THB Insider #6
My Interview with Jon Caldara & Ask me Anything
I sat down a few weeks ago with Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute in Denver, which you can watch above. We discussed a lot of things — extreme weather, my departure from the University of Colorado Boulder, higher education, and how I became a target of the Obama administration, a member of Congress, and a billionaire — and more.
Quick notes — They titled the episode “climate scientist cancelled.” I publish in the climate science literature, but I do not call myself a climate scientist. I’m a policy researcher with expertise in science and technology policy. I’ve also learned over the years that people call me all sorts of things! Also, I am far from cancelled — THB is about to cross 27,000 subscribers with readers all over the world. If that is cancelled, sign me up!
In the comments, please feel free to ask me anything. I am happy to engage. Remember that THB exists because of your support, so please consider subscribing. If you already subscribe, and value what you encounter here, please consider a subscription upgrade to support independent research and analysis that you will find nowhere else.
Great interview, thank you for sharing.
My question is more basic. You talk about "risks" of climate change. If we are under no catastrophic threat, what are the risks? Can they be quantified/verified? Can they even be identified? Is warmer temperature the only threat? Can those risks be managed? How do those risks compare with the benefits of continued fossil fuel use (that is, return the decarbonization pathway to a more gradual and more economically palatable trajectory)?
In your post, "It's all about the baseline," you said that "In plain English this means that the effects of climate mitigation policies on the weather you experience in your lifetime would not be detectable, even if you are born in 2024. This explains why for most variables associated with extreme events the IPCC’s projection of the “time of emergence” of a climate change or climate mitigation signal is so far into the future."
You've also said the "world has never been a safer place for humans from weather and climate, in the entire history of mankind." I take that as direct evidence of the benefit of climate change, as measured since the end of the Little Ice Age in terms of temperature and CO2. If CO2 continues to go up, and temperatures continue to go up, there must be a point of inflection when we are no longer safer than any time in history, and conditions continue to deteriorate.
In as much as temperatures have been 10s of degrees warmer, and CO2 concentrations have been well over 1,000 ppm, at various times in history, how will that make us less safe?
Maybe a better question is, will civilization flourish throughout the Holocene Interglacial, and flag only when the next Ice Age begins?
“how I became a target of the Obama administration, a member of Congress, and a billionaire — and more” this sounds like a pretty good outcome if you group the objects of the sentence as target, member of Congress and billionaire, instead of the objects of the phrase modifying target.