Modeling The Mysteries

Well, every time I go to look at the climate models, I come away more confused. And today is no exception. I decided to take a look at the relationship between the change in forcing (downwelling radiation) and the change in temperature.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Forcing datasets are somewhat hard to come by, but the Computer Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) forcings for the GISS-E2 model are here. The sum of all the forcings is shown in Figure 1, along with the CEEMD smooth of the data.

*Figure 1. Forcings used in the CMIP5 runs by the GISS E2 model.*

The big dips in the forcings are the theoretical changes in forcing due to volcanic eruptions.

Next, here is the average surface temperature output of six runs of the GISS E2 model using those forcings, available from the marvelous KNMI website here.

*Figure 2. Average of surface temperature (“tas”) output from six CMIP5 GISS model runs.*

Already, although the model does a decent job hindcasting the past global surface temperature, we have problems. The difficulty is, back here in the real world, the volcanoes have not had that large an effect on the surface temperature.

*Figure 3. Average surface temperature of six CMIP5 GISS model runs compared to Berkeley Earth surface temperature.*

Why the exaggeration of the volcano effects? Me, I say it is because as the eruptions cool the surface, the climate responds by the daily tropical cumulus field forming later in the day, and the tropical thunderstorms also forming later or not at all. This warms the surface, counteracting the effects of the eruptions. However, YMMV …

But none of that is what I started out to look at. I wanted to see if the CMIP5 modeled temperatures slavishly follow the forcings. Thirteen years ago, I showed that the temperature output of the CCSM3 climate model could be very closely emulated by a simple one-line formula, viz:

T(n+1) = T(n) + λ ∆F(n+1) * (1- exp( -1 / τ )) + ΔT(n) * exp( -1 / τ )

See the linked post for the description of what the formula means.

So I used that formula, to see how well I could emulate the temperature output using nothing but the forcing applied to the model. Here’s the result:

*Figure 3. “Black box” emulation of the GISS-E2 model temperatures, calculated from the forcing alone.*

So the situation is unchanged. An R^2 of 0.97 says the emulation is doing a most excellent job. In passing, it’s interesting that the volcanic action in the model averages is a bit larger than in the calculations from the forcing, just as happened with the model average compared to the real world.

In any case, to recap the bidding: The GISS-E2 climate model has 440,000+ lines of code. It has over two million gridcells representing the world, and it takes a whole day to do just one model run on a parallel-processing computer with 88 processors.

And after all that, it merely spits out a lagged and resized version of the input forcing.

Hmmm …

Now, in the formula used to emulate the model output, the variable “lambda” (λ) is the change in temperature resulting (in modelworld) from a 1 watt per square meter (W/m2) increase in forcing. This is a measure of the “transient climate response” (TCR), how the temperature responds in the short term to a change in forcing. It’s usually expressed as the amount of change from a doubling of CO2 (2xCO2).

And the doubling of CO2 is said by the IPCC to increase forcing by 3.7 W/m2. This would make the TCR have a value of 0.41 °C/Wm2 * 3.7 W/m2 per 2xCO2 = 1.5°C / 2xCO2.

Now, I wanted to calculate the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from that TCR value. However, when I went to research that … let me say I was shocked. There’s a good discussion of the issues in an article with the long title “Emergent constraints on transient climate response (TCR) and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from historical warming in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models“.

What was shocking? Well, several things. First, according to the article, every different model uses a different value for the increase in forcing from a doubling of CO2. Remember above where I noted that the IPCC says forcing increases by 3.7 W/m2 from a doubling of CO2 (2xCO2)? Here’s what the models say:

*Figure 4. Change in forcing from a doubling of CO2 as used by 31 different climate models.*

Zowie! The models are all over the place, with values for 2xCO2 forcing ranging from 2.6 to almost 4 W/m2. And the range of the uncertainty on the median value (width of the notch in the sides of the box) doesn’t even include the canonical IPCC value of 3.7 W/m2 … how these jokers have the nerve to call climate science “settled” is a mystery. Not only do we not have agreement on the values of the ECS and the TCR, but we don’t even agree on how much the forcing changes when CO2 doubles! Who knew? I remember Steve McIntyre asking for an engineering-level derivation of the 3.7 W/m2 figure for 2xCO2, but I had no idea that the models disagreed so much on this central figure.

Then there was another surprise. It turns out that the ECS is not some fixed multiple of the TCR. Instead, the ECS of small values of TCR is a smaller multiple of the TCR than for large values of the TCR. Figure 5 shows that relationship.

*Figure 5. Scatterplot, ECS values versus TCR values for 31 different climate models.*

This relationship would mean that the GISS E2 model would have an ECS on the order of 2°C / 2xCO2 … but of course, that’s only if the 2xCO2 forcing is 3.7 W/m2, when in fact we have values from 2.6 to almost 4 W/m2.

To compound the problem, as you can see, the different models give widely different values for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). They range from 1.8°C to 5.7°C for a doubling of CO2, more than a three-to-one variation.

Here’s the final impossibility. Despite the different models having wildly different equilibrium climate sensitivities and different transient climate responses and different forcing changes from doubling CO2 … somehow they all do a pretty good job of hindcasting the actual temperature record.

And if the models were actually “physics-based” as every modeler claims, this would not be possible. I call this “Dr. Kiehl’s Paradox”, since he noted it first, and I discuss this impossible result here.

Gotta love that settled science …

Look, the ECS is a central, vitally important number in mainstream climate science. The forcing change from doubling CO2 is another central, vitally important number in mainstream climate science. They’ve been studying the subject for a half-century, and both numbers still have an enormous uncertainty range.

And worse than that, the uncertainty of the ECS has gotten wider with more study, not narrower …

*Figure 6. ECS estimates over time, from 172 different sources.*

In any other science, a half-century spent studying such a central number would result in reduced uncertainty … but in climate science, it’s going the other way.

To me, this is evidence that the basic paradigm of climate science is wrong. This basic paradigm is the claim that the temperature change is a linear function of the forcing change. I don’t think that’s true. I think that’s simplistic nonsense. I think that the climate actively responds to changing conditions and that there are a host of emergent climate phenomena that oppose any warming from any source, including changes in forcing.

Anyhow, that’s the story of my latest wandering through the models … I ended up knowing less than when I started.

Here in the US, it’s Mother’s Day, so my gorgeous ex-fiancee and I are going for a bike ride and then out for dinner … what’s not to like?

Best to all, and remember, when you comment please quote the exact words you’re discussing. It makes everything much clearer.

CFACT challenges Ford CEO over EV’s at shareholder meeting

From CFACT

By CFACT Ed

Ford Motor Company held its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. CFACT, which owns shares in Ford, used the occasion to challenge the company’s CEO, Jim Farley, about Ford’s reckless venture into the electric vehicle (EV) market.

During the shareholder question and answer period, CFACT’s staffer Greg Neff asked Farley this question: “Despite the CEO’s assurances that the next generation of EVs will be profitable, the fact is Ford’s EV Unit lost $1.3 Billion in the first quarter of 2024. How is this not putting good money after bad when the American people have clearly shown that most have no interest in transitioning to electric?”

