Parents of Climate-Scared Youngsters should Read This: 'there is no climate emergency'

Some children and young people are obviously genuinely scared by the climate propaganda they have been exposed to by their teachers and others who should've known better.   Being scared about the future is a rotten way to move towards the world of work and achievement.  These youngsters urgently need our help.  Getting them to read the declaration below would be an easy start to what may be a long process:

'There is no climate emergency

A global network of 500 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming

The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted

The world has warmed at less than half the originally-predicted rate, and at less than half the rate to be expected on the basis of net anthropogenic forcing and radiative imbalance. It tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models

Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. Moreover, they most likely exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth

CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters

There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly. For instance, wind turbines kill birds and insects, and palm-oil plantations destroy the biodiversity of the rainforests.

Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, we will have ample time to reflect and adapt. The aim of international policy should be to provide reliable and affordable energy at all times, and throughout the world.'

This has been signed by hundreds of scientists and climate policy experts.  Monckton of Brenchley describes them as follows: 'The Global Climate Intelligence Group, whose objective is to put the science back into climate science, comprises scientists, professionals and researchers from many nations, has already attracted some 500 signatures for what began life scant weeks ago as the European Climate Declaration.

The group, and the declaration, are the brainchild of Professor Guus Berkhout, emeritus professor of Geophysics in the Delft University of Technology. Professor Berkhout is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences./

More details here:  https://clintel.nl/prominent-scientists-warn-un-secretary-general-guterres/

Hat-tip WUWT: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/28/global-climate-intelligence-group-founded/

What is it like to read calm, rational, highly-informed reasoning on climate? Try Prof Nir Shaviv for starters.

The appalling, unhinged demonstrations on climate by schoolchildren, and their tragically duped and exploited figurehead Greta Thunberg, are a bit wearisome to say the least.  So, by way of a break, let us have a read of a calmer, highly-informed climate commentary from a penetrating rather than a brainwashed mind - that of Professor Nir Shaviv:

'Political and corporate leaders gathered for the climate week in New York City have urged significant action to fight global warming. But, given the high costs of the suggested solutions, could it be that the suggested cure is worse than the disease?

As a liberal who grew up in a solar house, I have always been energy-conscious and inclined toward activist solutions to environmental issues. I was therefore extremely surprised when my research as an astrophysicist led me to the conclusion that climate change is more complicated than we are led to believe. The disease is much more benign, and a simple palliative solution lies in front of our eyes. 

To begin with, the story we hear in the media, that most 20th-century warming is anthropogenic, that the climate is very sensitive to changes in CO2, and that future warming will, therefore, be large and will happen very soon, simply isn’t supported by any direct evidence, only a shaky line of circular reasoning. We “know” that humans must have caused some warming, we see warming, we don’t know of anything else that could have caused the warming, so it adds up.

However, there is no calculation based on first principles that leads to a large warming by CO2—none. Mind you, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports state that doubling CO2 will increase the temperatures by anywhere from 1.5 degrees to 4.5 degrees C, a huge range of uncertainty that dates back to the Charney committee from 1979.

In fact, there is no evidence on any time scale showing that CO2 variations or other changes to the energy budget cause large temperature variations. There is, however, evidence to the contrary. Tenfold variations in CO2 over the past half-billion years have no correlation whatsoever with temperature; likewise, the climate response to large volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa.

Both examples lead to the inescapable upper limit of 1.5 degrees C per CO2 doubling—much more modest than the sensitive IPCC climate models predict. However, the large sensitivity of the latter is required in order to explain 20th-century warming, or so it is erroneously thought.

In 2008, I showed, using various data sets that span as much as a century, that the amount of heat going into the oceans, in sync with the 11-year solar cycle, is an order of magnitude larger than the relatively small effect expected simply from changes in the total solar output. Namely, solar activity variations translate into large changes in the so-called radiative forcing on the climate.

Since solar activity significantly increased over the 20th century, a significant fraction of the warming should be then attributed to the sun, and because the overall change in the radiative forcing due to CO2 and solar activity is much larger, climate sensitivity should be on the low side (about 1 to 1.5 degrees C per CO2 doubling).

In the decade following the publication of the above, not only was the paper uncontested, more data, this time from satellites, confirmed the large variations associated with solar activity. In light of this hard data, it should be evident by now that a large part of the warming isn’t human, and that future warming from any given emission scenario will be much smaller.

Alas, because the climate community developed a blind spot to any evidence that should raise a red flag, such as the aforementioned examples or the much smaller tropospheric warming over the past two decades than models predicted, the rest of the public sees a very distorted view of climate change—a shaky scientific picture that is full of inconsistencies became one of certain calamity.

With this public mindset, phenomena such as that of child activist Greta Thunberg are no surprise. Most bothersome, however, is that this mindset has compromised the ability to convey the science to the public.

One example from the past month is my interview with Forbes. A few hours after the article was posted online, it was removed by the editors “for failing to meet our editorial standards.” The fact that it’s become politically incorrect to have any scientific discussion has led the public to accept the pseudo-argumentation supporting the catastrophic scenarios.

Evidence for warming doesn’t tell us what caused the warming, and any time someone has to appeal to the so-called 97 percent consensus, he or she is doing so because his or her scientific arguments aren’t strong enough. Science isn’t a democracy.'

Read the full essay here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-climate-change-pseudoscience-became-publicly-accepted_3093372.html

[Hat-tip, and for more links to writing by Prof Shaviv, see Climate Depot ]

Are kids going to be permanently damaged by climate scaremongering?

