What most excites alarmists is the doubling of CO2 since 1850 which they assume caused a 2°C rise in temperature. They opine that if CO2 emissions are not virtually eliminated over the next decade or so then temperatures will rise to between 2.5°C to 4°C which they believe could be enough to begin a catastrophic cycle of heat destroying the natural correction mechanisms, leading to more retained heat and hence the end of civilization as we know it.
But anyone with minimal scientific knowledge knows that correlation is not causation. Lab experiments show that air containing a higher concentration of CO2 retains more heat but in nature there are millions of chaotically interacting variables that affect CO2 concentration and temperature such as undersea tectonic plates redirecting oceans, volcanoes, sunspots, global oscillations and much else. In nature there is no consistent correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature, so there cannot be a consistent causal relationship.
Cloud cover accounts for 70-90% of surface temperature. Clouds reflect the sun's energy and increase with sea temperature, so it is a natural corrective mechanism. Predicting cloud cover 30 or so years ahead in any given place or time is impossible.
The temperature blip since 1850 is one of 1,000s of similar temperature blips, up and down, with no consistent relationship to CO2 levels, over the last 500m years. The ice ages, including the one we are in, have no regular pattern so it is impossible to forecast the climate 20 or 50 years ahead. We are still in an ice age that could last 1,000s of years, or end next year. Many scientists predict the end of this particular warm period by 2030 and a reassertion of an ice age, but we can have no more confidence in this prediction than predictions of warming.
If the temperature rise does occur, the notion that it would result in a runaway climate disaster, as many suppose happened on Mars, is not consistent with the evidence. The earth has been much warmer previously and had much higher levels of CO2. The current series of ice ages followed 500m years when there was no ice on the poles and 20 times the CO2 feeding massive, lush forests. Then some sea creatures developed the ability to make shells from CO2 in the sea, absorbed from the air over the previous 400m years. Carbon for shell formation reduced atmospheric CO2 from around 2500 ppm, that fed the massive forests that created coal and formed trillions of tons of sedimentary rocks in which we find oil and gas, causing atmospheric CO2 to fall to around 180 ppm during the height of the last glaciation. If this fall had continued another 30 ppm life on Earth would have ceased because it would have taken us below the level needed for plant survival, so the recent doubling of CO2 to 419.3 ppm [2023] could be seen as a necessary correction. Our mammalian ancestors did fine at CO2 levels of 2,500 ppm, so if it happens again we’d probably be fine and we’d have fabulous, lush forests.
People naturally fear the unknown and the climate is unknown so when powerful people say that we are all going to die if CO2 release is not stopped many get very scared, especially children. I am old enough to remember climate scares in the 1970s, but about an imminent ice age.
A more important question is why so many who should know better are pushing the climate catastrophe ideology. There are two key factors. First, academia has become dominated by socialists, who blame capitalism for all our ills, and capitalism's proxy is industrialism and CO2 emissions, so CO2 emissions have become a target of climate zealots. An organisation exists to further its interests and its bosses to make it happen. Bosses employ those who will further it's aims, those aspiring to promotion conform, and those that do not share the aims leave or don't join.
Government institutions are monolithic and not truly open to dissent and change. The institutional and political ideology of anglophone and European elites has become more technocratic with the rise of the EU that shares beliefs and attitudes with socialism which has become dominant in academia. Elected ministers rarely have technical or scientific expertise, have become more dependent on the institutional elite and to share their ideology. When politicians with little knowledge of scientific method or climate are frightened by ‘experts’ or find political advantage in climate panic the consequences can be disastrous as in the EU and UK. Climate panic is non-existent in China and India that are switching to solar energy for economic and pragmatic reasons so continue with fossil fuels to ease the transition. Chinese executives smirk at our panic response because they supply most of our solar and wind products at a big fat profit making our energy so expensive that most of Europe is de-industrializing fast.
If the forecast of higher temperatures, for whatever reason, turns out to be true then too few climate zealots consider technological change or mitigation. On current trends emissions will be zero long before the 2050s. Solar is cheaper than all other sources in most of the world although lacking the battery technology and infrastructure to use it, but it is catching up fast. The development of AI and battery technology has been much faster than expected and many forecast a big changeover over the next two or three years. Wind generators must be huge, constructed in factories, moved to windy places, can cost more than £3 million each and necessarily supply energy intermittently thus requiring backup, usually from gas. Solar Energy falls everywhere, enough falls every day for all our annual needs, the technology is fundamentally material and chemical so potentially could be hundreds of times cheaper and more efficient. Climate change is very slow, in human terms, so if temperatures and sea levels rise people are likely to have moved from the most vulnerable places, sea walls built, buildings adapted for warm weather with solar powered air conditioning, etc.
Seven percent of climate change is man-made and the UK contributes 1% of that. The biggest contributor to reduction of CO2 during the last 70 years has been France that obtains much of it from nuclear power. The USA has seen the biggest fall in CO2 emissions in any major industrialised country over the last 20 years due to switching from coal and oil to shale gas. Possibly, but we don't know because comprehensive investigation has been banned, the UK has as much shale gas as the USA [400 years’ worth] but fear of protesters, the climate lobby and climate alarmism has dissuaded the British, German, French and many other governments from even evaluating known deposits of shale gas so they buy it liquefied from the USA instead. Buying, liquifying and shipping gas from the USA not only costs us four times as much as local extraction that could earn export revenues, but the process uses lots of gas and emits nearly four times as much CO2 than using our own. Politicians justify this as setting an example to misguided nations, who usually think we're mad because they have done the sums.
The climate panic has cost the UK alone trillions of £s and ten times as many deaths because more people die of cold than heat and older poorer people cut down on heating bills. And the climate panic has denied us cheap energy at a time when AI development is crucial and developing fast but demands vast amounts of energy to power data centres, etc, industrial restructuring, employment restructuring and moving to AI based economics.
Only 3% of AI development is based in the EU and UK, 37% is based in the USA and 16% in China. Hi-Tech smaller nations not infected with climate panic such as Singapore, Israel, Japan and South Korea are all ahead of the EU and UK in clean energy usage and AI. If nothing else changes, it will probably put Europe under the control of American technological behemoths.