I’m generally wary of science-by-opinion-poll, because that’s not how science works. It doesn’t matter how many scientists believe one thing, or how many believe another. It doesn’t matter how impressive (or not) their credentials are.
All that matters is the evidence and the quality of the arguments.
So, when 1,205 scientists and professionals sign a declaration, I’m less interested in who they are or how many of them there are, than in what they have to say.
What does the “World Climate Declaration” say?
There is no climate emergency.
A bold declaration, and enough to make a barely-educated Swedish brat cry, but also true.
After all, what would constitute an “emergency”? Global desertification? Not happening — in fact, the exact opposite. Sea levels? Well, they’ve been rising for thousands of years, and there’s little evidence that recent rises are anything out of the natural extraordinary. Drowning islands? A few are, but that’s mostly because of their own poor management. Most islands are either stable or growing. How about wildfire? Also diminishing.
In fact, if this is a warming world, it looks pretty good. But then, past warming periods were times of abundance, too.
What else does the Declaration have to say?
Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming.
True. No-one seriously disputes this.
Warming is far slower than predicted.
Also true.
The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.
And that’s because:
Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
As Japanese modeller Nakamura Mototaka bluntly puts it, “the models just become useless pieces of junk or worse… when they are used for climate forecasting.”
CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
Something that is never acknowledged by the Climate Cult is that, over geological time, atmospheric CO2 has declined dramatically — all while the climate has warmed and cooled. Most recently, for the past 2.5 million years, cooled. But atmospheric CO2 was much higher in past eras (often when the climate was much colder).
In fact, the decline in atmospheric CO2 was so dramatic that, immediately prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was fast approaching levels at which plants may have starved to death. It should be unsurprising, then, that the slight blip in atmospheric CO2 in the last century has been accompanied by a startling surge in plant growth.
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.
Another sign of an actual crisis might be an increase in climate-related natural disasters.
Sorry, Cultists, you strike out again.
Global warming has not increased natural disasters
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.
And that’s the kicker: contrary to the stupid cartoon the Cultists love to bandy about, if they’re wrong, they’ve not “built a better world” any way at all. They’re making a world that’s impoverished and miserable, not just for developing countries, but once-developed countries where energy rationing is becoming sadly normal.
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are.
World Climate Declaration
That’s all there is to it, really:
There is no climate emergency.
We don’t really need 1200 scientists, eminent or not, to tell us that. The evidence is telling us, all by itself.