“I hold undying enmity toward everything that enslaves the human mind” (paraphrase of unknown author).
This site continues to present evidence from varied sources affirming that there is no “climate crisis” and hence no need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. Basic climate facts show there is no looming climate apocalypse. CO2 is not the “control knob” for climate change. CO2 is not the main influence on climate but is only a “bit player” among a complex of other natural factors. See, for example, the “Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” reports below that show “meridional transport” is the main influence on climate change. Point? There is no need to abandon the fossil fuels that have enabled humanity to prosper as never before in history.
The real “wonder of being human”
The great wonder regarding humanity is not how far we have “fallen” since some imaginary better past (i.e. the myths of original paradise world, Eden, sinless humans, but then the “Fall of humanity into original sinfulness”, and subsequent ruin and loss of paradise). The great wonder regarding humanity is how far we have risen from our barbaric animal past (Bob Brinsmead).
Get the basics of a true narrative of life right, the actual trajectory of life (i.e. not declining, but improving over the long term). Overturn and correct the continuing mythical distortions in the story of life, whether religious or “secular/ideological” distortions. The basic themes of the old narratives are all the same, whether expressed religiously or ideologically/scientifically. Evidence overwhelmingly affirms a new narrative of life improving, based on the growing evidence of humanity solving problems, improving the human condition, and taking better care of nature.
And this critical warning from Jordan Peterson on eco-extremism…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/28/eco-extremists-leading-world-towards-despair-poverty-starvation/
Topics below:
(1) Rejecting rational science, holding a mythical perspective;
(2) Latest summary of the “Sun-climate effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis”;
(3) Counter facts to the climate alarm narrative (there is no evidence of a “climate emergency”);
(4) The climate alarmism crusade is “profoundly religious” (the complex of primitive apocalyptic themes that shape climate alarmism and environmental alarmism/declinism ideology in general);
(5) The Sun-climate effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” (“meridional transport” is the main influence on climate, not CO2);
(6) We are in the coldest time of the 600-million year history of life on Earth (cold is the far greater threat today in our world where 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warmth);
(7) Climate physics (the physics of CO2- i.e. the warming effect of CO2 is now “saturated” in physics terms, meaning it won’t contribute much more to further warming as the warming effect of CO2 now declines logarithmically);
(8) Is climate change really a “serious issue”? (taking a poke at a National Post writer);
(9) Greg Gutfeld: “Common sense can no longer defuse absurd situations” (Woke extremism);
(10) Waiting around to be offended (the deranged psychology of outrage culture);
(11) Media obsession in relating all natural weather events to the alarmism narrative of “climate crisis”;
(12) Despite media’s constant crusade to incite ongoing hysteria over all sorts of weather events, there is no evidence that storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts, or other weather disasters are becoming worse (the endless mantra of “the worst on record”) and, in fact, many show trends of decline due to the mild warming of the past century. Global warming produces a decrease in gradient differences between cold and warm areas of the world means less severity and quantity of storms, fewer and less severe tornadoes, etc. This beneficial outcome is due to “meridional transport” that carries tropical warmth to the colder polar regions of Earth thereby “evening out” climate across the world and explaining the “remarkable stability of tropical temperatures” even when Earth was 10 degrees warmer over the paleoclimate past.; and more…
Get the physics of CO2 clear and that will go a long way to defusing the madness of the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade (i.e. enabling “common sense to defuse absurd situations”). Note particularly the research of climate physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, William Wijngaarden, among others.
Mircea Eliade (History of Religious Ideas): Eliade defined apocalyptic mythology (i.e. life declining toward something worse, toward an apocalypse) as the belief that “the present moment is a degeneration from all previous moments”.
James Payne on “Presentism”:
“The tendency to assume the events of the present are larger, more important, or more shocking than events of the past” (History of Force, p.8).
Climate alarmists engage the fallacy of presentism in their claims that the weather events that we experience today are worse than any in the past (the incessant media claim of “worst on record”, meaning the anecdotal-like or cherry-picked distortion that refers to just the last few decades or last century). Evidence shows that the climate change of today is mild compared to the major swings in climate change over the paleoclimate past (see, for example, the graph of climate swings over the past 50,000 years on p. 33 of Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth”). Presentism leads people to believe that the events they experience today are worse than all that has happened before because we experience it personally and firsthand.
Michael Shellenberger wrote a recent essay on “The quiet desperation of Woke fanatics” at
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/the-quiet-desperation-of-woke-fanatics
Shellenberger probes the “true believer” mania behind the “nihilism” of climate fanaticism. He raises questions about what fuels the overall “madness of crowds” mass delusion that denies good evidence showing that there is no climate crisis, to claim the opposite- that there is a looming apocalyptic climate crisis.
Rejecting rational science, holding a mythical perspective– Wendell Krossa
In the material below I am pointing to something out there- i.e. the prominence of apocalyptic thinking in contemporary Declinism- the most dominant and influential theme/ideology in the world today (Evidence of dominance? YouGov survey- a majority of the world population believe the “world is getting worse”). Declinism shapes general environmental alarmism, and the related crusade- climate alarmism.
Why the ongoing obsession with one of the greatest pathologies in human perception- i.e. the fallacy of life declining toward apocalypse? How do we understand this obsession? The comment below on Herman’s work points to this issue of many people holding myth as primary for informing their views of life, against factual evidence to the contrary, as climate alarmists are doing with their anti-science climate apocalypse narrative.
I make reference to mythologies like “Deep Ecology”, and I have read Morris Berman’s book “The Re-Enchantment of the World”. But that was decades ago, so for the comment below I relied on second-hand summaries in my references to that book and related topics (i.e. summaries in Herman’s work and Amazon reviews of Berman’s book). Its like when I read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”- I did that years ago just to familiarize myself with her actual comments firsthand, but I had to push myself to read it against the feeling of wasting precious time, and certainly not wanting to reread such material even when making more recent comment on it.
Now the issue under consideration- Why the continuing modern preference for myth over factual science? This is partly a response to the complaint that scientific evidence is changing few minds regarding the apocalyptic climate change narrative.
In his excellent history of Declinism, “The Idea of Decline in Western History”, Arthur Herman explains something of why declinists reject strictly rational science for a return to a more mythically-informed perspective, notably to embrace the primitive mythology of apocalyptic decline. He also traces out the related element of “degeneration theory”, an essential feature of Declinism ideology- i.e. the belief that modern humanity has degenerated or progressively become something worse in civilization, in industrial capitalism.
(Insert note: Belief in the myth of decline against evidence to the contrary? Yes, James Payne’s “History of Force”, Stephen Pinker’s “Better Angels of Our Nature”, Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”, Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On The Earth”, Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, and… Oh, I could add so many more to this list of researchers who provide good evidence that exposes the fallacy of declinism mythology…)
Believers in the myth of human degeneration over time hold the view that the modern embrace of rational science was part of the degeneration of humanity in modern civilization. Declinism theorists in general viewed the move of humanity into contemporary scientific, industrial civilization as a decline, a degeneration from a better past. Declinists believe that ancient tribal peoples were a more strong and pure version of humanity- the original undefiled human race before the “Fall”. And essential to that original purity and strength was the primitive mythical worldview of the ancients. Humanity has subsequently degenerated in modern civilization, becoming more corrupted, weakened, too oriented to rational/empirical science for understanding the world, alienated from nature, a lesser form of human being.
The “degeneration of humanity theory” draws on the larger worldview of primitive mythology- i.e. the myth that there was an original paradise, a perfect world at the beginning, and that early people (tribal humanity) were more connected to nature (worshippers of nature). Primitive people were strong and pure, not corrupted yet by sinful desires, or afflicted with disease and death. But then those early people became corrupted or “fell into a state of sinfulness”, created “nature-destroying” human civilization, and thereby ruined the original paradise world. Humanity has now been dehumanized to the state of being viewed as a “cancer/virus” on nature, an unwelcome intruder into the natural world.
Declinists believe that the “fall” and decline of modern humanity became even worse as the human race has degenerated further under the corrupting influence of modern civilization. Part of the degeneration of humanity in civilization was the embrace of the empirical, rational science of the modern world. The degeneration of humanity included the abandonment of the mythical thinking of previous more pure, stronger versions of humanity before the fall in modern civilization. See chapters like “The Multiculturalist Impulse” in Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline”, specifically p.399.
Herman notes that movements like “Deep Ecology” hold a mythical perspective as superior to a rational scientific perspective (e.g. Arne Naesse, Ernst Haeckel). Deep Ecology describes itself as “going beyond the so-called factual scientific level to the level of Self and Earth wisdom” (p.415). Add here the replacement of traditional religious theology with the worship of nature. Deep ecologists argue there must be a “re-enchantment of the world” to counter the overly-secularized, scientific way of viewing life that has rendered people “out of harmony” with the natural world.
