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Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm

 

Climate change has done more good than harm so far and is likely to continue doing so for most of this century. This is not some barmy, right-wing fantasy; it is the consensus of expert opinion. Yet almost nobody seems to know this. Whenever I make the point in public, I am told by those who are paid to insult anybody who departs from climate alarm that I have got it embarrassingly wrong, don’t know what I am talking about, must be referring to Britain only, rather than the world as a whole, and so forth.

At first, I thought this was just their usual bluster. But then I realised that they are genuinely unaware. Good news is no news, which is why the mainstream media largely ignores all studies showing net benefits of climate change. And academics have not exactly been keen to push such analysis forward. So here follows, for possibly the first time in history, an entire article in the national press on the net benefits of climate change.

There are many likely effects of climate change: positive and negative, economic and ecological, humanitarian and financial. And if you aggregate them all, the overall effect is positive today — and likely to stay positive until around 2080. That was the conclusion of Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University after he reviewed 14 different studies of the effects of future climate trends.

To be precise, Prof Tol calculated that climate change would be beneficial up to 2.2˚C of warming from 2009 (when he wrote his paper). This means approximately 3˚C from pre-industrial levels, since about 0.8˚C of warming has happened in the last 150 years. The latest estimates of climate sensitivity suggest that such temperatures may not be reached till the end of the century — if at all. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports define the consensis, is sticking to older assumptions, however, which would mean net benefits till about 2080. Either way, it’s a long way off.

Now Prof Tol has a new paper, published as a chapter in a new book, called How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?, which is edited by Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, and was reviewed by a group of leading economists. In this paper he casts his gaze backwards to the last century. He concludes that climate change did indeed raise human and planetary welfare during the 20th century.

You can choose not to believe the studies Prof Tol has collated. Or you can say the net benefit is small (which it is), you can argue that the benefits have accrued more to rich countries than poor countries (which is true) or you can emphasise that after 2080 climate change would probably do net harm to the world (which may also be true). You can even say you do not trust the models involved (though they have proved more reliable than the temperature models). But what you cannot do is deny that this is the current consensus. If you wish to accept the consensus on temperature models, then you should accept the consensus on economic benefit.

Overall, Prof Tol finds that climate change in the past century improved human welfare. By how much? He calculates by 1.4 per cent of global economic output, rising to 1.5 per cent by 2025. For some people, this means the difference between survival and starvation.

It will still be 1.2 per cent around 2050 and will not turn negative until around 2080. In short, my children will be very old before global warming stops benefiting the world. Note that if the world continues to grow at 3 per cent a year, then the average person will be about nine times as rich in 2080 as she is today. So low-lying Bangladesh will be able to afford the same kind of flood defences(sic) that the Dutch have today.

The chief benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths; lower energy costs; better agricultural yields; probably fewer droughts; maybe richer biodiversity. It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths — not just in countries like Britain but also those with very warm summers, including Greece. Both Britain and Greece see mortality rates rise by 18 per cent each winter. Especially cold winters cause a rise in heart failures far greater than the rise in deaths during heatwaves.

Cold, not the heat, is the biggest killer. For the last decade, Brits have been dying from the cold at the average rate of 29,000 excess deaths each winter. Compare this to the heatwave ten years ago, which claimed 15,000 lives in France and just 2,000 in Britain. In the ten years since, there has been no summer death spike at all. Excess winter deaths hit the poor harder than the rich for the obvious reason: they cannot afford heating. And it is not just those at risk who benefit from moderate warming. Global warming has so far cut heating bills more than it has raised cooling bills. If it resumes after its current 17-year hiatus, and if the energy efficiency of our homes improves, then at some point the cost of cooling probably will exceed the cost of heating — probably from about 2035, Prof Tol estimates.

The greatest benefit from climate change comes not from temperature change but from carbon dioxide itself. It is not pollution, but the raw material from which plants make carbohydrates and thence proteins and fats. As it is an extremely rare trace gas in the air — less than 0.04 per cent of the air on average — plants struggle to absorb enough of it. On a windless, sunny day, a field of corn can suck half the carbon dioxide out of the air. Commercial greenhouse operators therefore pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses to raise plant growth rates.

The increase in average carbon dioxide levels over the past century, from 0.03 per cent to 0.04 per cent of the air, has had a measurable impact on plant growth rates. It is responsible for a startling change in the amount of greenery on the planet. As Dr Ranga Myneni of Boston University has documented, using three decades of satellite data, 31 per cent of the global vegetated area of the planet has become greener and just 3 per cent has become less green. This translates into a 14 per cent increase in productivity of ecosystems and has been observed in all vegetation types.

