A) Is man's impact on climate negative and enough so to warrant change
B) If true then what kind of change is needed and are the costs of said change worth whatever is gained by those changes
This has been a 75+ year marketing campaign that started off as Global Cooling. When the climate went the opposite direction they re-branded as Global Warming. When the climate once again choose to take a different route they got smart and re-branded as Climate Change so as long as it changed they were right. Add to that the fact that the "Climate Catastrophe is just 10-15 years away" slogan has been constantly repeated during this period how can people trust those making the claim?
We have multiple cases of the sciences being more than a little dishonest in the past. There was the eugenics movement a century ago where many were blacklisted if they didn't promote it. Fast Forward to the 50's and we have Big Tobacco incentivizing the medical world to promote smoking as healthy. These are not conspiracy theories but history of conspiracies. It's not as if the sciences have never been wrong or dishonest and when $$ gets involved it becomes very easy to justify the means because of the ends. If promoting Climate Change means you can get Federal and or even private funding for your own research that you see as lifesaving, it's hard to resist the temptation to go along especially if you see others blacklisted for not going along. Science is not supposed to be "rule by committee" and yet that's how the Climate Change narrative has played out.
Let's examine the flip side of this, the proposed solutions. If there is too much carbon then why do the climate doomsayers claim that creating more tree's, nature’s own carbon removal device, is dumb but tinkering with Cows genetics to reduce farts isn't? How about their claims that we need to reduce food production which would almost certainly cause starvation around the world; a global famine? I could see the argument that the way commercial farming works is a problem so why not promote more decentralized farming? That’s an easy answer; because Big Food won’t allow it. There are efforts around the globe to reduce private/small farming, not to increase it. There is also the question of whether or not a higher level of carbon is actually harmful. It’s not as if the carbon levels have never been higher and long before man came along.
Nature has created this balanced circle of life. Humans take in needed O2 and give off CO2. Vegetation takes in CO2 and returns O2. The current level of CO2 is 427 PPM. The prediction is that if left unaltered it will go to 800PPM by end of the century. The highest recorded levels of CO2 was during the Cambrian period where it was at 4,000 PPM. Guess what happened during the Cambrian period? It produced the most intense burst of evolution known. That’s 4,000 PPM versus 800PPM or a ratio of 5:1 . Are we really supposed to believe that an increase in CO2 that is 1/5th of what brought about an intense burst of evolution is actually going to end life? For most plants, a CO2 concentration of 1200PPM - 1500PPM is beneficial, however the specific needs of the plants must be considered. The bare minimum for vegetation is debated between 100PPM and 150PPM.
Nature created this balance between animals and vegetation and we know from history that high levels of carbon, far higher than what is predicted, did not end life but caused an evolutionary burst. That’s not to say it wasn’t accompanied by intense weather, only that higher levels don’t equal the end of life on this planet. When looking at each direction, there risk of a life ending event falls more in line with CO2 dropping to low then going to high. CO2 levels become harmful to humans around the 5000PPM mark and it becomes lethal to vegetation at round 150PPM. Between the 2 which way has more wiggle room before life is threatened?
When looked at from the big picture it all just does not add up. The behavior of those promoting this does not align with their claims and the solutions range from hard to believe to non-sensical. Most of us who aren’t swayed by the AGW argument admit that yes we are probably having an impact but not to the extent that those promoting it claim and certainly not enough to bring about the climate apocalypse. What is very easy to see is that it might be an exaggerated con used to redistribute wealth and gain more power and control over the populace and what national leader and or Billionaire doesn’t want more of both?
There are far more realistic threats’ to humanity that are completely ignored because no one can profit from them like a Carington event which we are overdue for. A massive solar storm that when it last happened melted telegraph lines. We are an electricity dependent world and (at least in North America) none of our power grids are protected from this type of thing. It’s not because it’s too costly but because no one in power or who is wealthy can gain from it.
A definition to easily redefined and too often too broadly defined by government. When has government not declared something an emergency when it sought use said incident for a power grab?
You're not wrong in that the definition matters but unfortunately we can't trust the source that defines it. If government truly cared about emergencies the Carrington event which has far more backing/agreement (n that we are over due and it will be a problem based on the position of teh earth when it happens) and is far less expensive to adress would have been addressed.
