I think Emily was spot on about the IRA (I still have to do a double-take when I hear that acronym). I remember people warning at the beginning of the Biden administration that if the Democrats ignored the concerns of the working class the vote would swing back violently at the next election, and look what has happened. It should be a warning to the UK Labour government not to make the same mistake, but unfortunately we are just as vulnerable to corporate interests and seem to be following the same austerity path as before, while funding scientifically dubious Not Zero initiatives, such as CCS.
It seemed to become very quickly evident that the Democrats either weren't willing or able to directly address the reasons for Trump's previous victory, simply doubling down on what they know and effectively guaranteeing this replay/repeat. If they are going to emerge from this hole, they need to recognise and learn from what the Republicans are getting right organisationally and emotionally (albeit re-purposed for different aims). As Naomi Klein has identified, the Republicans or MAGA are getting the feelings right (or rather mobilising affect and pathos far better), and, as a guest on this podcast noted, they are proving to be far better at building coalitions and doing intersectionality (despite their frenzied criticisms of "woke" and "cultural Marxisms", it's deeply ironic that they do some aspects of this far better than their largely imagined enemies). And, of course, Project 2025 is an output of decades of planning/effort.
I think the trolls and hungry ghosts are perhaps momentarily satiated by recent events, or at least enjoying richer pickings elsewhere. Soon, no doubt.
Possibly one or two missionaries of industrial progress and prosperity now arriving to save us from our faulty scientific "beliefs" and to soothe and alleviate our misplaced fears and worries about an "illusory" climate emergency.
Many thanks for this Rachel. The slight delay to the appearance of a show made me think this had hit you very hard.
I’ve had the US election day marked on my calendar as ‘the world ends’ for several months now, largely for reasons painfully and usefully demarcated here. Climatologically and ecologically this next Trump presidency will be the leading intersection point or wave-front of multiple destructive systems: capitalist-economic, social media-technological, masculinist-conservative, conspiracist-post-truth … a perfect storm of entropy-accelerating, ecocidal forces that Trump happens to currently best embody and represent. Its also fascinating and horrifying that the key five to ten years of the Limits to Growth study collapse scenario are right now. The study provided little sense of the politics and social dynamics that would coincide with those simple curves and projections, but we are seeing them unfold before us in real time, rather like passengers on a crazy roller coaster that we have awoken on. Likewise, the key five to ten years for bending the carbon curves to 1.5 to 2C, also right now. Hence, the rather apocalyptic annotation on my calendar: a socio-political tipping point or event-horizon.
So many questions answered, and simply asked, have opened my eyes to connections, influencing our lives.
Yes, the laughter was joyful. Typing this note into my phone with my old finger, tears rolling down my cheeks, my stomach in knots. I appreciate like minded people exploring new ways to think, new connection to our reality.
Long-time listener here. You forgot to ask her who she wanted to platform!
One comment on the very last subject, which was that we should point out the problems with fossil fuels besides climate, such as plastics. Totally agreed. Another example is how much environmental devastation is inflicted on ecosystems and habitat by fossil fuel extraction and refining, before it even gets burned. There are plenty of horror-show images from around the world showing what happens to a place when it's fracked or mined or filled with rigs. In the ocean, there's oil spills and their terrible effects on wildlife. There is one danger to going this way, though, which is that clean energy production also inflicts devastation on ecosystems through the mining and manufacture that's necessary before a solar farm or wind farm goes online, plus the devastation to sites that are cleared for these projects. So I would understand why some clean energy advocates might want to stay away from this kind of messaging--because it would risk revealing the not-so-green side of clean. Confession: I know climate change is real, and know we must make great changes to address it, but I am not in favor of more industrial power production to get there. My focus is on protecting ecosystems and wildlife habitat, and I don't want to see the desert bulldozed for panels and blades, so I believe another route should be primary: to drastically decrease our overall energy usage. I know some people think this is unrealistic, but I don't think it's realistic to destroy the environment in order to save it, which is what all those GW of clean energy look like to me. Sooner or later, one way or another, the only way for us to live on this planet is to consume less--much much less--and in our current moment, it feels like talking about clean energy is a way of avoiding that topic.
"...we have so many mega billionaires, which is so great for everybody. And I love it. I just love it so much." Opinions such as this may well explain the Democrats' failure.
Rachel/Emily Thank you for the podcast some interesting points and a cracking sense of humour but the key point is why? Climate Change was not high on the agenda and unless you are in academia I don't think it is high on the agenda with most people in the UK, Some may be concerned but not enough to stop driving an SUV or having 2/3 holidays a year. There seems to be a disconnect between their understanding of the problem and the actual speed and seriousness of the problem. One problem is mainstream medias under reporting of the issue that has slowly desensitised the masses, another is the metrics used ie the MET Office website has six or eight metrics for where we are above pre-industrial, the other is anomolies from differing baselines just stick to pre-industrial and agree what that metric will be ie 10 or 20 year average but get all scientists to use the same and finally get Scientists to say it as it is with strong language. ie Not, 'there is a slim chance of staying within 1.5 deg C,' say, 'in all probability 1.5 deg C is as dead as the dodo'.
PS The later was correct before Trump was elected.
You probably know some/all of this already, but the social scientific research on why humans are rubbish at addressing climate change is pretty solid (and has been for a while). The psychological problems might be the hardest to overcome, given that they’re rooted in our Paleolithic brains, which weren’t really geared for this kind of threat. Here is Dan Glibert’s list from nearly two decades ago:
1. It lacks a human face
2. It doesn’t violate our moral sensitivities
3. It is a threat to our future, not our present
4. We are sensitive to relative and comparative changes, not absolute ones.
Basically, we are hardwired to respond to agency (typically human agency but anything that might kill/hurt us will do); climate is too abstract to produce a visceral/emotional reaction (although weather catastrophes are a different matter); we tend to discount threats in the future (we suck at thinking about risk, probability and things which aren’t temporally near); we aren’t well-equipped for identifying global and gradual/slow changes (unless we can make meaningful comparisons).
Then there is a whole host of cognitive biases and psychological defense mechanisms that we all share, from motivated reasoning and confirmation biases to various forms of self-deception and denial that protect us from uncomfortable information and painful data.
I haven’t touched on the cultural and systemic programming yet. I started to draw up a list three decades ago, as to why we are resistant to meeting climate change and other aspects of the ecological crisis, but it became very long, very quickly.
Whether you call them beliefs, identities, ideologies, ways of life, worldviews, and/or values, its these things that carry the motivational and behavioural weight for most people. Frequently, climatological and ecological facts will be rejected or ignored when they conflict with deeply held beliefs, group identities and values. These could be religious beliefs (‘God is in control’), beliefs about authority (e.g. government, experts and elites), conspiracy beliefs (NWO, globalization, ‘climate scientists getting rich’), beliefs about where this will lead (e.g. big government, ‘living in a cave’), beliefs about the nature of science (e.g. misplaced demands for certainty, cherry picked data and studies), beliefs about human nature (e.g. human ingenuity and innovation is an infinite resource), beliefs about risk (‘the odds are fine’). The list goes on. The bottom line is that group membership, political affiliation, a sense of identity or ideology, and pre-existing values are the major determinants of climate change responses. And that’s all without touching on vested interests, systemic intertia and the downwardly causal power of the economic, institutional, media, national and tech systems that we inhabit.
Restated (just to further depress myself): most people, most of the time, will believe and double down on what they want to believe, and that’s usually what they already believe. By default, there is a lot of path-dependency, conservatism and business as usual built into climate change denial at multiple levels. As President Bush Sr. stated at the Earth Summit in Rio back in 1992, “The American way of life is not up for negotiation’ and we don’t seem to have moved far beyond that. Human obstinacy and intractability is a pretty tough nut to crack. Fuck indeed.
