Thank you for writing this. Unfortunately I am not clear on what your objective was with this piece. It seems like you are trying to offer arguments to debunk climate change, by pointing out how stated policy objectives have failed to translate into real impact over time, as well as by pointing out how targets and objectives have moved with the decades. However, the first point is very simple in the sense that policy has not translated into impact for a variety of reasons including developing economies growing, anti climate lobbying and slow uptake of renewables. For the second point, I would expect that as science and the application of that science get refined, our understanding of what is desireable and achievable would shift. Regardless, none of these claims unfortunately in my eyes make a convincing argument for why we should stop trying to transition away from fossil fuels.
I don’t think the article is trying to “debunk climate change”…whatever that means. The climate is, has and will always change. This article is focussing on the transparent technique of the multiple billion dollar climate change industry of shifting the goalposts each time one of the catastrophic predictions proves inaccurate.
Implicitly the author is highlighting the lack of rigour in so-called climate science (arguably an oxymoron).
The scientific method requires a precisely specified hypothesis to be tested against observational or experimental data. The climate industry, as pointed out in the article, at least started with hypotheses that were testable against observational data. When the data supported the null hypothesis (colloquially: disproved the hypothesis) the industry simply made the hypotheses more vague AND manipulated (or to use the IPCC’s language “homogenised”) the data. When this continued to support the null hypothesis the industry turned to stochastic modelling which, anyone who has worked with such models will tell you, can be made to say anything. They are also highly complex to understand and can easily be used to manipulate public opinion. (They were used to sell mortgage-backed securities which caused the GFC, they were used extensively during the pandemic to encourage compliance).
Also implicit in the article is the view that an orderly transition away from fossil fuels is essential to preserving our energy dependent way of life.
The conclusion is that the cart has been put before the horse based on a false premise. We have been told, and many otherwise intelligent people have believed, that the world faced an existential threat. That contrary to all known and verifiable data, the long term and ultra long term climate cycles evident in ice cores and the fossil records, would come to an end. That from now on global temperatures would only rise- like forever!! Based on these unproven and anti-scientific claims governments in the Western world (predominantly) decided that public policy should orient itself toward sacrificing the engine of our prosperity (cheap energy) in order to meet some dreamed up temperature targets to save the planet. All the available evidence points toward this being the worst case of global mass irrationality since the Dutch Tulip crisis. The article is supportive of a transition, as am I, but at a rational pace using sensible and proven technologies. Coal to gas and nuclear, for base-load, supported by hydro, solar and wind where they permit and don’t result in the destruction of forrest and farmland or the clogging of sea lanes or pollution of oceans.
One day a new renewable technology may come along, or battery efficiency may improve, to the extent that wind and solar may be able to provide dispatchable base-load across existing distribution networks. But we are a long way from that
" in order to meet some dreamed up temperature targets to save the planet."
Damage is being done as we speak, and it's costing us billions. Your red herring "save the planet" gives away your denier pedigree and tells me that you're more interested in spreading propaganda than in having a genuine discussion based on science.
Thank you for this. You say that all the available evidence points towards this being mass irrationality, I’d be grateful if you could share some of this evidence.
Like others in this thread I don’t think I should be doing your research for you. You are conducting what might be described as a Margaret Thatcher defence. Thatcher was adept at requiring commentators to be more and more specific right down to names and addresses. I don’t intend to do the basic research for you but you might profitably spend some time reading the work of Judith Curry, Steve Koonin et al
At a fundamental level it is irrational to believe the well established climate cycles and super cycles will suddenly end - without compelling evidence to the contrary. By compelling I mean evidence produced using the scientific method ( hypothesis-experimentation-observation-analysis-conclusion-repetition).
It is irrational to embark on public policy without knowing the full cost and without having the necessary technology currently available. (I suggest you look at the work of Chris Ullman including his compelling documentary).
It is irrational to cede to government significant powers with no convincing available benefit
It is irrational to embark on public policy which has the immediate impact of significantly increasing the cost of the very thing that has underpinned the prosperity of the Western world-cheap energy
It is irrational to seek to accelerate the pace of transition in circumstances where the technology does not exist to fully power a grid with intermittent supply
It is irrational to reduce demand for coal in the West so that the major emitters Cuna and India can buy it more cheaply and burn it in their dirty power stations to produce the cheapest energy needed to make solar panels and windmills to sell back to the West
I could go on. But you really need to do your own research
Im not trying any defence, I am simply asking for you to share some information, which you have, and I thank you for it. I will indeed go and do some research.
Like everything in catastrophic politics, there are two speeds, stopped and warp. Of the two, stopped is less harmful. But the best answer is, let the private sector deal with it. Not perfect but less costly and harmful than the government.
The failure of the global energy market to price in the cost of externalities has been described as "the greatest and most wide ranging market failure ever seen" (https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/). Why would the response of the private sector be any more coherent or effective now than it has been in the 20 years since the Stern report was released?
Because once the government gets involved, it will only do worse. and will gain control over the fossil fuel industry. Things go bad, things go good. It’s life. But more government is never the answer.
