A rational article about climate change (for a change)

By Guy Sorman, CITY JOURNAL – Winter 2019

We’ve all come across the images of polar bears drifting on ice floes: emblematic victims of the global warming that’s melting the polar ice caps, symbols of the threat to the earth posed by our ceaseless energy production—above all, the carbon dioxide that factories and automobiles emit. We hear louder and louder demands to impose limits, to change our wasteful ways, so as to save not only the bears but also the planet and ourselves.

In political discourse and in the media, major storms and floods typically get presented as signs of impending doom, accompanied by invocations to the environment and calls to respect Mother Nature. Only catastrophes seem to grab our attention, though, and it’s rarely mentioned that warming would also bring some benefits, such as expanded production of grains in previously frozen regions of Canada and Russia. Nor do we hear that people die more often of cold weather than of hot weather.

Isolated voices criticize the alarm over global warming, considering it a pseudoscientific thesis, the true aim of which is to thwart economic modernization and free- market growth and to extend the power of states over individual choices. 

Not being a climatologist myself, I’ve always had trouble deciding between these arguments. And then I met Judith Curry at her home in Reno, Nevada. Curry is a true climatologist. She once headed the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, until she gave up on the academy so that she could express herself independently. “Independence of mind and climatology have become incompatible,” she says. Do you mean that global warming isn’t real? I ask. “There is warming, but we don’t really understand its causes,” she says. “The human factor and carbon dioxide, in particular, contribute to warming, but how much is the subject of intense scientific debate.”
Curry is a scholar, not a pundit. Unlike many political and journalistic oracles, she never opines without proof. And she has data at her command. 
 
She tells me, for example, that between 1910 and 1940, the planet warmed during a climatic episode that resembles our own, down to the degree. The warming can’t be blamed on industry, she argues, because back then, most of the carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels were small. In fact, Curry says, “almost half of the warming observed in the twentieth century came about in the first half of the century, before carbon-dioxide emissions became large.” Natural factors thus had to be the cause. 
 
None of the climate models used by scientists now working for the United Nations can explain this older trend. Nor can these models explain why the climate suddenly cooled between 1950 and 1970, giving rise to widespread warnings about the onset of a new ice age. I recall magazine covers of the late 1960s or early 1970s depicting the planet in the grip of an annihilating deep freeze. According to a group of scientists, we faced an apocalyptic environmental scenario—but the opposite of the current one.
 
But aren’t oceans rising today, I counter, eroding shorelines and threatening to flood lower-lying population centers and entire inhabited islands? “Yes,” Curry replies. “Sea level is rising, but this has been gradually happening since the 1860s; we don’t yet observe any significant acceleration of this process in our time.” 
 
Here again, one must consider the possibility that the causes for rising sea levels are partly or mostly natural, which isn’t surprising, says Curry, for “climate change is a complex and poorly understood phenomenon, with so many processes involved.” To blame human-emitted carbon dioxide entirely may not be scientific, she continues, but “some find it reassuring to believe that we have mastered the subject.” She says that “nothing upsets many scientists like uncertainty.”
This brings us to why Curry left the world of the academy and government-funded research. “Climatology has become a political party with totalitarian tendencies,” she charges. “If you don’t support the UN consensus on human-caused global warming, if you express the slightest skepticism, you are a ‘climate-change denier,’ a stooge of Donald Trump, a quasi-fascist who must be banned from the scientific community.”  
These days, the climatology mainstream accepts only data that reinforce its hypothesis that humanity is behind global warming. Those daring to take an interest in possible natural causes of climactic variation—such as solar shifts or the earth’s oscillations—aren’t well regarded in the scientific community, to put it mildly.
The rhetoric of the alarmists, it’s worth noting, has increasingly moved from “global warming” to “climate change,” which can mean anything. That shift got its start back in 1992, when the UN widened its range of environmental concern to include every change that human activities might be causing in nature, casting a net so wide that few human actions could escape it.
 
Scientific research should be based on skepticism, on the constant reconsideration of accepted ideas: at least, this is what I learned from my mentor, the ultimate scientific philosopher of our time, Karl Popper. What could lead climate scientists to betray the very essence of their calling? The answer, Curry contends: “politics, money, and fame.” 
 
Scientists are human beings, with human motives; nowadays, public funding, scientific awards, and academic promotions go to the environmentally correct. Among climatologists, Curry explains, “a person must not like capitalism or industrial development too much and should favor world government, rather than nations”; think differently, and you’ll find yourself ostracized. “Climatology is becoming an increasingly dubious science, serving a political project,” she complains. In other words, “the policy cart is leading the scientific horse.”
 
This has long been true in environmental science, she points out.
 
