I’ve been wondering how long it will be before “the end”, when I realised I really didn’t know what “the end” meant. He’s some thoughts:
- When who(?) admits that the climate multipliers aren’t “well supported”?
- When Wikipedia admits that the climate is not currently warming?
- When the BBC issues an apology for its treatment of global warming sceptics.
- When the UK/Scots/US government scale back their CO2 reduction targets by what 50%?
- When the Met Office admit that solar activity affects the climate? (And that it couldn’t forecast global temperatures even one year ahead!!)
- When there is an inquiry that concludes that there were systematic failures in teh way science dealt with climate and that action should be taken against individuals and universities and that changes have to be taken to make the system of peer review more robust and less susceptible to bias.
- When some world leader or David Cameron, says that mistakes were made?
Addendum
After a bit of thought, I’ve realised that few people have any reason to admit they were wrong, or make a public statement that would amount to an admission.
However, one group stands out: that is the weather forecasters. At some point they are going to have to start using solar activity in forecasts. As the Met Office and BBC have been so vehemently opposed to solar activity and so pro-CO2 as a cause of “climate/weather”, the clearest indication of “victory” must surely be when either of these two finally admit the solar link and that they are now using solar activity in their forecasts.
On that basis, I’m now going to make a forecast: that one or other of the above will by the end of 2012 or at latest 2013, make a statement or comment to that effect.
None of these happened to signal the end of the global cooling scare (or any of the peak oil scares, though they had dates attached to them, or the acid rain one, or the nuclear China syndrome oneetc). Unless somebody is brought to a sort of trial, like the MMR case I think all that happens is that one day you wake up and find all the politicians pretending never to have heard of it – this is the case with several Republican candidates now.
The worse side of that is that regulatory ratcheting only goes one way – all the regulations to stop nuclear plants exploding are still in place 30 years later and possibly making up to 75% of the cost.
In the same way if the warming effect is tiny/beneficial we should be removing ALL CO2 restrictions but you are probably correct that this will not happen for a very long time. Restrictions on real pollutants are fine but CO2 is not a pollutant.
You are probably right. But, I’m really looking to make a bet with myself: such and such a thing is going to happen by ….
OK, I think the “let’s pretend it never happened” scenario is most likely, but even if only us sceptics recognise it as “Victory”, what event/statistic can we count as “winning”?
I’d say the election of a sceptic as President. Possibly someone saying “lets put it off till the economy is good” as PM and First Minister, all in decreasing order of liklihood.
That’s good as well! That would count!
I like to frequent science blogs like The Richard Dawkins one and PZ Meyers’ Pharyngula. When the subject of climate change comes up there is never any doubt that the orthodox view of Man Made Global Warming is 100% correct and anyone who thinks otherwise is a denier. There are a few dissenters and luke-warmers in the comments sometimes. When these guys start posting sceptical articles I think that we might have turned a corner.
Good point, those sites pride themselves on being sceptical. However they verge on the religious zeal about their scepticism, so maybe that explains why can’t see that there’s something seriously wrong with climate science. For them, things are either right or wrong.
My problem is that I tend to agree with them about just about everything except Man Made Climate Change. This suggests that I am actually out of step on this one issue. I think that it is a good thing to constantly challenge your beliefs about everything and so I do read the posts that promote the orthodox position on AGW. They do tend to make a good case that the fact that increases in CO2 in the atmosphere will make the Earth warmer is undeniable. On the other hand, they misrepresent the sceptic position, I don’t think deliberately, I don’t deny the basic idea that the Earth is warming or that CO2 has contributed. I am however, highly sceptical about the Chicken Little, OMG it’s the end of the world as we know it, predictions. It is worth noting that those who proclaim these end of the world scenarios don’t really believe them either, or if they do they are being pretty damn cool about it.
Stonyground, let’s be honest there are some sceptics who are as much zealots and blind to the evidence as many warmists, so it is very easy to misportray the sceptic view. For me the real problem is that the science itself has been politicised.
“Chicken Little”, “Man-Bear-Pig”, and even serious science videos can be viewed at the Fraudulent Climate of Hokum Science website, where we collect and collate an eclectic selection of media from disparate sources.
The signal of the end will be when the fatuous announcements by those, such as Al Gore & Al Salmond & etc, will be treated by the public with derision, as they howl with mirth at each successive ludicrousity. Preposterous, farcical, ridiculous, hilarious, but a rose by some otrher name would smell of FRAUD. Charge them with FRAUD, put them on trial for FRAUD, and when found guilty, then JAIL THEM FOR FRAUD.
Axel, but how can we assess that when we sceptics are already calling them frauds, and sooner or later everyone will be a sceptic – and the sceptics will still be calling them frauds?
It is worth noting that those who proclaim these end of the world scenarios don’t really believe them either, or if they do they are being pretty damn cool about it.
The IPCC predicted warming assuming a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels (now pretty much inevitable) is 3 degrees plus or minus 1.5 degrees. This opens up a huge range of possible scenarios from serious disruption but no social apocalypse at the bottom end to worldwide social collapse at the top. Emphasising only the top end disaster scenarios seems pretty pointless, but not as daft as ignoring them altogether.
