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Whatever. No effective action is being taken; driven by neoliberal ideology, governments pursue unsustainable economic growth with its ever increasing energy demands. And so the fossil fuels deplete while the biosphere heats and degrades.
So the catastrophe is coming, whether Just Stop Oil protest or not. I hope their civil disobedience can pressure the political systems to eek out our fossil fuels a little bit slower, to soften the blow as humanity hits the inescapable limits.
The Comet is Coming. Better Start Running – Youtube, 6 minutes 39.
Clark thanks for your observations. I still think Just Stop Oil (JSO) with their studied ignorance, are deeply missing the point, which amounts to dishonesty, even if unintentional. Give me a room full of 11 year old’s who are capable of paying attention for and hour or two and I can spell the relevant physics out in black and white for them. Political campaigners have ZERO excuses to be ignorant of basic O’level physics.
JSO demand the UK government: “immediately halt all future […] development and production of fossil fuels in the UK […] by powering ahead with renewables […]”
But this is thermodynamically IMPOSSIBLE. Unless they believe in magic, where are the fossil fuels going to come from to build “renewables” let alone grid balance etc. etc.?
JSO go onto to claim “It’s the very first step to ensuring our survival.” Bull shit. First off, who is “our”? The UK does not have its own insulated climate, we are part of a global climate. Second, thus even if thermodynamics was not the obvious deal breaker it is, JSO has failed to account for fossil fuel emissions outside of the UK needed to build “renewables”.
ALL CO2 emissions are everyone’s CO2 emissions.
JSO go onto to guilt trip people, sorry claim that “We already have more oil and gas than we can afford to burn.” What does “afford” even mean? Afford cash? Afford further CO2 emissions to build “renewables”?
JSO then urge us to “[…] get on with ending our reliance on fossil fuels completely” – in other words go back to standards of living in the 1750’s with a billion or so global population burning whatever remaining trees and grass to keep warm.
JSO then complete their conjuring trick by “cutting energy demand; by insulating Britain and rethinking how we travel; and by ensuring that no-one is left behind and everyone’s voice is heard.”
Why aren’t JSO SHOUTING very VERY LOUDLY that the vast majority of humans alive today will have to die early and never reproduce. Then they would be being a bit more honest.
Further, the IPCC and International Energy Agency statements about the need to limit global heating, to avoid climate tipping points, are deeply misleading road maps since they assume business as usual as if fossil fuels could be burnt at increasing rates for decades, when in fact humans have already burnt more than half of all existing fossil fuels thus if CO2 causes climate change then it is axiomatically self-limiting.
Further still, “the weaknesses of computer climate models – in particular their exaggeration of global warming’s impact – have long been denied or downplayed by modeler’s. But in a recent about-face published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, a group of prominent climate scientists tell us it’s time to “recognize the ‘hot model’ problem.”
In other words Just Stop Oil have been gaslighted into promoting a non-solution to a non-problem.
Natasha, I’m surprised at you. If someone waltzed in from another field and told you that electromagnetic theory was all wrong, even though you’d used it your entire professional life, you’d tell them to get to fuck.
There is vast additional heat, or the Arctic couldn’t be melting. This extra heat was predicted from mid 1800s, yes the eighteen hundreds, onwards. In 1988 James Hansen testified to the US government that Earth’s temperature rise was now measurable.
Yes; recently the fifth generation of climate models, CMIP5, replaced CMIP4. CMIP5 integrate water phase changes in the atmosphere, and they’re producing some anomalously hot predictions compared with CMIP4. This is a known problem; predicting climate is complex. It doesn’t mean the whole field is baloney. CMIP4 predicted heating too, as did all previous generations.
We’ve seen California on fire twice, two years of wildfire above the Arctic circle, the Arctic and the Antarctic 30 and 40 centigrade above expected temperatures, Australia on fire, the Canadian heat dome, record-breaking heat waves all over the world – two in Europe; in the first, France had to shut down many nuclear power stations because river water was too warm to keep the reactors cool, and in the second the Rhine dried up. This summer, the Yangtze almost dried up – the longest, most widespread heatwave in human history. England exceeded 40 centigrade for the first time ever. I was in Glasgow in 2019 when it smashed through its temperature record to 32 centigrade.
