At risk to my reputation and of straying outside my domain professional knowledge, I felt I had to say something about all this. Foolish of me but hey!
The great "religion" of the late 20th and early 21st century is, of course, climate change. If you dare challenge any aspect of it, your fate is probably far worse than being hauled before the Spanish Inquisition. Certainly, anyone who dares challenge the orthodoxy is a heretic and climate change denialist. Burning at the stake (that would only add to global warming, of course) is thankfully out of favour but verbal abuse and scornful comment of anyone who dares question any aspect of it is rife.
And with such august people as the UN Secretary General using inflammatory terms such as "global boiling", it's hard to say, "well wait a minute, let's think again about all this" One person who has done this recently is Judith Curry, Professor Emerita of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in her book "Climate Uncertainty and Risk". This is not a treatise on denialism as perhaps you might think but one which takes the entire issue and throws much light on it, especially the issues that we are being told are indisputable truths, for example, the forecasts made by the IPCC, the degree of uncertainty and errors in them and the implications that has for policy making about many matters and especially energy policy. Anyway, if you have an open mind, I'd recommend reading her. If, of course, you think we're all doomed anyway, don't bother.
Australians, and especially our politicians of course, being the well-educated lot that we are and with our deep understanding of science (LOL), have been quick to embrace the mantra that "the science is in" and is unchallengeable. Unfortunately, if the public's understanding of science was just that little bit stronger, they'd know that the science is never in on anything and is only the best explanation we can offer at the time - until Einstein came along, Newton's Laws of Motion stood supreme - and it's not that they aren't relevant still - it's just that they don't explain everything or to the required accuracy free of error in every circumstance- and nor do the IPCC's or anybody else's climate models.
And on the matter of the science being in, we all hear people from every level and part of society speaking about the 97% of scientists who are in consensus about human induced climate change. But who knows where that number came from? Or more importantly what it means? Well, it first went viral when apparently President Obama tweeted "Ninety seven percent of scientists agree #climate change is real, man - made and dangerous" back in 2013. Now that sounds like 97% of all the scientists on the planet, doesn't it? But it isn't - it's from an analysis of 12,000 climate related papers which merely showed that 97% of the authors "either supported or assumed that humans are causing climate change" -a rather different number! - and one which does not attribute the degree or significance. But, as Professor Curry says in her book, "the key scientific issue is not whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases have caused any increase in global temperature - the issue is how much global warming has been caused by humans, about which there is disagreement amongst scientists." While reporting on conflict is the usual preferred fare for journalists, unfortunately, reporting on disagreement about climate change, its scale, causes and implication for humankind tends not to be newsworthy.
Anyway, one thing that puzzles me is that we Australians seem to think that saving our less than 1% of total global emissions can actually make a difference and, more specifically, that those savings can be exclusively hypothecated onto our local climate and stop things like Barrier Reef degradation, coastal erosion, major flood events, droughts and fire. And politicians worldwide who are under so much pressure from climate activists (who definitely wouldn't read Professor Curry's book or anything else which challenges their "religious" beliefs) to stop reliable power sources fuelled by coal or gas in favour of, as yet, not equivalently reliable renewables.[1] And I am yet to see an accurate energy balance in terms of the amount of emissions to produce a kW of renewal energy as opposed to coal - I expect there is one, so feel free to advise me.
I sometimes wonder if, in our little population down under, as we demand we get to net zero by 2050 (?) and all drive electric cars and the like and every other virtue signalling activity, we have any idea of what is happening in the rest of the world. Only recently, I read of the Menghua Railway recently completed to run 1825 kms across China, on viaducts of such scale I can only dream of having designed, to deliver 200 million tonnes p.a. of coal for power generation. By comparison, Eraring Power Station, in NSW, burns about 5 million tonnes p.a. so just 2.5% of that - hardly within the order of accuracy of loading a coal wagon.
