THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR December 8, 2019 at 12:49 pm
Paul Plante says :
What an excellent article, and finally, there is a publication here in the United States of America that has the courage to stand up to this “climate crisis” bull**** coming at us from little Greta and the Democrats and their screeching ilk.
I too have read through this IPCC crap and nowhere does it support the idea of a “climate crisis,” or “climate chaos,” or “carbon pollution,” because those are stupid terms.
As to HYSTERIA MONGERING by the “global climate crisis” crowd, this as it is down around zero Fahrenheit this morning to the north of you, which has people up this way wondering how come we’re not getting our fair share of global warming, let’s go to an article in something called Teen Vogue entitled “My Home Is Already Being Destroyed by Climate Change” by Kaylah Brathwaite on 9/20/2019, where we have this following hysteria, to wit:
I have spent my entire life on a dying planet.
end quotes
To which I have to reply that that is total BULL****, since the planet is hardly dying, nor is there any credible evidence that the planet is dying.
Is the planet changing?
Yes, because it is a globe spinning through space, and as a result, it is in a constant state of change, which is HIGH SCHOOL earth science – no Pile-It-High-and-Deeper (PhD) is required to understand or comprehend that.
Getting back to the hysteria mongering:
We know that climate change not only puts the future of our earth in peril, but that it is frontline youth — those of us who live on islands, in rural areas, and along the coast — who will experience its most severe consequences.
end quotes
Again, more horse****, because climate change on the earth is a natural function of the earth, just as breathing is a natural process of being human.
And what are “frontline youth?”
As to experiencing its most severe consequences, perhaps, because people for thousands of years have been subjected to quite severe consequences, far worse than these children have experienced in their short lifetimes, we have, to wit:
* The river floods and subsequent disease in China in 1332–3 are said to have taken seven million human lives, with long-lasting devastation in parts of the country and destruction of many settlements;
* Many similar disasters were recorded on the low-lying coastlands around the North Sea in the Middle Ages and after, particularly on the continental side, with estimated death tolls from 100,000 to 400,000 – their non-occurrence in recent times is a tribute to the effectiveness of the sea defences that have been built over the last three hundred years.
* The particularly deadly time in West Africa in the 1860s and 1870s, which earned the region the name of ‘the White Man's Grave’, when the average expectation of life of a European going there was six months, seems to have been a period when the equatorial rains were peculiarly active over Africa and the lakes were rising strongly.
And that list goes on and on and on, and again, people, we are talking either grade school level or high school level stuff here, so why are these children of today so stupid, and here I place little Greta Thunberg right up at the top of that list, which takes us back to that Teen Vogue article, to wit:
Before I even knew about the science of climate change, I was already familiar with climate anxiety and existential dread.
end quotes
Climate anxiety?
Ah, yes, the head shrinkers out there love that term, because of all the new patients it gives them access to, which is good for their bottom line; look at Greta, for example, with her personal laundry list of all the whatevers it is she suffers from, so from their perspective, keep the climate anxiety and existential dread coming because the wife wants a new en suite and the kids need to go to the best colleges, and of course, there are the payments on the Mercedes-Benz for him and the BMW for her, and so that game will go on for some time.
Getting back to that Teen Vogue hysteria-mongering:
I didn’t know anything about climate change in elementary school, and I’m sure some of my premature existential dread was influenced by Christianity.
But no child has apocalyptic thoughts without reason.
end quotes
So who really is writing those words, people, with that talk about “apocalyptic thoughts?”
I was a child living in an old farmhouse with no insulation and no central heat other than wood stoves, in a place where the temperature records will show it down to 30 below the Faherenheit zero, so I have a feel for what it is like to freeze, and I didn’t end up with apocalyptic thoughts, or climate anxiety or existential dread, nor did I know anyone who suffered from any of those things when I was young, and having experienced both, I’ll take the heat as opposed to the cold, because of the two, the cold will kill you quicker, which takes us back to the hysteria-mongering, as follows:
More powerful countries are responsible for letting the climate crisis become so extreme, yet they’ve also left vulnerable communities squabbling for habitable land.
end quotes
So, now we are over into the politics, and what this is really all about, as follows:
Strikes and mass mobilization are instrumental to acquiring climate justice.
end quotes
CLIMATE JUSTICE, people!
We people here in the United States of America OWE these children in other countries the climate they would like to have, not too hot, not too cold, but everything just right, and because we are greedy, they are getting the cast-off climate we don’t want, while we take the best climate for ourselves, this as I look out the window at two feet of snow on the ground out there.
So where is our climate justice?
How come we don’t get to have the same balmy climate all year round that the people in Burbank, California, and Miami Beach, Florida and Cape Charles, Virginia get to have?
How totally unfair is that?
And back to Teen Vogue we go for more horse****, as follows:
There is little more valuable than listening to the voices and stories of those experiencing a crisis firsthand.
There is a different sense of urgency for those of us whose whose homes are being destroyed right now.
We understand that revolutionary action is required.
We must call upon our representatives to take the climate crisis as seriously as it deserves.
We strike out of fear and to show unity against systems that seek to destroy us.
We know that individuals are weak against powerful injustices, but that mass strikes can challenge and undermine a status quo that prioritizes profit over the well-being of our homes and planet.
Our dependency on a capitalist system that is actively contributing to our demise isn’t our only choice.
I strike for those working in the fossil fuel industry just as much as I strike for my fellow activists.
We need a just transition that ensures that workers who contribute to the climate crisis don’t lose their sources of income after we’ve made the revolutionary switch to renewable sources of energy.
Climate justice is liberation.
And I want to be liberated.
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
end quotes
Add the Cape Charles Mirror to that list as the one news outlet in America that is countering the horse**** and hog**** and pure bull**** being put out by the bushel basket-full by those more than 250 news outlets that are hysteria-mongering for profit!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-205396
ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR December 8, 2019 at 7:58 pm
Paul Plante says :
First off, whether you dropped out of the fifth grade when you were 16 and could legally quit school, or whether you have five or six different Ph.D’s in all kinds of subjects, there is nothing new here with respect to the “science,” which goes back to the early 1800s, if not earlier, as we can clearly see from this blog entry from the Union of Concerned Scientists entitled “I’m a Scientist and Greta Thunberg’s Speech to Congress Inspires Me” by Brenda Ekwurzel, senior climate scientist, on September 20, 2019, to wit:
I was honored to meet Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old climate activist who started weekly climate strikes and the hashtag #FridaysForFuture, which have in turn inspired many young people to strike in their hometowns.
Moments before Greta’s powerful speech to members of Congress on September 18, 2019 in the largest room on Capitol Hill, the Ways and Means Committee room, she was preparing in a small room.
Those of us with her stood a little away so that she might think about the words she was about to share with the world.
Her father, Svante Thunberg, deftly encouraged us to speak in low tones while still engaging in friendly conversation.
I remarked to him that I admired his first name because I appreciate that he shares it with the Swedish scientist and Nobel laureate in chemistry, Svante Arrhenius, who made noteworthy contributions in climate science by pointing out how different levels of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would affect Earth’s climate (the so-called “greenhouse effect”).
Svante Thunberg smiled and replied that he grew up knowing that he was related to, and named after, the Nobel laureate.
However, until recently no one in Greta’s family quite understood exactly what Arrhenius was honored for.
Mr. Thunberg said he himself did not truly appreciate it until Greta started to seriously learn more about climate change.
With a twinkle in his eye and mirthful irony he posited this as a kind of an indicator that even Arrhenius’s own descendants were not sufficiently aware of the climate science — which likely means this applies to most people.
end quotes
And while the slick Svante Thunberg, who reminds me a lot of William Avery “Devil Bill” Rockefeller Sr., a famous American con-artist who went by the alias of Dr. William Levingston, and his little daughter Greta might be totally ignorant of who Svante Arrhenius is, the fact is that they are a minority, which takes us back to that blog entry, as follows:
Greta is distantly related to Svante Arrhenius.
Full circle: we have now received two warnings from Swedish thinkers, one from the 19th century and one from the 21st century.
end quotes
Except that is absolute horse****, as I am quite familiar as an engineer with what Arrhenius actually said about carbonic acid because he wrote it down so we wouldn’t have to guess at it all these years later, and to make that idiotic statement that Arrhenius gave us a warning, that so-called “senior climate scientist” who wrote that blog entry is showing the world her ignorance, which continues as follows, to wit:
Svante Arrhenius put forth a theory that scientists have been building and expanding ever since, “standing on the shoulders of giants” as the saying goes.
Now in this century, Greta Thunberg’s clarion call to leaders in Sweden has grown louder as she continues to speak with leaders around the world.
end quotes
Except those so-called “climate scientists” are not “building” on the theory put forth by Arrhenius – they are perverting what Arrhenius wrote, which is as follows:
“WORLDS IN THE MAKING – THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE” BY SVANTE ARRHENIUS, DIRECTOR OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL NOBEL INSTITUTE, STOCKHOLM; TRANSLATED BY DR. H. BORNS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
Published March, 1908.
Since, now, warm ages have alternated with glacial periods, even after man appeared on the earth, we have to ask ourselves: Is it probable that we shall in the coming geological ages be visited by a new ice period that will drive us from our temperate countries into the hotter climates of Africa?
There does not appear to be much ground for such an apprehension.
The enormous combustion of coal by our industrial establishments suffices to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air to a perceptible degree.
Volcanism, whose devastations on Krakatoa (1883) and Martinique (1902) have been terrible in late years, appears to be growing more intense.
It is probable, therefore, that the percentage of carbonic acid increases at a rapid rate.
Hence the carbonic acid percentage has been increasing of late.
We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days.
We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil.
By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.
end quotes
That is what Arrhenius actually said, and it is the exact opposite of the horse**** these hysteria-mongering “climate scientists” like this Brenda Ekwurzel are spreading, along with Svante Thunberg and his little daughter Greta, neither of whom has a clue as to what they are on about.
And that is where this discussion about scientists signing petitions really has to start – with what Arrhenius actually said, because any subsequent “science” which runs counter to the position of Arrhenius that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is essential to maintaining life as we know it on earth is dead wrong.
As to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Arrhenius continued as follows:
Fourier and Pouillet now thought that the atmosphere of our earth should be endowed with properties resembling those of glass, as regards permeability of heat.
Tyndall later proved this assumption to be correct.
The chief invisible constitutents of the air which participate in this effect are water vapor, which is always found in a certain quantity in the air, and carbonic acid, also ozone and hydrocarbons.
Of late, however, we have been supplied with very careful observations on the permeability to heat of carbonic acid and of water vapor.
With the help of these data I have calculated that if the atmosphere were deprived of all its carbonic acid of which it contains only 0.03 per cent, by volume the temperature of the earth’s surface would fall by about 21 degrees C.
This lowering of the temperature would diminish the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, and would cause a further almost equally strong fall of temperature.
If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, (296 ppm) the temperature would fall by about 4 degrees C; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8 degrees C.
On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4 degrees C; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8 degrees C.
Further, a diminution of the carbonic acid percentage would accentuate the temperature differences between the different portions of the earth, while an increase in this percentage would tend to equalize the temperature.
The question, however, is whether any such temperature fluctuations have really been observed on the surface of the earth.
The geologists would answer: yes.
Our historical era was preceded by a period in which the mean temperature was by 2 degrees C (3.6 F.) higher than at present.
We recognize this from the former distribution of the ordinary hazel-nut and of the water-nut (Trapanalans).
Fossil nuts of these two species have been found in localities where the plants could not thrive in the present climate.
This age, again, was preceded by an age which, we are pretty certain, drove the inhabitants of northern Europe from their old abodes.
The glacial age must have been divided into several periods, alternating with intervals of milder climates, the so-called inter-glacial periods.
The space of time which is characterized by these glacial periods, when the temperature according to measurements based upon the study of the spreading of glaciers in the Alps must have been about 5 degrees C (8 F.) lower than now, has been estimated by geologists at not less than 100,000 years.
This epoch was preceded by a warmer age, in which the temperature, to judge from fossilized plants of those days, must at times have been by 8 or 9 degrees C (14 or 16 F.) higher than at present, and, moreover, much more uniformly distributed over the whole earth (Eocene).
Pronounced fluctuations of this kind in the climate have also occurred in former geological periods.
Are we now justified in supposing that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air has varied to an extent sufficient to account for the temperature changes?
This question has been answered in the affirmative by Hogbom, and, in later times, by Stevenson.
The actual percentage of carbonic acid in the air is so insignificant that the annual combustion of coal, which has now (1904) risen to about 900 million tons and is rapidly increasing, carries about one-seven-hundredth part of its percentage of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.
That would imply that there is no real stability in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air, which is probably subject to considerable fluctuations in the course of time.
end quotes
So, if we were to do what the IPCC crowd wants, and cut our CO2 emissions to zero by 2030, what we can expect, since the plants growing on earth will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they do now, is a period of rapid cooling.
Could we survive that rapid cooling in terms of food production?
Stay tuned.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/g ... ent-205539
Paul Plante says :
First off, whether you dropped out of the fifth grade when you were 16 and could legally quit school, or whether you have five or six different Ph.D’s in all kinds of subjects, there is nothing new here with respect to the “science,” which goes back to the early 1800s, if not earlier, as we can clearly see from this blog entry from the Union of Concerned Scientists entitled “I’m a Scientist and Greta Thunberg’s Speech to Congress Inspires Me” by Brenda Ekwurzel, senior climate scientist, on September 20, 2019, to wit:
I was honored to meet Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old climate activist who started weekly climate strikes and the hashtag #FridaysForFuture, which have in turn inspired many young people to strike in their hometowns.
