Climate

What do you know about the climate?

What do you believe about the climate?

I didn’t take much notice, I was flowing along with a vague awareness of climate change. But then I began to listen to friends who talked of a climate emergency, and I noticed how this idea has become accepted as an indisputable truth of our times.

The story as it seems to me:

• CO2 (and methane) from human sources is causing global warming and this is a threat to the existence of the human race.
• Unless we limit the world’s average temperature increase to 1.5C we will have a climate emergency.
• The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the scientific authority on this.
• There is an undeniable scientific consensus, and anyone who disagrees must be arrogant, stupid, a conspiracy theorist or in the employ of the fossil fuel industry.

But then I started to take more notice. I can’t remember what started it, but suddenly I was listening. At first I thought it was just people who wanted to promote the fossil fuel industry. Reckless, selfish, arrogant. Then I discovered scientists who have been studying physics, the atmosphere and the oceans for decades are not so convinced of a crisis.

There is a consensus that, yes, the climate is changing, but these changes pre-date the use of fossil fuels. There is natural variability in the processes that drive the climate. Good science does not ignore the unknowns and uncertainties of theories. And there are significant unknowns and uncertainties about the climate.

So here are some of my findings…

• CO2 levels are definitely rising. And average global temperatures have risen about 1.5C in the last 200 years. Human activities are probably contributing to the changes. But the climate has always been changing and it is really hard to be sure what our contribution is.
• Climate catastrophe is not “settled science”. There are many scientists who do not believe that we are in an emergency. There are individuals and groups of scientists who have put together blogs and websites to discuss the uncertainties. They have also written to governments to warn of the dangers of the policies derived from the assumption of the climate crisis.
• The ‘dangers’ of climate change are not all obvious. And increasing CO2 has benefits for agriculture.
• Net Zero climate policy basically means dismantling our existing ways of producing electricity and getting electricity from wind and solar.
  • There are practical realities that mean we cannot get all the electricity from wind and solar that we have come to expect.
  • There are also technical problems with the distribution of the kind of electricity produced by wind and solar – the electricity grid would become unreliable.
  • The materials needed (such as copper) to do this just in the UK are more than are currently produced globally in a year.
  • In the UK the policies enacted to move us away from fossil fuels have resulted in expensive energy relative to the rest of the world.
    • in the UK, as a result of our green energy policies, we now pay 4x more for our energy than in USA and 7x more than in China. On a macro scale it makes it impossible for our industry to compete on a global scale. On a personal scale it has caused the dilemma “heat or eat’ for low income households.
  • if we pressure developing countries to only use renewable energy we are in effect denying poor people access to education, health, food.

So those are some of my ‘contrary’ views.

Ready to join me on my journey of discovery?

• Start here: what’s your definition of climate? how the IPCC works; initial discussions of the IPCC process.
• Digging deeper, and broader – hearing from a range of scientists, researchers.
• Censorship: why is discussion of the science discouraged or censored? Why are people with non-alarmist views subject to put downs?

Here are my unedited notes and links, work in progress.