judithcurry.com/2018/11/14/the-catastrophe-narrative/
The Catastrophe Narrative
What's the viability of this article beyond an opinion piece?
I posted this to address the regular "are we all fucked or what" posts here. The author will be posting part two next week.
A breath of fresh air. must be climate change.
Within the public domain, there is a widespread narrative of certainty (absent deep emissions cuts) of near-term (decades) climate catastrophe. This narrative is not supported by mainstream science (no skeptical views required), and in the same manner as an endless sequence of historic cultural narratives, propagates via emotive engagement, not veracity.
Doesn't this depend heavily on the definition of "catastrophy", though? I mean, there is lots of research into what a 2-5 °C warmer world would likely be like. See the latest IPCC report (1.5 °C), e. g. I agree that there is some exaggerations in the media, but that is hardly surprising, media being media...
Not really. The fact that common narratives diverge so much from the science tell us that for any given definition of catastrophe there's someone out there pedaling it.
Do you maybe have an example to help me out here? E.g., what is the most common false claim according to you? Would be very interesting to see some research into this topic, too!
The common narrative is that climate change is an existential risk to humans. That is, that it might cause our extinction. That's simply not supported by the science.
I agree that that is not supported by any evidence, but I strongly disagree that it is the common narrative. That is where i need some examples. Maybe it is the skeptic's impression of the common narrative...
Read the posts that get submitted here. I've been talking teenagers down from suicide that come here because they believe that narrative, and I have been doing so for over a year. I have ongoing PM conversations with some as recent as today. Think on that for a while.
While I applaud your efforts and that is really a terrible thing and absurdly illogical, that does not mean it is the common narrative. Honestly, I don't think I have ever seen a news article claiming extinction of man kind due to global warming. I have so far not seen any posts here doing that either (though I am relatively new here). Therefore it would be super nice with a clear example :)
I am against all kinds of misinformation, and you very clearly pointed out the danger of it.
There was a post right around the time of my last comment asking about the extinction of mankind. A common narrative doesn't need to be on the evening news to be commonly believed.
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5.5y
Climate change isn't accelerating because it's a poorly defined term. There's no single metric that is "climate change." When we look at actual metrics, most are not accelerating in any statistically significant way. Many are actually decelerating.
CO2 is rising at about the same rate as it has for the last half century, about 2 ppm / per. What's more, the forcing from CO2 is actually rising linearly or sublinearly as CO2 forcing follows a logarithmic curve.
Pollution is actually improving in developed countries.
Biodiversity, including insects, has mostly been lost on islands due to invasive species. This was most prominent 200-300 years ago. Yes, some species still go extinct, but the rate of vertebrate extinction (for example) has slowed.
Yes, we need lots of energy to run modern civilization. It needn't come from oil. It's a pity so many goodhearted but softheaded people oppose our best source of carbon free energy.
The global economy continues to grow. You can call it bleak, but the numbers are against you.
Leaders have always been useless. Read newspapers from the 19th century.
Mainstream science studies all these things and finds your opinion ill-informed.
Appreciate your considered reply, but I concur on Point 7 only.
That's only because you haven't studied these things as much as I have. I know that sounds harsh, but I can back up all these claims. Instead, though, I would first encourage you to seek out answers yourself.
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5.5y
Don't be sorry for paying me a compliment!
You are correct in your understanding. Jumping way back to 1994, here's an article about the sources of methane: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02208779
There are six major sources of atmospheric methane: emission from anaerobic decomposition in (1) natural wetlands; (2) paddy rice fields; (3) emission from livestock production systems (including intrinsic fermentation and animal waste); (4) biomass burning (including forest fires, charcoal combustion, and firewood burning); (5) anaerobic decomposition of organic waste in landfills; and (6) fossil methane emission during the exploration and transport of fossil fuels.
So the question now is whether permafrost, some 24 years later, would exceed any one of these categories. The answer is no. We actually see a slower rate of increase in methane levels this century than during the 20th century: https://www.methanelevels.org/
Further, the annual increase in forcing from methane has slowed even further since methane forcing is a square root function of its concentration.
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5.5y
Yes and yes. As a general rule, those proclaiming doom from permafrost methane avoid the IPCC reports. They want to sound scientific while actually avoiding published science. Good find, by the way.
Question if you don’t mind:
I’ve heard it repeated throughout reddit that the IPCC projections are linear and don’t take into account rapid changes to the climate system. However the actual scientists and people that are educated in the field that I’ve spoken with seem to disagree with much of this criticism and insist that feedbacks and other things are calculated in. Was wondering what your take on this is and why it keeps coming up, same with the methane scare, it seems the scientific community agrees that the doomsday scenarios are unrealistic, with more and more papers supporting this, and yet I keep seeing otherwise science-minded posters repeating stuff as if it is proven? It gets to be extremely confusing and was wondering if you could help clear it up.
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Something to remember is at the end of the day, climate scientists are human beings, and thus prone to speak emotively when under stress.
Climate change is a rather nebulous and terrifying subject, and if your entire profession revolves around thinking about it, you can easily become overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and despair. This isn’t to say climate change is worse than what the research states - it’s already concerning enough without needing to resort to hyperbole - but that just like for anyone else, occupational stress can take its toll on mental wellbeing and cause people to temporarily lose their composure and react emotionally. Academics in general are under immense pressure to deliver research, regardless of field.