Here's a simple question for all you Global Warming, Greta loving enthusiasts.
If you were a 'scientist' whatever that means and disagreed with the so called consensus opinion of the other so called scientists, would you speak out or would you just bite your tongue knowing full well that to do so would effectively be an end to your career, which it effectively would be given that so many of these so called consensus scientists are dependent upon government funding for their livelihoods.
I'd argue that irrespective of whether correct or not, the consensus opinion is like a religion which is infallible. There is absolutely no allowance for dissent and anyone disagreeing must be destroyed.
You have to be very careful when accepting the word of so called cotemporary scientists. For instance when Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift back in the early 20th Century he was poo pooed by the consensus peer scientists who mocked him. It wasn't until the 1960s that he was proved correct and is now accepted as fact proving the consensus opinion of that time was completely wrong so treat each argument with suspicion before accepting it as correct.
Also how does one explain the deliberate suppression of facts in Mann's 1998 Hockey Stick analogy used to explain the so called rise in global temperatures since the industrial period took off, therefore influencing the IPCC? He and his compadres conveniently left out the Medieval Warming Period and The Little Ice Age all based on a tree ring study of a single tree which would have completely changed the argument.
We always hear about how much the temperature has risen since the 1860s when records began properly but the scientists conveniently forget to point out that the Little Ice Age only ended around the 1860s so it wouldn't be out of sync to expect that there would be a temperature rise from about that time irrespective putting it all down to industrialisation. It is also the whole basis for net zero and the 2 degree figure which must not be crossed today.
The fact is that temperatures certainly in the Northern Hemisphere have been rising over the past 20,000 years since the last ice age ended. Here in the UK, there was no North Sea until just over 8,000 years ago. Up to that point we were part of the European land mass and not a series of islands as the UK is today. Up to 20,000 years ago there was ice up to 2 miles thick resting on the UK, evidence for this are the raised beaches due to isostatic adjustment which can be found.
The climate according to geological records has never been stable and we are in one of a series of interglacial stages so temperatures will fluctuate.
Now before the usual mob wheels out the climate denier label for me, let me point out that I am in no way a climate denier or disagree that anthropogenic production of so called greenhouse gasses is not impacting on our climate but it's the use of flawed data and research with which I disagree.
I do have an Hons degree in geophysics and geology and have studied the effects of GW for over 30 years so I perhaps understand a little more than the average punter so to speak.
The fact is that GW is a huge worldwide business. There's something like 30,000 or more 'scientists' whose incomes from government grants etc are dependent on proving GW is anthropogenic in origin so one would do well to be very circumspect when accepting the 'facts' as put out by so called scientists and should be scrutinised carefully.
These facts will have huge impacts in the years to come.
V interesting post, though I'm not a fan of being labelled a 'Greta loving enthusiast' just because I think that we might be on the verge of a climate shift that will be bad for our children, and might be preventable.
I have been a scientist, and know many, and the struggle to fund research is real, as is the bias that results from it. I remember being very keen to study phylotaxy (plant growth patterns) back in the day, and ending up doing a PhD in animal things instead because there was a lot more money in it. The funding didn't bias my results, but it did bias the type of PhD that I did. Currently I work in AI, and the plethora of new projects, companies and products with 'generative AI' or 'large language model' mentioned somewhere says more about the available funding than anything else.
I've also seen how hard it can be to change consensus, but consensus does change. I guess the question is, are we in one of those moments where (for whatever reason) the prevailing view is demonstrably wrong?
I'm unfamiliar with climate field reconstruction as a field, but if I need to I can get my head around it I expect. Do we really need to go that deep though, as individuals? Is the field so hopelessly divided or out of touch that all summaries are suspicious? Genuine question, since it's broadly your own field.
Wikipedia implies that it is indeed necessary to go deep, as it has a v detailed review of how the controversy unfolded in the literature. Quoting a para from the summary:
More than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, support the broad consensus shown in the original 1998 hockey-stick graph, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears.
[12][13] The 2007
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report cited 14 reconstructions, 10 of which covered 1,000 years or longer, to support its strengthened conclusion that it was likely that Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the 20th century were the highest in at least the past 1,300 years.
[14] Further reconstructions, including
Mann et al. 2008 and
PAGES 2k Consortium 2013, have supported these general conclusions.
So, viewing the field as a whole, today, we are not just reviewing the conclusions from one study of the rings of one tree, are we? In your view, is the conclusion that the earth is rapidly warming safe? Is the conclusion that some of the warming is because of us safe? And if so, is the conclusion that we might be able to slow it reasonable?
