Tom Nelson kindly invited me to give a podcast as part of his series of “sceptical/critical” climate change opinions . I agree that human economic progress has damaged the natural world and consequently changed slightly the climate. However I oppose the the idea that this is some sort of some sort of climate emergency. Ice ages were far worse.
Early hominoids were almost wiped out by the last ice age. Temperatures have risen by nearly 1C since pre-industrial times but the current Net Zero propaganda of imminent doom is total nonsense. The analogy is like lemmings jumping off a cliff !
If we are to maintain human wellbeing, we need a realistic energy plan. Long term that can realistically only be based on nuclear energy, eventually nuclear fusion. Renewable energy alone can never work because it can’t renew its infrastructure. That is because it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Wind turbines cannot renew themselves because they can’t also mine the iron ore, smelt the steal, manufacture the concrete, repair access roads. dredge rivers etc, etc.
Here it is .
I totally agree. And then we have to take in consideration all the “measuring problems”.
of extrapolating incomplete datasets, and always adjusting things to a higher level than actual. Plus, we actually have no clue what long term effects are. If they enhance cooling or warming.
No statistics include we grew in population from 1 billion around 1800 to 8 today. Since computers came the amount of electric energy needed went through the roof.
I live in the Caribbean / tropics at walking distance of the sea. I never noticed any sea level rising whatso ever. Same with temperature Only more rain or less rain and actually more rain is perfect. Same for the Passat winds. Long time since we had a major hurricane. They seem to be less than in the past.
The California draughts….. comments its global warming. Now they have rain. Comments its global warming.
A 0.46 jump in 2/3 months is impossible. Clearly dataset corruption. oceanic Volcano.??? naaahh… cant be.
You cannot say global warming with daily averaged ground level measurements only.
It should be a up to 15 km high leveled global grid of a 100 sq meters, to be fully in proportions.
But no we mostly measure in (highly) populated urban regions
And then there is the day night thing and the high low per day average, which is total nonsense
Insufficient data. Would an ai say.
Sure, ice melts but they have no clue what the impact will be. Sea levels will not rise because of sea ice melting, my Bacardi cola also does not overflow when my ice cubes melt. And the weight displacement reduction if its even there on Greenland and Antarctica will also have it effects. the bulge around the equator can even grow.
Tectonic plate behavior (earth quake)..lifted the Himalayas up by a meter in days. And how much, eh they can.t measure exactly by satellite. It still moves up around 63 cm…. Per year… How about that displacement. India…. Eh,,. Western Europe going down.
Coral bleaching… ehh. We had never seen it but of course “global warming”. Now its coming back. No word. Global warming yes we burned down ¾ of all rain forest and yearly we burn down sugar cane and other crops the size of USA. But he… Global warming. Killed all the big grazers messed up the water situation in Africa…. Global warming
We are investigating something a few billion years old. and within years we know it all.
Global warming Its cars. They need to be electric. And solar panels and wind mills. Sure batteries… best mining for environment Pfff. Thorium naahh we need plutionium for bombs. Transportable Hydrogen naah electricity…… with its huge transport loss and bad buffering.
Its like the black hole “photos”, which took 2 years of CGI work to get “right”. Big bangs dark matter dark energy. global warming, climate change. We cannot get outside our solar system can.t see a oortcloud or Kuiper belt. But we know it all.
But we still fight stupid wars. And can.t solve emotions. But hey global warming is a concern….
Over population drinking water food. War.
Real threats.
The fear syndrome.
Politics need Fear because it “Rules” and validates taxing.
“Scientists” need a “fear” for best “funding”.
Well said !
Hi Clive. Thank you for making a stance against the stupidity of moving away from hydrocarbons at this time. We are up to our necks invested in this fantastic, safe, high energy density power source that has dragged the western world from third world like poverty to the high living standards we experience and enjoy today. The western world threatens the third world and keeps them in perpetual, shocking poverty by arguing that their industrialisation will destroy the planet. Pure manipulative discrimination which is based upon the uncertainties of feedbacks to CO2 in the form of ‘dial in’ estimated climate sensitivity.
