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Eclectic at 05:28 AM on 29 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Two-Dog @32 :- Okay, I'll play along.
Your final sentence : "How do we know this current warming is not, at least in part, one such warming period?" [unquote]
For your question to be sensible ~ you would need to specify what approximate percentage of non-anthropogenic warming is occurring (caused by the mysterious undiscovered factor you mentioned above ).
If your proposed percentage were (roughly) around say 80-90% . . . then your question becomes very important.
If you propose around say 10% . . . then your question becomes ridiculously unimportant.
If you propose around say 50% . . . then we are back to the situation where we have the problem of a rapidly warming planet, and the intelligent course of action is to take urgent measures to reduce GreenHouse Gas emissions. Not so ?
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Two Dog at 04:55 AM on 29 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
"One Planet Only Forever" - I get the point about "having some merit" but couldn't the "deniers" make the same case? i.e. that there are uncertainties in the man-made climate change narrative. One uncertainty that confuses me is why was there no global warming from about 1940-1970? Presumably CO2 was increasing over that period.
John Mason - not sure I understand the point. Over history there has been many cooling and warming factors that are observed by the temperature record but largely unexplained. How do we know this current warming is not, at least in part, one such warming period?
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Eclectic at 17:29 PM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
John Mason @30 : Quite right !
"Denier" is as good a term as any, for the deniers /climate deniers /science deniers. The term has been around for decades, and everyone knows who & what is meant by it. Yes, the Deniers themselves know full well that it accurately applies to them ~ even though they bristle (and distract) about the "denier" label. For the Lady doth protest too much , when she keeps insisting desperately that she is a "realist" or "skeptic".
Possibly the poster Two-Dogs has not given any actual thought to the old hand-wavy claim that there might be some undiscovered mysterious physical cause responsible for the recent rapid global warming.
That's where I find that the self-styled "skeptics" run into the problem of (what I call) the Two Sides of the Coin. Indeed, I have never had any decent answer from any denier /provocateur /troll /sealion whatsoever.
And the problem is this :- since the known anthropogenic causes of rapid warming are neatly explaining the global warming ~ then, if the modern warming were largely caused by mysterious forces unknown to today's science . . . then it follows that there must exist another unknown mysterious factor, a cooling factor, which precisely (and increasingly) is counteracting the ongoing warming effect of higher GreenHouse Gasses in the atmosphere.
Mr W. Occam must have very raised eyebrows indeed, at the suggestion of at least two new mysterious explanations !
Quite the puzzle. Perhaps, maybe, Two-Dogs can give the answer.
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John Mason at 03:39 AM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Re #26 (Two Dog):
Skeptical Science was founded in 2007. By that point, 'climate change denial' and 'climate change deniers' were long-established terms. So in a sense they are 'grandfathered' - meaning that they are terms in wide use that everyone understands. We see this in mineralogy, for example the main ore of lead, galena, was named by Pliny the Elder around AD79. It does not accord with post-1959 mineral naming convention, but because its use is ubiquitous, the name is retained. It is a grandfathered mineral name.
I'm not sure when the denial terminology was developed or who introduced it, but I know it had been around long before SkS. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:27 AM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
There's a lot of "inside baseball" language in play involved with meta-climate discussion, Two Dog.
"Climate change denial" seems to have become shorthand for "climate science denial" and "climate change denial." Both phenomena have rich factual basis.
There is still to this day a shrinking population of folks who don't believe Earth's climate and climate-mediated systems are changing at what current and paleoclimate data indicate are unusually rapid rates. This would be "climate change denial" as labeled on the tin.
Meanwhile another population are focused on what is still slightly more fertile ground, that of calling into question the scientific community's (geophysicists in this domain, specifically) competence of understanding the controlling processes of Earth's climate. This is "climate science denial.'
While often uttered in a context of emotional heat and frustration, "climate change denial" and "climate science denial" are not fundamentally emotive but rather are descriptive language attached to facts.
Both species of denial face what will prove an insurmountable common challenge: consilience. By example, biologists are observing phenonena that would demand answers from geophysicists focused on Earth's climate systems. As it happens, geophysicists already had substantially useful explanations for what biologists are seeing in the natural world. This is retail level consilience. One of the purposes of our weekly climate-related academic research listing is to help people to see consilience on anthropogenic climate change, understand the overall perspective of experts having connection to matters influenced by climate— which includes numerous disciplines not directly connected with geophysics.
if one follows climate research output and its present concerns, it's plain to see we're quite far past the "huge unknowns" stage with respect to the geophysics of climate. The accidental perception of "huge unknowns" in climate geophysics is a mark of the success of climate science deniers in the public square. It's a product of what we might clinically term "synthetic ignorance," a feeling of not knowing what we actually know perfectly well enough, thanks to calculated practice in public messaging.
