20 Reasons To Be Skeptical of Human-Induced Global Warming

Regarding point #15...

The sensitivity parameter in the Arrhenius equation is tunable. The 5.35 W/m2 figure is tuned specifically to the environment on Earth. You'd need a different value for Venus and Mars. Furthermore the Arrhenius equation is just a simple estimator anyway. It does not take into account the detailed vertical distribution of greenhouse gases, heat flux processes of the different heat storage mediums (land, ice, atmosphere, ocean), prevailing convection currents in both the atmosphere and hydrosphere, albedo, and may other factors. Also remember that CO2's warming effect on Earth is amplified (greatly) by the water vapor feedback. That is not something that is in play on Mars. Also, WV has a much larger IR flux capture than does CO2. In addition the outgoing radiation flux on Mars is significantly lower overall and with a different distribution of the spectrum. The prevailing greenhouse effect models accurately (within a reasonable margin of error) reproduce the equilibrium surface temperatures on Venus, Earth, and Mars. There's no evidence from a celestial perspective that our current model is wrong.

Also, on a related subject I also see claims that the ideal gas law is a better predictor of surface temperature. Venus is hot because the pressure is high and Mars is cold because the pressure is low they say. However, the ideal gas law PV=nRT is just a state equation. It just tells us what the value of one variable has to be if all others are already known. It is diagnostic; not prognostic. It does not tells us anything about the evolution of the system nor does it tell us how the system will evolve in the future. It is just as valid for me to claim that the P is high on Venus because the T is high. Likewise, the P is low on Mars because the T is low. Actually, this is the correct way to think about it. If Venus got hot because the P increased then that means a polytropic process occurred. Some force had to act on the system to increase the PV side of the equation. The only force that could do this is gravity. But planets don't spontaneously increase their gravity. However, planets can have their T spontaneously increased or decreased by physical process that effect the solar radiation budget. So Venus the T increased via an ischoric process which led to an increase of P. Actually, it's likely the P increased both due to an increase in T and an increase in the mass of the atmosphere with the later likely at least partially occurring as a result of a feedback with the temperature. Of course, it should not go ignored that Venus' upper atmosphere is cooler than on Earth and its surface warmer than on Mercury. The greenhouse effect is perfect explanation for this observation.

 

Regarding point #16...

I agree that the IPCC *could* be overestimating the climate sensitivity. But, of the sources in your list most have already been proven wrong. Afterall the Earth has already warmed by about 1.0C. And of that 1.0C since 1960 it is likely that all of it is the result of the net effect of all anthroprogenic forcing agents. So with less than 50% of the way to a doubling of CO2 we can eliminate all of those possibilities presented by NoTricksZone. Some of the publications I see listed are by authors who have substantiated histories of unethical academic behavior. I'm also really skeptical of NoTricksZone because they often misrepresent scientific literature so it's hard to guess what specific sensitivities these sources were calculating without reading each paper or whether their summary of the cherry-picked literature is even correct. And according to Snopes and others who interviewed many authors who have been highlighted on that website several were appalled that their research was misrepresented. So I've learned to take NoTricksZone with a grain of salt. Even the graphs/charts they display next to publications needs to be cross checked. I've seen them alter graphs often with significant implications. I'm not saying any of this is reason to dismiss them outright, but it does mean that many of us now look at their work with an extra critical eye.

 

Regarding point #17...

The sea level rise before the industrial revolution and the large release of CO2 makes sense because the Earth was warming due to other factors during this time.

 

As I said before, there is so much intrinsic uncertainty in paleoclimate ice-core reconstructions. They cannot provide strong evidence for anything at the end of the day simply because they are prehistoric and relate to times for which no direct empirical measures of anything are possible. Everything is conjectural with them. The paleoclimate ice-core evidence that indicates that the current CO2 level is ‘unprecedented’ is tenuous. Remember, the ice-core suffers from fractionation processes that can underestimate true CO2 values and this has been confirmed by direct empirical observations. Measurements of the surface-snow in Antarctica have shown that the surface-snow can underestimate atmospheric CO2 by as much as 50% (see Jaworowski et al 1997). Stomata proxy contradicts the ice-core data and shows more variability, with CO2 as high as 450ppmv. So, the argument that CO2 has risen to ‘unprecedented’ levels is not a proven fact, unless we want to discount the Stomata proxy, chemical measurements by Georg Beck (2007), as shown in the graph here, and also the issues with the ice-core data as a valid CO2-proxy.