I recently commented on a Planet Critical podcast about defining the terms we use, as in asking "what do you mean by that." Listening to this Podcast, it triggered thoughts about what does "renewable" mean. In my opinion, it's a useless, mushy feel good word that entities trying to profit from our situation love. Yes, it's critical that we move from the very nonrenewable coal, oil and gas (as in "once used, it's gone forever"--sorry future generations) sources of energy. Our transition requires us to go back to prior times to when fossilized carbon became available in the early 1800s and we know what happened then . . . ). Up until then, we relied on the energy coming from fusion reactions in the sun, which were then captured (I like the word harvested better) by plants (autotrophs) and in part transferred on to we heterotrophs (we including all other living beings). When I eat a salad shortly, I'll have passed on to me solar energy (we're solar powered!) that not long ago arrived on earth. We had also relied on solar energy for wind (sales, windmills, etc.) that heated the air and caused air flows that energized us. Similarly, solar heat created evaporation that became rain and, well, you know the rest. What we have now to help us out massively is technology (solar panels, turbine generators, etc.) to harvest energy. These are not vague renewable processes but rather, more helpfully expressed, HARVESTING of energy flows. We need to change the paradigm in our narratives.
On a related note, none of these alternatives to fossilized carbon are "clean," rather they are arguably less dirty but still require environmentally damaging extraction and the exploitation of workers. We need to find words that describe reality and then we can move on to solutions. BTW, early on I drank the koolaid that buying a Tesla was a statement of environmental action. Only as time went on did I realize how much embodied energy and extractive materials were in these expensive, gimmick filled vehicles.
BTW#2, as a fan of history, I am always blown away by what humanity, in terms of ideas and material things, etc., achieved before fossil fuels took over.
Robert, “renewables” is a meaningless euphemism. No one is prepared to explain to me why the International Standards Organisation’s Life Cycle Analysis Guidelines are not applied with rigour to so-called “renewables”. Such an analysis requires that the full environmental, social and financial costs of a product are analysed and assessed. If we wanted to talk about solar panels, we would have to begin with the extraction of bauxite, the transport and refining. of that bauxite for aluminium, the manufacture of frames for solar panels from he aluminium, the transport of solar panels, usually from China, the installation of those panels, their replacement after 10-15 years, the transport of those old solar panels to wherever it is that they are to be reprocessed or dumped and the impact on the environment of that whole process. We could do the same with wind turbines and batteries. It soon becomes obvious that virtue signalling with the euphemism of “renewables” is unwilling to face the honest truth that renewables have a massive downside which advocates deny.
There seems a dichotomy between “ramping up extraction” and thermodynamic collapse which 2 recent guests claim will be fully in force by 2030. It has to be either/or. I believe trump will crash and burn exactly at the time when his cult questions why energy costs, in fact, can’t be halved because peak oil has arrived. Trump is entirely ignorant about all energy reality and will savor the uproar that his stupidity will ruin.
ONLY individuals actively limiting our carbon footprints/our ecological footprints can do anything to mitigate climate collapse. All the rest is just BS.
I learned something big, Thanks Rachel and Ms. Atkin! My summary (so far)
Elon Musk rap diff from behavior. Tesla's website: "the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution." But Musk supports Trump's drill-baby-drill team cuz he wants a portion of profits from fossil fuel-generated electricity, whose increasing demand is will not allow phase out of Carbon Energy. Corollary: A complete transition to renewables is a fantasy. They are mostly an addition to existing energy portfolio. Per Michaux et al., minerals won't be available fast enough. Everyone get ready to cook in hot temps. Oy! I don't trust Musk.
The idea that the climate crisis has deepened with the election of Trump is emotion-driven hysteria. The climate crisis is what, 200 years in the making? Longer? It was full-on long before Trump and it will remain full-on regardless of whom is in office. It's but one more byproduct of our overshoot, the effect that one man in office will have on that overshoot will not even register. It's like suggesting a fist sized snowball will exacerbate an avalanche already in progress. It will not. Rather, the disaster will simply continue unabated as it would have if Harris had been elected, or anyone else. As for Trump not leaving in four years, the Left has been speculating this of Republican presidents since George W. Bush, whom if you recall, according to the Left, was going to invoke martial law in order to stay in power. And? We've got enough going on without muddying the waters devolving into hysteria over the polarizing individuals populating our decline and fall.
Elon Musk is not all about clean tech. Tesla is just one of his businesses. He’s there to maximise capitalism. It makes sense. As the capitalist pyramid scheme grows higher, the richest will eventually wield enough power to direct presidents and policy personally and publicly.
James Meadway on Macrodose just made a great point: as it becomes more difficult for capital to extract and grow in conventional ways, it will naturally turn to the government and public money as a source of profit. Elon’s businesses enjoy huge government contracts.
To calculate the number of 600Ah 48V lithium racks required, we first need to determine the total energy storage capacity needed in watt-hours (Wh).
1. Total Energy Consumption:
We calculated earlier that you need 3,456,000,000 Joules of energy.
To convert Joules to watt-hours:
Total energy consumption (Wh) = 3,456,000,000 Joules / 3600 = 960,000 Wh
2. Energy Capacity of a Single Rack:
A single 600Ah 48V lithium rack has a capacity of:
Rack capacity (Wh) = 600Ah * 48V = 28,800 Wh
3. Number of Racks Required:
To find the number of racks, we divide the total energy consumption by the capacity of a single rack:
Number of racks = 960,000 Wh / 28,800 Wh/rack ≈ 33.33
Since we can't have a fraction of a rack, we need to round up to the nearest whole number.
Therefore, you would need 34 600Ah 48V lithium racks to power your two 8000W heat pump mini-splits for 24 hours.
Important Note:
This calculation is based on ideal conditions and assumes 100% efficiency in energy conversion and storage. In reality, there will be some energy losses, so you may need to consider a slight overprovision to ensure sufficient power.
It's also crucial to consult with a qualified electrician or battery specialist to design a suitable system that takes into account factors like inverter efficiency, battery discharge rate, and safety considerations.
34 - 600ah 48v Lithium racked batteries, 34 racks standing four feet tall x 30 in wide. 34 separate solar panel array at 10’ x 20’ rectangles 640 wide feet of 10’ tall
Two reports that must be factored into any conversation about so-called energy transition.
Firstly, the STATISTICAL REVIEW OF WORLD ENERGY published earlier this year. That report shows the following breakdown of energy by source:
Oil 196 EJ
Coal 164 EJ
Natural Gas 144 EJ
Nuclear 25 EJ
Hydro. 40 EJ
Other renewables 51 EJ
TOTAL 620EJ
Secondly, the UN’s EMISSIONS GAP REPORT 2024 published in October. The Executive Summary Figure ES.1 shows the breakdown of the Total GHG emissions in 2023 of 57.1/GtCO2e.
These need to be considered when any conversation about energy policy is held as these give a true picture of the current state of affairs which must be understood before any decisions are made about any response. Unfortunately, this sort of analysis is missing and so there is more heat than light.
1 joule of energy is 1 watt of power applied for 1 second.
1 kWh of energy is 1000 watts of power applied for 3,600 seconds or 3,600,000 joules or 3.6 million joules.
An Exajoule (EJ) is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules or 1 million million million joules.
It is also 277.77 (recurring) MWhs (megawatt hours or million watt hours).
A typical household toaster has a rating of 1000 watts and it takes 2-3 minutes to cook a 2 pieces of toast. That is, it takes 1000x120 or 1000x180 joules which is 120,000 or 180,000 joules.
The two reports to which I referred show that 81.5% of global energy comes from fossil fuels and electricity is only one source of energy. A so-called energy transition based on so-called renewables is not really going to make much difference in spite of the hype.
Your answer is so very clear. The abyss is right in front of us. I wish to know as many like minded people as I can chance to meet. There is a comfort in that for me.