Is every stripe on every graph we see 100% about us? No. Certainly the climate change we see today is influenced by "natural variation," on the time scale we're concerned with a matter of dithering around a mean. However, numerous and broad secular trends we're seeing not only in direct geophysical attributes of climate but myriad other features having climate as a major controlling variable find reliable explanation and predictive power in one naturally evolved feature of Earth, namely the planet's human population and culture— and how we've powered ourselves by liberation of energy from fossil fuels. We can hypothesize elaborate mechanisms for system-wide changes of the type we're seeing but scientific parsimony asks "why invent where no invention is necessary?" The dominant rationale for such invention seems to lie outsiide of scientific practice.
As to greening, greening enthusiasts should note that this phenomenon is accompanied by loss of albedo for a variety of reasons. Loss of albedo is not something we need at this juncture. It's also notable that for "climate change deniers" of all stripes, greening is a powerful contradiction of the basis of preferred beliefs.
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Charlie_Brown at 03:24 AM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Two Dog @26,
If you include CH4 and other greenhouse gases, then man-made increases clearly are by far (100% or very close to it) the cause of current (overall within the last 150 years) warming. The factors and mechanism that drive global warming are very well known and have been explained in research journals, media articles, videos, and blogs for decades. There are no huge unknowns and no good reasons for doubt. Other theories (I prefer to use the word hypotheses because theories are supported by evidence) have been considered and refuted for lack of credible explanation and evidence. The descriptor “skeptic” is fine for one who raises questions and pursues evidence and explanation to support a hypothesis. The descriptor “denial” is accurate for one who denies the solid, fundamental scientific principles supported by massive evidence and cross-checks. That is why tolerance about the question has worn thin and why “denial” has become emotive. You need to apply critical thinking to the reading that you have been doing. Or perhaps you have some credible support for your thinking that you could offer?
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:59 AM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Two Dog @26,
The movie in question is still questionable and misleading even if it contains 'points that have merit'.
I am a structural engineer with an MBA. I present two examples for the merit of my opening point:
- A structure design is unacceptable even if some parts of the design could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the design to be unacceptable.
- A business plan is unacceptable even if some parts of the plan could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the plan to be unacceptable.
As for the ‘merit’ of things in the questionable misleading movie you perceive to have merit:
- Climate Change can be understood to be the term applied to the vast body of science that has proven conclusively that human impacts, not just CO2 from fossil fuel use, have caused significant rapid changes to the climate conditions of regions on this planet. “Climate Change Denial” is a term referring to people who resist learning about the constantly improving understanding of Climate Change science.
- The answer provided above questions the merit of your second ‘perceived point of merit’ about the significance of human impacts. There are many presentations of better understanding that shatter the ‘merit of what you perceive is a point of merit’. One example is SkS Myth/Argument 192 “The IPCC confidence in human-caused global warming is based on solid scientific research”. A related presentation is the Carbon Brief item form 2017 “Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans” (and more recent investigations have strengthened that understanding).
I will conclude with the following: “Resistance to learning”, not “shutting down debate”, is the real problem. Being ‘hard-of-learning’ (see my comment @18), can cause people to claim that justifiably criticizing their ‘questionable attempts to debate points they unjustifiably believe have merit’, and pointing out that ‘repetition of already well-debunked misunderstandings has no merit’, is “shutting down debate”.
Note: Regarding ‘covid’ you did not present an example of a ‘conspiracy theory’ you believe was proven to be correct. But I would suggest that for this topic on this website you should focus on presenting an example of what you believe is a ‘climate change conspiracy theory’ that has proven to be correct. One example I am aware of is the ‘conspiracy theory’ that undeserving wealthy powerful people have been deliberately misleading regarding Climate Change science resulting is massive amounts of unjustified “Climate Change Denial”.
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Two Dog at 00:33 AM on 28 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I am relatively new to criticisms of the man-made global warming narrrative but it seems to me that some of the points made in this film have merit.
First, the use of emotive language in a critique like "climate change denial" (what does that even mean?) is problematic. The climate has never been in perfect equilibrium, so presumably nobody denies it changes - best to stick to the arguments. Second, we seem to focus on the wrong question. I think very few anthropogenic climate change skeptics would deny we are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere right now than ever before and that has a warming effect (the "greenhouse effect"). Surely the question is: "To what extent are man-made increases in CO2 emissions driving the current warming we are experiencing?". It clearly cannot be 100% and for me that is the nub of the question.
Given the huge unknowns about the factors that drive climate (and their significance) it seems unfortunate to me that there is an intolerance around this question. The BBC, for instance, should consider other theories on this. It may well be that the scientific weight suggests anthropogenic CO2 is by far the major cause, but in my reading there are some good reasons to doubt that.
