| Essay Non-Fiction posted April 7, 2024 |
  |
Whom do you believe?
Climate Alarmists vs. Skeptics
by Jim Wile
We all know about those topics that we aren’t supposed to discuss around the Thanksgiving table because of their tendency to evoke strong emotions and to split people apart rather than bring them together. Tempers often run hot, and discussions quickly devolve into shouting matches. Politics and religion are two well-known examples. But there is another one that has only fairly recently joined this group: climate change, or what used to be called global warming.
To the alarmists, man’s use of fossil fuels is causing an unprecedented rise in the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which in turn causes more of the greenhouse effect, which leads to too much heat being trapped, causing the Earth to eventually become too hot to sustain life.
To the skeptics, reminiscent of what Vinny said after the prosecutor’s opening statement to the jury in the film My Cousin Vinny, everything I just said in that last paragraph is bullshit. During the Cambrian period of 550 million years ago (before man existed), the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 7,000 ppm (vs. 420 today,) and the mean global temperature was only about 22 degrees C or 72 degrees F. (That actually sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it?) We are currently at a low point in Earth’s history in terms of both CO2 concentration and average global temperature, so some warming will naturally follow regardless of CO2 concentration. Also, CO2 concentration, they say, is already near the saturation point of its effect on temperature, such that further increases in it will have very little effect on greenhouse warming.
They can’t both be right, so whom do you believe?
If you only listen to or read reports in the media, you would probably believe the alarmists because the number of articles about the coming catastrophe dwarfs the number of articles refuting the claims. And doesn’t the claim that 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming is occurring make you sit up and take notice? After all, what are the odds that 97% are wrong and 3% are right?
Many of us fall into supporting one camp or the other. There may be some who aren’t sure about either one, and perhaps the goal of this essay is to drive more of us into that uncertain camp rather than to either extreme.
Let’s discuss what each side proposes to do in the future and then see what mankind has to gain or lose by taking one stance or the other.
The alarmists want us to become carbon-neutral by treating CO2 as a pollutant. They want us to cease using fossil fuels for energy production and instead rely on renewables like solar and wind. Many in this camp don’t seem to want to use nuclear energy either. The skeptics don’t want to curtail the use of fossil fuels until we can find a replacement for them that is as plentiful, reliable, and cheap, which solar and wind currently are not. I don’t know this for sure, but my opinion is that most skeptics are not against using nuclear energy either.
The Stakes of Climate Policy
Now let’s discuss the stakes of following the alarmists’ advice vs. the skeptics’ advice.
Alarmists: By getting off fossil fuels as quickly as we can, we will avoid the climate apocalypse they say will make the Earth uninhabitable. It doesn’t seem to matter very much to them that there is currently no suitable replacement for fossil fuels; their prime concern is to avoid reaching a tipping point (some say 12 years; I’ve even heard as little as 5 years) before we doom ourselves by continuing with their use.
They don’t seem to worry about the devastating effect on the economies of those countries that follow their advice. Why should they, I guess, when they feel the alternative is that we all die? Better alive and in poverty than dead, right? So, we all stand to gain if they are right, because humanity will survive.
Skeptics: We will never get to carbon neutrality because the largest producers of CO2 (countries like China and India) have no intention of doing so and are currently building new coal-fired power plants at an ever-increasing rate as their economies expand. This would lead to our becoming defenseless against China, whom many consider to be a threat to our freedom. But it’s more than that. The skeptics don’t believe we are in for a climate apocalypse if we continue our use of fossil fuels. To them, we would be risking our freedom and well-being for no reason at all.
They claim the effect of becoming carbon neutral before developing a suitable replacement for fossil fuels would be to severely stifle the economies of the countries that willingly do this. It would put us back to conditions experienced long ago, which wouldn’t support current population levels very well at all. In addition, it would freeze the development of people in places like Africa, who live in massive poverty, from ever having the advantages we have here in the countries that have been using fossil fuels for years. It would condemn them to a future of poverty like they experience now.
Where do I stand and why?
As you can probably tell, I come down on the side of the skeptics. I’m not willing to lose my family’s standard of living on an unproven and, to my mind, very unconvincing theory, based solely on computer models that have been consistently wrong. And this is especially so because it won’t make a bit of difference if only part of the world becomes carbon-neutral because it doesn’t appear that the Chinese and Indians plan to follow the same restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. I do really fear what would happen if we followed the restrictions, but the Chinese didn’t, because that would dramatically change the balance of power in the world.