Dr Randall Donohue and colleagues of the CSIRO Land and Water department in Australia also analysed satellite data and found greening to be clearly attributable in part to the carbon dioxide fertilisation effect. Greening is especially pronounced in dry areas like the Sahel region of Africa, where satellites show a big increase in green vegetation since the 1970s.

It is often argued that global warming will hurt the world’s poorest hardest. What is seldom heard is that the decline of famines in the Sahel in recent years is partly due to more rainfall caused by moderate warming and partly due to more carbon dioxide itself: more greenery for goats to eat means more greenery left over for gazelles, so entire ecosystems have benefited.

Even polar bears are thriving so far, though this is mainly because of the cessation of hunting. None the less, it’s worth noting that the three years with the lowest polar bear cub survival in the western Hudson Bay (1974, 1984 and 1992) were the years when the sea ice was too thick for ringed seals to appear in good numbers in spring. Bears need broken ice.

Well yes, you may argue, but what about all the weather disasters caused by climate change? Entirely mythical — so far. The latest IPCC report is admirably frank about this, reporting ‘no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency offloads on a global scale … low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms’.

In fact, the death rate from droughts, floods and storms has dropped by 98 per cent since the 1920s, according to a careful study by the independent scholar Indur Goklany. Not because weather has become less dangerous but because people have gained better protection as they got richer: witness the remarkable success of cyclone warnings in India last week. That’s the thing about climate change — we will probably pocket the benefits and mitigate at least some of the harm by adapting. For example, experts now agree that malaria will continue its rapid worldwide decline whatever the climate does.

Yet cherry-picking the bad news remains rife. A remarkable example of this was the IPCC’s last report in 2007, which said that global warming would cause ‘hundreds of millions of people [to be] exposed to increased water stress’ under four different scenarios of future warming. It cited a study, which had also counted numbers of people at reduced risk of water stress — and in each case that number was higher. The IPCC simply omitted the positive numbers.

Why does this matter? Even if climate change does produce slightly more welfare for the next 70 years, why take the risk that it will do great harm thereafter? There is one obvious reason: climate policy is already doing harm. Building wind turbines, growing biofuels and substituting wood for coal in power stations — all policies designed explicitly to fight climate change — have had negligible effects on carbon dioxide emissions. But they have driven people into fuel poverty, made industries uncompetitive, driven up food prices, accelerated the destruction of forests, killed rare birds of prey, and divided communities. To name just some of the effects. Mr Goklany estimates that globally nearly 200,000 people are dying every year, because we are turning 5 per cent of the world’s grain crop into motor fuel instead of food: that pushes people into malnutrition and death. In this country, 65 people a day are dying because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly, according to Christine Liddell of the University of Ulster, yet the government is planning to double the cost of electricity to consumers by 2030.

As Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, the European Union will pay £165 billion for its current climate policies each and every year for the next 87 years. Britain’s climate policies — subsidising windmills, wood-burners, anaerobic digesters, electric vehicles and all the rest — is due to cost us £1.8 trillion over the course of this century. In exchange for that Brobdingnagian sum, we hope to lower the air temperature by about 0.005˚C — which will be undetectable by normal thermometers. The accepted consensus among economists is that every £100 spent fighting climate change brings £3 of benefit.

So we are doing real harm now to impede a change that will produce net benefits for 70 years. That’s like having radiotherapy because you are feeling too well. I just don’t share the certainty of so many in the green establishment that it’s worth it. It may be, but it may not.

Disclosure: by virtue of owning shares and land, I have some degree of interests in all almost all forms of energy generation: coal, wood, oil and gas, wind (reluctantly), nuclear, even biofuels, demand for which drives up wheat prices. I could probably make more money out of enthusiastically endorsing green energy than opposing it. So the argument presented here is not special pleading, just honest curiosity.

 https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/10/carry-on-warming/
 
 
Last edited by Jutu
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There might be a good reason for humans to continue to release more gaseous plant food into the atmosphere; it could save our descendants from starving. It should be noted that during the last glaciation that CO2 levels fell to around 180ppm, about 10ppm above the point where photosynthesis begins to halt depending on the plant species. During glaciation, CO2 is bound up in the colder oceans.

