A much-hyped Nature journal climate study is full of huge errors.
Dear climate change fearmongers, please note A Climate Study Retraction for the Ages
One scandal of our age is the attempt to sell the public on the narrative of climate catastrophe. It’s been fed by the press and overheated political and scientific claims that sometimes are phony. That’s the story with the journal Nature’s retraction of a highly publicized climate study that made headlines.
The study was a shocker when it was first published in April 2024. Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research projected that climate change could cause $38 trillion in economic damage a year by 2049. To put that number in perspective, the GDP of North America last year was about $31.4 trillion. The study’s finding would mean that storms, heat waves and other calamities, supposedly caused by climate change, would wipe out the equivalent of the North American economy, and then some, every year.
The study also forecast that rising CO2 emissions would cause a 62% reduction in global GDP by 2100, and that damage over the next quarter of a century would exceed the costs of mitigating global warming by six times.
In July 2024, Nature issued a correction noting that rows of data were “wrongly printed as a decimal, rather than a percentage point.”
Other scientists wrote in a comment to Nature—akin to a newspaper letter to the editor—that the study “underestimates uncertainty . . . rendering their results statistically insignificant when properly corrected.”
Still other scientists in August noted in a comment that “data anomalies arising from one country” in the “underlying GDP dataset, Uzbekistan, substantially bias their predicted impacts of climate change.” When the Uzbekistan data was removed and statistical uncertainty corrected for, the results were no longer “statistically distinguishable from mitigation costs at any time this century.”
In other words, the economic harm from climate change no longer exceeded the costs of the government interventions to do something to arrest warming temperatures.
The study had so many errors that Nature has now retracted it, but what an embarrassment. “Post-publication, the results were found to be sensitive to the removal of one country, Uzbekistan, where inaccuracies were noted in the underlying economic data for the period 1995–1999,” the retraction says.
If progressives want to know why so many Americans don’t believe claims of the climate apocalypse, it’s because so much of climate science has been shown to be unbelievable.
AOC Says World Will End in 12 Years
On January 22, 2019 I noted Ocasio-Cortez Says World Will End in 12 Years: Here’s What to Do About It
The world is now slated to end on January 22, 2031.
You only have about 5 years left to live. Please make the best of them.
Scientists Conclude Dire Climate Change Models Were Wrong, Now What?
On February 6, 2022, I asked Scientists Conclude Dire Climate Change Models Were Wrong, Now What?
“We have a situation where the models are behaving strangely,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences, a leading center for climate modeling. “We have a conundrum.”
In an independent assessment of 39 global-climate models last year, scientists found that 13 of the new models produced significantly higher estimates of the global temperatures caused by rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide than the older computer models—scientists called them the “wolf pack.” Weighed against historical evidence of temperature changes, those estimates were deemed unrealistic.
Even the simplest diagnostic test is challenging. The model divides Earth into a virtual grid of 64,800 cubes, each 100 kilometers on a side, stacked in 72 layers. For each projection, the computer must calculate 4.6 million data points every 30 minutes. To test an upgrade or correction, researchers typically let the model run for 300 years of simulated computer time.
In their initial analysis, scientists discovered a flaw in how CESM2 modeled the way moisture interacts with soot, dust or sea-spray particles that allow water vapor to condense into cloud droplets. It took a team of 10 climate experts almost 5 months to track it down to a flaw in their data and correct it, the scientists said.
AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion
On February 25, 2019 I noted I compared AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing
William Nordhaus, a co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics, compared AOC’s Green New Deal with the cost of doing nothing and various alternatives.
Nordhaus’s model estimated that such a policy goal would make humanity $14 trillion poorer compared to doing nothing at all about climate change.
Climate Policy Is a Much Greater Threat Than Climate Change
On September 11, 2022 I stated Climate Policy Is a Much Greater Threat Than Climate Change
Germany’s decision to scrap its nuclear reactors before having replacement energy is in play.
In April, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson bragged his Energy Security Strategy would “bring clean, affordable, secure power to the people for generations to come.”
In the US, California marches on with the blessing of president Biden, preposterous targets for electric cars without having the faintest idea where the minerals and mining for those batteries will come from.
Policy decisions by clueless heads of state bow down to Saint Gretta, AOC, and president Biden.
What needs to be stress tested is the reverse, the inflationary impact of a push for clean energy before battery storage technology exists, grid improvements exist, and whether or not physical metals for all the batteries that will be needed are even available.
The Best Video On Climate Change That You Will Ever See
On January 15, 2023 I asked you to play The Best Video On Climate Change That You Will Ever See
The link still works.
COP30 Failure
The COP30 climate summit this year ended in total failure.
But there was a hilarious aspect to the summit. They Held a Climate Summit in the Amazon. They Didn’t Account for the Rain.