Moments before Greta’s powerful speech to members of Congress on September 18, 2019 in the largest room on Capitol Hill, the Ways and Means Committee room, she was preparing in a small room.
Those of us with her stood a little away so that she might think about the words she was about to share with the world.
Her father, Svante Thunberg, deftly encouraged us to speak in low tones while still engaging in friendly conversation.
I remarked to him that I admired his first name because I appreciate that he shares it with the Swedish scientist and Nobel laureate in chemistry, Svante Arrhenius, who made noteworthy contributions in climate science by pointing out how different levels of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would affect Earth’s climate (the so-called “greenhouse effect”).
Svante Thunberg smiled and replied that he grew up knowing that he was related to, and named after, the Nobel laureate.
However, until recently no one in Greta’s family quite understood exactly what Arrhenius was honored for.
Mr. Thunberg said he himself did not truly appreciate it until Greta started to seriously learn more about climate change.
With a twinkle in his eye and mirthful irony he posited this as a kind of an indicator that even Arrhenius’s own descendants were not sufficiently aware of the climate science — which likely means this applies to most people.
end quotes
And while the slick Svante Thunberg, who reminds me a lot of William Avery “Devil Bill” Rockefeller Sr., a famous American con-artist who went by the alias of Dr. William Levingston, and his little daughter Greta might be totally ignorant of who Svante Arrhenius is, the fact is that they are a minority, which takes us back to that blog entry, as follows:
Greta is distantly related to Svante Arrhenius.
Full circle: we have now received two warnings from Swedish thinkers, one from the 19th century and one from the 21st century.
end quotes
Except that is absolute horse****, as I am quite familiar as an engineer with what Arrhenius actually said about carbonic acid because he wrote it down so we wouldn’t have to guess at it all these years later, and to make that idiotic statement that Arrhenius gave us a warning, that so-called “senior climate scientist” who wrote that blog entry is showing the world her ignorance, which continues as follows, to wit:
Svante Arrhenius put forth a theory that scientists have been building and expanding ever since, “standing on the shoulders of giants” as the saying goes.
Now in this century, Greta Thunberg’s clarion call to leaders in Sweden has grown louder as she continues to speak with leaders around the world.
end quotes
Except those so-called “climate scientists” are not “building” on the theory put forth by Arrhenius – they are perverting what Arrhenius wrote, which is as follows:
“WORLDS IN THE MAKING – THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE” BY SVANTE ARRHENIUS, DIRECTOR OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL NOBEL INSTITUTE, STOCKHOLM; TRANSLATED BY DR. H. BORNS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
Published March, 1908.
Since, now, warm ages have alternated with glacial periods, even after man appeared on the earth, we have to ask ourselves: Is it probable that we shall in the coming geological ages be visited by a new ice period that will drive us from our temperate countries into the hotter climates of Africa?
There does not appear to be much ground for such an apprehension.
The enormous combustion of coal by our industrial establishments suffices to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air to a perceptible degree.
Volcanism, whose devastations on Krakatoa (1883) and Martinique (1902) have been terrible in late years, appears to be growing more intense.
It is probable, therefore, that the percentage of carbonic acid increases at a rapid rate.
Hence the carbonic acid percentage has been increasing of late.
We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days.
We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil.
By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.
end quotes
That is what Arrhenius actually said, and it is the exact opposite of the horse**** these hysteria-mongering “climate scientists” like this Brenda Ekwurzel are spreading, along with Svante Thunberg and his little daughter Greta, neither of whom has a clue as to what they are on about.
And that is where this discussion about scientists signing petitions really has to start – with what Arrhenius actually said, because any subsequent “science” which runs counter to the position of Arrhenius that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is essential to maintaining life as we know it on earth is dead wrong.
As to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Arrhenius continued as follows:
Fourier and Pouillet now thought that the atmosphere of our earth should be endowed with properties resembling those of glass, as regards permeability of heat.
Tyndall later proved this assumption to be correct.
The chief invisible constitutents of the air which participate in this effect are water vapor, which is always found in a certain quantity in the air, and carbonic acid, also ozone and hydrocarbons.
Of late, however, we have been supplied with very careful observations on the permeability to heat of carbonic acid and of water vapor.
With the help of these data I have calculated that if the atmosphere were deprived of all its carbonic acid of which it contains only 0.03 per cent, by volume the temperature of the earth’s surface would fall by about 21 degrees C.
This lowering of the temperature would diminish the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, and would cause a further almost equally strong fall of temperature.
If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, (296 ppm) the temperature would fall by about 4 degrees C; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8 degrees C.
On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4 degrees C; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8 degrees C.
Further, a diminution of the carbonic acid percentage would accentuate the temperature differences between the different portions of the earth, while an increase in this percentage would tend to equalize the temperature.
The question, however, is whether any such temperature fluctuations have really been observed on the surface of the earth.
The geologists would answer: yes.
Our historical era was preceded by a period in which the mean temperature was by 2 degrees C (3.6 F.) higher than at present.
We recognize this from the former distribution of the ordinary hazel-nut and of the water-nut (Trapanalans).
Fossil nuts of these two species have been found in localities where the plants could not thrive in the present climate.
This age, again, was preceded by an age which, we are pretty certain, drove the inhabitants of northern Europe from their old abodes.
The glacial age must have been divided into several periods, alternating with intervals of milder climates, the so-called inter-glacial periods.
The space of time which is characterized by these glacial periods, when the temperature according to measurements based upon the study of the spreading of glaciers in the Alps must have been about 5 degrees C (8 F.) lower than now, has been estimated by geologists at not less than 100,000 years.
This epoch was preceded by a warmer age, in which the temperature, to judge from fossilized plants of those days, must at times have been by 8 or 9 degrees C (14 or 16 F.) higher than at present, and, moreover, much more uniformly distributed over the whole earth (Eocene).
Pronounced fluctuations of this kind in the climate have also occurred in former geological periods.
Are we now justified in supposing that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air has varied to an extent sufficient to account for the temperature changes?
This question has been answered in the affirmative by Hogbom, and, in later times, by Stevenson.
The actual percentage of carbonic acid in the air is so insignificant that the annual combustion of coal, which has now (1904) risen to about 900 million tons and is rapidly increasing, carries about one-seven-hundredth part of its percentage of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.
That would imply that there is no real stability in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air, which is probably subject to considerable fluctuations in the course of time.
end quotes
So, if we were to do what the IPCC crowd wants, and cut our CO2 emissions to zero by 2030, what we can expect, since the plants growing on earth will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they do now, is a period of rapid cooling.
Could we survive that rapid cooling in terms of food production?
Stay tuned.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/g ... ent-205539
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
NOAA
Talking with IPCC Vice-chair Ko Barrett: On climate change and consensus building
Author: Tom Di Liberto
November 6, 2018
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released a special report on Global Warming of 1.5°C.
This report investigates the impact that 1.5°C of global warming will have on the people, plants and animals that call Earth home and the pathways to limiting warming.
The report was a request in the Paris Agreement, driven by the concerns of many countries, especially in the Pacific Ocean, who could feel disproportionate impacts from warming below the 2°C threshold the climate negotiations have established as a target.
In the report, the IPCC concluded that Earth has already warmed approximately 1°C compared to pre-industrial times, and if warming continues at its current pace, we will reach 1.5°C of warming within 1-3 decades (2030-2052).
Limiting warming to 1.5°C is not impossible but would require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.
Additionally, the IPCC found that limiting warming to 1.5°C can go hand-in-hand with achieving other world goals, like achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty.
To learn more about this report and the process that created it, I talked with Ko Barrett, a Vice Chair of the IPCC, based in the U.S.
Ms. Barrett, who is also Deputy Director of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office, has been working on climate for over two decades, representing the United States as a climate negotiator, including almost a decade as the lead U.S. negotiator on adaptation.
Now in her capacity as Vice Chair of the IPCC, she has helped bring this report together, convening groups to bring about consensus.
We spoke by phone, and our conversation has been lightly edited.
Q: Thank you for joining me.
You are currently the vice chair of the IPCC.
How did you come into that role and what does it mean?
Barrett: Thank you for your interest.
Since 2001, I had been a U.S. delegate to the IPCC as part of the U.S. government delegation.
In 2015, elections were being held for the new leadership team of IPCC.
The U.S. had always had a spot on the leadership team, so they put me forward for vice chair, and I was elected by acclamation.
There are 12 people who compromise the IPCC leadership team.
A chair, three vice chairs and two co-chairs for each of the four working groups or task forces.
The chair is the main representative for the organization.
The co-chairs produce the reports and do the bulk of the assessment work.
The three vice chairs sit in-between those two levels.
We assist with representational activities and work, especially during approval sessions, to convene groups to reach consensus on language.
We also do various other things.
In my case, I am the lead for the science board that runs the scholarship program that we fund with the Nobel Peace Prize money that we received in 2007.
The program is geared specifically to recipients from developing countries.
Q: And what exactly does the IPCC do?
Barrett: The IPCC was formed in 1988 when the issue of climate change was just emerging as a possible challenge.
It is unique in that it is a scientific assessment body that is intergovernmental in nature.
It is sponsored by two organizations in the United Nations (UN) system: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Program.
So the way it functions is like nothing else.
We produce periodic assessments of the state of climate or special topics of interest to policy makers.
We commission a host of volunteer scientists/authors across the globe that have expertise in the issues we are covering in our assessments.
At various stages of production of the report, we put it out for expert and government review.
The governments don’t actually negotiate the main body of the report.
That is accepted by the governments.
But the summary for policymakers is negotiated line by line and approved by governments.
This is a way to give the governments a chance to weigh in on the report, both generally and specifically.
The summary for policymakers is a discrete enough piece of the report to actually negotiate with governments, without having to put the whole thing up for negotiation.
It [the IPCC] is this incredible handshake between scientists and decision makers that makes it an authoritative perspective on climate science like no other.
Q: This report is on a specific question: the impact of 1.5°C of human-caused global warming.
What was the significance of that and how did that come about?
Barrett: Since its inception, IPCC has provided science to the climate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Every time we put out a report, we’ve briefed it to the climate negotiations, and they take it up as an agenda item to see if there were elements that are illuminated through the science that should be considered as they set global policy [for participating countries].
In this particular case, for the first time ever, the UNFCCC, through the Paris Agreement, requested IPCC to do a report specifically in service of this policy discussion.
You may be aware that the Paris Agreement has a temperature target to keep temperature change well below 2°C [compared to pre-industrial conditions].
That is very much an estimation of where the global policy community believes there is a threshold for global risk that should not be exceeded.
In those conversations, however, there have been a subset of countries, like the Pacific Island nations, that have been pushing for a lower temperature target — 1.5°C — because they believe that the threats from sea level rise and from other climate impacts are actually going to be affecting their lives and livelihoods, in the near-term, at a temperature threshold lower than 2°C.
The Paris Agreement, and the UN by association, asked us to look at the science behind what the impacts would be at 1.5°C, and what kinds of emission pathways we would need to be on in order to limit the warming to 1.5°C.
We accepted that invitation to do that report and had to turn it around in a pretty quick timeline.
The report is the outcome of 91 dedicated lead authors and review editors from 40 countries along with 133 contributing authors.
These authors assessed more than 6000 scientific publications for this report.
And in the various expert and government review stages, we received 42,000 comments from more than 1,000 experts worldwide!
And, I’ll tell you an interesting thing that we didn’t realize was going be one of the major messages from this report.
As the authors were crafting their report, they were tasked with comparing 1.5°C to 2°C.
But, in order to provide the proper context, they had to compare 1.5°C to where we are now.
This information lets people know that we have already experienced 1°C of warming.
And it has become very clear that every bit of warming matters.
Another interesting thing about this report has been how well it has been communicated, including the figures.
We’ve gotten the message loud and clear from our previous assessment reports that sometimes, even in our attempts to be understandable to policy makers, we speak too much in a scientific jargon.
So this round, every one of our working groups had at least one communication specialist working with them all during the course of the development of the report.
Not just at the end to translate the story into something understandable, but throughout the process to improve the readability of the report.
We also hired graphics experts to help us tell those stories better.
In the past, we have sometimes had captions for figures that were an entire page long with all kinds of acronyms.
Q: I’ve always been curious what goes on in the trenches working on such a massive science report.
What is going on inside those rooms?
Barrett: Whatever can be addressed to agreement in plenary session (the main meeting of all of the countries delegations and the observer organizations to the IPCC) is done there, because you have to be incredibly cognizant that there are some folks, especially from the least developed countries, who do not have large delegations to deploy to a bunch of different breakout groups in order to reach agreement.
Issues that aren’t resolved in plenary go into an informal huddle just outside the main room to see if it is a quick fix.
These can be times where you are just finding the words that hit that sweet spot for consensus.
For more complicated things, it will go into a contact group that is facilitated by a couple of chairs to work through the whole range of issues.
That is a role that I play quite often because I have two decades of experience as a negotiator.
The one thing I do quite well is to work to find consensus.
In that room, we will take the problem piece by piece.
Whatever it is.
