Other topics below: The true story of paradise lost (Paul MacRae on the Eocene paradise of some 55-33 million years ago when average world temperatures were up to 10 degrees C warmer than today, with much higher CO2, and that was a golden age for mammals, a true paradise. Also, the critical importance of self-determination in the individually-oriented approach to organizing human societies (Classic Liberalism), and much more…
We all live primarily by story- “Paradise lost/redemption”, Wendell Krossa
A complex of mythical themes still dominates public consciousness today. These themes/ideas constitute the main narrative of religious traditions and have similarly infected “secular” ideologies, notably in the Western world but also across all the cultures of our world.
The comment just below probes the deeply embedded ideas and the core impulses that these ideas incite and validate (some refer to our inherited impulses and related validating ideas as “archetypes”). The ideas noted below have to do with things like the basic impulse to survive and the fear of threats to survival and how people respond to such threats.
Intro notes and quotes:
A core theme in the complex of mythical themes is one of history’s most persistent myths- i.e. the myth of life declining toward disaster and ending. A YouGov survey has shown that a majority of the world population still believes that “the world is getting worse” (“Ten Global Trends”, Bailey and Tupy). The myth of life declining toward something worse, toward disaster and ending has incited endless unnecessary fear, anxiety, despair, nihilism, and violence. Early humans created a complex of myths to explain and respond to this primitive fear of decline.
Historian Arthur Herman states that the myth of “life declining toward disaster”, and even ending, is arguably the “single most dominant and influential theme in culture and politics today” (“The Idea of Decline in Western History”).
Once again, Joseph Campbell- “The same mythical themes have been believed all across history and across all the cultures of the world”.
On to the main topic: “It’s the narrative, stupid”, (paraphrase of Bill Clinton’s comment on the economy)
This site has repeatedly detailed the basic features/elements of the “paradise lost/redemption” narrative that dominates both major religious traditions and the main secular ideologies of our modern era. Our great narratives shape our lives and societies more influentially than anything else. Our stories are even more influential than scientific fact because “we all live primarily by story”. (Insert: “We all live primarily by story”? Note the narratives of those self-identifying as “materialist/atheist” and claiming to hold to rational scientific views, yet also embracing apocalyptic narratives like the climate alarm story with its themes of original wilderness paradise lost, blame “sinful” humanity for life declining toward disaster and ending, hope in a salvation scheme that purges the evil threat, and then the restoration of the lost paradise. How do such themes, couched in worldviews that the adherents claim are “rational scientific”- how do such themes differ from the same old primitive ideas of past mythologies and religions? Just asking.)
The dominating narrative of human history- “paradise lost/redemption”- has consistently embraced the following complex of basic themes/ideas:
(1) There was an original paradise world. This myth of a better past is the foundational fallacy in the paradise lost/redemption complex of myths. This fallacy sets the baseline to reasonably argue that everything has been declining since the perfect beginning. The myth of better or “perfect/paradise” past creates an irrefutable basis to argue that the obviously imperfect present world proves that life has been declining toward something worse. Hence: Declinists 1, Rational Optimists 0. The scoring is right if primitive myth is the basis of reasoning.
(2) Paradise has been ruined by corrupted, sinful humanity, resulting in paradise lost.
(3) To repeat- The trajectory of life is subsequently declining toward disaster and ending/apocalypse.
(4) We need to make a sacrifice/payment for our sins.
(5) Suffering/sacrifice is redemptive.
(6) Essential to the redemption scheme is to give up the good life and to embrace a return to primitivism (framed as the “morally superior simple life”, or forsaking “sinful materialism” for a more “spiritual” low-consumption lifestyle). A further re-enforcement for restoring primitivism as the superior state is the “noble savage” myth that claims that primitive tribal people were more “pure and strong”, more “connected to nature”, before humanity began degenerating in corrupting civilization.
(7) Further, human story is about engaging a hero’s quest, the “righteous battle against evil enemies/monsters”. This feature is often framed to suppress the human impulse to universalism (viewing and treating humanity as one family) and, instead, is used to incite the tribal impulse that views people in terms of dualisms between good and evil- i.e. me and my group as good, versus differing others as “evil enemies”, or views people in terms of tribal divides like that between “true believers and unbelievers”.
(8) Add here, the requirement to conquer a monster or violently purge an evil threat to life. (Psychologists Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo note how violence has always been central to the biblical God’s approach to solving problems- i.e. as in demanding a blood sacrifice to atone for wrong and using violence to finally destroy the corrupted world. See the New Testament book of Revelation for a graphic presentation of the final explosion of divine violence in the apocalypse.)
(9) With the above conditions met, among others, then there is the possible restoration of the lost paradise, or the installation of a new utopia. This is the element of hope in the old mythical narrative. But it is a perverted “hope” that is based on the destruction of the world and eternal punishment of most of humanity.
The elements of this “paradise lost/redemption” narrative are found scattered throughout the earliest human mythology, are later formalized in Zoroastrianism (for our Western tradition), and even later are adopted by the great world religions of the West (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The basic complex of mythical themes still dominates the world religions, and those themes/ideas are also now also traceable throughout contemporary “secular ideologies” like environmental alarmism, and related climate alarmism.
The main world religions are largely responsible for maintaining these themes in human narratives and consciousness with all the harmful outcomes that have been inevitable from holding such ideas in humanity’s guiding narratives (Our meta-narratives embody our highest ideals, ethical standards, and potently influence our responses and behaviors.). The long-standing belief that these ideas express some “spiritual” truth has given them “the validation of the sacred” (i.e. truth that is not to be challenged, questioned, or altered).
The meta-narrative themes noted above have been horrifically destructive across human history in that they have incited the worst impulses of people to tribally exclude differing others, to dominate others, and to violently destroy differing others as “enemies” (again, the engagement of “righteous battles against evil”). Note once more that believing in a deity that uses violence to solve problems has then often validated human use of violence to solve problems. We become just like the God or the narrative themes that we believe in.
Examples of destructive outcomes:
The narrative themes listed above shaped last century’s Marxist crusade to overturn the great enemy and purported threat that was “industrial capitalist society”. Marxism embraced the myth of a better past (primitive tribal communal existence) that had been ruined by industrial capitalist civilization and, the Marxists claimed, subsequently capitalist societies were declining toward disastrous ending. Violently purging that purported threat would enable humanity to restore the lost communal paradise.
These ideas also shaped the Nazi crusade to overthrow the threatening enemy that was Jewish Bolsheviks (i.e. Communists). And after purging that threat to the world, the Nazis would install the millennial Reich as the restoration of the lost paradise of the “originally pure and strong German spirit and culture”.
Evidence that the above primitive religious themes shaped Marxism and Nazism? See the research of historians such as Arthur Herman (The Idea of Decline in Western History), Richard Landes (Heaven On Earth), Arthur Mendel (Vision and Violence), David Redles (Hitler’s Millennial Reich), among others.
And today, having won bloody wars against those mass-death crusades, we still have not fully tackled and defeated the very ideas/myths that incited those “profoundly religious” and destructive crusades in the first place. So we face the same narrative themes and the same inevitably destructive outcomes once again. Notably in the environmental alarmism movement, and now particularly in climate alarmism with its decarbonization salvation scheme (i.e. purging the great “evil threat” of fossil fuels in order to “save the world”). Varied commentators have correctly stated that climate alarmism is a “profoundly religious movement” and its decarbonization salvation scheme may yet match the mass-death outcomes of last century’s two great apocalyptic-millennial crusades- Marxism and Nazism.
