Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

Dr. Judith Curry conducted an interview with YouTube which was published on August 9, 2017 where she clearly lays out the many flaws and failures of “consensus” climate science and how this highly politicalized scheme tremendously misleads policy makers regarding the need for government directed climate actions.

Regarding the role that human greenhouse gas emissions play in driving the earth’s climate Dr. Curry concludes that:

“On balance, I don’t see any particular dangers from greenhouse warming. {Humans do} influence climate to some extent, what we do with land-use changes and what we put into the atmosphere. But I don’t think it’s a large enough impact to dominate over natural climate variability.”

Regarding the politically contrived climate “consensus” arguments put forth by climate alarmists she concludes:

“The collapse of the consensus on cholesterol and heart disease – that one collapsed overnight. I can only hope that sanity will eventually prevail with the climate problem as well.”

Dr. Curry a world renowned and academically honored climatologist and former chair of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology discussed political attacks she has been subjected to that started when she began to question the tactics of climate alarmist “consensus” following the revelations brought into the light by Climategate which clearly displayed the lack of transparency and openness present in mainstream climate science.

The political attacks she has endured were the result of what she characterized as the politicalization of climate science as a deliberate strategy by climate alarmists to influence public policy which could not tolerate valid questions concerning legitimate climate science shortcomings.

Dr. Curry discussed how she was “thrown out of the tribe” for suggesting that the conduct of climate science needed greater transparency, should be inclusive instead of dismissing of climate skeptic views, that climate science is a relatively new field where the “debate is not over”, that there “is no way the science issues are settled” and that there is” a whole lot more we don’t know”.

She noted how the “consensus” scheme has put climate science on the “wrong track” by “shinning a light” on only one small part of climate science, that being greenhouse gas emissions, while ignoring the huge role played by natural climate variation. This political approach has been a great disservice to efforts needed to truly understand our complex climate system and also greatly mislead policy makers.

Dr. Curry noted the ineffectual provisions of the Paris Climate Agreement where even if all countries meet their proclaimed emission reductions targets the result is only about a 0.2 Degrees C global temperature lowering by year 2100. She further noted that since the climate models run “hot” the actual likely global temperature reduction would be much less.

Regarding claims of accelerating sea level rise allegedly caused by human greenhouse gas emissions Dr. Curry noted that sea level has been rising for the last 10,000 years as a result of the end of the last ice age, that the UN ICC AR5 report data shows that sea level rise in the period of the 1940 to 1950’s was consistent with recent sea level rise levels, that large continental ice mass melting might drive future large sea level rise but that Antarctica ice mass is growing while Greenland ice mass is variable in behavior.

She concluded that “there is no evidence, so far, that human activities are influencing sea level rise”.

Dr. Curry noted that wind and solar “won’t work” in addressing future energy and emissions desires and that instead of trying to rely upon renewables new research is needed on better energy options.

As far as trying to help society in the “here and now” regarding future climate issues she believes that extreme weather events will continue to happen in the future and that efforts to lesson the vulnerability of society to these events should be considered. Dr. Curry cautioned, however, that society faces many serious and complex issues in addition to climate issues and that resources available to deal with these many issues have to be balanced.

The recent examples of climate alarmism shenanigans provided by the New York Times regarding the CSSR report further demonstrate the problems noted by Dr. Curry in her YouTube interview concerning the misguided politicalization and distortion of climate science by climate alarmists.

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