The global warming controversy began back in 1973, during the Gulf oil embargo, which unleashed fear, especially in the United States, that the supply of petroleum would run out. The nuclear industry, Curry says, took advantage of the situation to make its case for nuclear energy as the best alternative, and it began to subsidize ecological movements hostile to coal and oil, which it has been doing ever since. The warming narrative was born.
“Nowadays, public funding, scientific awards, and academic promotions go to the environmentally correct.”
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration played a role in the propagation of that narrative. Having ended its lunar expeditions, NASA was looking for a new mission, so it built some provisional climate models that focused primarily on carbon dioxide, because this is an easy factor to single out and “because it is subject to human control,” observes Curry. Even though it is just one among many factors that cause climate variations, carbon dioxide increasingly became the villain.
Bureaucratic forces at the UN that promote global governance—by the UN, needless to say—got behind this line of research. Then the scientists were called upon and given incentives to prove that such a political project was scientifically necessary, recalls Curry. The UN founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to push this agenda, and ever since, climatologists—an increasingly visible and thriving group—have embraced the faith.
 In 2005, I had a conversation with Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian railway engineer, who remade himself into a climatologist and became director of the IPCC, which received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize under his tenure. Pachauri told me, without embarrassment, that, at the UN, he recruited only climatologists convinced of the carbon-dioxide warming explanation, excluding all others. This extraordinary collusion today allows politicians and commentators to declare that “science says that” carbon dioxide is to blame for global warming, or that a “scientific consensus” exists on warming, implying that no further study is needed—something that makes zero sense on its face, as scientific research is not based on consensus but on contradictory views.
Curry is skeptical about any positive results that might follow from environmental treaties—above all, the 2016 Paris Climate Accord. By the accord’s terms, the signatory nations—not including the United States, which has withdrawn from the pact—have committed themselves to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in order to stabilize the planet’s temperature at roughly its present level. Yet as Curry elaborates, even if all the states respected this commitment—an unlikely prospect—the temperature reduction in 2100 would be an insignificant two-tenths of a degree. And this assumes that climate-model predictions are correct. If there is less future warming than projected, the temperature reductions from limiting emissions would be even smaller.
 
Since the Paris Climate Accord was concluded, no government has followed through with any serious action. The U.S. pullout is hardly the only problem; India is effectively ignoring the agreement, and France “misses its goals of greenhouse-gas reduction every year,” admits Nicolas Hulot, the French environmental activist and former minister for President Emmanuel Macron. The accord is unenforceable and carries no sanctions— a condition insisted upon by many governments that wouldn’t have signed on otherwise. We continue to live in a contradictory reality: on the one hand, we hear that nothing threatens humanity as much as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide; on the other hand, nothing much happens practically to address this allegedly dire threat. Most economists suggest that the only effective incentive to reduce greenhouse-gas levels would be to impose a global carbon tax. No government seems willing to accept such a levy.
 
Is there an apocalyptic warming crisis, or not? “We’re always being told that we are reaching a point of no return—that, for instance, the melting of the Arctic ice pack is the beginning of the apocalypse,” Curry says. “But this melting, which started decades ago, is not leading to catastrophe.”
 
Polar bears themselves adapt and move elsewhere and have never been more numerous; they’re less threatened by the melting, she says, than by urbanization and economic development in the polar region. Over the last year or so, moreover, the planet has started cooling, though “no one knows whether it will last or not, or whether it will put all the global-warming hypotheses in question.” According to Curry, the truly dramatic rupture of the ice pack would come not from global-warming-induced melting but from “volcanic eruptions in the Antarctic region that would break up the ice, and these cannot be predicted.” Climatologists don’t talk about such eruptions because their theoretical models can’t account for the unpredictable.
 
Does Curry recommend passivity, then? Not at all. In her view, research should be diversified to encompass study of the natural causes of climate change and not focus so obsessively on the human factor. She also believes that, instead of wasting time on futile treaties and in sterile quarrels, we would do better to prepare ourselves for the consequences of climate change, whether it’s warming or something else. Despite outcries about the proliferation of extreme weather incidents, she points out, hurricanes usually do less damage today than in the past because warning systems and evacuation planning have improved. That suggests the right approach.
 
Curry’s pragmatism may not win acclaim in environmentalist circles or among liberal pundits, though no one effectively contests the validity of her research or rebuts the data that she cites about an exceedingly complex reality. But then, neither reality nor complexity mobilizes passions as much as myths do, which is why Judith Curry’s work is so important today. She is a myth-buster.
 
Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author of many books, including Economics Does Not Lie: A Defense of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis.
October 27, 2019 | 47 Comments »

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47 Comments / 47 Comments

  1. Felix Quigley Said:

    mao and China

    I am reminded of my joke that Obama’s Maoist Green Czar, Van Jones, should hae been cause for celebration, as I expected him to wave Mao’s little red book around and implement a Great Leap Forward, when Mao urged everybody to melt everything made of metal around the house to smelt steel at home. It was a mess and all they made was black clouds but black clouds is what we want. If burning fossil fuels is giving us this great weather we’ve been having for several years now, I say “burn, baby, burn” Ha Ha.

