What Climate Crisis?

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We are constantly reminded that we are experiencing a climate crisis, but as a climate scientist, I can tell you that’s not what the science has shown us so far. Other than modest warming, there has been little change in any kind of severe weather that can be attributed to global greenhouse gas emissions.

You don’t have to take my word for it, despite my credentials. It’s the conclusion of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its most recent report concludes that, other than direct temperature-related effects, there have been virtually no changes in severe weather that we can confidently attribute to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

And they do not anticipate that conclusion to change much, even by the end of this century.

Roy W. Spencer
The Heritage Foundation
October 10, 2024
Commentary: Climate change: The science doesn’t support the heated rhetoric

I suspect Spencer is correct, but I’m not going to commit on this as it is not my area of expertise. There is just too much emotion and money involved on the side of “global cooling!”, “global warming!”, “climate change!” for me to be anything but suspicious of them.

And besides, as hinted at in the article, increasing temperatures and rising sea levels are much better for everyone than entering another ice age. Which is easier to deal with? The sea rising a few feet and Canada getting a longer growing season for their crops? Or the corn belt hosting reindeer grazing the new tundra with glaciers a mile deep covering everything north from Seattle and New York City?

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30 thoughts on “What Climate Crisis?

  1. Not only Canada but also Russia and Ukraine and probably Manchuria get a longer growing season. In other words most of the land mass in the Northern hemisphere. There could be some loss at the southern fringe but it is probably never too hot to grow some crop.

  2. There is no, as in zero, evidence of warming temperatures. Over the last thirty years, the actual, unadjusted temperatures have remained steady to slightly down. Where I live now in Northeastern Midwestia, the weather for the last dozen years has been unusually cool and damp. Nobody around here can quite remember the last time the thermometer reached 100, and temperatures in the 90’s are unusual.

  3. I’ve pointed at this before but I’ll do it again. Find the GISP2 data set, from NOAA. It shows 50k years of climate data, extracted by analyzing ice sheet data from central Greenland.
    It nicely shows the last ice age (with wild temperature swings). It also shows the 10k or so years since then, also with lots of temperature swings though not quite as big. You can clearly see the “little ice age” of the 1600. You can see that 1850, which the warmist cult leaders want to tell us is the benchmark for “pre-industrial climate” is within a few tenth of a degree of the lowest in 10,000 years (and 1.3 C below the average over that period). It also shows that Leif Eriksson, when he traveled to America, had weather about as warm as the worst case UN estimates, and in the days of Julius Caesar it was a degree warmer still.

    Climate change? Sure, we have it. We’ve had it, in fact, for as long as the Earth has had a climate. Ask any dinosaur.

    SUGGESTED DATA CITATION: Alley, R.B.. 2004.
    GISP2 Ice Core Temperature and Accumulation Data.
    IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
    Data Contribution Series #2004-013.
    NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

    • The part I don’t see accounted for in these arguments is population growth. Sure, in the past, there have been temperature cycles over time, and for most of that time humans have been an insignificant population of non-industrial monkeys with no more effect on the atmosphere than elephants. We’ve gone through many cycles with that setup.

      But population hasn’t been cyclical over the past 200 years, it’s been nonlinear in one direction: up. We went from a pre-industrial society with less than a billion members to a fully carbon-based society with 8 times that many members *in less than 100 years.*

      Saying “we’ve been through this before” ignores that in fact no, we’ve never been through a cycle with 8 billion industrialized humans on the planet. I suppose if you believe greenhouse gases don’t actually affect the atmosphere then that fact is irrelevant, and there’s really no argument to be had. But that implies there’s some broad conspiracy to convince everyone that greenhouse gases are bad when they’re actually irrelevant, which then requires that you believe insurance companies, who have no motivation to buy anybody’s bullshit given that their business is dependent on correctly evaluating risk, that insurance companies are gonna buy that hook, line, and sinker as well.

      So I look to Occam’s razor and ask, which is more likely, the conspiracy theory. or that theory that insurance companies are correctly weighing risk in this case as they do in others?

      • “And for most of that time humans have been an insignificant population of non-industrial monkeys with no more effect on the atmosphere than elephants. We’ve gone through many cycles with that setup.”
        Yes, and we have even heard from the learn’id caste about how our cattle farting methane is destroying the atmosphere. So, elephants must be a problem to.
        Or maybe they just lie for a living?
        Wiki, Dr. Josef Mengele. (It’s what communists do with science.)

  4. A meme I recently saw put it rather nicely:

    “You may not believe in climate change, but your insurance company does…”

    (There’s another variant that mentions the military and their new preparations for wars based on climate change, but I don’t reset the exact phrasing)

    • That sounds like a cool meme.