The facilitator will see what the issues are that are causing concerns and look for compromise language, always checking with the scientists to make sure that whatever is being proposed [by the political delegates], and eventually agreed to, is in with keeping with the science of the report.
Q: This is not just a science report but an intergovernmental report that has to be signed off by all of these countries.
Barrett: Exactly.
And at the meeting, it is sometimes challenging for scientists to let the governments debate about what language is representative without jumping into that debate themselves.
The scientists are consulted to see if what is coming from this intergovernmental conversation is correct, scientifically, but it is hard to bite your tongue from saying, “No, that’s not the way I want to say it.”
Q: Were scientists biting their tongues all over the place?
Barrett: [Laughing] I know that in the past, there have been stories about times when governments have changed the draft in ways that infuriated scientists.
But in this case, and I heard this directly myself, scientists, because they were so integral to checking the language, felt that the intergovernmental process improved the draft.
But, there were some difficult areas.
There is a portion of the report that assesses the pledges [for emissions reductions] the governments made in Paris, and it concludes that those are not enough to keep warming below 1.5°C.
Now, the IPCC has a mandate to be policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive, so there was a debate to carefully craft the language [in this section of the report].
By and large, though, most of the issues were pretty readily resolved.
Q: In your experience, what have you learned about reaching consensus?
Barrett: I am a strong believer that there are many pathways to consensus.
And my particular approach that works well for me may not work well for someone else who has a different intuitive approach.
Good faith negotiating is the something I learned through the negotiations.
If you have a tough position, it’s just important to put it out there, be very clear with people what it is and then work to find compromise on the edge of that.
Rather than obfuscating where you are and not being a good, honest broker.
Those are skills you bring to any kind of compromise situation, whether it’s in the workplace, your family, on an athletic team.
Q: I’m already making notes for when I go back home and try to reason with my kids.
Barrett: Just go with your intuitive gut.
Q; Do you have any memorable moments related to this work over the years?
Barrett: Copenhagen was a very high profile meeting.
It was 2009.
Expectations were very high for us to reach an agreement.
President Obama flew in, and flew out in a snowstorm.
We thought we had agreement, and in the middle of the night, after President Obama and many of the world leaders left, the agreement fell apart.
Because you have to reach consensus and there were a group of countries that would not agree.
So that was a low point.
The next major meeting was the COP (Conference of the Parties) in Cancun [2010] where expectations were quite low.
We were all quite frankly wondering whether or not the institution would remain viable because it was such a low moment in Copenhagen.
But the Mexican presidency did a FABULOUS job of making sure issues were well socialized, and bringing people in.
They were just extraordinary.
And we reached agreement in Cancun, which was an incredible high point.
Q: Last year, President Trump said that he will pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.
What does that mean for the U.S.’ involvement in the IPCC process?
Barrett: To date, the U.S. has remained involved, and the U.S. continues to provide a large percentage of the scientists who volunteer their time to produce the reports.
There has not been any indication that the U.S. is going to pull out of the IPCC process.
[Interviewer note: The Paris Agreement is a treaty that is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is not the same thing as the IPCC, which is the body of scientists and government delegates that assesses and reports on the state of the science on climate change.]
Q: After setbacks, what gives you hope in dealing with climate change?
What keeps you going?
Barrett: I think you have to be an optimist when you work on climate.
It is a long-term problem.
It is not going to be solved overnight.
And it takes the global community working together.
It’s just the small successes over time that keep you going.
Q: Ok, after this talk of the future, let’s go back to the past.
What would young you be amazed that you get to do now?
Barrett: I think the young me would be amazed that I get to work on this international stage on such a complex problem with people from different cultures, who I learn from every day.
And I have this global perspective that I never dreamed I would have as a kid growing up in New Jersey in a family where no one had ever traveled outside the U.S.
And the other thing, as I’ve taken on my role at IPCC and also at NOAA, is that, as a woman leading an organization it is so gratifying to have women everywhere come up and ask me, “how did you get this to work for you” and to be able to provide mentoring and encouragement, which is especially challenging in some countries where there is a gender imbalance for delegations.
I’m just so grateful I get play the role of mentor for women scientists.
Q: You may have noticed that we are into the part of the interview with more personal questions, so let’s keep that going.
What is your favorite season?
Barrett: That is such an interesting question!
All my life, fall has been favorite season.
But, now my favorite is spring.
Spring in this area (Washington, D.C.) is beautiful.
And now I’m a rower, so when spring comes around, I am getting back on the water and off the rowing machines of the winter.
Q: You row, too?
Honestly, I’m amazed that you have free time for anything else.
Barrett: [laughter] Well, I just got a puppy and now I’m very puppy focused.
Q: What type of puppy?
Barrett: Oh my gosh.
It’s a kind of rare breed.
It’s a Dutch retriever called a Kooikerhondje.
Super cute.
Look it up!
Q: Well, thank you for fitting me into your schedule!
I greatly appreciate it.
Thanks so much.
Highlights:
• If warming continues at its current pace, we will reach 1.5°C of global warming within 1-3 decades.
• Limiting warming to 1.5°C is not impossible but would require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.
• Limiting warming can go hand-in-hand with achieving other world goals, like eradicating poverty.
• The report was produced by 91 dedicated lead authors and review editors from 40 countries, along with 133 contributing authors.
• These authors assessed more than 6000 scientific publications, and handled 42,000 comments from more than 1,000 experts worldwide.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/f ... s-building
Talking with IPCC Vice-chair Ko Barrett: On climate change and consensus building
Author: Tom Di Liberto
November 6, 2018
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released a special report on Global Warming of 1.5°C.
This report investigates the impact that 1.5°C of global warming will have on the people, plants and animals that call Earth home and the pathways to limiting warming.
The report was a request in the Paris Agreement, driven by the concerns of many countries, especially in the Pacific Ocean, who could feel disproportionate impacts from warming below the 2°C threshold the climate negotiations have established as a target.
In the report, the IPCC concluded that Earth has already warmed approximately 1°C compared to pre-industrial times, and if warming continues at its current pace, we will reach 1.5°C of warming within 1-3 decades (2030-2052).
Limiting warming to 1.5°C is not impossible but would require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.
Additionally, the IPCC found that limiting warming to 1.5°C can go hand-in-hand with achieving other world goals, like achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty.
To learn more about this report and the process that created it, I talked with Ko Barrett, a Vice Chair of the IPCC, based in the U.S.
Ms. Barrett, who is also Deputy Director of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office, has been working on climate for over two decades, representing the United States as a climate negotiator, including almost a decade as the lead U.S. negotiator on adaptation.
Now in her capacity as Vice Chair of the IPCC, she has helped bring this report together, convening groups to bring about consensus.
We spoke by phone, and our conversation has been lightly edited.
Q: Thank you for joining me.
You are currently the vice chair of the IPCC.
How did you come into that role and what does it mean?
Barrett: Thank you for your interest.
Since 2001, I had been a U.S. delegate to the IPCC as part of the U.S. government delegation.
In 2015, elections were being held for the new leadership team of IPCC.
The U.S. had always had a spot on the leadership team, so they put me forward for vice chair, and I was elected by acclamation.
There are 12 people who compromise the IPCC leadership team.
A chair, three vice chairs and two co-chairs for each of the four working groups or task forces.
The chair is the main representative for the organization.
The co-chairs produce the reports and do the bulk of the assessment work.
The three vice chairs sit in-between those two levels.
We assist with representational activities and work, especially during approval sessions, to convene groups to reach consensus on language.
We also do various other things.
In my case, I am the lead for the science board that runs the scholarship program that we fund with the Nobel Peace Prize money that we received in 2007.
The program is geared specifically to recipients from developing countries.
Q: And what exactly does the IPCC do?
Barrett: The IPCC was formed in 1988 when the issue of climate change was just emerging as a possible challenge.
It is unique in that it is a scientific assessment body that is intergovernmental in nature.
It is sponsored by two organizations in the United Nations (UN) system: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Program.
So the way it functions is like nothing else.
We produce periodic assessments of the state of climate or special topics of interest to policy makers.
We commission a host of volunteer scientists/authors across the globe that have expertise in the issues we are covering in our assessments.
At various stages of production of the report, we put it out for expert and government review.
The governments don’t actually negotiate the main body of the report.
That is accepted by the governments.
But the summary for policymakers is negotiated line by line and approved by governments.
This is a way to give the governments a chance to weigh in on the report, both generally and specifically.
The summary for policymakers is a discrete enough piece of the report to actually negotiate with governments, without having to put the whole thing up for negotiation.
It [the IPCC] is this incredible handshake between scientists and decision makers that makes it an authoritative perspective on climate science like no other.
Q: This report is on a specific question: the impact of 1.5°C of human-caused global warming.
What was the significance of that and how did that come about?
Barrett: Since its inception, IPCC has provided science to the climate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Every time we put out a report, we’ve briefed it to the climate negotiations, and they take it up as an agenda item to see if there were elements that are illuminated through the science that should be considered as they set global policy [for participating countries].
In this particular case, for the first time ever, the UNFCCC, through the Paris Agreement, requested IPCC to do a report specifically in service of this policy discussion.
You may be aware that the Paris Agreement has a temperature target to keep temperature change well below 2°C [compared to pre-industrial conditions].
That is very much an estimation of where the global policy community believes there is a threshold for global risk that should not be exceeded.
In those conversations, however, there have been a subset of countries, like the Pacific Island nations, that have been pushing for a lower temperature target — 1.5°C — because they believe that the threats from sea level rise and from other climate impacts are actually going to be affecting their lives and livelihoods, in the near-term, at a temperature threshold lower than 2°C.
The Paris Agreement, and the UN by association, asked us to look at the science behind what the impacts would be at 1.5°C, and what kinds of emission pathways we would need to be on in order to limit the warming to 1.5°C.
We accepted that invitation to do that report and had to turn it around in a pretty quick timeline.
The report is the outcome of 91 dedicated lead authors and review editors from 40 countries along with 133 contributing authors.
These authors assessed more than 6000 scientific publications for this report.
And in the various expert and government review stages, we received 42,000 comments from more than 1,000 experts worldwide!
And, I’ll tell you an interesting thing that we didn’t realize was going be one of the major messages from this report.
As the authors were crafting their report, they were tasked with comparing 1.5°C to 2°C.
But, in order to provide the proper context, they had to compare 1.5°C to where we are now.
This information lets people know that we have already experienced 1°C of warming.
And it has become very clear that every bit of warming matters.
Another interesting thing about this report has been how well it has been communicated, including the figures.
We’ve gotten the message loud and clear from our previous assessment reports that sometimes, even in our attempts to be understandable to policy makers, we speak too much in a scientific jargon.
So this round, every one of our working groups had at least one communication specialist working with them all during the course of the development of the report.
Not just at the end to translate the story into something understandable, but throughout the process to improve the readability of the report.
We also hired graphics experts to help us tell those stories better.
In the past, we have sometimes had captions for figures that were an entire page long with all kinds of acronyms.
Q: I’ve always been curious what goes on in the trenches working on such a massive science report.
What is going on inside those rooms?
Barrett: Whatever can be addressed to agreement in plenary session (the main meeting of all of the countries delegations and the observer organizations to the IPCC) is done there, because you have to be incredibly cognizant that there are some folks, especially from the least developed countries, who do not have large delegations to deploy to a bunch of different breakout groups in order to reach agreement.
Issues that aren’t resolved in plenary go into an informal huddle just outside the main room to see if it is a quick fix.
These can be times where you are just finding the words that hit that sweet spot for consensus.
For more complicated things, it will go into a contact group that is facilitated by a couple of chairs to work through the whole range of issues.
That is a role that I play quite often because I have two decades of experience as a negotiator.
The one thing I do quite well is to work to find consensus.
In that room, we will take the problem piece by piece.
Whatever it is.
The facilitator will see what the issues are that are causing concerns and look for compromise language, always checking with the scientists to make sure that whatever is being proposed [by the political delegates], and eventually agreed to, is in with keeping with the science of the report.
Q: This is not just a science report but an intergovernmental report that has to be signed off by all of these countries.
Barrett: Exactly.
And at the meeting, it is sometimes challenging for scientists to let the governments debate about what language is representative without jumping into that debate themselves.
The scientists are consulted to see if what is coming from this intergovernmental conversation is correct, scientifically, but it is hard to bite your tongue from saying, “No, that’s not the way I want to say it.”
Q: Were scientists biting their tongues all over the place?
Barrett: [Laughing] I know that in the past, there have been stories about times when governments have changed the draft in ways that infuriated scientists.
But in this case, and I heard this directly myself, scientists, because they were so integral to checking the language, felt that the intergovernmental process improved the draft.
But, there were some difficult areas.
There is a portion of the report that assesses the pledges [for emissions reductions] the governments made in Paris, and it concludes that those are not enough to keep warming below 1.5°C.
Now, the IPCC has a mandate to be policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive, so there was a debate to carefully craft the language [in this section of the report].
By and large, though, most of the issues were pretty readily resolved.
Q: In your experience, what have you learned about reaching consensus?
Barrett: I am a strong believer that there are many pathways to consensus.
And my particular approach that works well for me may not work well for someone else who has a different intuitive approach.
Good faith negotiating is the something I learned through the negotiations.
If you have a tough position, it’s just important to put it out there, be very clear with people what it is and then work to find compromise on the edge of that.
Rather than obfuscating where you are and not being a good, honest broker.