Warmer air holds more moisture. Since Australia burned it has been drowned for two whole years, smashing through previous rainfall records; it simply pours with rain nearly every day, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of homes made uninhabitable, impossible to keep many shops stocked. We’ve seen German villages washed away, and one third of Pakistan under water causing vast crop failure. Yet nearly one third of Africa in its sixth year of drought. Glaciers are retreating all over the world.
And sea level is rising, proving thermal expansion of ocean water. The decrease in Earth’s heat radiation is measurable from orbit.
Really, how much evidence do you need? This is not a “non-problem”. Remember that one of the strongest tests of a physical theory is its power to predict, and extra heat was predicted.
Far from being “self limiting” as you stated earlier, hydrocarbon depletion makes emissions worse. As EROEI falls, emissions rise for the same end use; tight oil is barely 4:1, so that’s 25% extra emissions. All over the world, more coal is being burned to make up for falling gas and oil production, eg. lights in the UK are currently being kept on by additional coal being burned, in the UK, Germany and France. This year, more coal will be burned than in any previous year ever. Of course, coal is almost pure carbon, so none of the energy from burning it comes from hydrogen.
– – – – – – – – – – –Natasha, we are between a rock and a very hard place: if we burn more fossil fuels, we face catastrophe, but if we stop burning fossil fuels, we face catastrophe. Plus the hydrocarbons in particular are getting harder and harder to extract, forcing us back towards coal.
Oh, and we’ve started Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Half of the largest living thing on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef, is already dead.
What do you suggest?
Oh, one more thing:
– “JSO has failed to account for fossil fuel emissions outside of the UK needed to build “renewables”. ALL CO2 emissions are everyone’s CO2 emissions.”
True. From the JSO website homepage:
Not from the United Kingdom?
Find your local project here…- International – A22 Network
- Sweden – Återställ Våtmarker
- USA – Declare Emergency
- Germany – Letzte Generation (Don), (Son)
- Canada – Save Old Growth (Tue/Thu), (Sat), (Sun)
- Switzerland – Renovate Switzerland
- Norway – Stopp Oljeletinga!
- Italy – Ultima Generazione
- France – Dernière Rénovation
- Australia – Stop Fossil Fuel Subsides
Oh, and another two. I think one of the largest extraction companies in the North Sea is actually Chinese, and much coal burned in China comes from Australia. And somewhere between 6% and 15% of fossil fuel investment globally comes from the City of London, rather dwarfing the UK’s 1% of global emissions. Etc. etc.
But the most important bit was:
What do you suggest?
Clark, perhaps I haven’t been clear enough. Your response, listing all the usual climate catastrophist pornography data, is not being disputed by me or in the ‘Science Under Attack’ links I gave. The point I am making is simply that the causes of global warming and the data you list are complex, and that anthropomorphic CO2 emissions is only a part of a much bigger picture of possible causes, which have not been ruled out, and which offer us plausible explicative causes, if we care to put down our conditioned knee jerk response to scream ‘Denialist’. Honesty demands we must wait until new data comes to rule these hypothesis’ out, before campaigning for Just Stop Oil, as if that alone will fix the problem for ever after.
Further, that IPCC and IEA worst case predictions of future warming rest on a false assumption that fossil fuels, which do not and can never exist (they’re running out) could be burnt producing CO2 over the coming decades / century.
As such, failures to acknowledge the complexity of causes of warming, by reducing campaigning slogans to only revolve around the idea that anthropomorphic CO2 is the only devil, whilst summoning magic spells (i.e. re-newables will save us) is some mixture of dishonesty, ignorance and childishness.
Meanwhile, as you correctly suggest: how do we deal with these conclusions?
Lets try: Honesty, Education, Sharing, Kindness,Fast Breeder Nuclear Energy, Political Devolution, Proportional Representation, and Eat the Rich, would be a start…
PS. coincidentally I did just that 25 or so years ago: I waltzed in from another field (industrial/architectural designer, woodworker & analogue audio playback equipment production) thinking electromagnetic theory was all wrong! BUT, I decided to TEST my ideas, I read trillions of papers and patents published on that new thing called “the internet” and built lots of cool machines as I thought ‘free energy’ was hiding just around the corner, and I would be the one to finally vindicate Tesla’s bench-top dreams! Obviously I failed. BUT, I learned stuff. Heaps of it. In particular that I may be wrong and I’d better quadruple check everything I think I know over and over and over again.
