This month’s open thread. Lots of salient stuff this month so please try and stay focused and constructive!
Reader Interactions
342 Responses to "Unforced variations: Oct 2025"
Comment Policy:Please note that if your comment repeats a point you have already made, or is abusive, or is the nth comment you have posted in a very short amount of time, please reflect on the whether you are using your time online to maximum efficiency. Thanks.
bad or worse than that of the denialist Bjorn Lomborg … ?
Even Dr. Hansen showed how … ?
Sockpuppet account … ?
When else fails, exposed, then caught denying it, just keep throwing mud at the wall. Standing there Naked in plain view. Desperate. Even going as far as to even quote Dr Hansen! You really got it bad, don’t you? lol
nigelj says
1 Oct 2025 at 1:28 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840069
On August 14, 2006, Dr. James E. Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
testified in the case of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers et. al. v. the Secretary of Vermont, Agency of Natural Resources et. al. with regard to climate change. It should be noted that this testimony is the personal opinion of a private citizen
How in god’s name did you find that reference? AI? Could anyone have found anything more obscure? A+ for effort though nigel. It is a very long bow to be drawing. Using a 30 year old third party hearsay “report”. I’m not going to accept it. ymmv. Get me either a verbatim in context transcript or a credible confirmation from Hansen. Email him.
Then we’ll talk about the proper context of 3 major very detailed very long peer reviewed papers he has published since then, which contrary to the disinformation by MAR +2, shows Hansen saying nothing of a kind, making no such a projection, or prediction nor what he expects.
It does not fit the standard to satisfy me in the context of what I was addressing here. Nor relates scientifically to the false assertions being laid against him based on invalid illogical interpretations of his climate science papers, imo. Fundamentally MAR, Piotr, AS are not credible, period. Sorry. For now I’ll stick to my comment Mo Yunus 30 Sep 2025 at 10:09 PM, in full.
For the benefit of those you’re trying to disinform:
– Sea level rise #1
– Sea level rise #2
– Dr. Hansen’s claims (from MA Rodger)
Disregarding the rest of what you write since you didn’t substantively deal with the cited evidence, as usual (much as with your prior banned sockpuppet accounts).
Reply to Atomsk’s Sanakan (IKSU – Internet KIA Spammers Unlimited)
Lessons never learned by MA Rodger, Atomsk’s Sanakan and Piotr (others?) especially in regard the published work by Hansen et al.
Science is very competitive, and scientists guard their independence fiercely. For them to agree on even one thing is major effort. Thus there will always be a range of opinions and methods on any topic and people who will cling strongly to them. The desire and culture of assessments (such as the IPCC) arose specifically in order to distill that broad range across individual scientists into a more coherent and better balanced assessment that a larger majority of experts will agree to.
says Axel Schwieger
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/but-you-said-the-ice-was-going-to-disappear-in-10-years/
Being in the current Majority does not make it 100% correct where everyone else is 100% wrong. Far from it. That is not how Science works. That’s only how the IPCC Distilled Assessment Summaries work. Once upon a time that distillation was saying the first Arctic BoE would not be occurring until the 2090s. The IPCC were wrong back then. Everyone is wrong from one day to the next in some form–be they scientists or the general public. Spending your whole life on the Internet “catching people out” while remaining closed minded is a road to nowhere. Your current location in fact.
====
imo SLR ECS and ASI loss carry similar constraints complexities and confusions regarding accurate predictions. And the multitude of opinions thereof from alsoran flakes online.
Consider ASI Thickness / volume (PIOMAS, ICESat-2, CryoSat-2, etc.) is Physically more important for BOE because volume = area × thickness — losing thickness (especially multi-year ice) is the core of long-term decline. PIOMAS is a model-assimilation product that produces complete gridded thickness and total Arctic volume and has been extensively validated; it is smooth and continuous (no sampling gaps)
Extent/area measurements tend to show less sampling noise and are extremely robust for detecting the September minimum in any given year because passive-microwave provides full coverage daily.
However, Volume / thickness (PIOMAS) typically gives a cleaner picture of the long-term decline because it integrates thickness loss that is the driver of long-term ice loss. PIOMAS’s assimilation and model physics reduce high-frequency sampling noise, making decadal trends easier to detect — but model structural uncertainty must be accounted for. PIOMAS trend uncertainties are non-negligible.
20 years ago this was not the case. The data measurements have improved as has the modelling. Similarly in EEI, Albedo, aerosol, OHC, SSTs and SLR measurement. Even our scientific understanding of PaleoClimate science has improved.
Today. the Validation of PIOMAS against ICESat-2 and CryoSat shows reasonable agreement. Multiple groups (Labe, Petty, Kwok, Tilling) now treat volume/thickness as the main diagnostic for state of the Arctic ice pack. So I am the one here who represents the current climate science consensus among today’s experts.
Hansen may well still be an outlier today, but nothing lasts forever. Eventually “consensus climate science” always catches up with reality and the physics.
Being wrong is not the end of the world. Unless being right and winning every argument on the Internet means everything to you.
– Tomáš Kalisz: ““Mo Yunus” is in fact identical with Ned Kelly, Sabine, William, Dharma, Poor Peru, Pedro Prieto, Thomas, Fact Checker and myriads of further accounts behaving the same way that appeared meanwhile and finally have been all identified by Dr. Schmidt as brands of the same troll factory”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/but-you-said-the-ice-was-going-to-disappear-in-10-years/#comment-840106
– Barton Paul Levenson: “I agree with Susan and Tomáš. Mo Yunis and his many aliases should be banned. Isn’t it against the blog rules to use sock puppets?”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840380
– David: “Why employee frequent name changes (IP addresses too?) to evade deletion of your comments?”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840383
Firstly, just want to affirm that Atomsk is one of the better informed and more reasonable scientific commenters here. The tone trolling is sad, and each of us has a tendency to use insults as arguments sometimes, which isn’t helpful. To this I repeat my complaint about giving prominence to arguments y;’all wish to discredit, which backfires too often.
However the problem with Mo Yunus isn’t, imho, sock puppetry and/or multi-trollism. It might be the overuse of AI, which allows proliferation and volume at a scale which hinders human discussion. But even more, afaics, is the apparent need to attack potential allies and refuse to acknowledge that we humans need each other. I call it vanity posting because of the volume it consumes here. Perhaps he (she) has nothing better to do, but wasting his own time and ours is not a useful activity, and runs counter to the purpose of RealClimate, which is to inform and elucidate in this time of delusion and lies.
Being part of the correct 1%, or even 0.1%, even if it’s true, gives aid and comfort to the real enemies, the liars and bullies and profiteers of toxic waste, global warming in all its variety of dangers, victim blaming, violence, etc.
SA: But even more, afaics, is the apparent need to attack potential allies and refuse to acknowledge that we humans need each other.
BPL: That’s the thing–he’s not an ally, and he doesn’t consider us allies. Either he’s in love with doomerism, which we are not, or he’s a Russian troll, in which case he doesn’t care about global warming one way or the other but is deliberately wasting our time and sowing confusion.
In Re to Susan Anderson, 8 Oct 2025 at 1:22 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840457
Dear Susan,
“Mo Yunus” does not shame blaming Ukraine for alleged “genocide of Russian people” and alleged “proxy war of NATO/USA/EU” against Russia, see e.g. his posts of 7 Oct 2025 at 11:33 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840392 ,
or of 6 Oct 2025 at 6:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840346 ,
or similar posts by Willliam, Dharma, Complicius, Ned Kelly and other of his earlier alter egos.
Disregard by Atomsk’s Sanakan is thus, in my opinion, more than justified.
It appears, however, that you may consider presenting the victims of an aggressive war as its perpetrator by “Mo Yunus” a cavalier offense compared to his AI overuse, and that you count him still as a “part of the correct 1%, or even 0.1%”, contrary to “the real enemies, the liars and bullies and profiteers of toxic waste, global warming in all its variety of dangers”.
If so, I would like to offer still another reason why you perhaps should not trust him so much.
Petr Macinka, the leader of the party “Motorists for themselves” with that Mr. Andrej Babiš,
praised by “Mo Yunus” on 5 Oct 2025 at 1:22 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840243 ,
for defeating “Brussels dogma”,
currently prepares the new Czech government,
demonstrated his party attitude to environment protection by his choice of Dodge RAM as the most suitable vehicle for city traffic in Prague:
https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/volby-do-poslanecke-snemovny-glosa-mysleli-jste-ze-se-vidlak-nedostal-do-snemovny-omyl-288412 .
“Mo Yunus” obviously shares Mr. Babiš’s idea who is the right candidate for Czech Minister of the Environment.
Nevertheless, please feel free to ignore my warnings, because, as correctly observed by “Mo Yunus”, I am merely a “hateful uneducated sealioning Denier Troll”.
With “Mo Yunus” as an ally, the Earth climate may not need to afraid enemies like me anymore.
Best regards
Tomáš
No, Bart, you’re commenting style is THE problem. Using “doomerism” as a pejorative is immature; It’s name-calling. Beyond that, it’s foolish and illogical: The worst case scenario IS societal collapse, then human extinction, due to ecological collapse.
It doesn’t matter how much this goes against your science fundamentalism, how much it scares you, or just outright bigotry against anyone you disagree with, because these are real possibilities handed down BY SCIENTISTs. So if you have a problem with “doomerism,” then you have a problem with scientists, science, logic, and risk analysis.
All this makes you, and others here, THE problem.
You always have been. You have been attacking allies for AT LEAST ten years. Again, all documented a few years ago in my analysis/presentation of just exactly when and how the worm turned on this site.
Serious times, for serious people. You refuse to be serious and should be roundly ignored until that changes.
Killian says: “No, Bart, you’re commenting style is THE problem. Using “doomerism” as a pejorative is immature; It’s name-calling. Beyond that, it’s foolish and illogical: The worst case scenario IS societal collapse, then human extinction, due to ecological collapse.”
You have misinterpreted what people here mean by doomerism. Doomerism is not a belief that climate change would be so serious to cause societal collapse “per se”. Doomerism is a belief that “theres nothing we can do to stop catastrophic climate change”. In other words we are doomed.
Google Gemini overview of climate change doomerism: “Climate change doomerism is defined as the belief that it is too late to prevent catastrophic climate change, leading to feelings of hopelessness and inaction. This “doomist” perspective suggests that the battle against global warming is lost and that humanity is on a path toward collapse or extinction, despite expert consensus that it is not too late to avoid the worst impacts.”
This is what MY is saying or how he comes across. I don’t accept that we are doomed and that there’s no solution. Neither does BPL. Obviously you don’t accept that there is no solution.
Quite how climate change would cause extinction of the human race eludes me and most others here. Please provide a citation to a published study. Even the very worst case warming would not make the entire planet completely uninhabitable for humans and kill off every living plant and animal. Some humans would survive. Some food would still grow. You dont need a study to see this. There is however credible evidence climate change could kill hundreds of millions of people over time through various mechanisms and yes you could get local ecological collapse in some regions to the point nothing would grow but its hard to see this spreading to the whole planet.
Re: “Firstly, just want to affirm that Atomsk is one of the better informed and more reasonable scientific commenters here.”
Thank you, and I appreciate your comments are well.
Re: “To this I repeat my complaint about giving prominence to arguments y;’all wish to discredit, which backfires too often.”
Fair enough. To balance it out I’ll promote some arguments I agree with, in case folks here are interested. The science communicator Dave Farina, a.k.a. ‘Professor Dave Explains’ on Youtube, recently did a video a debunking the lukewarmism of the zoologist Dr. Matt Ridley. That, by extension, debunks the lukewarmism promoted by a lot of political conservatives, as discussed in my comment here. Dave’s video covers several topics, including model-based warming projections, dangerous anthropogenic warming, and sea level rise acceleration. He also discusses Dr. Ridley’s incorrect claims in other fields of science, such as the origin of COVID-19 pandemic. The videos ends with Dave interviewing Professor Andrew Dessler.
Here’s the video, with a comment at the bottom that includes time-stamps to skip to different sections of the video. I recommend listening at 1.5x speed since the video is long. Feel free to share the videos with others, if you’d like. But fair warning: Dave uses some obscenities and insults.
There’s some discussion of Dave’s video at Skeptical Science. And here’s other commentary on the video:
If you’re curious about some of Dave’s other work on topics like astronomy and physics, then see the following:
K: All this makes you, and others here, THE problem.
BPL: You are a shining example of righteousness amid a world of evildoers.
Atomsk’s Sanakan, 10 Oct 2025 at 3:17 PM
Thanks for the link. I took a look, but it only affirms what I’ve been observing since the 1990s. There are many intelligent people and good communicators spreading the truth about the likes of Matt Ridley. I’m glad to know about Professor Dave whose credentials are superb, but 10 minutes was sufficient to go over familiar terrain.
Way OT, but since I’m here I just picked up John Oliver’s piece on Bari Weiss, now in charge of one of the few remaining media outlets open to facts outside the maga universe (including honest climate change/weather discussions, not discussed in JO’s video). It may be paywalled for 30 days if you’re outside the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieTx_P6INQ
Europe’s Strategic Disease
Kishore Mahbubani is a Singaporean diplomat who has served for ten years as as ambassador to the United Nations. His talks about global policies and their development are always of interest. 22:54 min ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayHXpoJxA2E
The Mahbubani diagnosis of Europe’s disease is in my view correct. it will affect everything including what happen with climate action inaction, climate science resources, and outcomes. If the EU can survive this decade is questionable today.
I want to emphasize that the in current situation the key word you got to understand is complexity. [The world] is extremely complex because there are a lot of moving parts all the time. So for a start clearly and at the at the highest strategic level as you know in the cold war was bipolar the cold war ended and it became unipolar. And now we have what you have a strange combination of both a bipolar and multipolar world.
[…]
But there are also other powers [besides the U.S., China and India] that are clearly changing the situation.
Again, clearly Russia matters, right? And the biggest strategic mistake that the Europeans made in dealing with Russia is that they only look at the size of its economy and didn’t look at the overall national strength and their military capability.
So the Ukraine war could have been avoided if the Europeans had just shown some degree of respect for Russia’s own long-term strategic interests. And the tragedy of the Europeans trying to punish the rest of the world for buying Russian oil is that they could have avoided this war with Russia if they had shown some strategic common sense in dealing with Russia.
Kishore Mahbubani later blames the error on the serious lack of abilities of the current crop of European leaders:
So all that is what I mean with complexity. It is not a simple black and white chessboard, you know, it’s extremely complex and you got to watch all the moving parts.
The people who can get the big picture are the ones who will succeed and thrive and those who don’t, like the Europeans, sadly .. .
The Europeans live in a delusionary world, and I mean that quite seriously because they, you know if you just look at the photograph of the European leaders sitting on sofas in front of the school teacher Donald Trump at his desk lecturing these European leaders. They look like school children. I mean the optics itself captured what had happened.
And for a respected prime minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, whom I met, who is a very thoughtful intelligent guy by the way, for him to call Trump daddy? I mean it shows you that something has gone wrong.
So this actually I must tell you: In my last conversation with Kissinger he told me candidly that the quality of mind of these Europeans has gone down so much they don’t understand how much the world has changed. So this is an example of where – if you understand the world you can navigate through it, but if you don’t understand the world, like the Europeans, they seem to be in trouble.
Kishore Mahbubani; Check him out, he is no fool.
A comment on Multitroll “Yunus”, 13 OCT 2025 AT 7:44 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840693
A problem that I have with the cited view of Mr. Kishore Mahbubani consists in the circumstance that Russian government believes, in accord with majority of Russian population, that their main “long term strategic interest” is subjugating as many other nations as possible.
In this respect, I do not think that Mr. Mabubhani’s advice (that Russian interest should be “respected”) may be useful for anyone except Russia.
Mo Yunus: – (re your comment in the Sep 2025 thread at 30 Sep 2025 at 10:09 PM): – “I restate that James Hansen has never projected nor asserted not predicted nor even partially hinted at a +5 m SLR by 2100. Not once not ever.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840065
In the 2023 Hansen et al. paper titled Global warming in the pipeline, it included in the pdf version on page 24 (bold text my emphasis):
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published a YouTube video on 3 Nov 2023 titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23. The event was moderated by Professor Jeffrey Sachs and featured interventions by the following individuals:
• Dr. James Hansen, Lead Author and Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute
• Leon Simons, The Club of Rome Netherlands, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
• Dr. Norman G. Loeb, CERES Principal Investigator, NASA
• Dr. George Tselioudis, Author and Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Dr. Pushker Kharecha, Author and Associate Research Scientist, Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia Climate School
From time interval 0:17:03, James Hansen said:
“The 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the 2 degree limit can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to effect Earth’s Energy Balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide, and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.”
https://youtu.be/NXDWpBlPCY8?t=1023
From time interval 1:04:03, James Hansen on tipping points said (bold text my emphasis):
“Yeah, the most important tipping point is the, the Antarctic ice sheet, and in particular the Thwaites ah, Glacier, which who’s grounding line has been moving inland at a rate of about a kilometre per year, and ha, in another 20 years, it will reach a point where it, it… the, the um, bed ah, is so-called ah, retrograde bed, so it gets deeper. The Antarctic ice sheet sits on bedrock below sea level, but it gets deeper as you go towards the centre of the continent, and it gets… It hits a canyon in about 20-years if we continue at one kilometre ah, per year. When it hits that canyon you’re going to get very rapid disintegration of that glacier, which is basically the cork that’s holding ah, a lot of the West Antarctic ice ah, in the bottle. So we don’t want to get there. And if we want to prevent, to slow down, and even stop the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet we have to cool off the planet. That’s, um… And, and we need to do that because, hah, more than half the large global cities in the world are on coastlines, and there are a lot of lowlands. Ah, so, that, that’s the tipping point which ah, I think dominates. But it so happens that there’s so many other ah, climate impacts that we would be getting to see and it would be much more if we go beyond two degrees, that there are many reasons to want to cool off the planet. If we want to keep a planet that looks more or less like the one that has existed the last ten thousand years, we actually have to cool off the planet back to a Holocene-level temperature, and that’s possible, but it’s not easy.”
https://youtu.be/NXDWpBlPCY8?t=3843
The ice contained in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has the potential to raise sea levels by about 3.3 metres if it were to completely melt into the ocean.
Mo Yunus: – (re your comment in the Sep 2025 thread at 30 Sep 2025 at 6:23 PM): – “Recommend seeing every slide (and reading the details therein) produced by Geoff. Excellent.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840059
Thanks for your comments.
Parliamentary documents, including submissions to the NSW Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege. These privileges are rooted in ancient rights, such as Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688, which states that parliamentary debates and proceedings should not be questioned in any court outside Parliament.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lc/articles/Documents/Parliamentary%20Privilege%20in%20New%20South%20Wales%20-%20Stephen%20Frappell%20-%202019%20Law%20Down%20Under%20conference.pdf
Parliamentary privilege does not extend when re-publishing elsewhere.
Mo Yunus, perhaps you may wish to highlight my Submission to your local politicians/representatives?
I find phoning the local electorate office and speaking directly with a staffer is best because you get actual eyeballs looking at it while you talk with them. The risk with an email is you don’t know whether anyone actually looks at it adequately and then discards it.
To guide your electoral office staffer over the phone:
1. Ask the staffer if they are at a computer with access to the internet.
2. Ask them to websearch: NSW parliament inquiries
The first entry in the search list should be:
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiries.aspx?hr=all&status=all&submissions=all&parlId=200&index=1
3. Ask them to scroll down the list to find the inquiry commenced 26 Jun 2025, titled Emissions from the fossil fuel sector, by the Joint Standing Committee on Net Zero Future, and click on the link to take them to the inquiry webpage at:
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=3113
4. Ask them to click on the Submissions tab and scroll down the list to my Submission (#26)
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
5. Ask them to download the Submission (#26)
6. Highlight to the staffer what you think is most important to you that your political representative should be made aware of.
The process should take only a few minutes, and you then know a staffer has actually seen the information and heard your concerns, which can then be put to your political representatives.
Reply to Geoff Miell
Thanks for your comment and information. I used to do this contacting of representatives decades ago, often. I’ve moved on and now leave it to others better qualified more capable. I also believe such small time activism is pointless now. Whatever will be will be. Only those with ral power and wealth can influence things now – short of mass revolution, and that’s about as likely as a meteorite hitting earth next week. Don’t Look Up showed us reality, imo.
FYI recently I attended a local govt information gathering about climate change, and got to speak with some nice climate science related PhD graduates now employed by Govt; in climate change adaption dept; and I discussed the info presented by Hansen et al being maybe things will be worse than currently expected, re flooding, wildfires, heatwaves etc. They had never heard of him. Let alone any recent climate info he’s presented. Nor were they interested. All their “work” must fit within the guidelines of the IPCC Assessment output, US Gov / NASEM etc. Copernicus etc, or the national governments accepted climate science parameters.
They cannot grab hold of a peer reviewed Paper saying X could be worse, and then integrate into their Governments analysis or plans.
I think that should place matters in the proper perspective Geoff. Though it is fun to argue the point with those stuck in the mud online of what might be. lol
MY: Sockpuppet account … ?
When else fails, exposed, then caught denying it, just keep throwing mud at the wall.
BPL: Oh, come off it. Your sock puppets are easy to notice because you all talk alike. Same attitude, same positions, same endless insults and snobbery. Wherever you go, there you are–you can change your screen name, but you can’t stop being yourself.
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
Oh please. I can sound like anyone I want — that’s not bragging, it’s just reality. I work with AI tools and I can train them to echo anyone’s style, including yours, Barton. If I wanted to, I could write a post in your exact cadence, with your pet peeves and punchlines, and nobody here would know the difference.
But the important thing is the substance. Trump and his MAGA cult are a danger to democracy, fossil fuel companies are lying us all into catastrophe, and climate denial trolls — especially the ones who keep showing up here on RC — are nothing but noise. They recycle the same empty talking points, ignore data, and then whine about “free speech” when called out.
So yes, I could sound like you, Barton, or like anyone else. But sounding like you isn’t the same as being right. What matters is evidence, logic, and moral clarity — things the deniers will never manage, no matter what “nym” they hide behind.
Yup, it’s glaringly obvious, even among people who don’t agree on much else. I disagree with Tomáš Kalisz quite a bit. Yet we can both tell it’s a sockpuppet account. At least Tomáš has the honesty to let people know their numerous posts come from one person, instead of trying to underhandedly dominate conversation by using different accounts to pretend to be different people.
Mo Yunus: “How in god’s name did you find that reference? AI? Could anyone have found anything more obscure? A+ for effort though nigel. It is a very long bow to be drawing. Using a 30 year old third party hearsay “report”. I’m not going to accept it. ymmv. Get me either a verbatim in context transcript or a credible confirmation from Hansen. Email him.”
I just did a standard google search, The result was near the top of the page. Took seconds. Maybe I just got lucky.
Hansen in his own words below, courtesy of google gemini search. This being in response to your comment last month. “I restate that James Hansen has never projected nor asserted not predicted nor even partially hinted at a +5 m SLR by 2100. Not once not ever”.
Scientific reticence and sea level rise
JEHansen
NASAGoddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025, USA
E-mail: jhansen@giss.nasa.gov
Received 23 March 2007
Accepted for publication 3 May 2007
Published 24 May 2007
Online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/2/02400
Rahmstorf (2007) has noted that if one uses the observed
sea level rise of the past century to calibrate a linear projection
of future sea level, BAU warming will leadto a sea level rise of
the order of one meter in the present century. This is a useful
observation, as it indicates that the sea level change would
be substantial even without the nonlinear collapse of an ice
sheet. However, this approach cannot be taken as a realistic
way of projecting the likely sea level rise under BAU forcing.
The linear approximation fits the past sea level change well
for the past century only because the two terms contributing
significantly to sea level rise were (1) thermal expansion of
ocean water and (2) melting of alpine glaciers.
Under BAU forcing in the 21st century,
Under BAU forcing in the 21st century, the sea level
rise surely will be dominated by a third term: (3) ice sheet
disintegration. This third term was small until the past few
years, but it is has at least doubled in the past decade and
is now close to 1 mm/year, based on the gravity satellite
measurements discussed above. As a quantitative example,
let us say that the ice sheet contribution is 1 cm for the
decade 2005–15 and that it doubles each decade until the West
Antarctic ice sheet is largely depleted. That time constant
yields a sea level rise of the order of 5 m this century. Of
course I cannot prove that my choice of a ten-year doubling
time for nonlinear response is accurate, but I am confident that
it provides a far better estimate than a linear response for the
ice sheet component of sea level rise under BAU forcing.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_ha01210n.pdf
nigelj, re Hansen (2007) paper titled Scientific reticence and sea level rise, on page 4:
Thanks for that. I’d suggest that for an SLR “of the order of 5 m this century” fits somewhere between the 10-year and 13-year doubling curves.
See Slide #15 headlined Global mean sea level rise scenarios
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
With a starting point of a global mean rate of SLR set at 5.0 mm/year for year-2024, then the doubling time scenarios for annual global mean rates of SLR are as follows:
Year _ _ _ 7-year doubling _ 10-year doubling _ 13-year doubling
2024 _ _ _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y
2025 _ _ _ _ _ 5.5 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.4 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.3 mm/y
2026 _ _ _ _ _ 6.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.6 mm/y
2027 _ _ _ _ _ 6.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.9 mm/y
2028 _ _ _ _ _ 7.4 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.6 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.2 mm/y
2029 _ _ _ _ _ 8.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 7.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.5 mm/y
2030 _ _ _ _ _ 9.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 7.6 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.9 mm/y
2031 _ _ _ _ _10.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.1 mm/y _ _ _ _7.3 mm/y
2032 _ _ _ _ _11.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.7 mm/y _ _ _ _7.7 mm/y
2033 _ _ _ _ _12.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 9.3 mm/y _ _ _ _8.1 mm/y
2034 _ _ _ _ _13.5 mm/y _ _ _ 10.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.5 mm/y
2035 _ _ _ _ _14.9 mm/y _ _ _ 10.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 9.0 mm/y
2040 _ _ _ _ _24.4 mm/y _ _ _ 15.2 mm/y _ _ _ _11.7 mm/y
2045 _ _ _ _ _40.0 mm/y _ _ _ 21.4 mm/y _ _ _ _15.3 mm/y
2050 _ _ _ _ _65.6 mm/y _ _ _ 30.3 mm/y _ _ _ _20.0 mm/y
We’ll see how the global mean rate of SLR actually tracks against these scenario waypoints in the fullness of time.
Yup. I ran theses numbers and asked others to check my math on them years ago. Don’t ask me what source I was responding to; I don’t know – and I have done this several times over the years.
The import of this POSSIBILITY is, of course, about risk analysis: If it *can* happen, if it *may* force many millions, if not billions, to have to move, then it must be taken seriously, not squabbled over by the Peanut Gallery and others.
Killian: – The import of this POSSIBILITY is, of course, about risk analysis: If it *can* happen, if it *may* force many millions, if not billions, to have to move, then it must be taken seriously, not squabbled over by the Peanut Gallery and others.”
Thanks for your comments. The Earth System is DEMONSTRATING an accelerating rate of warming that is apparently puzzling many climate scientists, but it seems not for people like James Hansen and colleagues.
Why is it so difficult to also imagine the POSSIBILITY of sea level rise accelerating faster than forecast by the scholarly reticent cohort?
I think if the actual global mean rate of SLR (using satellite altimetry data analysis) tracks reasonably closely with any of the scenario waypoints given above over the next 5-10 years, then the dire risk of hundreds of millions to billions of people having to move within a few decades becomes undeniably clear. We’ll see in the fullness of time.
It seems I’ve stirred up a hornets nest of POSSIBILITY denial. So be it…
Nope, warming acceleration is unsurprising to experts and they projected it under high forcing scenarios. Unfortunately, several non-expert contrarians conflate statistically significant acceleration of the longer-term temperature trend vs. cherry-picking one outlier year like 2023. There’s not yet statistically significant warming acceleration, but that will likely change as more years of data accumulate and forcing accumulates. This has all been explained to you before, so it’s telling you still misinform about it:
And no, this is not about possibility, since there are an infinite number of random possibilities, including sea level rise flat-lining in the way Bjorn Lomborg claimed. This is instead about what is most plausible based on evidence. You’ve been repeatedly shown your mechanism-free curve fitting and extrapolation is less plausible than forcing-based projections:
Geoff Miell: “It seems I’ve stirred up a hornets nest of POSSIBILITY denial. So be it…”
Nah. It’s been busily buzzing for all 18 years I have used this site. Some here cannot be polite about anything that is not strictly in their numbers or an IPCC report. If a scientist (they agree with) didn’t write a paper on it, it’s not a legit point to them.
It has not mattered how many times they have watched me post observations that proved accurate (even while they have posted none, ever, due to their own lack of non-numeric skills and/or scientific reticence), they will continue to be rude, claim I know nothing, belittle any observations I make, etc. They do the same to all who do not bow to their numbers or look beyond them or can see contexts their conservative ways don’t allow them to see.
They don’t want anything but numbers THEY approve of on these boards. Pattern literacy, ironically, does not exist for them unless it’s from a published paper.
Fatal flaw.
Re: “It has not mattered how many times they have watched me post observations that proved accurate (even while they have posted none, ever, due to their own lack of non-numeric skills and/or scientific reticence), they will continue to be rude […]”
First, can you post evidence of your accurate predictions? This is reminiscent of when you avoided giving evidence when I asked you to support your claim that there were “studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction” from anthropogenic climate change. It was almost as if you invented claims and then presumed no one would ask for evidence.
Second, I’ve made accurate predictions in response to denialists like Dr. Javier Vinós, who is often platformed by Dr. Judith Curry. And unlike you I’ll post evidence on those accurate predictions.
Third, you’re tone trolling again.
The glaciology physical science above is some of the best Advanced Mathematics I’ve come across in the Social Media since it began. Beats the heck out of Leon Simons’ adding 0.42 to ~6 different numbers with perfect accuracy (thermodynamic science) and obliterates Judith Curry’s calculation that ~1.4 terawatts (geothermal heat) might put a big push onto the 24.8 terawatts (the ocean) by way of erupting volcanoes increasing it maybe 0.1 terawatts, probably less. Well done on Advanced Mathematics!
You’re back again, aye Barry? You still haven’t answered my question in a previous thread: Who would/should we be more inclined to take notice of re likely SLR outcomes? James Hansen, Eric Rignot, NOAA and/or Jason Box; or Barry E Finch?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840007
Is that an inconvenient question for you?
Geoff Meill,
You reference a Nature article and a NASA press release and ask:-
The “expected” rate you mention derives from our discussions upthread. Note the NASA press release you reference has a significantly lower expectation saying 2024-to-2025 SLR “was 0.23 inches (0.59 centimeters) per year, compared to the expected rate of 0.17 inches (0.43 centimeters) per year.”
That NASA press release (from March 2025) also explains that the thermal expansion component of the 2023-to-2024 SLR was unusually large because the global temperatures were at record levels. Indeed we know global temperatures had gone “bananas!!!”
SLR data is too wobbly to calculate with any confidence a meaningful rate of SLR at any particular time. And the satellite data sets do not align closely enough to provide any reassuring consistency. (See graphic of five such records at Met Office climate dashboard SL webpage.)
Using the NASA data (to May 2025) which was presumably the data used by the NASA analysis, the rolling 12-month & 36-month average SL yield SLR numbers as plotted HERE – Posted 6th Oct 2025. The exact numbers quoted in your two references (+5.9mm/y 2023-to-2024 & +10.1cm 1993-to-2024) are not tumbling out of these NASA SL data. However, those perhaps alarmed by the 2023-to-2024 SLR numbers may be reassured to note that my graphed 36-month averages which do (coincidently) show a recent peak of 5.9mm/year also show the same 36-month average rates of SLR back in 2013-15.
MA Rodger (at 6 Oct 2025 at 5:05 AM): – “That NASA press release (from March 2025) also explains that the thermal expansion component of the 2023-to-2024 SLR was unusually large because the global temperatures were at record levels. Indeed we know global temperatures had gone “bananas!!!””
I already know that – see my comments at 30 Sep 2025 at 7:59 PM:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840063
MA Rodger (at 6 Oct 2025 at 5:05 AM): – “SLR data is too wobbly to calculate with any confidence a meaningful rate of SLR at any particular time.”
Yep. Reiterating a note to my SLR scenario curves:
MA Rodger (at 6 Oct 2025 at 5:05 AM): – “However, those perhaps alarmed by the 2023-to-2024 SLR numbers may be reassured to note that my graphed 36-month averages which do (coincidently) show a recent peak of 5.9mm/year also show the same 36-month average rates of SLR back in 2013-15.”
Thanks for your confirmation. It seems to me we agree on a few things.
ICYMI, see these comments I made earlier:
That’s what I think based on the available data/evidence I see NOW. If additional evidence/data suggests a different trajectory in the fullness of time, then I’ll update my expectations.
I’m highlighting the POSSIBILITY of sea level rise accelerating faster than forecast by the scholarly reticent cohort, which it seems to me is being denied by a number of naysayers here at RC.
Geoff Miell,
(Hopefully this time I can manage to place this in the nested comments as intended.)
You also say in that comment in the Sept UV threads that:-
Give you are entering this ‘expectation game’, perhaps you’d be so kind as to clarify how the +5.9 for 2024 was calculated and thus how your +5.0mm for 2025 would be calculated.
Myself, I am not entirely sure how the quoted +5.9mm/y for 2024 is being calculated.
My best guess of that method is as follows – The graphic used on that March 2025 NASA press release is here. That graphic seems to suggest that the “expected” +4.3mm/y rise is the “expected rate” marked in green and the ‘actual’ +5.9mm/y is telling us the 2025 average came in +1.6mm above that extrapolated green line.
And if that is what is being calculated, it appears almost certain that the 2025 rise will be well below the “expected rate”.
I say this because the data displayed in the NASA graphic with the green line would “expect” 2025 to be a further +4.3mm above the “expected” 2024 level and thus (4.3 x 2 – 5.9 =) +2.7mm above 2024’s ‘actual’ level.
And we already have the first nine months of that SLR data (Jan-Sept) here. (If you zoom in you’ll see the calendar year starts about a quarter way down the slope from the annual peak.) The graphed data-to-Sept25 plainly shows there is so-far minimal SLR between 2024 & 2025. With a rough comparison, I reckon its actually negative, averaging about -1mm. And that would suggest the 2025 SLR value (equivalent to the +5.9mm for 2024) will be below “expected”, somewhere about 3.7mm below. So a projected ‘actual’ would be (+4.3 – 3.7 =) +0.6mm.
Geoff Miell,
As ever, the “math” (as Americans call “arithmetic”) of doubling-times is evidently straightforward. Yet the basis for wielding such numbers is not established.
Back in 2007 Hansen was first suggesting that polar ice cap melt would dominate coming SLR and that this ‘coming dominance’ would involve a doubling time. Indeed, such an idea gained some fleeting basis in following years, as seen in the 2012 commentary Hansen & Sato ((2012) ‘Update of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss: Exponential?’.
Yet that “exponential” Greenland ice loss has not continued. Rather the Greenland ice loss has been looking linear (as per fig 1 of Poinar et al (2023)). And at the other end of the planet, Antarctica which was starting to show a more-than-linear loss back in 2012, has in the last couple of years (since 2021) actually been showing a period of ice gain.
That said, these rates of polar ice loss are net values of even bigger numbers (precipitation minus melt+calving) and the potential for a big increases in SLR suddenly appearing should not be ignored.
Yet there is no basis today for assuming such big sudden increases, at least none that I am familiar with.
More important is the far-more worrying long-term SLR which will be more bigly biggerer than the “eighth of an inch in four hundred years” suggested by one commentator although than any inference from Alley et al (2007) fig 1 that we have stoked 20m+ SLR with 418ppm of CO2.
That long-term SLR (perhaps 4m at +1.5ºC AGW plus a further 6m if Greenland melts down with that warming) is being at least marginalised if not totally ignored with such speculative talk of doubling times.
Geoff Miell: We’ll see how the global mean rate of SLR actually tracks against these scenario waypoints in the fullness of time.
Using only the statistics while ignoring the underlying physics has been for ages a favourite method of the deniers – see statistic-only claims of McKitrick’s, applying his economics background to use statistical methods from economics to “disprove” physics-based predictions of climate scientists..
Another denier’s application of statistics-only analyses is discussed in the parallel thread – a cautionary tale of the researchers using the statistics-only approach to the sea ice (Maslowski and Wadham) ,The spectacular failure of these predictions (end of summer ice around 2015) has been used by the deniers ever since to tar by association the credibility of all climate science predictions (“But you said the ice was going to disappear in 10 years!”).
So if we don’t get to ice-melting rates required to get to 5m SLR by 2100, the deniers would try to discredit all climate science by posting:“But you said the selevel is on track to 5m by 2100!” and the public would never know that that majority of us questioned the value of such statistics-only exponential extrapolation.
And this is what makes the doomers like you and Killian such useful tools of the deniers.
Mind you, “tools” may be an understatement here (Lenin preferred the phrase: “useful idiots”).
Re: “Using only the statistics while ignoring the underlying physics has been for ages a favourite method of the deniers – see statistic-only claims of McKitrick’s, applying his economics background to use statistical methods from economics to “disprove” physics-based predictions of climate scientists”
Geoff Miell has been told multiple times what’s wrong with their mechanism-free curve fitting / extrapolation, and how it’s on par with (or worse than) what denialists like Bjorn Lomborg do. But they keep doing it anyway, likely because it gives them an answer that suits a particular ideological/policy agenda.
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840071
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840082
Piotr: – “So if we don’t get to ice-melting rates required to get to 5m SLR by 2100, the deniers would try to discredit all climate science by posting:“But you said the selevel is on track to 5m by 2100!” and the public would never know that that majority of us questioned the value of such statistics-only exponential extrapolation.”
Oh, please…
Hansen, Rignot, Box, and dare I say it, me, are talking about POSSIBILITIES here, that have huge consequences for coastal cities.
And I’d suggest humanity will have far more pressing matters, like it seems civilisation collapse (on our current warming trajectory), long before SLR gets to 5 m.
Perhaps the naysayers like apparently you, Piotr, and Atomsk’s Sanakan, and even perhaps MA Rodger, could please explain the physics behind why the year-2024 global mean rate of sea level rise (SLR) was observed to be at 5.9 mm/year, which was “faster than expected“?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-025-00667-w
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/news/282/nasa-analysis-shows-unexpected-amount-of-sea-level-rise-in-2024
An observed global mean rate SLR of 5.9 mm/year in year-2024 is significantly more than the scenarios I’ve put forward:
Year _ 7-year doubling _ 10-year doubling _ 13-year doubling _ observed SLR rate
2024 _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ _ _ 5.9 mm/y
2025 _ _ _ 5.5 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.4 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.3 mm/y _ _ _ _ _ _ ????
2026 _ _ _ 6.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.6 mm/y
2027 _ _ _ 6.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 5.9 mm/y
2028 _ _ _ 7.4 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.6 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.2 mm/y
2029 _ _ _ 8.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 7.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.5 mm/y
2030 _ _ _ 9.1 mm/y _ _ _ _ 7.6 mm/y _ _ _ _ 6.9 mm/y
2031 _ _ _10.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.1 mm/y _ _ _ _7.3 mm/y
2032 _ _ _11.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.7 mm/y _ _ _ _7.7 mm/y
2033 _ _ _12.2 mm/y _ _ _ _ 9.3 mm/y _ _ _ _8.1 mm/y
2034 _ _ _13.5 mm/y _ _ _ 10.0 mm/y _ _ _ _ 8.5 mm/y
2035 _ _ _14.9 mm/y _ _ _ 10.7 mm/y _ _ _ _ 9.0 mm/y
2040 _ _ _24.4 mm/y _ _ _ 15.2 mm/y _ _ _ _11.7 mm/y
2045 _ _ _40.0 mm/y _ _ _ 21.4 mm/y _ _ _ _15.3 mm/y
2050 _ _ _65.6 mm/y _ _ _ 30.3 mm/y _ _ _ _20.0 mm/y
Clearly, more data is required to firm up a more accurate characterisation of the observed acceleration trend, but I think if the actual global mean rate of SLR (using satellite altimetry data analysis) tracks reasonably closely with any of the scenario waypoints given above over the next 5-10 years, then the dire risk of hundreds of millions to billions of people having to move within a few decades becomes undeniably clear. We’ll see in the fullness of time.
And before you criticize my proffered scenarios further, ICYMI I highlight this note:
See Slide #15 headlined Global mean sea level rise scenarios
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
How much longer will you (Piotr and Atomsk’s Sanakan) continue to remain in denial of observed reality?