  2. @ Felix Quigley:

    This is this lady Curry giving a “speech”.

    remember she quoted one year as having a lower temp and I said “One Year” a real scientist in this field would NEVER do that

    It is at about 25.00 that Curry makes claims like some Russian and German scientists are predicting less heat from the sun

    But no names and no sources. what a boring and chancy person. And she reads…I think she is a fraud. Basically could not hack it and switched into this rubbish.

    if YOU were ever giving a lecture would you read it!!!

    For me it is worth at least looking at Curry in action. Life is too short to spend time listening to this garbage. Compared with such as Dan Britt who is in total control of the subject, he is genuine the genuine article and you know it. Gosh the poor students is all I can say!

    What worries me is that if these people, including Trump, are hiding 2, 3 and 4 degrees of heating this has a disaster ahead of us.

  3. @ Felix Quigley:

    Is it warming today? (Round about 45 and his discussion of mao and China today is just so revealing…Is total scary! if you understand it that is!

    Well of course it bloody well is.

    Britt is amazed anybody would ask.

    We are in a Milankovich cycle and we should be freezing but we are ensuring that it is warming up

    That is US!

  4. Adam Dalgliesh has summed up very well just what is driving the climate deniers. And as Dalgliesh notes it is being driven by a deep conspiracy attitude to living and to everything really. Note their links still with David Icke through Infowars.

    To me, this writer seems to be projecting onto the scientists who believe in the climate change theory his own economic and political motives for opposing their scientific conclusions.. He assumes that because he objects to their scientific conclusions because they conflict with his own economic-political goals, the scientists who have reached these conclusions must be pursuing economic-political goals opposite to his, rather than having based their conclusions on the relevant scientific evidence. This is the fallacy that all projectors make– they assume that those with whom they disagree must have ulterior motives similar to their own.

    The answer to that is that a molecule of CO2 could not give a rats behind about Trump and Make America Great

    Science is Science is Truth

  5. A brilliant video given by Dan Britt

    At 19.50 he moves into explanation of the Milankovich cycles. Milankovich was a Serbian and he managed to give the explanation of how the Ice Ages came about.

    To think that Breitbart, Infowars, and such louts actually try to disrespect such science. It is unbelievable whatthey ahve got off with.

    And his mastery of the climate of the last half a billion years is an eye opener.

    Are people on Israpundit going to throw this learning out the window? Quite amazing that a Jewish site would do so which is why I fight them. i think too much of the Jewish people to let that happen.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yze1YAz_LYM

  6. YES IT IS FAIR TO LOOK AT ALL VIEWS BUT WE MUST DISCUSS THE SCIENCE OF ALL VIEWS

    But to be fair, we should also look at the views of those of her fellow climatologists who disagree with her.

    Adam Dalgliesh makes this salient point.

    Thank you Adam for coming in on this.

    This article shows the problem. first we have the editor introducing the article but says nothing at all. Then it is not Judith Curry writing the article and the writer is telling of meeting her at her home in Nevada. So he is extracting quotes. The writer is a total climate change denier. Then the quotes themselves. This introduces a level of confusion. First ted does not say anything, the article is about Judith Curry but she is not writing it. the guy writing it is total climate change denier.

    Then after all of that Adam we try to get to the science and argue on the science.

    And I still have not answered Judith Curry and the claims she makes which are coming to us through another entity, who is a climate change denier. And who is he? What is his French/American background in the writing field?

    And sadly all of that matters every bit of it!

    Then we might get to the science and here she first says about the science

    “Those daring to take an interest in possible natural causes of climactic variation—such as solar shifts or the earth’s oscillations—aren’t well regarded in the scientific community, to put it mildly.”

    And the immediate and short, sharp answer to that by Curry is that they are not well Received because they are wrong and the science disproves their claim.

    In fact as I write in my new website http://www.capitalismclimate.com if it was up to the sun the earth today would be an iceball.

    I go into this step by step in my article
    http://capitalismclimate.com/index.php/2019/10/27/the-sun-hitting-and-heating-our-earth-is-not-simplistic/

    Now there is the opportunity for the editor of Israpundit to give all sides. i explain in precise detail before I ever saw the article by Curry how Curry is wrong.

    How could I do that? It is science. The science has disproved her.

    Imagine the opportunity! Ted Belman editor of Israpundit gives all sides and allows discussion on that key article which I have written.

  7. WE SHOULD BE IN A COOLING PERIOD

    How Skeptical Science answers

    First the Myth

    It’s the sun
    “Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer. The data suggests solar activity is influencing the global climate causing the world to get warmer.” (BBC)

    Followed by the answer from Skeptical Science

    Over the last 35 years the sun has shown a cooling trend. However global temperatures continue to increase. If the sun’s energy is decreasing while the Earth is warming, then the sun can’t be the main control of the temperature.

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=2&t=1263&&a=18

  8. Isolated voices criticize the alarm over global warming, considering it a pseudoscientific thesis, the true aim of which is to thwart economic modernization and free- market growth and to extend the power of states over individual choices.

