I'm certainly not advocating business as usual. In terms of policy, here's where I part from the "CO2 first" crowd:
* We shouldn't be converting from oil/gas/coal to nuclear power.
* We shouldn't be electrifying cars or heating systems.
* We shouldn't be constructing pipelines and pumping stations to bury CO2 underground.
* We shouldn't be cutting down forests for wood chips as "renewable biofuel".
* Spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to block the sun is hugely expensive, toxic, and criminally insane.
What we should be doing, in my opinion, is a massive conservation program to use energy more efficiently, as outlined by Rocky Mountain Institute. Transportation and industrial production can be made about 10 times more energy efficient, and money would actually be saved along the way -- it would not be more expensive (but there is an initial outlay for conversion). Home and building heating systems are completely unnecessary with radical design changes in new construction, using heat exchanged ventilation, passive solar, and superinsulation. These additional features are completely paid for by eliminating the need for a furnace, ducts, etc.
Beyond this, I'd like to see programs to enrich and empower people in poor countries of Africa and Asia. This will eliminate their need to sell natural resources cheap to the West, and it will lower birth rates, as educated, empowered women prefer smaller families. It also happens to be economic justice, in compensation for European colonialism of the past and American neo-colonialism of the present.
One aspect of warming that is rather-conveniently under-reported is an increase in rainfall. Each degree C in surface water temperature increases evaporation - and thus precipitation - by 3-4% (it also adds up to more cloud cover, which generally reflect sunlight, but also traps heat [clouds currently act as a net cooling factor]). Considering that drought is a huge limitation to worldwide agriculture and general plant growth (which results in greater carbon capture), how can this be ignored in our analysis of the situation? It seems that the most visible climate activists are cherry picking, and "coincidentally" doing so in the service of the sinister "globalists", and being effective in pulling in the good-hearted activists, as well.
Thanks, Walter. Yes, I agree on all of this. Climate science is more complicated than our best computer models, and we can't be sure of the direction of any of these effects.
I've tried making these points repeatedly to many intelligent, supposedly informed individuals. Old habits die hard. New habits, having the veneer of fresh epiphanies, are often more stubbornly resistant to calm objectivity. People like easy, simple memes. They prefer one spectacular message to a cluster of nuanced ones. Nature is inconceivably complex, multifaceted, multilayered. Good luck getting a populace with massive ADD to grasp, much less tackle the challenges posed here.
Apr 26, 2016 Rising CO2 Levels Greening Earth by NASA Goddard
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
I agree with you about carbon dioxide. However, on species extinction I urge you to read some non-alarmist sources (which alarmist sources seem to be the only ones you mention). There is far more uncertainty over the number of species or even how to count them than you usually hear. We are seeing species coming back from the brink. Urbanization helps with this. A quick starting point: https://www.humanprogress.org/the-return-of-the-dead-countering-extinction/
Max -- thank you. I'll look into this. The world is complicated and everything we read is motivated by someone's biases, so I take every opportunity to read well-formed arguments I disagree with.
Yes, it's a very complicated world! And the mainstream media make it hard to enough know about differing views on many topics. Julian Simon wrote on the topic of endangered species. (You can choose how to count insects to drastically vary the level of species extinction -- just one point.) A more recent, extremely detailed book is Superabundance.
There are problems in the rain forest where governments subsidize burning and slashing but even there high extinction numbers comes from models that assume species die out proportionally to area, which is wrong. These models can show whatever the modeler wants them to show.
You're a brilliant guy, Josh, but you're out there where the buses don't run and it's sad to see a mind like yours heading toward oblivion. We don't get to legislate the laws of thermodynamics or fluid mechanics, or any of the other laws that "govern" weather and its time series companion, climate. The effect of carbon dioxide on climate has long been known to science and it cannot possibly be that adding gigatons of carbon dioxide that were sequestered for millions of years to the atmosphere within a two century time frame will have no effect on climate. As someone trained in statistics you should be thoroughly familiar with the improbability of seeing the changes (like epic glacial retreat, anomalies in the jet stream, extreme weather events, desertification, slowing of oceanic thermal transport systems, etc.) we are seeing now in the absence of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Get a grip.
