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One Planet Only Forever at 13:55 PM on 24 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
The following article supplements the Alberta Government item I linked at the end of my comment @6: CBC News -Alberta throne speech pledges new pipelines and a boost for artificial intelligence
In addition to arguing against an emissions cap that would limit the harm done by Alberta’s pursuit of benefit from extracting and exporting fossil fuels, particularly the oil sands, the Alberta government has presented other objectives. They deny that they have any obligation to limit the global harm done by their pursuit of benefit from exporting fossil fuel resources. The following are quotes from the article:
…the speech outlining the provincial government’s agenda says it has been successful at convincing the rest of Canada of the importance of selling Alberta’s natural resources and recommits the province to doubling oil and gas production by an unspecified timeline.
...
“Alberta is winning and will continue to win this battle for our freedom and provincial rights – because your government believes we are on the right side of history and Albertans will not be denied their prosperous future,” the speech says.
…
Although (Premier) Smith did not point to a specific international agreement Canada had signed that Alberta wished to opt-out of, she said timelines to meet climate goals the federal government "arbitrarily arrived at" have harmed Alberta's economy.They also want a new pipelines to increase the rate of oil sands export. A pipeline to the northern BC coast would negatively impact BC and many First Nations groups. The Alberta Government would need to obtain agreement from all affected parties. Instead of doing that they have tried to claim that the opportunities for BC to benefit from its coastal resources are not BC opportunities. Supposedly the BC coast is Canada’s coast, not BC’s. And Alberta’s leaders try to claim that the Federal government needs to force the pipeline onto the affected parties (CBC News: Alberta will need B.C. government’s support to build proposed pipeline: energy minister). Of course that way of arguing also means the oil sands in Alberta are not Alberta’s resource, they are Canada’s eh?
Being reasonable and developing sustainable Common Sense understanding are not strengths of Alberta’s leadership-of-the-moment, no matter how many times they claim they are being reasonable or claim their beliefs are Common Sense.
And, picking a rotten cherry to put on top of that harmful misleading nonsense, following the lead of other harmful misleaders pursuing personal economic benefit who ‘unjustifiably attack others, especially immigrants’, there is the following:
“Using Alberta’s constitutionally protected provincial rights, the government of Alberta will return to a more stable number of primarily economic migrants, so that newcomers come here to work and contribute as they have historically done, while Canadian citizens living in Alberta are given first priority to the social programs, jobs and opportunities our economy creates,” the speech says.
Historically, many refugees and poorer immigrants have started their lives in Canada in Alberta.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:26 AM on 24 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
A couple of minor corrections and clarifications:
- My comment @6 is to Nick Palmer @5,
- In my comment @3: I ahve now downloaded the book and see that it is presented as 13 chapters. The Chapter numbers match the numbering in the SUmmary.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:19 AM on 24 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
Nick Palmer @3,
It is indeed unfortunate that there was insufficient UK leadership support for action to limit the ability of leadership competitors to benefit from being harmfully misleading.
Hopefully the people pursuing meaningful action to limit the success of harmful misleaders will be able to develop a good example in the Welsh Senedd.
Reading the items I linked, especially the 2025 February: Welsh Parliament: Standards of Conduct Committee: Individual Member Accountability - Deliberate deception document, indicate that this is a complex issue needing rigorous Reasonable Common Sense evaluation by all involved.
A particularly challenging aspect is making it very difficult for a misleader to abuse a provision that ‘allows misleading action that is deemed to be in the National (or regional) Interest’. There are many examples, in the past as well as daily today, of harmful misleaders claiming their actions are justified by 'the need to protect the National/Regional Interest’.
In Alberta, Canada, where I live, the current government (and previous governments) misleadingly argue(d) against action to limit climate change harm that would ‘reduce the ability of Alberta to benefit from extraction and export of fossil fuel resources’. As an example, the current government is arguing against a cap on harmful emissions from oil sands operations:
Alberta Government Document:
Alberta's response to the federal oil and gas emissions cap : Government of Alberta technical submission -
Nick Palmer at 20:11 PM on 23 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
OPOF #3
Sadly, the UK Parliament's Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill 2022-23 was a Private Member's Bill that did not complete its passage and has not become law.
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prove we are smart at 19:53 PM on 23 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
The right to lie, listen to how we got here and this USA disease intentionally causing a divided populous. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czk9QF3nLfU
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:07 PM on 23 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
wilddouglascounty @1,
I downloaded and read the ‘Book Summary’ last week. This book was presented in last week’s Skeptical Science New Research for Week #42 2025 (it is the first item in the ‘From this week's government/NGO section:’).
The book title at the beginning of the text in the green box at the top of this post is a link to the book’s webpage. The Book and the Book Summary can be downloaded from that webpage.
I have just re-read the summary and offer the following:
- Chapters 11 and 12 (presented as items 12 and 13 in the summary) appear to be almost exclusively related to your interest.
- Chapters 2, 5, and 9 (summary items 3, 6 and 10) appear to include some content addressing your interests.
- The other chapters of the book may include content related to your interest but the summary does not specifically indicate that they do.
I would add the following action as something helpful being done. The UK government Bill “Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception)” to “Create offences in relation to the publication of false or misleading statements by elected representatives; and for connected purposes”. It was “Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 28th June 2022”
The following is a sequence of some of the reporting on actions by the Welsh government.