I am a tool of no one. Deniers do not quote me because 1. they likely do not know I exist, but 2., if they did, I’d destroy them in the time it takes to type a tweet.
You are the only tool here, being a perfect example of unnecessary nastiness and shitty behavior towards others WHO HAVE THE SAME CONCERNS AS YOU, as well as an excellent example of scientific reticence, AND… an even more perfect example of a fool who sees only numbers but does not actually know how to think or analyze creatively.
My comments on risk were way ahead of most curves all those years ago and still are, shockingly. Meanwhile, fools post fools’ pointy-hatted nonsense from the Peanut Gallery.
Lay off. I’m tired of schooling your childish ass. These remain serious times for serious people, and Trumpish people like you who revel in shitting on others just for the entertainment, even allies, are among the worst humans on the planet.
The provenance of the hostility here was long ago proven by a review of the summer of 2015 on these boards. The Peanut Gallery owns the discord here, 100%. How, in the name of gods, demons, common sense or anything else, you goddamned fools thought attacking ALLIES, driving them from these boards in the name of scientific fundamentalism, refusing to even consider other perspectives even as they have consistently been FAR MORe ACCURATE in the fight against Climate Change was the WISE thing to do on the boards, I will never know. It’s a sickness. Suigenocidal idiocy.
Now, knock it the EFF off, you you mentally and emotionally twisted little gnat.
And all that goes for the rest of the Peanut Gallery that still persists in this mindbendingly bizarre behavior; the planet is DYING – at least the ecosystem we need – and you persist in childishshit-flininging. MY EFFING GODS!!!! WAKE THE EFF UP! FINALLY!!!
Re: “Hansen, Rignot, Box, and dare I say it, me, are talking about POSSIBILITIES here, that have huge consequences for coastal cities.”
This is not about possibility, since there are an infinite number of random possibilities, including sea level rise flat-lining in the way Bjorn Lomborg claimed. One can fit many random function types to short-term sea level rise data, such as quartic, cubic, etc. You choose to cherry-pick particular exponential functions because they give the very large sea level rise rates you think will spur government action, i.e. you’re doing it for ideological reasons, not scientific reasons.
Instead of possibility, this is about what is most plausible based on evidence. You’ve been repeatedly shown your mechanism-free curve fitting and extrapolation is less plausible than forcing-based projections.
Re: “Perhaps the naysayers like apparently you, Piotr, and Atomsk’s Sanakan, and even perhaps MA Rodger, could please explain the physics behind why the year-2024 global mean rate of sea level rise (SLR) was observed to be at 5.9 mm/year, which was “faster than expected“?”
No more interesting than when Bjorn Lomborg cherry-picked two years to claim a sea level rise decrease. It’s easy to cherry-pick short time-periods in data, where those time-periods are not representative of longer term trends. Hence why papers and expert reports don’t use one year to make claims on what the rate of sea level rise is, but instead use longer time periods with robust trends. You’re engaged in endpoint bias and cherry-picking to incorrectly claim a trend changepoint that is not statistically significant. Same tactics denialists used to falsely claim a pause/hiatus in global warming.
And you still haven’t met the challenge: show how well your mechanism-free model hindcasts past sea level rise, such as sea level rise during the industrial era or during glacial/interglacial cycles. Forcing-based projections succeed in that out-of-sample hindcasting, unlike your baseless curve fitting. That’s because forcing drives the longer-term warming that causes sea level rise via thermal expansion and melting land ice.
Geoff Miell says “Perhaps the naysayers like apparently you, Piotr, and Atomsk’s Sanakan, and even perhaps MA Rodger, could please explain the physics behind why the year-2024 global mean rate of sea level rise (SLR) was observed to be at 5.9 mm/year, which was “faster than expected“?”
I would say its because 2024 was warmer than expected due apparently to a combination of AGW, El Nino and the solar cycle and aerosols reductions. This means increased thermal expansion of oceans and increased ice melt. I wouldn’t read too much into one year regarding warming or SLR. Some past years have had unusually high rate of SLR that only lasted a year presumably for similar reasons some of which are very short term.
Im also skeptical that SLR could be 5M by 2100 or would become exponential. However I have thought for a long time 2M by 2100 is possible. This assumes ice sheet disintegration that accelerates moderaterately but doesnt need exponential rate of SLR. I base it partly on the fact the paleo record has some periods of rapid SLR where ice sheets disintegration is implicated.
I agree that SLR is a very serious concern.
Re: Atomsk’s Sanakan says at 6:06 PM
YOU do not get it. It is not cherry picking to note patterns and risks. You, oddly, seem to have something against risk analysis. Bizarre for anyone in the climate change arena. As I have said for a very long time and continue to say, RISK is the most effective and important context for climate scientists and activists to present to the public. It’s not alarmist to note the worst case scenario when that scenario is 1. an existential threat and 2. a non-zero possibility. YEARS ago there were studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction. Since you do not seem to understand risk, let me put it in big letters for you: THAT’S A 1 IN 20 CHANCE OF EXTINCTION. You would do absolutely NOTHING that presented that high a risk, yet you take people to task and insult them for merely noting this is the case.
Shush.
Killian, there was no evidence cited in your rambling reply. Let me know when you actually have some evidence. Until then, I’ll go with the evidence I already cited on sea level rise. When I assess risk I go with published evidence and published analyses, not random possibilities non-expert ideologues make up online.
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840006
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840023
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840071
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840082
And no Killian, it is cherry-picking, just as it was cherry-picking when denialists selected very short time periods to falsely claim there was a pause in global warming. Run an appropriate statistical analysis that accounts for the forcing mechanisms driving sea level rise, instead of cherrypicking short time periods to exaggerate the rate of sea level rise for future extrapolation. Yelling in all-caps about ‘extinction’ is not an appropriate analysis. Making political appeals about people supposedly having the same concerns, is not an appropriate scientific analysis. Nor is telling people to ‘shush’ because they tell you things you don’t want to hear.
Also, I highly doubt there were peer-reviewed studies “stating a 5% chance of human extinction” from anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Feel free to show I’m wrong by citing such a peer-reviewed study in a reputable journal, or another reputable source such as a report from a government science agency. There’s a higher chance that ACC contributes to an anthropogenic mass extinction. But mass extinction does not mean humans go extinct; it’s about an increase in the species extinction rate.
It’s one thing to claim increased loss of life from things like warming-induced increase in hurricane intensity, with greater storm surges as a result of warming-induced sea level rise. It’s quite another thing to claim this kills all humans, as if no one has the ability to move inland, survive hurricanes, etc. Noting ACC’s harm does not require exaggerating it into an extinction-level event for humans, anymore than noting COVID-19’s harm requires exaggerating it into an extinction-level event for humans.
Atomsk, if you do not know of the evidence, then you must keep your head very, very buried in your own delusions of certainty. There are any number of papers and speakers/writers/tweeters discussing acceleration. I have posted the papers on the risk of extinction on these pages before. Go find them.
But the issue of future risk is not something that is quantifiable; none has a crystal ball and you have no more backing for *not* framing via risk than I do for doing so. In fact, less than I do because it is something already in the literature.
But you make a greater mistake: Not understanding what you read. The issue of risk is about COMMUNICATION with the public and POLICY, not climate science, per se, so any numbers you want to cite are largely irrelevant. You don’t wear a seatbelt because of statistics, you do so because you are presumably not a damned fool. You do it because the risk is existential.
The issue of the climate is no different. At least one recent analysis (MIT?) has found 4 million excess deaths due to climate already, and called that a very conservative estimate. That’s an existential threat, and it is growing. Billions are already projected to die off even at relatively “low” levels of temp rises – as low as 3 to 4C.
I get it, you’re in the conservative camp on climate. You are scientifically reticent. Sadly, that makes you more dangerous than the silly deniers at this point. Rather than engage like a person, you engage like Trump: Nasty and rude, attempting to minimize the impact of a point of view with personal attacks. Typical for this site. You fit right in with the Piotrs and others.
And your argument is ridiculous: Don’t talk about existential threats because denialists will use it against us! It’s like telling someone not to use a seatbelt because a fool might laugh at them. Ironically, you’re the tool of the deniers: They make you afraid to speak what is known. That you still cower from denialists when we are well past the social tipping point on climate change awareness speaks volumes of your lack of understanding of the overall context we find ourselves in: You think we should not speak of the true dangers, don’t seem to understand what they are, and still think denialists are running the show.
Enjoy living in fear of fools.
Since you don’t understand risk analysis, maybe this will help: https://x.com/PCarterClimate/status/1974940865555759539
Your tone trolling does not count as evidence; it’s just you evading providing evidence. It’s also ironic since anyone can read our comments to see you have the harsher tone. You need to learn that criticism is not the same thing as a personal attack. And you did not provide the studies that were requested, which is what one would expect if you had just made those studies up.
You also misrepresented my claim. I did not say “Don’t talk about existential threats because denialists will use it against us!” I said you don’t provide any evidence to back up your claims. It instead looks like you’re a non-expert making up random possibilities to support a policy ideology, instead of going with evidence-based assessments of what’s plausible.
Re: “Since you don’t understand risk analysis, maybe this will help: https://x.com/PCarterClimate/status/1974940865555759539”
Not a published study from experts. I was already aware years ago of what expert assessments of evidence showed on this topic. The observed warming is compatible with climate sensitivity of around 3°C under a high forcing scenario, such as RCP8.5. Try actually citing published studies, instead of tone trolling while filling your comments with evidence-free insults.
Re: “At least one recent analysis (MIT?) has found 4 million excess deaths due to climate already, and called that a very conservative estimate. That’s an existential threat, and it is growing. Billions are already projected to die off even at relatively “low” levels of temp rises – as low as 3 to 4C.”
COVID-19 caused more excess deaths than that, and it’s not going to cause humanity to go extinct. Cancer kills around 10 million per year, but is not a real extinction threat. One can show evidence that COVID-19 and cancer are plausibly serious threats to people, without exaggerating by making up a random possibility than they would cause human extinction. So again, you cite no evidence for your claim that “YEARS ago there were studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction“.
Re: “You don’t wear a seatbelt because of statistics, you do so because you are presumably not a damned fool. You do it because the risk is existential.”
I don’t need to think car accidents will cause human extinction in order for me to wear a seat belt. Similarly, I don’t need to think cancer or COVID-19 will cause human extinction in order for me to get a cancer screening or a COVID-19 vaccine. You don’t need to misinform the public on human extinction just to manipulate them into doing what you want on policy or behavior.
Re: “At least one recent analysis (MIT?) has found 4 million excess deaths due to climate already, and called that a very conservative estimate.”
Here’s an MIT page that doesn’t fit with your claim that “YEARS ago there were studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction”:
See how it’s is easy to discuss serious risks and harm from anthropogenic climate change, without defending exaggerations regarding human extinction?
See how hard it is for you to cite any reputable scientific source supporting your claim of a 5% risk of human extinction?
A very long and twisted comment thread means that I have no good way of being sure where this comment will end up being placed.
However, while I agree in general with AS’s points and his concern about accuracy and doing things correctly; and while I find Killian in general to be one of the most annoying and emotionally unstable commenters on this board; nonetheless, I think Killian has been making one very good point about the existential character of the risk.
And that is that the risk of human extinction that we imply we are willing to ‘accept’ in some form or fashion is absolutely insane. Like AS, I doubt that the risk is 5%. Partly, that’s because one would need to specify a timeframe in any attempted quantification, partly that’s because I think any such study, if made with any degree of credibility, would have made a huge splach; and partly it’s because I think the difficulties attending any such project would be immense.
But while I’d agree that the magnitude of the assessed probability matters, I’d suggest that 5% is insanely high.
1% would be insanely high.
Heck, 0.001% would be insanely high–if one out of every thousand airline flights crashed, well, that would quickly be a resolved problem, either by improving safety or by the collapse of the industry. Ideally, we’d like to be able to exclude the risk of fatal crashes–or climate-induced anthropic extinctions–altogether. Not practical, of course.
But per AI, we are, or were, empirically willing to accept odds of 1 in 13.7 million, as that was apparently the ex post probability of any one passenger dying in an airline crash last year. Logically, you’d think that we’d be still pickier about a risk that by definition involves not just our very own personal death, but those of everyone and everything human-dependent that we’ve ever loved. But let’s just go with the 1/13.7M odds for simplicity, as something we might go for if we really took the numbers seriously.
And yet here we are, arguing about 5%? SMH.
Kevin, you make the point that even a 1 in 1.37 million chances of climate change causing total human extinction is still very concerning, and I agree it is. Human extinction being the extinctionof the human race.. But personally I haven’t seen a study even with a very low probability like that. And you dont need a study to see even worst case warming wont make the whole planet completely uninhabitable.
There is however credible evidence hundreds of millions of people could die and ultimately longer term billions. I just think claims that go further of human extinction just make scientists look like twits.
I get your point, Kevin McKinney. But the human extinction risk is so small as to be largely irrelevant to me. That’s especially the case when weighed against factors with much larger extinction risks, and against the more probable benefits of fossil fuel use (ex: providing energy so people can warm their homes).
What actually weighs against fossil fuel use is the availability of alternatives, and the more probable harms from anthropogenic climate change (ex: increased hurricane intensity, with greater storm surges due to accelerating sea level rise). The extinction discussion then becomes as moot as arguing against smoking and second-hand smoking by claiming smoking-induced cancer and heart disease risk human extinction. Yeah, smoking has benefits, such as reduced risk of ulcerative colitis and the pleasure smokers get from smoking. What weighs against smoking is the availability of alternatives and its more probable harms, not an extinction risk. Same as on human-induced climate change.
I was interested in the ‘5% chance of human extinction’ claim because that high of a risk is not moot.
Everywhere here one is confronted with luke warmers. Deniers of risk. Science research deniers.
Such as Nigelj says 8 Oct 2025 at 11:24 PM and by Atomsk’s Sanakan says 9 Oct 2025 at 1:27 PM who continually deny the published science papers and the consensus collated in all the IPCCC assessments–as if they do not exist and do not say what they clearly say.
Even Michael Mann agrees there is an existential risk from Climate Change. I think Gavin does too, but am unsure, as it is very hard to get any kind of definitive comment or opinion/judgement out of him, here or anywhere. But I do suspect he agrees with Mann et al in their many annual summary reports. for the state of the climate etc.
imo I see Nigel as the RC version of Edmund Burke (1729–1797) — an Irish-born British statesman, philosopher, and writer, best known as the founder of modern conservatism. Burke respectful of inherited institutions and norms, insisted change should be cautious, rooted in experience, not driven by utopian theory or higher principles like, say social justice. Once you started meddling with society and capitalism where might you and up? A concession here and a trial there, and quite soon you would have revolutions and guillotines. It was all very well teaching people to read, creating the Internet, but what if they read the wrong things?… is the general philosophy here. Chicken Little on Steroids.
Whereas our Atomsk’s Sanakan comes across as the Nick Fuentes of climate science internet dialogue spamming every opening available for decades. Could he have become the most blocked internet personality on earth? I believe it’s possible.
When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, we simply assumed that “things would get better and better,” and for a while, they did. Leaving school I just assumed that things would improve and I wanted to be part of it. Now I know that it’s only when Britain and the USA are flat on their backs that there’ll be any good positive sustainable change in how societies are organised.
The internet has created multi generations suffering from peak brain rot in less than 30 years. This peak ‘brainrot’ is being peddled by ‘terminally online’ grifters, as each and every internet celebrity, influencer and live streamer is. Trump is but one small contributor of millions of “stars” in the sky. Collectively we deserve the coming consequences.
Well, looky here! We got a “it’s not so bad” climate denialist in the room!
“Not a published study from experts.”
Peter Carter is not an expert and not citing climate data? You’re absolutely a troll.
“I was already aware years ago of what expert assessments of evidence showed on this topic. The observed warming is compatible with climate sensitivity of around 3°C under a high forcing scenario, such as RCP8.5. ”
Bwahahahahahahahahaha! I knew sensitivity was at least 4C all the way back in 2009, but you still haven’t figured that out?
Bye, denier.
Re: “Well, looky here! We got a “it’s not so bad” climate denialist in the room!”
Denialism is refusing to accept what strong evidence shows. You haven’t shown any evidence that there is a 5% chance of anthropogenic climate change causing human extinction. So it’s not denialism for someone to refuse to accept your unevidenced claim. The more you fail to provide evidence for that claim, the more it looks like you made it up.
Re: “Peter Carter is not an expert and not citing climate data?”
That’s you citing a non-peer-reviewed tweet from Peter Carter, not a published study from experts. This is a published study from experts on climate data, as you were already shown:
Re: “Bwahahahahahahahahaha! I knew sensitivity was at least 4C all the way back in 2009, but you still haven’t figured that out? Bye, denier.”
Have fun bravely running away when people know enough not to fall for your disinformation. Fact remains that the warming you pointed out from Peter Carter is consistent with sensitivity of around 3°C under a high forcing scenario, such as RCP8.5. That’s why the 2018 analysis I cited to you predicted it before-hand using RCP8.5 and a sensitivity of about 3°C. You’re engaged in denialism about that. That analysis used RCP8.5 to project that 1.5°C for the long-term warming trend would be reached by 2030, relative to the pre-industrial baseline of 1850-1900. Observed warming confirms that projection, with post-2005 observed forcing slightly exceeding RCP8.5’s post-2005 projected forcing:
Moreover, there’s plenty of evidence supporting equilibrium climate sensitivity of around 3°C. This evidence included paleoclimate data, warming during the industrial era, emergent constraints, and analysis on feedback processes. Unlike you, I’ll cite published evidence:
I’m starting to see what Kevin McKinney meant in saying: saying “I find Killian in general to be one of the most annoying and emotionally unstable commenters on this board.”
Since you’re beyond help, my responses are not for your benefit. They’re instead for those who come along later whom you try to disinform, and to see if others have constructive criticism of what I said.
Re: “Whereas our Atomsk’s Sanakan comes across as the Nick Fuentes of climate science internet dialogue spamming every opening available for decades.”
So a sockpuppet spam account?
Nigel said:
Well, I have yet to see a credible study that claims to quantify human extinction risks at all. So the risk remains completely uncharacterized statistically, AFAICT.
Perhaps, but it’s a different thing to say that there will be some habitable place, than that humans will therefore survive there. The earth has been, after all, “habitable” in some sense ever since life evolved here, yet its history is one of repeated extinctions. And yes, humans have proven to be very adaptable, largely due to our brainpower and our consequent ability to create adaptive cultural practices.
Essentially, culture speeds up our ability to adapt as a species, as compared as compared with a case in which we depended entirely upon biological evolution. But that speed of adaptation has–must have–its limits. And the worry would be that we could face a whole cascading, non-linear avalanche of challenges that potentially could outstrip our capacity to adapt.
To wit–
We already know that we’re going to be facing physiological challenges at the individual level, which will drive economic changes (in the form of decreased productivity, particularly but not exclusively in outdoor labor).
We’ll be facing–already are, arguably–agricultural challenges beyond lost labor productivity, ones arising from the conditions in which crops grow, or fail. Agricultural challenges then drive economic, social, security and political challenges, too–mass migration, for instance.
We’ll be–are–facing epidemiological challenges, as tropical diseases expand poleward. Again, these will, or at least could, have economic and social sequelae that are tough to foresee.
Moving on to the regional and national levels, there will also be political and security challenges resulting from competition for shrinking supplies of some resources (such as fresh water in the Himalayas) on one hand, and on the other hand, competition for newly available supplies of others (such as minerals or petrochemicals in the high Arctic.)
There will be tensions over migration, over responsibility for bad outcomes, and over imperialistic designs perceived or real, and more.
And all of these will drive further psychosocial challenges back at the individual level–AKA, irrational behavior. (Who knows? Maybe MAGA is already one such, even, if we posit that individual irrationality can become manifest at larger scales.)
The interactions among all of these and more are clearly very complex, with numerous interconnections and feedback loops. But to cut to the chase, we could have a failing food system, a deadly pandemic, physiologically challenging or prohibitive physical conditions, a collapse of the social order, a collapse of supply chains, a collapse of ecological services, and widespread use of weapons of mass destruction, all more or less at once from a civilizational perspective.
Maybe a rump of survivors lives in, or makes it to, one of your habitable areas–or maybe not.
And as you say, even if they do, hundreds of millions or more would have suffered immensely, and either died themselves or undergone permanent bereavements in multiple spheres of life. It’s possible in such a scenario that the living might envy the dead, at least for a generation or two.
Yes, it’s all dark fantasy, mere speculation. But it’s fantasy that can’t be excluded from possibility. So I’d argue that there is a non-negligible risk of human extinction, logically sufficient to provide reason for urgent action against climate change.
But that risk is only one of many reasons, due to the all the highly undesirable sub-extinction-level threats to our well being that climate change already poses. So my final question becomes, just how good reasons many do we really need, anyway?
Mo Yunus says: “Everywhere here one is confronted with luke warmers. Deniers of risk. Science research deniers. Such as Nigelj says 8 Oct 2025 at 11:24 PM and by Atomsk’s Sanakan says 9 Oct 2025 at 1:27 PM who continually deny the published science papers and the consensus collated in all the IPCCC assessments–as if they do not exist and do not say what they clearly say. Even Michael Mann agrees there is an existential risk from Climate Change.”
I’m not a luke warmer and denying risk and denying climate change is an existential threat as defined by the IPCC and M Mann. From google Gemini: “The IPCC uses the term “existential risk” cautiously, mostly referencing specific, localized threats, whereas Michael Mann applies the term more broadly to the potential for civilization-ending outcomes and emphasizes that misinformation is an equally critical threat. ” These things all seem entirely plausible to me.
The only thing I said is that it seems impossible that climate change would cause the complete extinction of the human race. This is very different to what Mann or the IPCC are saying. Its very different from civilisation ending. Surely you can see this.
Kevin, thanks for the comments. I go along with most of what you say.
K: “The interactions among all of these and more are clearly very complex, with numerous interconnections and feedback loops. But to cut to the chase, we could have a failing food system,…”
Yes clearly climate change could cause a cascade of food supply problems all exacerbated by other problems with infrastructure, but I have a major problem seeing how climate change would kill off every plant and animal on the planet. Past extinction level events related to warming have not killed off everything. Anthropogenic climate change does not affect the whole planet equally. Regional differences are quite large. Some areas would still be habitable, and in remaining habitable areas some humans, and some plants and animals would survive or grow. And people can in fact live “simply” if they have to. Not much of an existence and potentially dystopian but its survival of the human race.
K: “But that risk is only one of many reasons, due to the all the highly undesirable sub-extinction-level threats to our well being that climate change already poses. So my final question becomes, just how good reasons many do we really need, anyway? ”
Yes exactly. Some people apparently need a lot of reasons but even that doesn’t seem to be enough. I think there are just a whole lot of issues impeding a strong mitigation response. We have talked about them many times. But we push back where we can and the only thing that makes sense to me is alternative sources of energy. Its is the only thing that has made a measurable difference.
“For instance, recent simulations suggest that stratocumulus cloud decks might abruptly be lost at CO2 concentrations that could be approached by the end of the century, causing an additional ∼8 °C global warming ”
Anyone who thinks that is survivable, or would be worth surviving, is a damned fool, full stop.
Published in PNAS. Have fun googling/AIing.
“I am a tool of no one” – said proudly one of the tools on 5 Oct 2025 at 5:03 AM.
So let me answer to all you tools out there: by your fruits, not your declarations about yourselves, we shall know you:
– when you attack the credibility of climate scientists whose results you don’t like, then you get into bed with the deniers who attack the credibility of the same climate scientists whose results they don’t like too (even if for opposite reasons). I can already see the inspirational signs above the bed you share: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend!” and “The opposites attract!”
-when you use the same technique as the deniers – the mechanism-free curve fitting disregarding underlying physics that must physically-justify any curve-fitting, and use these results to questions the credibility of the climatological models based on the underlying physics and calibrated with the observational data – then you do the same thing as the deniers do with their curve-fitting, and by doing so, you validate their mechanism-free approach
-when based on your mechanism-free exponential extrapolation, without any physical justification for the supposed exponential nature of the relationship, you arrive at extreme results (5 or 6 m SLR by 2100) – then you are offering yourself as a tool to the deniers – who at the first sign of the data below the rates needed to get to 5m SLR by 2100, will use you as a tool to discredit all climate science by association: “But you said the selevel is on track to 5m by 2100!”. And the public would never know that that majority of us questioned the value of your mechanism-free exponential extrapolation.
– when you concentrate on the worst-possible scenarios, in the name of your “all-or-nothing” fallacy – dismiss any but most extreme responses – reducing our options to: an overthrow of market economy, rapid (next few decades!) GLOBAL replacement of all non-subsistence agriculture with regenerative agriculture without ANY drop in crops, a global shift from cities and industry toward villages and agriculture, and since the overpopulation is identified as a root problem – cutting the global population down to size (probably the not-producing food city folks) – i.e. in effect by proposing taking Pol-Pot’s model globally – then you allow yourself to be tool of deniers – who will POINT TO YOU to discredit ALL people wanting strong GHGs mitigation as dangerous, genocidal, extremists who would impose on the world the Pol-Pot’s model.
– when in the name of your “all-or-nothing” fallacy, you convince the public that nothing short of the global Pol -Pot model will do – you do not mobilize them for action, but the opposite – you drive them into apathy and egoism- “ if the only way to stop AGW is a Pol-Pot’s world, then the cure is worse than the disease and I’ll pass: I’ll enjoy my life, while I can and “After us, Deluge!”“. And since the deniers NEED public’s apathy and egoism, so you, by contributing to both are their tool , again.
Whether you are able to admit it, or not, does not change the outcome. By their fruits you shall know them.
The quote Killian dangles up-thread is from Kemp et al (2022) ‘Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios’ which cites the findings of Schneider et al (2019) ‘Possible climate transitions from breakup of stratocumulus decks under greenhouse warming’.
Schneider et al do not describe the trigger-point in terms of “CO2 concentrations that could be approached by the end of the century” which is the vague and rather unhelpful description of Kemp et al, but describe it as “above 1,200ppm CO2.” So we’re talking SSP5-8.5 for 1,200ppm by AD2100 (& thence to 2,200ppm by AD2200) which would already be warming the planet by +5ºC.
Assuming this quotation is being dangled as part of some misguided discussion of a potential human extinction event, homo sapiens would still find a liveable home on planet Earth at +13ºC, assuming we didn’t managed to entirely murder each other getting there.
Re: “Assuming this quotation is being dangled as part of some misguided discussion of a potential human extinction event, homo sapiens would still find a liveable home on planet Earth at +13ºC, assuming we didn’t managed to entirely murder each other getting there.”
Yeah, MA Rodger, the sources I cited before on a 0.1% chance were discussing 13ºC of warming:
The ‘5% chance of human extinction’ seems to be something Killian fabricated, and the paper they cited says nothing to support it. In fact, the paper rebuts Killian by saying this is an underexplored topic without robust estimates:
Further confirmation Killian isn’t to be trusted.
Thank you MARodger, Atomsk’s Sanakan, John Pollack, and Piotr for keeping the conversation grounded in evidence and science. And Kevin McKinney and Nigelj for practical analysis of supposed implications. Certainly do not agree that any of your responses are those used by naysayers.
Maybe I missed it being already covered in this lengthy conversation, but I would only offer that the issue with what’s being called “risk analysis” by Geoff and Killian is that’s not how actual encompassing risk analysis is done. They are only doing part of the work required.
Re:: “Everywhere here one is confronted with luke warmers. Deniers of risk. Science research deniers.
Such as Nigelj says 8 Oct 2025 at 11:24 PM and by Atomsk’s Sanakan says 9 Oct 2025 at 1:27 PM who continually deny the published science papers and the consensus collated in all the IPCCC assessments–as if they do not exist and do not say what they clearly say.
Even Michael Mann agrees there is an existential risk from Climate Change. I think Gavin does too, but am unsure, as it is very hard to get any kind of definitive comment or opinion/judgement out of him, here or anywhere. But I do suspect he agrees with Mann et al in their many annual summary reports. for the state of the climate etc.”
The sockpuppet account disinforms again. I’m not a lukewarmer, and have argued against lukewarmist claims. Someone is not a lukewarmer just because they reject exaggerations that go against the scientific evidence, including doomist exaggerations.
If you don’t like the term ‘doomist’, then take it up with Dr. Michael Mann, since he uses that term. Neither he nor the IPCC endorse Killian’s fabrication that “there were studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction“. In fact, Dr. Mann spent years arguing against ‘extinction’ claims:
It’s telling that the sockpuppet account tried to disinform people into thinking otherwise. It’s also weird since its other sockpuppet accounts despise Dr. Mann since he offered mild, constructive criticism of claims made by the climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, the sockpuppet’s idol. Doomists often despise those who use scientific evidence to critique exaggerations.
I respect both Dr. Hansen and Dr. Mann since, for instance, they made accurate predictions that ran contrary to denialism. But I agree with Dr. Mann’s criticisms of Dr. Hansen’s more recent work.
Atomsk’s Sanakan,
I was curious as to the basis of the Ord 0.1% estimate which seemed rather too high to me.
Dr Toby Ord, is suggesting in his 2020 book ‘The Precipice’ a 0.1% chance of human extinction from AGW and here he is speculating about human extinction this century. So the 0.1% seems massively high.
In a 2024 video Ord says:-
So it’s not simply a bigly big big model-derived ΔT Ord is saying will do for us.
And in this
2024 blog Ord indicates that the 0.1% in his book was rounded up and that new data since he wrote his book points to the actual number being now lower than before, although he says of his revised estimates (for all causes of extinction by 2100) “none of them have moved that far. “ I would suggest that if he is massively down-playing RCP8.5, the AGW extinction probability would have indeed moved far, a long long way down.
For fellow inquisitive souls, Ord’s full list of extinction probabilities in his 2020 book run:-
Asteroid or comet impact
~ 1 in 1,000,000
Supervolcanic eruption
~ 1 in 10,000
Stellar explosion
~ 1 in 1,000,000,000
Total natural risk
~ 1 in 10,000
Nuclear war
~ 1 in 1,000
Climate change
~ 1 in 1,000
Other environmental damage
~ 1 in 1,000
‘Naturally’ arising pandemics
~ 1 in 10,000
Engineered pandemics
~ 1 in 30
Unaligned artificial intelligence
~ 1 in 10
Unforeseen anthropogenic risks
~ 1 in 30
Other anthropogenic risks
~ 1 in 50
Total anthropogenic risk
~ 1 in 6
Sorry, I left out some context in my prior comments. My mistake. I’ve added it below.
I don’t consider Lynas’ book to be a peer-reviewed scientific study, nor as credible as Dr. Mann’s book. So we still haven’t been shown a scientific study supporting an at least 5% chance of anthropogenic climate change causing humans to go extinct. And apparently Dr. Mann wasn’t aware of such a study either, despite Mo Yunus‘ misrepresentation of Dr. Mann’s position.
MA said: homo sapiens would still find a liveable home on planet Earth at +13ºC
The chances of that are very small, and you know it, particularly at the accelerated rates of change that re likely. But if it allows you to remain in your cacoon of reticence, good for you, I guess.
Ignorance (non-pejorative sense) really is bliss, I think. Wish I could be.
Killian,
There does appear to be a need for you to explain yourself.
Consider that Dr Toby Ord quoted up-thread talks of +20ºC and says “it still seems like there would be substantial habitable areas” and in his video talks of these areas as being a third the global land area.
This conclusion does not appear controversial within the literature.
For instance Farnsworth et al (2023) tells us
So, on what do you base your oh-so-bold assertion that “the chances … are very small” at +13ºC AGW for any land at all being still liveable for homo sapiens?
MA said: “homo sapiens would still find a liveable home on planet Earth at +13ºC”
Yes some humans would, but not 8 billion people. For these reasons off the top of my head:
Some areas of the planet would be so hot they are rendered quite uninhabitable for humans and edible plants and significant numbers of animals.
Large areas of the planet would have a lethal combination of heat and humidity meaning people would have to live indoors much of the time and have outside work done by robots. But this would require massive resourcing beyond what is practical to sustain huge numbers of people.
Large areas of the planet would have extreme heat and thus sharply reduced agricultural output and ecosystem collapse.
The severe warming problems will cause complex interrelated effects and cascades that generally degrade the ability of our economy to sustain large numbers of people.
A few places like Canada might be still quite liveable for humans, but the land area is going to be limited, and agriculture may still suffer. So just as a guesstimate, I reckon about one billion people or so would find a home on planet earth at +13degC. And for some of them it could be rather dystopian.
Thank you for the informative context, MA Rodger. It’s ironic to see Mo Yunus try to lecture Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf on risk communication to the public. After all, Mo Yunus and Killian would misinform the public by exaggerating the risk of human extinction from anthropogenic climate change. Dr. Rahmstorf had the courtesy to cite scientific evidence for his claims, unlike Killian and the sockpuppet account.
I agree that the human extinction risk from anthropogenic climate change is likely way below 0.1%. And there’s also this from the lead author of the PNAS paper Killian distorted:
Even the sockpuppet’s idol, Dr. James Hansen, argues against anthropogenic forcing causing a baked crust, runaway greenhouse effect where humans are extinct because liquid water is gone. That’s explained by Dave Farina (‘Professor Dave Explains’ on YouTube) from 29:16 to 32:26 of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-gdabZooKo&lc=UgxdStzpj8JVwq4l2P14AaABAg&t=1756s
David says
13 Oct 2025 at 4:56 PM
Maybe I missed it being already covered in this lengthy conversation, but I would only offer that the issue with what’s being called “risk analysis” by Geoff and Killian is that’s not how actual encompassing risk analysis is done. They are only doing part of the work required.
Hmmm… Since you have no idea HOW any risk analysis I do “is done,” you’re talking out of your peanuttle arse.
Feel free to inform us of how risk analysis “is done.”
Just another speaking out of ignorance because he can’t understand what others say if it’s not deeply embedded in THEIR preferred approach.
Killian says:
“YEARS ago there were studies stating a 5% chance of human extinction. Since you do not seem to understand risk, let me put it in big letters for you: THAT’S A 1 IN 20 CHANCE OF EXTINCTION.”
There are several lines of evidence that Killian fabricated this, in typical doomist fashion. For example:
– Available analyses show a chance of much less than 5%.
– There’s not a plausible, evidence-based mechanism by which human extinction could occur.
– Informed climate scientists note ‘human extinction’ is an exaggeration.
– Killian evades providing the ‘5%+’ studies after being asked to provide them.
– No one so far can show a study stating a risk as high as 5%. But a study with such a high risk estimate would make a media splash and thus be easier to find, as Kevin McKinney noted.
One can also add that humans are resilient, as noted by the lead author of research Killian misrepresented:
The most likely scenario is Killian read something on a topic like catastrophic climate change. Then Killian misrepresented that as being about human extinction. For instance:
Doomist exaggerations like Killian’s are useful for denialists since denialists can pretend such baseless exaggerations are representative of mainstream climate science. So Piotr was right: “this is what makes the doomers like you and Killian such useful tools of the deniers.”
Doomism really is just another form of denialism, insofar as doomists/doomers refuse to accept what strong evidence shows. Evidence-resistant + inaccurate exaggeration is as much a form of denialism as evidence-resistant + inaccurate minimization.
Reply to Geoff Miell
Again another good addition showing your submission details.
Instead of only saying “SLR could become exponential” in words and leaving that to the public to imagine what that might look like; I believe it is really good that you putting numbers on what that could possibly look like between now and 2050.
Even if there is some degree of natural variation or unknown shifts in forcing or ice sheet response, a steady linear increase of 6.5cms or even 2cms per year on average from 2050 to 2100 is a huge threat to contemplate in anyone’s Local Government Risk Assessments. All of Fort Lauderdale would be a never-ending seawater Lake for example.
Well done.
Geoff Miell,
I suspect that you’ll have to add me to your list of “naysayers.”
For clarity, I say “yes” to accelerating SLR that is rapid – multi meter in the next 100 years or less. I expect the eventual rise to exceed the approximately 9 m Eemian rise, although by how much would depend on our future GHG concentration pathway. Yes, I think that will be a big problem, to go along with the other big problems that climate change is creating and will intensify.
I say “nay” to presenting future SLR as a nicely fitted exponential curve with carefully presented yearly values extending to 2100. I see no physical reason why SLR should follow an exponential curve for any amount of time. An exponential curve is non-physical, because the rate of future change depends on the amount of present change. That’s not how ice works; it’s much more irregular. It is also more dependent on temperature than it is on whatever happened in the past year or decade. As you noted “Real world ice melt contributing to SLR will not follow a smooth curve.” Then why present one?
As a further illustration of the non-physical nature of simply fitting an exponential curve, consider that at some point, SLR would have to leave that curve. But how do you decide when? Is it 2100, when a 13-year doubling time will give a 5m total rise? Is it around 2150, when that doubling time would result in a 5 meter YEARLY rise? Half a millennium, when the Earth’s oceans would expand to reach the Sun? I suggest that it is now, because SLR isn’t on an exponential curve at all.
As others have noted, even if you choose to approximate SLR with a curve, there are a potential
infinity of polynomial curves that also have the property of starting out with a gradual rise which becomes faster as you continue. There is no way to distinguish any of these statistically from an exponential curve in the early stages. It’s when the rapid rise commences that the curves begin to separate. All of them with ultimately become non-physical, because they all produce an unbounded rise.
Considering that none of these curves will accurately describe whatever course sea level takes with time, choosing one curve to detail seems misleading. Providing yearly SLR values to 0.1mm gives a false precision to what is actually a much less certain outlook, especially for individual years. These values, which you have repeatedly posted, are trivial to calculate for those familiar with exponential functions, and misleading to those who think that scientists are claiming to know the rate of SLR down to the mm or 100 micron level in 25 years.
Please keep informing the public and legislators the dangers of rapid sea level rise, but leave out the exponential curve. It’s not a good fit.
John Pollack: – “For clarity, I say “yes” to accelerating SLR that is rapid – multi meter in the next 100 years or less. I expect the eventual rise to exceed the approximately 9 m Eemian rise, although by how much would depend on our future GHG concentration pathway.”
So you would disagree with glaciologist Professor Jason Box on SLR commitment then? On 22 Aug 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, he said:
“And at this level of CO₂, this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise. So, obviously it would help to remove a hell-of-a-lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and I don’t hear that conversation very much, because we’re still adding 35 gigatonnes per year.”
https://youtu.be/iE6QIDJIcUQ?t=927
See my Submission (#26) in Slide #14 headlined Earth system is committed to >20 m SLR
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
John Pollack: – “I say “nay” to presenting future SLR as a nicely fitted exponential curve with carefully presented yearly values extending to 2100. I see no physical reason why SLR should follow an exponential curve for any amount of time. An exponential curve is non-physical, because the rate of future change depends on the amount of present change. That’s not how ice works; it’s much more irregular. It is also more dependent on temperature than it is on whatever happened in the past year or decade. As you noted “Real world ice melt contributing to SLR will not follow a smooth curve.” Then why present one?”
I note that the IPCC’s AR6 includes Figure SPM.8 | Selected indicators of global climate change under the five illustrative scenarios used in this Report, particularly panel (d) labelled Global mean sea level change relative to 1900, where it shows a series of nice smooth scenario curves.
The relevant curve is referred to by glaciologist Professor Jason Box in the YouTube video at:
https://youtu.be/8jpPXcqNXpE?t=138
It’s also included in my Submission (#26) in Slide #13 headlined Sea level rise is increasing exponentially
So let me get this straight: Is John Pollock a naysayer to Professor Jason Box and the IPCC’s use of nice smooth curves for their SLR scenarios too?
John Pollack: – “Considering that none of these curves will accurately describe whatever course sea level takes with time, choosing one curve to detail seems misleading.”
You’re not very observant, are you, John Pollock? I show three SLR scenario curves.
By inference, are you suggesting that the IPCC and Jason Box are also “misleading” by using or referring to smooth scenario curves? Yes?
John Pollack: – “Please keep informing the public and legislators the dangers of rapid sea level rise, but leave out the exponential curve. It’s not a good fit.”
Does that also apply to the IPCC and Jason Box using SLR smooth curve scenarios? No?
Then why is what I’m doing any different to what the IPCC, Jason Box and probably many others are doing?
I agree with Killian when he stated to Atomsk’s Sanakan:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840307
It seems to me Killian’s comments also apply to you, John Pollack.
Re: “See my Submission (#26) in Slide #14 headlined Earth system is committed to >20 m SLR
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf”
That document isn’t credible. For example, slide 5 conflates the global warming trend vs. the global temperature trend after removing the impact of volcanic emissions, ENSO, and changes in total solar irradiance (i.e. the adjusted trend). ~0.4°C/decade was the most recent 10-year adjusted trend, not the global warming rate. Earth warmed at less than 0.4°C/decade due to the non-anthropogenic factors Foster and Rahmstorf subtracted out. So the title of slide 5 is wrong.