Still love/respect you no matter what you say as to few today are willing to say and be honest about it, "I'm willing to change my mind". I use to believe that climate change at all was just BS and the after further review I recognize there is change now we have to deiced if man's activity has any part in it (as opposed to solar activity) and to what extent as well as if the solutions promoted pass the cost/benefit analysis.
That's why they had to rebrand it as Climate Change; so no matter what it does their right. Had they done that at the start,. 65 years ago, instead of pitching Climate Cooling, a new ice age, they probably would have had far more support.
Yes, it's difficult to understand why all those highly trained scientists haven't reached this conclusion yet after all these decades of studying it. Maybe you should write to them?
Because science is "by committee" just like in politics, and not via teh scientific principal so those within teh field who disagree are the actual shills right? It's not that hose who promote Man caused AGW and get government grants for projects that tie to it might be towing some narrative to get said money, it's the one's who risk being ostracized by challenging the established narrative on climate change.
Just over a century ago "science" was promoting this little thing called Eugenics and god help you if you didn't tow the line on it for you could and some did get blacklisted. It wasn't until the Nazi's showed teh world what you could really do with eugenics that the world realize it was "science by committee" and not really a great thing after all but yeah nothing like that would ever happen again. Next they'll try and claim that Big Taobao incentivized American doctors to promote smoking as healthy.
Thank you for the recommendations. I will watch the film at some point but I will also, and would also urge you to, watch critiques of it, such as this - https://youtu.be/HhAX42dT09w?si=n_D9dy3CAWIhaAKt I welcome debate on all topics, and for a subject that is immediately on shaky ground because it predicts future events, it is crucial. My problem is the motivations of the many climate skeptics I have encountered, because the majority of them seem compromised either by financial incentive or strong ideological opposition. It is stunningly easy to make a documentary that can persuade people that black is white and another claiming white is black and if professionally and convincingly made, each one would have its adherents. If dissenters such as Koonin et al wanted to prove their theories then they should be making serious attempts to have public debates about this with IPCC scientists or climatologists in general. Cases can never be proven in a one sided argument because it simply comes down to a question of belief, and belief can only be changed through a proper discussion and dissection of both sides of a debate . The general public doesn't have a hope at understanding climate models, and has a vested interest in dismissing them, if only for their own sanity and peace of mind i - who would choose to voluntarily deal with a global existential crises? We're far more likely to warm to someone who says 'There is nothing to worry about', than someone who is trying to sell you a 'Be afraid, be very afraid' argument.
In short, my mind is not settled as I have no idea what the predicted climate changes will bring, but the latest in a string of books by highly vocal critics, of dubious integrity and unknown motivations, is probably not going to influence me - all the more so because I know there will be numerous critiques and criticisms of such books which often show them to have been full of errors and misinterpretations.
My point was that yes, climate change is a natural process that happens all the time, most people know this well. The problem is that the change we have been witnessing over the past few decades has seen a very sharp increase in global temperature, and this is unprecedented. The planet over the eons has been much hotter and much colder than it is now, no one disputes this. The problem lies in the fact that these changes took place over hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. Our current rate of temperature increase is measured in decades, and this is where the acuteness of the problem lies.
I think you are referring to the urban heat island effect. Temperatures measured from rural areas and space satellites do not show any rapid temperature increase on planet Earth. "Climate: The Movie" explains it well. "Unsettled" by Steven Koonin also explains the real science of climate change well.
This is the first time I've heard of the 'urban heat effect', but I believe it features highly in the movie you recommend. I can't comment on the film but from a quick look at the background of some of the key players involved in its production and content, including Messrs Durkin and Koonin, I would imagine it to be heavily biased in favour of them 'proving' their theories. Did it allow for much of a reply from those who would defend or deny the things they claim? Such as the urban heat effect for example, which from the little I've just read on it suggests that global temperatures are averaged out a higher rate because most of the measuring is done in urban areas where the temperature is always higher. I'm not arguing with that bit because urban heat increase is very common knowledge. So common in fact that anyone collecting temperature data who did not take that into consideration should probably be sacked. Unless I have misrepresented it in some way?
I cannot say whether we are undergoing AGW right now, but what I do know is that over the last 20 odd years I've been directed to this source or the other, claiming change is a hoax, and every time I've followed up the authors of the pieces, they are generally linked financially to fossil fuel lobbyists via their think tanks, NGOs, panels, boards, orgs and advisory committees. Alternatively they seem to be highly politically motivated, and always in the same sort of way. There are seemingly independent writers on the subject and I'm happy if they chuck ideas into the information pool to point out possible errors. Mostly though, although I can't speak for their personal motives of course, the vast majority of climate change skeptics I've encountered seem clearly compromised to me.