I don't think you need to worry about the Government gaining control over the fossil fuel industry Dan - the fossil fuel industry has been directing government policy very effectively for at least 40 years!
Only to those who don't take the time to see what is going on and plan for it. An alarmists is not a critical thinking person. Unless their only goal is to promote alarmists chaos. Which I must say works well in a country like ours. On the lower class'.
I think the author confuses what makes sense scientifically, and what is achievable politically. The denier industry has managed to create a climate that renders a slow response, so yea, we need to keep changing the goals to accommodate their reactionary narratives. It's really them who are at fault, and why we are still having these arguments, decades after Exxon proved fossil fuel emissions would cause warming, and them making the decision to lie about it.
Look, I have no desire to debate someone with a closed mind on the issue. Patrick Donati was seeking information and evidence, which I have provided. You are parroting climate alarmist talking points. The climate IS changing, as it has done for millennia. It is ridiculous to suggest CO2 is the only reason and it is unproven that it is the main reason. Why would any civilisation sacrifice its prosperity based on claims about CO2 emissions being the dominant driving factor in climate change and that there is a tipping point where the climate will STOP changing, unless there was rock-solid irrefutable evidence that it was true.
If you go to your alarmist talking points you will see that you are required to respond that 97% of scientists agree. First up, science is not a popularity contest. Most scientists once believed the earth was flat, the Sun revolved around the earth, atoms are the smallest particle, space is empty, light is made up of particles. All of these have been proven to be incorrect using the scientific method. All science is provisional.
The intermittent energy lobby is now a trillion dollar industry which controls almost all of the academic research into climate change. Your funding will dry up if you challenge the orthodoxy.
If you have a curious mind and can do your own research there are some privately funded independent researchers who have done excellent research which, in my judgement, casts sufficient doubt on the climate orthodoxy to challenge the direction being taken by Western countries. Steve Koonin was Obama’s energy secretary and is a highly qualified physicist. I recommend his book. Even if you are not convinced, it might give you some sorely needed balance in your views.
It is worth noting that the once climate zealot Bill Gates has done the work and is now modifying his views. As too is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. More will follow.
Throwing “facts” or “evidence” around on Substack is no substitute for proper research. Climate is complicated. You should try it. It’s liberating.
There is no doubt we need to transition away from fossil fuels. They will eventually run out and they are dirty. But we need to understand the costs and consequences of doing so. We need to do it in a considered and orderly manner with a sensible and achievable time frame. We also need to be very clear about the technology we are going to use. The world is not going to end the way the intermittent energy industry would like you to believe
Western nations have spent (poor results would say wasted) trillions of dollars and have had minimal impact in addressing the problem. The goal should be to efficiently and effectively address the problem, and when you are not, then admit it's not working and come up with another plan. But politics and special interest groups don't want to stop the money flow and don't want to be told their path is not working; they and the MSM come up with more excuses and new goals, but it never addresses the core issue that it's not working. We have been doing this for 3+ decades, and it's not working. When do we stand up and say enough is enough? The sad part is that science has also been compromised because most of the funding for climate science comes from the federal government, and if one doesn't support the climate catastrophe thesis, one doesn't get funded, which means one doesn't have a job.
Any reasonable person who truly believes that climate change is an existential threat has to support nuclear power, since it's the only viable green energy technology we have that addresses the problems; solar panels and windmills are, frankly, toys and science projects. You can not run major cities or major factories on this low energy density, intermittent, and unreliable technology, and no innovation will change the fact that these are sources of low energy density. The world's energy demand, measured in joules, increases every year and will continue as long as humans desire a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
This is a great point and I wholeheartedly agree that nuclear needs to happen as fast as possible. That being said, the main advantage that solar and wind have over nuclear is that they are relatively fast and easy to build, whereas it can take decades to build nuclear plants (Hinkley point c). As we live in an imperfect world we must unfortunately accept imperfect solutions.
But CO2 is plant food and current levels are well below the optimum for plant growth. More CO2 causes a greening of the planet which is a good thing. We need more CO2, not less.
The idea of tackling 'climate change' is no different to the idea of tackling 'duck quack'.
When has lack of CO2 inhibited plant growth? Don't you think an erratic climate, like the one we're xcreating with our fossil fuel emissions, negates any tiny benefit that more CO2 will create?
Not really. So prior to fracking being proven economical in 2010 America was mired in an energy crisis that degraded working class disposable income which created the conditions for what we call the Global Financial Crisis or the Subprime Mortgage Crisis or whatever. Ultimately that crisis was a slow moving train wreck than began around 2000 when it was obvious the China economic boom would lead to a commodity super cycle and conventional wisdom was that North America had hit peak oil & gas production. So in that economic and political climate it actually made sense to believe in climate change.
You look at a network of toothless organizations whose only capability is public outreach trying a bunch of different outreach strategies and conclude the science is not withstanding contact with reality. The global warming to human consequences response curve is obviously continuous so setting down any one marker is a bit silly except as a schelling point for international collaboration. None of that has anything to do with the ‘science’.
