An IPCC reviewer says the public have been misled. Whether self-styled environmentalists go along with this is debatable of course. Cynics may say the writer has a book to sell, but an opinion piece in Forbes carries some weight. The definition of climate change is left open to interpretation.
– – –
On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years, says Michael Shellenberger @ Forbes [pdf link].
Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world.
It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.
I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.
But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.
Continued here – Or, since Forbes has now removed the article, here [pdf] or here [html].
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Trump should:
1. Withdraw Meng Wanzhou extradition request.
2. Pull all troops out of Germany.
3. Self-sabotage to deliberately lose the election to Biden. This will prevent a nuclear war.
A true conversion or an attempt by the UN Church of Climatology to find another way to keep the plebs scared and asking for direction?
I note he didn’t call out al the useless ‘renewable’ wind generators and solar farms because their disposal has a very large impact on the environment,
After 50 to 60 years of grossly incompetent “greenhouse effect” over recognition of the unchanging Standard Atmosphere, political lies and outright sabotage (of the temperature data), and miseducation, of every “climate scientist”, on the fundamental physics of the atmosphere, an apology — especially by one man, who is at any rate unknown in the wider debates — is not enough.
And Tallbloke, you might want to throw out Paul Vauhan’s comment, as being irretrievably irrational, or at least hopelessly irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial, as a Perry Mason would say.
What needs to be said, and at every point, is that the Left today, after generations of defining itself in opposition to the Right (rather than to the real problems), is since Obama in 2008, merely an insane cult and an organized, criminal mob; it is no longer a legitimate political voice, and its always-false narratives have become only ever more blatantly insane against any peaceful solution, of anything. And the mainstream media is completely, irrevocably corrupted to that same total insanity, and is intent and determined to feed the public only lies.
The system is completely broken, and no one in the wider public discourse will speak out why — because they refuse to see the truth, and want to continue acting like the system is still working. Only President Trump and his loyal associates are working to correct it all.
PaulV: Trump should:
1. Withdraw Meng Wanzhou extradition request.
2. Pull all troops out of Germany.
3. Self-sabotage to deliberately lose the election to Biden. This will prevent a nuclear war.
I like a good laugh on a Monday morning. Thanks Paul.
HarryH: The system is completely broken, and no one in the wider public discourse will speak out why — because they refuse to see the truth, and want to continue acting like the system is still working. Only President Trump and his loyal associates are working to correct it all.
Being a few thousand miles further away from the febrile atmosphere of the US election season might help with a less polarized perspective. I think that for putting up with all the media crap of the last four years, and at least trying to deliver on all his manifesto pledges, the Donald deserves his second term, and given the hysterical posturing of the left, he’s likely to win bigly in November too.
China isn’t going to start a nuclear war over the detention of the Huawei CEO’s daughter. They’ll find an economic way to punish the US for playing hardball on strategic communications security.
At least we won’t get yet another nauseating, bloated IPCC climate conference spectacle this year.
The Forbes link no longer works. The message is “This page is no longer active”.
Anybody else getting this? Have the wokerati struck again?
[reply] yes
ScottR,
Just tried the link. You’re correct. They took the page down.
I should have said they greyed out the page. Maybe they haven’t got deletion approval yet from their higher-ups.
Looks like Forbes has conceled Shellenberger. His tweet was 15 hours ago announcing the article, now inaccessible. The text was powerful, perhaps why they took it down.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/forbes-cancels-michael-schellenberger/
Fortunately, WUWT made a backup copy before Forbes revoked it See here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Schellenberger-Apology.pdf
This says it all. The UN/Davos Consensus Gang has moved quickly and I expect word will have gone out to the now compliant media to suppress publication or debate on this.
Thank god for the sceptical media.
The rest of the text reads:
Here are some facts few people know:
Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use
of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not
climate change, explain why there are more, and more
dangerous, fires in Australia and California
Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades
and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies
Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not
poor
We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will
continue to rise as the world gets hotter
Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger
threats to species than climate change
Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial”
agriculture
I know that the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many
people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.