Electrifying everything is nonsense. Electricity only accounts for 20% of global energy. Unfortunately, people have to live in cloud cuckoo land if they believe electrifying everything is either feasible or desirable.
As an electrical engineer, I understand the challenge of providing firming capacity for so-called renewables.
Most of the conversation is caught in the current global, consumptive, environment destroying system which Jason W. Moore rightly calls a global ecology.
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s new book MORE AND MORE AND MORE presents some really uncomfortable truths about the so-called energy transition.
I have been a guest on the "Heated" and its more of an alarmist site and not very scientific and only interested in one side of the story. I am sure that Trump will shut down all the effort on Climate mitigation actions.... He is fully justified based on the scant scientific evidence that we have a climate crisis....
It’s time for all governments to ask far more questions about the need for NetZero…..
Although many parts of the population had embraced the new religion of a climate change emergency, a new majority of western citizens are becoming painfully aware via new scientific facts that they are being misled, and that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
So, all governments must start asking far more questions about why they are spending so much of their citizens wealth on this non-solution and must undertake a deep review of the NetZero journey.
Many scientists are now organizing into independent groups to expose the truth about climate change and are declaring that: -
Published data from peer reviewed sources show that we DO NOT have a climate emergency, and that Climate change is mostly natural, it’s not an emergency, and it’s not us.
The climate is slightly changing, and we are in a natural warming cycle that has happened at least 5 times before over the last 10,000 years.
In every past warming cycle we flourished with milder winters, and increased growing seasons for most of the world.
It is now estimated that only small amounts of localized adaption will be necessary.
Scientific theory and current data explain that increasing CO2 has no significant impact on climate and that it’s mainly beneficial and is currently increasing the food supply.
It’s now becoming clear that the population has been hoaxed by the current power grabbing politicos, the sensation seeking media and scientists too scared to set things straight due to funding subjugation.
The recommendation is that we need to refocus on prosperity through re-industrialization and technological innovation rather than continuing to waste our wealth on NetZero.
There is no credible scientist is all the sources you provide who is prepared to put there detailed analysis and modelling out there for rigorous scientific review.
You obviously don’t understand the drivers of climate including the Milankovich cycles so it appears that you are not a climate scientist.
The British Geological Society has a very good website setting out the macro drivers of climate and readers would be well advised to visit such a reputable site.
Here is Australia, we are experiencing warming ocean temperatures and hotter climate, a trend that has continued for decades. One of the consequences is massive bleaching of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the world that could die in our lifetime. Hardly incidental and the CO2Coalition becomes meaningless in the face of such an unfolding tragedy.
Net Zero is also a delusion because it really doesn’t mean anything in reality.
Look.. I have plenty of climate knowledge and am associated with others that certainly are qualified to say that …Yes, the planet is warming, but its far from an emergency, and its mostly not us and we can flourish very well with whatever changes.
Of course the planet is warming and yes the solar and galactic energy cycles have a far larger part to play than credited by the IPCC who are fixated on CO2
But this nonsense about the great barrier reef is nuts.. its mainly thriving.. and most of any of the experienced variance is human pollution not climate change.
No data shows climate timeframe adverse environmental trends although we will always have weather timeframe variations.
The best source of rebuttal to climate alarmism is the book called Unsettled by Koonin that takes IPCC data and explores the facts, and also work done by Clintel is worth a review.
Look I am not just trying to troll things up.
I am a climate realist and maintain that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
I am quite happy to review and discuss scientific facts, but most climate alarmist do the reverse.
Their first reaction is to block so they don’t have to face the facts.
Then they declare the sources to be invalid or worse declare them to be bad actors or following self serving agendas.
They will then try to use alternative so called peer reviewed reports that only support their position.
Most of the organizations I work with are science based and we use the IPCC database and associated expert peer reviewed source data.
Its very clear that this data does not show any past indicators of climate change having any statistically negative impact on environmental systems that are harmful to humans.
In fact CO2 is contributing to improving the food supply and the slight increase in global temperature is extending growing cycles.
Many alarmists have a problem separating weather from climate and so get trapped in the transient data rather than the overall trends.
There are many of us climate realists out there, and our numbers are growing, and we now will have new governments that will be listening to us, as its clear that the policies will change away from an alarmist approach.
OK, you have said you aren’t ‘just trying to troll things up’ (although that implies a little trolling), so I assume you are acting here with honest conviction, perhaps attempting to save people from falling for a series of destructive and economically impoverishing falsehoods. I appreciate that this is well-meaning and requires time/energy, so I’ll engage.
First, some points of agreement. I suspect that there are quite a few here who would have similar concerns about NetZero (as there are various problems with its meaning and implementation), similarly renewables, decarbonisation and electrification would also attract some questions and critical evaluation by many contributors. Similarly, terms like climate emergency and climate crisis are admittedly value judgements and can be points of academic disagreement with real world consequences. You also make some good points, such as that weather isn’t climate (although oddly this more typically runs the other way, e.g. with climate change skeptics pointing towards a snowstorm as a disproof of global warming) and that people often ‘block and don’t engage with the facts’ (although this can be for all kinds of reasons, and everyone is guilty some of the time).
However, I don’t think we are going to agree to on the science. You are simply making too many claims that lack sufficient substance, credibility and authority here. Or rather you are duplicating quite a few climate skeptic talking points that aren’t convergent with the current state of accepted climate of science. For example, you claim that ‘climate change is mostly natural’ (and ally yourself with IPCC data), while the IPCC’s position is that current warming is ‘unequivocally’ anthropogenic. Several of the other points you make also contradict the mainstream science (and are addressed on climate skeptic debunking sites). I’m sure people can check your listed sources themselves, but to save them a little time it can be worth checking the funding streams, credentials and history of groups like the CO2 Coalition. Not that the money, history or questions like cui bono (‘who benefits’) make those groups wrong, but they should make most people a little suspicious because of the vested interests.
I’m not sure where we can go with this ‘climate facts’ discussion. However, it is probably worth asking yourself what would (a) convince you otherwise and, probably more importantly, (b) what would convince the majority of people visiting this particular site otherwise? I’m not sure what the answer for (a) would be for you. But the the answer for (b) is that you would need to convince myself and probably most of the people here that nearly all of the climate scientists, Earth systems scientists, and a lot of people working in cognate disciplines, such as meteorologists, are both wrong and falsifying their data and models (somehow); and if the climate data and projections were a deception, it would need to be an endeavour that would encompass tens of thousands of scientists around the world, hundreds of universities, institutions and research centres, plus there would need to be robust mechanisms for recruiting all of the up-and-coming graduate scientists and then indoctrinating them into the deception and the techniques for falsifying multiple forms of data. Simply citing a handful of skeptics, dissenters, mavericks and data points versus the overwhelming numerical weight of multiple disciplines, sources, evidence and scientists probably isn’t going to convince people here (and I appreciate that these are people whose opinions and arguments you respect, so apologies). Plus, the credulity stretching powers that would be necessary to engineer a global level of misinformation and faulty science, and I think you are wasting a lot of energy.
Besides, I’m not sure what are you really worried about? If you are right (somehow), most of the people who visit this site would be exceptionally happy that the climatological future won’t be apocalyptic and the biosphere degraded. Moreover, what will the world have lost, a few percentiles of economic growth and profits? Currently economic growth is full steam ahead; industrial emissions continue to rise unabated: Global CO2 emissions were up 2% and Global Energy use rose by 2% during the last year, and every major international economic and political system is still committed to continued economic growth. Your worries about NetZero and the socio-economic effects of a climate emergency don’t have too much basis in the current behaviour of the world economy.