The problem with “shutting down debate” is best evidenced with covid where many of the “conspiracy theories” proved to be correct. -
John Mason at 15:55 PM on 27 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Hi William - you are referring to separate Skeptical Science myth-rebuttals there, simply appearing (approximately) in the order in which the myths got trotted out in the movie. So of course 'bear' does not debunk 'hurricane'. Separate topics: however one important thing to watch out for with these Merchants of Doubt (I really really recommend you read the book with that title) is the way they chuck talking points into a food blender, firing it up on occasion, so you end up with a sort of bolognese of confusion!
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William at 10:30 AM on 27 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Sorry for the typos
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William at 10:23 AM on 27 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.
37
bear
Polar bear numbers are increasing
The below does not debunk the above. The above is a fact the below is an opnion/speuclation.. You can't deny a fact by a prediction foir the future
Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.
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William at 10:17 AM on 27 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!
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William at 10:16 AM on 27 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I have just watched the movie and found it interesting.I agree It lost its way after about 20 minites, especially when it got political .
Interstingly it left out the best point for sceptics of climate alarm: Deaths from disasters have fallen by a large amount. It is pretty hard to claim the end of the world - if fewer people are dying from the climate.
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LaPichardo73 at 13:47 PM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I just want to th you for the great job of debunking and putting together such a great and helpful post just two days after this "documentary " was released. As usual, the denier crowd is talking about the movie being "shadowbanned" and "censored". I didn't ask for it and found it in my video suggestions on YouTube.
I endured the whole thing and could detect lots of details by myself, but your research helps me a lot... and I discovered this site. Thanks again!
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Nick Palmer at 07:13 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
As it can be cumbersome to explain why CO2 fertilisation is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card in fora such as Twitter/X, I usually try to get the 'sceptic' to look up Liebig's Law of the Minimum, which states why all nutrients need to be optimised in order to get more healthy growth.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:47 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I wholeheartedly agree with Doug Bostrom’s evaluation @3. And I have the following to add regarding the ‘hard-of-learning’ people I refereed to in my comment @16.
Regarding people trying to build popular support by being misleading about the use of the term "freedom" (who would argue against Freedom?), I offer “Freedom” meanings in addition to "I get to do whatever I want regardless of costs to others". For them Freedom means:
- Not having to learn to be less harmful and more helpful to others
- Believing whatever you want and dismissing or ignoring justified criticism
- Making up unjustified criticisms of what you don’t like
- Believing that any belief is just as valid as, and superior to, the constantly improving evidence-based understanding of how to be a more sustainable part of the robust diversity of life on this amazing planet.
As an engineer I was required to try to educate and, if necessary, restrict the freedom of (and disappoint) clients (or less knowledgeable or less ethical engineers) by informing them that what they wanted would not be done, was unacceptable, was harmful or had an unacceptable risk of harm.
Asking about the following competing objectives may help if you encounter a person who is resisting learning about climate science and the corrections of human development that it requires:
- Pursuing things you think you would benefit from or enjoy and wanting them to be easier and cheaper
- Pursuing learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others
Common Sense Ethical consideration should lead to prioritizing the second objective and having it justifiably govern and restrict the freedom to pursue the first objective.
An unsettling aspect of understanding what is going on is the awareness that people who are ‘hard-of-learning’ regarding climate science (and many other important matters that really matter) would be fans of this misleading movie and they get to vote for leadership candidates. They will demand unrealistic certainty of proof that their belief needs updating before they will stop liking a belief that is based on flimsy bits of evidence and wobbly reasoning (they refuse to learn what they don’t want to learn).
More unsettling is being aware that a person who understands climate science and wants to limit climate change harm may still be tempted to vote ‘against that interest’. They could be tempted to like something else about a political leadership candidate and allow that ‘other interest’ to over-power their desire for less climate change harm to be done.
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nigelj at 05:51 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
The greening of the Earth is approaching its limit.
When plants absorb this gas to grow, they remove it from the atmosphere and it is sequestered in their branches, trunk or roots. An article published today in Science shows that this fertilizing effect of CO2 is decreasing worldwide, according to the text co-directed by Professor Josep Peñuelas of the CSIC at CREAF and Professor Yongguan Zhang of the University of Nanjin, with the participation of CREAF researchers Jordi Sardans and Marcos Fernández. The study, carried out by an international team, concludes that the reduction has reached 50% progressively since 1982 due basically to two key factors: the availability of water and nutrients.
"There is no mystery about the formula, plants need CO2, water and nutrients in order to grow. However much the CO2 increases, if the nutrients and water do not increase in parallel, the plants will not be able to take advantage of the increase in this gas", explains Professor Josep Peñuelas. In fact, three years ago Prof. Peñuelas already warned in an article in Nature Ecology and Evolution that the fertilizing effect of CO2 would not last forever, that plants cannot grow indefinitely, because there are other factors that limit them.