In reality, the above facts come from the best-available scientific
studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC, the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other
leading scientific bodies.
Some people will, when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing
anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show
solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money
for Guatemalan women’s cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the
semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land
invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in
Asia.
I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for
Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected
ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and
successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $90
billion into them. Over the last few years I helped save enough nuclear
plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in
emissions
Until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare.
Partly that’s because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of
alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate
change as an “existential” threat to human civilization, and called it a
“crisis.”
But mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate
disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and
funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate
science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences.
And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow
environmentalists terrified the public.
I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the news
media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding
scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke, Jr., a lifelong
progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favor of
carbon regulations. Why did they do that? Because his research proves
natural disasters aren’t getting worse.
But then, last year, things spiraled out of control.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “The world is going to end in twelve
years if we don’t address climate change.” Britain’s most high-profile
environmental group claimed “Climate Change Kills Children.”
The world’s most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called
climate change the “greatest challenge humans have ever faced” and
said it would “wipe out civilizations.”
Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was “the
lungs of the world,” and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb
going off.
As a result, half of the people surveyed around the world last year said
they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. And in
January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having
nightmares about climate change.
Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is. I
admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter. After we
talked about the science she was reassured. But her friends are deeply
misinformed and thus, understandably, frightened.
I thus decided I had to speak out. I knew that writing a few articles
wouldn’t be enough. I needed a book to properly lay out all of the
evidence.
And so my formal apology for our fear-mongering comes in the form of
my new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts
Us All.
It is based on two decades of research and three decades of
environmental activism. At 400 pages, with 100 of them endnotes,
Apocalypse Never covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste,
species extinction, industrialization, meat, nuclear energy, and
renewables.
Some highlights from the book:
Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation
and environmental progress
The most important thing for saving the environment is
producing more food, particularly meat, on less land
The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon
emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural
gas to uranium
100% renewables would require increasing the land used for
energy from today’s 0.5% to 50%
We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher,
not lower, power densities
Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4%
Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to
petroleum and palm oil did
“Free-range” beef would require 20 times more land and produce
300% more emissions
Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the
Amazon
The colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo
produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250
elephants
Why were we all so misled?
In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial,
political, and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have
accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests.
Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to
stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “sustainable.” And
status anxiety, depression, and hostility to modern civilization are
behind much of the alarmism
Once you realize just how badly misinformed we have been, often by
people with plainly unsavory or unhealthy motivations, it is hard not to
feel duped.
Will Apocalypse Never make any difference? There are certainly
reasons to doubt it.
The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about
climate change since the late 1980s, and do not seem disposed to stop.
The ideology behind environmental alarmsim — Malthusianism — has
been repeatedly debunked for 200 years and yet is more powerful than
ever.
But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will,
if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power.
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate
“crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, Covid19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around
the globe.
Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their
credibility through the repeated politicization of science. Their future
existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform.
Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new
and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental
journalists at legacy publications.
Nations are reorienting toward the national interest and away from
Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for
renewables.
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better
for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate
alarmists would return us to.
And the invitations I received from IPCC and Congress late last year,
after I published a series of criticisms of climate alarmism, are signs of a
growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the
environment.
Another sign is the response to my book from climate scientists,
conservationists, and environmental scholars. “Apocalypse Never is an
extremely important book,” writes Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzerwinning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “This may be the
most important book on the environment ever written,” says one of the
fathers of modern climate science Tom Wigley.
“We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being
ignorant of science and susceptible to confirmation bias,” wrote the
former head of The Nature Conservancy, Steve McCormick. “But too
often we are guilty of the same. Shellenberger offers ‘tough love:’ a
challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid, self-defeating mindsets.
Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging, but always wellcrafted, evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘mental
muscle’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful, but an
attainable, future.”
That is all I that I had hoped for in writing it. If you’ve made it this far, I
hope you’ll agree that it’s perhaps not as strange as it seems that a
lifelong environmentalist, progressive, and climate activist felt the need
to speak out against the alarmism.