This line of questioning caused clear discomfort in the company’s CEO, who proceeded to spend a significant amount of time attempting to justify Ford’s plans. Mr. Farley admitted, “The adoption of EVs is a bit slower in the industry than we expected,” but mollified this by adding, “But we continue to see more and more customers interested in EVs.”

He then went on to assure the stockholders, as he did with their press release earlier in the year, saying, “We’re currently in the market with our first-gen products: the Mach E and the F150 Lightning e-transit. Our breakthrough from a profitability standpoint will come with our next generation of EVs, which are in the middle of development now and will be launching in the next couple of years.” These are new designs are coming from the ground up, he explained, but never made any real connection with how these new vehicles should be able to fare better in the market than the past vehicles did. In any event, Farley also stated it will take at least two years before these new designs are available.

Does this mean the company is content to continue to lose money on each of its EVs until then? He didn’t say. From our perspective, it does not seem that Ford Motor Company is acting in the best interests of its stockholders, whom they have a fiduciary duty to serve.

The company also had a series of proposals shareholders were expected to vote on. One of these was of particular interest to CFACT. It was written by our ally, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and was posed as follows: “Shareholders request that beginning in 2025, Ford report to shareholders (at a reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information) on the extent to which its business plans with respect to electric vehicles and their charging stations may in practice involve, rely, or depend on child labor outside the United States. The report would optimally be fully transparent regarding sources relied on and their reliability, and any instances in which Ford has failed to determine whether child labor is implicated and the causes of those failures.”

While this proposal did not pass on this go-round, it did obtain surprisingly strong support — enough, in fact, to continue being proposed at future meetings.

CFACT has many more corporate meetings it will be attending this year. Stay tuned for future reports regarding those meetings.

2024 Hurricane GWO Predictions

Professor David Dilley is predicting 20 named storms, 8 hurricanes with 3 to 4 of them being major hurricanes. The United States and Caribbean will have 6 Hot-Spots with 3 to 4 United States hurricane landfalls expected, and 1 or 2 in the Caribbean. In addition, there is the potential for 1 or 2 major hurricane landfalls.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

From the Press Release February 1, 2024

2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season – will be very active
with 20 Named Storms and 6 landfall Hot-Spots.

Tampa-Ocala, Florida, United States, February 1, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ —

The Atlantic Hurricane Seasons have been extremely active since 2016 – and will continue to be abnormally active for the next several years. This is not due to a global warming cycle – but instead– it is due to the naturally occurring Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) that enhances a cyclical ClimatePulse Cycle.

During the current AMO warm ocean cycle (warmest portion in 2016), the United States has experienced 40 named storms making landfall, with 20 of them being hurricanes – 9 of which were major hurricane landfalls. This very active hurricane cycle – will likely continue for another 10 years.

What Should We Expect in 2024

An average hurricane season has 12-13 named storms and 6 hurricanes. The combination of the AMO warm ocean water cycle, favorable atmospheric conditions, and the enhanced ClimatePulse Cycle – will provide favorable conditions for a very active and destructive hurricane season in 2024.

Background Post: David Dilley: Signals of Global Cooling

Tom Nelson interviewed David Dilley last month and the video is above. For those who prefer reading I provide below a transcript from the closed captions, along with the key exhibits from the presentation.

Synopsis: Between the two oceans cooling down and the natural global cooling cycle coming down we’re going to see a big dip in the temperatures worldwide during the next 10, 15 years. The cold cycle’s going to take about 20 years to bottom out. We’re going to be in an extremely cold period during that time, colder than the 1960s and 50s here in the United States. So it’s going to be very cold.

TN: I have David Dilly here, and David could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

DD: I’m a meteorologist, climatologist, for which I have about 52 years of experience, and I’m still trying to figure that out because I’m only 30 years old. But but I’ve been in the business a long time. I was a weather officer in the Air Force in the National Weather Service. Then I left to set up my own company called Global Weather Oscillations; the easiest way to remember it is global weather cycles.com.

So we’re going to take a look today at something that NOAA is really talking about: the Carbon Dioxide and Climate Cycles. They’re just talking about today’s carbon dioxide values as far as the fossil fuel is concerned. You’re not going to see this out there anywhere on the web. It’s 78% of the atmospheric gases is nitrogen of all things, 21% is oxygen, 0.9 is argon that is 99.99 percent the atmospheric gases. That doesn’t leave much that’s just about all of what we call dry air. To be non-dry air includes the greenhouse gases. The greenhouse gases now are variable regarding how much of it is water vapor how much of it is carbon dioxide. Water vapor is anywhere from one to four percent of the atmospheric gases, that’s quite a bit. It can be zero percent of the Arctic and Antarctic because that’s a desert, but it can be all the way up to four percent. So one to four percent we’ll say.

Carbon dioxide of all things it’s a trace gas it’s less than .05%, a lot less than than water vapor. less than .05 now to put it in perspective, let’s just look at the greenhouse gases here and what we see is water vapor we’re gonna do the average of it two percent that’s 20 000 parts per million. Natural carbon dioxide what I’m going to show you later on in the presentation is 380 parts per million.

Now NOAA and the IPCC say it (natural CO2) is down around 285 parts per million,
we’re going to show you that’s false.

And so the natural is point zero four percent of the atmospheric gases, while fossil fuel I’m going to show you it’s only 35 parts per million; that’s point zero zero four percent or four one thousands of a one percent. And do you think that can cause climate change?

Of course not. We go down to Vostok in the Antarctic and there is a very deep frozen lake where they drill down fifteen thousand eight five hundred and eighty eight feet down to the bottom. That’s a long ways down over 500 000 years. So I take core samples and with the core samples they figure out how how much it is carbon dioxide what the temperatures are. These are approximate, but what they they get from a core sample is a an estimate of the temperatures and carbon dioxide during the past 500 000 years.

If we go back say 450 000 years, the red line is temperature. So what happened, we came quickly just in a few thousand years out of a deep Ice Age into a interglacial warm period. You can see the temperatures really slid up and the ice cores estimate the carbon dioxide to be right around 280 parts per million. Then we slide down out of the warm period into a deep Ice Age and you can see that the carbon dioxide is actually staying up high there. If carbon dioxide caused global warming, why did the temperatures drop; it does not make sense.

Eventually the carbon dioxide goes down because it’s being absorbed by the oceans. The oceans keep absorbing it over the course of a hundred thousand years. Then when you come up on your next interglacial warm period 338 000 years ago, the temperature goes up and the carbon dioxide is released from the oceans back into the atmosphere. And you can see the carbon dioxide lags behind the temperature rise and actually when you hit the peak of the temperature back 338 000 years ago, the carbon dioxide does not Peak out until 7000 years later. It takes quite a while but carbon dioxide peaked out at 298 parts per million. But look at that temperature then dropping quickly into an ice age while carbon dioxide is at its peak.

That’s proof right there the carbon dioxide does not cause global warming.

As we come over on the right hand side of the graphic this is about 18 000 years ago. It’s 11 000 years ago we came out of the glacial period, we warmed up quickly, we got up to about to 190 parts per million.