We detect similar themes in the broader resurgence of the collectivism that has found a home in environmental alarmism, a collectivism which, once again, is attacking the Classic Liberal approach that is oriented to protecting free individual rights and freedoms. The Classic Liberal approach has done exceptionally well in protecting humanity from collectivist totalitarianism over the past two centuries.
Summarizing point?
The same old narrative themes of all past history have now re-emerged and been reframed in new versions today, new versions that embrace the same old myths of (1) original paradise (a former wilderness world in the environmental version), (2) a paradise now corrupted by human civilization that is purportedly destroying the natural world. That paradise has been lost and (3) life is now declining toward disastrous ending/apocalypse, according to Declinists. (4) A sacrifice must be made in order to “save the world”. Humanity must cease enjoying the good life and (5, 6) embrace suffering as redemptive in a retreat to the “morally superior simple life”- a return to a more primitive existence. The hero’s quest today is still framed as a (7) dualist opposition to some differing other (a differing ideology) that is the “enemy” in a “righteous battle against evil”. Add the demand to (8) purge the great threat and enemy of life- i.e. now purportedly industrial civilization based on fossil fuels where CO2- the food of all life- is demonized as the great threat to life. With humanity drastically reduced in size, and human civilization radically diminished, then (9) we can recover the lost paradise of a more wilderness world.
This mythical meta-narrative of life declining toward disaster and apocalypse has endlessly incited fear, anxiety, despair, depression, fatalism/resignation, nihilism, and even violence toward “enemy others”- i.e. those “deniers/unbelievers” that do not believe the apocalyptic narrative. Short of violence, unbelievers to the old narrative today are censored, banned, de-platformed, cancelled, criminalized, and more- lives and careers often destroyed for not affirming the apocalyptic millennial narrative.
But there is another story…
An entirely opposite narrative, with strikingly different features, tells us the true state of life, the true state of our world. It tells us that there never was a better past, an original paradise. It tells us that life is not declining but, to the contrary, it has been improving across the millennia and notably over past centuries. It states that humanity was never some originally pure species (“noble savage” mythology) that has subsequently “fallen into sinfulness”. And we are not now a species that is degenerating in civilization but, to the contrary, across history we have become notably less violent and ever-more humane, in many ways. Any comparison with life a century or so ago, shows the stunning improvements that we have made on all the basic metrics/indicators of life. See good sources like Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”, etc. Also Humanprogress.org.
Most critical to a new narrative is the theological insight that deity is “non-retaliatory” (e.g. James Robinson). This goes to the core themes of the old narrative and overturns entirely the most fundamental ideas/myths that people have long believed. It means that no sacrifice or suffering is demanded to appease some ultimate threat. We are not a corrupted species that has degenerated from a more pure past. We do not need to embrace a “salvation” scheme. The only salvation that we need to engage is to creatively solve problems in our world and work to make life ever better for everyone. This entails using the abundant and unlimited resources of our planet to create the good life for all.
As with most of the features of the old meta-narrative, there are alternative themes that outline an entirely new understanding of reality and life. And the evidence is good that the alternative themes are solidly evidence-based.
A project for the New Year? Re-evaluate the basic themes of your own narrative and then consider the features of a new narrative, evidence-based features that counter all the basic themes/myths of the old meta-narrative. The new narrative is a story of hope that inspires our best impulses to keep on improving life and the world.
Note: Some features of a new narrative will of necessity involve speculation because they are related to ultimate reality (“spirituality”) and ultimate ideals. Varied narrative features are inseparable from the primal human concerns with ultimate meaning and purpose.
Post from Bob Brinsmead to discussion group (on Social media censorship, climate alarm, etc.):
“Who would have thought in the age of the Internet that the social media giants would become instruments to suppress free speech and dissent from conventional wisdom and government policy?
“What is paramount in the contest of thought and ideas is always the narrative. Whether it is ordinary people, the intellectuals, or the ruling elite, what matters and rules in the imagination is the narrative. To re-word the famous saying of Bill Clinton about the economy- “It is the narrative, Stupid”.
“The masses are converted to a narrative of how the world works. The whole movement of climate change alarmism has been determined by a narrative. Everything becomes determined, judged, and put in the context of the prevailing narrative. The battle for the mind is not just a battle over some facts; it is a battle over a narrative. Just ask, for starters, does a certain narrative mediate despair and fear, or does it mediate hope of the world becoming a better place?
“In a very perceptive book- “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”- Yuval Noah Harari shows that where human tribalism differs from animal tribalism is in the capacity of a narrative to live in the imagination of millions of people, holding them together in a nation or an international movement formed by the bond of a common imagination that is founded on a common narrative.
“One cannot change a belief system – which is a religion – by just appealing to the facts, because even the facts are selected or interpreted by the narrative rather than shaping the narrative. Changing a belief system depends on changing the narrative. Most narratives, by which humankind lives, are nothing more than myths that live in the imagination. When Socrates undermined the prevailing myths of his civilization, the ruling elites decreed that he had to be eliminated.
“The facts cannot prevail over the old damaging myths unless they are put into the context of a better narrative, or as Jesus would say, into the better wineskins. Its no good putting the new facts about climate or anything else, back into the old wineskins – i.e. the old narrative (of life declining toward apocalypse).”
A background qualifier:
As always, when talking about human belief systems and ideals, practical reality (human responsibility) requires some steel-spine enforcing of natural consequences as in the restraint/imprisonment of violent people (criminal offenders) and popular resistance to authoritarian state intrusion into citizen’s lives (notably, as in just wars to stop aggressors such as in WW2). Such is life in an imperfect world.
Further quotes from comment below:
“There is interesting psychological research on the importance of self-control to human well-being (i.e. self-control as in free personal choice, self-determination in one’s life and destiny)…
“Research shows, for example, that people in the higher positions of hierarchies have more opportunity for personal choice and that enhances their well-being, whereas lower hierarchical positions grant people less personal choice and that undermines the well-being those in the lower positions. The argument is not to eliminate hierarchies in human societies but more about how we treat one another within such inevitable bureaucratic relationships; how we relate to one another in “superiors/subordinates” relationships. Think “bosses from hell”, as contrasted with supervisors that treat subordinates more humanely.
“This relates to Frederik Hayek’s concern that the growth of the state, as in excessive government control and intervention (i.e. “big government”- excessive government regulation and taxation)- such excessive state involvement and control over citizens lives will produce populations that lose their independence and their ability to self-determine their personal lives and destinies.
“This also relates to issues of “learned helplessness”- where personal choice and personal control are taken away, or given away…
“The above research adds good input on how to practise the principles of liberal democracy, how Classic Liberalism approaches should operate at all levels of society. This is about liberal democracies implementing their values of equality, inclusion, fairness, and the primacy of individual rights and freedoms.
“Someone said the worst dictators are not those in power centers far away but are the “bosses from hell” that exist in workplaces and offices all over nations. Add those little dictators in private homes- i.e. over-controlling parents from hell.”
The true story of “paradise lost”.