Re-enchantment is part of the desired return to a “more natural and hence more pure’” existence as in the primitive past before civilization, in the era of the supposed “noble savage”-i.e. the original strong and pure human. The movement of humanity away from that past was a “fall of man” in civilization and particularly into modern industrial, technological capitalism.
Holding the above views, declinists believe that essential to the recovery/restoration of humanity from its fall is to restore a more mythical way of viewing life as essential to healthy human outlook. Herman adds that, for example, Al Gore embraces the view of mythical thinking as superior knowledge in his stated belief that “religion, not science, is the source of true insight into nature” (p.435- Idea of Decline). Gore also believes that the “climate crisis” is the apocalypse of the book of Revelation unfolding in today’s world.
In summary, apocalyptic Declinism rejects the pre-eminence of rational science for a more mythical understanding of life. It rejects science for mythology as part of the return to a purer primitivism when humanity was its better self- i.e. the “noble savage” mythology that still dominates academia today.
And this helps to understand the contemporary embrace, by many people, of primitive myths like the decline of life toward apocalyptic ending.
Both Left and Right sides of the political spectrum are guilty here in their embrace of similar primitive mythologies at the core of their narratives (in terms of core themes)- the Right for its embrace of Christian apocalyptic (the religious version) and the Left for its embrace of “secular/ideological” versions of apocalyptic mythology as in environmental/climate apocalyptic.
The embrace of mythology as primary over factual science is evident in the denial of contrary fact for an embrace of the ideas that affirm one’s own beliefs (i.e. confirmation bias). Note how this exhibits in the denial of the destructive outcomes from decarbonization policies and the uselessness of renewables to respond to the world energy crisis- i.e. the fanatical commitment to believe one’s narrative without evidence and even in the face of contrary facts. (For example: After almost $4 trillion spent on renewables, they still provide only about 1% of the world’s energy needs.) https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/25/goldman-sachs-jeff-currie-3-8-trillion-of-investment-in-renewables-moved-fossil-fuels-from-82-to-81-of-overall-energy-consumption-in-10-years/
In all this we see how emotional commitment to one’s story or narrative trumps factual evidence that is contrary to one’s story or narrative. Consequently, the complaint of many today that scientific fact does not seem to change many minds regarding the apocalyptic climate crisis narrative. Story, notably mythical story themes like apocalyptic, takes precedence over factual reality in many people’s narratives.
Conclusion:
There is no greater evidence of this obsession with mythical thinking than the climate crisis crusade that has tsunamied across the world. It denies evidence that the mild warming of the past century has immensely benefitted life that is still emerging from the horrific cold of the pre-industrial Little Ice Age of 1645-1715. And the climate crisis crusade does not acknowledge the evidence that more plant food (i.e. more atmospheric CO2) has benefitted life with an amazing greening of the Earth (15% more green vegetation on Earth, meaning more food for animals and increased crop production for humanity). A warmer world also means fewer deaths from cold in world where currently 10 times more die every year from cold than from warmth. This factual evidence is denied by alarmists committed to the apocalyptic narrative of purported looming “climate crisis” if Earth warms a bit more (the 1.5-2.0 degree C “tipping point” to catastrophe) even though we are still in the coldest part of our Holocene interglacial.
True believers in apocalyptic mythology, committed to an apocalypse, deny all this evidence-based improvement in life for the myth-based exaggerations that affirm their alarmist narrative- i.e. the obsessive claims in media that every natural weather event is more evidence of looming disaster.
Richard Landes (Heaven on Earth) notes that even as the predicted apocalypse of an apocalyptic millennial movement fails to materialize, the true believers in the decline toward catastrophic ending still desperately seek more evidence of signs that the apocalypse is still coming. They hold the feverish hope that the apocalypse will actually occur and affirm their faith (“self-fulfilling prophecy” syndrome). Hence, the doubling down on decarbonization madness even as evidence mounts that it is ruining societies (e.g. Britain, Germany, California, Sri Lanka- See the Net Zero Watch newsletters of the Global Warming Policy Forum).
Unfortunately, apocalyptic mythology continues to dominate the world today both in religious and ideological versions (i.e. Declinism) as noted in the world survey showing that a majority of people believe that “the world is becoming worse”, against much contrary evidence affirming the long-term, overall improvement of life as evident on many key indicators of the true state of life.
Rational, factual science must shape story/narrative.
Apocalyptic declinism is the most contrary of all mythology to factual reality.
Added note:
William Bernstein has argued in “The Birth of Plenty” that a key trait to a successful society is to abandon a mythical/religious approach to life and to embrace a rational scientific approach to life. This does not deny the ongoing validity of holding spiritual views of reality and life. But when holding such views, do not deny what actual evidence has proven regarding life. Be sure to incorporate good evidence into your views and story of life.
Keep the basics of the climate debate clear:
Yes, climate is changing. And yes, CO2 has a warming effect or influence on climate. But that warming effect has now become “saturated” in physics terms and is logarithmically declining. Further rises in CO2 will add very little to any further possible warming.
It is critical to understand the role of CO2 in climate change in order to respond with evidence to the political choice made in the 1980s to focus on CO2 with the claim that it was the dominant influence on climate change. That political interference and choice denied decades of subsequent research showing that CO2 was just a “bit player” among other natural factors that more prominently influenced climate change. (See the “Sun-climate effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” reports listed below)
The warming that has occurred- 1 degree C over the past century- has been mild and beneficial in a cold world where 10 times more people die from cold every year than die from warmth.
With the mild 1 degree C warming, storms, floods, heat waves, droughts and other natural weather events have not become worse but in many cases have been declining over past decades/centuries due to the lessening gradient differences between warm and cold regions of Earth.
All to say- there is no need to tax carbon, to decarbonize, or to end the human use of fossil fuels. Scientific fact on climate does not support such policies that are proving ruinously harmful to our societies.
Dozens of Climate Models Wildly Exaggerate Extent of Global Warming
This from the latest summary of the “Sun-climate effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis”
Quotes from the link:
“The Earth displays very little temperature variability from year to year, but there is no reason to think we properly understand the mechanisms involved in Earth’s temperature stability. And, certainly, the idea that two-degrees of global warming is dangerous is absurd…
“… although the climate system is entirely powered by solar irradiance, what determines Earth’s temperature is what the climate system does with that energy. Yet, the climate system is extremely complex. As Leon Barry and colleagues say in the quote in the beginning of this talk, modern climatology lacks a proper theory of how energy moves within our planet’s climate system. It is possible to model what is not properly understood, but to believe such a model is foolish…
“The climate during the Early Eocene hothouse was quite warm by today’s standards. The average global surface temperature reached 10 degrees C warmer than today. The so-called “burst of mammalian first appearances” occurred at this time. One of the mammals that first appeared during the Early Eocene was the first primate, our distant ancestor. Primates quickly spread around the world. Besides new mammals, many new genera of turtles, lizards, and plants evolved and thrived during this time.…
“There is still controversy about tropical temperatures during the last glacial maximum, but it appears that they were only 1-2 degrees C colder than present. This is consistent with evidence presented by Chris Scotese and colleagues that tropical temperatures have not changed much over the course of the past 540 million years despite huge changes in the average temperature of the planet (9–30°C). You will notice in Figure 3 that the very warm Early Eocene hothouse climate has a similar temperature at the equator to the present day, but the difference at the South Pole is 44°C and it is 23°C at the North Pole. Clearly, most of the warming occurs in the higher latitudes.
“If the last glacial maximum creates a problem for how meridional transport operates during a glacial period, the equable climate of the Early Eocene results in a paradox that modern consensus climatology cannot solve. Currently the Earth is in a severe icehouse climate with a very steep latitudinal temperature gradient as the right-hand graph in Figure 3 makes very clear. Currently, temperature falls by 0.6–1°C/°latitude from the equator to the winter pole. Such a cold environment has been relatively rare during the past 540 million years, existing less than 10% of the time. The Early Eocene Earth had an average temperature estimated at 24-25 degrees C, that Scotese describes as hothouse conditions. The Early Eocene latitudinal temperature gradient was very shallow, at 0.25–0.45°C/°latitude, with temperatures at the North Pole above freezing all year round, as attested to by the presence of frost-intolerant biota. These hothouse conditions have been even rarer. Over 60% of the Phanerozoic Eon the Earth had an average temperature of 19-20 degrees C. The average global surface temperature of the entire Phanerozoic—the past 540 million years—is a very pleasant 18°C, about 3.5°C warmer than today…
“The climate of the Early Eocene is defined as equable. It is characterized by a warm world with a low latitudinal temperature gradient, low seasonality, and fewer mid- and high-latitude storms than today. The failure of modern consensus climate theory to explain these periods has been termed the “equable climate problem”. To reproduce the Early Eocene warm continental interior temperatures and above freezing winter polar regions, models must raise CO2 levels to 4700 ppm, use an implausible climate sensitivity to CO2, and allow tropical temperatures to exceed 35°C. However, the best CO2 estimates for the Early Eocene climatic optimum place probable CO2 levels at 500-1000 ppm, and the highest estimates are less than 2,000.