The idea that the oceans could have absorbed virtually all the anthropogenic CO2 we have emitted since the industrial revolution (amounting to 2000Gts) while also contributing to the atmospheric increase is entirely consistent with the mass-accounting and the mass-conservation law.

As I have already said, 98% of human CO2 should be absorbed by the oceans in accordance with Henry’s law. The natural CO2 increase that I am suggesting would take place due to the warming ocean would not be subject to the 10-year half-life, the same as anthropogenic CO2, because the natural CO2 increase due to the warming ocean would permanently alter the equilibrium partitioning ratio for CO2 between the atmosphere and oceans. At the mean ocean temperature of 15C the current partitioning ratio is around 1:50. This is why the oceans have 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. If you increased the mean temperature of the oceans, you would change the equilibrium partitioning ratio and more CO2 would be released from the oceans to be permanently added to the resident CO2 greenhouse. As an example of this, think of a carbonated drink in a hot car. If the carbonated drink gets too hot, it may explode, because the rise in temperature shifts the equilibrium partitioning ratio and more CO2 gets released from the water into the air under the bottle-cap, increasing its partial pressure. The same principle applies to the CO2 in the oceans and the atmosphere as the temperature rises. The extra CO2 that gets put into the atmosphere by the warming oceans stays there permanently (albeit not the original molecules).

No, it doesn’t have to be huge. You would only need to warm the oceans by a relatively small degree and that would permanently alter the partitioning ratio for CO2 between the atmosphere and the oceans.

As I already said, the oceans have warmed and that should increase CO2 in the atmosphere. I am surprised that you seem to find this point so difficult to acknowledge as it appears to me to be a standard principle of basic physics. According to scientist Murry Salby, atmospheric CO2 increases correlate almost perfectly with temperature-changes [R2 = 0.93] rather than anthropogenic CO2-emissions (See the graph here). A correlation of 0.93 strongly suggests that a cause-and-effect relationship exists and this can be explained in part due to changes in CO2’s solubility (the oceans regulate atmospheric CO2 based on their temperature) and other environmental factors that can change CO2 concentrations, and that are temperature-dependent, such as changes in ocean biota. There are various papers that suggest the increase of the temperature of the oceans can explain a significant part of the CO2 increase. I already referenced Jaworowski (1997) and Segalstad (1996), and to add to those, according to Humlum (2013): “Changes in the ocean temperatures appear to explain a substantial part of the observed changes in the atmospheric CO2 increase since 1980”. Furthermore, according to an article by Lon Hocker (here), based on the graph here, increasing the temperature of the ocean by 1C would decrease the solubility of CO2 by 4% which would release about “1440 Gts of CO2 into the atmosphere. This would roughly triple the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere”. So, CO2-changes are apparently very sensitive to temperature-changes.

I addressed this already. The oceans can outgas CO2 and absorb CO2 simultaneously, so, the oceans could have absorbed the majority of our CO2 emissions (let’s say for argument’s sake 1800 Gts) while increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere (let’s say for argument’s sake 800 Gts) due to a change in their temperature. So, PCO2(aq) could still increase and decrease pH, while the oceans contribute to the CO2 increase. The two are not mutually exclusive.

 

It's like attending a science class. I often think this forum is a complete waste of my time but on rare occasions I really do learn something in here.

 

We can't just ignore data that's inconvenient to our hypothesis though. And it's not like we're talking about a single ice core study from single site. Our CO2 proxies cover the north pole, south pole, Himalayian glacials, etc. We also have the tree ring proxies. It's quite to the leap to cast all of this data in doubt especially since the data was obtained from different people using different techniques and yet we still get a reasonably consistent picture of what the CO2 concentration was during the glacial/interglacial cycles and especially this particular interglacial period.

The only way that's possible is if the net flux from ocean-to-atmosphere was positive. The keyword here is net. That would mean the ocean lost carbon. When that happens the pH increases. But we observe the exact opposite. Again, you can't ignore observations that are inconvenient.

The oceans have been warming by a relatively small amount for the last 10,000 years and the CO2 concentration never jumped by 100 ppm over the course of a hundred years.

