This is the fourth of a set of five essays about the issue
generally known as “climate change” or “global warming.” In the third essay, I
told the back-story to the green agenda, up to and including the Rio “Earth
Summit” of 1992. Today, I shall continue that back-story to the present. I
shall leave out of this essay one major aspect of the matter, namely
cost-benefit analysis; that subject I shall defer until the fifth and final
essay of the set.
International action since 1992
Here are some of the things that have happened internationally
since 1992 in connection with the green agenda.
Post-normal science
I’ll begin with something that, when it began in the early
1990s, went right underneath almost everyone’s radar, including my own. Two
academic philosophers, Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, came up with an idea
they called “post-normal science.” The phrase seems to have first appeared in
one of their papers, published in 1993, entitled “Science for the post-normal
age.” A fuller description of the idea, from ten years later, is here: [[1]].
Post-normal science claimed to be a new way to use the
outputs of science, in situations where standard methods of risk and
cost-benefit analysis were insufficient. These situations were described as:
“facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.” But
what post-normal science actually is, is a hard question to answer. It
describes itself as a “problem solving strategy.” It seeks to replace the hard-edged
objectivity of properly done science with something much woollier, that it
calls “quality.” It seeks the involvement in the decision process of “all those
who wish to participate in the resolution of the issue.” And through its
concept of “extended facts,” it allows ideas which are not facts to be treated
in the debate on an equal basis with facts.
Reviewing all this again with hindsight, it seems clear what
must have happened. Activist politicians saw, in Funtowicz and Ravetz’ work, a chance
to sideline hard, objective science when doing risk and cost-benefit analysis
in environmental matters. Instead, they saw “post-normal science” as providing
a way for glib, persuasive activists to direct policy debates towards outcomes
which suit their agendas, even when the facts do not support those outcomes. So,
they jumped on the “post-normal science” bandwagon. And they killed off any
suggestion of doing objective risk analysis on environmental policies. That is one
of the ways they have been controlling the “debate” ever since.
The IPCC Second Assessment Report
To return to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change). This is a United Nations organization. It “prepares comprehensive
Assessment Reports about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic
knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for
reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place.”
The IPCC’s Second Assessment Report appeared in 1995/6. The
scientists initially concluded that: “we have no yardstick against which to
measure the manmade effect.” But this wasn’t good enough for the politicians.
They detailed Sir John Houghton, then chairman of the Scientific Assessment
Working Group of the IPCC and also a member of the UK government’s “Panel on
Sustainable Development,” to get it changed.
Houghton ordered Ben Santer, one of the chapter lead
authors, to change the conclusion of his chapter. It became: “The body of
statistical evidence in Chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical
understanding of the climate system, now points towards a discernable human
influence on global climate.” And the Summary for Policymakers concluded: “The
balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
[[2]].
Was this, perhaps, a case of fabricating “evidence” to suit the policy?
The Kyoto Protocol
In 1997, the CoP meeting took place in Kyoto. There, many countries,
but not China, India or Brazil, adopted the Kyoto Protocol. For a description of
the Protocol from the horse’s mouth, see [[3]].
As part of this, European Union members, of which the UK
at the time was one, agreed to a binding reduction of CO2 emissions to
an average of 92 per cent of 1990 levels during the period 2008 to 2012.
Perversion of the precautionary principle
Next, “big business” got in on the act. Samuel Curtis
Johnson Jr., long-time chairman of S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. of Racine, Wisconsin,
was a very strong supporter of green causes. He was described by Fortune
magazine in 1993 as “corporate America's leading environmentalist.” In 1995, he
was a founder of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
The WBCSD is an organization of more than 200 multi-national companies which,
according to Wikipedia, “works to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) through the transformation of six economic systems.” It looks as if this
organization may well be behind a lot of the bad things that are being done to
us human beings today in the name of the environment. Such as the European
Commission’s “Circular Economy Action Plan” of 2020, to implement the EU’s
“Green New Deal,” which is causing so much trouble for our Dutch farmer
friends.
But the most significant single thing that Johnson did to help
along the bad policies that are being imposed on us today, was to host the
so-called Wingspread Conference on the Precautionary Principle in 1998. This
conference was convened by an organization, only formed in 1994, called the
Science and Environmental Health Network. Whose mission statement reads [[4]]:
“In service to communities, the Earth and future generations, the Science and
Environmental Health Network forges law, ethics, and science into tools for
action.”
An account of the Wingspread Statement, which eventually resulted
from this conference, is here: [[5]].
It described the participants as “treaty negotiators, activists, scholars and
scientists from the United States, Canada and Europe.” The Statement extended
Principle 15 from the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. It says:
“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment,
precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect
relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the
proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of
proof.”
Now, the precautionary principle, as I learned it long ago,
says: “Look before you leap.” In other words, don’t rush into any action until
you are pretty certain the action will have more positive consequences than
negative ones. It can even be seen as akin to the Hippocratic oath for doctors:
“First, do no harm.” And this applies doubly when it is other people who
will face the negative consequences.