Stanky posted:

There might be a good reason for humans to continue to release more gaseous plant food into the atmosphere; it could save our descendants from starving. It should be noted that during the last glaciation that CO2 levels fell to around 180ppm, about 10ppm above the point where photosynthesis begins to halt depending on the plant species. During glaciation, CO2 is bound up in the colder oceans.

Its my understanding most of the modern vegetation evolved at about 400 to 410 ppm. When, it was higher more woody plants reigned -- which fed the large mammals of the day like the giant sloth. 

direstraits posted:
Stanky posted:

There might be a good reason for humans to continue to release more gaseous plant food into the atmosphere; it could save our descendants from starving. It should be noted that during the last glaciation that CO2 levels fell to around 180ppm, about 10ppm above the point where photosynthesis begins to halt depending on the plant species. During glaciation, CO2 is bound up in the colder oceans.

Its my understanding most of the modern vegetation evolved at about 400 to 410 ppm. When, it was higher more woody plants reigned -- which fed the large mammals of the day like the giant sloth. 

Actually optimum CO2 levels for growth are actually much higher than 400 ppm:  https://fifthseasongardening.c...ating-carbon-dioxide

However when the concentration goes below 170 ppm, photosynthesis starts to completely stop. The Earth has had much higher CO2 levels in the past and sometimes those levels occurred during cold periods such as the "Snowball Earth" period.

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III) 

https://climatechangedispatch.com/swimming-in-co2/

Jeff Jacoby: There are benefits from climate change

Excerpts:

In the church of climate alarmism, there may be no heresy more dangerous than the idea that the world will benefit from warming. Zealous preachers seek to scare their flock with forecasts of catastrophehorror, and threats to civilization. Anyone who demurs is denounced as an apostate: an anti-science “denier.”

But the truth — the inconvenient truth, to coin a phrase — is that while climate change brings negatives, it brings positives, too. Polar melting may cause dislocation for those who live in low-lying coastal areas, but it will also lead to safe commercial shipping in formerly inhospitable northern seas, and to economic opportunity for high-latitude residents.

A warming planet will also be a greener planet. Is a greener planet. Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have already led to “persistent and widespread increase” in leaf cover — i.e., greening — across as much as half of the world’s vegetated regions, according to a study published in Nature last year.

Alarmists mindlessly condemn atmospheric CO2 as “carbon pollution,” but carbon dioxide is essential to the health and growth of plant life. NASA satellites show that over the past 35 years, there has been an increase in world greenery equal in area to twice the continental United States. Climate change has been a particular blessing in Africa, where the “Sahel greening” has significantly reduced famine.

The effects of climate change range from the obvious (lower heating bills) to the subtle (more habitat for moose and endangered sharks). Territory formerly deemed too forbiddingly cold will grow more temperate — and valuable. Delicacies from lobster to blueberries may become more plentiful.

Bottom line? Global warming will bring gains as well as losses, upsides no less than downsides. Climate science isn’t a good-and-evil morality tale. Climate discourse shouldn’t be either.

More:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/op...Z84BPMOvO/story.html

 

Only problem is, at some point positive feedback loops will begin to take hold.  Such as, higher temperatures in the Arctic result in more permafrost melting which releases methane and more CO2, which results in higher temperatures in the Arctic resulting in more permafrost melting which releases methane and more CO2...   Permafrost melting is already occurring. 

https://www.livescience.com/63...acid-permafrost.html

 

 

OldSalt posted:

We’ll, if you want to believe her, there’s not much anyone can do for you. 

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.

 

Image result for AOC end times cartoons

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Last edited by Jutu
Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:

We’ll, if you want to believe her, there’s not much anyone can do for you. 

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.

 

Image result for AOC end times cartoons

Funny cartoon.  It appears that you and others confuse my support of science and scientific knowledge, as opposed to political propaganda, with some political inclination.  So, I challenge you to find any post in which I expressed support for HRC or OAC or her Green New Deal or the Democrat Party.  I don’t like Trump either.   I am neither Democrat nor Republican. If you want you can label me independent or libertarian.  If you want to attempt to refute anything I post please do so. 

OldSalt posted:
Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:

We’ll, if you want to believe her, there’s not much anyone can do for you. 

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.

 

Image result for AOC end times cartoons

Funny cartoon.  It appears that you and others confuse my support of science and scientific knowledge, as opposed to political propaganda, with some political inclination.  So, I challenge you to find any post in which I expressed support for HRC or OAC or her Green New Deal or the Democrat Party.  I don’t like Trump either.   I am neither Democrat nor Republican. If you want you can label me independent or libertarian.  If you want to attempt to refute anything I post please do so. 

