I have been putting off my deconstruction of the Green New Deal for some time, being that I wanted to provide a thoughtful analysis that is based on simple logic, stuff any rational person, regardless of their education, can follow.
Let’s start with this: 97% of all climate scientists (or just plan, all scientists) agree that human activity has changed, and is changing the climate. My first thought in deconstructing this statement is to suggest that 97% of the climate scientists have graduated from the university in the last 20 years, and that they entered the climate science curriculum in order to help slow or stop the climate change which the media and lower level classroom instructors, mostly devoid of science background, have promoted. I.e. they came to school with the notion that climate change was a dire issue.
Now, how many climate professors do you think there were prior to this glut of climate science students? Not many, I suspect. I mean how many climate sciences did the world need before the climate change media blitz? Where could they get employment other than in a university meteorology department as a specialist in climate studies? So there probably weren’t many of them.
Indeed, how many universities even had a climate science curriculum prior to this non-stop media focus on climate change? Not many, I suspect. And how many universities have developed climate science departments since the societal wokeness (haven’t seen the word used much lately, Kamala) regarding climate disaster?
How many new climate classes have been created by universities? Many and many, I imagine. After all universities are in the sales business, and they respond to popular demand for products that they offer. So now we have curricula such as: Climate Change Economics, Climate Change Social Justice, Climate Change Education, etc. etc. etc.
Read the charts carefully. The left one represents greenhouse gases only. Greenhouse gases make up about 1 % of the atmosphere. Notice however that water dominates the greenhouse gases, making up roughly 95% by volume. Although it is not shown here, water also has a larger emissivity for long wave radiation and over a much broader range of wavelengths. In short, water vapor is at least a hundred times more important in the absorption of heat than CO2 is, and likely at least 1000 times more important.
Anyway, so where did all these new climate change professors and experts come from? Possibly recent grads from climate science programs? Professors crossing over from other branches of education? Basically, new experts or retooled experts, all relying on the same body of previous work for their expertise.
97% of all climate scientists had a prejudicial view, one that was there when they began to study climatology. Therefore, we probably should divide climate scientists into two groups: old school meteorology department professors (maybe 3% of the climate sciences) and recent climate change science graduates (maybe 97% of the climate scientists). Of the later group, how good was their education, given that most of the curriculum was thrown together on the fly in response to student demand?
This is not to say that they are all poorly educated by a biased curriculum; nor even does it mean that they are wrong in their positions and prognostications.
It just means we can’t really know what to accept from them.
The sum of all the blue areas equals water’s importance as a greenhouse gas and the tiny green area is carbon dioxide’s importance. Doesn’t the blue area look more than ten times larger? Maybe as much as 30 times larger? That means water’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is between 1000% to 3000% greater than CO2. And the water is all natural. Clink on the graph to read the underlying article.
And anyway, science is not consensus of opinion. Science is fact based. In the 1850’s, coincidentally at the end of the Little Ice Age, Louis Pasteur hypothesized that bacteria caused decay, whereas the majority of scientists believed decay caused bacteria. He was right, and they were wrong.
Do I believe that humans have changed the climate? Yes, scientific principles indicate that we must have changed the climate. The true question is by what means, and how much did each contribute to climate change.
For me, I don’t believe that CO2, at 2 parts per 10,000 (the part caused by human activity), is the main cause of the recent warmness compared to say, the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850. An expanding human population is affecting Earth in many other ways that might be more important, such as terra forming and changes within or on the surface of the oceans. I do believe that water, not CO2 is the major factor in climate behavior. Water vapor is a stronger absorber of long wave radiation than CO2 and it absorbs over a broader range of wave lengths. It is also at least ten times more prevalent in the atmosphere than CO2.
Now to ABC’s (Alexandria the Bartending Clown) war against climate change. Although she is clearly a global socialist, she has decided that the people of the USA should absorb the full brunt of this battle. Her faulty reasoning for this will be discussed in another post.
One last item, perhaps last item, I’ll bet that ALL of the climate models used by NASA, the national laboratories, or anyone else are Monte Carlo Simulations, i.e. models that produce statistical results not “answers,” but rather spectrums of possibilities. In essences, they say, “If the information you put in here is right, then the following broad range of results might happen with the following distribution of probabilities.” Of course journalists and politicians, having no morals, no shame, and no mathematical sense, will gravitate toward publicizing the extreme, low probability edge of the spectrum which supports their narrative. Well it fits their agenda, don’t you see?
So when you read an article which uses phrases like: “as much as”, “as few as”, or “as many as”, you should immediately suspect that someone is trying to manipulate you into believing that extremely low probability events are imminent and can only be avoided through radical change, which ironically are more likely to be disastrous.
I have worked with highly educated post graduate degreed individuals from prestigious universities in the development and use of Monte Carlo Simulations to model a much simpler situation than the world climate, and although projecting only a decade into the future, the results varied significantly from reality.
The reasons are legion: Bad data, insufficient data, no data, Delphi Methodology, uncertain and varying physical relationships, impact of undiscovered factors, goal seeking bias-subconscious or overt, purposeful misrepresentation of the results, etc.
The bad data aspect alone has generated a whole genre of climate studies literature, with most of the detractions well founded, in my opinion.
In short, my experience with Monte Carlo Simulation is that it is exactly what it claims to be: If you put this in, you get these possibilities out. It is best use to vary “sensitive” variables and develop an understanding of how those impact the results. Of course, your model has to be based somewhat in reality for even that to have any value, and it is too easy to tweak an input toward yielding the results you feeeeeeeeel are correct.
Do I believe that CO2 is a problem now? No.
Do I think it could become a problem? Yes, but we have plenty of time if we ask our expert physicists, chemists, and engineers to develop new energy sources. But we need to listen to experts, not journalists, not activists, not political candidates, and certainly not political ideologues.
Next Time: More about the machinations of a political ideologue, I call her ABC, because it is easy to remember, and probably would make her mad if it became popular. Or if you insist on using her proper initials : America’s Official Clown!