Climate Science RIP

Climate changes: always has, always will.

And human activity affects the climate:

Deforestation above a latitude of around 45 degrees causes climate cooling, reports a paper in Nature by a Yale University led group. (Phew: that's good news, then, since here in Canada we've already logged most of the boreal forest.)

Airborne soot from forest fires, diesel engine exhaust, and coal burning, may warm the climate almost as much as all of the current human-caused increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a recent study in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Then there's methane from leaking gas pipelines and  flatulent cows, which is about 50 times more potent a so-called greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

And we shouldn't forget the US military that burns through 100 million barrels of oil a year.

But forget it. Al Gore and the other 50,000 or so climate scientists and their political backers and hangers on who recently gathered in Paris at the cost of much emitted carbon have so crassly turned the issue of anthropogenic climate warming/change/cooling/whatever into an instrument of self-advancement or political control that it is impossible now to discuss the subject publicly without becoming the target for vicious insults from proponents of one or other extremist view.

Under those circumstances no scientist other than a charlatan or a dimwit would enter the field. This is unfortunate, because the consequences of changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere should be a matter for careful study by competent persons, not the exclusive preserve of verbal pugilists and the proponents of political correctness.

Doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration may or may not have much effect on the weather, but studies from top labs indicate that it has an extraordinarily severe negative impact on human cognitive capacity. So when Trump says, "we are led by very stupid people" the reason may not be so hard to find.

What is as scary is that raising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration boosts global primary production, particularly in dry zones. Thus, today, the Australian outback is greening up, as is the African Sahel and the Argentinian pampas. The estimate is that global primary production has been boosted by ten billion tons a year, and CO₂ is up only 40% so far. Double the pre-industrial concentration and the population carrying capacity of Africa and many other parts of the world will double, which should really exacerbate the European immigration crisis.

But, at least we need no longer worry about that damned hockey-stick temperature chart produced by Professor Michael Mann and associates. The thing was, if not a hoax, the result of a remarkably dumb error, as is very nicely explained in this article in MIT's Technology Review. Nature magazine, a leader in the politicization of science, naturally refused to publish the work of Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who discovered this error, on the grounds of insufficient interest. Well, Nature, for sure, had insufficient interest.

And here's what happens to a distinguished scientist who asserts the necessity for open inquiry, skepticism and vigorous debate for the effective pursuit of scientific truth:

Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, giving evidence before 
a Congressional committee:



Related: 

CanSpeccy: Extreme Weather? Don't Worry. It's Normal

CanSpeccy: How stupid people win debates

CanSpeccy: The State of Climate Science: Have We Passed Peak Civilization?

CanSpeccy: MIT Meteorology Prof, Science Magazine and the Pope Concur: The Reality of Human Caused Climate Change Is an Article of Religious Faith

CanSpeccy: Nulius in verba: On the word of no one. Or how the Royal Society betrayed its original purpose and became another quasi governmental organization spewing the scientifically correct official line

CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part I: Carbon Dioxide Is Not a Greenhouse Gas

CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part II: Ecosystem Disruption

CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part III: Induced Stupidity and the Decline of the West

CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part IV: Reversing the Trend