Climate Change is Bullshit
Anyone who brings up climate change as a top priority may as well be saying "I am a sheep; I blindly follow authority and am incapable of thinking for myself". There are enough holes in the climate change narrative to fill entire books. Of course, no one can think every issue through for themselves, and most aren't interested in reading a book about climate change (although it would be nice if they admitted their ignorance and shut up!). But since you are reading this blog, you clearly aren't one of them. It's time to open your eyes to another sham in the mainstream American worldview. Climate change is not an issue; it's a fraud created to take your money.
The argument for climate change disaster relies on the following claims:
Humans are releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses (GHG) into the atmosphere
The temperature of the Earth is increasing
GHG is the main driver of increased temperature on Earth
We can accurately predict the amount of future warming of the Earth, and its consequences, based on GHG emissions
The consequences of predicted future warming are very bad, vastly outweighing any benefits of GHG emissions
Therefore, humans need to urgently stop emitting so much GHG
Most climate change articles focus on #1 and #2, which makes sense, since those have solid evidence. Advocates will then bully you into accepting all the other points as well, and will call you a "climate denier" or "anti-science" if you attempt to think for yourself. But if you do it anyway, you will realize that some of the later claims are not well established at all, and some are clearly false. Without them, the justification to "do something" about Climate Change falls apart.
Let's evaluate each of the claims in turn.
Humans are releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses (GHG) into the atmosphere - True. The current CO2 level in the atmosphere is ~400ppm - it is estimated that without human emissions over the last 150 years it would be ~200ppm
The temperature of the Earth is increasing - True
GHG is the main driver of the increased temperature on Earth - Unclear
The key term is "main driver". It is clear that human-released GHG has some effect. But the Earth is a very complex system and many other factors, like fluctuations in solar radiation, progression through ice ages, or ocean current cycles are also known to have some role. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates the human contribution to climate change is 1.07˚ C since 1900. They got this number by writing a computer program stipulating the power of each of the variables, plugging data in, and reporting what comes out. There is a scientific consensus that those models represent the best guess based on the available science. On the other hand, there are also over 1,900 scientists, including Nobel laureates, who object and say that the models and climate change narrative are greatly exaggerated.
If you prefer to evaluate arguments instead of resorting to groupthink, which I hope you do, below is a video claiming that the Earth's temperature is mainly driven by other factors. I ask you, as someone who is trying to think for themselves: have you ever seriously listened to the arguments against climate change? Or did you believe the scientists because they have PhDs, like a good little sheep?
Who is right? Most likely you, like me, lack the expertise to evaluate the technical disputes. But just remember that both sides are making claims based on models. Just because a lot of people agree that it is a good model, does not mean that it is right. There are many possible models that fit the data. Science’s reliability is based on experiment and falsifiability, which do not apply in this case - no one has created a control Earth vs an experimental Earth, then adjusted the GHG levels to see what happened.
We can predict the amount of future warming of the Earth, and its consequences, based on future GHG emissions - False
Oh, sorry, did I say that scientists’ computer models hadn’t been exposed to falsification? That’s actually not true. They have, and they are clearly wrong. In the graphs below you can see the predictions of CMIP5 and CMIP6, which represent the mainstream climate consensus of 2013 and 2019 respectively. Both sets of models greatly overestimate warming compared to the true observations. It is clear that the scientists of 2013 and 2019 did NOT have a correct understanding of how human GHG emissions drive temperature changes on Earth.
The climate scientists of 2013 claimed to have consensus, and they were wrong. The climate scientists of 2019 claimed to have consensus, and they were wrong. And now the climate scientists of 2024 are telling us that they have things figured out, and it’s fine to give them billions of dollars because this is rock solid science and definitely not self-serving in any way! It’s a bit like the cult leaders who say “the aliens are coming in 5 years. Become my servant, and in 5 years you can come with me to the mothership.” And then after 5 years they say “I received a message from the aliens! They are delayed by another 5 years! So you must keep serving me!”
The consequences of predicted future warming are very bad, vastly outweighing any benefits of GHG emissions - False
Now we are entering the realm of cost/benefit analysis. We will need a specific proposal to do this. Let’s take Net Zero 2050 from the UN, which is exactly what it sounds like - all emissions balanced out by anti-carbon activities by 2050. This would amount to about a ~200ppm decrease in atmospheric CO2 - stabilizing at 450ppm if Net Zero is achieved, vs 650 if emissions grow on their current trajectory. This is supposed to keep global warming to 1.5˚ C and therefore avoid the disastrous consequences.
Benefits of Net Zero Carbon - Of course the benefits of Net Zero are the climate change harms that would be avoided. What are they?
Sea Level Rise - Achieving Net Zero will do almost nothing. Direct quote from the IPCC: “Sea level rise is unavoidable for centuries to millennia.” So no matter how much money you give to the climate gurus, it will not prevent sea levels from rising. Plus, the rate of rise is only 3.6 millimeters per year, or about one foot in 100 years. This can easily be handled by the free market - owners of seafront land can decide whether to build levees to preserve their land, and market values of land will adjust to reflect this cost without any need for special action. In 100 years, most cities will be fully rebuilt anyway and the new buildings can be placed on lots that won’t be affected.