Again, this is not consistent with observations. The carbon that is in the ocean would have had to decrease for this to happen. And you'd also have to find where the human carbon emissions went. But it didn't. It increased. That means the ocean absorbed more than it outgassed. Again, the total amount of carbon in the ocean can only either go up or go down. It can't do both simultaneously.

The global mean pH is only decreasing. It's not also increasing. That is absolutely mutually exclusive.

Let me ask some questions. What predictions does this model make? Will CO2 concentration continue to increase in the atmosphere? When will that increase stop?

 

Try reading it this way:

So, PCO2(aq) could still increase [as pH decreases], [...]​

 

Think about this. CO2 concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere. The carbon to make that happen must come from somewhere because it's not spontaneously appearing. The contention here is that the majority of the worlds leading scientists say it is coming from fossil fuels that humans are emitting while a handful of scientists are claiming that it is being outgassed by the ocean.

The concentration has increased by 130 ppm which is equivalent to about 1000 Gt of CO2. Total human emissions are about 2000 Gt of CO2. According to the prevailing explanation 1000 Gt stayed in the atmosphere where it originated while 1000 Gt got absorbed into the ocean. Actually some went to increasing biomass, but let's ignore that for now because it's not that significant anyway. The 1000 Gt that went into the ocean worked to decrease the global mean pH. All 2000 Gt of the CO2 that got added to Earth's carbon budget are accounted for with this explanation. And it's really simple. This paper has a great summary on how this 2000 Gt of CO2 partitions itself between the atmosphere and ocean over a time period of 200 to 2000 years until the remaining 20% left in the atmosphere drops out to different and much slower chemical reactions. This provides a nice explanation for why CO2 pulses are rapid and dieoffs are slow in the paleoclimate record.

But if you want to claim that the 1000 Gt of CO2 increase in the atmosphere came primarily from the ocean and that the 2000 Gt of human emissions does not come into play then you have to accept that the ocean lost 1000 Gt so that it could be transferred to the atmosphere while at the same time the 2000 Gt that humans emitted just up and disappeared. That's obviously absurd though. The 2000 Gt of CO2 that humans added to Earth's carbon budget went somewhere. And if you reject the idea that any of it found it's way into the atmosphere or the ocean then you have to find where it went because it didn't just disappear.

Furthermore, and setting aside the mystery of where human emissions actually went and the fact that ocean pH has decreased if you want to claim that human emissions are not a factor in the increase of atmospheric CO2 then you are left with the concern that nature suddenly and inexplicably started releasing non-fossil fuel based sources into the atmosphere all on its own and at an ever increasing pace. What physical process will stop this seemingly runaway effect? And when will that physical process activate to slow the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase and eventually cause the atmospheric concentration to decrease to bring it more inline with typical interglacial concentrations? Is there anything we can do to stop it or slow it down? And why now? Why after 10,000 years of this interglacial period did nature decide to go "bonkers" at the same time that humans industrialized?

 

We can provisionally dismiss it if we have reason to believe that the ice-core proxy measurements do not represent in a faithful 1:1 manner the actual measurements that we are wanting to obtain. As I have said several times already, measurements of the snow have shown that the surface-snow underestimates atmospheric CO2 by as much as 50%. This is due to the aforementioned fractionation processes such as gravitational compression (click here to see the paper explaining it) which forces CO2 out of the snow and up to the surface. Furthermore other paleo-climate data contradicts the ice-core data. Stomata shows atmospheric CO2 as high as 450ppmv. Chemical measurements contradict the ice-core data as well. There are over 90,000 direct empirical measurements of atmospheric CO2 (with a 3% error-margin) between 1812-1961 from 138 locations and sources showing CO2 as high as 440ppmv compiled by Georg Beck (2007). I am not the one “ignoring the data” here. There are also other issues with the ice-core data that I haven’t touched upon here yet, such as the difference in CO2 concentrations when using different extraction methods. The wet-extraction method for example shows CO2 concentrations as high as 900ppmv whereas the dry-extraction method shows lower concentrations.

Tree-rings as proxies for atmospheric CO2? Do you have any source for that? To the best of my knowledge, tree-rings are not used as proxies for atmospheric CO2. However the fact that the tree-ring data diverged unexpectedly and unpredictably from the instrumental temperature record post-1960 proved that tree-rings cannot serve as faithful temperature-proxies for times before there were instrumental records.