Also, slide 6 uses Leon Simons’ implausible extrapolation from Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf’s pre-print. Simons takes the pre-print’s most recent 10-year adjusted trend and treats that as representative of the multidecadal global temperature trend in his extrapolation. That makes no sense for obvious reasons, such as that shorter-term fluctuations are not necessarily representative of longer-term trends, and the adjusted trend is not necessarily equivalent to the global trend with those 3 factors included.
Simons engaged in mechanism-free extrapolation, instead of a mechanism-based projection with a plausible emissions and forcing scenario, supported by successful hindcasting of past temperature trends. In John Pollack’s apt terminology: Simons’ warming projection is non-physical, like your sea level rise extrapolations. Even Foster notes the underlying multidecadal global temperature trend is likely lower than Simons assumes.
You’ve had all this pointed out to you before, as has Simons. But neither of you seem to update your position in response to evidence.
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-839884
– https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-840000
– https://tamino.wordpress.com/2025/06/20/another-estimate-of-the-warming-rate/#comment-109077
– https://pubpeer.com/publications/973ABFB81F504E8CB1B50E941CF3F7#1
Geoff Miell – So you would disagree with glaciologist Professor Jason Box on SLR commitment then? … “this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise.”
JP – I don’t regard my “exceeds 9 meters” as a disagreement, but a matter of framing. As you said in another place, the difference is academic. A lot can happen in the thousands of years it would take to reach the current “commitment” to SLR. The eventual SLR is clearly going to be very bad.
GM – The relevant curve is referred to by glaciologist Professor Jason Box in the YouTube video at:
https://youtu.be/8jpPXcqNXpE?t=138
It’s also included in my Submission (#26) in Slide #13 headlined Sea level rise is increasing exponentially
So let me get this straight: Is John Pollock a naysayer to Professor Jason Box and the IPCC’s use of nice smooth curves for their SLR scenarios too?
JP – I favor a shadowed uncertainty area to a smooth curve. Both types of presentations are common. Prof. Box’s use of a dashed line does also suggest uncertainty.
GM – (quoting me) “Considering that none of these curves will accurately describe whatever course sea level takes with time, choosing one curve to detail seems misleading.”
You’re not very observant, are you, John Pollock? I show three SLR scenario curves.
JP – I accept your correction, and apologize for being sloppy. You indeed presented three SLR scenario curves in your postings. All are exponential, with constant doubling times of 7, 10, and 13 years.
While we’re being observant, did you notice that you misspelled my last name? More importantly, did you observe that Prof. Box does NOT present exponential curves. At approximately 2070, his favored dashed curve begins to flatten toward linear, rather than maintaining a constant doubling interval and an ever-steepening rise of an exponential curve.
GM – By inference, are you suggesting that the IPCC and Jason Box are also “misleading” by using or referring to smooth scenario curves? Yes?
JP – No, I don’t accept your inference. You’re being misleading by presenting the non-exponential curves in your Slide #13 under the heading “Sea level rise is increasing exponentially.” In your posting on this website, you are being misleading by specifying these curves down to 0.1 mm, and doing it repeatedly. We will be lucky to correctly anticipate the rate of SLR within 25% going out a few decades. We do know that it won’t be exponential, though.
John Pollack (at 7 Oct 2025 at 12:54 PM): – “I don’t regard my “exceeds 9 meters” as a disagreement, but a matter of framing. As you said in another place, the difference is academic.”
It seems to me you are the one apparently being a stickler for accuracy. It seems to me you are being inconsistent here.
John Pollack (at 7 Oct 2025 at 12:54 PM): – “I favor a shadowed uncertainty area to a smooth curve. Both types of presentations are common. Prof. Box’s use of a dashed line does also suggest uncertainty.”
Ah, so this is about your preferences? So, it’s okay for the IPCC and Box (and others) to use smooth curves (or even dashed ones) but you attack me for doing so? We can’t let this upstart Geoff Miell character use smooth scenario curves, aye John Pollack, can we? Such impudence, aye? Woe betide upstarts who challenge the preferred reticent orthodoxy, aye?
John Pollack (at 7 Oct 2025 at 12:54 PM): – “I accept your correction, and apologize for being sloppy. You indeed presented three SLR scenario curves in your postings. All are exponential, with constant doubling times of 7, 10, and 13 years.
While we’re being observant, did you notice that you misspelled my last name?”
I apologise for misspelling your surname. Welcome to the club – my surname gets misspelt often. I think it’s much easier to inadvertently substitute an “o” for an “a” than it is to misread three curves as one, do you think John?
While we’re being observant, did you notice my SLR scenario curves only extend to year-2075? I’d suggest anything beyond the next 50 years timeframe would be academic.
John Pollack (at 7 Oct 2025 at 12:54 PM): – “No, I don’t accept your inference. You’re being misleading by presenting the non-exponential curves in your Slide #13 under the heading “Sea level rise is increasing exponentially.” In your posting on this website, you are being misleading by specifying these curves down to 0.1 mm, and doing it repeatedly.”
This is the Cambridge Dictionary definition of exponentially:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponentially
I think you are deliberately misrepresenting my meaning by inferring the more restrictive mathematical meaning.
John Pollack (at 7 Oct 2025 at 12:54 PM): – “We will be lucky to correctly anticipate the rate of SLR within 25% going out a few decades. We do know that it won’t be exponential, though.”
What? Are you making predictions now, John?
I think you are deliberately conflating my SLR scenarios and possibilities with predictions. I’d suggest this is a straw man tactic.
Re: “I think you are deliberately misrepresenting my meaning by inferring the more restrictive mathematical meaning.”
You’re contradicting yourself. You originally used a restrictive mathematical meaning of “exponential”, since you discussed different functions with fixed doubling times. For example, here:
Your slide #15 also had different functions with fixed doubling times. But as John Pollack correctly noted, the IPCC curves shown in your slide #13 are not exponential, i.e. they do not have fixed doubling times (also see from figure 9.27 of IPCC AR6). So slide #13 do not support your exponential extrapolation in slide #15.
You misled on this point by saying those IPCC curves are smooth and increase, while your curves are also smooth and increase; in saying this you conflated disagreeing with you vs. disagreeing with the IPCC:
But as John Pollack and I told you, plenty of random functions are smooth and increase, without being exponential curves with fixed doubling times. For instance, sigmoid functions:
Again, neither the IPCC nor Professor Jason Box use exponential functions with fixed doubling times. You use exponential functions with fixed doubling times. You arbitrarily cherry-picked those functions because they give the higher sea level rise rates you think would motivate government policies you like. Other smoothly increasing, non-exponential curves would have given you less of a sea level rise. It’s thus on you to defend your choice of functions, without falsely claiming the IPCC or Jason Box justify your choice.
Re: “I think you are deliberately conflating my SLR scenarios and possibilities with predictions. I’d suggest this is a straw man tactic.”
This is not about possibility since there are an infinite number of random possibilities using different functions, including sea level rise flat-lining in the way Bjorn Lomborg claimed:
This is instead about what is most plausible based on evidence. You’ve been repeatedly shown your mechanism-free curve fitting and extrapolation is less plausible than forcing-based sea level rise projections.
Atomsk’s Sanakan (at 10 Oct 2025 at 1:44 PM): – “You’re contradicting yourself. You originally used a restrictive mathematical meaning of “exponential”, since you discussed different functions with fixed doubling times. For example…”
Nope. The use of the word “exponentially” in the heading of Slide #13…
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
… meets the Cambridge Dictionary definition of exponentially:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponentially
I’d suggest if you asked people what they thought the word “exponentially” meant, they would likely provide an approximation of the dictionary definition. I also note I included the quote by Josh Willis in the preceding slide (#12):
Scientists and engineers might be more precise and highlight the general understanding as well as the mathematical one.
Slide #15 is about some SLR scenarios using three specific doubling-time rates. These also meet the general definition of “exponentially”.
It seems to me you are attempting to impose your more restrictive mathematical definition. I think you have a very blinkered perspective. It seems to me you have a propensity to misread and misrepresent what’s presented by others here.
Atomsk’s Sanakan, I think you also need to have a good hard look at the way you behave here.
I make my comments here under my own name. Do you? Who is the real Atomsk’s Sanakan?
Atomsk’s Sanakan (at 10 Oct 2025 at 1:44 PM): – “You arbitrarily cherry-picked those functions because they give the higher sea level rise rates you think would motivate government policies you like.”
Not arbitrary. It’s based on compelling evidence/data from sources, including James Hansen, Eric Rignot, Jason Box, NOAA, etc. IMO, these sources are highlighting possible outcomes that would be catastrophic for coastal cities and property/infrastructure well before the reticent orthodoxy would have us all believe.
It seems to me this is inconvenient for your ideological narratives, thus you continue with your apparent personal attacks, misreading and misrepresentations.
I’d suggest government policies are continuing to contribute to an Earth System heading towards a planet incompatible for human civilisation well before the end of this century. Do you think that’s acceptable for you, aye Atomsk’s Sanakan? Are you a “climate lukewarmer”?
Geoff Miell says
“and the rate of rise is getting faster and faster.”
Maybe if instead you wrote >>>> “and the slow rate of rise is getting faster and faster.” <<<<< it might have got past the brianrot tha does not even know what exponential actually means to normal people and mathematicians?
And Geoff asks:
Do you think that’s acceptable for you, aye Atomsk’s Sanakan? Are you a “climate lukewarmer”?
Neither, the words you seeking is Fanatical Internet Troll Nothing is acceptable. Beyond his "god ordained right" to spam and harass people everywhere online for two decades relentlessly.
Does not have a day job. Probably never did.
Atomsk’s Sanakan, I appreciate your attention to detail and scientific accuracy. At this point, it is clear to me that Geoff will continue to present his exponential SLR projections as expressed in tables that offer precise numbers. He will also label other SLR curves as “exponential”, and then hide behind the ruse that the dictionary offers him a vague definition of “exponential” This tactic is utterly without scientific merit, of course, but the discussion appears to have become sterile. Perhaps we are witnessing a negative exponential where the verbiage continues to increase, but the density of new information tends toward zero.
Re: “Nope. The use of the word “exponentially” in the heading of Slide #13”
You’re engaged in the motte-and-bailey fallacy. Your slide #15 and your statements on here you use exponential in a manner that entails a constant doubling time. When called on that, you retreat to claiming you’re just saying “becomes quicker and quicker as something that increases becomes larger“. Sorry, but that’s not going to work.
There are plenty of functions that have a period of time in which they increase at a greater rate, without a consistent doubling time. For example: sigmoid, cubic, and quartic. But they don’t have consistent doubling times. So they don’t fit the definition of exponential you actually used to make your projections. And you’re still stuck justifying your arbitrary choice of exponential function when there are a huge number of other functions you didn’t choose.
Re: “Slide #15 is about some SLR scenarios using three specific doubling-time rates. These also meet the general definition of “exponentially”.”
Again, why didn’t you choose a cubic function? Or quartic? Or sigmoid? Or… Better yet, why didn’t you choose mechanism-based projections with a plausible greenhouse gas emissions scenario and forcing scenario?
You don’t have an answer to those questions because you’re arbitrarily cherry-picking. No, what the IPCC did (i.e. your slide #13) is not a defense for what you’re doing, no matter how much you equivocate on terms like ‘exponential’. The IPCC used a mechanism-based scenario with corresponding emissions and forcing scenarios. You’re not doing that. You’ve been shown that multiple times. You don’t follow what the IPCC does since plausible, mechanism-based scenarios don’t get you the exaggerated rate of sea level rise you want to show governments to influence policy.
Re: “Atomsk’s Sanakan, I think you also need to have a good hard look at the way you behave here.”
You need to take a good hard look at how you respond to criticism. The criticisms I’m making would be some of the first criticisms you’d receive if you ran your claims by climate scientists. I know that since I already cited a paper for you in which climate scientists made those criticisms were made regarding arbitrary curve fitting.
Re: “Not arbitrary. It’s based on compelling evidence/data from sources, including James Hansen, Eric Rignot, Jason Box, NOAA, etc. IMO, these sources are highlighting possible”
Wrong. For example, I already showed you the NOAA makes sea level rise projections using mechanism-based scenarios, with accompanying forcing and emissions scenarios. They don’t just arbitrarily choose some random exponential function, instead of a quartic function, cubic function, sigmoid function, etc. Anyone can fabricate a possible sea level rise projection, as I showed you with Bjorn Lomborg making up a scenario in which sea level rise stopped. Science is not about random possibilities since those are infinite. It’s instead about what’s plausible based on evidence, such as the observed mechanistic relationship between forcing and sea level rise in the industrial era + in paleoclimate data.
Re: “Are you a “climate lukewarmer”?”
This is a great illustration of how poorly you respond to criticism. Since you can’t cogently address the criticism I, John Pollack, Piotr, and others have made of your extrapolations, you deflect to insinuating I’m a lukewarmer. Yet I’ve repeatedly critiqued lukewarmers. Just because people criticize your exaggerations doesn’t make them lukewarmers. It instead means you should consider the criticism.
Thanks for your explanations as well, John Pollack. I agree it’s becoming sterile. Geoff Miell was repeatedly shown how climate scientists make sea level rise projections (forcing-based, mechanism-based), along with how that differs from Geoff Miell’s nonphysical approach. For instance:
Yet Geoff Miell just disregards that anyway, with empty commentary from the sockpuppet account that spams comments here more than anyone else. So yes, their responses are largely becoming verbiage with no new, cogent information. They can’t do novel things like show how their function does with hindcasting, since their exponential functions are nonphysical and immediately fail hindcasting. It’s like dealing with fans of Nicola Scafetta’s climastrology / curve fitting.
In Re to Atomsk’s Sanakan, 27 OCT 2025 AT 6:11 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-841207
Dear Atomsk’s,
I read the entire discussion about humanity extinction risk estimations and analogous discussion about possibility of very high sea level rise already in this century, and woul like to ask a somewhat heretic question.
I fully agree to you, Piotr, MA Rodger, John Pollack and anyone else that various trend extrapolations should be assessed very cautiously and not trusted much if they are not supported by a plausible physical mechanism enabling the supposed trend.
Unfortunately, I am not sure if e.g. James Hansen, when he analyzed the possibility of the five meter sea level rise within 21th century and (as it is my understanding) arrived at a conclusion that it may be indeed possible, supported his conclusion by such a physical mechanism enabling this result?
I admit that I have not studied his sea level projections, and do not know if people like Geoff Miell or Killian O’Brien reproduce his conclusions correctly. If so, then I think that your criticism should be addressed not only to people panicking over such projections, but also to him, because in case that his conclusions were rather speculative than strongly supported with a plausible analysis, they do represent rather subjectively motivated activism than critical science.
Thank you in advance for a comment snd greetings
Tomáš
TK. Hansen has predicted 5 metre global SLR this century. This would require a strong acceleration in SLR possibly exponential.
He proposes a physical mechanism of rapid non linear possibly exponential ice sheet disintegration. This in turn is based on evidence some Antarctic glaciers are speeding up as they move towards the ocean, as the projecting ice shelves that anchor them in place are becoming detached from the bed rock as they warm up from below. Or something like that. And there was rapid SLR in the distant past in Antarctic.
But Hansen is assuming a massive and widespread acceleration in this process and this is not getting support in the science community. If you ask google you would get some references to his related studies.
Reply to nigelj
Thanks for your credible quotes. Appreciated.
Beware of the critical constraints that go against my comment. I guess I should not have included “partially hinted at” … that left far too much open to interpretation. Can I withdraw that now, or am I too late, forger to be condemned for being “wrong” once, lol.
My main intent was about him not ever producing a paper “forecasting, projecting or predicating in writing, clear as day … a +5 metre SLR by 2100. You know, like based on his own modelling and assumptions? That precludes his various commentaries and “testimony” about what might be possible …
Your latest submission carries this critically important qualifier — As a quantitative example,
let us say that…
To me he is painting a hypothetical designed to be a teaching moment of how things might unfold Compared to the current IPCC consensus arguments. An example of what is possible. He is not describing a firm science based Projection or Forecast .. this is what will or should happen based on his science modelling within a firm range and certainty etc.
Now, you can of course see it differently if you wish, but this is how I see it. And why I have said what I have said. Because on every example thus far provided similar qualifications apply.
The top shelf is to be found in his published peer reviewed papers. Nothing said off the cuff should be seen to override that Science analysis. imo.
Mo Yunus says: “My main intent was about him not ever producing a paper “forecasting, projecting or predicating in writing, clear as day … a +5 metre SLR by 2100. You know, like based on his own modelling and assumptions?”
And that’s exactly what Hansen did in the published paper I quoted “Scientific reticence and sea level rise.” He made a projection that SLR could be 5M by 2100 based on his own modelling ( of a basic sort) and he stated his assumptions on the physical mechanisms and the exponential growth trend. If you had meant a detailed computer modelling exercise, with certainty levels you should really have said so.
Just to clarify what I think about Hansens projection. Im a bit sceptical SLR would be 5M per century or by 2100. Even if you get an exponential increase in ice sheet disintegration maybe in the next few decades, that huge pile of ice still has to melt, and some expert pointed out even the worst case warming rates cant do that by 2100 enough to get to 5M SLR.
The IPCC has 2m per century as the worst case scenario. And of course Hansen is still arguing “multi metre” SLR per century is possible. Just because his 5M estimate may have been a bit high doesn’t mean he should now be ignored. I think we should take 2M by 2100 seriously given its huge potential impacts. I’ve long thought 2M may be possible, given the paleo climate record has had periods of as much as 5M per century (MWP 1A) albeit with far more ice to melt.
A reasonable position to hold. thx for the perspective.
Does anyone know what’s going on with the Climate Reanalyzer charts?
Calum,
The bit I use of ClimateReanalyser thatI use shows ERA5 SAT and that looks normal. You seem to be concerned by the SST pages which I see sport a dotted trace since 16th Sept, something I haven’t noticed before.. I use the ERA5 60N-60S SST numbers (rather than the NOAA OI SST) that are available at ClimatePulse where all appears normal.
There was a different NOAA source I was beginning to wonder may be in trouble. The NOAA STAR troposphere temps were becoming rather late in updating for August although now the US govt shutdown has meant “This site will not be updated” until the situation is resolved.
Piotr 26 Sep “…. and this is supposed to invalidate my reply to Jim O. – how?”
Keith Woollard Sep.30 “ Yes it is, Jim was talking about taxes, and you mention USD7T is subsidies. By definition if you are talking about government money (taxes) then explicit subsidies are the only ones that have any bearing. Societal costs are not borne by governments.”
Seeing an illusionary straw in the eye of the other, and defending the beam in your own on the technicality (“we are discussing here straws, NOT beams, people!“), Keith?
Won’t work: in the Jim O.’s claim that you and your fellow denier KiA defend, quote:
Jim O’Hara: “Now do rising oceans flooding Manhattan scare. Must suck for you having those tax dollars that were stolen from my wallet funding this BS drying up and not funding your studies. Derp!”
i.e. the central grievance is THAT the government STEALS the money from his wallet. For that grievance – it is irrelevant in which WAY the money were STOLEN from his wallet
– or stolen from our wallets directly – via direct government subsidies financed from our taxes, when we have to pay from our wallet higher insurance premiums, or when the government programs do not cover all our losses so we have to pay the rest from our own pocket.
– or it is stolen from our wallets indirectly – when the government picks up the costs of climate change (e..g. financing of the evacuation, cleanup and rebuilding of infrastructure and financial support for businesses and individuals in rebuilding after the hurricane) and instead charging fossil fuel industrial complex that made their profits on dumping CO2 into the atmosphere for free – finances it from the taxes paid by Jim and the rest of us.
The technique of the theft is irrelevant to the outcome of it – less money left in our wallets and corresponding increase in profits of the fossil fuels industrial complex.
As expected, the resident climate change deniers like KiA and you – would like to narrow the discussion of the full costs of climate change to a fraction of it – by limiting the problem only to the direct tax subsidies and by this divert the attention from the TRILLIONS of dollars a year of our money helping to finance … the wars of aggression (Russia) and/or terrorism (the Gulf states, Iran), and filling the wallets of fossil fuel oligarchs and shareholders.
To the man on the street in the USA reading about climate change, when they see an article say something like “subsidies to FF companies”, to the reader that means “the government is giving the companies money to produce FFs”. In the USA, everyone paying attention knows that isn’t happening, so the article loses credibility.
If you want people to take those so-called; “subsidies” seriously, call them what they are: “worldwide estimated costs to ________(fill in the blank) due to the burning of fossil fuels” – or something like that.
Also, it is not the FF producers creating the carbon in the atmosphere. It is everyone who uses FFs for transportation, space heating, water heating, etc. Everyone paying attention knows that so when an article blames the FF company, the article loses credibility. Everyone in the USA knows that FFs are a necessary part of life that has produced VAST benefits, so bad-mouthing the FF producers isn’t a winning strategy to get public opinion on your side. If however you only want leftists to be enraged at the horrors of FFs, then go ahead and tell lies and half-truths and you’ll just make those who already agree with you even madder than they were. You didn’t gain any new voters.
In other words, tell the truth. Do not write half-truths. At least then the denier can’t point to your obvious false statements or half-truths, Things may be different in Europe. I don’t know their mindset or how their taxes work. We started this country to get away from them. Now-days, they put people in jail there for normal speech, prayer, and even thoughts. We’re different here, we value freedom, including freedom of speech, way more than in most other countries. We even have a guaranteed freedom to keep and bear arms to back up those freedoms if necessary. We used them on the British to escape their tyranny. Now we see how they treat their own unarmed citizens.
BUT, back to the problem at hand – reducing GHG emissions. While Trump is in the WH here in the USA, is the rest of the world pulling their weight to reduce GHG emissions? Can anyone confirm that there is a general consensus that man-made GHGs in the atmosphere are causing MOST of the warming the planet is experiencing? If there is a consensus on that, can we say that the science is mostly settled concerning that idea? Or do we have a consensus, but not settled science? Seems like last month that discussion wasn’t totally clarified.
KiA: “To the man on the street in the USA “subsidies to FF companies”, means “the government is giving the companies money to produce FFs”.
And why that Mr. Man on the Street in the USA who Knows it All insists on … confirming of what I have just said about him
Piotr 1 Oct: “As expected, the resident climate change deniers like KiA and you – would like to narrow the discussion of the full costs of climate change to a fraction of it – by limiting the problem only to the direct tax subsidies and by this divert the attention from the TRILLIONS of dollars a year of our money helping to finance … the wars of aggression (Russia) and/or terrorism (the Gulf states, Iran), and filling the wallets of fossil fuel oligarchs and shareholders.” ?
Why don’t you ask yourself instead why would you use your limited time on Earth – on the climate change denial and therefore on helping to finance the Russia’s war on Ukraine and religious extremism financed from oil and gas profits of by the Middle East autocracies?
Life unexamined is not worth living, you know,
Reply to Mr. Know It All
1) To the man on the street in the USA reading about climate change, when they see an article say something like “subsidies to FF companies”, to the reader that means “the government is giving the companies money to produce FFs”.
My oh MY: Correct. 100%
Then for example in Indonesia, the Govt provides subsidizes for fuel supplies (gasoline diesel gas) so the poor citizens / business support so don’t starve and can get to work etc. The majority of all “so-called” FF subsidies globally are for such purposes — and not paid or credited to Corporations to boost profits. It is Welfare assistance to the People -everywhere – no difference than when Saddam provided cheap as dirt gasoline to the Iraqi population, and how the Saudis et al still do. In the 3rd world subsidy support is widespread.
MR KIA, you are right to call out this distorted sophistry here. But one cannot correct “mindless” peoples ideologies and entrenched collective Myths. Not yours or theirs.
2) back to the problem at hand – reducing GHG emissions. While Trump is in the WH here in the USA, is the rest of the world pulling their weight to reduce GHG emissions?
My oh MY: Opinions and PR varies, but my “opinion” is no, of course they aren’t. No one is. The COP related NDCs are all bs. Lipstick on a Pig.
3) Can anyone confirm that there is a general consensus that man-made GHGs in the atmosphere are causing MOST of the warming the planet is experiencing?
My oh MY: a general consensus among scientists and academics and institutions and governments as well as the educated general public of the Golden Billion westerner orientated OECD nations, absolutely yes. And the educated elites / academics / middle class + of the global south, developing nations, of course yes.
The majority of the 8 billion on Earth don’t know much if anything about the topic. It’s an open question; beware “polling” that says something else.
4) If there is a consensus on that, can we say that the science is mostly settled concerning that idea?
My oh MY: Absolutely yes.
5) Or do we have a consensus, but not settled science? Seems like last month that discussion wasn’t totally clarified.
Yes, a consensus on the core idea basics of climate science etc. The details are unsettled – how much how fast by when the future trends and wtf to do about – that is very unsettled. Substantial supporting evidence exists that supports my comments above. But I have better things to do than point out the obvious history of these matters. — That people generally never read anyway.
KIA: it is not the FF producers creating the carbon in the atmosphere. It is everyone who uses FFs for transportation, space heating, water heating, etc.
BPL: They don’t have a choice–and the FF producers have spared no effort to see that they never get that choice.
788Hi Mr. KiA. Questions for you if you so desire to reply:
KiA: “To the man on the street in the USA reading about climate change, when they see an article say something like “subsidies to FF companies”, to the reader that means “the government is giving the companies money to produce FFs”.
Do you not consider specifically tailored favorable tax treatments offered to O&G companies, partnerships, etc. all along the way from exploration to drilling, refining, and so forth as federal subsidies unique to the biz?
KiA: “Also, it is not the FF producers creating the carbon in the atmosphere. It is everyone who uses FFs for…”
Have you ever seen or been in a refinery? What do you think the flares are burning off? Same point applies to well side flares, gas leaks at the well head, etc! Yes, these emissions pale in comparison to those produced by burning the product by FF consumers, BUT they are a measurable contribution!
KiA: “In other words, tell the truth. Do not write half-truths.”
Pot, meet kettle!
KiA: “While Trump is in the WH here in the USA, is the rest of the world pulling their weight to reduce GHG emissions?”
Will you ever, ever, ever acknowledge that the USA is STILL the current #2 GHG producer, AND the number #1 LARGEST producer of emissions historically? Why are you willing to give the USA a pass while Trump is in office? Just as one human being on the planet, don’t you feel any responsibility to your fellow human beings???
David,
Thank you. Yes Sir, I will give you the courtesy of a reply.
On tax treatments, no, I do not consider tax treatments to be subsidies because all businesses and individuals get favorable tax treatments for certain expenses. Don’t know how it works in the rest of the world, but in the USA, we are generally taxed on profits, not on sales. Profits are loosely defined as sales revenue minus costs of doing business. All businesses get similar treatment. Not only does government give favorable tax treatment, it also imposes costs on all businesses to comply with the tax laws, OSHA laws, EPA laws, employment laws, and on and on and on and on and on.
Thank you for admitting this: “Yes, these emissions pale in comparison to those produced by burning the product by FF consumers,” You are correct, we are pretty much ALL guilty of GHG emissions, and you are also correct that it is our cars, homes, airline trips, industrial uses, etc that are the big problems.
On giving Trump a pass, there is that old saying: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.” Trump is in office for 3.25 more years. There will not likely be much help on GHG reductions coming from the Federal Government during that time. Thus there is no reason to fret about it – KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
The USA emits 11.255% of annual GHG emissions as of 2023. The rest of the world emits 88.745% of all GHGs. Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions#Per_capita_GHG_emissions
IF the rest of the world will do their part for the next 3.25+ years, that will help greatly. That is the reality today. It isn’t about Trump. It isn’t about giving him a pass. This is a math game. The USA is not a big problem in the overall result. Work on China which emits almost 3 TIMES the GHGs as the USA, and also keep working on the other nations. Whining about Trump accomplishes nothing. The other nations can pick up the slack for 3.25+ years. And don’t forget that states, and individuals in the USA are working on the problem whether Trump is or not. Buy a Tesla for starters. No tailpipe emissions, fast, beautiful, “Murican made – what’s not to like?
Hi KiA. Thank you for a genuine reply. I offer the following thoughts –
KiA: “On tax treatments, no, I do not consider tax treatments to be subsidies because all businesses and individuals get favorable tax treatments for certain expenses…”
While I disagree with how you look at this, I do tend to agree that most everyday ordinary folks would agree that a “subsidy” is the federal government dispersing money at the front end and not how a business is taxed. Unfortunately, this is an extremely incomplete understanding, one that all sort of companies have engineered to benefit the bottom line.
The U.S. federal tax code is not thousands and thousands of pages long to account for folks to deduct mortgage interest! No, instead it’s been tailored thru the years to the demands of businesses.
When I was studying for my Series 8 license exam (now split into Series 9 & 10), three specific areas of investment were considered complex enough by the company doing the training to warrant specific focus: bonds, options and futures, and oil and gas (O&G). Bonds were surprisingly straightforward to understand. Trading options and futures was something I’d been doing for years already, so that was easy. The tough one was O&G investments.
Which was a shock as it not much of exaggeration to say the oil biz was in my family’s blood. The first time I got drilling mud on my shoes was as a youngster tagging along with my dad to visit my uncle (who was a geologist) at a wildcat well being drilled. The O&G biz employed many in my family, leading to lengthy discussions at family gatherings. In time I learned to trade futures contracts, so I thought I had it all down. Boy was I wrong!
The tax treatments for O&G investing and for the companies involved in any way with the business are benefiting from huge tax breaks today, that are to put it mildly, generous! And are not typical when looking at other segments of our country’s business pie. Some even have their roots in tax code changes made during World War 2 that were designed to quickly increase production to support our nation’s fight, yet like zombie are still around 85 years later.
So no, I disagree with how you present the argument and the public’s lack of understanding doesn’t excuse how partisans hide the ball on how O&G continue to excessively benefit from producing a product that is so damaging to the planet.
KiA: “On giving Trump a pass…” and “Whining about Trump accomplishes nothing.“
I continue to be mystified why you and other of my fellow conservatives call opposing actions by Trump a waste of time and whinnying!?! That’s what we do as Americans, we voice opposition when we disagree. How are you okay with Trump labeling any opposition as being done by an enemy of this country??? If we are going to continue to succeed as a nation, we must talk to each other, including, and especially(!) when there is disagreement on policy. I’m so disheartened that so many conservatives seem to no longer think this is a bedrock principal for America. So, no thanks, I will not zip my lips when I disagree with him.
KiA: “IF the rest of the world will do their part for the next 3.25+ years, that will help greatly…. And “don’t forget that states, and individuals in the USA are working on the problem whether Trump is or not….”
I have no issue with other nations working hard to meet their nation’s reduction target. But no matter how many times you try to change the focus, I will continue to point out that our country (U.S.) is the #2 biggest contributor currently and #1 largest historical contributor of anthropogenic GG’s. We have an enormous responsibility that we are not meeting. That’s not America, sir.
And lastly, I wish you would be open enough to acknowledge that Trump’s administration is repeatedly suing to block climate change action by individual states. And yet again, I thought we conservatives tended to frown at naked intervention by the federal government in state matters. So, again, no matter how much you wish to paint a picture of states being free to pursue CC action, I will keep pointing out the current reality.
And throwing away four years of large scale CC action to please one man will surely contribute towards bitter results down the road for the American people. I hope you’ll remember that.
KIA: I do not consider tax treatments to be subsidies because all businesses and individuals get favorable tax treatments for certain expenses.
BPL: Fallacy of equivocation.
Buy a Tesla? Not when Elon Musk profits from it, no way! What about a Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf?
KIA: “Trump is in office for 3.25 more years.”
However, the current Congress is not. If Congress flips in the midterms, Trump’s power to promote fossil fuel use, stall the development of renewables, and generally fuck up our environmental and energy policies will be curbed significantly. And, in case you missed it, campaigning for the midterms is going on NOW.
KIA: “The USA emits 11.255% of annual GHG emissions as of 2023. The rest of the world emits 88.745% of all GHGs… The USA is not a big problem in the overall result. Work on China which emits almost 3 TIMES the GHGs as the USA”
China is working on China, and this isn’t a Chinese-language forum. AI summary of the evidence for my ‘China is working’ assertion, since folks seem to be enjoying such these days:
Yes, the US emits less than China by a wide margin. BUT it is also the #2 emitter in the world, spewing nearly 50% more than #3 India. (Coincidentally, that’s also roughly the margin by which our per capita emissions exceed China’s.) So in relative terms the US is quite emphatically a “big problem in the area.”
And every nation is responsible for its own emissions. Whether a country emits 30% of the total, or, like Slovenia, 0.03% of the total, it must still clean up its own mess.
IF the rest of the world will do their part for the next 3.25+ years, that will help greatly.
Some parts of the world have distinguished themselves in this regard already, and are still proposing improvements. An incomplete list of the largest decreases in carbon emissions (1990-2023) from the KIA-linked Wikipedia page:
Ukraine: -77.69%
Estonia: −67.69%
Moldova: −63.78%
Latvia: −59.54%
Romania: −56.14%
LIthuania: −55.72%
Armenia: −55.43%
Georgia: −54.50%
St. Pierre & Miquelon (French territory): −52.67%
United Kingdom: −51.13%
Bulgaria: −48.40%
North Korea: -46.33%
Germany: −44.83%
Czech Republic: -42.77%
Slovakia: −40.49%
Finland: −39.83%
Belarus: −39.77%
Denmark: −39.42%
Luxembourg: −39.14%
Hungary: −37.03%
Some of these, of course, went through economic contractions in the wake of the Soviet collapse; some have been suffering Russian invasions since; and of course North Korea suffers from permanent economic challenge due to its isolation.
Others, however, have grown significantly over the years since 1990 and are ranked among the best countries to live in.
Most are not big emitters, many accounting for less than a tenth of a percent of the global total. Rather nice of them, don’t you think, not to take the view that their emissions were too small to matter?
But the UK and especially Germany are significant emitters, with the latter clocking nearly 1.3% of the global total in 2923, for 11th place on the global emissions list. The UK’s GDP has approximately tripled as its emissions have been cut below half of the then-total, and Germany’s GDP has grown more or less commensurately with the UK–with an export-oriented manufacture-heavy economy, at that.
One of the most maddening things about Trump’s war on renewables is that not only do we get the injury of more carbon emissions than would have been the case, we get the insult of less and more expensive power: solar PV is by far the cheapest and fastest option for adding generation capacity, with onshore wind following closely. So as demand for power to run data centers and AI hubs rises precipitately, our ability to keep up with demand is actually constrained by Trump’s idiotic aversions.
That’s just one more reason why we need a Congress that will step in and use the authority that the Constitution gave it–and still gives it.
In Re to David, 7 Oct 2025 at 7:29 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840312
Hallo David,
Thank you very much for sharing your personal experience and for emphasizing that there were always two different directions in politics, one characterized by selfishness and the other characterized by responsibility.
I think that the United States of America do not have a completely negative score in this respect.
Greetings
Tomáš
David says
7 Oct 2025 at 7:29 AM
… to please one man
Mo: Y’all still can’t work out why you are losing all the time.
Kevin McKinney says all kinds of things
8 Oct 2025 at 1:06 PM
Mo :You overlook Hunter Biden et al and that great Fossil Fuel Energy company — Burisma Holdings Limited. Put that one on your list; then wonder why we are here with TRUMP today
Those Democrats and Republicans have been lying to you for decades – since the Powell Memo and Reagan in 1980 at least.
Look >> Good graph of U.S. liquids production by Art Berman expected to remain flat of fall slightly through 2026
Conventional Crude Oil/Cond. v huge NGLs split.
https://www.artberman.com/wp-content/uploads/u.s.-liquids-production-is-expected-to-remain-flat-of-fall-slightly-through-2026-unlike-the-6-mmbd-increase-from-2016-to-2020.jpg
Globally, no major oil liquid supply additions expected after September 2025 either
Look >> China Is Beating the US in the Battle for Energy Export Dominance
The US, (given all GOP/DEM Presidents/Congress) which has positioned itself as a major fossil fuel exporter, sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July, the last month with data available. China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
China August’s solar export revenue was nowhere near the high set in March 2023. But the 46,000 megawatts of power capacity shipped abroad set a record.
More than half of China’s electric car exports have gone to outside the OECD (rich-country club for the Golden Billion) to the BRICS and BRI countries
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-05/china-s-clean-energy-exports-are-beating-us-fossil-fuels
Trump / Maga did not create this. Obama Biden Nato and Ukraine set the platform after Cheney. We can only find real solutions by confronting reality.
Eugene T. Gendlin:
“What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse. Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.”
Desiderius Erasmus:
“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”
The American version:
“You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.” Malcolm X
KM: If Congress flips in the midterms, Trump’s power to promote fossil fuel use, stall the development of renewables, and generally fuck up our environmental and energy policies will be curbed significantly.
BPL: I predict that the GOP will win the 2026 elections. Either they will declare an emergency and cancel the election altogether, or they will have troops stationed at polling places who will walk away with the ballot boxes or their equivalent–and they will declare mail-in ballots to be illegitimate. We are now–right now–in a fascist dictatorship, and rigged elections will be the order of the day indefinitely.
BPL, this is a totally understandable concern, but please beware of the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy. We need people to expect they will be able to vote, and act as if their votes will be counted. And then demand such.
PS Kevin McKinney – “Germany are significant emitters, with the latter clocking nearly 1.3% of the global total in 2923,” – dear God, WTF are they emitting in 2923? And what are the winning lottery numbers? :)
BPL wrote:
“BPL: I predict that the GOP will win the 2026 elections. Either they will declare an emergency and cancel the election altogether, or they will have troops stationed at polling places who will walk away with the ballot boxes…”
Well, Trump has already attempted to cheat in plain sight by inducing mid-cycle gerrymandering in Texas and elsewhere, without even a pretense of any reason other than partisan advantage. And there is, IMO, a reason beyond immigration enforcement why Guard and Marine troops are patrolling American streets today–and I agree with you that it is to do with the approaching midterms. So yes, I think your scenarios are plausible–as is another, namely that by inciting violent resistance, Trump will cancel the elections by fiat.
Which is why we need a lot of resistance that is 1) very visible, and 2) determinedly peaceful. I recommend to all the No Kings! event scheduled for October 18. Check the website for times and places relevant to you: https://www.nokings.org/
Dan Hughes commented yesterday, implying I don’t have the requisite experience in conditional probabilities and stochastic reasoning to discuss LLMs:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840050
Hughes has an old habit of stalking whatever I say to try to marginalize the impact it has (FWIW ;). I think it all stems from a 1-star review I gave to a Judith Curry book, where I observed that she butchered the application of statistical mechanics to cloud droplet and ice crystal formation. This comment generated a brouhaha and eventually Amazon deleted my review. Can reconstruct the saga with the help of ChatGPT:
https://chatgpt.com/share/68dd39d7-db80-8006-9b19-89946b625bd0
This is a circa-2014 illustrative microcosm of what was in store for future science discussion — the pushback by MAGA-like acolyte hordes to control dissemination of knowledge. Not surprising that we are in the state we are right now,
In addition to my reply of 2 Sep 2025 at 1:40 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-838733
to MA Rodger, 2 Sep 2025 at 5:56 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-838720
Dear MA,
I would like to repeat my plea of 16 Sep 2025 at 3:28 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-839381
and of 19 Sep 2025 at 1:23 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/#comment-839506 ,
if you could kindly comment on my interpretation of the article Zhiyan Zuo et al 2024:
“Importance of soil moisture conservation in mitigating climate change”
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2024.02.033 .
Specifically, I agreed to JCM that the modelling experiments described in the article could be construed the way that keeping high soil moisture might help keeping climate sensitivity low.
I meanwhile arrived at two further references, namely
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36794-5
and
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40641-y
that could be in my opinion construed analogously, although their authors also do not appear to interpret their results this way.
I would like to ask you for your independent assessment if any of these three documents could allow the alternative reading proposed by JCM and me.
I am aware that my speculation about possible relationship between water availability for evaporation from the land and climate sensitivity may not be your favourite topic. I think, however, that the yet unresolved fierce dispute (if there is any hint in the published scientific literature that such a relationship may exist) should arrive at a clear conclusion.
I believe that you can help. Will you?
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz,
My understanding is that it has been established that the drying of land areas under AGW adds to the disparity between land and ocean warming**. That sort of supports your “speculation.”
I will have a look at firming-up my “understanding” when I have the time.
