9 ms·

Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong

31 points by swsieber 7y ago

swsieber 7y ago
I withs the title was better, but I wasn't sure what to change it to. It's mostly just debunking hyperbole around climate change.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
This Shellenberg guy has a really weird schtick. I can't figure out if he's just insane or a member of some strange cult. A few juxtapositions of this current column against his previous columns: He doesn't want people to say that climate change will make Koalas extinct, but he himself thinks wind turbines will make several species extinct. He thinks it makes sense to burn coal in India because it's cheap, but he attacks renewables, which are cheaper than running existing coal in some regions, because they will "lock in" fossil fuel usage which is apparently a bad thing when they do it. He relies on the IPCC as the last word on whether climate change will have catastrophic impacts, but also rails against it for it's anti-nuclear bias. Are we allowed to question the IPCC or not? He wants everyone to be reasonable and sensible but think most environmentalist are csecret communists who want to intionally made people poorer?
- mcswell 7y ago
  Apart from your final sentence, which is just weird, I don't see these as contradictions. Seldom does anyone agree 100% with someone else (mathematicians might be an exception), so one could reasonably consider the IPCC to be reliable on some issues and not on others. But that's probably not even what's' happening; the author might (for all I know) think the IPCC is too far on the side of exaggerating the climate change problem (and ignoring the nuclear solution), but still use them as evidence that the climate feature is not as bad as some claim. And the idea that coal is a good idea in India (a relatively impoverished country) and bad in "some regions" (presumably wealthy countries, you don't say) seems entire non-contradictory to me. "Insane" or "strange cult"--oh, stuff and nonsense. You need to come back to reality.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
From the article: "First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species." They say millions in the US will be displaced due to climate change in the coming decades. And yet, here we are in CA already displacing millions just from this self inflicted housing crisis.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  That's a leitmotif in the article, and I think it's a good cautionary note. We need to tackle climate change, but we can't stop work on other problems, mistakenly thinking they'll be solved automatically by fixing climate change.
bsaul 7y ago
It’s about time people start being more sensible on this topic. This was becoming bordeline stupid, with pretty much everything « caused by climate change ». i wonder what the next victim of media insanity will be..
ncmncm 7y ago
There is a lot of money to be made going around reassuring people that the greatest existential threat of our time is no big deal. When the hundreds of millions of refugees flood across borders driving governments to fascism, and those fascist governments do what they do and trigger global thermonuclear war, these same individuals will insist none of it was their, or the fascists', fault. If money still means anything they will be well-paid for that, too.
- mc32 7y ago
  There is a lot of money to be made on both sides of the issue.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Meaning, a lot of money to be saved by stopping petroleum subsidies and retiring oil- and coal-fired generators in favor of renewables. The massive savings on medical costs from reduced pollution will ramp up slowly. But there is way, way more money immediately available from the people still getting the petroleum and coal subsidies.
    - mcswell 7y ago
      There are no such subsidies; the subsidies are on the side of solar, wind, etc. There was a claim awhile back that fossil fuels were somehow subsidized in the sense of "externals" (e.g. government pays their militaries to protect foreign countries that produce petroleum). I find the notion ridiculous, but even if you don't, no petroleum or coal company can cash in on that kind of subsidy.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        They cash in on it every single day. The difference between what other countries pay for fuel and what the US pays is all subsidy. If collected at the pump, instead, people would have moved to more cost-effective fuels long since.
- 7y ago
ecoled_ame 7y ago
but still ... i would rather live in a world with less pollution ...
marmadukester39 7y ago
The tipping points are real, cataclysmic and not mentioned here. Read about the clathrate gun and the methane coming out of the tundra, never mind the huge fires in the boreal forests this year. The IPCC estimates are famously conservative and the trend figures all indicate the most aggressive scenarios or worse are likely. Anyone who suggests the world will end in 20 years is wrong, but the impacts will be massive on longer timescales. Minimizing the risks in this way is so deeply frightening.