The first day of talks at the two-week conference, known as COP30, was marked by a deluge so huge it caught the organizers by surprise.
The delegation from the U.K. fled their pavilion, abandoning coffee and snacks after a hole appeared in the tent roof, lightning crackling in the sky.
Elsewhere, leaks in the vast canopy, some 77 football fields in size, meant water was seeping through vents in the air conditioning or dripping onto the delegates who had come to negotiate what to do about climate change.
The Italian delegation built a floating stage to sit on the river which surrounds Belém, delivered from Venice. It appeared well-adapted, at first. It was designed to flow with the river and was open to the elements. But on the Italians’ opening night, the torrents of rain short-circuited TV monitors and panelists struggled to give their presentations.
In one wing, where the Global Renewables Alliance had a stand, there wasn’t any air conditioning. Two people in the area fainted as thermometers showed the temperature hitting 97 degrees.
Yet other parts of the site were positively frigid. Some sections developed their own microclimates due to the flow of air conditioning, forcing delegates to rummage around for jackets to keep warm.
Other issues have plagued the conference. Some stalls weren’t ready on the first day of the conference, on Nov. 10. Toilets lacked basic items such as soap, while water gushing from the faucets was tinged brown.
If you think that would spur action for change, you are mistaken.
COP30 Failure
Earth.Org: The biggest failure of COP30, many agree, is that the final agreement omits any mention of planet-warming fossil fuels. It comes despite an unprecedented number of countries (more than 80 and led by Colombia) and more than 100 organizations, explicitly asked the presidency to develop a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. Under pressure from major petrostates, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago ultimately announced a compromise: a voluntary “roadmap” for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Yale Climate Connections: Those who hoped for significant, concrete progress at this year’s United Nations Climate Conference of Parties, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil, were disappointed, for good reasons. Not least, the meeting’s final statement did not even mention the major role of fossil fuels in driving climate change, never mind addressing the critical, even existential, need to reduce their emissions.
RockyMountainOutlook: As one might expect, many are now carefully monitoring the aftershocks of what is now seen as an increasingly disastrous Convention of the Parties at the UN Climate Summit in Brazil. After the close of COP 30, the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health posited that the damage that was done by way of the failure of COP 30 was far more devastating than we had even feared. We have now seen that Prime Minister Mark Carney has clearly learned from Trump how to “flood the zone.” The prime minister has announced the “big, beautiful bargain” he promised to deliver as détente at last with Alberta. It proposes making Canada a “global energy superpower” by building new pipelines, expanding LNG exports and promoting industrial carbon capture. Rolled into this, apparently, is the “big beautiful bargain” the prime minister promised to cut with climate change. It is a tightrope act. Until emissions have ceased, talk of reversal of their impacts is like contemplating the restoration of a river delta despoiled by an oil spill while the leak is still spewing from the tanker and nothing can be done to slow it.
China Turns Focus of COP30 to Trade
- Championing Green Trade: Chinese officials and companies, including battery giant CATL and EV maker BYD, highlighted how Chinese-made, low-cost clean energy products can accelerate the global energy transition, especially in the Global South.
- Opposing Trade Barriers: China used the negotiations to advocate for an open international economic system and secure language in the final agreement, the “Global Mutirão decision,” which cautioned against “unilateral” climate measures that could restrict international trade.
- Filling a Leadership Void: With the US administration absent from the talks, China took on a more prominent, albeit low-profile, diplomatic role. Its focus was less on high-level pledges and more on practical business deals and shaping the agenda to favor its export economy.
- Formal Trade Dialogue: A significant outcome was the agreement to hold annual dialogues on the intersection of trade and climate action for the first time in the COP process, a key ask from China and other developing nations.
- Ultimately, while the primary aim of COP30 was climate action, China successfully integrated its trade agenda into the core discussions, ensuring that trade policy became a key component of the conversation on global climate solutions.
The above from Chrome AI in response to my query “China managed to turn COP30 from a summit on climate to a summit on trade.”
Why the Failure?
For starters, failure is in the eyes of the beholder.
I suggest COP30 was a rousing success. No country can afford what the climate fearmongers are asking the world to pay. Even the EU is delaying its climate agenda.
The Al Gore, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Gretta, Gavin Newsom, etc., members of the climate bandwagon sit in their comfortable air-conditioned ivory towers, and jet-set around the world preaching more money for climate change when others are looking for their next affordable meal.
WSJ Today: If progressives want to know why so many Americans don’t believe claims of the climate apocalypse, it’s because so much of climate science has been shown to be unbelievable.
Mish February 6, 2022: Anyone expecting government fearmongers to do anything sensible about climate change were, and still are wrong.