But is the ice-core data reasonably consistent? Quote from Jaworowski 1997: “The ice-core data from various polar sites are not consistent and there is a discrepancy between these data and geological climatic evidence. One such example is the discrepancy between the classic Antarctic Byrd and Vostok ice cores, where an important decrease in the CO2 content in the air bubbles occurred at the same depth of about 500 meters, but at which the ice age differed by about 16,000 years. In an approximately 14,000-year-old part of the Byrd core, a drop in the CO2 concentration of 50ppmv was observed, but in similarly old ice from the Vostok core, an increase of 60ppmv was found. In about 6,000-year-old ice from Camp Century, Greenland, the CO2 concentration in air bubbles was 420ppmv, but it was 270ppmv in similarly old ice from Byrd, Antarctica”.

I can only agree that you have understood nothing of what I have said.

Please release this bee from your bonnet. I have explained this several times now. The oceans could have absorbed more CO2 than they have outgassed due to the temperature-change. The oceans can simultaneously absorb CO2 and release CO2 into the atmosphere due to a temperature-change. Given that human emissions since the start of the industrial revolution amount to about 2,000 Gts in total (depending on who is doing the counting) then the 1:50 partitioning ratio of Henry’s law deems that only about 40 Gts of that would end up as a permanent addition to the atmospheric greenhouse at equilibrium. So about 1,960 Gts of human emissions should be absorbed by the oceans upon equilibrium in accordance with the 1:50 partitioning ratio of Henry’s law and near-equilibrium should be achieved relatively fast, within a few short decades. Now the *assumed* atmospheric CO2 increase since the industrial revolution has been about 1,000 Gts. That means that if the oceans were responsible for the increase in CO2 due to them warming then they would have absorbed more CO2 than they have outgassed. 1,960 is a bigger number than 1,000. So PCO2(aq) would increase and pH would decrease. This is entirely consistent with the theory.

Once again, you are assuming that the ice-core data is a valid proxy for paleo-atmospheric CO2. I have explained to you why this may not be the case. And what have you done with this new information? Pretty much ignored it. Oh well.

This discussion is getting a little tiresome. This may be my last reply. I have never once said that the 2,000 Gts of human CO2 “just disappeared”. That is your hobby-horse, not mine. I have repeatedly and consistently said that the majority of the 2,000 Gts of CO2 would be absorbed by the oceans.

I have answered this already, and here you are repeating it, sending us both around in circles. The temperature of the oceans is assumed to have warmed since the industrial revolution started in about 1850. The ocean contains around 146,800 Gts of CO2. Let us assume that the graph referenced in the article I linked to in my previous post is correct and increasing the temperature of water by 1C changes the solubility of CO2 by 4%. It would only take a warming of 0.2C of the entire oceans and a corresponding change in CO2’s solubility of 0.8% to increase atmospheric CO2 by about 1,000 Gts, thereby accounting for the entire CO2 increase. Hence it seems entirely feasible to me that the current observed increase in atmospheric CO2 could well be mainly the result of ocean-outgassing in response to temperature-changes rather than being due to CO2 emissions from industrialized human society.

The TCS and ECS estimations by some the papers in that list agree with my own calculations. By a childishly simple process of arithmetical reasoning based on the IPCC’s own data, I have calculated that the current rate of warming from a doubling of CO2 must be no more than 0.37C, which is risible of course and a far cry from the IPCC’s claim of 1C from a doubling of CO2 (without feedbacks).

 

Nobody is saying they are the gospel, but the world's best scientists have gone over this data with a fine toothed comb and the vast majority agree that our CO2 proxy records provide useful and trustworthy estimates especially over the current interglacial period. If you're only looking at the stuff the NoTricksZone or WUWT bloggers post then you're going to get a skewed perspective of what the scientific consensus is on the subject.

Yes. Tree rings provide useful isotope ratios. There is an obvious change in the carbon ratios starting somewhere between 1750 and 1850. For example there is a noticeable decline in the 14C ratios prior to WWII that then got masked out by the bomb spike. We know for an absolute fact that something began happening to Earth's carbon budget starting in the 19th century and that something had not been observed prior to industrialization.

