(Putting this into perspective, if this survey is any guide, at least 300,000 or more who worked on the Apollo missions, including thousands of engineers, scientists and astronauts, accept and respect climate science.)
To save you reading their gumf, here's a summary:
Global warming is happening, by the way plants love CO2, and it's caused by burning fossil fuels but it might not be all bad and plants love CO2 and sea levels will rise but there's still time and it might be caused by us old fossils and whatever, but we shouldn't start to do anything about it yet because not 100% of everything is 100% known yet and because we're still alive and we don't like taxes and anyway plants love CO2. Did we say plants love CO2? (mumble mumble.... where did I put my dentures?.... did someone remember to put in the bit about plants loving CO2?...I can say how I hate government now that it pays me a generous superannuation instead of a salary ... mumble mumble)Yeah, right! Plants might love CO2 but they don't like drought or extreme heat waves or floods or shifting seasons or wildfires or losing their bird and insect pollinators or shifting plant zones. Plants can't walk away when conditions get too uncomfortable. They can't move uphill when it gets too hot if they are already at the top of a mountain.
In support of their 'case' to delay responsible action, about the only people these retired engineers seem able to trot out are Richard Lindzen (who has tried but failed to show low climate sensitivity) and Roger "not a climate scientist" Pielke Jr. who agrees that humans are causing global warming but is reluctant to do much about it mainly, as far as I can make out, for unfathomable ideological reasons of his own.
Thousands of climate scientists vs a dozen denying engineers
There's no mention of the fact that 97% of the thousands of climate scientists, and other scientists whose research work relates to climate, agree that humans are causing dangerous climate change by burning fossil fuels and other activities. Or that if we don't start acting now, the consequences will be dire.Me? I'll go with the 97%. This is the Critical Decade.
Stick with the specialists
The astronauts are lucky the Apollo missions were managed by specialists in rocket science and space exploration.Who are you going to call on to find out about climate science? We can thank our lucky stars that climate science is done by climate scientists, not retired engineers and rocket scientists who know nothing about climate.
You can read the answers to some of their questions here.
Yes, I wrote about this myself today. What I found most interesting was one of the comments in the report suggesting that the government should not interfere in the development of alternative energy technologies. It should be left to the free market. Rather ironic coming from a group of people who worked for one of the biggest publicly funded scientific projects in history. One that would almost certainly not have happened had it been left to market forces.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds, eh! Yes, I too find such double standards perplexing to say the least.
ReplyDeleteIMO business is quite a way ahead of government on the renewables front. Still need to bring governments along if we're to deal with this mess in time.
Just FYI, I sent an email to the webmaster of Right Climate Stuff on Friday the 19th, pointing out an obvious error in their report (they apparently recycled Don Easterbrook's chart of Richard Alley's GISP2 temperatures, which erroneously shifts the "Present" convention from 1950 to 2000 AD).
ReplyDeleteSo far, no response. If I get one, I'll let you know.
Well-spotted, KAP. They aren't paleoclimatologists or geologists, they're engineers. They didn't do as badly as Don though. Unlike Don they don't try to tell you that Greenland = global. (Prob it's the 'correctness' of some of their report that's stopping it from getting much promotion in denier circles).
DeleteIt's a weird report, jumping from one fake skeptic talking point to another (getting some of them right, in contrast to their denier sources) rather than taking a more holistic view of climate change. They don't want to face facts in their entirety so they cherry pick from denier blogs of Curry and Spencer, mixed with a dash of Christy. Pretending that 'uncertainty' means 'don't know' - seemingly unaware that the amount of uncertainty can be quantified.
Looking at the blogs and people they rely on (as well as what they say directly) exposes their 'reasoning' and motivation as political not scientific. With more than a whiff of Heartland but less of the stench of Heartland.
"Me? I'll go with the 97%. This is the Critical Decade."
ReplyDeleteHaha! We've been hearing that line from the greenie alarmists for 20 years now. Which decade is the critical decade, was it the last decade? No. Will be this decade? Probably not. Perhaps it will the next decade, yea that will be the critical decade. Yea right.
By the time the so called critical decade actually happens, you'll be an old man, and by then you'll be a climate denier! Lol!
klem
Have you indeed, Klem. And have you listened? Did you follow the link to find out why this is the critical decade? Do you know how much of our carbon budget we've already spent?
DeleteI say you are demonstrably wrong - on all counts. Makes me wonder if this hat might fit you rather well.
Wow I read some your links, they are full of unsupportable and infallible assumptions. Do Australians actually pay for this?
DeleteIt 's delusional. Lol!
klem
I wonder if anonymous is referring to me or the Climate Commission when conferring infallibility :D
DeleteKlem says a 69 page report including nine pages of references is full of "unsupportable" assumptions, and yet by contrast he also thinks it's full of "infallible" assumptions. For most people that would be enough evidence to confirm that this hat fits him very well indeed.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteBob's comments have been reposted by Sou at the the HotWhoppery
DeleteSou, you are so... what is the word? Gutless.
ReplyDeleteBob, you are so... what is the word?
DeleteBrainless.
Better the absence of gut than brain...
DeleteOn a gutful of brainless :)
Delete