Dear Professor: In all liklihood your familiar with Holman Jenkins, but his periodic climate OpEds in the WSJ are often insightful. A recent OpEd is at the following link:
The defense of RCP 8.5 , that wicked skeptics find it problematic, and skeptics must not be allowed to ask questions, only underscores the Emperor's New Clothes reality of the climate consensus. If there was objective evidence of an actual climate crisis the evidence would be...real.
To me it’s comical how every ‘extreme’ weather event requires the media to state how much: (it’s never zero) scientists say it is tied to climate change ( as Oreskes says that forces scientists to admit the uncomfortable truth that no one knows). What is the purpose of this?For example the recent flooding in NYC which was due to inadequate storm sewers saying “no point in spending money fixing the sewers, it was because of climate change, so instead let’s ban ICE cars” although if all cars were electric the impact on climate in even 50 years would be unmeasurable. I guess the media thinks making these claims increases awareness, but who could still be unaware of AGW. It’s now as though any media on a celebrity dying containing a sentence saying “scientists say such deaths may be linked to disease or aging”
I'm going to close this post to comments shortly. Any RCP8.5 defenders who wish to make their case can email me, and I am happy to post a guest perspective making the case by an expert.
In other news, I know why I limit comments to paid subscribers, as if I needed reminding!
A former meteorology professor consistently warned our class that "...weather is not climate" and the complex transition from one to the other is extremely challenging to understand.
I've been increasingly unhappy with your approach. The reason why I am unsubscribing ? this paragraph finally did it for me:
"If someone claims that there is an undetectable teapot orbiting the sun, I — and I suspect you as well — will need proof before taking that claim seriously. A hypothesis is not a conclusion. Extreme climate scenarios from low emissions trajectories are like orbital teapots."
Russell being one of my favorite philosophers, I'm aware of what he intended to critique (namely unfalsifiable religious hypotheses). But very clearly the IPCC is suggesting that NATURAL scenarios are also in play in addition to human emissions which may well have already begun triggering natural feedback processes, and you are certainly in no position to rule them out. For example, the last ten years has seen increasing methane emissions which - so far as can be told - is not of anthropogenic sources. For example, see "Atmospheric Methane: Comparison Between Methane's Record in 2006–2022 and During Glacial Terminations". The key point is this : "Atmospheric methane's rapid growth from late 2006 is unprecedented in the observational record. Assessment of atmospheric methane data attributes a large fraction of this atmospheric growth to increased natural emissions over the tropics, which appear to be responding to changes in anthropogenic climate forcing." Your job should be to help us to better understand such possibilities. For me, you simply have failed. You have another agenda.
Your claim that they are trying to say that "low emissions lead to dramatic levels of climate change.⁵" is willfully to misconstrue their obvious intent which is in the very paragraph you quote:
"Climate projections of RCP8.5 can also result from strong feedbacks of climate change on (natural) emission sources and high climate sensitivity (AR6 WGI Chapter 7)."
Were this an isolated incident, I would continue to read you.
If only they would show the same caution regarding their wholehearted embrace of the dubious "renewable energy solution" by which they ACTUALLY mean the "wind-solar solution". While showing a pathetic milquetoast attitude towards the one proven solution which is nuclear energy. That is far, far more reckless than ignoring the possibility that natural feedback mechanisms will lead to RCP8.5 level scenarios.
The key difference here I think is that I am asking for evidence that the models can in fact produce these extreme scenarios from a low emissions trajectory.
Saying that there may be “strong feedbacks” and “high climate sensitivity” is a hypothesis (and like any hypothesis should be tested) and has nothing to do with RCP8.5.
Ruling out RCP8.5 says nothing about the natural processes you reference. If <RCP4.5 plus these hypothesized natural processes can result in a radiative forcing of 8.5, then show me. That’s all this post asks for.
Interesting way to frame this- Oreskes’s partisan blindness ensures that she can’t see that her “Merchants of Doubt” framework is at work here as well. Doubt is a necessary part of the knowledge scientific generation process- it isn’t something that can be dismissed out of hand. (Of course doubt can also be waaaaay overdone too... but we know how to see that)
Every time I hear the kind of confident assertion that a 'leading scientist' in their field is fond of making I tend toward believing that it's closer to a statement about themselves than external reality. They want to *influence* policy, which I don't believe is the job of scientists.