If the fertilizing capacity of CO2 decreases, there will be strong consequences on the carbon cycle and therefore on the climate. Forests have received a veritable CO2 bonus for decades, which has allowed them to sequester tons of carbon dioxide that enabled them to do more photosynthesis and grow more. In fact, this increased sequestration has managed to reduce the CO2 accumulated in the air, but now it is over. "These unprecedented results indicate that the absorption of carbon by vegetation is beginning to become saturated. This has very important climate implications that must be taken into account in possible climate change mitigation strategies and policies at the global level. Nature's capacity to sequester carbon is decreasing and with it society's dependence on future strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions is increasing," warns Josep Peñuelas.
The study published in Science has been carried out using satellite, atmospheric, ecosystem and modeling information. It highlights the use of sensors that use near-infrared and fluorescence and are thus capable of measuring vegetation growth activity.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:33 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Nick @14 and John @15,
I am no expert regrading the greening or browning of the planet. But I am aware that 're-greening' happens fairly quickly after the 'browning' of a forest fire. However, it seems it could take a long time for the 're-greening' to re-lock-away all the locked-away carbon that was released by the fire. Also, the carbon released by a forest fire would include locked-away carbon that is released as the dead wood decays.
Hopefully there is enough data now for the experts to complete a robust evaluation and reach a reasonably sustainable conclusion.
It would be tragic if this was another 'we need to wait for more evidence' excuse (waiting is delaying). The early arguments against the science were 'we need to wait and see how things actually turn out'.
That 'there is not yet enough proof (to satisfy me to the point of changing my mind and changing my behaviour)' appears to continue to be the basis for many of the misunderstandings that are passionately believed and espoused by people who continue to be 'hard-of-learning' regarding climate science - demanding the freedom to believe whatever they want and do as they please, including resisting learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others (as Doug Bostrom explained so well @3).
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John Mason at 03:07 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Thanks, Nick!
You're right - 'CO2 is plant-food' is the one that comes closest. The specific claim that the planet is greening does not have a rebuttal. Onto the to-do list. We ran into a similar situation last summer when claims that surface temperature had somehow been swapped for surface air temperature started doing the rounds.
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Nick Palmer at 02:50 AM on 26 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I've just checked and SKS does not appear to have a rebuttal yet to the 'Earth is getting greener due to CO2 fertilisation' meme, which is currently a very popular argument in the 'Climate Brawl' online and in the media.
My current response is to point out that the 'sceptic' almost always refers to the first paper from NASA, that does indeed conclude that there has been a greening and that it has been most likely caused by the CO2 fertilisation effect. However, the second paper several years later in fact noted that alarge part of the hreening was actually down to China and India planting millions of trees to reforest areas, de-desertification and expansion of agriculture.
There are papers which say that, in fact, the greening stopped a while back and Earth is now browning although there are others that say the greeninh has continued. Thoughts?
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Doug Bostrom at 06:36 AM on 25 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Further to ubrew12 and "adapt or die," it's helpful to remember that in nature adaptation is powered by what we humans call "excess mortality." But for us this means of adaptation is not axiomatic, no longer comprehensive.
As a product of nature we're a force of nature. Unlike other natural phenonena we have evolved a uniquely powerful adaptive feature called foresight. This means that we can control and change our own nature of adaptation, our chances for success— at least as pertains to our cultural practices.
By paying attention to and adapting our modes of living, we can certainly make ourselves more survivable as a natural threat to ourselves. With a lot less dying in the process.
So far, this seems to be a substantially latent competence. Perhaps we should more consciously exploit it.
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nigelj at 04:55 AM on 25 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Nick Palmer says "It's becoming increasingly clear that virtually all of the 'engine' behind 'denialim is the Machiavellian manoeuvring of highly motivated political ideologues who believe their cause is so overwhelmingly important that it justifies the use of mass deception and the naked propaganda that is in this film."
Love this statement. So accurate. It concisely sums up the whole thing.
At the level of the general public denialism is probably a bit more broadly based, including people with vested interests in the fossil fules industry, or just worried about costs, and others with a more ideological or political agenda. Or a combination. Just based on my anecdotal impression and reading studies by various people but the pattern is very clear.
As to Margaret Thatcher, not my favourite politician, but not totally bad either. She had a chemistry degree. She undestands science and accepted anthropogenic global warming. Probably also a bit opportunistic promoting nuclear power but at least she accepted the science. The idea it was all to impoverish poor people is in the realms of tin foil hat conspiracy theory.
