Useful information on climate from someone who does know what she is talking about.
Changing climate goalposts and extreme weather events
Many years ago, I first heard Professor Judith Curry speak about climate science. Previously, she was Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Here is a [link] to her c.v.
I have excerpted from a recent article of hers below, because it touches on two important points:
The globalist climate goalposts keep changing as the predicted temperature increases fail to eventuate
Extreme weather events have not been scientifically linked to climate warming. [Some propose they are due to “weather warfare” using technologies not publicly known.]
Dr. Curry elaborated on extreme weather events in her 2019 congressional testimony. She noted, surprisingly:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Extreme Events acknowledges that there is not yet evidence of changes in the global frequency or intensity of hurricanes, droughts, floods or wildfires.
From a December 2022 article of hers:
Given the apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding climate change, does the alleged urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions somehow trump these other considerations? Well, the climate ‘crisis’ isn’t what it used to be. The COP27 has dropped the most extreme emissions scenario from consideration, which was the source of the most alarming predictions. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that produced 2 to 3 degrees C warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2 degrees C seems to be in reach, the goal posts were moved to limit the warming target to 1.5 degrees C. These warming targets are referenced to a baseline at the end of the 19th century; the Earth’s climate has already warmed by 1.1 degrees C. In context of this relatively modest warming, climate ‘crisis’ rhetoric is now linked to extreme weather events.
Attributing extreme weather and climate events to global warming can motivate a country to attempt to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that eliminating emissions would have a noticeable impact on weather and climate extremes in the 21st century. It is very difficult to untangle the roles of natural weather and climate variability and land use from the slow creep of global warming. Looking back into the past, including paleoclimatic data, there has been more extreme weather everywhere on the planet. Thinking that we can minimize severe weather through using atmospheric carbon dioxide as a control knob is a fairy tale. In particular, Australia is responsible for slightly more than 1% of global carbon emissions. Hence, Australia’s emissions have a minimal impact on global warming as well as on Australia’s own climate.
There is growing realization that these emissions and temperature targets have become detached from the issues of human well-being and development. Yes, we need to reduce CO2 emissions over the course of the 21st century. However once we relax the faux urgency for eliminating CO2 emissions and the stringent time tables, we have time and space to envision new energy systems that can meet the diverse, growing needs of the 21st century. This includes sufficient energy to help reduce our vulnerability to surprises from extreme weather and climate events.
Why do we need to reduce CO2 emissions? Plants like the stuff. We have had higher CO2 levels than what we have now in our past with considerably more vegetation, heat and humidity. Antarctica used to be free of ice. What is it about humans that make us think we know how the planet should be other than that many folks who live on the coast probably shouldn’t and folks piling up in deserts are fools along with people who live on huge cracks in the earth that move sometimes. This seems to me to be all about people who own real estate in places not really meant to be habitable long term and not being smart enough to figure that out. If we cared at all about the planet, we woukd reduce our chemical pollution and stop stripping it of trees and arable soil (as in strip mining operations and excessive, corporate farming). Stop polluting the rivers, lakes and oceans. Stop with the plastics that won’t break down for a gazillion years - including those darned masks now clogging waterways and landfills and sewage pipes. We can feed our population just fine if we go back to small, local, sustainable farms and ranches that manage the soils and water useage and don’t pollute and also provide real food to local communities. As corporate farms absolutely do not. As CO2 levels rise, deserts change and become more green. More plants. More O2 into the atmosphere. More humidity. More balance. If we lived in harmony with the planet we woukd be fine. But we still think we own the planet and that ownership allows us to trash it. Fossil fuels are not our problem. Our irresponsible perspective of things is the problem.
As an Australian, I agree with almost all except the need to reduce emissions at all. Both Freeman Dyson and William Happer , renowned physisits have highlighted the enormous benefits to both the production of crops in advanced and developing countries and the greening of the planet as seen from NASA satellite imagry especially in arid regions where plants with higher CO2 levels require less water thanks to their pores not needing to open as much allowing more water evaporation. Patrick Moore , one of the original greenpeace founders points out that were it not for the industrial revolution which has raised the CO2 level from 270 parts per million to around 400 parts per million ( thats .0004 .folks....it's a trace element ) , planet earth was well on the way to becoming Planet Mars with no plant life able to survive below 150 parts per million. Some context and to counter the nonsense about CO2 being too high, during the Cambrian period , some 600 million years ago, and when the greatest abundance of new lifeform was found in the fossil records, CO2 levels were in excess of 4000 parts per million. Humans have and continue to survive on earth in temperatures spanning over 100 degrees celsius from one extreme to the other. From death valley in the US where temps can reach 50 C to Prospect Creek in Alaska where it is as low minus 62 degrees celsius, it's hard to imagine how a temperature increase supposedly blamed on CO2 is going to impact human existance on Earth.....and according to William Happer who points out with his wonderful analogy..... painting a barn with more and more coats of red paint doesen't make it any "redder" , the effect of CO2 in our atmosphere is not linear.....and most of the warming occurred in the first half of last century. The modelling is a joke....plants turn CO2 into the air we breathe and we should all be thankful for the good old industrial revolution.....and I would ignore neurotic little European girls with big mouths and little to no understanding of life , science , or history,