The Guardian last week published its survey of ‘climate experts’. The results are a predictable mush of fire-and-brimstone predictions and emotional incontinence. This stunt may have convinced those already aligned to the newspaper’s ideological agenda to redouble their characteristically shrill rhetoric, but encouraging scientists to speculate and emote about the future of the planet looks like an act of political desperation, not scientific communication.
For the purposes of creating this story, the Guardian’s Environment Editor Damian Carrington contacted 843 ‘lead authors’ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports (IPCC) and 383 responded to his questions. The actual substance of the survey does not seem to have been published by the paper, but the main response Carrington wanted to get from his respondents was an estimate of how much global warming there will be by the end of the century. “World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5ºC target,” claims one headline. A graphic in the article shows the responses:
The obvious problem this raises is that such a wide range of views on the next three quarters of a century discredits the notion that the IPCC represents a ‘scientific consensus’ on climate change. The ‘consensus’ – the putative expression of agreement by the worlds ‘top climate scientists’ – is the lynchpin of the narrative, epitomised by the Guardian, that the climate debate is between scientists and denialists. “Seventy seven per cent of climate scientists expect a rise of at least 2.5ºC,” explains the chart. Well, yeah, but 23% of climate scientists do not. And a good number of those connected to the IPCC believe that there will be just 1.5 degrees of warming – a third less warming than is anticipated by their colleagues at the other end of the spectrum. Clearly, there is, or needs to be, a debate.
This in turn raises the question of why this survey was necessary at all. The IPCC’s main output is an Assessment Report (AR), of which six have so far been produced since 1990. Each AR consists of three main volumes, each produced by a Working Group (WG), whose focus is on assessing the available research on “the physical science” (WG1), impacts and vulnerabilities (WG2), and mitigation options (WG3). A Guardian opinion survey is hardly going to shed any light on science that these scientists, who authored the reports, have not already published. It would seem rather silly to ignore the thousands of pages of summaries of the state of scientific understanding that hundreds of scientists and other experts have compiled and substitute it with a DIY opinion poll.
Opinion isn’t science. Even scientific opinion is not science. Yet Carrington seems to believe that tapping into the emotions of scientists is of greater value than reading their work. And all sorts of mush seems to have been unleashed by his project. “‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families,” claims one headline based on the survey. According to the article, the victim of the panic is a Professor Lisa Schipper, whom Carrington describes as “an expert on climate vulnerability”. Schipper’s profile, however, reveals her actual occupation: “I am particularly interested in socio-cultural dimensions of vulnerability, including gender, culture and religion, as well as structural issues related to power, justice and equity.” I’m smelling a rat here, and more than a whiff of humbug. Schipper is not a climate scientist at all, as Carrington seems to imply in both his headline and his article.
Another article – an interactive page on the Guardian website – claims: “We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future.” The article quotes, among others, Lorraine Whitmarsh from the University of Bath, who tells Carrington:
[Climate change] is an existential threat to humanity and [lack of] political will and vested corporate interests are preventing us addressing it. I do worry about the future my children are inheriting.
But Whitmarsh is not a climate scientist either. According to her academic profile at Bath, She did a BA in Theology and Religious Studies with French at the University of Kent, graduating in 1997. She followed this with a Masters in ‘Science, Culture and Communication’, before completing a PhD in Psychology in 2005. Now Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST), Whitmarsh researches “perceptions and behaviour in relation to climate change, energy and transport” and “regularly advises governmental and other organisations on low-carbon behaviour change and climate change communication”.
I have discussed the nature of climate psychologists’ work before in the Daily Sceptic. And of course, CAST is of that lofty academic milieu which wraps naked Stalinism in motherhood-and-apple-pie. “We want to work closely with people and organisations to achieve positive low-carbon futures — transforming the way we live our lives, and reconfiguring organisations and cities,” says the group’s website. What it doesn’t have an answer to, however, is people who do not share CAST’s radical ideology and do not want their lives, cities or organisations transformed or reconfigured by self-regarding shrinks – who are manifestly the ones in need of help.
There are of course a number of respondents with scientific backgrounds who have replied to Carrington. But these scientific credentials do not seem to have made those who own them any more rational. “Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken,” says climate scientist Ruth Cerezo-Mota, who at least appears to have a PhD in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, “after all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the last three years worldwide, all related to climate change…”
But perhaps Cerezo-Mota forgot to read IPCC AR 6 in which her colleagues conclude that any detectable increase in floods and meteorological and hydrological droughts cannot be attributed with confidence to anthropogenic climate change. And perhaps she forgot that two decades of wildfire data in all regions of the world show significant declines.
I think it is probably for the best that such nervous wrecks do not reproduce. Their grasp on the data is particularly myopic. Despite their apparent belief that the climate crisis is upon us, life for children born in recent years is immeasurably better that of earlier generations. Rather than being dominated by the weather, today’s children are not only far more likely to survive their fifth birthday, they are going to live longer, healthier, wealthier and safer lives than any generation before them.