Certainly I have read many comments by deniers where they cant help reveal their political ideologies, and its frequently small government, libertarian freedom loving (taken to an extreme), or very conservative, or sometimes hard left concern trolling (mitigation will hurt poor people). Sometimes the right use the same argument that mitigation will hurt poor people, but I would suggest they couldnt care less and just use any ammunition they can get.
According to psychological studies people who value security as a priority tend to vote left, those who value freedom (of action) as the main priority tend to vote right. However these tendencies exist on a spectrum and most people value both. The freedom loving libertarian ideologues are way out at the extreeme to the point its a bit pathological and where they resent all laws except very minimal and basic criminal and property law. You cannot run a society like that. It doesnt work. An example:
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BaerbelW at 04:25 AM on 25 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
walschuler @9
Thanks for the heads-up! I switched the history graphic to a version where "Callendar" is spelled consistently with two "l". Having active links on these graphics isn't really feasible AFAIK. Your other suggestions will need jg's involvement for a possible future version (which may or may not be feasible, given that we also have a few translated versions of the image and I remember that it was quite an effort when we added Eunice Foote to this set of graphics a few years ago).
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walschuler at 01:58 AM on 25 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I meant to say changes in the graphical timeline...
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walschuler at 01:57 AM on 25 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
This post is already useful and clear. A few suggested changes: choose which spelling of Callendar is correct (one "l" or two); add a temperature scale at the left margin for the green curve, in degrees C and F; make the web link to Weart's piece larger print and live, so one can jump directly to it.
You might also consider live links to the works of Fourier, Foote, Tyndall, Arrhenius, Keeling and successors; add an entry and link for the icework of Petit et al; define "enhanced greenhouse effect."
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Bob Loblaw at 23:40 PM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
nico_macdonald @ 7:
You want a case against Climate The Movie using evidence and science? All you need to do is follow the links to the existing rebuttals of the old, tired, frequently-debunked myths it repeats. They are all linked in the table that lists them in this blog post. There is literally nothing new in this movie.
Or are you unwilling to do a bit of reading?
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nico_macdonald at 23:19 PM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
A ‘mishmash of populist conspiratorial themes’; the BBC ‘only recently stopped giving deniers equal exposure’; ‘tired old cliches’; an ‘80-minute assault on reality’. Methinks you protest too much!
If you can make a case against Climate The Movie using evidence and science, why resort to such language?
As your comments policy notes, “using labels like 'alarmist' and 'denier' as derogatory terms are usually skating on thin ice’.
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Nick Palmer at 21:06 PM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Doug Bostrom's post #3 is very well thought out.
It's worth remembering that the producer of this Gish Gallop is Martin Durkin, who was also responsible for The Great Global Warming Swindle. Now, denialists will whine that the following is 'ad hominem' but it is highly relevant to assessing the motivation behind, and the (lack of) accuracy and credibility of Durkin's output. At the time he did TGGWS, he was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. It's clear that in that film he was trying to suggest that climate science was more or less invented by Maggie Thatcher to sabotage the mineworkers union, deny the poor people's of the world access to fossil fuel energy and also to encourage the nuclear industry.
He seems to have changed his politics somewhat nowadays and I believe he is now some form of libertarian but he now seems to be pushing the angle that climate science is an attack on industrial capitalism.
It's becoming increasingly clear that virtually all of the 'engine' behind 'denialim is the Machiavellian manoeuvring of highly motivated political ideologues who believe their cause is so overwhelmingly important that it justifies the use of mass deception and the naked propaganda that is in this film
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Evan at 20:38 PM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Nice piece John and Baerbel. Very informative!
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BaerbelW at 19:42 PM on 24 March 2024It's El Niño
Please note: a new basic version of this rebuttal was published on March 24, 2024 and now includes an "at a glance“ section at the top. To learn more about these updates and how you can help with evaluating their effectiveness, please check out the accompanying blog post @ https://sks.to/at-a-glance
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ubrew12 at 06:15 AM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
I'm sure everyone has heard this joke: Two guys are hiking and they run into a bear. The first takes off immediately, but the other stops to remove his boots and put on running shoes. The first says: "Are you crazy? That's a bear!" Says the second: "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you." It's funny, but this philosophy is no joke to people addicted to the concept that capitalism is a no-holds-barred cage match, in which the operating principle is 'Adapt or Die' (this is literally a response I've gotten from social media posts in which I complain about climate consequences). To push the analogy, 'some of us' prefer to use binoculars to check if we're wandering into bear territory before we are actually upon them. Unfortunately, to those regurgitating ad nauseum obvious lies about climate change, the act of 'seeing where you are going and adjusting your path on that basis' is, apparently, a form of communism. And communism must be fought above all else. And as Bostrom@#3 relates they are well-financed by the wealthiest industry in the history of commerce. Hence, we are now well into the part of this journey where people start running from bears, and 'Adapt or Die' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The good thing is, even as 'The Devil takes the Hindmost', more and more people will be calling for binoculars, I believe, and Climate Science will finally get the respect it is due, after all this time.