- 2024-07-03: Breaking: Welsh government commits to ban lying in politics - by Compassion in Politics
- 2025-02-19: Welsh politicians caught lying could lose their seats – BBC News
- 2025 February: Welsh Parliament: Standards of Conduct Committee: Individual Member Accountability - Deliberate deception
- 2025 May 3: This Welsh lawmaker is trying to make it illegal for politicians to lie – CBC Radio
- 2025 October 6: Draft Bill giving Welsh voters power to remove Senedd Members published
And I will finish by raising a new concern: The deliberate harmful misleaders have been ruining the term “Common Sense” by calling their misleading nonsense “Common Sense”.
Trump uses 'common sense' to make a political point. It has populist appeal – NPR News
The harmful misleaders have also been ruining the term “Reasonable” by calling their irrational unjustifiable unreasonable claims “Reasonable”.
Developing sustainable improvements for humanity is challenged when people are misled to believe that Unreasonable Nonsense is Reasonable Common Sense.
Regressing to the days when “the Earth is Flat and the center of the universe” was considered to be reasonable common sense is not sustainable improvement.
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nigelj at 05:14 AM on 23 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
The commentary says:
The key method for cultivating these disbeliefs is by FLICCing off scientific integrity—using the five techniques of science denial:
Fake experts
Logical fallacies
Impossible expectations
Cherry picking
Conspiracy theoriesAll good, but does it need a category of "pseudoscience", where flawed but superficially convincing scientific reasoning is used to attempt to debunk the greenhouse effect, or climate models, etc,etc.
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wilddouglascounty at 00:17 AM on 23 October 2025New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment
Looks to be an impressive compilation of the climate denial industry. Does it add significantly to the already existing body of evidence, i.e. does it provide any new tools for those in the trenches listening to the new wave of climate denial that seems to be cresting in our political and financial circles? Specifically:
-The divestment from fossil fuels and investments in conservation/renewables movement seems to be hitting a real wall and is being reversed in several circles. Does this compilation provide any effective strategies for managing and reversing this change of direction and getting back on track? Who in the financial and investment circles are doing this and how can we assist them under the current assault coming from so many corporate reversals who are walking away from their sustainable goals?
Dismantling the scientific infrastructure that is providing information collection essential to understanding our climate in publicly funded collected data thru NOAA, EPA, as well as corporate funding for that matter, etc. seems to be going full speed ahead. Does this book provide any defensive bulwarks that can address this horrendous active suppression and dismantling of the scientific endeavor that has provided our current understanding of the dynamics of our climate as it relates to human activities?
I haven't read this book, but it seems like it's a great effort that describes PAST efforts at misinformation and delays. But I'm really worried that our efforts for understanding this obstruction is not what is currently needed. Understanding the type of gasoline used, how it was poured through the house and who brought the match to light it is important in the long run, but what we need now is a fire truck, plenty of water and firefighters to put out that fire, because the house is on fire RIGHT NOW and we are inside that house!
I want to see who the firefighters are right now, who is putting out the most water most effectively, and how we can support the most effective efforts. Like with so many other fronts, we are all shocked at how quickly our efforts have been crumbling under this assault. But unless we can take our understanding and translate it into counteracting and reversing the assault, it will become a largely irrelevant historical exercise.
Bill McKibben has done an admirable job in providing a counter narrative, but he seems to be pretty lonely out there. I'm hoping that Skeptical Science can play a role in actively highlighting successful efforts whereever they can be found and thereby helping us all weather the current storm.
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prove we are smart at 11:37 AM on 18 October 2025Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops
Thanks Eclectic for letting others know of one of my trusted youtubers too. The corrupt and cruel Trump administration has now, besides lying and gaslighting talking points-attempting to contol all the press. www.youtube.com/shorts/zI8GEamXE7g
Moderator Response:[BL] Please try to keep the tone civil.
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Eclectic at 10:39 AM on 17 October 2025Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops
Prove @ 3 :
Yes, Mallen Baker is a pundit making many comments on American and international matters ~ with a heavy emphasis on the American, owing to the fire-storm [the most polite word I could find] of American politics of recent years. To be clear, Mallen Baker is very much worth hearing, for his calm "outsider" views & analysis.
For "at home" commentary & analysis, I would also recommend another youtuber calling herself "Belle of the ranch". She presents herself as Farmer's Wife and ex-military nurse, and gives a 3 or 4 minute video several times per day. She seems intelligent, with a good network of expert connections, and her commentary is laced with dry humorous witticisms. Good value !
Moderator Response:[BL] Edited reference to Prove's post, to point to #3, #4 was a duplicate.
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prove we are smart at 08:47 AM on 17 October 2025Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops
Good news for the world is bad news for the worst polluting of the shipping companies, that also means anything the climate change denying and corrupt Trump administration gets upset about means it is good for humanity.
So this is about the International Maritime Organization which operates under the United Nations umbrella as part of its net zero framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. It has spent the last two years negotiating a legally binding framework to levy charges on vessels that underperform on efficiency.
Here Mallen Baker,an English commentator on corporate social responsibility and a former politician explains the situation www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBCnCh28UU
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Bob Loblaw at 04:35 AM on 17 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
History suggests that the authors of the DOE report are largely incapable of being embarrassed. Their determination to spread their message, in spite of numerous criticisms and corrections, is quite remarkable.