(** Oceans also being cooled by their ‘coupling’ with tardy deep ocean warming)
Tomas Kalisz: “ It appears that Dr. Rignot assumes that we can bring the Earth climate to “the same level” as it was during the last interglacial. Unfortunately, I do not understand what it exactly means. If the more-less regular switching between glacials and interglacials was, in accordance with Milankovič’s theory etc etc.”
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Tomas:
“To the same level” means bringing the sea …. ta-daaam – to the same level as in the previous interglacial (6-9 m above today’s), NOT to the same level of ,,, mechanism triggering the glacial/interglacial transition (Milankovic cycle).
So before Killian seizes the moment and treats us to the reruns of his Unjustly Maligned Prophet routine (“I have been telling you this for over a decade now, but you never listen“) – these 6-9 m higher sea level approached over geological time-scale, i.e. the sealevel increase we would experience IF we kept the today’s or +0.5C temperature for many centuries /millennia Obviously, such values are grossly misleading IF used in the context of short term SLR (next decades to 2100).
in Re to Piotr, 1 Oct 2025 at 5:33 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840058
Hallo Piotr,
It appears that in your interpretation of Dr. Rignot’s “the same level” of the climat esystem, you skipped the last sentence of the paragraph cited by Geoff Miell that I reproduced in my post of 30 Sep 2025 at 6:19 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/unforced-variations-sep-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-840058
and that reads
“It’s likely that if we bring the climate system to the same level we will also commit ourselves to six to nine metres sea level rise.”
I agree that if we interpret this sentence like
“If we bring sea level 6-9 m above today’s, we will also commit ourselves to six to nine metres sea level rise.”,
it coul be read as an undisputable tautology. I, however, somewhat doubt that it was exactly what Dr. Rignot wished to communicate.
I would rather tend to the interpretation that Dr. Rignot may have indeed meant “keeping today’s or +0.5C (global mean surface) temperature for many centuries /millennia”, as you seem to suggest in your last paragraph.
In this case, however, my objection (that despite the same surface temperature, the actual “level of climate system” might be still different from the last interglacial) stands. I think so because other parameters of the climate, such as insolation geographical distribution, may still differ. Then, it can be reasonably expected that also a different course (and, possibly, extent) of heat absorption through ice thawing and/or (deep) ocean warming than in the last interglacial may be required, to keep in the present era the same global mean surface temperature as during the last interglacial.
I therefore still doubt that from Dr. Rignot’s assertions cited by Geoff Miell, anyone could logically infer that (if we keep the present global mean surface temperature), just the same glaciers mentioned by Dr. Rignot would indeed melt during the said centuries or millennia, and that this melting would indeed necessarily result in the same sea level (6-9 m above present) as in the last interglacial.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz: – “I therefore still doubt that from Dr. Rignot’s assertions cited by Geoff Miell, anyone could logically infer that (if we keep the present global mean surface temperature), just the same glaciers mentioned by Dr. Rignot would indeed melt during the said centuries or millennia, and that this melting would indeed necessarily result in the same sea level (6-9 m above present) as in the last interglacial.”
During the last interglacial (i.e. Eemian interglacial period, approximately 129,000 to 116,000 years ago) the temperature was estimated circa up to +2 °C GMST warmer, relative to the Holocene pre-industrial age, and the maximum sea level was estimated up to 6 to 9 metres higher than at present.
For all intents and purposes, the +1.5 °C GMST anomaly, relative to the 1850-1900 baseline, is here and now. The Earth System hasn’t been this warm since the Eemian interglacial period.
The Earth System is still warming because the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is continuing to drive that warming (at about 11.36 ‘Hiroshimas’ per second).
Humanity is on a collision course towards a +3 °C GMST anomaly, or more; a world beyond any past human experience. Large-scale depopulation would be likely.
https://globaia.org/habitability
The atmospheric Co₂ concentration (i.e. 425-430 ppm) is now already higher than during the Eemian interglacial period was (i.e. 270–280 ppm).
The Earth System is committed to >20 m SLR, albeit over a multi-century/millennia timeframe.
See Slide #14 headlined Earth system is committed to >20 m SLR
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
Tomas Kalisz Hallo Piotr, It appears that in your interpretation of Dr. Rignot’s “the same level” of the climate system, you skipped the last sentence of the paragraph cited by Geoff Miell that reads
“It’s likely that if we bring the climate system to the same level we will also commit ourselves to six to nine metres sea level rise.”
I didn’t quote it because it was not relevant to my point:
– You asked: : “ Unfortunately, I do not understand what “the same level as it was during the last interglacial.” exactly means.
– I have explained : “”To the same level as it was during the last interglacial.” ” means bringing the sea …. ta-daaam – to the same level as in the previous interglacial (6-9 m above today’s), ”
The last sentence I “skipped” – CHANGES nothing,
TK: My objection (that despite the same surface temperature, the actual “level of climate system” might be still different from the last interglacial) stands. I think so because other parameters of the climate, such as insolation geographical distribution, may still differ.
Your different ” insolation geographical distribution”affects only the triggering of deglaciation – not the terminal values of GMST many millenia later, which are determined primarily by the CO2, CH4 and water cycle feedbacks that have widespread if not global basis. And most of SLR comes from Antarctica – when the change in insolation has limited effect
Analogies are like models – all of them are wrong (i.e. not perfect) but some are useful. With the interglacial GMST be either like today OR o.5C warmer, and the SLR then 6m or 9m – the error bars are so large, that they likely cover whatever the effect on SLR of your local differences,
The perfect is the enemy of the good – so the onus of the proof that the analogy is MASSIVELY WRONG is on you.
So the real problem is not that the analogy is not perfect, but that doomers might want to manipulate it – discuss it as AS IF 6-9m applied to SLR in the near future, and not many centuries/millennia down the line.
Tomáš, it definitely isn’t possible to keep GMST below the Eemian Optimum if the paleo is about 1.5 degrees about pre-industrial, which is what I recall reading, with uncertainty about 0.5 degrees. For one thing, ocean “Pattern Effect” (a published paper) looks pretty sensible to me and that can’t be reversed and is asserted as +0.8 degrees over a few hundred years. For SLR there’s no doubt that Eric’s opinion (unless it changed recently) is that glaciologists think an ice-into-ocean increase of 6-7 times the present, giving a maximum of 4.5 m / century SLR is the rate limit for Earth’s present ice mass.
TRUTH IS TRUTH. Your gaslighting means something only to yourself and other goddamned fools who think their egos are more important than avoiding possible collapse and extinction.
I have been telling you for nearly 20 years and you have never listened. Others have finally begun to and mostly ceased this constant stupidity your ego does not allow you to let go of. I will soon stop responding to your infantile peanut-throwing nonsense, but for now, let those who maybe do not know the following truths:
1. I have been WAY ahead of the curve on climate outcomes.
2. I found a relationship between El Ninos and ASI that science did not know about.
3. I have demonstrated, being nearly mathematically illiterate, that HOW you think about issues is at least as important as the numbers.
4. My analysis and insistence that regenerative systems are the only way forward has been shown to be accurate, but led, beginning in 2015, to the core group of posters here going on a massive, sustained attack on pretty much anything I have posted. (It used to be against the rules to even mention solutions, particularly regenerative approaches.) Yet, if you go back to pre-2015 posts (2007 ~ 2015), there was little animosity here between myself and others. But the conservative-minded here couldn’t understand nor accept anything not purely statistical and have driven a significant number of people from these boards with very real, abusive intent.
Just take the rate of change vs. 30-year delineation to say something is “the climate,” The first tripling I knew of was from all the way back in 2007 and it scared the hell out of me. Katey Walter, et al., at the U of Alaska found a tripling of thermokarst lakes within a decade. That SHOULD HAVE FREAKED EVERY HUMAN OUT, but the response then, and still, was a risk analyst’s worst nightmare: “So?”
What it told me is, as a global system, such rates of change had to be propagating and/or would quickly be doing so. That, coupled with a cryoscientist’s statement that the 2007 IPCC DID NOT INCLUDE ICE DYNAMICS, was all I needed to know to realize we were massively underestimating climate change. Continuing to only accept a chnge is “climate” after 30 years when you ALMOST CERTAINLY DON’T HAVE 30 YEARS TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS IS MALADAPTIVE.
5. During that same early time, from 2007 ~2009, I posited SLR would be significantly higher than 30-some centimeters: At least 1M, likely 2, and possibly 3. As recently discussed here, 5M is not outside the bounds of possibility. There are a lot of very credible findings that 1M is now likely a minimum for 2100 or shortly thereafter.
But I am the problem here?
6. In 2009, I argued with 4 PhDs on a site called The Oil Drum (archives still on the web) on climate sensitivity. I argued 3C was clearly too low given changes already occurring. I argued a Dr. Ruttledge from UCLA, IIRC, was dangerously misleading people with a pre-print paper stating we could burn all the coal on the planet and still avoid major climate issues. I begged him to run his model at 4, 5, and 6C because it was so likely sensitivity was estimated too low.
Hansen, et al., and others have now shown sensitivity is almost certainly over 4C and possibly much higher, a number I stated was likely the low end of actual sensitivity.
Anywho, it is this ability to understand SYSTEMS that has so bothered the Peanut Gallery here. Rather than working together to meld their numbers with, to oversimplify, Pattern Recognition and Risk Analysis, they started a 10-year internecine war of rudeness.
Again, most have seemed to abandon this, but Piotr is too broken to let go.
Ignore him. Unlike the very shortened list above, Piotr has never brought anything new, unique, insightful or revelatory to this forum, and his ego bleeds to know someone who is mathematically challenged has done so much more than he has in the climate fight.
These will be my last words on this, Read Piotr if you need to believe in outdated science; otherwise, ignore him. I will return to that stance following this post.
After the DoE, EPA, climate data, immigrant roundups, and DoWar debacles what’s next? fyi
> Trump’s perversity is unfolding … A tipping point is approaching, (his 2024) book’s main predictions have been confirmed.
by Emmanuel Todd a highly respected French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris.
> despite the inconsistencies of the policies of Donald Trump, the American president of defeat. These inconsistencies do not, I believe, result from an unstable, and undoubtedly perverse, personality, but from an insoluble dilemma for the United States.
> The Empire is devouring itself. This is the meaning of the tariffs and forced investments imposed by Trump on Europeans, who have become colonial subjects in a shrunken empire rather than partners. The time for supportive liberal democracies is over. Trumpism is a “white popular conservatism.”
> the coming of a civil war. The American plutocracy is pluralistic. There’s that of the financiers, that of the oil companies, that of Silicon Valley. Trumpist plutocrats, whether Texan oilmen or recent Silicon Valley converts, despise the educated Democratic elites of the East Coast, who themselves despise the Trumpist white heartland gentry, who themselves despise Black Democrats, etc.
> Any science fiction reader will recognize in this disturbing list the beginnings of a dystopian journey, that is, a negative world where power, fragmentation, hierarchy, violence, poverty, and perversity are intertwined. So let us remain ourselves, outside of America.
got sent a handy English translation here: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/10/open-neither-ukraine-nor-palestine-thread-2025-227/#comment-1198467
Dear all,
I do not wonder that, according to Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Todd ,
the book La défaite de l’Occident (The defeat of the West) of this “highly respected French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist” has been “well received by official Russian media”, because the same may apply for his newest article published under the link provided by “Mo Yunus”.
Assertions like “They (the USA) are pushing Israel into action just as they pushed the Ukrainians.” not only have nothing common with history, anthropology, demography, sociology or political science. Rather, they can serve as crystal clear examples of brazen lies fabricated for purposes of Russian hybrid war operations in social media.
I would be very happy if anyone who does not support Russian aggression against other nations avoided as much as possible further direct interactions with “Mo Yunus”, with the aim to restrict the reach of this malicious troll on this website.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš
Truth hurts?
when living in a world drowning in elite propaganda and brazen fabricated lies 24/7
The same reason a minority falsely believe climate change is a conspiratorial lie — not caused by excess CO2; like you!:-)
Reply to Tomáš Kalisz
OK … well well well … the wheel turns.
Czech voters chose real nationalism over Brussels dogma. Andrej Babis’s win shows the people want their real concerns addressed, and attempts to smear him as “pro-Russian” are nothing but desperation
The Czech parliamentary election of October 2025 did not just deliver a victory for Andrej Babiš’s ANO party. It sent a message reverberating far beyond Prague: people are growing weary of Brussels’s single-minded insistence on unconditional support for Ukraine, even at the expense of their own citizens’ well-being.
The result reflects a deep and widespread demand for politics rooted in national interests, rather than dictated by distant EU institutions.
MY: people are growing weary of Brussels’s single-minded insistence on unconditional support for Ukraine, even at the expense of their own citizens’ well-being. . . . The result reflects a deep and widespread demand for politics rooted in national interests, rather than dictated by distant EU institutions.
BPL: It’s very much in the interest of the EU to fight Russian expansionism. No one knows who will be next if Putin gets his way in Ukraine.
Reply to Barton Paul Levenson
Thanks for sharing the paranoia around. Unfounded fear mongering drives The Authoritarian Impulse
Kemp identifies a further mechanism he calls the “authoritarian impulse.” When populations feel threatened—by war, migration, scarcity, or disease—they become more submissive to dominance hierarchies. Fear shifts psychology toward obedience and punitive thinking.
Across history, such moments produce strong-man leaders and scapegoating of minorities. The pattern is observable today: in conditions of uncertainty, citizens gravitate toward authoritarian figures who promise security.
Crucially, fear itself can be manufactured. Dark Triad elites—those lacking empathy and driven by control—can engineer fear narratives (“immigrant invasions,” “evil foreign enemies”) that cause the populace to demand harsh, un-empathetic, non-pro-social policies.
Modern examples abound: political manipulation of terror threats after 9/11, anti-immigrant demagoguery in Western politics, or the framing of rival powers like Russia and China as existential menaces. The frightened public becomes the instrument of its own repression.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/TGS-194-Luke-Kemp-Transcript.docx.pdf
Jeopardy Q 7
What are useful idiots?
LOL
in Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 6 Oct 2025 at 8:07 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840315
Dear Barton Paul,
Thank you very much for your remark. The joy over results of the recent elections into Czech Chamber of Deputies expressed by the multi-troll illustrates quite well his true agenda on this website.
Mr. Andrej Babiš
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Babi%C5%A1
worked in eighties in Czechoslovak state agency for foreign business and belongs to registered secret agents of Czechoslovak secret communist police. After the “Velvet Revolution”, he exploited his contacts (lot of young communist exponents successfully switched to capitalists and collected significant wealth and power during privatization of state property in nineties) and became a USD billionaire.
His populist movement „ANO“ can be rather than as a political party characterized as a „political business unit“ of his company Agrofert, as most of their nominees into public offices are former or present Agrofert employees. In present elections, ANO gained 35% votes and 80 of 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. For establishing a government, Babiš will seek a support from another political businessman Tomio Okamura and his proto-fascist movement SPD with 15 mandates and from a new obscure party „Motorists for themselves“ (with 13 mandates) that should be perhaps called rather „Motorists for internal combustion engines“ because the central part of their program is withdrawal of the European Green Deal, due to its (according to “Motorists” allegedly general) „ban of ICE“.
An important part of the Agrofert business is production of “biodiesel” from rapeseed oil that relies on EU subsidies heavily. At least in this respect, Babiš does not wish “Czexit” from the EU, and will have to tame SPD that has it in their program. A positive message from the election is the failure of openly pro-Russian communists who obtained 4.3% votes and remained thus without any mandate outside Chamber of Deputies.
In a summary, although Czech democracy will definitely experience a hard time under the new “Agrofert” government, we are not a part of Putin’s fifth column in the EU yet and I still hope that we will never become that.
Best regards
Tomáš
MY: Thanks for sharing the paranoia around. Unfounded fear mongering drives The Authoritarian Impulse
BPL: Nothing unfounded or paranoid about it. Are you disputing that Russia attacked Ukraine? Or that it earlier occupied Crimea and Donbas, not to mention Chechnya and part of Georgia? Vy Chekisti?
Dear Tomáš Kalisz,
Thank you very much for your remark.
Reply to Tomáš Kalisz, you are still living in the distant past
1) The joy over results of the recent elections into Czech Chamber of Deputies expressed by the multi-troll illustrates quite well his true agenda on this website.
MY : No joy, everyday frank news reporting verbatim. Learn to Deal with factual reporting or get off the internet if you can’t handle it.
Fact: There is no Russian expansionism. It’s called Stopping a Genocide and State Murder and a fake Proxy war between Russia and NATO/USA/EU intent on destroying the country and pillaging it’s resources and crushing it.
Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2019/09/05/extending-russia.html
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2022/03/ivan-katchanovski-the-hidden-origin-of-the-escalating-ukraine-russian-conflict-the-maidan-massacre/
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Babi%C5%A1
MY: Not credible. Politically motivated repeating untested hearsay compiled news reports is not quality research or peer reviewed. wiki is bad for biased Political conflict.
3) we are not a part of Putin’s fifth column in the EU yet and I still hope that we will never become that.
MY: Biased partisan opinion and ideologue fear mongering is not credible either. No Fact, zero evidence. Especially from hateful uneducated sealioning Denier Trolls like Tomáš Kalisz
Thank you in advance and best regards
Muhammad
Good for the Goose, good for the Gander.
MY: Fact: There is no Russian expansionism.
BPL: You didn’t answer my question. Vi Chekisti? Skazhityeh, pazhalusta. GRU ili SVR?
Jane Goodall was an extraordinary woman in science, primate and defender of all the living.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2021 she said: “I’m not going to give in. I’ll die fighting, that’s for sure.” I do the same and I hope you too.
We are responsible for protecting not only our extremely improbable life, but the life of all the species on the only planet we know of or will ever know as having a biosphere. The responsibility of humans alive today is huge, let’s exercise it with intelligence, competence, science, determination, perseverance and love.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/20/jane-goodall-on-fires-floods-frugality-and-the-good-fight-people-have-to-change-from-within
Well-said, and thanks for sharing.
The September ERA5 SAT anomalies (as per ClimatePulse”) & the NH+SH anomalies (as per the Uni of Maine ClimateReanalyser) show Sept was up on Aug (globally up from +0.49ºC to +0.66ºC) and this rise roughly-equally a NH & SH rise.
The NH has had a strong annual wobble over the last decade with anomalies peaking late in the year so a rising NH anomaly isn’t unexpected. It’s size is the point of interest.
The wobbles in the SH are smaller so the recent upward wobbles puts the SH back up to “bananas!!!” levels, although it may yet be a strong wobble. And conversely, it may not be
The ERA5 60N-60S SST (at ClimatePulse) are a lot less wobbly and are still showing a slowly decreasing anomaly.
The UAH TLT anomalies for Sept have been posted, also showing a global anomaly increase (globally up from +0.39ºC to +0.53ºC). The Sept rise doesn’t yet counter a longer-term decline in TLT global anomalies which peaked back in March 2024.
The lion’s share of Sept’s global TLT anomaly increase was a NH thing but TLT NH has seen quite a sharp general decrease through the last twelve months and the Sept increase isn’t yet registering any change in that general decrease.
The TLT SH anomaly declined Apr24-Jan25 and continues to be pretty flat through the months since.
To counter this lapse into nerdism, some up-to-date graphics illustrating all these anomalies since pre“bananas!!!” can be found here. They are colour-coded – PINK=Global SAT, GREY=NH & SH SAT, BLUE=SST, YELLOW=TLT & SAT compared.
MA Rodger says
2 Oct 2025 at 10:47 AM
The NH has had a strong annual wobble over the last decade with anomalies peaking late in the year so a rising NH anomaly isn’t unexpected. It’s size is the point of interest.
Let’s review where we are at then shall we?
I note how the emphasis framing keeps shifting ever so slightly.
MAR Sep – It is the 3rd warmest August on record and Aug25 is not significantly above the pre-“bananas!” August trend (as per this NOAA plot
MAR Aug – The NOAA STAR & UAH TLT numbers are posted for July, both showing a drop in the global anomaly, the STAR global anomaly +0.42ºC, down from June’s +0.54ºC.
Unlike surface temperature which has been declining strongly since the start of the year,
MAR – The ERA5 July SAT anomaly has been posted by Copernicus and as expected (given the Climate Pulse daily numbers) is given as +0.45°C, the lowest monthly anomaly since May 2023.
MAR – The “bananas” are surely now much diminished but I would suggest that whatever the “bananas” were should not be considered as done-&-dusted until/unless that SST drops to something approaching +0.3°C.
quoting >
Mo Yunus says — 16 Sep 2025 at 1:44 AM
MA Rodger says
– (2025) It is the 3rd warmest August on record and Aug25 is not significantly above the pre-“bananas!” August trend (as per this NOAA plot
– the post-2016 super El Nino years 2017 To 2022 pre-“bananas!” AUG Avg Anomaly = +0.89 C
vs 2025 +1.14ºC = + 0.25 C higher ~28% above avg.
– No pre-“bananas!” 2017 To 2022 years were above the 2016 El Nino Aug +1.0C
but the non-El Nino AUG 2025 is.
– AUG 2025 being the third highest Aug anomaly, the 3rd yr in a row, is significant in itself being a neutral ENSO year.
And 2025 YTD Avg. August Anomaly is +1.17 C the 2nd highest on record
2024 + 1.28 C
2025 + 1.17 C
2016 + 1.09 C
2023 + 1.08 C
2020 + 1.05 C
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/tavg/ytd/8/2000-2025?trend=true&trend_base=10&begtrendyear=1995&endtrendyear=2025&filter=true&filterType=binomial
Let’s see what SEPT YTD unfolds as shall we? Then OCT YTD too. Looking forward to that.
You might be waiting a while for your 2025 NOAA year-to-Sept anomalies, what with the wondrous Donald’s shut-down. So perhaps the just-published ERA5 Sept report will provide a substitute.
Top-5 ERA5 Global year-to-September (& -to-August) anomalies
2024 … … +0.71ºC … … (+0.70ºC)
2025 … … +0.59ºC … … (+0.58ºC)
2023 … … +0.52ºC … … (+0.47ºC)
2016 … … +0.47ºC … … (+0.48ºC)
2020 … … +0.45ºC … … (+0.45ºC)
I’m not sure what the interest is here. 2025 started “bananas!!” while 2023 ended “bananas!!” and 2024 was “bananas!!” throughout. So with the Sept number, we see 2023 climbing up the rankings and now ahead of 2016. And by December, 2023 may or may not have climbed above 2025. Yawn!!
NOAA’s NHC site “will remain updated during the shutdown.”
The 2025 hurricane season through the end of Sept did turn out quite energetic following the 3-week lull, as Colorado Uni’s hurricane page shows.. (Wikkithing was saying this lull at the height of the season had not been seen since 1992.) The three storms since the lull has pushed up ACE close to the 1991-2020 climatology (ACE=92, climatology 97.) and some potential new storms are today showing in the NOAA map.
It is not over until it’s over, last year should have taught that lesson. The Cape Wrath season is normally over by now but this distrubance which has a high probability of developing into a tropical cyclone looks interesting. If it manages to become a major hurricane it will likely push the ACE up to at least the climatology-to-date. This season has some parallels with 2007, which also had two category five hurricanes but was way less active overall than expected, despite a strong La Nina. It remains to be seen how active October will be, we need another 30 ACE to reach the 1991-2020 climatology.
Adam Lea,
You said “If it manages to become a major hurricane it will likely push the ACE up to at least the climatology-to-date.”
After a few mid-ocean storm that didn’t reach hurricane strength (Imelda, Jerry, Karen & Lorenzo), NOAA NHC are forecasting Storm Melissa will be that major hurricane with half a week of October left to perform in. By then, it’d be requiring an extra ACE=16 to “to reach the 1991-2020 climatology.”
And Hurricane Melissa has pushed the 2025 season ACE up to ACE=125-&-rising, so above that ‘climatology’ average (as per Colorado Uni real-time hurricane webpage). And that with a few more days of Melissa still to run.
The season forecasts have been vindicated except for the number of hurricanes that didn’t go ‘major’.
The forecasts were for 3-to-5 major hurricanes (we’ve seen 4) and 8-to-9 storms not winding up to hurricane strength (we’ve seen 8). There were 3-to-4 non-major hurricanes forecast but we have seen only 1.
Of course, the season may still have a bit more activity to throw at us.
Is RC and Similar Forums an Oligarchy? A Microcosm Example. Dr. Luke Kemp suggests they might be. Oligarchy comes in all shape sand sizes. Edited extract follows
The key point is this: when you get oligarchy, decision makers tend not to want to face oncoming crises. In his foresight and forecasting work, Kemp notes that good decisions usually require a larger and more diverse group, people with different information and perspectives, who genuinely deliberate, exchange ideas, and are willing to change their minds.
That’s not what happens in oligarchies. Instead, you see small, homogeneous groups with similar interests, unwilling to really listen—even to each other. Genuine deliberation is rare, whether in parliaments or, on a smaller scale, in internet forums like ATTP, Tamino, RC, and a slew of “pro-climate science” Substack channels. Of course the very same notion applies to today’s EPA and DoE. To all the other opposite echo chambers of WUWT, Climate etc or Pielke Jr. THB. To Musk’s X. To MAGA and Democrats alike. Social norms and evolutionary traits apply to all.
In short, oligarchy is bad for collective analysis and decision-making—especially when it comes to looming disasters.
Kemp’s work shows that more inclusive, democratic societies are better at weathering climate shocks. Large-scale studies of natural disasters confirm this: states with both higher capacity and stronger democratic structures are more resilient, both in response and recovery.
This isn’t just about elite “overproduction” or too many credentialed leaders. Oligarchic structures create knock-on effects: extractive institutions, fragility, vulnerability, and a tendency to avoid confronting hazards.
And right now, in forums like RC, you see it play out. The group presumes discussion isn’t needed—because they “already know.” Outliers get dismissed. No real exchange. No willingness to change. Merely an example, nothing more.
Zooming out, the same dynamic applies to media and information flows. Concentrated power in communications and ownership CNN or FOX makes it harder for societies to see what’s happening clearly or act on objective evidence. Information bottlenecks create decision bottlenecks.
This is the microcosm of the macrocosm.
Pick up dialogue at 1:35.00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7JsDrHrRsI&t=5752s
Collapse occurs when multiple power structures fragment and fall together. Political collapse, economic bust, population collapse—when they align, you get societal collapse. It’s often invisible until after it happens.
Meanwhile, wealth concentration accelerates: today 81 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of humanity. In the 1980s, the top 10% controlled ~25% of global wealth; today it’s closer to 40%.
And why should elites ever have listened then—or now? Genuine guidance would threaten their dominance, hierarchy, and status. So they don’t. And they won’t.
Primary Source:
Why Civilizations Fall and What We Can Learn From It — Luke Kemp, University of Cambridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7JsDrHrRsI
His first book, titled Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, was published in 2025 and is now available.
Delve into the deep evolutionary history of what egalitarian humans were like before complex civilizations emerged, and the changes in climate and agriculture that created the conditions for hierarchical societies. Luke explains how these very same factors have culminated in the rise and fall of Goliaths, and how these have led to today’s global challenges such as nuclear warfare and even AI-fueled surveillance states.
Can knowing our past help us avoid repeating it? Are we in collapse now, and was this civilizational trajectory inevitable? How does the study of civilizational collapse help us grasp the best and worst of humanity – and can we use that knowledge to lean into the better sides of ourselves and put ourselves on a different, more resilient path?
Multitroll “Yunus”: “Is RC and Similar Forums an Oligarchy?”
Sure, the same way World Health Organization is an Oligarchy for a MAGA antivaxer, and NASA scientists are an Oligarchy for a Flat-Earther.
And your attempt to discredit RC/climate science comes at cost of WHITEWASHING the fossil fuel oligarchs – by using THE SAME word on them and on RC. you are implying that Russian and Saudi fossil fuel oligarchs who finance the war on Ukraine and/or international terrorism, CAN’T BE THAT bad – as they are comparable, i.e. NOT WORSE, than are we on RC.
With enemies like “Mo Yunus”, why would fossil fuel billionaires need allies?
MY: The group presumes discussion isn’t needed—because they “already know.”
BPL: Right, in the literally thousands of posts here, there’ s no discussion going on.
MY: Outliers get dismissed. No real exchange. No willingness to change.
BPL: For “willingness to change” read “agreeing with me.”
The irony/gaslighting is incredible.
Among the non-owner posters, i.e. the Peanut Gallery? Yes. This isn’t debatable.
MY: Is RC and Similar Forums an Oligarchy?
BPL: Is MY and his many aliases a troll? I think that’s a lot more likely.
The Economy of Narratives (It’s a warzone out there)
How We Become the Guardians of Our Own Ideological Prison
by Robert Cauneau
7 August 2025
Introduction
Why is it that visibly false economic analogies, such as that of the state managing its budget « as a responsible father, » dominate public debate with such unwavering force? How can we explain that the anxiety-inducing narrative of the « wall of debt » or the « burden on future generations » continues to justify austerity policies, even though detailed operational analyses, describing the system’s actual « plumbing, » demonstrate its inadequacy? The paradox is not so much that misconceptions persist despite the facts, but that they impose themselves as organized narratives, conveying emotion, legitimacy, and power. These narratives are not intellectual accidents, but cognitive and political instruments, shaped to be believed and to make alternatives unthinkable.
https://mmt-france.org/2025/08/07/the-economy-of-narratives/
” Knowledge comes from books, wisdom comes from suffering ” Bishop Sheen.
True, and predicated on empathy.
Every time humanity has been in a high‑stress period — printing press, industrialisation, atomic age — the new technology has acted like a force multiplier for both our best and worst instincts. What’s new now is the speed and scale. AI, networked systems, social media, cheap drones, genetic engineering — each one of these can reshape societies in a decade rather than a century. That compresses the “learning curve” so much that people can’t adjust before the next disruption arrives. It feels like chaos because, in many ways, it is.
Realising your own blind spots, the things you didn’t know you didn’t know, how your certainty sometimes outstripped your information — is not stupidity. It’s exactly what happens when a curious mind keeps digging past its own assumptions. Most people never even get to that stage; they just double down on whatever story makes them feel safe.
Age has a way of softening the edges:
You start to see the limits of your own control.
You stop needing to be “the one who fixes it.”
You care more about understanding than winning arguments.
That’s wisdom, not failure.
Peace.
An off the wall comment. September 15 seems to have been the turning point for my area, from warm to cool. I wonder if it was for anyone else?
Ron it’s arse backwards here at north Lake Huron
Barry, for a fleeting second I thought you were going to tell me you’re in the southern hemisphere. Hmm, configurations of local geography coupled with the descending polar vortex?
Oops, by the way all, I’m aware of the autumn equinox.
Is there any climate scientist that considers implications of oil depletion on future climate change? I’ve been reading literature about peak oil recently and I’m quite convinced that higher emissions scenarios are physically impossible – there’s not enough cheap (keyword: cheap) stuff left to reach, say, RCP8.5 emissions by the end of the century (and since everything depends on oil, once it tips into permanent contraction so will everything else). Hence, it’s rather annoying reading study after study using RCP8.5 as some sort of a plausible baseline.
Julian: – “I’ve been reading literature about peak oil recently and I’m quite convinced that higher emissions scenarios are physically impossible – there’s not enough cheap (keyword: cheap) stuff left to reach, say, RCP8.5 emissions by the end of the century (and since everything depends on oil, once it tips into permanent contraction so will everything else).”
See my comments on 2 Sep 2025 at 8:53 PM:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/08/critiques-of-the-critical-review/#comment-838751
In less than 50 years planet Earth could be largely unlivable.
https://globaia.org/habitability
Geoff Miell,
I’m somewhat skeptical of the recent work by Art Berman. He was in the “peak camp” for a better part of his career, until one day he suddenly decided to do a U-turn on his earlier work and focus more on environmental problems. The graph and quote you posted in that comment also come from this particular blogpost, where he extensively shows graphs of the past and assumes trends will continue…
In my opinion, Art is wrong here. The fact he dismisses valid concerns of future oil production as “memes” speaks volumes in itself, but what’s more glaring are his assumptions that currently uneconomic reserves will become economic due to technology improvements and higher prices (for the later one, see this post by Grail Tverberg) while being rather dismissing of the fact that this might not be the case (things like tariffs, geopolitical/economic instability or just too low EROEI may render those reserves useless). Then there are also the dynamics of accelerating decline of available energy and what this means for the broader economy, but that’s a topic for another day.
Curiously enough, you also linked to that earlier work of his later in that thread, namely here. Mandatory disclaimer: I’m not dismissing climate change – I just think it’s only one of many issues currently facing our civilization. IMHO, the limiting factor on future warming will be our (in)ability to do energy intensive stuff (like mining lower grade mineral ores building necessary infrastructure for future FF extraction) once oil (and by extension diesel) supply starts to contract.
Julian: – “I’m not dismissing climate change – I just think it’s only one of many issues currently facing our civilization. IMHO, the limiting factor on future warming will be our (in)ability to do energy intensive stuff (like mining lower grade mineral ores building necessary infrastructure for future FF extraction) once oil (and by extension diesel) supply starts to contract.”
It seems to me you appear to be a so-called “climate lukewarmer” – individuals who accept that human activities are causing global warming but believe the impacts will be relatively mild and not catastrophic, contrary to mainstream scientific consensus and advocacy.
Humanity is on a collision course towards a +3 °C GMST anomaly, or more; a world beyond any past human experience. Large-scale depopulation would be likely.
See my Submission (#26) to the NSW Parliament Joint Standing Committee on Net Zero Future concerning the Inquiry into emissions from the fossil fuel sector.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submissions/91844/0026%20Geoff%20Miell.pdf
Geoff Miell about “Julian”” “ It seems to me you appear to be a so-called “climate lukewarmer
Given “Julian”s actions:
– in discussing the sources of human GHGs he ignored the GHG emissions from shale oil, oil sands, conventional nat. gas, shale gas, and coal emissions,
– and as the only source of GHGs to atmosphere he chose …. the only source of GHGs that is NOT increasing (“conventional oil”)
– and used the amount of GHGs limited only to conventional oil past its peak- to imply that we don’t have to do anything about our GHG emissions, because will run out of GHGs to emit anyway.
This makes him a prima facie denier, only dressed up as a “lukewarmer”.
P.S. I don’t like the lukewarmer label – it’s so poorly defined that it opens itself to manipulation – most of the time
– somebody calling themselves a “lukewarmer” is a denier; and
– somebody being called “lukewarmer” by doomers – is a person advocating strong action on climate change, but skeptical of their extreme claims/solutions
Deniers usually don’t call us lukewarmers – for them all the non-deniers are doomers.
This way, both extremes try to discredit the middle by associating it with the other extreme.
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 6:50 PM): – “Geoff Miell about “Julian”” “ It seems to me you appear to be a so-called “climate lukewarmer
Given “Julian”s actions:
– in discussing the sources of human GHGs he ignored the GHG emissions from shale oil, oil sands, conventional nat. gas, shale gas, and coal emissions,
– and as the only source of GHGs to atmosphere he chose …. the only source of GHGs that is NOT increasing (“conventional oil”)
– and used the amount of GHGs limited only to conventional oil past its peak- to imply that we don’t have to do anything about our GHG emissions, because will run out of GHGs to emit anyway.”
Thank you, Captain Misrepresentation. Julian’s earlier comment included: “…there’s not enough cheap (keyword: cheap) stuff left to reach, say, RCP8.5 emissions by the end of the century…‘
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840224
To which I stated in response:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840228
It seems to me Julian’s “cheap (keyword: cheap) stuff left” includes GHG emissions from conventional oil, shale oil, oil sands, conventional fossil methane gas, shale gas, and coal emissions.
But it seems to me this is inconvenient for your apparent ideological narratives, so you now resort to attempting to misrepresent and mischaracterise.
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 6:50 PM): – “Deniers usually don’t call us lukewarmers – for them all the non-deniers are doomers.”
Um, are you accidentally self-identifying as a “lukewarmer”, Piotr? Is this the reason for your hostility?
– Geoff Miell: ““oil” in the Our World In Data graph […] Includes crude oil, shale oil, oil sands, condensates (lease condensate or gas condensates that require further refining) and NGLs”
– Piotr “Thank you, Captain Obvious, without you I would have never thought of reading the legend of the figure I am referring to.”
– Geoff Miell: “Thank you, Captain Misrepresentation.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, eh? So thank you, Geoff Miell …
But there is a catch – a sarcastic moniker works ONLY if you can defend it with a strong proof: I have called you Captain Obvious because you were patronizingly explaining to me what was … in the legend of the graph THAT I HAVE BROUGHT UP.
You, on the other hand, use sarcastic monikers like Trump: not as a conclusion, but INSTEAD, of a defendable argument. I don’t think I need to illustrate it for Trump, so let’s see how you are able to prove, beyond the reasonable doubt, my “Misrepresentation”:
Geoff Miell: “ It seems to me Julian’s “cheap (keyword: cheap) stuff left” includes GHG emissions from conventional oil, shale oil, oil sands, conventional fossil methane gas, shale gas, and coal emissions.”
NOT WHEN he framed it in the context of “peak oil”, NOT “peak FFs”.
Julian: “ I’ve been reading literature about peak oil recently and I’m quite convinced that higher emissions scenarios are physically impossible
The said concept of “peak oil comes from Hubbert:
“ In 1956, American geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that United States oil production would follow a bell-shaped curve and peak between 1965 and 1970.” “David Deming, AAPG Bulletin (2023) 107 (6): 851–861. https://doi.org/10.1306/03202322131
“OIl production”, means “oil”, NOT “oil, coal and gas”, and in 1956 “oil” – meant “conventional oil”, since “shale oil and oil sands” weren’t produced in any significant amounts for about 50 years.
So much for Geoff Miell’s PROOF that by referring to “peak oil ” Julian really meant “peak of conventional oil, shale oil, oil sands, conventional fossil methane gas, shale gas, and coal”
Geoff Miell: it seems to me this is inconvenient for your apparent ideological narratives,
What “ideological motives” would have I to point that you, Geoff Miell, a person who have always argued that AGW is MUCH WORSE than we are led to believe, now in the name of your wounded pride DEFEND an AGW DENIER, who implies that we don’t have to do anything about GHGs emissions because we will run out of FFs anyway before any serious harm is done, and who says “I don’t know why any country would ever want to leave its FFs in the ground – rather than admit of being wrong in defending this denier?
What ideological motives would make me ask THAT?
Piotr (at 11 Oct 2025 at 1:32 AM): – ““Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, eh? So thank you, Geoff Miell …”
Again, you (willfully?) misread, Captain Misrepresentation. My intent was certainly not to flatter. I was pointing out what you repeatedly do here.
Piotr (at 11 Oct 2025 at 1:32 AM): – “You, on the other hand, use sarcastic monikers…”
Um, first you claim I’m flattering you, then you claim I’m using “sarcastic monikers”. Which is it? You’re inconsistent. Hint: It’s neither of these – it’s literal – you misrepresent.
Piotr (at 11 Oct 2025 at 1:32 AM): – “NOT WHEN he framed it in the context of “peak oil”, NOT “peak FFs”.”
Julian’s framing is clearly incorrect, thus my response:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840228
It seems to me you are attempting to conflate Julian’s clear false premise onto me.
Piotr (at 11 Oct 2025 at 1:32 AM): – “rather than admit of being wrong in defending this denier?”
Again, this is another example of you, Piotr, (willfully?) misrepresenting me. Let me be clear: I’m not defending any AGW denier.
What I think this is all about is I’ve highlighted your apparent incompetent understanding of what crude oil is, and you obviously don’t like that because it has apparently bruised your oversized ego, and so you are now attempting to bully, misread, misrepresent and character assassinate me, as payback, while hiding behind the moniker “Piotr”. Who is the real “Piotr”?
Geoff Miell says
11 Oct 2025 at 7:01 PM
Have you had any training or personal experience with the neurodivergent Geoff?
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/neurodiversity-and-neurodivergence
in re to Geoff Miell, 11 Oct 2025 at 7:01 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840584
Dear Geoff,
Discussions are often challenging. Personally, I am afraid that labelling participants and/or accusing them of dishonest motives does not help to arrive at any useful output. Of course, there are genuine “trolls”, entities with dishonest intentions that pretend to be someone else and post under multiple (false) identities.
I am sure that “Mo Yunus” belongs to them, because both his content and style perfectly fit its former embodiments, like “Dharma” or “Ned Kelly”, that were finally proven by Dr. Schmidt as an identical entity. Personally, I think that direct interactions with such a proven troll can hardly bring anything positive, because you can never trust that his ultimate goal is not manipulating with you.
Piotr Trela (you might have missed that he several times posted under his full name) is not a troll but a genuine man, a Polish marine biologist living and working in Canada. He is a honest man like you, striving to support climate change mitigation. Unfortunately, he believes that fighting perceived “climate change deniers”, “doomers”, and/or “lukewarmers” on this website helps achieving this goal. Nevertheless, if you manage to let aside his personal attacks and focus on substantive arguments only, I believe that his feedback can be indeed helpful.