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Doug Bostrom at 04:04 AM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
"Climate vs. Freedom" is the main point of the movie, the mainspring of the climate denialist clockwork. Careful disassembly and reverse engineering of this particular brand of synthetic ignorance inevitably reveals solipsism expressed in ideology as the movement's power source; so-called "freedom" here means "I get to do whatever I want regardless of costs to others," and powers the entire affair.
The film's funders would like us to confuse the freedom to think that is central to enlightened governance with freedom to dump sewage at our property line. This brings us into the territory of irony. Enlightenment thinking delivered the facts governing the anxieties of the film's producers— and this film is essentially trying to wind back the clock on several hundred years of the results of freedom to think.
The producers of the film are not at all concerned with freedom of thought and its outcome of science and enlightened understanding of our world. Their fears are centered on application of scientific results to public policy dealing with climate effects of CO2 emissions, circumspect and informed decisions proscribing unaccounted external costs. This will threaten any ideology founded on "everything's all about me."
Is application of climate science to public policy decisions itself ideological, even socialist? In a way it's true that climate policy is "socialist" if we're thinking in terms of social vs. antisocial, if we're employing the word "social" in its basic meaning.
Climate policy is an outcome of "socialist ideology" in the same sense that traffic regulations are a social response to selfish automobile drivers. Individual irresponsible actions come at cost to bystanders. Society is generally concerned with fairness and rejects that one person may destroy another for no good reason.
Some small percentage of persons are so poorly socialized as to care nothing about others, so we must resort to various forms of coercion to force societally-compatible behaviors. Reckless driving is discouraged by force of policy and law, ranging from fines to imprisonment because we attach such high value to fairness.
So it's proving to be the case with the external costs of vending fossil fuels, and hence we end up with climate policy that ultimately will end up with sharp edges of coercion to deal with diehard antisocial elements, given that some very tiny fraction of our society is composed of people truly uncaring of anybody but themselves.
If vast amounts of money were to be made by driving over the speed limit, we'd find a vigorous public relations industry centered on denying that e=1/2mv2. The intent would be the same as with climate science and climate policy, to fool us into thinking we don't know established facts and by extension the outcomes of those facts.
We'll never see "Traffic Tickets: The Movie" because there's no group of people for whom a vast revenue stream is threatened by being forced to drive safely. In this case of climate science and (more importantly) climate policy there is indeed a postively astronomical vector of money that will change due to policy arranged around facts and fairness and informed by science. So here we are, dealing with a slickly produced film created entirely for the purpose of prolonging profoundly anti-social behavior and employing the tactic of propagating synthetic ignorance.
Freedumb isn't freedom. It's the opposite. Freedom to think well and to make informed choices isn't the same as freedumb, feeling free to make stupid decisions because we've been fooled into believing we're ignorant.
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John Mason at 03:45 AM on 24 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
Re #1: if you object to anything we've posted here, just let us know and cite published information to back up your argument. Just waving your arms in the air and essentially saying, "I hate this", doesn't get you very far, I'm afraid.
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textscape at 19:38 PM on 23 March 2024Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!
what a load of nonsense.
You people have NO idea.
Not skeptical ... just stupid.
Moderator Response:[BL] As a new user, I assume that you took the time to read the Comments Policy?
Your first statement is correct - the "movie" in question is indeed a "load of nonsense".
Your second statement fails to explain who "you people" are, nor does it explain just what "ideas" those people are alleged to have missed.
Your third statement is also a very accurate description of "Climate - the Movie".
Thank you for taking the time to share with us. Skeptical Science is a user forum wherein the science of climate change can be discussed from the standpoint of the science itself. Ideology and politics get checked at the keyboard.
Please take the time to review the Comments Policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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Paul Pukite at 07:41 AM on 22 March 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12 2024
NigelJ mentioned "extreme marine heatwaves"
Heatwave spikes in the each of the major ocean basin indices — Pacific (Nino 3.4), Atlantic (AMO), and Indian (IOD). These are additive in terms of a global anomaly.
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Paul Pukite at 06:55 AM on 22 March 2024It's a natural cycle
For the context of this thread, the important observation will be whether the anomalous global temperature rise of 2023 will recede back to "normal" levels. If that's the case, it will be categorized as a natural cycle.
So far it appears that there are simultaneous spikes in the temperature of 3 different ocean indices ENSO (Pacific), AMO (Atlantic), IOD (Indian). The last time that happened was in 1878, the year known for a super El Nino. Can see the 2 spikes in AMO for 1878 and 2023 in the following chart.