I further hope that you’ll accept my apology.
Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other
work here.
Michael Shellenberger
Full copy of the article is here
Forbes… 🤣
“Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book,” says historian Richard Rhodes, who won the Pulitzer Prize for The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “Within its lively pages, Michael Shellenberger rescues with science and lived experience a subject drowning in misunderstanding and partisanship. His message is invigorating: if you have feared for the planet’s future, take heart.”
Mike Shellenberger is a supporter of nuclear power. He sees it as the only intelligent way forward
Gentlemen: The old style of right discourse is not working for present times and Boris is proof that winning an election means losing exactly what motivated support.
TB suggested: “They’ll find an economic way to punish the US for playing hardball on strategic communications security.”
Swiss banks again. Got it.
As soon as I read this “apology” I laughed (a little cynically but still in good humor) and wondered:
How much sugar-coated financial terrorism could Germany DO without US military backing?
The optics of the hostage taking are not favorable to the west under ANY circumstances, with or without (artificial) apologies.
It takes ART not science to connect with much of the center and left — including on bipartisan security and stability issues. (Duffman: Differentiate base-talk from outreach.)
I envision a symbolic gesture (call it the Trump card) to ease the vicious western grip on instruments of financial terrorism hitting (and destabilizing) everywhere at all scales.
Would there be any need for an “apology” had the financial terrorism not been backed by military in the first place? You can’t do this level of financial terrorism without military backing.
Your Horsely article got me thinking about this. Then when you posted this one the dots connected instantly. Well done Tallbloke.
Welcome to 1984. The Ministry of Truth is joining forces with the Ministry of Love.
[Apologies to George Orwell]
The climate fear machine…
I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding.
The supremacist bullshit needs to be swiftly disowned.
(I have to test whether it’s ok to say so.)
Given how extremely profitable some of the big IT monopolies are, why do they have no competition?
(We have to find out if it’s ok to ask this question.)
I suspect the answer ties to the “climate” issue (which really means the US military’s energy security strategy).
It would never be safe to push as hard as they do without military backing.
We’ve waited 8 years to say this.
Last one for today:
Boris Johnson single-handedly undermined the British Commonwealth and Five Eyes.
Nigel Farage must answer for facilitating this. Tough one my beloved old ally Tallbloke – I know, but necessary given the extreme costs that are unfolding. You may have no idea some of the trouble this is causing elsewhere and surely you realize by now it is not safe for me to say 98% of what I would like to say.
Natural variability ‘masks’ human climate effects?
Published: 29 June 2020
Record warming at the South Pole during the past three decades
The warming resulted from a strong cyclonic anomaly in the Weddell Sea caused by increasing sea surface temperatures in the western tropical Pacific. This circulation, coupled with a positive polarity of the Southern Annular Mode, advected warm and moist air from the South Atlantic into the Antarctic interior.
These results underscore the intimate linkage of interior Antarctic climate to tropical variability. Further, this study shows that atmospheric internal variability can induce extreme regional climate change over the Antarctic interior, which has masked any anthropogenic warming signal there during the twenty-first century.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0815-z
Also: warming of 0.61 ± 0.34 °C per decade, more than three times the global average.
So the +/- error margins are over half the claimed effect either way?
[…] oldbrew on Shellenberger: On behalf of en… […]
To find out who’s really in charge, look to who cannot be mocked or openly criticized.
The behind the scenes take over of corporations and formerly independent media by SJW and climate creep hacks continues unchecked. Why such a shallow anti-scientific bunch of garbage like climate apicalysism has become one of the criticism proof taboos is more than passing strange.
Yet here we see Forbes after years of permitting open criticism and discussion of climate join the Borg of idiocrats and censor qualified justified criticism.
WTF is happening behind the scenes?
The argument in favor of the climate apocalypse is no less hype today than it was when Mann tortured the data into a hockey stick.
I hope we will get to find out how. It sure hasn’t been data driven.