“Further, it is unlikely that tropical temperatures above 30 degrees C are possible, due to the efficiency of heat removal through evaporation and deep convection (the convection of moist air to the upper troposphere) at that temperature. Also, mammals cannot survive above a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees C, where they become unable to lose heat. Yet, fossils show us that mammals thrived in the Early Eocene. The highest wet-bulb temperature on Earth today is 30°C, and there is no reason to think it has been higher at any time in the past at places where mammal fossils are found…
“The lower atmosphere is a thin film of gas, just 1/600 of the Earth diameter (or about 10 km). This thin atmosphere has the crucial role of always maintaining a land surface temperature compatible with complex life, something it has done for at least the past 540 million years…
“The three factors responsible for Earth’s thermal stability then are the greenhouse effect, clouds, and meridional transport. Modern climatology ignores the last two and focuses exclusively on the first, by developing the CO2 “control knob” climate hypothesis. The effect of clouds and their variability on climate change is still largely unknown. According the IPCC AR6 report (on page 979) cloud feedback to surface warming could be positive or negative and it is the largest source of uncertainty in the effect of greenhouse gases on the climate…
“Earth’s global average surface temperature varies 3.8°C every year. The high temperature is in July and the low temperature in January. Thus, it is difficult to take the IPCC warnings about two degrees of warming over the next 100 years seriously.
“Earth’s tropics receive much more solar energy than they can radiate to outer space. This sets up many elaborate natural processes to move energy toward the poles where the net flow of energy is to outer space. Changes in this energy flow can cause climate change…
“Geologists have devised a methodology that makes use of Wladimir Köppen’s climate belts to reconstruct past global average temperatures. The reconstructions have a very low temporal resolution and only determine one global average surface temperature every five million years, but the process is reasonable. Our present climate is unusually cold in Earth’s history, colder than 90% of the past 540 million years. Temperatures in the tropics do not vary much, global warming or global cooling mainly takes place in the mid- to high-latitude regions.
“Storminess increases in periods with a larger latitudinal temperature gradient because most excess tropical energy from the tropics is transported in storms. As global warming reduces the gradient, fewer storms are expected.
“Summary of Climate Model problems
“These models cannot explain why the frequency of Northern Hemisphere cold mid-latitude winters has increased. They cannot simulate the Early Eocene warm conditions without using unrealistic CO2 levels and climate sensitivity to CO2.
“They cannot explain why species diversity, especially mammalian diversity, increased in the Early Eocene, when global temperatures were ten degrees warmer. They cannot explain why there was no Arctic warming when global warming peaked between 1980 and 1997, yet it did increase after 1997 when warming slowed.
“Further, this seriously dated hypothesis (i.e. CO2 as the “control knob” for climate change) was constructed before the discovery of all the multidecadal ocean oscillations and their connections to solar activity. Considerable evidence has been uncovered since 1979 that climate change is not simply a function of changing greenhouse gas concentrations, but much more complex, with a lot of natural input.
“It is especially worrisome that the Early Eocene warming and the current Arctic warming cannot be explained with the IPCC greenhouse gas climate change hypothesis. These problems alone are enough to invalidate the hypothesis. Beating a dead horse comes to mind.”
Another note: Enough already with the incessant cautious kowtowing to the “climate alarm narrative” and the obligatory follow-up “need to do something” to avert the purported looming apocalypse, meaning- embrace some form of decarbonization. Offer something of the now amassed evidence affirming the alternative realization that there is no “climate crisis” and hence no need to tax carbon or embrace the ruinous decarbonization of our societies.
The endless panic-mongering by media over melting ice in our world is pathologically anti-science.
Basic Science: 4 Keys to Melt Fears About Ice Sheets Melting
Any big picture, long-term understanding of the state of the world will recognize that our abnormally cold world is a far greater threat than several degrees C more warmth (“abnormal” compared to most of the history of life when the world was much warmer- i.e. 3 to 6 degrees C warmer than today- and all life thrived better under that warmth).
Added note: When recognizing the much warmer Earth that was normal over most of the past history of life, consider that those higher average temperatures did not mean “catastrophic heat” in already warm areas as tropical temperatures have remained “remarkably stable” over the paleoclimate past (see the “Sun-climate effect” or “Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” reports in the next section below).
What happens in a much warmer world is that the extra heat is transported by convection currents- i.e. “meridional transport”- to the polar regions and that ‘evens out’ temperatures over Earth, hence the overall higher average temperatures of the past but not necessarily warm tropical areas becoming warmer. Just as today, warming occurs mainly in cold polar regions, during cold seasons (winter), and during cold times of day (night). All this speaks to a more normal, optimal earth over most of the history of life- i.e. an ice-free world with expanded habitats for more diverse life forms in polar regions. And further affirming a much warmer, ice-free world as a more normal, optimal world- the discovery in recent years of the fossils of tropical flora and fauna fossils at both poles.
Counter facts to the climate alarm narrative:
Due to the discovery and use of cheap, widely available fossil fuels humanity has created industrial/technological societies that have enabled us to create immense wealth. This wealth has further enabled us to protect ourselves from the destructive elements of the natural world (as well as enabled us to protect/enhance nature as never before).
Evidence affirming the improving protection from climate-related disasters? There has been a 98% drop in deaths from climate-related disasters over the past century.
But serious threat remains from our still too cold world where over 10 times more people die every year from cold, than die from warmth (Lancet study). Our current subnormally and suboptimally cold world, not a warmer world, is the far greater threat to all life.
Cold is Deadlier than Heat: NY Times Warning About the Winter
Example: This report on the higher annual mortality in the UK from cold...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortality
inenglandandwales/2020to2021provisionaland2019to2020final
The climate alarmism crusade is “profoundly religious”. How so?
The climate alarmism crusade is a profoundly religious crusade. Note carefully the repetitive themes used to frame and promote such movements. The climate alarm movement embraces a core complex of ideas/themes, similar to the main features of the larger encompassing environmental alarmism movement.
Here is a summary list of the themes/myths in contemporary “ideological” versions:
(1) There was a better past, an original perfection or paradise that was the wilderness world before humans. Note here the element of nature worship, the elevation of nature as god-like in contrast with dehumanized humanity as a “cancer/virus”, an unwelcome intruder on Earth.
(2) The anti-humanism noted above is further affirmed in environmental alarmism by myths of people as essentially “fallen and corrupted”, humanity as the corrupting force on Earth, and humanity as set in opposition to nature, humanity as the “enemy” of nature.
(3) Because early humans purportedly committed some original error or sin, there followed the subsequent ruin of paradise, and life then began declining toward something worse, toward disaster and ending- i.e. the apocalypse. (Life declining toward something worse is a key feature of apocalyptic mythology.)
(4) But there is hope for salvation if a sacrifice or payment is made for sin. The sacrifice would entail the embrace of a return to primitivism, or what is called the “morally superior simple lifestyle”. Humanity must also purge from the world the thing that threatens life- i.e. too many people consuming too many resources. Today this is accompanied by an obsessive-compulsive focus on CO2 as the canary in the coalmine indicating contemporary “destructive human excess”. CO2- the “pollutant/poison”- must be purged from life.
(5) Only then- i.e. after getting rid of excess people and decimating human consumption and enjoyment of the good life (suffering as redemptive)- only then can the lost paradise can be restored or a new millennial paradise created.
The above mythical ideas fabricated by early humans became the models, patterns, prototypes, or “archetypes” for all subsequent thought and narratives across history. Remember that even the Sumerian waterworks god Enlil- i.e. storm god- set the early pattern for “population bomb” alarmism when he fretted about “too many people making too much noise” and planned an apocalyptic flood as his population reduction scheme.
As Joseph Campbell said, the same primitive myths have been embraced all across history and across all the cultures of the world- i.e. the above complex of original paradise, fall of man, lost paradise, threat of apocalypse (flood, fire), salvation demanded, and hope of redemption via sacrifice/suffering, and then restoration.