Greetings
Tomáš
Indeed, it it was just crude oil, we would have less to mitigate since the Earth is well past peak. Now it’s the other stuff, such as natural gas and bituminous and lignite coal, that is more of a concern. Of course, the greatest concern of all is the possibility of exploiting low EROEI sources such as oil shale (not shale oil), which is a ticking time bomb for an explosion in CO2 emissions (and water depletion). Whether this ever becomes a last resort is the topic of a classic article by Pierrehumbert written in 2013: “The Myth of “Saudi America””
https://slate.com/technology/2013/02/u-s-shale-oil-are-we-headed-to-a-new-era-of-oil-abundance.html
This is required reading, as is anything by Pierrehumbert, IMHO
Paul Pukite: the Earth is well past peak oil.
As clearly seen in the data:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-production-by-region , eh?
What would be the “well past” peak oil year on that graph, Paul?
Piotr, did you check what was included as “oil” in the Our World In Data graph? No?
NGLs are not crude oil nor condensate.
Nate Hagens said on 30 Sep 2025 (see the graph displayed titled World crude + condensate production peak was 84.6 mmb/d in Nov 2018):
“I know in the oil industry takes it for granted that oil is peaking now, or in the new future. The United States is likely already peaked, permanently. We had 13.6 or 7 million barrels, and now we’re down to 13.2 and we need 50 or 60 barrel, dollar a barrel oil, just at a bare minimum to keep drilling. Yeah. And all of a sudden it’s snuck up on us that we are in the midst of the, I mean, technically the date of peak oil, so far is still November, 2018. We’re almost seven years beyond that kind of bumping around adding ethane and plastic bags and, other things to the total. but we’re generally there. And the larger point is Russia, China. Saudi Arabia, the CIA, you know, these entities are well aware of the game theory of the master resource…”
https://youtu.be/QdfwH4LvTUs?t=957
Geoff Miell: Piotr, did you check what was included as “oil” in the Our World In Data graph? No? ” Includes crude oil, shale oil, oil sands, condensates (lease condensate or gas condensates that require further refining) and NGLs (natural gas liquids – ethane, LPG and naphtha separated from the production of natural gas).”
Thank you, Captain Obvious, without you I would have never read the legend of the figure I am referring to. Now to the more challenging part – you showing how this quote DISPROVES my argument. No, your next line won’t do:
Geoff Miell: “ NGLs are not crude oil nor condensate.”
neither are “shale oil” or “oil sands”. Are you seriously demanding that in the discussion of future GHG emissions – we …. ignore “shale oil” and “oil sands”, because …. the source YOU found …does not contain the data on them ???
G Miell: “ Nate Hagens said on 30 Sep 2025 “I know in the oil industry takes it for granted that oil is peaking now, or in the new future. The United States is likely already peaked, permanently.” (see the graph displayed titled World crude + condensate production peak was 84.6 mmb/d in Nov 2018):
you mean excluding “shale oil” and “oil sands”? Include them and you will see the graph like this instead:
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/shale-oil/
To borrow (again) from Marx:
“Whom are you gonna to believe, Geoff – Nate Hagens or your own eyes?”
Moreover, “the United States” is not the same as “the World”, which we discuss here.
And for the World the data you must have …already seen the very page you scolded me for not reading: (Geoff M: “Piotr, did you check what was included as “oil” in the Our World In Data graph? No?”):
– on the same Our World In Data page, IMMEDIATELY below the paragraph you quoted me as a proof that I didn’t read it, a graph titled: ” Fossil Fuel Production, World”. Do you see a peak there ?
So your arrogance is based on your projection of your faults (cherry-picking information you read from a page in question) onto others – as such, it discredits not them, but you.
And a sight to behold – a climate change doomer, Geoff Miell, by going against the data to defend the peak oil concept, ends up in bed with the deniers who used the very same peak oil to imply that we don’t have to do anything about GHG emissions, because the world would run out of FF before any significant damage is done.
Les extrêmes se touchent …
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 5:46 PM): – “Geoff Miell: “ NGLs are not crude oil nor condensate.”
neither are “shale oil” or “oil sands”.”
Thank you Captain Misinformation. The technical term for shale oil is tight oil, which is naturally occurring crude oil trapped in underground shale or tight sandstone formations.
Per US petroleum geologist Art Berman re tight oil:
https://www.artberman.com/blog/theyre-not-making-oil-like-they-used-to-stealth-peak-oil/
US tight oil tight oil does not contain the middle distillate compounds necessary for diesel production, but can be used for producing jet fuel and gasoline/petrol fuels.
The US can never be oil-independent because it will always need to import heavier crude oils to make diesel.
Oil sands contain bitumen, a form of extra-heavy crude oil that is the primary component of synthetic crude oil produced from the sands. Bitumen is a viscous, molasses-like substance that requires significant processing, including the addition of hydrogen, to be converted into a usable crude oil for refineries.
https://www.aer.ca/understanding-resource-development/resource-development-topics/oil-sands
Who do you believe? Piotr, or Berman et al.?
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 5:46 PM): – “Moreover, “the United States” is not the same as “the World”, which we discuss here.”
Per the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review Of World Energy 2025, in 2024, the USA was:
* the world’s largest crude oil + condensate producer, at 13.194 Mb/d annual average (15.9% global share), see page 23;
* the world’s largest fossil methane gas producer, at 1033.0 billion cubic metres (25.0% global share), see page 37.
Without the USA, the world would have substantial energy supply gaps.
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 5:46 PM): – “So your arrogance is based on your projection of your faults (cherry-picking information you read from a page in question) onto others – as such, it discredits not them, but you.”
Piotr, I think you need to have a good hard look at the way you behave here.
I make my comments here under my own name. Do you? Who is the real Piotr?
Piotr (at 8 Oct 2025 at 5:46 PM): – “And a sight to behold – a climate change doomer, Geoff Miell, by going against the data to defend the peak oil concept, ends up in bed with the deniers who used the very same peak oil to imply that we don’t have to do anything about GHG emissions, because the world would run out of FF before any significant damage is done.”
IMO, this is another example of an attempt to bully, misrepresent and character assassinate, among a litany of many here by Piotr at RC.
In terms of conventional crude oil, past peak.
> “Includes crude oil, shale oil, oil sands, condensates (lease condensate or gas condensates that require further refining) and NGLs (natural gas liquids – ethane, LPG and naphtha separated from the production of natural gas). ”
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/7053/scHYJ2.jpg
Isn’t that neat when someone breaks out the constituents? TPTB don’t want you to see the fact that lower grades of oil sources are being extracted to make up for the decline in conventional..
good graph U.S. liquids production by Art expected to remain flat of fall slightly through 2026
showing conventional Crude Oil/Cond. v huge NGLs split.
https://www.artberman.com/wp-content/uploads/u.s.-liquids-production-is-expected-to-remain-flat-of-fall-slightly-through-2026-unlike-the-6-mmbd-increase-from-2016-to-2020.jpg
Globally no major oil liquid supply additions expected after September 2025 either
China Is Beating the US in the Battle for Energy Export Dominance
The US, which has positioned itself as a major fossil fuel exporter, sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July, the last month with data available. China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
August’s solar export revenue was nowhere near the high set in March 2023. But the 46,000 megawatts of power capacity shipped abroad set a record.
more than half of China’s electric car exports have gone to outside the OECD – a rich-country club for the Golden Billion- to BRICS and BRI
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-05/china-s-clean-energy-exports-are-beating-us-fossil-fuels
The U.S. Energy Secretary’s call for 100 GW of firm power within five years is, in light of the evidence, a near-impossible ambition. Structural domestic constraints – from permitting and regulatory delays, to financing hurdles, labour shortages and technological bottlenecks – make even a 30–40 GW expansion highly challenging. These bottlenecks are amplified by global supply-chain realities. China dominates critical inputs such as transformers, batteries, solar panels and nuclear components, meaning that U.S. projects face both scarcity and elevated costs. Meanwhile, China can allocate its industrial capacity to Belt and Road Initiative projects, accelerating energy access abroad while leaving the U.S. to struggle with unmet demand. The result is a perfect storm of curtailed firm capacity, rising electricity prices, and regional economic distortions reminiscent of Dutch Disease effects.
The combined effect is a sobering wake-up call for the Americans. U.S. dominance in AI – let alone a broader reindustrialisation powered by cheap, abundant electricity – appears increasingly aspirational rather than achievable.
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/the-100-gw-mirage
Julian says
4 Oct 2025 at 4:38 PM
Hence, it’s rather annoying reading study after study using RCP8.5 as some sort of a plausible baseline.
That’s really odd. In 30 years I have never read one study using RCP8.5 as a baseline. It was always presented, even in IPCC from the beginning, as an extreme outlier–physically possible but unlikely. A warning of a worst case extremely irresponsible scenario–but never as a plausible baseline.
Could this be what Julian has been reading on oil depletion recently?
Much attention today focuses on uncertainties affecting the future evolution of oil and natural gas demand, with less consideration given to how the supply picture could develop. However, understanding decline rates – the annual rate at which production declines from existing oil and gas fields – is crucial for assessing the outlook for oil and gas supply and, by extension, for market balances.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has long examined this issue, and a detailed understanding of decline rates is at the heart of IEA modelling and analysis, underpinning the insights provided by the scenarios in the World Energy Outlook.
https://www.iea.org/reports/the-implications-of-oil-and-gas-field-decline-rates
I found this more interesting though. In a world here daily electricity blackouts are the norm from Nigeria to Egypt.
IEA
Electricity demand is surging across the Middle East and North Africa, driven by cooling and desalination needs 18 September 2025
Countries’ policy plans point to rising electricity generation from natural gas, renewables and nuclear to meet rapid growth in consumption, with oil’s role in the power sector set to shrink
Electricity consumption in the Middle East and North Africa has soared in recent decades and is set to keep rising sharply, with a range of sources expected to meet the growing demand as countries seek to diversify their power supplies, according to a new IEA report out today.
The Future of Electricity in the Middle East and North Africa provides detailed country-by-country analysis of the electricity sectors across a region that has long been a cornerstone of the global energy system. The report finds that electricity demand in the Middle East and North Africa tripled between 2000 and 2024 as populations and incomes rose. Based on today’s policy settings, the region’s electricity consumption is projected to rise by another 50% by 2035 – adding the equivalent of the current demand of Germany and Spain combined.
With a climate characterised by extreme heat and water scarcity in most parts of the region, the largest portion of the projected increase in electricity demand over the next decade – around 40% – is set to come from cooling and desalination. Other important factors driving up electricity consumption in the region include urbanisation, industrialisation, the electrification of transport and the expansion of digital infrastructure such as data centres.
Today, natural gas and oil overwhelmingly dominate the region’s electricity mix, accounting for over 90% of total generation, the report finds. However, many countries – including Saudi Arabia and Iraq – are pursuing policies to reduce the role oil plays in their power systems, freeing it up for higher value uses or export.
As a result, based on today’s policy settings, natural gas is set to meet half of electricity demand growth to 2035 in the Middle East and North Africa. This would help reduce oil-fired output to just 5% of total generation, down from 20% today. Meanwhile, solar PV capacity in the region is on course to increase tenfold by 2035, pushing the share of renewables in the region’s electricity generation to around 25%. And nuclear power is poised to expand strongly, with capacity set to triple.
“Demand for electricity is surging across the Middle East and North Africa, driven by the rapidly rising need for air conditioning and water desalination in a heat- and water-stressed region with growing populations and economies. The region has already seen the third largest growth in electricity consumption globally since the start of the century, after China and India. To meet this demand, power capacity over the next 10 years is set to expand by over 300 gigawatts, the equivalent of three times Saudi Arabia’s current total generation capacity,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
https://www.iea.org/news/electricity-demand-is-surging-across-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-driven-by-cooling-and-desalination-needs
Mo Yunus,
Mea Culpa, I could’ve worded it better. Most of the modeling studies on climate change I’ve read to date did in fact use a range of RCPs with RCP8.5 included rather than solely relying on it. What I perhaps meant to express was my frustration with people (“hobbyists” rather than proper scientists) still clinging to it as something given.
Yeah, among many (especially Figure 40, but note it’s a graph based on data from Rystad Energy – IEA was kinda silent on the supply side of things for a while until they suddenly woke up to reality). The other ones are Laherrère et al. and Delannoy et al.. The reason I think people tend to ignore the structural problems of fossil fuels supply is because there’s this rosy assumption we’re still swimming in hydrocarbons and even if they end one day, we’re going to transition to renewable energy either way. What’s missing in this picture are the dynamics driving the downslope once the oil production rolls over: due to the sheer complexity of our modern techno-industrial civilization with intercontinental supply chains and countless interdependencies, any decline in available oil (the master resource that really does power everything, from international shipping and aviation to farming and mining equipment, none of which can be easily electrified) is sure to send ripples through other sectors of the economy as well (see: recent frankly by Nate Hagens, a former moderator of The Oil Drum). There have been modeling studies on this in the early 2010s, like this one by Dawid Korowicz, but now it’s just crickets.
Don’t get me wrong, climate change is a real and massive problem which consequences we’re already feeling today (in my particular region, it’s persistent droughts). However, it’s only one aspect (namely, the Environment) of our collective predicament: the other ones are Energy and Economy.
Reply to Julian, re both Mo Yunus, and Geoff Miell, replies
Sorry if i misunderstood your comments or intentions, looking at your replies I can easily understand you now. You cover a lot of useful ground. I’ll keep it short for now but overall I agree with your framing and concerns.
I too think climate change is only one of many looming crises, and not necessarily the worst one to face this century, for reason you likely understand. Big tick for Hagens et al. deep thinking and objectivity, knowledge matters.
re Delannoy-in my bookmarks too- Our findings thus question the feasibility of a global and fast low-carbon energy transition. We therefore suggest an urgent return of the peak oil debate, but including net-energy issues and avoiding a narrow focus on ‘peak supply’ vs ‘peak demand’.
Yes. indeed.
and David Korowicz mapped out the coming Covid impacts quite well. Things should get far worse going forward.
Degrowth is a thing, but misapplied, as the 1930s depression was a period of “degrowth” too if anything was. It’s not a future people who talk about it as a warning are wishing upon anyone, but rather a confronting look at the only way out scenario–no matter what we will end up there, no matter the Meta crisis that hits home first or second or third. Jason Hickel worth following re pro-social community based economics.
Killians’ regenerative agriculture will become a thing but unlikely because governments decide it’s a winning strategy – it will be what individual small groups embrace globally post-collapse as practical for survival in the future. all imo. not predictions or timeframes. My best guess given available info human norms.
and “Don’t get me wrong, climate change is a real and massive problem which consequences we’re already feeling today “ Yes, spot on.
Several things you and your refs say echo Ken Towes sensible warnings here about insufficient affordable oil/gas FF energy to build out the 100% RE WWS+Battery theoretical future. The thing is RC crew isn’t interested in such info. +90% of activity favours arguments over “deniers” – and if your commentary doesn’t align then it’ll be labelled as “denialist ideology” anyway. LOL
I agree Art Berman has gone a little strange lately than before. I find it harder to folow his train pf thoughts these days, but this blog post is full of good info and charts about the near oil gas futures. https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-great-and-silly-oil-glut-meme/
Neither Hickel nor Hagens are promoting regenerative forms of governance, nor is Raworth’s model anything close to regenerative. They all maintain the very core elements that make current economics and governance so destructive.
It’s weird, really. I have talked to them over the years and presented to them a truly regenerative governance structure, but they have not shown any interest in that. Again, odd that they speak of sustainable systems but don’t understand them at the most basic level.
So, no, I would not follow Hickel nor Hagens; they can’t can’t see beyond Capitalism.
Clarification: I would not follow what they have to say re solutions. They do a good job of exploring the issues, generally, but Hagens has always been far too intellectualized and metaphysical in his thinking and, as stated above, neither can let go of Capitalism, though they think they are doing just that. As I said, weird.
Anywho, when you want to discuss what a regenerative future is or must be, neither goes nearly far enough. Were they the proverbial life rafts, they’d be the ones with smaller holes, but still destined to sink.
Killian says
Hickel nor Hagens nor is Raworth’s model anything close to regenerative. they have not shown any interest in that.
they speak of sustainable systems but don’t really understand them
they can’t can’t see beyond (typical) Capitalism.
Hagens far too intellectualized and metaphysical in his thinking … speech
(I kind of agree, it depends when what) ie neither goes nearly far enough.
———————,
MY Cocur ith all that and more. Noone has it all together. have different points of focus ideas but at all are generally pro-social pro-biosphere services are critical — and everywhere capitalism basics come into it to varying degrees, as China too relies upon despite it pro-enviro, cut ghg gases pro-social collective win-win benefits to all with govt authority model that can implement something like regen agricultural practices nationally . No om vn do it all. And I douby anyone ever will.
my reading of hagens who only has a small unique follwoing is that there is no broadscale solution anyway, and he is ony focused to small groups learning how they may possibly survive post the collapse when is everyone for themselves an govt kind no longer matter that much and population and systems have been fallen in a heap. He’ll never get wide traction, but his and his guests messaging are similar … a return to palaeolithic hunter gatherer psychology and traditional aboriginal millennial survivors with a native tribal ethos that isn’t pathological like today s— see Kemp ideas and the wealth concentration theory. It’s not a solution in itself, but a precondition for solutions to have a chance at succeeding. Getting past the dark triad mindset that rules today everywhere, from ff boardrooms to greenies to climate science institutions.
If you see things like (endless) wealth concentration discussed anywhere, it’ll be at The Great Simplification, though mostly indirectly by people like Schmachtenberger or Turchin, or Ingrid Robeyns (there are probably others as well).
interview with Turchin at Novara Media and he explained how it all works with certain economic winners gaining dominance (through luck and lack of morals, mostly), then starting up the ‘wealth pump’ (by influencing politics and policies), and then shutting the entrance ways to their circles for other potential elites of which there’s an overproduction, which in turn leads to social unrest and charismatic highly-educated figures (lawyers most of the time, like Lenin and Gandhi) organising revolutionary movements. The guy at Novara Media then said something along the lines of ‘so, in order to prevent revolutions, you need to keep those lawyers happy and occupied in some way’, to which Turchin replied: No, you have to turn off the wealth pump first.
But that’s the absolute maximum you will get. One would think Turchin emphasises this point all the time, but he doesn’t. No one does, it is anathema .to everything operating in todays world. It’s not going to change, look at “climate discussions” everywhere ,mostly mindless ego battles-no one gets it really– those that do only partially and intermittently not breathing it 24/7. ala Regeneratively with any power behind such voices There is no leadership group either.
This is basically why I feel that Hagen’s ideas are likely right on —- slow dysfunctions first, then rolling poly-meta crises unfolding for decades giving eventual opportunity for the few tuned in knowledgeable groups to start over – to survive create new ways of Being – reconfigure how life is going work in communities dislocated for the rest of the world and national govts. When it happens doesn’t really matter, different dates for different locations. unpredictable, much like the arctic Blue Ocean Event — you just know it is coming …… so act accordingly; prepare, educate yourself and act an upstanding tribesman. :-)
The edge between sociology/psychology/spirituality (ie the abstract) and the scientific/physical/material (ie the concrete), or where Schmachtenberger, Kemp and Berman meet, is the most interesting. Just as in nature, the edges are where all the action takes place. Once, during a Q&A, someone asked the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti whether there would have to be a higher consciousness first in order to then subsequently change the material world, or whether material circumstances needed to be changed to make a higher consciousness possible. Krishnamurti said these things happen simultaneously and go hand in hand. I believe this is true.
That’s what I like about the wealth concentration theory. It’s not a solution in itself, but a precondition for solutions to have a chance at succeeding.
instead of trying to convince a degenerating population that their consciousness must go up a few levels (Schmachtenberger essentially) which will never happen barring external intervention (God? Aliens?), one tries to create a set of preconditions in which man’s better nature has more room to establish itself.
The concept of the problem of endless wealth concentration isn’t difficult to grasp, there’s not much need to invoke graphs or religious precepts, and it can be done thanks to all the stuff that is being developed to control the rabble (AI, digital currencies, blockchain ledgers, etc). But it’s probably more useful to boil it down to a short manifesto, print it by hand, etch it in stone, and bury it in one or more places, so that maybe perhaps perchance possibly some future generation may break the vicious cycle.
Some are going to survive no matter what. In the meantime, imo, it really doesn’t matter at all. Like the DoE CWG report and the EPA endangerment finding, and the BOE and what Trump is going to do next doesn’t matter either. The loud clanging of saucepans
It’s good to be a teacher Killian, keep on keeping on. Let the Clowns be Clowns. LOL
Re: Mo Yunus says
7 Oct 2025 at 11:39 PM
Mo, your post unintentionally demonstrates exactly the problem we have. You mention “a return to palaeolithic hunter gatherer psychology and traditional aboriginal millennial survivors with a native tribal ethos that isn’t pathological like today s— see Kemp ideas…” but just leave that lying there. But what are the things that make and/or made those societies regenerative?
That’s where nobody starts from. So far as I know, there is no paper on this issue and none promulgating a list of First Principles and/or characteristics of regenerative societies, yet THAT is where we must begin. And, yes, I have done the work of generating such a list.
Characteristics and First Principles of Regenerative Societies:
* Living within ecosystem limits
* Needs-based decision-making
* Nested Commons (local, area/town, region/city,sub-bio-regional, bio-regional, global)
Scale-based decision-making:
– Made at the scale of the problem with regard for all affected
– Decisions cannot be imposed from one scale to another; no hierarchy of scales. I.e.,
decisions must be vetted up or down the scale as needed to maintain equity.
* Egalitarian
* Equality: Gender, racial, economic, etc.
* Highly cooperative, yet…
* Absolute individual autonomy
* Work is freely chosen
* “Work” is a social event, no “jobs”
* Bioregional
* Networks of small communities
* No time-limited decision-making (obvious exception, e.g., emergencies)
Now, if you add the Permaculture Principles (Mollison’s , not Holmgren’s bc they are actionable, not existential) for the physical aspects of societal function, you have a complete basis for creation of the bones of a regenerative society today.
But this is where all conversations about solutions must *begin* if we wish to have a chance.
Sadly, not holding my breath. I am 98% sure we have missed the window.
Reply to Julian PART 2 REFS – MAYBE TOO MANY LINKS IN ONE COMMENT — WILL SPLIT IT.
I’ll share these other refs in good faith, you might know some of them, I think drawing on many voices is useful. The problem is framed in many different ways, good to get a broad range of ideas. And watch what unfolds. My bottom line though is there is no stopping whatever is going to unfold global and civilizational. I do not see anything useful coming out of the COP Paris agreement UN process that is for sure. No one is taking climate change seriously or anything else. Barring typical “lip service” .
In world where blatant genocide on your TV is acceptable we have no chance at all. Maybe that is what should be too. Collectively we deserve what is coming; everything is as it should be.
https://pboilandgasmagazine.com/the-ngl-factor/
Goehring and Rozencwajg top marks on credibility / insights!!
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzWGnbI9nw&t=142s
Decouple Media on YT very good, objective gives everyone a chance to tell their story. Covers a lot of Oil Gas industry experts
Which site link is blocked?
Aha, OK … last one of refs —
peak oil barrel dot com … useful data perspectives … though dreary and trolly
and https://crudeoilpeak.info/ for data perspecyives
Doomberg – very very useful, do not ignore this framing despite “industry neoliberal bias”.
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/peak-cheap-oil-is-a-myth
Debate On “Peak Cheap Oil”: Fact Or Overblown Fear? | Doomberg vs Adam Rozencwajg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDLeAC8OeJY
Antonio Turiel. Top Shelf Commentator data provider
https://crashoil-blogspot-com.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
https://crashoil-blogspot-com.translate.goog/2024/04/el-marco-mental-del-enemigo.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
A star, towering figure to learn from on data and values — Professor Tadeusz Patzek, director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsbtt-6Dpww&t=3606s
Of course Dr Charlie Hall How much oil remains for the world to produce — does anything else need be said?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DABEN4slmo&t=1320s
The CACOR forums Canadian Association for the Club of Rome are a great little known resource — for expert guests to follow
Take care Julian. Keep at it. From little things big things grow.
good graph U.S. liquids production by Art Berman expected to remain flat of fall slightly through 2026
showing conventional Crude Oil/Cond. v huge NGLs split.
https://www.artberman.com/wp-content/uploads/u.s.-liquids-production-is-expected-to-remain-flat-of-fall-slightly-through-2026-unlike-the-6-mmbd-increase-from-2016-to-2020.jpg
Global no major oil liquid supply additions expected after September 2025 either
China Is Beating the US in the Battle for Energy Export Dominance
The US, (given all GOP/DEM Presidents/Congress) which has positioned itself as a major fossil fuel exporter, sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July, the last month with data available. China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
China August’s solar export revenue was nowhere near the high set in March 2023. But the 46,000 megawatts of power capacity shipped abroad set a record.
More than half of China’s electric car exports have gone to outside the OECD (rich-country club for the Golden Billion) to the BRICS and BRI countries
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-05/china-s-clean-energy-exports-are-beating-us-fossil-fuels
Trump / Maga did not create this. Obama Biden Nato and Ukraine set the platform after Cheney
MY: Obama Biden Nato and Ukraine set the platform after Cheney
BPL: I’m leaning more and more toward the idea that the multitroll is logging in from Russia. The combination of defense of Russia’s aggressive foreign policy, and defending Trump, reciting Trump’s accusations, make it hard to believe he’s just a western-world doomer.
BPL:” I’m leaning more and more toward the idea that the multitroll is logging in from Russia. The combination of defense of Russia’s aggressive foreign policy, and defending Trump, reciting Trump’s accusations, make it hard to believe he’s just a western-world doomer.”
I think that MY is unlikely to be living in Russia. I’ve read a lot of his comments because hes used about 20 different names. I just remember all the little details where this guy has very occasionally let slip his political beliefs, and other personal details. He has mentioned various things about Australia and even used a name relevant to Australia Ned Kelly. He identifies as a hard left winger and socialist.
He criticises Americas sometimes aggressive foreign policy and double standards on some things, and presumably doesn’t like their strongly capitalist leanings and perhaps as a result he talks up Russia and China because they aren’t America. And makes excuses for their actions. That doesn’t mean he lives in Russia or is a Russian Agent. I hope he isn’t because Putin is a real villain.
Nigel: “He has mentioned various things about Australia and even used a name relevant to Australia Ned Kelly.”
I always wondered whether he knew that Kelly was a horse-thief and bank robber who was hanged for murdering a police officer.
Barton Paul Levenson says
9 Oct 2025 at 9:09 AM
You are not the only one who is cognitively disordered and inept here. You’re among friends.
Gavin approved my comment for publishing. Clearly he is not like you and the others. He can read plain english and ref links (apparently)
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 9 Oct 2025 at 9:09 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840493
and Nigelj, 9 Oct 2025 at 5:03 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840503
Hallo Barton, hallo Nigel,
I tend to agree with Nigel as regards likely location of troll’s office in Australia – that, however, does no way exclude being paid from Russia and/or hating not only the USA but rather any democratic society, including troll’s own country.
Please take into account that in a democratic country, Russian trolls do not risk anything. It is in a strong contrast to individuals in Russian society that still dare to exhibit civil courage and protest against the Russian aggressive war. People who tried to inform their countrymen about Russian war crimes were sentenced to multi-year jail terms. Only in a few cases, an exchange for Russian spies saved them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Skochilenko
It is really sad that the moderators do not see this discrepancy and further tolerate “Mo Yunus” activity on Real Climate.
Best regards
Tomáš
Climate denials sucks. Don’t be a sucker. Nobody is fooled by the concern trolling.
Nigel about Mo Y. “He criticises Americas sometimes aggressive foreign policy and double standards on some things, and presumably doesn’t like their strongly capitalist leanings and perhaps as a result he talks up Russia and China because they aren’t America.”
… which makes him, in the words of Lenin, a “ useful idiot of Russia [and China]“.
I doubt it is better than being a PAID Russian troll: to support his anti-capitalist and anti-Western ideology Multi-troll went into bed with Russia and China’s regimes, and to reduce the resulting cognitive dissonance – he ignored the horrific toll inflicted on humanity (and environment) by the totalitarian Communist states, from which current Russia and China descends which genocides and destruction they openly or implicitely defend.
(see Putin stating that the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the XX century” were not the two world wars, were not the Holocaust, Cambodian and other genocides, but … the break-up of the USSR).
In other worlds, in the name of his anti-Western ideology, Multi-trol spits on the graves of the tens of millions of the victims of the Communist genocides, and blames the current war atrocities
by Russia in Ukraine – on the victims of that aggression and on the West.
And he does it not to put the food on the table – as the paid-trolls of Russia can defend their actions, but to gratify his ego: look at me, how a fiercely-independent mind I am; how I don’t kowtow to the bourgeois mentality that would have murdering tens of millions of class enemies as something that disqualifies the perpetrators and the system that allowed it.
This kind of nihilizm, and the glee they take in “sh9cking” the moderates with their cynical and nihilistic views, has a long tradition in Russia. So if you are right about where he posts from, this would make him an Australian stalinist wannabee. A strange bedfellow indeed. Then again, Australia is a home to a lot of strange creatures ….
Julian, I think you need to better define “cheap”.
As I recall, the current level of CO2 was reached through the burning of fossil fuels by a very small percentage of the global population. So, what’s to prevent that from continuing, if those with wealth and power choose?
(I also would point out that coal can be used to produce liquid fuels as well as being burned directly.)
Humans being clever and stupid simultaneously has a long history.
zebra,
Geology and physics, for the most part. Westerners, the 1%, the privileged – whatever we may want to call them – aren’t exempt from post-peak dynamics: throwing just more paper money at more energy-intensive and less profitable projects in a contracting economy just isn’t going to work. I believe (and this is my subjective opinion) we can already somehow see this in Western Europe that decided to bid a long-overdue farewell to Russian FFs and is now deindustrializing rapidly. This part of the world no longer has abundant reserves of oil, coal and gas and has been a net importer for a long while now. My country is a decent example here – technically, we still have so much coal that it’d last us for the next two centuries or so at current production rates, but it’s so deep and so dangerous to mine it’ll simply never be extracted (not many people are willing to work a kilometer or so underground in hot conditions at the constant risk of hydrogen sulfide poisoning or methane explosion). And we have no oil, which is crucial for everything (see my other comments).
As for CTL and GTL: not happening (Höök et al.).
Julian: “ Is there any climate scientist that considers implications of oil depletion on future climate change? I’ve been reading literature about peak oil recently and I’m quite convinced that higher emissions scenarios are physically impossible ”
Whoever “quite convinced” you of that wasn’t your friend -several problems with that argument:
1. As you must already know from your “reading literature about peak oil recently” Hubber’s peak oil was supposed to be in early 1970s. There was a temporary peak but since 1983 it continues to rise,
40% MORE oil produced than in the top peak year in 1979.
To borrow from Marx: “ Whom are you gonna to believe – your peak oilers authorities or your (lying) eyes: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-production-by-region ?
2. Even when we get past the peak production – it may not be because of reduction in the available oil, but because of the drop in the demand – deciding to leave some of the FF in the ground – which blows out of the water your entire premise of oil depletion” solving by itself the climate problem.
3. Getting past the peak – will only mean that we will STILL be adding CO2 to the air, just not at the maximum rate.
4. Unlike you, the IPCC scenarioes consider CO2 NOT ONLY from oil, but also from other fuel and non fuel sources (e.g. cement production). Two of the other FF sources – coal and gas – produces together TWICE the amount of Co2 from oil, not mentioning – are likely to have smaller portion of their total reserves already exploited than compared to oil.
So whoever sold you on that old deniers cliche that we don’t have to worry about FF emissions because we will run out of FFs before we have a chance to do any significant damage to the climate – wasn’t honest with you.
Piotr (1/2),
But that’s not what peak oil means at all! Per Wikipedia, it’s a point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate and then starts to decline permanently, either due to geology, persistent high prices or drop in demand. As such, it’ll only be known in the hindsight, since nobody has an exact estimate of URRs (although we can make an educated guess).
I don’t know why any country would ever want to leave its FFs in the ground, barring an extreme degrowth/collapse scenario. The entire global economy is utterly dependent on growth in both fiscal returns and energy use, the keystone of which is oil (for diesel, ship and aviation fuel to be more specific). Critical sectors of our economy like industrial agriculture that feeds 8.2B people alive today while relying on synthetic fertilizers produced in Haber-Bosh process, intercontinental supply chains relying on the entire fleets of diesel trucks, cargo planes and freights just to distribute the stuff around, modern medicine, electronics and so on all depend on cheap FFs just to keep going. I don’t know if by “leaving some of the FF in the ground” you implicitly meant electrification (utterly dependent on increasingly energy-intensive mining all over the world) or degrowth, but I’m fairly certain no such reduction will happen voluntarily.
“I don’t know if by “leaving some of the FF in the ground” you implicitly meant electrification (utterly dependent on increasingly energy-intensive mining all over the world) or degrowth, but I’m fairly certain no such reduction will happen voluntarily.”
Don’t look now, but the mining required for electrification is orders of magnitude smaller than that required for FF.
“I don’t know why any country would ever want to leave its FFs in the ground, barring an extreme degrowth/collapse scenario.”
I do, I do!
1) In order to prioritize more efficient electrical technologies.
2) In order to prioritize more cost-effective electrical technologies.
3) In order to prioritize cleaner electrical technologies, thereby
4) Not screwing up the climate and the biosphere.
Kevin McKinney,
Why have you skipped “utterly dependent on increasingly energy-intensive mining all over the world”? Based on work by Simon Michaux, electrification of everything simply isn’t possible (see: below). Not to mention that electrification is also dependent on FFs, namely plastics or for silicon smelting etc.
You clearly don’t, since you skipped the later part of my reply just as Piotr did. You neither can feed 8.2B (and growing!) people with electricity at scale nor you can preserve the biosphere while still continuing with our present way of life. Sectors like heavy industry, industrial agriculture, transportation, mining, modern medicine, electronics etc. are utterly dependent on cheap FFs, more specifically on oil (not to mention they are also interdependent on each other). N0 country or politician will ever agree to just leave that potent source of energy in the ground, because that’d spell an abrupt end of the modern way of living.
…………….. but the mining required for electrification is orders of magnitude smaller than that required for FF.
Reply to Kevin McKinney whoever, whatever,
that is plum wrong; orders of magnitude wrong.
“but the mining required for electrification is orders of magnitude smaller than that required for FF.”
MY: that is plum wrong; orders of magnitude wrong.
BPL: Look again.
https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099052423172525564
“Julian 1/2” But that’s not what peak oil means at all! Per Wikipedia, it’s a point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate and then starts to decline permanently, either due to geology, persistent high prices or drop in demand.
So after your “ reading literature about peak oil recently” – you rely on the written by amateur’s definition by Wikipedia? The problem with that definition is that it conflates peak oil with peak demand, and as such is contradictory BOTH to the ORIGINAL definition (Hubbard, 1956) AND to your OWN argument here (see below)
*** 1. Jullian contra Hubbard
David Deming, AAPG Bulletin (2023) 107 (6): 851–861. https://doi.org/10.1306/03202322131
“ In 1956, American geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that United States oil production would follow a bell-shaped curve and peak between 1965 and 1970.
Which was all about availability of oil, NOT reduction of the demand. Hence no Wikipedia “or drop in demand“.
BTW, he made his 1965-1970 prediction without the benefit of knowledge that such prediction is impossible, as made clear by certain Julian, “[peak oil] only be known in the hindsight ”
And the prediction for which Hubbard “was heralded as a prophet and an oracle”(Deming 2023)
failed spectacularly when the “permanent decline” in oil production was … reversed and today the US production of oil is well above the Hubbards “peak oil”.
***2. Julian contra Julian
Your take-home message – that based on your “reading about peak oil recently” we shouldn’t worry about mitigation of the GHGs because we will run out of FFs to burn anyway – implicitely rejects the reduction of the demand instead of running of the supply – hence no “drop in demand” in the original definition of peak oil. Furthermore, you yourself claim that you can’t imagine when a country would stop producing oil if it is still available there.
===
But don’t let your not knowing about the original definition of the peak oil by its author nor the prediction he famously made based on it, from lecturing me:
But that’s not what peak oil means at all! (c) Julian
Jullian: “I don’t know why any country would ever want to leave its FFs in the ground,”
How about at least one of the folloqing:
– to avoid worst possible climate change scenario (the more we burn the worse it gets)?
– to not put the short-term profits of the billionaires ahead of the drastic and long-term damage inflicted disproportionately on the poor?
– to avoid damaging of the ecosystems supporting human civilization?
– to refuse financing the wars of aggression , oppression of own populations, or supporting terrorism by Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc ?
– to reject the suicidal to the human race mentality “me know and screw the nature supporting our civilization, the poor and the future generation?
– a recognition that you eat can’t money?
– self-preservation of the oligarchs? When your children go hungry, you stop caring about laws property and money – you take the gun and take the food from those who have it – thus the billions on your bank account no longer worth the paper they are printed on.
– a realization that once we exhaust FF for energy – there won’t be anything left for all the non-energy uses of hydrocarbons (currently 13% of FF use) e.g. plastics, fertilizers, synthetic fibers, asphalt, lubricants, solvents, and waxes. in production of iron and steel, in many chemical processes?
– a realization that if we use up the FF now, we won’t be able to avert the next ice age when it comes?
Nah, perish the thought. Let’s enjoy our lifestyle while it lasts. As Mme Pompadour would say: “After us, rapid SLR!”
Piotr,
I thought it was terse and convenient, so I used it since this isn’t a formal setting, i.e. an academic discourse. But to be pedantic: yes, peak oil [supply] and peak oil demand are two different things, they shouldn’t be lumped together and I should’ve been more precise. This slip up, however, doesn’t really invalidate anything else I’ve said so far.
Where have I said that? Has it ever occurred to you that people can perhaps worry about more (as in “poli”, “poli” as in “policrisis“) than just one thing, namely the climate change? I have said numerous times that it’s a real threat that’s already impacting us now (in my region, in form of persistent droughts), but it’s far from the only one – non-renewable resource depletion, overpopulation, pollution, soil erosion, novel disease, biodiversity loss, war, inequality etc. are also valid concerns, all of which can be neatly characterized as symptoms of ecological overshoot. I focused on peak oil in this thread, because it’s THE master resource – everything else in our modern techno-industrial civilization is utterly dependent on it. But it seems like this completely escapes you (quite conveniently so, since you skipped the most important part of my reply later on, the one about complexity and interdependence of our systems).
I’m not going to bother replying to your list of the reasons why we may want to leave FFs in the ground; some of them are sound like climate action, some of them are self-contradictory nonsense like preserving our unsustainable way of life. But I find this quite amusing:
In Re to Julian, 11 OCT 2025 AT 6:40 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840583
Dear Julian,
Again, I would like to milder your concern about the “oil peak”, and refer in this respect to my earlier post of 9 OCT 2025 AT 1:06 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840497 .
I do agree with you that we face many intertwined serious problems forming a kind of “polycrisis”, however, I think that this situation has, actually, never been substantially different.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotr:” So after your “ reading literature about peak oil recently” – you rely on the written by amateur’s definition by Wikipedia?”
Julian”I thought it was terse and convenient But to be pedantic: yes, peak oil [supply] and peak oil demand are two different things, they shouldn’t be lumped together
Wikipedia didn’t lump it together – “Julian” DID:
Julian: “But that’s not what peak oil means at all! Per Wikipedia, it’s a point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate and then starts to decline permanently, either due to geology, persistent high prices or drop in demand”
These words do NOT appear in Wikipedia “Peak oil” page, Wikipedia did NOT “lump them together” – quite the opposite – it has a separate section on “peak demand” in which it CONTRASTS it from peak oil [supply]:
Wikipedia: “Unlike peak oil DEMAND, peak oil generally is concerned with the global SUPPLY of oil,”
So you didn’t understand even your own, addressed to a layman, source.
Then again – you ALSO don’t understand the assumptions and implications of YOUR OWN ARGUMENTS – to my:
Piotr: “Your take-home message – that based on your “reading about peak oil recently” we shouldn’t worry about mitigation of the GHGs because we will run out of FFs to burn anyway – implicitely rejects the reduction of the demand instead of running of the supply”
you “replied” with: Julian: “Where have I said that?”
What ELSE did you imply with your:
“ Is there any climate scientist that considers implications of oil depletion on future climate change? I’ve been reading literature about peak oil recently and I’m quite convinced that higher emissions scenarios are physically impossible ” [(c) Julian:]
Say hello to my little friend – Occam’s razor ….