To come at this a different way. As climate realist, you recognise that climate change is unfolding in a real time, kind of like a global experiment with real world consequences and impacts that will be validated or falsified by history. Now you can bet on those consequences and impacts beings small, in which case I can understand you being perturbed by wasted time and spending on unnecessary economic activities. However, there is also the possibility of those consequences being existentially catastrophic. These low probability outcomes (say 1 in 6: the fat-tail distributions of the IPCC) are such that they don’t permit any possibility of recovery. Rationally, or reaching for the precautionary principle, a risk-management approach is warranted in response to these cases and kinds of risk, and as has been noted by many others, ‘[w]aiting for perfect information, as we are continually urged to do by political and economic elites, means it will be too late to act.’
You also seem rather fixated on climate, whereas, for the sake of argument, even if there were no carbon and climatological problems whatsoever, we would still be facing biodiversity and ecological crises on multiple fronts and crashing through other planetary boundaries, and these too are almost entirely anthropogenic, produced by industrial and economic activity and overshoot (pollution, population, consumption, fossil fuels, resource extraction and depletion, overexploitation, habitat loss etc.) and also arguably emergencies. I think most/many of the people who visit Planet Critical would subscribe to the view that it is our current modes of growth and economic existence that are unsustainable, entropy-accelerating and ecology destroying. Moreover, they would probably be sceptical about the suggestion that additional economic activity and industrial innovation is going to solve those problems.
Basically, we seem to be differing over both the science and the nature/scope of the problem. To convince me otherwise you would have to get more than half of the relevant scientists to shift position – a few thousand climate scientists would be a start – and you would also have to show me how they have been getting it wrong; plus you would then need to show me that the environmental, ecological and the biodiversity crises aren’t a thing either (and also aren’t being driven by human economic activity and growth). How could I convince you otherwise? Honest question, not trolling either, what would it take?
I don’t suggest we try to convince each other… its not that productive in this media.
If I continue to participate, I will only make statements that I can support with solid data.
I just want to inform about an alternative position that is growing in strength and will probably be a new policy position by many new western governments.
We in the west must move from our current panic policies that are treating the climate change as a huge emergency that is badly constraining our economies and mis-appropriating massive funds that should be far better deployed into rebuilding our industrial economies damaged by the stupidity of over-globalization.
The west are embracing the mistake of NetZero with the global rest just getting on with prosperity and not over reacting.
So far we at Clintel have the facts on our side, as we see from official data no negative impact trends due to a slightly changing climate. Remember that this will be the 5th time in 10,000 years we have seen these same temperature transients, and history shows warm was good and cold was bad for humans as we flourished in ambient temperatures far higher than current. And with the power of fossil fuels we now have much higher adaptability..
This is also supported by the work done by our CO2 Coalition, and all the data is from the so called official sources such as IPCC and NOAA etc..
It remains unproven with no causation that CO2 controls temperature with most collected data showing the reverse with solid scientific theories. Modeling has not demonstrated that CO2 is driving temperature.
We do see the benefit of increased CO2 in terms of planet greening and combined with a slightly warmer planet we see improved crop yields and extended growing seasons.
As I have said, based on facts the human prosperity must come first and the planet a close 2nd as its got plenty of resilience, and we are far from any so called tipping points.
The facts show climate emergency risk is very low and so we don’t need to undertake any climate mitigation, its pointless, and so far all we need is some easy managed localized adaption.
Protecting the environment from human pollution (not CO2) is worthwhile and this will happen faster as the global prosperity improves using the ongoing power of fossil fuels and nuclear if we get on with that.
The notion that “The current climate emergency position is correct and the science is settled because 97% of scientists are in consensus ” is nonsense… as there is a huge gulf between the reported science and the political spin job done for political policy building. We have a politically subjugated scientific community kept in compliance with funding controls. If you read the IPCC scientific sections its clear that by the time it gets to the policy brief sections its been corrupted. We must stop listening to the dangerous UN leadership ….. they are misleading our governments badly.
The rank hypocrisy is that these same “official sources” bad mouth the so-called climate reality scientists and say they are biased or in the pay of bad actors or something… I would say that the corruption rests much more with these “official sources” who are protecting the “industrial complex” they have built and the climate realists have the truth.
The best plan is far more open scientific dialog before we continue to follow bad policies… Clintel who have now signed up about 2000 members that includes many climate scientists and technical types (including me) have asked for an open dialogue with IPCC and cannot get a dialogue started… I guess they are threatened by working with the facts.
The good news is that many western governments are now looking for input from Clintel.
I think the best book to read is Unsettled by Koonin as he only uses the IPCC data.. so my first question is…. have you read that book?
Those who study the Great Barrier Reef and have lived with it for decades and more, simply disagree with you. Why not visit James Cook University in Townsville and talk to the marine scientists there? They have been raising the alarm for a long time. Cavalier attitudes to some of the most precious gifts in Nature is irresponsible.
The old furphy about more carbon dioxide assisting in the growing season has been thoroughly discredited so why trot out such a hairy chestnut.
Business as usual will end up destroying the only earth we have. Earth systems science challenges much of what you claim.
I have studies on the reef and its not in distress at all.. show me your sources... I suspect funding will continue to flow if they say they have a problem..
CO2 is a given as a plant food.. ask any green house owner.. it also assist in reducing drought sensitivity in some cases... again show me your data.. I have some if you want.... Again its contra science to maintain the climate emergency mantra.
Nigel, Koonin is well recognised for his sceptical view on climate change but is selective with his data and inconsistent in his argument.
An excellent critical review on Yale Climate Connection from 2021 exposes the book’s fundamental flaws.
There is simply no way that such a book should be used in making a risk assessment of the civilizational challenge posed by anthropogenic global heating and associated climate change.
We have our own “Koonin” here is Australia, Ian Plimer, but no climate scientists take him seriously because his writings have been thoroughly critiqued by climate scientists.
The militaries around the w or Le are also taking climate change very seriously because of the socialite instability that has and will result from climate change. Maybe you have some friends in the military who can tell you why they are wasting time doing climate change scenario planning.
Yes.. but the groups who have reviewed the Koonin book are climate alarmists.. and not that interested in the truth.. .. The material he uses are from IPCC. about the military.. climate will fill the funding bucket.. .. so study it eh!
Ice does not lie and is neither tory or labour or republican or democrat, it just melts when temperatures and is melting on all continents with global sea ice the lowest level for this date since the satellite era. This is due to increased ocean heat content and increased global surface air temperature which are both caused by elevated CO2 and other GHG levels as well reduced earth albedo due to sea ice lose as well a reduction in pollution due to clean air acts. Global Warming is real, is accelerating and a danger to all. Please read the works of J.Hansen, S Rahmstorf and J.Rocstrom for a balanced view.
Nice propaganda and from the same liar that presented the discredited hockey stick better to read unsettled by Kooning for a far more balanced view as he quotes Dara from IPCC
I think Emily was spot on about the IRA (I still have to do a double-take when I hear that acronym). I remember people warning at the beginning of the Biden administration that if the Democrats ignored the concerns of the working class the vote would swing back violently at the next election, and look what has happened. It should be a warning to the UK Labour government not to make the same mistake, but unfortunately we are just as vulnerable to corporate interests and seem to be following the same austerity path as before, while funding scientifically dubious Not Zero initiatives, such as CCS.
On another note, have the trolls arrived?
It seemed to become very quickly evident that the Democrats either weren't willing or able to directly address the reasons for Trump's previous victory, simply doubling down on what they know and effectively guaranteeing this replay/repeat. If they are going to emerge from this hole, they need to recognise and learn from what the Republicans are getting right organisationally and emotionally (albeit re-purposed for different aims). As Naomi Klein has identified, the Republicans or MAGA are getting the feelings right (or rather mobilising affect and pathos far better), and, as a guest on this podcast noted, they are proving to be far better at building coalitions and doing intersectionality (despite their frenzied criticisms of "woke" and "cultural Marxisms", it's deeply ironic that they do some aspects of this far better than their largely imagined enemies). And, of course, Project 2025 is an output of decades of planning/effort.