Then we started to take records in Hawaii in the 1950s and the instruments there said: Wow, all of a sudden now we’re up to 412 parts per million. We’ve never been that high before. This is what we’re going to investigate: what is going on with the glacial periods and also the core samples. This is a graphic of the carbon dioxide. The peak of The inter glacial warm periods is every 120 000 years ago we’re going back 800 000 years.

Now do we have other research that will confirm what I’m saying. This is about a year ago and they’ve been adding papers to it and this corrects NOAA’s calculations of the rise in carbon dioxide since 1850. It’s in a radiation safety Journal Health physics journal and this is the name of the paper itself. The authors are professors of radiological Sciences. They’re retired and that’s a big thing because if you’re not retired, if you’re at a university, you can’t do research like this because of federal grants and everything. You have to wait until you’re retired and then you can do real science when they were working they were at the department of physics at University of Massachusetts. It’s Kenneth Skrable, George Chabot, and Clayton French and here is what they found.

This is extremely important. Since 1850 the red here is saying the increase due to fossil fuel, and they’re showing all of that is the increase due to fossil fuel. Now how do we determine that well up on a high mountain in Hawaii we have a infrared spectrometer since 1958 it’s been been taking measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide. However three Isotopes of Carbon are 12, 13 and 14. and the spectrometer is taking the total of all three. It’s not separating what is natural from what is fossil fuel.

Because the ice core samples say we’ve never been above 300 parts per million
NOAA is assuming that the rise above 300 parts per million is all fossil fuel.

An assumption is all it is. It’s assumed by trying to take averages of how much CO2 is taken back in by the oceans how much of it is a given not from industry. Taking those assumptions some physicists made a formula to determine how much is fossil fuel and how much is natural going back all the way back to 1750. These red lines again are what NOAA says is the increase by fossil fuel.

Well their formula separates the carbon 12, 13 and 14 to determine what is what and this is their findings as I switched everything over to green. Green is the natural increase in carbon dioxide all the way up to 1958. Now remember it’s a paper going back to 2018, but it says the increase has been from 280 parts per million up to 408 and NOAA says it is all from fossil fuel. This research paper says No, it is nearly 80% natural just like what I showed on my formulations, eighty percent natural, onlyabout 20% industrial. That’s not enough to cause climate change.

[Note: My synopsis of Skrable et al. is On CO2 Sources and Isotopes.]

Now I’m going to show you one last paper that will also verify the findings and this is using a different method fossilized plant leaflets and as you can see in this picture there’s little cells in there they call these stomata cells which are like the lungs in a human being. So they look at the fossilized plant leaflets and unlike the ice core samples where you’re taking an average over one thousand or four thousand years, the fossilized plant leaflets can give you the exact year going back the past thousand years so you can determine each year what is going on.

So the stomata cells are like the lungs in a human being or in animals but he’d found that if the leaflet has a lot of stomata cells it means a lot less carbon dioxide in the air at that time. When CO2 is plentiful, plants don’t need more oxygen lung power to get the carbon dioxide; if it has fewer cells that means there was a lot of carbon dioxide in the air.

And the beautiful thing about plant life taking in carbon dioxide is the byproduct is oxygen which we drastically need. What the plant stomata cells show during the past 1200 years: back in 800 A.D it says we were way up to 375 parts per million natural carbon dioxide and then dipped way down to 325 in one thousand A.D. Then it dipped way down to 230 and it dipped up down, up down, up down up, down. In year 2010 it was up at 375 parts per million.

Let’s look at the plant stomata that could be pretty darn real and also if you take a mean value of the plant stomata over the course of a thousand years you come out 301 parts per million. The main value of ice cores over a thousand year period 297 parts per million really darn close to being the same as now. Let’s take the plant stomata readings of the atmospheric carbon dioxide and overlay it onto our global warming and cooling Cycles during the past 1200 years. We have had six global warming Cycles during the past 1200 years as noted here in the red. This is back around 850 A.D and then you can see it cools down then we warm up again, cool down warm up cool way down and so on for six global warming cycles. People don’t talk about that but we have had six of them.

When we overlay the plant stomata atmospheric carbon dioxide, guess what: We see a perfect fit. The high values in carbon dioxide peak on global warming cycles, so that brings a lot more credibility into the plants stomata cells for recording carbon dioxide.

So putting it all together we since 1850 NOAA and the IPCC say that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is 100% due to fossil fuel and human activity. The three studies I just showed you and the corrections I made on the ice core samples all show it’s 80% natural rise. Far too little fossil fuel effects to cause climate change, it is almost all natural.

Here we are today over here on the right the average is a global cooling cycle comes about every 230 years and the global cooling cycles last for a good 100, 150 years. So here we are right now, average for the return of the global cooling cycle is 230 years and the last global cooling cycle began in 1794. Add 230 to that and you calculate the year 2024.

This is 2023. so we should be sliding into a global cooling cycle, a natural global cooling cycle.

And we have signals that it is beginning. Global warming Cycles begin in the Arctic and the Antarctic when they warm up over the course of 20, 30 years or so. And as the Arctic and Antarctic warm up there’s less cold air available through the mid-latitudes. So over time the mid-latitudes warm up so that’s where global warming spreads.

In the next phase, global cooling also begins at the Arctic and the Antarctic.

What has happened just this past year, the spring and summer in the Arctic was the coldest on record. You had that during a global warming period, so that’s a signal that the Arctic is drastically cooling down. In 2021 the Antarctic had the coldest winter on record. How you have two records like that if you’re not sliding into global cooling? There’s more cold air available and it’s going to cool down the mid-latitudes and that starts our global cooling cycle. And we’re coming into that right now. Winter 2020 was a third coldest January and February on record from Alaska through Central Northern Canada into Greenland. Antarctica as I indicated winter of 2021 coldest on record. Arctic 2022 coldest spring and summer on record since 1958, and the most Arctic Ice extent in 8 to 16 years.

The real main point is carbon dioxide increase is mainly natural, it is not causing a global warming cycle. It’s a natural global warming cycle and we’re sliding back into a natural global cooling cycle.

TN: If you had to make a prediction what would you think of the cooling between now and 2050. Do you think it will cool between now and 2050 are you fairly confident?

DD: Actually we’re going to see a pretty good cool down here into January. The whole atmospheric circulation is beginning to change the La Nina out in the Pacific is now fading it’s going to be gone here by mid to end of January, and we can see changes in the atmospheric circulation going on now.
The cold air in Canada is going to start making its way down more into the United States during late January.

For this year we do see the drastic change and what we’re going to see really well through 2050 or so. The IPCC and NOAA say that the oceans are going to rise anywhere from eight to 26 inches during that time period. I say it may rise an inch, maybe not even that much because we’re going into a global cooling cycle now. The poles are cooling down.

