What Just Happened

Climate

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The governments of developed countries have at some point seemed to have reached consensus that we need to make policies to reduce carbon emissions. Why?

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.

Is this how you would summarise it?

  • 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 the climate will change in such a way as to threaten our very existence.
  • The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the scientific authority on these matters.
  • There is an undeniable scientific consensus, and anyone who disagrees must be arrogant, stupid, a conspiracy theorist or lobbying on behalf 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 that 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 for decades geologists have presented evident that the temperature of the world has changed in the past, long before the industrial revolution. The processes that drive the climate are subject to natural forces as well as human activity. There are many significant drivers of our climate which are uncertain or unknown. Good science does not ignore the unknowns and uncertainties of theories.

So here are some of my findings…

  • CO2 levels are definitely rising. Probably connected to burning fossil fuels.
  • 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.
  • Policies based on the idea of catastrophe have resulted in very expensive electricity, and a less reliable distribution grid. Scientists and engineers are trying to warn of the dangers of the policies derived from the assumption of the climate crisis.
  • The UK contributes less than 1% of global carbon emissions.
  • China is not reducing CO2 emissions, but rather is increasing much more than any other nation. And we seem to be ‘outsourcing’ our carbon emissions to China.
  • 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. As a consequence the electricity grid is becoming less robust/more unreliable.
    • The copper (and other materials needed) to expand our electricity grid sufficient to stop using fossil fuels 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. This 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.

These are some of the views I now subscribe to.

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