    To me, this writer seems to be projecting onto the scientists who believe in the climate change theory his own economic and political motives for opposing their scientific conclusions.. He assumes that because he objects to their scientific conclusions because they conflict with his own economic-political goals, the scientists who have reached these conclusions must be pursuing economic-political goals opposite to his, rather than having based their conclusions on the relevant scientific evidence. This is the fallacy that all projectors make– they assume that those with whom they disagree must have ulterior motives similar to their own.

  9. This is from an article in a website/blog called skepticalscience. It rebuts Ms. Curry’s views. I don’t doubt that Ms. Curry is a competent climatologist, and an honest person, and that these are her genuinely held opinions. But to be fair, we should also look at the views of those of her fellow climatologists who disagree with her.

    Climate Misinformation by Source: Judith Curry

    Quotes Articles Arguments Blogs Links Search
    Quotes by Judith Curry

    Climate Myth What the Science Says
    “I suspect that the higher level of belief among ocean sciences and particularly geophysics represents second order belief (i.e. support for a perceived consensus) rather than personal research on AGW detection/attribution or a careful survey of the literature. How to square this with the oft reported 97% consensus? Well, ‘climate scientists’ in these surveys typically includes economists, ecologists etc., nearly all probably representing second order belief.”
    10 November 2013 (Source)
    The survey Verheggen et al. (2014) found that scientists who work specifically on the physical science basis of climate change (known as WG1 for short), especially experts in attribution and aerosols, tend to believe humans are responsible for a greater proportion of the observed global warming than other scientists working in climate science who may, in some cases, have a “second-order belief” (see figure 2 in that study).

    Overall, studies show 91% to 97% consensus among experienced climate scientists.

    “the narrative of the ‘spiral of death’ for the sea ice has been broken … It remains unclear as to what extent the decline in sea ice over the past decades is caused by natural variability versus greenhouse warming. Whether the increase in 2013 is a one year blip in a longer declining trend, or whether it portends a break in this trend remains to be seen.”
    10 September 2013 (Source)
    A one-year increase in Arctic sea ice extent is short-term noise caused by weather, and is not indicative of a long-term recovery from the rapid human-caused decline.

    Sea ice extent has dropped since 2013.

    “what the heck does the ‘climate change consensus’ even mean any more? The definition of climate change consensus is now so fuzzy that leading climate change skeptics are categorizing themselves within the 97%.”
    26 July 2013 (Source)
    Here’s what it means: the scientist self-ratings survey included in Cook et al. (2013) found a 96% consensus that humans are responsible for most of the current global warming, among papers that explicitly quantified whether or not humans were responsible. (This was not originally stated in the paper, but can be seen in the anonymized raw data of The Consensus Project.)

    The contrarian Roy Spencer did claim to be part of the “97% consensus”. The number 97% was produced with different criteria but The Consensus Project database shows that his claim is false. (Judith Curry herself did have two old papers among the 97%, but has published no papers stating whether or not humans cause most of the observed warming.)

    “This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline”
    30 October 2011 (Source)
    Every part of the Earth’s climate system has continued warming since 1998.

    Global warming apparently slowed down, but did not stop over reasonable averaging periods (more than 10 years). The slowdown is now over. The slowdown may have partly been an illusion produced by 1998 (an unusually hot year), plus a lack of arctic data (coverage bias) during a time when arctic regions were warming quickly. Instrumental bias may also be a factor. Ocean heat content continued rising during the slowdown.

    “I just finished listening to Murry Salby’s podcast on Climate Change and Carbon. Wow. […] If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science.”
    4 August 2011 (Source)
    Multiple lines of evidence make it very clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions.

    “There is no question that the diagrams and accompanying text in the IPCC TAR, AR4 and WMO 1999 are misleading. I was misled. Upon considering the material presented in these reports, it did not occur to me that recent paleo data was not consistent with the historical record….It is obvious that there has been deletion of adverse data in figures shown IPCC AR3 and AR4, and the 1999 WMO document. Not only is this misleading, but it is dishonest”
    22 February 2011 (Source)
    The ‘decline’ refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.

    It is clear the between 91% and 97% of climate scientists who have published studies of climate friends over the past ten years or so disagree with Ms. Curry’s conclusions. They think that climate change is for real and that human technologies are at least one major contributor to it over the past 150 years.

    This article also points out that Ms. Curry has not actually disputed this conclusion in the two scientific articles about the climate that she has published. She has only disputed the conclusions of the majority of her fellow climatologists in interviews with the mainstream, general-interest media–not in scientific articles.

  10. Just read that switching from fossil fuels to renewal clean energy will not work to save the planet.

    Earth Needs Fewer People to Beat the Climate Crisis, Scientists Say

    Now, four decades later, a larger group of scientists is sounding another, much more urgent alarm. More than 11,000 experts from around the world are calling for a critical addition to the main strategy of dumping fossil fuels for renewable energy: there needs to be far fewer humans on the planet.

