Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 142 days
Last week I wrote about climate change and who is to blame. This prompted some comments about the politics of climate change and whether the concept of climate change extremism exists with an associated religion of climate change.
I will argue that that both climate change extremism and the religion of climate change are real. I classify myself as a climate change moderate which is very far removed from a climate change denialist. I also confess to having some (mild) nihilistic tendencies which will inform some of what I’m about to say and may distress some of my more sensitive readers. Some of my readers have also (fairly) accused me of using big words and expanding their vocabularies. A nihilist is a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles.
The high priests of climate change say things like we are destroying the planet and the end is nigh. These views are often held at many Universities, and it might be quite difficult to be a climate change moderate or nihilist in these environments. https://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/how-to-live-better-and-stop-destroying-the-planet/. Apart from the fact that I may generally be unemployable I suspect people with views like mine would struggle to find a job at many universities in departments studying climate change.
In science news reporting a common theme is that a climate catastrophe is imminent. Science news websites such as Live Science which covers science news around the world publish numerous apocalyptic articles. Here is one such article but there are many. https://www.livescience.com/collapse-human-society-limits-to-growth.html.
A brief study of the long-term history of our planet reveals that it is nonsense that we are destroying the planet. Bearing in mind that rudimentary life on earth first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago one needs to look at just how resilient life on earth is. Although it is not possible to be precise atmospheric CO2 levels have been far higher than their current levels prior to about 2.5 million years ago. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/1018. 2.5 million years is an unfathomably long time for a human to contemplate and the human species has only existed for about 200 000 years. Yet 2.5 million years is a very short period in the history of life on earth.
About 66 million years ago the earth was struck by a 10-kilometre diameter meteorite in Mexico and a widely accepted and likely theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs. The scale of this event dwarfs human induced climate change in the remainder of this century.
Was the meteorite strike a good or a bad thing from a moral standpoint? The obvious and correct answer is it was neither good nor bad and has nothing to do with morality which is a human concept. From a narrow and narcissistic human perspective, one could argue it was a good thing because this event was beneficial for mammals and if the meteorite strike did not happen, we would probably not exist. It wasn’t so great for the dinosaurs though.
Life on earth is extremely resilient and rebounds from catastrophic events and flourishes and rejuvenates. If the direst climate change predictions are true and climate change causes the extinction of humanity in the next hundred years, then life will flourish in the huge gaps left by the extinction of Earth’s apex predator. In 100 000 years’, time there would be very little trace left on earth that humans ever existed and human induced climate change would be long forgotten. Human induced climate change will not destroy the planet. Life on earth is much tougher than that. Could one mount an argument that it would be morally good for humans to go extinct so that other life could take over from the currently dominant species? Rhinos might flourish and they would not be slaughtered for their horns based on the fallacious and ridiculous belief that rhino horn is an aphrodisiac. We are not as important as we think we are.
However, climate change is highly unlikely to cause human extinction within the next 100 years. This does not mean that there might not be consequences and possibly severe hardship caused by climate change, but humans are now also resilient and capable of withstanding significant hardship.
Some of the points made by climate change denialists do have merit particularly when it comes to taking on the climate change extremists and the church of climate change. With some trepidation I provide a link provided to me collating a variety of views from a climate change denialist. https://www.academia.edu/18879451/WHAT_IS_THE_CONSENSUS_ON_CLIMATE_CHANGE_IF_NOT_97_New_book_reveals_UN_threatened_dismissal_of_working_scientists_who_concluded_No_study_to_date_has_positively_attributed_all_or_part_of_observed_climate_change_to_anthropogenic_i_e_man_made_causes_?email_work_card=thumbnail. Humanity has a long history of politicians and religious leaders leading the scientific agenda and letting politics and dogma trump science. Climate change has become extremely politicised, and the climate change agenda is not being led by the scientists but by politicians. That does not mean good scientists can’t stand up to politicians, but things can get very messy particularly if politicians can control funding.
Another point that resonates with me is that one needs to be very cautious regarding the vexed issue of scientific consensus. Galileo was persecuted for going against the scientific consensus of the time and providing compelling evidence that the planets orbit the sun. There is some truth in the Michael Crichton statement:
“There is no such thing as consensus science. If its consensus, it isn’t science. If its science, it isn’t consensus. Period. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agree E = mc2”
Micheal Crichton’s statement is however only partly helpful. With messy and complex problems where the science is not fully settled and there is not time for it to settle or it is inherently too complex for definitive forecasting one needs to decide how to proceed. Decisions need to be made with incomplete information and incomplete science. This creates fertile ground for politicians and the church of climate change.
It is not easy to be a climate change moderate in today’s world and one of the world’s leading climate change moderates is Bjorn Lomborg (although some classify him as climate change denialist and vilify him). He has published several books on climate change with the latest being entitled, “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet”. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0827TL851/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 . The Financial Times (bastion of white monopoly capital) has this to say about the book:
“It’s precisely because the problem is so serious that Lomborg argues it is necessary to approach it cool-headedly…. The alternative? In Lomborg’s view it is letting ourselves be panicked into the most expensive course—trying to fix the climate without having the necessary technology on hand. Lomborg argues powerfully that this is a fool’s errand….A corrective to many of the green assumptions that dominate the media.”
