A little truth for a change.

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The ‘we’re in an ice age’ thing is interesting and used a lot in climate change denial.
It’s all from a number of papers in the 1970s that got huge amount of coverage which has led some of the very prominent deniers to state that ‘the consensus was global cooling very recently so scientists change their minds/get it wrong’ etc. etc.
In actual fact that global cooling theory got so much coverage partly because it went against the much more commonly held theory of global warming.
Funny innit.
https://longreads.com/2017/04/13/in...-age-were-still-living-with-the-consequences/

That and the fact that Joe Public hears the word ‘theory’ as ‘just what someone reckons’ which isn’t what ‘theory’ means doesnt really help.
I mean, gravity is a theory but even the Flat Earth mouth breathers don’t question that one.
 
"The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom whose aims are to challenge what it calls "extremely damaging and harmful policies" envisaged by governments to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.[2] The GWPF, and some of its prominent members individually, have been characterized as practising and promoting climate change denial.[3][4]

In 2014, when the Charity Commission ruled that the GWPF had breached rules on impartiality, a non-charitable organisation called the "Global Warming Policy Forum" was created to do lobbying that a charity could not. The GWPF website carries an array of articles sceptical of the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming and its impacts."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation


Not that the bias of the parent organisation disproves the arguments, but just a caveat that the source is known to be deliberately biased against climate change hypothesis.
Some of his 'facts' (with no reference to sources) seem to be distinctly iffy. eg:
"In the 1990s the global average surface temperature had been rising sharply for 15 years,
and many predicted that this rate of warming would continue, when in fact it has halved."

Kelly does indeed have a doctorate and is entitled to be called Doctor Kelly. His expert area is not, however, climate science. eg:
"Kelly has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals on physics and electronics. He does not appeared to have published any research articles on the subject of climate change."
https://www.desmog.com/michael-kelly/

Compare this to NASA for example: (https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/scientific-consensus/)
gavin-2024-combined-temperature-observations.jpg

Temperature data showing rapid warming in the past few decades, the latest data going up through 2023. According to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record since recordkeeping began in 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. On top of that, the 10 most recent years have been the hottest.
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Kelly: "It is sad that the upsides of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmo-
sphere (such as the greening of the biosphere) are systemically ignored or discounted, while
those matters which are neutral, such as storm frequency and severity are spun to be hostile
to humanity.
"
Me: Are our floods, droughts storms etc really 'neutral to humanity'?
 
"The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom whose aims are to challenge what it calls "extremely damaging and harmful policies" envisaged by governments to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.[2] The GWPF, and some of its prominent members individually, have been characterized as practising and promoting climate change denial.[3][4]

In 2014, when the Charity Commission ruled that the GWPF had breached rules on impartiality, a non-charitable organisation called the "Global Warming Policy Forum" was created to do lobbying that a charity could not. The GWPF website carries an array of articles sceptical of the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming and its impacts."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation


Not that the bias of the parent organisation disproves the arguments, but just a caveat that the source is known to be deliberately biased against climate change hypothesis.
Some of his 'facts' (with no reference to sources) seem to be distinctly iffy. eg:
"In the 1990s the global average surface temperature had been rising sharply for 15 years,
and many predicted that this rate of warming would continue, when in fact it has halved."

Kelly does indeed have a doctorate and is entitled to be called Doctor Kelly. His expert area is not, however, climate science. eg:
"Kelly has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals on physics and electronics. He does not appeared to have published any research articles on the subject of climate change."
https://www.desmog.com/michael-kelly/

Compare this to NASA for example: (https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/scientific-consensus/)
gavin-2024-combined-temperature-observations.jpg

Temperature data showing rapid warming in the past few decades, the latest data going up through 2023. According to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record since recordkeeping began in 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. On top of that, the 10 most recent years have been the hottest.
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Kelly: "It is sad that the upsides of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmo-
sphere (such as the greening of the biosphere) are systemically ignored or discounted, while
those matters which are neutral, such as storm frequency and severity are spun to be hostile
to humanity.
"
Me: Are our floods, droughts storms etc really 'neutral to humanity'?

