Posted on 12/28/2022 7:23:52 PM PST by dennisw
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. There is no climate emergency, say the authors, who are drawn from across the world and led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
Particular ire in the WCD is reserved for climate models. To believe in the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. Climate models are now central to today’s climate discussion and the scientists see this as a problem. “We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models,” says the WCD. “In future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.”
Since emerging from the ‘Little Ice Age’ in around 1850, the world has warmed significantly less than predicted by the IPCC on the basis of modelled human influences. “The gap between the real world and the modelled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change,” the WCD notes.
The Declaration is an event of enormous importance, although it will be ignored by the mainstream media. But it is not the first time distinguished scientists have petitioned for more realism in climate science. In Italy, the discoverer of nuclear anti-matter Emeritus Professor Antonino Zichichi recently led 48 local science professors in stating that human responsibility for climate change is “unjustifiably exaggerated and catastrophic predictions are not realistic”. In their scientific view, “natural variation explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850”. Professor Zichichi has signed the WCD.
The Declaration notes that the Earth’s climate has varied for as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm periods. “It is no surprise that we are experiencing a period of warming,” it continues. Climate models have many shortcomings, it says, “and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools”. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, but ignore any beneficial effects. “CO2 is not a pollutant,” it says. “It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.”
In addition, the scientists declare that there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and such-like natural disasters, or making them more frequent. “There is no climate emergency,” the Declaration goes on. “We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050,” it says, adding that the aim of global policy should be “prosperity for all” by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. “In a prosperous society, men and women are well educated, birth rates are low and people care about their environment,” it concludes.
The WCD is the latest sign that the ‘settled’ fantasy surrounding climate change science is rapidly breaking down. Last year, Steven Koonin, an Under-Secretary of Science in the Obama Administration, published a book titled Unsettled in which he noted that, “The science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what our actions will be.” He also noted that rigidly promulgating the idea that climate change is settled demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, “retarding its progress in these important matters”. In 2020, the long-time green activist Michael Shellenberger wrote a book called Apocalypse Never in which he said he believed the conversation about climate change and the environment had in the last few years “spiralled out of control”. Much of what people are told about the environment, including the climate, is wrong, he wrote.
Of course, green extremists in academia, politics and journalism will continue to argue for the command-and-control they crave through a Net Zero policy. In the end, their warped view of the scientific process will fade, leaving a trail of ludicrous Armageddon forecasts, and yet more failed experiments in hard-left economic and societal control.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Postscript: When we posted this article on the Daily Sceptic Facebook page, it was labelled “False Information”, a conclusion reached after it was “checked by independent fact-checkers”. If you then click on “See Why”, you’re taken to this page on a website called Climate Feedback. It takes issue with this sentence in the Petition on Anthropogenic Global Warming started by Professor Antonino Zichichi: “Natural variation explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850.” This is “incorrect” for the following reason: “Natural (non-human) drivers of climate change have been mostly stable since the onset of modern warming and all the available scientific evidence implicates human greenhouse gas emissions as the primary culprit. Scientific evidence also indicates that climate change is contributing to intensified or more frequent natural disasters such as heatwaves, drought and heavy rainfall.”
To claim “all the available scientific evidence” supports the view that human activity is the “primary culprit” when it comes to climate change is a bit misleading, surely? In fact, Professor Zichichi refers to at least some scientific evidence that the anthropogenic responsibility for the climate change observed during the last century has been exaggerated on page 1 of his petition. Indeed, Climate Feedback’s labelling of the central claims made in the World Climate Declaration as “incorrect” is a step up from its previous analysis of the Declaration, which concluded that the scientific credibility of the Declaration was “very low”.
Chris Morrison responded to some of the criticisms to the above piece here and specifically to th
“52F today in Berlin.”
I predicted and hoped for a warmish winter in Europe.
Natural gas price as quoted at the Dutch TTF terminal are the same as in December 2021. Good news.
https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/TG*1
I got a kick seeing the Germans doing the same level of Oktoberfest as before. A few months ago. Photos and all that I saw.
I recall you did. Now I need sunny hot weather for our 2 week beach vacation in Binz starting July 14.
Thanks. I never heard of Binz so I looked at the Bing maps.
yweah but 20 IPC lackeys claim there is, so that is all we will hear from the press are the 20’s claims
Worth a bookmark.
The weather is affected by solar winds, caused by the Sun. Scientist has noted that explosive extratropical cyclones tend to occur after arrivals of high-speed solar wind streams. Auroral gravity waves may play a role in the release of instabilities leading to storms—all caused by the Sun!
Scientist are finding that cosmic rays seem to be related to long-term global temperature variations—an idea that conflicts with the human-caused global warming dogma. A Russian team showed that a large proportion of climate variations can be explained by the mechanism of action of solar irradiance and cosmic rays. However, until few years ago it was unclear how cosmic rays could have such an effect on our Earth’s climate. Now, the explanation has been found: Such radiation becomes an energy transfer that heats up the Earth’s polar regions which is transferred to the rest of the planet.
The real concern is what will happen when solar activity approaches minimum? Besides a global cooling, it will affect Earth’s magnetic field and its ability to shield from cosmic radiation. Our CO2 levels will not be able to shield us from the DNA damage.
Oh, THIS again! Fecesbook “fact checkers” have ‘debunked’ this several times!
/laughter on
For the full BS, here you go! https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32HG6HR
But the Swedish meatball says there is, so who should we believe.
I worked in the same group as Ivar when he was at GE Research and Development back in the 80s. Brilliant physicist (obviously) and fiercely independent. He left when management tried to force him to work on superconductivity. He said he “wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole”. At his going away party the head of R&D thought it would be funny to give him an ingraved 11 foot pole as a gift. I found it in Ivar’s office after he moved out.
Ivar is 93 so he must be doing something right.
The sage lives a long life -— Chinese proverb
Considering that CO2 comprises only .04% of the total atmosphere on this planet, I don't see that it protects us from anything.
And FWIW, 95% of that comes from nature itself.
I am a computer scientist. Make that 1,202. And if you think that is a joke, when leftists do not add an adjective to scientist, it is 100% sure there are scientists of all colors in their numbers even ones who have no training in the subject.
It would make three outstanding movies grossing fortunes were it not politically incorrect.
Personally, I recommend reading the book.
When has the truth ever mattered to the left?
Never.
When will the supporters of the left isten to the truth?
Never
We didn’t have Climate Change until Noah. As far as man caused, it was. Not fossil fuels but mens hearts were filled with sin. The ones screaming the loudest have the darkest most foul thoughts. Baby killers, Drag Queens for kids, puberty blockers and gender changing and an unrelenting thirst for power and money.
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