Yet the Wingspread conference came up with a radical
re-write of the principle. It is radical in at least four ways. First, the idea
that the action to be taken must be cost-effective, which had been included in
the Rio Declaration, was thrown out of the window. Second, the re-written
principle requires precautionary action to be taken, even if there is no
proof that there is any danger at all. Third, the principle as re-written inverted
the burden of proof, and undermined the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty. And fourth, when they talked of “the public,” they didn’t mean us
ordinary people. What they meant is that government shouldn’t have to
bear the burden of proving its accusations. So, all of us are guilty, unless
and until proven innocent. I have given the Wingspread version of the principle
the three-letter acronym PPP, standing for Perverted Precautionary Principle.
However, the Statement also said: “The process of applying
the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must
include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of
the full range of alternatives, including no action.”
All this may look, to some, like a small argument over a
“philosophical” detail. But in truth, it goes right to the heart of the whole
matter. With a few strokes of the pen, the Wingspread activists gave the political
and corporate élites
what they wanted: carte blanche to violate our human rights as they
please in matters affecting the environment. They put something they called
“the environment” above the human environment: the rights and freedoms,
justice and honesty that we human beings need in order to survive, flourish and
prosper.
They inverted the burden of proof. They rejected the
presumption of innocence. They required the accused (that’s us) to prove a
negative. They mandated “precautionary” action, however much pain it would
cause. And they threw out all consideration of objective cost-benefit or
risk-benefit analysis.
It makes you wonder why they needed “treaty negotiators” and
“activists” – including one from Greenpeace – at this conference. It looks as
if the desired outcome must have been planned. If so, I call foul on all those
associated with it.
The Third Assessment Report
The IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, in 2001, was the one
in which Michael Mann’s now-infamous “Hockey Stick” graph appeared. This was
based on tree ring measurements. It had a flat “blade” showing global temperatures
as being stable until about 1900, then rising precipitately. It got viral publicity.
It was eventually discredited (though that process took far longer than it ought
to have done), and it had disappeared entirely by the 2013 report.
By this time, the IPCC were stating their “projections” in
the form of an ECS (equilibrium climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2).
They gave a central estimate of 3 degrees Celsius for the ECS. This figure
represents how much the global atmosphere will have warmed as a result of a
doubling of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, when the temperature reaches equilibrium. It includes both “forcing,” the warming directly caused by
more CO2 in the atmosphere, and “feedbacks,” extra warming as a
consequence of the initial warming, due to processes such as the greenhouse
effect of clouds and water vapour.
The Fourth Assessment Report
The fourth assessment report (AR4), issued in 2007, had
its problems too. The ECS remained at 3 degrees Celsius, although the range of
uncertainties went up. But when citizen scientists looked in detail at the many
references in the report, they found it cited several reports from the World
Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace! So much for the IPCC assessing “the state of
scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge.” This was just activist
pals citing activist pals. Yet the IPCC won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize
for this report!
The Copenhagen CoP meeting
At the 2009 CoP meeting in Copenhagen, an agreement was made
that “actions should be taken to keep any temperature increases to below 2 degrees
C,” though it was not legally binding. The 2 degrees Celsius figure seems entirely
arbitrary. The European Union committed to reducing CO2 emissions to
80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020, or 70 per cent if other countries were willing to
do the same.
The Doha CoP meeting
At the Doha CoP in 2012, the “rich nations” agreed in
principle to discuss a “loss and damage” mechanism. Raising the spectre of
politicians using such a mechanism as an excuse to saddle the people they are
supposed to be serving with whatever exorbitant costs they fancy. Without them ever
having to prove that any of the claimed “damage” was actually caused by the
people they are saddling with those impositions.
The Fifth Assessment Report
The IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5) appeared in 2013.
It gave no central estimate for ECS! Apparently because of “a lack of agreement
on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.” It gave a “likely”
range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2.
It said: “Models do not generally reproduce the observed
reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10 –15 years.” And: “It is
extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the
observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951−2010.”
Skeptical expert Richard Lindzen said of it: “It is quite amazing to see the
contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international
climate agenda going.”
The Paris CoP meeting
In 2015 there was another COP meeting, this time in Paris.
At which, the politicians sought to reach a binding agreement to keep global
temperatures below some completely arbitrary limit. Not that anyone has ever
proved beyond reasonable doubt that restrictions on CO2 emissions,
large or small, would actually achieve this target or any other. If we don’t know
what caused the earlier warm and cold periods, how can we know that another
warm – or cold – period might not kick in again, without human intervention?
The “limit” touted prior to Paris was 2 degrees Celsius
above “pre-industrial levels.” (Whatever that means.) But in 2015, it looked,
before the El Niño which started in that year, as though global warming had
stopped, and was not going to reach 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, or
anywhere near it. So, they lowered the limit from 2 degrees to 1.5! That was
moving the goalposts, no?
It is worth noting that 1.5 degrees is close to the total
warming expected in what is known as “RCP2.6.” Representative Concentration
Pathways (RCPs) are a set of scenarios, which incorporate different
combinations of emissions and of adaptation and mitigation policies. An
overview is here: [[6]].
There are four of these pathways, of which RCP2.6 is the most stringent. As
shown in the graph on page 2 of the overview, warming in that pathway is projected
by one climate model to stabilize by 2060 at between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels (here defined as the average temperature between
1850 and 1900).
The text of the Paris agreement is here: [[7]].
