Posted on 1 December 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

Before Skeptical Science and an entire fleet of other websites devoted to combating and correcting climate misinformation and disinformation, there was Real Climate ("RC" for short and familiar). For our part we've been slinging climate facts for 17 years, but Real Climate team members Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf and Eric Steig are still plugging away after a full 20 years on this often (chronically!) frustrating but entirely necessary beat.

Real Climate's archive begins in November of 2004 with a glossary entry covering Antarctic Oscillation. Within a month, RC's articles evolved to include critiques of inadequate terminology for communication of science to the public, detailed corrections of climate bunk promoted by high-profile journalists, and corrective guidance on common (and carefully fostered) misunderstandings about our role in warming Earth's climate. In the intervening period between way-back-then and now the RC team have devoted extraordinary energy, persistence and— above all— patience to helping us all better understand our climate predicament, and how to escape it. Today the archives span hundreds of entries, each an informative nugget.

Reader comments captured at Real Climate over the course of decades are a sort of zoological garden of climate-denying critters; every species of "I don't want to know" is represented. RC comments are a longitudinal record of chumpish parroting of denier talking points, exciting contrarian fads that have come and gone, a whole bag of bent "final nails in the coffin" of climate science avidly sought by the deluded, like phlogiston by alchemists. We read this record and are prompted to both cry and laugh— progress is impaled on and arrested by the ridiculous, after all. 

Many of us found our entry into the world of climate science and fake climate skepticism via Real Climate, including your author writing this article today. RC was in 2004 and remains now an excellent onramp to this fraught subject, managed by experts in the field.

Two decades is likely longer than anybody imagined would be necessary to agree on reversing our climate mess. But as Real Climate's commemorative post points out, the Keeling Curve is still droopy when by now it ought to be arched— and that droop means continued acceleration of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere by our culture. Clearly the struggle to create sensible and crisply effective public policy to abate our emissions is not over. Successful public policy is an outcome of political processes guided by evidence and not wishful thinking or narrow self-interest; so long as the machinery of politics is operating in a hallucinatory fog of climate fiction serving various needs we won't get this situation under control. 

Are we truly still stuck in climate murk? Here at Skeptical Science we maintain access statistics for our collection of climate myth debunkings. Overwhelimingly search-driven, use of our resources serves as a rough proxy of what sort of claptrap on climate is circulating in the public mind. Today's stats show the top five confusions to be Models are Unreliable (they're very reliable), CO2 Effect Is Saturated (it's not), It's the Sun (it isn't), 2nd law of thermodynamics Contradicts Greenhouse Theory (it doesn't), and There Is No Consensus (there most certainly is). These are all ancient myths predating the inception of Real Climate— 20 years ago. We are indeed still mired in climate garbage, and really no suprise as this rubbish is promoted at industrial scale. 

It's unfortunately the case that Real Climate needs to continue. We'd all like to hang up our hats but we're not there yet. We salute Real Climate and also hope for their and our end to come sooner than later. Perhaps never before has redundancy been such a fond wish for the potentially disemployed— especially when most of us (including the RC crew) are volunteers!

That's our sad Story of the Week. 

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before November 24

• Book: Climate Obstruction Across Europe, Climate Social Science Network and published via Oxford University Press, Brulle et al., editors. From denial to delay, climate obstruction tactics appear to be thriving.
• Trump Energy Secretary Pick Chris Wright Calls Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg a `Friend`, DeSmog, Geoff Dembicki. With fracking CEO Wright tapped to serve in Trump’s cabinet, Lomborg’s influence could extend into the highest levels of the U.S. government.
• Twenty years of blogging in hindsight, RealClimate, Rasmus Benestad.
• Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis, Environment, The Guardian, Oliver Milman. "Among sweeping rightwing electoral victories across the globe, the 'big loser of the elections has been climate’ "
• 350 Chicago Hosts Climate Misinformation Seminar In Association With Loyola, The Loyola Phoenix, Jackson Steffens. The event aimed to combat the spread of false information surrounding the climate crisis.
• Misinformation & Artificial Intelligence - An interview with John Cook, "Science, Technology & the Future" on Youtube, Adam Ford.

November 24

• 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, November 17, 2024 thru Sat, November 23, 2024.
• COP29: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Baku, Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff. Developed nations have agreed to help channel “at least” $300bn a year into developing countries by 2035 to support their efforts to deal with climate change.
• Overtime Deal at COP29 Falls Short of Global Climate Finance Needs, Politics, Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn. 'Rich nations pledge $300 billion a year in aid, but developing countries that need help building out renewable energy and adapting to climate impacts say they again felt bullied to accept an inadequate agreement."
• Have we lost control of METHANE gas?, Just have a Think on Youtube, Dave Borlace.

November 25

• Alberta Conservatives Are Making Up Their Own Climate Facts, DeSmog, Mitch Anderson. Carbon myths, UN conspiracies and more magical thinking on display at the party’s annual meeting.
• I’m a Climate Scientist and an Optimist. I Refuse to Give Up Hope, Time Magazine, Peter Gleick. Commentary by Peter H. Gleick who is an internationally recognized expert on water and conflict and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
• How unusual is current post-El Niño warmth?, The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather. Global temperatures rose earlier and have potentially remained elevated longer than in any prior El Niño event since at least 1940.
• Five charts: Why a UN plastics treaty matters for climate change, International Policy, Carbon Brief, Verner Viisainen & Ayesha Tandon.
• Constructing modern buildings doesn’t have to create climate-changing pollution, Articles, Yale Climate Connections, Sueellen Campbell. "Traditional methods meet new technology to produce cleaner building materials, some of which even help sequester carbon pollution."

November 26

• How to take climate change out of the culture wars, Grist, Kate Yoder. What if the resistance to climate science is not really about science at all?

November 27

• Recorded webinar about climate change misinformation and disinformation, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler.
• Group That Calls CO2 `Essential` Praises Trump Energy Secretary Pick Chris Wright, DeSmog, Geoff Dembicki. The head of the CO2 Coalition tells DeSmog that Wright agrees carbon dioxide is “not the demon molecule, it’s the miracle molecule.”
• The melting of Greenland: A climate challenge with major implications for the 21st century, Phys.org, University de Liege.
• COP29 BAKU 27 November 2024 11:39 COP29: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Baku, Policy, Carbon Brief, Multiple Authors.

November 28

• Coral adaptation unlikely to keep pace with global warming, warn scientists, Phys.org, Newcastle University.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack. A listing of 143 articles in 51 journals by 880 contributing authors

November 29

• Translation #20 of The Debunking Handbook 2020 published!, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler. Since its initial publication four years ago, 20 translations of The Debunking Handbook have been created by teams of volunteer translators!
• How climate policies reduce air pollution saving lives and money, The Guardian, Gary Fuller. Early deaths from air pollution in US could be reduced by between 4,000 and 15,000 a year by 2035, study shows
• New powder that captures carbon could be ‘quantum leap’ for industry, Environment, The Guardian, Katharine Gammon. "A ‘covalent organic framework’ can be used to capture carbon to store it or convert it for industrial use"

November 30

• How COP29 Came Close to Collapse, as Developed and Developing Nations Clashed Under the Weak Azerbaijanis, Inside Climate News, Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth. Climate analyst Alden Meyer says the annual climate talks did little to alter the world’s path to warming at 2.5 to 3 degrees Celsius, which would result in “truly terrifying impacts.” Yet, without the 2015 Paris Agreement, warming might be heading toward 4 or 5 degrees.