That holds interest to me in Minnesota in that this year's ice-out date for Lake Minnetonka almost broke the record for earliest date (in 1878 it occurred March 11, this year March 13)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/12/lake-minnetonka-ice-out/72941498007/
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nigelj at 06:05 AM on 22 March 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12 2024
Regarding "Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory, Schmidt, Nature [perspective]:"
This is very concerning and perceptive.
This following article by Copernicus has a great review of the effects of aerosols, and some interesting ideas of what may have contributed to last years unusually high temperatures in the nothern atlantic in partcular:
"Aerosols: are SO2 emissions reductions contributing to global warming?"
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
Excerpts:
In 2020, the International Maritime Organization adopted its ‘IMO 2020’ regulation to drastically reduce shipping-related sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Studies have concluded that the drop in emissions significantly reduced the formation of clouds over shipping lanes. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimated that that “the likely side-effect of the 2020 regulations to cut air pollution from shipping is to increase global temperatures by around 0.05C by 2050 (My note: Clearly this doesnt do much to explain the last 9 months unusual warming, and why would a change in 2020 shipping fuels that was implimented in that year, not slowly phased in, suddenly manifest 3 years later anyway? ). This is equivalent to approximately two additional years of emissions.” However, linking SO2 reductions directly to the recent extreme marine heatwaves omits part of the complexity of using models to calculate sulphate aerosol interactions in the atmosphere or estimating the effective application of the IMO 2020 regulation, and, more generally, the complexity of climate and atmospheric chemistry.
Reviewing the record North Atlantic Sea surface temperatures in June 2023, a preliminary analysis from CAMS scientists found a significant negative anomaly in Saharan dust aerosol transport over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, and an increased anomaly in biomass burning aerosol over the North Atlantic, coming from the massive Canadian wildfires. These aerosol anomalies are much bigger than the sulphate change from shipping emission reductions. This makes the estimation of the impact of reduced sulphate aerosol emissions on the sea surface temperatures very challenging.
June 2023 monthly mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) anomaly relative to June average AOD for the period 2003-2022 from the CAMS global reanalysis of atmospheric composition shows a negative anomaly related to reduced dust transport across the tropical North Atlantic (blue) and a positive anomaly related to smoke transport from Canadian wildfires over the extra-tropical North Atlantic (red). Base on non-validated data Credit: CAMS
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also suggested that, among other factors, the reduced winds of a weakened Azores anticyclone - an extensive wind system that spirals out from a centre of high atmospheric pressure - could have reduced the ocean-atmosphere exchange and the vertical mixing of the ocean between colder and warmer waters, as well as reducing Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, all of which has the potential to increase the ocean surface temperature.
“There will be, no doubt, long-term impacts from the reduced SO2 emissions, but it will demand dedicated research to understand the impact of sulphur changes. The changes in dust or black carbon have a more tangible effect in the short term”, says Richard Engelen CAMS Deputy Director.
My comments: Of course this doesn't easily explain the unusually high levels of warming in the pacific. Next year will be revealing. It should be relatively cooler year on past patterns but if it isnt IMO it would suggest a step change in anthropogenic global warming. We know the climate is non linear and abrupt changes are possible. Will be interesting to see what BS the denialists will come up with to counter another unusually warm year.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:01 AM on 22 March 2024It's a natural cycle
Michael Sweet @ 38:
A ground-based aerosol monitoring network has existed for 25+ years. It uses optical instruments - a sort of "remote sensing looking up" approach. I don't know to what extent it has been analyzed for aerosol trends, but I'm sure someone has been using the data for that purpose.
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John Mason at 02:11 AM on 22 March 2024It's a natural cycle
Re - #38: if you look at heat content graphs with uncertainty range included, it's possible that even more heat went into the oceans this past few years than we thought. For example:
Could it be that being well on the high side of the central estimate is sufficient??
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michael sweet at 23:39 PM on 21 March 2024It's a natural cycle
In Dr Schmidt's commentary, linked by Paul Pukite above, he reviews the possible causes of the high temperatures in 2023. He discusses the global warming trend, El Nino, aerosols and the volcano. He concludes that none offer enough to explain the temperature increase. This is the same conclusion that we reached in a discussion on a thread here at SkS. He suggests that the climate might have switched to a new, unmodeled regime. We will all have to wait for more data to see what the data indicates. If it was El Nino then (I think) we would expect a decrease in temperatures in a few months since that is switching to La Nina. It is interesting , in a macabre way, to see how this scientific question is answered.
NASA apparently finally launched a mission to measure aerosols in the atmosphere. Dr. Hansen has lobbied for such a mission for decades. How will scientists tell if aerosols changed significantly in the past 5 years?