So as far as I’m concerned experts do not exist, all data is up for analysis, and working conclusions are always provisional.
“that anthropomorphic CO2 emissions is only a part of a much bigger picture of possible causes, which have not been ruled out, and which offer us plausible explicative causes”
Can you explain what those other possible explicative causes are please?
You robustly argue that fossil fuels are running out, or at least that at some point the energy invested to extract them surpasses the energy yield from them. Therefore, whether you believe in anthropomorphic global warming or not we are still going to need an alternative energy source, or we just give up and resign ourselves to our disastrous energy-less future. I agree that nuclear energy is at the very least a medium-term interim energy source but we still need to deal with the nuclear waste.
Ultimately, I don’t agree that renewables are “magic”. Aside from the energy that went into making elements beyond iron, all of the planet’s energy comes from the Sun or tidal forces (tidal as in the gravitational effects of the Moon and Sun). The incident energy from the Sun is enormous. Tidal energy is also accessible. I also realise that energy is needed in the process of making the hardware to capture that energy. Somehow, we have to figure out how to make use of the energy we have to make the stuff that will continue to produce energy. We appear to be able to manage to direct our efforts to wage wars and make money.
In 4.5 billions years or so the Sun itself will run out, but I am willing to kick that can down the road for now :D.
Natasha:
– “…anthropomorphic CO2 emissions is only a part of a much bigger picture of possible causes, which have not been ruled out, and which offer us plausible explicative causes”
Attribution of the measured heating is what the IPCC Working Group I do. Consisting of hundreds of scientists they review the relevant scientific literature, thousands of papers from many fields, to work out where the additional heat is coming from. You can find the authors of the reviews here.
– “we must wait until new data comes…”
There’s already plenty of data and more arrives all the time, which is why it takes hundreds of scientists to review it.
– “before campaigning for Just Stop Oil, as if that alone will fix the problem for ever after.”
Well exactly, which is why I campaign with Extinction Rebellion (XR) rather than Just Stop Oil (JSO). XR are demanding honesty, rapid decarbonisation, and Citizens’ Assemblies. I support Just Stop Oil, mostly because they’re being so effective at raising awareness, but also because my girlfriend takes action with them. I can’t wholeheartedly be a member of JSO because it says it will halt its protests when new fossil fuel licensing ceases, but there is far more that must be done than just that, so it wouldn’t be honest of me to say that I’d stop.
– “Lets try: Honesty, Education, Sharing, Kindness,Fast Breeder Nuclear Energy, Political Devolution, Proportional Representation, and Eat the Rich, would be a start…”
Yep, I’m for all of those – except eat the rich, because if we had the other things you list, they wouldn’t be rich. It takes all sorts; nature’s choices are wiser than mine. It’s not that the rich are bad people necessarily; it’s the system that makes them so damaging, so we need to change the system.
As for fast breeders, I agree it’s a crying shame that IFR and SuperPhenix were abandoned, but don’t rule out thermal breeders. The thorium > protactinium > U233 > U235 fuel cycle really appeals to me. The MSRE. “Alvin, if you’re so concerned about reactor safety, we think it’s time you left atomic power” – is there anything politicians can’t fuck up?
– – – – – – – – – – –Most importantly:
– “IPCC and IEA worst case predictions of future warming rest on a false assumption that fossil fuels, which do not and can never exist (they’re running out) could be burnt producing CO2 over the coming decades / century.”