Anyway, a recent letter to the press about Australia's energy policy said, “all deployable options should remain on the table.” My response said I assume the writer includes options such as existing coal fired power generation, at least till an alternative reliable baseload generating capacity is firmly in place. (But I doubt that was what was meant). Again, especially as currently under construction in Asia are new baseload coal fired power stations of 100 times the power output of the existing Eraring Power Station. I am sure that, while most Australians will be happy to consume energy created other than directly from fossil fuels and delivered at a lesser cost[2], their enthusiasm will wane quickly after the first series of brown outs. Energy policy needs to have a rationale, sustainable balance that is not driven by base environmental alarmism. So, what do I think - well, I think Australia should continue making a steady and unpanicked transition to reliable forms of energy creation which best suits its energy needs and standard of living, and do the least harm along the way, including to children’s mental state about the planet.
The latter is quite important - I am hearing young Australian women saying stuff like it's irresponsible to bring more children into this world. And that is sad.
Finally, we need to remember the Shirky Principle which states:
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution”.
The fact is that, as in the case of our own Barrier Reef research, there is no money in saying that there isn’t a problem. And there are massive numbers of researchers whose careers, personal lifestyle and remuneration is tied to there being a climate problem. The likelihood of them saying ”well, actually there isn’t a problem” or even “there isn’t as bad a problem as we thought” is next to zero. So, some caution has to be exercised by decision makers and those who would seek to influence them.
To summarize then:
There - I've said it!
[1] Only yesterday I penned this letter to the press “Chris Uhlmann’s article perfectly encapsulates the problems that happen when politicians, ideologues and other assorted activists get involved in planning and designing critical infrastructure instead of letting engineers get on and do it. They should stick to setting out socially acceptable broad objectives then get out of the way. In the case of energy, a simple direction to transition our electrical generation systems to reduce emissions as far as practical while ensuring that demand for power is always met - whether by retaining some gas, coal or other means of electrical generation - would have been more than enough, especially bearing in mind Australia’s minute contribution to global emissions. As he says, what we are currently doing just looks like national virtue signalling on a grand, and potentially foolish, scale.”
[2] And to date there is no evidence that it is being delivered at lesser cost in Australia and in fact the reverse.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_periods_and_events_in_climate_history
[4] One of the most prominent doomers is Greta Thunberg. Here’s what she said : “Climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted five years ago that catastrophic climate change will wipe out humanity unless the world forgoes fossil fuel usage and ceases consumption. But to Thunberg’s dismay, her prediction didn’t exactly pan out. On the contrary, realizing this, she quietly deleted her tweet in March in anticipation of Wednesday’s anniversary. While gone, it forever lives in our hearts as a reminder not to fret over reactionary, alarmist predictions.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/courage-strength-optimism/of-course-greta-thunberg-was-wrong-about-fossil-fuels
[5] Respected economics journalist Ross Gittins said in the SMH on 21/9/2023 said “climate change deniers and foot-draggers” have been correct all along: “nothing we Australians do will stop the globe warming unless the other major emitting countries – America, China and those in the European Union – also achieve net zero emissions by 2050.”. And “all we can do is set a good example and urge the others to do likewise.” Pity he had to resort to pejorative language, but I say no amount of virtue signalling or dangling off overpasses is going to change that latter fact.
[6] it is very important on such a critical issue that it be challenged and that discrepancies cannot just be brushed over. If you can’t explain the near past with all its data certainty, then you have no hope of predicting the future with all its uncertainty. All of which is why the great 20th century philosopher Sir Karl Popper said: “If we are uncritical, we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted”.
[7] And provided you are happy to cover vast swathes of land including Indigenous lands with solar panels and wind turbines and stuff like that. Chris Bowen recently said “Getting to the government’s now-mandatory legal target of 82 per cent renewable power generation by 2030, he declared, would require the installation of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every month for the next seven years. Plus, 28,000km of new transmission lines would have to be constructed for the resultant decentralised grid – even though, given the intermittency of wind and solar, these would be active only 30 per cent of the time on average.” https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/swedens-botched-green-dream-a-warning-to-us-all/news-story/895a85e24ff0b9e68541e77a0404e1c1