“There’s no such thing as a scientific consensus,” Nir Shaviv, a Professor at the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says in response to a question about what he thinks of the widespread claim that there is a scientific consensus on the anthropogenic nature of climate change. “In science, we deal with open questions and I think that the question of climate change is an open question. There are a lot of things which many scientists are still arguing about,” he explains.
Indeed, there are scientists who say that climate change is caused entirely by humans and the situation is very dire. But then there are those who say that although humans are causing much of the warming, the situation is not as bad as we are being told by politicians and activists through the media. Some think that CO2 plays an important part in the current warming trend and some believe its role is insignificant.
Although Shaviv assesses that some of the warming in the 20th century is indeed the result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, most of the change is a natural phenomenon. “My research has led me to strongly believe that based on all the evidence that’s accumulated over the past around 25 years, a large part of the warming is actually not because of humans, but because of the solar effect,” he says.
Up to two-thirds of the warming comes from the Sun
As an astrophysicist, Shaviv’s research has largely focused on understanding how solar activity and the Earth’s climate are linked. In fact, he says, at least half, and possibly two-thirds, of the 20th century’s warming is related to increased solar activity. Shaviv has also shown that cosmic rays and their activity influence cloud cover formation, also causing the climate to change. He has been working on this issue together with Danish astrophysicist Dr Henrik Svensmark.
In any case, Shaviv says, if solar activity and cosmic ray effects are taken into account, the climate sensitivity remains relatively low, or simply put – an increase in the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot cause much warming. Scientists have long attempted to calculate how much a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would raise the temperature of the Earth. The first attempt was made more than 100 years ago by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, who suggested an answer of up to six degrees Celsius. Since then, this number has been revised downwards, but not enough, according to Shaviv. “If you open the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports, then the canonical range is anywhere between one and a half or two, depending on which report you look at, to maybe four and a half degrees increase for CO2 doubling. What I find is that climate sensitivity is somewhere between one and one and a half degree increase per CO2 doubling,” Shaviv says, adding that he does not expect the temperature rise in the 21st century to be very high.
Explaining the warming that has happened primarily with CO2 is where the IPCC’s scientific reports err, Shaviv says, by failing to account for the solar effect. And because they do not account for it, but there is still a need to explain the temperature rise, the rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which has been attributed to human influences, has been used to explain it. Shaviv explains that this is the wrong answer as it fails to take into account all the contributing factors.
Is the planet boiling?
But is this temperature rise causing a climate crisis? Shaviv’s answer to the question is simple and clear: “No.” He explains that the average temperature on the planet has risen by one degree Celsius since about 1900, but this is not unprecedented. We are familiar, for example, with the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings charted the coast of Greenland, including its northern part, which today is covered with ice even in summer. “This kind of climate variation has always happened. Some of the warming now is anthropogenic, but it’s not a crisis in the sense that the temperature is going to increase by five degrees in a century and we’re all doomed. We just have to adapt to changes. Some of them are natural and some are not, but they’re not large,” Shaviv explains.
It has been widely reported that both 2023 and 2024 were the warmest years on record. Referring to this rise in temperatures, UN Secretary-General António Guterres already in July 2023 declared that we have entered an “era of global boiling”. Shaviv says that of course, we can have average surface temperatures that are highest if we only look back 100 or 150 years. “If you go back a thousand years it was just as warm. If you go back 5,000 years it was definitely warmer. So, It doesn’t mean much,” he explains.
And if you look at a longer time scale, warmer periods have alternated with colder periods throughout. Also, over the last 100,000 years, the Earth has been in an ice age for most of that time, and the retreat of the ice in Europe and North America happened about 12,000 years ago.
Do extreme weather events prove a climate crisis?
However, it is often claimed in the media that we are in an unprecedented and critical climatic situation and all the reported extreme weather events are said to be proving it.
In reality, there is no indication that most extreme weather events are more frequent or in any way more severe than in the past. Take hurricanes, for example. It’s true that the damage they cause has increased over time, but Shaviv says that’s because more people live near the coast. “If you look at the statistics of hurricanes making landfall in the US, which is a relatively reliable record, then you see that there is no significant change,” he says. Shaviv adds that, in reality, there is not even any reason to expect a warming climate to bring more hurricanes. “Sure, you need hotter waters to generate hurricanes, but you also need the gradient, you need the temperature difference between the equator and the subtropics in order to drive the hurricanes. And warmer Earth actually has a smaller temperature difference. So it’s not even clear ab initio whether you’re going to have more hurricanes or less,” Shaviv explains.
Large wildfires, for example, are also associated with climate warming, but Shaviv says there is no reason for this either. “In the US in the 1930s the annual amount of area which was burnt a year was way larger than what it is today,” he says, adding that the reality is that a large proportion of fires are caused by poor forest management, which fails to clear the forest floor of flammable material.
