While most people do accept the reality that we live in a warming world, some still do not. That is inevitable because the oil and gas industry has an ever abiding motivation to keep their lights on by persuading us to keep our lights on exclusively via their product.
If indeed you have doubts about the reality of Climate Change, then below are a couple of items I’ve plucked from the past few days.
Two of them are new scientific empirically measured insights and the third is a laughably silly example of a supposed rebuttal.
Briefly …
- On Jan 5, The UK’s Met Office confirmed that 2022 was the UK’s hottest year on record. This was the first time the UK average annual temperature has been over 10°C
- On Jan 6 Michael Wehner, a senior scientist in the Computational Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, published a quick video. It it he discusses how climate change is increasing the rainfall from these drenching CA storms and how people can better prepare.
- Finally, the third is a tweet by climate science contrarian Steve Milloy that supposedly contains solid “proof” that refutes the existence of Climate Change.
Let’s dive into each in turn.
Climate change drives UK’s first year over 10°C
Far from the polarised politics in the US we have an insight into the on-going reality of Climate Change. From folks who have no skin in the US political game of thrones, we have this …
Not just the hottest this decade or this century, but the hottest ever recorded. To argue against this not being true is an argument with a thermostat – good luck winning that argument.
But why?
The UK’s Met Office scientists conducted An attribution study on the 2022 UK climate …
- Yes 2022 was the UK’s hottest year on record, with an average temperature of over 10°C recorded for the first time.
- It is the attribution study results that rather robustly point towards this being down to us.
It really is a new record. Never before has the UK’s average temperature over an entire year exceeded 10°C. To place that number in context here is a chart going back to the official start of such records …
As an additional bit of further confirmation they also have a chart of the UKs hottest and coolest years …
For further details their full press release can be found here.
Video: How climate change is intensifying the winter storms slamming California
So yes, winter storms happen, that’s not the news.
What is news is that Climate Change is making such storms worse.
Via Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory publishing on Phys.Org, we have the following Video insight into how Climate change is increasing the rainfall from these drenching storms and how people can better prepare … (this is just a two minute clip) …
Key Observation: Climate change is not a problem for our Grandchildren, it is here now and is our problem.
Steve Milloy’s “Evidence” that refutes Climate Change
So Steve tweeted this …
Well darn, that’s it then, Climate Change is refuted, Steve has the evidence.
But wait a moment, what exactly has he done here?
What Steve is illustrating rather well is that he has no idea how to look at actual data.
He has cherry picked just two data points, Dec 1987 and Dec 2022, discarded the rest of the data, and then used just those two points to claim that Climate Change is a Hoax.
If we follow this exact same methodology, simply cherry pick two data points that work for a specific agenda, for example 1993 and 1998, then we can make a very very strong case that very dramatic climate change is happening. We would be just as wrong as Steve is.
Bottom Line: You need to consider all the data and the overall trend to understand what is actually true.
For a bit of context, here is a longer timescale …
Sadly while Steve would not now fool most, it will still be enough to muddy the water and cause some to seriously doubt.
Is Steve really this stupid?
Nope, his claim is a deliberate bit of manufactured disinformation that is designed to deceive and manipulate.
To understand where Steve is coming from simply check his Wikipedia page.
He works for The Advancement of Sound Science Center that was established by Philip Morris Companies Inc. to counter legislation against second-hand smoke. He literally gets paid by corporate interests to manufacture dubious pseudoscience to muddy the waters and so enables his paying clients to push back against actual science that threatens to disrupt their profits.
If you want to understand him and his supposed “science” then, as the old saying goes, follow the money.
Bottom Line – Should we doubt Climate Change?
If there was something apart from fossil fuel induced global warming that explained everything we are observing, sure we can.
So far the only really robust explanation that withstands criticism is our fossil fuel emissions of greenhouse gases. That is resulting in far more energy from the sun being retained, and that is what is leading to a rapidly warming world that will greatly alter our climate.
If you truly do feel that there is a credible alternative explanation, then just publish your data within a credible scientific journal and engage with the scientific community.
Hint: Things that are not credible scientific journals … Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TruthSocial, Fox News, etc…