A little later on I will relate the main reason why I believe the alarmists are wrong, but I’d like to first talk more about a recommendation I have.
I’ve done extensive reading and have heard many arguments from both sides as well as refutations of these arguments. You can quickly get lost in determining who is right, especially if you are not a scientist but just a layman. I guess it comes down to who you trust and what your common sense tells you. But the only way to decide who you trust is to hear both sides, and I fear that too many have heard only one side of the argument because one side is so much more vocal than the other.
Many have either seen or heard about Al Gore’s 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. I believe it had a major impact on public opinion and awareness of the issue, but unfortunately, many people’s thinking has progressed no further than the claims he made in that movie, many of which have since been refuted.
Too many people think the science of global warming/climate change is settled science, because supposedly 97% of climate scientists agree on it. But agree with what exactly? That the climate is changing? I would think it’s more like 99.9% agree with that proposition. That man has some influence on the change? Probably quite a few agree on that too, including myself. That the changes brought about by man will be catastrophic? Here’s where that 97% falls way down. I would be surprised if it were more than 50% of those with true expertise. I give a link to a very good article about the 97% number in the notes below.
My recommendation is to watch a new movie put out by the skeptic side to open your mind to another view (or to reinforce your view if you are already a skeptic). That’s only fair, isn’t it, since so much is out there on the alarmist side? It’s called Climate The Movie (The Cold Truth), and I provide a link to it in the notes below. I promise you’ll learn a great deal you never knew before. Pay attention to the credentials of those interviewed in the movie. I found these folks’ reasoning and their humanity to be especially compelling. If you are of the alarmist persuasion, I can guarantee there will be things in the movie you have never heard before that may make you question some of your beliefs.
For those who care what I think, here is the main reason why I am a skeptic: A number of years ago, I read that as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, its ability to affect the temperature decreases logarithmically. You won’t hear that from the alarmists, but they don’t deny it either. I’ve learned a lot more about that, especially from a number of videos by Dr. Will Happer, who is featured in the movie I referred to.
According to his and others’ research, we are already almost at the saturation point of the effect CO2 may have on the warming of the atmosphere, such that further increases in the concentration will have very little effect on warming. Happer uses the analogy of painting a weather-beaten old barn red. One coat may not be quite enough, so you put on another, but that makes very little difference in the appearance. You could try third and fourth coats, but they will make no perceptible difference in how red the barn looks. It’s already almost saturated after only one coat. That’s where we are now with CO2.
The sun sends out both infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Some of the infrared radiation (the one responsible for warming) is absorbed by both the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere, and some is reflected by the surface and clouds within the atmosphere back into space. This is the cooling mechanism for Earth, and without it, it would become too hot for life.
What CO2 does is block infrared radiation from escaping back into space. By keeping it here and not letting it escape, that causes further warming. But it is already near its capacity to do that. In fact, Happer shows that a doubling of the concentration of CO2 from its current level of about 400 ppm to 800 ppm will stop only 1% of the radiation that normally would be reflected back into space, and this has only about a 1 degree C warming effect. Remember how it only got to 22 C or 72 F when the concentration of CO2 was 7,000 ppm in the Cambrian era? And man wasn’t even around then to create all that CO2, but plant and animal life went on as usual.
Let me just leave you with this thought: How much are you really willing to gamble away your standard of living and your freedoms on an unproven theory of catastrophic climate change? Watch just five minutes of the movie I referred to, and I think you’ll find it compelling enough to watch another 15, and after watching the first 20, I’ll be surprised if you aren’t intrigued enough to watch the rest. I guarantee you will hear things you’ve never heard or thought of before. Whether or not this convinces you, at least you will see that there really are two sides to the issue. It will be time well spent.
We all know about those topics that we aren’t supposed to discuss around the Thanksgiving table because of their tendency to evoke strong emotions and to split people apart rather than bring them together. Tempers often run hot, and discussions quickly devolve into shouting matches. Politics and religion are two well-known examples. But there is another one that has only fairly recently joined this group: climate change, or what used to be called global warming.
To the alarmists, man’s use of fossil fuels is causing an unprecedented rise in the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which in turn causes more of the greenhouse effect, which leads to too much heat being trapped, causing the Earth to eventually become too hot to sustain life.