Thanks, Carl. I don't deny that human activity is affecting climate, but my thesis is that the effect is small compared to astrophysical factors and is more likely to be beneficial than the opposite.
I'm familiar with these anomalies that you cite, and also with counterexamples that are never seen in the mainstream press. These are covered well in Charles Eisenstein's book https://charleseisenstein.org/books/climate-a-new-story/
Extreme weather events are not increasing. Even the IPCC acknowledges that for almost all types of weather. Is it not the case that additional CO2 has a logarithmically decreasing effect?
I don't know what planet you're living on or whose "science" you are following, but you're clearly talking out of your hat and totally out of your depth. There are about 50 some odd scientific disciplines involved in researching and modeling climatic change and they all concur that they are witnessing phenomena that could not occur unless there was significant increase in radiative forcing, ocean temperatures, and terrestrial temperatures. The counter-arguments you present have long been debunked and are merely rehashes of the dying embers of climate denial. Josh has been out to lunch completely since he fell off his bicycle and may never be right again. It's kind of a shame because he's one of the more interesting longevity researchers. Now he's stumping for climate denialism, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and God-knows-what-else. Next he'll be discussing the effect of adrenochrome on man-in-the-moon marigolds. Just what we need when the world is in the most dire situation that humankind has ever faced due to the unintended consequences of the fossil fuel heyday we've all enjoyed so much.
I don't deny that the earth is getting warmer, and I don't deny that humans are increasing atmospheric CO2. I think that habitat loss, toxic pollution, and loss of biodiversity are far bigger environmental concerns. Can you cite something specific that you think I got wrong?
Thanks for writing this. With regard to complex topics such as this one it is more impactful to state the obvious: nobody has any idea of what impact having CO2 at 500ppm will have and thus prove that anyone who "knows" that we are going to fry if we don't attain carbon neutrality is not shooting straight.
Thanks for this clear explanation. Is the wide use of glyphosates and other chemicals also dumped into water systems and waste from Pharma an additional reason for collapse? Here is my Tar Sands Song that came to me while being arrested for protesting the Keystone Pipeline in front of the White House with Bill McKibben's people in 2012. (performed by friend of my son, Jimmy Costello). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkCWJO6myDE.
Also another man-made event, testimony and the recent disclosure conference was that the earthquake in New Zealand was caused by a directed energy weapon used in the South Pole. What do you think?
Yes, glyphosate is a disaster unto itself, and I thought of giving it special mention within an hour after uploading this piece.
I agree that these disasters, including earthquakes, show signs of being engineered. It's hard to prove in any individual case, which is why they're doing it this way. Biowarfare is also hard to prove, but I believe that the US created Lyme Disease and sought to destroy crops in Cuba and livestock in China with pathogens.
Bill McKibben promotes horribly wrong ideas. I generally dislike Michael Moore, but I would highly recommend the first three-quarters of Planet of the Humans. McKibben is a liar and a fool.
not a fool...it's made him a billionaire, hasn't it?
you'd think after planet of the humans was censored from youtube, and all the propaganda and misinformation to suppress it, that moore would have been more skeptical of the pandemic propaganda. instead he jumped right on the bandwagon. unbelievable.
Bill McKibben is a billionaire? I think you must mean Michael Moore. He's also a fool for the most part but the first two-thirds of Planet of the Humans was surprisingly good. He goes off the rails after that. I'm not at all surprised that Moore would jump on pandemic propaganda.
Yes, toxic pesticides, excreted 'byproducts' of pharma drugs, EMF radiation... common sense tells us these must all be causal factors in what Charles Eisenstein terms the 'derangement of the biosphere' - of which 'climate change' is one aspect. I also believe there is evidence that many recent 'natural disasters' were in fact engineered (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanic eruptions - anyone remember Tonga?)
I'm certainly not advocating business as usual. In terms of policy, here's where I part from the "CO2 first" crowd:
* We shouldn't be converting from oil/gas/coal to nuclear power.
* We shouldn't be electrifying cars or heating systems.