    So who should be eliminated to make the planet safer? Who should practice abortions and vigorous birth control?

    So with all these extra humans should they just not plant trees?

  11. Felix Quigley Said:

    No not Jewish nor will I be. I am Irish and will die Irish.

    But fair’s fair and turnabout is fair play. Do I now get to lecture you on how a REAL Irishman would behave in polite company or should I leave that to Edgar G? [And now, I suppose it’s your turn to attempt another impersonation of Marx or Lenin and refer to me as Sebastien and Co.] Have you ever considered standup? Monty Python Communist Quiz sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s

  12. Michael S Said:

    No not Jewish nor will I be. I am Irish and will die Irish.

    But, fair’s fair. Do I now get to lecture you on how a REAL Irishman would behave? Or should I leave that to Edgar G?

  13. Felix Quigley Said:

    A real Jew would

    Gosh, thanks for telling me about what a real Jew would do. Silly me, I thought a real Jew was the child of a Jewish mother or a convert. What do I know, anyway? What would I do without your guidance!

  14. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    No not Jewish nor will I be. I am Irish and will die Irish.

    I see Zionism as a national liberation struggle and it has religious aspects but that is OK by me too.
    Zionism as a long struggle for nation, perhaps the oldest in the world existing today. It is very progressive. Its leadership are in the main tied to Imperialism and cannot express much less fight for real Zionism. the present leaders are in the main an insult to the great leaders and people of the past. That is the crisis. It is a crisis of leadership.

    The Arabs had little interest in Palestine and made it clear that they had no interest. Then they used the area and issue as part of a Mohammedan antisemitic stratagem. the Arabs are linked to Mohammedanism, the most backward of all cults on earth.

    I am a Trotskyist in politics. I trace my support for the Jews and fight against antisemitism to Marx, Engels, Lenin and especially Trotsky in the 1930 to 40 period. in that decade Trotsky broke completely from “assimilationism”.

    But this topic here today is about global warming. I am opposed to people making pronouncements as you did without basing those on science. So the “Pope” speaking ex cathedra. Simple as that. This is a war of ideas on that. I have had to study as a non scientist and so what I say about global warming is always rooted in science argument. I was laughing at your pathetic hatred of science. i am precisely your direct opposite on this. And the opposite of religion too.

    I could say today Trump leads the hatred of science. Greta Thunberg starting at about the age 8 was leading and is leading the fight for scientists today although she is not a scientist.

    On this issue I bitterly am opposed to Trump. I defend Trump against Fascist becoming Democrat Party who will impeach him in December in a fake trial. I defend Trump on other political messages too.

    My point is that Trump must be defeated not by this but by the movement of the people in America who understand the great danger to the world from climate change.

    Some people say that Trotsky ended in 1940 but I think it is a very short period of time from 1940 to 2019.

    I am very interested in the positions Trotsky took in his life, some good some bad, but overall he fought antisemitism, and in the critical 1930s he fought for a Jewish independent state, he was alone in the analysis and precision he foretold the Holocaust, and the answer was for Jews to get to Palestine and create their independent state. He did in that context warn about the Mohammedans.

    The murder of Trotsky was the crime of the century. On this site to the silence of Belman Yamit82, a woman friend of his from Texas, and another person no longer writing here laughed at this murder.

    But it has happened before. People in history have been liquidated by evil but the ideas if they are authentic are not so easy to put an end to.

    I know your reaction to all of this. You are a typical New York bourgeois. You own nothing but your ideas are bourgeois. I already know your politics very well. And you know mine. Your question was a stratagem (a trick)

  15. Felix Quigley Said:

    A real Jew would be onto that in half a second.

    Now that you mention it, and since you’ve opened this can of worms, yourself, I’ve been curious for a long time but was too tactful to ask: Are you Jewish, Felix?

  16. Sebastien

    Ted belman is a coward because he hides behind these article writers and does not come out and say, the global warming issue is a hoax because…Like Trump he leaves out the because. I have no respect for that

    he is a fool for the same reason. While I have struggled hard as a non scientist to understand this issue, and see my articles on http://www.capitalismclimate.com, he has not written one thing.

    The Pope thing…you are as i knew before ultra sensitive.

    But basically it was in response to your post and so had a serious side. I need scientific proof and not pronouncements.

    Ted Belman did not begin by saying “hey we have a problem here,let us go into it, get all the evidence out there.”

    No he begin with “It is a hoax!”

    And that goes through everything

    The whole thing is rotten to the core and this is not Jews in reality, as for example you do not attack the comment made by Yamit that he cherry picks in an argument. I really really deeply have no time for that.

    A real Jew would be onto that in half a second.

    But you were not Sebastien…this has a big effect on me

    We are getting to a point today in political life where nobody can be silent. 50 years ago maybe but today it is all too fraught.