Tallbloke
“China isn’t going to start a nuclear war over the detention of the Huawei CEO’s daughter. They’ll find an economic way to punish the US for playing hardball on strategic communications security.”
True, because, my son (Corporate stocks and bonds for companies like Amazon and Facebook) pointed out that there’s a little paragraph in US Treasury Bonds which says (basically) if you declare war on the US, this bond is null and void. Wouldn’t make for good TP… BUT help the national debt, crank up the military industrial complex, employment rises! A win-win.
Can also be found on the WayBack Machine for 29th June.
(N.B. Only the first 5 timestamps in the list work.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200629001029/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/06/28/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/#24c93fdf5dc3
le goof: Again you won’t get far enough with outreach to the center and left if you rely on science and ignore the power of art.
In the present era of C[ENSO]Rship you can’t write in public 99.9% of what you think, so you write something figurative knowing the few luminaries who can translate are all that matter in the REAL decision-making. You’re doing them a favor by speaking in code so common people will misunderstand. In China they are WAY ahead of the west in code-speak.
Given the stage we’re at, it shouldn’t be necessary to have “the talk” about communication in a censorship era. We’re in an era where elections don’t shape the outcome.
The old right methods aren’t enough for present circumstances. Many on the right will know that, but still stick to the status quo. This is telling. We’re here to explore nature, including human nature.
Wow, the Wayback captures have gone now too.
hunterson7: All they’re doing is trying to save NATO, which they think Putin is trying to split. Problem is: they screwed up royally. This is no-fail territory. They need help, but they won’t accept it. Always remember that none of “financial instruments” are safe without military backing. You don’t use the military much, but you do need to remind people that without it we’re nothing.
The article in Schellenberger-Apology.pdf is perfect…
And above “harrydhuffman” comment is just perfect too, every word of it…
> The system is completely broken, and no one in the wider public discourse will speak out why…
[Snip]
Moderation note: Semi, you are entitled to your opinions. I’m entitled not to carry them on my science website. Your science is wonderful, please keep bringing that here. But please take this sort of politics to a forum where they can be discussed freely. This is not that forum. WordPress quite rightly suspends sites that publish material which targets specific ethnic groups. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation. Rog TB
It’s sad…
(you’ve deleted my comment)
As you weep about “censorship”, but you engage in censorship also… They should not censor one politically-oriented speech (on climate policy) but you should censor just a little more sharp politically-oriented speech explaining the roots of their malevolence ? There’s not much difference…
Semi: I’m certain a man of your high intelligence can find a way to make his point in a way which doesn’t violate the WordPress terms of service, or cause unnecessary offence to other readers here. Thank you.
Climate science is not settled anymore than pandemic science is
01/07/2020
Climate activists are so sure they’re right but are still afraid of scrutiny, and of being judged on true cost impacts, according to Sky News host Peta Credlin.
“For years people like me have been saying that climate science is not settled as activists like to say, anymore than pandemic science is settled”.
“All of us want to do the right thing by the environment, but there’s just no way we should be damaging our economy in an endless quest to reduce emissions,” Ms Credlin said.
More here: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6168490189001
A news article today says Australia is planning to develop hypersonic weapons.
Take note: MSM reported real news today.
We have spotted a crack in the deep naivety.
“Sky News Australia is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia and is no longer connected to the British channel of the same name, which was bought by Comcast last year.”
That explains a lot.
Forbes up to its old tricks as this shows…
Cancel Culture: Forbes Censored Interview With Prof Nir Shaviv
Date: 02/07/20Nir Shaviv, Science Bites
The decision by Forbes to erase Michael Shellenberger’s climate apology was not the first time they censored a critical voice in the climate debate. Last year, they did the same thing: an interview with Professor Nir Shaviv, one of the GWPF’s scientific advisers, was removed by Forbes. Here he describes what happened.
https://www.thegwpf.com/prof-nir-shaviv-forbes-censored-an-interview-with-me/
– – –
Funny how they only noticed the articles were “failing to meet our editorial standards” AFTER they published them. What kind of ‘editing’ is that?