Frankly, it is a revolutionary document; and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
The main commitment is in Article 2.1(a), “Holding the increase in the global
average temperature to well below 2°C
above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature
increase to 1.5°C
above pre-industrial levels…”
But there are several more discomforting things in there,
too. Taking account of “imperatives” including “a just transition of the
workforce” – what the hell does that mean? If I read Article 4 right, they
committed to making progressive greenhouse gas reductions that will go on and
on for ever! And the further through the document you read, the more it
sounds like an Enabling Act for a world government in all things environmental,
in which the “Conference of the Parties” and the United Nations together play
the part of Big Brother.
The Katowice CoP meeting and after
There were a couple of years of relative quiet, before the
2018 CoP meeting in Katowice, Poland. This was nothing but an alarm-fest. It
was addressed by among others, David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and Al Gore.
Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, moaned: “We’re running out of
time. To waste this opportunity would compromise our last best chance to stop
runaway climate change. It would not only be immoral; it would be suicidal.”
And they actually expected us to believe any of that crap?
The 2019 CoP meeting was a bit of a nothingburger. Leading
to Glasgow 2020, postponed to 2021 because of COVID-19, and which I’ve already
covered in the second essay of this set.
The “Great Reset”
In 2020, we first heard about a so called “Great Reset.” This
was, supposedly, a proposal to spur economic recovery after the COVID virus by
acting “jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and
economies.” It is a project of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss-based consortium
of global big-business and political élites. (Al Gore is on its board).
One of those unveiling the “Great Reset” in 2020 was
consummate hypocrite (the then) Prince Charles; who travels by helicopters and
private jets to give speeches about lowering CO2 emissions. He ought
to have walked or cycled, as he wants to force us to do. And would not the
first step of a “Great Reset” in the UK be to abolish the monarchy, and throw
Charlie out on his ears?
Let them eat bugs!
You can laugh (or cry) at the harangues, with which in
recent years we have become constantly bombarded in an effort to persuade us to
act to “solve” some unproven problem. That we should eat bugs instead of meat,
in order to “save the planet.” That zero-carbon living is sustainable. That
obese people losing weight could cut CO2 emissions. That there are
too many people on our planet. And more.
To such tirades, my usual reply is: You go first!
The Sixth Assessment Report
As the date for the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6)
approached, the IPCC was busily publishing a series of Special Reports, each of
which seemed to be trying to raise the general level of alarm a little bit
higher.
And when the Summary for Policymakers appeared in 2021, the
“hockey stick” was back! They also, in effect, “airbrushed out” of the record
the Roman and Mediaeval Warm Periods and the Little Ice Age. It wasn’t easy to
see the Holocene Optimum, either. Moreover, the report stated as “unequivocal”
that human influence alone has warmed the planet. And in several areas,
the Summary for Policymakers did not match what was said in the scientific
parts of the report. Two climate skeptic organizations, CLINTEL [[8]]
and the Irish Climate Science Forum [[9]],
sent a letter to the IPCC chair, outlining these and other criticisms of the
Summary for Policymakers. You can find that letter here: [[10]].
But despite all these shortcomings, the UN secretary-general
described the situation as a “climate crisis” and as “code red for humanity.”
Did he really think that anyone with even half an ounce of skepticism –
including, increasingly, the very many ordinary people whose rights, prosperity,
happiness and even lives are seriously threatened by this agenda – would
believe him?
The Sharm-el-Sheikh CoP meeting
The CoP 27 climate meeting took place in November 2022 in
an Egyptian luxury resort. There were, as usual, many attendees arriving by
private jet. Hypocrites!
They agreed to a crazy idea, first mooted in Doha, called
a “damage and loss fund.” This is supposed to be paid into by Westerners,
supposedly to compensate “vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters”
for the (unproven) bad effects on the climate, that are claimed to have been
caused by industrialization in Western countries.
These “vulnerable” countries are, supposedly, relatively
undeveloped countries, most of which are close to the equator, and whose
relative poverty may make it harder to adapt to climate changes. This seems a
bit odd to me. I would have expected that, with the exception of sea level rise
and possibly coral reef decay, the climate will change less in the tropics than
in more northerly and southerly regions. So, these countries may find it harder
to adapt to a given change; but they will also have less of a change to adapt
to.
As to coral reefs, a recent report by reef expert Peter
Ridd [[11]]
paints their state as “much less discouraging than is often thought, at least
from the impacts of climatic temperature variations.”
As to sea level rise, the worst affected tropical
countries, other than atolls, should be those with low average elevations, such
as Singapore, Senegal and Bangladesh. The tide gauge data, which I used in the
first essay, shows no up-to-date data for Bangladesh; and only one tide gauge
in Senegal, which shows no alarming trend. And the Singaporeans are well aware
that sea level rise is a potential problem for them, and are seeking to do what
anyone in their circumstances ought to do: plan to adapt to the situation as it
arises. [[12]].
So, I can only conclude, this “damage and loss” scheme is
a scam. It’s no more than a continuation and enlargement of “foreign aid” scams
already in place, that force poor people in rich countries (that’s us) to pay
vast sums for the benefit of rich people in poor countries (like the Rajapaksa
dynasty in Sri Lanka). Any Western politician that has even been willing to
contemplate such a scheme is a traitor to those they are supposed to
“represent.”
IPCC Synthesis Report 2023
Not long before I finished this essay, the IPCC issued a
“Synthesis Report,” whose purpose is – supposedly – to pull together all the most
relevant information from the main scientific reports and the Summary for
Policymakers. It was accompanied by three “special reports.” Expert Judith
Curry has dissected it, here: [[13]].