The predictions were decreased in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, on the basis that less of the coal will be burned. There’s far more coal than the best remaining hydrocarbons. And we’re already on the edge of climate tipping points:
– Arctic System Collapse? Devastating new research – YouTube, 13 minutes
– The scariest climate science paper I’ve ever read? – Youtube, 11 minutes
Fossil fuels don’t run out; they deplete. For example, for any given oil or gas field, first a well is sunk into it and it starts to produce at a rate that’s fast, for this single well. It’s profitable, so more wells are bored and the production rate increases. But the production rate is somewhat less than proportional to the number of additional wells, because the field’s internal pressure is dropping due to extraction. More wells are drilled, and the production rate increases, but less so than before. But drilling wells costs energy, therefore EROEI is falling…
After a while it becomes necessary to pump water or something in, to push the hydrocarbons out. This again takes energy, so EROEI falls further. Eventually wells on the periphery of the field start to run dry or only produce the water that was pumped in, so it becomes impossible to prevent the field’s production rate from falling, no matter how much effort is made; the field is in terminal decline. Russia’s supergiant gas fields, opened in the Soviet era, are in this state, producing at just one third of their peak rate.
The geologist M King Hubbert worked all this out in the 1950s; all other things being equal, the production from a typical oil field follows a bell-shaped curve; the maximum production occurs when the resource has been half extracted. This is called Hubbert’s peak, the same peak as in “peak oil”.
One of the properties of bell-shaped curves (the same shape as a “normal distribution”) is that if you add them together you get a bigger bell-shaped curve. This was how Hubbert correctly predicted peak production in the lower 48 US states (mid 1970s), the North Sea (late 1990s), and the world (mid 2010s).
I wrote, being deliberately vague, “all other things being equal”. Well, humans learn to manipulate nature, of course, especially when there is money to be made, and advanced modern extraction techniques can keep production rising beyond the mid point. But inevitably there is a price, which is that production will decline faster than it rose, ie. instead of ramping down gracefully, production can fall off a cliff.
– – – – – – – – – – –I’m sorry this is all getting a bit long; natural phenomena are complex. I hope you recognise that I have done some homework! OK, on to the next caveat…
– – – – – – – – – – –The various forms of energy are not equal, and liquid fuels are very special. For instance, nuclear power has massive potential, far beyond that of hydrocarbons, but it makes electricity, and you can’t run a combine harvester, or a chainsaw, or a jet fighter, on electricity. If you want high-density power that’s mobile, liquid fuels are your only option. Therefore, hydrocarbons get extracted even when other forms of energy are cheaper. It can even be worth pouring in more energy than you get out, just to get it in the form of liquid fuel, especially if you want to win wars, or project military dominance. This is why tar sands and other disgusting, low EROEI sludge may remain worth extracting, as the better hydrocarbons become increasingly difficult to extract. Tar sands have a massive carbon footprint…
– – – – – – – – – – –Do you see the problem? There is no clear cut-off point where fossil fuels “run out”, and the longer we keep insisting on extracting poorer and poorer quality ones, the higher their emissions per unit energy rise. Is it, for instance, worth mining and burning coal to make electricity, running pylons to tar sands extraction areas, and extracting and refining tar sands, in order to maintain military dominance? Or should the US instead nuke Russia to get control of their relatively clean crude oil? Certain powerful psychopaths would certainly do both.
We need to regain control of our governments, and mass civil disobedience is the only way I can see of doing it.
Clark, Yes of course there is no clear cut-off point where fossil fuels “run out”, I write that fossil fuels will “run out” as short hand for depletion, because the word “depletion” to most people suggests a gentle glide thereby obscuring that human civilization is fast crashing into a thermodynamic brick wall.
Clark “I support Just Stop Oil, mostly because they’re being so effective at raising awareness…” of what? Re-newables can’t be built without fossils ergo JSO are proposing policy that is theromdynamicly impossible, as I’ve outlined over and over in this thread above. In effect JSO are joining a chorus of pseudo science masquerading as …. ? Shame, and huge pity reality is so bitter to behold for so many well intentioned folk.
ET
“that anthropomorphic CO2 emissions is only a part of a much bigger picture of possible causes, which have not been ruled out, and which offer us plausible explicative causes”
Can you explain what those other possible explicative causes are please?
Read Science Under Attack there’s hundreds of referenced articles covering topics such as e.g.