Loss of biodiversity - Another common concern. It is impossible to know what level of change in environment would lead a species to extinction, vs what level the species can evolve to handle, but it stands to reason that since species are evolved to fit their current niche, any change would increase the rate of extinction. However, if you look at Earth and ask “are there more species and life in hot climates or cold climates?”, it is hot climates by a mile. Warmer climate is clearly better for life. So it also stands to reason that over time, life would flourish more after global warming. This one is partial benefit, partial cost.
Extreme Weather - The climate gurus love this one. Here is a chart of weather-related fatalities:
In other words, the number of people killed by weather has dropped more than ten-fold in the last 100 years and is still going down. It’s now about .5 in 100,000, which is three times less than deaths from accidentally choking on food, and half of those are from earthquakes which have nothing to do with climate change. In monetary terms, excluding earthquakes it’s $50-100 billion per year. The IPCC does not provide any numerical estimates of how much worse weather will be if climate change is not mitigated, but if we assume it scales logarithmically with CO2 like the greenhouse effect does, then Net Zero would reduce extreme weather costs by 14% or ~$10billion.
Disruption to Society / Human Discomfort - Is warmer weather a problem for humans? It clearly depends on where you live. For example, Alaska would be much better if it warmed by 5˚ C, which is the predicted change in 2100 if nothing is done to mitigate climate change. On the other hand, Thailand and India would become more uncomfortable. Overall though, human population density is highest in the warmest regions - at least within the Earth’s current temperature range, warmer is better for humans. And even if we grant that it would be bad for the hottest regions to get even hotter, warming will happen the most in the poles and the least near the Equator. It will warm more in the places where warming is good, and less in the places where it is bad. So… remind me why this is a bad thing, exactly? And people can continue to take weather into account when choosing where to live, just like they do today.
Water Scarcity - This one is extremely hard to quantify - if we aren’t sure how weather will be impacted by climate change, we can’t accurately estimate which areas will get more water, which will have less, and how many people will be impacted. However, the World Bank has estimated that improved water management policies can alleviate most water scarcity by 2050, even in the face of climate change. Not to mention, large scale ocean desalination is already available to solve this issue. The free market can again take care of this - in places where water is scarce, the price of water will rise, prompting desalination efforts to begin and people to take into account the higher cost of living in their choice of location. We don’t need to do anything crazy like forcibly reduce fossil fuels.
Costs of Net Zero Carbon
The cost of replacing the physical energy infrastructure of society with low-carbon equivalents is $91 trillion ($3.5 trillion annually between 2024-2050), plus an average 25% increase in generating cost of electricity until 2050 (estimated $3 trillion deadweight loss in the US). With knock-on effects, let’s round to $100 trillion worldwide to keep things simple, which is also the global annual GDP. So just imagine every person on Earth working for the next year and not seeing a dime, because it was taken via taxes to pay for this. Are you willing to be a slave for a year, in order to replace a perfectly good energy grid solely to reduce GHG in the atmosphere?
Disruption to Agriculture - Higher CO2 levels cause plants to grow faster and produce more food. Given the various crops, soil environments, etc we can only give an estimate, but if we take wheat as representative, agriculture would yield about 15% more food under no climate mitigation compared to Net Zero. Agriculture accounts for ~4% of world GDP or about $3.4 trillion per year, so Net Zero would cause a loss of $510 billion per year.
With all that said, here is the cost/benefit analysis:
Now you understand why I called climate followers sheep. Anyone who tried to think this through themselves, when they got to this step, would see that it is a slam-dunk, no contest, overwhelming answer against the climate change movement. So, the final claim:
Therefore, humans need to urgently stop emitting so much GHG - NO
Thankfully, Net Zero will never happen - if you started forcibly decarbonizing the economy people would riot. They may pay lip service to climate change when it is far off, but they will not be surrendering an entire year of their earnings. So there’s nothing to worry about from that perspective. But the more interesting question to me is, why? Why are all the climate scientists jumping on board a terrible proposal which has no chance of being implemented?
Current funding for climate change in America is ~$13 billion per year, which is about $100 per taxpayer. So the climate scientists have already succeeded in scaring you, dear reader, enough to fork over $100 every year. But they are coming for a lot more than that. If you peruse the UN’s Net Zero website, $100 billion annually seems like the number they are going for. Of course, you won’t find any cost/benefit analysis or arguments about why all this is necessary given that warmer temperatures are better for agriculture and plant and animal life. Just some vague jargon about “climate justice” so all the sheep can feel warm and fuzzy about how “we are doing something about climate change”.
Climate change is a scam. It is a way for the climate scientists, who normally would not be among the most prestigious types of scientists, to make themselves rich and important. They are taking advantage of your trust in “science” to help themselves to your wallet without having to do any real work.
Which brings us to the most interesting question of all. If the climate change narrative, which is promoted by 196 countries, is such an obvious fraud, what other frauds are lurking out there? How many would you have to find, before you started being skeptical of all the other things you are told to believe?