1. The shifting goalposts being criticized here can best be understood as public relations tools.
2. The relationships between temperature or CO2 concentration and the negative results of climate change are continuous and not highly inflected so there’s no natural choice of a temperature or CO2 concentration target.
"there’s no natural choice of a temperature or CO2 concentration target."
It's the rate of change, and the effects that has on eight billion people all needing food, water and shelter. We are releasing tens of millions of years of sequestered CO2 in a few centuries. All of the goals are oriented toward slowing the rate, and stopping the increase.
Stop being sassy, I’m disagreeing with the original post’s contention that the variety of climate change reduction targets implies that the science isn’t settled. I think you and I agree that climate change is a real and serious problem
You seemed to be supporting the straw man arguments presented in the article, rather than focusing on the largest issue, which is the rapid increase in warming.
Ok in this article you show how inconsistent policy, goals and discourse around climate are. But you didnt debunk global warming or that it is caused by human green house gas emissions?
Anyways the climate discourse and the move to renewables is obviously about preparing society for peak oil without telling the scary truth: our civilization is running out of resources.
We are no where near running out of resources of Oil and Gas. The current primary production of shales actually only produces about 7 % to 10% of oil in place (oil reservoirs) and about 30% of the gas in place (gas reservoirs). The industry has already demonstrated in some of the more mature shales like the Bakken and the Eagle Ford that through refracs and enhanced oil recovery, the recoveries may be doubled at half the original cost. With future technologies it is likely that the industry will be able to extract half or more of the oil in place.
Geohring and Rosenzwaicj have shown that shale production in the US is already at ~40% of ultimately recoverable resources. IEA, Rystad, academic papers all agree that global oil production will significantly shrink to about 50-60% of todays production over the next 20 years, due to depletion. Additionally you have shrinking EROI. Discoveries are lower than consumption since like 5 decades. Many countries production is already well past peak.
IMO the major takeaway of this article is climate policy is irrational (Like wanting society to be reliant on wind & solar, which are weather dependent, even though they think the weather is going to get more extreme).
Maybe they're also not giving us the straight scoop on the science either.
Read the 2025 US DOE Climate Report for a look at the mann behind the (climate) curtain.
The problem of climate change is real. The solution of renewables is fake. As the article implies, the best we can do to address climate change is transition away from coal, first to natural gas, and then to nuclear. We will still blow past the 2 degree limit and the 450 ppm CO2 limit. If those limits really define a dangerous threshold, then the problem of climate change has no solution.
Because they think people are a cancer on the planet and want to cull the population. They are using a purported climate crisis as a means to an end (social & political).
We have centuries of fossil fuels left on this planet. The price will rise, but we are not going to run out anytime soon.
If the environmental activists were truly rational about CO2, they would recommend natural gas as a bridge to nuclear. But they're not, so they aren't.
this "We have centuries of fossil fuels left on this planet." is so wrong... i mean of course there is plenty of hydrocarbons below ground but that doesnt mean its thermodynamically or even economically recoverable
as i said above:
Geohring and Rosenzwaicj have shown that shale production in the US is already at ~40% of ultimately recoverable resources. IEA, Rystad, academic papers all agree that global oil production will significantly shrink to about 50-60% of todays production over the next 20 years, due to depletion. Additionally you have shrinking EROI. Discoveries are lower than consumption since like 5 decades. Many countries production is already well past peak.
You need to wake up and educate yourself, Momo. Not going to do it for you. Yes, there are centuries of fossil fuels left. Centuries. Not an exaggeration.
IEA's (& BP, Bloomberg)peak oil is unconvincing. They've been serially wrong for years ( possibly due to their climate alarmism). Pick your favorite AI and ask it to do a principled critique of those peak oil adherents that you mentioned. You might find it interesting.
Well, no policy will stop “global warming”, so there is that.
Here in canada we could focus on conversion to useful nuclear instead of idiotic carbon taxes, idiotic carbon capture storage policy and just general idiotic policy.
We could also use more renewable sources, instead of blocking them, like Dani does with her “policies” of supporting fossil fuels at the expense of renewables.
Nuke plants can take decades to build and are expensive. And leave behind tonnes of toxic waste from the mines and power plants.
Nobody predicted the 2023 ST rise that peaked above 1.6C anomaly in mid 2024. No one predicted the fall in 2025 to 1.4C. Huge rates of change explained by natural variability (pick list includes Hunga Tonga, PDO and albedo, NOT CO2!). Who will rid us of Zeke Hausfsther’s post game predictions ?(although he kindly added 2026/7 predictions for our entertainment).
Are you asking for a trend in the silly/meaningless/easily adjusted global average anomaly? My guess is that we warmed up to 1945 then cooled to 1976 and then increased again, ending with an overall 1C increase today. We might get to 2C by 2100, or -1C, and likely both with the cooling coming in 2040 and ending warmer, or the opposite, or we may flatline for 50 years and then go up or down.
As anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only 3 to 5 per cent of total annual CO2 emissions, it is an uphill task, to say the least,to control total by altering anthropogenic.
I rarely see any reference to H2O when that is, by far, the most powerful greenhouse gas, making our efforts to 'control' climate by our anthropogenic levels even more futile.