That Cochrane review was a classic of the genre, albeit in reverse of what we usually see. Cochrane was an investigation of mask *mandates*, as I understand it, rather than individual mask efficacy. But some of the authors were so keen to see their name in lights that they portrayed uncertainty as something else. So the absence of compelling RCT data somehow became 'proof' that 'masks don't work'.
Science communication is too often ego communication. Meanwhile, flagship media loves a good story, so an unhealthy relationship has now developed between the publicity-hungry and many journalists.
I'm really appreciating this stack for the sober analysis it offers.
"That is because of uncertainty in carbon-cycle feedbacks which, in nominally lower emissions trajectories, can result in projected concentrations that are higher than the central concentration levels typically used to drive model projections."
This sentence is an acknowledgement of the lack of validity of the current climate models. Scenario are used to test what valid models can evaluate for given conditions. Thus, the scenario would have to be exaggerated to correct what the models are unable to do!?
This is bad science (invalid models) and bad strategy (deliberately false scenarios).
Naomi Oreskes is a joke. She constantly hypes climate change "science" and yet embraces nutty wind/solar scams that have zero chance of replacing fossil fuel emissions. And then shows an outright hatred for the one energy source actually capable of replacing fossil fuel which is Nuclear Energy. Relying on easily debunked Greenpeace talking points against Nuclear Energy. What a hypocrite.
She never stops blathering on the ridiculous nonsense of "Exxon knew".
Exxon knew exactly the same thing everyone else knew, that there was a theory of AGW based on Co2 emissions, for which there was no more proof in 1970 than there is today.
She is a grifter who brings down the level of every debate she takes part in. A true climate scientologist.
I wonder whether RCP8.5 would be plausible if Africa went on a growth spurt based on their plentiful supplies of coal. Later this century that continent should have a far bigger economy given its present backwardness and the fact that the population will have atleast doubled.
Yes, it seems to me that the only way we get into the high end emissions scenarios would be if the currently most impoverished parts of the world (including Africa and South Asia as well) have a massive economic growth spurt like China in the 1990s to 2010s period. But that would also imply that average people in these countries experience much higher standards of living and their economies would have greater ability to adapt to climate impacts that occur.
I personally would take the tradeoff of more climate change in exchange for eliminating brutal poverty for millions (billions?) of people.
"...Rapidly Deployable. The complete ThorCon is manufactured in 150 to 500 ton blocks in a shipyard, assembled, then towed to the site. This produces order of magnitude improvements in productivity, quality control, and build time. A single large reactor yard can turn out twenty gigawatts of ThorCon power plants per year. ThorCon is a system for building power plants..."
THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled], $100 for a lifetime of energy:
"The proposal here to change the scientific community’s norms is to elevate political expediency over empirical understandings."
But of course! Put science under the thumb of politics, it becomes yet another tool for coercive efforts to eliminate 'wrongthink'! Forget about truths based on observations, it's the dogma of current popular politics that's going to matter in the end. The politicians will persist along with their backers, the rest of us will be dead & buried.
You lost me a little in the first paragraph. Intellectuals rely on science (usually) but completely dismiss that faith is often tethered to history, the human condition, etc and is quite apparently not simply some fire dance by primitives to cajole the gods to provide good weather or healthy offspring. My evidence for the existence of God is far more rational than the crowd baying for RCP 8.5k or bust. Scientism is problematic and has resulted in many false scientific claims by those who appear to be proponents of rational thought.
Anyway, it's hard to see around the elephant in the room where the climate zealots are concerned. Only hardened luddites refuse to see a changing climate (as if it isn't something that changes year upon year and probably cycles over decades, millenia, or millions of years.) Yes there is religiosity to their position, just as their is in the number of PhDs who cannot allow logic to get in the way of their beliefs in the Climate Emergency!!
Dear Professor: In all liklihood your familiar with Holman Jenkins, but his periodic climate OpEds in the WSJ are often insightful. A recent OpEd is at the following link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-earth-is-warming-but-is-co2-the-cause-f44d2e6a?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo
I think it's time for you to explore the findings of public choice economics to explain this behavior.
Faith Birol Executive Director of the IEA saying essentially that we are on an RCP4.5 track. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/24/energy/iea-oil-gas-coal-demand-peak-2030/index.html
I was just reading that
Below RCP4.5 actually
RCP4.5 = 2.7C in 2100
IEA WEO23 = 2.4C in 2100
Interesting!