Those are skills you bring to any kind of compromise situation, whether it’s in the workplace, your family, on an athletic team.
Q: I’m already making notes for when I go back home and try to reason with my kids.
Barrett: Just go with your intuitive gut.
Q; Do you have any memorable moments related to this work over the years?
Barrett: Copenhagen was a very high profile meeting.
It was 2009.
Expectations were very high for us to reach an agreement.
President Obama flew in, and flew out in a snowstorm.
We thought we had agreement, and in the middle of the night, after President Obama and many of the world leaders left, the agreement fell apart.
Because you have to reach consensus and there were a group of countries that would not agree.
So that was a low point.
The next major meeting was the COP (Conference of the Parties) in Cancun [2010] where expectations were quite low.
We were all quite frankly wondering whether or not the institution would remain viable because it was such a low moment in Copenhagen.
But the Mexican presidency did a FABULOUS job of making sure issues were well socialized, and bringing people in.
They were just extraordinary.
And we reached agreement in Cancun, which was an incredible high point.
Q: Last year, President Trump said that he will pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.
What does that mean for the U.S.’ involvement in the IPCC process?
Barrett: To date, the U.S. has remained involved, and the U.S. continues to provide a large percentage of the scientists who volunteer their time to produce the reports.
There has not been any indication that the U.S. is going to pull out of the IPCC process.
[Interviewer note: The Paris Agreement is a treaty that is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is not the same thing as the IPCC, which is the body of scientists and government delegates that assesses and reports on the state of the science on climate change.]
Q: After setbacks, what gives you hope in dealing with climate change?
What keeps you going?
Barrett: I think you have to be an optimist when you work on climate.
It is a long-term problem.
It is not going to be solved overnight.
And it takes the global community working together.
It’s just the small successes over time that keep you going.
Q: Ok, after this talk of the future, let’s go back to the past.
What would young you be amazed that you get to do now?
Barrett: I think the young me would be amazed that I get to work on this international stage on such a complex problem with people from different cultures, who I learn from every day.
And I have this global perspective that I never dreamed I would have as a kid growing up in New Jersey in a family where no one had ever traveled outside the U.S.
And the other thing, as I’ve taken on my role at IPCC and also at NOAA, is that, as a woman leading an organization it is so gratifying to have women everywhere come up and ask me, “how did you get this to work for you” and to be able to provide mentoring and encouragement, which is especially challenging in some countries where there is a gender imbalance for delegations.
I’m just so grateful I get play the role of mentor for women scientists.
Q: You may have noticed that we are into the part of the interview with more personal questions, so let’s keep that going.
What is your favorite season?
Barrett: That is such an interesting question!
All my life, fall has been favorite season.
But, now my favorite is spring.
Spring in this area (Washington, D.C.) is beautiful.
And now I’m a rower, so when spring comes around, I am getting back on the water and off the rowing machines of the winter.
Q: You row, too?
Honestly, I’m amazed that you have free time for anything else.
Barrett: [laughter] Well, I just got a puppy and now I’m very puppy focused.
Q: What type of puppy?
Barrett: Oh my gosh.
It’s a kind of rare breed.
It’s a Dutch retriever called a Kooikerhondje.
Super cute.
Look it up!
Q: Well, thank you for fitting me into your schedule!
I greatly appreciate it.
Thanks so much.
Highlights:
• If warming continues at its current pace, we will reach 1.5°C of global warming within 1-3 decades.
• Limiting warming to 1.5°C is not impossible but would require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.
• Limiting warming can go hand-in-hand with achieving other world goals, like eradicating poverty.
• The report was produced by 91 dedicated lead authors and review editors from 40 countries, along with 133 contributing authors.
• These authors assessed more than 6000 scientific publications, and handled 42,000 comments from more than 1,000 experts worldwide.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/f ... s-building
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
Greta Thunberg UN Climate Change Conference Speech Transcript
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke on December 11, 2019 at a UN Climate Change conference in Madrid, Spain.
She continued to warn world leaders about climate inaction, saying “we no longer have time to leave out the science.”
Thunberg was recently named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
Read the transcript of her speech right here on Rev.com.
Greta Thunberg: (00:26)
Hi.
A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to, but then I found a reason to speak.
Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention.
Say things like, our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you.
But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on.
They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place, we no longer have time to leave out the science.
For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again.
But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it.
In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6% to 7% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget.
And of course that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use.
With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years.
These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views.
This is the current best available science.
Though many scientists suggest these figures or too moderate.
These are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale.
That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards.
These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution.
Most models assume, however, that future generations will somehow be able to suck hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 out of the air with technologies that do not exist in the scale required and maybe never will.
The approximate 6% to 7% chance budget is the one with the highest odds given by the IPCC.
And now we have less than 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget to share fairly.
Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees?
Because even at one degree people are dying from the climate crisis.
Because that is what the United Science calls for to avoid destabilizing the climates.
So that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions such as melting glaciers, polar ice and thawing Arctic permafrost.
Every fraction of a degree matters.
So there it is, again.
This is my message.
This is what I want you to focus on.
So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic?
How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger?
And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist?
I would really like to know.
Since the Paris Agreement, global banks have invested 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars in fossil fuels.
One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions.
The G20 countries account for almost 80% of total emissions.
The richest 10% of the world’s population produce half of our CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50% account for just one tenth.
We indeed have some work to do, but some more than others.
Recently, a handful of rich countries pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by so-and-so many percent by this or that date or to become climate neutral or net zero in so-and-so many years.
This may sound impressive at first glance, but even though the intentions may be good, this is not leadership.
This is not leading.
This is misleading because most of these pledges do not include aviation, shipping, and imported and exported goods and consumption.
They do, however, include the possibility of countries to offset their emissions elsewhere.
These pledges don’t include the immediate yearly reduction rates needed for wealthy countries, which is necessary to stay within the remaining tiny budget.
Zero in 2050 means nothing, if high emission continues even for a few years, then the remaining budget will be gone.
Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis.
Finding holistic solutions is what the cup should be all about, but instead it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition.
Countries are finding clever ways around having to take real action.
Like double counting emissions reductions and moving their emissions overseas and walking back on their promises to increase ambition or refusing to pay for solutions or loss of damage.
This has to stop.
What we need is real drastic emission cuts at the source, but of course just reducing emissions is not enough.
Our greenhouse gas emissions has to stop.
To stay below 1.5 degrees.
We need to keep the carbon in the ground.
Only setting up distant dates and saying things which give the impression of the action is underway will most likely do more harm than good because the changes required are still nowhere in site.
The politics needed does not exist today despite what you might hear from world leaders.
And I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction.
The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel around the world.
And my experience is that the lack of awareness is the same everywhere, not the least amongst those elected to lead us.
There is no sense of urgency whatsoever.
Our leaders are not behaving as if we were in an emergency.
In an emergency you change your behavior.
If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed, you don’t look away because it’s too uncomfortable.
You immediately run out and rescue that child.
And without that sense of urgency, how can we, the people understand that we are facing a real crisis.
And if the people are not fully aware of what is going on, then they will not put pressure on the people in power to act.
And without pressure from the people our leaders can get away with basically not doing anything, which is where we are now.
And around and around it goes.
In just three weeks.
We will enter a new decade, a decade that will define our future.
Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope.
Well, I’m telling you, there is hope.
I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations.
It comes from the people.
The people who have been unaware, but are now starting to wake up.
And once we become aware, we change.
People can change.
People are ready for change.
And that is the hope because we have democracy and democracy is happening all the time.
Not just on election day, but every second and every hour.
It is public opinion that runs the free world.
In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people.
We do not have to wait.
We can start the change right now.
We the people.
Thank you.
https://www.rev.com/blog/greta-thunberg ... transcript
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke on December 11, 2019 at a UN Climate Change conference in Madrid, Spain.
She continued to warn world leaders about climate inaction, saying “we no longer have time to leave out the science.”
Thunberg was recently named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
Read the transcript of her speech right here on Rev.com.
Greta Thunberg: (00:26)
Hi.
A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to, but then I found a reason to speak.
Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention.
Say things like, our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you.
But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on.
They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place, we no longer have time to leave out the science.
For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again.
But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it.
In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6% to 7% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget.
And of course that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use.
With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years.
These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views.
This is the current best available science.
Though many scientists suggest these figures or too moderate.
These are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale.
That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards.
These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution.
Most models assume, however, that future generations will somehow be able to suck hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 out of the air with technologies that do not exist in the scale required and maybe never will.
The approximate 6% to 7% chance budget is the one with the highest odds given by the IPCC.
And now we have less than 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget to share fairly.
Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees?
Because even at one degree people are dying from the climate crisis.
Because that is what the United Science calls for to avoid destabilizing the climates.
So that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions such as melting glaciers, polar ice and thawing Arctic permafrost.
Every fraction of a degree matters.
So there it is, again.
This is my message.
This is what I want you to focus on.
So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic?
How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger?
And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist?
I would really like to know.
Since the Paris Agreement, global banks have invested 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars in fossil fuels.
One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions.
The G20 countries account for almost 80% of total emissions.
The richest 10% of the world’s population produce half of our CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50% account for just one tenth.
We indeed have some work to do, but some more than others.
Recently, a handful of rich countries pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by so-and-so many percent by this or that date or to become climate neutral or net zero in so-and-so many years.
This may sound impressive at first glance, but even though the intentions may be good, this is not leadership.
This is not leading.
This is misleading because most of these pledges do not include aviation, shipping, and imported and exported goods and consumption.
They do, however, include the possibility of countries to offset their emissions elsewhere.
These pledges don’t include the immediate yearly reduction rates needed for wealthy countries, which is necessary to stay within the remaining tiny budget.
Zero in 2050 means nothing, if high emission continues even for a few years, then the remaining budget will be gone.
Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis.
Finding holistic solutions is what the cup should be all about, but instead it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition.
Countries are finding clever ways around having to take real action.
Like double counting emissions reductions and moving their emissions overseas and walking back on their promises to increase ambition or refusing to pay for solutions or loss of damage.
This has to stop.
What we need is real drastic emission cuts at the source, but of course just reducing emissions is not enough.
Our greenhouse gas emissions has to stop.
To stay below 1.5 degrees.
We need to keep the carbon in the ground.
Only setting up distant dates and saying things which give the impression of the action is underway will most likely do more harm than good because the changes required are still nowhere in site.
The politics needed does not exist today despite what you might hear from world leaders.
And I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction.
The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel around the world.
And my experience is that the lack of awareness is the same everywhere, not the least amongst those elected to lead us.
There is no sense of urgency whatsoever.
Our leaders are not behaving as if we were in an emergency.
In an emergency you change your behavior.
If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed, you don’t look away because it’s too uncomfortable.
You immediately run out and rescue that child.
And without that sense of urgency, how can we, the people understand that we are facing a real crisis.
And if the people are not fully aware of what is going on, then they will not put pressure on the people in power to act.
And without pressure from the people our leaders can get away with basically not doing anything, which is where we are now.
And around and around it goes.
In just three weeks.
We will enter a new decade, a decade that will define our future.
Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope.
Well, I’m telling you, there is hope.
I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations.
It comes from the people.
The people who have been unaware, but are now starting to wake up.
And once we become aware, we change.
People can change.
People are ready for change.
And that is the hope because we have democracy and democracy is happening all the time.
Not just on election day, but every second and every hour.
It is public opinion that runs the free world.
In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people.
We do not have to wait.
We can start the change right now.
We the people.
Thank you.
https://www.rev.com/blog/greta-thunberg ... transcript
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR December 11, 2019 at 10:45 pm
Paul Plante says :
And speaking of HYSTERIA MONGERING and little Greta, who sounds more and more like an ignorant fool the more she runs her little mouth, which is plenty, she was over in Madrid today speaking at the Global Climate Summit, and this is the horsecrap little Greta had to say, to wit:
Hi.
A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to, but then I found a reason to speak.
Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention.
end quotes
And right there, with that “emotional” crap is where she loses me, because as a RESONSIBLE ADULT, something little Greta obviously lacks in her life, I don’t get all emotional and fearful and scared and unable to think clearly and rationally because some little rich girl from Sweden has serious emotional problems.
Getting back to little Greta:
Say things like, our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you.
But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on.
They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place, we no longer have time to leave out the science.
end quotes
And see what I am saying when I say that the more she speaks, the more stupid she sounds, because the phrase “we no longer have time to leave out the science” is nothing more than meaningless gibberish.
“SCIENCE” is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them.
And the aim of science is to build true and accurate knowledge about how the world works, and it is people like little Greta who are leaving out the “science” with all of their hysterical emoting about the world is going to end and we are going to set off all kinds of chain reactions and all of that horse**** little Greta is selling, which is as follows:
For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again.
But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it.
end quotes
However, while little Greta is running her mouth about things she knows nothing about, the real science, which is found in WORLDS IN THE MAKING – THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE BY SVANTE ARRHENIUS, DIRECTOR OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL NOBEL INSTITUTE, STOCKHOLM, TRANSLATED BY DR. H. BORNS published March, 1908, concerning this “carbon budget” is as follows:
Volcanism is the natural process by which the greatest amount of carbonic acid is supplied to the air.
Large quantities of gases originating in the interior of the earth are ejected through the craters of the volcanoes.
These gases consist mostly of steam and of carbon dioxide, which have been liberated during the slow cooling of the silicates in the interior of the earth.