As any electrical power engineer if renewables generation is a suitable, economic and reliable way to power a grid, if the reply is yes, that is the sector that employs him or her.
"As anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only 3 to 5 per cent of total annual CO2 emissions, it is an uphill task, to say the least,to control total by altering anthropogenic."
Disappointing but easily fixed misunderstanding on your part - if getting the facts straight actually matters more to you than finding justifications for opposing emissions reductions.
As long as you count nature's emissions but don't count nature's sinks you will miss the fact that ALL of the rise in CO2 concentrations come from human causes and miss the fact that currently nature takes out more CO2 than it adds or they would be a lot higher than they are and global warming would be worse that it is.
The difference that counts is between what all sources, nature plus human adds and all sinks - what nature plus human sinks.
It is like arguing a trickling hose in a swimming pool can't be making the water level rise because the biggest source of water - much larger - is the filter return pipe and THAT doesn't make the level rise. Like buying a business because the sales figures are good whilst looking aside from the running costs and outstandings, which are a lot higher than the sales figures - and disparaging the expert accountant that tried to warn you those numbers are misleading. It doesn't make you sound smarter than climate scientists.
"It is accepted science, as far as that goes, shows that CO2 rise follows global temperature increase."
Not it's not. What IS accepted is that both are true...warming causes CO2 to be released from sequestered sources, like permafrost, and the increased CO2 then causes further warming. It's called "positive feedback".
Unless you can tell me why CO2 suddenly DOESN'T absorb thermal energy.
You are, of course, absolutely right if emissions/Net Zero and CO2 reductions really were the goal. Oh, I’m sure for some that’s true. But the real goal is wealth redistribution and the restructuring of the world’s political landscape for which Net Zero/CO2 emissions are a vehicle. This, actual results and actual facts are little more than minor details.
Mainstream politics has had avoidance of doing what is required - doing the least that could be gotten away with - as their climate policy since it became necessary to have climate policies.
"Best policy' has been the weakest policies (empty gesturing mostly) if not having outright saving fossil fuels from global warming (doubt, deny, delay) as their priority. Avoiding serious, urgent commitments to emissions reductions has had far greater political priority for far longer than commitments to emissions reductions has ever had and that is not because climate scientists keep changing their conclusions or 'activists' are annoying; powerful, well connected interests simply do not want to and all the tools of influence at their disposal have been used to assure emissions reductions efforts remain weak - Lobbying, Advertising, PR, Strategic Donating, Tactical Lawfare, Tankthink.
Handing the issue and the podium and the amplifiers to known anti-nuclear environmentalists - "You care so much, you fix it" - and making climate politics about them and (consequently) about opposing what THEY propose was never a failure of environmentalism to propose the right things, it was a failure of mainstream politics (where the greatest concentrations of science, analysis, planning and financing can be found) to face the problem square on with eyes open, without fear or favor. Aided and abetted by the enduring failure of courts to identify and require accountability. Defunding of climate science is one more iteration of that persistent political urge to not have to deal with the issue.
Thank you for writing this. Unfortunately I am not clear on what your objective was with this piece. It seems like you are trying to offer arguments to debunk climate change, by pointing out how stated policy objectives have failed to translate into real impact over time, as well as by pointing out how targets and objectives have moved with the decades. However, the first point is very simple in the sense that policy has not translated into impact for a variety of reasons including developing economies growing, anti climate lobbying and slow uptake of renewables. For the second point, I would expect that as science and the application of that science get refined, our understanding of what is desireable and achievable would shift. Regardless, none of these claims unfortunately in my eyes make a convincing argument for why we should stop trying to transition away from fossil fuels.
I don’t think the article is trying to “debunk climate change”…whatever that means. The climate is, has and will always change. This article is focussing on the transparent technique of the multiple billion dollar climate change industry of shifting the goalposts each time one of the catastrophic predictions proves inaccurate.
Implicitly the author is highlighting the lack of rigour in so-called climate science (arguably an oxymoron).
The scientific method requires a precisely specified hypothesis to be tested against observational or experimental data. The climate industry, as pointed out in the article, at least started with hypotheses that were testable against observational data. When the data supported the null hypothesis (colloquially: disproved the hypothesis) the industry simply made the hypotheses more vague AND manipulated (or to use the IPCC’s language “homogenised”) the data. When this continued to support the null hypothesis the industry turned to stochastic modelling which, anyone who has worked with such models will tell you, can be made to say anything. They are also highly complex to understand and can easily be used to manipulate public opinion. (They were used to sell mortgage-backed securities which caused the GFC, they were used extensively during the pandemic to encourage compliance).
Also implicit in the article is the view that an orderly transition away from fossil fuels is essential to preserving our energy dependent way of life.
