There is no scientific evidence that increase in CO2 is linked to an existential crisis. Furthermore, the trillions of dollars spent in the last 3.5 years globally has resulted in a net increase in CO2.
The Thomas Schelling quote says it all: touting a future climate apocalypse wasn't working, so the climate warriors have defaulted to "extreme weather" in their effort to enlist public support for immediate climate remediation initiatives. The public just wasn't accepting the impending climate catastrophe because they couldn't see it, but the attribution of extreme weather could be seen right outside their windows. I suppose the real disappointment is not that the effort is dishonest, but that it is in service to addressing a threat that doesn't exist; i.e., global warming is an issue that needs to be thoughtfully addressed, but it is not the extinction event that it is often portrayed to be.
Karl Popper (1902-1994) is best known for his falsification principle and hardly anybody noticed his important work on the social and institutional aspect of science from the political economist Gordon Tullock. The Organization of Inquiry (1966) spelled out a scenario for the degeneration of a scientific discipline which came true later, a case of life tragically imitating art!
In the 1950s Popper was horrified by the growing role of government in science, inspired by the example of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. He feared for the future of Great Science as a result of Big Science in the service of politicians. He saw the danger of too much money chasing too few ideas, the publication explosion (good buried under bad) and the distortion of incentives by the pressure to obtain grants for fashionable and politically “hot” topics.
All of that came about, especially in climate science, when the Clinton/Gore administration presided over a sixteen-fold increase of funding. The tsunami of funds washed all the way to the shores of the social sciences and the humanities to fund work that has nothing to do with science, carried out by people who knew nothing about science and cared less.
Regarding WMD's, if I remember correctly, Philip Tetlock in his 2015 book "Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction", says that the CIA experts really did believe their predictions regarding Iraq's WMDs, and thus the administration was wrong but wasn't lying. Ironically, the "conventional wisdom" is now that the administration lied, when in fact it was just following the CIA's strongly held (and incorrect) belief.
Not only that, but Saddam Hussein himself thought he had active WMDs. It should therefore be no surprise that we thought so too. This is not a good example of a Noble Lie.
So the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on canards of everything green will continue, money better spent elsewhere. And schools will continue to push the horrors of a planet in existential crisis thus antagonizing the already fragile mental health of the young. It is to the point where I will compare it to shouting “fire” in a theater- it is past time to aggressively dispel and shout down these “noble lies” and “conventional wisdom” and the charlatans pushing this snake oil.
I think we need to start treating them the way we do pedophiles and others destroying the lives of children.
There is a reason there is so much mental illness and depression among children, which is statistically much worse among those with parents who can't read and "follow the science", ie; progressives.
Polls bear it out. Having progressive parents is bad for your mental health, your sanity.
There is no such thing as a noble lie, at least not by scientists. They lie to keep the climate cult going. The cult has been highly beneficial to climate science. Sure, plenty of scientists believe in AGM. They've brainwashed themselves. The IPCC hedges everything so they can never be blamed for mistakes. Then they screen to the heavens a catastrophe is coming.
I think climate science is a global leader in highlighting the difficulties between scientific research and science communication. Being able to accurately represent science while maintaining credibility and the intent of an article is an almost impossibly difficult task.
"the noble lie in the context of the fateful decision to go to war in Iraq — WMDs!"
Conventional wisdom is that the US and UK knew full well that Iraq had no WMDs when they invaded Iraq in 2003. However, to put this into historical context, Israel thought it necessary to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, and I recall reading a technical article in IEEE Spectrum shortly before the 1990 Gulf War giving fairly detailed information about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, so there was good reason to believe that Iraq had an ongoing development program at that time. In the years preceding the second Iraq war in 2003 Saddam Hussein had dropped strong hints that Iraq's weapons development program was alive and well, even if this was just bluff, so the Allies could perhaps be forgiven for acting on the precautionary principle and assuming that Iraq's WMD program was alive and well.
I guess the moral of this is don't boast about having nuclear weapons if you don't actually have them.
Facebook fiercely defends the narrative. You can't post actual links, you have to post instructions on how to search for Roger, like he is some sort of vermin.
You are right that the rise and subsequent fall of atmospheric SO2 led to a temporary reduction in the rate of anthropogenic global warming followed by a briefly higher rate of increase than that due to CO2 (and CH4) alone. But this in no way proves that the CO2 effect does not exist. So the venues which have dismissed your "proof" are quite correct to do so.
P.S. The ISSN just verifies that a publication has correctly identified its publisher and does not "approve" journals. So any journal which advertises itself as "ISSN approved" is probably predatory and not to be trusted.
I fundamentally agree with a lot of your position. I, too, believe that public overestimation of the harm from climate change is actually, deterrent of effective action to head off those damages. At the same time, one must recognize that some parts of the public to deny those harms altogether. And those mis-beliefs are MORE wrong and probably lead to even less effective action against climate change than popular overestimates. In the epistemological universe of 2001, it made sense to be especially careful not to re-enforce the beliefs of the deniers.