She writes that the report “emphasizes weakly justified
findings on climate impacts driven by extreme emission scenarios, and
politicized policy recommendations on emissions reductions.” Even through “these
extreme scenarios have been dropped by UN Conference of the Parties.” And it “emphasizes
‘loss and damage’ as a central reason why action is needed.”
She says further: “Climate change has become a grand
narrative in which human-caused climate change has become a dominant cause of
societal problems.” And concludes: “The IPCC Reports have become ‘bumper
sticker’ climate science – making a political statement while using the overall
reputation of science to give authority to a politically manufactured
consensus.”
The green religion
Looking at all these things together, you may well find
yourself, as I have, thinking of deep green environmentalism as like a
religion. An extremely intolerant one, at that; not unlike the behaviour of the
Catholic church from the late 15th century through the Counter-Reformation. And
you may find yourself comparing its leaders and its acolytes with those that
sought to subject innocent people to the Inquisitions.
Let’s not forget, too, that the 15th-century
and later Inquisitions were the reactions of orthodoxy against a rising tide of
skepticism about the doctrines of the church. This tide of skepticism, the
historian in me thinks, was part of the mental changes which many people
underwent during the Renaissance. Back then, the skeptics had at least a
partial victory, and Protestantism was born. Does history repeat itself?
Science and nonscience
If you are interested in matters technical, you can read
about the science of “climate change.” This section, I have written mainly for
those who are interested in the subject, but are not yet fully up to speed on
it. Those who consider themselves experts in the area should skip to the next
section, on what the UK government has done to us since 1992.
The scientific method
Before I say anything about the science itself, I will put
on my philosopher-of-science hat. Back in 2018, I wrote a brief description of
the way in which science should be conducted, generally known as the scientific
method. You can find it here: [[14]].
I think it’s worth repeating here my two lists, of the steps
involved in using the scientific method, and of the more general rules for the
conduct of science.
Steps in the scientific method:
1.
Pose a question, to which you want to find an
answer.
2.
Do background research on that question.
3.
Construct a hypothesis. This is a statement,
giving a possible answer to your question. In some circumstances, you may want
to take someone else’s hypothesis for re-testing.
4.
Develop testable predictions of your hypothesis.
For example: “If my hypothesis is true, then when X happens, Y will happen more
often than it does when X doesn’t happen.”
5.
For each prediction, formulate an appropriate
null hypothesis, against which you will test your prediction. For example: “X
doesn’t influence whether or not Y happens.”
6.
Test the predictions against their null
hypotheses by experiment or observation. If you need to use someone else’s data
as part of this, you must first check the validity of their data.
7.
Collect your results, and check they make sense.
If not, troubleshoot.
8.
Analyze your results and draw conclusions. This
may require the use of statistical techniques.
9.
Repeat for each of the predictions of your
hypothesis.
10. If
the results wholly or partially negate your hypothesis, modify your hypothesis
and repeat. In extreme cases, you may need to modify the original question,
too.
11. If
the results back up your hypothesis, that strengthens your hypothesis.
12. If
negative results falsify your hypothesis, that weakens or destroys the
hypothesis.
Rules for the conduct of science:
1.
Any hypothesis that is put forward must be
falsifiable. If there’s no way to disprove a hypothesis, it isn’t a scientific
one.
2.
Data must not be doctored. Any necessary
adjustments to raw data, and the reasoning behind them, must be fully and
clearly documented.
3.
Data must not be cherry picked to achieve a
result. Data that is valid, but goes against a desired result, must not be
dropped.
4.
Graphs or similar devices must not be used to
obfuscate or to mislead.
5.
Enough information must be supplied to enable
others to replicate the work if they wish.
6.
Scientists must be willing to share their data.
And code, too, when code is involved.
7.
Supplementary information, such as raw data,
must be fully and promptly archived.
8.
To identify and quantify the error bars on
results is important. (For example, by stating the range within which there’s a
95% chance that a value being measured lies.)
9.
Uncertainties are important, too. They must be
clearly identified and, if possible, estimated.
10. Negative
or contradictory results must also be reported. Reporting only results that
agree with your hypothesis isn’t science.
11. Above
all, the conduct of science must be honest and unbiased. In a nutshell: If it
isn’t honest, it isn’t science. It’s nonscience (rhymes with conscience).
Sources of information
Many other people can tell you far better than I can the details
of the science behind and around the “global warming” or “climate change”
accusations. Today, Watts Up with That [[15]]
is a good place to start, and you can often follow links to the formal
scientific papers if you need to.
Another source of useful information from the skeptical
side, both on the “climate change” issue itself and on matters around it such
as energy policy, is the Global Warming Policy Foundation [[16]].
Many of their papers (reports, briefing papers and technical papers) are
written by acknowledged experts in their fields, such as climate scientist
Richard Lindzen, coral reef expert Peter Ridd and polar bear expert Susan
Crockford.
Search engines being what they are, you can find the
activist and alarmist side of the argument by googling almost anything with
“climate change” in it!
How I learned about the science
I started on my own process of discovering the science in
and around climate change back in the early summer of 2008. And I think it may
be helpful, to anyone not yet fully up to speed on the matter, for me to say
how I went about that process. At the time, the two main sources I had for
climate information were, from the alarmist side, Real Climate [[17]],
and from the skeptical side, Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit [[18]].
