Commentary #6: Global Warming

[Mark Rippetoe]

The scientist activist problem - by Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes (author of "the case against sugar" and "good calories, bad calories" among others) briefly discusses the parallels in nutrition science and climate science. When I read his books a few years back, I had the exact same thought.

Taubes is always good:

As I came to understand Crichton’s strategy, I was also struck by an inescapable conclusion: he was describing a scenario in climate science that paralleled almost exactly what I had just written about in nutrition. My mind was open to what he was describing because I had seen and documented the same phenomenon myself, albeit in an entirely different discipline.

In both fields, researchers come to conclusions very early in the game about the likely causes of a potentially critical issue of public health – a warming climate in one case, diet-induced heart disease in the other. In both fields, these preconceptions evolve into a consensus narrative despite the absence of experiments rigorously testing their validity.1 In both, this compelling narrative of cause and effect disseminates through the field, adopted by other researchers and institutions, and evolves into the only politically acceptable conclusion of all research. These narratives, after all, inform our understanding of what must be done to save humans lives; they become impossible to challenge, resistant to all contrary evidence. In short, the existence of an initial preconception about a “right answer” to these critical questions, biases all the science (and policy) that follows.

[mkm5]

It isn't about climate. It's about control, taxes, and surveillance.

GPS mileage trackers, cameras? No thanks, I understand the 4th amendment.

Just like when Michigan authorized the state lottery, claiming all proceeds would go to school funding. They then pulled out the government funding for schools to use on who knows what, and claimed the program a success.

If mileage taxes go into effect, with the associated tracking systems, I'm pretty sure gas taxes won't go down, so we'll be double taxed, AND suerveiled.

Just like they planned.

A mileage tax for Michigan motorists? Lawmakers want $5M for pilot program | Bridge Michigan

[Cascadian]

Science has been replaced by EPOs (emotionally-potent oversimplifications).

[Browndog]

Who’d a thunk it ???

How we know that the sun changes climate (II). The present | Climate Etc.

[Mark Rippetoe]

World hits streak of record temperatures as UN warns of 'climate hell'

"We must urgently do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we will pay an increasingly heavy price in terms of trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by more extreme weather, and extensive damage to the environment and biodiversity," Barrett said.

Barrett described the cooling effect of La Nina weather conditions, which are expected to take hold later this year, as "a mere blip in the upward curve" in the heat felt across the globe.

"We all need to know that we need to reverse this curve and we need to do it urgently," she said.

While last year registered as the warmest calendar year on record at 1.45 C (2.61 F) above pre-industrial temperatures, at least one of the next five years is likely to be even warmer than 2023, the WMO data show.

Scientists at Copernicus said there were some surprising developments - such as the steep loss of Antarctic sea ice in recent months - but that the overall climate data were in line with projections of how rising greenhouse gas emissions would heat the planet.

"We have not seen anything like this in the last several thousand years," said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo.

These charlatan motherfuckers.

[Ads]

My Climate View is intended to assist Australian farmers and producers to better understand the risks and opportunities facing them over the next 50 years.

This is as stupid as it sounds. Less rain, higher temperatures, the end.

Someone probably made a bit of money designing the model which, we are meant to believe, provides

climate projections for the 2030s, 2050s and 2070s

.

[Cascadian]

I've said it here several times, but I'll repeat it because it is so profoundly true:

If you don't understand - at a bare minimum - basic logic (and logical fallacies), basic statistics, and basic double-entry accounting, you are doomed to be a blithering idiot.

In almost every single imbecilic conversation I have with people, which is most conversations, at least one of those deficiencies is on full display, though often all three - and others - are working in concert.

[golftdibrad]

This might be behind a paywall, but here are the cliffs:

The Germans have broken a story that up to 75% of their version of carbon credits are Chinese and fake.

Massive fraud revealed in fake Chinese climate projects subsidised by the German fossil fuel industry in service of meeting arbitrary and deeply stupid emissions quotas

[Mark Rippetoe]

Good one, Brad!!

Imagine a different universe – one where anthropogenic global warming is real, but where the goal of policy is not to reduce emissions but to address their immediate consequences. (For the sake of argument, we will say that in this universe there is a direct line of causation between emissions and things like sea level rise and increased flooding.) While carbon taxes might still exist in this universe, their purpose would be to ameliorate direct, observable problems, and two things would be different. First, politicians would be motivated not to maximise the alleged environmental consequences of emissions, but to define them as strictly and minimally as possible, lest they assume responsibility for too much of the weather. Second, fraud would be much harder to conceal, because you would be paying for real things and for real, observable results. You would not just be suppressing demand for the hell of it.

Alas, that is not the world we live in. Increasingly our governments prefer to address only insoluble, intractable problems, in maximally interventionist fashion. Restraint and rationality may be good for taxpayers, but these virtues place clear limits on the funding, career opportunities and powers of the technocracy, and so our elites prefer vices instead. We have an irrational politics conducted for the personal benefit of insiders. And, I suspect, we have a lot of corruption and fraud – some of it open and fully legal, some of it rather more hidden and nefarious.

All of that is prologue to this amazing story, about rampant fraud with respect to so-called “Upstream Emissions Reductions,” or UER, in Germany.

Too bad about the paywall.

______________________________________________

Challenging Modern Climate Narratives: Forgotten 1937 Aerial Photos Expose Antarctic Anomaly

Using hundreds of old aerial photographs dating back to 1937, combined with modern computer technology, researchers have tracked the evolution of glaciers in East Antarctica. This area, which spans approximately 2,000 kilometers of coastline, contains as much ice as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet. By comparing the historical aerial photos with modern satellite data, researchers determined the glaciers’ movement and changes in size, revealing that the ice has not only remained stable but also grown slightly over the last 85 years, partly due to increased snowfall.

“We constantly hear about climate change and new melt records, so it’s refreshing to observe an area of glaciers that has remained stable for almost a century,” says PhD student Mads Dømgaard, the study’s first author.

.......

More About the Study
Out of 2200 images photographed from seaplanes in 1937, 130 were selected for the analysis.
The researchers combined the historical photos with modern satellite data to create 3D reconstructions of the glaciers.
The Norwegian aerial images were supplemented with 165 aerial images of the same glaciers from Australian surveys conducted between 1950 and 1974. This allowed the researchers to examine the evolution of the glaciers over different periods and calculate historical ice flow speeds for selected glaciers.
Compared to modern data, the ice flow speeds are unchanged. While some glaciers have thinned over shorter intermediate periods of 10-20 years, they have remained stable or grown slightly in the long term, indicating a system in balance.

[mkm5]

Global warming update from up north: The current climate crisis has created weather here with nighttime rain and daytime sunshine.

Everything is green and healthy and beautiful out here in the woods. The Lake Michigan water is a lovely turquoise color with captivating bright blue skies. Daytime temps between 75 and 85 degrees, dropping off to 30s and 40s during the night.

Just breathing in the fresh air outside is invigorating.

Fortunately the "Canadian wildfire" smoke hasn't hit here yet.

I can't recall, are we supposed to be afraid of freezing to death or burning to death? I guess that story has changed a lot over the years...