Furthering this argument you are making, it should be made clear that the model and threat from anthropological warming requires top of atmosphere positive flux imbalance which has to be specifically reduced emissions in GHG bands or the full deck of cards collapses with no data to support the theory.
This is not what CERES satellite has measured. Over the past twenty years of observation CERES data has shown that the Earth heated up because of reduced albedo due to changes in cloud fraction. During this period the emissions to space from CO2 actually ‘increased’ and acted to reduce the warming experienced. When the Earth toggles warmer, CO2 emits more to space not holding at less and forcing the warming. So, categorically, there is serious reason to doubt the predictive ability of modern climate models which only suggest warming by reducing long wave to space. The manner of temperature variation does not support the doctrine been forced upon us.
Well done though. I often feel like someone who just plain argues because I require evidence to comfortably accept a mechanism. As you have suggested, science should be continually open to questions and climate science is definitely brain washed into our society without being debatable (or even questioned at all by the vast majority).
Best Regards.
“Thank you for making a stance against the stupidity of moving away from hydrocarbons at this time. “
LOL, you don’t seem to get it. Fossil fuels violate the 2nd law because they deplete too fast. Clive mentioned Peak Oil in the video.
No, there is no depletion of potential hydrocarbons, just fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are made from sugars produced by photosynthesis. Hydrocarbons take millions of years to slowly convert from carbohydrates but we don’t have to wait that long because we have chemical synthesis. Everything from fossil fuels can be synthesised using catalytic processes whilst still retaining the sunlight energy embedded in the chemical bonds of the sugars and cellulose of plant structures.
What is complicated about that? Plants build sugars which form cellulose and starches from which all life is made. Dead and decaying plants (and animals formed from plants) can at around 0.000038% probability be trapped where heat and pressure removes the oxygen as water over millions of years. Or we stuck the plants in a chemical factory and rip the water out in minutes using reusable catalysts whilst retaining the chemical energy stored to burn at our leisure. Thanks to lower density, the hydrocarbons literally float on top of the released water and so can be skimmed off. Carbohydrates to hydrocarbons, just like nature does, but without the wait. And we don’t need any specific part of the plant.
Hydrocarbon production from readily available plant waste is a real and viable long term energy source as long as the sun keeps shining, and the CO2 produced by burning the hydrocarbons makes the stunted plants (stunted because of low CO2 levels) grow faster. It’s symbiosis.
You might think that funny, LOL.
I don’t think you and I have the same understanding of the second law so you might want to explain further?
The second law is the statistical certainty that irreversible process evolves from a large number of individually reversible processes and is expressed as an increase of system entropy. Entropy production produces available energy which cannot exceed the Carnot efficiency. There is nothing there about depleting too fast so you might like to expand.
You said it — we’re depleting fossil fuels too fast considering that they took hundreds of thousands of years of sunlight=>burial=>pressure to create.
Thanks for your comments. There is a powerful green lobby who make money from renewables in the short term. In the long term renewables will surely fail because they are unreliable with very low energy density. Nuclear energy is the only realistic low carbon power source.
I listened to someone on BBC Radio 4, or Scotland at breakfast the other day. Seemingly the new thing is ocean warming. Our ocean it appears is much warmer and this is posing a huge risk for us all. In some places it is as much as 15C warmer, a number that was emphasized. No mechanism for bringing about this was mentioned, but the implication was that CO2 is the culprit. Perhaps someone with a bigger brain than me can enlighten me.
Sounds like nonsense to me. Oceans warm with the seasons so if you try to swim on a Cornish beach in January it is freezing, whereas in August it is bearable. Somehow ocean temperature has now become ocean “heat content” to make it appear more urgent.
It is possible they instead refer to el Nino/ la Nina which reflects a regular change in down/upwelling off South America.
Basically BBC4 are talking nonsense!
