Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong

[Default0ptions]

“Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong
Michael Shellenberger”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... -is-wrong/

[Ralphw2]

The author of that piece has a degree in anthropology, is an advocate of shale gas and has worked for Venezuelan president Chavez, whose country is the second largest producer of tar sands, the most polluting form of oil. His wikipedia page states that his views on climate change are widely criticized by climate scientists.

He also apparently believes aliens have visited the earth

[Default0ptions]

The author of that piece has a degree in anthropology, is an advocate of shale gas and has worked for Venezuelan president Chavez, whose country is the second largest producer of tar sands, the most polluting form of oil. His wikipedia page states that his views on climate change are widely criticized by climate scientists.

He also apparently believes aliens have visited the earth

Interesting background there thank you Ralph - but confusing the message with the messenger doesn’t mean that the message is wrong.

“I feel the need to say this up-front because I want the issues I’m about to raise to be taken seriously and not dismissed by those who label as “climate deniers” or “climate delayers” anyone who pushes back against exaggeration.

With that out of the way, let’s look whether the science supports what’s being said.

First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species. “‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years.’ What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” BBC’s Andrew Neil asked a visibly uncomfortable XR spokesperson last month.

“These claims have been disputed, admittedly,” she said. “There are some scientists who are agreeing and some who are saying it’s not true. But the overall issue is that these deaths are going to happen.”

“But most scientists don’t agree with this,” said Neil. “I looked through IPCC reports and see no reference to billions of people going to die, or children in 20 years. How would they die?”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... -is-wrong/

[UndercoverElephant]

Jesus ******* wept.

[Default0ptions]

Jesus ******* wept.

You could simply link to evidence that refutes this? If you know of any?

Is it difficult?

And this: https://junkscience.com/2020/12/wrong-a ... ore-103862

[Ralphw2]

For example?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -wildfires

[Default0ptions]

For example?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -wildfires

That doesn’t refute any of the points I made, Ralph. It’s just the Grauniad’s usual hand waving.

These are the predictions that have NOT come true:

https://junkscience.com/2020/12/wrong-a ... ore-103862

Every single one of them turned out to be false.

Feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

This prediction, for example, is pretty clear:

“Sea-level rise in Florida”

1986: EPA predicts 2 feet of sea level rise for Florida by 2020.

2020 Reality: Sea level rise + subsidence in South Florida since 1986 has been less than 4 inches.

It’s no good simply grabbing gung-ho articles from the web if they don’t have any bearing on the question I put.

I’m sure the residents in Florida would have noticed a two foot sea level rise.

Don’t you think?

[Default0ptions]

Jesus ******* wept.

Perhaps you could enlighten us with a serious refutation or two before indulging in your usual sanctimonious bullsh1t?

[Default0ptions]

Still waiting for things to warm up enough for viticulture in the north:

“How did the Romans manage to grow grapes in northern England when most climate studies suggest the weather was much cooler then? We may now have an answer: it wasn’t that cold at all.

“Long-term temperature reconstructions often rely on the width of tree rings: they assume that warmer summers make for wider rings. Using this measure, it seems that global temperatures changed very little over the past two millennia. Such studies are behind the famous “hockey stick” graph, created by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, which shows stable temperatures for a millennium before the 20th century.

“Jan Esper of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, thinks that at least some of those tree rings actually show something else: a long-term cooling trend that lasted right up until the Industrial Revolution. The trend came about because of reduced solar heating caused by changes to the Earth’s orbit known as Milankovitch wobbles, says Esper. His results suggest the Roman world was 0.6 °C warmer than previously thought – enough to make grape vines in northern England a possibility.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... n-thought/

[BritDownUnder]

I think it was Jared Diamond who said that a bit of cooling helped finish off the Roman Empire. Same with the Greenland Vikings.
The Earth was going into a cooling trend, i.e. the next Ice Age until global warming came along when fossil fuels became popular.

Sometime in the last 8000 years the sea level was about 7 metres higher than now and about 5000 years before that was 120 metres below that. But as global warming inexorably comes then rise it will. It is just that people don't relate well to being told that their 10th great grandchildren will pay the price of their taking an unnecessary holiday in the Canary Islands. They need to hear that Miami will flood in 5 years. A human understanding problem.

I don't recall reading anywhere that grapes were grown by Romans in Northern England and your quote just speculates that with no archaeological evidence, but mediaeval viticulture in Southern England was well documented until the Little Ice Age when the Thames was famous for frost fairs.

[mr brightside]

I still think there isn't enough trend based evidence to make reliable predictions, and what trends we have can serve either side of the argument. The greenhouse effect is very real though.

[Default0ptions]

What’s really noticeable is that almost all of these climate predictions fail.

Karl Popper’s theory of falsification gets something of a field day with apocalyptic climate predictions.

“Karl Popper’s theory of falsification contends that scientific inquiry should aim not to verify hypotheses but to rigorously test and identify conditions under which they are false.

“For a theory to be valid according to falsification, it must produce hypotheses that have the potential to be proven incorrect by observable evidence or experimental results.

“Unlike verification, falsification focuses on categorically disproving theoretical predictions rather than confirming them.“