      But it doesn’t trump pkoning’s referenced data. Can you reference increased insurance claims (preferably) or premiums due to climate change?

      And even if the climate is changing, is there clear evidence it is man made rather than normal variation?

      • Is PKoenig a climate scientist? I’m not, and I’m disinclined to act like I am one and cite data as though I have the expertise to draw authoritative conclusions from it. I’m more inclined to believe the 99% (ish) of climate scientists who think climate change (not just warming) is real. Everybody on the internet “has data.” That’s only the start of the process. Maybe PKoenig is a climate scientist, if so I’m happy to give his analysis more credence.

        In any case, there’s an entire Wikipedia article on this particular subject with lots of pointers to data if you want to dig in:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_insurance_in_the_United_States

        • Pkoning’s ice core guy is a climate expert.
          He said two things that stand undisputed.
          1) For 6,000 of the last 10,000 years, earth was much warmer than it is now.
          2) Modern standardized temperature reading started in about 1850. Which just happen to be the coldest it had been in 10,000 years.
          So, what we see as climate change is just the earth move back toward a true normal.
          Next up is CO2.
          Out of 400 PPM total in the atmosphere. Humans control less than 20 PPM. Less than 3%.
          Now if you communists would stop yapping, maybe we could get that down 3-5 PPM.
          But we ain’t never going to control enough to make a difference. Period, never, end of story, full stop.
          That is the science. First, last, over and out.
          And lastly, whom is going to fix it?
          Kamala Harris? Marcon? EU? WEF? Little Billy Gates?
          Fixing climate change through CO2 impossible.. So their only answer is to give them control and trust. And more to the point is to let them kill you off.
          Sorry John, your science is as bought and paid for as Joke Biden.
          At least Pkoning was pointing out some real scientists.
          You got Wikipedia? Seriously?
          And my all time favorite meme.
          Dude, the government steered that hurricane over NC.
          What kind of nut believes the government can control the weather, your crazy.
          OK, then good, can we drop all this government is going to fix the climate crap now?
          Wikipedia, HAHAHAHA,OH man, your killing me!

          • P.S. Stand outside in one place for 24 hours.
            Notice that 20 degree temperature change?
            The sun controls the temperature of this planet. (That’s why little Billy wants to block it.)
            And waxing Metallica; And nothing else matters.
            Real science dude, check it out.

          • Dear John.
            Insurance is a risk pool, that takes a skim. Inflation alone could account for insurance increases.
            But any excuse, real or imagined, will suit for an increase in rates.
            So, as an insurance company, you want 10% of $100.00 dollars. Or 10% of a $1,000.00?
            Wiki-whatever aside, if they are saying anything other than the sun is more active to account for any “warming”.
            Their a bought and paid for liar.
            Most of the 8 billion population of this planet are not industrialized. That and the fact that most of the planet is wide open space.
            With plants turning CO2 into plant life and O2. (Sixth grade biology, anyone?)
            Money, Power, Control, use any two to get the third. Climate change science is so people like you buy their stupid.
            And give elites one or all the above.

        • And we can totally trust Wikipedia.

          Insurance claims from natural disasters are indeed up but for some reason the insurance companies don’t want to talk about the actual reasons.
          1. Government regulation about wildfire prevention leading to more and more destructive fires.
          2. More building and more valuable building in vulnerable costal areas, compounded by foolish underwriting by the insurance companies themselves.

          One should also take a look at car insurance claims which are probably the worst inflationary pressure in the whole economy and are not driven by big natural disasters. Rather, the causes are general inflation caused by the government, the EV lunacy also government driven, the CAFE standards, also government, which tries to force people to buy cars they don’t want and drives up the prices of the cars they do want and finally the lingering effect on employment and supply chains from the COVID lockdowns.

          • You don’t have to trust Wikipedia, because everything is sourced. There are footnotes galore in that article, including answers to your “actual reasons” insurance companies are raising rates and filling more claims.

        • Phoning is pointing us to data obtained by scientists. His lack of climate scientist credentials is irrelevant.

          If you want to dismiss his contribution to the discussion, you need to find a reason to ignore data that, to my knowledge, no one else seriously disputes.

  5. Just as with the “jab”, the detailed evidence for what we now *know* them to be, was not all available at the time…. but…

    All you needed to know, was that they were using *force*, threat of job loss, loss of access to stores, loss of travel. Some places build internment camps. Many spoke of “passports”, “social credit”.

    All you need to know is that they are using force, and threat of force, to impose their agenda. That alone invalidates their legitimacy.

