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Not saving the world

27 Mar 2019 | OP ED Watch

Nature warns that (yawn) “Global warming will happen faster than we think”. Extreme weather political urgency emissions rising etc. The last underlining that, rhetoric notwithstanding, climate policy is in retreat. In the Dutch elections the big story, as we predicted, was the surge of the populist, anti “climate-change hysteria” Forum for Democracy, from no seats to largest in the Dutch Senate. At the European Council summit, Germany defected from the Western European consensus behind aggressive climate targets. In France the “yellow vest” protests continue. In Ireland the left is fracturing over carbon policy (though the minority administration promises higher carbon taxes). And moderate U.S. Democrats are trying to back away slowly from the Green New Deal. Why? Because these plans are all pain for no gain and voters are getting wise. As Judith Curry notes, even Nature seems to realize that to salvage anything from the wreck, politicians need to be more honest, or in some cases realistic, about what they’re going to do and why.

The political climate has not changed because politicians, or citizens, have ceased to think boiling the planet would be imprudent. Nor are most yet openly delving into the myriad uncertainties and contradictions of the “settled” science although the gap between politicians’ professed concern and their tepid actions is growing, suggesting they don’t really believe what they say. But most normal people seem to have noticed that the endless string of disasters the alarmists have confidently predicted have not occurred. And the politicians have noticed a corresponding reluctance to tolerate economic pain to prevent things like the end of winter that seem to have prevented themselves.

It also seems to be dawning on policymakers who do wrestle with the question of cost-effective action that, as we discuss in our latest video about the Paris Agreement, it’s all pain for no gain. Dramatic cuts in fossil fuel use really will mean widespread misery, even death especially in poorer countries. But if every nation meets its Paris agreements the infamous computer models show… a tiny reduction in temperature by 2100.

What exactly you’d do if you understood that point and still believed CO2 was toxic to the Earth is not obvious. But what you’d do if you didn’t believe your own beliefs is pretty clear: Put virtue-signaling over trivial policy steps, do nothing significant, and put reelection ahead of less vital matters like saving the Earth.

3 comments on “Not saving the world”

  1. In politics, it's always about re-election. For back-benchers, it's always about hanging on office until your gold-plated Parliamentary pension gets vested, and you are set for life. "It doesn't matter how good your policies are if you don't get elected," right?

  2. The IPCC parrots seem to be getting a sore throat from all their "chicken little " screaming , and few are listening.
    I guess it's a little frustrating to continue predicting disaster, and nothing bad happens. Expect a change of story soon, like global warming turning to climate change. That worked for a while.

  3. If you read the UEA.CRU Global Temperatures Graphs site, you will discover there are no Global Temperatures. Most of the original temperatures are sea surface temperatures ( SSTs ), recorded by mariners like myself, dedicated UK Met. Office VOs. Every 6 hours, starting at 0000 GMT , we recorded 13 observations in a Ship's Meteorological Log Book in coded form. These were then sent via radio Morse Code to the nearest country for weather forecasting purposes. The Log Books were sent to the Met. Office at the end of each voyage, and these are used by the UEA.CRU. You can see the UEA.CRU Pseudo scientists claim that our daytime air temps are unreliable, but the night time air temps are fine. So they decided to use SSTs , which are also unreliable and need correcting. To work out the corrections to the unreliable SSTs, they use the unreliable air temps and ship's course, wind direction and speed. The wind direction and strength ( speed ) is estimated by the observer using the Beaufort Scale, and you can see from that that the wind speed has a range of 1 to 7 MPH per force number. They do not take into account relative humidity, which the observer records as depression of the wet bulb on a Stevenson Screen. To add to this calumny of our records, they make false assumptions as to the method of taking the SSTs, resulting in arguments between the various groups of pseudo scientists as to whether corrections of +0.7 deg C or - 0.6 deg C should be applied ( See Emails ) You will see they also admit they do not have temperatures of vast areas of the Earth. When my attention was drawn to Al Gore's nonsense " An Inconvenient Truth " by my youngest son ( Also a Met Office VO ) I worked out that they only covered about 60% of the Earth, going by shipping routes of the World.. My third son then drew my attention to a Paper by a contemporary of his at York U., in which it was claimed that vast areas of land were not covered , and these probably had greater rises in temperatures, thus the Graphs were inaccurate. In fact , all the areas he referred to have comparatively huge diurnal and annual variations in temperatures, and equally they could show far less average warming, perhaps even cooling ; but of course, we just do not know ! I reworked my estimate of coverage and came to the conclusion that the actual area was C 40 % !As a result, my standard advice to all is ......
    Try using your own intelligence. Upon examination of the UEA.CRU.HADCRUT Global Temperature graphs, anybody with a basic knowledge of History, Geography, Physics and Mathematics will very quickly realise they are, at best , a load of rubbish; at worst, a scam; or as I puts it, Cowpatology. See https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
    CRU E mail- http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/2729.txt and http://di2.nu/foia/1254108338.txt

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