Whatever you may think of Bjorn Lomborg he has certainly been persecuted as a heretic and it is certainly worth looking at his Wikipedia entry to see what happens to you if you stick your head above the parapet in the climate change debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg. The climate change debate has become extremely polarised and shouty. For those in the church of climate change you are either a true believer or a heretic.
In the South African context how should carbon reduction be prioritised opposite things like education and health care? If it is the existential crisis that some would have us believe, then it is a life-threatening emergency and carbon reduction is the top priority and needs to crowd out expenditure on other things.
So finally, dearly beloved readers some concluding thoughts of my own on how some of this might play out based on my experience and knowledge gleaned over my three score years on this planet. The science of climate change forecasting is extremely complex and is subject to significant uncertainty. Climate science is not my area of expertise although I will claim a modest knowledge about science and modelling.
I will however stake a claim to knowing a thing or two about the energy industry and the associated and linked chemical industry. Completely replacing these industries and their infrastructure within the next couple of decades to get to net zero is not going to happen. Commercial technologies to do this are still being developed. The scale and magnitude of this task together with commercial realities will limit the pace at which it can be done. The alternative would be to live smaller and (much) simpler lives (e.g. ban air travel or make it prohibitively expensive). In democracies people will not be prepared to endure significant hardship which affects them directly and reduces their standard of living a lot. The pace at which the change will happen will thus be determined by commercial and technology realities.
We will find out which of the climate forecasts are most accurate as this unfolds and we will have to learn how to deal with the consequences.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions please keep them coming.
Regards
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 
Bruce as usual, you are too kind. As far as I am concerned, the jury is out on the question as to whether we are heading to Armageddon. My problem is that the information is coming from a media which will report any old rubbish as long as it fills up space or time and which avoids the need for employing reporters with skill and integrity, Politicians who will jump on any available bandwagon which will enable them to regurgitate views which will maximise personal publicity and ensure re-election, academics who would sell their own grandmothers to get research money and/or become the next TV pundit, and organisations who believe that they can improve there image by cynically advocating a trivial green agenda.
The net result, is a total lack of high level data which has been professionally assessed and reported. Sigh!
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Thanks Mike. The climate change issue is certainly revealing about human nature.
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I like Lomborg. For an economist, he has a very solid grip on the issue and his call for calm responses resonates with me much more than outrageous suggestions like splitting water using power from biomass burning to make hydrogen for this heavenly ‘green H2 economy’ pipe dream. Anthropogenic global warming is undoubtedly real – caused by deforestation, desertification and of course fossil fuels – but the response to this has been shocking. Its become a religion as you point out. Trying to get people to consider basic thermodynamics (particularly the second law) is heresy.
Another heresy is to suggest that perhaps the reduction in consumption may be part of the solution. Energy efficiency can make a much faster impact. This is about as popular on the NYSE as the Taliban.
Science is never absolute. Science is not fact. Scientists observe facts and try to explain them with hypotheses which can be supported by good mathematical models and good data. Here is where AGW gets difficult. The science is complex and the variables many and hard to measure… mass transfer of CO2 into/out of the sea? So to shrug off some skeptics we rename it ‘climate change’.
So much of the hype around AGW (I refuse to use the other term – its confusing and unhelpful) is based in inferential observations about coral destruction, fish migrations etc. There are often no coherent explanations as to how AGW is causing birds to change migration routes etc. Its just presented to the disciples of this new religion as another piece of ‘evidence’ and swallowed up with zealous anger at the ancestors who have destroyed our childhood.
Want to stop AGW? Take a bus to work, wear a Jersey and switch off your heater, close the windows when it’s cold and open them when its hot, repair your clothes rather than buy new.
I would not normally be concerned about the appearance of a new religion, except that if all the ills in the world are deemed to be caused by this single thing, then we are not doing science and we will miss some of the real causes of many observed phenomena. Perhaps there are less fish in the sea because we are eating them all? Perhaps some species are dying because of habitat destruction? Perhaps a big factor in coral destruction is fishing with poison? We won’t know because it’s all assumed to be caused by AGW…
Try to get research funding today for anything. If your work doesn’t have the words ‘climate change’ or GHG in it, not likely to get a cent (COVID the exception). It won’t be long before we are told that COVID was really caused by climate change – watch this space
The words ‘scientists say’ has become the most abused term imaginable. ‘Scientists say the Icelandic volcanoes are erupting because of AGW’. ‘Scientists say the reason there were no hurricanes in a particular year is AGW. ‘Scientists say that more hurricanes will result – and stronger ones. Perhaps we should read ‘a microbiologist said there will be more hurricanes, while the climatologists are not sure’
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There is a profound sentence in this week’s blog which I think neatly sums up not only the human response to climate change but also so many other concepts that are beyond human understanding:
“We are not as important as we think we are.”
Thanks for yet another thought-provoking RPF edition!
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