It is very disturbing to me that Dr. Hansen predicted in advance that temperatures would substantially increase this decade due to the decrease in aerosols. It seems like more scientists think that aerosols do not explain the high temperatures in 2023. Dr Hansen has argued for years that the aerosol effect has been underestimated. I hope that Hansen is incorrect.
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Paul Pukite at 10:18 AM on 21 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
Energy use is outside the deep expertise of climate followers. Most don't appreciate that even though USA is the largest extractor of crude oil in the world, they still need a large fraction of imported oil. The USA only extracts <13 million barrels/day of crude oil from it's territory, yet the USA consumes 20 million/day of finished product. Compare that to a USA wheat crop where we harvest much more than we consume.
Note that the above is crude oil only, and other liquid fuels make up the amount to reach 20 million.
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Paul Pukite at 08:51 AM on 21 March 2024It's a natural cycle
As per the latest observations, nothing is ruled out
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00816-z
"Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory" :
- Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed.
By Gavin Schmidt
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:04 PM on 20 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
I understand every part of the re-posted article. But it is not clear how this presentation helps increase awareness or improve understanding of the leadership (Business and Political) actions that need to become more popular to ‘produce’ the changes of attitude and action of the collective US population so that the US is clearly understood to be responsibly doing its part, and being a leader, in the undeniably essential global effort to, at least, meet the globally agreed Paris Agreement objectives.
That said,
I agree with wilddouglascounty #3. ‘Producing energy’ correctly applies to ‘making energy available for human consumption’.
And, along the lines of nigelj’s point that ‘producing energy’ is understood shorthand, I offer the following detailed description: Energy production = Human actions to convert natural energy sources into 'consumable/usable energy products'.
All that said,
I would add that an often ‘missed, or dismissed, understanding’ is the importance of pursuing ‘sustainable energy production and consumption’. The history of action, and a lack of corrective action is an action, by misleading leaders has ‘produced’ and ‘continues to grow’ tragic consequences for the future of humanity due to the production of ‘substantial amounts of unsustainable consumption (not just energy consumption)’.
Note that ‘consumer desires to benefit from fossil fuel use’ are the ultimate ‘product‘ pursued by fossil fuel profiteers. And recently leaders of Exxon and Saudi Aramco have blamed consumers for being ‘the problem’, not misleading leaders (undeserving wealthy, powerful and influential people).
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nigelj at 05:44 AM on 20 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
IMHO terms like producing energy and sunrise are just convenient shorthand. To accurately describe whats really happening in a full sense would get very wordy: For example "The world produced xyz quantity of energy in 2023" would become " In 2023 the world converted xyz quantity of energy from a variety of sources to thermal energy to carry out various tasks " Do we really need to do that?
In the news hour on television "Sunrise" would become "Tomorrow the earth will rotate on its axis to expose the sun at 6.00 am". How ponderous. People know whats really meant. Nobody in todays world would take it literally and believe the sun really moves above the earth (except maybe the flat earth society, and a few indigenous tribes and they dont have television anyway).
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Bob Loblaw at 04:55 AM on 20 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
It all hinges on the meanings of words, doesn't it?
Coal miners don't produce coal - they just dig it up and move it.
Newspapers don't produce news, they just report on it.
But remember: English is a language where people drive on parkways and park on driveways.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:20 AM on 20 March 2024CO2 lags temperature
[BL], I agree. That is why I focused my reponse on wavefunction's unjustified criticism "...can't handle critisism [sic]...". To be honest, I had a faint hope that opening with the suggestion that wavefunction's comment raised an important point would get them to read my full comment.
Eclectic, I agree. Also, a lack of a justified response by wavefunction would indicate that they "can't handle, learn from or deliver, justified criticism".
Moderator Response:[BL] Hope is a good thing....
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wilddouglascounty at 23:28 PM on 19 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
Hey guys, BOTH are true in BOTH instances. Energy is not created in the universe, rather it follows the law of conservation of energy. But the miniscule part of that energy constant that is made available for human consumption is also produced.
As we know, the sun rising and setting on the local horizon is caused by the earth rotating in its trip around the sun. Nevertheless, the local rising and setting is a physically measurable reality that every plant and animal responds to.
So it depends on which frame of reference box you want to put onto reality: they both work and are not mutually exclusive!
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Evan at 20:28 PM on 18 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
Well Doug, the sun doesn't rise or set, and yet every news channel reports the times for "sunrise" and "sunset". :-)
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Doug Bostrom at 16:42 PM on 18 March 2024The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today
Call me an old curmudgeon but I wish we wouldn't talk about "producing" energy. The best we can do is to convert it. :-)
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Eclectic at 06:13 AM on 18 March 2024CO2 lags temperature
OnePlanet @661 : yes.
Now we await Wavefunction's first piece of "justified criticism".
Patience may be required ...