Pacific Ocean has phases going back to the year 1580. For past 500 years we’ve seen these warm phase and cold phase Cycles in the Pacific Ocean which last for anywhere from about 25 to 40 years. The Pacific has been in a 40-year warm cycle which ties the record going back uh 500 years. Pacific is sliding into a cold or a cool phase ocean water cycle, and that’s going to help to cool down ,especially up around Alaska. And the Atlantic Ocean will be going into a cool phase of its own right after 2030 or so.

Between the two oceans cooling down and the natural global cooling cycle coming in
we’re going to see a big dip in the temperatures worldwide during the next 10 to 15 years.

The global warming cycle took about a 20-year period to peek out warming from about the year 2000 up to about 2021 so it took 20 years to hit the peak; the cold cycle is going to take about 20 years to bottom out also at the coldest and that’s going to be around 2040 or so. Unitil the late 2030s so we’re going to be in an extremely cold period during that time, colder than the 1960s and 50s here in the United States.

TN: Is there any sort of a simple explanation as to what causes that 230 year cycle that you mentioned?

DD: The simple explanation is our glacial periods and interglatial periods become about every 120 000 years are due to the Earth path around the Sun; where the Earth swings out further away from the Sun and also the tilt of the earth also changes.

New data out is showing that we’ve actually been cooling down during the past five to six years. So this is all looking like we are already going gradually into a global cooling Cycle. But we’re going to see a more dramatic change in the cooling cycle.

What NOAA and IPCC are doing, their science is political science while we’re looking here today at real science. There’s a huge difference. Keep your eyes open the next few years and all of a sudden in a few years people are going to be saying: Wait a minute, what are we doing here? We’re down the wrong path we need to wake up.

Comment:

The underlying issue is the assumption that the future can only be warmer than the present. Once you accept the notion that CO2 makes the earth’s surface warmer (an unproven conjecture), then temperatures can only go higher since CO2 keeps rising. The present plateau in temperatures is inconvenient, but actual cooling would directly contradict the CO2 doctrine. Some excuses can be fabricated for a time, but an extended period of cooling undermines the whole global warming mantra.

It’s not a matter of fearing a new ice age. That will come eventually, according to our planet’s history, but the warning will come from increasing ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere. Presently infrastructures in many places are not ready to meet a return of 1950s weather, let alone something unprecedented.

Public policy must include preparations for cooling since that is the greater hazard. Cold harms the biosphere: plants, animals and humans. And it is expensive and energy intensive to protect life from the ravages of cold. Society can not afford to be in denial about the prospect of the current temperature plateau ending with cooling.

Background Post: By the Numbers: CO2 Mostly Natural

What Are Climate Policies Costing Canada?

A global survey published in the journal Nature in February 2024 found that less than 40 percent of the people asked in Canada and the United States would be prepared to spend one percent of their income to address climate change. Such findings stand in sharp contrast to what Canadians are already paying.

From Friends of Science Calgary

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2024. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

Executive Summary

Most of the climate policy-related revenues to governments (i.e. costs to consumers) will be from the carbon dioxide pricing system. Based on the current schedule, the rate will rise to “at least” $170 per tonne by 2030. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimated that the total direct revenue from carbon pricing over the period 2019-20 to 2023-24 would be $31.2 billion, but the amount with GST added (i.e. the tax on the tax) could be $32.3 billion. In Budget 2024, Finance Canada projected that the proceeds from the “pollution pricing framework” will rise from $10.4 billion in 2023-2024 to $20.7 billion in 2028-2029. That would place the total proceeds over the decade at over $80 billion.

The government claims that 90% of the revenues received from the carbon dioxide pricing system are rebated to the provincial governments that, in turn, are supposed to rebate the funds to taxpayers. The Fraser Institute, in its report on the estimated impacts of a $170 carbon tax in Canada, found that the rising carbon tax will cause pronounced reductions in the revenues from elsewhere in the tax system, such that the government will not be able to sustain the household carbon tax rebates to the extent it has promised without going further into deficit. In fact, the shortfall could add about $22 billion annually to the consolidated government debt.

While not treated by the federal government as a tax, the Clean Fuel Regulations have a comparable cost effect. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), in its published analysis of the regulations, estimated that they would decrease real GDP in Canada by up to $9 billion in 2030.

Surprisingly, there is no authoritative and reliable inventory of climate measures now in place; of past, present and planned expenditures; or of the results achieved. This in itself marks an extraordinary failure of governance and public accountability.

The Canadian Climate Institute contracted with Navius Research to develop what it refers to as the Climate Policy Tracker, a list of current and projected climate measures and related expenditures. According to it, there are 112 federal government climate policy measures and 364 provincial and territorial climate policy measures where funding has been approved or planned. The grand total of the expenditures made and planned is $172.8 billion by the federal government alone.

The total federal and provincial expenditures on climate measures over the period 2020 to 2030 as listed by the Carbon Policy Tracker are $476 billion or $11,900 per resident of Canada. This equates to roughly $28,000 per household (i.e. an average of $2,800 per household per year). This is just what has been announced to date; there remain five more fiscal years before 2030 during which governments may add more initiatives.

Canadians through their taxes and prices paid on energy are already spending far more than one percent of their incomes per year to fund federal government climate policies. The amounts paid will undoubtedly rise further. When the amounts spent by provincial governments are included, the total cost is probably more than double what is spent by the federal government. The public just doesn’t know about it.

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Using Nets On The Seafloor To Retrieve Seafood ‘Roughly The Same As Running 100 Coal-Fired Plants’

Disturbing resting seafloor CO2 is yet another way humans are believed to be heating up the planet.

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard

Disturbing resting seafloor CO2 is yet another way humans are believed to be heating up the planet.

Only 1% of the seafloor has been molested by dragging nets through the sand (trawling) in an effort to retrieve the seafood staples we enjoy. But that’s enough to wreak havoc on the Earth’s climate at the top of the atmosphere, 100 km above the ocean surface, where CO2-induced global boiling is activated.

According to a new study and its press release, trawling the ocean floor for shrimp and cod disturbs the “planet-warming carbon dioxide” that had until then been peacefully reposed in sentiment. Dragging nets along the ocean floor “unlocks more carbon from the seafloor than all the world’s airplanes emit each year,” some 370 million metric tons worth.

And, of course, this acidifies the ocean too. When in its undisturbed state, the massive quantities of seafloor CO2 hadn’t been causing ocean acidification. But then as soon as the nets were dragged along the seafloor by humans, the disturbed CO2’s acidification potential was unleashed.

Image Source: **Atwood et al., 2024** and **EOS.org (press release)**

In others news along this front, we are told (O’Bryan et al., 2021) that “wild pigs are having a bigger climate change impact than one million cars” because they are now, for the first time (ever?) trampling over dirt outside of their “native range.”

Had they stayed in their confined wild pig area, their “native range,” the CO2 they released from the soil as they trampled across it would not have had any climate impact. But the dirt these wild pigs are disturbing now has CO2 in its at-rest state in it, and thus “this soil disturbance results in median emissions of 4.9 million metric tonnes (MMT) CO2 per year (equivalent to 1.1 million passenger vehicles).”

Wild pigs are now classified as an “invasive species” delivering a previously unrecognized global carbon footprint “threat” by uprooting soil outside of their lane.

