Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "Adam Conover"
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There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis.
The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed:
Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions),
Aridity,
Avalanche (snow),
Average precipitation,
Average Wind Speed,
Coastal Flood,
Agricultural drought,
Hydrological drought,
Erosion of Coastlines,
Fire Weather (hot and windy),
Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods),
Frost,
Hail,
Heavy Rain,
Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms,
Landslides,
Marine Heatwaves,
Ocean Acidity,
Radiation at the Earth’s Surface,
River/Lake Floods,
Sand and Dust Storms,
Sea Level,
Severe Wind Storms,
Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets,
Tropical Cyclones.
There is no objective observational evidence that we are living through a global climate crisis. None.
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@mitkoogrozev The silliness is you don't know the difference between a graph and a table.
The reason I've specifically referred to that table is it is a summation of the scientific information contained within the report. It demonstrates that even when you have an extremely biased organisation such as the UN, they can find very little evidence of any serious attributable man-made climate change having taken place or taking place (remember any climatic change since 1950 they maintain is due to mankind). Of the thirty-three 'climate impact driver categories' they only have a high confidence that 5 of those categories have changed. For 24 of those categories they can't find a change. That's after at least 70 years of us supposedly being the main drivers of climate change.
Of those 5 high confidence categories, 1 is extra CO2, and 2 are basically the same thing - heat. When it comes to the heat, one of the relevant papers referenced by the IPCC in support - Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Lewis, 2020 - has the number and length of heatwaves increasing globally (1951-2017) as you would expect in a slowly warming world, but there is no trend for average intensity.
Notice when it is predicted what will emerge in the future they use RCP8.5 - The most extreme of modelling. Truly laughable. And even then very little emerges. Maybe a little more rain in some places, maybe a little less in others. Still no change in droughts. It's not looking good for you alarmist.
When you're worried about "the ocean life we've decreased" let's have a look at some actual data rather than your pontification. The Great Barrier Reef's coral cover reached the greatest extent ever recorded in 2022 and 2023 (AIMS) despite reports of supposed repeated bleaching. If you look at the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) data, the WIO (West Indian Ocean) shows 26% hard coral cover in 1985 upto 30% in 2020. South Asia reefs shows a decline around 2000 to below 25% then a regrowth to around 40% (2010) and a decline to 25% (2020). The Red Sea shows no change at around 25% (1995-2020). So the pattern in these three areas show no relationship to each other or to a changing climate. The Caribbean region reefs have a cover of around 0.15 ± 0.02. There is no evidence of a major reduction in coral cover in the Caribbean over the last two decades.
GCRMN data for the most important coral bioregion, the East Asia Seas, with 30% of the world’s coral reefs, and containing the most diverse coral of the ‘Coral Triangle’, show no statistically significant net coral loss since records began. The East Asia region has the biggest human population living in close proximity to reefs, and is located in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool – the hottest major water mass on earth.
Life is most diverse in the warmest parts of the world’s oceans. This has been shown across 13 major taxonomic groups from zooplankton to marine mammals. Warmer water = more biodiversity. This is a scare story about things you cannot see.
Extinction rates (1500-2009) peaked around 1900 at 50 per decade. Extinction rates have declined dramatically to around 4 to per decade in the 2000s. So the extinction rate is very low: 900 known lost species for 2.1 million known species in 500 years (IUCN), so from observations there are an average of slightly less than 2 species lost every year. Out of a known species total of over 2 million. That gives an annual percentage loss of less than 0.0001%. That's background extinction. At that frequency it will take over 930,000 years to reach 80% extinction of species experienced at the K-T boundary that saw the extinction of the dinosaurs. Of course, extinction is a natural part of the evolution of life on this planet with the average lifespan of a species thought to be about 1 million years (cf 930,000). It is estimated that 99.9% of all plant and animal species that have existed have gone extinct. It should also be noted that no taxonomic families have become extinct in the last 500 years. In fact marine diversity at the taxonomic level of families is the highest it has ever been in the Earth's long history (see Sepkoski Curve). In a review of 16,009 species, most populations (85%) did not show significant trends in abundance, and those that did were balanced between winners (8%) and losers (7%) (Dornelas et al, 2019). There have been only 9 species of continental birds and mammals confirmed extinct since 1500 (Loehle, 2011). No global marine animals have become extinct in the past 50 years (McCauley et, 2015 using IUCN data).
There is no climate crisis.
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Since 1900 the global temperature has increased by 1.3°C. In that time humanity has flourished. Life expectancy has more than doubled from 32 to 73 years. Literacy has quadrupled from 21% to 86%. Humans are seven times more productive ($2,241 to $15,212 GDP per capita, per annum). People are better fed, having ⅓ more calories every day (2,192kcal to 2,928kcal). Global extreme poverty rates have tumbled from 70% to less than 10% (<$1 a day). And death from weather events have collapsed by a factor 50 from 241 million down to 5 million even while the global population has increased by a factor of 5.
There is no climate crisis. There is no evidence of a climate crisis.
Even if there is radical climate change (and that is a very, very big 'if') with the manifestation of numerous tipping points (including permafrost thaw, ocean hydrates dissociation, Arctic sea ice loss, rainforest dieback, polar ice sheet loss, AMOC slowdown, and Indian monsoon variability) the disruption to economic growth and well-being will be minimal. The world's economy will continue to grow making everyone much richer. By 2050 world mean consumption per capita should be $29,100 with tipping points or $29,300 without tipping points. Barely noticeable. Apart from it being approximately double what it is now. By 2100 world mean consumption per capita should be $71,000 with or without tipping points (Dietz et al, 2021).
This is the most fortunate time to be alive in the whole of history.
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