Reading "Unsettled" by Steven Koonin changed my perspective. I highly recommend it. "False Alarm" by Bjorn Lomborg is another good book. The Tom Nelson podcast, available on YouTube, features scientists discussing climate change science. In addition, I have written a review of "Climate: The Movie" at https://2026.substack.com/p/facts-about-climate
I spent 10 years of keeping an open mind before committing to a conclusion on this topic. The definitive answer about the validity of anthropogenic climate change emerged on the back of Humlum’s study (2013), who conducted a basic mathematical causality check on the official data-sets: phase analysis. He looked at the second-order correlation of the rates of change of global temperature and CO2. If the atmospheric concentration of CO2 were the cause of global warming, then a faster accumulation of CO2 (like increasing the flow of fuel to the engine) would have to result in faster global warming (the engine generating more energy), but this was not the case. The causal relationship was shown to be reverse, with surges of temperature being followed (not preceded, as expected by the climate models) by surges in CO2. Humlum’s study attracted aggressive criticism for his largely speculative, alternative theory of climate change, but nobody attempted to analytically refute his basic, primary conclusion, that the rate of global warming does not increase in response to an increased rate of CO2 emissions, which is a necessary feature of anthropogenic climate change as defined by IPCC.
One crucial fact that is routinely ignored in this debate, is that CO2 is a warming gas (a greenhouse gas) only in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, as the greenhouse effect is air-density dependent. In the upper stratosphere the effect is reversed, producing net cooling. Since there is strong convection between troposphere and stratosphere, these two effects cancel each other, at least in part. Nevertheless, this is a secondary issue that has no bearing on the findings from the phase analysis which amount to a mathematical proof that climate has negligible sensitivity to CO2 at the present concentration.
The debate should be
A) Is man's impact on climate negative and enough so to warrant change
B) If true then what kind of change is needed and are the costs of said change worth whatever is gained by those changes
This has been a 75+ year marketing campaign that started off as Global Cooling. When the climate went the opposite direction they re-branded as Global Warming. When the climate once again choose to take a different route they got smart and re-branded as Climate Change so as long as it changed they were right. Add to that the fact that the "Climate Catastrophe is just 10-15 years away" slogan has been constantly repeated during this period how can people trust those making the claim?
We have multiple cases of the sciences being more than a little dishonest in the past. There was the eugenics movement a century ago where many were blacklisted if they didn't promote it. Fast Forward to the 50's and we have Big Tobacco incentivizing the medical world to promote smoking as healthy. These are not conspiracy theories but history of conspiracies. It's not as if the sciences have never been wrong or dishonest and when $$ gets involved it becomes very easy to justify the means because of the ends. If promoting Climate Change means you can get Federal and or even private funding for your own research that you see as lifesaving, it's hard to resist the temptation to go along especially if you see others blacklisted for not going along. Science is not supposed to be "rule by committee" and yet that's how the Climate Change narrative has played out.
Let's examine the flip side of this, the proposed solutions. If there is too much carbon then why do the climate doomsayers claim that creating more tree's, nature’s own carbon removal device, is dumb but tinkering with Cows genetics to reduce farts isn't? How about their claims that we need to reduce food production which would almost certainly cause starvation around the world; a global famine? I could see the argument that the way commercial farming works is a problem so why not promote more decentralized farming? That’s an easy answer; because Big Food won’t allow it. There are efforts around the globe to reduce private/small farming, not to increase it. There is also the question of whether or not a higher level of carbon is actually harmful. It’s not as if the carbon levels have never been higher and long before man came along.
Nature has created this balanced circle of life. Humans take in needed O2 and give off CO2. Vegetation takes in CO2 and returns O2. The current level of CO2 is 427 PPM. The prediction is that if left unaltered it will go to 800PPM by end of the century. The highest recorded levels of CO2 was during the Cambrian period where it was at 4,000 PPM. Guess what happened during the Cambrian period? It produced the most intense burst of evolution known. That’s 4,000 PPM versus 800PPM or a ratio of 5:1 . Are we really supposed to believe that an increase in CO2 that is 1/5th of what brought about an intense burst of evolution is actually going to end life? For most plants, a CO2 concentration of 1200PPM - 1500PPM is beneficial, however the specific needs of the plants must be considered. The bare minimum for vegetation is debated between 100PPM and 150PPM.