Image Source: **O’Bryan et al., 2021** and **press release**

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Turning Taxpayers Into Risk Takers

From Friends of Science Calgary

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2024. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

Executive Summary

Budget 2024, the government of Canada’s statement of its economic and financial plans for the next five years, included an announcement that the government would continue to expand its use of “contracts for difference” as instruments of its climate policy. Contacts for difference are ways to transfer financial risks from one group of people to another. Specifically, they would transfer the risks that future policy or market changes may reduce or eliminate the present and planned financial incentives for “clean energy” projects. The risks would be removed from project investors and placed on the Canadian general taxpayer.

There are different ways in which CFDs could be used to “de-risk” investments in “clean” projects. One way would be to bring more certainty regarding the credit prices that emerge as a result of the output-based pricing system (OBPS) The OBPS is the version of carbon dioxide pricing that seeks to reduce emissions by industrial plants. Credit price CFDs could provide “certainty” on future credit prices by having the government guarantee firms a minimum value for the credits.

The biggest risk for many “clean energy” investors may be that a Conservative government would eliminate the entire carbon dioxide pricing regime (i.e. both the OBPS and carbon taxes). That would sharply reduce the cost advantage that these investors now enjoy and the growth of these advantages in future. The goal of a CFD in such cases would be to leave the green energy investors whole by having the government commit by contract to provide future financial benefits at least equal to those that the investors would have enjoyed if the present carbon dioxide pricing regime has continued. The design of such contracts could be complex.

Yet another way in which CFDs could be applied would be to insure investors in “clean energy” projects that, regardless of how either markets or policies may change, they will continue to receive financial benefits from taxpayers that approximate or equal the benefits that they now expect to receive from existing and announced federal subsidy programs. The number of these programs is very large; they include both direct expenditures and tax expenditures (e.g. credits, deductions, deferrals, exemptions and preferential tax rates).

To date, the federal government has announced only one CFD. On December 20, 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the Canada Growth Fund had concluded an agreement with Calgary’s Entropy Inc. Freeland proclaimed, could reduce emissions by up to 9 million tonnes over 15 years. At a price of $86.50 per tonne plus an initial payment of $200 million, the federal expenditure totals $978.5 million, or almost $1,000 per tonne, an absurdly high cost.

How can this be considered as justified? The alleged benefit of CFDs as applied to investments in many “clean energy” projects like CCUS or EV batteries is that it may accelerate the commercialization of new emissions reduction technologies. One has to wonder what evidence there is that CFDs are needed, in addition to all
the other measures in place, to do this. Also, if the general public is to take on the economic risks, what benefits are there to compensate for this? The only benefits are the theoretical ones that may come from changes in global emissions and temperatures over which Canadians have little influence and no control.

The tradition in Canada has long been that one parliament cannot bind another. In practice, this means that a new government is bound to honour the legislation passed by a previous government only until it passes new legislation to amend or repeal the previous legislation. CFDs negotiated by the present Liberal government would be an obvious attempt to frustrate the efforts of a future Conservative government if it chose to reduce or eliminate the carbon dioxide pricing regime and the other large subsidies and tax benefits now conferred on “clean energy” investments. They would contravene an important parliamentary and democratic principle.

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Offshore wind cumulative impact issue analysis

When the Feds finally do the cumulative environmental impact analysis for whales as mandated by the Endangered Species Act there are a number of basic issues to be resolved. Here is a quick look at some for the desperately endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW).

From CFACT

By David Wojick

Cumulative refers to the combined impact of multiple offshore projects. The first issue is which projects to combine for analysis. NARW are found along the entire Atlantic coastal waters which bounds the geography. Other endangered critters are found along the Gulf and West Coasts.

Projects can be in very different stages of development. Here is a hierarchy of sorts that gives several obvious options, from relatively small to enormous.

1. Projects built or approved for construction. There are about 10 of these. They are the immediate threat, but the overall threat to the NARW is, of course, much greater than this. Given that they have been approved for construction, it might be difficult to make big changes to protect the NARW, although not impossible.

2. The above, plus the projects actively seeking near-term approval. This is more like 30 projects, and the combined threat is very real. Cumulative impact analysis might seriously constrain this long list.

3. Next come the many projects listed in “AN ACTION PLAN FOR OFFSHORE WIND TRANSMISSION DEVELOPMENT IN THE U.S. ATLANTIC REGION“. This Action Plan is from the Energy Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is actually building the combined offshore wind monster.

The Action Plan shows specific projects in ever-increasing numbers by five-year increments, from 30,000 MW in 2030 to 85,000 MW in 2050. These projects are somewhat speculative, but since this is a BOEM Plan, its cumulative impact on the NARW should certainly be assessed for each five-year increment. It is likely that such a massive plan would be constrained by the results of this assessment.

For each cumulative impact assessment, the next question is, what potential impacts on the NARW to look at? Here are some obvious examples that I have discussed in prior articles.

A. Acoustic noise harassment from sources such as sonar surveys, site construction, as well as operation. Given that some approved individual projects have construction harassment estimates alone over 200 NARW each, the combined total harassment for all projects and sources could be enormous.

B. Moreover, it is likely that combined noises will create new levels of harassment. The potential for NARW extinction is obvious, given that their entire population is less than 350, with just 70 or so breeding females.

C. Adverse wake effects, such as reduced-energy air plumes and suspended sediment plumes that reduce food supplies. Here, clusters of nearby projects will be especially important. The Action Plan consists of numerous large clusters of projects.

D. Forced changes in navigation routes and fishing grounds which can lead to concentrated threats of deadly ship strikes and entanglement drownings. It is easy to forget that whales cannot breathe underwater.

It should be noted that adverse impacts can combine over time as well as space. The migratory NARW will be forced to run a gauntlet of successive projects stretching at least from Georgia to Maine.

Here is BOEM’s own discussion of the combined impacts over time for pile driving during construction of projects. I could not have said it better.

“It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individual’s normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.”

Empire Wind, Draft Environmental Impact Statement v.1, Page 3.15-14, PDF page 372

No doubt there are other important issues to consider in a proper cumulative impact analysis.

Collectively, offshore wind is a massive proposed multi-project program with equally massive combined environmental impacts. These cumulative impacts must be assessed under the Endangered Species Act for the desperately endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and all the other listed critters that would be affected.

Constraint in project impact should be the order of the day.

Wind Industry’s Wanton Whale Slaughter Caused by Constant Deafening Construction Noise

Try as they might, the offshore wind industry can’t conceal the fact that their construction operations are killing hundreds of whales, dolphins, seals and much, much more.

From STOP THESE THINGS

Try as they might, the offshore wind industry can’t conceal the fact that their construction operations are killing hundreds of whales, dolphins, seals and much, much more.

The underwater cacophony created during offshore construction is laid out in Michael Shellenberger’s documentary Thrown To The Wind (see the video below) and this post: US Govt Lying About Offshore Wind Industry’s Whale Slaughter

Now, adding to the mounting body of inculpatory evidence, one of America’s top acousticians, Dr Rob Rand has been gathering underwater noise data that proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that the wind industry is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of marine mammals (and more) and that it continues to lie and deflect in the fashion we’ve come to expect from the most rotten and corrupt industry on earth. Donna Anderson provides the details below.