  6. For me the biggest “tell” that climate change is a boogeyman man created for the purpose of increasing control of the great unwashed by the intellectual elites is the number of cycles & modifications of one terror after another for at least the past 60 years that I can personally recall.
    In the 1960s, it was water and air pollution that was going to bring about the end of man unless extreme measures were taken quickly. By 1970, the bugaboo had shifted to over population where, once again draconian measures were touted as the only way to avoid world wide catastrophe. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, an impending ice age was all the talk. What is really interesting about this subject in particular is how much media attention was given to it then and the associated discussions about needed courses of action but now, in order to keep the narrative consistent regarding the current global warming hysteria, there is quite a bit of historical revision going on claiming that nobody really bought into that anyway. Yeah right, nobody but the media, the government and our education system.
    Moving on into our new century of further enlightenment, we were presented with the “hole in the ozone” that was going to expand to the point where civilization would be destroyed or forced to live underground to avoid death by untempered solar radiation. We had to ban Chlorofluorocarbons immediately. Never mind that no one ever identified the transport mechanism that got these incredibly heavy molecules from near the Earth’s surface to the upper atmosphere where they could react with the ozone. Nothing of note was said either about Mount Erebus in Antarctica that has been essentially erupting continuously since at least 1972, ejecting more ozone depleting substances into the upper atmosphere than any man made undertaking could ever produce. Add other volcanoes around the world with more significant eruptions for added measure. Seriously, when was the last time you heard or read of any significant fear mongering about the ionosphere? Not even lately when we have been presented with magnificent auroras, the likes of which I have not seen since the early 1960s.
    And now for the latest incarnation of global fear mongering, we have global warming that will certainly doom us all (except for Kevin Costner who quickly evolved to grow gills! — for those who are uncertain, this comment is satire.) Seriously though, how can we accept a future prediction made on assumptions that when applied to known conditions of the past cannot even come close to predicting what we know has happened? The current pattern for how global warming is being preached fits the past patterns of other hysterias. An observation is made of something out of the ordinary, then possible causes are identified. Possible causes which will require the greatest intervention are selected and promoted because “if we can fix it this way, we can have the most impact”. Unfortunately, the impact is far too often of uncertain effectiveness against the identified problem but more often than not very effective against the general population. In regards to global warming, we cannot, in a proven and unquestionable manner, identify exactly how climate change meets the claim of being anthropogegnic. Small theoretical studies do not scale up. Yet, the great unwashed are being cowed into accepting higher costs and reduced efficiencies and enjoyments to “save the planet and mankind” while those with position, money and power live as if nothing is wrong. WEF anyone? This is no different than what has been seen in previous hysterias and in many ways no different from the way the church and nobility treated the common people in medieval times.
    The track record of success for end of the world demagoguery is not good. Wolf can only be cried so many times and we are now so far past the point of credibility in the climate change wolf hue and cry that a person would almost need to be either incapable of objective thought or have a need for a religious experience or believe that there is some benefit in it for them that rationalizes the depredations that everyone else will experience.
    For those that really want a rational look at this issue, I would suggest reading two books. First, “Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters” written by Steven E. Koonin, the Undersecretary for Science in the Obama Administration and second, “Apocalypse Never, Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” by Michael Shellenberger. Neither of these authors could be, from their history and experience, considered radicals so you will get a very even handed discussion of the issue.

  7. I hope Mr. Spencer’s life insurance policy is paid up. People who buck the system tend to have “tragic accidents”. Especially if they have the proper pedigree to back up their statements.

  8. Dear Johnny S.,
    “Like so many topics these days, this one seems like a case study in confirmation bias, with everybody pointing to whatever data supports their preconceptions rather than following more rigorous science and the people who do that kind of analysis for a living.”
    Kind of like Al Gore’s hockey stick BS?
    And ask yourself what exactly is government telling the truth about in this day and age?
    You’re a marvel at obfuscating real evidence and highlighting things that have already been debunked.
    You should try harder to keep up. Maybe even read a science/chemistry book or two for yourself?
    As Bob Dillon sang; “You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.”
    Especially when it comes to government and climate change.

    • I’ve read quite a few chemistry books, actually. Did quite well on my chemistry exams, as well as in physics. And what knowledge I have of those areas is enough to tell me I don’t know nearly as much as climate scientists working in the field, and that keyboard warriors telling me they know better and that I’m just a sheep are probably just Dunning-Krueger victims.

      But by all means, keep taking your climate cues from Dylan (or “Dillon,” as you call him) and let the rest of us drift off to our ignorant slumber.

      • Yup, I failed most everything in school, especially spelling.
        So you read the books and did good in school? Then you know everything I said was true about the climate? And you still can’t make a judgement for yourself?
        Why is it John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Gates and a host of other liars making claims that are absolutely as un-scientific. And acting on them. And you know they are. And you still need an expert for some reason?
        And I, the most uneducated idiot to walk the planet give factual evidence. (Which you won’t to go anywhere near for some reason.)
        You don’t need an expert, you need to look at the world for what it truly is.
        John Kerry; “Agriculture contributes 33% of all emissions in the world.
        We can’t get to net-zero… unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution.
        You just can’t continue to warm the planet, while also expecting to feed it. It doesn’t work. So, we have to reduce emissions from the food systems.”

