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Sick of being lectured about the climate crisis

328 replies

Soulesssummer · 28/07/2023 13:12

I try my best to leave as little carbon footprint as possible.
Married with no kids and annual dual fuel bills are under£700
1 small car, holiday overseas once every 5 years.
So why do those wealthy families with 3,4, 5 plus kids who drive SUV tanks and holiday every year multiple times.,who consume £300 plus in energy bills monthly, have the audacity and blatant cheek to lecture others on the climate crisis.

It's like they have only just twigged their excessive greed and consumption just might now mean your kids futures are ruined.
It's making me so angry.

OP posts:
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LameBorzoi · 11/08/2023 02:28

Bogwood · 10/08/2023 22:09

Thank you for taking the time to read them!

I completely agree with your sentiments - alarm bells should start ringing as soon as issues become overly polarised.

Academics have been forced out of institutions - made intellectual pariahs for daring to question the standard narrative. School children are presented with a skewed impression of scientific certainty - climate change has taken on the form of a religious belief system. I have made my children aware that they should never voice any of my opinions or doubts within an educational or (for the older ones) professional setting. The current sociopolitical context does not permit any level of dissent without there being a personal cost (from negative judgements being made about an individual's politics to exam results/careers being jeopardised, or even bank accounts closed!).

We live in dangerously oppressive times - cloaked in a mantle of moral superiority, liberalism and freedom of speech/thought!

Challenging the dominant paradigm is how science progresses! Good quality challenges, supported by good quality data. Unless they were peddling conspiracy theories, in which case a lack of critical thinking should make a person not fit for teaching.

Freedom of thought is not freedom from the consequences of peddling nonsense.

LameBorzoi · 11/08/2023 02:45

Bogwood · 10/08/2023 21:00

@LameBorzoi I am now at a loss to know how to answer you - because it would probably have to involve rehashing an awful lot of what I have said throughout this thread - and I simply do not have the time or the energy - for what is clearly not being interpreted as intended!
There is a fundamental difference between Newtonian physical laws and General Circulation Models that attempt to simulate and predict climatic patterns. The former are useful in applying ,mechanics to real world systems; the latter are built using a complex combination of accepted physical laws and a fudge of approximations. Thus far, with respect to the estimate for the relatively small average global temperature increase since the end of the Little Ice Age, we have no definitive evidence that there has been climate change for which man made GHG emissions are the primary driver. The crisis only exists in a virtual form - in extrapolations made by the models, which have been shown to be incapable of adequately describing climate change. You suggest that the models' inaccuracy is not significant enough to matter - but when we are dealing with such small actual temperature increases, simulations being wrong by a magnitude of two or three times certainly is hugely relevant. We have absolutely no real world evidence for impending global catastrophe - the models are the source of that evidence. When the public is relentlessly told that the science is settled, as justification for huge socio-economic restructuring, it is told an untruth.

If renewable energy, at its current stage of technology and resource availability, is the panacea you present it as being, then we won't have a problem transitioning - and it should help lift less developed nations out of fuel poverty.
I think you are deluded - renewable energy is simply too diffuse and always requires (other than nuclear - maybe that is what you're referring to!) fossil fuel backup. Germany is really struggling to meet its renewable ambitions - and you certainly cannot accuse that country of having lacked political ambition (I think you actually suggested at one point that politics was lagging behind the finances, with respect to renewable!).
I am not advocating for fossil fuels to the exclusion of renewables - but it would be silly to ditch the former before we are ready to transition to the latter. I am intrigued by your suggestion that renewables are already capable of providing a complete alternative now - but if you are right, then we are on the cusp of a wonderful golden age of plentiful, cheap and clean energy - fantastic!

I don't know why you think it would be possible to refute the "key concepts of anthropogenic climate change" with a single paper - that is as ludicrously silly (for the reasons I gave upthread) as imagining that you could prove it in a single paper. If the latter has not been convincingly done, then why should you demand its opposite? And, presumably, by anthropogenic climate change, you mean this to connote the idea that anthropogenic GHG emissions are the principal driver of climate change - because, as I have repeatedly pointed out, very few people who fall into the sceptical camp dispute the fact that humans (or greenhouse gases) influence climate. The argument is about the degree to which climate is driven by man made, as opposed to natural causes. The fact that this is not seen as relevant risks too little scientific research being devoted to natural climatic forcing agents. As many have noted, it is not the steady increase in sea levels (that have been rising since the last glacial period) that we need to be prepared for - it is the one off storm surges, tidal waves and hurricane-induced flood events that cause catastrophes. Such phenomena always have and always will be a risk - they require forward planning and geographically-targeted resilience, not lower global atmospheric CO2 levels.
By the way, I don't know what book of Christy's you are referring to - I am not aware that I referenced any book written by him! But if he has written one, please let me have the details - I am sure that it would make for an interesting read!

You are confidently stating things that just aren't true.