‘Environmental Pollutant’—How a Key Climate Agenda Tool Harms Endangered Species
The Epoch Times
Donna Anderson
27 April 2024

As the Biden administration expands its offshore wind projects as part of its goal to reach a carbon-free energy system, whales and other marine life may become collateral damage, according to new research.

Two independent studies measuring ocean wind turbine construction noise found that the sound emitted by vessels mapping the seafloor was significantly louder than estimated, and that noise protection for whales and other sea creatures during wind turbine pile driving doesn’t work.

Intense noise causes hearing loss in whales, other marine mammals, turtles, and fish, compromising their ability to navigate, avoid danger, detect predators, and find prey, according to scientific studies.

Robert Rand, an acoustics consultant with 44 years of experience, took underwater readings of the sonar survey vessel Miss Emma McCall off the coast of New Jersey. He also recorded acoustic readings of pile driving for Vineyards Wind 1, an offshore wind farm project under construction 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

In his pile-driving report, published March 28, Mr. Rand found that even the most advanced sound-dampening technologies didn’t adequately control harmful noise. The pounding was just as loud as seismic air gun arrays used for oil and gas exploration, long known to cause injury, hearing loss, and behavioral changes in fish and marine mammals.

Furthermore, the noise made by the construction vessel itself, which is not monitored, was almost as loud as the pile driving. Mr. Rand found that the standard formula used by the National Marine Fisheries Service to calculate how noise, over a period of time, affects a mammal’s hearing, significantly underestimates the sound levels experienced by dolphins and whales.

“These are real data,” Mr. Rand, who testified at a Congressional field hearing on January 20, told The Epoch Times. “I measured it. This is not a computer model. This is not a political press release. These are data.”

Many environmentalists fear that noise related to ocean wind farm construction is contributing to “unusual mortality events” affecting whales. From 2016 through April this year, 220 humpback whales have died, according to data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Elevated humpback whale mortalities have occurred along the Atlantic coast from Maine through Florida,” since 2016, the NOAA states.

The NOAA also reported an “unusual mortality event” for North Atlantic right whales, in which 126 have died since 2017.

“The numbers have been decreasing, especially since 2017, when offshore operations really swung into gear,” Mr. Rand said.

“From my experience in noise control, that’s not a coincidence. Noise is an environmental pollutant. In human terms, it’s measured in life years lost.”

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium estimates 350 North Atlantic right whales exist in the world’s oceans today.

Pile-Driving Noise
On Nov. 2, 2023, Mr. Rand went out on a 29-foot sport fishing boat to the Vineyard Wind 1 construction site.

The completed wind farm project will comprise 62 wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, spaced one nautical mile apart. The project is estimated to provide power to more than 400,000 homes and businesses.

The offshore wind farm is owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners of Denmark and Avangrid Renewables, part of the Spanish company, Iberdrola.

At the construction site in November 2023, Mr. Rand said an 874-foot crane ship called the Orion was using a massive hammer to pound a monopile foundation for a wind turbine into the seabed.

The monopile is a steel pipe 31 feet in diameter, 279 feet long, and weighs 1,895 tons, according to the manufacturer, EEW Special Pipe Constructions.

Vineyard Wind 1 implemented two sets of noise controls. The first is a “hydro sound damper,” which Mr. Rand said, is a vertical net in the water around the monopile that’s covered with foam or rubber blocks and balls.

The second is a “double bubble” curtain. These are two weighted hoses lying on the seafloor in concentric circles around the monopile. The radius is roughly 492 to 656 feet.

The hoses have holes in them, and compressed air from a support vessel is forced through the hoses, causing bubbles to rise to the surface. The bubbles are supposed to mitigate the sound pressure created by the pile driving.

“These are advanced techniques,” Mr. Rand said. “They aren’t used anywhere else.”

Unfortunately, the noise mitigation techniques don’t work, he said.

Mr. Rand dropped a research-grade, omnidirectional hydrophone into the water at six locations, starting at 4.10 nautical miles from the pile driving and moving closer to 0.57 nautical miles.

Analyzing the data, Mr. Rand found that even with sophisticated noise mitigation in place, the pile driving is as loud as multiple seismic air guns.

“People have been protesting and the government has been rigorously regulating seismic air gun arrays for years, if not decades, because of their sonic intensity and hazard for endangered species—for whales and other marine species,” Mr. Rand said.

“This pile driving is as loud as an array of air guns.”

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) makes it illegal to kill, hunt, capture, or harass a marine mammal. Killing or injuring a mammal is considered a Level A harassment under the 1972 law. Level B harassment includes actions that disrupt an animal’s normal behavior, including migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.

The National Marine Fisheries Service provides a guide to marine acoustic thresholds, which are considered harassment at certain levels.

“Acoustic thresholds refer to the levels of sound that, if exceeded, will likely result in temporary or permanent changes in marine mammal hearing sensitivity,” the website states.

The Fisheries Service notes that Level B harassment is reached when continuous noise, such as a ship engine running, hits 120 decibels, or impulsive or intermittent noise, such as pile driving, hits an average of 160 decibels.

The agency says marine mammals can suffer permanent hearing loss at 173 to 219 decibels of continuous sound, or 202 to 232 decibels of impulsive sound.

Based on his data, Mr. Rand estimated the pile driving noise at the source at 241 decibels. Loudness decreases as sound waves move away from the source. Still, Mr. Rand measured peak sound levels ranging from 180 decibels at a distance of 0.57 nautical miles from the ship to 162 decibels at 4.10 nautical miles.

He also found that the continuous noise of the Orion’s propulsion and positioning thrusters exceeded 120 decibels at a distance of 3.7 miles from the ship.

Why did the sound mitigation measures fail? Mr. Rand explained that sound waves travel through air, water, and land. In fact, sound travels nearly five times faster through water than air.

One likely reason why the hydro sound damper and double bubble curtain didn’t curb the noise is that they are designed to inhibit sound waves moving through water, Mr. Rand said. They have no effect on sound waves traveling through the seabed.

The formula the National Marine Fisheries Service uses to calculate how noise affects a mammal’s hearing is essentially 90 percent of average noise levels.

Mr. Rand used his data to perform the calculation. He found that the National Marine Fisheries Service formula underestimated the sound level experienced by whales, dolphins, and porpoises by as much as 6 decibels.

Six decibels means six times the sound energy.

“The metric is deficient,” Mr. Rand said.

Offshore wind construction ships are required to have spotters watching for marine mammals during pile driving and sonar surveys. If an animal swims too close to the ship, work must stop.

But, Mr. Rand says, because the National Marine Fisheries Service formula is off, the protective distance for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and other marine mammals is only half of what it should be.

“Everything looks earnest,” Mr. Rand said. “They’ve got the observers up on the deck. They’ve got the protective radii. They’ve got the fancy models. They’ve got all of this.

