Time to scorecard the climate discussion.

For at least a decade we have had two scientific factions in hot dispute.… the climate alarmists versus the climate realists.

For at least a decade we have had two scientific factions in hot dispute.… the climate alarmists versus the climate realists. And its time to run the scorecard!

The dispute is not about if the climate is changing, or if CO2 liberated by human energy generation and industrialization systems may have some effect on the warming of the climate, but the issue is by how much, and is it an emergency, and does it need mitigation with NetZero, or just some focused adaption using the power of technology and fossil fuels?

In this last decade the UN’s IPCC has been the benchmark for scientific authority on climate change and has generated a strong emergency consensus well supported by all the traditional scientific institutions and associated media. This position was embraced by most western governments who were convinced that “saving the planet” was a top priority, and signed off on multilateral accords to take action and follow NetZero policies involving ditching their reliable fossil fuel energy sources that had enabled a strong industrialised economy and forced switching to unproven and unreliable so called renewable sources such as wind and solar that needed significant tax payer funding and subsidies to make happen. This shift turned environmentalists into powerful hard nosed and inflexible advocates who employed alarmist tactics to create fear in the population to convince them to follow the climate emergency narrative and pay for the NetZero journey.

But now today, huge gaps are showing in the IPCC climate consensus, and this is being demonstrated by countervailing reports and conclusions across the scientific community declaring no climate emergency.

A significant part of the media and some national governments are now de-committing from the climate emergency narrative, and many are changing policies away from a NetZero position or are in the process of seriously questioning such policies, and will probably reverse such NetZero policies due to both the update in scientific facts and conclusions, as well as the realization that such climate mitigation efforts are unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.

All of these NetZero policies and taxpayer expense has changed nothing, as CO2 levels and the use of fossil fuels across the globe continue to rise. There is also a realization in the western nations that while they have been struggling to implement NetZero that in many cases has caused significant damage to their industries and their prosperity, the rest of the world has now become the largest source of CO2 emissions, and yet have no firm plans to join the NetZero journey, and are focused on their own prosperity and capitalising on the now disadvantaged and underpowered western economies who foolishly undertook NetZero policies.

So… what has changed in the science community to force such a reset?

After a series of releases of IPCC reports it became clear that the IPCC and the associated traditional peer review process had adopted a scientific position that was politically subjugated with their only goal being to protect a climate emergency narrative and that it was human caused. This consensus position was clearly disrupting the scientific process and forced a bias to interpret the data to suit this climate emergency consensus, and in some cases suppress or alter the scientific information to support the consensus. This subjugation appeared to be fuelled by a desire to keep the easy access to significant government funding and a view by many experts involved that maintaining the consensus was a Noble cause.

To many leading scientists who were deeply involved in the study of the climate this political subjugation was disappointing and unacceptable, and they refused to participate in the IPCC anymore, and formed into alternative study groups to review more openly the scientific data and the conclusions and not be constrained by such a frozen consensus. These “climate reality” groups have now expanded into organizations well able to compete with the IPCC in terms of scientific expertise and reporting capability and have also created a balance of public communication to ensure the true facts about “climate reality” is now being made available to their governments and the population at large.

Some of these leading climate reality groups are CLINTEL, CO2 Coalition, The Heartland Institute, Friends of Science, CDN and many more.

The IPCC and its parent the UN is now starting to lose its grip on western government and public opinion to maintain a position that the climate science is settled, and that it’s an emergency and that NetZero is essential. This is because the climate realist organizations have been able to demonstrate weaknesses in the climate emergency scientific narrative.

The climate realists have declared ….

1. The climate science is far from settled and needs much more review before any policy conclusions are possible.

2. The measurements showing a slight increase in global temperature may be overstated.

3. These global temperature increases are not unprecedented and have happened at least 3 times before in the last 10,000 years, and in those warm periods humankind flourished.

4. Scientific calculations explain that the temperature increase may not all be caused by CO2.

5. Solid data proves that the temperature increase has not created any adverse impacts outside of normal weather variability.

6. The IPCC predictions of future adverse climate conditions are based on suspect climate models.

7. NetZero is not only unnecessary but also technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.

8. More CO2 is “good news” as combined with a slightly longer growing season via a slightly increased winter temperature is improving the food supply and greening the planet for most parts of the planet.

The climate realists firmly suggest that based on this situation we do not have a climate emergency on this planet and we should only focus on localized adaption to a slightly changing climate using the power of fossil fuels.

The USA is leading the change with a report by The DoE that supports the realist approach and the associated policies that are now being implemented by President Trump. And it’s now clear that many other western nations will follow the same approach very soon.

NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY - by Nigel Southway