Surely you don’t want us to all run around shouting and panicking? Taking effective action to decarbonise the world economy by mid-century is difficult enough, and causing panic isn’t going to help in any way.
If you take out health insurance you are taking precautions against a broken leg as well as terminal cancer.
Are you attacking the ‘warmist camp’ for being rational?
There comes a time when you have to stop whining about CO2 and actually cut it. Most AGW believers seem to think it’s someone else’s job. That’s what I assume Stoneyground means.
Scots Renewables. When a group of people have made claims of every possible disaster and when the evidence now clearly shows:
1. Their models were wrong
2. They wilfully ignored the huge contribution of solar activity
3. There are no trends in extreme weather events
4. The science supports around 1C of warming (if our economy survives to double CO2) which equates to around a 100mile change in latitude or a 100m change in height, which means the range for species will change by about 1mile/year or 50um/s.
In short these people who have spread this alarm have shown they are the most disreputable bunch of money grabbers who cannot be trusted – how can you possible suggest they are rational?
There are possible effects of rising CO2, but I’d rather ask for a commission of bankers to investigate bankers bonuses than trust a word of the scoundrels who create the biggest scientific con in world history.
I don’t really think that cutting CO2 emmissions to the levels that the warmists claim are needed is remotely feasable unless we all revert back to pre-industrial lifestyles involving things like subsistence farming. I also don’t think that reducing emmissions by feasable amounts will make the slightest difference. It should also be noted that as a general rule, a moderate amount of warming is a good thing.
To be honest, we have almost no reliable evidence on the subject. The warmist zealotry propaganda is completely utterly untrustworthy, and the sceptic material is so sparse and lacking critical review that you can’t just dismiss all the alarmists carp and go with the sceptic.
To be brutally frank, we’ve been led by a bunch of tossers for the last decade in science and politics and if anything our understanding of the impacts of CO2 has gone backward in the last decade. Honestly, you may as well sack the lot of them, burn all their journals and start again because the time it will take to unpick real science from the politicised nonsense will be longer than to redo the work from scratch.
There comes a time when you have to stop whining about CO2 and actually cut it. Most AGW believers seem to think it’s someone else’s job.
Not sure what you mean by that – is it just another ‘why do warmists have cars and why doesn’t Al Gore cycle to climate conferences’ rant?
Why not, it’s worth repeating. To cut CO2 it will require a complete change of society and nobody seems to be volunteering to go first. That’s evidence of true commitment?
Warmists are the true deniers, promising to be good tomorrow. Always tomorrow.
The UK has been at the forefront of cutting CO2 and we’ve achieved zilch. If you include imports, our CO2 emissions have even gone up. Does that seem like the concerned percentage have made significant cuts? What are they waiting for permission?
Or, deep down, do they doubt the science is worth the risk of ruining their prosperity?
‘why do warmists have cars and why doesn’t Al Gore cycle to climate conferences’
Those are both extremely good questions but you missed a few things out. Why do warmists use computors, electric lighting, central heating, plastics, textiles, manufactured goods of any kind and modern medicine? Why do they eat food that wasn’t grown within walking distance of where they live and because of that, starve to death if there is a local crop failure?
This whole debate will be over once and for all when the scientific understanding (Not the consensus of political ‘settled science’) of how Co2 follows temperature as it rises and falls through interglacial periods is understood, what is the cause of Ice ages?
As I understand it, Humans have not yet been accused of causing Ice ages or periods of glaciation but are considered the cause of the period in-between called the interglacial.
Oh, Waite it is understood, ‘The science has been settled, and the debate is over’ an influential politician once suggested. The surrealism of this argument is staggering when associated with a true scientific master piece called “an Inconvenient truth” that not once mentioned what was generally known in science about the whole subject/issue you can call it what you like, to me it ain’t science!
🙂
Why not, it’s worth repeating. To cut CO2 it will require a complete change of society and nobody seems to be volunteering to go first. That’s evidence of true commitment?
A bit simplistic. If (for example) I bin my PC and internet connection I will not be able to take part in the debate. Please explain how that is rational.
Unless you’ve tried to cut your CO2 significantly you don’t realise how nearly impossible it is. It’s very easy to sign up to cutting CO2 when you’ve not seriously tried it. To keep CO2 levels stationary the emissions per person across the globe is 2 tonnes. That will have to fall as population increases and/or if we hope to reduce CO2 to say 350ppm. How close to 2 tonnes are you? Do you think renewables can get us to 2 tonnes? The last time the UK had a 2 tonne per capita carbon footprint the main form of transport was the horse. No cars, no gas central heating, no foreign holidays, no fancy diet; practically no consumer society and certainly no internet.