I want you to show me where I said you did support her. You made a comment about me believing her and I responded explaining why I posted what I did. The way dems put words in other's mouths, twist meanings and alter facts, name call and try to belittle others is one reason I do not read or respond to  them here, and you just did the exact same "putting words in my mouth" thing. I made this thread because I believe differently than you and put another thought out there for others to consider. I have no interest in arguing with you or I would have done it on your thread. I don't care what you think of Trump....and imo independents are only liberals by another name.

Last edited by Jutu
Jutu posted

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.”

 

If you did not mean this as an attempt to associate me with AOC then I apologize for the accusation. But, it was you that introduced AOC into the dialogue in response to my post. 

OldSalt posted:
Jutu posted

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.”

 

If you did not mean this as an attempt to associate me with AOC then I apologize for the accusation. But, it was you that introduced AOC into the dialogue in response to my post. 

Yes, I introduced her.... to be sarcastic and non-argumentative...maybe dismissive because as I said....I have different ideas and I'm not going to argue about it, I'll just give my thoughts on it.

Last edited by Jutu

Wiki has a couple of graphs that illustrate how the warmists misuse data

Note, in the first graph, how, for the last six thousand years, sea level rise (measured in meters) leveled off.

Then, note the last 25 years how the sea level rises per the graph.  Its measured in 3.3 millimeters, annually.  Figures don't lie. But, liars figure. 

Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:
Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:

We’ll, if you want to believe her, there’s not much anyone can do for you. 

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.

 

Image result for AOC end times cartoons

Funny cartoon.  It appears that you and others confuse my support of science and scientific knowledge, as opposed to political propaganda, with some political inclination.  So, I challenge you to find any post in which I expressed support for HRC or OAC or her Green New Deal or the Democrat Party.  I don’t like Trump either.   I am neither Democrat nor Republican. If you want you can label me independent or libertarian.  If you want to attempt to refute anything I post please do so. 

I want you to show me where I said you did support her. You made a comment about me believing her and I responded explaining why I posted what I did. The way dems put words in other's mouths, twist meanings and alter facts, name call and try to belittle others is one reason I do not read or respond to  them here, and you just did the exact same "putting words in my mouth" thing. I made this thread because I believe differently than you and put another thought out there for others to consider. I have no interest in arguing with you or I would have done it on your thread. I don't care what you think of Trump....and imo independents are only liberals by another name.

Who mentioned HRC?

direstraits posted:

Wiki has a couple of graphs that illustrate how the warmists misuse data

Note, in the first graph, how, for the last six thousand years, sea level rise (measured in meters) leveled off.

Then, note the last 25 years how the sea level rises per the graph.  Its measured in 3.3 millimeters, annually.  Figures don't lie. But, liars figure. 

Hardly a misuse of data.  It is appropriate to use different graphs to illustrate different time scales. 

How would climate deniers analyze these graphs?  'Since the last Ice Age, sea levels have risen 150 meters.  But, between 1997 and 1998 and again from 2010 to 2011, sea levels actually fell 10 millimeters.'

giftedamateur posted:
Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:
Jutu posted:
OldSalt posted:

We’ll, if you want to believe her, there’s not much anyone can do for you. 

Sarcasm.....and I'm not the one pushing, and seeming to believe, the kind of stuff she preaches. She makes people less inclined to try and save the world if it was true if it means saving the ones like her and her kind.

 

Image result for AOC end times cartoons

Funny cartoon.  It appears that you and others confuse my support of science and scientific knowledge, as opposed to political propaganda, with some political inclination.  So, I challenge you to find any post in which I expressed support for HRC or OAC or her Green New Deal or the Democrat Party.  I don’t like Trump either.   I am neither Democrat nor Republican. If you want you can label me independent or libertarian.  If you want to attempt to refute anything I post please do so. 

I want you to show me where I said you did support her. You made a comment about me believing her and I responded explaining why I posted what I did. The way dems put words in other's mouths, twist meanings and alter facts, name call and try to belittle others is one reason I do not read or respond to  them here, and you just did the exact same "putting words in my mouth" thing. I made this thread because I believe differently than you and put another thought out there for others to consider. I have no interest in arguing with you or I would have done it on your thread. I don't care what you think of Trump....and imo independents are only liberals by another name.

Who mentioned HRC?

Hmmmm....more of that putting words in people's mouths. Then they go off and say...."they always bring up Hillary".

