This was written to a friend who, after reading some of my views, still said that he was sufficiently alarmed by the possible adverse effects of climate change to feel he ought to do his bit – doing things like taking fewer holiday flights (to which I refer below).
I have been mulling over the points you made a few weeks ago and wondering whether to respond, frankly not wanting to skew our conversations endlessly towards the possible perils of the climate – but also not wanting to insult you by appearing to ignore what you say. You are, after all, one of the very few who even try to tell me where I’ve gone wrong. And let me be honest, writing this is partly about helping me to clear my mind on the subject.
What I thought I might do is introduce some other ideas that probably haven’t found their way into what I have so far sent you. My basic response to your points you already know, as it certainly comes out of the papers I gave you. Put very crudely: if there is a serious global problem (which even the UN body, the IPCC, is now downplaying and I certainly doubt), the kind of solutions you refer to won’t do the job. And, perhaps even more important, carbon dioxide is good for the planet, not bad. So I won’t go on about that. The other things I would say are the following.
The first is to counter a point touched on by you, namely that sceptics tend to be funded by the fossil fuel and oil industries. Not so. I frankly get my facts and views from scientists, economists and politicians who support, or submit papers to, the foundation that Nigel Lawson set up over ten years ago, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He has from the outset refused money from the energy industry and from anyone with a significant interest in the energy industry.
Turning to the key points you made - perhaps the main one relates to sea levels and I believe that anxieties about coastal communities being drowned have always been one of the major concerns. The idea of London and New York being under a few meters of water does concentrate the mind. This has led me to look more closely at a paper put out by the GWPF on the subject, written by two scientists from New Zealand and Australia (Willem de Lange and Robert Carter), where climatic problems have had much attention and have of course had significant political repercussions.
Their conclusions are that average sea levels are indeed rising, but by only modest amounts compared to the alarmist projections publicised in Al Gore’s controversial film. But, more to the point, such sea levels have been rising by much the same modest amounts for many centuries. And also, the amounts vary around the world: in some places there is no rise, in some places levels actually go down (largely because the land goes up), and in some places there are indeed significant rises. It follows that the answer is to tackle the issue at a local level. The authors praise the construction of the Thames Barrier and point to it as an example of exactly the kind of approach that should be adopted. You mention Bangladesh. Therein must lie a massive political problem if one assumes that the sort of action that should be taken is way beyond the means of the Bangladeshis. This would be an area deserving of international charitable action on a grand scale. But the idea that the problem can be solved by cutting carbon dioxide emissions, installing more wind farms and solar panels (and even, dare I say, by taking fewer holiday flights) would be to miss the point in a spectacular and potentially dangerous fashion. It would be prudent, rather, to assume that sea levels will go on rising in much the same way as they have, apparently, for the last many hundred years and to take steps to mitigate the problems.
The point about Arctic ice melting relates to rising sea levels, but has also been thought to be relevant to the extinction of species, partly as a result of the use of pictures of starving polar bears in the publicity material put out by those worried about global warming. This has, I think, been dropped, now that we realise that populations of polar bears are much on the increase and that they are by no means an endangered species. There was an ironical footnote to this recently. David Attenborough (I’m sure unknowingly) blamed climate change in a TV programme showing harrowing footage of walruses leaping off a cliff to their deaths: this has now been attributed to polar bears hunting them, among other things, all unrelated to global warming.
What about hurricanes and other extreme weather events? The media regularly blame climate change, even though scientists tell us that there has been no change at all in the regularity of these events in recent times.
Which leads me to wonder increasingly why the conventional wisdom is so persistent and tenacious; why the scientific establishment seems to be unanimous in its support; why no one ever mentions the fact (undisputed, I believe) that carbon dioxide is good for us because it’s good for plants (and harmless to human beings); why even global warming, at least so far, has more good effects than bad. There are probably plenty of answers to my questions, but they have to include the fact that the premise is wrong: there are plenty of scientists who don’t agree with the conventional wisdom (many, interestingly, of a certain age and with their active careers behind them) and many others who keep their heads down. The idea that the science is settled is a myth, although it is clear that doubting the conventional wisdom can cause you to loose your job or rather your funding (probably much the same thing).
Some years ago, I remember Lord Lawson inviting a distinguished scientist from, I think, Sweden to join his board. The scientist was keen, but then felt he had to decline in the face of hostility back home. More recently, a scientist, Dr Susan Crockford from British Columbia, wrote a paper describing the happy situation of polar bears and their greatly increasing numbers. She lost her position as Adjunct Professor in the University of Victoria. Similarly, Professor Peter Ridd lost his position as Professor of Physics at James Cook University in Queensland, following his lengthy study of the Great Barrier Reef and his conclusion that it was in “fantastic shape”. There are many other examples. Lord Lawson himself has said that, despite having been at the centre of political dispute for much of his life, making difficult and unpopular decisions when Chancellor of the Exchequer, he has never experienced such ”extremes of personal hostility, vituperation and vilification” as he has for his views on climate change. No wonder people keep their heads below the parapet.
Orthodoxy is a powerful force, as Galileo discovered. Schopenhauer put it like this (presumably in German): All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as self-evident. Someone said that the truth that carbon dioxide is good for the planet is somewhere between stages one and two. I incline to the view that it’s firmly in stage two.
Let me add a final thought. I find it odd that the Green political movements adhere so rigidly to the conventional wisdom that carbon dioxide is evil, allowing people to think of it as a pollutant, encouraging people to reduce their “carbon footprint”, and so on - when the demonstrably good effects of higher levels of carbon dioxide relate to what the Green movements should be focussing on, namely the greening of the planet, the retreat of deserts and the diversity of plant life. I have never heard of any scientist deny these latter points, whereas the possible evils of carbon dioxide – all, I think, related to its being a driver of warming – are plainly debateable. As I say, how odd! It’s one of the reasons that the founder of Greenpeace, Dr Patrick Moore (not the astronomer!), has changed sides and now bats for the heretics.
Tony Herbert
3 March 2020
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