IPCC-Published Scientist Gets the ‘Denier’ Treament
This month IPCC and Columbia University climate scientists did something seemingly out of character - they said the quiet part out loud.
It started with an article that to my surprise was published by Vox where Dylan Matthews wrote:
What today we’d characterize as extreme poverty was until a few centuries ago the condition of almost every human on earth. In 1820, some 94 percent of humans lived on less than $2 a day. Over the next two centuries, extreme poverty fell dramatically; in 2018, the World Bank estimated that 8.6 percent of people lived on less than $1.90 a day. And the gains were not solely economic. Before 1800, average life spans didn’t exceed 40 years anywhere in the world. Today, the average human life expectancy is more like 73.
I had to go back and make sure that my eyes weren’t mistaken and that this wasn’t actually penned by Alex Epstein. It was, in fact, written though by Matthews.
As Ezra Klein, a New York Times opinion columnist, then succinctly summarized a few days later, “No mainstream climate models suggest a return to a world as bad as the one we had in 1950.” Klein knew the gravity of the words he was writing too, for his next paragraph reads,
“I worry, writing this, that it will be taken as a dismissal of the suffering climate change will unleash.”
Insert IPCC-published climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. As he notes, “many credible estimates from a decade ago put us on track for the average global temperature to increase 4 or even 5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels by 2100. The Climate Action tracker puts our current policy path at about 2.7 degrees of warming by 2100. If the commitments world governments have made since the Paris climate accord hold, we’re on track for a rise of 2 degrees or even less.”
Hasufather’s observation is accurate using today’s models. They are what scientists would call plausible. Roger Pielke Jr. has been a hawk about the RCP 8.5 scenarios that nearly all the IPCC summations use, which inevitably translates into the apocalyptic media reporting on climate change for the media is too dense to understand such statistical models. RCP 8.5 is implausible and Pielke is right to point it out to his fellow scientists (for Pielke’s content on RCP 8.5, follow this link).
As Hausfather reflected,
“It's a bit eye-opening how many times I, a climate scientist, have been called a denier in the last 24 hours for having the temerity to say our children are not necessarily consigned to an apocalyptic hellscape of a future. Doomism is a disease, and a self-fulfilling prophesy.”
Dare I suggest the tide is beginning to turn? Look at how inaccurate the climate models proved to be from a decade ago. How will today’s models fare in another ten years? Regardless of your opinions on these questions, the scientific consensus is beginning to grow – people who contend climate change is an existential threat are the real Science Deniers.
Next time you see someone in a position of leadership suggest such things, a simply OK, Doomer! retort will suffice. A sample of such people in leadership and their words on the subject:
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “we are digging our own graves.”
Paris Agreement Architect Christiana Figueres, “There is no chance of stopping the runaway warming of our planet, and no doubt we are slowly but surely heading toward human extinction.” (The Future We Choose, 2021).
President Joe Biden, “Folks, the evidence is clear, climate change poses an existential threat to our lives and our economy.”
Andreas Malm, “the climate movement must rethink its roots in nonviolence. Pipelines will be blown up if leaders don’t act on climate change.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “[it’s] a doomsday device strapped to humanity.”
Former President Barack Obama, “There’s no more time to sit back; vote like your life depends on it.”
Seychelles President Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan, “we are already grasping for survival; tomorrow is not an option for it will be too late.”
Senator and Non-Indian Elizabeth Warren, “[climate change] is the existential threat; it is the one that threatens all life on this planet.”
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, “the climate crisis is an existential threat, putting at risk our very existence.”
The Guardian, “We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue,” said the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. “The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”
OK, Doomers!
I reached out to Hausfather for comment on this story, but he did not respond.