The volcanic phenomena have been of very unequal intensity in the different phases of the history of the earth, and we have reason to surmise that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air was considerably greater during periods of strong volcanic activity than it is now, and smaller in quieter periods.
Professor Freeh, of Breslau, has attempted to demonstrate that this would be in accordance with geological experience, because strongly volcanic periods are distinguished by warm climates, and periods of feeble volcanic intensity by cold climates.
The ice age in particular was characterized by a nearly complete cessation of volcanism, and the two periods at the commencement and at the middle of the Tertiary age (Eocene and Miocene) which showed high temperatures were also marked by an extraordinarily developed volcanic activity.
This parallelism can be traced back into more remote epochs.
It may possibly be a matter of surprise that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should not constantly be increased, since volcanism is always pouring out more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
end quotes
But search as you might through this IPCC horse**** that is little Greta Thunberg’s HOLY BIBLE, you will find no reference whatsoever to that “real science,” nor will you find reference to this from that same source, to wit:
Where the volcanic activity gradually lessens or ceases, we can still trace it by the exhalations of gas and the springs of warm water which we find in many districts where, during the Tertiary age, powerful volcanoes were ejecting their streams of lava.
To this class belong the famous geysers of Iceland, of Yellowstone Park (Fig. 6), and of New Zealand; also the hot springs of Bohemia, so highly valued therapeutically (i.e., the Karlsbad Sprudel); the Fumaroli of Italy, Greece, and other countries, exhaling water vapor; the Mofettse, with their exhalations of carbonic acid (of frequent occurrence in the district of the Eifel and on both sides of the middle Rhine, in the Dogs Grotto near Naples, and in the Valley of Death in Java); the Solf atara, exhaling vapors of Sulphur sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphur dioxide (they are found near Naples on the Phlegrsean Fields and in Greece); as well as many of the so-called mud volcanoes, which eject mud, salt water, and gases (as a rule, carbonic acid and hydrocarbons) for example, the mud volcanoes near Parma and Modena, in Italy, and those near Kronstadt, in Transylvania.
end quotes
And for the record, when Arrhenius talks of carbonic acid, he is referring to carbon dioxide.
Getting back to poor confused and hysterical Greta at the UN meeting:
In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6% to 7% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget.
And of course that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use.
With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years.
These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views.
end quotes
And sorry, little Greta, but that is exactly what they are – those numbers ARE someone’s opinions and political views and that is all they are, and nothing more.
And then Greta comes out with this gem:
This is the current best available science.
end quotes
No, Greta, that is not the “current best available science,” precisely because those numbers are mere political opinions unsupported by facts.
And speaking of “political”:
These are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale.
That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards.
end quotes
Ah, yes, wealth transfer and GUILT!
Because we in the United States of America get up in the morning and go to work, and support our families and provide for our children, we are GULITY of making other people poor, so to give them their chance to be rich, it is we here in the United States of America who must be reduced to a caveman existence, or less, which is what “zero emissions” will result in, mass death here in the United States of America, and as an adult, I am not willing my grandchildren such a barren world to satisfy Greta Thunberg, which takes us back to more horse**** from Greta, because this time she was on a real spew, to wit:
Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees?
Because even at one degree people are dying from the climate crisis.
end quotes
PROVE IT, Greta!
PROVE THERE IS A CLIMATE CRISIS!
And she can’t do it, because there is no scientific proof of a “climate crisis,” because a crisis is an emotional term, not a scientific term, and the so-called “climate crisis” of Greta Thunberg is an invented emotional term, not a term of science.
And then we get to here with little Greta’s emotional outburst at the UN meeting, to wit:
So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic?
end quotes
As for me, Greta, who am a thinking adult, I don’t feel panic because as an engineer, I know those numbers of yours are nothing but horse**** to scare emotional little girls like you with, and nothing more.
And then this question comes forth from little Greta, who has the art of the temper tantrum down pat with years of experience manipulating her child-like parents, to wit:
How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger?
end quotes
I respond by saying that the earth’s climate has been changing constantly for millennia, and with respect to global warming, we are actually in a cooling period, and according to the real science, not the contrived and manufactured horse**** “science” of the political IPCC, our historical era was preceded by a period in which the mean temperature was by 2 degrees C. (3.6 F.) higher than at present and this epoch was preceded by a warmer age, in which the temperature, to judge from fossilized plants of those days, must at times have been by 8 or 9 degrees C. (14 or 16 F.) higher than at present, and, moreover, much more uniformly distributed over the whole earth (Eocene).
Which brings us to this:
And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist?
I would really like to know.
end quotes
And maybe when you grow up and actually learn something about the world the rest of us live in, as opposed to the fantasy world in your head, that answer will finally become apparent to you!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-206535
Paul Plante says :
And speaking of HYSTERIA MONGERING and little Greta, who sounds more and more like an ignorant fool the more she runs her little mouth, which is plenty, she was over in Madrid today speaking at the Global Climate Summit, and this is the horsecrap little Greta had to say, to wit:
Hi.
A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to, but then I found a reason to speak.
Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention.
end quotes
And right there, with that “emotional” crap is where she loses me, because as a RESONSIBLE ADULT, something little Greta obviously lacks in her life, I don’t get all emotional and fearful and scared and unable to think clearly and rationally because some little rich girl from Sweden has serious emotional problems.
Getting back to little Greta:
Say things like, our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you.
But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on.
They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place, we no longer have time to leave out the science.
end quotes
And see what I am saying when I say that the more she speaks, the more stupid she sounds, because the phrase “we no longer have time to leave out the science” is nothing more than meaningless gibberish.
“SCIENCE” is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them.
And the aim of science is to build true and accurate knowledge about how the world works, and it is people like little Greta who are leaving out the “science” with all of their hysterical emoting about the world is going to end and we are going to set off all kinds of chain reactions and all of that horse**** little Greta is selling, which is as follows:
For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again.
But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it.
end quotes
However, while little Greta is running her mouth about things she knows nothing about, the real science, which is found in WORLDS IN THE MAKING – THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE BY SVANTE ARRHENIUS, DIRECTOR OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL NOBEL INSTITUTE, STOCKHOLM, TRANSLATED BY DR. H. BORNS published March, 1908, concerning this “carbon budget” is as follows:
Volcanism is the natural process by which the greatest amount of carbonic acid is supplied to the air.
Large quantities of gases originating in the interior of the earth are ejected through the craters of the volcanoes.
These gases consist mostly of steam and of carbon dioxide, which have been liberated during the slow cooling of the silicates in the interior of the earth.
The volcanic phenomena have been of very unequal intensity in the different phases of the history of the earth, and we have reason to surmise that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air was considerably greater during periods of strong volcanic activity than it is now, and smaller in quieter periods.
Professor Freeh, of Breslau, has attempted to demonstrate that this would be in accordance with geological experience, because strongly volcanic periods are distinguished by warm climates, and periods of feeble volcanic intensity by cold climates.
The ice age in particular was characterized by a nearly complete cessation of volcanism, and the two periods at the commencement and at the middle of the Tertiary age (Eocene and Miocene) which showed high temperatures were also marked by an extraordinarily developed volcanic activity.
This parallelism can be traced back into more remote epochs.
It may possibly be a matter of surprise that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should not constantly be increased, since volcanism is always pouring out more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
end quotes
But search as you might through this IPCC horse**** that is little Greta Thunberg’s HOLY BIBLE, you will find no reference whatsoever to that “real science,” nor will you find reference to this from that same source, to wit:
Where the volcanic activity gradually lessens or ceases, we can still trace it by the exhalations of gas and the springs of warm water which we find in many districts where, during the Tertiary age, powerful volcanoes were ejecting their streams of lava.
To this class belong the famous geysers of Iceland, of Yellowstone Park (Fig. 6), and of New Zealand; also the hot springs of Bohemia, so highly valued therapeutically (i.e., the Karlsbad Sprudel); the Fumaroli of Italy, Greece, and other countries, exhaling water vapor; the Mofettse, with their exhalations of carbonic acid (of frequent occurrence in the district of the Eifel and on both sides of the middle Rhine, in the Dogs Grotto near Naples, and in the Valley of Death in Java); the Solf atara, exhaling vapors of Sulphur sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphur dioxide (they are found near Naples on the Phlegrsean Fields and in Greece); as well as many of the so-called mud volcanoes, which eject mud, salt water, and gases (as a rule, carbonic acid and hydrocarbons) for example, the mud volcanoes near Parma and Modena, in Italy, and those near Kronstadt, in Transylvania.
end quotes
And for the record, when Arrhenius talks of carbonic acid, he is referring to carbon dioxide.
Getting back to poor confused and hysterical Greta at the UN meeting:
In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6% to 7% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget.
And of course that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use.
With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years.
These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views.
end quotes
And sorry, little Greta, but that is exactly what they are – those numbers ARE someone’s opinions and political views and that is all they are, and nothing more.
And then Greta comes out with this gem:
This is the current best available science.
end quotes
No, Greta, that is not the “current best available science,” precisely because those numbers are mere political opinions unsupported by facts.
And speaking of “political”:
These are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale.
That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards.
end quotes
Ah, yes, wealth transfer and GUILT!
Because we in the United States of America get up in the morning and go to work, and support our families and provide for our children, we are GULITY of making other people poor, so to give them their chance to be rich, it is we here in the United States of America who must be reduced to a caveman existence, or less, which is what “zero emissions” will result in, mass death here in the United States of America, and as an adult, I am not willing my grandchildren such a barren world to satisfy Greta Thunberg, which takes us back to more horse**** from Greta, because this time she was on a real spew, to wit:
Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees?
Because even at one degree people are dying from the climate crisis.
end quotes
PROVE IT, Greta!
PROVE THERE IS A CLIMATE CRISIS!
And she can’t do it, because there is no scientific proof of a “climate crisis,” because a crisis is an emotional term, not a scientific term, and the so-called “climate crisis” of Greta Thunberg is an invented emotional term, not a term of science.
And then we get to here with little Greta’s emotional outburst at the UN meeting, to wit:
So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic?
end quotes
As for me, Greta, who am a thinking adult, I don’t feel panic because as an engineer, I know those numbers of yours are nothing but horse**** to scare emotional little girls like you with, and nothing more.
And then this question comes forth from little Greta, who has the art of the temper tantrum down pat with years of experience manipulating her child-like parents, to wit:
How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger?
end quotes
I respond by saying that the earth’s climate has been changing constantly for millennia, and with respect to global warming, we are actually in a cooling period, and according to the real science, not the contrived and manufactured horse**** “science” of the political IPCC, our historical era was preceded by a period in which the mean temperature was by 2 degrees C. (3.6 F.) higher than at present and this epoch was preceded by a warmer age, in which the temperature, to judge from fossilized plants of those days, must at times have been by 8 or 9 degrees C. (14 or 16 F.) higher than at present, and, moreover, much more uniformly distributed over the whole earth (Eocene).
Which brings us to this:
And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist?
I would really like to know.
end quotes
And maybe when you grow up and actually learn something about the world the rest of us live in, as opposed to the fantasy world in your head, that answer will finally become apparent to you!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-206535
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR December 12, 2019 at 6:19 pm
Paul Plante says :
Hitler was Time’s Person of the Year in 1938, which makes for an interesting parallel with little Greta, who speaks to people in the imperious voice of a Gloriana, a skill no doubt taught to her by her famous child actor and now-producer and multi-millionaire father Svante Thunberg, especially with regard to Hitler’s famous adage of keep telling the same lies over and over and people will accept them as the truth, which interestingly brings me to my early education as an American citizen right after WWII when we American children were introduced to the concept of the “GOOD GERMAN,” the tens of millions of Germans who never questioned Hitler, but blindly obeyed, which is the opposite of what an American citizen should be, not a bovine-like follower who never questions, just obeys, but someone who lives the adage that the price of liberty in America is eternal vigilance.
The question for us is why do the Democrats in our House of Representatives treat this confused little girl as if she is some kind of royalty?
As to little Greta spewing ignorant, non-sensical gibberish to this UN global climate crisis crowd meeting in Madrid, we have this gem from her speech yesterday, to wit:
These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution.
end quotes
Now, that is ignorant bull****, and it is straight out of the bigger collection of IPCC bull**** that Greta presented the Democrats in our House of Representatives with, by their invitation, in September of this year, and the Democrats in our House of Representatives are in turn treating that ignorant gibberish as if it actually had some type of rational meaning, which is a real statement in turn about just how ignorant the Democrats in our House of Representatives are that they would accept this ignorant gibberish as having some kind of meaning, which gives us a very good idea as to just how precarious our future as a nation is, when such pathetic benighted ignorance pervades the majority in the House of Representatives, which in turn is a grave reflection on those who voted to install such abject ignorance in the House of Representatives as exists in there now.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-206812
Paul Plante says :
Hitler was Time’s Person of the Year in 1938, which makes for an interesting parallel with little Greta, who speaks to people in the imperious voice of a Gloriana, a skill no doubt taught to her by her famous child actor and now-producer and multi-millionaire father Svante Thunberg, especially with regard to Hitler’s famous adage of keep telling the same lies over and over and people will accept them as the truth, which interestingly brings me to my early education as an American citizen right after WWII when we American children were introduced to the concept of the “GOOD GERMAN,” the tens of millions of Germans who never questioned Hitler, but blindly obeyed, which is the opposite of what an American citizen should be, not a bovine-like follower who never questions, just obeys, but someone who lives the adage that the price of liberty in America is eternal vigilance.