  17. Felix Quigley Said:

    What is truly shocking in this article is the hate-filled attitude…

    I know it’s just hyperbole, you are trying to imitate Marx, Lenin and Trotsky’s pugnacious manner in debate but After you just called your forbearing host, Ted Belman, a coward and a fool, I think you are the last person in the world who should be taken seriously when decrying anybody’s hate-filled attitude. LOL. Is a modicum of civility too much to ask for? Moreover, this is just your opinion, right, Pope Felix?

  18. @ Ted Belman:

    “prove it”

    indeed!

    But why worry Ted…you will be dead soon, and so will I and old dalgliesh is already dead, expired about a year ago.

    So relax.

    Then I really do have the solution…just you mosey on down to old Yamit there in the Negev and he will keep you all on the straight and narrow as regards climate.

    happy times Ted!

  19. Ted

    I need to take a big rest from this. i cannot keep up. I thought i think I was replying to another article in which Frank had spoken about running vehicles on hydrogen or ammonia. I do not fully understand the science there but it was OK by me. Now I cannot find that article. i also have reached the conclusion you do not really want to know this stuff. the arctic is melting you refuse to acknowledge that. the permafrost is breaking up. The Amazon is being destroyed by cattle people. natives being killed. The Amazon and Greenland are endangered. Species being made extinct. Fish in trouble as are corals by a warming ocean. YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW. This is a terrible advertisement you are making on this blog for Zionism.

  20. @ Felix Quigley:

    Yes Comrad Felix pls read the whole article…. I did quite faithfully from the article, not the whole article but have learned from you to cherry-pick what conforms to my predetermined understanding and even prejudices against fruitcake warming relgious fanatics.

    Here are some more scientific data to debunk and confound you loons.

    While Democrats and liberals claim “global warming” is settled science, reports come out weekly that deliver different data. The climate was indeed warming throughout the 1990s, but that then dropped off.

    Now, a new study finds that an increase in sea ice may lead to another ice age.

    STUDY: Explosion In Antarctic Sea Ice Levels May Cause Another Ice Age, Not Warming

    Antarctic sea ice is key to triggering ice ages, study finds

    UChicago scientists model how cooling atmosphere can tip climate into glacial periods

    We’ve known for years that Earth’s climate is like a giant Rube Goldberg machine: Pull one lever, and a massive chain of events starts into motion. Yet many of the steps that drive these changes have remained shrouded in uncertainty.

    “One key question in the field is still what caused the Earth to periodically cycle in and out of ice ages,” said Asst. Prof. Malte Jansen, whose research at the University of Chicago seeks to discover and understand the processes that make up global climate. “We are pretty confident that the carbon balance between the atmosphere and ocean must have changed, but we don’t quite know how or why.”

    “One key question in the field is still what caused the Earth to periodically cycle in and out of ice ages.”

    Global cooling linked to increased glacial carbon storage via changes in Antarctic sea ice

  21. @ jonwhinch:
    In the field of climate science in which science considers aeons that sentence labelled her as a very confused, and worse, confusing person. For you to label this as just a harmless little aside is unforgiveable. And there is so much more in this article. This is now a war of ideas. There is the contention that CO2 is the great regulator of climate and has been over the long history of the climate. But that poses a dagger held agaisnt the fossil fuel lobby. They are spending huge money on this just as they did on the tobacco issue a few decades ago.

  22. This is especially interesting to me because of the Irish angle. I myself am not a scientist and I definitely was not trained as such, indeed I remember that science was a forbidding subject in St Columbs Derry. It seemed to centre on bunsen burners as they called them. And cold horrible classrooms. Humanity was not in massive supply. I picked up very little over too many (lost) years. It is only lately that I have discovered John Tyndale who was born in a poor protestant family in the county of Carlow, but spent most of his life in England. He was really a Victorian. He is now very relevant in the field of climate science. How the wheels of life turn!

    In general I have come to the conclusion

    It is necessary to 1. be humble 2. understand that we understand very little 3. take up a struggle to learn and 4. understand that we should stop taking up positions that will prevent us from learning
    https://www.britannica.com/science/Tyndall-effect

    For anybody prepared to make the effort this is a most useful article

    https://skepticalscience.com/history-climate-science.html

  23. What is truly shocking in this article is the hate-filled attitude towards the Polar Bear and I use the word “hate” advisedly. I see the same thing towards the Iberian Lynx, especially from hunters who support VOX and the PP in Spain, where they are still filling these last few creatures with lead. It is a very common thing among these circles and I note the Trump family also suffer from this disease. But here the Polar Bear simply cannot move out of these environs of the frozen Arctic because after such a long time it does not have the morphology to exist elsewhere. And the numbers they quote in this article are lies because this creature is notoriously difficult to count because it spreads over such a vast area. All you can say for sure is 1. it will do its utmost to survive and 2. with its habitat disappearing ti will not succeed. Remove the habitat you remove the animal is a law of nature.

