Hi stillloving
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool climate change advocate so I very much understand the anxiety around climate change issues and the anger at those who don’t seem to “get it”. I’ve really changed my mind in the last couple of years.
I now believe that there is no experimental data that supports the view that the climate is changing in a way that is unusual or dangerous, and that CO2 is a bit player in whatever climate change is taking plane. The earth does seem to be warming, but that’s a) probably a good thing and b) nothing that hasn’t happened before and c) as far as I can understand, not necessarily related to CO2 levels.
I really cannot see that anyone can produce clear evidence that humans are altering the climate in any significant way. I came to this conclusion after going out of my way to try to understand the sceptics’ perspective so that I could better challenge it. It quickly became clear to me that the “97% consensus” figure simply didn’t stand up to scrutiny - the methodology behind this research is terrible - but as I read and listened to more and more scientists and commentators who challenged the prevailing viewpoint that humans are responsible for climate change and that the impact will be catastrophic, I became more convinced by that this was not in fact the case.
If you’re interested, some of the people who influenced me along the way were Judith Murray, Anthony Watts, Willie Soon, Alex Epstein, Kary Mullis and Christopher Monkton. Some of these people have had their reputations trashed for speaking up against the climate change proponents. (These are not stupid people, ideologues or rich lunatics. If you spend any time listening to them you’ll see that they are eminently reasonable and present evidence in a clear, often cautious, non-emotional way.) This trashing of peoples’ reputations seems disgraceful to me, although understandable - there is now an entire industry built up around climate change research, and a great deal of money and power is at stake. Working in academia, and seeing how research careers are built, has helped me understand much more about this.
In terms of what should be done? Do as little as possible, always remember that to every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, and for gods sake don’t trust governments when they start talking about green taxes. (How the hell can a government change the climate?? It’s absurd!). Keep using our wonderful fossil fuels - we have no choice there anyway - and be grateful for them, because without them we’d all be dead in 3 weeks, and wind power just ain’t going to cut it. Keep energy prices down. Bear in mind that developing nations desperately need access to plenty of cheap energy, and that a country’s increase in CO2 emissions correlates with childhood survival rates.
I also think we need to be a bit more positive about ourselves generally because as I said earlier, the ghastly human polluter narrative doesn’t get anyone anywhere. I hold Al Gore partly responsible for this - his movie was an absolute travesty and did a great deal of damage to people on a personal and a political level. The message is just bleak and joyless and people don’t want to hear it. I don’t feel remotely guilty for puffing out CO2 when I’m on my bike, or about putting petrol in my car, and nobody else should either.
There is a different conversation to be had about air and water pollution and plastic in the ocean, both of which seem to be difficult though not impossible problems to solve. I don’t know that much about the solutions being investigated, but I’ve no doubt that science and private enterprise will resolve these problems in the coming years. As ever, governments should keep their involvement to a minimum.