“But to me, as someone who’s worked in noise control planning for over four decades, it looks like smoke and mirrors.”

Sonar Noise
In his earlier study, published on Sept. 22, 2023, Mr. Rand measured actual noise levels generated by a sonar survey vessel. On May 8, 2023, the Miss Emma McCall was mapping the seafloor for Attentive Energy, LLC.

Attentive Energy won a bid from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in February 2022 to lease 84,332 acres in the Atlantic Ocean, 47 miles off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

Attentive Energy had contracts to supply power to both New Jersey and New York. Its contract for the New York project was canceled on April 19. The New Jersey contract is still in place.

The Miss Emma McCall used equipment including a multibeam echosounder, side scan sonar, and a sub-bottom profiler, or “sparker,” to reveal geological features of the seabed.

The sparker sends an acoustical pulse to the ocean floor that is reflected back to a receiver. Based on the data collected, Mr. Rand estimated the sparker source sound level at 224 decibels, and peak sound levels at 151.6 decibels at one-half nautical mile away.

This was consistent with the sparker’s manufacturer specifications, but louder than what the vessel stated it would generate in its permit application for incidental marine mammal harassment.

The vessel itself created continuous noise, which Mr. Rand measured at 126.5 decibels at one-half nautical mile away. But as with the pile driving ship, the permit application treated the vessel as if it were silent.

Mr. Rand reiterated that any continuous noise above 120 decibels is considered Level B harassment.

To protect marine mammals, the Miss Emma McCall was obligated to shut down the sonar survey if a North Atlantic right whale came within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the ship, if endangered marine mammals came within 100 meters (328 feet), or if non-endangered marine mammals came within 50 meters (164 feet).

But, Mr. Rand said, based on his data and calculations, the sonar survey should shut down if the mammals came within one nautical mile (1.1 miles) of the ship.

He says the National Marine Fisheries Service “appears to have abandoned the evaluation of Level B behavioral harassment at 120 decibels.”

“Level A harassment due to cumulative sound exposure level appears feasible depending on time periods occupied and various distances to the sparker,” Mr. Rand wrote in his report

“It is unclear that the mitigation methods set in place are adequate to protect the North Atlantic right whale and other Endangered Species Act-listed mammals and marine species.”

Federal Agency Responsibilities
The damage intense noise causes in mammals is noted in several scientific studies.

A Duke University study published on Science Daily, found that when ship traffic in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, decreased after Sept. 11, 2001, underwater noise decreased by six decibels. This correlated with lower stress levels in whales, suggesting that low-frequency ship noise may be associated with chronic stress in whales.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that turtles exposed to excess underwater noise can experience temporary hearing loss.

The Ecological Society of America published a study showing that squid, octopus, and cuttlefish exposed to excessive low frequency sound had severe lesions in their auditory structures, indicating “massive acoustical trauma.”

To protect marine mammals from the risk of auditory injury and behavioral harassment, Mr. Rand believes federal agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, which sits within NOAA, should increase protective distances around offshore wind construction sites.

“I think NOAA should uphold the Marine Mammals Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act,” Mr. Rand said. “I think they strayed away from their legal requirements established by Congress.

“What I’m seeing is a relaxation of protections. And it’s very subtle because there’s so much apparent concern about the modeling and the calculations and the research on what is an appropriate level to be used for a threshold.”

The Epoch Times requested comments from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, NOAA, and Attentive Energy. They did not respond by press time.
The Epoch Times

Wrong, The Conversation, Climate Change Is Not Making Flooding Worse

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A recent post at The Conversation claims that flooding is getting worse in the United States due to climate change, calling for a change in water handling philosophy in order to mitigate the effects. The author overstates scientific confidence in the connection between flooding and the modest warming of the past century. Data does not show flooding is becoming more frequent or severe. Having said that updating water handling in major urban areas would help with mitigating flooding, although it is unclear whether the method proposed in the Conversation’s article is feasible.

The article, “As climate change amplifies urban flooding, here’s how communities can become ‘sponge cities’,” is written by an engineering professor and director of a water resource laboratory at Drexel University, Franco Montalto. He begins the post by asserting that in the United States, “intense single-day precipitation events are growing more frequent, fueled by warming air that can hold increasing levels of moisture.”

The citation Montalto uses goes to the U.S. government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) report, which has been heavily critiqued by scientists for directly ignoring or contradicting available scientific literature on the subjects it covers. Climate Realism previously pointed out deceptive framing from the NCA5 on its approach to temperature extremes here, and the alleged increase in so-called “billion dollar disasters” here. The NCA has become a political tool that is distinctly partisan, directly controlled by whatever presidential administration is currently in charge. The publications reflect that reality.

When the NCA5 was first released, climate scientist and past contributor to the NCA reports Roger Pielke Jr. pointed out that it was strange for an alleged scientific assessment to contain so many citations that pointed to White House press releases. Regarding the actual science, the NCA contradicts the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings on flooding, which admit only low confidence in even a sign of change in any direction, positive or negative.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in fact, has warned against trying to associate changes in precipitation to human activities and flooding, because flooding is complex and very situationally dependent:

“Attributing changes in heavy precipitation to anthropogenic activities (Section 11.4.4) cannot be readily translated to attributing changes in floods to human activities, because precipitation is only one of the multiple factors, albeit an important one, that affect floods.”

What’s more, despite a modest increase in overall precipitation, annual U.S. flood damage as a proportion of GDP has declined over time, not increased. (See figure below)

As with many recent posts connecting climate change and particular threats to infrastructure, the majority of the Conversation’s piece doesn’t dwell on climate change at all, but rather on Montalto’s research into “green infrastructure” and water handling systems for urban areas. In this case, his focus is on “sponge cities” – city planning that involves using green spaces and planted rooftops to soak up runoff and filter water before it reaches rivers and streams.

This all sounds fine and may well be a valuable response to the fact that development, such as impervious surfaces, gutters flowing into streams, wetland and open space conversion, and channelization of streams in urban areas and suburban areas are contributing to increased runoff and associated flooding. The issue with the proposal for “sponge cities” is not so much the theory of it, but as admitted by the author, the practicality of “transforming” cities in this way.

As Montalto himself writes, “critics say this level of greening is not technically, logistically or socially feasible.” He dismisses these concerns by glibly commenting that, if sponge cities are to exist, “cities will eventually have to figure out how to get there,” and goes no further into debating the criticism.

As cities grow, the issue of flooding naturally grows with it as sewers become overburdened and even more land is used for construction, unless infrastructure is updated and expanded. Improving water handling infrastructure in cities makes sense regardless of climate change. Evidence does not provide justification for Montalto to mention climate change as a causal factor in exacerbating flooding, unless the he just wanted to piggy-back his planning and development ideas onto climate alarm to get a wider hearing for his proposed solutions.

Many of the ‘Climate Experts’ Surveyed by the Guardian in Recent Propaganda Blitz Turn Out to be Emotionally-Unstable Hysterics

The Guardian last week published its survey of ‘climate experts’. The results are a predictable mush of fire-and-brimstone predictions and emotional incontinence. This stunt may have convinced those already aligned to the newspaper’s ideological agenda to redouble their characteristically shrill rhetoric, but encouraging scientists to speculate and emote about the future of the planet looks like an act of political desperation, not scientific communication.