The question for us is why do the Democrats in our House of Representatives treat this confused little girl as if she is some kind of royalty?
As to little Greta spewing ignorant, non-sensical gibberish to this UN global climate crisis crowd meeting in Madrid, we have this gem from her speech yesterday, to wit:
These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution.
end quotes
Now, that is ignorant bull****, and it is straight out of the bigger collection of IPCC bull**** that Greta presented the Democrats in our House of Representatives with, by their invitation, in September of this year, and the Democrats in our House of Representatives are in turn treating that ignorant gibberish as if it actually had some type of rational meaning, which is a real statement in turn about just how ignorant the Democrats in our House of Representatives are that they would accept this ignorant gibberish as having some kind of meaning, which gives us a very good idea as to just how precarious our future as a nation is, when such pathetic benighted ignorance pervades the majority in the House of Representatives, which in turn is a grave reflection on those who voted to install such abject ignorance in the House of Representatives as exists in there now.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-206812
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"As U.N. Climate Talks Go to Overtime, a Battle for the ‘Spirit’ of the Paris Pact"
Somini Sengupta
14 DECEMBER 2019
MADRID — After two weeks of contentious negotiations, world leaders put in charge of averting a cluster of accelerating climate threats remained at loggerheads on Saturday about whether they could commit, just on paper, to raise voluntary climate targets next year.
The annual talks, which had been scheduled to end on Friday, were meant to hammer out the final details of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord, and expectations initially ran high that they would yield a collective political call for raising climate targets.
That is vital for the future of millions.
With greenhouse gas emissions on their current trajectory, average global temperatures are on pace to increase to levels where heat waves are very likely to intensify, storms are set to become more severe, and coastal cities are at risk of drowning, according to scientific consensus.
The delegates from nearly 200 countries who gathered in the Spanish capital were similarly stuck on two other issues that have vexed the Paris Agreement since its inception: working out rules for an international carbon trading system and providing money for the poor countries that suffer most from climate catastrophes.
The draft texts that emerged early Saturday immediately set off furious criticism from inside and outside the plenary room.
By midday, delegates were waiting for new drafts and there was no telling when the sessions would wrap up, with or without an agreement.
“Adopting this would be a betrayal of all the people around the world suffering from climate impacts and those who are calling for action,” said Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International.
Diplomats and advocates at the deliberations repeatedly cited opposition from large economies that are run by leaders suspicious of international cooperation — including Australia, Brazil and the United States, the only country in the world that is pulling out of the Paris accord.
The United States delegation was among those that objected to the notion that the conference document should signal the need to enhance climate targets next year, saying it did not support “expansive additional language on gaps and needs.”
And while the divide between rich and poor countries loomed over these talks, as they often do in climate negotiations, the battle lines were far more muddled this time.
Many countries from the global South, like Fiji and Colombia, insisted on higher ambitions by 2020, while India was among those that resisted such a deadline.
“The spirit and the objectives of the Paris Agreement are being eroded clause by clause, discussion by discussion,” Simon Stiell, the environment minister of Grenada, said as the negotiations entered the final stretch.
The lackluster diplomatic results stood in sharp contrast to the climate risks roiling the world beyond the conference center, with Arctic temperatures at near record highs this year, smoke from wildfires choking Sydney, Australia, and millions of young people pouring out into the streets for much of this year.
These are the last negotiations that the United States can participate in before it formally retreats next year, and it used the Madrid session to vigorously push back against appeals from several poor countries to be compensated for the economic damage they suffer from hurricanes, droughts and slow-moving climate catastrophes like the decimation of coral reefs.
They have been seeking “loss and damage” funding that is separate from what is now in place to help poor countries rein in their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Delegates from other countries said the United States had insisted on a waiver in the negotiations that would protect big emitters from liability claims in other countries, but that was unacceptable to many developing nations.
“We refuse to import that paragraph,” said Ammar Hijazi, a Palestinian diplomat who is chairman of a large bloc of poor countries, known as the Group of 77, which is backed by China.
“If we accept it at this stage it will come back to haunt us.”
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the loss and damage talks, saying only that “the U.S. government is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, and we respond based on needs.”
For more climate news sign up for the Climate Fwd: newsletter or follow @NYTClimate on Twitter.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as- ... id=HPDHP17
"As U.N. Climate Talks Go to Overtime, a Battle for the ‘Spirit’ of the Paris Pact"
Somini Sengupta
14 DECEMBER 2019
MADRID — After two weeks of contentious negotiations, world leaders put in charge of averting a cluster of accelerating climate threats remained at loggerheads on Saturday about whether they could commit, just on paper, to raise voluntary climate targets next year.
The annual talks, which had been scheduled to end on Friday, were meant to hammer out the final details of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord, and expectations initially ran high that they would yield a collective political call for raising climate targets.
That is vital for the future of millions.
With greenhouse gas emissions on their current trajectory, average global temperatures are on pace to increase to levels where heat waves are very likely to intensify, storms are set to become more severe, and coastal cities are at risk of drowning, according to scientific consensus.
The delegates from nearly 200 countries who gathered in the Spanish capital were similarly stuck on two other issues that have vexed the Paris Agreement since its inception: working out rules for an international carbon trading system and providing money for the poor countries that suffer most from climate catastrophes.
The draft texts that emerged early Saturday immediately set off furious criticism from inside and outside the plenary room.
By midday, delegates were waiting for new drafts and there was no telling when the sessions would wrap up, with or without an agreement.
“Adopting this would be a betrayal of all the people around the world suffering from climate impacts and those who are calling for action,” said Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International.
Diplomats and advocates at the deliberations repeatedly cited opposition from large economies that are run by leaders suspicious of international cooperation — including Australia, Brazil and the United States, the only country in the world that is pulling out of the Paris accord.
The United States delegation was among those that objected to the notion that the conference document should signal the need to enhance climate targets next year, saying it did not support “expansive additional language on gaps and needs.”
And while the divide between rich and poor countries loomed over these talks, as they often do in climate negotiations, the battle lines were far more muddled this time.
Many countries from the global South, like Fiji and Colombia, insisted on higher ambitions by 2020, while India was among those that resisted such a deadline.
“The spirit and the objectives of the Paris Agreement are being eroded clause by clause, discussion by discussion,” Simon Stiell, the environment minister of Grenada, said as the negotiations entered the final stretch.
The lackluster diplomatic results stood in sharp contrast to the climate risks roiling the world beyond the conference center, with Arctic temperatures at near record highs this year, smoke from wildfires choking Sydney, Australia, and millions of young people pouring out into the streets for much of this year.
These are the last negotiations that the United States can participate in before it formally retreats next year, and it used the Madrid session to vigorously push back against appeals from several poor countries to be compensated for the economic damage they suffer from hurricanes, droughts and slow-moving climate catastrophes like the decimation of coral reefs.
They have been seeking “loss and damage” funding that is separate from what is now in place to help poor countries rein in their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Delegates from other countries said the United States had insisted on a waiver in the negotiations that would protect big emitters from liability claims in other countries, but that was unacceptable to many developing nations.
“We refuse to import that paragraph,” said Ammar Hijazi, a Palestinian diplomat who is chairman of a large bloc of poor countries, known as the Group of 77, which is backed by China.
“If we accept it at this stage it will come back to haunt us.”
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the loss and damage talks, saying only that “the U.S. government is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, and we respond based on needs.”
For more climate news sign up for the Climate Fwd: newsletter or follow @NYTClimate on Twitter.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as- ... id=HPDHP17
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
SDG Knowledge Hub
A project by IISD
New IPCC Chair Elected
Leila Mead, Thematic Expert for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (US)
8 October 2015
story highlights
* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has elected Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea, as its new Chair.
* Lee was elected by 78 votes to 56 in a run-off with Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of Belgium.
* Speaking after the vote, Lee said he was "honored and grateful" to have been elected.
* He underscored the need for more information regarding existing options for preventing and adapting to climate change.
* On 7 October, Thelma Krug, Brazil, Ko Barrett, US, and Youba Sokona, Mali, were elected IPCC Vice-Chairs.
7 October 2015: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has elected Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea, as its new Chair.
Lee was elected by 78 votes to 56 in a run-off with Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of Belgium.
Speaking after the vote, Lee said he was “honored and grateful” to have been elected.
He underscored the need for more information regarding existing options for preventing and adapting to climate change.
Lee further noted that the next phase of the IPCC’s work will see an increased understanding of regional impacts, especially in developing countries, and an improvement in the manner in which the IPCC’s findings are communicated to the public.
Various UN officials congratulated Lee on his election, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
The election took place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 6 October, where the IPCC is holding its 42nd session (IPCC 42).
Six candidates had been nominated for the position: Ogunlade Davidson, Sierra Leone; Chris Field, US; Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea; Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Austria and Montenegro; Thomas Stocker, Switzerland; and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Belgium.
Elections for other IPCC Bureau positions also took place during the course of IPCC 42.
On 7 October, Thelma Krug, Brazil, Ko Barrett, US, and Youba Sokona, Mali, were elected IPCC Vice-Chairs.
Lee is a professor of the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development at Korea University’s Graduate School of Energy and Environment in the Republic of Korea, and is currently one of the IPCC’s three vice-chairs.
The election of the new IPCC Bureau, which will have 34 members including the Chair, paves the way for work to begin on the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, expected to be completed in 5-7 years.
The IPCC was established by the WMO and UNEP in 1988 to provide a clear scientific assessment of the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts, and to identify possible responses.
[IPCC Press Release] [UNEP Press Release] [WMO Press Release] [UN Press Release] [Statement of the UN Secretary-General] [UNFCCC Press Release][IISD RS coverage of IPCC 42]
http://sdg.iisd.org/news/new-ipcc-chair-elected/
A project by IISD
New IPCC Chair Elected
Leila Mead, Thematic Expert for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (US)
8 October 2015
story highlights
* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has elected Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea, as its new Chair.
* Lee was elected by 78 votes to 56 in a run-off with Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of Belgium.
* Speaking after the vote, Lee said he was "honored and grateful" to have been elected.
* He underscored the need for more information regarding existing options for preventing and adapting to climate change.
* On 7 October, Thelma Krug, Brazil, Ko Barrett, US, and Youba Sokona, Mali, were elected IPCC Vice-Chairs.
7 October 2015: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has elected Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea, as its new Chair.
Lee was elected by 78 votes to 56 in a run-off with Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of Belgium.
Speaking after the vote, Lee said he was “honored and grateful” to have been elected.
He underscored the need for more information regarding existing options for preventing and adapting to climate change.
Lee further noted that the next phase of the IPCC’s work will see an increased understanding of regional impacts, especially in developing countries, and an improvement in the manner in which the IPCC’s findings are communicated to the public.
Various UN officials congratulated Lee on his election, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
The election took place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 6 October, where the IPCC is holding its 42nd session (IPCC 42).
Six candidates had been nominated for the position: Ogunlade Davidson, Sierra Leone; Chris Field, US; Hoesung Lee, Republic of Korea; Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Austria and Montenegro; Thomas Stocker, Switzerland; and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Belgium.
Elections for other IPCC Bureau positions also took place during the course of IPCC 42.
On 7 October, Thelma Krug, Brazil, Ko Barrett, US, and Youba Sokona, Mali, were elected IPCC Vice-Chairs.
Lee is a professor of the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development at Korea University’s Graduate School of Energy and Environment in the Republic of Korea, and is currently one of the IPCC’s three vice-chairs.
The election of the new IPCC Bureau, which will have 34 members including the Chair, paves the way for work to begin on the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, expected to be completed in 5-7 years.
The IPCC was established by the WMO and UNEP in 1988 to provide a clear scientific assessment of the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts, and to identify possible responses.
[IPCC Press Release] [UNEP Press Release] [WMO Press Release] [UN Press Release] [Statement of the UN Secretary-General] [UNFCCC Press Release][IISD RS coverage of IPCC 42]
http://sdg.iisd.org/news/new-ipcc-chair-elected/
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
CARBON BRIEF
The IPCC elects a new leadership team
Robert McSweeney
10.07.15
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the international body for assessing the science related to climate change – has elected South Korean economist Prof Hoesung Lee as its new chair.
Lee will lead the organisation into its next cycle, which will include producing and disseminating a Sixth Assessment Report.
In addition to the chair, the IPCC also voted in three vice-chairs, and two co-chairs for each of their three working groups.
Carbon Brief takes a look at the new leader and the team elected to support him.
Six to one
Six candidates stood for the position of IPCC chair – five of whom Carbon Brief had interviewed ahead of the IPCC meeting in Dubrovnik this week.
The election was held last night, using the traditional method of paper and pen after problems with the electronic voting system.
After the first round, no candidate had achieved the 50% of the votes needed to win, so the election went to a second round between the two candidates with the most votes.
In the run-off, Hoesung Lee was elected over Belgian Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, by a margin of 78 votes to 56.
Lee is a professor in the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development at Korea University in Seoul.
Lee is no stranger to the IPCC, having served as an author, reviewer, working group co-chair, and – most recently – as a vice-chair since 2008.
In a statement released after the vote, Lee expressed his gratitude to the IPCC members for electing him, and gave a brief insight into his leadership plans:
“The next phase of our work will see us increase our understanding of regional impacts, especially in developing countries, and improve the way we communicate our findings to the public."