Toby Young: We’re Facing A Tsunami Of Censorship
Date: 02/07/20 Toby Young, The Spectator
It’s open season on mavericks and dissenters at the moment.
. . .
The pro-free speech forces do win the occasional victory — Plymouth has dropped its investigation of Mike McCulloch. But the authoritarian tide is rising and every time you think things can’t get any worse, the ground goes out from under you.
https://www.thegwpf.com/toby-young-were-facing-a-tsunami-of-censorship/
– – –
You’re either in the tent, or not 😐
If not, you may be deemed unemployable in the public sector and assorted other fields of work.
I haven’t been able to find work in the FE or public sector since I stood as a UKIP general election candidate in 2015. My career got canceled by the wokerati. It’s was fun working with Grassroots Out, Vote Leave, Leave Means Leave and the Brexit Party though.
Juvenile mythologists need pantomime villains.
Forbes need to up their game.
It is trivially simple to access the full article.
OB: “Pantomime villain”
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November.” Lol.
The weasels are out to rip Mike Shellenberger’s flesh.
Oldbrew
Here is a copy of the Doron Levin piece in Forbes open sourced from the Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org/web/2019*/https://www.forbes.com/sites/doronlevin/2019/08/09/global-warming-an-israeli-astrophysicist-provides-alternative-view-that-is-not-easy-to-reject/
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Global Warming? An Israeli Astrophysicist Provides Alternative View That Is Not Easy To Reject
Doron Levin
Doron Levin
Contributor
Cars & Bikes
I cover the global automotive industry.
Global warming and post apocalyptic future. Climate change and melting of glaciers. Statue of Liberty collapses under water and new New York city skyline on an artificial island. Perhaps the catastrophic predictions are overblown. Getty
The U.S. auto industry and regulators in California and Washington appear deadlocked over stiff Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards that automakers oppose and the Trump administration have vowed to roll back – an initiative that has environmental activists up in arms.
California and four automakers favor compromise, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the president’s position that the federal standards are too strict. The EPA argues that forcing automakers to build more fuel efficient cars will make them less affordable, causing consumers to delay trading older, less efficient vehicles. Complicating matters is California’s authority to create its own air quality standards, which the White House vows to end.
However the impasse is resolved, the moment looks ripe to revisit the root of this multifactorial dustup: namely, the scientific “consensus” that CO2 emissions from vehicles and other sources are pushing the earth to the brink of climate catastrophe.
Jerusalem, Israel: October 18, 2018, The picture shows The main entrance to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the first university to be established in Israel and the second academic institute established there. Churchill Boulevard 1 Jerusalem, Israel Getty
In a modest office on the campus of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, an Israeli astrophysicist patiently explains why he is convinced that the near-unanimous judgments of climatologists are misguided. Nir Shaviv, chairman of the university’s physics department, says that his research and that of colleagues, suggests that rising CO2 levels, while hardly insignificant, play only a minor role compared to the influence of the sun and cosmic radiation on the earth’s climate.
“Global warming clearly is a problem, though not in the catastrophic terms of Al Gore’s movies or environmental alarmists,” said Shaviv. “Climate change has existed forever and is unlikely to go away. But CO2 emissions don’t play the major role. Periodic solar activity does.”
Shaviv, 47, fully comprehends that his scientific conclusions constitute a glaring rebuttal to the widely-quoted surveys showing that 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity – the combustion of fossil fuels – constitutes the principle reason for climate change.
“Only people who don’t understand science take the 97% statistic seriously,” he said. “Survey results depend on who you ask, who answers and how the questions are worded. In any case, science is not a democracy. Even if 100% of scientists believe something, one person with good evidence can still be right.”
History is replete with lone voices toppling scientific orthodoxies. Astronomers deemed Pluto the ninth planet – until they changed their minds. Geologists once regarded tectonic plate theory, the movement of continents, as nonsense. Medicine were 100% certain that stomach resulted from stress and spicy food, until an Australian researcher proved bacteria the culprit and won a Nobel Prize for his efforts.