31 points by swsieber 7y ago

I withs the title was better, but I wasn't sure what to change it to. It's mostly just debunking hyperbole around climate change.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

This Shellenberg guy has a really weird schtick. I can't figure out if he's just insane or a member of some strange cult. A few juxtapositions of this current column against his previous columns: He doesn't want people to say that climate change will make Koalas extinct, but he himself thinks wind turbines will make several species extinct. He thinks it makes sense to burn coal in India because it's cheap, but he attacks renewables, which are cheaper than running existing coal in some regions, because they will "lock in" fossil fuel usage which is apparently a bad thing when they do it. He relies on the IPCC as the last word on whether climate change will have catastrophic impacts, but also rails against it for it's anti-nuclear bias. Are we allowed to question the IPCC or not? He wants everyone to be reasonable and sensible but think most environmentalist are csecret communists who want to intionally made people poorer?

mcswell 7y ago
Apart from your final sentence, which is just weird, I don't see these as contradictions. Seldom does anyone agree 100% with someone else (mathematicians might be an exception), so one could reasonably consider the IPCC to be reliable on some issues and not on others. But that's probably not even what's' happening; the author might (for all I know) think the IPCC is too far on the side of exaggerating the climate change problem (and ignoring the nuclear solution), but still use them as evidence that the climate feature is not as bad as some claim. And the idea that coal is a good idea in India (a relatively impoverished country) and bad in "some regions" (presumably wealthy countries, you don't say) seems entire non-contradictory to me. "Insane" or "strange cult"--oh, stuff and nonsense. You need to come back to reality.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

From the article: "First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species." They say millions in the US will be displaced due to climate change in the coming decades. And yet, here we are in CA already displacing millions just from this self inflicted housing crisis.

blacksmith_tb 7y ago
That's a leitmotif in the article, and I think it's a good cautionary note. We need to tackle climate change, but we can't stop work on other problems, mistakenly thinking they'll be solved automatically by fixing climate change.

bsaul 7y ago

It’s about time people start being more sensible on this topic. This was becoming bordeline stupid, with pretty much everything « caused by climate change ». i wonder what the next victim of media insanity will be..

ncmncm 7y ago

There is a lot of money to be made going around reassuring people that the greatest existential threat of our time is no big deal. When the hundreds of millions of refugees flood across borders driving governments to fascism, and those fascist governments do what they do and trigger global thermonuclear war, these same individuals will insist none of it was their, or the fascists', fault. If money still means anything they will be well-paid for that, too.

mc32 7y ago
There is a lot of money to be made on both sides of the issue.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Meaning, a lot of money to be saved by stopping petroleum subsidies and retiring oil- and coal-fired generators in favor of renewables. The massive savings on medical costs from reduced pollution will ramp up slowly. But there is way, way more money immediately available from the people still getting the petroleum and coal subsidies.
  - mcswell 7y ago
    There are no such subsidies; the subsidies are on the side of solar, wind, etc. There was a claim awhile back that fossil fuels were somehow subsidized in the sense of "externals" (e.g. government pays their militaries to protect foreign countries that produce petroleum). I find the notion ridiculous, but even if you don't, no petroleum or coal company can cash in on that kind of subsidy.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      They cash in on it every single day. The difference between what other countries pay for fuel and what the US pays is all subsidy. If collected at the pump, instead, people would have moved to more cost-effective fuels long since.
7y ago

ecoled_ame 7y ago

but still ... i would rather live in a world with less pollution ...

marmadukester39 7y ago

The tipping points are real, cataclysmic and not mentioned here. Read about the clathrate gun and the methane coming out of the tundra, never mind the huge fires in the boreal forests this year. The IPCC estimates are famously conservative and the trend figures all indicate the most aggressive scenarios or worse are likely. Anyone who suggests the world will end in 20 years is wrong, but the impacts will be massive on longer timescales. Minimizing the risks in this way is so deeply frightening.