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Its climate crisis assertions border on the fraudulent; they’re “misleading, overly simplistic, and sometimes, factually false.” —

No 2723 Posted by fw, March 30, 2021 —

On Wednesday April 7, 2021, Amara Possian of 350.org sent an email to followers bearing the Subject line “We’re launching something big today.” The message expressed dissatisfaction with Justin Trudeau’s failure “to tackle climate change,” and called on followers to “Sign the petition to call on federal Green Party Leader Annamie Paul and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to form a Climate Emergency Alliance.”

As a follower of 350 Canada, I received Amara’s email. Disappointed with with the absence of any scientific facts to support the claim of “the climate crisis,” mentioned in the email, I did not sign the petition.

Instead, using the return address 350canada@350.org, I immediately replied to the email. Opening with the salutation “Dear Amara –”, I candidly began: “If 350 were genuinely interested in the climate crisis, it would be reporting on the contributions of top climate scientists and experts in related disciplines. As things stand, 350’s apparent misunderstanding of the nature and scope of humanity’s global existential crises broaches on the fraudulent; one might be tempted to suggest your oversight of the facts is intentional.”

I suggested to Amara that, for her own edification, she should look at the recent works of seven climate scientists, and researchers in related fields. I listed their names, academic qualifications, and links to a recent article or video presentation. (See the list at the bottom of this post).

*****

On April 13, I received this follow-up email from Chris –

Hi Frank,

Thanks for these links. Yes, I know the situation is dire and that our growth-obsessed economic system is to blame, but what are you proposing exactly?…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Campaigners Say ‘Listen to the Science’ as New Study Shows Earth Now Warmer Than Any Time in Last 12,000 Years

January 30, 2021

Climate Campaigners Say ‘Listen to the Science’ as New Study Shows Earth Now Warmer Than Any Time in Last 12,000 Years

The study “changes the baseline and emphasizes just how critical it is to take our situation seriously,” its lead researcher said.

A protester is seen holding a placard during a climate change demonstration. (Photo: Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A new study published in the journal Nature shows the Earth is now hotter than it’s been at any time during the past 12,000 years. (Photo: Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Climate campaigners on Thursday pointed to a study showing that Earth is hotter than it’s ever been during the entire epoch of human civilization as the latest proof of the need to treat human-caused global heating like the dire emergency that it is.

“The modern, human-caused global warming period is accelerating a long-term increase in global temperatures, making today completely uncharted territory.”
—Samantha Bova,
Rutgers University

On Wednesday, the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature published a report revealing that an analysis of ocean surface temperatures found that the planet is hotter now than at any other time in the past 12,000 years, and that it may actually be warmer than at any point during the last 125,000 years.

Researchers Samantha Bova, Yair Rosenthal, Zhengyu Liu, Shital P. Godad, and Mi Yan detemined this by solving what scientists call the “Holocene temperature conundrum.” This was the mystery of why the global heating that began at the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago peaked around 6,000 years later—before giving way to the onset of a cooling period that lasted until the Industrial Revolution, when the current anthropogenic warming period began.

It turns out that the collected data, obtained from fossilized seashells, was innacurate, showing only hot summers while missing the colder winters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rolling blackouts in California show how reliance on solar and wind power can backfire

August 22, 2020

Rolling blackouts in California show how reliance on solar and wind power can backfire

(Natural News) California issued its first rolling blackouts in nearly 20 years last week as the state’s grid operator tried to keep the power system from complete collapse in the midst of a heat wave, and some are pointing out that the situation demonstrates the failures of green energy.

The rolling blackouts affected upwards of 2 million Californians. Many of the outages took place in the afternoon, when power demand peaked as people starting turning up their air conditioning at the same time that solar power supplies started slowing down as the sun set.

The state’s three biggest utilities – Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric – cut off power to homes and businesses for roughly an hour at a time until the close of an emergency declaration, and this was followed by a second outage.

On top of that, erratic output from the state’s wind farms failed to make up the gap. Around a third of the state’s electricity comes from renewable sources thanks to state law mandates, and these alternatives proved incapable of keeping up during peak power usage. In the past, utilities and grid operators in the state bought extra electricity from other states when it fell short, but the vast size of the heat wave meant that other states were also reaching their limits and had none to spare.