Nature created this balance between animals and vegetation and we know from history that high levels of carbon, far higher than what is predicted, did not end life but caused an evolutionary burst. That’s not to say it wasn’t accompanied by intense weather, only that higher levels don’t equal the end of life on this planet. When looking at each direction, there risk of a life ending event falls more in line with CO2 dropping to low then going to high. CO2 levels become harmful to humans around the 5000PPM mark and it becomes lethal to vegetation at round 150PPM. Between the 2 which way has more wiggle room before life is threatened?
When looked at from the big picture it all just does not add up. The behavior of those promoting this does not align with their claims and the solutions range from hard to believe to non-sensical. Most of us who aren’t swayed by the AGW argument admit that yes we are probably having an impact but not to the extent that those promoting it claim and certainly not enough to bring about the climate apocalypse. What is very easy to see is that it might be an exaggerated con used to redistribute wealth and gain more power and control over the populace and what national leader and or Billionaire doesn’t want more of both?
There are far more realistic threats’ to humanity that are completely ignored because no one can profit from them like a Carington event which we are overdue for. A massive solar storm that when it last happened melted telegraph lines. We are an electricity dependent world and (at least in North America) none of our power grids are protected from this type of thing. It’s not because it’s too costly but because no one in power or who is wealthy can gain from it.
The question hinges on the defintion of "Emergency".
A definition to easily redefined and too often too broadly defined by government. When has government not declared something an emergency when it sought use said incident for a power grab?
You're not wrong in that the definition matters but unfortunately we can't trust the source that defines it. If government truly cared about emergencies the Carrington event which has far more backing/agreement (n that we are over due and it will be a problem based on the position of teh earth when it happens) and is far less expensive to adress would have been addressed.
Still love/respect you no matter what you say as to few today are willing to say and be honest about it, "I'm willing to change my mind". I use to believe that climate change at all was just BS and the after further review I recognize there is change now we have to deiced if man's activity has any part in it (as opposed to solar activity) and to what extent as well as if the solutions promoted pass the cost/benefit analysis.
Climate has been changing all by itself for millions of years
Not an issue humans can change
That's why they had to rebrand it as Climate Change; so no matter what it does their right. Had they done that at the start,. 65 years ago, instead of pitching Climate Cooling, a new ice age, they probably would have had far more support.
Yes, it's difficult to understand why all those highly trained scientists haven't reached this conclusion yet after all these decades of studying it. Maybe you should write to them?
Because science is "by committee" just like in politics, and not via teh scientific principal so those within teh field who disagree are the actual shills right? It's not that hose who promote Man caused AGW and get government grants for projects that tie to it might be towing some narrative to get said money, it's the one's who risk being ostracized by challenging the established narrative on climate change.
Just over a century ago "science" was promoting this little thing called Eugenics and god help you if you didn't tow the line on it for you could and some did get blacklisted. It wasn't until the Nazi's showed teh world what you could really do with eugenics that the world realize it was "science by committee" and not really a great thing after all but yeah nothing like that would ever happen again. Next they'll try and claim that Big Taobao incentivized American doctors to promote smoking as healthy.
Thank you for the recommendations. I will watch the film at some point but I will also, and would also urge you to, watch critiques of it, such as this - https://youtu.be/HhAX42dT09w?si=n_D9dy3CAWIhaAKt I welcome debate on all topics, and for a subject that is immediately on shaky ground because it predicts future events, it is crucial. My problem is the motivations of the many climate skeptics I have encountered, because the majority of them seem compromised either by financial incentive or strong ideological opposition. It is stunningly easy to make a documentary that can persuade people that black is white and another claiming white is black and if professionally and convincingly made, each one would have its adherents. If dissenters such as Koonin et al wanted to prove their theories then they should be making serious attempts to have public debates about this with IPCC scientists or climatologists in general. Cases can never be proven in a one sided argument because it simply comes down to a question of belief, and belief can only be changed through a proper discussion and dissection of both sides of a debate . The general public doesn't have a hope at understanding climate models, and has a vested interest in dismissing them, if only for their own sanity and peace of mind i - who would choose to voluntarily deal with a global existential crises? We're far more likely to warm to someone who says 'There is nothing to worry about', than someone who is trying to sell you a 'Be afraid, be very afraid' argument.
