Posted on 09/13/2016 2:24:50 PM PDT by Kaslin
The planet is doomed unless humans achieve zero net “carbon” emissions within 40 years—and maybe even if we do.
That’s the word from eleven co-authors, led by Johan Rockstöm of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, of a pseudo-scientific screed published August 24 in Earth’s Future, an open-access online journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Here’s the abstract:
The scale of the decarbonisation challenge to meet the Paris Agreement is underplayed in the public arena. It will require precipitous emission reductions and a new carbon sink on the scale of the ocean sink within 40 years. Even then, the world is extremely likely to overshoot. A catastrophic failure of policy, for example waiting another decade for transformative policy and full commitments to fossil-free economies, will have irreversible and deleterious repercussions for humanity's remaining time on Earth. Only a global zero carbon roadmap will put the world on a course to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions and create the essential carbon sinks for Earth-system stability, without which, world prosperity is not possible.
And here’s why the article’s a pseudo-scientific screed:
First, the computer climate models on which predictions of rapid warming from enhanced atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration are based “run hot,” simulating two to three times the warming actually observed over relevant periods—during which non-anthropogenic causes probably accounted for some and could have accounted for all the observed warming—and therefore provide no rational basis for predicting future GAT.
Second, nobody—but nobody—has demonstrated scientifically that global average temperature (GAT) no more than 2°C above the pre-industrial average (the limit aimed for by the Paris agreement) is optimal, or that GAT higher than that will even be net harmful, let alone catastrophic.
Third, the aim of “Earth-system stability” is scientifically absurd—undefined, unnatural, and unachievable. Natural systems—especially coupled non-linear chaotic fluid-dynamic systems like Earth’s climate—are not, never have been, and never will be stable. Nobody knows what “Earth-system stability” would look like. Climate change is Earth’s natural state; climate stability is science fiction.
Fourth, saying that “waiting another decade for transformative policy and full commitments to fossil-free economies” would be a “catastrophic failure of policy” with “irreversible and deleterious repercussions for humanity’s remaining time on Earth” is sheer fearmongering without a shred of scientific evidence. Even ice ages aren’t “irreversible”; no empirical evidence (as opposed to modeled hypotheses) suggests that a warmer Earth is worse for humans than a cooler Earth; and human history tells us the opposite. “Warmer periods are called optima because for human civilization, and much of nature, warm is better than cold,” writes Michael Hart in Hubris: The Troubling Science, Economics, and Politics of Climate Change (Kindle location 3197).
Fifth, even if real scientific investigation (which doesn’t stop with modeling but tests models by empirical observation) could tell us that, say, falling 50 percent short of net zero “carbon” emissions would raise GAT by, say, 3°C and that that, in turn, would cause significant harms, that wouldn’t tell us how we ought to respond. Empirical science tries to describe the way the world works. It doesn’t—it can’t—tell us what we ought, morally, to do in response.
While science can inform policymakers, it can’t determine policy. Policymakers must do cost/benefit analysis, taking into account tradeoffs, such as balancing risks from climate change against those from poverty, and as Hans von Storch points out, “judgments of the value of costs versus benefits is [sic] a highly subjective, value-laden calculation.”
Sufficiently wealthy people can thrive in any climate and are better protected against all extreme weather events than poor people. If human health and longevity are a significant aim of policy, then the increasing prosperity facilitated by the energy derived from GHG-releasing hydrocarbon fuels will outweigh the increased climate-related risks even if the climate alarmists are right.
As Indur Goklany has shown, even assuming that the climate models on which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately predict (rather than exaggerate by 2 to 3 times) the warming effect of added CO2 in the atmosphere, people the world over, and especially in developing countries, will be wealthier in warmer than in cooler scenarios, making them less vulnerable than today to all risks—including those related to climate.
Full implementation of all nations’ commitments under the Paris agreement, at a cost of $1–2 trillion annually from 2030 onward, would, as Björn Lomborg calculates even while assuming the IPCC’s exaggerated estimates of CO2’s warming effect, reduce GAT in 2100 by just 0.17°C, an amount too little to have significant impact.
Rockstöm and his co-authors are a prime example of what Roger Pielke Jr. calls “stealth issue advocates,” a role “characterized by the expert who seeks to hide his/her advocacy behind a facade of science.” Stealth advocacy, Pielke says, is “the fastest route to pathologically politicizing science. It is also what gives scientists as advocates a bad name.”
Climate change is bunk. It’s a hustle.
But it’s a gold mine for all those mediocre and jobless scientists who are determined to muscle their way into a fat government grant.
Amazing how no matter what the crisis, the answer is ALWAYS more of YOUR power and money for the least accountable among us. Pollution, check. Earth cooling, check. Earth warming (actually the opposite of the last problem, yet the prescription is identical), check. You'd think just statistically, eventually we'd discover a problem and find that it was caused by too MUCH money and power in the hands of the parasite class.
What is “the temperature of the earth” RIGHT NOW?
How do you calculate that?
What was the “temperature of the earth” yesterday;
for the last 10 years; for the last 20 years;
for the last 30 years; etc.?
How was that calculated?
Was “the temperature of the earth” calculated in the same manner all of those years?
Put all of that together and tell me what “the temperature of the earth” will be
tomorrow; or next year; or 10; 20; 30 years from now...