I think the trolls and hungry ghosts are perhaps momentarily satiated by recent events, or at least enjoying richer pickings elsewhere. Soon, no doubt.
Possibly one or two missionaries of industrial progress and prosperity now arriving to save us from our faulty scientific "beliefs" and to soothe and alleviate our misplaced fears and worries about an "illusory" climate emergency.
Many thanks for this Rachel. The slight delay to the appearance of a show made me think this had hit you very hard.
I’ve had the US election day marked on my calendar as ‘the world ends’ for several months now, largely for reasons painfully and usefully demarcated here. Climatologically and ecologically this next Trump presidency will be the leading intersection point or wave-front of multiple destructive systems: capitalist-economic, social media-technological, masculinist-conservative, conspiracist-post-truth … a perfect storm of entropy-accelerating, ecocidal forces that Trump happens to currently best embody and represent. Its also fascinating and horrifying that the key five to ten years of the Limits to Growth study collapse scenario are right now. The study provided little sense of the politics and social dynamics that would coincide with those simple curves and projections, but we are seeing them unfold before us in real time, rather like passengers on a crazy roller coaster that we have awoken on. Likewise, the key five to ten years for bending the carbon curves to 1.5 to 2C, also right now. Hence, the rather apocalyptic annotation on my calendar: a socio-political tipping point or event-horizon.
So many questions answered, and simply asked, have opened my eyes to connections, influencing our lives.
Yes, the laughter was joyful. Typing this note into my phone with my old finger, tears rolling down my cheeks, my stomach in knots. I appreciate like minded people exploring new ways to think, new connection to our reality.
Long-time listener here. You forgot to ask her who she wanted to platform!
One comment on the very last subject, which was that we should point out the problems with fossil fuels besides climate, such as plastics. Totally agreed. Another example is how much environmental devastation is inflicted on ecosystems and habitat by fossil fuel extraction and refining, before it even gets burned. There are plenty of horror-show images from around the world showing what happens to a place when it's fracked or mined or filled with rigs. In the ocean, there's oil spills and their terrible effects on wildlife. There is one danger to going this way, though, which is that clean energy production also inflicts devastation on ecosystems through the mining and manufacture that's necessary before a solar farm or wind farm goes online, plus the devastation to sites that are cleared for these projects. So I would understand why some clean energy advocates might want to stay away from this kind of messaging--because it would risk revealing the not-so-green side of clean. Confession: I know climate change is real, and know we must make great changes to address it, but I am not in favor of more industrial power production to get there. My focus is on protecting ecosystems and wildlife habitat, and I don't want to see the desert bulldozed for panels and blades, so I believe another route should be primary: to drastically decrease our overall energy usage. I know some people think this is unrealistic, but I don't think it's realistic to destroy the environment in order to save it, which is what all those GW of clean energy look like to me. Sooner or later, one way or another, the only way for us to live on this planet is to consume less--much much less--and in our current moment, it feels like talking about clean energy is a way of avoiding that topic.
"...we have so many mega billionaires, which is so great for everybody. And I love it. I just love it so much." Opinions such as this may well explain the Democrats' failure.
You may have missed the sarcasm there!
Rachel/Emily Thank you for the podcast some interesting points and a cracking sense of humour but the key point is why? Climate Change was not high on the agenda and unless you are in academia I don't think it is high on the agenda with most people in the UK, Some may be concerned but not enough to stop driving an SUV or having 2/3 holidays a year. There seems to be a disconnect between their understanding of the problem and the actual speed and seriousness of the problem. One problem is mainstream medias under reporting of the issue that has slowly desensitised the masses, another is the metrics used ie the MET Office website has six or eight metrics for where we are above pre-industrial, the other is anomolies from differing baselines just stick to pre-industrial and agree what that metric will be ie 10 or 20 year average but get all scientists to use the same and finally get Scientists to say it as it is with strong language. ie Not, 'there is a slim chance of staying within 1.5 deg C,' say, 'in all probability 1.5 deg C is as dead as the dodo'.
PS The later was correct before Trump was elected.
You probably know some/all of this already, but the social scientific research on why humans are rubbish at addressing climate change is pretty solid (and has been for a while). The psychological problems might be the hardest to overcome, given that they’re rooted in our Paleolithic brains, which weren’t really geared for this kind of threat. Here is Dan Glibert’s list from nearly two decades ago:
1. It lacks a human face
2. It doesn’t violate our moral sensitivities
3. It is a threat to our future, not our present
4. We are sensitive to relative and comparative changes, not absolute ones.
Basically, we are hardwired to respond to agency (typically human agency but anything that might kill/hurt us will do); climate is too abstract to produce a visceral/emotional reaction (although weather catastrophes are a different matter); we tend to discount threats in the future (we suck at thinking about risk, probability and things which aren’t temporally near); we aren’t well-equipped for identifying global and gradual/slow changes (unless we can make meaningful comparisons).
Then there is a whole host of cognitive biases and psychological defense mechanisms that we all share, from motivated reasoning and confirmation biases to various forms of self-deception and denial that protect us from uncomfortable information and painful data.
I haven’t touched on the cultural and systemic programming yet. I started to draw up a list three decades ago, as to why we are resistant to meeting climate change and other aspects of the ecological crisis, but it became very long, very quickly.
Whether you call them beliefs, identities, ideologies, ways of life, worldviews, and/or values, its these things that carry the motivational and behavioural weight for most people. Frequently, climatological and ecological facts will be rejected or ignored when they conflict with deeply held beliefs, group identities and values. These could be religious beliefs (‘God is in control’), beliefs about authority (e.g. government, experts and elites), conspiracy beliefs (NWO, globalization, ‘climate scientists getting rich’), beliefs about where this will lead (e.g. big government, ‘living in a cave’), beliefs about the nature of science (e.g. misplaced demands for certainty, cherry picked data and studies), beliefs about human nature (e.g. human ingenuity and innovation is an infinite resource), beliefs about risk (‘the odds are fine’). The list goes on. The bottom line is that group membership, political affiliation, a sense of identity or ideology, and pre-existing values are the major determinants of climate change responses. And that’s all without touching on vested interests, systemic intertia and the downwardly causal power of the economic, institutional, media, national and tech systems that we inhabit.
Restated (just to further depress myself): most people, most of the time, will believe and double down on what they want to believe, and that’s usually what they already believe. By default, there is a lot of path-dependency, conservatism and business as usual built into climate change denial at multiple levels. As President Bush Sr. stated at the Earth Summit in Rio back in 1992, “The American way of life is not up for negotiation’ and we don’t seem to have moved far beyond that. Human obstinacy and intractability is a pretty tough nut to crack. Fuck indeed.
I recently commented on a Planet Critical podcast about defining the terms we use, as in asking "what do you mean by that." Listening to this Podcast, it triggered thoughts about what does "renewable" mean. In my opinion, it's a useless, mushy feel good word that entities trying to profit from our situation love. Yes, it's critical that we move from the very nonrenewable coal, oil and gas (as in "once used, it's gone forever"--sorry future generations) sources of energy. Our transition requires us to go back to prior times to when fossilized carbon became available in the early 1800s and we know what happened then . . . ). Up until then, we relied on the energy coming from fusion reactions in the sun, which were then captured (I like the word harvested better) by plants (autotrophs) and in part transferred on to we heterotrophs (we including all other living beings). When I eat a salad shortly, I'll have passed on to me solar energy (we're solar powered!) that not long ago arrived on earth. We had also relied on solar energy for wind (sales, windmills, etc.) that heated the air and caused air flows that energized us. Similarly, solar heat created evaporation that became rain and, well, you know the rest. What we have now to help us out massively is technology (solar panels, turbine generators, etc.) to harvest energy. These are not vague renewable processes but rather, more helpfully expressed, HARVESTING of energy flows. We need to change the paradigm in our narratives.