To the skeptics, reminiscent of what Vinny said after the prosecutor’s opening statement to the jury in the film My Cousin Vinny, everything I just said in that last paragraph is bullshit. During the Cambrian period of 550 million years ago (before man existed), the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 7,000 ppm (vs. 420 today,) and the mean global temperature was only about 22 degrees C or 72 degrees F. (That actually sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it?) We are currently at a low point in Earth’s history in terms of both CO2 concentration and average global temperature, so some warming will naturally follow regardless of CO2 concentration. Also, CO2 concentration, they say, is already near the saturation point of its effect on temperature, such that further increases in it will have very little effect on greenhouse warming.
They can’t both be right, so whom do you believe?
If you only listen to or read reports in the media, you would probably believe the alarmists because the number of articles about the coming catastrophe dwarfs the number of articles refuting the claims. And doesn’t the claim that 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming is occurring make you sit up and take notice? After all, what are the odds that 97% are wrong and 3% are right?
Many of us fall into supporting one camp or the other. There may be some who aren’t sure about either one, and perhaps the goal of this essay is to drive more of us into that uncertain camp rather than to either extreme.
Let’s discuss what each side proposes to do in the future and then see what mankind has to gain or lose by taking one stance or the other.
The alarmists want us to become carbon-neutral by treating CO2 as a pollutant. They want us to cease using fossil fuels for energy production and instead rely on renewables like solar and wind. Many in this camp don’t seem to want to use nuclear energy either. The skeptics don’t want to curtail the use of fossil fuels until we can find a replacement for them that is as plentiful, reliable, and cheap, which solar and wind currently are not. I don’t know this for sure, but my opinion is that most skeptics are not against using nuclear energy either.
The Stakes of Climate Policy
Now let’s discuss the stakes of following the alarmists’ advice vs. the skeptics’ advice.
Alarmists: By getting off fossil fuels as quickly as we can, we will avoid the climate apocalypse they say will make the Earth uninhabitable. It doesn’t seem to matter very much to them that there is currently no suitable replacement for fossil fuels; their prime concern is to avoid reaching a tipping point (some say 12 years; I’ve even heard as little as 5 years) before we doom ourselves by continuing with their use.
They don’t seem to worry about the devastating effect on the economies of those countries that follow their advice. Why should they, I guess, when they feel the alternative is that we all die? Better alive and in poverty than dead, right? So, we all stand to gain if they are right, because humanity will survive.
Skeptics: We will never get to carbon neutrality because the largest producers of CO2 (countries like China and India) have no intention of doing so and are currently building new coal-fired power plants at an ever-increasing rate as their economies expand. This would lead to our becoming defenseless against China, whom many consider to be a threat to our freedom. But it’s more than that. The skeptics don’t believe we are in for a climate apocalypse if we continue our use of fossil fuels. To them, we would be risking our freedom and well-being for no reason at all.
They claim the effect of becoming carbon neutral before developing a suitable replacement for fossil fuels would be to severely stifle the economies of the countries that willingly do this. It would put us back to conditions experienced long ago, which wouldn’t support current population levels very well at all. In addition, it would freeze the development of people in places like Africa, who live in massive poverty, from ever having the advantages we have here in the countries that have been using fossil fuels for years. It would condemn them to a future of poverty like they experience now.
Where do I stand and why?
As you can probably tell, I come down on the side of the skeptics. I’m not willing to lose my family’s standard of living on an unproven and, to my mind, very unconvincing theory, based solely on computer models that have been consistently wrong. And this is especially so because it won’t make a bit of difference if only part of the world becomes carbon-neutral because it doesn’t appear that the Chinese and Indians plan to follow the same restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. I do really fear what would happen if we followed the restrictions, but the Chinese didn’t, because that would dramatically change the balance of power in the world.
A little later on I will relate the main reason why I believe the alarmists are wrong, but I’d like to first talk more about a recommendation I have.
I’ve done extensive reading and have heard many arguments from both sides as well as refutations of these arguments. You can quickly get lost in determining who is right, especially if you are not a scientist but just a layman. I guess it comes down to who you trust and what your common sense tells you. But the only way to decide who you trust is to hear both sides, and I fear that too many have heard only one side of the argument because one side is so much more vocal than the other.
