I recently read a lengthy article that caused me to seriously doubt that most climate change is caused by human activity. This, I know, goes against the commonly-held view that we’ve caused climate change and therefore we can / must fix it. It’s a bit uncomfortable to find yourself questioning something you’d previously thought was “obviously true”, but the analysis I read was too powerful to ignore.

Now I’m pondering what the consequences might be. This post is by way of me putting words down to try to figure that out šŸ™‚

What I believe (or still believe) after reading the article

  • Yes, the climate is changing. Global temperatures have risen in recent times – just not by as much the climate models predicted. And climate change is nothing new – both warming and cooling have happened in the past.
  • Yes, global warming may cause real problems for some people. Where this is the case, we should do what we can to address those problems. (It should be noted, however, that the cold spells in recent centuries also caused real problems for some people.)
  • The evidence for global warming being caused mostly by human activity is weak. I don’t propose to present any “science” here; the article (and a couple of others I’ll link to later) contains plenty of that.
  • Environmental problems of all sorts need our attention. Whether climate-related (e.g. weather patterns) or definitely human-caused (e.g. poor air quality, plastic pollution, deforestation). Again, these issues degrade the quality of life for many people and it’s right to try to alleviate both the causes (if possible) and the consequences.

What I’m really not sure about any more

  • We have a climate “emergency” and it’s right to be alarmed or afraid. What has happened in the past doesn’t indicate such an emergency. Failed predictions don’t indicate such an emergency. And neither does the supposed science behind future predictions.
  • Global warming is mostly caused by the CO2 we generate and it’s going to get increasingly worse. From what I’ve read, the science simply doesn’t support that idea. However, it’s become the accepted orthodoxy, probably for many different reasons.
  • We have to spend “whatever it takes” to reduce our CO2 emissions. An awful lot of what we’re planning to spend, and changes we’re planning to make, could be a complete waste of resources.

But, having said that…

…It could still be that some steps we take to reduce CO2 emissions will have good consequences. For example, as I cycled along the road yesterday I was passed by several vehicles and could smell, and almost taste, the fumes I was breathing in. This is almost certainly bad for my health, an issue that would be much alleviated if those vehicles were all electric.

“Oh,” you say, “but what about the emissions of the power stations we need to generate the electricity to charge those vehicles?” Well, like I said, I’m no longer convinced that the CO2 is as much of a problem as we’ve been led to believe. Smoke particles and similar pollutants, on the other hand, are a different matter. From what I’ve read, it’s a relatively low-cost exercise to make power stations, etc. “cleaner” to reduce those particulate emissions. (That’s “low” cost compared to scrapping them altogether in order to replace them with alternative energy sources, many of which apparently lead to much more expensive electricity…)

The result would be generally cleaner air in our towns and streets, and where there are pollutants from specific industrial sources (such as power stations or factories) we can concentrate on cleaning them up. Or so it seems to me.

In other words, following the “decarbonising” agenda may be based on a false premise but could still have benefits. It’s just that it could cost an absolute fortune. And possibly make things worse, e.g. by pushing up energy costs for the poorest people.

In Conclusion

I’m not sure what my conclusions are yet. It’s certainly been an eye-opener. I think for now it’s something to be aware of, to pray over, and to watch out for opportunities to comment, to learn and maybe to clarify the implications of all this.

Those other links…

Oh, yeah. After reading the CMI article it didn’t me long to find other sites with a focus on debunking unscientific nonsense, with a particular emphasis on climate change. The two I found were:

“Not a Lot of People Know That“
and
“Watts Up With That“

Not surprisingly, there are other sites out there that are “sceptical about climate sceptics”. I’ve not done much reading, but I did see on the “Skeptical Science” site that it listed some supposed rebuttals that are themselves known to be false! For example, it refers to the myth that “97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming”, which is complete nonsense.

So that’s as far as I’ve got. Any comments?