Good News! Another Blog to Resist Entrenched CO2-Alarmism

A small group of solo-bloggers on climate topics in or from the UK has launched a new blog called 'Climate Scepticism':

Yours truly played a minor role in this, mainly just encouraging the others and promising to do more in the future.  Theirs was the original idea, and theirs the energy that got it launched.

Earlier this year (27 April post), I said I was going to post less often here, but that I would maintain the blog - especially the reference Pages - when I came across relevant material.  I also mentioned a couple of posts I had mind to publish soon.  I have not done those yet, but instead I have put up a few easier-to-do reactions to or reports on other people's work.  I still hope to do the promised posts, and others from time to time.

This new blog suits me, and the others behind it, in that by sharing the work, we hope to keep it lively and frequently updated so that it becomes a popular place to visit.  How dull, after all, is a blog where new posts are few and far between.

From the 'About' page of the new blog, some further explanation:

'The climate sceptic blogosphere is becoming crowded to the point that it’s difficult to keep up. Several of us (all British or UK based so far), are getting weary of the effort of grinding out several articles a month simply in order to remain visible. It’s not that we haven’t got something to say – rather that we’d like to take the time to say it as audibly and as clearly as possible.

Our thinking in launching this new blog (called – very originally – Climate Scepticism) is that a joint site, with more frequent and more varied articles, would be more visible and possibly more useful. 
We don’t aim to compete with Bishop Hill or WattsUpWithThat on the news-gathering front, but to assemble a number of disparate voices in a joint venture. There’s no “party line” or rulebook, and certainly no 97% consensus about anything.'

I hope that those who drop-in on Climate Lessons will find Climate Scepticism a congenial and informative and lively blog to visit, and that they will consider posting comments there to help keep the ball rolling.  Guest posts are also welcome - one has appeared there already.

If you are a blogger yourself, please also consider adding http://cliscep.com/ to your list of links.

Researching the Scares and the Spins: what made one man change his mind about rising CO2 being a crisis

The harm being caused by so many people's naive acceptance of the crisis-PR put out by the IPPC, sundry 'academics', and no end of financially-interested NGOs, is dreadful.  Their spins have dominated the press and airwaves and school and university curricula for decades.  It is likely that most of the general public have never actually read or listened to the counter-arguments. When major institutions such as the BBC and the Royal Society have been corrupted by their leaderships to promote climate alarm as unassailable dogma, who can blame that public for knowing no better?

One man has recently written about his journey from 'true-believer' to having a calmer and more balanced view of CO2 and climate (hat-tip: WUWT).  He is David Siegel:

'Over the years, I built a set of assumptions: that Al Gore was right about global warming, that he was the David going up against the industrial Goliath. In 1993, I even wrote a book about it.
Recently, a friend challenged those assumptions. At first, I was annoyed, because I thought the science really was settled. As I started to look at the data and read about climate science, I was surprised, then shocked. As I learned more, I changed my mind. I now think there probably is no climate crisis and that the focus on CO2 takes funding and attention from critical environmental problems. I’ll start by making ten short statements that should challenge your assumptions and then back them up with an essay.'

Here are his 10 points:

1Weather is not climate. There are no studies showing a conclusive link between global warming and increased frequency or intensity of storms, droughts, floods, cold or heat waves.

2Natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous. Most of what people call “global warming” is natural. The earth is warming, but not quickly, not much, and not lately.

3There is tremendous uncertainty as to how the climate really works. Climate models are not yet skillful; predictions are unresolved.

4New research shows fluctuations in energy from the sun correlate very strongly with changes in earth’s temperature, better than CO2 levels.

5CO2 has very little to do with it. All the decarbonization we can do isn’t going to change the climate much.

6There is no such thing as “carbon pollution.” Carbon dioxide is coming out of your nose right now; it is not a poisonous gas. CO2 concentrations in previous eras have been many times higher than they are today.

7Sea level will probably continue to rise, naturally and slowly. Researchers have found no link between CO2 and sea level.

8The Arctic experiences natural variation as well, with some years warmer earlier than others. Polar bear numbers are up, not down. They have more to do with hunting permits than CO2*.

9No one has shown any damage to reef or marine systems. Additional man-made CO2 will not likely harm oceans, reef systems, or marine life. Fish are mostly threatened by people, who eat them.

10The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others are pursuing a political agenda and a PR campaign, not scientific inquiry. There’s a tremendous amount of trickery going on under the surface.'



His blog contains a great deal of material to back up his claims, and he is also intent on campaigning to 'educate influential liberals'.  The term 'liberal' in the United States is used these days to denote 'leftwing', and that may well include the majority of schoolteachers and academics.  Here on this blog we hope that in due course there will be massive efforts to help repair the damage that has been done to the minds and spirits of wave after wave of schoolchildren from recent decades.  David Siegel's campaign may well be a crucial early step towards such a pastoral effort actually taking place.

PS Paul Matthews has compiled a list of relatively prominent people who have 'recovered their senses' about climate:  https://ipccreport.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/converts-to-scepticism/

Climate Scaremongering Antidote: resisting the demonisation of CO2

While the search for a cure-all for CO2 alarmism continues, we shall, in the meantime, have to make do with piecemeal treatments to help young people cope with the deluge of woefully inadequate information relating to climate.

The problem is sometimes the information is wrong, but perhaps more common is a severe lack of balance.

The fact that the gentle overall warming of the last 150 years or so is generally very beneficial is not acknowledged,  whatever combination of factors has caused it.  Nor is the positive impact of higher ambient CO2 levels on agricultural productivity often recognised.

When your goal is to scare people to get their attention, I guess you don't want to dilute your messaging.  But we who don't care for their tactics nor their cause, need to be ready to respond to them, or at least help reduce the harm they must cause.

A new report from the GWPF provides parents and teachers with help to do that by providing an excellent background briefing on the benefits of CO2.

Image: GWPF

From their press release:

'... former IPCC delegate Dr Indur Goklany calls for a reassessment of carbon dioxide, which he says has many benefits for the natural world and for humankind.

Dr Goklany said: “Carbon dioxide fertilises plants, and emissions from fossil fuels have already had a hugely beneficial effect on crops, increasing yields by at least 10-15%. This has not only been good for humankind but for the natural world too, because an acre of land that is not used for crops is an acre of land that is left for nature”.'

There is also an excellent foreword from the extremely distinguished physicist, Freeman Dyson, who concludes (my italics, bolding and layout):

'Indur Goklany has assembled a massive collection of evidence to demonstrate two facts. 

First, the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide are dominant over the climatic effects and are overwhelmingly beneficial. 

Second, the climatic effects observed in the real world are much less damaging than the effects predicted by the climate models, and have also been frequently beneficial. 

I am hoping that the scientists and politicians who have been blindly demonising carbon dioxide for 37 years will one day open their eyes and look at the evidence. Goklany and I do not claim to be infallible. Like the climate-model experts, we have also evolved recently from the culture of the cave-children. Like them, we have inherited our own set of prejudices and blindnesses. Truth emerges when different groups of explorers listen to each other’s stories and correct each other’s mistakes.'

 

The report can be downloaded free of charge from this link:  http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf

PS
For those who may want to keep up to date on this topic, or to find out more from the scientific literature about it, this site is invaluable: CO2 Science.

Note added 15 Oct 2015.  The reformed ex-Greenpeace leader, Patrick Moore gave the GWPF Annual Lecture last night arguing we should 'celebrate CO2'.  Details via this link: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/10/15/should-we-celebrate-co2-cartoon-notes-by-josh.html