Today, I would guess that the ground has shifted enough that now the special care needs to be taken not to reenforce the beliefs of the “catastrophists.” This care, like the former care, should not become a “noble lie,” but getting it exactly right is hard.
My only advice (which I offer repeatedly to climate commentators of both kinds) is always to bring the conclusion of any new report or any new analysis back to policy. What is the implication of the novelty for what we should DO? And since we are already “DOING” what is the implication for a change in what we should be doing.
And to bring this to ground, what is the implication of what you mean by “climate change is [not] fueling extreme weather.” What policy should be changed, how? Surely you can see that one _might_ think that the policy conclusion is that we should not be making any efforts to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If that were your conclusion you should be arguing that position much more strongly. Since it is not you ought to be making THAT clear, too, by explaining why we should be making reducing net CO2 emissions notwithstanding your position on the (non) effects of CO2 accumulation on extreme weather.
What harms are you referring to? Roger makes clear that the WG1 data shows nothing happening outside of natural variation, which means the entirety of WG2 is a lie. There are no "harms" from AGW if there is no data showing any AGW effect.
There have always been and always will be harms from bad weather, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.
This is what I am trying to pin Roger down on. Does he think that, as a counterfactual, if the CO2 content of the atmosphere had not increased since ~1850 we would be seeing the statistically same weather as with the increase? And more broadly other phenomena? And still more broadly if the changes in earth physical systems (glaciers, habitat shifts etc,) have been on harmful, and ultimately is there a harm reduction benefit in reducing further accumulatio of CO2 in the atmosphere?
And if the answer to the last question were NO, I think he would be wasting his time talking about the technicalities of whether an extreme weather "signal" can be "detected."
But it is clear from some of the comments that these more recent posts encourage the outright denialists - and I don't see you doing much to remind them of what you said in TCF.
There is no scientific evidence that increase in CO2 is linked to an existential crisis. Furthermore, the trillions of dollars spent in the last 3.5 years globally has resulted in a net increase in CO2.
The Thomas Schelling quote says it all: touting a future climate apocalypse wasn't working, so the climate warriors have defaulted to "extreme weather" in their effort to enlist public support for immediate climate remediation initiatives. The public just wasn't accepting the impending climate catastrophe because they couldn't see it, but the attribution of extreme weather could be seen right outside their windows. I suppose the real disappointment is not that the effort is dishonest, but that it is in service to addressing a threat that doesn't exist; i.e., global warming is an issue that needs to be thoughtfully addressed, but it is not the extinction event that it is often portrayed to be.
comprise --> compromise (Just trying to provide some good editing, to go a tiny, tiny, tiny way towards the bad editing you had.)
Thank you!
Karl Popper (1902-1994) is best known for his falsification principle and hardly anybody noticed his important work on the social and institutional aspect of science from the political economist Gordon Tullock. The Organization of Inquiry (1966) spelled out a scenario for the degeneration of a scientific discipline which came true later, a case of life tragically imitating art!
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/science/2024/06/big-science-the-enemy-of-great-science/
In the 1950s Popper was horrified by the growing role of government in science, inspired by the example of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. He feared for the future of Great Science as a result of Big Science in the service of politicians. He saw the danger of too much money chasing too few ideas, the publication explosion (good buried under bad) and the distortion of incentives by the pressure to obtain grants for fashionable and politically “hot” topics.
All of that came about, especially in climate science, when the Clinton/Gore administration presided over a sixteen-fold increase of funding. The tsunami of funds washed all the way to the shores of the social sciences and the humanities to fund work that has nothing to do with science, carried out by people who knew nothing about science and cared less.
follow the money. [Sigh...]
Regarding WMD's, if I remember correctly, Philip Tetlock in his 2015 book "Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction", says that the CIA experts really did believe their predictions regarding Iraq's WMDs, and thus the administration was wrong but wasn't lying. Ironically, the "conventional wisdom" is now that the administration lied, when in fact it was just following the CIA's strongly held (and incorrect) belief.
Not only that, but Saddam Hussein himself thought he had active WMDs. It should therefore be no surprise that we thought so too. This is not a good example of a Noble Lie.
IIRC It was Saddam Hussein's generals who thought there were. WMDs and were surprised that Hussein did not use them
So the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on canards of everything green will continue, money better spent elsewhere. And schools will continue to push the horrors of a planet in existential crisis thus antagonizing the already fragile mental health of the young. It is to the point where I will compare it to shouting “fire” in a theater- it is past time to aggressively dispel and shout down these “noble lies” and “conventional wisdom” and the charlatans pushing this snake oil.
I think we need to start treating them the way we do pedophiles and others destroying the lives of children.
There is a reason there is so much mental illness and depression among children, which is statistically much worse among those with parents who can't read and "follow the science", ie; progressives.
Polls bear it out. Having progressive parents is bad for your mental health, your sanity.
