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srid  7mo ago (cafeamericainmag.com)   Edited 7mo ago   4103 thread views

The Vacuity of Climate Science

cafeamericainmag.com

There has been a lot of CW discussion on climate change. This is an article written by someone that used to strongly believe in anthropogenic global warming and then looked at all the evidence before arriving at a different conclusion. The articles goes through what they did.

I thought a top-level submission would be more interesting as climate change is such a hot button topic and it would be good to have a top-level spot to discuss it for now. I have informed the author of this submission; they said they will drop by and engage with the comments here!

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These weren't no-names or non-scientists but they were seriously and embarrassingly wrong. Imagine if we actually listened to these people, speedily cut fossil fuels out of the world economy accepting the energy rationing, economic mobilization and famines that would likely happen... only for it to be a nothingburger.

No they weren't, The Guardian just made that up. It's not a prediction, it's a brief outline of a hypothetical written by two non-scientists (both self-professed futurists working for the consulting firm Global Business Network) who specifically state that it is extreme and unlikely. The point is not that they think it is likely to happen, but that they think such unlikely but extreme scenarios should be considered and prepared for by the Pentagon.

An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security

We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.

These are the steps they propose be taken:

  • Improve predictive climate models to allow investigation of a wider range of scenarios and to anticipate how and where changes could occur
  • Assemble comprehensive predictive models of the potential impacts of abrupt climate change to improve projections of how climate could influence food, water, and energy
  • Create vulnerability metrics to anticipate which countries are most vulnerable to climate change and therefore, could contribute materially to an increasingly disorderly and potentially violent world.
  • Identify no-regrets strategies such as enhancing capabilities for water management
  • Rehearse adaptive responses
  • Explore local implications
  • Explore geo-engineering options that control the climate.

Notice that reducing CO2 emisssions isn't even mentioned because their scenario is so abrupt that it would be too late, rather they are talking about preparing ways to mitigate the damage and/or do emergency geo-engineering, in case an unlikely scenario like that happens.

This report suggests that, because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change, although uncertain and quite possibly small, should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK’s leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon’s internal fears should prove the ‘tipping point’ in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon’s dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

So scientists find a speculative report by non-scientists and trumpet it as 'this is why you should reduce Co2 emissions'. It's just like the IPCC reports. They're tremendously dull documents that say things like 'high confidence that water stress will moderately increase in the medium term' and don't mention any existential threat except to Pacific islands. Meanwhile Extinction Rebellion is screeching about the apocalypse. Meanwhile governments are signing legal targets that commit them to deindustrialization and high energy costs, shutting down farms and so on.

There's a gap between what actual scientists are saying and what the message flowing through to policymakers, celebrities, media and the public is. Rather like COVID, the real science on mass-scale mask use was mixed and unclear, yet the Science mandated them.

James Hansen is/was screeching about disaster, the Arctic was supposed to melt about 10 years ago: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490

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