Read the evidence Paul MacRae presents in the link below and then tell us again that there is a “climate emergency” with the small rise in CO2 over the past few centuries. “Small” compared to the multi-thousands of ppm over paleoclimate history. And tell us again that there is an “existential crisis” with the mild 1 degree C warming over the past century. “Mild” as compared, again, to the major paleoclimate shifts in temperatures.
“Nonsense” is the only sensible response to the alarmism fairy tales, regarding our modern era climate change, that are presented in terms of endless ‘apocalyptic-scale’ exaggeration.
A sampling of the latest unhinged apocalyptic-scale hysteria from leading climate crusade prophet Al Gore (his recent rant at the WEF gathering in Davos, Jan. 2023):
“We’re still putting 162 million tons (of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere) every single day and the accumulated amount is now trapping as much extra heat as would be released by 600,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every single day on the earth.
“That’s what’s boiling the oceans, creating these atmospheric rivers, and the rain bombs, and sucking the moisture out of the land, and creating the droughts, and melting the ice and raising the sea level, and causing these waves of climate refugees!”
Sheesh, eh.
MacRae’s information overturns the climate alarm narrative entirely.
The article by MacRae affirms my repeated point here that the paleoclimate world- with much higher levels of CO2 (multiple thousands of ppm) and much warmer temperatures (up to 10 degrees C higher than today’s 14.5 C average)- was a world in which all life emerged, developed, and flourished. As MacRae affirms, it was a “paradise” world. There was no “climate crisis” with the much higher CO2 and much warmer temperatures that dominated most of the Phaneroic era (past roughly 500 million years).
The lush, tropical past of life was a paradise for all life- notably the “Eocene” period of the paleoclimate era (some 55-33 million years ago). We lost that paradise with the subsequent descent of the world into the ice-age era that we have been in for the past millions of years. See also “The Chilling Stars” for Henrik Svensmark’s theory on why we are in this current ice-age era.
The evidence that a world with much higher CO2 and much higher temperatures is a paradise world, overturns the climate alarm narrative, entirely. Common sense awareness should have clued climate alarmists into this true story of life- i.e. the fact that their vacations during winter to the warmer parts of the planet reveals their own survival preference for that lost paradise of a much warmer world.
MacRae’s article, an oldie but goodie from 2012, states well my persistent point that there is nothing to fear from, once again, a much warmer world with much higher levels of CO2. This will help many skeptics to stop ‘mollycoddling’ the basic assumptions of the climate alarm narrative- i.e. their affirmation that while decarbonization is rushed, there is still a “climate crisis” and we must doing something about it, mainly cease using fossil fuels.
Again- “Nonsense”. There is no good evidence to support the alarmist assumptions of “climate emergency” and looming apocalyptic end to life. And that means there is no rational reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
Full article “Back to the Future: Paradise Lost, or Paradise Regained?”, by Paul MacRae at…
Quotes from MacRae’s article:
“A NASA climate study announced that the warm middle Miocene era, about 16 million years ago, had carbon dioxide levels of 400 to 600 parts per million. The coasts of Antarctica were ice-free in summer, with summer temperatures 11° Celsius warmer than today. The study concluded that today’s CO2 level of 393 ppm was the highest, therefore, in millions of years, and could go to Miocene levels by the end of the century. It was implied, although not directly stated, that readers should react with horror.
“A UCLA team, writing in Science, had already pushed the Miocene button in 2009, claiming: “The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today [15 million years ago, again the mid-Miocene]—and were sustained at those levels—global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit [2.7-5.5°C] higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland.” Back to the Miocene! Scary!
“James Hansen, the alarmist head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), regularly refers to past eras as a warning of the climate catastrophes that could occur today. For example, in 2011 Hansen warned: “[An increase of] two degrees Celsius is guaranteed disaster…. It is equivalent to the early Pliocene epoch [between 5.5 and 2.5 million years ago] when the sea level was 25m (75 feet) higher.” Back to the early Pliocene! Horror!
“And, in testimony to the U.S. government: “The Earth was much warmer than today in the early Cenozoic [which began 65 million years ago]. In fact, it was so warm that there were no ice sheets on the planet and sea level was about 75 meters (250 feet) higher.” Heavens! The planet could revert to the age of dinosaurs! (Hansen didn’t mention that sea levels today are 120 metres—almost 400 feet—higher than they were a mere 15,000 years ago, without creating a catastrophe.)
“If we don’t curb our carbon-emitting ways, the alarmists warn, we face “increasingly radical temperature changes, a worldwide upsurge in violent weather events, widespread drought, flooding, wildfires, famine, species extinction, rising sea levels, mass migration, and epidemic disease that will leave no country untouched.” The only catastrophe not mentioned here is “acidification” (i.e., a slight decrease in alkalinity) of the oceans.
“If a warmer, more CO2-rich world would be hell in the future, it logically must have been hell in the past, too, when global temperatures were much warmer and carbon dioxide levels much higher. How could anything live, for example, in those “acidified” oceans of the Miocene? At least, this is what alarmist climate scientists like Hansen want the public to believe.
“An Eocene ‘paradise’
“Curiously, while alarmists warn about the horrors of returning to the climate of millions of years ago, paleoclimatologists tell a different story. They more often see our earlier planet as a “paradise,” even “paradise lost.”
“In fact, “paradise lost” is the subtitle of a 1994 book on our planet 33 million years ago by veteran paleo-climatologist Donald A. Prothero—The Eocene-Oligocene Transition: Paradise Lost. The Eocene (55-33 million years ago) began what is sometimes called the Golden Age of Mammals. This geological age was at least 10°C warmer than today, free of ice caps, and with CO2 levels, Prothero suggests, of up to 3,000 parts per million, which is almost eight times today’s level of about 400 ppm. Yet Prothero calls the Eocene a “lush, tropical world.”
“At the end of the still very warm Oligocene (33-23 mya), Prothero puts CO2 levels at 1,600 ppm, or four times today’s levels…
“For Prothero, the boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene was “paradise lost” because it was then, about 33 million years ago, that the planet began its slide from a “lush, tropical world” into its current ice age conditions (see Figure 1), with glaciations every 85,000 years interspersed with brief, 15,000-year warm interglacials.
“In fact, the planet is currently its coldest in almost 300 million years. Yet, for Hansen and others in the alarmist camp, our ice-age world is in danger of getting too hot—maybe even as hot as the Pliocene, or the Miocene, or the Oligocene, or even, heaven forbid, the Eocene.
“Many other writers on paleoclimate also use the term “paradise” to describe climate in the distant past. For example, in a history of evolution for younger readers, science writer Sara Stein paints the Eocene of 50 million years ago as follows:
“’The world that all the little brown furry things [mammals] inherited from the dinosaurs was paradise. [emphasis added] The climate was so mild that redwoods, unable now to live much further north than California’s pleasant coast, grew in Alaska, Greenland, Sweden, and Siberia. There was no ice in the Arctic. Palm trees grew as far north as 50 degrees latitude, roughly the boundary between the United States and Canada. Below that subtropical zone—that was similar to Florida’s landscape today—was a broad band of tropical rain forest.’
“Sounds grim, doesn’t it?…
“One of the most prominent climate alarmists, Tim Flannery writes:
“‘When Earth is warm (in greenhouse mode)—as it was around 50 million years ago—North America is a verdant and productive land. [emphasis added] Almost all of its 24 million square kilometers, from Ellesmere Island in the north to Panama in the south, is covered in luxuriant vegetation’.