On a related note, none of these alternatives to fossilized carbon are "clean," rather they are arguably less dirty but still require environmentally damaging extraction and the exploitation of workers. We need to find words that describe reality and then we can move on to solutions. BTW, early on I drank the koolaid that buying a Tesla was a statement of environmental action. Only as time went on did I realize how much embodied energy and extractive materials were in these expensive, gimmick filled vehicles.
BTW#2, as a fan of history, I am always blown away by what humanity, in terms of ideas and material things, etc., achieved before fossil fuels took over.
Robert, “renewables” is a meaningless euphemism. No one is prepared to explain to me why the International Standards Organisation’s Life Cycle Analysis Guidelines are not applied with rigour to so-called “renewables”. Such an analysis requires that the full environmental, social and financial costs of a product are analysed and assessed. If we wanted to talk about solar panels, we would have to begin with the extraction of bauxite, the transport and refining. of that bauxite for aluminium, the manufacture of frames for solar panels from he aluminium, the transport of solar panels, usually from China, the installation of those panels, their replacement after 10-15 years, the transport of those old solar panels to wherever it is that they are to be reprocessed or dumped and the impact on the environment of that whole process. We could do the same with wind turbines and batteries. It soon becomes obvious that virtue signalling with the euphemism of “renewables” is unwilling to face the honest truth that renewables have a massive downside which advocates deny.
There seems a dichotomy between “ramping up extraction” and thermodynamic collapse which 2 recent guests claim will be fully in force by 2030. It has to be either/or. I believe trump will crash and burn exactly at the time when his cult questions why energy costs, in fact, can’t be halved because peak oil has arrived. Trump is entirely ignorant about all energy reality and will savor the uproar that his stupidity will ruin.
ONLY individuals actively limiting our carbon footprints/our ecological footprints can do anything to mitigate climate collapse. All the rest is just BS.
Margaret Thatcher gave us the narrative that we are all individuals. From the movie 'The live of Brian' : We are all individuals. - No, I'm not!
I learned something big, Thanks Rachel and Ms. Atkin! My summary (so far)
Elon Musk rap diff from behavior. Tesla's website: "the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution." But Musk supports Trump's drill-baby-drill team cuz he wants a portion of profits from fossil fuel-generated electricity, whose increasing demand is will not allow phase out of Carbon Energy. Corollary: A complete transition to renewables is a fantasy. They are mostly an addition to existing energy portfolio. Per Michaux et al., minerals won't be available fast enough. Everyone get ready to cook in hot temps. Oy! I don't trust Musk.
The idea that the climate crisis has deepened with the election of Trump is emotion-driven hysteria. The climate crisis is what, 200 years in the making? Longer? It was full-on long before Trump and it will remain full-on regardless of whom is in office. It's but one more byproduct of our overshoot, the effect that one man in office will have on that overshoot will not even register. It's like suggesting a fist sized snowball will exacerbate an avalanche already in progress. It will not. Rather, the disaster will simply continue unabated as it would have if Harris had been elected, or anyone else. As for Trump not leaving in four years, the Left has been speculating this of Republican presidents since George W. Bush, whom if you recall, according to the Left, was going to invoke martial law in order to stay in power. And? We've got enough going on without muddying the waters devolving into hysteria over the polarizing individuals populating our decline and fall.
Elon Musk is not all about clean tech. Tesla is just one of his businesses. He’s there to maximise capitalism. It makes sense. As the capitalist pyramid scheme grows higher, the richest will eventually wield enough power to direct presidents and policy personally and publicly.
Unbounded levels of private power is the literal basis for neoliberalism and its philosophical shadow, libertarianism.
James Meadway on Macrodose just made a great point: as it becomes more difficult for capital to extract and grow in conventional ways, it will naturally turn to the government and public money as a source of profit. Elon’s businesses enjoy huge government contracts.
To run two 8000W heat pump mini splits for 24 hours, you would need approximately 3,456,000,000 Joules of energy.
Explanation:
* Total power consumption: 2 mini splits * 8000W each = 16,000W
* Power consumption per hour: 16,000W * 1 hour = 16,000 Wh
* Power consumption for 24 hours: 16,000 Wh/hour * 24 hours = 384,000 Wh
* Conversion to Joules: 384,000 Wh * 3600 J/Wh = 3,456,000,000 Joules
To calculate the number of 600Ah 48V lithium racks required, we first need to determine the total energy storage capacity needed in watt-hours (Wh).
1. Total Energy Consumption:
We calculated earlier that you need 3,456,000,000 Joules of energy.
To convert Joules to watt-hours:
Total energy consumption (Wh) = 3,456,000,000 Joules / 3600 = 960,000 Wh
2. Energy Capacity of a Single Rack:
A single 600Ah 48V lithium rack has a capacity of:
Rack capacity (Wh) = 600Ah * 48V = 28,800 Wh
3. Number of Racks Required:
To find the number of racks, we divide the total energy consumption by the capacity of a single rack:
Number of racks = 960,000 Wh / 28,800 Wh/rack ≈ 33.33
Since we can't have a fraction of a rack, we need to round up to the nearest whole number.
Therefore, you would need 34 600Ah 48V lithium racks to power your two 8000W heat pump mini-splits for 24 hours.
Important Note:
This calculation is based on ideal conditions and assumes 100% efficiency in energy conversion and storage. In reality, there will be some energy losses, so you may need to consider a slight overprovision to ensure sufficient power.
It's also crucial to consult with a qualified electrician or battery specialist to design a suitable system that takes into account factors like inverter efficiency, battery discharge rate, and safety considerations.
34 - 600ah 48v Lithium racked batteries, 34 racks standing four feet tall x 30 in wide. 34 separate solar panel array at 10’ x 20’ rectangles 640 wide feet of 10’ tall
Right Now,
I Heat the lower half of the house only, with thermal blankets on the windows. This is Very helpful.
I will live in thermal snowsuit indoors and reduce the square footage I heat? I need to keep my water pipes from freezing.
2 trillion 25 million seven hundred fifteen thousand Joules to heat my house on a cold Michigan February day. Yikes!!!!!
I live in a 2000sq house
I was told it requires
typically a furnace with 60,000–80,000 BTUs to heat it. However, the exact amount of BTUs needed depends on a number of factors, including:
To calculate the total energy consumption in Joules, we first need to determine the total energy consumption in BTUs for 24 hours.
Total BTU Consumption:
* 80,000 BTU/hour * 24 hours = 1,920,000 BTUs
BTU to Joule Conversion:
* 1 BTU is approximately 1055.06 Joules
Total Joules:
* 1,920,000 BTUs * 1055.06 Joules/BTU ≈ 2,025,715,200 Joules
Therefore, to achieve 80,000 BTU for 24 hours, you would need approximately 2,025,715,200 Joules of energy.
Two reports that must be factored into any conversation about so-called energy transition.
Firstly, the STATISTICAL REVIEW OF WORLD ENERGY published earlier this year. That report shows the following breakdown of energy by source:
Oil 196 EJ
Coal 164 EJ
Natural Gas 144 EJ
Nuclear 25 EJ
Hydro. 40 EJ
Other renewables 51 EJ
TOTAL 620EJ
Secondly, the UN’s EMISSIONS GAP REPORT 2024 published in October. The Executive Summary Figure ES.1 shows the breakdown of the Total GHG emissions in 2023 of 57.1/GtCO2e.
These need to be considered when any conversation about energy policy is held as these give a true picture of the current state of affairs which must be understood before any decisions are made about any response. Unfortunately, this sort of analysis is missing and so there is more heat than light.
I downloaded the UN report and will begin reading it. I will need help understanding it’s intent, will you be available to bother with questions?
1 joule of energy is 1 watt of power applied for 1 second.
1 kWh of energy is 1000 watts of power applied for 3,600 seconds or 3,600,000 joules or 3.6 million joules.
An Exajoule (EJ) is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules or 1 million million million joules.