Fantastic piece Roger. I find the phycology behind climate hysteria and misinformation fascinating. Appreciate your thoughts on this 🙏
Climate misinformation is political misinformation driven by progressive activists and their media enablers.
Today they are trying to convince us that Kamala Harris wasn't Biden's border czar.
There is no such thing as a noble lie, at least not by scientists. They lie to keep the climate cult going. The cult has been highly beneficial to climate science. Sure, plenty of scientists believe in AGM. They've brainwashed themselves. The IPCC hedges everything so they can never be blamed for mistakes. Then they screen to the heavens a catastrophe is coming.
I think climate science is a global leader in highlighting the difficulties between scientific research and science communication. Being able to accurately represent science while maintaining credibility and the intent of an article is an almost impossibly difficult task.
"the noble lie in the context of the fateful decision to go to war in Iraq — WMDs!"
Conventional wisdom is that the US and UK knew full well that Iraq had no WMDs when they invaded Iraq in 2003. However, to put this into historical context, Israel thought it necessary to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, and I recall reading a technical article in IEEE Spectrum shortly before the 1990 Gulf War giving fairly detailed information about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, so there was good reason to believe that Iraq had an ongoing development program at that time. In the years preceding the second Iraq war in 2003 Saddam Hussein had dropped strong hints that Iraq's weapons development program was alive and well, even if this was just bluff, so the Allies could perhaps be forgiven for acting on the precautionary principle and assuming that Iraq's WMD program was alive and well.
I guess the moral of this is don't boast about having nuclear weapons if you don't actually have them.
Great series
I see Facebook still deletes any link to this.
Facebook fiercely defends the narrative. You can't post actual links, you have to post instructions on how to search for Roger, like he is some sort of vermin.
Which of course he is, to all the right sorts.
So brilliant, Roger ! And it is darn good news " the series" goes ahead !
Getting past these delusions is exactly why I pay for your Substack and others.
I have developed irrefutable proof that CO2 does NOT cause global warming, but is has been dismissed by more than a dozen venues.
See: "Scientific proof that CO2 does NOT cause global warming"
https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
Roger's article discusses that problem, but does ANYONE have any suggestion as to where I might be successful?
(This information was submitted on a previous post, which was liked by Roger)
You are right that the rise and subsequent fall of atmospheric SO2 led to a temporary reduction in the rate of anthropogenic global warming followed by a briefly higher rate of increase than that due to CO2 (and CH4) alone. But this in no way proves that the CO2 effect does not exist. So the venues which have dismissed your "proof" are quite correct to do so.
P.S. The ISSN just verifies that a publication has correctly identified its publisher and does not "approve" journals. So any journal which advertises itself as "ISSN approved" is probably predatory and not to be trusted.
I fundamentally agree with a lot of your position. I, too, believe that public overestimation of the harm from climate change is actually, deterrent of effective action to head off those damages. At the same time, one must recognize that some parts of the public to deny those harms altogether. And those mis-beliefs are MORE wrong and probably lead to even less effective action against climate change than popular overestimates. In the epistemological universe of 2001, it made sense to be especially careful not to re-enforce the beliefs of the deniers.
Today, I would guess that the ground has shifted enough that now the special care needs to be taken not to reenforce the beliefs of the “catastrophists.” This care, like the former care, should not become a “noble lie,” but getting it exactly right is hard.
My only advice (which I offer repeatedly to climate commentators of both kinds) is always to bring the conclusion of any new report or any new analysis back to policy. What is the implication of the novelty for what we should DO? And since we are already “DOING” what is the implication for a change in what we should be doing.
And to bring this to ground, what is the implication of what you mean by “climate change is [not] fueling extreme weather.” What policy should be changed, how? Surely you can see that one _might_ think that the policy conclusion is that we should not be making any efforts to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If that were your conclusion you should be arguing that position much more strongly. Since it is not you ought to be making THAT clear, too, by explaining why we should be making reducing net CO2 emissions notwithstanding your position on the (non) effects of CO2 accumulation on extreme weather.
What harms are you referring to? Roger makes clear that the WG1 data shows nothing happening outside of natural variation, which means the entirety of WG2 is a lie. There are no "harms" from AGW if there is no data showing any AGW effect.
There have always been and always will be harms from bad weather, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.
This is what I am trying to pin Roger down on. Does he think that, as a counterfactual, if the CO2 content of the atmosphere had not increased since ~1850 we would be seeing the statistically same weather as with the increase? And more broadly other phenomena? And still more broadly if the changes in earth physical systems (glaciers, habitat shifts etc,) have been on harmful, and ultimately is there a harm reduction benefit in reducing further accumulatio of CO2 in the atmosphere?
And if the answer to the last question were NO, I think he would be wasting his time talking about the technicalities of whether an extreme weather "signal" can be "detected."
I explain my views on carbon dioxide emissions and climate change risks in Ch.1 of TCF -- available under the THB Pro tab as a PDF.
But it is clear from some of the comments that these more recent posts encourage the outright denialists - and I don't see you doing much to remind them of what you said in TCF.