Lest anyone dismiss Shaviv on the basis of his scientific credentials or supposed political agenda, consider the following: He enrolled at Israel’s Technion University – the country’s equivalent of MIT – at the age of 13 and earned an MA while serving in the Israel Defense Force’s celebrated 8200 Intelligence unit. He returned to Technion, where he earned his doctorate, afterward completing post-doctoral work at California Institute of Technology and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He also has been an Einstein Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
In other words, he knows tons more about science than Donald Trump or Al Gore.
A copy of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” in place of the traditional in-room bible, greets guests in each room of the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa in American Canyon, California, on Wednesday, April 25, 2007. The Gaia is seeking to be one of the first hotels in California certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Photographer: Noah Berger/Bloomberg News. BLOOMBERG NEWS
As for politics “in American terms, I would describe myself as liberal on most domestic issues, somewhat hawkish on security,” he said. Nonetheless, the Trump administration’s position on global climate change, he said, is correct insofar as it rejects the orthodoxy of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s findings and conclusions are updated every six years; the latest report, released this week, noted that deforestation and agribusiness are contributing to CO2 emissions and aggravating climate change.
In 2003, Shaviv and research partner Prof. Jan Veizer published a paper on the subject of climate sensitivity, namely how much the earth’s average temperature would be expected to change if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is doubled. Comparing geological records and temperature, the team came up with a projected change of 1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius – much less than the 1.5 to 4.5 degree change the IPCC has used since it began issuing its reports. The reason for the much wider variation used by the IPCC, he said, was that they relied almost entirely on simulations and no one knew how to quantify the effect of clouds – which affects how much radiant energy reaches the earth – and other factors.
“Since then, literally billions have been spent on climate research,” he said. Yet “the conventional wisdom hasn’t changed. The proponents of man-made climate change still ignore the effect of the sun on the earth’s climate, which overturns our understanding of twentieth-century climate change.”
He explained: “Solar activity varies over time. A major variation is roughly eleven years or more, which clearly affects climate. This principle has been generally known – but in 2008 I was able to quantify it by using sea level data. When the sun is more active, there is a rise in sea level here on earth. Higher temperature makes water expand. When the sun is less active, temperature goes down and the sea level falls – the correlation is as clear as day.
“Based on the increase of solar activity during the twentieth century, it should account for between half to two-thirds of all climate change,” he said. “That, in turn, implies that climate sensitivity to CO2 should be about 1.0 degree when the amount of CO2 doubles.”
The link between solar activity and the heating and cooling of the earth is indirect, he explained. Cosmic rays entering the earth’s atmosphere from the explosive death of massive stars across the universe play a significant role in the formation of so-called cloud condensation nuclei needed for the formation of clouds. When the sun is more active, solar wind reduces the rate of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. A more active solar wind leads to fewer cloud formation nuclei, producing clouds that are less white and less reflective, thus warming the earth.
“Today we can demonstrate and prove the sun’s effect on climate based on a wide range of evidence, from fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old to buoy readings to satellite altimetry data from the past few decades,” he said. “We also can reproduce and mimic atmospheric conditions in the laboratory to confirm the evidence.
“All of it shows the same thing, the bulk of climate change is caused by the sun via its impact on atmospheric charge,” he said. “Which means that most of the warming comes from nature, whereas a doubling of the amount of CO2 raises temperature by only 1.0 to 1.5 degrees. A freshman physics student can see this.”
Nevertheless, the world of climate science has “mostly ignored” his research findings. “Of course, I’m frustrated,” he said. “Our findings are very inconvenient for conventional wisdom” as summarized by the IPCC. “We know that there have been very large variations of climate in the past that have little to do with the burning of fossil fuels. A thousand years ago the earth was as warm as it is today. During the Little Ice Age three hundred years ago the River Thames froze more often. In the first and second IPCC reports these events were mentioned. In 2001 they disappeared. Suddenly no mention of natural warming, no Little Ice Age. The climate of the last millennium was presented as basically fixed until the twentieth century. This is a kind of Orwellian cherry-picking to fit a pre-determined narrative.”