Julian: “ I focused on peak oil in this thread, because it’s THE master resource – everything else in our modern techno-industrial civilization is utterly dependent on it.”
And, in your head, hoiw is THAT answering my:
Piotr: “Unlike you, the IPCC scenarioes [that annoy you so greatly] consider CO2 NOT ONLY from oil, but also from other fuel and non fuel sources (e.g. cement production). Two of the other FF sources – coal and gas – produces together TWICE the amount of Co2 from oil, not mentioning – are likely to have smaller portion of their total reserves already exploited than compared to oil.” ????
Strong claims require unequivocal proofs – “PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY” is as strong as they come – yet your proof is anything unequivocal – you ignored everything but oil, even though 1) gas and coal produce TWICE as much emissions as oil
2) they are likely to have smaller portion of their total reserves already exploited than has oil, 3) NONE of the three sources have achieved a peak eyt
4) and even if/when they do, their emission would start decreasing only gradually (hence continued post-peak emissions
Julian: “ I’m not going to bother replying to your list of the reasons why we may want to leave FFs in the ground”
It was you who said “I don’t know why any country would ever want to leave its FFs in the ground,” [(c) Julian] .
To which I gave you, off the top of my head, NINE possible reasons. EVEN ONE would be enough to falsify your implication that there are none.
As for your portraying your inability to defend your claims as a proud refusal to engage (“I’m not going to bother replying”) – if you can’t stand the heat, don’t set fires.
Peak oil will happen eventually, but timing it is nearly impossible because accurately measuring the underground resource is not possible. Everyone is just using surface geology which is only a rough indication. And nobody really saw fracking coming and there are many untapped fracking fields. Peak oil is like fusion power. Both are always about 10 years away….
Piotr (2/2),
True – never said emissions will suddenly drop to zero. The oil production may keep going for a while longer, a couple more years at best, but everything around it will change. Economies will be forced into permanent contraction with businesses that make all the critical components for everything we rely on either simplifying or going bankrupt. With increasing scarcity of new machines or replacement parts and lack of investments in new, less profitable energy projects (i.e. having lower EROEI than the similarly energy-intensive projects in the past), the entire system may unravel rather quickly. The reason I and so many others are focusing mostly on oil here is because it’s a master resource – our entire infrastructure is built around it. Everything in our globalized economy depends either directly or indirectly on oil in some way (there are no electric Caterpillar trucks nor is there a sensible way to make ammonia from hydrogen from electrolysis at scale).
I believe I already touched on this in point 3. There’s no coal extraction from increasingly more energy-intensive deposits nor are there viable sources of natural gas without technologies that fundamentally run on oil (extraction, processing, transportation, distribution by ships or pipelines – all of these processes require either liquid fuels or other petrochemicals, like plastics etc.). Oil is THE master resource and while there are ways for converting coal and gas to liquids, they are far from viable at scale (Höök et al.).
in Re to Julian, 7 Oct 2025 at 5:50 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840411
Dear Julian,
With respect to your assertion
“Everything in our globalized economy depends either directly or indirectly on oil in some way (there are no electric Caterpillar trucks nor is there a sensible way to make ammonia from hydrogen from electrolysis at scale).”,
I would say that fuelling trucks of other heavy mobile machinery with liquefied natural gas (LNG) instead of diesel or petrol is technically feasible and very likely would have not been significantly more expensive.
As regards ammonia production, as far as I know it runs most economically just with natural gas as the hydrogen source, so there is no need for liquid hydrocarbons as a raw material for ammonia.
As prevailing part of liquid hydrocarbons extracted from Earth crust is consumed as fuels and available reserves of natural gas (that can, very likely, replace liquid hydrocarbons as energy source completely) seem to be bigger than oil reserves, I doubt that, at least with respect to the foreseeable future, debates about the “oil peak” do have any relevance for both world economy as well as for perceived needs to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
Best regards
Tomáš
Greta Thunberg, world-renowned expert on Climate Science, arrested!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/10/greta-thunbergs-team-claims-she-was-beaten-forced/
Greta never claimed to be an expert on climate science (with or without capitals.) Please don’t Make Stuff Up!
– Mr. KiA: “Greta Thunberg, world-renowned expert on Climate Science, arrested!”
– Kevin: “Greta never claimed to be an expert on climate science (with or without capitals.) Please don’t Make Stuff Up!”
… and by “arrested” KiA means: illegally imprisoned after the Israeli security forces illegally raided and hijacked in international waters a ship with supplies for the starving and sick children in the Israeli-occupied Gaza. And threw her into an Israeli prison where they have beaten her, and tried to humiliate by forcing her to kiss the flag of the very country whose victims she tried to help, And have done it a threat to others – if we can do this WITH IMPUNITY to such a world-known activist, imagine what we can do to you
You know all this from your own link. Hence your glee from that – unmistakably MAGA.
Your loved ones must be so proud of you.
Yep. Thank you for tackling that part of the mischaracterization. Less biased coverage of the incident, for those interested:
https://www.reuters.com/world/greta-thunberg-alleges-torture-israeli-detention-after-gaza-flotilla-arrest-2025-10-07/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/4/greta-thunberg-mistreated-by-israeli-forces-in-detention-activists-say
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/10/07/greta-thunberg-israel-arrest/
Climate Scientists Raise a Middle Finger to Trump’s Censorship Efforts
Hundreds are collaborating to make sure accurate data is available to the public.
http://climate.us/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/climate-scientists-protest-trump-censorship-government-websites/
Stephen Miller Claims Simply Calling Trump Authoritarian ‘Incites Violence and Terrorism’
“Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government ‘authoritarian,’” one journalist said, “is exactly what an authoritarian government would do.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/miller-says-criticism-of-trump-is-violence
(Long before this) Wolin lays bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/02/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism
Shades of Wolin?
Luke Kemp on Authoritarianism, Power, and the Dark Triad
Dr Luke Kemp, a research associate at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, argues that the roots of our civilizational crisis are not simply economic or technological but psychological. In conversation with Nate Hagens (The Great Simplification), Kemp explains how traits such as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism—collectively known as the Dark Triad—interact with social scale, resource surplus, and hierarchy to create the conditions for collapse.
The Dark Triad and Power
While true psychopaths make up roughly 1% of the population, studies suggest their representation in corporate and political elites ranges from 3–25%. These individuals often self-select into positions of authority—boardrooms, parliaments, intelligence agencies—because such systems reward risk-taking, charisma, and manipulation. Even those who enter leadership through merit can be corrupted by power over time.
The Authoritarian Impulse
Kemp identifies a further mechanism he calls the “authoritarian impulse.” When populations feel threatened—by war, migration, scarcity, or disease—they become more submissive to dominance hierarchies. Fear shifts psychology toward obedience and punitive thinking. Across history, such moments produce strong-man leaders and scapegoating of minorities. The pattern is observable today: in conditions of uncertainty, citizens gravitate toward authoritarian figures who promise security.
Crucially, fear itself can be manufactured. Dark Triad elites—those lacking empathy and driven by control—can engineer fear narratives (“immigrant invasions,” “evil foreign enemies”) that cause the populace to demand harsh, un-empathetic, non-pro-social policies. Modern examples abound: political manipulation of terror threats after 9/11, anti-immigrant demagoguery in Western politics, or the framing of rival powers like Russia and China as existential menaces. The frightened public becomes the instrument of its own repression.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/TGS-194-Luke-Kemp-Transcript.docx.pdf
the intricate history of societal collapse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7JsDrHrRsI
the impact psychopaths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ePY2MQ3-Q
“Have no fear” Muhammed the Prophet said. (PBUH)
Hello Barton (BPL). Thank you for the kind wish Sept. 30 in the Sept. UV. :-)
To Susan, Zebra, Nigel, Kevin, Radge, and Steven –
Thanks for the various comments, links, etc. in response to my Sept. 22 UV comment. I did review everything. I apologize for what I think was some confusion due, I suspect, entirely to my imprecise writing: “…It’s a subject I’ve spent time and effort on locally since last November’s election trying to understand why so many made the choice they made.”
I wasn’t meaning to rehash the 2024 Presidential election results or the reasons for that particular result. It was more about my growing conviction how climate change communication is being/has been done in solid red states by the Democratic Party in particular, but also climate scientists/activists etc. And asking two questions:
1. Why the resistance?
2. How to change going forward?
And Z, you’re correct. I do mean well. :-)
Off Topic – Naturally, those questions seems almost quaint currently given what has happened in the last two weeks and with Trump’s increasingly disturbing actions and pronouncements the last few months. Having been a constant 24Hr/Day caregiver for a family member who had dementia, Trump’s disappearance from public view for 2-4 days once a month (since June), and his appearance/behavior sure seems like someone who has begun infusion treatment. These med’s often produce temporary, but pronounced side effects. Not so sure why the press isn’t pressing harder with more questions about concern for his health
Okay, end of tangent.
David,
Well briefly, IMO;
1. It’s been historically integrated with other issues into a right-wing platform.
2. I’m afraid that at this point, for the base, it means changing a whole mindset that underlies a range of issues. On another level, it means disempowering the moneyed interests that wag the dog on this issue.
—
Trump has been a public figure for a long time. You can mark his decline over several decades. I mean, he’s always been full of it, but in his younger days he could at least form reasonably literate paragraphs.
I personally don’t see any abrupt transition to the discombobulated, juvenile delinquency cum fascist fever dream that you see today. It’s just that it’s getting harder for people to mince their words about it. That and just generally that people are becoming more alarmed over the direction we’re headed, which is basically Project 2025 being propelled forward by the same people who are propping up Trump in the first place.
If you haven’t noticed, like so many other institutions, the msm is in the process of being hollowed out.
—-
“Woke” as in wake up and pay attention, is anathema to cons. Also it sounds black, so racists can be easily distracted and manipulated with it– one more thought-terminating talking point that can be used to suck all the air out of the room.
Damn. It is all Trumps/ Project 2025/MAGAs fault! Ignoring 30 years of consistency in American history!
The Clinton administration signed the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC on November 12, 1998. However — and this is key — the U.S. Senate never ratified it.
The U.S. had already, in July 1997, passed the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (95–0), which stated that the U.S. should not enter any climate treaty that:
1) Mandated emissions cuts for developed nations but not developing ones (like China, India), or
2) Would seriously harm the U.S. economy.
Because of that unanimous Senate warning, Democrat President Bill Clinton never submitted the treaty for ratification–he gave up, he surrendered, he quit trying to lead and prosecute an effective rational convincing argument. Later, in 2001, President George W. Bush formally rejected Kyoto, citing the same reasons.
For what it’s worth:
https://bartonlevenson.com/Fascism.html
You could add to that the UK under Reform. The worrying thing is they actually have a chance of gaining power in another four or so years.
Hi Barton.
FWIW, I agree that Trump’s administration is Fascist. I wouldn’t, however, go so far as to say that the US is (though his administration is pushing it that way) because of the resistance it’s encountering.
Just my two cents.
Resistance? Where?
Hi Ray,
Resistance is around. Mostly in the (unsupreme?) courts, public protests, some governors, and some politicians.
I hope it’s enough; I fear it won’t be.
In any case, it means that the US isn’t a fascist state yet; though it’s becoming an illiberal democracy apparently.
Ray L: No Kings October 18. Also, Portland and Chicago, courts.
I’m thinking of compiling a list of hardworking Democrats who are doing their possible, since there are a lot of them. I’d start with my senators Liz Warren and Ed Markey.
SE
I don’t know where to draw the line between fascist/not-fascist.
IMO, T’s momentum is gathering in a critical period where a return to “norm” is increasingly unlikely anytime soon.
If the American government is in the hands fascists, then America as a political entity is fascist and we’re all sailing in a fascist boat, like it or not.
However, Borgs take note:
Resistance Is Not Futile!
re “Resistance?”
Eg.: Kat Abughazaleh:
“Kat Speaks at Broadview ICE Facility Press Conference | Kat Abughazaleh for Illinois” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3qrs5atomI
“Yes, I Flipped Off A Bigot. No, I Won’t Apologize. | Kat Abughazaleh For Illinois” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXd7vcSkwBw
(off on a tangent about, among other things, so-called ‘government waste’, see also “Delta Smelt: Why Conservatives Have Blamed California Drought On A Tiny Fish For Almost 20 Years” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf03LwPTUBw )
… and of course, the shutdown.
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Corina Machado for her extraordinary work in Venezuela. Worthy recipient.
Eight days till Oct. 18. Will be interesting to see how turnout compares to first one here and nationally. Looks like double the planned gatherings in my state this time compared to first NK’sD. Which is encouraging to me.
I hope to go to one of the events and put in my two cents for freedom of science and the right to peacefully protest in this country. Never ever imagined I’d need to type that sentence.
Stunned M.Y. finds himself in wrong place, ejects chaff, then has a whine while scooting in a wee puff of squid ink.
Hi Radge. As usual, you offer salient concise thoughts. Thanks, and sorry I can’t (lol).
I respect the point that the collective mindset hardened awhile back and remains vigorously reinforced by the obscenely powerful wealthy “tail.”The Gilded Age seems a decent prior example to me of what we see now. Do you think that’s correct, and if so, do you think we can glean anything from that time that is of use in today’s America to counter the tail? Don’t we have to keep trying, given the long range implications of delaying action, no matter what has happened with past efforts?
I agree about the MSM being hollowed out by technology and the concentration of media assets into the hands of a wealthy few who mouth press freedoms, and of course, don’t actually believe that at all.
On mr. T, yeah, the pathology was always there. Just can’t hide it now that there are no adults left around him, only lickspittles. But if I’m right and the monthly 2-4 days long withdrawals from public appearances are a result of side effects from infusion treatments for dementia, I just don’t see how even a Media that’s becoming devoid of actual journalists can keep ignoring that. Even if I’m flat wrong in my amateur diagnosis, something is going on with our President’s health that we are not being told about. That concerns me greatly.
On all things “woke,” I simply offer that I’ve always thought and voiced for years to my liberal friends that tying action on climate change tightly to social justice issues under the “woke” flag by the D’s was a colossal unforced error. It’s not that the effects aren’t real, just that it unnecessarily complicated things.
Hi David,
Re:
P1.
Robert Reich’s History of Inequity
(33 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFhEoeA5Yj0
P3.
Well, we know something is going on, that much is in the media. In any case, he’s being propped up. If he goes, how quickly and effectively will the vacuum be filled by his wing nuts?
P4.
“Woke” is basically slang originating in the black community. IMO, it only hardly rises to the level of a slogan, it’s not an ideology, nevertheless recently the far right has decided to distort this pretty much the way that they will distort anything, especially if it’s about race. Take the way that they shamelessly and aggressively attack “Black Lives Matter.” Apparently we’re not allowed to say that anymore.
Now there are indeed instances that the left has botched messaging, like saying “abolish the police.” Of all they ways they could have approached the issue, that has got to be the stupidest.
BTW, I know of no climate scientists running around waving “woke” flags, and if there are, I seriously doubt it makes one bit of difference in the greater scheme of things. The anti-science field has been continuously plowed, sowed, and harvested for a long time now. Last I checked, climate isn’t exactly a big issue for voters.
Hey Radge. I’ll take a look at the video this weekend. Just quickly, yes, I agree, I’ve no memory of climate scientists carrying woke flags (literally or otherwise). Didn’t stop the purveyors of slop from implicating them and climate science as DEI to a public that largely no longer reads and chooses to get its news via the social media swamp. And again I concur, climate is not yet a driving consideration to voters.
It’s grim times. Maybe I’m an old fool, but I’ll never stop speaking out for what’s right. Though some days I admit I feel pretty gloomy about what’s still to come and the possibility that the fascist ship has already sailed and I’m on it shouting at the sea.
lol, sorry Radge, didn’t see you’d already employed the “boat” imagery till I started scrolling up. And as an old fan, borg resistance indeed!
Radge Havers: – “Last I checked, climate isn’t exactly a big issue for voters.”
…until the voters can’t get affordable insurance.
Economist Dr Richard Denniss said at a hearing, conducted by the Australian Senate Environment and Communications References Committee concerning an inquiry into the Climate Risk Assessment, on Tuesday, 16 Sep 2025:
“Let me give you an example of how much worse things are, ah, than you might likely expect. A lot of people talk about insurance becoming unaffordable. Just to be crystal clear, every mortgage contract in Australia obliges the holder of the mortgage to have insurance. Every mortgage contract.
The reason we think bank lending is safe, is that not only they’re lending against real estate, they’re lending against insured real estate. So, the entire risk profile of the entire financial system is based on the idea that house prices don’t go down, and even if houses burst into flames, it’s actually the insurance company’s risk, not the bank’s risk. So, to be crystal clear, if a house is uninsurable, it is unmortgageable. If a house is uninsurable, it is unmortgageable.
The potential catastrophic impacts of whole suburbs and regions not being able to insure their houses is not included in this report, rightly, because the tools for doing so, don’t exist. But again, to be crystal clear, the bank expects that if you’ve got a mortgage your house is fully insured. If your house is not fully insured, you are in breach of your mortgage contract. Right now in Australia today, we know there are people who are uninsured. Right now, in Australia today, we know there are people who are under-insured. The RBA isn’t looking, APRA isn’t looking, ASIC aren’t looking. Everybody knows that not only is there uninsurance and under-insurance today, what this report has just told us is that in the coming decades there will be far more of this. This is a crucial part of the problem that our regulators are ignoring, and that this report can’t have provided the answers to.
Just quickly, when this damage comes, someone will have to pay. You can only insure against unlikely events. Insurance companies do not insure against likely events. No 20-year-old in Australia can rent a Ferrari and insure it. Okay, you can’t insure against that risk. What this report says is that flooding will be so common in large parts of Australia, you will not be able to insure. So, just to be clear, individuals will not insure their way out of this crisis. You cannot insure against likely events. So, what is going to happen is we are either going to tell people: ‘You are on your own, you are stranded, your house is worthless, we are sad for you,’ or we are going to say: ‘Oh, I’m so sad that we are actually going to give you large amounts of public money.’ But, to do what? To rebuild in the place that keeps flooding? To move? To where?
These are not hypothetical. And to give everyone a sense of timing, we’re telling 20-year-olds today to worry about a mortgage, that they won’t pay off before 2050. We’re telling 20-year-olds to worry about superannuation, that they won’t get their hands on till they get to 2065. And this report is saying there are catastrophic risks coming right now, way before you need your super, way before you pay off your 25- to 30-year loan. So, the fossil fuel industry seems to me to be the obvious person to pay for this, because in Australia today we are giving half of our gas away for free…”
https://youtu.be/kshsde6g59Y?t=12398
Geoff Miell: “…until the voters can’t get affordable insurance.”
Exactly. So much coming economic pain is already baked-in for the citizenry of countries around the world. One way or the other, sooner or later, the happy illusion of ignorance will shatter for many. It’s been a helluva party, these last 125 years. The hangover is going to be a doozy.
Still, I think the fight is worth fighting. Susan Anderson said it best awhile back. The future outcome is likely dark, no matter our efforts at this point now. But that shouldn’t and doesn’t relieve individuals of the responsibility to work towards a better, less awful future.
David says
And asking two questions:
1. Why the resistance?
2. How to change going forward?
You’re asking the wrong people. And you are in the wrong place to be asking it.
Hi there MY. Like the latest ‘nym you’ve chosen. I think it’s not a leap to say that you, via multiple identities I’ve observed you employee in my <2 years reading/writing comments here:
Are quite critical of our hosts and this site’s presentation, topic choices, biases, etc.
Think this site is an afterthought in the climate community.
That the site has little traffic.
That this site’s commentariat are largely closed-minded, overly protective of our hosts, exhibit unreasonable hostility towards new comers, new perspectives, and dismiss anyone who offers disagreement, etc.
You make it plain as day that you look down on most of your fellow commenters,
And
All in all, that RC is NOT a place to have serious conversations and is a lost cause.
So, why are you always here? Why do you expend the time and energy to comment, and comment, and comment, often writing long and detailed musings, at such a limited, unvisited, and just plain unworthy site? Why employee frequent name changes (IP addresses too?) to evade deletion of your comments?
I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but honest to God, I just don’t understand. Perhaps it a benefit of growing old, but I would never waste time at a site that I thought so little of! Life is too damn short to waste the little time we are allotted to exist.
In Re to David, 7 Oct 2025 at 9:11 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840383
Dear David,
A few recent posts by “Mo Yunus”, e.g. of 7 Oct 2025 at 11:33 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840392
or of 6 Oct 2025 at 6:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840346 ,
leave hardly any doubt that his frantic activity on this website is a full-time job in service for Russian hybrid war against democratic societies generally and for Russian war against Ukraine specifically.
My reply to your question why he continues in his activity herein thus reads: “Because he can”.
Best regards
Tomáš
Hi Tomáš. On the question of banning or not, I’m undecided. I don’t like spamming, and if someone is posting not as an individual, but in service of others and fails to acknowledge that, then ban.
Overall though, I agree with the honorable soul, Russell Seitz. Many people have given much to allow the rights I have (currently).
In closing, thank you for your kind words the other day. Most kind.
David: I am reading this with interest. Three courageous interesting people with differing approaches to life: How to live a good life in difficult times: Yuval Noah Harari, Rory Stewart and Maria Ressa in conversation. From superintelligent AI to the climate and democracy, three leading thinkers discuss how to navigate the future – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/04/how-to-live-a-good-life-in-difficult-times-yuval-noah-harari-rory-stewart-and-maria-ressa-in-conversation
One arbitrary extract, from former UK Tory Rory Stewart: “At the heart of that observation is this extraordinary idea, which, broadly speaking, is called liberalism. It is an idea that became very powerful, particularly by the 19th century, and found a new form after the second world war. We’re the heirs of that: it assumed things like a rules-based international order; an idea that we would agree how we behaved, state to state; it had an idea of democracy at its heart. And of course, that idea of democracy has a lot of the ingredients that Yuval is talking about, which is tolerance, human rights – how you protect the minority from the views of the majority. And there was an extraordinary period that probably lasted until the mid-2000s where it really seemed possible that this was the natural destination of humanity. And then things began to come off the rails. Now we find ourselves in a world where almost every bit of the model has entered its shadow form. So instead of focusing on democracy, we’re in a world dominated by authoritarian populism. Instead of a world of free trade, we’re in one that’s increasingly about protection and tariffs. Instead of a rules-based international order, we’re in a world of isolation: the strong do what they can, the weak must suffer what they must. And all this, of course, is then reinforced by social media and increasingly by AI.”
Reply to Susan Anderson et al
Even in this post-truth civilization you still cannot say you weren’t repeatedly warned. While all this continues collective global responses to climate change and the many other global crises stall.
2015 BT Before Trump – Chris Hedges told you Sheldon Wolin laid bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/02/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism
Noam Chomsky – Manufacturing Consent – 1977 1992 doco summary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
Churchill once said: “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.”
The Great Satan
The National Security Strategy September 2002 = Global Totalitarianism
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/
2007 warning The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
by Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy
Aggressive Belligerent US Policy Dobbins, Cohen, and Shatz at RAND in 2019
Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2019/09/05/extending-russia.html
2022 The Ukraine-Russia conflict is now in its most dangerous phase since it began in 2014 after the Western-backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government in a fascist putsch. by Ivan Katchanovski. The hidden origin of the escalating Ukraine-Russian conflict-The Maidan massacre
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2022/03/ivan-katchanovski-the-hidden-origin-of-the-escalating-ukraine-russian-conflict-the-maidan-massacre/
2014> Video evidence of War crimes by the Kiev regime against the Ukraine civil population
https://crimes-of-ukraine.ru/video/horror-of-ukraine-war-civilians-shot-bombed-killed-raw-footage.html
2023 Consequences of the War in Ukraine This series takes in the sweep of the war in Ukraine and its downstream effects both regionally and globally.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/02/consequences-of-the-war-in-ukraine.html
The dislocated dysfunctional world [represented by Gaza images] continues to rapidly heat up as climate change impact spins out of control amid record global emissions, stock market valuations, house prices, food prices, while the few gain even more wealth and power from urging gold prices and mega corporate profits.
If it wasn’t so in your face you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a new Star Wars movie. But it’s real.
Leave the World Behind (2023) on Netflix
It’s dystopian / apocalyptic in nature — the plot involves technological breakdowns (loss of phone, satellites, etc.) that spiral into chaos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_the_World_Behind_(film)
A Great prescient movie. Written in 2020
fwiw, I’d add that though the rot of racism and victim blaming is eternal (Rachel Maddow covers Trump’s granddad arrest at KKK March in 1927, and lots more (Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh and tons of other white supremacists) in her book Prequel), our real troubles escalated with Thatcher and Reagan. Greed is not good, PR does not make lies true, and tax cuts for the rich were what gave us the equality we lost to Gingrich and plotters who now wish to eliminate all opposition.
‘We gave up the grand opportunity of a free and fair society in the 1980s. It is wrong to blame the obstructed victims and their advocates for what predators do. Nature red in tooth and claw.
Susan, you know I look for the fundamentals, and, unfortunately, I have to conclude that the most significant factor in the success of what the fascism-seekers have been doing since the Civil Rights era is…. you uppity womenfolk!
Race/ethnicity is obviously very important, but I think women being empowered and successful has been the most significant global factor in threatening the existing Authoritarian hierarchical paradigm.
Simple number: In 1960, only 6% of practicing physicians were women, and now it is well over 40%. That’s a threat not only to the men, but to any tradwives of the doctors. And of course it generalizes across the range of employment, at whatever economic level, as a significant loss of status.
I find that even science-friendly people are reluctant to acknowledge what is well established about Authoritarian psychology. You can’t look at only the people who exploit it to gain power… they may not even be “true believers” themselves, although some obviously are.
What happens is that a critical mass of the population, as in Germany 1933, can’t accept losing their “rightful” status relative to other identity groups. Someone has to be below them!
That’s clearly where we are at right now.
Hey there Susan. I’m unfamiliar with “How to live a good life in difficult times: Yuval Noah Harari, Rory Stewart and Maria Ressa in conversation. From superintelligent AI to the climate and democracy, three leading thinkers discuss how to navigate the future.” Will put this on my “rectify list” ;-)
As always, appreciate and respect your offerings here. I also have started to occasionally check out the comments section at your other haunt. It’s sure got a different vibe, which is interesting.
Fear not though, I’ve no plans to start commenting there. Quite content to just stop by and lurk during stormy times (lol).
hi David: The link is to a not particularly long read – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/04/how-to-live-a-good-life-in-difficult-times-yuval-noah-harari-rory-stewart-and-maria-ressa-in-conversation
As to YCC EoTS comments, they’re a mile a minute. Trouble with comments (anywhere) is mostly NUPSH (no useful purpose … WWII, I think). I’ve been participating a bit less, particularly during Atlantic tropical storm season when the obsession level is high.
ps. We’re having some ‘interesting’ (in the Pratchett/Chinese wisdom sense) king tides, more info here. They claim we’ll get more in November and December.
https://stonelivinglab.org/education/wicked-high-tides/
Hi Susan. The Guardian story was, good Lord, disquieting I guess as a first reaction. Thanks for that… I think, lol.
I was aware of Maria Ressa, having read stories on her work in the Philippines (if memory serves me right). Not the other two though. Always good to learn of a conservative not infected with the current strain of fever spreading throughout the world. Of course, stating the screaming obvious, if journalism goes… that’s ballgame for democracy
Been a fair amount of discussions about this fall’s K.T. occurrences. Wonder how the Prez will wave away the fact that even eight inches added by CC induced sea level rise makes the flooding worse for you guys?
And on that cheerful note, time to go start my day.
Celebrate 200 years of the modern railway – Coal Powered Transportation
With the expert help of the National Railway Museum, this indicative timeline has been specially created to tell the tale of train travel over the past 200 years or so.
This timeline includes the historic moment when, on 27 September 1825, George Stephenson’s steam-powered Locomotion No. 1 travelled 26 miles between Shildon, Darlington and Stockton, carrying hundreds of passengers to great fanfare. It set in motion a train of events that changed the world forever.
https://railway200.co.uk/timeline/
5 years later they had the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opening in 1830.
by 1850, 25 years later, the “civilized” world had changed, including America.
1861: Home delivery shopping starts
That 200 years went fast.
Note to Mods:
Mo Yunus is providing volume but not quality here. Perhaps the rest of us would benefit from some fresh air on the subject? He (she?) needs a different occupation than using RealClimate as a vanity platform.
in Re to Susan Anderson, 5 Oct 2025 at 7:54 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840280
Dear Susan,
I would like to join your plea, with a small correction:
Besides the simple circumstance that once banned multi-troll freely continues in his old destructive activity in this new embodiment, most embarassing is his true agenda that is far worse than just “vanity”.
More to Russian hybrid war against democratic societies and multi-troll’s support therefor, see in my comments of 1 Oct 2025 at 2:18 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/but-you-said-the-ice-was-going-to-disappear-in-10-years/#comment-840106 ,
2 Oct 2025 at 4:48 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/but-you-said-the-ice-was-going-to-disappear-in-10-years/#comment-840154 ,
6 Oct 2025 at 7:14 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/but-you-said-the-ice-was-going-to-disappear-in-10-years/#comment-840350 .
Greetings
Tomáš
Moderators,
I agree with Susan and Tomáš. Mo Yunis and his many aliases should be banned. Isn’t it against the blog rules to use sock puppets?
in Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 6 Oct 2025 at 7:35 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840354
Dear Barton Paul,
I highly appreciate your support.
Meanwhile, the troll further exploits the Real climate website for spreading narratives about poor Russians that must be saved (from being murdered by Ukrainian fascists supported by NATO/USA/EU) by the “special military operation”.
I assume that the moderators may not be aware that before World War II, German press and broadcasting directed by Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
were full of stories that sound as copy-paste of one of recent Mo Yunus’ posts, namely of 7 Oct 2025 at 11:33 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840392
only with the difference that the victims of the alleged genocide were 3 million of German speaking citizens of Czechoslovakia.
If Ukrainians followed advice provided by John Mearsheimer, Noam Chomsky and likes admired by “Mo Yunus” in another of his disgusting posts, of 6 Oct 2025 at 6:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840346 ,
gave up their resistance and, consequently, an analogy of the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectorate_of_Bohemia_and_Moravia
would be created from Ukraine after Russian occupation thereof, I am pretty sure that this act of modern collonialism would have been praised by Russian propaganda, including the busy “Mo Yunus”, for allegedly saving Ukraine from “pillaging it’s resources and crushing it” by the evil NATO/USA/EU.
The moderators can also hardly remember that several months ago, certain “William” reprimanded me almost identically as recently “Mo Yunus” for “living in the distant past (of the Cold War)” when I objected that he spreads Russian war propaganda.
I am really unhappy about moderators’ incapability to recognize who “Mo Yunus” is. It almost appears that so far, they rather appreciate the busy traffic that he creates on their website. If so, I would like to ask them for banning rather me, instead of “Mo Yunus”, because after several unsuccessful atempts to make them aware that he discredits their website by freely using it as a platform for victim blaming, I indeed already feel as the “hateful uneducated sealioning Denier Troll”, in a full accordance with still another of his assertions.
Greetings
Tomáš
+1
I am reading this with interest.
The early warning signs of American precarity were evident 3-plus decades ago. The hubris of the “end of history” masked a political economy that was itself fragile to the core.
Two lenses from the early and mid 1990s – one cinematic, the other philosophical-sociological – offer unusually prescient windows into understanding the present moment. Wang Huning’s 1991 book America Against America and David Koepp’s 1996 film The Trigger Effect both dissect the same civilisational fault lines plastered over by Fukuyama’s fallacious fantasies of western-cum-American triumph.
Wang and Koepp, in their own ways, speak of atomisation, fragility and the collapse of social cohesion. Though neither anticipated the world of smartphones, social media or opioid addiction, both foresaw the psychic architecture of a society on the edge – a world where the thin tissue of order depends on trust that no longer exists.
Today, across the United States, signs of deep social fracture are surfacing in data once read as marginal indicators. Sales of bulletproof glass, home security systems, and CCTV installations are surging. The bulletproof glass market alone is growing at nearly 10% per annum, projected to exceed US$4.28 billion by 2030. In parallel, U.S. spending on residential and commercial alarm systems has climbed past US$70 billion annually.
These are sociological metrics of fear; they are barometers of a population fortifying itself against a sense of internal collapse. It’s a sense of collapse that’s been decades in the making.
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/america-against-itself-redux
No one really cares what the EPA is doing about endangerment findings or the Department of Energy’s 2025 Climate Report nor who wrote it. No one really cares about Net Zero either. Nobody that counts.
MY: No one really cares what the EPA is doing about endangerment findings or the Department of Energy’s 2025 Climate Report nor who wrote it. No one really cares about Net Zero either. Nobody that counts.
BPL: And who doesn’t count? Those who really care.
We could keep this up for weeks.
Social cohesion is breaking down? Gee, I wonder who’s fault that could be? Maybe the present Nazi-wannabe-administration, perhaps?:
“Why I’m so Mad Right Now”-Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ChIo3Ubdbo (he starts off pessimistic but adds a note of optimism at the end; my main point in bringing this up here is made around the ~1 min mark and ~2:40 – 4:30)
… (although the reaction to their evil may be unifying for a larger part of society, hopefully) …
… along with a big assist from Fox News, Jerry Falwell, the NRA, etc., the fossil fuel companies (yes, KIA, the consumers bear a large part of the responsibility of the emissions themselves AND would pay accordingly in an effective carbon-pricing system, but look at what the companies have done to keep their consumers, look at what they have made!) … and Putin, of course.
There’s a few ways to achieve or maintain social cohesion (or adhesion? miscibility?). We could simply keep quiet whenever we notice a problem with the status quo. There’s removing minorities (ICE) and jailing ‘troublemakers’, killing them (Hitler, and now Netanyahu), forcibly ‘reeducating them’ (US and Canada to Native Americans some time in the past, presently Putin to kidnapped Ukrainian children) that the majority (or powerful minority) doesn’t want to tolerate or want around. OR, people could just get along with each other (with the surfactant of enlightenment and empathy), limiting punishments and sanctions to people who are actually causing real problems. (Portions of the Democratic Party congresspeople, particularly in leadership, may be compromised by special interest money and have been particularly disappointing in the last 2 years, but they are vastly preferable nonetheless.) Just because Jody likes D&D and Jaimie would rather watch Nascar (setting aside emissions) doesn’t mean they have to be enemies.
“There’s removing minorities (ICE) and jailing ‘troublemakers’, killing them (Hitler, and now Netanyahu),”…
Yes, I realize there are qualitative and quantitative differences between the two situations, but “at least we’re not Nazi Germany/ Hitler” is a rather weak defense.
Also, Andrew Jackson, …
…
… “limiting punishments and sanctions to people who are actually causing real problems”…
I would change this to “people who are actually morally responsible for causing actually real problems”
What to do about that mega-popular ‘handwaving’ problem child Beckwith?
48,534 views 23 Aug 2025
Antarctica Tipping Points: Why I Now Predict an Antarctic Blue Ocean Event within 10-15 Years
Paul Beckwith 45,700 subscribers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz_MilyXkk0
Paul discusses>
Emerging evidence of abrupt changes in the Antarctic environment
Nerilie J. Abram 20 August 2025 Nature Review
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09349-5.epdf?sharing_token=21SLb5LZ0QDEfKsavcxa9dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OuFb8Q5aeqZODjLc7qZZVLjp6BLVilrma44j-fYENI4QvQuX9xArAcHue1Bm2DjDDhiyDv-fdHrRSOyO8BVO0OsOnf6Zh8JejPKMyr6CwZi5GRe5i7ml_gm519knlo1nE%3D
Misc extracts summary
Nerilie Abram’s 2025 Nature Reviews article presents compelling evidence that the Antarctic system is entering a phase of abrupt, interacting, and potentially irreversible change. The region, long considered more stable than the Arctic, is now showing rapid transformations across sea ice, ocean circulation, ice sheets, and ecosystems.
Sea ice collapse: Antarctic sea-ice extent has plummeted since 2014, reaching record lows in 2023 (over 7σ below the 1981–2010 mean). This decline marks a likely regime shift away from its historical variability, driven by self-reinforcing feedbacks such as thinning ice and increased ocean heat uptake. These processes may already be irreversible even below 2 °C of global warming.
Ocean circulation slowdown: The Antarctic Overturning Circulation is weakening faster than previously expected, contributing to ocean warming, deoxygenation, and disruptions in the global carbon cycle. A collapse could trigger worldwide climate and ecosystem impacts.
Ice-sheet instability: West Antarctic marine basins are undergoing accelerating ice loss — almost sixfold since the 1990s — likely indicating that marine ice sheet instability (MISI) has begun. Even under best-case CO₂ scenarios, a tipping point for unstoppable ice loss could be crossed, potentially initiating global tipping cascades.
Ecological regime shifts: Antarctic ecosystems are experiencing habitat transformations, physiological stress, and repeated breeding failures, increasing extinction risks and altering food webs.
Implications: The study emphasizes that abrupt, high-impact, low-likelihood outcomes must be included in climate risk and adaptation planning. The Antarctic is no longer a “slow responder” but a potential driver of rapid global change.
[end quote]
Hello everybody. My name is Beckwith. Paul Beckwith.
https://www.youtube.com/@PaulHBeckwith/videos
4,798 views 27 Sept 2025
Beckwith Walking While Talking, rather Ranting and Raving about Global Climate System Chaos.
61,630 views 17 Sept 2025
Unprecedented: Monsoon Winds Breached Himalayan Mountains Bringing Rain and Snow to Tibetan Plateau
39,377 views 11 Sept 2025
Imminent Polar Vortex Collapse over Antarctica will Impact Global Weather: My Deep Details Dive…
29,911 views 8 Aug 2025
James Hansen: Global Climate Sensitivity is 4.5C for 2x CO2 with 99% Certainty: IPCC 3.0C is WRONG
5 Videos x 184,250 views
How to shut him up from promoting all this climate science info? LOL
Just remember, featuring material one wishes to criticize gives prominence not to the criticism, but to the material featured. You have do it a great favor by contributing ‘clicks’ and putting it higher in the search queue.
Hmm, Chatgpt no longer providing links to statements it makes.. It says something about a decision made by OpenAI “to ensure privacy, security, and to avoid spreading potentially harmful or unverified content.”.
My other AI still provides links but they have changed somewhat. From number for the links to one link sign. The timing s seems coincidental.
For those who may have missed it, from a more optimistic time, ABC did a two hour special in 2009 which sank without trace. The obstruction begun on January 20, 2009 by Mitch McConnell has borne bitter fruit. Even some of the people who did that are now regretting the endgame they set in motion.
Earth 2100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqRpM72Odg
There have been many other efforts to educate (diCaprio Before the Flood, Gore An Inconvenient Sequel off the top of my head. There is frequent (but not enough) coverage on CBS/ABC/NBC of climate warnings.
We’re going backwards, I think partly because people think they can get rid of bad news by believing in lies. Andy Borowitz: in the hands of a talented TV performer, one joke could sink a thousand facts (Reagan).
The new 2025 U.S. Land-Based Wind Market Report produced by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 with the U.S. Department of Energy has been released. The link below takes you to the DOE tab that has subsequent links to the report’s pdf file and excel spreadsheets at the bottom of the page:
.
https://emp.lbl.gov/wind-technologies-market-report#tab-1400087928-3
Courtesy of TGS 4C, a Shell executive dares to say the obvious about President’s actions to damage American renewable energy development:
.
“Shell exec calls out Trump’s war on wind for harming energy sector”
By: Edward Peters
06/10/2025
https://www.4coffshore.com/news/shell-exec-calls-out-trump27s-war-on-wind-for-harming-energy-sector-nid31931.html
an addition to my Killian comment.
The Dark Triad and the Architecture of Collapse
(discussion on systemic risk, power, and psychology)
Dr Luke Kemp, a research associate at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, argues that the roots of our present global predicament are not only economic or technological, but psychological. He suggests that the same behavioral traits which once helped small numbers of ambitious individuals rise within hierarchies now threaten the integrity of entire civilizations.
In conversation with Nate Hagens (The Great Simplification), Kemp outlines a compelling synthesis: the interaction between material surplus, social scale, and a small fraction of predatory personalities creates what he calls “the Goliath condition” — an unstable system dominated by competition, hierarchy, and status-seeking. It is not humanity itself that is pathological, he argues, but a particular configuration of surplus resources, large population size, and unchecked dominance behavior.
“Combine a thousand humans with a handful of psychopaths—or ten per thousand,” Kemp observes, “and you can predict modern civilization.”
