Sone thoughts on the debate.
1. No science is ever settled. People who study climate and weather patterns produce models which seek to predict future temperatures. These can always be queried and improved as new data is collected and as researchers improve their understanding. There would be no point in hiring so many researchers and spending so much on this topic if we already have all the answers and perfect forecasts.
2. Geologists and earth historians have produced compelling evidence of plenty of climate change in earth history. Before any people were on the planet there were periods when the climate was much warmer than today, and much colder. Climate change continued with people on the planet before they burned a single lump of coal or any oil and gas. This means there are obviously drivers of climate change from natural causes that climate scientists should include in their models and seek to forecast.The idea that climate change is just driven by man made C0 2 is not good science.
3. CO 2 is a greenhouse gas. As China and India generate much more of it and are increasing their output so that will add to warming, before adding in other climate changing phenomena. The U.K. contributing under 1% and falling is not making much difference to a growing world total. Those concerned about the role of man made CO 2 should concentrate on changing the behaviours of the big and growing contributors. The five largest producers are China, USA, India, EU and Russia.
4. To give us accurate forecasts of future temperatures model makers need to include volcanic activity, changes in water vapour and cloud concentrations, sun intensity and solar flares, shifts in currents and wind patterns and other crucial variables affecting weather and climate.
5. The temperature in 1990 or just before large scale industrialisation was not necessarily optimum. Some places suffer too much from the cold at 1990 temperatures, just as more could suffer from too much heat if there is too much warming. More CO 2 is good for plant growth. Earth history implies it is difficult to create climate stability given the strength of some natural forces that shift from ice age to warm period and back.
6 Adaptation to changing climate is an important option. Where there might be drought there needs to be more water storage and irrigation. Where there might be flood there needs to be better pipes, conduits and river containment to take extra volumes.
October 9, 2024
I agree with all 6 points in the blog.
October 9, 2024
So do I , I can’t imagine any sentient person contesting anything. It’s almost baffling that JR had to write this down.
This is one of those things that we all knew until yesterday, rather like some biological facts.
October 9, 2024
Lynn – that is exactly the problem, the mass of people out there do NOT know, hear about the factors, and generally can not be bothered to contest the ‘green lobby’.
October 9, 2024
Me too. They do not even have all the input data they need to predict the climate in 100 years, Their models do not even predict the past! The cannot predict the climate for next January let alone 100 years time. Anyway a bit warmer and a bit more CO2 would be a net good. What are their predictions for wars and populations for 100 years, they say it is mane made climate change so clearly they must know this top.
Important letter to PM and Dr John Cambell video.
Mr. Russell Broadbent, MP https://russellbroadbent.com.au Letter to Anthony Albanese, Australian Prime Minister.
Has the foolish(?) Sunak corrected his “unequivocally safe” statement to the house yet?
October 9, 2024
You say “Adaptation to changing climate is an important option” indeed perhaps the only sensible option. Anyone who thinks the best way to stop forest fires in say Greece or flooding in Cumbria is to reduce CO2 is bonkers. It is not some world thermostat just one of millions of factors.
October 9, 2024
Climate science is akin to Astrology or Economics. It is a guessing game.
Scientists are unable to predict accurately the weather in 3 months time let alone 50 years.
Most people of sound mind accepts the climate changes and the same people are beginning to see through the UN/WEF CO2 scam.
Net Zero is nothing more than a Marxist hoax designed to bankrupt us, that’s why only a handful of countries take it seriously.
October 9, 2024
I suggest the addition of
7 The IPCC’s focus on man made causes of and influences on the rise in global temperature and it’s exclusion of consideration of natural causes and influences means its forecasts are unreliable. The IPCC has failed to identify how man made contributions to temperature change can be distinguished from natural causes. Expenditures based on unreliable forecasts are wasted expenditures. The historic practice of adaptation is the practical alternative.
October 9, 2024
…filled with enthusiastic boffins getting well paid for investigating their hobby.
October 9, 2024
Sir John,
You mention volcanic activity. Not many people seem to have heard of the underwater Hunga Tonga explosion which injected 150 million tons of water vapour into the atmosphere in December 2021/January 2022.