Towards nuclear energy
In the light of the above, climate change does not make it necessary to abandon fossil fuels. However, Shaviv says we should still move towards cleaner energy. Firstly, burning fossil fuels causes real environmental pollution – in particular coal, which is still on the rise worldwide. Secondly, fossil fuels will run out one day.
But mankind cannot replace these fuels with wind and solar power. “First of all, it’s very expensive. You can see that any country that has a lot of any of those, they pay much more for electricity,” Shaviv says. He suggests looking at electricity prices in countries such as Germany or Denmark, where wind and solar have been developed with billions of euros of government aid, and comparing them with, for example, France which uses nuclear power. What makes this form of energy so expensive is its intermittent nature – generation takes place when the sun shines and the wind blows. So to guarantee electricity supply, either huge storage capacity or backup systems, such as gas-fired power stations, are needed.
Shaviv believes that in the future, much more reliance should be placed on nuclear power, which does not have the pollution problems of fossil fuels and, unlike wind and solar, can provide a stable energy supply. However, the critics of this plan remind us of past nuclear accidents – Chernobyl in Ukraine, Three Mile Island in the USA and Fukushima in Japan. Each of these accidents had its own causes – in the case of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, technical defects mixed with human error, and in the case of Fukushima, natural forces, in other words, the earthquake and tsunami. In the case of Fukushima in 2011, however, no one died as a direct result of the accident at the nuclear power plant (though thousands of people died as a result of the tsunami that devastated the coastline).
Shaviv says there is no point in comparing the safety of nuclear plants that have suffered accidents in the past with today’s technology. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem in the sense that we can have an extremely safe design,” he says, adding that the wider deployment of nuclear power will happen whether the West joins in or not. “If you look at China, which is energy-hungry, they don’t care about public opinion as much as we do in the West. And they don’t have as much problem with regulation. So they’re just going to run forward and instead of building or opening a coal power plant every few weeks, in a few years, they’re going to be opening a nuclear power plant every few weeks,” Shaviv says. He adds that the West would also be wise to participate in this development, rather than moving in the opposite direction.
First published by Freedom Research. Subscribe here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
First! And good morning to one and all!!!!!!!
Oh wait a moment, we don’t do that any more? Well – Nth – and good morning one…
Seriously, dig out that old password, or get a new one, or find a few quid down the back of the sofa – whatever it takes, please come back – we’re missing you! And do at least keep reading. I wonder if admin/ Toby Young could do anything about this to explain it to people if some are finding it difficult? There may have been issues over the years, but for some of us, the btl comment has been the best part, and they have made a fantastic contribution. 87 comments or so yesterday – obviously a lot less than in the past, but not completely dead by any means, and I hope this will gradually increase. Please don’t give up on us just yet. From my point of view, the only thing that has significantly changed is the calendar on the right of the screen to find specific dates. This can still be done via the archive (see top of page) even if it does take longer. And similar articles are now grouped together there, which should theoretically make it easier to find something you are interested in.
Yes there’s a cost to commenting, but only the price of a pint of beer in some places for a whole month. I’m not rich or a computer expert but have managed, so it is definitely possible. I look forward to hearing from you all soon.
To be honest, my guess is that Toby et al. aren’t all that keen on all the BTL activity. I wonder if they see it as a big hassle to administer and feel it makes the DS less serious.
If they wanted to promote reader comments, they should have a little comment icon on each news item box indicating the number of comments so far on that news item. It would show readers at a glance where there is some BTL activity.
Impossible to know unless they tell us. But let’s have it right though. We have been allowed to post pretty much what we want, and that’s good enough for me. There are sites these days – too many sites – which would delete comments or ban people for giving their honest opinion about things, and regardless of whether they meant to be offensive. We have genuinely been able to give a broad range of opinions on here without fear of censorship, and I thank Toby for that. Toby posted that he is not going to censorship content at the behest of advertisers, so there is a genuine commitment to freedom of expression.
I may be biased as I joined his Free Speech Union prior to lockdown, but I fancy I’m right on this at least.
“To be honest, my guess is that Toby et al. aren’t all that keen on all the BTL activity. I wonder if they see it as a big hassle to administer and feel it makes the DS less serious.”
If that’s the case he could simply remove comments altogether or ban people he doesn’t like or remove posts he doesn’t like, but he hasn’t done any of that. Charging people to comment seems odd but sort of makes sense – commenters are likely to be the more committed DS readers – it’s the casual punter he doesn’t want to put off. Some commenters are value-add so arguably should get it for free, others probably get more out of it than they put in (me included no doubt).
I just think TY was in a an awkward position, £5 a month is cheap if you believe that DS has an important role to play in the battle against the clown world, comments will slowly pick up, and maybe advertising will fill the gap (though many advertisers will not want to be associated with literally Hitler).
My comment isn’t just speculative.
The first version of Lockdown Sceptics had just the one comment section for the each day. And I know for a fact that the editors were not entirely happy with how the comments section was going. I’m not sure whether the shift to a comment section per news item made things easier or better for them, but I know they were hoping it might.