I spent a whole month of evenings going backwards and forwards between the two,
trying to work out which I believed more, and why. Comparing the arguments of
the two sides was an extremely useful exercise for me; if, at times, a rather
frustrating one. It was a very good way – indeed, probably the only good way –
to learn my way into the subject.
One thing became obvious after a while, namely, a difference
in tone between the two blogs. At Climate Audit, when someone made a claim that
the readership disagreed with, the alleged error was pointed out factually and,
for the most part, politely. At Real Climate, on the other hand, there was a
far greater propensity to descend into politics, and to insult or call names
against those who disagreed with the site’s party line. You can still see this
on today’s front page, where the article dated October 1st 2022
talks of “the start of a new wave of climate change denial and
misrepresentation of science.” Ho-hum. At the time, I wasn’t up to speed enough
to judge the disagreements on their own terms. But I certainly found the
atmosphere at Climate Audit, despite the technical difficulty of some of the
subject matter, far more compatible with how I understood science ought to work
than at Real Climate.
Over time, this pushed me more and more towards the
skeptical side. Then, on New Year’s Day 2009, I discovered Watts Up with That.
And the rest is “history.”
What I learned about the science
Here are some of the things I have learned about over the
years about the science of climate. And so, if you want to, can you!
I learned about relatively warm periods before the current
period of warming. I learned about the Mediaeval and Roman Warm Periods, the
Minoan Warm Period and the Holocene Climate Optimum. I learned about relatively
cold periods too, such as ice ages, the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age. I
learned that the climate changes, all the time.
I learned that, not only does the climate change all the
time, but that it regularly does so through processes which have nothing to do
with any human influence. Among these processes are: Variations in the strength
of the sun. Changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Ocean oscillations,
such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and
the ENSO or Southern Oscillation (El Niño/La
Niña). All this goes to show that
climate changes, independently of anything humans do. Always has done, always
will. And these “natural” processes can produce very significant changes in the
climate. But one thing I learned above all. The idea of “stopping climate change,” so beloved of some
politicians (including Alok Sharma, host of CoP 26), is complete nonsense.
Whatever you do, you can no more stop climate change than you can stop an
avalanche once it has started.
I
learned also that there are human activities, beyond emissions of
greenhouse gases, which can significantly affect temperatures. I learned about the
“urban heat island” effect (UHI), which can cause temperatures in city centres
to be as much as 4 degrees Celsius warmer than rural areas outside. And I
learned about land use changes, for example from forest to cropland, changing the
percentage of the solar radiation that is reflected, and so causing warming or
cooling. Given that large areas of land have undergone land use changes in
recent decades, temperature changes from this cause could be significant. Then
there are aerosols, produced both by human activities and non-human processes
such as volcanos. Most of these are generally thought to cause cooling.
All in all, to try to work out just how much effect
non-human processes, and human activities other than emissions of greenhouse
gases, have on the climate is very complex. The idea so often presented by
alarmists, that CO2 is some kind of “control knob” which determines
how the global climate will change, and that no other influences matter, human
or otherwise, is at best a gross over-simplification, and may well prove to
have been plain wrong.
Some things which are “not quite right”
As well as coming to appreciate the complexities of the
effects of non-human processes and human activities other than emissions of
greenhouse gases, I started to learn about several areas of the science, in
which there seems to be something “not quite right.” These include instances in
which the alarmists seem to have failed to follow the scientific method, or corrupted
or misused the data, or failed to follow reasonable rules of scientific
conduct. Many of these instances look to me like nonscience, rather than real
science.
Temperature data
I learned about issues with the quality of the temperature
data, on which any credible case for political action must ultimately rest. And
about how the numbers have been adjusted, in ways that are often documented
poorly or not at all.
Computer models
I learned about the extensive use of computer models
(AOGCMs, atmospheric and oceanic general climate models) in climate science. About
how they are used as tools to try to predict future evolution of the climate. That
their results can be altered radically by changing the values of many
parameters, the selection of which is up to the honesty of the modeller. I
recalled John von Neumann’s famous saying: “With four parameters I can fit an
elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
I learned how the models first have to be “hindcast” to
match past temperatures, something which was not achieved until about 2004. How
the model results are all over the place, and usually predict strong warming in
the future. That the models’ predictions are only rarely compared with
real-world data since the prediction was made, and usually fail miserably. That
almost all the models run hotter than actual measured temperatures – often
warming twice as fast, or more, than measured. And that this has been so almost
back to the beginnings of climate modelling.
And AOGCMs do not produce testable “predictions,” only
“projections.” From the fact that almost all models project temperatures higher
than are actually observed, it looks as if the modellers do not accept, as the
scientific method requires, that their assumptions are falsified if the model
results are far enough from observations. Is this an example of nonscience?
The (non-existent) “hot spot”
In the first essay of this set, I brought up the issue of
the “hot spot” in the atmosphere over the tropics, which ought to be detectable
and permanent if the feedbacks to initial warming are significantly positive –
as the IPCC claim. Yet no such “hot spot” has been found.
Data shenanigans
I learned about some of the underhanded methods, which
alarmists have used in order to make their case look scarier than the reality. I
learned of the grafting together of unrelated data, without explaining what was
being done. Of data inconvenient to the alarmist case being dropped altogether.
Of statistical methods that produce alarming looking “hockey sticks,” even when
the data they are fed is merely noise; or exaggerate the contribution of a
small sample, even down to a single tree.