Believe what you want. But people are concerned about putting food on the table, spiraling electricity costs, and truly out of sight homeowners’ insurance costs.
Sensible people are pleased the summit got rained on and ended in failure.
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Those are the things people are concerned about, not hyped up unbelievable estimates of climate change damage.
This should act as strong reminder that forecasts of complex systems are extremely unstable and unreliable. People who believe that the Fed’s forecasting models are any better should keep that in mind!
A bad study doesn’t mean the science is wrong, it means the study is wrong.
“There are no solutions to our problems, only trade-offs.” ~ Thomas Sowell
Libertarianism, which relies on individuals’ base human instincts as society’s central motive, is uniquely ill-equipped to confront problems that unfold over decades and centuries (like climate change). Humans as individuals are extremely poor at long scale planning, especially when it involves sacrifice now to avoid a problem in the future.
So it’s no surprise that a libertarian blogger needs to minimize the problem. When all you have is a hammer, everything that doesn’t look like a nail better not be real! That’s why our usually logically consistent host falls back on the dubious strategy of the straw man attack by holding up a flawed study in an effort to discredit the work of literally thousands of scientists studying the issue around the globe.
Google AI’s response to the query “Have climate change predictions been accurate?”
Science and observation says the Earth is getting warmer. People have to eat, they want jobs, a better life, the 3rd world wants a first world life and the rich and powerful want to keep what they have. The argument is stupid. The nature of a hotter planet is less life and there’s not a thing that can be done about it. Just enjoy the ride you’re on.
Lol!
After all your criticisms of my posts, you end up making the same arguments I have been making here for years.
Funny.
There is a difference between “Climate Change” and “The effectiveness of mitigation measures meant to curb Climate Change”
Who can argue that preserving the health and integrity of our planet should not be at the top of our collective concerns, but what human initiated mitigating measures are effective, appropriate, achievable, practical and sustainable?
Weather is what we get. Climate is what we expect. Climate is a projection of what is to come. Human migration, colonization and land development are all predicated on human expectation of climate.
Climate is affected/caused by many factors. In no particular order:
· One’s position on the globe
· Seasons
· Slight changes in Earth’s position in the galaxy and its orbit around the sun, global tilt
· Solar luminosity changes, solar flares
· Volcanism
· Water vapor
· Unavoidable anthropologic forces
· Greenhouse gasses/Carbon dioxide
· Wildfires
· Land use changes, de-forestation
· Methane
Effects of global warming in no particular order are:
· Increased temperatures
· Retreat of glaciers
· Ice melting
· Rising Sea Levels
· Extreme Weather
· Flooding
· Hurricanes/ typhoons
· Droughts
Unfortunately, current research on the causes of climate change is unreliable. We can see the effects of global warming, but who can accurately tell us which one of the causes listed above is the primary culprit? Which is the least? Can the causes be placed in an order of priority with any degree of scientific evidence?
The prediction or forecast of our climate future, when projected decades or generations into the future, is wrought with peril. It takes decades to amass meaningful climate change measurement data to determine what, if any, effect human controlled changes actually have on climate. Secondly, the degree to which any of the foregoing causes contribute to climate change is unreliable today. When this unreliable information is further used to predict the future some 20 to 30 to 50 years out, the unreliable data, together with inherent margins of error, becomes exponentially unreliable. The margins of error are so great they render the outcome inconclusive. This makes it nearly impossible to make value-based judgements on proposed climate change solutions.
if you are not making a situation better, you are making it worse. When I am in the wilderness and the natural environment, I export more trash than I produce. In my everyday life, I do my best to minimize the use of water, single use disposable items, plastic and other known contributors to wasteful living. However, I am not prepared to give up my car, the heat and cooling in my home, the convenience of washing with water, air travel, etc. Very few people in the world live in a manner that is waste neutral, maybe no one.
The concern for our climate is largely put forth by those of an “elite” class. My definition of “elite” is low bar; those that are not hungry, have shelter, not being persecuted and, essentially, not living in poverty. Much of the world lives in poverty and many more are perilously close to poverty. Many in the US are living paycheck to paycheck. Nearly half the world’s population lives without reliable electricity. None of these groups are engaged in climate change advocacy. They don’t have the time or resources to employ life or behavioral changes that increase their cost of living. They want what most climate change advocates have, clean water, food, shelter and electricity.
In 2020, the greenhouse gas emissions generated from wildfires in California were twice the amount of greenhouse gas reductions the state achieved through global warming mandates over the past 12 years. Perhaps we should re-examine the measures we adopt and the funds we spend to improve the climate of our planet?
Climate related mandates are analogous to bailing a sinking boat with a teaspoon under the moral self-righteousness that they are helping mankind and the planet. They are helping, but there are better uses of our resources if we want to help mankind and the planet. The notion that we must save the planet for people not yet born at the expense of those that live in poverty today, makes little sense to me.