(Note: I use “primitive” to define the above ideas in order to emphasize the true pathological nature of such themes. They cannot, by any stretch of creative imagination, be identified and defended as some form of rational science.)
The above complex of themes, and others, are profoundly mythical/religious ideas that can be traced back to the earliest primitive thinking of our ancestors. We have records of these ideas in the earliest writing- i.e. Sumerian/Babylonian cuneiform tablets (e.g. the Great Flood in the epic of Gilgamesh), and in Egyptian temple notations/art and later writing (myths of Destruction of Mankind, Return to Chaos).
And what we find in the earliest writing we can also assume represents the thinking of people in the pre-history era.
These ideas then descended down through history to be embraced in the great world religions that would later emerge. The notable ‘Western’ line of historical descent is from Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian and Egyptian down to the more formal theology of Zoroastrianism (i.e. Zarathustra the Persian prophet). Zoroaster’s formulation of these ideas then descended into Hebrew thinking and religion. Suggestions are that the Hebrews adopted such themes, perhaps via the BCE era Hebrew exile in Persia, or perhaps via the possible origin of Jewish/Semitic people in Persia/Sumeria.
Paul, a Jew, then embraced these themes in the CE era to shape his new religion of the apocalyptic Christ that then subsequently dominated Western history, thought, and narratives. We then find the influence of these Christian themes on the 19th Century ideology of Declinism that dominates the modern world- i.e. the view that life has been ruined by corrupt humanity and is declining toward some catastrophic collapse and ending- the apocalypse. Declinism was then embraced by the apocalyptic millennial movements of Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. Declinism has become “the most influential and dominant theme” in the modern world. Note the YouGov survey in Ten Global Trends that shows a majority of the world population believe that the “world is getting worse”.
The full complex of themes listed above has influenced all these movements across history and I have repeatedly noted the good sources that detail the history- i.e. Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, Richard Landes, David Redles, and James Tabor, among others.
These primitive mythical themes are kept alive today by the great world religions of both the Western and the Eastern traditions. Note, for example, the Hindu version of apocalypse in the great cycles of rise followed by decline toward catastrophic ending/apocalypse, and in Buddhism in the myth of the decreasing human life-span (Mircea Eliade’s point in “The History of Religious Ideas”).
Paul’s Christ myth- the most influential myth in history- has played a critical role in keeping primitive themes like apocalyptic alive in contemporary consciousness and narratives, both religious and “secular”. Story-telling media like Hollywood also promote the domination of apocalyptic in human consciousness with their obsessive-compulsive focus on that myth.
What has happened over recent centuries, particularly with the emergence of Declinism ideology, is that the religious themes of primitive mythology have been given “secular” embodiment and expression for the modern world. We find this in ideologies such as environmentalism that also claim to be “science”. Hence, we have mythology now given “ideological/scientific” expression for the modern era. But the claims to identify as “science” do not change the primitive nature of the themes of apocalyptic myths, myths that distort utterly the true story or state of life, as well as distort the overall trajectory of life.
Entirely contrary to apocalyptic declinism, life has been rising and improving across the millennia, notable in such trends as the declining rates of human violence (see James Payne’s History of Force, Stephen Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature). Life has even more notably improved across recent centuries. Julian Simon, Bjorn Lomborg, and many others have detailed the rising/improving trajectory of life. Apocalyptic declinism is entirely distorting of the actual state of life and the world.
The overall, long-term improvement of life is due to essential human goodness and our fundamental impulse for something better than what is. Our hope for this improving trend of life to continue is based on human goodness and our creative ability to solve problems and make life ever better. Our past historical record affirms that we have been, and continue to be, wildly successful. See Julian Simon’s concluding comments in Ultimate Resource that “we ought to hold a party to outdo all parties” because we have done so well in improving life on Earth. Simon researched data on all the main indicators of life on Earth to reach his evidence-based conclusions.
(For more on the improving trend of life, notably the ongoing improvement in humanity, see also “From Retaliation to Unconditional” in sections below.)
A repeated argument here: Thorough problem-solving must go to root causal factors and make fundamental changes there. Going to root patterns, models, prototypes, or archetypes in human thinking is necessary for a proper and thorough liberation of human consciousness at the deepest levels. By changing human thinking, and core themes of our narratives, we then enable the full and proper transformation of human emotions, belief, motivation, and consequent action/behavior.
The foundational change of narratives themes is critical because we all live primarily by story, not just by fact, important as that is. The critical role of story in human life helps us to understand the complaint that scientific evidence changes few minds (though scientific fact is also crucial to a new narrative/story of life). Wendell Krossa
Further notes (clarifying justice):
My advocacy for the feature of unconditional as the defining feature for human narratives (it embodies/expresses the ultimate height of authentic humaneness), my advocacy for this is about maintaining our own humanity in the face of evil. It is not an affirmation of dogmatic and impractical pacifism, a form of extremism that is not authentic love, because authentic love embraces the spine-steeling responsibility to fight evil and to protect the innocent. That means, in an imperfect world, restraining violence, and imprisoning those who cannot or will not restrain their worst impulses. It sometimes means going to war to liberate and protect enslaved peoples.
Holding an unconditional attitude toward human failure is more about how we treat offenders- i.e. not with punitive retaliation as in so much justice today (hurt for hurt, humiliation for humiliation, death for death). So yes, there are natural and social consequences that are important to human learning and development. However, unconditional approaches to human failure are different from punitive retaliation that renders us all petty and less than human (note “restorative justice” approaches).
Note:
Another on the Christ myth: The temple protest of Historical Jesus (a person entirely different from the Christian “Jesus Christ”) agitated against the myth of payback retaliation in deity and the associated practice of animal sacrifice. Jesus rebelled against the idea that deity demanded punishment/payment for sin, as in blood sacrifices. Before his temple protest, Jesus had earlier said that there was no such punitive, retaliating deity but that God was non-retaliatory- i.e. not demanding sacrifice- but rather God forgave all freely, and included all with the same generosity and love.
So also the Old Testament prophets had intimated their opposition to punitive deity demanding payment/sacrifice with quotes of God stating “I desire mercy not sacrifice… I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats” (Hosea 6:6, Isaiah 1:11). Those comments overturned previous deity theories entirely (i.e. upset gods demanding punitive justice and payment by blood). But the priesthood drowned those isolated voices out and established the bloody sacrifice system that Jesus eventually protested, a protest that cost him his life.
Further, Jesus did not embrace the main features of Paul’s later Christology- i.e. the mythology that stated Jesus came to offer himself as a cosmic sacrifice for sin (see for example, Paul’s Romans letter for the main features of his Christology or Christ myth).
Note on the sun-climate relationship (“Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis”)- the most dominant influence on climate change:
The sun-climate relationship has undergone a history of contributing important information to our understanding of climate change, to subsequently being discredited, to finally being acknowledged again as an important natural factor in climate change, in fact, the dominant influence on climate change. However, climate alarmists and their discredited models continue to ignore this important subfield of climate research.
Back in the 1980s a political decision was made to isolate CO2 as the dominant factor in climate change. That was couched in a political narrative that human use of fossil fuels was causing dangerous climate change (human-caused global warming crisis). According to the alarmist narrative, things would become apocalyptically “catastrophic” if CO2 continued rising and temperatures surpassed a tipping point of 1.5-2.0 degrees C more warming.
The evidence for this apocalyptic narrative was based mainly on now discredited climate models that differed significantly from actual observed temperatures and climate change that was only a mild and beneficial 1 degree C warming over the past century. This mild warming was part of the natural recovery from the bitter cold of the Little Ice Age of 1645-1715 that had destructive impacts across the world.
These reports below give some sense of how complex the climate system is and how much we still do not know. We should be very careful about making predictions of what will happen in the future when we know so little about the many natural factors that dominate the climate system. CO2 is just a “bit player” in this complexity and it has already reached “saturation” in physics terms- i.e. in regard to its warming influence. It will contribute very little to any further warming and that warming will be beneficial.
Report number one
The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (I). The search for a solar signal
Report number two
Report number three
The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (III). Meridional transport
Report number four
Report number five
The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (V). A role for the sun in climate change
Report number six
Report number seven
Report number eight
Now some select quotes from the last two links above…
From https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/21/new-research-supports-the-winter-gatekeeper-hypothesis/
Quotes from link:
“The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis, proposed by this author in his book “Climate of the Past, Present and Future” (Vinós 2022), is based on evidence that climate change is primarily the result of changes in poleward energy transport, and that solar variability is an important modulator of this transport. If correct, the hypothesis will provide a new answer to two important questions: How climate changes naturally on the multi-decadal to the millennial time scale, even in the absence of changes in the greenhouse effect, and how changes in solar activity can profoundly affect climate despite their small energy changes. One conclusion of the hypothesis is that the Modern Solar Maximum of 1935-2005 contributed to 20th-century global warming, implying a significant reduction in climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide.