I learned about attempts to minimize, or even to suppress
the existence of, past periods of relative warmth, such as the Mediaeval Warm
Period. Claims that CO2 is the one and only “control knob” regulating global
temperatures. And attempts to downplay the significance of other human
activities which do affect the climate.
Moreover, I learned about occasions when activist
scientists refused to release the data on which they based their papers. Thus,
making it all but impossible to replicate their results, or to show that they
are invalid.
Publication shenanigans
I learned about attempts to stop publication of papers
skeptical of the climate narrative. I learned about skeptical scientists and
journal editors being persecuted or even sacked. I got an idea of the toxic
atmosphere that has developed in climate science, and I read about its history
from the point of view of skeptical expert Dr Judith Curry, here: [[19]].
I learned about the photoshopped picture of a polar bear on
an ice floe, published on the front cover of Science magazine. I learned
about repeated claims that the science is settled, when anyone who understands
science knows that it’s never settled. I learned about claims of a consensus of
“97% of publishing climate scientists,” who believe that “climate change is
real, man-made and dangerous”. How many scientists was that 97% of? 77, picked
from over 3,000 responses! I learned about – and have even, on occasion, been smeared
with – the nasty names the alarmists like to call us climate realists, such as
“far right-wing,” “denialists,” “flat earthers” or “conspiracy theorists.”
What the UK government has done to us in the last 30 years
Next, I’ll look at the matter from a UK perspective again,
and note a few of the bad things the UK government have done to us since 1992,
when Major and co sold us all down the Rio.
Anti-car policies
There has been an anti-car movement in the UK since the
1970s, perhaps even before. But it was in 1993, the year after the Rio summit,
that the spin machine started to go into overdrive. Our TV screens showed
(staged) pictures of rural roads chock-a-block with cars. Of traffic jams in
foggy weather, complete with smoking exhaust-pipes. Of the aftermaths of
accidents. It was hard, even then, to avoid thinking that we drivers were being
set up. And organizations that should have defended us, like the Automobile
Association, abdicated their responsibility. Worse, they even took part in the
witch-hunt, blaming us for destroying the environment by driving our “gas
guzzlers”.
Soon, there were attempts in parliament to set binding
targets for reductions in road traffic. The first of these was made in 1994 by
a Welsh nationalist MP, with a bill that had actually been written by Friends
of the Earth and the Green Party! Not exactly independent or unbiased, then.
And not representing the people, either.
A Road Traffic Reduction Act followed in 1997, and several
attempts to set explicit national targets or limits for road traffic. Since
then, it’s been all downhill. We have had creeping speed limits; virtually
every rural road in my area has had the speed limit lowered at least once in
the last 20 years. We have: Large areas of roads painted with no-go lines,
supposedly for “safety.” 20mph zones. Cameras everywhere to track our movements,
or to catch us out, or both. Junctions re-designed to reduce traffic flow. Road
narrowing and closures. Speed bumps. Bus lanes. Cycle tracks and chicanes. Moreover,
Whole developments of new homes have been built without sufficient parking. And
fuel taxes have been used for decades to milk maximum revenue out of us.
More recently, we have been subjected to low traffic
neighbourhoods, low and ultra-low emissions zones, forthcoming bans on the car
technologies that are practical and affordable, 15-minute cities and traffic
filters, proposals for road charging schemes, and all the rest. Moreover, all the
mainstream political parties have supported anti-car policies for the last
three decades at least. These policies have been inflicted on the ordinary
people of the UK, without allowing us any chance to object, or even any say in the
matter.
It looks, to me at least, as if this was all planned more
than 30 years ago. This is not acceptable in what is supposed to be a
democracy.
Inversion and perversion of the precautionary principle
Following on from the Wingspread Statement, the UK
government formulated their own version of the precautionary principle. The
Interdepartmental Liaison Group for Risk Assessment, a working party originally
set up in 1994, produced in 2002 a report “The Precautionary Principle: Policy
and Application”: [[20]].
They saw the purpose of the principle as “to create an
impetus to take a decision notwithstanding scientific uncertainty about the
nature and extent of the risk.” They saw it as to be applied whenever “it is
impossible to assess the risk with sufficient confidence to inform
decision-making.” They wanted to invoke it “even if the likelihood of harm is
remote.” They said, too, that “the precautionary principle carries a general
presumption that the burden of proof shifts away from the regulator having to
demonstrate potential for harm towards the hazard creator having to demonstrate
an acceptable level of safety.” And they misused an aphorism attributed to Carl
Sagan, saying: “‘Absence of evidence of risk’ should never be confused with, or
taken as, ‘evidence of absence of risk’.”
This goes further even than the Wingspread Statement did. It
doesn’t just invert the burden of proof and require us, the accused, to prove a
negative. But it enables them to take “precautionary” action against any risk,
even one that is minuscule or very unlikely, instead of requiring an objective
risk analysis which is accurate enough to support decision making. They want a decision
to be taken before all the evidence has been mulled over. And even if there’s
no evidence at all that our activity causes any harm to anyone, they wouldn’t
accept that fact as evidence! In essence they decreed, in contradiction to the
norm of presumption of innocence, that absence of evidence of guilt is not
evidence of absence of guilt.
The UK government decided to re-write the precautionary
principle to say, in effect: “if in doubt about a risk, government must act to
prevent it.” They took the Wingspread perverted precautionary principle (PPP),
and bent it further into a tool for tyranny. I call this tool the Pre-emptive
Strike Principle (PSP), and put it as: “If in doubt, attack.” Not only is this tyrannical,
but an extremely reckless strategy, to boot.