        “And let the rest of us drift off to our ignorant slumber”
        Sorry, you all get to starve.

        • One of the related elements to the Dunning-Krueger effect is the belief in “common sense.” The notion that “ordinary folk” can make reasonable judgements about complex issues because they have an innate understanding of how the world works. In reality, some issues are in fact too complex to be answered by people untrained in the field. Are you gonna lecture me on how a quantum computer works? If you’re not an engineer with a background in quantum physics, why would I listen to you? Climate is equally complex.

          So no, I’m not making a judgement for myself based on data I only partially understand, I’m going to defer to scientists because I understand how the scientific process works. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly better than Google and a high-school introduction to weather forecasting.

          To your other assertions, those are different arguments. Nobody’s brought up Kerry or Gore et. al. until your post, and those aren’t germane to the OP since they’re different statements based on different data.

          • “One of the related elements to the Dunning-Krueger effect is the belief in “common sense.”
            HAHAHAHAHA! Holy crap! How did humanity we ever live without the internet?
            You need an expert to explain how a watch works before you can tell what time it is?
            A little common sense can tell you what time it is by the sun and stars.
            You have to take classes from Dr. Ruth before you had sex?
            But thanks Johnny, I’ll gladly remain the D-K kid. If what you got’s the alternative.

  9. John says;
    “One of the related elements to the Dunning-Krueger effect is the belief in “common sense.” The notion that “ordinary folk” can make reasonable judgements about complex issues because they have an innate understanding of how the world works.”
    Well maybe Dunning-Krueger effect is to complex a syndrome for you to understand? You a shrink? Just joking.
    And what we ordinary folk understand about the world are the thieves that pray on us. So we learn to spot the lies, sniff out the BS, and dig for the truth. (We been pissed on enough to know it ain’t rain.)
    This started with you trying to BS Pkoning’s links. By sighting peer-reviewed BS. You got called. And still haven’t answered.
    The laws of organic chemistry, solar dynamics, absorption rates, all point to the truth. They are not complicated. (I managed to learn them.)
    Sorry about going off-topic with the elitist thing. Although it’s not off topic, Because the only reason for the science you talk about is because they bought and paid for your wiki-lies.
    Yuri told us about people with your special kind of problem. (I didn’t believe him I guess.)
    I got Dunning-Krueger, your smart, what you got? Why is it you think you need an expert for the simple stuff?
    You don’t really need a computer and a bunch of specialists to know the sun controls the temperature of this planet, do you? Really?
    You need wiki to tell you?
    Glad I missed out on the education.

  10. John:
    You are either too young, or didn’t bother to read the BIG magazines (that used to be the important means to communicate with the public) that covered this subject for MORE THAN A CENTURY!
    Whether they were pushing us freezing or melting changed approximately every quarter century. The one that sticks in my mind was about 1975, with the cover showing NYFC under an ice sheet, with the Liberty statue holding the torch just above the ice, IIRC. This all started back in the 1800’s!
    The Powers That Be, and the wannabe so called scientists that were schilling for them kept trying to take control of the public, but seem to have finally gotten a toehold with their latest bullshit attempt at climate alarmism.

    The fact that no one can get, or keep, a job that involves climate or weather study unless they agree to join the hysteria should raise a red flag on this subject. Any time people are censored on a subject should tell you there are lies involved.

    • I’m old enough to know that the first climate conference didn’t take place until 1975, and that discussions of climate change weren’t a thing in 1920. So the idea that “big” magazines covered it is also not a thing. And certainly nobody in the 1800s was talking about climate change.

      More to the point is that lay magazines are in the business of selling magazines, not having nuanced, detailed discussions of complex science. So the fact that you saw provocative magazine covers about climate change, and that those stories changed targets over time, is no surprise. That’s how popular magazines work. If you think this is all a conspiracy because the story has been one shocking revelation after the other over the years, it’s because you’re reading Time and Popular Science rather than Scientific American or Nature, the latter of which have been far more measured in their assertions.

      And “can’t get or keep a job in climate or weather study unless they agree to join the hysteria”…got a source citation for that?

      • …got a source citation for that?
        All the Wiki-links you made above should prove Will’s case nicely.

        • Oh good, a wiki war!

          Try this: the guy credited with popularizing the term “global warming” was Wallace Broecker. He first came up with it in 1975, coincidentally the year they had the first climate conference:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Smith_Broecker

          So no, “big magazines” weren’t covering it before then, the term didn’t even exist outside a small scientific community.

          Your turn.

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