That is, unless these crazy climate scientists get their way. Because they would strip away every last benefit of industry, capitalism,and freedom to ‘save the planet’, and deny those children the abundant and affordable resources that has created their historically unprecedented position.
It goes further than humbug. I sense very little data and science underpins their anti-natalism, but a great deal of ideology and manipulation. So how can we explain these scientists’ views, if we don’t believe that they emerge from science?
One answer might be that, for nearly 40 years now, green ideology has been poured into classrooms throughout the world, without any care for the consequences. It has largely bounced off most people. But several generations of children have now come up through this system into the adult world, through higher education. The institutions of climate and environmental science have increasingly become the centres to which unhinged individuals are drawn. Emotionally unstable people naturally seek reasons to explain their dysphoria and believing there is a crisis unfolding in the skies above their heads (rather than in them) is a way to explain their anxieties. After all, if you were not a climate loon, why would you volunteer your time to the IPCC? Gradually, rational views have been weeded out of these institutions.
I believe that is the implication of Carrington’s series of Guardian articles and his survey. It shows that people with no scientific expertise to speak of are nonetheless routinely presented as ‘scientists’ and experts. It shows that even those with scientific expertise will happily and radically depart from both the consensus position and the objective data on both meteorological events and their societal impacts. And it shows they have no reluctance to use their own emotional distress as leverage to coerce others. Carrington thinks that showing us scientists’ emotional troubles will convince us to share their anxiety. But all it shows is that it would be deeply foolish to defer to the authority of climate science. It’s an unstable mess. Science must be cool, calm, rational, detached and disinterested, or it is just a silly soap opera.
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I do not need a scientific degree to see my energy bills are rising, causing every other bill to rise. All due to the failure to accept that wind & solar power cannot provide enough energy for 21st century Britain.
The only ‘green’ route forward is to go back to the Middle Ages which would not be a vote winner at the next GE if any Party actually dared to ask the People.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-great-carbon-capture-con-trick/
I do believe this article from TCW belongs here.
Carbon capture! Now this could be a killer. Thankfully it is so far removed from reality that the seas will boil before this happens.
And here is a slightly different perspective on the coffin dodgers protest.
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/just-stop-the-vandalism/
“Clearly there needs to be a debate”?? ——–A debate about what? A debate about what speculative un-validated climate model is going to be true? This isn’t science. Scientific truth is not decided by a show of hands from government funded data adjusters, BBC Presenters or Guardian Journalists. Putting assumptions and guesses into an expensive model where many of the parameters are either poorly understood or simply unknown is not SCIENCE. The expensive climate models being called “science” cannot even hindcast the climate when we know what the climate has done. Climate models provide little “what if” scenarios (guesses), but even the most basic parameter called ECS (Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity), which determines the amount of warming CO2 will cause is UNKNOWN. So climate alarmists are trying to tell us there is climate emergency based on not knowing how much warming CO2 will cause. People need to remember where all of this climate scaremongering comes from. It comes from the UN IPCC, that is not a scientific body. It is a political one, and its conclusions are all political in support of the political agenda’s “Sustainable Development” and “Net Zero”. There are no experts, scientists or modellers who know what the climate is going to be doing in 50 or 100 years and by the time we get there most of us will be dead and the political agenda’s that seek to lower living standards all based on their phony science will have been put in place.
Well, I assume that Ben doesn’t believe that conclusions would be drawn from any debate, rather that the debate would highlight that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions, and that itself would bring the whole thing crashing down if the debate was public. That, of course, is why there will never be any such debate. As in the Covid era, supposed ‘consensus’ is as sure a sign as there can possibly be that the topic of said ‘consensus’ is politically motivated.
Judging from Andrew Doyle’s interview with Jim Dale on GBN last night, the plan is to change the law to make it illegal to express any dissenting view.
The always delightful AD raised the Covid example where the ‘experts’ denied the virus was leaked by a lab and now this has been proved and accepted to be true.
The less than delightful JD had no response.
I did not see that but I am always angry when a rabid climate change activist like Jim Dale gets to spout his evidence free drivel and no one with real knowledge to challenge him is ever on GB News at the same time. Occasionally you will see Andrew Montford or Ross Clark give him a hard time but mostly he only has to fool Eamonn Holmes or Isabel Webster who are just general TV presenters with no expert knowledge of issues such as this. But I am not surprised that there are moves to ban dissent on the climate issue , because the country has forced itself in law to do Net Zero, and the government (Tory or Labour) may seek to claim that dissent or questioning of climate change “science” or policies is incitement to break the law. ——This ofcourse would be totally absurd, but only reveals that this issue is not and never was about science, because in science you question everything.