Governor Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation into the outages seen in the state over the weekend, vowing to uncover the cause. However, Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno, who serves as the Committee on Utilities and Energy’s Vice Chair, said that the problem can be traced to California’s reduced dependence on natural gas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate scientists should admit failure and move on – writes Dr Wolfgang Knorr

August 5, 2020

Climate scientists should admit failure and move on – writes Dr Wolfgang Knorr

TIME FOR ACCEPTANCE

The climate crisis demands new ways of thinking – scientists should be first to admit failure and move on.

A universal policy failure
Inarguably, one of the most significant and long-lasting legacies of the 50-year old Apollo programme was the life-changing experience its astronauts had upon viewing the earth from the vantage point of another celestial body. The vision they described of its fragile and delicate beauty is all the more striking and poignant at this moment in climate emergency.

We, that is to say, humanity has this beautiful planet, home now to 7 billion people with nowhere else to go, and are running a reckless experiment, that has taken the Earth system right out of the mode of operation it has been running in for millions of years. Climate and earth scientists should be and should have been the first to see the utter insanity of this hellishly dangerous undertaking.

But in some strange way, and despite the warnings over the past decades of many individuals such as Roger Revelle, Jim Hansen, Kevin Anderson, to name but a few,–– it appears the latest generation of protesters, from Fridays for Future to Extinction Rebellion – have done far more to hammer home the real message that climate crisis cannot be taken lightly, and is urgently and ultimately a most horrifying question of life and death. We do not know when it will happen and who will be hit first, but one thing is certain: if we do not change course quickly, things can get very nasty indeed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The UN’s ‘Woke’ Climate Change Propaganda Is An Insult To Science”

December 20, 2019

“The UN’s ‘Woke’ Climate Change Propaganda Is An Insult To Science”

I was always a ‘middle-grounder’, rather than a ‘denier’ – until I discovered the extent of the dishonesty

The climate change “emergency” is fake news. Many will roll their eyes in exasperation at the conspiratorial bombastry of yet another “denier”. But for years I have been a plastic recycling, polar bear cooing middle-grounder. In fact, Aristotle would probably turn in his grave at the logical fallaciousness of my long-held presumption that the truth must lie somewhere between those two mutually loathing opposites – Scepticism and Armageddon.

But as the doom-mongering acquires the rubber-stamped smell of instutionalised illness, it is impossible to ignore that the “woke” are the new “slept” – too deep in their sugar coma of confected hysteria to realise they are being duped by disinformation.

Before I explain why the climate “emergency” is the most electrifyingly effective propaganda exercise of the 21st century, two clarifications. I have no fight to pick with glaring evidential realities: surface records clearly show the planet is getting warmer. Nor do I have a culture war-bloodied axe to grind with the fundamental chemistry: carbon dioxide indisputably contributes to the greenhouse effect. But I do take issue with how the mainstream debate has become an insult to both the public’s intelligence and basic science.

This was clearer than ever two weeks ago, as bureaucratic catastrophists kicked up dystopian dust-clouds on their way into the UN Madrid climate change summit. As Greta Thunberg arrived by yacht (after her British skipper likely clocked up 3 tonnes of carbon emissions flying to the US to pick her up), UN Secretary General António Guterres rumbled that, over the horizon, he could see “the point of no return”. Delegates waved the UN’s latest Emissions Gap Report as if it were both a millenarian death oracle and a methodologically indisputable text; in it, the recommendation to cut emissions by at least 7.6 per cent per year for the next decade.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Our climate is like reckless banking before the crash—it’s time to talk about near-term collapse

December 14, 2019

Our climate is like reckless banking before the crash—it’s time to talk about near-term collapse

Our food, finance, and logistics systems are worryingly vulnerable to climate shocks, Aled Jones and Will Steffen write. These are not distant existential issues raised by uncertain and abstract models of future climatic risk. They are urgent questions that humanity has been ducking for decades, but now demand urgent answers.

*****

After a quarter of a century of nations from around the world coming together to discuss progress in dealing with climate change, emissions are still rising. The 25th annual United Nations climate change summit is now underway—and for the sake of the planet, it’s high time it changed its approach.

While climate scientists, policymakers and environmental campaigners have been engaged in a decades-long conversation about the future of the planet, most people on planet Earth see no climate emergency. Put bluntly, the science of global warming has failed spectacularly to emotionally connect with much of society, particularly those in the most powerful positions—rendering policy makers ineffective despite repeated warnings.