  24. @ Felix Quigley:
    Your language and labeling of Curry and your grandiose claims that a simple statement like ” Over the last year or so, moreover, the planet has started cooling, though “no one knows whether it will last or not, or whether it will put all the global-warming hypotheses in question.” makes you cringe and in your mind condemns someone forever as a professional climate denier shows me that you dont understand basic English comprehension .
    She states that nobody knows how long this will last so to any rational person she is not saying this trend proves or disproves anything SO FAR . Just stating the obvious that IF it continues for a long time it will .
    Do you apply the same standard to all these who claim that a single big storm is proof of their being professional climate advocates ?

  25. The things this creature Judith Curry comes off with makes you cringe.

    Over the last year or so, moreover, the planet has started cooling, though “no one knows whether it will last or not, or whether it will put all the global-warming hypotheses in question.”

    Reminds me of an old Kerry yokel I knew and says he

    “Ach sure I went out this mor…nin and there was a kind of nip in the air. Bajasus this global warming is a bit of a lark”

    …with a backward Kerry lilt.

    The thing is though our Kerry peasant is not addressing large paid meetings and is not feted on Israpundit.

    That is the big difference.

    She is a PROFESSIONAL climate denier. Our Kerry guy goes on the sensation of the morning, she on the year. There is absolutely no difference.

  26. Back to the topic

    Over the last year or so, moreover, the planet has started cooling, though “no one knows whether it will last or not, or whether it will put all the global-warming hypotheses in question.”

    This proves once and forever that this woman is a complete fraud

    Since when did a genuine climate science ever talk about “the last year or so”?

    How do people swallow this stuff or how does somebody like the Editor give her the time of day

    Real climate scientists would never talk about a short period of time, even ten years, much less ONE year.

    She has lost it!

  27. Quite amazing that the Editor has not been covering the climate change effected fires in California and the whole of the West. This is totally amazing considering that Israpundit has so many readers inthe US of A!

  28. @ M. Rotenberg:
    That is a very good question indeed and one that we need to look into. But why should I or anybody else answer you when you throw this in without any research or any effort to offer ANY explanation. Come on these are not word games.

  29. PopeSebastien the Third is really up to his tricks with this one:

    “The world is not coming to an end. All the doomsaying theories are silly. Global Warming isn’t a problem and we don’t cause climate change, certainly not with fossil fuels. We are not running out of fossil fuels. That was a line put out by the oil companies in the 50s, to promote themselves and later taken up by the radical left. The only thing we have to worry about, as the U.S. founding fathers understood, is radicals taking over in the name of solving all the problems they tell us we have at once.”

    Totally devoid of science Sebastien.

    It is like a bearded figure walking across on the clouds in the stained glass window of my childhood with his staff, and poking at the earth.

    yes about as much science as that!

    This is the purpose for my website http://www.capitalismclimate.com

    I wrote this about a week ago. Sometimes you write things and looking back think…that did not quite hit it…but not here, looking at it I think “you Hit It perfectly!”

    “Everybody in the world has heard by now of Global Warming. This issue can be seen in these two ways:

    The issue is scientific and it will be decided by science, especially on how we evaluate CO2, which is Carbon Dioxide, specifically carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
    The issue as well as being scientific is also emotional.
    We will make a few further observations about those two points above, 1 and 2: We cannot stop the emotional part. We are after all animals and all animals are emotional. But we cannot as “homo sapiens” allow this to be decided by emotion. We as Trotskyists are interested in following the science. WE TRUST THE SCIENCE.

    This website, and we Trotskysits, are declaring war on climate “deniers”. We use the word “deniers” because that word is precisely correct. They ARE deniers. At stake in this war is whether life will continue to exist on our earth.

    What is the movement called “Extinction rebellion”? In our firm opinion Extinction Rebellion is a great cry of despair from humanity. Also of a deep and great fear, the fear being that we as humans can/will be wiped out by Global Warming. Yes it is that and we as Trotskyists agree that this great fear is in total agreement with the science. Thus Greta Thunberg is in every respect and in every single detail correct. Greta is a very intelligent young woman who has fastened on to the correctness of the science, especially the science of CO2 in the atmosphere. At stake here again is not just the future of a young Swedish woman but the future of life on earth.

    THESE THINGS ARE NECESSARY

    Accept we are not climate scientists. We decide to learn from the climate scientists.

    We learn the science of global warming/climate change. This means two things. First the science itself which involves the earth, the sun, the atmosphere around the earth, and other such things. But second to see this and understand this in an historical manner, in other words we must learn and understand the whole history of OUR earth.

    There is only the one hope for Sebastien. That is be like me. be humble and accept that we are not climate scientists. That means we must struggle to learn about basic concepts. That is what is on the agenda…not scoring points.

  30. @ Sebastien Zorn:

    The world is not coming to an end. All the doomsaying theories are silly. Global Warming isn’t a problem and we don’t cause climate change, certainly not with fossil fuels.

    Who says…Pope Sebastien the Third…Good one!

  31. @ Joy DB:
    Joy Frank is right in most of what he said but i suspect he still does not get the full picture. Especially his use of the word “plight”. You really have to turn to the study of climate science especially how the atmosphere works.