Jim Dale “You only have to look at the evidence of your own eyes”.
That, Jim, is the science of the middle ages.
The evidence viewed through my eyes is that we have weather. It is little different from my youth although the Summer’s are much less ‘summery.’
It is only different from your youth because climate is constantly changing on all time scales. eg The difference between my youth and the present is only about 30 years. When it comes to climate, short periods of time like that give no indication of anything at all except the natural variability of a constantly changing climate
“When it comes to climate, short periods of time like that give no indication of anything at all except the natural variability of a constantly changing climate.”
Agreed. And this is a point I have made frequently here on DS.
wink
Jim Dale is truly a brainwashed dreamer and will say absolutely anything to support his cultish junk science.. No one can see climate change from their living room window with “their own eyes”. The global average temperature (whatever that is supposed to mean) has risen according to officialdom by about 1C since around 1860 . ——No one can notice that over that period of time. Even the IPCC admit they cannot tell the difference between natural climate variation and changes that may be caused by humans. They see “no human signal in the data”. ——-But apparently the activist Jim Dale sees it everyday.
Yeah, Jim Dale sees it every day on TV, in films, in the printed media, in documentaries, in nature programmes, in adverts, and especially on the BBC tirelessly flogging its ‘settled science’. It’s a circular reinforcement of ideas for unquestioning idiots.
The Roman Catholic church was very fond of ITS ‘settled science’ that the sun went around the earth. So fond that they threatened to burn at the stake anyone of higher intelligence than them, such as Galileo, for saying different.
If the BBC was of any use at all, it wouldn’t claim that there was a ‘settled science’, but keep an open mind. But Leftards aren’t like that; they love dogma as much as the pope does.
Any party that promised to abolish the abominable BBC and its TV tax would have a good chance of winning the next GE.
I’ve never seen this Jim Dale of the Climate Change Dumbcluck Cult on TV and I never want to.
The name Jim Dale, for me, means the quite good-looking comedy actor who appeared in many of the ‘Carry On’ films and other productions of the 50s/60s/70s.
Perhaps this is a good time to make more ‘Carry On’ films in order to rip the piss out of the more lunatic aspects of our society.
No holds barred, no PC, no woke, just biting satire and merciless parody.
Carry On Boiling, Carry On Just Stop Oiling, Carry On Ladies with Lunchboxes, Carry On Drag Librarians, Carry On Kneeling, Carry On Being Queer, Carry On Brainwashing, Carry On Bringing In the Dinghies (that last especially for the amusement of Border Farce and the RNLI).
They’d all be hits!
Please try and catch the interview as AD is a clever man and allowed JD enough rope to hang himself with. All done with charm and nothing OFCOM could report.
It is why they will try and close down GBN as soon as the GE date is known as they are not able to debate their side of any argument.
I will try and get that maybe on Youtube. Or maybe actually on the GB news website. —-Dale is given far too much leeway unchallenged. I appreciate Doyle, Akua and a few others challenge him but most presenters don’t have enough knowledge of the issue. They let him away with all kinds of stuff that I can spot the second it comes from his mouth.
It’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that because Jim Dale wants climate change denial to be made illegal, that this is ‘the plan’.
Anything is possible but Jim Dale wanting climate change denial to be made illegal is not any kind of evidence that anyone is planning to make climate change denial illegal. What Jim Dale thinks and reality are two very different things.
True, but when it comes to climate change and the trillions of dollars/pounds involved and the fact that we in this country have now forced ourselves in law to reduce emissions, I would not count anything out.
Like the ‘jab’ they will say those who question the science are putting lives in danger, as it turns out, it is quite the reverse!
Some people like the guy from the PANDA group see no evidence of a ‘pandemic’ or of the existence of SARS COV2, and others believe it is a computer sequence. I’m sure you are aware of all this, just putting it out there for others.
A point Ivor Cummins made, this agenda has been going on for decades long after the people who started this are dead. It is keeping their bloodlines in power like Rockefeller et al.
Does the person who gave varmint’s eminently sensible comment its solitary down-vote have some wisdom he/she/they could share with us?
Absolutely spot on as usual. I see Gollum gave you a thumbs down (not that anyone gives a stuff)
Al Gore, a middling politician at best, cottoned on the the exploitation of people’s fears regarding the bogeyman that is AGW. Worth a reputed US$750k when VEEP, he has grown his wealth, by a combination of shrewd Apple stock investment and trading in carbon-offsets to a remarkable US$330 million.Gore’s risible film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ predicted that the North Pole would be ice-free by 2013. The whole farrago was a triumph of drama over accuracy. But hey! exploiting emotion pays. As Gore demonstrates.
Not that there’s anything we can do about it now, as we’re certainly trapped in a death spiral, but the annals of modern history must dispassionately record how society crumbled as the levers of power became increasingly controlled by emotion rather than logic. How did this happen in such a relatively short timeframe? There’s a clue in the article.