The defense of RCP 8.5 , that wicked skeptics find it problematic, and skeptics must not be allowed to ask questions, only underscores the Emperor's New Clothes reality of the climate consensus. If there was objective evidence of an actual climate crisis the evidence would be...real.
To me it’s comical how every ‘extreme’ weather event requires the media to state how much: (it’s never zero) scientists say it is tied to climate change ( as Oreskes says that forces scientists to admit the uncomfortable truth that no one knows). What is the purpose of this?For example the recent flooding in NYC which was due to inadequate storm sewers saying “no point in spending money fixing the sewers, it was because of climate change, so instead let’s ban ICE cars” although if all cars were electric the impact on climate in even 50 years would be unmeasurable. I guess the media thinks making these claims increases awareness, but who could still be unaware of AGW. It’s now as though any media on a celebrity dying containing a sentence saying “scientists say such deaths may be linked to disease or aging”
I'm going to close this post to comments shortly. Any RCP8.5 defenders who wish to make their case can email me, and I am happy to post a guest perspective making the case by an expert.
In other news, I know why I limit comments to paid subscribers, as if I needed reminding!
A former meteorology professor consistently warned our class that "...weather is not climate" and the complex transition from one to the other is extremely challenging to understand.
I've been increasingly unhappy with your approach. The reason why I am unsubscribing ? this paragraph finally did it for me:
"If someone claims that there is an undetectable teapot orbiting the sun, I — and I suspect you as well — will need proof before taking that claim seriously. A hypothesis is not a conclusion. Extreme climate scenarios from low emissions trajectories are like orbital teapots."
Russell being one of my favorite philosophers, I'm aware of what he intended to critique (namely unfalsifiable religious hypotheses). But very clearly the IPCC is suggesting that NATURAL scenarios are also in play in addition to human emissions which may well have already begun triggering natural feedback processes, and you are certainly in no position to rule them out. For example, the last ten years has seen increasing methane emissions which - so far as can be told - is not of anthropogenic sources. For example, see "Atmospheric Methane: Comparison Between Methane's Record in 2006–2022 and During Glacial Terminations". The key point is this : "Atmospheric methane's rapid growth from late 2006 is unprecedented in the observational record. Assessment of atmospheric methane data attributes a large fraction of this atmospheric growth to increased natural emissions over the tropics, which appear to be responding to changes in anthropogenic climate forcing." Your job should be to help us to better understand such possibilities. For me, you simply have failed. You have another agenda.
Your claim that they are trying to say that "low emissions lead to dramatic levels of climate change.⁵" is willfully to misconstrue their obvious intent which is in the very paragraph you quote:
"Climate projections of RCP8.5 can also result from strong feedbacks of climate change on (natural) emission sources and high climate sensitivity (AR6 WGI Chapter 7)."
Were this an isolated incident, I would continue to read you.
If only they would show the same caution regarding their wholehearted embrace of the dubious "renewable energy solution" by which they ACTUALLY mean the "wind-solar solution". While showing a pathetic milquetoast attitude towards the one proven solution which is nuclear energy. That is far, far more reckless than ignoring the possibility that natural feedback mechanisms will lead to RCP8.5 level scenarios.
Thanks for stopping by.
The key difference here I think is that I am asking for evidence that the models can in fact produce these extreme scenarios from a low emissions trajectory.
Saying that there may be “strong feedbacks” and “high climate sensitivity” is a hypothesis (and like any hypothesis should be tested) and has nothing to do with RCP8.5.
Ruling out RCP8.5 says nothing about the natural processes you reference. If <RCP4.5 plus these hypothesized natural processes can result in a radiative forcing of 8.5, then show me. That’s all this post asks for.
All best 👍🙏
Interesting way to frame this- Oreskes’s partisan blindness ensures that she can’t see that her “Merchants of Doubt” framework is at work here as well. Doubt is a necessary part of the knowledge scientific generation process- it isn’t something that can be dismissed out of hand. (Of course doubt can also be waaaaay overdone too... but we know how to see that)
Every time I hear the kind of confident assertion that a 'leading scientist' in their field is fond of making I tend toward believing that it's closer to a statement about themselves than external reality. They want to *influence* policy, which I don't believe is the job of scientists.
