Ready for the next Ice Age? Winter is coming.

[FluffyMcDeath]

 

[redrumloa]

Berkeley Scholar: Climate Change Is Officially Dead. But Blame Activists, Not Trump.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal Monday, Steven F. Hayward, senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, declared that climate change as a pre-eminent policy issue has officially "run its course." And if you're looking for someone to blame, he suggests, don't look at President Trump, look instead at left-wing activists who've let their social justice and "green utopian vision" sabotage viable solutions.

"All that remains" of the climate change political movement, writes Hayward, "is boilerplate rhetoric from the political class, frivolous nuisance lawsuits, and bureaucratic mandates on behalf of special-interest renewable-energy rent seekers." Most national governments, he explains, have been steadily "backing away from forced-marched decarbonization." The arc of climate change as a policy priority, he declares, can officially be dated from 1988 to 2018.

But while the issue has run its course in the early years of Trump's presidency, he notes, Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement "merely ratified a trend long becoming evident." No, Trump isn't to blame for the demise of the issue; in the end, the self-defeating ideological agenda of social justice and climate activists have finally buried it.

"The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm—a blaring noise people are tuning out," writes Hayward. And this collapse of the movement, he explains, was utterly "predictable."

Citing political scientist Anthony Downs' 1972 article for the Public Interest, “Up and Down With Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention Cycle,’" Hayward lays out the five stages of a political movement, with which climate change has tracked perfectly. It's now suffering the inglorious fifth stage:

• Stage 1: Experts and activists call attention to a public problem.
• Stage 2: The "alarmed media and political class discover the issue" and often stir up "euphoric enthusiasm ... as activists conceive the issue in terms of global peril and salvation."
• Stage 3: The "hinge," characterized by "a gradually spreading realization that the cost of ‘solving’ the problem is very high indeed."
• Stage 4: The "gradual decline in the intensity of public interest in the problem."
• Stage 5: A "prolonged limbo—a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest," which often involves "painful trade-offs" that activists simply aren't willing to make.

Climate change is clearly in this fifth and final stage, he explains, where activists are blocking viable solutions as a result of their ideology, including social justice activism and their "utopian" environmental vision:

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Climate change is clearly in this fifth and final stage, he explains, [...]

Yes - as a political issue it is moribund. As a fact it's not - but we just aren't going to do anything about it. I'll be gone before my grand kids have to deal with it - but at least I had a nice decadent life.

 

[Robert]

I'll be gone before my grand kids have to deal with it - but at least I had a nice decadent life.

Indeed and I keep trying to tell myself that.
I don't have, nor will ever have, any children so I probably shouldn't give a toss what happens after I'm gone but I can't quite seem to muster a proper detachment from it.
There's a little voice at the back of mind, muttering, "hey, you'll probably still be around when things *start* to turn to chaos and that'll probably be exciting to watch from relatively far away, so why not encourage it? Burn more coal you lilly-livered snowflake!"
Still, I find myself not really wanting any of that to happen. Weird, huh?

 

[redrumloa]

"hey, you'll probably still be around when things *start* to turn to chaos and that'll probably be exciting to watch from relatively far away

Florida was supposed to be completely under water by 2010 and the oceans starting to boil away. The opposite has happened, so I wouldn't recommend you or Fluffy worrying about something that is never going to happen.

 

[Robert]

Florida was supposed to be completely under water by 2010.... The opposite has happened...

Florida has risen relative to sea level?
When did this happen and how did I miss it?

Last I heard Florida was already encountering increasing-sea-level-related problems.
Glad to hear it's gone into reverse gear. Perhaps I'll come over in 2025 for a spot of snowboarding in the Miami alps.

and the oceans starting to boil away

Who told you that, Al Gore?

 

[redrumloa]

Florida has risen relative to sea level?
When did this happen and how did I miss it?

Michael Moore would be proud of your editing skills.

Last I heard Florida was already encountering increasing-sea-level-related problems.

You have been duped by fake news. It can be forgiven for someone who hasn't lived in FL their whole life. There are no general problems related to sea level rise. The problems are the same as they have been since Florida has been settled. The main problem is King Tides. Misleading articles you have problem seen with street flooding? They took those pictures after heavy rainfalls and implied it was from sea water intrusion. Like anywhere else in the world there are higher elevations and lower elevations. The lower elevations are mini flood zones. Excessive rains from a typical summer storm are not uncommon, quite standard. Even in my city I know what streets to avoid after a heavy rain storm.

Who told you that, Al Gore?

The UN among others? Too many examples to cite, but you probably take the UN seriously.

25 YEARS OF PREDICTING THE GLOBAL WARMING ‘TIPPING POINT’ - 2015/05/04/

The “tipping point” warning first started in 1989

In the late 1980s the U.N. was already claiming the world had only a decade to solve global warming or face the consequences.

The San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

That prediction didn’t come true 15 years ago, and the U.N. is sounding the same alarm today.