For more information, readers of your Diary might like the explanation by John Leake of ‘Courageous Discourse’.
October 9, 2024
Take care. The Climate Inquisition will be after you for making such obviously sensible comments.
October 9, 2024
+1
October 9, 2024
Having studied the subject of AGW for almost thirty years I have never seen a peer reviewed paper that shows that CO2 can and will cause dangerous global warming. Can any kind person out there please find me one.
October 9, 2024
Points very well put.
October 9, 2024
An excellent summary, Sir John. Perhaps it should be more widely disseminated and perhaps be used as the basis for climate teaching in our schools and colleges.
October 9, 2024
I wonder if 1990 in your para 5 should in fact read 1890?
October 9, 2024
A very sensible analysis.
Sadly not followed by the last Tory government let alone the present shower
October 9, 2024
ED Miliband and Cris Stark, having admitted that they have clue how to achieve their 2030 plans, have announced a £20 bn investment in carbon capture by methane reformation. This involves splitting this gas into hydrogen, water and CO2 and then compressing it and pumping it into old under sea gas fields. Around 75% more energy and methane will be needed to produce the same amount of electricity. Because they have banned fracking and North Sea exploration this extra gas will have to be imported, having fracked it in the USA or from under sea foreign fields or Middle East countries. A recent US research paper has found that piping, refrigerating, transporting long distances and conversion to final destinations causes much more CO2 that previously estimated. In fact it wont save any. This was double that of pumped gas directly from gas fields, as happened when Siberian gas was not sabotaged.
So Ed and Chris are spending as much as a big nuclear power station like our only one likely to be ready by 2031 on a process which uses more gas and creates more CO2. Perhaps they just want to increase crop yields, for which CO2 is very helpful.
October 9, 2024
…don’t have a clue…
October 9, 2024
Another truth I believe – EVs with the mining required to extract battery minerals, consumption of coal to produce the steel they are made of, contribution of fossil fuels required to generate recharging energy, tyre wear and brake dust pollution are no environmental solution. If you care about the environment cycle to work.
October 9, 2024
I have tried to discuss with some of the “zealots” whether human activity is the main driver of climate change, or a large contributor or a partial or a minor source. Asking what other factors could be involved just ends the conversation. It’s become a religion where evidence takes second place to emotion. Hurricane Milton is being used to propagandise the religion, I await a reasoned scientific discussion but won’t hold my breath. And my thoughts are with the people of Florida.
October 9, 2024
At last, some common sense (balance) on the subject! Why is this so uncommon?
October 9, 2024
“Adaptation to changing climate is an important option. Where there might be drought there needs to be more water storage and irrigation. Where there might be flood there needs to be better pipes, conduits and river containment to take extra volumes.”
Absolutely!
However, the Green parties in various countries, including ours, have lobbied governments to stop hundreds of years old practices, and have caused disasters!!! Dredging rivers, not done, clearing bush scrub, not done….etc.
Why are they pandered to, one wonders?
October 9, 2024
Turn on your TV and you’ll get a different story. The narrative of ‘climate change’ has infected the whole televisual media.
I’ve had to stop watching Gardeners world, because of Monty Don’s continuous idiotic references to ‘climate change’
I can no longer watch anything with Attenborough in it, for the same reason.
I was watching a Simon Reeve programme a few evenings ago and was bombarded with climate nonsense.
The ability to think for ones self seems to have evaporated both in TV and politics.
October 9, 2024
Point 1. The entire point of climate change “research” is to demonstrate that the earth is warming and it’s humans’ fault. You won’t get any funding for attempting to show that warming is minimal and it isn’t entirely caused by CO2, even though both these statements are true. Western Governments have painted themselves into a corner on this and cannot now admit they are wrong. Therefore “the science” is settled.
Point 2. Agreed. Furthermore, all change prior to about 1880 was natural. Since then, as if by magic, natural processes are deemed to have stopped and any warming is a consequence of human activity.
Point 3. Are we really reducing our CO2 output or just sending it off shore? As a Marxist, Red Ed Millipede would doubtless like to encourage economic growth in communist China.
Point 4. Very little of which are predictable.
Net Zero is based on a gargantuan lie. It needs someone of note to shout that the Emperor has no clothes.