- Recent Marine Heat Waves Caused by Undersea Volcanic Eruptions, Not Human CO2
- Ample Evidence Debunks Gloomy Prognosis for World’s Coral Reefs
- Challenges to the CO2 Global Warming Hypothesis: (7) Ocean Currents More Important than the Greenhouse Effect
ET
“Ultimately, I don’t agree that renewables are “magic” […] all of the planet’s energy comes from the Sun or tidal forces (tidal as in the gravitational effects of the Moon and Sun). The incident energy from the Sun is enormous. Tidal energy is also accessible. I also realise that energy is needed in the process of making the hardware to capture that energy. Somehow, we have to figure out how to make use of the energy we have to make the stuff that will continue to produce energy.”
You write “Somehow, we have to figure out” this is precisely and example of the “magical” thinking I refer to. Ask any half competent engineer to account for whole system inputs and they will tell you thermodynamics limits the net energy yield from any given fuel source. Extremely low energy density solar and gravitational energy flows require MASSIVE infrastructure build out compared to thousand and millions of time more energy dense fossil and nuclear fuels. There simply isn’t enough input energy of materials available to harness solar energy flows at any reasonable scale. Full stop.
Geological Survey of Finland published Mining of Minerals and Limits to Growth in 2021 with yet more research concluding the same mineral shortages story once again: “Global reserves are not large enough to supply enough metals to build the renewable non-fossil fuels industrial system or satisfy long term demand in the current system. Mineral deposit discovery has been declining for many metals. The grade of processed ore for many of the industrial metals has been decreasing over time, resulting in declining mineral processing yield. The implication is increase in mining energy consumption per unit of metal.
Mining of minerals is intimately dependent on fossil fuel based energy supply. Like all other industrial activities, without energy, mining does not happen. It becomes highly relevant then to examine how mining ecosystem interacts with the energy ecosystem. This suggests that the mining industrial operations to meet metal demand for the future are unlikely to go as planned. This implies that the current Linear Economy system is seriously unbalanced and is not remotely sustainable. It is clear that society consumes more mineral resources each year. It is also clear that society does not really understand its dependency on minerals to function.”
“A Plan that Adds-Up is the one ethical position I wish to push” writes the late David MacKay, author of the influential book ‘Without Hot Air’ polymath & head-hunted UK government climate change advisor: “Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to be pro-nuclear. I’m just pro-arithmetic.” James Hansen is correct: ignoring the limits imposed by the laws of physics, then embedding empirically wrong economics in anti-nuclear analysis models of wind & solar energy technology to inform policy offerings from across the political and institutional landscape, is “almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy”.
Natasha, if I were to continue this fight, I could cite the handful of eminent but contrarian scientists who insist that oil is generated continually by processes deep underground, and so will never run out. So maybe Ralph Alexander’s contrarianism is correct; he’s been saying the same things for at least thirteen years:
– “This revised edition of Ralph Alexander’s 2009 book features approximately 50% new or updated material, including an expanded chapter on alternative explanations to CO2 as the main source of global warming. Newly added sections in the 2nd edition cover temperature tampering by the three major custodians of the world’s temperature data, so as to exaggerate the global warming rate; the Climategate scandal; the use of peer review as an alarmist weapon; the neglected influence of the sun on our climate, including the amplification of solar activity by the oceans; heat that is suppposedly hiding in the deep ocean, but can’t be found; and more. The new book also describes how the UN’s IPCC and other alarmists manipulate climate data, discusses the lack of warming for more than a decade – about which alarmists are in denial, and explains the folly of carbon pricing schemes for regulating CO2. Finally, the author reflects on the reasons that so many people erroneously believe recent climate change comes from human activity, when there’s ample evidence to the contrary.”
So, either a whole scientific field that is entirely fraudulent, all at the behest of the United Nations, or maybe just the same old denial memes that have been sponsored by the fossil fuel companies. It’s all just a matter of opinion, isn’t it, just like the law of conservation of mass/energy is supposedly a conspiracy by the fossil fuel companies.
But there is the matter of why he presents directly to the public instead of publishing in the scientific literature. Oh yes, because science is a political conspiracy. Of course; silly me.
– – – – – – – –Whatever. Yesterday I accompanied less than two dozen members of Just Stop Oil on their slow march along New Kent Road. “Cunts”. “Wankers”. “Get a life”. “Get a job”. The Telegraph says that such protestors need a good beating, and some of the motorists drove their vehicles at the procession, which I can only interpret as literal death threats. I don’t know; you might even find a video of me stepping into the path of a white van, to make its driver brake a little earlier.