-Edit-
Specifically boiling the oceans? Already covered HERE.

 

[ilwrath]

Ah, right. So it's the same ole' routine of attributing wacky statements to people who have never said anything of the like. Glad that's sorted.

If anyone cares to see the actual original AP article from 1989, here it is:
https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

Admittedly, it's not the best written piece ever. Misleading in some areas. But it never claims any boiling of oceans. Also, while poorly worded, in context, it's also not claiming destruction by 2000. It's claiming an irreversible path toward destruction could be set as early as 2000. That's the difference between having already gone over the falls, and passing by an innocent enough looking point that may be the spot you no longer have enough strength to row against the current.

In fact, it expects only a modest 1-7 degree increase by next year (2019 -- 30 years in the future, back then), though.

The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown.

Personally, I'm not one to defend this article. I think it was poorly worded, overly pessimistic, and clearly the early alarms from the 80's were not properly calibrated. But even cherry-picking a lousy source like this, people still don't even stick to what even that flawed source says, and instead have to resort to making great leaps of illogic.

If you want to try to be a voice of reason, that's what you're up against.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Specifically boiling the oceans? Already covered HERE.

Clearly you have linked to the wrong post. Only a complete moron would think that a 0.4C temperature anomaly equates to boiling the oceans. You are not a complete moron, therefore you are pointing in the wrong place.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

The main problem is King Tides.

King Tides and storm surges.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

The San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

Passenger: Careful. If you drive off the cliff we will all be dead.
Bus Driver: Ha - imbecile - you are wrong! See! I have driven off the cliff yet we are all still alive!!

 

[Robert]

King Tides and storm surges.

From the article:

Inundation of coastal areas due to rising seas occurred more frequently in the past year than ever before...

Yes, that indeed confirms that "the problems are the same as they have been since Florida has been settled".

 

[redrumloa]

Clearly you have linked to the wrong post. Only a complete moron would think that a 0.4C temperature anomaly equates to boiling the oceans. You are not a complete moron, therefore you are pointing in the wrong place.

Look at the dates on the graph, they end at 2000. Now look at the trend line and mentally follow where it would be in 15 years.

I hope this helps.

 

[redrumloa]

From the article:


Yes, that indeed confirms that "the problems are the same as they have been since Florida has been settled".

A Washington Post article? Must be true! Even the Wikipedia article doesn't make this leap, due to the ability of others to challenge false information.

Here's a hint, Florida coastline erosion records have only been kept since the 1970s. Here's another hint, erosion was worse in the 70s and prior to today.

 

[ilwrath]

Look at the dates on the graph, they end at 2000. Now look at the trend line and mentally follow where it would be in 15 years.

I hope this helps.

I love XKCD.

https://xkcd.com/605/

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Look at the dates on the graph, they end at 2000. Now look at the trend line and mentally follow where it would be in 15 years.

I hope this helps.

So.. about 0.6C ... maybe 0.7C

 

[Robert]

Latest estimate shows how much Antarctic ice has fallen into the sea
Since 1992, the frozen continent has lost about 2.7 trillion tons of ice.

Jumping straight to that result, IMBIE finds that Antarctica lost 2,720 ± 1,390 gigatons of ice in that time period—enough to raise global sea level 7.6 millimeters on its own. The rate of ice loss has increased, though, averaging about 43 gigatons per year over the first 10 years and rising to 220 gigatons per year in the last 5 years.

 

[redrumloa]

Latest estimate shows how much Antarctic ice has fallen into the sea
Since 1992, the frozen continent has lost about 2.7 trillion tons of ice.

Yeah not so much.

Shock new research shows Antarctic ice growing not melting
24 February 2018 13:15

In an extraordinary article by National Geographic, it is revealed that one of the largest Antarctic ice shelves is growing in size, not melting as scientists had long assumed.

Published on February 16 to little fanfare, the article relates the story of a team of New Zealand scientists who set out on an unprecedented mission last November to explore the West Antarctic ice sheet. The Ross Ice Shelf is by far the largest of a set of floating ice shelves that hold the sheet in place.

"Global sea levels would rise by 10 feet if West Antarctica lost these crucial stabilizers and spilled its ice into the ocean," the article averred.

But evidence that this could be happening because of melting was not what was found:

 

[Robert]

.. one of the largest Antarctic ice shelves is growing in size..

"One of"
What about the rest of them?

-EDIT-

I take it you didn't actually read the linked NG article?
Let's just say that the Commentator's spin on it uses a little artistic licence.

For a start, whilst it reports evidence of sea water crystals freezing onto the underside of the Ross ice shelf, at no point does it say it is growing in size.
In fact it says the opposite:

..if a few inches of sea water periodically freezes onto the bottom of its ice, this could buffer it from thinning more rapidly.

So, yeah, thanks for the link.

 

[redrumloa]

"One of"
What about the rest of them?

One of? You mean the largest one.