“The notion that we must save the planet for people not yet born at the expense of those that live in poverty today, makes little sense to me.”
Which is one reason why we won’t. Even though we know the problem will continue to get worse.
Nor will we do much to help those living in poverty today.
It’s not an either/or. It’s neither.
In 1900 about 80% of the world lived in extreme poverty – today it’s about 10%.
There are plenty of factors at play which continue to reduce poverty, climate-change abatement efforts notwithstanding.
Depends on your definition of poverty.
8% of the world’s population has no electricity
25% lack access to clean water
40% lack adequate sanitation
20% lack basic hygiene services
17% live in areas of conflict or violence
33% lack adequate shelter
28% lack adequate nutrition
At this point, are there still those that hope for a flawed scientific study so they can rationalize their environmentally unfriendly behavior? Are we going to pretend that the White Christmases we grew up with did not happen? Are we going to pretend that childhood asthma rates have not skyrocketed? Are we going to pretend that extreme weather is not occurring, that the rate of specie extinction is not accelerating, that governments are not having to spend money on sustainability? And for the so-called libertarians out there, why are you not attributing the costs of all this environmental damage to the corporations that cause the same? Instead, you complain about government bloat as of course all of these costs fall on government to address.
Yep. We are going to continue on our present path. Those who want to ignore or deny the problem, will continue to do so. Those who understand the problem, will be unable to effect the change needed to solve the problem. Because the only way to solve it is for humanity to work together. And that is not going to happen.
In the future, you will see many of the deniers saying; ” Why didn’t someone tell me this was a problem?”
You’re just as delusional as the denialists. 4 billion people want your lifestyle and everyone else wants to keep what they have. Do the math.
“ 4 billion people want your lifestyle and everyone else wants to keep what they have. ”
Lol! You are preaching to the choir. You are not telling me anything that I don’t already know.
I completely understand that. I have stated the same thing many times on this site.
Which is one reason why we are incapable of solving the global warming problem.
However, the problem remains. I am merely recognizing that it exists and that it will continue to get worse.
The science is clear. And I understand it.
Do you? Or are you just another dumb f*ck denier?
The vast majority of people have zero understanding of science. When a scientist or scientific group comes out with a claim based on whatever research they are performing, the reaction should be “that’s interesting”, not “that’s a new fact!”. It’s not until other scientists have replicated the claim that you should start believing it. This article actually shows the good part of climate science: when other scientists went to replicate the study, they couldn’t. They falsified it and called it out. Unfortunately, your average Joe believes every climate article that comes out, then rejects the whole thing when one can’t be replicated. Most people simply aren’t capable of nuance.
True.
They had to decimate tens of thousands of acres of rainforest to build the new highway to Belem. That in itself should tell you something about the hypocrisy of this whole endeavor/money grab…
Yes. But sadly, hypocrisy or not, the problem still remains.
I think the best point Kisin made was that investment in research to find better solutions to the increases in CO2 is the best use of limited funds, rather than commit today to incredibly costly and inefficient current solutions like transitioning into solar and wind energy. We have already found a cheap way to turn natural gas into hydrogen while capturing the carbon as high-value graphite (the Hazer Process) – if we can do something similar with coal and oil it would be a huge breakthrough.
Some counter points to the global warming narrative….
Worldwide annual deaths from climate disasters have dropped steadily from over 480,000 in 1920 to under 20,000 in 2020.
The number of extremely hot days (over 94 degrees F)in the lower 48 states of America was 18% lower in the 60 years to 2020 compared to the previous 60 years.
Nine times as many deaths happen annually from too-cold temperatures compared to too-hot temperatures.
The recent increase in CO2 has resulted in an area of extra foliage enough to cover a land mass about twice the size of Australia.
Jordan Peterson claims that the margin for error in the calculations of expected temperature increase is larger than the hoped for reductions we are aiming for with CO2 reduction, which means that we could spend all those many trillions of dollars and still not know whether the investment ended up making any difference whatsoever
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Grok-3-Review-V5-1.pdf
You appear to be an optimist.
Regarding CO2. At least you seem to recognize it is a problem. And that adding more to the atmosphere will continue to increase global temperatures.
The cost to reduce emissions of CO2 are as cheap as $10/ton. The cost to remove CO2 from the atmosphere range from $1000 to $5000 per ton.
If we decide to spend money, which should we be spending our money on? Or should we not bother with either?
The economics can go 2 ways. Spend the $ Trillions needed to stop Global Warming or Spend the $ Trillions needed to prepare for Global Warming.