Charlie Brown @ 4:
That is an interest take: that they argue 3 W/m2 is small compared to the total radiative flux. It seems that they are using the "it's a trace/small amount compared to [X]" template that has been used in a variety of poor contrarian arguments; vis a vis:
Anthropogenic emissions are small compared to natural cycles
Are there any other arguments that fit this same template?
DenialDepot had a fun post (15 years ago!) on how to cook a graph by playing with the Y-axis. Of course, in its standard mocking of the contrarians, DenialDepot accuses Skeptical Science of cooking the graphs by not expanding the Y-axis to make the change look minuscule. (DD looked at sea ice.) DD shows the "proper" method should be to compare the lost sea ice area to the total area of the earth. In DD's words, "That's far more clear. Immediately I am having trouble seeing the sea ice. This is good. If you can't see it, it's not a problem."
It's like a defendant in court arguing "how can it be grand larceny? I only took $100,000. He has billions."
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EddieEvans at 21:37 PM on 16 October 2025Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops
Greed seems to be a common explanation for anti-science these days. But there's more, for sure. Here's another useful Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box. -
prove we are smart at 09:40 AM on 16 October 2025Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops
I must give a well done to this blog site to calling out the outright lies this current Trump administration is broadcasting-and certainly not only climate "facts". When I wondered why this admin is so anti-science and anti-change, these facts helped me. Where do the richest billionaires live? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires
And which countries are the biggest GHG pollutors? worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country
And guess what- four of the top five worlds biggest emitters are home to the most billionaires worldwide. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires
I think the heat being added by the equivalent to 40 Hiroshimas atomic bombs every 10 seconds is beyond tragic.4hiroshimas.info/
You know a million seconds is over 11days-a billion is over 35years!.
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prove we are smart at 09:45 AM on 10 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
I have to use simple breathing techniques to read/listen to anything from this Trump regime! Enabled by a political party of grifters and cowards with little conscience and no mirrors in their many houses.
Generations of this countrys populous fed on years of media stereotyping dumbing most down and culminating in electing a malignant man not once but twice. A mob boss,whose arsehole has swapped places with his mouth.
Indeed, Wikipedia on their "false and misleading statements by Donald Trump" page, have trouble deciding whether to split the narrative into 2 pages! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump
I guess it is about people voting against their own best interests. Seeing the big picture without the baggage you have grown up with or picked up along lifes journey. It seems not becoming a fatalist is much harder now and giving in to such is a guarantee of a dismal future for those generations to come.
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Charlie_Brown at 10:30 AM on 9 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
Apologies for misspelling Dr. Dessler's name.
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Charlie_Brown at 10:28 AM on 9 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
An excellent description of proper use of statistics for data evaluation. I thank Dr. Dressler for the illustrative graphics.
My choice for most embarrassing would be something simpler because it is obvious once identified. Then it is revealed as an undergraduate level misrepresentation by irrelevant comparison. Here is an excerpt of my submitted comments.
On p. 13, Section 3.1.1 Historical radiative forcing
“Figure 3.1.1 shows that the anthropogenic forcing component was negligible before about 1900 and has increased steadily since, rising to almost 3 W/m2 today. However, this is still only about 1 percent of the unperturbed radiation flows, making it a challenge to isolate the effects of anthropogenic forcing; state-of-the-art satellite estimates of global radiative energy flows are only accurate to a few W/m2.”
Comparing 3 W/m2 to 240 W/m2 is misleading and diminishes the significance of 3 W/m2. It is an example of science denialism by distraction, obfuscation, and omission. Straightforward, fundamental physics including conservation of energy and radiant energy calculations combined with atmospheric properties allow the effects of anthropogenic forcing to be isolated by calculation. The calculated spectra of energy loss to space is verified by satellite measurements (Hanel, et al.,1972) (Brindley & Bantges, 2015). 3 W/m2 is sufficient to cause and continue observed global warming. The anthropogenic forcing is not determined by difference of two large, measured numbers and does not rely on just satellite estimates of radiative energy flows. There is very little uncertainty about the effects of increasing gas concentrations.
Even a relatively simple radiant energy model can isolate the effects of anthropogenic forcing that are used for changes in energy flux at the top of the atmosphere caused by changing conditions. Sophisticated climate models use the same approach for radiant energy calculations.
References:
Brindley & Bantges, “The Spectral Signature of Recent Climate Change,” Current Climate Change Reports, 2, July 2016. doi.org/10.1007/s40641-016-0039-5
Hanel, et al., “The Nimbus 4 infrared spectroscopy experiment: 1. Calibrated thermal emission spectra,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 77(15), May 1972. -
nigelj at 05:42 AM on 9 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
In my opinion The DOE report is pure idiocy. Just venting my annoyance with it. Thankyou to the many people that have written good submissions rebutting it including the one above. While rebutalls are sometimes claimed to spread the lies / distortions I think its still important to rebut such reports as they can be superficially convincing to fence sitting decision makers.
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nigelj at 05:38 AM on 9 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
Good commentary, however I think it would have been helpful to include table 12.12 in your commentary, or at least a link to chapter 12. This is a link to chapter 12:
www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter12.pdf
Table 12.12 is on page 1856 in the link well down near the bottom.
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wilddouglascounty at 22:57 PM on 8 October 2025Is this the most embarrassing error in the DOE Climate Working Group Report?
Thank you for putting this together and sharing this important document, a concise response to all of the information distortions and misinformation circulating. By putting it out here and in Climate Brink, folks will surely disseminate it far and wide.