Further, while the report does include a section on
“transparency and openness,” it does not address democracy at all, as even the
Wingspread statement suggests it ought to. It talks about “engagement of
stakeholders.” But that is a far cry from allowing the voices of everyone affected
to be heard. That was no way to treat the people in a democracy.
This re-write was no more than a blatant power grab. And
it has led to a culture of over-safety and government over-reach, which has shown
up in many UK government policies since 2002. For example, in the creeping
speed limits and other “safety” measures on the roads. And in smoking bans, policies
over COVID, or fire precautions following the Grenfell fire of 2018. This
culture actively encourages politicians to do bad things to us, since we
bear the costs, while they get kudos and the satisfaction of being seen
to “do something.” And we can’t vote them out, since all the main parties are
in on the scam.
The BBC
And then there’s the BBC, or Biased Broadcasting Corporation
as it is known in skeptical circles. In 2006, the BBC held a meeting of what
they claimed were “the best scientific experts” to decide their policy on
climate change reporting. When the list of attendees was eventually unearthed,
it included only three scientists; all of them alarmists. It also included the
Head of Campaigns for Greenpeace. In that same year, the BBC decided to cut the
broadcast time allowed to those skeptical of the catastrophic anthropogenic
global warming (CAGW) meme. Thus, they sought to deny us skeptics the right for
our views to be heard, and the right to call witnesses – including experts.
Many others in the media, such as the Guardian’s George Monbiot, have taken
similar lines.
It is typical of the way the UK government has behaved that,
having inverted the burden of proof, required us skeptics to prove a negative,
and trashed the presumption of innocence, they then set out to deny our right,
and those of our experts, to be heard.
The BBC’s handling of the climate change issue between 2005
and 2011 has been well documented here: [[21]]. For example, it edited interviews
with skeptics in a biased way, that made their arguments appear less credible
than they actually were. And since then, despite having being ticked off by its
regulators, the BBC has continued to maintain a strongly alarmist stance. In 2018,
it even likened allowing climate change skeptics to speak to “letting someone
deny last week’s football scores!”
The Stern Review
In 2006, the Stern Review was published. This was an
(apparent) attempt to provide a cost versus benefits analysis for policy action
or inaction on reducing CO2 emissions. As I plan to address the
costs versus benefits saga in some detail in the final essay of this set, I
shall be content on this occasion with two general remarks.
First, of the three tools (integrated assessment models,
IAMs) Stern had available to him, he chose the one which gave by far the most
pessimistic estimate of the social cost of CO2 emissions. Second, on
top of this, Stern made other assumptions, that resulted in a grossly
exaggerated estimate of the cost of not taking any action.
The Climate Change Act 2008
Next, to the 2008 UK climate change bill, the case for which
I shall discuss in more detail in the fifth essay.
They did make a token attempt at a cost benefit analysis. The
numbers were based on the Stern review. Not only were these numbers dubious for
the reasons outlined above, but they had a huge range of uncertainty too. They
were not fit for purpose. Yet the politicians went ahead regardless. This was
extremely dishonest and reckless towards the people who would have to pay for
the policies they were putting in place.
Climategate
On to November 2009, and what became known as “Climategate.”
Climategate was a release of e-mails from the climate research
unit at the University of East Anglia. These e-mails showed, to those who
bothered to look, that alarmists had interfered with the review and publication
process for papers on which the IPCC was supposed to rely. They had dropped,
spliced or misrepresented data to produce alarming effects. They had refused to
share data to allow others to replicate their work. They had plotted to delete
data to evade Freedom of Information requests. They had conspired against
journal editors who published skeptical papers. And more. Whatever they were
doing, it was neither science nor honest. And so, since taxpayers had paid for
them to do honest science, these “climate researchers” were committing fraud
against us.
The UK government commissioned no less than three inquiries
into Climategate. First, a parliamentary committee, which (with the honourable
exception of Graham Stringer MP) seemingly chose to avoid the most important
questions. Second came the Oxburgh inquiry. It did not interview any critics of
the CRU. It claimed that it would assess the quality of CRU’s science, but the
papers it chose to look at did not cover the controversial areas. And it did
not address work done for the IPCC. Yet the UK’s chief scientist at the time
described Oxburgh’s inquiry as “a blinder well played.” The third inquiry,
under Muir Russell, failed to investigate the central issues – Was the science
being done properly? And was it being done honestly? It avoided answering the
important questions, and the ones it did investigate were largely irrelevant. So,
all the important issues “fell through the gaps” between the three inquiries. The
outcome of the inquiries, then, was no more than a whitewash. The wrongdoings,
which had been exposed by the Climategate e-mails, were never followed up and
punished.
Want to know more about Climategate? You can read the
e-mails themselves at [[22]].
And you can read Andrew Montford’s account at [[23]].
He says of the enquiries: “The best of them – the House of Commons inquiry –
was cursory and appeared to exonerate the scientists with little evidence to
justify such a conclusion. The Oxburgh and Russell inquiries were worse.” For
another view, you can read the account by professor of environmental economics
Ross McKitrick: [[24]].
He says: “In many cases the inquiries themselves report affirmative answers,
yet they couched such conclusions in terms that gave the opposite impression.