From The Daily Sceptic

BY BEN PILE

The Guardian last week published its survey of ‘climate experts’. The results are a predictable mush of fire-and-brimstone predictions and emotional incontinence. This stunt may have convinced those already aligned to the newspaper’s ideological agenda to redouble their characteristically shrill rhetoric, but encouraging scientists to speculate and emote about the future of the planet looks like an act of political desperation, not scientific communication.

For the purposes of creating this story, the Guardian’s Environment Editor Damian Carrington contacted 843 ‘lead authors’ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports (IPCC) and 383 responded to his questions. The actual substance of the survey does not seem to have been published by the paper, but the main response Carrington wanted to get from his respondents was an estimate of how much global warming there will be by the end of the century. “World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5ºC target,” claims one headline. A graphic in the article shows the responses:

The obvious problem this raises is that such a wide range of views on the next three quarters of a century discredits the notion that the IPCC represents a ‘scientific consensus’ on climate change. The ‘consensus’ – the putative expression of agreement by the worlds ‘top climate scientists’ – is the lynchpin of the narrative, epitomised by the Guardian, that the climate debate is between scientists and denialists. “Seventy seven per cent of climate scientists expect a rise of at least 2.5ºC,” explains the chart. Well, yeah, but 23% of climate scientists do not. And a good number of those connected to the IPCC believe that there will be just 1.5 degrees of warming – a third less warming than is anticipated by their colleagues at the other end of the spectrum. Clearly, there is, or needs to be, a debate.

This in turn raises the question of why this survey was necessary at all. The IPCC’s main output is an Assessment Report (AR), of which six have so far been produced since 1990. Each AR consists of three main volumes, each produced by a Working Group (WG), whose focus is on assessing the available research on “the physical science” (WG1), impacts and vulnerabilities (WG2), and mitigation options (WG3). A Guardian opinion survey is hardly going to shed any light on science that these scientists, who authored the reports, have not already published. It would seem rather silly to ignore the thousands of pages of summaries of the state of scientific understanding that hundreds of scientists and other experts have compiled and substitute it with a DIY opinion poll.

Opinion isn’t science. Even scientific opinion is not science. Yet Carrington seems to believe that tapping into the emotions of scientists is of greater value than reading their work. And all sorts of mush seems to have been unleashed by his project. “‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families,” claims one headline based on the survey. According to the article, the victim of the panic is a Professor Lisa Schipper, whom Carrington describes as “an expert on climate vulnerability”. Schipper’s profile, however, reveals her actual occupation: “I am particularly interested in socio-cultural dimensions of vulnerability, including gender, culture and religion, as well as structural issues related to power, justice and equity.” I’m smelling a rat here, and more than a whiff of humbug. Schipper is not a climate scientist at all, as Carrington seems to imply in both his headline and his article.

Another article – an interactive page on the Guardian website – claims: “We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future.” The article quotes, among others, Lorraine Whitmarsh from the University of Bath, who tells Carrington:

[Climate change] is an existential threat to humanity and [lack of] political will and vested corporate interests are preventing us addressing it. I do worry about the future my children are inheriting.

But Whitmarsh is not a climate scientist either. According to her academic profile at Bath, She did a BA in Theology and Religious Studies with French at the University of Kent, graduating in 1997. She followed this with a Masters in ‘Science, Culture and Communication’, before completing a PhD in Psychology in 2005. Now Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST), Whitmarsh researches “perceptions and behaviour in relation to climate change, energy and transport” and “regularly advises governmental and other organisations on low-carbon behaviour change and climate change communication”.

I have discussed the nature of climate psychologists’ work before in the Daily Sceptic. And of course, CAST is of that lofty academic milieu which wraps naked Stalinism in motherhood-and-apple-pie. “We want to work closely with people and organisations to achieve positive low-carbon futures — transforming the way we live our lives, and reconfiguring organisations and cities,” says the group’s website. What it doesn’t have an answer to, however, is people who do not share CAST’s radical ideology and do not want their lives, cities or organisations transformed or reconfigured by self-regarding shrinks – who are manifestly the ones in need of help.

There are of course a number of respondents with scientific backgrounds who have replied to Carrington. But these scientific credentials do not seem to have made those who own them any more rational. “Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken,” says climate scientist Ruth Cerezo-Mota, who at least appears to have a PhD in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, “after all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the last three years worldwide, all related to climate change…”

But perhaps Cerezo-Mota forgot to read IPCC AR 6 in which her colleagues conclude that any detectable increase in floods and meteorological and hydrological droughts cannot be attributed with confidence to anthropogenic climate change. And perhaps she forgot that two decades of wildfire data in all regions of the world show significant declines.

I think it is probably for the best that such nervous wrecks do not reproduce. Their grasp on the data is particularly myopic. Despite their apparent belief that the climate crisis is upon us, life for children born in recent years is immeasurably better that of earlier generations. Rather than being dominated by the weather, today’s children are not only far more likely to survive their fifth birthday, they are going to live longer, healthier, wealthier and safer lives than any generation before them.

That is, unless these crazy climate scientists get their way. Because they would strip away every last benefit of industry, capitalism,and freedom to ‘save the planet’, and deny those children the abundant and affordable resources that has created their historically unprecedented position.

It goes further than humbug. I sense very little data and science underpins their anti-natalism, but a great deal of ideology and manipulation. So how can we explain these scientists’ views, if we don’t believe that they emerge from science?

One answer might be that, for nearly 40 years now, green ideology has been poured into classrooms throughout the world, without any care for the consequences. It has largely bounced off most people. But several generations of children have now come up through this system into the adult world, through higher education. The institutions of climate and environmental science have increasingly become the centres to which unhinged individuals are drawn. Emotionally unstable people naturally seek reasons to explain their dysphoria and believing there is a crisis unfolding in the skies above their heads (rather than in them) is a way to explain their anxieties. After all, if you were not a climate loon, why would you volunteer your time to the IPCC? Gradually, rational views have been weeded out of these institutions.

I believe that is the implication of Carrington’s series of Guardian articles and his survey. It shows that people with no scientific expertise to speak of are nonetheless routinely presented as ‘scientists’ and experts. It shows that even those with scientific expertise will happily and radically depart from both the consensus position and the objective data on both meteorological events and their societal impacts. And it shows they have no reluctance to use their own emotional distress as leverage to coerce others. Carrington thinks that showing us scientists’ emotional troubles will convince us to share their anxiety. But all it shows is that it would be deeply foolish to defer to the authority of climate science. It’s an unstable mess. Science must be cool, calm, rational, detached and disinterested, or it is just a silly soap opera.

Day: May 14, 2024

Modeling The Mysteries

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Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2024. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

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Turning Taxpayers Into Risk Takers

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2024. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

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Offshore wind cumulative impact issue analysis

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Wind Industry’s Wanton Whale Slaughter Caused by Constant Deafening Construction Noise

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