So maybe I don’t feel like fighting when I’m at home in my living room.
Clark, please don’t take this thread as a “fight” which is certainly not my intention or aim. Indeed when I type, I am mindful that (hopefully) others are (silently) reading our discussions, and are keen to embrace the learning opportunities being offered: my overriding aim is to LEARN by inquiry. You appear to have received a message I have not sent. Here is another attempt at clarity:
1) Climate Change is a SYMPTOM not a cause. As such Just Stop Oil are tilting at windmills. Why?
2) Because the CAUSES of Climate Change are undeniably complex and certainly NOT singular – there are numerous causative factors at play – but it’s a waste of time and misdirection for Just Stop Oil to argue about these causes. Why?
3) Because ALL roads lead to fossil fuel depletion and in effect they will run out over the next few generations of human beings.
4) And there are NO thermodynamically competent replacements.
5) Thus the highest priority for political activists ought to be: how do we run human civilisation without fossil fuels? Just Stopping Oil is a hopelessly inadequate naive response, designed to antagonise, and resulting in as you report negative feelings and violence.
6) Meanwhile let us ignore ‘red herrings’: such as the ‘Abiotic Oil’ theory (i.e. that those very naughty fossil fuels are continuously being created inside the earths crust, and so will NEVER run out) you allude to in the book by Ralph Alexander you quote from, which is NOT supported by MOST scientists who have published on the topic (whatever the shortcomings of ‘peer review‘).
7) Nonetheless, despite the problems with the peer review process, the ‘Abiotic Oil’ theory being rejected by the mainstream, does not cancel Ralph Alexander’s contrarianism in pointing out flaws in the published mainstream scientific analysis of CAUSES for the SYMPTOM of Climate Change.
8) In particular Ralph Alexander highlights published evidence that the mainstream Climate Change scientific view needs to be updated because it assumes anthropomorphic CO2 is the main or only cause of Climate Change.
9) As such, the complex causes of Climate Change – a symptom – have been dumbed-down and manipulated by political forces. Why?
10) Because complex multi faceted causes of symptoms being artificially reduced to – YOU ARE GUILTY FOR USING FOSSIL FUELS – are far easier to manipulate by cynical simple minded politicians and activists than concrete thermodynamically competent complex plans that “adds up” about what to do about the inevitable FACT that ALL roads lead to fossil fuel depletion and in effect they will run out over the next few generations of human beings.
11) Conclusion: messing about jumping in front of moving internal combustion engine vehicles is NOT A RATIONAL PLAN and is irrelevant with respect to the FACT accepted by MOST scientists who have published on the topic, that: ALL roads lead to fossil fuel depletion and in effect our primary energy sources will run out over the next few generations CAUSING global human population to crash to a tenth of today’s numbers in a few generations.
Just Stopping Oil (and XR etc.) a) fails to address this rapidly approaching descent by b) offering a deceit that its policy actions if implemented will somehow fix things back to ‘business as usual’ c) thereby obscuring the fact there are NO PLANS whatsoever for the imminent thermodynamic crash of MASSIVE global human population and civilizational de-growth.
Re: point 8: – “the mainstream Climate Change scientific view needs to be updated because it assumes anthropomorphic CO2 is the main or only cause of Climate Change” – my bold emphasis.
This is not an assumption; as I stated before, attribution of global heating is the work of the IPCC Working Group I, reviewing the vast body of general (rather than IPCC) scientific literature from multiple fields, everything that relates to global temperature, including solar variation and ocean currents.
If you wish to critique the work of the IPCC WG-I, you should start with their own work, rather than accepting Ralph Alexander’s critique at face value because, looking at his previous work, he seems to have jumped onto the global heating denialism bandwagon that has been and continues to be funded by millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry. Note the quote I gave earlier; the arguments he promoted in 2009 are very familiar. They have been addressed, and found wanting. I see he has rolled back on the more easily discredited ones, like the “pause” in temperature rise. That one has been tried over and over by the denial industry:
https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
The list of climactic disasters I gave earlier (fourth paragraph, here) are not “climate catastrophist pornography” as you put it; they are observational evidence of climate science being proven right. How much more catastrophic do we let it get before taking action? Some of the damage is already irreversible. Our politicians have failed us; they have had over forty years warning, yet still they push for maximum, exponential “economic growth”, which both pollutes the atmosphere faster and faster, and depletes the fuels faster and faster. It is insanity. We, the people, have to take action.
