By Tom Harris
It is a tiresome drone we hear it all the time—the consensus of world scientists agree, we are causing a climate emergency and we must do everything possible to stop it! But it is a stupid statement that means nothing. Most scientists are not expert in the causes of climate change—people like biologists, particle physicists, material scientists, you name it—so most of their opinions don’t really matter.
And even if there were convincing evidence that the vast majority of scientists who do research the causes of climate change thought that there is a man-made climate emergency (there isn’t), they are not really in a position to recommend how society should respond to such an issue. That would be a problem to be addressed by a range of experts in such fields as economics, health sciences, civil and energy engineering, emergency management, demographics, public policy development and perhaps even social psychology and political science.
The 50 to 1 project explored the costs of stopping climate change versus adapting to it, as and if it's required. They concluded that it's 50 times more expensive to try to STOP climate change than it is to simply ADAPT to it (as and if required). Climatedepot.com executive Director Marc Morano sums up the situation:
“Would you buy an insurance policy on your home that cost more than the house is worth and would pay out nothing if your house burned down. That’s the snake oil they’re selling us.”
OK, so are there at least surveys that show that there is a consensus of scientists who study the causes of climate change who support the notion that we are causing a climate emergency? If there is, it could provide a foundation on which other experts could recommend how to respond.
NASA have a special page dedicated to revealing the supposed consensus about problematic climate change. But, despite citing numerous scientific organizations and surveys, it doesn’t really address the question. Here are some of the organizational statements they cite.
Statement on Climate Change from 18 Scientific Associations:
"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)
Well, of course climate change is happening. The only constant about climate is change. It changes all the time. If it didn’t, we would still be stuck in the last glacial period when the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of Canada and reached as far south as present-day Illinois, Ohio, and New York. Thank God there is climate change.
If it were true that “the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver,” it still wouldn’t make any difference since the primary driver of a small change, namely a 1.1-degree Celsius warming since 1880, is unimportant from a policy perspective.
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):
"Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening." (2014)
Well, duh, of course it is happening. Witness the urban heat island effect where it is warmer in cities than in the countryside. But, unless “human-caused climate change” is a serious problem, there are no policy implications of the AAAS statement.
American Chemical Society:
"The Earth’s climate is changing in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter in the atmosphere, largely as the result of human activities." (2016-2019)”
Again, so what? (for the reasons discussed above).
American Geophysical Union (AGU):
"Based on extensive scientific evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. There is no alterative explanation supported by convincing evidence." (2019)
Even if that were true (it isn’t), warming since the mid-20th century is very small, so again, there are no policy implications of this statement.
American Medical Association: I won’t even quote them since medical doctors have no expertise in climate change causes. Regardless, their assertion is akin to the others above.
American Meteorological Society:
"Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades ... The IPCC (2013), USGCRP (2017), and USGCRP (2018) indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century." (2019)”
Again, so what?
American Physical Society:
"Earth's changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century." (2015)
That is a little better in that at least they are speaking about problematic climate change, but the statement is really self evident. Of course, “changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions.” That has always been the case—witness how the Viking settlements in Greenland were wiped out by the return of cold conditions in the 14th century. Or the Ancestral Puebloans who were forced to abandon their settlements when the American Southwest faced a series of droughts between 1275 and 1300 CE.
The list of societies that failed because they didn’t adapt successfully to climate change is extensive: The Akkadian Empire of 4,200 years ago collapsed due to a prolonged drought which led to widespread famine. The Mayan Civilization’s cities declined around 900 CE when they faced severe droughts. The Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia also declined when they suffered from unpredictable monsoons and prolonged droughts between the 13th and 15th centuries.
The message of history is simple “adapt to climate change or die!”
And the messages NASA boosts from the Geological Society of America, the Joint Statement of International Academies, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program are all essentially the same: human activities are the main cause of recent climate change. While many scientists who research the causes of climate change disagree (which will be the subject of part 2 in this series), so what?
In the final analysis, the reliance on consensus to determine what is real in science is simply a logical fallacy anyways. A show of hands, even from experts in the field, does not decide the validity of scientific hypotheses. The award-winning American author and filmmaker Dr. Michael Crichton put it well in his January 17, 2003 lecture presented at the California Institute of Technology:
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world… The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
“If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Dr. Christopher Essex, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario sums up how we should approach climate change:
“Stop being afraid. I think that is the single most important thing. Stop being afraid and start thinking.”
And thinking leads us to ask, if our climate is so sensitive to humanity’s emissions then why has the 50% rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations the past 140 years led to temperature changes too small to even be unnoticeable in a single human lifetime? If man-made climate change is causing increasing extreme weather records, then why were there no extreme weather records set on a state-wide basis in 2024, while in 1936, 27 records were set, records that still stand today?
If polar bears are in such grave danger due to man-made, or any other kind of, climate change, then why are there five times as many bears now as there were in the mid-20th century? And why didn’t the bears go extinct during the Holocene Optimum 8,000 - 5,000 years ago when studies have indicated that summer temperatures in parts of the Arctic were 2–3°C warmer than now?
Climate activists clearly regard a thinking and questioning public a Pandora’s Box they must keep the lid firmly on. Which is precisely why we must not be intimidated by spurious claims of consensus. Think for ourselves and rip the lid off the box by asking the questions that reveal the climate change scare for what it really is—an unscientific hoax that is impoverishing the world for no benefit.
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