The conclusion is that the cart has been put before the horse based on a false premise. We have been told, and many otherwise intelligent people have believed, that the world faced an existential threat. That contrary to all known and verifiable data, the long term and ultra long term climate cycles evident in ice cores and the fossil records, would come to an end. That from now on global temperatures would only rise- like forever!! Based on these unproven and anti-scientific claims governments in the Western world (predominantly) decided that public policy should orient itself toward sacrificing the engine of our prosperity (cheap energy) in order to meet some dreamed up temperature targets to save the planet. All the available evidence points toward this being the worst case of global mass irrationality since the Dutch Tulip crisis. The article is supportive of a transition, as am I, but at a rational pace using sensible and proven technologies. Coal to gas and nuclear, for base-load, supported by hydro, solar and wind where they permit and don’t result in the destruction of forrest and farmland or the clogging of sea lanes or pollution of oceans.
One day a new renewable technology may come along, or battery efficiency may improve, to the extent that wind and solar may be able to provide dispatchable base-load across existing distribution networks. But we are a long way from that
" in order to meet some dreamed up temperature targets to save the planet."
Damage is being done as we speak, and it's costing us billions. Your red herring "save the planet" gives away your denier pedigree and tells me that you're more interested in spreading propaganda than in having a genuine discussion based on science.
No supporting evidence
That you’re aware of.
"But we are a long way from that"
And the fossil fuel denier lobby wants to keep it that way. China and India, however, are doing the opposite.
Still a fact
Only in your bubble.
"The climate is, has and will always change."
Always for a reason, which is our greenhouse gas emissions this time.
Not proven. Probably wrong
Only in your village. Unless you know something the world’s climatologists missed. Lay it out for us, K?
Where’s your scientific evidence?
Where’s yours?
Thank you for this. You say that all the available evidence points towards this being mass irrationality, I’d be grateful if you could share some of this evidence.
Like others in this thread I don’t think I should be doing your research for you. You are conducting what might be described as a Margaret Thatcher defence. Thatcher was adept at requiring commentators to be more and more specific right down to names and addresses. I don’t intend to do the basic research for you but you might profitably spend some time reading the work of Judith Curry, Steve Koonin et al
At a fundamental level it is irrational to believe the well established climate cycles and super cycles will suddenly end - without compelling evidence to the contrary. By compelling I mean evidence produced using the scientific method ( hypothesis-experimentation-observation-analysis-conclusion-repetition).
It is irrational to embark on public policy without knowing the full cost and without having the necessary technology currently available. (I suggest you look at the work of Chris Ullman including his compelling documentary).
It is irrational to cede to government significant powers with no convincing available benefit
It is irrational to embark on public policy which has the immediate impact of significantly increasing the cost of the very thing that has underpinned the prosperity of the Western world-cheap energy
It is irrational to seek to accelerate the pace of transition in circumstances where the technology does not exist to fully power a grid with intermittent supply
It is irrational to reduce demand for coal in the West so that the major emitters Cuna and India can buy it more cheaply and burn it in their dirty power stations to produce the cheapest energy needed to make solar panels and windmills to sell back to the West
I could go on. But you really need to do your own research
In most circles the one making the claim should be the one backing it up.
Im not trying any defence, I am simply asking for you to share some information, which you have, and I thank you for it. I will indeed go and do some research.
Don't blame India and "Cuna (sic)" for doing the smart thing, while the US has been the opposite of smart, especially once Trump got in again.
I’m not
Like everything in catastrophic politics, there are two speeds, stopped and warp. Of the two, stopped is less harmful. But the best answer is, let the private sector deal with it. Not perfect but less costly and harmful than the government.
Let the private sector deal with the greatest market failure in economic history? 🤔
What are you talking about?
The failure of the global energy market to price in the cost of externalities has been described as "the greatest and most wide ranging market failure ever seen" (https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/). Why would the response of the private sector be any more coherent or effective now than it has been in the 20 years since the Stern report was released?
Because once the government gets involved, it will only do worse. and will gain control over the fossil fuel industry. Things go bad, things go good. It’s life. But more government is never the answer.
I don't think you need to worry about the Government gaining control over the fossil fuel industry Dan - the fossil fuel industry has been directing government policy very effectively for at least 40 years!
Alarmist rhetoric
Only to those who don't take the time to see what is going on and plan for it. An alarmists is not a critical thinking person. Unless their only goal is to promote alarmists chaos. Which I must say works well in a country like ours. On the lower class'.
The "private sector" dealing with it is what got us into the mess to begin with, so no thanks.
How so?
Who else sold us fossil fuels then lied about climate change they cause?
The people who lied about climate change are the one's who say it is man made. It's not. Roger Pielke Jr.
are you not able to give me a couple of references, with maybe a few words so that I know you know what they mean?
What does he base that nonsense? Please tell me what he knows that all those climatologists seem to have missed.
I think the author confuses what makes sense scientifically, and what is achievable politically. The denier industry has managed to create a climate that renders a slow response, so yea, we need to keep changing the goals to accommodate their reactionary narratives. It's really them who are at fault, and why we are still having these arguments, decades after Exxon proved fossil fuel emissions would cause warming, and them making the decision to lie about it.
Look, I have no desire to debate someone with a closed mind on the issue. Patrick Donati was seeking information and evidence, which I have provided. You are parroting climate alarmist talking points. The climate IS changing, as it has done for millennia. It is ridiculous to suggest CO2 is the only reason and it is unproven that it is the main reason. Why would any civilisation sacrifice its prosperity based on claims about CO2 emissions being the dominant driving factor in climate change and that there is a tipping point where the climate will STOP changing, unless there was rock-solid irrefutable evidence that it was true.