“The poleward (meridional) transport of energy is a very complex and poorly understood process. Consequently, the Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis is not easy to explain, as it requires prior knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic transport mechanisms. The reader is referred to parts 3, 4, and 5 of “The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis” series of articles for additional information on meridional transport mechanisms, and to part 6 for a summary of the hypothesis.”
From https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/22/talk-on-climate-shifts-for-the-creative-society/
These following quotes do not express the dense presentation of information in the link just above of the complexity of natural factors that influence climate change. Even fuller details are available in the first six reports on “The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis” (all the links are further above”).
Quotes from this immediate above link:
“Tropical energy transported poleward to be emitted to space…
“Earth’s global average surface temperature changes constantly, at all timescales. Earth is never in thermal equilibrium, and powerful natural forces are always at work redistributing the absorbed radiation from the sun…
“The sun delivers more radiation to the tropics than to the higher latitudes because it is more directly overhead. In fact, it delivers so much to the tropics it cannot all be radiated to space, the excess is shown in red. In addition, Earth’s tropical ocean surface temperature is capped at about thirty degrees Celsius, since at that temperature the energy lost to evaporation and deep convection always equals the excess energy delivered.
“Because the tropical sea-surface temperatures are capped, global warming is mostly a function of polar temperature. Thus, the key to climate change, at all timescales, is the meridional, or north-south, transport of energy from the tropics to the poles.
“When meridional energy transport is stronger, more energy reaches the poles. Most moisture transported to the poles in winter freezes, emitting its latent heat, and warming the surrounding air. Additional CO2 molecules in the polar air increase outward radiation since they are warmer than the surface. The net result is that nearly all imported energy into the polar regions in winter eventually exits the climate system at the top of the atmosphere, as shown in blue in Figure 1. Increasing the energy transported there mostly just increases the energy lost. The result is a cooling planet.
“As more energy is directed toward the poles, sometimes the Arctic region warms, even as the rest of the world cools or warms more slowly. The Arctic warmed, for example, as the rest of the world cooled, from 1880 to 1910, 1965 to 1976, and from 2005 to 2015. When meridional transport is weaker, less energy reaches the poles and exits the climate system, and the planet warms, as the Arctic cools, because it is receiving less energy from the lower latitudes….
“Earth’s global average surface temperature varies almost four degrees every year. It is near 16°C in July and a little over 12°C in January. Why panic over an increase of two degrees Celsius? We see twice that every year.
“The poles are dark in winter, they simply receive energy from the tropics and radiate it to space. The more energy they receive from the tropics in winter, the more they radiate, cooling the rest of the planet…
“When the summer meltwater re-freezes in winter it releases the stored summer energy (called “latent heat”) and radiate that to space as well. This is how variations in the amount of heat delivered via meridional transport cause climate change. The evidence and processes involved in meridional transport will be briefly covered in this talk as well as the evidence that periodic shifts in Earth’s climate state occur about every 25 years. Climate shifts change the relationship between delivered solar energy and climate through changes in meridional transport.
“The Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis proposes that changes in the meridional transport of energy and moisture are the main way the climate changes now and in the past. Meridional transport variability integrates the many forces that act on it simultaneously and in different timeframes. Thus, interpreting exactly how and why meridional transport affects climate is difficult. We can see it happening, and will show the data, but we cannot always explain why. The forces that act on it and through it are multidecadal ocean-atmosphere oscillations, solar variability, ozone, stratospheric-reaching tropical volcanic eruptions, orbital changes, and changing lunar and solar gravitational pull. Meridional transport is an integrator of internal and external forces. It is not the only way climate changes, but evidence suggests it is the main actor.
“The Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis does not disprove greenhouse gas effect induced climate change—manmade or otherwise—in fact, it primarily acts through the greenhouse gas effect. But it does not require changes in non-condensing greenhouse gases (like CO2) to cause significant climate change. Therefore, it does refute the hypothesis that CO2 is the main climate change control knob.
“Meridional transport moves energy that is already in the climate system (mainly from the tropics) toward its exit point at the top of the atmosphere at a higher latitude. It is carried out mainly by the atmosphere—in both the stratosphere and troposphere—with an important oceanic contribution.
“Roughly every 25 years, the climate shifts from one state to another, these shifts involve changes in meridional transport….
“Meridional transport drives climate change, but it has many forces that drive it. Besides the differential greenhouse effect driver already discussed, ocean oscillations, especially the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation shown on the bottom of the left illustration, are important. The top part of the left illustration shows the level of solar activity, another driver… When both the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and solar activity increased from 1910 to 1940, the world warmed rapidly, and meridional transport weakened.
“From 1945 to 1976, the world cooled as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation went into its cool phase, the Arctic also cooled, and meridional transport was weak. After 1976, transport weakened further, there was strong warming, solar activity was still elevated but declining, and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation went into a strong warming phase. The world warmed rapidly.
“After 1997, there was another shift, global warming slowed, the sun weakened rapidly, and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation plateaued….”
(Mine) After some dense information on the influence of the Polar Vortex, the authors state,
“Each of the four climate shifts, originally identified in the Pacific during the 20th century, took place 1–3 years after a solar minimum. The grey and white areas in Figure 4 represent alternating meridional transport regimes, each span three solar cycles, minimum to minimum. Many critical climate processes are stronger at solar minima. Based on this pattern we expect the next climate shift to take place around 2031–34….
“North of about 30° latitude most heat transport is through the atmosphere, mostly in storms….
“Overall, storminess has decreased since 1870, which is logical since the planet has warmed over that period. Warming takes place mostly at the poles, equatorial temperatures do not change much, which reduces the latitudinal temperature gradient, and lowers the meridional transport of energy from the tropics to poles, thus decreasing storminess…
“In summary, major climate shifts occur about every 25 years. Every shift occurs at a solar cycle minimum, takes a few years to complete, and involves a reversal of the current Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation/Solar correlation. Overall storminess or extreme weather has been decreasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century…
“The solar changes change atmospheric processes, which then change meridional energy transport, which is what changes the climate.
“Meridional energy transport from the tropics to the poles, and variations in it, are the principal drivers of climate change. Manmade CO2 and other greenhouse gases have a smaller role. The largest influences on meridional transport are changes in ocean oscillations (the “stadium wave”), changes in solar activity, ozone, large volcanic eruptions, orbital changes, and changes in lunar and solar gravitational pull. The relative strength of these forces on meridional transport varies with the timeframe considered. Longer term the solar influence is more important, and on the decadal timeframe, ocean oscillations are more important.
“The Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis explains far more of known climate history than the manmade greenhouse gas emissions hypothesis. Neither is proven nor disproven, but the data we have today supports the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis.”
This from “co2science.org”…
“Earth records 600 millionth consecutive cooler-than-average month”. This data turns the global warming alarmism narrative entirely on its head. See the 600-million year historical reconstruction graph of paleoclimate at the link just below. Remember, Julian Simon (Ultimate Resource) taught us that good science looks at the fullest big picture, and longest-term trends, in order to get to the true state of life and the world.
Earth records 600 millionth consecutive cooler-than-average month
Quotes from above link:
“The Earth just had its 600-millionth straight cooler-than-average month thanks to naturally-driven cooling.
“An historical reconstruction of the Earth’s temperature by Northwestern University Adjunct Professor Dr. Christopher Scotese provides an illuminating and surprising comparison of today’s temperatures to that of the past. And it’s not what you think.
“According to Dr. Scotese the Earth “has alternated between a frigid ‛Ice-House’, like today’s world, and a steaming ‛Hot House’, like the world of the dinosaurs.”
“That’s correct, he described today’s temperatures as frigid. It turns out that most of Earth’s history since the explosion of life in the Cambrian Period nearly 600 million years ago was hotter than our climate today — a lot hotter.”
Insert note (mine): Other research states that for over 80% of the past 500 million years average world temperatures were 17-20 degrees C, 3-6 degrees C warmer than today and there was no “climate crisis” but instead life emerged, developed, and flourished. See reports/links below on “Sun-climate effect” or “Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” available at Wattsupwiththat.com.
“For fully two-thirds of (the past 600 million years) the Earth experienced temperatures that were much warmer than today. During these periods of “Hot House” conditions there was no ice at either pole. We “only” entered our current “Ice-House” conditions about 50 million years ago. Using the average temperature of the Earth for the last 600 million years, we have experienced 50 million consecutive years of below average temperature….