There are enough variables for this to be a chaotic system that can not be predicted.
I have had an interesting time actually debating with libs around here on this topic. I start with the following questions:
1. Has the earth been warmer or colder than it is now?
2. If yes to question 1, do these temp variations exhibit a cyclical quality?
3. If there is a cyclical quality, where are we on that cycle today?
4. In the “heat” part of the spectrum, does the CO2 absorb all, or just portions? Large or small portions?
5. How far do these absorbed portions have to travel before they are completely absorbed? (Like now when we are supposedly drowning in CO2 and, and say - 150 years ago when the climate was “ideal”.)
6. Given your answer to question 5, do you not feel a bit dumb...perhaps as if you had only a journalism degree and were trying to write about science?
7. What is the percentage of the increase in CO2 in parts per million?
8. Given the laughably small number in question 7, what does this say about climate stability if indeed such a small change could induce such a measurable temperature change?
9. Do we have proof that climate records have been altered in order to produce peer reviewed “documents”?
10. State the source of the so called 97% agreement on human based climate change.
Any of these questions - when pursued diligently - will prove a winning game. Well, perhaps not, since it actually requires a bit of reading, a bit of research, and yes, a bit of real science.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
And, of course, Climate Chang/Global Warming is just such a hobgoblin. However, this particular hobgoblin’s aim is to also shake down the world’s ill informed.
This is incredibly dangerous.
Life on earth cannot exist without CO2. Throughout the earth's history, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been dropping as CO2 is sequestered in forms unusable by living organisms. Life on earth is predicted to go extinct when these sequestration processes finally remove sufficient CO2 to make life impossible.
Plants cannot pull CO2 out of the air if the concentration is too low. Without CO2, plants cannot make sugars, lipids, and amino acids--the essential components of all life. A constant source of CO2 is needed in order for plants to continue their function of converting CO2 into usable biomolecules. If these fools got their way and successfully removed CO2 into some sort of sink, where it would not be available to plants and thus to all other living organisms, we probably would not see a result for years. This is because natural processes happen on logarithmic scales, in which the first perturbations to a system are not perceptible. But eventually, the removal of CO2 would have measurable effect--and by then, the damage to the system would actually be enormous. We would start to see species die-offs, as the total biomass decreases in linear fashion. At that point, it would take drastic effort to reverse the damage of sinking CO2 into unusable forms. The question is, would we be able to reverse the damage?
At this point, I cannot dismiss the idea that these global warming fanatics know that their ideas, if implemented, could cause extinction of all life. They hate humanity so much, it is not hard to imagine that they hate all life equally.
Read a book a couple years that had essays on Geology.
Geologist have found evidence the planet at one time was almost completely frozen. Sahara desert has evidence on river beds.
How did this happen and why did it change before evil humans were even here trying to commit planetary suicide?
I grew up with “THE ICE AGE IS COMING!!!!!” That’s why we have “Earth Day”.
This is all about control. (and making Algore very rich!)
CO2 has zero affect on temperature.
It is plant food.
Formerly arid areas are greening up.
The Sun is responsible for temperature swings.
Plan for the next Ice Age.
It is coming.
Well that was the Ice age. I learned about it in history class in 1953 or so.
You mean it’s going to repeat itself?
You - and Mencken - are absolutely correct.
There have been several already. The last one ended about 15,000 years ago.
This interglacial period has lasted longer than most of the previous ones.
We’re overdue.
The earth has spent more time frozen than it is like now.
“I grew up with “THE ICE AGE IS COMING!!!”
Yep. On the cover of Time & Newsweek.
Scientists have destroyed their credibility with this MMGW stuff. Most people I know will NEVER trust any scientific data again. Let em all rot in their prostitution.
You are so correct, and I get tired of conservatives constantly falling for this and adopting the "we can cut CO2 emissions more economically than the left".
All Conservatives should be pounding the table and ridiculing the left and insisting that these pseudo scientists produce evidence that CO2 has anything to do with global heating, or cooling, or temperature equilibrium.
Don't tell me you are falling for this crap about more ice ages.
Well, then the planet must be doomed. Most of the methods of carbon abatement have as end product the release of more carbon. This is not something that Humanity can control, not without another century of scientific advance. The rub comes when Science does figure out how and has access to the energy required to accomplish these things and destroys the habitability of the world by interfering in basic natural processes.
We must elect Hillary to save the planet.
I just heard one of her ads advising she plans on installing 500,000,000 solar panel to combat global warming.
Yes, Five Hundred Million.
Hope she decides on an equal distribution. Lets cover Nevada in panels for the West and Tennessee in the East. /s
We must resign ourselves to the only fact in this hoax:
The bullshit will never stop as long as dishonest pseudo scientists are paid money by those who desire to control our daily lives. If they want to really do something good for our Solar System, work on “Sustainability of the Sun!”
In 40 years, I will not be here to see the, so called, “doom” of our planet. Good Luck you all!
I turned 41 not too long ago. I’m amazed I’ve lived this long. I’ve lived through the global cooling scare. I lived through Aqua Net destroying the Ozone. I lived through acid rain. I lived through the rain forest deforestation. I lived through cow farts. I lived through ocean acidification. I lived through DDT spraying. I lived through aspertame. I lived through coral reef bleaching. But this time, global warming will get us.
Heck...I’ve even ridden a bicycle without a helmet.
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