate the damage politicians can do. Here's a thing... most AGW believers seem to want to suspend the climate to the state it was back in c1850. If anyone seriously thinks the climate can be held in suspension they are surely a denier. It's them, not us.