"Above all, we need to provide more information about the options that exist for preventing and adapting to climate change."
"I look forward to working with my IPCC colleagues to reach these goals and I thank them for their support.”
Core foundation
Lee expanded on his plans in a press conference this morning, reiterating his intention to involve more experts from developing countries:
“One of my priorities over the next cycle of IPCC will be to enhance the participation of developing country experts."
"We need this expertise to fill in our knowledge gaps about the climate’s impacts across the whole planet."
"This knowledge will help the countries determine which adaptation and mitigation measures they will need to take.”
The way to do this, said Lee, is to “identify and network” with local centres of excellence – not just on climate science, but also economic development and poverty reduction.
Lee went on to say that he resolves to focus on some of these wider implications of climate change:
“I am particularly interested in climate change as it relates to job creation, health, innovation and technology development, energy access and poverty alleviation."
"As the new chair of IPCC, I intend to increase attention on these issues.”
Lee also said he will also look to incorporate expertise beyond academic and scientific circles:
“The IPCC can also engage with the business and finance sectors."
"Governments cannot solve the problem of climate change alone."
"We need the best and brightest from the private sector to become increasingly involved to interpret our findings and act upon them.”
Though science will remain the “core foundation” of the IPCC, Lee added:
“As much as we already know, there is always room to know more – to better understand how this complex and complicated thing we call the climate system works and sustains us.”
Carbon Pricing
Carbon Brief explored some of Lee’s views on climate science and the IPCC in our in-depth interview last month.
As an economist, one of the key areas that Lee was interested in was the idea of a carbon price:
“I think if you ask me to choose the most important work in climate change issues, then I’ll choose carbon price."
"That’s because it is the driver to put us into the right track."
"I would like to pursue, as much as possible, to increase our knowledge of carbon price and future emissions, and our knowledge on reducing the institutional barriers to adopting a carbon price system."
"And I think this is a tremendous challenge to the researchers around the world, but it’s a very exciting area.”
Economics provides a way to connect the challenge of reducing emissions to the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis, highlighted Lee.
Whereas concepts such as carbon budgets, for example, are less able to have “much impact on action”, despite providing a “very serious message”:
“We have a goal, a number."
"But many people ask: that’s great, so what?"
"That’s the situation now.”
For the IPCC specifically, Lee said it has “done a very effective job of identifying problems,” and has a “great role” ahead in identifying solutions to climate change:
“I believe the proper vehicle to convey that framework of message is the synthesis report."
"And not mostly on the identification of problems, not mostly on the reorganisation of messages from the different working groups, but a real synthesis in the context of providing a flavour for solutions, a flavour for opportunities for climate stabilisation, based upon each working group’s underlying report.”
But one area that Lee didn’t see the IPCC getting involved was in assessing Intended Nationally Determined Contributions ( INDCs) – the pledges each country is making on cutting emissions ahead of the climate talks in Paris in December:
“I do not think, in reality, the IPCC has the capacity to do such an evaluation."
"There are other organisations who can handle such questions more efficiently and more effectively.”
Vice-chairs and co-chairs
Lee’s response to several questions in the press conference – for example, on possible topics for IPCC special reports, and what deadline might be set for the Sixth Assessment Report – was that decisions would not just be made by him as chair, but involve the vice-chairs and the rest of the IPCC Bureau.
In the previous term, the IPCC chair has been assisted by two vice-chairs – Lee and the man he beat to the job of chair – Jean-Pascal van Ypersele.
Beneath them, the IPCC has three working groups – WGI: The physical science basis, WGII: Impacts, adaptation, vulnerability, WGIII: Mitigation of climate change – and a “Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories”.
Each of these has at least two at co-chairs who oversee them.
Two of the other candidates for IPCC chair have been working group co-chairs for the most recent assessment report – Thomas Stocker and Chris Field.
In the election earlier today, the IPCC elected three vice-chairs for this coming term:
• Ko Barrett (US): Deputy Assistant Administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Her IPCC experience includes being a lead representative for the US for the WGII and Synthesis Report approval sessions for the last two assessment reports.
• Thelma Krug (Brazil): Head of the International Affairs Office at the National Institute for Space Research in São Paulo.
She previously served two terms as co-chair on the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
• Youba Sokona (Mali): Special Advisor on Sustainable Development at the South Centre in Switzerland.
His previous role with the IPCC was as a co-chair of WGIII.
And this afternoon, the IPCC voted for their new working group co-chairs as well:
• Valérie Masson-Delmotte (France, WGI)
• Panmao Zhai (China, WGI)
• Hans-Otto Pörtner (Germany, WGII)
• Debra Roberts (South Africa, WGII)
• Jim Skea (UK, WGIII)
• Priyadarshi R. Shukla (India, WGIII)
So the UK gets a representative on the Bureau as a working group co-chair.
Prof Jim Skea is the Research Council’s UK energy strategy fellow based at Imperial College London.
His involvement with the IPCC goes back as far as the Second Assessment Report.
Though more recently, he has been vice-chair of WGIII for the Fifth Assessment Report, and was also a review editor for the chapter on Energy Systems and the Synthesis Report.
With two female candidates elected as vice-chairs, and two voted in as co-chairs, this may provide more balance to the IPCC leadership, which only had male candidates for the IPCC chair election yesterday.
Tomorrow, IPCC members will elect the rest of the bureau, which includes the vice-chairs of the working groups and the co-chairs of the task force.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-ipcc-el ... rship-team
The IPCC elects a new leadership team
Robert McSweeney
10.07.15
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the international body for assessing the science related to climate change – has elected South Korean economist Prof Hoesung Lee as its new chair.
Lee will lead the organisation into its next cycle, which will include producing and disseminating a Sixth Assessment Report.
In addition to the chair, the IPCC also voted in three vice-chairs, and two co-chairs for each of their three working groups.
Carbon Brief takes a look at the new leader and the team elected to support him.
Six to one
Six candidates stood for the position of IPCC chair – five of whom Carbon Brief had interviewed ahead of the IPCC meeting in Dubrovnik this week.
The election was held last night, using the traditional method of paper and pen after problems with the electronic voting system.
After the first round, no candidate had achieved the 50% of the votes needed to win, so the election went to a second round between the two candidates with the most votes.
In the run-off, Hoesung Lee was elected over Belgian Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, by a margin of 78 votes to 56.
Lee is a professor in the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development at Korea University in Seoul.
Lee is no stranger to the IPCC, having served as an author, reviewer, working group co-chair, and – most recently – as a vice-chair since 2008.
In a statement released after the vote, Lee expressed his gratitude to the IPCC members for electing him, and gave a brief insight into his leadership plans:
“The next phase of our work will see us increase our understanding of regional impacts, especially in developing countries, and improve the way we communicate our findings to the public."
"Above all, we need to provide more information about the options that exist for preventing and adapting to climate change."
"I look forward to working with my IPCC colleagues to reach these goals and I thank them for their support.”
Core foundation
Lee expanded on his plans in a press conference this morning, reiterating his intention to involve more experts from developing countries:
“One of my priorities over the next cycle of IPCC will be to enhance the participation of developing country experts."
"We need this expertise to fill in our knowledge gaps about the climate’s impacts across the whole planet."
"This knowledge will help the countries determine which adaptation and mitigation measures they will need to take.”
The way to do this, said Lee, is to “identify and network” with local centres of excellence – not just on climate science, but also economic development and poverty reduction.
Lee went on to say that he resolves to focus on some of these wider implications of climate change:
“I am particularly interested in climate change as it relates to job creation, health, innovation and technology development, energy access and poverty alleviation."
"As the new chair of IPCC, I intend to increase attention on these issues.”
Lee also said he will also look to incorporate expertise beyond academic and scientific circles:
“The IPCC can also engage with the business and finance sectors."
"Governments cannot solve the problem of climate change alone."
"We need the best and brightest from the private sector to become increasingly involved to interpret our findings and act upon them.”
Though science will remain the “core foundation” of the IPCC, Lee added:
“As much as we already know, there is always room to know more – to better understand how this complex and complicated thing we call the climate system works and sustains us.”
Carbon Pricing
Carbon Brief explored some of Lee’s views on climate science and the IPCC in our in-depth interview last month.
As an economist, one of the key areas that Lee was interested in was the idea of a carbon price:
“I think if you ask me to choose the most important work in climate change issues, then I’ll choose carbon price."
"That’s because it is the driver to put us into the right track."
"I would like to pursue, as much as possible, to increase our knowledge of carbon price and future emissions, and our knowledge on reducing the institutional barriers to adopting a carbon price system."
"And I think this is a tremendous challenge to the researchers around the world, but it’s a very exciting area.”
Economics provides a way to connect the challenge of reducing emissions to the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis, highlighted Lee.
Whereas concepts such as carbon budgets, for example, are less able to have “much impact on action”, despite providing a “very serious message”:
“We have a goal, a number."
"But many people ask: that’s great, so what?"
"That’s the situation now.”
For the IPCC specifically, Lee said it has “done a very effective job of identifying problems,” and has a “great role” ahead in identifying solutions to climate change:
“I believe the proper vehicle to convey that framework of message is the synthesis report."
"And not mostly on the identification of problems, not mostly on the reorganisation of messages from the different working groups, but a real synthesis in the context of providing a flavour for solutions, a flavour for opportunities for climate stabilisation, based upon each working group’s underlying report.”
But one area that Lee didn’t see the IPCC getting involved was in assessing Intended Nationally Determined Contributions ( INDCs) – the pledges each country is making on cutting emissions ahead of the climate talks in Paris in December:
“I do not think, in reality, the IPCC has the capacity to do such an evaluation."
"There are other organisations who can handle such questions more efficiently and more effectively.”
Vice-chairs and co-chairs
Lee’s response to several questions in the press conference – for example, on possible topics for IPCC special reports, and what deadline might be set for the Sixth Assessment Report – was that decisions would not just be made by him as chair, but involve the vice-chairs and the rest of the IPCC Bureau.
In the previous term, the IPCC chair has been assisted by two vice-chairs – Lee and the man he beat to the job of chair – Jean-Pascal van Ypersele.
Beneath them, the IPCC has three working groups – WGI: The physical science basis, WGII: Impacts, adaptation, vulnerability, WGIII: Mitigation of climate change – and a “Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories”.
Each of these has at least two at co-chairs who oversee them.
Two of the other candidates for IPCC chair have been working group co-chairs for the most recent assessment report – Thomas Stocker and Chris Field.
In the election earlier today, the IPCC elected three vice-chairs for this coming term:
• Ko Barrett (US): Deputy Assistant Administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Her IPCC experience includes being a lead representative for the US for the WGII and Synthesis Report approval sessions for the last two assessment reports.
• Thelma Krug (Brazil): Head of the International Affairs Office at the National Institute for Space Research in São Paulo.
She previously served two terms as co-chair on the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
• Youba Sokona (Mali): Special Advisor on Sustainable Development at the South Centre in Switzerland.
His previous role with the IPCC was as a co-chair of WGIII.
And this afternoon, the IPCC voted for their new working group co-chairs as well:
• Valérie Masson-Delmotte (France, WGI)
• Panmao Zhai (China, WGI)
• Hans-Otto Pörtner (Germany, WGII)
• Debra Roberts (South Africa, WGII)
• Jim Skea (UK, WGIII)
• Priyadarshi R. Shukla (India, WGIII)
So the UK gets a representative on the Bureau as a working group co-chair.
Prof Jim Skea is the Research Council’s UK energy strategy fellow based at Imperial College London.
His involvement with the IPCC goes back as far as the Second Assessment Report.
Though more recently, he has been vice-chair of WGIII for the Fifth Assessment Report, and was also a review editor for the chapter on Energy Systems and the Synthesis Report.
With two female candidates elected as vice-chairs, and two voted in as co-chairs, this may provide more balance to the IPCC leadership, which only had male candidates for the IPCC chair election yesterday.
Tomorrow, IPCC members will elect the rest of the bureau, which includes the vice-chairs of the working groups and the co-chairs of the task force.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-ipcc-el ... rship-team
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR December 13, 2019 at 10:19 pm
Paul Plante says :
As a caring grandfather, let me say how much I personally appreciate the fact that the Cape Charles Mirror is stepping up to the plate here to challenge this irresponsible and reckless exploitation and manipulation of children for political gain with this “global climate crisis” bull**** that is being thrown in our faces seemingly every day now by the HYSTERIA MONGERING of the main-stream media which is in turn being fed and stoked by this IPCC “global climate crisis” crowd meeting in Madid and shamefully, our own NOAA, as we can see in an article in the Brit publication The Guardian entitled ‘We won’t stop striking’: the New York 13 year-old taking a stand over climate change” by Oliver Milman in New York @olliemilman on 19 Sep 2019, as follows:
Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming.
end quotes
OMG!
CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING!
NO!
SAY IT ISN’T SO!
And of course, it isn’t as we can clearly see by going to the authority on global climate entitled “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition by H.H. Lamb, as follows:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the end-product of the burning not only of wood but of all fossil fuels — coal, gas, oil, etc.
It is a very minor constituent of the atmosphere, only about 350 parts per million (ppm) by volume, but it is important because of its effects on the radiation passing through the atmosphere.
This applies particularly to the radiant energy going out from the Earth, because CO2 is not transparent to radiation at some of the long wavelengths most strongly represented in the emission from bodies at the temperatures prevailing at the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere.
