What do you think of climate change?

[Poet]

I don’t believe there’s a ‘climate change’ crisis for several reasons.

1. In the 70s there was a ‘coming ice age’ hysteria which never panned out, which then abruptly and inexplicably switched from ‘we’re all going to freeze to death’ to ‘we’re all going to burn up’ in ‘global warming’ which, when people noted the curious change, then got switched to the enigmatic 'climate change.
2. As a historian, I’m aware that the earth goes through fluctuations. There was the medieval ice age, a change from the previous warmer period and unless they deleted it all in their medieval manuscripts they had no cars then.
3. My research suggests there is NOT a major consensus among scientists.

Maybe my biggest reason for not believing there’s any ‘climate change crisis’ is this:

Those who shout the loudest aren’t doing a darn thing to change their carbon footprint. Sorry, but Al Gore (and many of his ilk) fly around in private jets. There was recently a big save the earth conference where a bunch of rich people flew in on private jets and massive yachts, each of which probably used half the carbon footprint, in one day’s travel, that I and my whole family use in an entire year.

If they believed there was a crisis, they’d be behaving as if there was a crisis.

These people who yell about a coming cataclysmic crisis are not behaving as if there’s a coming cataclysmic crisis. Therefore, I can only conclude they don’t actually believe it themselves. When they take the drastic measures to cut their own carbon footprint that they are demanding of the rest of us, I might believe them.

Their own behavior gives lie to their words.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

How about we discuss how using temperature anomalies – as in deviation from the mean temperature –between 1850 and 1900 is a very deceptive way to portray the severity of warming ?

I looked at your two graphs, and the second one is much more deceptive because it obscures the magnitude of the change by showing a graphical range much larger than necessary. It is the old range vs resolution tradeoff. It would be like making a fever thermometer that was scaled to read from 0 F to 250 F. No medical professional would ever want such a useless thermometer.

Okay, so we scale the range to between 50 and 60°F or ten degrees.

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The average global temperature has fluctuated about 2°F (56.5 to 58.8°F) between 1850 and 2018.

It is normal for a human body’s temperature to fluctuate 2°F between 97 and 99°F even in one day. Your physician wouldn’t be alarmed.

So a global fluctuation of 2°F over 168 years is cause for alarm, when I’ve personally experienced a drop of about 35°C (54°F) in about an hour, and one of the largest fluctuations ever was a 49°F change in two minutes in Spearfish SD in 1949.

Two degrees over 168 years over the entire globe seems minute.

To be accurate, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claims (2014) the average global temperature has increased by about 0.8° C (1.4° F) since 1880.

If you want to claim human body temperature is an illegitimate comparison, let me remind you who brought it up in the first place

It is the old range vs resolution tradeoff. It would be like making a fever thermometer that was scaled to read from 0 F to 250 F. No medical professional would ever want such a useless thermometer.

I suppose with the new graph above we could claim that 168 years on the horizontal axis misrepresents the amount of time involved.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Okay, so we scale the range to between 50 and 60°F or ten degrees.

Still too big a range on the vertical axis, but already we can see that most of that increase happened in the last 50 years. That’s about correct rate of increase that has been predicted.

Two degrees over 168 years over the entire globe seems minute.

But 1.5 degrees over 50 years is less minute. And how do you determine what is minute? Is it just what seems minute intuitively? Or is it based on a scientific analysis?

when I’ve personally experienced a drop of about 35°C (54°F) in about an hour,

What and individual experienced in an hour does not translate to what the entire globe experiences on the average.

To be accurate

This is just another of the various temperature reconstructions. There is no way to know if it is more or less accurate than the others.

 

[Ender]

Still too big a range on the vertical axis, but already we can see that most of that increase happened in the last 50 years. That’s about correct rate of increase that has been predicted.

First is the question of what warming has actually happened, and second is what caused it. As for the cause it is CO2 that gets the credit, which doesn’t really accord with the temperature record. The warming in the first half of the 20th century was greater than in the second half, yet the amount of man made CO2 was significantly greater in the second half. And of course there is the 18 year hiatus where warming virtually stopped even as CO2 emissions continued to increase. CO2 may be a contributor to warming, but there are clearly other things going on, about which we apparently have no understanding.

 

[EndTimes]

I don’t believe there’s a ‘climate change’ crisis for several reasons.

Crisis-Alarmism scares people who’ll then become willing to fork over money…

 

[LeafByNiggle]

First is the question of what warming has actually happened, and second is what caused it.

Those are indeed separate questions, but HarryStotle was denying that significant warming has actually happened, so we couldn’t even consider the second question.

