Re: There’s science behind all this (Times, August 10).
Since my last email a few days ago, a new paper has been released by the Global Climate Intelligence Group.
Since some of your correspondents place a high value on the credentials of scientists, I should point out that the lead signatory on the paper is Nobel Laureate Professor Ivar Giaever.
I don’t know if he’s as smart as a NASA Climate Model Scientist, but I presume he needs to be pretty smart to be a professor with a Nobel prize.
The paper is co-signed by over 1100 scientists from around the world, who are prepared to put their names to this paper.
The paper notes “There is no climate emergency”: https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/. There is a PDF version of the paper available at the web site.
The paper is brief, but the headline points are:
- Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
- Warming is far slower than predicted
- Climate policy relies on inadequate models
- CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
- Global warming has not increased natural disasters
- Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities
They also make this point, which I think gets to the crux of the debate:
“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in.”
A lot of people seem to believe that climate models are infallible predictive products from people who already know how everything works. Except that is not what they are.
Computer models are amazing things, but they are still just computer programs that simulate how scientists suspect things work in real life. They can be made to produce any result you want just by changing a few numbers.
When real life then doesn’t match the models, then the models are wrong and need adjusting. But what often seems to happen in climate science is that anything but the model is blamed when the model doesn’t match reality.
Models are fantastic tools for learning, but poor tools for prediction of anything we don’t already have complete control over.
Anyone who proposes turning society upside-down based on computer models of anything is either a fool or evil. Or both.
Ryan Price,
Half Moon Bay