* We shouldn't be constructing pipelines and pumping stations to bury CO2 underground.
* We shouldn't be cutting down forests for wood chips as "renewable biofuel".
* Spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to block the sun is hugely expensive, toxic, and criminally insane.
What we should be doing, in my opinion, is a massive conservation program to use energy more efficiently, as outlined by Rocky Mountain Institute. Transportation and industrial production can be made about 10 times more energy efficient, and money would actually be saved along the way -- it would not be more expensive (but there is an initial outlay for conversion). Home and building heating systems are completely unnecessary with radical design changes in new construction, using heat exchanged ventilation, passive solar, and superinsulation. These additional features are completely paid for by eliminating the need for a furnace, ducts, etc.
Beyond this, I'd like to see programs to enrich and empower people in poor countries of Africa and Asia. This will eliminate their need to sell natural resources cheap to the West, and it will lower birth rates, as educated, empowered women prefer smaller families. It also happens to be economic justice, in compensation for European colonialism of the past and American neo-colonialism of the present.
Thanks, once again, for speaking frankly!
One aspect of warming that is rather-conveniently under-reported is an increase in rainfall. Each degree C in surface water temperature increases evaporation - and thus precipitation - by 3-4% (it also adds up to more cloud cover, which generally reflect sunlight, but also traps heat [clouds currently act as a net cooling factor]). Considering that drought is a huge limitation to worldwide agriculture and general plant growth (which results in greater carbon capture), how can this be ignored in our analysis of the situation? It seems that the most visible climate activists are cherry picking, and "coincidentally" doing so in the service of the sinister "globalists", and being effective in pulling in the good-hearted activists, as well.
Thanks, Walter. Yes, I agree on all of this. Climate science is more complicated than our best computer models, and we can't be sure of the direction of any of these effects.
I've tried making these points repeatedly to many intelligent, supposedly informed individuals. Old habits die hard. New habits, having the veneer of fresh epiphanies, are often more stubbornly resistant to calm objectivity. People like easy, simple memes. They prefer one spectacular message to a cluster of nuanced ones. Nature is inconceivably complex, multifaceted, multilayered. Good luck getting a populace with massive ADD to grasp, much less tackle the challenges posed here.
What do you people make of Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption of 2022 and its implication on midterm heating (cca 5 years)?
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/overheated-friday-july-28-2023-c
Urgent: may we have permission to reprint this article on LifeSiteNews.com? Email Jalsevac at LifeSite.net
CO2 is plant food!
Apr 26, 2016 Rising CO2 Levels Greening Earth by NASA Goddard
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
https://youtu.be/zOwHT8yS1XI
After ET/UFO article another masterful analysis. Thank you.
I agree with you about carbon dioxide. However, on species extinction I urge you to read some non-alarmist sources (which alarmist sources seem to be the only ones you mention). There is far more uncertainty over the number of species or even how to count them than you usually hear. We are seeing species coming back from the brink. Urbanization helps with this. A quick starting point: https://www.humanprogress.org/the-return-of-the-dead-countering-extinction/
Max -- thank you. I'll look into this. The world is complicated and everything we read is motivated by someone's biases, so I take every opportunity to read well-formed arguments I disagree with.
Yes, it's a very complicated world! And the mainstream media make it hard to enough know about differing views on many topics. Julian Simon wrote on the topic of endangered species. (You can choose how to count insects to drastically vary the level of species extinction -- just one point.) A more recent, extremely detailed book is Superabundance.
There are problems in the rain forest where governments subsidize burning and slashing but even there high extinction numbers comes from models that assume species die out proportionally to area, which is wrong. These models can show whatever the modeler wants them to show.
You're a brilliant guy, Josh, but you're out there where the buses don't run and it's sad to see a mind like yours heading toward oblivion. We don't get to legislate the laws of thermodynamics or fluid mechanics, or any of the other laws that "govern" weather and its time series companion, climate. The effect of carbon dioxide on climate has long been known to science and it cannot possibly be that adding gigatons of carbon dioxide that were sequestered for millions of years to the atmosphere within a two century time frame will have no effect on climate. As someone trained in statistics you should be thoroughly familiar with the improbability of seeing the changes (like epic glacial retreat, anomalies in the jet stream, extreme weather events, desertification, slowing of oceanic thermal transport systems, etc.) we are seeing now in the absence of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Get a grip.