That Cochrane review was a classic of the genre, albeit in reverse of what we usually see. Cochrane was an investigation of mask *mandates*, as I understand it, rather than individual mask efficacy. But some of the authors were so keen to see their name in lights that they portrayed uncertainty as something else. So the absence of compelling RCT data somehow became 'proof' that 'masks don't work'.
Science communication is too often ego communication. Meanwhile, flagship media loves a good story, so an unhealthy relationship has now developed between the publicity-hungry and many journalists.
I'm really appreciating this stack for the sober analysis it offers.
Now that's funny. Look in a mirror.
Justification by the IPCC AR6 Working Group 1 :
"That is because of uncertainty in carbon-cycle feedbacks which, in nominally lower emissions trajectories, can result in projected concentrations that are higher than the central concentration levels typically used to drive model projections."
This sentence is an acknowledgement of the lack of validity of the current climate models. Scenario are used to test what valid models can evaluate for given conditions. Thus, the scenario would have to be exaggerated to correct what the models are unable to do!?
This is bad science (invalid models) and bad strategy (deliberately false scenarios).
Any “science” quoted by Naomi Oreskes Is not science.
Naomi Oreskes is a joke. She constantly hypes climate change "science" and yet embraces nutty wind/solar scams that have zero chance of replacing fossil fuel emissions. And then shows an outright hatred for the one energy source actually capable of replacing fossil fuel which is Nuclear Energy. Relying on easily debunked Greenpeace talking points against Nuclear Energy. What a hypocrite.
She never stops blathering on the ridiculous nonsense of "Exxon knew".
Exxon knew exactly the same thing everyone else knew, that there was a theory of AGW based on Co2 emissions, for which there was no more proof in 1970 than there is today.
She is a grifter who brings down the level of every debate she takes part in. A true climate scientologist.
I wonder whether RCP8.5 would be plausible if Africa went on a growth spurt based on their plentiful supplies of coal. Later this century that continent should have a far bigger economy given its present backwardness and the fact that the population will have atleast doubled.
The heavy burden of climate imperialism to keep those Africans in their place...
Yes, it seems to me that the only way we get into the high end emissions scenarios would be if the currently most impoverished parts of the world (including Africa and South Asia as well) have a massive economic growth spurt like China in the 1990s to 2010s period. But that would also imply that average people in these countries experience much higher standards of living and their economies would have greater ability to adapt to climate impacts that occur.
I personally would take the tradeoff of more climate change in exchange for eliminating brutal poverty for millions (billions?) of people.
Well they could achieve a massive economic growth spurt just like China did without emissions by switching to Nuclear Power. Like these:
https://thorconpower.com/
"...Rapidly Deployable. The complete ThorCon is manufactured in 150 to 500 ton blocks in a shipyard, assembled, then towed to the site. This produces order of magnitude improvements in productivity, quality control, and build time. A single large reactor yard can turn out twenty gigawatts of ThorCon power plants per year. ThorCon is a system for building power plants..."
THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled], $100 for a lifetime of energy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U434Sy9BGf8
They undoubtedly will eventually if we keep gas and nuclear from them.
If the west tries to force renewables on them they will get everything they need from China
"The proposal here to change the scientific community’s norms is to elevate political expediency over empirical understandings."
But of course! Put science under the thumb of politics, it becomes yet another tool for coercive efforts to eliminate 'wrongthink'! Forget about truths based on observations, it's the dogma of current popular politics that's going to matter in the end. The politicians will persist along with their backers, the rest of us will be dead & buried.
You lost me a little in the first paragraph. Intellectuals rely on science (usually) but completely dismiss that faith is often tethered to history, the human condition, etc and is quite apparently not simply some fire dance by primitives to cajole the gods to provide good weather or healthy offspring. My evidence for the existence of God is far more rational than the crowd baying for RCP 8.5k or bust. Scientism is problematic and has resulted in many false scientific claims by those who appear to be proponents of rational thought.
Anyway, it's hard to see around the elephant in the room where the climate zealots are concerned. Only hardened luddites refuse to see a changing climate (as if it isn't something that changes year upon year and probably cycles over decades, millenia, or millions of years.) Yes there is religiosity to their position, just as their is in the number of PhDs who cannot allow logic to get in the way of their beliefs in the Climate Emergency!!