“Flannery titled the section of the book that deals with the “verdant and productive” Eocene as: “In Which America Becomes a Tropical Paradise.” Yet this was a time, it should be remembered, when temperatures and CO2 levels were much higher than today’s. Unfortunately, trapped in his alarmism, Flannery doesn’t see the irony.
“British paleontologist Richard Fortey describes the landscape of Australia 20-35 million years ago, during the Oligocene and Miocene, as being “as rich as Amazonia, green and moist, with trees and ferns in profusion.” Today much of Australia, an area the size of the continental United States, is desert and bush and supports only 22 million people compared to 300 million in the U.S.
“As recently as 125,000 years ago, the peak of the last interglacial, our planet was 3-5°C warmer than today at the poles according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself, with sea levels 4-6 metres (12-20 feet) higher than today’s interglacial so far. Even Britain was semi-tropical, with hippopotami gamboling in the Thames, apparently untroubled by extreme weather events, extreme droughts, extreme flooding, etc.
“A mere 7,000 years ago, during the Holocene Optimum period that was at least 1°C warmer than today, much of the Sahara Desert was green, as were many other regions that today are desert. Why? Because warmer temperatures mean less polar ice, making more water available for precipitation, and therefore promoting a greener planet.
“So, millions of years ago, during geological eras much warmer than ours, with much higher levels of carbon dioxide, the planet faced the same environmental hazards as today—volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like. But it was not plagued by the extreme weather events, extreme droughts, extreme flooding, mass extinctions, or even the ocean “acidification” claimed by climate alarmists for the world of the future.
“Sea level ‘disaster’?
“On only one point have the alarmists got it right: during these warmer times of the geological past sea levels were higher, sometimes many metres higher—a point Hansen mentions again and again in his presentations.
“For example, Hansen notes that while only two per cent of the Earth’s land surface is within 10 metres of sea level, this two per cent also has 10 per cent (more than 630 million) of the world’s population. Hansen says a five-metre (15 foot) rise would, without costly dikes or other measures, inundate many large cities, including New York, London, Shanghai and Tokyo. This sea level increase, he concludes, would be “disastrous.” Hansen even seriously predicts five metres (15 feet) of sea-level rise by the end of the 21st century under a Business As Usual carbon scenario.
“However, most climate scientists—even alarmist scientists—know that Hansen’s predictions are hallucinations and accept that a sea level rise of this magnitude could only take place over centuries and millennia, just as sea levels today have taken 15,000 years to rise 120 metres (400 feet)…
“In other words, in the real world (as opposed to Hansen’s world), sea-level rise of any magnitude will take centuries and even millennia. The current rate of sea-level increase is just over 2 mm a year, or about 20 cm per century. At this rate—and at the moment the rate shows no signs of increasing—sea levels would take 2,500 years to reach Hansen’s five metres. Based on several interglacials over the past 600,000 years, which at their peak had sea levels several metres higher than today’s levels according to the IPCC, the seas would rise five metres or more even if human beings didn’t emit carbon.
“Coping with sea-level rise
“Can humanity cope with rising sea levels, whatever those levels may be? If climate alarmists don’t cripple our carbon-based economy, even the IPCC predicts that both developed and developing countries will have all the prosperity they need to cope with rising sea levels, be it seawalls, landfill, or relocations to desert and polar areas that, thanks to warmer temperatures and greater precipitation, are now fit for settlement…
“And, again, a warmer, wetter planet would “green” many of the world’s desert regions, including the Sahara and Australia, just as warming did in ages past. Meanwhile, thousands of square miles of land currently under ice or Arctic scrub would be open to settlement.
“A wetter, greener world
“And this still doesn’t take into account the positive effect of higher levels of CO2 in fertilizing plants. Physicist and biologist Sherwood B. Idso, who has specialized in charting the relationship between CO2 and plants, notes:
“‘A simple 330 to 660 ppm doubling of the air’s CO2 content will raise the productivity of all plants, in the mean, by about one-third. … As atmospheric CO2 concentrations more than double, plant water-use efficiencies more than double, with significant improvements occurring all the way out to CO2 concentrations of a thousand ppm or more’.
“Think of what such a biological transformation will mean to the world of the future. Grasslands will flourish where deserts now lie barren. Shrubs will grow where only grasses grew before. And forests will make a dramatic comeback to reclaim many areas presently sustaining only brush and scattered shrubs.
“Sound utopian? Even the IPCC acknowledges that doubled CO2 levels can produce increases of up to 33 per cent in plant growth, while also making plants more drought resistant.
“Millions of years ago our planet was much warmer and wetter than today, with much higher levels of CO2. Alarmists like Hansen say a return to those temperatures and CO2 levels would be catastrophic. “Yet our planet in earlier geological ages is almost always described as a tropical paradise, not a blasted, carbon-choked hell. Sea levels were higher, but a prosperous humanity can cope with higher sea levels…
“But if, as alarmists warn, we return to the Pliocene, or even the Miocene, would that be paradise lost? Or paradise regained?”
“Paul MacRae is a former journalist who now teaches writing at the University of Victoria. He is the author of False Alarm: Global Warming—Facts Versus Fears (Spring Bay Press, 2010). His website is paulmacrae.com. The book is available at springbaypress.com.”
Understanding what drives the alarmism movements of today– i.e. climate alarmism.
What narrative themes incite alarmism crusades and what counter-themes (i.e. what evidence-based indicators of “the true state of the world”) would potently overturn the mythical ideas that endlessly incite alarmism movements, both religious and “secular/ideological” alarmism movements?
A quote from “We all live primarily by story- ‘Paradise lost/redemption’”, further below…
“The elements of this “Paradise lost/redemption” narrative were scattered throughout the earliest human mythology, were later formalized in Zoroastrianism (for our Western tradition), and even later were adopted by the great world religions of the West (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The basic complex of “Paradise lost/redemption” mythical themes still dominates the world religions, and those themes/ideas are also now also traceable throughout contemporary “secular ideologies” like environmental alarmism, and related climate alarmism.”
See below a more detailed list of the core themes/ideas of the “Paradise lost/redemption” mythology.
Important news bulletin:
Good evidence shows that CO2 is not “mainly responsible for climate change” (meaning- climate change is not “human-caused” but more natural). CO2 is only a bit player in the complex of factors that influence climate, a bit player that repeatedly gets lost among the other natural factors and their correlations to the climate change that we have seen over past decades and centuries.
Further, climate change is not becoming “catastrophic”. It is not a looming “crisis”. So relax, enjoy life and the many benefits that fossil fuels grant us.
Take-away point? There is no sound, rational scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. None.
Sources and details below in the varied reports from atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and many other scientists well-versed on the complexities of climate science and related issues.
A peek inside the mind of a climate apocalypse prophet. Climate czar John Kerry at WEF annual conference this week,
“And when you stop and think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings … are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet.
“I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about “saving the planet.”
“If you said that to most people, most people they think you’re just a crazy tree hugging lefty, liberal, you know, do gooder or whatever, and there’s no relationship. But really, that’s where we are.”