Shaviv says that he has accepted no financial support for his research by the fossil fuel industry. Experiments in Denmark with Prof. Henrik Svensmark and others to demonstrate the effect of cosmic rays on cloud formation were supported by the Carlsberg Foundation. In the U.S. the conservative Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy have invited him to speak, covering travel expenses.
“The real problem is funding from funding agencies like the National Science Foundation because these proposals have to undergo review by people in a community that ostracizes us,” he said, because of his non-conventional viewpoint.
“Global warming is not a purely scientific issue any more,” he said. “It has repercussions for society. It has also taken on a moralistic, almost religious quality. If you believe what everyone believes, you are a good person. If you don’t, you are a bad person. Who wants to be a sinner?”
Any scientist who rejects the UN’s IPCC report, as he does, will have trouble finding work, receiving research grants or publishing, he said.
In Shaviv’s view, the worldwide crusade to limit and eventually ban the use of fossil fuels isn’t just misguided “it comes with real world social and economic consequences.” Switching to more costly energy sources, for example, will drive industry from more industrialized countries to poorer countries that can less afford wind turbines and solar panels.
“It may be a financial sacrifice the rich are willing to make, he said. “Even in developed countries the pressure to forego fossil fuel puts poor people in danger of freezing during the winter for lack of affordable home heating. The economic growth of third world countries will be inhibited if they cannot borrow from the World Bank to develop cheap fossil-based power plants. These are serious human problems in the here and now, not in a theoretical future.”
For Shaviv, the rejection and closed-mindedness his minority view provoke may contain a silver lining. Just think of the acclaim that awaits if his research — and scientific reconsideration of the current orthodoxy — one day proves persuasive.
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Doron Levin
Doron Levin
I’ve covered the global auto industry for more than three decades from Detroit for the mainstream media. Lately, as a freelance journalist I’m also broadcasting on Siriu…
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Nir Shaviv: How climate change pseudoscience became publicly accepted
Posted: September 27, 2019 by oldbrew
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2019/09/27/nir-shaviv-how-climate-change-pseudoscience-became-publicly-accepted/
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Censorship: “My interview with Forbes. A few hours after the article was posted online, it was removed by the editors “for failing to meet our editorial standards.” The fact that it’s become politically incorrect to have any scientific discussion has led the public to accept the pseudo-argumentation supporting the catastrophic scenarios.” — Nir Shaviv
https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/09/25/israeli-astrophysicist-dr-nir-shaviv-how-climate-change-pseudoscience-became-publicly-accepted/
Forbes ‘editing’ after publication again 🙄
Shellenberger interview on Sky News Australia here.
01/07/2020
Former climate activist Michael Shellenberger has condemned alarmists for “terrorising school children” with false claims that the world is about to end.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6168491756001
Oldbrew
The Wayback Machine to the rescue (again).
From the link trail to The Epoch Times.
How Climate Change Pseudoscience Became Publicly Accepted
Nir Shaviv
https://web.archive.org/web/20200425132635/https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-climate-change-pseudoscience-became-publicly-accepted_3093372.html
OB wrote: “Juvenile mythologists”
seams UN WHO sOs MSM Extreme Miss Mess Age: “suddenly act with necessary force”
https://txtify.it/www.ctvnews.ca/world/pandemic-response-proves-world-can-act-with-necessary-force-greta-thunberg-1.4992759
big PR bell UN door
mirror red that reflectively (a point miss-D by sun)
Address sing West turn dummies picking the wrong giant all lie:
“Annie are you ok? are U ok? are you ok Annie?” – MJ “Smooth Criminal”
2 money love alls 4 EU PC? No. ape owe low geez: We’re D-funding in no cents 1 way or UN other.
When western governments started locking down their own people that was a game-changer: they forfeited the right to challenge China on human rights. They surrendered the moral high ground.