Last edited by Jutu
OldSalt posted:
direstraits posted:

Wiki has a couple of graphs that illustrate how the warmists misuse data

Note, in the first graph, how, for the last six thousand years, sea level rise (measured in meters) leveled off.

Then, note the last 25 years how the sea level rises per the graph.  Its measured in 3.3 millimeters, annually.  Figures don't lie. But, liars figure. 

Hardly a misuse of data.  It is appropriate to use different graphs to illustrate different time scales. 

How would climate deniers analyze these graphs?  'Since the last Ice Age, sea levels have risen 150 meters.  But, between 1997 and 1998 and again from 2010 to 2011, sea levels actually fell 10 millimeters.'

The graphs are used in warmist propaganda to show almost no increase for a considerable time.  Then, a sudden rise in sea level over the past few years.  Never mind, that its minuscule, as best.

direstraits posted:
OldSalt posted:
direstraits posted:

Wiki has a couple of graphs that illustrate how the warmists misuse data

Note, in the first graph, how, for the last six thousand years, sea level rise (measured in meters) leveled off.

Then, note the last 25 years how the sea level rises per the graph.  Its measured in 3.3 millimeters, annually.  Figures don't lie. But, liars figure. 

Hardly a misuse of data.  It is appropriate to use different graphs to illustrate different time scales. 

How would climate deniers analyze these graphs?  'Since the last Ice Age, sea levels have risen 150 meters.  But, between 1997 and 1998 and again from 2010 to 2011, sea levels actually fell 10 millimeters.'

The graphs are used in warmist propaganda to show almost no increase for a considerable time.  Then, a sudden rise in sea level over the past few years.  Never mind, that its minuscule, as best.

Really?  Someone doesn't understand the difference between a meter and a millimeter or the difference between 2000 years and 5 years so it's the scientists fault? 

OldSalt posted:
direstraits posted:
OldSalt posted:
direstraits posted:

Wiki has a couple of graphs that illustrate how the warmists misuse data

Note, in the first graph, how, for the last six thousand years, sea level rise (measured in meters) leveled off.

Then, note the last 25 years how the sea level rises per the graph.  Its measured in 3.3 millimeters, annually.  Figures don't lie. But, liars figure. 

Hardly a misuse of data.  It is appropriate to use different graphs to illustrate different time scales. 

How would climate deniers analyze these graphs?  'Since the last Ice Age, sea levels have risen 150 meters.  But, between 1997 and 1998 and again from 2010 to 2011, sea levels actually fell 10 millimeters.'

The graphs are used in warmist propaganda to show almost no increase for a considerable time.  Then, a sudden rise in sea level over the past few years.  Never mind, that its minuscule, as best.

Really?  Someone doesn't understand the difference between a meter and a millimeter or the difference between 2000 years and 5 years so it's the scientists fault? 

One more time, the graphs are used by the Warmists as propaganda. Frequently, the measures are left out. Or, the measurement for the 25 year graph is left out. 

giftedamateur posted:

I see some can't stand the differing view that climate change can be good, and runs in trying to force their opinion on others. As has been posted, who would be interested in saving the world for them.

If opinions or facts different from the opinion of the majority or the powerful are stifled to such an extent that only the opinions of the majority and the powerful are allowed, History has shown that we end up with things like the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France, or the Holocaust in World War II National Socialist Germany.

I'm sorry that you don't like it when I post facts which argue against your opinions or opinions which differ from yours. 

Ava Martinez poked fun at the freshman congresswoman’s Green New Deal, also showing off her brand new pink "electric car" in the short clip.

"Like, hello America, AOC here again, but this time from Washington, D.C., which is named after our country's first president, George Washington D.C. Like, did you know that?" impersonator Ava Martinez began.

"I came up with my plan after we were watching, like, the most important documentary on climate change. It’s called 'Ice Age 2: The Meltdown,'" the mini AOC told her fans. "That’s not me saying it, that’s science! My Green New Deal will cost, like, 93 trillion dollars. Do you know how much that is? Me neither. Because it’s totally worth it. If sea levels keep rising, we won’t be able to drive to Hawaii anymore!"

The young actress then showed off what she referred to was her  "electric car" she bought as well as for her boyfriend, Riley Roberts.

"I just got this electric car. It’s eco-friendly. Everyone has to drive one under my deal. And that’s why I bought one for my boyfriend, too, Riley, using campaign donations. Well, you bought it for him. Did you know that?" she said.

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...nator-green-new-deal

Last edited by Jutu

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