If you go to your alarmist talking points you will see that you are required to respond that 97% of scientists agree. First up, science is not a popularity contest. Most scientists once believed the earth was flat, the Sun revolved around the earth, atoms are the smallest particle, space is empty, light is made up of particles. All of these have been proven to be incorrect using the scientific method. All science is provisional.
The intermittent energy lobby is now a trillion dollar industry which controls almost all of the academic research into climate change. Your funding will dry up if you challenge the orthodoxy.
If you have a curious mind and can do your own research there are some privately funded independent researchers who have done excellent research which, in my judgement, casts sufficient doubt on the climate orthodoxy to challenge the direction being taken by Western countries. Steve Koonin was Obama’s energy secretary and is a highly qualified physicist. I recommend his book. Even if you are not convinced, it might give you some sorely needed balance in your views.
It is worth noting that the once climate zealot Bill Gates has done the work and is now modifying his views. As too is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. More will follow.
Throwing “facts” or “evidence” around on Substack is no substitute for proper research. Climate is complicated. You should try it. It’s liberating.
There is no doubt we need to transition away from fossil fuels. They will eventually run out and they are dirty. But we need to understand the costs and consequences of doing so. We need to do it in a considered and orderly manner with a sensible and achievable time frame. We also need to be very clear about the technology we are going to use. The world is not going to end the way the intermittent energy industry would like you to believe
Western nations have spent (poor results would say wasted) trillions of dollars and have had minimal impact in addressing the problem. The goal should be to efficiently and effectively address the problem, and when you are not, then admit it's not working and come up with another plan. But politics and special interest groups don't want to stop the money flow and don't want to be told their path is not working; they and the MSM come up with more excuses and new goals, but it never addresses the core issue that it's not working. We have been doing this for 3+ decades, and it's not working. When do we stand up and say enough is enough? The sad part is that science has also been compromised because most of the funding for climate science comes from the federal government, and if one doesn't support the climate catastrophe thesis, one doesn't get funded, which means one doesn't have a job.
Any reasonable person who truly believes that climate change is an existential threat has to support nuclear power, since it's the only viable green energy technology we have that addresses the problems; solar panels and windmills are, frankly, toys and science projects. You can not run major cities or major factories on this low energy density, intermittent, and unreliable technology, and no innovation will change the fact that these are sources of low energy density. The world's energy demand, measured in joules, increases every year and will continue as long as humans desire a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
China and India disagree.
This is a great point and I wholeheartedly agree that nuclear needs to happen as fast as possible. That being said, the main advantage that solar and wind have over nuclear is that they are relatively fast and easy to build, whereas it can take decades to build nuclear plants (Hinkley point c). As we live in an imperfect world we must unfortunately accept imperfect solutions.
Net zero is a murderous farce.
The energy transition is the biggest lie this century.
It's certainly one of them.
'Net Zero' = carbonphobia.
But CO2 is plant food and current levels are well below the optimum for plant growth. More CO2 causes a greening of the planet which is a good thing. We need more CO2, not less.
The idea of tackling 'climate change' is no different to the idea of tackling 'duck quack'.
More on 'duck quack' here.
https://messingwithnature.substack.com/p/a-world-committed-to-tackling-duck
When has lack of CO2 inhibited plant growth? Don't you think an erratic climate, like the one we're xcreating with our fossil fuel emissions, negates any tiny benefit that more CO2 will create?
Exxon lied about the effects of burning fossil fuels for decades. Now it’s causing hardships for millions of people.
Not really. So prior to fracking being proven economical in 2010 America was mired in an energy crisis that degraded working class disposable income which created the conditions for what we call the Global Financial Crisis or the Subprime Mortgage Crisis or whatever. Ultimately that crisis was a slow moving train wreck than began around 2000 when it was obvious the China economic boom would lead to a commodity super cycle and conventional wisdom was that North America had hit peak oil & gas production. So in that economic and political climate it actually made sense to believe in climate change.
You look at a network of toothless organizations whose only capability is public outreach trying a bunch of different outreach strategies and conclude the science is not withstanding contact with reality. The global warming to human consequences response curve is obviously continuous so setting down any one marker is a bit silly except as a schelling point for international collaboration. None of that has anything to do with the ‘science’.
"the science is not withstanding contact with reality."
What reality is it not "withstanding"?
Now try re-writing that so that it makes sense.
1. The shifting goalposts being criticized here can best be understood as public relations tools.
2. The relationships between temperature or CO2 concentration and the negative results of climate change are continuous and not highly inflected so there’s no natural choice of a temperature or CO2 concentration target.
"there’s no natural choice of a temperature or CO2 concentration target."
It's the rate of change, and the effects that has on eight billion people all needing food, water and shelter. We are releasing tens of millions of years of sequestered CO2 in a few centuries. All of the goals are oriented toward slowing the rate, and stopping the increase.