My request is that even though public hearings have closed for responses to this deeply flawed document, composed by a "flash committee" that disappeared almost as quick as it was created, I hope that efforts will be made to place this in the hands of relevant Senate and House Committe members as well. Namely, members and staff of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee (Bret Guthrie chair), the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and on the Senate side: members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Objections to this flawed rationale for gutting coordinated efforts to reduce carbon emissions, conserve energy, incentivize renewables while removing fossil fuel subsidies should continue to be challenged and protests and objections should be mounted at every step of the way. The current Administration's push to replace a sane energy strategy for the future with short sighted attacks on that strategy in the name of short term gains for the well positioned financial interests should be exposed for what it is at every turn. Trump's handlers need to know that ignoring physics and biology is like tearing up a parking ticket in a big city: the cost only goes up!
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John Hartz at 04:35 AM on 7 October 2025The thermodynamics of electric vs. internal combustion cars
Recommended supplementary reading:
Will your next EV have a solid-state battery — and improved performance?
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John Hartz at 13:19 PM on 6 October 2025The thermodynamics of electric vs. internal combustion cars
Jeff Cope:
You wrote:"The EV wastes 80% of the energy in the gasoline; including the 80%, the whole system wastes 95% of the energy in oil."
I cannot get my head around what you are trying to say. Please elaborate. Also provide source citations.
Thank you.
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Jeff Cope at 06:16 AM on 3 October 2025The thermodynamics of electric vs. internal combustion cars
In fact the waste of fossil fuels is even bigger than that 80%. You've already lost a lot of energy finding, drilling, transporting, refining, transporting oil... before the big waste of burning...ancient daylight. The EV wastes 80% of the energy in the gasoline; including the 80%, the whole system wastes 95% of the energy in oil.
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Evan at 06:31 AM on 28 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
Charlie Brown@3. Yes, I understand the Milankovitch cycles well. Yes, warming starts a very complicated feedback cycle, but CO2 is a magnifier. CO2 is a primary cause of the temperature fluctuations through complex feedback cycles.
But my point is that we live in an ecosystem that is very delicately balanced, and just 100 ppm of CO2 is enough to cause huge swings in sea level and temperature. This time around, regardless of the cause, we are pushing the system way beyond anything experienced during the ice age cycles.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:23 AM on 28 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
There is more to understand regarding immoral behaviour related to current human caused climate change impacts than Charlie Brown briefly noted at the end of his comment @3. Morality includes ‘someone being harmed’.
People are harmed in many ways. Morality is involved when a person could have, but did not, ‘learn what is harmful and responsibly freely choose to not be harmful to themselves or others’.
The most immoral people knowingly mislead in ways that tempt other people to avoid learning how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. Their ‘freedom to be harmfully misleading‘ is an important freedom. Lots can be learned from the actions of the harmful misleaders. Ensuring that that freedom to be misleading results in more people learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others is essential for humanity, or any collectively governed sub-set of humanity, to have a sustainable improving future.
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Charlie_Brown at 05:09 AM on 28 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
Ken Rice is lenient with the authors of the DOE Climate Impacts report and with Secretary Chris Wright. Chris Wright states in the Foreword: “I chose them for their rigor, honesty, and willingness to elevate the debate. I believe it faithfully represents the state of climate science today.” I care more about substance than credentials. My public comments included: “The Foreword highlights that the purpose of the Critical Review is to challenge and counter mainstream science. It certainly does not represent the state of climate science today. Rather, it provides a rationalization for weakening current policies for combatting climate change. The authors are neither representative of the scientific community nor diverse.”
The science is not that complex. The report is full of misrepresentation, distraction, and obfuscation. It is not worthy of an undergraduate term paper let alone a critical review of science by PhDs. Many points have been thoroughly discussed and debunked here on the SkS website. My comments included:
1) “Section 2.1 is oversimplistic. CO2 is rarely the limiting nutrient. It discusses photosynthesis as a benefit but ignores adverse effects resulting from CO2 as the primary cause of climate change including drought, extreme temperatures, excess rain, and cropland relocation.”
2) “CO2 below 180 ppm is an irrelevant distraction to the discussion of modern global warming.”
3) “Changing ‘ocean acidification’ to ‘ocean neutralization’ is semantic posturing that does not change the effects. To say that pH reduction is not acidification until the pH drops below 7.0 it is not meaningful.”
4) “Implying that the IPCC uses data manipulation to satisfy preferences is baseless accusatory language. The change in radiative forcing due to the Earth’s orbit around the sun is negligible within the period of modern global warming. The change due to sunspot activity is measured and found to be negligible.”
5) “Comparing 3 W/m2 to 240 W/m2 is misleading and diminishes the significance of 3 W/m2. It is an example of science denialism by distraction, obfuscation, and omission. Straightforward, fundamental physics including conservation of energy and radiant energy calculations combined with atmospheric properties allow the effects of anthropogenic forcing to be isolated by calculation. The calculated spectra of energy loss to space is verified by satellite measurements (Hanel, et al.,1972) (Brindley & Bantges, 2015). 3 W/m2 is sufficient to cause and continue observed global warming. The anthropogenic forcing is not determined by difference of two large, measured numbers and does not rely on just satellite estimates of radiative energy flows. There is very little uncertainty about the effects of increasing gas concentrations.