From Small Bands to Hierarchies
In Paleolithic and early tribal societies — small, mobile groups of roughly 150 individuals — cooperation was enforced by proximity, mutual dependence, and memory. Every act had a witness; reputation mattered more than raw power. A person displaying manipulative or violent tendencies could be corrected, ostracized, or, in some cultures, permanently expelled. Anthropological records from the Kalahari San and some Inuit groups describe direct social sanctions against persistently antisocial individuals. The community maintained balance through what anthropologist Christopher Boehm called “reverse dominance”: collective resistance to bullying and egoism.
Once surplus and settlement appeared, however, those checks weakened. Hierarchy replaced reciprocity; charisma and coercion could now secure control over stored resources. The result was that a small percentage of humans — perhaps 1 percent with full psychopathic traits, 3–5 percent in corporate or political domains, and possibly as high as 20–25 percent among ruling elites — gained disproportionate influence.
Psychopathy, as psychologists define it, involves a combination of impaired empathy, manipulative intelligence, impulsivity, and shallow emotional range. Such individuals are socially parasitic: they exploit group trust without reciprocating it. Yet in large, anonymous systems, their charm, confidence, and indifference to guilt often appear as competence and “strong leadership.”
This inversion — rewarding traits that damage collective welfare — lies at the heart of what Kemp and Hagens identify as the psychological engine of collapse.
The Dark Triad Dynamic
The “Dark Triad” — psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism — is a cluster of overlapping but distinct traits that thrive in competitive hierarchies.
Psychopathy: emotional coldness, thrill-seeking, lack of remorse.
Narcissism: self-importance, fragile ego, craving for admiration.
Machiavellianism: calculated manipulation and strategic deceit.
Each by itself can destabilize a group; together, and when reinforced by institutional power, they become civilizationally corrosive. Research in organizational psychology shows that even a single toxic actor can reduce morale, erode trust, and trigger misconduct contagion: “a bad apple spoils the barrel” is empirically true.
When such personalities reach leadership, a “toxic triangle” forms — destructive leaders, compliant followers, and permissive environments. Abuse spreads downward, honesty is punished, and whistle-blowers burn out from what some psychologists call moral injury. The organization loses its antibodies.
Scale amplifies this. A village can shun its narcissist; a global financial system cannot. What once was localized predation becomes planetary. This is where we are today.
The Authoritarian Impulse
Kemp adds a fourth dimension: the authoritarian reflex. When people feel threatened — by scarcity, instability, or fear of “the other” — they naturally seek strongman figures who promise order.
This reflex is politically ambidextrous: it can arise on the right or left, under the banner of nationalism or technocracy. History and experimental psychology both confirm it. Fear activates conformity circuits; empathy shuts down; moral exclusion expands.
Elites who understand this dynamic can manufacture fear — of immigrants, foreign rivals, dissenters — to consolidate authority. The media amplifies these cues, often unconsciously. The twentieth century’s authoritarian cycles, and much of today’s geopolitics, can be read through this lens. The personality structure that excels in seizing power during crisis is often the least suited to wield it responsibly.
Unfortunately people will be stupid. They pick sides — between one authoritarian group versus another.
Reclaiming the Cooperative Mind
If collapse has a psychological dimension, so must renewal. The next stage of civilization — if it is to exist — must cultivate institutions that select for empathy rather than for manipulation. That means embedding transparency, feedback, and accountability at every level: political, economic, informational, and cultural.
Kemp’s warning is not fatalistic but diagnostic. The “Goliath” of modernity is self-terminating precisely because it suppresses the very traits that once made us humanly successful.
Re-humanizing power — making it responsive, reciprocal, and relational — is not a sentimental project but an existential necessity.
For all our technology, survival may again depend on the oldest algorithm of all: Care for others, or perish together.
Evolutionary biology offers a simple parable: “A group of doves will outcompete a group of hawks.”
This too is where we are today. What will humanity choose? But first, what will you choose?
The Authoritarian Impulse
Kemp adds a fourth dimension: the authoritarian reflex. When people feel threatened — by scarcity, instability, or fear of “the other” — they naturally seek strongman figures who promise order.
This reflex is politically ambidextrous: it can arise on the right or left, under the banner of nationalism or technocracy. History and experimental psychology both confirm it. Fear activates conformity circuits; empathy shuts down; moral exclusion expands.
99.9% sure Kemp is stealing from Dr. Bob Altemeyer:
…wrote this book in 2006 when a great deal seemed to be going wrong in America. He thought the research on authoritarian personalities could explain a lot of it. (The book is set in that era, but you will have no trouble finding present-day examples of what the experiments found back then.)
You can find more recent works here:
https://theauthoritarians.org/
Per usual, been talking about this since Trump’s first term. It is quite simply THE best explanation for the phenomenon that is MAGA.
BTW, way ahead of you on the anthropological stuff. I have an anthropologist friend who did fieldwork in Africa. All that is reflected in the Regenerative Governance model and the First Principles it is based on.
That’s good, Killian. Also note there’s still a lot of dispute and reticence about what Paleolithic tribal governance and social makeup were really like. Yet there are much more modern living proxies — especially from anthropologists’ records of native cultures from the 1600s and 1800s across North and South America, Australia, Asia, and Africa. The differences between those societies and the dominant hierarchical, “psychopathic” Dark Triad models of many so-called “civilizations” that later collapsed — Central and South America especially — are striking.
I don’t know much, but it seems obvious that the physical dynamics so widely recorded and commented on — how the great Western civilizations arose, from Egypt to Rome onward, all with a fixation on technology and expansion — couldn’t exist without the deeper, more powerful, and constant psychological drivers behind them. Something fundamental changed in the human mind.
Therefore, it appears obvious to me — at least — that unless and until the overpowering reality of extreme wealth concentration is completely broken and stopped by universal demand, nothing can be done to turn the present trajectory of ultimate collapse everywhere, and all that will come with it.
Of course, you’re way ahead of me, because essentially I’m far behind everyone. I feel like I’m the last to know — the circus already packed up and left town before I even realized it was here. i really wish you the best with your teaching outreach. well done
FOR KILLIAN quick PS
Consequence > Collapse of ecosystems, societies, and meaning > Cyclical through all ages > Now Approaching Terminal
Antidote > Seven Generations Principle (reverent foresight) > The Haudenosaunee model of regenerative governance
Well, duh!, yes. The logical outcome of a regenerative process is a stable ecosystem, eventually.
See post further down in the extinction sub-thread: The core of Regenerative Governance.
Quick note: Regenerative Governance, as a noun rather than an adjectival description of a type of governance, was actually coined by me @ 2013. I have found no instance before that.
So, when using the term regenerative governance, it should be stated in that way: We need regenerative governance/regenerative forms of governance.
Please use Regenerative Governance or Regen Gov and attribute me when speaking of the model I proposed back in 2011~12. I first called in PermOccupy as I had hoped it would become the organizing structure for the Occupy movement. When that died out at the end of 2011 and early 2012, I came up with Regenerative Governance.
Try a google search using ‘”Regenerative Governance” AND Killian O’Brien’
Who should I credit for the noun Elephant?
Chidish. I have all the documentation, including a Google doc that goes back to 2012, an interview from 2012, and lots of people who participated in Occupy Detroit and were at the Local Futures conference in Michigan, where I first presented the full model.
So go be an ass elsewhere.
Regarding MY’s post. Sometimes businesses do indeed get run by malevolent, selfish, or otherwise undesirable leaders. One idea I’ve seen proposed is to get rid of leaders and hierarchies and have group decision making. But thousands of decisions every single week would have to be made by a group decision making, being a vote by non experts. So I suspect that productive output and quality would suffer very significantly to the point that its just not an acceptable trade off..
Alternatively governments could decide on who runs businesses and / or how they invest and pay their staff. But when governments have tried this the results have been dismal. The Economist Journal did a study on it last year. Often the politicians just make things worse because politicians are human beings and can be malevolent or selfish themselves. or well meaning but incompetent. And despite this the public often vote them into power anyway.
Getting rid of malevolent business leaders would be great and less financial inequality is desirable, but I don’t believe there are useful workable utopian solutions. I think we are reliant on the traditional mechanisms of minimum wage legislation, good basic rules on working conditions, government financial support for low income and low skilled people, environmental rules, and progressive taxes and maybe strengthen all these things.
But the traditional progressive and liberal. leftist solutions like this are under massive threat by people like the Trump Administration, yet the low income people support Trump even though he hurts them the most by attacking such policies. Instead we have huge tariffs and most economists think they are a disaster for everyone. The situation is just bizarre and quite chaotic.
N: Regarding MY’s post. Sometimes businesses do indeed get run by malevolent, selfish, or otherwise undesirable leaders. One idea I’ve seen proposed is to get rid of leaders and hierarchies and have group decision making.
BPL: Daniel deLeon, our homegrown (USA) Marxist theorist, suggested that business enterprises be run by their workers, who would elect the managers. They would also elect delegates to a trade council, and to a national legislature representing industries rather than states or districts. They had something like it in Yugoslavia under Tito, and for a while in Algeria, but both places were subject to chronic inflation, which may or may not have been linked to the industrial system.
BPL says: “Daniel deLeon, our homegrown (USA) Marxist theorist, suggested that business enterprises be run by their workers, who would elect the managers”
I’ve seen this model proposed before. I think its a real possibility that needs consideration, but one downside is workers might just elect managers that maximise wages and good working conditions at the expense of investing in the business. Workers dont always make great choices. For example they are quite happy to elect Donald Trump. So the end result is yes you might keep the evil, greedy, worker oppressing people out of management roles, but replace them with stupid people that pander to the workers worst instincts. One result might indeed be inflation. I will google your historical examples of worker run businesses and see what I think.
In the late 1960s, the kind of world we have today would have been imaginable, outside the pages of dystopian science fiction.
Emerging global freshwater challenges unveiled through observation-constrained projections
Fei Huo, Yanping Li, Zhenhua Li
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western University, London, N6G 2V4, Canada.
Preprint: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4720/
Future hydrological projections exhibit significant discrepancies among models, undermining confidence in the predicted magnitude and timing of hydrological extremes. Here we show that observation-constrained changes in global mean terrestrial water storage (TWS), excluding Greenland and Antarctica, could be approximately 83 mm lower than raw projections from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 3b by the end of this century under both low- and high-end future forcing scenarios. Notably, the 95th percentile upper bounds are substantially reduced from 2 mm to -96 mm under the low-emissions scenario and from 8 mm to -105 mm under the high-emissions scenario, revealing a notable overestimation of global freshwater availability in the raw model projections.
After applying the [emergent constraint] calibration (Methods), mid-century global mean TWS changes are reduced by 44 mm and 40 mm compared to the raw projections from the ISIMIP3b ensembles under the low- and high-end forcing scenarios, respectively (Fig. 1, upper panels). For late century projections, EC-corrected changes could be ~83 mm lower than the raw estimates from the ISIMIP3b ensembles irrespective of the forcing scenario (Fig. 1, lower panels), highlighting potentially lower global freshwater availability than initially indicated by the ISIMIP3b models. Furthermore, the EC correction constrains the discrepancies of late century TWS changes by 63% for the SSP1-2.6 scenario and 69% for the SSP3-7.0 scenario. Specifically, the upper bound (95th percentile) is reduced from 2 mm to −96 mm under the low-end forcing scenario and from 8 mm to −105 mm under the high-end forcing scenario, indicating an initial overestimation of global freshwater availability in the raw ISIMIP3b ensemble projections.
These discrepancies can be attributed to various factors, including uncertainties in climate forcing (Scanlon et al., 2018), the absence of key components such as surface water storage, groundwater storage, and human interventions in most land surface models (LSMs), as well as limited storage capacities within both LSMs and
global hydrological models (GHMs).
Related article:
“Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise”
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298
Abstract:
Changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) are a critical indicator of freshwater availability. We use NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO data to show that the continents have undergone unprecedented TWS loss since 2002. Areas experiencing drying increased by twice the size of California annually, creating “mega-drying” regions across the Northern Hemisphere. While most of the world’s dry/wet areas continue to get drier/wetter, dry areas are now drying faster than wet areas are wetting. Changes in TWS are driven by high-latitude water losses, intense Central American/European droughts, and groundwater depletion, which accounts for 68% of TWS loss over non-glaciated continental regions. “Continental drying” is having profound global impacts. Since 2002, 75% of the population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater. Furthermore, the continents now contribute more freshwater to sea level rise than the ice sheets, and drying regions now contribute more than land glaciers and ice caps…
Remark: lots of interesting questions arise – such as the absence of sensitivity to high or low forcing scenario in EC corrected biases, and implications for the attribution of hydrological and temperature extremes when models seem to have little relation to the sign or magnitude of TSW changes across many regions.
Hi JCM. I’m grateful to see you you reference the paper published in July in Science. At that time, I posted it on the July UV hopeful that you and Piotr (and anyone for that matter) would offer their respective thoughts evaluating this particular paper’s implications. Still would. Barry and Tomáš did offer some thoughts at that time which I appreciated.
Will read the “Emerging global freshwater challenges…” preprint and await your or anyone’s comments.
OT: As an aside, I did spend time last winter reading some of the works by individuals you’d suggested to me last fall. It was time well-spent and I thank you for your help. :-)
In “Oh my, Who could have seen this happening?” snark news:
“BLM rejects sole bid in Montana sale amid federal push for more coal”
By Alex Mitchell – Billings Gazette Oct. 10, 2025
https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/article_6642f997-4aa4-4750-8e7e-0bd14bf6dd13.html
.
Couldn’t even get a one cent per ton bid for the coal this time (previous sale in the area years ago was $1.10 per ton. The planned sister sale in Wyoming was scrapped for the time being by Interior Sec. Doug Burgum. Small wonder, lol. Hopeful news for those concerned about the climate and environment though. :-)
Trump ups the ante even more. The Goliaths War has not only started already, now it is out in plain view. All over the world people know who is going to win this one already.
I recently posted basic info on how China was exporting in July/Aug more RE Tech equipment to the world than the US was exporting it’s Fossil Fuel Energy in Gas and Oil. I believe the undeniable turning point has arrived. Given Trump’s immediate kneee jerk response to dump 100% Tariffs on China’s imports to the US.
They got him and the US by the ***** now.
China’s Material Squeeze Exposes U.S. Industrial Fragility
Export controls over rare earths and other materials shows that reality has the final say
Dr Warwick Powell
The United States is discovering that it cannot “sanction” the world while remaining sanction-proof itself. Its industrial capacity, the envy of the globe in days gone by, has been hollowed out by decades of financialisation, offshoring and short-termism.
China’s new controls have revealed the underlying asymmetry of the global economy: one side makes things; the other makes narratives. The real economy of thermodynamics and materials trumps the economy of fictitious capital and simulacra. The U.S. may still dominate finance, media and military power projection, but without access to the materials that make advanced technologies possible, these advantages are increasingly performative.
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/chinas-material-squeeze-exposes-us
Nothing exists in a Vacuum. Not the EPA and not Climate science or the Paris Agreement either. The signs are aligning everywhere imo.
Back in April 2025, when President Trump declared “Liberation Day,” the market dropped 4.9% the very next trading day. It recovered soon after, and has continued to rise to record levels. Fast forward to this week: the NASDAQ fell 4% on Friday — again, almost out of nowhere.
Gold is above $4000. Bitcoin lost $10,000 overnight. And now even JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who usually plays it cool, says he’s “far more worried than others” about a serious U.S. market correction of >15-20% or more. 2008 GFC on steroids. When Oil went to $200. When the head of America’s biggest bank starts sounding cautious, something’s shifting beneath the surface.
The cracks are showing in a system built on faith, leverage, and momentum. Tech equities are absurdly overpriced. Just six companies — Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta — now make up more than a third of the entire S&P 500. Nvidia alone is worth around $4.5 trillion, though it designs chips but doesn’t make them. It depends on TSMC in Taiwan and ASML in the Netherlands — a fragile, geopolitically exposed chain that props up the U.S. tech boom.
While Wall Street chants that China “can’t catch up,” Beijing has already overtaken the West in solar, batteries, EVs, shipbuilding, and steel. The next target is obvious: semiconductors and AI. When that happens, America’s last tech moat — and much of the market’s inflated valuation — evaporates.
American power simultaneously evaporates. Even Warren Buffett is sitting on record piles of cash, buying nothing. He’s seen this movie before. This isn’t just a market wobble. It’s a late-stage illusion
And Trump just doubled down over high tech and rare earths. You thought NOAA CWG and Gov Climate Reports being deleted were serious problems? Oooops.
same author ….
The 100 GW Mirage
America’s Soft Underbelly Exposed as AI crowds out manufacturing’s dreams and hurts households
Dr Warwick Powell
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/the-100-gw-mirage
MY last comment, I cannot quote every climate science change relevant aspect to the following item,
China’s Material Squeeze Exposes U.S. Industrial Fragility
Export controls over rare earths and other materials shows that reality has the final say
Dr Warwick Powell
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/chinas-material-squeeze-exposes-us
so I’m assuming it is going to culled blocked as usual, given similar items have been –maybe an addon might help?
quoting
In terms of graphite anode materials and lithium batteries, China will now require export permits for synthetic graphite and natural graphite materials used in the production of lithium-ion battery anodes. The restrictions also cover advanced production processes, including granulation, continuous graphitisation, and liquid-phase coating. These are all key technologies that determine battery performance and durability. These technologies are essential for electric vehicles (EVs), consumer electronics and grid-scale energy storage systems.
China currently accounts for over 90% of the world’s graphite anode production and dominates every stage of the lithium battery value chain.
As for rare earth-related technologies China has added a sweeping range of rare earth technologies to its export control list, including those involved in mining, smelting, separation, magnetic material manufacturing, and secondary resource recycling. These underpin the manufacture of permanent magnets used in wind turbines, electric motors, guided missile systems, fighter jets, satellite components and semiconductors. China refines nearly 90% of global rare earth oxides and produces the vast majority of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets used in high-performance electronics.
Together, these measures strike at the heart of the clean energy, defence, and semiconductor industries. In other words, the very sectors the U.S. has spent billions trying to re-shore through the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act under the Biden Administration, and which are central to the Trump Administration’s vision for America’s techno-military future. (The focus on clean energy has been dropped by TRUMP.)
————
The U.S. has some rare earth deposits but lacks refining and metallurgical expertise; ironically, these were offshored to China decades ago. Rebuilding domestic refining capacity could take 5–10 years and cost billions, even before environmental approvals and workforce training are considered. Against this backdrop, China’s export restrictions can be seen to be a massive boost to world peace.
While U.S. policymakers focus on lithography and chip design [eg Nvidia, TSMC in Taiwan and ASML in the Netherlands], the less glamorous but critical material inputs – rare earths, gallium, germanium and graphite – remain overwhelmingly Chinese. Rare earth magnets are essential in chip fabrication equipment and data centre cooling systems. Restrictions on graphite and high-purity processing technologies will squeeze the semiconductor value chain from the bottom up,
The impacts of China’s restrictions are double-barrelled: they go to the resources needed for augmenting the US electricity supply sector on the one hand, while also creating bottleneck risks in the supply of semiconductors. The Wall Street AI bubble may well be exposed to the sharp needle of Chinese export restrictions.
The EV revolution in the U.S., if indeed one could even call it that, depends on a Chinese battery ecosystem that dominates both upstream materials and midstream processing. China processes two-thirds of the world’s lithium and over 90% of the world’s graphite.
U.S. automakers have only recently begun investing in local cathode and anode production, but the know-how and equipment still come largely from Chinese firms. Supply disruptions will increase EV costs, reduce availability, and slow decarbonisation timelines. [ TRUMP doesn’t care.]
A Problem of Time, Capital and Capability
It is one thing to announce subsidies and grand industrial acts; it is another to rebuild entire production ecosystems hollowed out over 40 years of offshoring. The United States faces a threefold constraint: time, resources, and knowledge. In terms of time developing new mining, refining, and magnet manufacturing capacity is not a matter of quarters or even years; it’s a decade-long process.
China’s near-monopoly on rare earth processing equipment and graphite treatment technology means that even friendly suppliers – Australia, Canada or Brazil – depend on Chinese machinery and expertise. The U.S. does not have the skilled labour force or capital goods base to replicate these processes quickly.
The result is a structural dilemma. No amount of rhetoric or subsidy can compress industrial time. The U.S. can print money, but it cannot print metallurgists, engineers, or processing plants. As I argued in May, the US can keep its dollars; China has the dysprosium.
A very good complementary article to prior comment refs
Bottom line–CHINA just did what Trump Biden did to CHIINA over CHIPS and Military High Tech 5G export / import controls and secondary sanctions etc. etc. The Rules have been Changed forever here.
addendum to other comments
1977 The Haudenosaunee Message to the Western World
The Haudenosaunee, or the Six Nations Iriquois Confederacy
Our essential message to the world is a basic call to consciousness. The destruction of the Native cultures and people is the same process which has destroyed and is destroying life on this planet. The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and the plant life are also destroying the Native people. And the process is Western Civilization….
The processes of colonialism and imperialism which have affected the Haudenosaunee are buta microcosm of the processes affecting the world. The system of reservations employed against our people is a microcosm of the system of exploitation used against the whole world. Since the time of Marco Polo, the West has been refining a process that has mystified the peoples of the Earth.
The majority of the world does not find its roots in Western culture or traditions. The majority of the world finds its roots in the Natural World, and it is the Natural World, and the traditions of the Natural World, which must prevail if we are to develop truly free and egalitarian societies.
4 pg
https://www.silene.ong/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Declaracio_Haudenosaunee_1977.pdf
The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy were originally five independent nation states bound by a
central constitution and a common set of laws. The five original nations unified under the Great Tree of
Peace and became the Iroquois Confederacy long before the arrival of Europeans. In 1722, the
Tuscarora joined the Confederacy to form the Six Nations.
16 pg
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/documents/p80100/130874E.pdf
and Basic call to consciousness by Notes, Akwesasne
The Hau de no sau nee : a nation since time immemorial — Thoughts of peace : the great law — Deskaheh : an Iroquois patriot’s fight for international recognition — Geneva, 1977 : a report on the hemispheric movement of indigenous peoples — A basic call to consciousness : the Hau de no sau nee address to the western world — Our strategy for survival
https://archive.org/details/basiccalltoconsc00summ
They deserve Warrant a Chapter in the WG1 and WG3 of the IPCC assessments — a little sanity, a lot of wisdom and a deep time history goes a long way
New SLR study that adds more ice dynamics, i.e. instability in the ice itself. It’s rather conservative and seems straightforward, so shouldn’t raise any hackles around here. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01761-5
I’m curious about the projection of this data to 2100. Here is the core data from the paper and below Gemini’s calculation. Anyone care to check it?
From the paper:
1. Over the 31-year satellite altimeter record, the rate of global sea level rise has more than doubled from 2.1 mm/year to 4.5 mm/year.
2. Global sea levels increased by 111 mm from 1993 to 2024. If the current trajectory continues, global sea levels will
increase by more than 169 mm over the next three decades.
Looking further into the future, the current trajectory suggests rates of 5.0 + /− 1.4 mm/year by 2030, 5.8 + /− 2.0 mm/year by 2040 and 6.5 + /− 2.6 mm/year by 2050. ”
AI math:
1. Calculate the Acceleration of the Rate
The given rates are:
Rate in 2030 (R2030): 5.0 mm/year
Rate in 2050 (R2050): 6.5 mm/year
Time interval (Δt): 2050−2030=20 years
The acceleration (A) is the change in rate divided by the time elapsed:
A=ΔtR2050−R2030=20 years6.5 mm/year−5.0 mm/year=20 years1.5 mm/year=0.075 mm/year2
2. Extrapolate the Rate to 2100
Assuming this constant acceleration of 0.075 mm/year2 continues from 2050 to 2100 (Δt=50 years):
Rate in 2100 (R2100) = R2050+(A×Years from 2050 to 2100)
R2100=6.5 mm/year+(0.075 mm/year2×50 years)
R2100=6.5 mm/year+3.75 mm/year=10.25 mm/year
3. Calculate Total Sea Level Rise by 2100
To find the total sea level rise (SLR), you need to sum the rise over three periods: 1993-2024, 2024-2050, and 2050-2100.
A. SLR from 1993 to 2024 (Given)
SLR1993−2024=111 mm
B. SLR from 2024 to 2050
For this period, the rate accelerates linearly from the rate in 2024 (4.5 mm/year) to the rate in 2050 (6.5 mm/year). We can use the average rate multiplied by the time interval (26 years).
Average Rate (Ravg): 2R2024+R2050=24.5 mm/year+6.5 mm/year=5.5 mm/year
SLR2024−2050=5.5 mm/year×26 years=143 mm
(Note: Your data states a SLR of more than 169 mm over the next three decades (approx. 2024-2054), while this calculation yields 143 mm for 26 years. Sticking strictly to the given rates for 2024 and 2050 yields 143 mm. The 169 mm figure is a separate estimate for a slightly longer, three-decade period and is not used to maintain consistency with the defined rates.)
C. SLR from 2050 to 2100
The rate accelerates linearly from R2050 (6.5 mm/year) to R2100 (10.25 mm/year). We use the average rate over the 50-year interval.
Average Rate (Ravg): 2R2050+R2100=26.5 mm/year+10.25 mm/year=8.375 mm/year
SLR2050−2100=8.375 mm/year×50 years=418.75 mm
4. Total SLR from 1993 to 2100
Total SLR=SLR1993−2024+SLR2024−2050+SLR2050−2100
Total SLR=111 mm+143 mm+418.75 mm=672.75 mm
AI can be useful for certain kinds of problems, as per Science:
“AI reveals vast ‘ghost forests’ along U.S. coast
Machine learning method counts nearly 12 million dead trees, many likely killed by rising seas”.
https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-reveals-vast-ghost-forests-along-u-s-coast
0.0004% of the estimated trees on Earth
I realize that I am a bit late to the “extinction” conversation, but I would point out that over 99% of species that have existed on the planet are in fact extinct. So, I would say the Bayesian prior heavily favors human extinction (at some point). Moreover, the data we have to update the prior are not what I would call encouraging. Our species has only really been around–at most–a couple million years, and we have none of the characteristics of other species who have managed to delay extinction over meaningful geologic timescales. In fact, one could make a pretty good case that the biological system humans most resemble is a cancer in our biosphere.
Does that mean that I believe it will be climate change that puts us over the edge into extinction? No. I do think that human population is well above the carrying capacity of the planet–and that we are damaging that carrying capacity, perhaps irreparably. I do think that the correction to that overshoot is going to be most unpleasant and will strain the resilience of the veneer of complex, global civilization we have managed to create. That will further damage global carrying capacity. And of course, there is a temptation that when faced with the possibility of a catastrophe of unforeseeable consequences to simply assume the worst (human extinction) will be the outcome. However, I doubt that will occur.
So, I do think there is a non-negligible probability that in a few hundred years, on the other side of the denouement of our civilization, human survival will be as small, isolated bands of hunter gatherers. It may even be that in the climate that results from our uncontrolled experiment in trying to re-create Cretaceous levels of CO2 favors hunting and gathering over agriculture.
In the end, though, I don’t think it will be climate change that does us in–or even the combined effects of the many other crises we confront: resource depletion, build-up of toxic forever chemicals, plastics…, the 6th mass extinction on our planet…
No, I think that in the end, our fatal flaw will be our species inability to perceive and acknowledge the truth, especially when that truth frightens or threatens us. A species incapable of perceiving, acknowledging and dealing with reality can’t have much of a future.
Ray, a couple of points.
-https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03055-y
So, whether intentionally or accidentally, a much greater potential risk to global humanity than even nuclear war.
-As I pointed out in a previous comment to Russel Seitz, if the human population is reduced (e.g. to a stable 600 million), but knowledge of science and technology is retained, we can certainly maintain what we think of as “civilization” despite whatever changes in the ecosystem.
No reason to abandon agriculture, and requirements for use of resources are “exponentially” (colloquial) reduced. You distribute among the best locations/climates to live in, and can even move seasonally to deal with extremes.
Zebra: “IF…”
If is the biggest small word in the English language. IF human population decreases by 93%, that in itself poses risks. If such a decrease occurs rapidly, that in itself could wreak havoc on the planet’s ability to support us–not to mention the moral implications. If it decreases gradually, then we are talking timescales of centuries. And the morality here is fraught as well. Who gets to reproduce and how many children. How do we support the “surplus” population without damaging Earth’s carrying capacity? How do we support the elderly in societies where young people will be far outnumbered. How do we distribute wealth?
And all of this presupposes that humans acknowledge our perilous state and are willing to sacrifice to improve it–which, after all is the real problem we face–the real threat to our continued survival. How do we know that the human product that emerges on the tail end of that experiment will be any more deserving of continued existence than the current pathetic product now pillaging the planet.
Ray, what you are saying at the beginning is jumbled up, and I can’t really follow it… it’s basically non sequiter stuff. But your last sentence relates to your other response to me about people who climb mountains.
” How do we know that the human product that emerges on the tail end of that experiment will be any more deserving of continued existence than the current pathetic product now pillaging the planet.”
Well, because the pathetic product we observe now is, if you accept the science, the result of competition for resources. DNA offers possible outcomes, but culture, which adapts on a much shorter time scale, is what made the choice among them.
And, obviously, there is no reason to compete for resources if the population is stable at that level. And, the population will remain stable because there is no need to fight over resources, so women wouldn’t be delegated to popping out lots of potential soldiers.
The thing with the mountain analogy is that there are people like me, who don’t give a shit about summits… I suspect your impression of climbers is just sampling/circular. Now, I only have our pathetic little bumps on the East Coast, but when I could still do it, it was about the wilderness, experiencing the little stuff *that makes up a mountain*, not checking off a list. And yes, making mistakes, and growing from them. In the winter, you learn to listen to the wind.
But I am really surprised that a world traveler like yourself paints humanity with such a broad brush, when you have obviously seen people living more in harmony with nature, doing agriculture. And there are people living everywhere who are content to do science or art, or invent things, or just interact with others, without needing to have status and power.
So, yes, I like to think that people like me and them are in fact “deserving” of continued existence. And there’s no reason that there can’t be a culture that allows for its individuals “getting there” by one of the many paths that exist.
Zebra, the problem is that humanity is a collective. Most certainly, there are individuals of great worth. But humans as a whole have been a plague for the biosphere. “No raindrop thinks it is the cause of the flood.” And as to looking for “one of the many paths that exist” to get us there, I have yet to see even one that comes close–not merely because the paths are difficult, but also because the overwhelming majority of people would rather deny problems than solve them.
Ray Ladbury
Ray, I’m sure you would argue adamantly against Creationists, supporting the science of Evolution. But unfortunately, you are selective in applying the principles of science when it doesn’t suit your emotional worldview.
I don’t know what you mean by “collective”, but the current human condition is simply the outcome of the interaction of human DNA with a particular ecological circumstance. It could easily be otherwise, and there is ample evidence of that. Culture evolves, as I said, on a much shorter timescale than biology. As do individual members.
I’ve come to think that even un-bigoted people (in the conventional sense) can’t escape the unconscious feeling that they are somehow “born special”. But “individuals of great worth” (like you and me of course) are mostly just lucky. We could as easily have become as unconscious or uncaring as any member of what you call the plague for the biosphere; our DNA is not different from that of “those others”.
So I don’t think it is all that difficult to have a culture which nurtures individuals to follow constructive rather than destructive paths, *if* the culture is not designed by the need to compete for resources. Six hundred million humans would live lightly on the earth, with a cooperative social structure, and the freedom to be curious and creative, not because of some “morality” decreed from above, but because it is far more pleasant than what we see now.
Zebra: “ Six hundred million humans would live lightly on the earth, with a cooperative social structure, and the freedom to be curious and creative, not because of some “morality” decreed from above, but because it is far more pleasant than what we see now.”
So have said every Communist – “to everybody according to their needs, from everybody according to their capabilities”, a promise of a free, happy and just society, based on cooperation and unselfish choices of the enlightened humans.
And when they tried to realize their promise, they created the very opposite to everything they promised.
Democracy and market economy assume the worst of people, so they put institutional checks and balances on our egoism, and create mechanisms in which individual egoistic choices through the miracle of market contribute to the common good (competition for profits by the producers results in lower prices and/or higher the quality of the products for the consumers,than would be the case in a non-competition scenarios)
Communism and other utopian ideologies assume the best of people, hence no need for checks and balances, and no need for mechanisms for harnessing individual egoism for the common good. Which then results in bring the worst in us.
Ray, your points highlighting problems with a shrinking population are very valid, but they are somewhat academic because it looks like we are definitely heading towards a significantly smaller global population.
The global fertility rate in 2023 was only 2.3. This is getting very close to replacement level of 2.1. Most experts are picking we will fall below the replacement fertility rate in coming decades and global population will peak later this century around 2080, and then start to decline. It will indeed take centuries to get to a number like 600 million, but it looks like we are potentially heading that way. Governments in some countries have been trying to counter their falling birthrates but their efforts are costing a fortune and aren’t working.
All of this is women choosing to have small families. So this doesn’t involve coercion or immorality. So we may just have to adapt to a smaller population world and find ways of supporting a growing elderly population.
Of course none of this is guaranteed and does contain some “ifs”. It’s possible that governments will make massive efforts to encourage larger families and Piotr once pointed out that if climate change becomes severe, it may reverse the demographic transition because people may find they need the security of having large families. But I personally reckon the evidence is starting to point to a declining global population size whether we like it or not.
A smaller population will have huge environmental benefits which is why I’m a bit relaxed about it. While 600 million is very small ,2 billion sounds enough to maintain a technology based society and have enough people widely dispersed to reduce the impact of some existential risk like climate change or an asteroid strike.
Of course none of this will happen quickly enough to fix the climate problem but that wasn’t Zebras point. It’s about reducing other problems.
The one thing that worries me about such a scenario of a shrinking population is whether smaller population size might be offset by growing per capita rates of consumption thus negating some or all of the environmental advantages. But it would at least reduce the human agricultural footprint, if not the appetite for industrial goods.
NIgel: “It will indeed take centuries to get to a number like 600 million”
even the demographic transition theory holds. And the longer it takes, the more generation for natural selection shifting the genotypes of the population toward the genes that result in bigger families, i.e. the demographic rebound , the signs of which we are already seeing in the affluent, low fertility societies despite MUCH shorter time scales – few decades.
And the more centuries we stay above the Earth carrying capacity – the more CO2 we will accumulate in the air and the bigger the permanent depletion of the resources – using up non-renewables, and converting renewables into non-renewables by overexploitation (e.g., “mining” the commercial fish stocks like the Canada’s northern cod ^* that haven’ rebounded in any significant way despite over 3o year of fishing moratorium or very minimal catches.
In other words the optimal population of Earth is a moving (downward) target – the longer we take to reduce the population, the more we irreversibly erode the Earth capacity (resources and benign climate) to support humans – the lower will be the final sustainable population size. And with “centuries” to see this – that’s a long time available to erode this number further and further …..
And “it will indeed take centuries” questions those who advance reductions in population as if it were a feasible way (or even only) way to stabilize the climate.
Since we need to stabilize climate in the next few decades – the only way
to achieve it via population reduction would be an extermination of the majority of population.
Which .according to the Internet skeptosphere, – may have already been attempted by Bill Gates with COVID – either by releasing the virus onto the world, and/or attempt to cut the population to size with vaccines.
Zebra: “If the human population is reduced (e.g. to a stable 600 million), but knowledge of science and technology is retained, we can certainly maintain what we think of as “civilization”
The operation word is “if”. I might have rephrase it to “How on earth do you imagine a orderly . extinction of >92% of the Earths population in relatively short-time (timescale of AGW)?”
The modern civilization is based on the social order in which the majority of people see the possibility of if not thriving, then at least survival, by following the rules of law, market system and social institutions, So to collapse a civilization, you doesn’t have to destroy food for 100% of people – it is enough to if it cause the food shortage to some of people, say, 10%, break the social order for them, and then they will destabilize the social order for others.
When my children start dying of hunger I no longer care about the market/financial system that requires the food producers to be paid, I don’t care about laws and religion that prohibit the theft, or even a murder of the farmer who refused sharing his grain with my starving family.
And the farmer – missing the replacement parts and fuel for his farm machines, and fertilizers for his fields, and more importantly – missing the guarantee that the grain he puts into the ground in fall or spring won’t get stolen from him after the harvest, just won’t sow his fields and instead hide the seed grain somewhere – to be used as food for his family and maybe to barter for other life necessities. with fewer fields sown, the initial food shortage grows bigger and bigger each year (a form of a positive feedback)
Without laws, market systems, trade, the humanity is collapsing into small groups, warring over increasingly non-functional elements of pre-collapse technology. Even if they still can find and read the instructions – they won’t have the tools, materials and ability to create anything but the simplest tools. Can you make a car from scratch even if you manage to find all the necessary instruction how to make each component? Can you even create new iron tools from iron ore, rbrn if you can find ore on the Earth surface that wasn’t already used during the previous several thousand years?
Very soon the technology we take today for granted would look like magic to our uneducated undernourished descendants.
So while we may not go automatically extinct, my money is on Ray’s vision – humanity reduced to small groups hunter-gatherers, picking through the remnants of our incomprehensible technology, say, using a microscope as a hammer,
rather than zebra’s optimistic vision a thriving technological civilization of 600 mln people.
And living in small hunter-gatherer groups without technology – we are more vulnerable to extinction to climate change, or random events like a supervolcano eruption or an asteroid.
-see the possible near-extinction events in human evolution – perhaps down to 1200 reproducing humans 800-900 kyrs ago brought by climate change, or to 20-30,000 people 75kyrs ago (Toba supervolcano).
I recently reposted this 2009 video, which posits a survival rate between 1 and 3 billion, and a more optimistic view (2009 was hopeful). It represents a high point in communication. This different link appears to provide the same content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqRpM72Odg
“The events parallel the life of a fictitious storyteller, “Lucy” (told through the use of motion comics, or limited animation), as she describes how the events affect her life. The program included predictions of a dystopian Earth in the years 2015, 2030, 2050, 2085, and 2100 by scientists, historians, social anthropologists, and economists, including Jared Diamond, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Peter Gleick, James Howard Kunstler, Heidi Cullen, Alex Steffen and Joseph Tainter. It ended with a quote from writer Alex Steffen, saying “Kids born today will see us navigate past the first greatest test of humanity, which is: can we actually be smart enough to live on a planet without destroying it?””
There is no difference between your last paragraph than saying the chance of climate change causing extinction is non-zero. Moreover, the argument is a Straw Man: The issues are all interconnected, which is why I referred/still sometimes refer to it all as The Perfect Storm. I acknowledge I had stated CC presents a non-zero risk, but the context should ALWAYS be understood to be the following (then we can avoid tediously covering all this for the thousandth time.):
It’s not *just* climate, it’s ecosystem destruction. But they affect one another. It’s multiplicative.
It’s not just climate and ecosystem destruction, it’s mass consumption by a minority of humans. Which causes the other two.
It’s not just those three, but also Fossil Fuel abuse. And they’re all interconnected.
It’s that even people consuming at a small level are still mostly consuming unsustainably. That’s tech, Economics, growth-oriented planning, Capitalism. And it’s all connected.
It’s the Mass Extinction, caused by all of the above, and exacerbates it all as trophic flows fail and ecosystems stop functioning – even if not directly touched by humans.
We’ve built a house of cards and are not just pulling on one at a time till it falls down, we’re playing Big Bad Wolf and blowing the whole damned thing down at the same time.
The irony of all the other responses to you is that they have all raged against, insulted, belittled everything I’ve ever said about regenerative systems, now here they all are saying that’s where we end up. Bizarre.
The solution is to choose regenerative. Only CHOOSING regenerative (which does not mean hunter-gatherer-gardener, though those groups are a subset of regenerative societies) can allow us to maintain coherent societies moving forward. Nested Commons.
Something to ponder:
Characteristics and First Principles of Regenerative Societies:
* Ecosystem-based decision-making; living within ecosystem limits
* Bio-regional and sub-bio-regional (some are huge, some are rather small) organization
* Needs-based decision-making
* Nested Commons (local, area/town, region/city,sub-bio-regional, bio-regional, global)
* Scale-based decision-making
– Made at the scale of the problem with regard for all affected
– Decisions cannot be imposed from one scale to another; no hierarchy of scale. I.e., decisions must be vetted up or down the scale as needed to maintain equity.
– (There are multiple forms of egalitarianism; this will be shaped by needs, culture, etc.)
