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Impermissible Good News?

Old Bathos
@OldBathos
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A paper in Science magazine explores the possibility that anthropogenic warming may have staved off an ice age that was due and had been slowly beginning its return 2000 years ago. The problem with this conclusion is not that more evidence is needed or that contrary interpretations of the available data may be just as plausible. The problem is that it would be good news and, with respect to climate, that is not allowed.

The utterly brilliant Swedish chemist/physicist/toxicologist/geologist…and the first Nobel Prize-winning scientist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) theorized in 1896 that CO2 emissions might be good for mankind precisely because they could prevent the imminent return of an ice age. His calculated figure for the radiative forcing effect of CO2 was too high but was otherwise part of truly ground-breaking science. He has been hailed as the father of climate science, but his optimistic take is rarely included in such paeans.

If the recent paper is right and that warming is actually a good thing, what does that do to the massive government and NGO funding for promoting the narrative of imminent catastrophic climate change?

I have some suggestions/predictions for the climate racket:

  • Out: Climate change will produce more Hurricane Katrinas.
  • In: Nature depends on cycles within which hurricanes have a vital role, so the untimely reduction in hurricane frequency is bad for the planet.
  • Out: Climate change will simultaneously cause droughts and flooding.
  • In: An absence of flooding will deprive soil and wetlands of proper replenishment, and the absence of extended dry periods causing the rapid greening of desert areas will have unpredictably disruptive impacts on indigenous flora and fauna. [Insert lovable and allegedly endangered critter here.]
  • Out: The polar ice sheets and glaciers will disappear with horrific consequences for human populations.
  • In: Keeping the global ice stable, or in a state of continued small reduction, is not worth it because when it is time for the current delayed/prevented ice age to end in another 1,500 to 2,000 years, we will suffer under intensified warming. A millennium and a half is not enough time to adjust, adapt, mitigate or invent solutions.

If all else fails, if the planet does become warmer and wetter, new technologies for transforming arid areas will surely emerge, and because the Israelis would likely be at the forefront of any such developments, there will be sufficient proof that it is bad for the planet.

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Discussion (16)

  • Steven Seward@StevenSeward

    I've thought for a long time that a warming planet was a good thing. Something like a quarter of all land on Earth is uninhabitable by most plants and animals due to the cold. Even according to the models by Global Warming fear monger scientists, the warming will happen at the poles while the already warm tropical regions should remain relatively stable. That is a Win-Win all-around.

    The entire blossoming of civilization coming out of the hunter-gatherer era happened in the last 10,000 years, right when the last glacial age receded.

  • Nanocelt TheContrarian@NanoceltTheContrarian
    Edited

    It is well past time to go back to the time (not so long ago) when everybody complained about the weather but nobody did anything about it.

    WE can repurpose Mel Brooks' song from "The Producers": It's Springtime, for Al Gore, and Humanity"

  • Old Bathos@OldBathos
    ReplyingtoSteven Seward

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    I've thought for a long time that a warming planet was a good thing. Something like a quarter of all land on Earth is uninhabitable by most plants and animals due to the cold. Even according to the models by Global Warming fear monger scientists, the warming will happen at the poles while the already warm tropical regions should remain relatively stable. That is a Win-Win all-around.

    The entire blossoming of civilization coming out of the hunter-gatherer era happened in the last 10,000 years, right when the last glacial age receded.

    But making things better for humans resulted in overhunting mammoths, mastodons and sabre-toothed tigers and will never get them back. The planet weeps.

  • namlliT noD@DonTillman

    I think the foundational underlying argument for "global warming" is not that the temperature has increased, but rather that it's a runaway condition, that a higher temperature will cause a rise in the rate of temperature increase. "Expodentially", as Biden says.

    But of course there are also stabilizing forces. Because if the planet was that precarious, that unstable, that susceptable to runaway conditions, we wouldn't be here talking about it. There's lots this orb has been through over the last 4-1/2 billion years.

    For whatever the cause, we've seen an increase in the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere. And an attendant increase in the quantity of green plants to gulp it down. The system works, life is good.

    Of course this doesn't negate the importance of clean air and clean water. Those are clearly good on their own.

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