The effect of clouds is the largest uncertainty in climate models. However, average cloud cover does not change without a driving force. Therefore, the effect of increasing GHG can be isolated by holding clouds constant. Specific humidity will rise with increasing surface temperature, resulting in positive water vapor feedback. This can affect clouds."Others have submitted many more excellent comments, but I have made my point. The science can be explained and understood by most scientific-minded people who are interested in learning. One does not need a PhD in climate science to understand the flaws in the DOE report.
Disbanding the CWG may not be a sign of progress. It may be a way to avoid the lawsuit by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists that would restrict the use of the report.
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Charlie_Brown at 01:43 AM on 28 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
Evan @ 1 100,000 year cycles are caused by the Milankovitch cycles of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. CO2 fluctuations were the result of ocean temperature changes. It is hypothesized that at the beginning of ice ages increased dissolution of CO2 in cold water, the result of the temprature dependence on Henry's Law, slows cooling by reducing CO2. Evolving CO2 from warm water at the end of an ice age enhances the rate of warming.
This time is different. This is the first time in the history of the planet that CO2 and other GHG concentrations are increasing rapidly due to emissions from human activities.
Everyone dies. That is natural. When someone causes someone else to die, that is immoral.
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prove we are smart at 10:48 AM on 25 September 2025The Cartoon Villain's Guide to Killing Climate Action
The tobacco playbook was very successful/profitable for decades. The lack of ethics in ignoring the catastrophic results from fossil fuel use in all its forms is a moral crime.
"You don't have to be right-just create doubt". It seems the misinformation is about to go to a new level with the use of AI. Simon Clark explains the coming battle and why truth is becoming rare and how to help ourselves and a better future. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKtCuwfUCJg
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prove we are smart at 07:22 AM on 23 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
"In 2019, the Trump Administration proposed to create a "Presidential Committee on Climate Security" at the National Security Council that would conduct an "adversarial" review of the scientific consensus on climate change. Koonin was actively involved in recruiting others to be part of this review. The committee was scrapped in favor of an initiative not "subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee".[39][40][41]
From Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin
It seems so many societies are distracted and divided and disinformationed to elect malignant leaders.
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michael sweet at 03:25 AM on 23 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Radman365:
You say "It does at least appear to me that there is an excessive degree of certainty with regards to "the truth" on both sides." There are two truths here to determine.
1) Is sea level rise accelerating? On one side we have a paper published in an obscure journal by authors who have produced erroneous analysis before on this topic and did not review their work with anyone with expertise in the subject. On the other we see hundreds of scientists who have discussed the data extensively with each other and reached a consensus that sea level rise is accelerating. The hundreds of scientists have identified multiple large errors in the obscure authors work.
In this case it is relatively simple to do the analysis and the results are very strongly indicating acceleration. I note that in addition to the tide guage data the hundreds of scientists have independant satalite data that reaches the same conclusion. The obscure scientists simply do not know what they are doing and have screwed up. Why did they ignore the satalite data that showed their analysis was incorrect?
The data is clear, sea level rise has accelerated over the past 50 years. Ignoring half of the data and assuming that sea level rise is independant at different locations in the world is simply an ignorant way to look at the data.
2) The important question is: will sea level continue to accelerate in the future? Data from the future is difficult to obtain. Scientists are debating what we should expect in the future. A few thnk it will not be too bad while others think it will be catastrophic. The fact that sea level rise is accelerating makes many of us very worried. The last time CO2 was over 400 ppm sea level was over 20 meters higher than today. I note that every time an IPCC report is released the projections of sea level rise increase.
You are welcome to think that sea level rise will not be too bad. That might be the case. Since sea level rise is accelerating, most of the readers here thinik we should be concerned about it. 20 meters of sea level rise would submerge most of the major cities in the entire world, although it will take a long time. Since the answwer to sea level rise is installing cheap renewable energy everywhere, why not try supporting renewable energy in your community?
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Evan at 19:49 PM on 22 September 2025Koonin providing clarity on climate?
CO2 fluctuating 100 ppm over 100,000-year cycles is sufficient to cause sea-level to flluctuate 400 ft. This indicates just how delicate our ecosystem is to CO2 forcings.
CO2 is now increasing at a rate of 100 ppm every 40 years. Can we expect anything but difficulties from such a strong, upward, persistent push?
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radman365 at 05:16 AM on 21 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
I apologize for my two posts regarding the recent Voortman article; I am new to this site and didn't mean to make two posts. From the comments following the RC response to Voortman's article it does seem to me that as usual there are an extraordinary number of variables that confounds are ability to get reliable numbers. I have a new appreciation for the complexity of the subject. It does at least appear to me that there is an excessive degree of certainty with regards to "the truth" on both sides.
BTW how do we know that there was little to no review? (again I apologize if this is easily determined)
Moderator Response:[BL] Regarding lack of review.
MDPI journals have a very bad reputation. They strongly resemble a "pay as you play" publisher, where the only real review is whether or not your credit card charge clears. Again, read the Wikipedia link I gave you before.
If you look at your own link to the paper, you will see that the paper was first submitted to the journal on June 20, and a revised version submitted on August 15 - which means that reviews and changes were completed in less than two months. Final acceptance followed on August 20 - only 5 days after re-submission. These time frames are very short for proper review, and strongly suggest that very few changes were requested by reviewers.
The review comment are available on the journal's web page, They are mostly superficial in nature. The reviewers have either not done a serious evaluation of the methodology, or they do not have the expertise to do a thorough review of the methodology.