As for the cause it is CO2 that gets the credit, which doesn’t really accord with the temperature record.

Attribution is supported by the temperature record despite the fact that the correlation is not perfect because there are other factors which everyone acknowledges.

The warming in the first half of the 20th century was greater than in the second half, yet the amount of man made CO2 was significantly greater in the second half.

See above comment.

And of course there is the 18 year hiatus where warming virtually stopped even as CO2 emissions continued to increase.

The shorter the time span you examine the less you would expect to see a correlation with CO2. 18 years is quite short.

CO2 may be a contributor to warming, but there are clearly other things going on, about which we apparently have no understanding.

No, we do have understanding of them too. Scientists are not as mystified as all that.

 

[Ender]

Those are indeed separate questions, but HarryStotle was denying that significant warming has actually happened, so we couldn’t even consider the second question.

Since we have no real understanding of what constitutes “significant” as far as temperature change is concerned it’s no wonder this point is contentious.

Attribution is supported by the temperature record despite the fact that the correlation is not perfect because there are other factors which everyone acknowledges.

Asserting this to be so doesn’t address the facts that I cited. If CO2 is such a driver of temperature then why did temperatures increase more (in the 20th century) when CO2 was low and rather constant than when it was increasing?

So when people have told us that we will experience more severe droughts because of climate change and that will cause worse bush fire conditions and those predictions come true then I’ll post the details.

Once again global warming takes the blame for local events, and once again the charge doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/04/hijacking-australian-2019-bushfire-tragedies-to-fearmonger-climate-change/

One of the takeaways from the article is that the preponderance of the fires are in parts of the country where temperatures are actually below normal, and not as much where the temps are actually higher than normal.

 

[HarryStotle]

Ender:

First is the question of what warming has actually happened, and second is what caused it.

Those are indeed separate questions, but HarryStotle was denying that significant warming has actually happened, so we couldn’t even consider the second question.

How do we know, with any degree of certainty, what “significant” warming vis a vis the entire globe actually is?

There have been numerous predictions from scientists and various others over the past fifty years regarding sea level rise, ice cap melting, increasing severity of weather events, etc., etc. None of which have actually come about.

And whether or not a rise of 1°C in the past fifty years is significant is still up for discussion, considering we are in an interglacial still coming out of a cold period.

By the way, the rise in CO2 over the past 50 years might just as well be explained by the rise in temperature since warmer oceans (just like your warm beer or pop) hold less CO2. The cause -effect might be precisely the opposite of what climate alarmists are claiming. Warmer temperatures might be causing the CO2 spike, not being caused by it.

Also, an 18 year hiatus when CO2 has continued to rise (precipitously, according to alarmists) is important and needs to be explained, not waved away.

 

[HarryStotle]

One of the takeaways from the article is that the preponderance of the fires are in parts of the country where temperatures are actually below normal, and not as much where the temps are actually higher than normal.

Forest management causing a heightened fuel load might be a big factor here.

 

[Ender]

Forest management causing a heightened fuel load might be a big factor here.

True. Apparently Australia is like California in that regard, and for a lot of the same reasons.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/01/jonova-aussie-abc-hiding-evidence-they-helped-climate-activists-campaign-against-controlled-burns/

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Forest management causing a heightened fuel load might be a big factor here.

True. Apparently Australia is like California in that regard, and for a lot of the same reasons.

JoNova: Aussie ABC Disappearing Evidence They Helped Climate Activists Campaign Against Controlled Burns – Watts Up With That?

We reap what we sow.

The problem is that when we are ideologically committed to an end regardless of the means, we lose moral sight of the mayhem we cause on the way to that end.

This is what is troubling about the whole climate change narrative and proposed solutions.

The end of reducing CO2 is so monolithic and all-encompassing that all the harm done towards that end becomes supposedly acceptable “collateral damage.”

If the world will end in 14 years, what measures won’t be taken to save the world?

Kind of skews the entire perspective on what needs doing here and now.

Frightening, really,

My other concern, is that just as ABC tried to bury the evidence of their complicity, what will happen in 20 or 30 years when the measures taken at the behest of the alarmists have proven unnecessary, seriously harmful to humanity and a waste of resources/infrastructure? Will the current crop of activists be held responsible for all their clamouring, or will they hide the evidence of all of their propagandizing pretending they didn’t have any part in it.

Perhaps a wise step would be to collect all the evidence today of who is promoting what and who is taking what measures based upon what evidence, so that those who created (deliberately) the false narrative are held accountable.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Those are indeed separate questions, but HarryStotle was denying that significant warming has actually happened, so we couldn’t even consider the second question.