It is also 277.77 (recurring) MWhs (megawatt hours or million watt hours).
A typical household toaster has a rating of 1000 watts and it takes 2-3 minutes to cook a 2 pieces of toast. That is, it takes 1000x120 or 1000x180 joules which is 120,000 or 180,000 joules.
The two reports to which I referred show that 81.5% of global energy comes from fossil fuels and electricity is only one source of energy. A so-called energy transition based on so-called renewables is not really going to make much difference in spite of the hype.
I keep looking
Your answer is so very clear. The abyss is right in front of us. I wish to know as many like minded people as I can chance to meet. There is a comfort in that for me.
Electrifying everything is nonsense. Electricity only accounts for 20% of global energy. Unfortunately, people have to live in cloud cuckoo land if they believe electrifying everything is either feasible or desirable.
As an electrical engineer, I understand the challenge of providing firming capacity for so-called renewables.
Most of the conversation is caught in the current global, consumptive, environment destroying system which Jason W. Moore rightly calls a global ecology.
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s new book MORE AND MORE AND MORE presents some really uncomfortable truths about the so-called energy transition.
I have been a guest on the "Heated" and its more of an alarmist site and not very scientific and only interested in one side of the story. I am sure that Trump will shut down all the effort on Climate mitigation actions.... He is fully justified based on the scant scientific evidence that we have a climate crisis....
You are a bonehead. Had to be said.
Climate Change Awareness is Growing
It’s time for all governments to ask far more questions about the need for NetZero…..
Although many parts of the population had embraced the new religion of a climate change emergency, a new majority of western citizens are becoming painfully aware via new scientific facts that they are being misled, and that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
So, all governments must start asking far more questions about why they are spending so much of their citizens wealth on this non-solution and must undertake a deep review of the NetZero journey.
Many scientists are now organizing into independent groups to expose the truth about climate change and are declaring that: -
Published data from peer reviewed sources show that we DO NOT have a climate emergency, and that Climate change is mostly natural, it’s not an emergency, and it’s not us.
The climate is slightly changing, and we are in a natural warming cycle that has happened at least 5 times before over the last 10,000 years.
In every past warming cycle we flourished with milder winters, and increased growing seasons for most of the world.
It is now estimated that only small amounts of localized adaption will be necessary.
Scientific theory and current data explain that increasing CO2 has no significant impact on climate and that it’s mainly beneficial and is currently increasing the food supply.
It’s now becoming clear that the population has been hoaxed by the current power grabbing politicos, the sensation seeking media and scientists too scared to set things straight due to funding subjugation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfRG8-RHEI&t=1471s
The recommendation is that we need to refocus on prosperity through re-industrialization and technological innovation rather than continuing to waste our wealth on NetZero.
https://nigelsouthway.substack.com/p/netzero-versus-prosperity
https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/take-back-manufacturing-climate-realism
https://clintel.org/
https://co2coalition.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IraXQCWQZhs&t=1233s
More about how to refocus on prosperity through re-industrialization in the TBM book.
www.nigelsouthwayauthor.com
Nigel,
There is no credible scientist is all the sources you provide who is prepared to put there detailed analysis and modelling out there for rigorous scientific review.
You obviously don’t understand the drivers of climate including the Milankovich cycles so it appears that you are not a climate scientist.
The British Geological Society has a very good website setting out the macro drivers of climate and readers would be well advised to visit such a reputable site.
Here is Australia, we are experiencing warming ocean temperatures and hotter climate, a trend that has continued for decades. One of the consequences is massive bleaching of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the world that could die in our lifetime. Hardly incidental and the CO2Coalition becomes meaningless in the face of such an unfolding tragedy.
Net Zero is also a delusion because it really doesn’t mean anything in reality.
Look.. I have plenty of climate knowledge and am associated with others that certainly are qualified to say that …Yes, the planet is warming, but its far from an emergency, and its mostly not us and we can flourish very well with whatever changes.
Of course the planet is warming and yes the solar and galactic energy cycles have a far larger part to play than credited by the IPCC who are fixated on CO2
But this nonsense about the great barrier reef is nuts.. its mainly thriving.. and most of any of the experienced variance is human pollution not climate change.
No data shows climate timeframe adverse environmental trends although we will always have weather timeframe variations.
The best source of rebuttal to climate alarmism is the book called Unsettled by Koonin that takes IPCC data and explores the facts, and also work done by Clintel is worth a review.
Look I am not just trying to troll things up.
I am a climate realist and maintain that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
I am quite happy to review and discuss scientific facts, but most climate alarmist do the reverse.
Their first reaction is to block so they don’t have to face the facts.
Then they declare the sources to be invalid or worse declare them to be bad actors or following self serving agendas.
They will then try to use alternative so called peer reviewed reports that only support their position.
Most of the organizations I work with are science based and we use the IPCC database and associated expert peer reviewed source data.
Its very clear that this data does not show any past indicators of climate change having any statistically negative impact on environmental systems that are harmful to humans.
In fact CO2 is contributing to improving the food supply and the slight increase in global temperature is extending growing cycles.
Many alarmists have a problem separating weather from climate and so get trapped in the transient data rather than the overall trends.
There are many of us climate realists out there, and our numbers are growing, and we now will have new governments that will be listening to us, as its clear that the policies will change away from an alarmist approach.
OK, you have said you aren’t ‘just trying to troll things up’ (although that implies a little trolling), so I assume you are acting here with honest conviction, perhaps attempting to save people from falling for a series of destructive and economically impoverishing falsehoods. I appreciate that this is well-meaning and requires time/energy, so I’ll engage.
First, some points of agreement. I suspect that there are quite a few here who would have similar concerns about NetZero (as there are various problems with its meaning and implementation), similarly renewables, decarbonisation and electrification would also attract some questions and critical evaluation by many contributors. Similarly, terms like climate emergency and climate crisis are admittedly value judgements and can be points of academic disagreement with real world consequences. You also make some good points, such as that weather isn’t climate (although oddly this more typically runs the other way, e.g. with climate change skeptics pointing towards a snowstorm as a disproof of global warming) and that people often ‘block and don’t engage with the facts’ (although this can be for all kinds of reasons, and everyone is guilty some of the time).
However, I don’t think we are going to agree to on the science. You are simply making too many claims that lack sufficient substance, credibility and authority here. Or rather you are duplicating quite a few climate skeptic talking points that aren’t convergent with the current state of accepted climate of science. For example, you claim that ‘climate change is mostly natural’ (and ally yourself with IPCC data), while the IPCC’s position is that current warming is ‘unequivocally’ anthropogenic. Several of the other points you make also contradict the mainstream science (and are addressed on climate skeptic debunking sites). I’m sure people can check your listed sources themselves, but to save them a little time it can be worth checking the funding streams, credentials and history of groups like the CO2 Coalition. Not that the money, history or questions like cui bono (‘who benefits’) make those groups wrong, but they should make most people a little suspicious because of the vested interests.
I’m not sure where we can go with this ‘climate facts’ discussion. However, it is probably worth asking yourself what would (a) convince you otherwise and, probably more importantly, (b) what would convince the majority of people visiting this particular site otherwise? I’m not sure what the answer for (a) would be for you. But the the answer for (b) is that you would need to convince myself and probably most of the people here that nearly all of the climate scientists, Earth systems scientists, and a lot of people working in cognate disciplines, such as meteorologists, are both wrong and falsifying their data and models (somehow); and if the climate data and projections were a deception, it would need to be an endeavour that would encompass tens of thousands of scientists around the world, hundreds of universities, institutions and research centres, plus there would need to be robust mechanisms for recruiting all of the up-and-coming graduate scientists and then indoctrinating them into the deception and the techniques for falsifying multiple forms of data. Simply citing a handful of skeptics, dissenters, mavericks and data points versus the overwhelming numerical weight of multiple disciplines, sources, evidence and scientists probably isn’t going to convince people here (and I appreciate that these are people whose opinions and arguments you respect, so apologies). Plus, the credulity stretching powers that would be necessary to engineer a global level of misinformation and faulty science, and I think you are wasting a lot of energy.