This linked article (Wall Street Journal) explains why so many people believe the climate alarm hysteria that media pump out daily regarding every hiccup in weather- i.e. the endless mantra of “worst on record” to buttress the alarmist narrative of “blame human use of fossil fuels as the great evil of today’s world”. (Hiccup? Every more extreme perturbation to normal/average weather patterns.)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-paul-ehrlich-so-hard-to-ignore-doom-population-bomb-memoir-60-minutes-bad-news-evolution-11673533906?mc_cid=7cc89f3000&mc_eid=bbd9cad85f
Quotes from article:
“Mr. Ehrlich is a purveyor of “doom porn” at a time when the world has never been more prosperous. Developed countries are astonishingly rich, and even in developing nations the share of the population in absolute poverty has fallen to single digits. Mr. Ehrlich in 1968 predicted mass starvation; instead, obesity is rising, even in Africa. So why don’t people ignore him? Ignorance is no excuse when we carry the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets.
“The answer is that humans have evolved to prioritize bad news. “Organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “have a better chance to survive and reproduce.”
“As Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler explain in “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think,” our brains have limited bandwidth and need to focus when a threat arises. Most information is first sifted through the amygdala, a part of the brain that is “responsible for primal emotions like rage, hate, and fear,” Messrs. Diamandis and Kotler write. “The amygdala is always looking for something to fear.”
“That is a very powerful impulse that can deceive even the most dispassionate and rational observers. A study by Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka found that even when people expressly say they are interested in more good news, eye-tracking experiments show they are in fact much more interested in bad news.”
My point in response: Does the irrational instinct, contrary to evidence, to “always look for something to fear”- does this help explain the persistence of the apocalypse myth in modern consciousness and narratives, even in so-called rational “secular/ideological/scientific” belief systems?
Climate/weather facts:
More from atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, comment by Nic Lewis, “An Assessment of the conventional global warming narrative”, GWPF, 2022
https://www.thegwpf.org/?s=An+assessment+of+the+conventional+global+warming+narrative+richard+lindzen
Quotes from Lindzen:
“The assumptions that variations in water vapor, clouds and so on act to amplify rather than oppose the impact of CO2, in other words, they are assumed to be positive rather than negative feedbacks. It is on the egregiousness of these assumptions rather than on the greenhouse effect itself, that most skeptics (including myself) have focused…
“Earth has, in fact, many climate regimes at present. Moreover, there have been profound changes in the temperature difference between the tropics and polar regions over millennia, but at the same time the temperature of the tropical regions has remained little changed… The stability of tropical temperatures in the face of strongly varying heat fluxes out from those latitudes points to the existence of strong negative feedbacks in the radiative-convective response of the tropics…
“(Today’s climate alarmism) is accompanied by so-called ‘solutions’ that deal with something, namely decarbonization, that is, in fact, largely irrelevant to climate change, while imposing great and pointless pain…
“It is essential- to Western civilization itself- that the harm associated with this totally unwarranted alarm be ended, however difficult the task.”
Point? Over the history of life (Phanerozoic era- past 500 million years) average world temperatures were often 3-6 degrees C warmer than today and even up to 10 degrees C warmer than today’s 14.5 degrees C average. With those much warmer temperatures, warm regions of the Earth did not “fry”. Instead, the colder polar areas warmed which then meant extended habitats for more diverse life forms. The world was ice-free for over 80% of the history of life. An ice-free world is a more natural and optimal world for all life.
Why then all this irrational media hysteria today over melting ice? Some cold region species may suffer, others will adapt, and many more will benefit from an ice-free world. Note also that polar bears have been around for at least 300,000 years, meaning they have survived much warmer temperatures over the past. Some estimates of the previous interglacial- the Eemian- state that it was 3-5 degrees C warmer than our current Holocene interglacial. Let the ice melt, let the climate warm more, and lets celebrate the return to a more normal and optimal climate for all life.
Another on the recent Paul Ehrlich interview on CBS (late 2022). There is no species holocaust occurring.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/michael-shellenberger-no-humans-are-not-causing-a-sixth-mass-extinction
And let me vent this ‘peeve’ a bit more:
This comment just below is to counter the well-intentioned but too… what’s the word- too “kowtowingish” affirmation by some skeptics of the basic assumptions of the alarmist narrative. In the case below- skeptics correctly challenge the alarmist’s assumption, based on discredited models, that climate will warm to 3-6 degrees more. But they do not challenge the more basic fact that even if climate warmed that much it would not be dangerous for life.
Skeptics too often do this: They will counter that while decarbonization is too rushed, yet we still need to do something about rising CO2 and rising temperatures. Why do we need to do something? Ask yourself- What scientific evidence shows that there is a life-ending threat from rising CO2 or rising temperatures?
Aside from adapting to changing climate, just as we have always done, the best advice is do nothing about CO2 rising. And further to the contrary, instead of demonizing CO2 as a pollutant and threat, note its immense benefits to all life such as in the 15% added green vegetation to our world over the past half century. More basic plant food in the atmosphere means more food for animals, and increased crop production for humanity. What’s to fear in that?
Added note on my peeve–
Be very clear on what you are challenging and what you are still affirming, especially as this relates to the climate alarm narrative and crusade. The single most critical element in the mix of climate science has to do with “the physics of CO2” and so far there is no good evidence that rising atmospheric CO2 is any threat to life. To the contrary, there is much evidence that rising CO2 levels are an immense benefit to life (e.g. the 15% increase in green vegetation across the Earth over the past half century).
The larger paleoclimate context shows that we are still in a “CO2 starvation era” compared to past history when CO2 was in the multiple-thousands of ppm (compared to our roughly 420 ppm today). During those times there was no “climate emergency” but instead life flourished with more of its basic food. Those much higher levels of CO2 did not cause runaway climate warming. An obvious conclusion is that CO2 is not mainly responsible for climate change. Scientists continue to uncover varied other natural factors that show stronger correlations to climate change.
The rational conclusion as always- There is no good evidence that we need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. To the contrary, we ought to celebrate the return of CO2 to healthier, more optimal levels for life to flourish again.
Be careful about affirming the assumptions of the climate alarm narrative that CO2 poses some threat to life and must be fought through the decarbonization crusade (a “profoundly religious crusade”). Be clear on what the science of CO2 tells us.
Here is a good illustration of commitment to an ideology, or better- commitment to a mythology, a commitment so irrationally dogmatic (in the face of a failing alarmist narrative) that it denies plain reality and common sense… by meteorologist Anthony Watts, Jan. 15, 2023- “Wrong, Washington Post, ‘Less Warming’, Won’t Result in Greater Climate Disasters.”
Wrong, Washington Post, ‘Less Warming,’ Won’t Result in Greater Climate Disasters
And while some skeptics cheer the apparent slowing in warming- i.e. the emerging evidence that further warming may not approach the 1.5-2.0 threat limit or “tipping point” of the alarmist narrative, I would go even further to challenge the IPCC’s worst-case scenario that 3.2-5.4 degrees C more warming will be catastrophic for life- “dire for the future of the planet”. Even if that further warming occurred, would it really be a threat to life?
Paleo-climate evidence shows that for most of the history of life (over 80% of the 500-million year Phanerozoic era) average temperatures were 3-6 degrees C warmer than today (averaging 18 degrees C compared to today’s world average of 14.5 degrees C). And during that much warmer time the world was not “aflame or frying”. Already warm areas like the tropics did not ignite or become much hotter but average tropical temperatures only fluctuated by a few degrees while the polar regions warmed by much more.