The science and the warnings focus on curtailing the emission of heat-absorbing gases into the atmosphere that, left unaddressed, may threaten the viability of contemporary society and worsen a mass extinction event already in motion.

But these warnings are not connected with complex human systems, such as food, finance and logistics, leaving them to evolve as if climate change didn’t exist. Terms such as “tipping points” are on their own technical, distant and abstract, while humans are wired to prioritise the short-term.

This failure to connect the dots means humanity has rapidly entered uncharted territory, pumping out carbon ten times faster than at any point since the extinction of the dinosaurs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

David Attenborough Calls on Voters in US and Australia to Respond to Climate Science Denial Among Leaders

July 10, 2019

David Attenborough Calls on Voters in US and Australia to Respond to Climate Science Denial Among Leaders

Veteran broadcaster David Attenborough has expressed his disappointment at the rise of climate science denial in the US and Australia and called on voters to respond.

Referencing the rise of climate science denial in some countries while giving evidence to a committee of MPs in the UK, Attenborough said he was “sorry that there are people in power and internationally, notably the United States, but also in Australia” where “those voices are clearly heard”. He said he hoped the “electorate will actually respond” to public figures that promote climate science denial.

Attenborough also said it would be “a very sad day” if President Donald Trump succeeded in withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, praising the UN process as an example of international cooperation.

He accused climate science deniers of cherry-picking their data, arguing it “isn’t proof” to find a particular example of where glaciers had grown, rather than shrunk. “It’s just an example,” he said.

“The proof is in the graphs, the proof is in the scientific records, the proof is in when you analyse bubbles from the sea ice and glacier ice to show you what has happened to the climate over the years,” he added.

However, Attenborough also said those that disagree with mainstream climate science should not be totally silenced.

“It is very, very, important that the voices of dissent should have a place where they’re heard and a place where the arguments between the two sides can be worked out in public and deterred and analysed in public. That’s very important,” he said.

“I think that the voice of criticism and the voice of disbelief should not be stamped on”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Change was No Accident

May 17, 2019

Climate Change was No Accident

Years ago, tobacco companies discovered the link between their products and lung cancer. Did they warn their customers? No — they denied the link entirely, misleading the public for decades while killing their customers.

Similarly, ExxonMobil scientists made startlingly accurate predictionsabout climate change as early as 1982 — and then spent millions of dollars on a misinformation campaign to sow public doubt about climate change.

They didn’t need to convince the public that the climate crisis wasn’t happening. They just had to muddy the waters enough to prevent us from doing anything.

They provoked uncertainty: Maybe the climate crisis isn’t happening. And even if it is, maybe it’s not caused by humans burning fossil fuels. (Of course, it is happening and it is caused by humans.)

The result was inaction.

If we aren’t even sure that a human-caused climate crisis is afoot, why should we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels? It would be highly inconvenient and very expensive to go to all of that trouble unless we’re absolutely certain that we need to.

After all, the argument went, “only” 97 percent of scientists believe that human are causing a climate crisis.

I’m a scientist. Let me tell you, when 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, the evidence must be overwhelming.

Scientists are trained to critique and argue with one another. We make our careers by pulling apart other scientists’ theories and exposing the flaws in them and then supplanting them with better theories of our own.

You couldn’t get 97 percent of scientists to agree that puppies are cute or chocolate is delicious.

What about other 3 percent? You can always find one or two nutty so-called scientists with inaccurate, fringy theories out there. There’s probably a scientist somewhere attempting to publish a study asserting that Bigfoot exists — or that climate change isn’t happening.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Adult Lifestyles Sentence Kids to 1,000 Years of “Deadly” Heat Waves

May 8, 2019

Adult Lifestyles Sentence Kids to 1,000 Years of “Deadly” Heat Waves

Photograph Source: Intothewoods7 – CC BY-SA 4.0

Sixteen year old Greta Thunberg’s School Strike for Climate generation seems likely to witness the beginnings of a grueling, traumatizing, brutal, heat-driven reversal of the human population boom. Why? Because we’ve continued to pack the atmosphere with a little more CO2 with almost every move we make in utterly normal daily routines, thus forcing heat higher and higher day after day after day.

And we’ve collectively waited too long before taking the situation seriously. Now it’s irreversible. A study led by Susan Solomon found that the CO2 we add to the atmosphere every day remains there for centuries, “so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years.”

Kids thus face an array of heat-driven risks for the next 1,000 years, and the risks are certain to escalate with every next new day of using the atmosphere as a carbon dump.