    On my website I started it with these words “DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT GLOBAL WARMING REALLY IS? WE WILL ANSWER FULLY YOUR QUESTIONS!”
    capitalismclimate.com

    Please become a student once more.

  32. @ Frank Adam:
    WHAT “polar bea plight?!?” Didn’t you read and don’t you know that the polar bear population is actually booming? Or, at least, is NOT declining!!

  33. The world is not coming to an end. All the doomsaying theories are silly. Global Warming isn’t a problem and we don’t cause climate change, certainly not with fossil fuels. We are not running out of fossil fuels. That was a line put out by the oil companies in the 50s, to promote themselves and later taken up by the radical left. The only thing we have to worry about, as the U.S. founding fathers understood, is radicals taking over in the name of solving all the problems they tell us we have at once.

  34. The people who are tying to prevent progress are the carbon fuels lobby – coal and “The Seven Sisters” oil gang, just as when factories and railways appeared there were Luddites – alias wreckers. Just out of the experience of a long life the rain in Britain was usually gentle and these last five or ten the years it has taken to coming down buckets with the edge of any front.

    Even if doubling of CO2 these 150 years is not the whole explanation of climate changes such as prolonged droughts in Australia and the polar bears plight, getting rid of a lot of fossil fuel will NOT spoil economic growth and NOT restrict free markets any more than public health laws to build sewerage and vaccinate babies or send children to school.

    Building windmills, tidal power and fitting solar panels are all new economic expansions. Ditto fitting insulation & double glazing not too waste energy and replacing boilers with heat pumps alias air conditioning.

    Most important especially on this site, the less oil and gas in the World’s economy the more the we are independent we shill be of the Arabs and their ghastly Islamists and the safer the World for democracy as Pres Wilson held.

    We can electrify rail and even road vehicles in town. It is time to re-examine how to use some of the solar and wind generated electricity to expand the ammonia (NH3) market for use as liquid fuel in ships and aircraft. Ammonia dissolves 800 volumes in water and the global economy already makes a daily weight of ammonia for fertilisers and explosives equivalent to the daily weight of petroleum pumped. Ammonia powered buses in Antwerp or Amsterdam in WW II and even if NH3 is currently not so energy rich as CH4 a bit of development will soon sort that if taxes are rigged and R & D funded.

  35. Felix Quigley – you either miss-understood the article or are promoting your website, capitalismclimate.com. The article raises some valid questions about the causes of climate change, not the data.

    The science behind climate change is not fully understood, which is not comforting, since you are looking for answers now. Do we know what caused the last ice age 12,000 years ago or what caused the temperature to rise after? Looking at the rise-fall-rise in temperature over the last 100 years is not an accurate predictor for the temperature 100 years from now.

    In the 1970’s the concern was running out of fossil fuels, and we should still conserve this valuable non-renewable resource.

    Science thrives when we question the theories behind the conclusions made for us by political or commercial interests. It is unfortunate that the academic community does not tolerate independent thought. Being an echo chamber is not part of the Jewish tradition I grew up in.

  36. I am questioning the whole method of Ted Belman as I will make clear. I personally think it is the method of a coward who hides behind others, and of a fool because there are undeniable facts, and also of a traitor tot he jewish people who have a history of being a guide to humanity.

    We’ve all come across the images of polar bears drifting on ice floes: emblematic victims of the global warming that’s melting the polar ice caps, symbols of the threat to the earth posed by our ceaseless energy production—above all, the carbon dioxide that factories and automobiles emit. We hear louder and louder demands to impose limits, to change our wasteful ways, so as to save not only the bears but also the planet and ourselves.

    She fastens on the polar bear image but is the Arctic not melting? yes or no? She uses subtle methods and wordplay to obscure that.

    Is there not evidence that the glaciers of the world are melting? Is there not evidence that the Arctic permafrost is melting and is breaking up?

    Ted Belman you are Canadian. What is the rise in temperature in Canada and what is the rise in the Arctic or at least you might know in the northern part of Canada.

    Surely you have to address some of these questions and give facts on Israpundit.

    As an additional point to this what has been the temperature on earth during the Miocene era. And how has this average temperature changed int he past 100 years?

    Surely these are the most basic facts to consider.

    Adam Dalgliesh is a man who exposed some of these issues. Then without explanation he just stopped and has not uttered one word. This woman has connection to Peabody Energy. Perhaps Dalgliesh has also been got at in some way. There must be an explanation. This makes it very difficult for me to answer this stuff and many of the answers would require massive research and I simply do not have the time, being engaged in making my new website capitalismclimate.com. Dalgliesh one week was saying the scientists were right then he was no more. What explanation can there be?

    There are so many questions that I could ask Ted Belman but then Ted is not engaging in any kind of research into the issue. Ted has not made one serious scientific statement about a single one of the issues.

    And Jews historically are on record of seeing themselves as being an inspiration to mankind. it really does make no sense whatsoever.