Since we have no real understanding of what constitutes “significant” as far as temperature change is concerned it’s no wonder this point is contentious.

We don’t have perfect understanding, but we do understand quite a bit about what is significant.

Attribution is supported by the temperature record despite the fact that the correlation is not perfect because there are other factors which everyone acknowledges.

Asserting this to be so doesn’t address the facts that I cited. If CO2 is such a driver of temperature then why did temperatures increase more (in the 20th century) when CO2 was low and rather constant than when it was increasing?

It does address the facts you cited directly. You put forth an argument that assumed that there would have to be more perfect correlation than there is. I mentioned there are reasons why the correlation is not perfect.

So when people have told us that we will experience more severe droughts because of climate change and that will cause worse bush fire conditions and those predictions come true then I’ll post the details.

Once again global warming takes the blame for local events, and once again the charge doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny.

Global warming properly takes the blame for increasing the probability that these local events will occur, even if no single event can be said to result from global warming.

One of the takeaways from the article is that the preponderance of the fires are in parts of the country where temperatures are actually below normal, and not as much where the temps are actually higher than normal.

And this is bad for global warming theory…how? If you are implying that the only way global warming could possibly be the cause is by making the areas where the fires are hotter, consider that another means could be by altering rainfall distribution to make the area dryer.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

How do we know, with any degree of certainty, what “significant” warming vis a vis the entire globe actually is?

This very question I am certain is the subject of many academic papers. That’s how the current targets were derived.

There have been numerous predictions from scientists and various others over the past fifty years regarding sea level rise, ice cap melting, increasing severity of weather events, etc., etc. None of which have actually come about.

And there have been many many more predictions that did come about. Overall, science is better than anything else out there.

considering we are in an interglacial still coming out of a cold period.

The temperature record since the last glacial period does not indicate we are “still coming out of it.” It looks more like we have come out of it, and then warming accelerated. Accelerated warming is not the sign of riding down the tail end of a curve.

Also, an 18 year hiatus when CO2 has continued to rise (precipitously, according to alarmists) is important and needs to be explained, not waved away.

Nope. It does not. Some random events just happen.

 

[HarryStotle]

And there have been many many more predictions that did come about. Overall, science is better than anything else out there.

Which does not make the case for the sufficiency of (climate) science to provide the diagnostic or prescriptive steps that ought to be taken politically or socially.

What scientists ought to be doing is reeling-in the activists and politicians by clarifying to those bent on overturning the economy and current infrastructure that the scientific predictions currently on offer are tentative, unreliable and prone to be incorrect.

 

[HarryStotle]

Nope. It does not. Some random events just happen.

And, therefore, the current warming might be just “some random event” that is likewise just happening.

Why does the hiatus not need to be explained, but a slight warming does?

Seems very inconsistent, scientifically speaking, to just assert some events are “just random” but others are not.

On what basis are you making that determination, besides your commitment to the climate change cause, which might also be merely random?

Are you abstract random in personality? That might be explanatory.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

What scientists ought to be doing is reeling-in the activists and politicians

Scientists are not media specialists. That is not their job. They are far to busy to fritter away their day addressing every blog on the internet.

And, therefore, the current warming might be just “some random event” that is likewise just happening.

No, statistical analysis indicates it is not.

Why does the hiatus not need to be explained, but a slight warming does?

Because it is not slight and it is it longer lasting.

On what basis are you making that determination,

I don’t make that determination. Climate scientists do.

 

[Freddy]

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says NSW is in “unchartered territory”, as towns face being “completely wiped out” by new weather patterns and ferocious fires never before experienced in the state.

Speaking on Sunday morning, Ms Berejiklian said the speed at which bushfires were tearing through communities across the state was “unprecedented”.
Sydney sweltered through what is believed to be its hottest day on record on Saturday, with the mercury at Penrith soaring to 48.9 degrees. NSW fires: Gladys Berejiklian says bushfire crisis is unprecedented

That’s in excess of 120F. And that’s not out in the middle of the desert. That’s a Sydney suburb.

The Bureau of Meteorology said preliminary results suggest Tuesday was Australia’s hottest ever day with an average of 40.9 degrees across the country. The previous record was set on January 7, 2013, at 40.3 degrees. Hottest day in Australian history sparks Gladys Berejiklian warning over bushfires, heatwave

 

[RCIAGraduate]

Happy Cake Day!

 

[EndTimes]

No one Denies Climate Changes (think Little Ice Age — Etc., Etc,. and Etc… )

 

[Poet]

Happy Cake Day!

THANK YOU! I was just looking at that little cake trying to figure out why it was by my name and then hovered and saw why–then saw your comment!