Again, let me insert atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen’s comments on this (from above), “There have been profound changes in the temperature difference between the tropics and polar regions over millennia, but at the same time the temperature of the tropical regions has remained little changed… The stability of tropical temperatures in the face of strongly varying heat fluxes out from those latitudes points to the existence of strong negative feedbacks in the radiative-convective response of the tropics…”
That “equable climate” (i.e. stable tropical temperatures), even when overall average world temperatures increased up to 10 degrees C higher than today (up to 25 degrees C versus today’s 14.5 degrees C), that stable tropical climate undermines the global warming narrative. It shows that there are strong negative feedbacks that keep temperatures in the already warmest regions within a range suitable for life.
More heat energy does not inflame tropical temperatures to nonsurvivable heights, but that energy is distributed via atmospheric and oceanic convection currents to the colder regions of Earth. (Source- See the “Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” reports in sections below on the main influence on climate change- “meridional transport”.)
What happens with much higher average temperatures is that cold regions warm more, cold seasons warm more, and colder times of day warm more (i.e. night). Result? Temperatures even out across the world. The result is net beneficial to all life with extended habitats for more diverse life forms, as evident in the fossils of tropical plants and animals that have been discovered in both polar regions over past years.
And this does not include other evidence showing that CO2 is just a bit player in climate change and is not “mainly responsible” for warming. Varied other natural factors show stronger correlations to the climate change that have observed over past decades, centuries, and millennia.
As always, there is no good evidence to fear rising CO2 or further warming and hence no good evidence to tax carbon or to embrace the ruinous Net Zero policies to decarbonize our societies. Wendell Krossa
Added note on the fact that in the during the Eocene era some 55-33 million years ago, average temperatures were 10 degrees C warmer than today (25 degrees C average versus todays world average of 14.5 degrees C) and that was the “Golden Age of mammals” when our ancestors flourished.
An initial phase in eruptions of totalitarianism– the silencing of dissent or differing opinion and speech, Wendell Krossa
This is particularly worrisome when populations embrace “self-censorship” out of fear of retaliatory punishment for disagreeing with threatening powerholders. As the Jordan Peterson episode shows, this is happening now in countries like Canada and other nations that are supposedly liberal democracies.
From the National Post, Jan. 8, 2023, this article by Rupa Subramanya, “Jordan Peterson is being punished for daring to contradict leftist orthodoxy: What we have here is a regulatory body wanting to ‘re-educate’ a member who disagrees with a set of ‘correct’ opinions.”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-is-being-punished-for-daring-to-contradict-leftist-orthodoxy
Note in this article how widespread the threat of punishment for dissent/disagreement has become. While both sides of the ideological divide need to guard against the urge to vent their totalitarian impulses, today, that threat comes mainly from the “left/liberal” side of society, what some call “Woke Progressivism” gone extreme leftist, and even, in varied places, outright Marxist/collectivist again.
Others have commented on self-censorship, noting that with self-censorship you don’t need a threatening, centrally-established dictator to be present everywhere to terrorize and control everyone in a society. You just need to instill the fear of retaliation throughout all areas of the society and that then incites self-censorship among populations, what George Orwell called “intellectual cowardice”.
https://fee.org/articles/why-george-orwells-warning-on-self-censorship-is-more-relevant-than-ever/
Self-censorship is just what we are seeing with the widespread fear of cancellation for expressing opinions that differ from the Woke Progressive narrative that dominates the main forums of society- i.e. conservatives fearful of expressing their views in the main story-telling forum of Hollywood (now a “one party state”), the fear throughout academia of expressing opinion that is contrary to Woke Progressivism, and the domination of Woke Progressivism across mainstream media, in areas of science, and on the “liberal” side of politics.
Quotes from the National Post article above
“What we have here is a professional regulatory body that wants to “re-educate” someone within its ranks for failing to comply with the establishment’s ideological set of “correct” opinions, which in Canada are on the far left of the political spectrum. It’s downright Orwellian…
“The action against Peterson and similar actions by other professional bodies are clearly intended to have a chilling effect, preventing those who don’t share the establishment’s views from airing their dissenting opinions. Even in Canada’s universities, where professors — in theory — have a protected right of academic freedom, many may choose to self-censor, for fear of running afoul of administrators, funding agencies and others who will attempt to cancel them in one way or another.
“The idea of re-educating a professional simply for holding views that differ from the current ruling ideology sounds bizarre in a place like Canada, but has always been standard operating procedure in authoritarian countries, whether on the far left or the far right…
“Those who wish to silence free speech in liberal democracies such as Canada don’t have the total power of the Soviet state, but nor do they need it. All you have to do to silence people is discredit them professionally, thereby preventing them from working and earning a living and likely causing grievous psychological harm…
“In such a climate of fear, how many rank-and-file professionals such as doctors, lawyers, professors and teachers will be able to speak honestly to their clients, students or in the public square, now that they’ve been put on notice that it’s simply unacceptable to question official political orthodoxy?”
My added notes:
I am quite flabbergasted, flummoxed, and filibustered (OCD demands triads that don’t always make sense) by the apparent widespread lack of understanding of the critical role of free speech for all, especially the lack of awareness on the left side of our societies, the “liberal” side that we once associated with things like inclusion, full equality for all, tolerance of diversity, and other highly valued principles of liberal society (Classic Liberal, that is).
Today, if you are in a position of power, you may reason yourself into the perspective of feeling entitled to censor the other that disagrees with your ideology. But tomorrow, when the differing other gains power, or perhaps even if the extremists on your side gain power, then your refusal to protect equally the free speech for all, that will come back to hit you also with censorship. Someone remind Sam Harris about this. (See Glen Greenwald’s post- “The Elitist Corporate Media Attacks Populism” where he quotes Sam Harris defending the Twitter censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop. Harris was once a free speech advocate, but now hedges that support.)
And be careful even about going after what is termed- “hate speech”. Who defines this? You or the other side? Too often we are seeing the hate speech category extended to include even disagreeing/dissenting speech from differing others. Claims are too often being made that the speech of disagreeing others is now “hate speech… speech that causes violence… speech that threatens the safety of others…”, etc. Some even include jokes as speech that threatens their sense of safety. Such claims confuse actual threats to physical safety with offended/hurt feelings and the easily-offended touchiness that refuses to take a joke, or refuses to thoughtfully consider the intentions behind the speech of the differing other.
The malicious and careless use of smears to discredit and demonize differing others has become too widely acceptable today. Some of the more common demonizing smears: “Nazi/Hitler… racist…. Fascist…. Misinformation/disinformation… threat to democracy…. Hate speech…” and more, are all flung around irresponsibly by those believing that they are heroes in a righteous battle against intolerable evil on the other side, against “enemies” that do not deserve recognition, respect, or toleration today.
This has all become dangerously authoritarian, even totalitarian today. Time to become truly “woke” and realize what is happening. Wendell Krossa
Private property rights- critical to dispersed power, to protect against totalitarianism, Wendell Krossa
Added note to comment further below on the two main approaches to organizing human societies and the outcomes of each approach- i.e. collectivism versus free individuals.