Sorry, I have more to write (most of it in agreement), but I’m out of time for now… Best wishes to you.
As a denier, I am quite used to up-cycled gobbledygook at alarmist watering holes.
My concern is over the disappeared adjective ‘anthropogenic’. I got quite attached to it, when deniers and alarmists talked about it we were usually on the same song sheet.
In its place there seems to be a replacement adjective ‘anthropomorphic’. Anthropomorphic is a very nice adjective and I have nothing against its use, but it seems inappropriate in the contributions so far.
Human emotions are what they are, but they are not the source of climate change…_I’ll take the bait DiggerUK. Can you elaborate on what it is that you are denying? I know you mean anthropogenic climate change but can you explain your steps to coming to that conclusion?
I’m not the one who started calling myself a denier; but the term is directed at me so often, I have simply adopted it.
I do of course see the backhanded insult that “denier” connotes, but beyond that I really would like to know what it is I am supposed to be denying.And no, I do not deny humans affect the planet we live on; we are just not significant enough to destroy it.
What prompted me to post is the mystery of “anthropomorphic” and “anthropomorphic CO2” making an appearance in a context I find mysterious to say the least. Do you have any explanation…_
DiggerUK, you are right, it should be “anthropogenic” and I’m not sure how “anthropomorphic” crept in. Without thinking I used the same term Natasha used. Perhaps Natasha meant to use it but I meant “anthropogenic”. I’ll be more careful in future.
Mmmm… It’s anthropogenic Jim, but…_
Clark writes:
“The list of climactic disasters I gave earlier (fourth paragraph, here) are not “climate catastrophist pornography” as you put it; they are observational evidence of climate science being proven right.“
1) The list of fires and heatwaves are precisely “climate catastrophist pornography” – or else why are Just Stop Oil (Green New Deal advocates, XR etc.) so hung up on the symptoms of climate change, when there are FAR greater pressures on the overall ecology of the planet indisputably caused by humans, such as mining and farming? For example the Bayan Obo mine in China, where 70 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals are extracted and refined, is riddled with radioactive tailings ponds, miles long.
2) Why do these political activist groups need such 1st world rich nation alarmist fires (caused in California by failures to maintain electricity grid infrastructure i.e. sparks and exacerbated by keeping fire wood too close to wooden homes) and heatwaves, while ignoring the far greater human-induced direct industrial destruction to justify “taking action”?
3) Science does NOT prove anything. As such an analysis claiming science delivers proof is anti-scientific no matter how much the IPCC is cited as a go-to authority figure to appeal to in order to justify “taking action” over a false painting of climate change as a ‘black and white’, ‘jury is out’ : anthropogenic [thanks DiggerUK, ET and ‘Jim’ :-)] carbon emissions ‘dun it governor’!
4) Even the Met Office agree that despite the
“leading cause of climate change is human activity and the release of greenhouse gases […] there are lots of natural causes that also lead to changes in the climate system.”
5) You rail against “Our politicians” who’ve had “over forty years warning, yet still they push for maximum, exponential “economic growth”, which both pollutes the atmosphere faster and faster, and depletes the fuels faster and faster. It is insanity.”
6) Erm….. how do Just Stop Oil (etc.) propose to build all the renewable solar energy flow harvesting machines without any “economic growth” causing yet further pollution and ecological destruction?
7) If “We, the people, have to take action” then let us begin with a foundational message in the calm voice of rational truth: in a few short generations the once-off fossil fuel bonanza will be gone and this pale blue dot will only be able to sustain even fewer humans than when it began in the c1750s i.e. less than 1 billion global population i.e. a catastrophic die off of human civilisation and numbers is GUARANTEED by the laws of thermodynamics in under 100 years.
CONCLUSION: We are at the end of a Finite Feeding Frenzy.