Thanks, Carl. I don't deny that human activity is affecting climate, but my thesis is that the effect is small compared to astrophysical factors and is more likely to be beneficial than the opposite.
I'm familiar with these anomalies that you cite, and also with counterexamples that are never seen in the mainstream press. These are covered well in Charles Eisenstein's book https://charleseisenstein.org/books/climate-a-new-story/
Extreme weather events are not increasing. Even the IPCC acknowledges that for almost all types of weather. Is it not the case that additional CO2 has a logarithmically decreasing effect?
I don't know what planet you're living on or whose "science" you are following, but you're clearly talking out of your hat and totally out of your depth. There are about 50 some odd scientific disciplines involved in researching and modeling climatic change and they all concur that they are witnessing phenomena that could not occur unless there was significant increase in radiative forcing, ocean temperatures, and terrestrial temperatures. The counter-arguments you present have long been debunked and are merely rehashes of the dying embers of climate denial. Josh has been out to lunch completely since he fell off his bicycle and may never be right again. It's kind of a shame because he's one of the more interesting longevity researchers. Now he's stumping for climate denialism, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and God-knows-what-else. Next he'll be discussing the effect of adrenochrome on man-in-the-moon marigolds. Just what we need when the world is in the most dire situation that humankind has ever faced due to the unintended consequences of the fossil fuel heyday we've all enjoyed so much.
I don't deny that the earth is getting warmer, and I don't deny that humans are increasing atmospheric CO2. I think that habitat loss, toxic pollution, and loss of biodiversity are far bigger environmental concerns. Can you cite something specific that you think I got wrong?
Thanks for writing this. With regard to complex topics such as this one it is more impactful to state the obvious: nobody has any idea of what impact having CO2 at 500ppm will have and thus prove that anyone who "knows" that we are going to fry if we don't attain carbon neutrality is not shooting straight.
https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/a-convenient-lie
I am happy to feel less guilty about driving my Prius to Philadelphia.
Thanks for this clear explanation. Is the wide use of glyphosates and other chemicals also dumped into water systems and waste from Pharma an additional reason for collapse? Here is my Tar Sands Song that came to me while being arrested for protesting the Keystone Pipeline in front of the White House with Bill McKibben's people in 2012. (performed by friend of my son, Jimmy Costello). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkCWJO6myDE.
Also another man-made event, testimony and the recent disclosure conference was that the earthquake in New Zealand was caused by a directed energy weapon used in the South Pole. What do you think?
Yes, glyphosate is a disaster unto itself, and I thought of giving it special mention within an hour after uploading this piece.
I agree that these disasters, including earthquakes, show signs of being engineered. It's hard to prove in any individual case, which is why they're doing it this way. Biowarfare is also hard to prove, but I believe that the US created Lyme Disease and sought to destroy crops in Cuba and livestock in China with pathogens.
Bill McKibben promotes horribly wrong ideas. I generally dislike Michael Moore, but I would highly recommend the first three-quarters of Planet of the Humans. McKibben is a liar and a fool.
not a fool...it's made him a billionaire, hasn't it?
you'd think after planet of the humans was censored from youtube, and all the propaganda and misinformation to suppress it, that moore would have been more skeptical of the pandemic propaganda. instead he jumped right on the bandwagon. unbelievable.
Bill McKibben is a billionaire? I think you must mean Michael Moore. He's also a fool for the most part but the first two-thirds of Planet of the Humans was surprisingly good. He goes off the rails after that. I'm not at all surprised that Moore would jump on pandemic propaganda.
Yes, toxic pesticides, excreted 'byproducts' of pharma drugs, EMF radiation... common sense tells us these must all be causal factors in what Charles Eisenstein terms the 'derangement of the biosphere' - of which 'climate change' is one aspect. I also believe there is evidence that many recent 'natural disasters' were in fact engineered (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanic eruptions - anyone remember Tonga?)