“It is possible they instead refer to el Nino/ la Nina “
You said you would mention the moon’s impact later on in the video. Nada. Either you forgot or Tommy edited it out (some editing was obvious)
The moon’s role in stabilizing the long term climate and tidal effects is worth a podcast on its own. There wasn’t enough time.
In Sydney we have had three cold summers in a row and yet the ocean temperatures have been so warm that I cant be bothered going for a swim.
In 2019-20, the Bushfire years, it was too cold for a pleasant swim (18C)
The problem with nuclear is that conservative/reactionary politicians can’t govern and so can’t regulate nuclear. I listened to Jacob Rees-Mogg talking about the huge success of the trade agreement with Oz & NZ, arranged due to BREXIT so the UK can get fresh fruits & veggies via sailing ships from the other end of the world. He also claims fracking in Lancashire will save the UK. These are the dolts that’ll grind you in to the ground.
So we have the same basic imbeciles here in Minnesota, as exemplified by Tommy Nelson.
I’m sympathetic to your view that Tommy Nelson is an imbecile. The Nobel winning econ science says countries should apply a CO2 tax – heck this would tilt the price system towards lower CO2 activities such as cycling, hydro and nuclear, and if done correctly would remove all the other green subsidies and price guarantees. Tommy Nelson opposes. He thinks the calculation by the Nordhaus/Worstall/Tol/Romer/Helm axis of econ science that raising CO2 levels very quickly causes minor net harms that need adjusting for in prices has been done wrong.
To address some other man made myths. .
The amount of carbon we have on Earth doesn’t change. It is the same as it is now as it was millions of years ago when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
and they roamed late. And existed millions of years beyond points.
And even for that the amount of proof. is not enough to convict in modern court?
Lucy other bones. the fit in a shoe box.
thats proof?
Most carbon is stored in reservoirs, or sinks, such as rocks and sediments, while the rest is stored in the atmosphere, oceans, and living organisms. Carbon is released back into to the atmosphere through respiration by animals and plants. It is also released by burning materials such as wood, oil and gas. This is called the carbon cycle.
We only found 15% or so. Used 5%
So reducing carbon by cutting down on fossil fuels is a myth.
Global warming is not the carbon cycle. And who cares about warming.
I would care about freezing.
Cooling lagged. Which was clear from the ice cores. and ice core are extremely complex to interpret as well.
The compression of ice is not consistent. And proofed to be very locally and the handling is extremely difficult. hundreds of scientific pages…
Another myth.
CO-2 Sure it has effect but water vapor is much stronger, methane, and then there is “sulphur hexafluoride” 25.000 times stronger. We made that, like the famous ozone CFS destroyer gasses.
But still it’s not the origin. We have had many ice ages.
Milankovitch Volcanos, direct major hits, and interstellar dust.
In the grand scheme of things, the Galaxy cycle.
We have no clue.
We are stardust.
And even that James Webb made and will change that.
Global warming. So what.
Tell me what is wrong about warming.
Freezing is a concern. You want to live in Alaska or in Tobago or Aruba.
Tell me. What is wrong with warming. Ice does not feed.
We lose skiing. So, what. Sea levels rise… so what.
We get more rain. We can grow more crops.
We can irrigate and use desserts.
Do not forget 8 billion people food and drinking water is a war issue.
Flooding nonsense. The Netherlands. 55% is below sea level.
They can manage for hundreds of years. So can the world.
Bangladesh flooded for years because they cut down mountain trees, millions died.
No global warming issue then.
It’s a political and funding driven “scientifically” hoax.
Al Gore thee advocate bought a million-dollar home on a sea cliff.
Nice presentation, and good to see the face behind the blog I’ve been reading all these years.
Do you have a reference for the plot of the absolute global mean surface temperatures from the models? I’ve never seen that plot before and I’ve been following climate change for some time nowl
Thanks Craig.
The plot of absolute model temperatures is from Ed Hawkins believe it or not! Models struggle to produce an accurate value for the average global temperature. So they also depend on normalizing to a 30 year average. By definition models and data agree within this window. They all then diverge after this normalisation period !
https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2015/connecting-projections-real-world/
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