Now the west looks like a savage hypocrite when it tries criticizing China on human rights.
ALL governments should admit that lockdown is a savage violation of human rights. This is the #1 issue in the world today.
Free of lockdown we have parks and an environment to care about deeply while being inspired by healthy outdoor recreation.
OB wrote: “You’re either in the tent, or not 😐
If not, you may be deemed unemployable in the public sector and assorted other fields of work.”
“hand of God has struck the hour
day of judgement GOD IS CALLING” — Ozzie – Sabbath
Ethics 101: The right needs to confront this as forcefully as necessary. Be smart: NO VIOLENCE.
This is why the west is now a suicide patient in need of divine counsel. The left now controls 97% of jobs. THE RIGHT LET THIS HAPPEN. Result: West is D-stabilized or UNstable if EU prefer.
They EASILY use identity politics or mee to or whatever to out people they don’t like — IT’S STANDARD HANDBOOK PRACTICE NOW.
C[ENSO]Rship survival: training BOOT camp.
It’s human rights violation. They’ll drive the unemployment and homeless rate through the roof for their “bold” vision. YOU KNOW THEY WILL.
Here we have a MONSTROUSLY UNethical beast savaging innocents.
IT’S NOT RIGHT BJ. EVERY workplace is now charged for UN door mine-D.
Is Boris work king for devil or PC? Maybe false dichotomy if?PC wants ALL natural climate lovers starving, homeless, freezing. Dead of winter. Cozy smug crowning mess age: “Serves you right.”
We’re observing weather RIGHT POWER remains an “innocent” by stand door.
We’re here to observe nature, INCLUDING (UN door mine-D) HUMAN NATURE.
(Say it as graphically as you need to when it’s VITAL. Effectiveness over civility if it’s vital and savages WON’T TAKE THEIR TEETH OUT OF YOUR THROAT.)
4 the Forth Time: Going UN Door Cover
Censorship mess age left word outreach is more cloaked art than surf ace express UN:
[…] is a stable nuclear power, but the UN is being used (by others who are less stable) to exert imperial power in dangerous regions.
If a nuclear war is to break out anywhere, what is the most likely reason?
miscalculation
As you well know the UN does not hesitate to push miss calculation on (code’s peek) 3 levels and fronts.
Lockdowns are so terrifying (no matter who’s doing them) that peep hole involuntarily develop PRIMAL mistrust of ANYONE employing them. It’s unnecessarily abusive toying with nature’s primal instincts …and triggering mysterious repercussions. (There are smarter ways.)
A permanent global moratorium on lockdowns restores a key foundation of peace and stability.
We can’t afford ongoing mass miss calculation.
Naive Folly
“Experts” say the fall will be worse.
Pragmatically avoid a forthcoming prelude to the fall out.
Real ease sing 1 host age practically saves easily moose (or moss if you prefer) UN door stood mess age.
Circumventing Mess Age
In a censorship age we’re not free to moss 99.9% of what we no. (a moose authorities created for themselves), but we’re still free enough to right a 4th-comming cryptic peace.
UN door stand why they miss the tar get:
Naive el IT who try to limit discourse to straight for word D-bait are putting US in grave D-anger.
They’re bad-clever:
“they only started the war
they leave battle to the poor” — “War Pigs” Sabbath
Some “enlightened” elite started sell vary way buck.
Because of that suddenly others are pushed out now (elite’s #3 “new clear” option for exclusion).
Elite set the identity trap. It’s their ID-offset program: You pay for their sins.
Right: You may still D-serve security and stability if you stay out of the D-bait.
Hot Summer Epic Fail: New Climate Models Exaggerate U.S. Midwest Warming by 6X
Date: 04/07/20 Roy Spencer
What I find particularly troubling is that the climate modelers are increasingly deaf to what observations tell us.
https://www.thegwpf.com/hot-summer-epic-fail-new-climate-models-exaggerate-u-s-midwest-warming-by-6x/
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It seems they have their orders 🙁