In short, my mind is not settled as I have no idea what the predicted climate changes will bring, but the latest in a string of books by highly vocal critics, of dubious integrity and unknown motivations, is probably not going to influence me - all the more so because I know there will be numerous critiques and criticisms of such books which often show them to have been full of errors and misinterpretations.
My point was that yes, climate change is a natural process that happens all the time, most people know this well. The problem is that the change we have been witnessing over the past few decades has seen a very sharp increase in global temperature, and this is unprecedented. The planet over the eons has been much hotter and much colder than it is now, no one disputes this. The problem lies in the fact that these changes took place over hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. Our current rate of temperature increase is measured in decades, and this is where the acuteness of the problem lies.
I think you are referring to the urban heat island effect. Temperatures measured from rural areas and space satellites do not show any rapid temperature increase on planet Earth. "Climate: The Movie" explains it well. "Unsettled" by Steven Koonin also explains the real science of climate change well.
This is the first time I've heard of the 'urban heat effect', but I believe it features highly in the movie you recommend. I can't comment on the film but from a quick look at the background of some of the key players involved in its production and content, including Messrs Durkin and Koonin, I would imagine it to be heavily biased in favour of them 'proving' their theories. Did it allow for much of a reply from those who would defend or deny the things they claim? Such as the urban heat effect for example, which from the little I've just read on it suggests that global temperatures are averaged out a higher rate because most of the measuring is done in urban areas where the temperature is always higher. I'm not arguing with that bit because urban heat increase is very common knowledge. So common in fact that anyone collecting temperature data who did not take that into consideration should probably be sacked. Unless I have misrepresented it in some way?
I cannot say whether we are undergoing AGW right now, but what I do know is that over the last 20 odd years I've been directed to this source or the other, claiming change is a hoax, and every time I've followed up the authors of the pieces, they are generally linked financially to fossil fuel lobbyists via their think tanks, NGOs, panels, boards, orgs and advisory committees. Alternatively they seem to be highly politically motivated, and always in the same sort of way. There are seemingly independent writers on the subject and I'm happy if they chuck ideas into the information pool to point out possible errors. Mostly though, although I can't speak for their personal motives of course, the vast majority of climate change skeptics I've encountered seem clearly compromised to me.
Reading "Unsettled" by Steven Koonin changed my perspective. I highly recommend it. "False Alarm" by Bjorn Lomborg is another good book. The Tom Nelson podcast, available on YouTube, features scientists discussing climate change science. In addition, I have written a review of "Climate: The Movie" at https://2026.substack.com/p/facts-about-climate
Of course not. There's no hurry to address it.
Some very cool people you found.
I spent 10 years of keeping an open mind before committing to a conclusion on this topic. The definitive answer about the validity of anthropogenic climate change emerged on the back of Humlum’s study (2013), who conducted a basic mathematical causality check on the official data-sets: phase analysis. He looked at the second-order correlation of the rates of change of global temperature and CO2. If the atmospheric concentration of CO2 were the cause of global warming, then a faster accumulation of CO2 (like increasing the flow of fuel to the engine) would have to result in faster global warming (the engine generating more energy), but this was not the case. The causal relationship was shown to be reverse, with surges of temperature being followed (not preceded, as expected by the climate models) by surges in CO2. Humlum’s study attracted aggressive criticism for his largely speculative, alternative theory of climate change, but nobody attempted to analytically refute his basic, primary conclusion, that the rate of global warming does not increase in response to an increased rate of CO2 emissions, which is a necessary feature of anthropogenic climate change as defined by IPCC.
One crucial fact that is routinely ignored in this debate, is that CO2 is a warming gas (a greenhouse gas) only in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, as the greenhouse effect is air-density dependent. In the upper stratosphere the effect is reversed, producing net cooling. Since there is strong convection between troposphere and stratosphere, these two effects cancel each other, at least in part. Nevertheless, this is a secondary issue that has no bearing on the findings from the phase analysis which amount to a mathematical proof that climate has negligible sensitivity to CO2 at the present concentration.
If you have a moment, check out Dorian Abbot's work:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=UqDnxT0AAAAJ