Jaworowski's research is overwhelmingly rejected by his peers. Just like his theory that the Sun is THE driver of the climate today. That's why his various cooling predictions turn out to be wrong. He also cherry picks data to make points like when he cherry-picks 1998 (an El Nino year) to show that the Earth cooled up to 2009 (a La Nina year), which by the way it did. The problem is 3 fold. First, an 11 year period is too short to draw any conclusions about the climate. Second, you can't just decide to cherry-pick the perfect combination of El Nino and La Nina that best fit your worldview. And third, he clearly forgot to look and see what the hydrosphere was doing temperature wise which accounts for 90% of the heat uptake. At any rate he claims the Earth is headed for an ice age yet the Earth continues to warm despite declining solar output. Jaworowski's theories are not consistent with observations. He is not a credible source.

I think part of the problem here is the misapplication of Henry's Law. And maybe that is partly my fault because I frequently talk in terms of CO2 but in reality we need to be focused on atomic carbon and the different forms in which it can be found. Henry's Law only applies to aqueous CO2. The problem is that the ocean is buffering the carbon in forms other than just CO2. It also sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere by dissolving it via inorganic compunds like HCO3 and CO3. It is true that CO2 will be quickly partitioned in accordance with Henry's Law, but pCO2(aq) is very small compared to how it is sequestered by DIC (dissolved inorganic compounds). In fact, at the ocean surface pCO2(aq) only accounts for 1% of the sequestered carbon. HCO3 and CO3 account for the remaining fraction. The Revelle Factor is a quantification of the buffering capacity of the ocean to take on more CO2 and it is specifically derived as means for incorporating both aqueous uptake and dissolving uptake via DICs. The total rate at which CO2 can be taken up is inversely proportional to the Revelle Factor which is a braking term that limits how fast CO2 can be scrubbed from the atmosphere. The Revelle Factor is well established in oceanography. I think the best way to explain how Henry's Law is being misapplied here is that the partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean may not be what you're thinking because the uptake is only partially aqueous.

Both the amount and increase in CO2 in the atmosphere isn't "assumed". The increase is definitely 130 ppm which is equivalent to 1000 Gt of carbon dioxide or 250 Gt of atomic carbon. 500 Gt of carbon (and thus 2000 Gt of CO2) was added to Earth's carbon budget by humans. So all of this additional carbon that got added to the budget is because of humans. We are responsible for increasing the total carbon budget. The carbon can move from one medium to another and may be distributed to different mediums depending on the equilibrium processes that are in play for those mediums, but that in no way invalidates the fact that we are nearly 100% responsible for the net increase of the budget as a whole.

Applying the principals of both aqueous CO2 and dissolved inorganic compounds of carbon the consensus is that the ocean would have warmed by about 10C for it's net flux of CO2 to equal the 1000 Gt of CO2 in the atmosphere. The pH would have had to increase as well despite the fact that pH has a tendency to decrease with rising temperatures in pure water all other things being equally.

What is this childishly simple calculation that you speak of?

Also, keep in mind that the atmosphere warmed by 1.0C since 1960. During this period total solar irradiance was flat-to-declining. And not only did the atmosphere warm but the rate at which it warmed has slowly increased as well. It's the exact same scenario with the ocean which accounts for about 90% of the heat uptake. Everything has warmed and it has warmed at an increasing pace. This has occurred with a 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 from the preindustrial level of 280.

 

Sorry but I stopped reading after this.

"but the world's best scientists have gone over this data with a fine toothed comb and the vast majority agree"

 

Of course you stopped reading. Your worldview of the way science works is by finding and focusing on outlier datasets and outlier lines of research only. It's like if it's in anyway in opposition to the consensus then it must automatically be right. Your hubris and the hubris of the onesie-twosie scientists that you, NoTricksZone, or whoever find do not allow for the consideration that maybe it is you that is wrong even when the evidence you present has been refuted by the overwhelming majority of the worlds leading scientists on the subject.

 

Thanks for quoting that wall of text to respond with what amounts to nothing.

 

When your entire premise begins with everyone's saying it so it must be true I tune out.

 

I never said that though. What I'm saying is that when you want to challenge the overwhelming majority of the world's leading experts on a consensus then you better take a hard look at your evidence and make sure it is not you who have made a mistake. By all means publish your work if you think you have something. Just remember that when you want to challenge a mountain of evidence you need to be really convincing because you work is being judged against everything else. More often than not it is found that the lone dissenters are the ones making the mistakes and often they are egregious ones. And that's if they even present their findings to their peers at all.

 

Group think is often wrong and the lone dissenter is often right. The Washington scabland group thinkers spent decades laughing at the lone dissenter. Who's laughing now?