In the RealClimate post, they have a link to a response by Kopp et al. In that review, one of the points to make is that the Voortman and de Vos paper ignores many relevant papers in the literature. A good review by a knowledgeable reviewer would have pointed that out. And an evaluation by a good editor would have insisted that the authors fix that in their paper. All signs pointing to a quick and dirty review - possibly by friends of the authors.
The fundamental statistical error that Voortman and de Vos made was that they argued there is no global signal of acceleration, but they used a statistical test that assumes that there is no connection between the tidal stations (statistical independence). You can't assume there is no connection when you start your analysis, and then conclude that your analysis demonstrates that feature. Again, a proper review by a knowledgeable reviewer would have pointed this out.
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Paul Pukite at 00:35 AM on 21 September 2025Sea level rise is exaggerated
radman365 asked:"So what do people think of this recent article"
Since you asked, I thought the article had some interesting insight, not necessarily related to trends, but to the nature of local sea-level variability.
I posted comments on the aforementioned RC thread
Much has been written on sea-level variability, especially in the Baltic sea, where there are scores of sites with records longer than 100 years. Consider Stockholm sea-level which shows synchronization with long-period tides and their aliased harmonics. Notice that these aren't the classical diurnal or semi-diurnal tides, but those related to monthly lunar cycles (T, D, etc) interacting with the annual cycle.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v67.25642
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radman365 at 01:10 AM on 20 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
And yet here's evidence that the models are wrong about one of their most fundamental predictions: accelerating sea level rise. Instead, this study using 60 years of tidal gauge data show an annual rate of approximately 1.5mm, not 3-4mm.Oops!
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/9/1641
Blockbuster sea level study may turn climate change orthodoxy on its head!
Moderator Response:[BL] You pointed to the same paper on another thread. It is considered bad form to thread-blast the same comment in multiple places.
No matter how many times you tell us about the paper, it is still crap. Read the moderator's comment that has been added to your first post.
The only thing that is getting turned on its head is the hope that one of these days the contrarians will be able to come up with an analysis that isn't based on bad assumptions and bad methodology.
It's worth repeating the opening sentence of the RealClimate post referred to in the moderator's comment on your other posting:
Here we go again. An obscure, methodologically poor, paper published with little to no review makes a convenient point and gets elevated into supposedly ‘blockbusting’ science by the merchants of bullshit, sorry, doubt.
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radman365 at 00:53 AM on 20 September 2025Sea level rise is exaggerated
So what do people think of this recent article on 60 years of tidal guages concluding an average of only 1.5mm annual rise without significant acceleration?
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/9/1641
Moderator Response:[BL] What do people think? People think that this most recent paper repeats errors that the same authors have made before - and the authors have had pointed out to them before.
RealClimate has a good rebuttal posted yesterday, with lots of links to better analyses.
The RealClimate post also points to recent post at Tamino's where he points out details on what was done wrong. Some specific Tamino posts:
US government makes old lies new again
It's also worth noting that the paper is in an MDPI journal, which has a reputation for publishing some awful stuff.
The RealClimate opening sentence pretty much sums it up:
Here we go again. An obscure, methodologically poor, paper published with little to no review makes a convenient point and gets elevated into supposedly ‘blockbusting’ science by the merchants of bullshit, sorry, doubt.
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Evan at 19:58 PM on 19 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
MA Rodger@11, thank you very much for your detailed answer and for the explanation about AF.
Katharine Hayhoe has an analogy about driving on a dead-straight road in Texas and saying that "relying on past climate patterns is no longer a reliable guide for the future because of the speed of climate change." (this is the Google AI version of her quote). It is reassuring in a sense that AF has been steady for so long, but ...
Despite the data you showed, because we are pushing the climate so hard (CO2 rising on average 2.5 ppm/yr), I remain skeptical that we can really be sure that AF will remain constant into the future. But for the sake of harmony, can we figure out wording that we all agree on.
Do you agree that climate scientists use 2C warming as a guesstimate of the point at which we begin to lock in warming in the pipeline? In other words, even if we achieved Net-0 after crossing the 2C warming threshold, do climate scientist agree that at that point we would have locked in additional future warming?
A lot of this is semantics, because the socio-political inertia does not give me much hope that we will put on the brakes before we cross the 2C barrier, but I would like to arrive at a common understanding so that my posts here don't seem to be at odds with professional climate science.
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MA Rodger at 09:08 AM on 19 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan @8,
(Hopefully my reply here, your third to #7, isn't piling too much at you.)Quantifying CO2 global emissions is reliant on the data reported and that data does suggest that emissions are still edging up. And these annoying still-rising emissions will result in accelerating increases in atmospheric CO2 levels and leaving net zero further away than ever.
The question of whether "the carbon cycle is not doing what we thought" revolves around Af, the Airborne Fraction which does wobble quite a bit year-to-year. Studies do show that there is no sign of an increasing Airborne Fraction (eg Bennett et al (2024) 'Quantification of the Airborne Fraction of Atmospheric CO2 Reveals Stability in Global Carbon Sinks Over the Past Six Decades', their Fig4 below). Of course, if there were an increasing Airborne Fraction, it would be a game-changer. But the major long-term sink we rely on is the ocean absorbtion which is a case of reasonably straightforward chemistry. Over a millennium the oceans will take up about 75% of our emissions.