The bizarre 'school strikes' and the sanctification of Greta Thunberg must continue to amaze and dismay anyone who knows even a modest amount about the climate system and climate variation.

macleans.ca

The absence of any remotely credible case for there being a 'climate emergency' will no doubt be apparent to future generations able to look back with dropped jaws at these recent events, and the decades of propaganda which led to them.  But will the young victims of the scaremongering ever recover from it?

Will the political forces behind the scaremongering ever want to let them recover?  After all, scared and bewildered people would seem well-suited to handing over more of their lives to government control, and to supporting all the various gravy trains that the scare has enriched with a trillion dollar market.

A recent post by Simon at Australian Climate Madness provides a neat summary, which I hope they won't mind my reproducing in full:

'The climate strikes aren’t about climate, they are about anti-capitalism

Most of the deluded kids on the climate “strikes” last week didn’t have a clue why they were there.

Enthusiastically cheered on by the mainstream media, it was a cheeky bludge off school and all they were doing was trying to “save the planet” right?

No of course not. These gullible kids are being exploited by all kinds of extreme-Left and anti-capitalist groups in order to bring about a wholesale societal change, using our children as their innocent pawns.

The website for the strikes refers to the need for “climate justice” which we all know is code for wealth redistribution from rich countries to poor, and an excuse for the usurping of normal democratic processes.

And as we no longer educate children to think for themselves, you can bet this brainwashing will last decades – possibly their entire lives.

Shameful.'

So, he reckons the kids will suffer for 'decades' more, or maybe 'their entire lives'.  It seems to me a major pastoral care effort is required - with 'ordinary' folks everywhere defending the very young from more of the same, and helping the existing victims develop a calmer, more informed perspective on both climate variation and on political manipulation.

Footnote.  One commenter on the ACM post asked for evidence of the politicisation of the climate scare.  Another promptly gave him a list of for instances:    https://australianclimatemadness.com/2019/09/23/the-climate-strikes-arent-about-climate-they-are-about-anti-capitalism/#comment-37903

The GWPF Climate Quiz for Children on 'Strike': what kind of a lousy crisis is this?

An excellent idea from the Global Warming Policy Foundation to help children decide if they are 'strike-ready' - in other words are they informed about just how bad this climate emergency is?

Try the questions here:  https://www.playbuzz.com/item/af7c2201-9cea-4b05-85cb-e826e021b6cc

You'll be asked about temperature rises, about floods, about world poverty, about forest cover, and more.

And the answers are provided at the end.

Hey, parents everywhere, your kids' teachers may be scaring them as poor Greta was scared at school,  but you don't have to let that stick.  Equip yourself with the answers to this short quiz and be on hand as your children give it a try.  

Not much to be scared about there, eh?

Addendum 1
Over in the States, meanwhile, there is a report of a panel of schoolchildren appointed to dictate climate policy:

'WASHINGTON, D.C.—At a panel on climate change held yesterday, the Senate brought in a group of excited third graders for ideas on fighting climate change.

“These kids have ideas and they are passionate, so we must listen to them,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii. “There are no possible downsides to taking kids who have been told the world is ending by the public school system and allowing them to dictate national policies on important issues.”

The kids came up with the following list so far, though they say they’re “just spitballing” and the ideas need some fleshing out:

• Bribing the climate with cookies and candy
• Putting the climate on time-out
• Just ignoring climate change and playing Fortnite
• Building a giant magnet and sucking up all the bad climate stuff
• Buying a Nintendo Switch for every person in the nation (so they’ll stay inside and play Nintendo instead of driving cars)
• Making a big freeze ray gun like in Despicable Me and shooting the climate
• Pointing and laughing at cows who fart so they’ll be embarrassed and stop fartingthe Babyloe 
• Hey do you guys want to play some Minecraft? This is boring.'

See:  https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/20/panel-of-third-graders-to-dictate-nations-climate-change-policy/

And the source of this scoop:  'The Babylon Bee'

Addendum 2
For older pupils, there are some worthy suggestions re climate homework here:
https://spectator.us/homework-climate-strikers/

Climate 'Striking' Schools: "having children demonstrate on school time was the Soviet way"

Two extracts from an article in the New York Post: 

The ‘Climate Strike’ is a crock that exploits kids

By Karol Markowicz

September 17, 2019 | 8:08pm

{With my emphases added:}

'This Friday, in advance of the United Nations Climate Summit, students across the country will walk out of their schools as part of a Climate Strike. In New York City, the Department of Education has given its stamp of approval to the walk-out and won’t mark it as an absence, making it less “a strike” and more a coordinated effort by the school system to force political action on children.'

and

'In my Russian-speaking community, people took to Facebook to discuss the similarities they saw to their time in the Soviet Union. One mom posted that the strike is “Soviet-style brainwashing and propaganda” Another mom wrote that the particular issue doesn’t matter; “having children demonstrate on school time was the Soviet way.”

One Park Slope elementary school sent parents a note that the entire school will be walking out for the strike. A mother of a 6-year-old told me, in response: “I am all for people supporting causes they believe in, but do not force your causes and beliefs on my first-grader.”

Another mom told me she believes in climate change and thinks the government should take action but finds the strike absurd. She’s afraid to single her kid out by making him skip it and isn’t speaking up.'

Read the whole article here:  https://nypost.com/2019/09/17/the-climate-strike-is-a-crock-that-exploits-kids/

Note added 19 Sep 2019.  The kids stand on thin ice, as do all the eco-zealots who have been pushing the children to 'strike'.  Delingpole has exposed a goodly selection of their nonsenses and deceptions:   https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/18/delingpole-fact-checking-alarmist-kids-false-claims-at-climate-crisis-hearing/