It feels weird to have to explain that to you.
Stop being sassy, I’m disagreeing with the original post’s contention that the variety of climate change reduction targets implies that the science isn’t settled. I think you and I agree that climate change is a real and serious problem
You seemed to be supporting the straw man arguments presented in the article, rather than focusing on the largest issue, which is the rapid increase in warming.
Thanks for clarifying.
Ok in this article you show how inconsistent policy, goals and discourse around climate are. But you didnt debunk global warming or that it is caused by human green house gas emissions?
Anyways the climate discourse and the move to renewables is obviously about preparing society for peak oil without telling the scary truth: our civilization is running out of resources.
We are no where near running out of resources of Oil and Gas. The current primary production of shales actually only produces about 7 % to 10% of oil in place (oil reservoirs) and about 30% of the gas in place (gas reservoirs). The industry has already demonstrated in some of the more mature shales like the Bakken and the Eagle Ford that through refracs and enhanced oil recovery, the recoveries may be doubled at half the original cost. With future technologies it is likely that the industry will be able to extract half or more of the oil in place.
Geohring and Rosenzwaicj have shown that shale production in the US is already at ~40% of ultimately recoverable resources. IEA, Rystad, academic papers all agree that global oil production will significantly shrink to about 50-60% of todays production over the next 20 years, due to depletion. Additionally you have shrinking EROI. Discoveries are lower than consumption since like 5 decades. Many countries production is already well past peak.
Guess what happens to discoveries when the oil price starts rising
Exactly. 'The Myth of the Oil Crisis' by geologist Robin Mills.
The trend of the last 60 years suddenly reverses?
I think you should subscribe to Doomberg if you want to understand energy.
IMO the major takeaway of this article is climate policy is irrational (Like wanting society to be reliant on wind & solar, which are weather dependent, even though they think the weather is going to get more extreme).
Maybe they're also not giving us the straight scoop on the science either.
Read the 2025 US DOE Climate Report for a look at the mann behind the (climate) curtain.
The problem of climate change is real. The solution of renewables is fake. As the article implies, the best we can do to address climate change is transition away from coal, first to natural gas, and then to nuclear. We will still blow past the 2 degree limit and the 450 ppm CO2 limit. If those limits really define a dangerous threshold, then the problem of climate change has no solution.
Because they think people are a cancer on the planet and want to cull the population. They are using a purported climate crisis as a means to an end (social & political).
We have centuries of fossil fuels left on this planet. The price will rise, but we are not going to run out anytime soon.
If the environmental activists were truly rational about CO2, they would recommend natural gas as a bridge to nuclear. But they're not, so they aren't.
this "We have centuries of fossil fuels left on this planet." is so wrong... i mean of course there is plenty of hydrocarbons below ground but that doesnt mean its thermodynamically or even economically recoverable
as i said above:
Geohring and Rosenzwaicj have shown that shale production in the US is already at ~40% of ultimately recoverable resources. IEA, Rystad, academic papers all agree that global oil production will significantly shrink to about 50-60% of todays production over the next 20 years, due to depletion. Additionally you have shrinking EROI. Discoveries are lower than consumption since like 5 decades. Many countries production is already well past peak.
You need to wake up and educate yourself, Momo. Not going to do it for you. Yes, there are centuries of fossil fuels left. Centuries. Not an exaggeration.
And burning them all will make life very difficult for hundreds of millions if not billions of people.
IEA's (& BP, Bloomberg)peak oil is unconvincing. They've been serially wrong for years ( possibly due to their climate alarmism). Pick your favorite AI and ask it to do a principled critique of those peak oil adherents that you mentioned. You might find it interesting.
It seems to me that you are conflating climate policy with climate science.
The only existential threat we face is from climate change policy.
No, it’s from ignoramuses who can’t contemplate the fact they don’t know enough science to understand the issues, but think they do.
Thanks
I understand the science quite well.
Canada is dying under nonsensical useless “climate policy.”
Have a nice day
What policy would make sense? We need to stop global warming.
Well, no policy will stop “global warming”, so there is that.
Here in canada we could focus on conversion to useful nuclear instead of idiotic carbon taxes, idiotic carbon capture storage policy and just general idiotic policy.
We could also use more renewable sources, instead of blocking them, like Dani does with her “policies” of supporting fossil fuels at the expense of renewables.
Nuke plants can take decades to build and are expensive. And leave behind tonnes of toxic waste from the mines and power plants.
Oh dear. Did I say you didn’t? Now I wonder.
Really working at converting, hey?
Huh?
Fossil futures is a great book! Check it out you will like it.
You seem to be conflating scientific understanding with political-economic progress in reducing emissions?
As if political and economic progress on the problem somehow changes the fundamental physics underlying it
Nobody predicted the 2023 ST rise that peaked above 1.6C anomaly in mid 2024. No one predicted the fall in 2025 to 1.4C. Huge rates of change explained by natural variability (pick list includes Hunga Tonga, PDO and albedo, NOT CO2!). Who will rid us of Zeke Hausfsther’s post game predictions ?(although he kindly added 2026/7 predictions for our entertainment).