“That is because the Earth’s temperature has been increasing for more than 300 years…
“The blessed rise of temperature that we are experiencing is lifting us out of the death-dealing cold of the horrific Little Ice Age, when half the population of Iceland perished. The beginning of this warming started in the late 1600s, long before man could have had any effect on temperature. In fact, the rate of warming over the first 40 years of the trend, extending into the early 1700s, was several times the rate of the 20th century warming and was 100 percent naturally driven.
“At least the first 150 years of our current warming were also entirely naturally-driven and contributed about the same amount of warming as the last 150 or so years…
“The real question is- Did the natural forces that were driving the temperature increase in the 17thcentury, or for that matter over the last hundreds of millions of years, suddenly stop for some reason in the 20th century? Of course not, but that is what the Ayatollahs of Alarmism want you to believe…
“So why the media firestorm and portrayal of the latest data as dangerous? H. L. Mencken warned us of imaginary “hobgoblins of alarm” that governments needed to create to frighten the population into accepting onerous regulations such as the Paris Climate Accords. Climate change today is one of those hobgoblins of alarm used to convince people that our current warming is “unusual and unprecedented” when it is neither…
“… the media are publicizing what is designed to best promote fear of catastrophic climate alarm. We have seen in the recent COVID-19 pandemic that fear is one of the most potent motivators of public action. Those promoting the economically destructive green policies will be using this and any other event deemed out of the ordinary to further the climate of fear that they need for public acceptance of these harmful policies.”
This also from co2coalition.org
“Eleven Important Atmospheric Phenomena (from a physicist’s perspective)” by Gordon Fulks, Ph.D.
Fulks points:
“Our knowledge of the physical phenomena contributing to climate is vast.
He lists the following natural factors influencing climate change.
“Adiabatic cooling (gravity)
“Planck Heat Radiation
“Properties of water, its abundance and high heats of vaporization and fusion.
“Elastic Mie/Raleigh Scattering (clouds and blue sky)
“Inelastic Raman Scattering (thermalizing, greenhouse effect)
“Oceans (heat sink and source)
“Convection/Advection
(Added insert note: The reports in sections below on the “Sun-climate effect” argue that “meridional transport”, a convection current hypothesis, is the dominant influence on climate change. In those reports, as in a lot of other research, CO2 is just a “bit player” in climate change.)
“Two fluid problem with neither in equilibrium
“Coriolis Effect with a circumpolar jet stream and large amplitude Rossby waves
“Solar Cycles – Wilson Cloud Chamber/Svensmark amplification effects with cosmic rays
“Milankovitch Cycles
“But which dominate in particular situations is far from understood.
“Attempts to combine these effects and keep track of everything that is going on are called ‘Computer Simulations’ or ‘Climate Models.’ Unfortunately, computer simulations of climate are just computer games USELESS in accurately predicting the future.
“Professor of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Gerhard Gerlich said: “To derive climate catastrophes from these computer games and to scare Mankind to death is a crime.”
Others have noted that Critical Race Theory (CRT) advocates another form of collectivist thinking in that it subjects individuals to a collective. In CRT this exhibits as a form of racism because it condemns all members of a group as subhuman in some manner, based on skin color (e.g. all whites are oppressors).
The ever-present danger from collectivist approaches is the centralization of power in enlightened elites who believe and claim that they know what is right for all others and will coercively enforce their views on entire societies. The democracy-preserving genius of the individual-oriented approach to organizing human society (i.e. protecting individual rights and freedoms) is exhibited in the fact that this approach disperses power among competing individuals and institutions, thereby preventing totalitarian control by a few. To the contrary, collectivism operates to subject individuals to collectives, unleashing totalitarian control of the many by a few.
Unleashing the totalitarian impulse is inevitably followed with censoring and silencing any who disagree/dissent. This comes to us today in things like Woke Progressivism and its cancel culture madness that endlessly uses smears of “disinformation/misinformation that is a threat to democracy… fascist… racist…. Nazi…” and so on to dehumanize, silence, and ban disagreeing others.
Another attempt at a paraphrase: “I swear (or pledge) undying hostility to everything that enslaves the human mind”, (author unknown).
See for example…
William Happer, Richard Lindzen and CO2 Coalition comment on the 4th National Climate Assessment
Physicists send letter to Senate — Cite 160 scientists protest regarding APS climate position
This from a report by Thomas Sheahen on the spectroscopy research of climate physicists. This goes to the very core issue in the climate change debate- i.e. the actual proven influence of CO2.
“Professors William van Wijngaarden and William Happer in their pioneering work in calculating the real-world Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) of the five most common Green-House Gases (GHGs)… the calculations by van Wijngaarden and Happer reveal the maximum possible influence of increasing greenhouse gases – an upper bound or limit. Larger estimates are an exaggeration without support of physical evidence. (A reference to the discredited climate models that “run too hot”)
“This widely used and precise method to understanding critical parts of the physical world is ignored by the climate establishment because it produces testable results that climate bureaucracies do not wish to see – that after water vapor is considered, greenhouse gases have a minor impact on climate and are overwhelmed by natural changes…
“Sheahen shows that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the actual atmosphere has a minor effect on temperatures. A doubling of methane has an even smaller effect on temperatures.
“Sheahen explains that the influence of carbon dioxide (CO2) is very small because at its current level it is extremely saturated. As carbon dioxide increases, its effectiveness in warming declines. This decline begins immediately. Sheahen shows the calculations in twenty parts per million (ppm) increments, the current concentration is over 410 ppm. In today’s atmosphere the influence of CO2 is small.”
Moving right along…
Across the landscape today politicians, news media personalities, celebrities, and other commentators continue to affirm the “climate crisis” narrative. Note this Oct.13, 2022 comment just below by Sabrina Maddeaux of the National Post.
PS: I am not picking on Sabrina but just pointing to her comment to illustrate something troublingly repetitive- the ongoing affirmation of the alarmist narrative on climate change. Troubling? Yes, because it is an affirmation of the anti-science narrative of “human-caused climate change”, a narrative that embraces reality-distorting features like apocalyptic (grotesquely exaggerated outcomes) that are more rightly understood as “profoundly religious” than scientific.
“Climate change is a serious issue…”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/sabrina-maddeaux-climate-hypocrites-keep-trying-to-turn-farmers-and-their-cows-into-villains
Sabrina- Explain to your readers exactly how the mild 1 degree C of warming since the coldest period of our Holocene interglacial (the Little Ice Age of 1645-1715) is a “serious issue”? Even with our Modern Warming Period, we are still in the coldest time of our interglacial and 10 times more people still die every year from cold than die from warmth (Lancet study).
The Holocene Optimum of some 10,000 to 6,000 years ago was 3 degrees C warmer than today and that enabled agriculture and the great early civilizations to emerge and flourish. Also, for over 80% of the 500-million year history of life, average world temperatures were 3-6 degrees C warmer (averaging 17-20 degrees C) than today’s cold world that averages 14.5 degrees C. And there was no “climate change is a serious issue” during those eras. Life emerged, developed, and flourished in that much warmer world. Add that for over 90% of the history of life the world has been entirely ice-free. Why then today’s hysteria over melting ice?
And CO2 levels, across the same long-term history of life, were in the thousands of ppm versus today’s “CO2 starvation era” of only 400-plus ppm (Patrick Moore’s term in “Celebrating CO2”). Plant life prefers CO2 levels of 1000-1500 ppm. And no worry that such high levels will spark “climate catastrophe” because respected climate physicists tell us that the CO2 warming effect is already “saturated” in physics terms and more CO2 will not contribute to much more warming because the warming effect of CO2 is declining logarithmically.
See for example https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/12/joining-battle-over-the-science-of-global-warming/
Add here the amazing benefits of rising CO2 in the massive greening of our planet- i.e. the 15% more green vegetation that has been added across the world just since 1980. This means more food for animals and increased crop production for humanity.
All life would continue to benefit from much more warming and much more CO2. So again Sabrina- tell your readers why “climate change is a serious issue”. That phrase sounds more like an overly-cautious kowtowing to the climate crusaders who might incite an outrage protest against you for not affirming their apocalyptic narrative.
My point: We need strong, clear voices (e.g. Conrad Black, Rex Murphy get a bit closer to courageous clarity on this issue) that will not only stop affirming the “crisis” narrative but will offer a clear evidence-based counter narrative primarily oriented to the soundly proven, well-affirmed physics of CO2 and observed natural climate change. Yes, climate is changing but it is not a “crisis” and it has largely been natural (i.e. the many natural factors that show stronger correlations to the climate change that we have seen).