Besides, I’m not sure what are you really worried about? If you are right (somehow), most of the people who visit this site would be exceptionally happy that the climatological future won’t be apocalyptic and the biosphere degraded. Moreover, what will the world have lost, a few percentiles of economic growth and profits? Currently economic growth is full steam ahead; industrial emissions continue to rise unabated: Global CO2 emissions were up 2% and Global Energy use rose by 2% during the last year, and every major international economic and political system is still committed to continued economic growth. Your worries about NetZero and the socio-economic effects of a climate emergency don’t have too much basis in the current behaviour of the world economy.
To come at this a different way. As climate realist, you recognise that climate change is unfolding in a real time, kind of like a global experiment with real world consequences and impacts that will be validated or falsified by history. Now you can bet on those consequences and impacts beings small, in which case I can understand you being perturbed by wasted time and spending on unnecessary economic activities. However, there is also the possibility of those consequences being existentially catastrophic. These low probability outcomes (say 1 in 6: the fat-tail distributions of the IPCC) are such that they don’t permit any possibility of recovery. Rationally, or reaching for the precautionary principle, a risk-management approach is warranted in response to these cases and kinds of risk, and as has been noted by many others, ‘[w]aiting for perfect information, as we are continually urged to do by political and economic elites, means it will be too late to act.’
You also seem rather fixated on climate, whereas, for the sake of argument, even if there were no carbon and climatological problems whatsoever, we would still be facing biodiversity and ecological crises on multiple fronts and crashing through other planetary boundaries, and these too are almost entirely anthropogenic, produced by industrial and economic activity and overshoot (pollution, population, consumption, fossil fuels, resource extraction and depletion, overexploitation, habitat loss etc.) and also arguably emergencies. I think most/many of the people who visit Planet Critical would subscribe to the view that it is our current modes of growth and economic existence that are unsustainable, entropy-accelerating and ecology destroying. Moreover, they would probably be sceptical about the suggestion that additional economic activity and industrial innovation is going to solve those problems.
Basically, we seem to be differing over both the science and the nature/scope of the problem. To convince me otherwise you would have to get more than half of the relevant scientists to shift position – a few thousand climate scientists would be a start – and you would also have to show me how they have been getting it wrong; plus you would then need to show me that the environmental, ecological and the biodiversity crises aren’t a thing either (and also aren’t being driven by human economic activity and growth). How could I convince you otherwise? Honest question, not trolling either, what would it take?
I don’t suggest we try to convince each other… its not that productive in this media.
If I continue to participate, I will only make statements that I can support with solid data.
I just want to inform about an alternative position that is growing in strength and will probably be a new policy position by many new western governments.
We in the west must move from our current panic policies that are treating the climate change as a huge emergency that is badly constraining our economies and mis-appropriating massive funds that should be far better deployed into rebuilding our industrial economies damaged by the stupidity of over-globalization.
The west are embracing the mistake of NetZero with the global rest just getting on with prosperity and not over reacting.
So far we at Clintel have the facts on our side, as we see from official data no negative impact trends due to a slightly changing climate. Remember that this will be the 5th time in 10,000 years we have seen these same temperature transients, and history shows warm was good and cold was bad for humans as we flourished in ambient temperatures far higher than current. And with the power of fossil fuels we now have much higher adaptability..
This is also supported by the work done by our CO2 Coalition, and all the data is from the so called official sources such as IPCC and NOAA etc..
It remains unproven with no causation that CO2 controls temperature with most collected data showing the reverse with solid scientific theories. Modeling has not demonstrated that CO2 is driving temperature.
We do see the benefit of increased CO2 in terms of planet greening and combined with a slightly warmer planet we see improved crop yields and extended growing seasons.
As I have said, based on facts the human prosperity must come first and the planet a close 2nd as its got plenty of resilience, and we are far from any so called tipping points.
The facts show climate emergency risk is very low and so we don’t need to undertake any climate mitigation, its pointless, and so far all we need is some easy managed localized adaption.
Protecting the environment from human pollution (not CO2) is worthwhile and this will happen faster as the global prosperity improves using the ongoing power of fossil fuels and nuclear if we get on with that.
The notion that “The current climate emergency position is correct and the science is settled because 97% of scientists are in consensus ” is nonsense… as there is a huge gulf between the reported science and the political spin job done for political policy building. We have a politically subjugated scientific community kept in compliance with funding controls. If you read the IPCC scientific sections its clear that by the time it gets to the policy brief sections its been corrupted. We must stop listening to the dangerous UN leadership ….. they are misleading our governments badly.
The rank hypocrisy is that these same “official sources” bad mouth the so-called climate reality scientists and say they are biased or in the pay of bad actors or something… I would say that the corruption rests much more with these “official sources” who are protecting the “industrial complex” they have built and the climate realists have the truth.
The best plan is far more open scientific dialog before we continue to follow bad policies… Clintel who have now signed up about 2000 members that includes many climate scientists and technical types (including me) have asked for an open dialogue with IPCC and cannot get a dialogue started… I guess they are threatened by working with the facts.
The good news is that many western governments are now looking for input from Clintel.
I think the best book to read is Unsettled by Koonin as he only uses the IPCC data.. so my first question is…. have you read that book?
Those who study the Great Barrier Reef and have lived with it for decades and more, simply disagree with you. Why not visit James Cook University in Townsville and talk to the marine scientists there? They have been raising the alarm for a long time. Cavalier attitudes to some of the most precious gifts in Nature is irresponsible.
The old furphy about more carbon dioxide assisting in the growing season has been thoroughly discredited so why trot out such a hairy chestnut.
Business as usual will end up destroying the only earth we have. Earth systems science challenges much of what you claim.
I have studies on the reef and its not in distress at all.. show me your sources... I suspect funding will continue to flow if they say they have a problem..
CO2 is a given as a plant food.. ask any green house owner.. it also assist in reducing drought sensitivity in some cases... again show me your data.. I have some if you want.... Again its contra science to maintain the climate emergency mantra.
Nigel, Koonin is well recognised for his sceptical view on climate change but is selective with his data and inconsistent in his argument.
An excellent critical review on Yale Climate Connection from 2021 exposes the book’s fundamental flaws.
There is simply no way that such a book should be used in making a risk assessment of the civilizational challenge posed by anthropogenic global heating and associated climate change.
We have our own “Koonin” here is Australia, Ian Plimer, but no climate scientists take him seriously because his writings have been thoroughly critiqued by climate scientists.
The militaries around the w or Le are also taking climate change very seriously because of the socialite instability that has and will result from climate change. Maybe you have some friends in the military who can tell you why they are wasting time doing climate change scenario planning.
Yes.. but the groups who have reviewed the Koonin book are climate alarmists.. and not that interested in the truth.. .. The material he uses are from IPCC. about the military.. climate will fill the funding bucket.. .. so study it eh!
That should have been “The militaries around the world”.
Ice does not lie and is neither tory or labour or republican or democrat, it just melts when temperatures and is melting on all continents with global sea ice the lowest level for this date since the satellite era. This is due to increased ocean heat content and increased global surface air temperature which are both caused by elevated CO2 and other GHG levels as well reduced earth albedo due to sea ice lose as well a reduction in pollution due to clean air acts. Global Warming is real, is accelerating and a danger to all. Please read the works of J.Hansen, S Rahmstorf and J.Rocstrom for a balanced view.
Nice propaganda and from the same liar that presented the discredited hockey stick better to read unsettled by Kooning for a far more balanced view as he quotes Dara from IPCC
Data
You could visit Valencia or Asheville
Sorry if I doubted your religion matey