Are you asking for a trend in the silly/meaningless/easily adjusted global average anomaly? My guess is that we warmed up to 1945 then cooled to 1976 and then increased again, ending with an overall 1C increase today. We might get to 2C by 2100, or -1C, and likely both with the cooling coming in 2040 and ending warmer, or the opposite, or we may flatline for 50 years and then go up or down.
What’s the trend on top of all that “natural variability”?
As anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only 3 to 5 per cent of total annual CO2 emissions, it is an uphill task, to say the least,to control total by altering anthropogenic.
I rarely see any reference to H2O when that is, by far, the most powerful greenhouse gas, making our efforts to 'control' climate by our anthropogenic levels even more futile.
As any electrical power engineer if renewables generation is a suitable, economic and reliable way to power a grid, if the reply is yes, that is the sector that employs him or her.
"As anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only 3 to 5 per cent of total annual CO2 emissions, it is an uphill task, to say the least,to control total by altering anthropogenic."
Disappointing but easily fixed misunderstanding on your part - if getting the facts straight actually matters more to you than finding justifications for opposing emissions reductions.
As long as you count nature's emissions but don't count nature's sinks you will miss the fact that ALL of the rise in CO2 concentrations come from human causes and miss the fact that currently nature takes out more CO2 than it adds or they would be a lot higher than they are and global warming would be worse that it is.
The difference that counts is between what all sources, nature plus human adds and all sinks - what nature plus human sinks.
It is like arguing a trickling hose in a swimming pool can't be making the water level rise because the biggest source of water - much larger - is the filter return pipe and THAT doesn't make the level rise. Like buying a business because the sales figures are good whilst looking aside from the running costs and outstandings, which are a lot higher than the sales figures - and disparaging the expert accountant that tried to warn you those numbers are misleading. It doesn't make you sound smarter than climate scientists.
Ken,
sorry, I don't accept your view.
Every living thing emits CO2, for example, even trees. The world has greened and even human population has vastly increased.
It is accepted science, as far as that goes, shows that CO2 rise follows global temperature increase.
Science also accepts that increasing CO2 levels domishes the warming effect, minor, as it is.
"sorry, I don't accept your view."
No need to apologize, except for you thinking it's a "view". It's not. It's fact.
"It is accepted science, as far as that goes, shows that CO2 rise follows global temperature increase."
Not it's not. What IS accepted is that both are true...warming causes CO2 to be released from sequestered sources, like permafrost, and the increased CO2 then causes further warming. It's called "positive feedback".
Unless you can tell me why CO2 suddenly DOESN'T absorb thermal energy.
"Science also accepts that increasing CO2 levels domishes the warming effect, minor, as it is."
What does that mean?
"anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only 3 to 5 per cent of total annual CO2 emissions'
Fun. Thanks for telling me you didn't learn the carbon cycle in grade nine, without saying you didn't learn the carbon cycle in grade nine.
You are, of course, absolutely right if emissions/Net Zero and CO2 reductions really were the goal. Oh, I’m sure for some that’s true. But the real goal is wealth redistribution and the restructuring of the world’s political landscape for which Net Zero/CO2 emissions are a vehicle. This, actual results and actual facts are little more than minor details.
Mainstream politics has had avoidance of doing what is required - doing the least that could be gotten away with - as their climate policy since it became necessary to have climate policies.
"Best policy' has been the weakest policies (empty gesturing mostly) if not having outright saving fossil fuels from global warming (doubt, deny, delay) as their priority. Avoiding serious, urgent commitments to emissions reductions has had far greater political priority for far longer than commitments to emissions reductions has ever had and that is not because climate scientists keep changing their conclusions or 'activists' are annoying; powerful, well connected interests simply do not want to and all the tools of influence at their disposal have been used to assure emissions reductions efforts remain weak - Lobbying, Advertising, PR, Strategic Donating, Tactical Lawfare, Tankthink.
Handing the issue and the podium and the amplifiers to known anti-nuclear environmentalists - "You care so much, you fix it" - and making climate politics about them and (consequently) about opposing what THEY propose was never a failure of environmentalism to propose the right things, it was a failure of mainstream politics (where the greatest concentrations of science, analysis, planning and financing can be found) to face the problem square on with eyes open, without fear or favor. Aided and abetted by the enduring failure of courts to identify and require accountability. Defunding of climate science is one more iteration of that persistent political urge to not have to deal with the issue.
I think that some of this may be wrong. Most of the CO2 is coming from the outgassing of the oceans. See my graph https://nigelkingify.substack.com/p/co2-vs-ocean-temperature-correlation
I see the changing of goals as a response to lack of political follow-through and acceptance by the broader public.
Quoting Bill Gates is a bad look. It seems to be the best they can come up with anymore.
The term "climate advocates" is used by deniers only. It make no sense, like most of what they say.
"U.S. climate commitments tell the same story.
Obama (2015): 26–28% below 2005 by 2025
Biden (2021): 50–52% by 2030
Biden (2024): 61–66% by 2035:
MIA: Trump's commitments. Oh wait! There weren't any! He wanted even MORE warming!