Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Twitter Facebook YouTube Mastodon MeWe

RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Climate Misinformation by Source: Bob Carter

Bob Carter was a geologist specializing in palaeontology, stratigraphy, marine geology, and environmental science (1942-2016).

Quotes Articles Arguments Blogs Links Search 

Quotes by Bob Carter

Climate Myth What the Science Says
"“Pollution” they say ….. when carbon dioxide is the elixir of life, and the base of most of the food chains on our planet."
22 August 2011 (Source)

Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant

"If (and it’s a very big if) implementing the new tax actually does result in a cut of 5% in Australian emissions, which is the government’s target, then the theoretical amount of global warming averted would be much less than one-thousandth of a degree; even cutting Australia’s emissions altogether would avert warming of only 0.02 deg. C (two one-hundredths of a degree)."
22 August 2011 (Source)

If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.

"Would more warming, if it occurs, be beneficial or harmful? Both, depending upon geography, but overall the net benefits may well exceed the harm. For it is no accident that text-books call a warmer period that occurred about 8,000 years ago the “Holocene climatic OPTIMUM”."
22 August 2011 (Source)

Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.

"Currently the planet is cooling, and we have a quiet sun – which indicates that more cooling is likely."
22 August 2011 (Source)

All the indicators show that global warming is still happening.

"In reality, the great majority of independent scientists are agnostic rather than sceptical about the hypothesis of human-caused warming – it is the likely magnitude of human-caused warming, not the existence of a warming tendency in the first place, that is under debate."
22 August 2011 (Source)

97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.

"The late 20th century warming of half a degree, and the current pause or cooling, fall well within the bounds of previous natural temperature change; they are therefore not necessarily alarming, nor necessarily of human causation."
22 August 2011 (Source)
Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
"A gentle warming of up to about 0.5 deg. C occurred between 1979 and 1998; but since 1998 global temperature has now been static or cooling gently for ten years, despite continuing increases in CO2 emissions."
22 August 2011 (Source)

Every part of the Earth's climate system has continued warming since 1998, with 2015 shattering temperature records.

"Closing down the whole Australian industrial economy might result in the prevention of about 0.02 degrees of warming. Reducing emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 (the government's target) will avert an even smaller warming of about 0.002 degrees. Ergo, cutting Australian emissions will make no measurable difference to global climate."
27 June 2011 (Source)

If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.

"Between 2001 and 2010 global average temperature decreased by 0.05 degrees, over the same time that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased by 5 per cent. Ergo, carbon dioxide emissions are not driving dangerous warming."
27 June 2011 (Source)

There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.

"A mild warming of about 0.5 degrees Celsius (well within previous natural temperature variations) occurred between 1979 and 1998, and has been followed by slight global cooling over the past 10 years. Ergo, dangerous global warming is not occurring."
27 June 2011 (Source)

All the indicators show that global warming is still happening.

"there is no demonstrated problem of “dangerous” global warming"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.

"eliminating even all of Australia’s emissions might prevent planetary warming of only about 0.01 degree by 2100"
9 May 2011 (Source)

If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.

"For Australia to introduce a carbon dioxide tax ahead of the large emitting nations would be to expose our whole economy to competitive and economic disadvantage for no gain whatsoever....For Australia, the total cost for a family of four of implementing a carbon dioxide tax is likely to exceed $2000 a year "
9 May 2011 (Source)

The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.

"At its mooted introductory level of $20 to $30 per tonne, a carbon dioxide tax is unlikely to effect any reduction in emissions. As the price is ratcheted up, as is intended, to the point at which energy-intensive industry is forced offshore, Australian emissions will decline, as will Australia’s standard of living, but world emissions will remain the same. Such a policy is senseless"
9 May 2011 (Source)

If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.

"Taxing the emissions of [large emitters] will cause them to move offshore, or destroy them....To levy an unnecessary tax on [coal] is economic vandalism that will destroy jobs and reduce living standards for all Australians"
9 May 2011 (Source)

The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.

"no evidence exists that Australian climatic phenomena—including droughts, floods, storms, heat waves and snowstorms—differ now in intensity or frequency from their natural historical and geological patterns of strong annual and multi-decadal variability"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Extreme weather events are being made more frequent and worse by global warming.

"global sea-level rise has not accelerated (although the climate models predict that it should)"
9 May 2011 (Source)
Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.
"ocean heat is declining"
9 May 2011 (Source)
The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.
"Earth’s temperature is currently cooling slightly"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.

"Increasing carbon dioxide makes many plants grow faster and better, and helps to green the planet."
9 May 2011 (Source)

The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors

"Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant

"One thing is known for certain about these computer models, and it is that they are wrong as tested against the last twenty years of elapsed global temperature."
9 May 2011 (Source)
This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet's thermal inertia.
"that we can’t identify and measure [an anthropogenic warming signal] indicates that the signal is so small that it is lost in the noise of natural climate variation....Global average temperature at the end of the twentieth century fell well within the bounds of natural climate variation"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Internal variability can only account for small amounts of warming and cooling over periods of decades, and scientific studies have consistently shown that it cannot account for the global warming over the past century.

"Since [the 1980s], with the formation of the IPCC, and a parallel huge expansion of research and consultancy money into climate studies, energy studies and climate policy, an intensive effort has been made to identify and measure the human signature in the global temperature record at a cost that probably exceeds $100 billion. And, as Kevin Rudd might put it, “You know what? No such signature has been able to be isolated and measured.”"
9 May 2011 (Source)

Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.

"...there was indeed a warming – a mild, gentle warming, nothing alarming at all - in the late 20th Century for about 20 years and that warming reached a peak in the El Nino year in 1998. Since then, it's been very gently cooling."
17 May 2010 (Source)

Every part of the Earth's climate system has continued warming since 1998, with 2015 shattering temperature records.

"There's no evidence at all that any of these changes had anything to do with human activity or influence. These are natural climatic changes."
17 May 2010 (Source)

There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.

"Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere. "
26 November 2008 (Source)

Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant

Back to Climate Misinformation by Source



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us