Private property is a critical element to dispersed, decentralized power and protection against the ever-creeping impulse to totalitarian power and control. Ownership and control of the resources of a society has been vital to the centralizing of power in totalitarian regimes (e.g. the “nationalization” of sectors of the economy). Centralizing control of property/resources re-enforces the power of collectivist elites.
Hence, collectivist regimes have consistently rejected private property rights with arguments that private property is the marker of “selfish, greedy” individualism that is contrary to the collectivist ideal of the communally oriented man- the “morally superior” human who is oriented to the “greater or common good”. Collectivists understand well that control of a society’s material resources ensures the collectivist control of the society. Central control of resources grants more power to the ruling elites who claim to know what is best for all others.
We have repeatedly observed the disasters (i.e. mass-death) that resulted from collectivizing resources and power. Previous examples: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-un, and others. The death tolls from these collectivist experiments are in the multiple-tens of millions, even hundreds of millions.
Note: Some added comment regarding previous articles on the two main approaches to organizing human societies- i.e. giving primacy to individual rights and freedoms versus giving primacy to collectivism principles. Wendell Krossa
The critical importance of “Self-determination” in the individual approach to organizing societies (Understanding the benefits of protecting individual rights and freedoms).
There is interesting psychological research on the importance of self-control to human well-being (self-control as in personal choice, self-determination). Some research notes how the varied positions in societal hierarchies will either enhance or undermine self-control, and hence, enhance or undermine human well-being.
Research shows that people in the higher positions of hierarchies have more opportunity for personal choice and that enhances their well-being, whereas lower hierarchical positions grant people less personal choice and that undermines the well-being those in the lower positions. The argument is not to eliminate hierarchies in human societies but more about how we treat one another within such inevitable bureaucratic relationships; how we relate to one another in such relationships (i.e. the superiors/subordinates relationship). Think “bosses from hell”, as compared to supervisors that treat subordinates more humanely.
This also relates to Frederik Hayek’s concern that the growth of the state, as in excessive government control and intervention (i.e. “big government”- excessive government regulation and taxation)- such excessive state involvement and control over citizens lives will produce populations that lose their independence and their ability to self-determine their personal lives and destinies.
This also relates to issues of “learned helplessness”- where personal choice and personal control are taken away, or given away.
Again, its not about eliminating traditional relationships like boss/worker, teacher/student, commander/grunt soldier, etc.. It is about embracing ways of treating one another more humanely within such relationships. Its about understanding how critical personal control is to human well-being and how the sense of having some power over one’s destiny will enhance the programs/projects of the institutions or organizations that we all engage.
Further notes on self-determination or personal control, Wendell Krossa
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1803-1#:~:text=Personal%20control
“Personal control refers to “the perceived ability to significantly alter events” (Burger 1989). A high personal control corresponds to a belief that one can change the course of events, whereas a low personal control represents the lack of such belief.”
One suggestion regarding relating in hierarchies- Regard/treat all employees as “independent contractors” who have independently agreed to employment contracts with organizations. Those in higher-up supervisory roles could also embrace the same stance that politicians once claimed to advocate- i.e. to authentically “serve the people”. Supervisory or administrative roles would not then be engaged as opportunities to “lord over others”, but would function more as fulfilling the administrative responsibilities that enable workers to perform their varied jobs.
Bottom-up democracy advocates offer interesting input regarding decisions made by administrative personnel that affect subordinates. They suggest that such decisions should include, as much as possible, the input of the subordinate workers, as the effort to consult others will result in workers feeling more inclined to “buy into” the decisions that impact them. Workers will be more willing to support the decisions that they feel they had a part in making (i.e. the belief that one has some control over one’s destiny).
Whereas, when subordinates are excluded from decision making, or subjected to decisions that are then handed down accompanied by threats of punishment for failure to comply, decisions that are implemented coercively, that heavy-handed approach then tends to result in worker resentment, bitterness, and the consequent undermining of support for organization programs (i.e. employees dragging their feet in carrying out orders). Or it results in higher turnover of employees with the consequent costly training of new replacements, the loss of people with skills and wisdom that were built over long-time periods.
The above research adds good input on how to practise the principles of liberal democracy, how Classic Liberalism approaches should operate at all levels of society. This is about liberal democracies implementing their values of equality, inclusion, fairness, and the primacy of individual rights and freedoms.
Someone said the worst dictators are not those in power centers far away but are the “bosses from hell” that exist in workplaces and offices all over nations. Add those little dictators in private homes- i.e. over-controlling parents from hell.
“The week that was”
http://www.sepp.org/the-week-that-was.cfm?twtwyearview=2022
And this good summary from Sterling Burnett on the sun’s dominant role in climate change, Jan. 13, 2023:
“Climate Change Weekly #458: Bad Climate Assumptions, Worse Climate Predictions”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” So begins Elizabeth Barret Browning’s famous Sonnet 43. What does that have to do with climate change, you ask? Browning’s poem has parallels to our understanding of the myriad physical mechanisms that drive climate change. “What affects the climate? Let me count the factors. …” Some people just don’t want to do that.
“Recent research published in the International Journal of Climatology, a peer-reviewed scientific publication of the Royal Meteorological Society, suggests cycles of warming and cooling and associated climate phenomena are driven in large part by periodic solar and ocean oscillations. The well-funded researchers for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consistently underappreciate or ignore these factors in fashioning the climate models they use to represent the world.
“Examining extended tree-ring data of the Scots pine of northern Finnish Lapland, stretching to the year 5,634 B.C, the researchers found multiple and sometimes overlapping natural cycles of various durations throughout the record, tracking temperature shifts on short, medium, and longer-term time scales. Among the most direct and profound drivers of temperature shifts on short time scales are large, powerful volcanic eruptions.
“Other natural cycles that drive climate shifts of various durations, regionally and sometimes globally, are oceanic circulation patterns, including La Niña and El Niño cycles, and over longer time periods the Atlantic and Pacific multidecadal oscillations. Though these forcing mechanisms are not the focus of the paper, they are well-established in the literature. No Tricks Zone provides links to dozens, possibly hundreds of journal articles published over the past decade that suggest oceanic cycles do not just correspond to climate changes but have driven them in many instances.
“The paper focuses instead on the role solar cycles of various lengths play in changing temperatures and climate. In the paper’s abstract the authors write,
“The mechanism and even the existence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) have remained under debate among climate researchers, and the same applies to general temperature oscillations of a 60–90-year period. The objective of this study is to show that these temperature oscillations are real and not artifacts and that these oscillations have different external cosmic origins. The authors have studied how well the variations of astronomical harmonic resonances (AHR) could explain the 60-year temperature variations, which are based on instrumental records. …
“The similarities between the temperatures of the tree-ring trend and the AHR trend are easy to observe even by the naked eye. The statistical analysis shows that these two signals are statistically related. The analyses also show that the well-known Gleissberg cycle of 88 years is the dominating cycle caused by the Suns’ [sic] activity changes but the observed 60-year cycle can be connected to the AHR cyclicity.
“The Finnish scholars are by no means the first to recognize that the Sun, the single greatest power source in our solar system, has a significant and perhaps dominant influence on climate shifts. Scholars such as Nir Shaviv, Willie Soon, the late Eigil Friis-Christensen, Sallie Baliunas, and Hans Svensmark, among many others, have spent large portions of their academic careers studying, analyzing, and describing the various ways solar activity drives periodic climate changes on Earth.
