So, why do we wait to find an alternative to fossil fuels? Even if climate change turns out to be a non-issue?

Often the response is: “we will find other sources of energy”, or “the market will figure it out”, etc. Which alternate sources of energy? Why should we wait until we are well down the depletion curve?

Consider that the US’s strong military position is totally dependent on petroleum. Air travel is totally dependent on petroleum. Most any transport bigger than a sub-compact car will need petroleum. Electricity is fungible, but heating is dependent on fossil fuels.

The issue is bigger than global warming, whether the GW effects are big or small. Its unfortunate more people are not looking at the whole picture.

Outside of a few flashpoint topics there is more public support for science than ever before.

One of these controversial topics is “climate science”. This is a dysfunctional mess with no way to ever get back on track.

She should be calling out the fakers, the tricksters, the hiders of declines, the bullies that make up the field. Instead she delivers some leftist boilerplate.

There are lots of estimates, all over the board. Nothing definitive yet because we just don’t have good enough data over a long enough period of time to lower the error bars enough for statistical certainty.

So it may turn out that humans have caused all of the warming since 1850 or it may turn out that 75% of it is from the 1500 year climate cycle, which alternates between cooling and warming.

Maybe the 60 year ocean warming and cooling cycle also played a part in the warming over the last 60 years.

Maybe the sun’s low magnetic level has influenced the heliosphere, allowing more cosmic rays to impact the Earth’s atmosphere, which have created more low level clouds, which help retain more warmth.

Maybe natural warming (you know – the warming over the last 12,000 years) is releasing a significant amount of C02 and/or methane from the permafrost (maybe we hit a threshold?) – which is in turn adding to human caused warming.

I don’t know and neither does anybody else.

That is why climate science is still not settled – the error range exceeds the amount of warming.

Physics doesn’t even get interested until they have a 3 sigma significance and really want 5 sigma. Climate science is still working at the level of 1 sigma.

The climate models are being tweaked several times per year, incorporating new knowledge – and we learn new things all the time. And yet the models continue to incorrectly model the climate, even over the short term – let alone over 100 years.

The bottom line – nobody can state with certainty (even at the 95% confidence level) that 75% of the warming since 1850 has been caused by human activity.

Whenever we hit 560 ppm for CO2, we will be able to directly measure climate sensitivity by merely comparing the current average global temperature with what it was in 1850.

In 2100, we will be able to directly measure sea level rise and see whether it was less than 59 cm (the largest IPCC estimate).

its amzing how the deniers have been so successful with so little money.

It’s as though Bud Ward cribbed off the Heartland Institute news releases
and didn’t look any further.

Seemingly not at all interested in all that was authentic?
Or the strategy of Heartland Institute to attack science rather than
engage in a learning process?
Or their million dollar Public Relations expertise… now shifted into high gear?

When will you report on that part of the story Mr. Ward?

What’s different now? In one word, communications.

Just go back 40-50 years. Most people were reading the same magazines, watching the same tv shows and if they read different newspapers they nevertheless had much the same news. There was certain self-censorship among the media (just think about the sexual content on TV).

Now audiences have fragmented because technology makes it possible to reach very small subgroups and customize the content according to their particular taste.

The internet has made it possible for people with non-mainstream views to find similarly thinking people and feel accepted. All this amplifies and, to an extent, sharpens the differences between different groups.

Add to that the increased information and ease of access on the internet, and, most importantly, a chance to comment on anything on the blogs, news etc.

So, to sum it up, I don’t think people are more anti-science than before. The dissent is just out in the open and amplified by technology.