We can’t afford both (maybe not either). The challenge is that some nations aren’t sure that warming can or will be stopped so they spend their money on preparations, which will work 100% of the time, for them only. When this happens ending warming is doomed.
The people that spent money to prevent warming will then be wrecked and
their money is wasted. So, it comes down to odds that preparation will work 100% of the time for you or prevention may never work for anyone.
Place your bets!
Correct. Such is the conundrum we are in. We have no choice but to spend the most on preparation, mitigation, and restoration because those are immediate problems that cannot be ignored. When your home, farm, community, etc. gets destroyed, your next concern is not how to stop global warming. It is how to rebuild your life.
I took enough physics in college to know this: given CO2 has risen from 300ppm in 1900 to 425ppm today — a 42% increase — that the planet must be to trapping more solar energy and that energy must influence the climate. The relationship between increased CO2 and infrared absorption are easily proven in any high school science lab.
The only way the climate deniers can be correct is for them to propose and prove a new scientific theory where increased CO2 does not result in increased heat retention. Good luck with that.
You are correct. But climate deniers don’t understand science and they don’t care.
You took physics but don’t understand human nature and basic math. 4 billion people want your lifestyle and the rest want to keep what they have. You’re as clueless as the people you whine about.
One of my favorite topics to comment on, when I have the time. Plus it is one of the few areas where I disagree with Mish. That’s a good thing. We should not agree on everything.
Global warming and climate change are very real. The science, for those who are able to understand it, is very clear. Sadly, most here are incapable of understanding it. Mankind has added a significant amount of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere over the last few centuries and the planet is warming as a result. And the climate is changing because of it.
The problem will continue to get worse because we are essentially incapable of solving it. Our need to grow our economies, and increase our living standards, requires us to use more energy every year. And most of that energy comes from burning fossil fuels. We will not give that up just because we are slowly warming the planet.
Which is why I remain a big investor in fossil fuel companies. I cannot change what is happening. But I can recognize it and profit from it. Some will call me a hypocrite. I consider myself a realist.
Another reason why we won’t solve this problem, is because it is a slow moving problem that will get worse over a time period that covers hundreds of years. And we will instead focus our efforts on more immediate problems that affect us today, next week, next month and next year. It is very easy to put off solving a problem that will effect future generations much more than it will affect us.
A third reason we won’t solve this problem is because it will take co-operation from all countries, working together, in order to solve it. Like that’s ever going to happen. Well, maybe in a hundred years when things get a lot worse.
The question that is difficult to answer is when do we reach a point when the cost of doing nothing, becomes too great to ignore. Some have already reached that point, but most have not. Some have already lost their home, their community, their livelihood and their lives as a result. But until this problem causes a lot more hardship to a lot more people, it is just too easy to ignore.
We will never do anything today for long term results. The human race isn’t wired that way and it’s never ever made sacrifices today for something that won’t matter for a hundred or more years.
As you noted in your last paragraph, there will be losers just as there always is with change. But there will also be plenty of winners too. Because of that, the cost will never be ‘too great to ignore’ because those who stand to win will oppose those who stand to lose just as they have throughout history.
There will be far more losers than winners. And it will be increasingly more difficult to ignore.
One aspect that most don’t understand is the lag effect of the ghgs we have already added to the atmosphere. Even if we stopped all human emissions today (which we cannot do), temperatures will rise for another 20-30 years at the minimum. Plus a century or more of effects baked into the cake.
But because we will keep emitting, this is a problem that will grow exponentially.
Oh boy! A Black Swan flew into view just as Trump pirated a crude oil tanker. It should be fun to see where it lands!
Now there is a great excuse for a proxy war in the Gulf of Oil. The invasion of Venezuela has begun and it is show time for Xi and Putin! Just as Russia’s oil facilities are being bombed by drones supplied by the west and launched from the Ukraine, US oil facilities are now open game for Maduro, XI and Putin.
Recall that they both stood next to Maduro and promised to defend Venezuela against Trumps aggression.
I think that there is merit in a discussion related to crude oil prices, volatility, gold & mining shares.
Silver has broken out big time and gold is modestly higher in evening trading.
Russia has been increasing its tillable land dramatically as the permafrost melts. As the worlds largest wheat exporter, Vlad and his pet Donald are quite happy with the warming climate.
The American farmer is toast… Imagine re-seeding all that land in native plants and rebuilding the soils for a few decades. Not a bad scenario for the long term. That way we do not need Canadas potash at all!
AI Overview
No major climate scientist has said the world will end in 12 years, …
Hype begets hype. Nothing to see here…
You mean AOC is not a major climate scientist? Hard to believe, don’t even suggest that Saint Greta is not a climate scientist!!!
Dear climate change fearmongers, please note A Climate Study Retraction for the Ages
I am laughing. At you.