Interesting Kelly stuff here and too much to unpick!
He is a master of the sweeping statement, but then it's a huge and wide ranging topic.
But he is not convincing as a CC denier; “It is perfectly possible to adopt a position, as I have, of ‘a principled climate science scepticism.’ It is based on the fact that every time an engineering-standard analysis is done of the climate data, one ends up contradicting the results of the climate change modellers."
This sounds like hot air and a very sweeping statement which he doesn't substantiate. We just have to take his word for it that other "climate change modellers" are all wrong and he can prove it. Unconvincing!
Instead he talks wholly about the logistics of target zero about which he is very sceptical.
In other words is he saying we are all f****d?
Or if the modelling is all wrong except his own, does that mean we don't need to hit carbon zero?
Or what is he saying, beyond that he is a very clever chap and thinks he knows more about it than anybody else?
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/pdf/Prof Mike Kelly - FENand ER.pdf
 
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It's a.long time since I read it, but I don't think 2+2=5 according to George, is was a work of fiction.
George Orwell famously used two plus two equals five in his novel nineteen eighty-four as an example for an obviously false statement that you can nevertheless make people believe in.
 
That and the fact that Joe Public hears the word ‘theory’ as ‘just what someone reckons’ which isn’t what ‘theory’ means doesnt really help.
I mean, gravity is a theory but even the Flat Earth mouth breathers don’t question that one.
I'm sure there are some who believe they are genetically endowed with magnets in their feet.
 
George Orwell famously used two plus two equals five in his novel nineteen eighty-four as an example for an obviously false statement that you can nevertheless make people believe in.
I thought the thrust of that video was that you could make people toe the establishment line, even if they didn't believe it.
 
OK depends on your definition - there are others: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Glacial_and_interglacial_periods
The current "holocene" era is unusual in that it has been relatively steady with no change in either direction, until very recently
Which is why the Holocene is not a good example of anything. In geological timescales it is the blink of an eye, and a very untypical one at that. Move the silly timeline you keep posting back a few million years and you get a very different picture, with temperatures yo yoing up and down by far greater amounts than we are currently worrying so much about. so banging on about the holocene, and the whole hockey stick stuff is simply cherry picking a very unrepresentative set of data to demonstrate what you want.

What IS of concern is the speed of change over the last couple of hundred years. This is much faster than anything seen before, and accelerating. This change is, in my opinion, largely due to our activity. We should of course do everything we can to reduce this effect.

For far too long we have regarded the planet as a resource to be plundered as we see fit, entirely for our own benefit and if the creatures and plants we share it with suffer as a consequence, then so what. Now we are in danger of rendering our home uninhabitable, at least for us.

But the Holocene represents a very untypical period of stability which is sure to end, probably in the near future. Which way temperatures will naturally swing then nobody seems to agree, but in the past periods of cold have tended to be followed by warming. I see no reason to believe that trend will not be repeated.

So yes we need to get a grip of our own contribution, but I believe that if we think that will solve all our problems then we are delusional. Sooner or later the planet is likely to get warmer whatever we do. So whilst addressing our contribution is the immediate concern, not far behind it comes how are we going to adapt to cope with conditions that we may not be able to influence in any way.

Our behaviour, if left unchecked, could make the difference between our survival and, whilst not perhaps our extinction, certainly a reduction in our numbers to a fraction of the current figure.

For the planet at large that might be seen as no bad thing.
 
One thing never mentioned, to be taken into account, is ALL the s-h-1-t that all the wars, including present ones, nuclear testing, etc, etc, etc, have pumped into the atmosphere.:mad::(

Not to mention all the hot air generated by folk being aggrieved/insulted/"dissed" by the least little things these days.
Take this Jeffrey Donaldson affair in NI, for example. His DUP colleagues are said to be up in arms because they thought he'd been charged for being a Papist....
 
You have somewhat missed the point - the Holocene is a good example of the era we actually live in.
Which is extremely untypical in terms of the overall history, so hardly to be regarded as representative. We just happen to have flourished in this period, as other species have flourished in periods that suited them. So if anything you are missing the point, in that basing anything on such a tiny snapshot of time is rather daft. Of course the way we are heading we might flourish and become extinct all in this period, but if we want to hang around then change is an absolute certainty.
 

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