But the risks can be reduced. Will that be too much to ask?

As of 2016, even before we collectively forced the heat 1C higher than pre-industrial times, EPA had already reported that, “Children are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illness and death, as their bodies are less able to adapt to heat than adults, and they must rely on others to help keep them safe.”

Writing for The Age, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, journalist Caitlin Fitzsimmons tells her readers, “Let’s not pretend that children and teenagers can’t understand what’s going on.” She reports that 86 per cent of Australia’s surveyed teens view climate change as a threat to their safety, “with 73 per cent saying it affects the world ‘a lot’ now and 84 per cent saying it will affect the world ‘a lot’ in the future.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘They Have Lied for Decades’: European Parliament To Scrutinise Exxon’s Climate Science Denial

March 21, 2019

‘They Have Lied for Decades’: European Parliament To Scrutinise Exxon’s Climate Science Denial

With millions of students taking to the streets and oil majors increasingly facing litigation, the fossil fuel industry is finally being held to account for its contribution to the climate crisis.

This week, the EU is taking this accountability up a notch, with ExxonMobil’s decades-long denial of climate science facing the scrutiny of MEPs and the public at a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday.

During the two-hour session, scientists, campaigners and a historian will examine the history of climate denial and in particular the misinformation spread by Exxon, with MEPs able to ask questions about the role and behaviour of the oil major.

The hearing is being held jointly by the petitions committee and the environment, public health and food safety committee. It was arranged following a petition by Food & Water Europe, a Brussels-based non-governmental organisation, which gained 732 signatures.

“To my knowledge, this is the first major body of lawmakers, certainly at the national or international level, to hear on record expert testimony about the history of climate denial today,” says Geoffrey Supran, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard who has examined Exxon’s history of obfuscation on climate change, and who will testify at Thursday’s hearing. “There’s a general momentum here, that investigative bodies are starting to formalise this enquiry.”

Representatives from the oil company itself won’t attend the hearing, due to “ongoing climate change related litigation in the US”, according to leaked notes from the coordinators of the hearing. Exxon did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Deathbed Video, ‘Godfather’ Of Climate Science Begs World Leaders To Deploy Last-Ditch Solar Shield

March 6, 2019

In Deathbed Video, ‘Godfather’ Of Climate Science Begs World Leaders To Deploy Last-Ditch Solar Shield

Before passing away from heart disease on February 18, climate scientist Wallace Smith Broecker left behind a “final warning” to fellow scientists – telling them in a video recorded days before his death that humanity must deploy a volcano-inspired “solar shield” in order to cool down the atmosphere, according to NBC News.

Broecker, who popularized the phrase “global warming” in 1975 (right as the notion of “global cooling” became unpopular) – warned that world leaders aren’t acting quickly enough to halt the production of carbon dioxide, and the only solution is to geoengineer “the sulfur solution.”

The theory is that the planet might be cooled, in a worst-case scenario, by releasing massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere some 70,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. The idea would be for jets to release so much SO2 that they would mimic a massive volcanic eruption, like the one at Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which shrouded much of the planet in a sulfurous cloud, cooling the Earth by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for a full year. –NBC News

“If we are going to prevent the planet from warming up another couple of degrees, we are going to have to go to geoengineering,” said Broecker, adding that continued inaction could result in “many more surprises in the greenhouse,” known as Earth. Wallace Broecker receiving the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton in 1996. Photo: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Broecker said that he had worked with another prominent climatologist on mechanical units that could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but that at least 100 million of them would be required to get the job done.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Not Even a Blip: The Great Flop of Climategate #3

December 21, 2018

Not Even a Blip: The Great Flop of Climategate #3

The results of a “Google Trends” examination of the number of searchers for the term “Climategate.” The large peak in 2009 was generated by the wave of interest created by the release of the first batch of e-mails exchanged among climate scientists. A few weeks ago, a new batch of mails was released, but it generated no interest: not even a blip in the curve.

You remember the “Climategate” story, don’t you? It was in November 2009 when a batch of private e-mail messages exchanged by climate scientists was stolen and diffused over the Web. The bruhaha that resulted was unbelievable and the messages were described as the “proof” that Climate Science was an elaborate hoax, a conspiracy created by scientists in order to gain money, prestige and influence.