Anybody that states “The world is going to end” and continues doing what they were doing before the announcement and after it as well, is not to be believed. That probably covers 90% or more of the doomsday idiots. Nobody knows, and how could they possibly know.
We all have an “Expiration Date” but none of us know when that will be, unless it’s a medical issue, and even then it’s never to be 100% believed, due to new innovations in medicine.
Nope. They are not idiots. Most are realists.
A solution to this problem requires cooperation from all the governments, corporations, and 8 billion people on the planet.
As an individual, even if you understand the problem, you recognize that no matter what YOU do on a personal level, it is meaningless on a global level. Particularly if others are not cooperating. So you go about your life, and keep contributing to the problem, knowing that it will hurt future generations far more than it will hurt you.
Sometimes you think it would be better to be blissfully ignorant, like those who deny the problem even exists. Like many folks who comment here.
It matters not at all… Nobody was gonna do anything about climate change in the first place.
I agree, and it’s basically comes down to they can’t.
“Elsewhere, leaks in the vast canopy, some 77 football fields in size, meant water was seeping through vents in the air conditioning or dripping onto the delegates…”
Any word on how the new highway that was constructed to allow attendees to travel from their private jets to the event site is holding up?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o
The truth is that the errors which caused this research paper to be retracted were relatively minor and do not change the central finding that climate change will cause substantial economic damage in the future.
But apparently those hawking the fantasy that climate change is nothing to worry about have no respect for the scientific integrity demonstrated by the authors of this research who retracted the paper to make sure that all of the information is correct and factual. If the scientists had been trying to mislead or hide something, then they wouldn’t have voluntarily retracted the paper.
They are not scientists. They are propagandists pretending to be scientists. Propagandists don’t retract faulty statements, they repeat the lie often enough until it is believed as truth. The magazine got caught up in a popular meme to sell subscriptions. Their retraction is to preserve what credibility they have left to stay in business.
They are all scientists. Excellent scientists.
You are correct Bill. But most folks here don’t want to understand or believe the science. I have tried to explain it for many years. Might as well be spitting in the wind.
Complex issue. Everything is connected. Earths orbit / sun cycles/ planet alignment/.even water melting from the poles will collect around the equator changing the earths tilt. You cant dump co2 into the air without having consequences. Can we do anything about it prob not. Same thing i said about covid applys here. It comes down to money vs lives.
Things will get warmer life spans will get shorter. Starting with the poor.
There will be a lot of misery till nature sorts us out.
Just do what I do when climate fear-mongers act up. Ask them if they are willing to give up commercial air travel. That is 2% of global emissions for a completely unnecessary luxury. Gone in 90 days, possibly less after one law is passed.
Enjoy the stuttering as they come up with reasons why air travel is completely essential.
And that is one of the reasons that we will not solve this problem and it will continue to get worse over time.
A solution to this problem requires cooperation from all the governments, corporations, and 8 billion people on the planet.
As an individual, even if you understand the problem, you recognize that no matter what you do on a personal level, it is meaningless on a global level. Particularly if others are not cooperating. So you go about your life, and keep contributing to the problem, knowing that it will hurt future generations far more than it will hurt you.
Sad but true.
I’m willing to give up the private jets but the John Kerry types say their time is too important to fly commercial.
You are correct Roger.
The intolerant Human…
Most believe and live believing that habitat destruction is our right as humans. No other species has any inherent right to live. Exploitation of every inch of the planet is justifiable in the name of “Progress” and a grosser national product.
Soy and corn that eviscerate everything else are important, meadows thriving with diversity and interwoven lifeforms are not.
Our species economic model places infinite demands on finite resources. Every nation is happy to justify killing and species annihilation. Quality of life does not matter to religious governments that overpopulate so they can kill each other and their enemies children.
It is easy to kill the children of the “Heathen”
I have a small recreational property that is on a bay that is 4.5 miles across. That 4.5 miles exceeds the distance up vertically above the point where I can breathe or survive. It is a thin atmosphere at best. In. car at 70 mph you cross it in four minutes.
Yet we behave as if it is infinite because we can on occasion, see the stars…
Mish lives in a desert near Las Vegas. It is an area trampled by millions of visitors every year. None of them have experienced what the desert was like before the crushing hordes developed and paved it. None alive today have seen the night sky without the glow of nearby population centers. Massive fleets of satellites crisscross the night sky in commercial exploits or looking for ways to shred enemies.
Departments of War crisscrossing or targeting us and our stargazing adventures.
Finding errors in climate data is pretty easy given the number of studies out there. I have seen glaciers in my youth that were healthy, only 25 years later they are completely gone. The streams that flowed from their meltwater in late summer and fall fed entire ecosystems. Those ecosystems are now dust.