Many have either seen or heard about Al Gore’s 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. I believe it had a major impact on public opinion and awareness of the issue, but unfortunately, many people’s thinking has progressed no further than the claims he made in that movie, many of which have since been refuted.
Too many people think the science of global warming/climate change is settled science, because supposedly 97% of climate scientists agree on it. But agree with what exactly? That the climate is changing? I would think it’s more like 99.9% agree with that proposition. That man has some influence on the change? Probably quite a few agree on that too, including myself. That the changes brought about by man will be catastrophic? Here’s where that 97% falls way down. I would be surprised if it were more than 50% of those with true expertise. I give a link to a very good article about the 97% number in the notes below.
My recommendation is to watch a new movie put out by the skeptic side to open your mind to another view (or to reinforce your view if you are already a skeptic). That’s only fair, isn’t it, since so much is out there on the alarmist side? It’s called Climate The Movie (The Cold Truth), and I provide a link to it in the notes below. I promise you’ll learn a great deal you never knew before. Pay attention to the credentials of those interviewed in the movie. I found these folks’ reasoning and their humanity to be especially compelling. If you are of the alarmist persuasion, I can guarantee there will be things in the movie you have never heard before that may make you question some of your beliefs.
For those who care what I think, here is the main reason why I am a skeptic: A number of years ago, I read that as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, its ability to affect the temperature decreases logarithmically. You won’t hear that from the alarmists, but they don’t deny it either. I’ve learned a lot more about that, especially from a number of videos by Dr. Will Happer, who is featured in the movie I referred to.
According to his and others’ research, we are already almost at the saturation point of the effect CO2 may have on the warming of the atmosphere, such that further increases in the concentration will have very little effect on warming. Happer uses the analogy of painting a weather-beaten old barn red. One coat may not be quite enough, so you put on another, but that makes very little difference in the appearance. You could try third and fourth coats, but they will make no perceptible difference in how red the barn looks. It’s already almost saturated after only one coat. That’s where we are now with CO2.
The sun sends out both infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Some of the infrared radiation (the one responsible for warming) is absorbed by both the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere, and some is reflected by the surface and clouds within the atmosphere back into space. This is the cooling mechanism for Earth, and without it, it would become too hot for life.
What CO2 does is block infrared radiation from escaping back into space. By keeping it here and not letting it escape, that causes further warming. But it is already near its capacity to do that. In fact, Happer shows that a doubling of the concentration of CO2 from its current level of about 400 ppm to 800 ppm will stop only 1% of the radiation that normally would be reflected back into space, and this has only about a 1 degree C warming effect. Remember how it only got to 22 C or 72 F when the concentration of CO2 was 7,000 ppm in the Cambrian era? And man wasn’t even around then to create all that CO2, but plant and animal life went on as usual.
Let me just leave you with this thought: How much are you really willing to gamble away your standard of living and your freedoms on an unproven theory of catastrophic climate change? Watch just five minutes of the movie I referred to, and I think you’ll find it compelling enough to watch another 15, and after watching the first 20, I’ll be surprised if you aren’t intrigued enough to watch the rest. I guarantee you will hear things you’ve never heard or thought of before. Whether or not this convinces you, at least you will see that there really are two sides to the issue. It will be time well spent.
 Recognized |
Here is the link to the article on the 97% figure: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/putting-the-con-in-consensus-not-only-is-there-no-97-per-cent-consensus-among-climate-scientists-many-misunderstand-core-issues
Here is the link to Climate The Movie (The Cold Truth): https://www.climatethemovie.net/
I heard about this movie in a newsletter put out by Clintel, an organization that created a World Climate Declaration signed by over 1,900 scientists and professionals, including several Nobel laureates who believe there is no climate emergency. Their website is: https://clintel.org/.
Here is the link to an excellent video featuring Dr. Will Happer discussing CO2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA8elCE75ns.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Here is the link to Climate The Movie (The Cold Truth): https://www.climatethemovie.net/
I heard about this movie in a newsletter put out by Clintel, an organization that created a World Climate Declaration signed by over 1,900 scientists and professionals, including several Nobel laureates who believe there is no climate emergency. Their website is: https://clintel.org/.
Here is the link to an excellent video featuring Dr. Will Happer discussing CO2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA8elCE75ns.
You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.
© Copyright 2024. Jim Wile All rights reserved.
Jim Wile has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