Hence, this radiation is absorbed on its way upward from the Earth by the CO2 in the atmosphere and re-radiated in all directions, so partly back to the Earth.
As a result of this, and the similar action of the water vapour in the atmosphere on radiation at a range of wave-lengths partly overlapping those which CO2 absorbs, the Earth’s surface climate is some 35–40°C warmer than would be expected on a planet at this distance from the sun.
end quotes
Said another way, without that carbon dioxide in our earth’s atmosphere, life for us human beings on earth would not be possible, which brings us to this from that same source, to wit:
There is no doubt, from actual measurements, that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing and that, with the increased rate of burning of fossil fuels,the rate of increase has become greater.
In 1880–90 the CO2 seems to have been around 290 ppm in the atmosphere.
Some who have studied the subject believe that before the massive clearing of forests for agriculture in the nineteenth century, the proportion (owing to assimilation of carbon from atmospheric CO2 by the vegetation) may have been as low as 270 ppm.
end quotes
In fact, it was well known back in 1900, well over a hundred years ago, that global carbon dioxide was on the rise.
On that, there is no argument, nor can there be.
Where there is an argument, and it is a legitimate one, it is with respect to what any of that might mean, as we can see from the following, again from that source, to wit:
It has been calculated that this carbon-enriched atmosphere may have contributed to richer crop yields to the extent of a few per cent.
end quotes
Yes, people, without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there would be no green plant life on earth, and since green plants breathe carbon dioxide as a fuel to keep them not only alive, but thriving, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not surprisingly, the better the green plants do, which is to our benefit, not our detriment, but you would never know that from reading The Guardian, to wit:
The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.
end quotes
Now, note the complete absurdity of that picture – this poor confused and frightened little girl is sitting outside in freezing weather in New York City to protest global warming, which takes us back to that article for this:
Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards.
end quotes
What understatement!
Most passersby in New York City seeing some little fool sitting in freezing weather on a park bench in New York City to protest global warming are going to be convinced that they are in the presence of a dangerous lunatic, so of course they are going to scurry by and not make eye contact, because when confronted with a lunatic in New York City, the last thing you want to do is make eye contact which will only draw them in.
As to blatant and shameless media manipulation of this little girl out in the freezing cold, we have this from The Guardian, to wit:
There is media interest, too.
On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew.
“I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards.
end quotes
Now, is that cruel exploitation of an ignorant and confused and scared child by NBC News, or what, people?
Getting back to that story:
After bouncing around a few youth-led climate groups, Villasenor struck up a rapport with fellow students Isra Hirsi, in Minnesota, and Haven Coleman, from Colorado.
The trio set about creating Youth Climate Strike US, the first major American response to the recent mass school walkouts by European students frustrated by adults’ sluggish response to climate change.
“My generation knows that climate change will be the biggest problem we’ll have to face,” Villasenor said.
“It’s upsetting that my generation has to push these leaders to take action.”
“We aren’t going to stop striking until some more laws are passed.”
end quotes
Actually, if she would bother to do some homework before talking like a witless fool, she would notice that we already have all the laws we need to deal with environmental issues in the United States of America, so we don’t need any more, when the ones we have especially here in the corrupt Democrat-controlled third-world ****hole of New York state are routinely ignored by the Democrat governor and his Department of Environmental Conservation, and frankly, I don’t care if she and the rest of her little friends never go back to school.
Let them cultivate mindless ignorance in themselves if they choose that course in life – it is America, afterall.
And here comes Greta into the picture, as follows:
The American students preparing to join a global wave of school strikes on 15 March have been spurred by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swede who started taking every Friday off school to call for more rapid action by her country’s leaders.
In a gently excoriating speech, Thunberg told governments at UN climate talks in December that “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”
Those under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans.
end quotes
And what totally irresponsible hog**** that last statement is, as we see from Lamb, as follows:
The CO2 warming thesis has always had a specially strong appeal to physical meteorologists as one element in the complex problems of atmospheric science which should be entirely predictable, since the effects of CO2 on radiation are clearly demonstrable and well understood in theory.
Nevertheless little was heard about the thesis in the 1960s, when it was discovered that world temperature was falling despite the more rapid increase of CO2 in the atmosphere than ever before.
end quotes
As to the stupid statement that “(T)hose under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans,” it is a well-known fact from basic high school science that the Medieval Warm Period, a time when humans not only were alive, but thriving, was warmer than it is now, to wit:
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of warm climate from about 900–1300 AD, when global temperatures were somewhat warmer than at present.
Temperatures in the GISP2 ice core were about 2°F (1°C) warmer than modern temperatures (Fig. 8.14).
The effects of the warm period were particularly evident in Europe, where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled.
The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize southern Greenland in 985 AD, when milder climates allowed favorable open-ocean conditions for navigation and fishing.
This was close to the maximum Medieval warming recorded in the GISP2 ice core at 975 AD (Stuiver et al., 1995).
Erik the Red explored Greenland from Iceland and gave it its name.
He claimed land in southern Greenland and became a chieftain about 985 AD.
The first Greenlanders brought grain seed, probably barley, oats, and rye, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats.
The southern coastal area was forested at the time.
Greenland settlements lasted about 500 years before cooling during the Little Ice Age ended the settlements.
end quotes
So ask yourselves, people, why are we being fed this ignorant horse**** from Greta Thunberg and The Guardian, which takes us back to that story, as follows:
For someone getting their first taste of politics it can be hard to digest that precious little has been done to avert a future of disastrous droughts, floods and storms since James Hansen, then of Nasa, delivered his landmark warning on climate change to Congress 30 years ago.
end quotes
Anyone who has done even a cursory study of this subject knows that the history of the earth is one of disastrous droughts, floods and storms, and actually right now, we are lucky to be living in rather benign period of the earth’s history in that regard.
As to not only cultivating ignorance in children, but encouraging it, as well, we finish with this from The Guardian, to wit:
“My parents are very supportive, they understand my beliefs,” said Villasenor, as she repositioned her placards for the cameras.
“If we’re not going to have a future, then school won’t matter any more.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-207225
Paul Plante says :
As a caring grandfather, let me say how much I personally appreciate the fact that the Cape Charles Mirror is stepping up to the plate here to challenge this irresponsible and reckless exploitation and manipulation of children for political gain with this “global climate crisis” bull**** that is being thrown in our faces seemingly every day now by the HYSTERIA MONGERING of the main-stream media which is in turn being fed and stoked by this IPCC “global climate crisis” crowd meeting in Madid and shamefully, our own NOAA, as we can see in an article in the Brit publication The Guardian entitled ‘We won’t stop striking’: the New York 13 year-old taking a stand over climate change” by Oliver Milman in New York @olliemilman on 19 Sep 2019, as follows:
Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming.
end quotes
OMG!
CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING!
NO!
SAY IT ISN’T SO!
And of course, it isn’t as we can clearly see by going to the authority on global climate entitled “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition by H.H. Lamb, as follows:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the end-product of the burning not only of wood but of all fossil fuels — coal, gas, oil, etc.
It is a very minor constituent of the atmosphere, only about 350 parts per million (ppm) by volume, but it is important because of its effects on the radiation passing through the atmosphere.
This applies particularly to the radiant energy going out from the Earth, because CO2 is not transparent to radiation at some of the long wavelengths most strongly represented in the emission from bodies at the temperatures prevailing at the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere.
Hence, this radiation is absorbed on its way upward from the Earth by the CO2 in the atmosphere and re-radiated in all directions, so partly back to the Earth.
As a result of this, and the similar action of the water vapour in the atmosphere on radiation at a range of wave-lengths partly overlapping those which CO2 absorbs, the Earth’s surface climate is some 35–40°C warmer than would be expected on a planet at this distance from the sun.
end quotes
Said another way, without that carbon dioxide in our earth’s atmosphere, life for us human beings on earth would not be possible, which brings us to this from that same source, to wit:
There is no doubt, from actual measurements, that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing and that, with the increased rate of burning of fossil fuels,the rate of increase has become greater.
In 1880–90 the CO2 seems to have been around 290 ppm in the atmosphere.
Some who have studied the subject believe that before the massive clearing of forests for agriculture in the nineteenth century, the proportion (owing to assimilation of carbon from atmospheric CO2 by the vegetation) may have been as low as 270 ppm.
end quotes
In fact, it was well known back in 1900, well over a hundred years ago, that global carbon dioxide was on the rise.
On that, there is no argument, nor can there be.
Where there is an argument, and it is a legitimate one, it is with respect to what any of that might mean, as we can see from the following, again from that source, to wit:
It has been calculated that this carbon-enriched atmosphere may have contributed to richer crop yields to the extent of a few per cent.
end quotes
Yes, people, without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there would be no green plant life on earth, and since green plants breathe carbon dioxide as a fuel to keep them not only alive, but thriving, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not surprisingly, the better the green plants do, which is to our benefit, not our detriment, but you would never know that from reading The Guardian, to wit:
The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.
end quotes
Now, note the complete absurdity of that picture – this poor confused and frightened little girl is sitting outside in freezing weather in New York City to protest global warming, which takes us back to that article for this:
Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards.
end quotes
What understatement!
Most passersby in New York City seeing some little fool sitting in freezing weather on a park bench in New York City to protest global warming are going to be convinced that they are in the presence of a dangerous lunatic, so of course they are going to scurry by and not make eye contact, because when confronted with a lunatic in New York City, the last thing you want to do is make eye contact which will only draw them in.
As to blatant and shameless media manipulation of this little girl out in the freezing cold, we have this from The Guardian, to wit:
There is media interest, too.
On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew.
“I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards.
end quotes
Now, is that cruel exploitation of an ignorant and confused and scared child by NBC News, or what, people?
Getting back to that story:
After bouncing around a few youth-led climate groups, Villasenor struck up a rapport with fellow students Isra Hirsi, in Minnesota, and Haven Coleman, from Colorado.
The trio set about creating Youth Climate Strike US, the first major American response to the recent mass school walkouts by European students frustrated by adults’ sluggish response to climate change.
“My generation knows that climate change will be the biggest problem we’ll have to face,” Villasenor said.
“It’s upsetting that my generation has to push these leaders to take action.”
“We aren’t going to stop striking until some more laws are passed.”
end quotes
Actually, if she would bother to do some homework before talking like a witless fool, she would notice that we already have all the laws we need to deal with environmental issues in the United States of America, so we don’t need any more, when the ones we have especially here in the corrupt Democrat-controlled third-world ****hole of New York state are routinely ignored by the Democrat governor and his Department of Environmental Conservation, and frankly, I don’t care if she and the rest of her little friends never go back to school.
Let them cultivate mindless ignorance in themselves if they choose that course in life – it is America, afterall.
And here comes Greta into the picture, as follows:
The American students preparing to join a global wave of school strikes on 15 March have been spurred by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swede who started taking every Friday off school to call for more rapid action by her country’s leaders.
In a gently excoriating speech, Thunberg told governments at UN climate talks in December that “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”
Those under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans.
end quotes
And what totally irresponsible hog**** that last statement is, as we see from Lamb, as follows:
The CO2 warming thesis has always had a specially strong appeal to physical meteorologists as one element in the complex problems of atmospheric science which should be entirely predictable, since the effects of CO2 on radiation are clearly demonstrable and well understood in theory.
Nevertheless little was heard about the thesis in the 1960s, when it was discovered that world temperature was falling despite the more rapid increase of CO2 in the atmosphere than ever before.
end quotes
As to the stupid statement that “(T)hose under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans,” it is a well-known fact from basic high school science that the Medieval Warm Period, a time when humans not only were alive, but thriving, was warmer than it is now, to wit:
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of warm climate from about 900–1300 AD, when global temperatures were somewhat warmer than at present.
Temperatures in the GISP2 ice core were about 2°F (1°C) warmer than modern temperatures (Fig. 8.14).
The effects of the warm period were particularly evident in Europe, where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled.
The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize southern Greenland in 985 AD, when milder climates allowed favorable open-ocean conditions for navigation and fishing.
This was close to the maximum Medieval warming recorded in the GISP2 ice core at 975 AD (Stuiver et al., 1995).
Erik the Red explored Greenland from Iceland and gave it its name.
He claimed land in southern Greenland and became a chieftain about 985 AD.
The first Greenlanders brought grain seed, probably barley, oats, and rye, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats.
The southern coastal area was forested at the time.
Greenland settlements lasted about 500 years before cooling during the Little Ice Age ended the settlements.
end quotes
So ask yourselves, people, why are we being fed this ignorant horse**** from Greta Thunberg and The Guardian, which takes us back to that story, as follows:
For someone getting their first taste of politics it can be hard to digest that precious little has been done to avert a future of disastrous droughts, floods and storms since James Hansen, then of Nasa, delivered his landmark warning on climate change to Congress 30 years ago.
end quotes
Anyone who has done even a cursory study of this subject knows that the history of the earth is one of disastrous droughts, floods and storms, and actually right now, we are lucky to be living in rather benign period of the earth’s history in that regard.
As to not only cultivating ignorance in children, but encouraging it, as well, we finish with this from The Guardian, to wit:
“My parents are very supportive, they understand my beliefs,” said Villasenor, as she repositioned her placards for the cameras.
“If we’re not going to have a future, then school won’t matter any more.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/i ... ent-207225