A simplistic reassurance can be gleaned from the work of the Global Carbon Project whose annual data shows annual emissions and the annual atmospheric increase (both in GtCarbon) with no perceptible sign of increases in the Airborne Fraction.
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nigelj at 07:57 AM on 19 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan @3 said: "My point is that as we warm the planet, it is likely that the natural emissions will increase, and it is equally likely that the sinks that have removed the natural emissions, will decrease. Hence, the imbalance caused by our 4% emissions will likely be added to by the combination of increased natural emissions and decreased natural sinks. We don't have to perturb the 96% too much to completely swamp our efforts to reduce GHG emissions."
My understanding is your scenario would only happen if we let warming get so high that we crossed certain tipping points, so that even if we froze emissions at that point in time, CO2 and methane release would continue at very substantial levels thus offsetting or swamping our efforts to then drastically cut emissions. We haven't reached that point, and my understanding is we wont provided we keep warming under 2 degrees. Bear in mind theres a fine line between a positive feedback which stops when the primary forcing stops, and crossing a tipping point where emissions become self sustaining. And Im not sure how self sustaining they would really be.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:17 AM on 19 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan,
Thank you for further clarifying what your primary concern is.
I fully agree that the Keeling Curve, and the concentrations of all other ghgs, should be what people pay attention to. Those measurements should be the basis for claims regarding the success of efforts to rapidly end the harmful human impacts and hopefully limit the harmful climate change impacts on future generations to far less than 2.0 degrees C (with unprofitable carbon extraction being required to bring excess impacts back down to 1.5 degrees C).
There is a chance that the recent set of unexpectedly warm years are the result of human impacts to date triggering significant long lasting feedbacks that are not yet identified and understood.
But I think it is significantly more likely that the ways that the rate of ‘human global warming and resulting climate change impacts’ are measured are inaccurate. And those inaccurate measurements lead people to make inaccurate claims, claims that are inconsistent with the Keeling Curve and the measurement of other ghgs.
To be clear, a leveling off of the annual rate of human impacts does not mean that the Keeling Curve would level off. Humans having sustainably achieved net-zero global warming impact would be indicated by the Keeling Curve leveling off and starting to slowly sustainably decline.
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Evan at 20:05 PM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
MA Rodger@7, thanks for the review of the carbon cycle. I understand the principles here: I just don't accept the confidence with which the claims are made that carbon sinks will take care of carbon sources if we were to reach net-0.
But my real point is this. I caution people to listen less to all of the optimistic talk about how emissions are starting to flatten out and getting ready to decline, and watch instead what is happening to the Keeling Curve, because it represents the net effect of the carbon cycle. If the carbon cycle is really going to clean up our mess, then that should be reflected in the Keeling Curve (I understand that currently about half of our GHG emissions are absorbed by the oceans and the land).
But so far the Keeling Curve continues to accelerate upwards, and the annual average rate of increase is a colossal 2.5 ppm! I wonder if people really appreciate the magnitude of that kind of push on our environment?
For the Keeling Curve to continue its upward acceleration in the face of so much positive, optimistic emissions news means that either the carbon cycle is not doing what we thought it should be doing, or our emissions estimates underestimate reality. Either way, we are a long, long way from achieving anything like Net-0.
Perhaps my skepticism originates because I am a professional modeler and understand the uncertainties of such modeling. But beyond that, I am concerned about the confidence placed in our emissions estimates. The US is heading down a path to obfuscate climate science. Certainly such obfuscation is occurring elsewhere. For these reasons and more I encourage people to follow the trajectory of the Keeling Curve, because in the end, it is rrepresents the unvarnished truth about what is really happening to the carbon cycle.
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MA Rodger at 14:45 PM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan @3,
You set out your "point" that, in your opinion, "the warming would likely continue due to how we have already affected the balance of natural GHG sources and sinks" even after every humanity has effectively disappeared.
The carbon cycle is understood enough (and has been understood for some time) to allow studies to conclude that the carbon sinks will continue to outweigh any natural sources and the resulting reduction in GHG will roughly balance the remaining unfulfilled warming from our emissions. Thus warming effectively stops once our emissions stop.
There has been work looking at the potential for large new sources of natural emissions or the stifling of sinks. These include the likes of methane emissions from melting permafrost or warming Arctic seas, the cascading collapse of econsystems like the Amazon rainforest or the capacity of oceans to absorb CO2 in a warmer world. (Your mention of "feedbacks" @5 - you may have specific examples in mind.) Some of this past work has sounded pretty worrying but such worrying findings have not survived full analysis.
Beyond 'net zero', there are also calls for 'net-negative emissions' that don't get discussed as much as they should. These are seen as globally necessary if our emissions are not cut quickly enough, a situation which seems pretty certain to happen. 'Net-negative' does not address future warming but works to reduce the time over which peak warming continues.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:21 PM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan,
My Stating
“how bad things get, including how much unexpected feedback is triggered, is totally controlled by human actions.”
is not the same as stating
“we understand the ecosystem well enough to claim that humans can completely control the ecosystem and all feedbacks.”
My understanding includes the knowledge that we do not understand the global and local ecosystem(s) well enough to develop and implement geoengineering activities that will produce a sustained desired controlled reduction of climate change harm to the global ecosystem(s) and all feedbacks.
My understanding is that human impacts that increase ghg levels will make things worse in the future. And humans are the only beings on the planet who can control how harmful they are collectively. Tragically, that ‘control’ can include collectively being more harmful because higher status, more influential, members of humanity are able to gather support for being more harmful and less helpful to others.