Over past centuries and decades climate change has been mild and largely beneficial.
Conclusion: There is no rational reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
(Mild? Yes, see Ian Plimer’s graph of the climate change over the last 55,000 years in his paleoclimate book “Heaven And Earth”, p.33.)
New report:
Typhoon Frequency Has Fallen Since 1950, Contradicting Alarmist Global Warming Claims
Added note: Comedian Greg Gutfeld recently noted the Canadian shop teacher who wore grotesquely oversized false breasts to class, evoking a timid response from the local school board that “We respect gender rights”.
Gutfeld stated in response that “Common sense can no longer defuse absurd situations”. So also in a similar vein Eddie Bravo on a Joe Rogan Podcast (episode 1867) said regarding the extremist Woke Left/Democrats, “They do the dumbest shit now”. I would place the climate alarmism narrative in the same categories as “dumbest shit… absurd situations”. And common sense now self-censors (the worst form of censorship- George Orwell) out of fear of Woke outrage and threats of censorship, banning, cancelling, and outright destruction of livelihoods and careers.
If there was ever a time for common sense, courage, and clarity it is now in the face of such madness and threat. Common sense needs to put forth an evidence-based narrative to counter the madness movements of climate alarmism, Woke Progressivism gone extremist, and resurging collectivism, all tangled together in a mythical/ideological mess, a “profoundly religious crusade”, that is ruining societies. Wendell Krossa
Further comment re articles in the section just below this opening section: “The most destructive pathology to have ever infected human consciousness” and “’Subjective”, personal human experience as a credible tool against primal fear?”
The point of the comment in the section below this one on unconditional deity is to offer an alternative or counter perspective to one of history’s worst-ever ideas- i.e. that there are threatening forces/spirits behind the natural world that will punish “bad” people for their sins. This pathology dominated the earliest human myth-making, it was continued in the later world religions, and it was even given “secular” expression for the modern era in ideologies like Declinism and its offspring “environmental alarmism”.
Note the varied contemporary “secular” versions of “threatening deities punishing bad people”- i.e. “vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, punitive Universe, payback karma”. These mythical gods promoting ultimate threat have burdened human consciousness across the millennia with incalculable mental/emotional misery added to already unbearable human physical suffering.
I watched a recent expression of threatening deity in the documentary- “Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal earthquake”. It showed the guides and climbers making an offering/sacrifice to appease the mountain spirits so they would not cause disaster to befall the climbers. They were trying to calm their fears of natural threats, intensified by myths of malignant/malicious metaphysical forces/spirits behind those natural threats. We also saw an expression of primitive threat theology back in 2011, after the Japanese tsunami, when a lady from a devastated area asked rhetorically, “Are we being punished for enjoying life too much?” We saw primitive threat theology again in Nancy Pelosi’s absurdly religious comments on California’s wildfires in 2020- “Mother Earth is angry”.
The alternative- go to the very core of this thinking and its related myths. Start by affirming that there is no threatening force or spirit behind the natural world. Understand the original mythical logic that gave birth to such pathological ideas. And then affirm the very opposite- there is an unspeakable love behind reality and life. But isn’t such a metaphysical affirmation merely “assumption”, “speculation”, “belief”? Whatever. Its better than the mythical/religious/secular alternatives.
Further, if we are to claim that there is an ultimate love behind reality and life (a form of theodicy), then the natural question arises- Why then the horrors of the natural world? Philosophers have argued/reasoned this issue for centuries and even millennia. As some suggest- This imperfect world is “the best possible world” and there are reasons/assumptions for the presence of imperfection and consequent suffering. Some suggest that you cannot get authentic moral good without contrast with its opposite- evil (i.e. a contrasting reality to freely choose against). If the world was perfect, or no evil existed, then we would not fully know, experience, or exhibit good.
The reasoning is that we develop and mature as human by struggle with imperfection in the natural world and with imperfection in others (“evil”). Struggle evokes creativity, solutions, and choice for good that exhibits goodness at its best because it was freely chosen against some tempting opposite. So again, the argument is that we cannot fully understand and experience good without a contrast with evil/suffering.
None of these alternatives will satisfy victims of random disasters and human cruelty. In too many life situations, nothing makes sense, no argument or reasoning will assuage the horrors of human suffering, but then the alternative of dogmatic atheism/meaninglessness is even more senseless and more harmful to human mind and emotions. Our meaning impulse and impulse to hope drive us to try and make some sense of the senseless. And for most people that will entail some reach toward the metaphysical and explanations rooted in metaphysical realities.
But again, the explanations offered above don’t work for everyone and so some will choose atheism. Personally, I find that option too dark and hopeless as it entails too large a dose of irrational meaninglessness, even nihilism.
Added note: I use the overly-religious term “God” repeatedly on this site and with hesitation because it instinctually evokes an orientation to religious ideas of deity. I would use the more common terms of today like “Universe” but that seems too undefinably general, rendering deity as something more like energy or natural law.
I am with people all across history who intuitively understood that there was more to reality than what we could see in the 4% that is the visible material cosmos and world. They understood that the greater reality was something of the nature of Mind, Consciousness, Spirit, Self, Intelligence, etc.
But I part with most of them in what they then projected out to define the greater reality, the metaphysical. They took some of the basest features of human life (yes, necessary anthropomorphizing), barely above animal-like features, and projected such out to define God as dominating lord/king (alpha male/female), God as tribal (favoring insiders/true believers against “enemies/unbelievers”), and God as punitively destructive (i.e. punishing people through natural world disaster/disease, and threatening world-ending apocalypse and after-life harm in hell).
Nah. The basic discovery/insight of the NDE resonates with me as most true and most real among all the alternatives offered across history- i.e. Ultimate Good/God is ultimate humaneness as defined by the feature of unconditional. That feature of unconditional is the very best that we humans have discovered as to what it means to be truly and authentically human, to be fully humane. Surely, the Ultimate Goodness that is God will get the nature of authentic humaneness far better than we do and be most transcendently humane or good, as in no conditions love of an inexpressible nature, just as is commonly expressed in NDEs of a non-religious character. Wendell Krossa
Added note:
Contrary to the urging of a pissed atheist that we need to “get rid of the metaphysical bullshit”. Just look at the 85% of humanity that are still affiliated with a world religion. Most of the remaining 15% “unaffiliated” are no less oriented to the metaphysical in their status as “spiritual but not religious”, believers in karma and what not.
So suck it up and deal with it. Offer better alternatives in your assumptions and speculations than what exists currently- i.e. the monster gods of “angry religious deity… or vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, punishing Universe or payback karma”. Sheesh, what a pitiful mess of gods to deal with.
We can do better and we can fully humanize our views of greater reality. Materialists do no better with their ultimately heartless, purposeless, and meaningless “Self-Organizing Principle” and other “secular” deities like Dawkins’s “Natural Selection Is The Source Of All Enlightenment” (The God Delusion). No less meaningless are the explanations that ultimate reality can be reduced to “natural laws”. But then- What or who creates and sustains natural law in existence?
Another
Just as varied people have said that materialist science has largely ignored the conscious human self in the mix of science (“Its just an illusion’), so many advocating a materialist perspective continue to ignore the primal human impulse for meaning that includes the critical metaphysical element of some creating, sustaining Ultimate Reality (and this as having personhood, in other words- deity).
We don’t get far in solving some of the greater problems of our world without meeting and helping people where they are in their thinking and beliefs. The fundamental stuff at the back of human consciousness (subconscious), the stuff that is foundational to the common human narratives of our world, both religious and secular. The stuff that still dominantly influences human thinking, feeling, motivation, and behavior.
No wonder varied scientists and scholars have complained that factual evidence does not seem to be changing many minds regarding the great problems of our time, notably regarding the climate crisis crusade. This is because most people live by story, and by personal beliefs related to the story that they hold that gives meaning to their lives. Hence, the widespread engagement of “confirmation bias” in regard to evidence- the dismissing of evidence that is contrary to personal beliefs/story.
“Waiting around to be offended” (the psychological pathology of outrage culture)
Interesting comment in the link below by Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter actor) that nails Outrage/Cancel culture today. Coltrane said, in regard to J. K. Rowling’s comments on transgender issues, that her critics “Were waiting to be offended… There’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended”.
What is the psychology behind this obsessive compulsive “waiting around to be offended”? Such people are zealously scanning public discourse for some viewpoint or expression that they can disagree with, then jumping on that, often taking another person’s comments out of context (often lasering in and pouncing on just a word or phrase).