The peak you see at the beginning of this post is a plot from “Google Trends,” it shows how the Climategate term literally exploded in the memesphere. Today, after nearly 10 years, we could legitimately scratch our heads at thinking what there was so interesting in this story that deserved so much time and so much discussion. Really, there was nothing interesting in those emails— on the whole, they were as boring as mail messages among scientists could be (*).

So much overhyped was the Climategate ‘scandal’ that the later attempts to resuscitate it were hit by the memetic curse of irrelevance. A new batch of e-mails exchanged among climate scientists was released in 2011, it was termed “Climategate #2” and it is barely visible as a blip in the Google Trends curve (see above). Then, a third batch was released just a few weeks ago, this time by the force of an FOIA directed at the University of Arizona.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe

December 13, 2018

Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe

Watch Full Show

LINKS

The 24th United Nations climate summit comes amid growing warnings about the catastrophic danger climate change poses to the world. In October, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty. But on Saturday, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait blocked language “welcoming” the landmark IPCCclimate report. New studies show global carbon emissions may have risen as much 3.7 percent in 2018, marking the second annual increase in a row. A recent report likened the rising emissions to a “speeding freight train.” We speak with Kevin Anderson, professor in climate change leadership at Uppsala University’s Centre for Environment and Development Studies, and 15-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg about the drastic action needed to fight climate change and the impact of President Trump on climate change activism.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, this is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit right here in Katowice, Poland. And we’re continuing our conversation with Greta, who has been on a school strike calling for climate action. She sits outside the Swedish parliament every Friday. In September, before the election, she sat for three weeks straight on weekdays. A number of kids also then started to join her.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COP24: Climate Science Denial, Disinformation and Fake News at the UN Climate Talks

December 5, 2018

COP24: Climate Science Denial, Disinformation and Fake News at the UN Climate Talks

James Taylor of the Heartland Institute at COP24

And in Katowice, Poland, where the UN climate talks — known as COP24 — are underway, it was no different. A small group of climate science deniers tried to grab attention by hosting an event on the fringe of the conference, claiming to “present the science that debunks UN alarmism”.

But this year, very few were paying attention.

Year after year, climate science deniers have attempted to use the climate talks as a platform to undermine the global climate negotiation process.

The election of Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, two populist politicians who denounced climate change as a political plot to stifle economic growth and want to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, may have given these fringe groups some semblance of credibility.

Jesse Bragg, spokesman for the NGO Corporate Accountability, told DeSmog UK that although climate science deniers’ tactics haven’t changed over the years, “what has changed is the hubris with which these deniers trot their junk science out but just because Trump makes these deniers feel confident”.

“But that doesn’t mean they actually have cause or that support for them is growing,” he added.

Inside the UN conference, climate science denial voices have traditionally been ignored. Both Trump and Bolsonaro’s election were a blow to the UN’s climate negotiations process but those denying the scientific consensus of climate change have not — at least yet — managed to crush the momentum behind the Paris Agreement.

Isolated Deniers

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Scientist Michael Mann Releases Emails Ahead of University of Arizona Response to E&E Legal

November 30, 2018

Climate Scientist Michael Mann Releases Emails Ahead of University of Arizona Response to E&E Legal

Nearly a decade ago, in late 2009, a server at the University of East Anglia was hacked and thousands of emails from the university’s Climatic Research Unit were subsequently released in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks. Within these thousands of emails, climate change deniers attempted to cherry-pick a few sentences to falsely suggest scientific malfeasance. This so-called “Climategate” incident managed to briefly cast doubt on the public’s acceptance of the scientific realities of climate change. But ultimately, numerous investigations found there was no wrongdoing, and the media storm was found to only have a fleeting public impact.

I have discussed the manufactured scandal in the context of the larger industry-funded, bad faith attack on climate science in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

In increasingly desperate attempts to recreate this short-lived machination, there have since been repeated efforts to obtain my and other climate scientists’ emails via fishing expeditions through misuse of the legal system. Led by David Schnare, one coal-funded group masquerading as a think tank — which currently goes by the name of Energy & Environment Legal Institute(E&E Legal) — brought a lawsuit in Virginia seeking to obtain virtually every email I had ever sent or received during the six years I was a professor at the University of Virginia.

The case was struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court, but E&E Legal has continued to essentially relitigate the matter in friendlier forums. E&E Legal targeted two other prominent climate scientists at the University of Arizona, Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes (the latter being one of my longtime co-authors), seeking a total of 13 years of emails from them, including correspondence with or about me or my research.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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