“Also, rarely does the public hear anything about water vapor, which makes up 97 to 98 percent of atmospheric greenhouse gases or clouds, which, depending on the type, can have either a cooling or warming effect. This virtual media blackout happens even though hundreds of journal articles and even the IPCC attest clouds affect the climate.
“Other known factors that drive major climate changes on long- and medium-term time scales are the changes in the Earth’s tilt and orbit and, over eons, continental drift. These and probably myriad other factors result in climate changes on local, regional, continental, and global scales over various time periods.
“Despite all this evidence, you would not know anything other than human greenhouse gas emissions drives temperatures on the Earth and changes in the climate, if you heard only reports from the mainstream media or read the IPCC’s massive Assessment Reports. The causal mechanism behind climate change should be the strongest part of the IPCC’s reports, yet it is in fact the weakest. Although the IPCC downplays the prominent benefits humanity has been blessed with because of climate change over the past century or so, its descriptions of climate change’s impact on weather are largely sound, describing facts on the ground. The explanations for why these changes take place, however, are woefully inadequate because the IPCC has placed all its explanatory eggs in one basket: greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human activities.
“Interestingly, over the course of its six assessment reports the IPCC has produced multiple graphics describing a range of forcing factors, or physical mechanisms natural and anthropogenic, that influence climate. These factors have changed from report to report, with some factors being dropped from one report to the next, other factors being combined, and still others being added. Yet the only climate influences the IPCC claims to understand well, and the only mechanisms put into their climate models as forcing factors, are human greenhouse gas emissions. Natural forcing factors are either assumed to have minimal, poorly understood effects on temperatures and climate or, as with oceanic oscillations, treated as if they have no effect at all.
“In contrast to natural factors that affect climate that are ignored or downplayed in the models, the models incorporate various sets of “feedback” mechanisms as temperature and climate change multipliers, enhancing the assumed warming and changes caused directly by additional CO2, methane, and other trace gases humans are adding to the atmosphere. These feedback forcings, and how they supposedly function, are based purely on speculation, assumptions built into the models, not observed behavior of the environmental mechanisms involved or data accumulated over time describing how these factors have acted in the past in response to environmental perturbations such as temperature changes.
“This is emblematic of the topsy-turvy world of climate science. Scientists use climate models they know downplay or fail to account for myriad physical factors that are known to alter temperatures and climate, because they are little-understood or difficult to model, while they incorporate forcings from feedback mechanisms based purely on the assumptions of the modelers. Theory trumps fact in climate models. The outcome is assumed—carbon dioxide equals dangerous warming—with the data and assumptions forced to fit the predetermined conclusion.
“This may account for why, after thirty years and six sets of assessment reports, the IPCC’s range of possible temperature outcomes has not improved and the temperature outcomes of the present iteration of models, CMIP6, are even worse than the previous generation of models at tracking actual temperature trends. Models have persistently projected warmer temperatures and steeper temperature trends than have been measured, with CMIP6 models producing hotter temperature projections than any before them. If the IPCC can’t account well for the factors that drive temperatures and climate change, and for some factors it doesn’t even try, it is no wonder the models’ projections consistently fail to match reality.
“It’s like trying to build a functioning car without installing hoses or wiring. Yes, the engine, transmission, and tires are important, but so are many other systems. It ain’t going to work, and by and large climate models don’t. They produce elegant representations of a climate that does not exist anywhere but on the fictional Earth the models describe.
“Climate scolds foolishly try to defend their models by saying when they run them without including human greenhouse gas emissions they don’t produce the warming the analysts expect. Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Their expectations are based on an incomplete understanding of the range and direction of effects of various forcing factors. Their models, focusing only on human greenhouse gases, may match their expectations of warming, but they don’t correspond to reality. What about that do the IPCC and the mainstream media not understand? In science, it is data and observation, not theory and models, that determine the state of knowledge.
“To sum up: Are human greenhouse gas emissions affecting the climate? Almost certainly. How could they not do so to some degree? Are they the only factors that drive temperatures and climate change? Absolutely not. Do we know for certain that human greenhouse gases are solely or even primarily responsible for the recent changes in climate? We do not. Only those who trust the flawed models instead of hard evidence can truly believe we do. Is climate change having disastrous consequences, producing more extreme weather more frequently? The data say no.
“When making energy and climate policy, these are the premises we should proceed upon. We need more knowledge, not rash actions based on flawed representations of the climate.
“SOURCES: Climate Change Dispatch; International Journal of Climatology; No Tricks Zone”
Note in this article below, as with the statements of many others, there are elements of something other than “science” or “evidence” that are motivating the prophets of doom and apocalypse… Just sayin…
Ralph Schoellhammer: “Climate activism isn’t about the planet. It’s about the boredom of the bourgeoisie”, Newsweek, Jan. 15, 2023
Full article at…
https://www.newsweek.com/climate-activism-isnt-about-planet-its-about-boredom-bourgeoisie-opinion-1773846
“The downfall of capitalism will not come from the uprising of an impoverished working class but from the sabotage of a bored upper class.
“This was the view of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter believed that at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.
“Nothing makes me think Schumpeter was right like the contemporary climate movement and its acolytes. The Green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis as so many in media and culture like to depict it, but rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
“Take for example a recent interview with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Ehrlich is most famous for his career as a professional doom monger. His first major book, The Population Bomb, gave us timelessly wrong predictions, including that by the 1980s, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death and it went downhill from there. Ehrlich assured us that England would no longer exist in the year 2000, that even modern fertilizers would not enable us to feed the world, and that thermonuclear power was just around the corner.
“Ehrlich, who recently turned 90, is in the lucky position to have witnessed the complete failure of all his predictions—only to double down on them in his 60 Minutes interview. Ehrlich has been wrong on every public policy issue he pontificated on for almost 60 years, yet the mainstream media still treat him like a modern oracle.
“Why?
“The best answer to this question comes courtesy of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2019 famously said that, “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.” In other words, no matter what nonsense one spews, as long as it is “morally right,” it does not matter what the facts show.
“Like the prophet of any religion, Ehrlich is not there to explain the world but to reinforce the upper class’s favorite worldview of the imminent end of the world, something that can only be prevented if we fundamentally change the way we live. Of course, by “we,” they actually mean “you.” It’s not the Tesla driving AOC or the jet-setting Stanford professor Ehrlich who will adapt their lifestyles, but the rubes of the working- and middle-class who supposedly eat too much meat, drive too many miles on gas-guzzling cars, or even book the occasional flight to go on vacation.
“This was perfectly embodied by climate czar and millionaire John Kerry who took his family’s private jet to attend a climate change conference in Iceland in 2019. Asked by journalists how to square his climate activism with the use of private planes, he seemed befuddled; after all, Kerry explained, “it is the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle” against climate change….
“Just like Kerry, Ehrlich, and these other groups are not really interested in solving the problem of climate change…. Instead, they wish to elevate their struggle to an ersatz-religion that allows them to simultaneously enjoy their wealth and lecture the rest of the world from a position of moral superiority… they enjoy lecturing the rest of society just as much as Ehrlich and his acolytes.
“This isn’t about the planet. It’s about the boredom of the bourgeoisie.”
Ralph Schoellhammer is an assistant professor in economics and political science at Webster University Vienna.