The key principles behind the understanding of anthropogenic climate change are very simple. We know the effects on heat retention of increasing CO2 concentration. This is basic high school level physics. We have a very good idea of the amount of carbon that we are adding to the atmosphere every year. This isn't too hard to calculate. We have good measurements regarding increasing CO2 concentration. We know that hotter air carries more moisture. We know that wheat, rice and maize, which feed a huge proportion of the world, don't grow well outside preferred temperature and moisture conditions. While the whole model is complex, the key underlying logic is very simple and founded in very fundamental physical principles.

No one is going to lower total CO2 levels! We just want to slow down the rate at which previously trapped CO2 is being dumped into the atmosphere.

Bogwood · 11/08/2023 08:16

@LameBorzoi

"Challenging the dominant paradigm is how science progresses!"
I know! Exactly! That is precisely the point I have been trying to make throughout our discussion!
There are two fundamental aspects to the climate issue - the science and the politics. These two facets, whether we like it or not, have become inexcusably entangled - this is having a negative impact on our ability to assess levels of certainty, with respect to climate science. If you try to understand the concerns of eminent scientists such as Dr Steven Koonin, Dr John Christy and Dr Judith Curry (referenced upthread), or maybe the late Professor Robert (Bob) Carter (to name but a few of many), you will recognise that there are significant career impacts for those who have chosen to inject a more realistic, balanced scientific perspective into the overarching alarmist narrative. At one point, you inferred that Dr Christy should be taken less seriously because of his age - dismissing him as a "boomer", if I remember correctly. I think it is notable that many of the most vocal sceptical scientists tend to be older - perhaps more likely to be financially secure and able to take professional risks, maybe because they have the credibility and security of having had established careers. Even outside the academic field, look at televised science entertainment - anyone remember Johnny Ball and David Bellamy? They were massively popular at one point, but were 'cancelled' (before cancelling became a de rigueur term) because they could not completely sign up to the climate change script - perhaps they should have played the game and enjoyed some of Attenborough's success! https://www.carbonbrief.org/johnny-balls-climate-science/

"You are confidently stating things that just aren't true."
What things would those be? If you are referring to the points subsequently made in your post, I will now address those. Please appreciate the fact that I have not adopted an absolutist standpoint on any particular scientific 'fact' - only on the position that science should be conducted in a depoliticised environment and that rigorous scrutiny and challenge of the evidence and the socioeconomic ramifications of policies such as 'net zero' should be thoroughly examined in a completely balanced way, before being implemented. Is this a perspective that you take issue with?

"The key principles behind the understanding of anthropogenic climate change are very simple."
No they are not! It is a point that I have tried to highlight a number of times. You seem to be under the misconception that the science really is simple and settled, and that the mechanisms of climate science are known. The fact that CO2 is a radiative forcing agent is indeed a physical fact, more or less unanimously accepted within the academic community - what you would likely refer to as a consensus...it underpins the oft trotted out statistic of "97% of scientists agree"...to mention this at all is straight from the Propaganda Playbook: Chapter One 'How to set up a strawman argument"!
The issue is not with the accepted conventions on the application of physical laws at the most basic level. The problem lies in the complexities of the atmosphere itself, and the interaction and feedback relationships between a huge number of variables and climatic drivers. In this respect, even though politically it has been done, you just cannot separate anthropogenic climate change from overall climate change - it is impossible until you have a firm understanding of the entire system and all of its drivers - natural and manmade. We simply cannot model all of these. There is a massive difference between having a grasp of the physics of individual components of the atmosphere at their most basic level and understanding how they proceed to interact with the hundreds of other components of a complex climatic system. Models have to be overly simplistic to operate at a level whereby they attempt to simulate circulation patterns at a global scale. It would be impossible and impractical to increase model resolution to a meaningful scale, with respect to the actual complex drivers of climate systems. CO2 is known not to be the most important climatic driver, yet the political context has elevated its position - making so many other key atmospheric drivers (such as water vapour - a far more powerful greenhouse gas) play second fiddle to it.

Who are climate scientists? As I have already mentioned, I know that when I was at university, it didn't really seem to exist as a standalone discipline, the way it does now. You cannot be an expert in the climate system - expertise needs to be drawn from a wide number of scientific fields, from fluid dynamics to solar physics. Is there sufficient oversight of the sum total of the increasing body of knowledge? I very much doubt it - and when individual eminent scientists like Koonin have been in the position to carry out a time consuming audit of current scientific findings, that underpin the IPCC position, their conclusion has been that there is a significant gulf between the accumulated evidence and the headline summaries that are used to drive political, economic and behavioural changes. That remains a crucial part of my contribution to this discussion, which I don't feel you have responded to.

" We know that wheat, rice and maize, which feed a huge proportion of the world, don't grow well outside preferred temperature and moisture conditions"
We know that the planet has greened massively over the modern era, thanks to the carbon dioxide fertilization effect (CFE) - biomass is at significantly high levels, crop yields are up, thanks to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 - so it certainly has not all been bad. Where are the models to show the impact on our ability to produce enough grain for current high global population levels, if we continue trying to limit CO2 output? Regardless of the politics, surely that is a scenario that should be being calculated as part of the decarbonisation package?

Johnny Ball's climate science - Carbon Brief

Retired children’s presenter Johnny Ball expressed fears this week that his school appearances have been...

https://www.carbonbrief.org/johnny-balls-climate-science

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