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Evan at 07:57 AM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
OPOF@4, you state,
"However, my point remains that how bad things get, including how much unexpected feedback is triggered, is totally controlled by human actions."
IMO, we simply do not understand the ecosystem well enough to claim that humans are still in complete control of the ecosystem and all feedbacks.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:55 AM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan,
Thank you for clarifying the focus of your comment @1. My take is that you are concerned that feedback mechanisms that will cause significant unanticipated warming far into the future have been triggered by human impacts to date.
My understanding is that, at the present and near future level of human impacts (with peak total impacts significantly lower than 2.0 C), sea level rise is one of the few impacts that will be increasing for a long time after human activity stops increasing ghg levels.
Recent years of unexpected global average surface temperatures raises questions. However, my point remains that how bad things get, including how much unexpected feedback is triggered, is totally controlled by human actions.
Lower total peak human ghg impacts in the future will produce lower amounts of harmful consequences in the future.
The wording in the article that concerns me is the moving away from the Paris Agreement goals by saying “the study finds that its [the Paris Agreement] primary target of limiting global warming to 2°C remains within reach."
As presented by the Wikipedia item for the Paris Agreement:
The Paris Agreement has a long-term temperature goal which is to keep the rise in global surface temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels.
Limiting impacts to 2 degree C does not reach the Paris Agreement objective. And every bit of increased impacts increases the risk and magnitude of harmful unexpected feedback.
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Evan at 02:38 AM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
OPOF, in attempting to be brief and to the point, I created a misunderstanding.
I understand that historically the other 96% of GHG emissions has been in balance with equivalent sinks, leaving the 4% due to humans to cause the warming. My point is that as we warm the planet, it is likely that the natural emissions will increase, and it is equally likely that the sinks that have removed the natural emissions, will decrease. Hence, the imbalance caused by our 4% emissions will likely be added to by the combination of increased natural emissions and decreased natural sinks. We don't have to perturb the 96% too much to completely swamp our efforts to reduce GHG emissions.
I think it is arrogant to assume that we understand the natural world so well and the current state of the climate as to assume that the future continues to remain in our hands. Climate scientists have been scrambling the last few years to explain the sudden increase in warming. Their scrambling to understand this increased warming is a good example of why I don't think that future warming is entirely in our hands.
My point is that even if we eradicated every last human from the planet (one of the many possible Net-0 strategies), that the warming would likely continue due to how we have already affected the balance of natural GHG sources and sinks. You can call this my opinion, but it is based on a healthy respect for just how delicate our ecosystem is, and hard we have been pushing it the last century or so.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:19 AM on 18 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
Evan,
My understanding is that the global warming, climate changes, and sea level rise due to increasing ghg levels is due to the 4%. How much future harm is done is indeed totally dependent on what global humanity collectively does in the future.
What global humanity has done to date, including the failure to dramatically reduce activities that undeniably increase ghg levels, especially the most fortunate failing to lead the transition to less harmful ways of living (and the related failure of the most fortunate to help those who are tragically unfortunate have better less harmful life experiences), made things worse now than it had to be.
If humans stop causing impacts that continue to increase ghg levels then the global warming, climate change and sea level rise impacts will stop getting worse.
So, “Future emissions [do] control future warming,” when those emissions are understood to be the human caused excess emissions increasing ghg levels (the 4%). And that understanding is reinforced by the complete quote “Future emissions control future warming, … And if the world were to rapidly act on carbon dioxide and methane emissions, we could halve the rate of warming.”
And that understanding can be extended to state that: If global humanity were to rapidly act on carbon dioxide and methane emissions and rapidly act to develop and implement effective sustainable reduction of levels of ghgs then the maximum level of future harm due to future human impacts will be less than would otherwise be created.A reminder about an often ignored aspect of reality regarding effective methods to limit the total future harm of human climate change impacts. A significant action that can immediately be implemented, needing no technological development or growth of production and use of a technology, is the ending of energy use that, while potentially enjoyable or popular or profitable, is not required to live a decent healthy helpful (unharmful) life.
Technological developments that require less energy consumption should be the priority. Less energy use would reduce the harm done during the transition from harmful unsustainable energy systems to harmless sustainable energy systems.
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Evan at 21:36 PM on 17 September 2025Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report
The phrase “Future emissions control future warming,” concerns me. It assumes that the fate of the climate is still in our hands. Human emissions represent just 4% of total emissions, yet this phrase implies that nothing we've done has irreversibly increased that other 96% of emissions.
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Evan at 20:38 PM on 17 September 2025Fact brief - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
Bob and Michael, thanks for the additional comments.
My comment was originally offered to help people rebut those who might retort as my brother did. Obviously I agree with both of you.
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michael sweet at 23:55 PM on 16 September 2025Fact brief - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
Evan,
It seems to me that there is a stark difference between ideas people had 200 years ago that have not been supported for 150 years and ideas that have stood the rest of time for 200 years. The greenhouse effect has been validated innumerable times over the past 200 years. It is not a theory that is accepted based on 200 year old data.
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Bob Loblaw at 22:53 PM on 16 September 2025Fact brief - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
Evan:
Indeed. In fact, Fourier's contribution to heat transfer is stll called "Fourier's law of heat conduction". In the same scientific realm as Newton's law of gravity, Boyle's law and Charles' law for gases, etc.