This third iteration, charging for the right to comment, makes me think it wasn’t and that they’re perhaps hoping paying commenters will be more sensible and civil in their comments and less needing of moderation and management. This last bit, I am speculating.
I’m sure the editors can set me straight here if I am totally off the mark (and they care enough to comment
Turns out my speculation was off and they really would like all the commenters back – at 16p a day.
That definitely has to be the cheapest therapy on offer!
Hope everyone makes their way back on.
Except maybe Fingal…:-)
“Seriously, dig out that old password, or get a new one”
Are you suggesting that there’s been a cull?
I’m suggesting, as seems entirely plausible, that some people may have lost their old password and not be able to remember it. It seems I may be in a minority knowing mine by heart…
Morning.
we certainly can still do Good Mornings….hello from an absolutely beautiful sunny Whitby his morning…just got back from a lovely dog walk….
I have faith that people will return….the thing is I read ‘sceptics’ for at least a year before I dared post anything…and many of those posters left a long time ago…I still miss the fiery doom and gloom type posts that Chaos used to leave!! There have always been changes.
I think that Covid has lost it’s immediacy for many people, and sometimes it’s hard to keep saying the same things over and over…maybe after a bit of a break people will return in full vigour!? I really hope so….but until then I suppose we few will have to keep going and if someone, like me, is reading and hasn’t commented…please join us…..
I’ve happily signed up to make a small monthly donation. But I must say, although I’m sure I’ll get used to it, I prefer the old format of the site.
I’m missing all the comments as well …. and the information which was shared via links etc.
Give it time. Anything is better than nothing.
Good morning!
Do you really think these CCP nutjobs are going to meet their 2049 targets?
Well good morning to everyone who remain on here.
Thankfully the subscription will have stopped the likes of EF and fingal posting on here.
Let’s hope the comments sections pick up a bit.
Good morning Judy.
We can but hope. In the mean time, let’s make the best of it. It’s not all bad…
Good old “Titania McGrath! It must be getting hard to parody the woke mob these days…
Should be “Titania McGrath”!…
They entertain platinum violence?
sacrosong 2 fr. stan at DuckDuckGo (3:40)
Let’s have it right though. There was plenty of good will towards them when they got married. If that has changed now, it is entirely down to their attitude. They have opted out of the royal family, apparently because it is too much bother. That is their prerogative of course, but they can’t expect everything to be the same, and nor should anyone else, including these loony left republicans from the “United States”. (And fair play to Toby, he probably won’t ban me for this!).
For reference: Here’s the original article.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/racism-outshines-platinum-jubilee
But that’s really just a not very well written and fairly short flamebait. The one thing to remember here is that the people who are so keen on lecturing the world about its racism and savage, bloody and oppressive history live on continent whose native population was first decimated by their ancestors via savage, genocidal warfare and then forced into an Apartheid arrangement similar to the former Bantustans of South Africa, most of which took place after slavery was abolished in the USA. Obviously, criticizing the Americans of today for this is obviously as nonsensical as blaming the Brits of today for actual or perceived misdeeds which happened under British rule in the past.
The one thing to take away from this is that people like Nina Sharmer (the author of said flamebait) are simply sworn enemies of everything-European and should never be regarded as anything else. They have nothing positive to offer, to no one, not even to those on whose behalf they claim to be speaking. These are also just set pieces who must not step outside of the roles they’re supposed to play in the drama that’s supposed to be staged.
Allegedly…
Flipping disgrace that it was ever advertised in the first place. Given what we know, it is a minimum requirement for we here that Stabbit Jabbit’s “Conservative” party apologise for such human rights abuses and promise not to do it again. Instead, we are threatened with more of the same. Absolutely disgraceful.
The real question is not about the Deputy Director, but is there a Director in post, and why..?
There is indeed! Haroona Franklin is the Director.
The job advert has been pulled.
Savage has not said the job has been pulled.
Civil Service jobs and how they are filled:
The more senior positions have somebody ear-marked for them before they are advertised. The purpose of the advert is to show it was free and open to all comers but its just a box ticking exercise.
Whoever has been given the job may well have a different title but be employed to do the same “work.”
How did today’s “scheduled maintenance” go then?
The Covid Pass job advert has indeed been pulled the web – it was a pleasure to see Sajid Javid embarrassed, but I fear it is going to take a bit more that to stop the covert policy.
And it was a pleasure to see & hear what Mark Steyn said about it all last night on GBN. Apparently the offered salary for the job was £71K per year.
4 billion quid up in smoke…
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/10/4bn-of-nhs-covid-ppe-to-be-burned-as-it-is-unusable-says-committee-report
I would have thought that they’d want to hang onto this so we are prepared for the next plandemic.
I hope they’ll be capturing all of the carbon that is emitted from this useless junk.
It would have been quicker to just buy it and then dump it in the sea (where billions of useless face masks ended up)
But somebody turned a nice profit from the plebs’ taxes.
I seem to recall a few weeks back some guy in parliament laughing as he was saying it was £8.7bn worth of PPE to be burned.