There is a very distinct religious element to climate change believers. Their language is all religious in nature. Those who disagree or challenge their beliefs are “heretics” . We all face an “Apocalypse” or “Armageddon”. It is all based on faith and emotion not facts and reason. We all know that when the religious person knocks on the door with their little leaflets that there is no point in debating with them on anything, because they have long ago decided what is true, and you can never change their mind. It is the same with climate change true believers. No amount of debate, logic, facts, data, or information that clearly shows there is little in the way of evidence of their “climate emergency” will change their mind. If something is about science you change your mind when the facts change. In cults you simply change the facts or dismiss them.
I witnessed this first hand on Saturday (I wrote about it on the same day attached to the article on Earth’s orientation to the sun).
The ex-IPCC bloke at the event spoke calmly but used such scary language that I sensed a sort of enjoyment from the audience: a kind of fascinated horror that we would all burn in hell unless we relented and submitted to the Simple Life as prescribed by the UN IPCC.
It truly is a cult, and any challenge is heresy, as I found out when I tried it.
(An aquaintance who was present appeared to blank me the next day)
Jane, what event was this?—– I have been aware for a very long time that when it comes to the political agenda of climate change it is as H.L. Mencken pointed out when he said “Practical Politics is all about scaring the populace with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary so they are clamouring to be led to safety”——–Unless people are scared they will not easily accept the changes to their lifestyle that climate change policies are bringing. I just don’t think they realise how damaging those changes will be. They seem to think that all we need to do to save the planet is to get rid of coal and gas and replace it with wind and sun and all will tick along just fine. ——–I am sorry but anyone who thinks that has a very big shock coming.
What most of the climate idiots don’t realise is that Nut Zero means they won’t even be able to buy a packet of Daz with which to wash their smalls.
And the water doing the washing would be cold as well.
We use Persil so maybe we will be ok ——-
My Mrs seems to be stuck in the 1950’s…
I don’t think they do much washing!
Varmint – Just a local thing organised by a volunteer gardening group and anyone interested in ecology/nature etc. I reckon with the IPCC cred he was a ‘star’ guest. Makes you wonder why someone preaching doom, gloom and hair-shirtery is feted while a voice saying ‘it ain’t necessarily so’ is considered a blasphemer.
Can’t help wondering whether those who lamented the lack of a Green candidate would go home and fire up their barbecue, unaware that Natalie Bennet of the Greens was calling for them to be banned. (Now THAT’s something I could get on board with…)
Ok thanks for your reply. ———-As Mark Twain pointed out “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it is what you now for sure just ain’t so”
Is it called global “heating” now? Heating is more scary than warming I suppose.
Scientific consensus gives me an ulcer
To be fair I think the description of ”emotionally-unstable hysterics” can be applied to anyone subscribing to the various narratives, not just climate.
https://twitter.com/HappNowMedia/status/1789930110298030097
The education system plays a huge role in this. Not just from the aspect of brainwashing the malleable minds of the young and impressionable, but the way universities are now churning out entitled snowflakes completely devoid of any critical thinking capabilities, who think the world owes them a living. The PM of Singapore is spot on here. I get the impression Singapore isn’t yet riddled with the Woke mind virus;
https://twitter.com/PaulEmbery/status/1789756366577381538
There are people suffering from “emotionally disturbed hysterics” in all walks of life, but no issue is so damaging to our well being and prosperity as the energy policies allegedly in place to save the planet around Net Zero and Sustainable Development. ——–In my opinion ofcourse.
“Many of the ‘climate expert’s’ are mentally unstable…”
There would be something wrong if they weren’t. Or to put it another way – no shit Sherlock.
They are not as mentally unstable as we think. They accept the government money to spout junk science in support of government policies, and are then able to pay their mortgage and feed their families. Nice work if you can get it.
“lofty academic milieu which wraps naked Stalinism in motherhood-and-apple-pie” LOL!
” “World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5ºC target,”
Were they surveyed on how many out of that group believed the causes to be anthropogenic?
Also, as far as the media is concerned, they must have confidence in mutually assured destruction be escalating the Ukraine war.
It is emotive clap trap. The word ‘heat’ is used instead of ‘a rise’ of 1.5C which is actually humanly imperceptible over a 100 year period. As it is also an average of a temperature range of -85C to +50C across +30 different climate types it is meaningless. This global average temperature is measured to an accuracy of 100ths degree C!!!
“Many of the ‘Climate Experts’ Surveyed by the Guardian in Recent Propaganda Blitz Turn Out to be Emotionally-Unstable Hysterics”
Yes. It’s been obvious for some time. Here is Jane Fonda.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPPNpcqYF4E
‘Emotionally-Unstable Hysterics’
Well, who woulda thunk it?!