I was quite pleased to learn (thanks to the Internet Anagram Server) that the title of today’s ramblings is an anagram of :
Climate Change Doom
The Swedish child-genius Prof Greater Thumbdrive (not to be confused with her distant cousin Greta Thunberg) has determined that unless we all stop breathing by 2050 the earth will be transformed into a hellish landscape where even mountains melt. Even if we do manage to achieve this simple and effective measure the cows will still fart, and so we’re doomed whatever we do.
That’s basically the exaggerated snark version of what the Climate Anxietists™ would have us believe1.
Back in the 70’s (or thereabouts) we were worried about freezing to death. They decided that was wrong and flipped to the notion of global warming and so we had a brief interlude where we thought we’d all drown because of rising sea levels. Now we’re worried that we’re going to be boiled alive.
The current mainstream view is that Carbon Dioxide is the ‘pollutant’ responsible for this looming catastrophe. If we could only stop making it, and return things back to where they should be, everything would be OK and we’d all save on our therapist bills.
Carbon Dioxide is supposed to be like some magic dial and the only thing we need to tweak to get our climate ‘right’. It seems to be something like this
Fascinatingly, this seems to have coincided with the following
We probably should all go back to living for only 3 or so decades if we want to “save the planet”.
Also fascinatingly, we’ve seen some people seem to call for the removal of Carbon Dioxide from our atmosphere altogether. Unfortunately, Screaming Maniacal Moron is not an anagram of Photosynthesis (I checked).
Quite apart from the detailed technical science, which no-one understands properly2, there are some important overarching questions about the climate that rarely get asked - except by those awful science-deniers.
The first problem, as far as the ‘understanding’ of the issues in the general population goes, is the use of a single parameter (the mean temperature anomaly) to characterize the ‘climate’. Here, a single parameter is used to describe an entire planet and the Carbon Dioxide magic switch model would have us believe in a dynamic that can be almost entirely characterized like this
T = f(c)
In other words, the temperature, T, this global mean anomaly, is a function of a single variable - the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere - according to this way of thinking.
In practice what we really have is the following
T = f(c, and a zillion other things)
Even if we were to accept that a single number, this mean temperature anomaly, is a sensible measure to describe the climate of an entire planet, we’d have to wonder about the inordinate effectiveness of the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in being the single most important variable driving it all.
Even if we further suppose that this view is correct, that Carbon Dioxide does have this property, we still have a couple of important questions that must be answered.
We would do well to remember the Latin proverb vir prudens non contra ventum mingit3
So, we’ve got our model - this T = f(c). That’s just ticketyboo. But what value of T is the ‘correct’ one for the planet? What value of c is the ‘right’ one that will allow life (including ours) to thrive?
All we have, at the moment, is the generation of excessive worry and little in the way of metrics. How will we know we have it ‘right’?
The current goal of “net zero” relies on the assumption that our current level of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is (roughly) the ‘correct’ one, the one most beneficial for the continued existence of life on the planet.
That’s not the point, the Climate Anxietist™ would argue. The point is that we will create an uncontrollable runaway heating of the planet if we continue to increase the level of Carbon Dioxide.
The problem with this assertion is that Carbon Dioxide levels have been much higher in the past (a long time ago) and they weren’t associated with the boiling of the oceans, so to speak - and nor did they cause some catastrophic runaway process4. They were associated with higher temperatures5, that seems to be true, but once again we have to ask the question what T are we aiming for?
And how do we know there will be this ‘runaway’ effect? Some model somewhere. But the models have not exactly covered themselves in glory at being able to actually predict things, so why should we trust them to the extent we’re prepared to drastically curtail human existence and lifestyles?
The standard narrative is that a 1°C rise in temperature over the next century would be a really bad thing for the planet. It is far from clear to me, other than fears of a projected runaway heating it supposedly would indicate, why this is a bad thing.
I’m 100% sure that climate scientists have a better understanding of the things that influence the climate than I do. That’s not the question. The question is whether these experts have a good enough understanding of what’s happening, and why, to be driving everything towards what is currently a ruinous global ‘Net Zero’ policy.
It’s a really bad idea to mix science and politics. After living through the farcical covid era, do we need any other example of the kind of thing that can happen?
You get vegetables Presidents telling us they’ve “lost patience” and predicting “winters of death” for those who have the temerity to disobey the government-promoted science. That’s just a couple of examples out of the many thousands of instances during covid where politicians far exceeded their (minimal) understanding of the basic science, but felt they needed to impose their inadequacy on us all.
Before we embark on what will be global impoverishment and a drastic limitation on the majority (non-elite) population I would very much like to know we’re doing the right thing.
The case for an extreme response to moderate increases in the global mean temperature anomaly has not been adequately made.
Forget all of the science we currently think we know - the ‘big picture’ questions are the ones we need to focus on. How do we know that a 1-2°C rise in this mean temperature anomaly will be bad for the planet? Let alone catastrophic for the planet.
And, as we all know, it is routine for commercial growers to increase the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in their greenhouses because the yield is significantly better with higher concentrations.
This, really, is the question that must be asked.
Climate Anxietist™ : by the end of the next century the planet will be 1°C warmer
Anti-Science Conspiracy Loon™ : and why is this a bad thing?
Climate Anxietist™ : because it is
Anti-Science Conspiracy Loon™ : well, you’ve convinced me
The problem is, as it was with covid, is that the focus is insanely only on one side of the cost/benefit equation. With covid any costs of interventions were just blithely ignored and only benefit was assumed. With the climate narrative, everything about a rise in temperatures is seen as a Bad Thing™ and there are no upsides.
Until we can have a more balanced view of the whole thing, I’m going to distrust the whole Official Climate Narrative™ in its entirety. It’s more dogma than science.
A climate anxietist is a bit like a climate scientist but with an extra box of tissues and a therapist
If we actually understood it, our climate models would work
I am told that this roughly translates as “a sensible man doesn’t piss against the wind”
This is a more complicated question because you have to look at sources and sinks of Carbon Dioxide in the past and how they are different today.
Which is not quite the same thing as saying they caused the higher temperatures. And let’s not forget the assumptions and modelling that have to go into the creation of a ‘global’ past temperature from sparse historical data.
I misread the headline as "Metal Ogma". Maybe I've been listening to NWOBHM too much?
Neh, no such thing as too much british heavy metal!
Grater Tumbril has turned into self-parody here in Sweden, outside the chattering classes and their fanatical flock. Bumper-stickers with "Fuck Greta!" are not too uncommon in my neck of the woods, and in some areas oop north Green party members have been forced to move, from being so thoroughly shut-out (the swedish expression is "utfryst" - frozen out).
Speaking of the climate and where I'm at, there are findings from around here, dated to 6 000BC, that clearly shows that people lived here and had agriculture. Including growing wheat and flax. It was of course ca 2-3 degrees warmer, yearly average mean temperature, leading to a growing season about 12 weeks longer than today's.
Parts of the "Scandean" mountain range was inhabited year-round until ca 1 000AD, when the encroaching cold made it impossible to live there. Glaciers forming, perma-frost, perma-snow, that kind of thing.
But those are facts, and facts are literally Hitler or something.
Our inability to consider all effects from an intervention is humorous and sad. The limits of our knowledge and information must be primary considerations, which requires humility and honesty.