 

Yes. It does happen; just not very often. And when it does it happen it usually has these traits.

1. The new theory is presented to the scientific community for review.
2. The publication is accompanied with a convincing argument on how the consensus is wrong from the dissenters viewpoint.
3. The publication is accompanied with a convincing argument on how to achieve the right answer or better predictions with the new theory.
4. The new theory must be able to be applied by others in a repeatable and reproducible manner.
5. Must be confirmed by observations.
6. The above usually occurs as a result of a new fundamental concept that was previously unknown to the scientific community.

Let me present an example of what I'm talking about. Einstein's theory of General Relativity was presented to the scientific community. He convincingly showed that the precession of Mercury was difficult to reconcile with Newtonian Mechanics (actually this was already well established sans Einstein). He then presented a new theory that he claimed makes all the same predictions as Newtonian Mechanics but extends it such that the predictions are better. His theory was clearly documented and included the exact equations that anyone could use to get the same answers he did. And observations over the last 100 years have demonstrated remarkable agreement with his theory. And finally, he didn't completely invalidate the prevailing consensus at the time. He just showed that there was something new and fundamental that no one had considered that explained the limitations with the consensus and fixed them.

Contrast this with much of the dissension against AGW. Most of it just simply never gets presented to the climate science community. It comes in the form of blogger articles that are misinformed or who unintentionally (or even intentionally in some cases) mislead or misrepresent research. Of those that are willing to present their findings via peer review many do not have very convincing arguments that are able to stand up against the mountain of evidence. And most simply do not provide an alternate theory for explaining the observations. For example, how many dissenters have presented an explanation on the cooling of the stratosphere? Very few because it in conjunction with a warming troposphere and declining solar output is very difficult to reconcile. Still yet, other attempts don't match observations. Like Jaworowski, Easterbrook, Soon, Baliunas, D'Aleo, etc. predictions that the Earth would cool. And finally very few if any of these claims come if with a new idea. They are just rehashing old ideas over and over again that have been analyzed ad-nauseam. If it wasn't convincing 10, 20, or 50 years ago it's probably not going to be convincing today unless you can bring something new to the table.

I'm not saying AGW is the perfect theory. It's not and it never will be. There are shortcomings with it just like there are shortcomings with nearly all scientific theories. For example, earlier predictions over estimated mid tropospheric tropical warming and underestimated Arctic warming and Arctic sea ice melt rates. But despite all of that it still provides the best explanations and makes the best predictions among all of the ideas that have been brought to the table.

 

Then I assume you don't want to make dramatic changes in our economy and energy policies based on a hypothesis that is half baked and on that I would agree.

 

Between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics they make what is often called the worst prediction in all of science regarding the cosmological constant. Are you going to stop using GPS navigation or refuse an MRI for medical diagnosis?

And besides humans are going to make drastic changes to the economy and energy policies regardless of your viewpoint on climate change because we literally have no choice. Our current economic model and energy model is not sustainable. Fossil fuels are a finite resource that will run out. That is fact that not even you would deny.

 

Fossil fuels will become obselete before we run out of them and there is no good reason to force us onto more expensive and in many cases more polluting alternative energy based on a hypothesis that's full of holes and has numerous failed predictions.

 

In the first year after that was published, the scientific community had no less than 4 opportunities to test that aspect of GR, and has had hundreds since. By contrast, AFAIK, there do not even exist any rigorous test criteria for AGW.

Those are proven technologies which bear witness to at least some aspect of the theories which spawned their implementation. What proven technologies have been spawned by AGW theory?

 

Assume for a moment that what you say is true. We should still encourage the technological development of alternative energy sources because we want the United States to be leaders in this industry so that WE can be the ones making money off of it instead of being forced into paying somewhere else. Either way the world is going to move forward with or without us. We can either be leaders or followers. I'd rather be among the leaders.

 

I'm all for research into new age energy and your assumption that anyone who doesn't buy into AGW is an anti science flat earther is flawed. I'd even support tax dollars going into funding this research. What I'm against is artificially inflating the cost of fossil fuel to force us into alternative energy sources that ate not yet yet ripe and often more polluting than fossil fuels in the name of a hyped up failed hypothesis

 

That's a fair point and it's reasonable

 

It's November and wildfires are raging through California. When was the last time that happened?