When cutting CO2 emissions there are countless hidden costs – eg you can’t get cavity wall insulation if your house suffers from damp so you have to sort that first; if you cut your driving mileage below a certain level your insurance starts to rise; you can’t properly use ground source heat systems without installing underfloor heating; loft insulation can make access to the loft, either for storage or maintenance, extremely difficult and unhealthy; many of the heat losses from older homes are from places it’s almost impossible to insulate without major work.
Once you appreciate how limiting cutting CO2 is, you can properly assess the risk of climate change. At that point you realise that the science is nowhere near good enough to fuel such a massive social change.
@Tiny CO2
How are you going to get the materials for your loft insulation manufactured and transported?
@Scots Renewables
It is not just your computer that you have to give up. You missed electric lighting, heating, textiles, manufactured goods and modern medicine. This list is not meant to be inclusive, I forgot clean hot and cold running water and there are a thousand things that you totally take for granted that you will have to give up.
Well exactly, but I’m not averse to the idea of expending energy to save energy in the long run. I say that as a mean, stingy person and not as a believer in AGW.
I know a lot about doing without some of the trappings of modern living because I’ve tried it. Simple things we take for granted (like DIY without a car) are a nightmare in a low carbon world. Trust me, getting a bag of cement home using public transport isn’t fun and that assumes a world where you’re allowed to have the bus or the cement.
The proverb ‘want of a nail’ should tell us much.
TinyCO2, I managed to break our first pram by using it to transport cement (or sand).
You could try a cycle trailer, I’ve used it a few times for heavy loads, but not with cement.
I solved the problem in the end by getting a car 😉 And seriously, once you’ve bought a car, paid for the tax, the insurance and the MOT, the additional cost of running it is quite small. To reduce car use, all the tax and a basic insurance should be on fuel (with exemptions for transport) that way the less you use it the more you save. There’d be no uninsured vehicles and no way of avoiding car tax. Only the MOT would be outstanding.
Most of the time I care share in a diesal estate which gets 60+ mpg but the freedom of having your own car is hard to beat.
Couldn’t agree more. We need a big car to go on holiday (Unlike global warmers, we don’t fly) but we simply cannot afford to have a small car as well – so we end up using the most uneconomical car for all the short journeys.
Likewise, I used to own a motorbike, but again it was just a whole lot of additional expense and I can’t understand why you need separate insurance and vehicle tax, when you can only drive/ride one vehicle.
What a remarkably luddite and blinkered view the pair of you seem to have..
Your implication is that electricity can only be generated at the current emissions levels. You are ignoring technological change completely.
Scot Renewables, Moore’s law does not apply to power production! Whereas you are thinking about technology improving based on PCs which double every few years. In contrast power perhaps gets a few percent better each decade … or if you count everything with wind, it even goes backward and gets less efficient!
You are ignoring history altogether.Almost all energy forms available today were “invented” several thousand years ago:
wind … used on the nile from Egyptian times, in use everywhere in middle ages for mills
coal … used in turkey to smelt copper in early bronze age
wood … millions of years ago
Hydro … used on the Nile, in use everywhere in middle ages for mills.
Steam … in use by the 16th century
Since then, there have been two main inventions both now very old:
1. Motive power from steam (first piston then turbine)
2. Electricity
Fundamentally nothing has changed on the electricity grid since the National grid. Small changes in DC-DC conversation and new materials for cables and control. But otherwise it’s the same system it was.
And, the turbine won’t change again.
Which leaves one new form of energy in the last 100 years: nuclear.
Which leads me on to the daftest form of any ever used: PV. The idea that you can invent “sunshine power” is just absurd, and the idea you can better the efficiency of plants that have been at this game for yonks.
There is only one new form of energy that even looks possible and that is nuclear fusion, and as an industry insider said to me: “it doesn’t look like it will be appearing any time soon”.
There’s nothing Luddite about looking at the current picture, historic precedents and drawing realistic conclusions. New technologies don’t just appear because we need them and throw money at the issue. If they did, we’d no longer have cancer and there’d be a pill to take that would prevent obesity.
Fusion has been about ten years away from a working model for about 40 years now. Even if they produced a working model tomorrow it would be another ten years before they were able to scale it up for serious generation. Another 20 –30 years before there were enough stations in First World countries to make a difference and another 20-30 before the technologies were shared with poorer countries. And all that assumes that major problems with the technology aren’t discovered along the way as is often the case when new technologies are put into serious production.
You can’t assume that technology will make cutting CO2 unnecessary. As someone said, it’s like jumping off a cliff and hoping you’ll invent the parachute on the way down.
Public transport isn’t very green anyway. A bus has the advantage that it carries more passengers that a car. This advantage is offset by it having similar fuel consumption and emmissions to a truck and by the fact that you have to travel more miles because to get from A to B you have to travel via C, D and E.
Except I specifically chose my home because of the directness of the bus travel to my work and major shops (the DIY place was a bonus). Travel to and from the bus stops was made on foot. Only the trip to the train station (for wider travel) required a bus change. It meant living on the grotty edge of a big city but it was the sort of life a low carbon person would have to adopt if they were serious about AGW. I did it because I was too poor to do anything else. I can’t recommend it.