There are those that call the silence of annihilation ~ peace.
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If you don’t like how things are now just wait a few decades and things will be different. That’s the wonderment of change, things will be different in the future.
So many people seem to want things to remain static forever. It’s just not possible.
There are other possible factors (in addition to CO2 and methane) that could affect temps. https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-alternative-we-ignore-to-our-peril/
I noticed that if you click even one video on YT that’s “right-wing” or “left-wing”, the algorithm then keeps you in a bubble. I wonder if apps like “Ground News” are good to escape this, effectively.
The same happened with news like “a business moving to Canada” (on the other side, tons of vids of young people moving out of Canada due to insane living cost and tons of businesses leaving Canada, including Crown Royal!), and the same is happening with Climate Reports.
Not many people know that CO2 in the air is a mere 0.042%, and it has zero effect on temperature. It increases after temperature rises, not before. And there were periods with rich life on Earth when the overall temperature was 20 (!) degrees higher.
The real problem is chemical pollution. But there’s obviously too much pressure by powerful financial interests not to make it the No. 1 issue.
Wrong.
It’s not even winter yet and it feels more like living in a deep freezer than a green house.
Not on the west coast.
The northwest coast is getting very wet. The Cascades have stopped most of the rain but it’s still 50 F outside which is near to record warm for this point in December.
The best part is the ground is not frozen so the water can soak in. The bad news is no snowpack yet.
Agree with the story. I just can’t believe the “Green” movement that’s based on this crap.
A modern Ford-class A1b aircraft carrier’s reactor can produce enough electricity for the city of Pittsburgh – all contained in a 100 ft diameter structure with a lifespan of 50 years before refueling.
Solar? 4,700 acres of forest would have to be cut down (almost 8 sq miles) to achieve that power generation. Lifespan around 20 years before major capital investment.
Wind? 400 turbines covering 55 sq miles!!! lasting some 12 years?
All to stop global warming???
AND to say the US contributes only some 18% of the global GHG, so even if we went to ZERO emissions, that wouldn’t stop their doom story
The only way to save humanity is if everybody kills themselves.
In 2024, China added 429 GW of new electricity generation.
Solar: 277 GW
Wind: 79 GW
Coal 18 GW (net)
Hydro: 14 GW
Nuclear: 4 GW
In 2024 the US added 38 GW of new electricity generation
Solar: 31 GW
Wind: 3 GW
Gas: 3 GW
Nuclear: 1 GW
Why is so little nuclear being built? Because it is the most expensive. Why so much solar? Because it is the least expensive.
Nearly every article one sees talks about climate change as though it’s a given. It’s just a bloody unproven theory.
Secondly they talk as though climate change is bad and that it has major economic costs. Maybe any change is good as higher CO2 means more vegetation which means less starvation and higher temps reduce the death rate from cold exposure (far more die from cold exposure than from heat waves).
And can the “experts” make up their mind? As a kid we were taught that the next ice age was coming and then as a young adult it switched to global warming and then now there’s a cooling trend they call it climate change.
As for the media they use every heat wave in summer as proof of warming but every cold snap in winter Bebe gets mentioned
Somewhere between wrong and so wrong, wrong no longer the right word..
The next ice age is due to start in 3000 years. We might have enough extra CO2 in the air hold it off.
See if the library has The Long Thaw by David Archer. It has the details.
Nope. The “next” ice age began about 6000-8000 years ago. And if man hadn’t gotten in the way, we would have a mile of ice over New York in about another 80,000 years. But now we won’t.
Nope. Scientists actually understand it very well. Unfortunately, there are too many folks who just don’t want to know the truth, or understand the science.
Besides, I myself would cheer for a warmer climate. But they keep saying that as it were a bad thing.
If the warming happened naturally over a period of 20 thousand years, like in the past, life has time to adapt to that slow change. When it occurs over two centuries, it is too fast to adapt to. We are witnessing that now.
The normal background extinction rate for all species on earth is 1 species out of a million each year. That number has now increased to over 1000 species out of a million each year.
Fake Science.
Be careful with conclusions: time frames may be off a decade or so in large scale time frames. The current rate of global ice melt is unprecedented compared to its thousand-year average, with the melt rate having accelerated dramatically since the industrial revolution. The current warming trend has nearly doubled in a 20 year time span compared to the preceding 6,000-7,000 years. The Rate of Acceleration for the annual thinning rate of glaciers nearly doubled from an average of 36 cm in 2000 to 69 cm by 2019. The universe is replete with nonlinear power law distributions – similar to the smaller time scale US and global equity markets.