Outrage zealots ignore the intention of the speaker (even if comedic), they frame the “offender’s” comment in the worst possible way as some form of “evil”, and they then attack the disagreeing other with smears. Go-to smears today include “racist… fascist… transphobic… right-wing extremist… threat to democracy”, and more). Outragers condemn the diverse other as irredeemable evil, and exaggerate the impact of the other person’s words (e.g. “words are violence”, “I feel threatened”, “Its hate speech”).
The outrage obsessive then demands censorship, silencing, de-platforming of disagreeing others from social media, banning, cancelling, and full-on destruction of the disagreeing other person’s career and even existence (i.e. the death threats against J.K. Rowling).
“Waiting around to be offended” speaks to many things- i.e. to an intolerance of diversity of thought, opinion, and expression, to a childish pettiness over differing words, to a harshly condemnatory attitude toward differing others, to a stark lovelessness and mercilessness (a world of no second chances or forgiveness), to a totalitarian impulse to control others, in other words- to something profoundly inhuman/inhumane. Outrage culture is a psychological pathology.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/news/inside-robbie-coltrane-s-controversial-stance-on-j-k-rowling/ar-AA12Y3ok?cvid=f405cf748baf468294aa26119e2e23a9
Added note: A mature humanity will tolerantly embrace differing others as vital to healthy democracy, will respectfully protect the basic right of free speech of all others even those one disagrees with on basic issues, will respectfully engage civil discourse over disagreements without demonizing differing others, all this knowing that it is critical to defend the freedom of all equally as the preventative to the totalitarian outcomes when one side is allowed to silence or ban the other side.
Another example of the “deranged” leftist/Progressive smearing of all who disagree:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/adam-pankratz-vancouvers-first-asian-mayor-is-hardly-a-fascist-no-matter-what-the-left-says
Media obsession to relate all weather events to the alarmism “climate change” narrative
The link below: Another example of how mainstream media daily try to frame all sorts of weather events as affirming their alarmist narrative that human emissions of CO2 are causing “catastrophic climate change”. Climate alarmists even intentionally distort reports that clearly state the opposite- i.e. state uncertainty around such things.
The Washington Post writer said that “(The report) highlights the real-time effect that humans are having on the weather and climate”. But the report actually stated “our analysis is insufficient to directly attribute observed changes to ongoing anthropogenic climate change”. The report clearly states uncertainty in contrast to the Washington Post writer’s certainty. (I would also add in contradiction to the report noted above- There is no final certainty that overall climate change is “ongoing anthropogenic climate change”).
This by Chris Morrison reporting on “The Frozen Planet 2” featuring David Attenborough (ignoring facts contrary to one’s narrative, distorting the true state of things):
“A tearful ecologist, Dr. Bill Fraser, told viewers that four decades ago there were 20,000 Adélie adults on an island in western Antarctica. Now, he said, there are just 400 breeding pairs left; the Adélie penguins are an “indicative species” of climate change, he said. But for some inexplicable reason, neither he nor Attenborough found it relevant to note that, in 2018, satellites had found a new colony of Adélies in a remote part of eastern Antarctica numbering over 1.5 million birds….
“But all the animals more or less left the Frozen Planet II stage in the final episode, shown last Sunday on BBC One, as Attenborough ran through almost every ice scare in the alarmist book. He said humanity must stick to 1.5°C of warming agreed at COP26, “no matter how challenging it may be”. Stopping the climate, a non-linear system of which we have incomplete and, in parts, negligible information is a ridiculous ask. But Attenborough pronounced: “We can do it, we must do it. Then there will be a future for the planet.”
“The programme started with Attenborough’s familiar claim that the ice caps are melting “faster than ever before”. Of course, Attenborough cannot actually know this. For one, the timeline is somewhat imprecise. But as we have seen in numerous Daily Sceptic articles, ice is highly cyclical. Two American glaciologists Laura Larocca and Yarrow Axford recently found that over half of the Arctic’s glaciers and ice caps that exist today, did not exist or were smaller 10,000 to 3,400 years ago. At the time, atmospheric carbon dioxide ranged between 260 to 270 parts per million, compared with the current 410 ppm, so its hard to see how carbon dioxide played a role in making them smaller. The scientists noted that the Arctic’s modern ice extent is “among the largest of the last 10,000 years”…
“In episode 2, Attenborough made the incredible claim that all the summer sea ice in the Arctic could be gone by 2035. His claim seems to have been taken from the prediction of a climate model in a 2020 paper written by a group of academics working with the Met Office’s Hadley Centre. But plans for any boating around the North Pole might have to be put on hold. At this year’s September Arctic summer end, the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the ice extent was 4.87 million square kilometres, which was 1.54 million sq kms higher than the low point in 2012. Gradual recovery has been evident since the 2012 low point, and this year was the 11th lowest extent in the recent satellite record.”
More on courage, clarity:
In contrast to the endless affirming of the “climate crisis” narrative we need clear statements that there is still “strong uncertainty” about what has contributed to the rise of CO2 over the past few centuries- i.e. whether it is partially or mainly human (how much?), or partially/mainly/entirely natural. And we need clear statements about the role of CO2 in warming- i.e. that good evidence shows that it appears to be only a “bit player” among varied other natural factors. And we need clear statements that while it has warmed 1 degree C over the past century, the warming is in no manner a “crisis” but has been largely beneficial. Just as the rise in CO2 has been significantly beneficial in greening the Earth.
We also need clear statements that there is no evidence that weather events- i.e. whether storms, floods, heatwaves, tornadoes, cold spells, or other- are becoming worse. There is no evidence supporting alarmist claims of all sorts of impending disasters in nature- i.e. Great Barrier Reef collapse, Arctic Ice melting, glaciers receding, alarming sea rise, and so on.
We need clear statements that in a world where 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warmth, life will benefit from several more degrees of warming and much more CO2- the basic food of all life. We need to hear that there is no threat behind 1.5-2.0 degrees C more warming- the “tipping point into catastrophe” of alarmist narratives.
We need more courageous people to counter the distortions of the climate alarm crusade with clear statements affirming a counter narrative that is based on good climate science research. For good sources of climate data see “Wattsupwiththat.com”, “co2coalition.org”, “co2science.org”, and many similar sites…
This from Don Ritter, “The Real ‘Existential Threat’ To People and Planet- It is government policies that promote green energy and suppress fossil fuels”.
“It’s ironic. The very Biden Administration and European Government policies that are supposed to address the asserted “existential threat” of climate change are themselves the true existential threat to modern civilization.
“As someone trained in science and engineering, a lifelong hiker, gardener and lover of nature in the extreme, I want a healthy, sustainable planet as much as anyone promoting the climate change agenda. It’s not that “green” energy is bad. It’s that the rate of “going green,” and the enormous investments required, are wildly disproportionate to society’s energy needs, now and for the foreseeable future.
“Elon Musk gets it, but most government leadership do not – or choose to remain silent. “Realistically, civilization will crumble if we don’t continue to use oil and gas in the short run,” Musk has said.
“Civilization crumbling is clearly an “existential threat.” And this guy sells electric cars! He also recommended “continued drilling and exploration for oil and gas,” because he understands that producing and fueling electric vehicles will require substantial fossil fuel electricity generation, for years to come.
““Existential” issues like war, peace, economic vitality, jobs and living standards all have the same critical driving force: energy – all forms of energy. Energy to transport people and goods, to run farms and provide food, to heat and cool homes, to power manufacturing, and to fuel ships, planes and vehicles for our military. Natural gas is essential for fertilizers to feed a hungry world. Oil and natural gas are the building blocks for plastics, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, paint and thousands of other products.
“Today, these vital, almost-taken-for-granted benefits come almost entirely from oil, gas and coal. Those who have it will be powerful; those who don’t will not. China and Russia know this well….
“Climate campaigners at all levels of government and in the revenue-driven private sector have created a new energy economy based on vast subsidies for solar and wind, to replace coal, oil and gas. It portends disaster, for Europe and America, because they are doing it prematurely – before the replacements are anywhere near ready for prime time…
“Sadly, the debate over expanding American energy to substitute for Russia’s – and ensure our own energy security – is virtually non-existent within the Administration, many think tanks and the media. In fact, they all cooperate to censor and silence debate.
“This is not only strange, because the soaring cost of energy is the primary factor driving inflation and threatening recession, not just in America but worldwide. In fact, it is worse than strange.
“Government suppression of fossil fuel production is threatening the national security and economies of countless nations. Demands that we precipitously “go green” represent the greatest “existential threat” of all – to the survival of modern industrialized nations, to developing nations, and to the survival of our planet as we know it.”