In other cases they simply left the questions unanswered. In some cases they
avoided the issues by looking instead at irrelevant questions.”
Were these inquiries not yet more examples of extreme
dishonesty, shown by the UK government towards the people it is supposed to
serve?
The (lack of) a prototype
A more general point. Should any contemplated political
action, on the kind of scale the “net zero” advocates seek, not first be tried
out on a small scale, to check that it would not have negative effects? And
would not failure to prototype the effects of such a proposed action be an
egregious violation of the true precautionary principle, “Look before you
leap?”
It’s amusing to think how we might create such a prototype.
Set aside a suitable zone, and run an experiment there to find if a net zero
economy is sustainable or not. Require all those – activists, politicians,
bureaucrats, corrupt academics, celebrities, media figures, and all the rest –
that have promoted or supported the net zero agenda, to go live in that area.
Monitor that the zone doesn’t emit any more CO2 than comes in. And
though they may trade with people outside the bounds of their zone, the zone
must be economically self-sufficient. They have to prove that a net zero
economy can survive and prosper without subsidies, grants, or gifts of money or
goods from outside – including, indeed especially, from government.
Along these lines, we might create an NZZ (Net Zero Zone). A
ZNEZ (Zero Nitrogen Emissions Zone). And a BEZ (Bug Eaters Zone). There may
well be more possibilities.
Then, let’s just leave them there; and get on with our own
lives in our own ways. If they succeed in the experiment, we’ll see them in
2050. If not, it will show that “sustainable development” policies are not
sustainable. Which will both prove them wrong, and serve them right. And all
human beings worth the name will say “good riddance.”
To sum up
There is so much in this back-story, that I feel a need to
sum up under six separate headings!
The IPCC
The story of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report tells us
much about corruption in the IPCC’s processes. Since then, these processes have
become more and more contorted and dishonest. And the IPCC’s reports have
become more and more alarmist, and less and less credible to those who seek
truth.
The CoP meetings
At successive Conference of the Parties meetings,
governments have again and again moved the emissions goalposts. Always in the
direction of tightening the restrictions on the people they are supposed to be serving.
In Copenhagen and Paris, they even moved the goalposts to set, and then to lower,
the limit of what they considered a desirable temperature!
And in Doha and Sharm-el-Sheikh, they tightened the screws on us
all, giving themselves carte blanche to tax us out of existence to pay
for what they see as our “sins of emission.”
Corruption of science
There have been many instances in which the alarmists have
failed to follow the scientific method, or have corrupted or misused the data,
or have failed to follow reasonable rules of scientific conduct. They have also
sought to interfere with the publication process.
The UK government, through the BBC, have sought to deny the right
of skeptics of the “climate change” narrative, including experts, to be heard.
They also, through three badly conducted “inquiries,” whitewashed the
wrongdoings which had been exposed by the Climategate e-mail leak.
Anti-car policies
The UK government’s anti-car policies have been gathering
pace for 30 years. The crusades to victimize car drivers, and to force out of
our cars those who cannot afford to buy expensive electric cars, is now
reaching fever pitch. It looks as if this was all planned more than 30 years
ago. This is not acceptable in a democracy.
The perversion of risk analysis
But perhaps the most important single strand of the
back-story to the green agenda since 1992 has been the sidelining of
objectivity in the very important area of risk analysis. This absence of
objectivity has led to a culture of over-safety, that grossly favours those
demanding government action over those who will be affected by that action. It
has also led to many instances of government over-reach, not all of them
related to “climate change.”
The process of sidelining began with the ideas of “post-normal
science.” It continued to the Wingspread Statement of 1998, which radically
re-wrote and perverted the precautionary principle. In effect, it inverted the
burden of proof in risk assessment, rejected the presumption of innocence,
required the accused to prove a negative, and mandated “precautionary” action
regardless of how much pain it would cause. It also threw out all consideration
of objective cost-benefit or risk-benefit analysis. Thus, it gave governments a
free hand to violate our human rights as they please in matters affecting the
environment.
The UK government has taken this process even further. They
have empowered themselves to take “precautionary” action against any perceived risk,
even one that is minuscule or very unlikely, or is not even scientifically
proven. And they have decreed that absence of evidence of risk (or guilt) is
not evidence of absence of risk (or guilt). They have perverted the principle
into, in effect: “if in doubt about a risk, government must act to prevent it.”
In conclusion
There is no doubt in my mind that all this was done
deliberately, in order to foster tyrannical policies. Such conduct is
inexcusable under any circumstances; but most of all in a supposed democracy,
where government only has legitimacy when it acts in the interests of, and with
the consent of, the governed.
The UK government in particular has behaved, towards the
people it is supposed to serve, with extreme arrogance, dishonesty and
recklessness, over a period of decades. This must be stopped.
[[2]]
Hat tip to Andy May at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/11/09/sar-the-turning-point/
for the account of these shenanigans
[[6]]
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/research/ukcp/ukcp18-guidance---representative-concentration-pathways.pdf
[[8]]
https://clintel.org/
[[9]]
https://www.icsf.ie/
[[15]]
https://wattsupwiththat.com/
[[16]]
https://www.thegwpf.org/
[[17]]
https://www.realclimate.org/
[[18]]
https://climateaudit.org/
[[19]]
https://judithcurry.com/2021/01/30/interview-climate-change-a-different-perspective-with-judith-curry/
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