During that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_thermal_maximum
when Earth’s temperature was significantly higher (by several degrees) and no ice, “Central China during the PETM hosted dense subtropical forests as a result of the significant increase in rates of precipitation in the region, with average temperatures between 21 and 24 °C (70 and 75 °F) and mean annual precipitation ranging from 1,396 to 1,997 mm (4.580 to 6.552 ft).[60] In the Jiangshan Basin, hot and humid conditions prevailed, contributing to enhanced sedimentation”
I don’t know how old you are, but in my lifetime we have had so many “Hollywood-like” reports from universities predicting apocalyptic climate events before the year 2005, that people ended up reading them just for the adrenaline effect.
Good luck to you … the paradoxes of global warming will be confusing …
He needs way more than good luck.
It’s beyond most folks here to understand global warming and climate change. Like Lefteris. He quotes the info on past climate change, that was painstakingly learned by the hard work of scientists over the last few hundred years. Yet he rejects the same science and scientists that tell him that the current climate change is primarily due to man. Folks will cherry pick info to suit their personal narrative.
I’m merely stating that small temperature changes were never catastrophic events for life. I did also state a little further up that I believe chemical pollution is a very serious problem.
The catastrophic thing you people are making is immediately stereotyping people based on one (1) thing that was always debatable. When you use the expression “folks like him”, that’s what you’re doing.
The real catastrophe here is the inability of folks to understand the science because they don’t want to. Just like folks who still insist the earth is flat, or that smoking is good for you.
Sad.
All of this is regrettable of course but let’s not lose sight that there is overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities are the primary cause of recent global warming (look it up). Denial of this consensus is not the appropriate response.
Consensus is not science. Various scientific breakthroughs went against scientific consensus at the time.
I agree Tommy. But there are way too many folks like RonJ who will deny it.
There’s a reason why Observers laugh at the climate activists. Thanks for this, Mish. Reasonable people know not to knowingly pollute, but blaming humans for cyclical earth changes that we can see happening has been the best played grift I’ve ever witnessed.
I knew someone who was a breakthrough “climate economist”. That was back in 2000 when all this hype was getting hot. He started out at Yale and then scored a sweet deanship in Atlanta.
But the climate economists’ job is all backward: its supposed to be all about tracking INCOMING free cash from we the people suckers, instead of predicting how much economic damage climate catastrophe might inflict.
What is very common is for these climate emergency advocates to claim to speak on behalf of “science”, and even speak of unanimity in the scientific community (after those who disagreed were expelled or had their careers blocked).
“The study had so many errors that Nature has now retracted it”
And what about the referees that did accept this paper ?
Mish thank you for this article.
That’s regrettable. But human activity is still the main reason for global warming. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/
Correct. But most folks here don’t want to believe that. Trying to convince them is like trying to get them to switch their political affiliation.
YOU gonna stop driving your car and never take a commercial flight? Thought not.
Nope.
Most are grifters (Research grants to taxation) who discount the effect of the sun cooling & heating cycles because their jobs are dependent on keeping the money flowing.
Going long on ice cube manufacturers
Great stuff as usual !
Yes renaming the Global Warming movement was very strategic. The warming had slowed but can’t disagree the climate is changing.
The climate on earth has been changing since the day the earth was formed. The problem is for most of those millions of years of changes there were no humans to be found. Hmmmm..
Time to come up with a new name..my I suggest :
Climate Awoken ?
billions. but you are correct. there is 100% chance that another asteroid will hit the earth within the next 500 million years that will enlarge us and destroy all life. the same thing occurred in our past when the earth was much smaller and the collision brought us iron and also a much larger planet. glad i studied hard science and did a stint at NASA as a grad student. not sure what is dumber, WMD or people afraid the earth is gonna change.
The chances that humans will exist in 500 million years is questionable. “Life” itself on Earth is a small part of the overall duration of the planet. It’s a temporary short phase for the planet. Some say we’ll all die because of this or that. I think it’ll be either a) a super-virus, b) nuclear war, c) significant solar changes (way down the timeline).
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Hi Ken. The warming has not slowed. As each decade passes, we see a greater temperature increase compared to the previous decade.
Yes. Scientists have worked hard for hundreds of years to explain the entire climate history of earth. When it warmed. When it cooled. And why. Which is why we are now aware of those past changes and what was responsible for those changes. They can also explain why the earth is warming today, and why mankind is responsible for that warming. But most folks are not capable of understanding it or would prefer to not believe what scientists are telling them now.
I have taken the time to explain global warming and climate change many times here over that last few years, But every time I do, it’s pretty much a waste of my time; because folks are not capable of understanding the science, or have already made up their minds. And I hate wasting my time.
Did you give up your car and stop flying commercial? You people are all talk.
Of course not. There is nothing I can do as an individual that will make a difference. Which is one reason the problem will keep getting worse.
best summary I’ve ever seen