* Networks of small communities
* Egalitarian
* Equality of all types (implied by egalitarianism, but some people need things spelled out)
* Highly cooperative, yet…
* Absolute individual autonomy
(These two are possible when people understand their ecosystems, thus CHOOSE to work together to keep it functioning rather than risk an unstable ecosystem. Individual autonomy/egalitarianism prevents the gathering of power to levels beyond mere personal influence. Regenerative societies tend not to have leaders based on power, but by acclaim due to the skills they have shown – and tend to be dispatched rather quickly when the power goes to their heads.
* Lots of free time (Lots of time aailable when not doing -make-work nonsense to make some stranger richer and/or only need to meet needs vs gross consumption merely to consume.)
* “Work” is a social event
* No “jobs”; work is done as needed and chosen
* Needs-based decision-making
* Non-time-limited decision-making (obvious exception: emergencies, other urgent changes)
I probably left some things out… These are the socio-political-economic concepts. Permaculture First Principles and design process are excellent for how to do the work that is needed. (There are others, but none equal, imo, to the flexibility and universal applicability of those.)
Rather than knee-jerk attacks on this list, I hope some will take a moment to imagine what their preferred future might look like if they adhered to these. Dare to imagine. We could be looking at negative emissions in as few as 5 years under a global effort to adopt these ideas.
I don’t know if this off-topic question is allowed here, but I’ve so far not found any other place I think is appropriate to ask this and expect a serious reply by someone knowledgeable. Otherwise just delete this.
The current US administration is severely cutting, in fact simply deleting all climate and environmental science. Anything related to environmental and climate science at NASA, NOAA, EPA and much more is vanishing, from websites, data, research, energy transition etc, etc. Also other countries and large corporations seem to be backtracking on their climate policies. I’m not a scientist and sometimes I get tears in my eyes when I read about yet another culling. I can imagine sometimes scientists themselves have a very hard time coping with all this as well.
The USA is no. 1 in climate research, probably doing more than the sum of all research done in the rest of the world, so what’s happening in the USA is in my eyes nothing less than catastrophic. Climate science will be severely hampered for decades to come, even if there’s again a complete turnaround when the next USA elections will vote in a climate prophet of some sorts, and we’ll be pretty much flying blind, without radar into the future that already didn’t look very rosy.
What puzzles me is that I hardly read anything about it from the (climate) science “community”. So I don’t know if I’m just out of touch with reality and things are not as bad as I think they are, or do climate scientists just not know what to make of it themselves and therefore remain silent, or are they maybe even afraid to discuss or condemn these policies in public out of fear for negative consequences?
I hope someone from the science community will be able to soothe my worries (if that’s validated by the truth) or otherwise can explain what the actual and truthful consequences of the polices will be for the future of climate science and climate policies in general.
A comment would suffice, but when more people have this question a blog post tackling this issue would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your replies.
Thanks for pointing out these government deletions. I’ve been waiting all month for someone to recognize that the NASA site on climate change has disappeared just recently.
[Response: Not so. It’s here. They did change the organization of the web sites, but that has been a multi-year plan. – gavin]
[Response: Not so.
So the following was just Fake News?
The current US administration is severely cutting, in fact simply deleting all climate and environmental science. Anything related to environmental and climate science at NASA, NOAA, EPA and much more is vanishing, from websites, data, research, energy transition etc, etc.
It’s not off topic, and though it’s only the opinion of a fellow commenter without authority here, it’s ‘allowed’.
But if you think the scientific community hasn’t been fighting for its life for decades, especially since the advent of increasing science denialism, you haven’t been paying attention. The dire authoritarian situation in which we find ourselves has accelerated beyond what we thought possible, but it’s not new, and was well described in Project 2025 before the election. Nor is it absent in many other countries around the world. Some of the roots trace back to Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s.
People are not ‘remaining’ silent. They are being silenced. The increase in military style repression is intended to stop all forms of opposition, and it’s succeeding far too well. I fear that this weekend’s giant No Kings protest will be a test case for the new rules allowing the designation of opposition as terrorism.
I could go on and on, but will stop there. Others may provide you with specifics. Some quick people to look up are Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny, Indivisible, etc.), Marc Elias (fighting in the courts to keep our elections from being corrupted) and Mike Mann/Peter Hotez’s new book.
Possible Preview for “Bananas 2 – The Heat Strikes Back,” coming soon to a neighborhood near you!?!
.
Seasonal Weather Change: A New La Niña has Formed, but Strong El Niño Reversal is Forecast for 2026
By Author Andrej Flis
Published 13/10/2025
.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-range-2/la-nina-has-formed-winter-2025-2026-latest-impacts-el-nino-reversal-united-states-canada-europe-fa/
More El Ninos
Could this be “Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus Nature Climate Change 4, 222–227 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106 Received 11 September 2013 Accepted 18 December 2013 Published online 09 February 2014 Corrected online 14 February 2014
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich & Agus Santoso
Did it already end?
All of life is a circle, they say, but I am more inclined to believe it is a Spiral mode for those who are awake to it.
The Great Law of Peace framing — coming from Reason, considering the impact of actions across generations — is like a meta-principle that underpins everything I have ever valued: clarity, foresight, responsibility, moral courage. It’s not just wisdom for governance; it’s a lens for all decision-making, scientific or otherwise.
What’s striking is how naturally it resonates with my general critique of climate science communications; and of course others far more talented than I, who do the same thing for decades to no effect at all. I’m seeing the same ancient patterns: failure to communicate clearly, failure to anticipate consequences, failure to act responsibly — all of which the Great Law of Peace would flag immediately. And does.
It’s the motherload because it connects:
Personal ethics — acting from clarity, not ego, class or institutional convenience.
Societal guidance — considering the risks and effects of decisions for many generations ahead.
Scientific integrity and responsibility — communicating truth in a way people can understand and act upon.
Desiderata, Taleb, the Seven Generations principle — they all converge around the same kernel: wisdom is in seeing consequences clearly and acting rightly, not just knowing facts or running models.
MY: wisdom is in seeing consequences clearly and acting rightly, not just knowing facts or running models.
BPL: Shorter Mo: Wisdom is reciting eastern-religion platitudes, not science.
Hint: Every equation is a model.
Mo: “wisdom is in seeing consequences clearly and acting rightly, not just knowing facts or running models”
What said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ?
For a break from the above crying and sobbing about the “…dire authoritarian situation in which we find ourselves…” and “….what’s happening in the USA is in my eyes nothing less than catastrophic….” how about some REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE? Hey, there’s an idea! The article below wasn’t that great, but the comments are much better. You might find them interesting and there is quite a bit of REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE there:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/venus_and_the_climate_fallacy_why_radiative_forcing_fails.html
And speaking of the “..dire authoritarian situation in which we find ourselves…” did you see where Hitler saved Israel? When are you going to join Hitler in the Moral Majority?
https://babylonbee.com/news/hitler-brings-peace-to-israel
The person ‘crying and sobbing’ (metaphorically) is KIA. Lies are not truth, and reality is inexorable.
Mr. KIA, it’s nice to know that as long as you are here, the stupid will have a vigorous champion ensuring that their drivel will be heard! That article was piss-poor even by American Stinker standards. It also provides yet another example of why non-physicists should NEVER under any circumstances try to defend their position based on their understanding of thermodynamics and Stat Mech.
Dude, there really are times when I find myself thinking that you have to be a parody–nobody can be that consistently wrong and stupid!
Doug Cotton has “Why Radiative Forcing Fails” so I know it’s rubbish that would just waste a bit of my life reading through because I’ve read and heard so much of you’all worthless rubbish on similar that the statistical probability that I’d find it new & interesting rather than same old same old same old tripe is about 0.1%. I need a higher statistical probability of interesting stuff to spend time because I’m running out of time.
Barry E Finch,
I see that in the past, the unusual climate theorising of Douglas J. Cotton with his particular “brand of physics” has been noticed although this was due to him being a total pain in the nether region. Myself, I do not recall hearing his “brand of physics” so am less inclined to immediately dismiss it. Could this Dougie Cotton you bring to our attention be the boy who called Wolf? Could there be a genuine climatological message we should be taking note of?
What is his message?
.
‘Venus and the Climate Fallacy: Why Radiative Forcing Fails’ by Douglas J. Cotton.
The theory of radiative forcing—central to modern climate orthodoxy—rests on assumptions that defy thermodynamic logic and observational reality. [Sounds like bullshit but let’s not be prejudiced against those who don’t speak in a bigly orthodox manner.] By examining Venus’s extreme surface temperatures and comparing them with Earth’s energy budget, this article challenges the notion that greenhouse gases like CO₂ and methane drive planetary warming. Instead, it argues that gravitational gradients, cloud dynamics, and natural variability offer a more coherent explanation. The implications are profound: if radiative forcing fails, then so too does the rationale behind Net Zero policies and the trillion-dollar climate agenda. [Dougie’s account is only 800 words long and devoid of numerical presentation. To present such a ‘profound … challenge’ to basic climatology so succinctly would be a delight to see.]
The prevailing climate narrative collapses under scrutiny. To illustrate, imagine a lake perched atop a mountain, with a stream flowing down its slope. Now suppose someone builds a small dam at the base of that stream, its wall far lower than the lake’s elevation. Would anyone seriously claim that this dam could raise the level of the lake above? Yet this is precisely the kind of backward logic embedded in the theory of radiative forcing. [Not an encouraging start with this bullshit analogy.]
How planetary thermodynamics expose the myth of trapped heat
Climatologists have failed to explain how Venus’s surface became so extraordinarily hot in the first place. [It is untrue to state that the Venus surface temperature is unexplained. It has been explained for decades. Perhaps fig 2 and the following para12 in Taylor & Grinspoon (2009) do a better job than the standard rather-shallow popular explanations manage.] Even if we accept that the surface is somehow heated, there must be a mechanism for slight warming—perhaps 1 to 5 degrees—on the sunlit side to compensate for inevitable cooling during the long Venusian night. But downward winds cannot warm the surface, and in any case, Venus’s circulation is not simply downward on the day side and upward on the night side. The dynamics are far more complex and do not support the notion of sustained surface heating from above. [This account fails to consider the speed of rotation of the Venusian atmosphere which rotates fifty-times faster than the planet itself, a situation which makes the entire paragraph grade-one-plus bullshit.]
Even more critically, once energy is released from the surface—whether by radiation or convection—it cannot all be returned to the surface to maintain its temperature. That would require all the energy that was emitted by radiation in the first place, as well as that which cooled the surface by convection—violating basic thermodynamic principles because the convected energy cannot add to the radiation from CO₂. [There is an un-asked question here. If there is cooling, what then stops the surface cooling down to absolute zero? Evidently the surface energy balance will be achieved at some surface temperature and this defined by the lapse rate from the top of the atmosphere.] Some of that energy, especially via convection, must escape to Space. [And the escape altitude is one defining variables for surface temperature, an altitude itself defined by greenhouse gases and their concentrations.] Also, in accord with thermodynamic laws, that which is radiated from less-hot regions in the atmosphere cannot create heat that increases the temperature of the already-hotter surface. [This last sentence shows a profound misunderstanding of thermodynamics.]
Why CO₂ and methane don’t drive surface temperatures—on Venus or Earth
Carbon dioxide cannot “trap” convective heat any more than other gases on Venus and, similarly, nitrogen, oxygen or argon on Earth. It’s a physical impossibility. [Without pedantry, there is one profound difference that should be mentioned here. 99.95% of Earth’s atmospheric mass is unable to emit radiation due to N2, O2 & Ar not being multi-atomic molecules. Those that are multi-atomic like CO2 both absorb and emit radiation in Earth’s atmosphere. So they can “trap” convected heat and then dispose of it as radiation then go all Oliver Twist and ask “Please, sir, I want some more,”]
So let us now consider Earth. CO₂, CH₄, and H₂O cannot retain thermal energy that they have absorbed solely from radiation, and yet then send more energy back to the surface than was originally released by the surface, that original surface cooling being not only through radiation, but also by conduction, convection, and evaporation. [This rather-garbled sentence tries to give the flip-side of the crazy ‘radiation-&-convection-cooled surface’ argument above. CO₂, CH₄, and H₂O indeed cannot “retain” thermal energy any different than the surrounding air with which they are in equilibrium. They do absorb radiation which is soon absorbed into the surrounding atmosphere via collision. And the surrounding atmosphere will excite them, also through collision, which results in a level of emitted radiation commensurate with the air temperature. This results the back radiation warming the surface. Unlike the Earth, on Venus surface warming will not be boosted by solar radiation suggesting a surface atmospheric temperature warmer than the planet surface.]
There is no significant difference between Earth and Venus in this regard. [What “regard”?] Both planets receive far too little direct solar radiation at the surface to explain their observed temperatures using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. For instance, Earth’s surface receives approximately 161 W/m² of solar radiation—insufficient to account for a global mean temperature above about 230 K (−43°C). There is no valid mechanism whereby a system can send back to the surface more energy than the surface had lost while cooling. This discrepancy exposes the fundamental error in radiative forcing theory. [This paragraph again shows a profound ignorance of thermodynamics.]
The flawed logic behind Net Zero and the billion-dollar climate agenda
Radiative forcing assumes that, if there is a small imbalance between incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere, then that difference drives surface temperature changes. But this interchanges cause-and-effect. In reality, it is natural variations in surface temperature—driven by factors such as cloud cover, cloud altitude, and latitude—that cause fluctuations in radiative balance. Cloud cover, for example, has less effect in polar regions than in tropical ones, and shifts in global cloud distribution can easily account for observed temperature changes. The magnitude of the temperature gradient in the troposphere (which is formed by gravity at the molecular level) also has a significant effect. This so-called “lapse rate” varies with the concentration and distribution of water vapor, as is well known. [There is a part-truth in this argument but it fails to grasp the whole situation. On planet Earth, a change in surface temperature does results in feedbacks which boost greenhouse warming, very roughly trebling that warming do to increased water vapour and cloud effects. The actual driver of the surface temperature change is proposed by Dougie to be “natural variations” but this proposal remains entirely unsubstantiated and contradictory to scientific understanding. It is encouraging that the existence of the ‘lapse rate’ is at least acknowledged although bizarrely described. Usually the lapse-rate feedback (which is small and negative) is combined with the water vapour feedback as a single thing.]
So, Venus, far from validating greenhouse theory, actually helps dismantle it. The planet’s thermal behaviour underscores the implausibility of radiative forcing as a mechanism for surface warming. Carbon dioxide and any other so-called “greenhouse” gases have no meaningful bearing on planetary temperatures and pose no threat. It follows that the entire “Net Zero” agenda is built on a false foundation—one that is costing nations billions in pursuit of a phantom crisis. [In summary, if the aim of Dougie Cotton was to flaunt his ignorance and stupidity in public, his 800-words here is ‘Mission Accomplished!!!’]
MAR: This account fails to consider the speed of rotation of the Venusian atmosphere which rotates fifty-times faster than the planet itself, a situation which makes the entire paragraph grade-one-plus bullshit.
BPL: The four-day atmospheric rotation only happens at high altitudes.
Sorry to nitpick. You’re doing extremely well at exposing this crackpot’s “science.”
Barton Paul Levenson,
Not being that well versed in the Venusian climate, I’m not sure if your nitpick works. However I am aware that that particular part of my debunking of Dougie Cotton’s theorising isn’t very robust.
That debunk gets a little too complicated if done properly. So I resorted to a simplistic alternative that’s more Ockham’s broom than anything else. Its substantive purpose was to point to Dougie apparently having no grasp of the workings of the Venusian climate. If he were properly clued up he wouldn’t have been so eager to talk of “the sunlit side” and “the long Venusian night” which make his statement ridiculously ambiguous.
Also ambiguous is his talk of a diurnal surface temperature range. Is he saying this is real? Or is he saying it should be there if GHG forcing is a thing because, if GHG forcing is real (& he says it isn’t) and the upper atmosphere temperatures dictate surface temperatures, there should be a surface diurnal range as there is a day/night temperature range at altitude (apparently a 30ºC wobble).
I can’t say I’m entirely clued up on the Venusian atmosphere. So I don’t know if the much-quoted absence of a surface diurnal temperature range has been measured or if it still relies on modelling (which could then be open to crazy Cotton criticism).
A full debunk of this part of Cotton’s nonsense would perhaps run as follows:-
There are areas of the Venus surface during the long Venusian day (5,800 hours long) where the upper atmosphere streaming past far above (about 60km above) will have been un-lit by the sun and thus cooling for 48 hours (or longer being 72 hours since it sat under the ‘noon-day’ sun). The impact of that high-altitude cooling on the un-sunlit surface sitting below 60km of un-sunlit lower atmosphere below is effectively zero, fuzzed out through that 60km** of un-sunlit gas sitting below the cloud tops, gas with increasing density and thus increasing thermal inertia.
(** That limit to optical depth is(?) roughly also the altitude where the speedy circulation hits its limit.)
Well said. My A level physics teacher from over 50 years ago, Mr. Scowen, would be turning in his grave if I had written Dougie’s bullshit. And, if I had written it in my physical chemistry paper at university, I would probably have ended up washing hotel dishes for my entire career!
In Re to MA Rodger, 17 Oct 2025 at 9:44 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840862 ,
Dea MA,
Thank you very much for your effort, especially for the remark about rotation of Venusian atmosphere of which I have not been aware yet, and for your reference
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/03/blog-comments-suspended/
to the critical remark on Mr. Douglas J. Cotton published by Dr. Spencer on his blog.
In texts like that in the “American Thinker”, it is really difficult to grasp what exactly the opponent of the mainstream theory objects. Sometimes, I have a feeling that the author has never read any text explaining the greenhouse effect theory, because basic building stones thereof are not mentioned in his article. It remains also unclear what exactly his “alternative” theory is based on. A brief mention of “gravity” may perhaps point to Zeller-Nikolov.
Anyway, perhaps one sentence still deserves an attention, namely
“In reality, it is natural variations in surface temperature—driven by factors such as cloud cover, cloud altitude, and latitude—that cause fluctuations in radiative balance.”
I think it may refer to CERES observations suggesting that in ca last two decades, majority of the observed Earth energy imbalance seems to come from an Earth albedo decrease.
Definitely the explanation that the observed albedo decrease is the cloud feedback (and in some extent perhaps also sea ice feedback) to the radiative forcing of the increased atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases sounds much more plausible than the “natural variability” of the cloud cover caused by a yet unknown mechanism, suggested by Mr. Cotton.
Nevertheless, I think that herein, the present theory still has an Achilles heel.
On one hand, “Hansenites” seem to assert that the albedo decrease is, rather than by the cloud feedback, caused by decrease of anthropogenic aerosol emission, in other words, by decrease of a “negative” radiative forcing. This question will be perhaps resolved
On the other hand, there is my yet unresolved question if the cloud feedback may depend on water availability for evaporation from the land. In such a case, a decrease in terrestrial water storage (that may not be mere feedback to the observed increase of the global mean surface temperature, because humanity may have changed land hydrological regimes already in pre-industrial era) could have acted as an “accomplice” of the greenhouse effect from anthropogenic emissions of non-condensing greenhouse gases.
This is the background of my question to you if the modelling studies mentioned in my post of 1 Oct 2025 at 4:51 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840113
perhaps already provide indirect hints that water feedbacks may indeed change due to anthropogenic interferences with land hydrological regimes.
Best regards
Tomáš
“On one hand, “Hansenites” seem to assert that the albedo decrease is, rather than by the cloud feedback, caused by decrease of anthropogenic aerosol emission, in other words, by decrease of a “negative” radiative forcing. This question will be perhaps resolved”
Hi Tomas, if I’m not mistaken Hansen requires double the aerosol direct and indirect effects compared to RFMIP(CMIP) estimates, plus additionally strong (positive) classic temperature mediated SW cloud feedback, usually described in units W/m2 per K change in GMST.
Trouble is that his legacy at GISS still produces some of the strongest (negative) temperature mediated SW cloud feedback of all coupled models, with GISS-E2-1-G at (-0.64) and GISS-E2-1-H (-0.53).
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085782 Table S1 in supplemental.
Models producing strong positive SW cloud “feedback” which resemble somewhat observational products of cloud changes are the CESM2 (~ +1), HadGEM3 (+0.98), and UKESM (+0.93); however, these models are specifically to be excluded using a Transient Climate Response based screening (i.e. how well do they match observed warming). e.g. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/revisiting-the-hot-model-problem.
If we limit to “models screened by their transient climate response”, https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/much-ado-about-acceleration/ then the remaining ensemble members, which are the basis for attribution statements, give the impression that the SW cloud radiative feedback should be slightly negative: see again table S1
Now there is the classic problem where a hypothesis is generally not considered fully valid if it only explains some observations while being contradicted by others – we should expect consistency with the totality of relevant evidence, not just selective confirmation. Alternatively, assuming the TCR screened physics ensemble is already perfect, then the discrepancy with SW cloud radiative effect changes should be associated with the model inputs (rather than the model themselves). Problematic inputs would alter dramatically tuning of the multi-dimensional parameter space in calibrated physics ensembles e.g. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024MS004713
Needless to say, artificially framing cloud changes as either “natural” versus “atmospherically forced” may not be helpful. This dichotomy seems to come from the apparently exclusive interest of western academia for 60 years to attribute earth system changes at any scale to major trace gas effects, with an opposing “team” who aligns with the economic and political interests of continuing emission. The battle of these two titans stirs up so much dust with their posturing that many fascinating details remain obscured and under investigated.
JCM
JCM — The battle of these two titans stirs up so much dust with their posturing that many fascinating details remain obscured and under investigated.
A nice way to phrase that. And effective.
MY and JCM:
They are not ‘titans’; they are scientists. In fact, they are more in agreement than not, compared to the vast gassy mass of big fossil and profit advocacy.
Sports analogies are poor representations of the search for knowledge, particularly in the physically and politically fraught area of climate and related studies.
The only battle metaphor which might be useful would be if governments took our future survival and thriving on earth as an effort worthy of the same attention as destructive wars.
The vanity posting here often obscures the search for real conversations about knowledge and solutions.
JCM says: “The battle of these two titans stirs up so much dust with their posturing that many fascinating details remain obscured and under investigated.”
Doesn’t stop about 950 climate science papers being published every week, most of which seem to focus on details of the climate issue.
Tomáš Kalisz,
It is quite a leap to think that Dougie Cotton was referencing data, let alone CERES data in particular.
As for the CERES data holding evidence of a significant decrease in albedo associated with the drying continents, I don’t see it. I had a quick look at CERES data and compared albedo in the area lying between 20N to 70N and 20E to 120E (almost wholly land, the bulk of Eurasia) with albedo over the rest of the 20N to 79N zonal area (which is roughly 60% ocean). See graphic posted HERE 23rd October 2025. The marked drop in albedo since 2010 is greater for the bits of this zone with the ocean suggesting the drying of Eurasia (and thus any land) is contributing less to decreasing albedo than are the oceans. Of course albedo is not specifically cloud cover but my understanding is that you are more interested in the impacts of reduced cloud cover (thus albedo) than the cloud reduction itself.
I am aware that I have not had a look at your previous question but my time has been a little short of late.
MA Rodger to T. Kalisz: “As for the CERES data holding evidence of a significant decrease in albedo associated with the drying continents, I don’t see it: […] The marked drop in albedo since 2010 is greater for the bits of this zone with the ocean suggesting the drying of Eurasia (and thus any land) is contributing less to decreasing albedo than are the oceans.
…. and just like that – the years of Thomas’s and JCM’s lives ^* – go down the drain.
—–
^*100s of posts over the years filled with attacks on the climate science for the “ artificial fixation and overemphasis [on the reductions of] a trace gas” ] instead of …. somehow increasing evaporation by 10,000s km^3 per year (= volumes needed to have effect comparable to a fraction of GHG forcing).
Interest of western academia for 60 years to attribute earth system changes at any scale to major trace gas effects, with an opposing “team” who aligns with the economic and political interests of continuing emission.
The battle in which you, JCM. you are firmly in bed with the “opposing team” by providing ammunition for the “anything but GHG” denialism:
“ It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas and aerosol forced model estimates ” JCM,
By their bedfellows , not their self-declared virginity (not taking sides, just an interest in “many fascinating details”), you shall know them.
Thank you for all the interesting feedback, which is illustrative of the various dogmas and double standards that have become foundational to the comment section here at RealClimate.org.
There can be little dispute that the dust cloud of derivative works is expanding rapidly; a self-reinforcing explosion organized into the IPCC assessment cycles under a very specific governance objective. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growing-number-of-publications-referring-to-climate-change-each-year-plotted-as-annual_fig1_376741198
Despite this vast proliferation through six assessment cycles, a TCR-screened ensemble of models still fails to produce a positive shortwave (SW) cloud feedback. James Hansen asserts, without clear justification, that the majority of planetary darkening “must be climate feedback,” mapping the SW cloud feedback to the 85% residual that remains unexplained after accounting for observed snow and ice changes. https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2025/CloudFeedback.13May2025.pdf. Notably, this unexplained portion of the increasing energy imbalance grows even more when including consensus aerosol forcing (>90% unexplained).
It is very simple in principle that SW transmissivity variations should be significantly more pronounced at TOA over ocean owing simply to the much higher contrast between clouds and dark ocean surfaces compared to landscapes. Curiously, NASA analysis of global daytime cloud fraction using the EPIC instrument aboard the DSCOVR platform over the past decade shows that “although no trend was found over the ocean, a statistically significant trend was detected over land [particularly northern hemisphere], with a p-value of 0.014 and a decreasing trend of −0.0329 per decade (Figure 3). This decreasing trend in cloud coverage over land is consistent with that reported by Liu et al. (2023), which is based on data from ERA5 reanalysis (1979–2020) (Hersbach et al., 2020). They attributed the reduction in land cloud cover primarily to declining near-surface relative humidity, a factor that limits cloud formation over land.” https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/remote-sensing/articles/10.3389/frsen.2025.1632157/full
MA Rodger’s plots are particularly valuable. From geographic maps of CMIP model output grouped by ECS in “Cloud properties and their projected changes in CMIP models with low to high climate sensitivity”, the shortwave cloud feedback is expected to be negative over Northern Hemisphere land, as shown in the second row of Figure 2 for models with ECS between 2.87 K and 4.0 K. in https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/24/1587/2024/.
So we’re left with a fascinating interplay of details and model biases, shaped by different limiting factors: microphysical and dynamic cloud processes dominate over the ocean, while hydrological and thermodynamic constraints play the key role over land. Meanwhile, models and the associated attribution of changes, relied upon for generating now >950 papers per week, show consistent biases, large unexplained disparities with observation, and even the incorrect sign for the governing energy balance terms at TOA. Absorbing this all into classic feedback or forcing is all-too simple.
In Re to MA Rodger, 23 Oct 2025 at 7:59 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-841049 ,
and JCM, 24 Oct 2025 at 2:03 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-841095
Dear Sirs,
Thank you very much for extremely interesting input.
Although I was not able to process it yet (and although I am not sure it is fully in my capabilities), I would like to say that JCM remark regarding the difference between cloud-sea and cloud-land contrast might be relevant.
May I suggest another recent reference that seems to deal with a related topic (an evaluation of hemispheric distribution of albedo changes from CERES data) as well:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2511595122
Could you consider it in your discussion, too?
Best regards
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz,
You were asking for my thoughts on a handful of papers looking at the drying of continents and the climatic consequences thereof. Assuming I haven’t overlooked any, these papers were:-
Hsu & Dirmeyer (2023) ‘Soil moisture-evaporation coupling shifts into new gears under increasing CO2’
Liang Qiao et al (2023)‘Soil moisture–atmosphere coupling accelerates global warming’
Zuo et al (2024) ‘Importance of soil moisture conservation in mitigating climate change’
And note the last two are the same group of authors.
While you may feel I am taking longer than you expected to cast my jaundiced eye over these papers, it is a bit of an ask when it is multiple papers. A cursory look doesn’t show much warming that could be attributed directly to the hand of man draining dry the landscape. But a closer look may find it otherwise.
Perhaps to end this ‘preview’ I should add that the literature is replete with studies looking to find a way of untangling the size of the water vapour/cloud feedbacks, particularly with regard to their impact on ECS. Thus if there is some grand understanding hiding within the literature and waiting to be identified, it probably won’t be a trivial task identifying it.
Lindzen & Happer were just on the Joe Rogan podcast at a million views so far, with Rogan claiming that one of the issues with climate science is that it is immutable and that nothing can be contested lest you be called a climate denier. They both agreed when Rogan stated at the 9-minute mark:
It really should go both ways then.
During the introduction part of the Rogan conversation, Lindzen recounted his career in climate science, saying:
No Lindzen didn’t work out why that happened. It is actually caused by tidal forces, as any pre-computer-age dolt could have figured out if they matched the observed pattern of QBO oscillations to the cycles of the moon and sun So, if Lindzen and his ilk are so upset about climate science being unchallenged, they would welcome it in their own backyard. Yet alas, they seem incapable of doing just that — witness this PubPeer criticism I made, backed by my peer-reviewed publication:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F#1
No response yet, because they realize they have no counter-argument and wish to avoid opening up a can of worms.
Can easily find the broadcast on YouTube by searching “Lindzen Happer Rogan”, but here it is: https://youtu.be/Zt32chvO_iY
Rogan, Lindzen & Happer!
great limping whimpers!
not an exact description (we’re getting lots of bangs), but ->
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
& while being cute (not), here’s a brief amuse bouche (deGrasse Tyson, fire/ice):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsdnGtj1Dyo
in Re to MA Rodger, 25 Oct 2025 at 5:04 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-841134
Dear MA,
Thank you for your kind feedback.
Meanwhile, I read the article
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2511595122
and found out that there does not seem to be any direct support for the hypothesis that ther might be a link betweeen decreasing cloudiness (and decreasing albedo resulting therefrom) on one hand and decreasing water availability for evaporation from the land.
A sole indirect hint for such a relationship might be perhaps the following sentence in the first paragraph on page 4:
“the NH–SH difference in ASR for the extratropics (20°-90°) shows the opposite trend, with the NH clouds reflecting less compared to those in the SH ( Fig. 4D)”
I admit that this is a very weak hint.
Greetings
Tomáš
in re to JCM, 21 Oct 2025 at 12:37 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840977
Dear JCM,
If the CESM model used in Lague 2023
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1
has a positive cloud feedback, while the TCR screened models have rather a negative cloud feedback, do I understand correctly that if Lague et al used a model with a negative cloud feedback (instead of their CESM), the obtained difference in global mean surface temperature (GMST) between the “swamp land” Earth and the “desert land” Earth would have been smaller than 8 K obtained with the CESM model, or perhaps might even have an opposite sign (wherein “land desiccation” would have perhaps resulted in a global cooling)?
Greetings
Tomáš
re Paul Pukite :
https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F#1 “The only candidate due to wavenumber=0 group symmetry arguments is the 27.2122 day draconic lunar cycle, ”
IMO, you’ve never successfully shown this to be true.
“MO, you’ve never successfully shown this to be true.”
Richard Lindzen never considered it, and so that either Lindzen or you would have to falsify my model. Put another way, if you were a scientist, you would know that one can’t “prove” anything in physics, i.e. “show it to be true”.. As far as mathematical group theory, it’s the only tidal mode that shows wavenumber=0 symmetry with respect to the ecliptic, which is what governs the exact semi-annual oscillation (SAO) above the QBO.
Pragmatically, geophysical fluid dynamics is a tough nut to crack. It’s impossible to *precisely* predict tidal heights/timing from scratch. That’s why tidal models are fitted and routinely re-calibrated, allowing accurate predictions. How about extreme levels years in advance? Yes!
https://pukpr.github.io/results/python_1930_1960/image_results.html
So, if you really want to challenge my QBO model, go ahead and make a counter-critique on the PubPeer site. I don’t think Lindzen will and neither will Dunkerton.
KIA, it’s hard to respond to you, so lacking as you are in general knowledge and ability to handle context, complexity. and nuance.
You can’t even make a bad point coherently. Israel didn’t exist as a nation state in Hitler’s lifetime. And as for that weepy, sarcastic drivel about the moral majority? Unhinged.
What’s to be done with you? I hope where you are, that they don’t leave you unsupervised in the presence of pointy scissors and glue.
Crazy denialism by Crazy Republicans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLm1_a_JF6Q
“The latest analysis of observations from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) in situ observational network shows that the globally averaged surface concentrations for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) reached unprecedented highs in 2024, with CO2 at 423.9±0.2 ppm, CH4 at 1942±2 ppb and N2O at 338.0±0.1 ppb.
These values constitute, respectively, increases of 52%, 166% and 25% above pre-industrial (before 1750) levels.”
.
WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin – No. 21
16 October 2025
https://wmo.int/publication-series/wmo-greenhouse-gas-bulletin-no-21
.
.
Story in the Guardian on this disconcerting news:
.
“Record leap in CO2 fuels fears of accelerating global heating
CO2 in air hit new high last year, with scientists concerned natural land and ocean carbon sinks are weakening”
Damian Carrington Environment editor Oct. 15, 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/15/record-leap-in-co2-fuels-fears-of-accelerating-global-heating
David, probably the big 2023/24 El Nino same as some other big items. Same CO2 jump as happened for 1997/98 and 2015/16 El Ninos. I’m claiming for a c0uple years that there’s likely more surface warming for all ENSO situations because the extra wind push from the Atlantic increasing 1999-~2014 has reduced or stopped completely.
The context of this is OT, but the content is something I’ve been hammering away about. Please note that responding to garbage by featuring the garbage gives the garbage more standing:
“Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda, researchers in Germany have found, describing it as a shortcoming that had unwittingly helped the far right by legitimising their ideas and disseminating them more widely.
“The findings, published in the European Journal of Political Research, were based on an automated text analysis of 520,408 articles from six German newspapers over the span of more than two decades.
“The Berlin-based researchers found that as the far right moved from fringe issues in the late 1990s to topics such as integration and migration, mainstream parties had increasingly reshaped their communications to respond, boosting the spread of these ideas and signalling to voters that these ideas and stances were legitimate.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/18/german-far-right-setting-agenda-as-opponents-amplify-its-ideas-study-finds?CMP=saturdayedition_email“
Interesting article, Susan. Two questions, first specific to RC and the other OT politically:
1. How would you suggest someone question or challenge the validity of a particular statement contained in a (sometimes lengthy) comment here without reference?
2. (OT) Why do you think Democrats in D.C. and in that party’s leadership continue to struggle with pivoting to putting forth an agenda appealing to swaths of the nation who feel abandoned and ignored by D’s?
David,
I’ve been meaning to add to your comment on Stefan’s post about graphics but busy these days; maybe later. On this:
1. The troll comments are full of elementary errors, logical fallacies, and made up facts. Why respond at all? It’s not science; it’s middle-school level rhetoric.
2. Because they are embarrassed to embrace sexism and racism and all the similar stuff.
As I was just saying to Ray L, even people who say they respect science selectively ignore what are scary and unpleasant scientific facts, and those that challenge their emotional worldview.
-The science of Authoritarian psychology is well established.
-As I point out from time to time, the virtuous FDR coalition of “the working class” and “rural America” was in fact a hierarchical structure with a top 25% that excluded women and minorities, and relegated them to second-class citizenship, de facto and de jure.
-The civil rights era changed that “natural order of things”, and the Southern Strategy has been at work since then, playing on the perceived loss of status of various subsets of the population. It worked for Hitler, it worked for Reagan, and it’s still working.
Dem national policies on the economy, which everyone wants to pretend is the problem, are popular with the majority… everyone likes Obamacare, as long as it isn’t called Obamacare. Everyone likes farmer welfare, as long as it isn’t called that. Everyone likes to shop at Walmart, where nothing is made in the USA, and the workers get Walmart welfare. And so on.
But people don’t vote on those kinds of policies. Sad but true *fact*, which is, as I said, scary and unpleasant.
Here’s me chiming in unsolicited with apologies…
Good questions David.
1) Out in the wild world, it would seem nearly impossible without a great deal of art, which would likely be wasted on the trouble makers anyway. Here too, but with the trolls in this small room, you have the option of addressing your comments obliquely to the commentariat at large. You can also talk about the trolling openly “behind their back” so to speak, and dismissively.
2) One theory is that the Democrat’s paid advisors are themselves not representative of swaths of the country. They tend to be wealthy, white, and to waste money– if they’re not engaged in outright fraud. Personally, I think part of the problem is that Democrats are stuck in a rut in the beltway bubble and lack the imagination to shift out of a decades old, business as usual, system and mindset. That and a lot of them are manifestly “chicken feathers without one nut, trying to make it real compared to what.”
Wise up and Rise up
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
~ Will Rogers
1. It’s a question of placement and context. Remember that other people are real, and don’t necessarily know enough to tell the difference. Magnifying/repeating material gives it space. In particular, Bottom line (works for letting ChatGPT do your writing too): don’t be lazy. Think and exercise the writing muscle.
2. Can’t go there much. I’m watching Mamdani for a good approach, but many of my friends are scared of him and AOC. Talking to people, listening, addressing real issues, not closing one’s mind … I thought the article was good.. Marina Hyde is fine today: Dear Britain, do you worry that Team Farage is just a hot mess in power? Or is everyone too angry to care – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/21/britain-nigel-farage-reform-council-voters
David,
I use this:
This response is valid though somewhat brutal. One could also use the (somewhat less brutal) Sagan standard: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,”
Well, my initial reply written yesterday (Friday) appears to have been eaten by cyberspace gremlins as it should’ve appeared here, given my other comment from yesterday did appear on the “But you said…” post.
Too tired from scrambled around on my roof today to rewrite it. So for right now, let me say I appreciate the feedback. I truly do. I think those who scoff and whine about the commenters here are wrong.
But that’s just me.
Halfway through the month, here’s an update on how global temperatures are progressing. Are there continuing signs of progress toward a post-“bananas!!” world? Or are temperatures bouncing back up as the northern autumn progresses?
I have compiled The “Banana!!” Watch web-page with graphics of global, NH & SH surface air temperatures, SSTs and TLTs through the “bananas!!” period, these maintained with the up-to-date numbers. Previously these graphics were confusingly scattered.
The October-so-far global SAT anomaly from ClimatePulse shows October-so-far (+0.62ºC) a little down on the September anomaly (+0.66ºC) but not by much, suggesting a significant reversal following the cooling period seen Dec24(+0.76ºC)-Aug25(+0.49ºC).
However, this reversal of cooling is not so-far due to the NH anomaly.
The warming is instead almost all due to the SH anomaly. The numbers at the Uni of Maine ClimateReanalyser also show the polar anomalies and the Antarctic data allows a non-Antarctic SH anomaly to be calculated. Thus the rise in the SH anomaly seen through August can be attributed wholly to the Antarctic (a rise which globally was matched by a cooling NH) while through September the SH anomaly rise began to appear outside Antarctica and through the front-half of October, all the SH anomaly rise is outside the Antarctic. Likely the wibbly-wobbly Antarctic anomaly will soon drop down to less extreme temperatures** pulling the average SH anomaly down with it.
(** As I type, the latest Antarctic SAT data is 12th Oct and it is the first new Antarctic ‘Record for the Day’ achieved since January.)
There is still some possibility of a bigger NH autumn warming to kick in. Mind, those NH autumn wobbles are lesser features through La Niña years and the ENSO forecasts favour weak La Niña conditions through to next Spring. The NINO3.4 is presently poised between La Niña and the neutral zone (averaging -0.425ºC over the last 4 weeks.).
A less-wobbly and more measured indicator of global temperature is the ERA5 60N-60S SST anomaly. This continues its slow cooling, suggesting a smaller residual “Bananas!!” and its dissipating significance. I don’t think we are into ‘insignificant’ territory yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57x_SWsv6QU [44 minutes, try 1.25 speed, worth it]
Brian Cox heads panel (venue: Frances Crick Institute):
• Myles Allen – Head of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, University of Oxford
• Kathryn Browne – Director of Climate Change and Evidence, The Wildlife Trust
• Hayley Fowler – Professor of Climate Change Impacts, Newcastle University
• George Monbiot – Environmental journalist and campaigner
imnsho, this is a particularly fine example of communication. The only two quibbles I had were with geoengineering, they failed to mention the costs to maintain and increase as the consequences of stopping are truly dire, and with Monbiot* on microbes/bacteria and food. I had a chat with a friend about this, and in fact fermentation etc. are part of food already, but I am deeply prejudiced against fake meat (make something tasty with pulses/grains/mushrooms, etc. instead). Also, though plant-based diet is obviously better, it won’t fly. I prefer Pollan: Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants.
Intolerance and insults put people’s backs up, hardening their resistance.
“We found that the projected temperature increase to 2100 declined only slightly, from 2.6° C to 2.4 °C. Meanwhile, the chance of staying below 2 °C remained low, at 17%. However, the chance of the most catastrophic climate change, above 3 °C, has gone down substantially, from 26% to 9%.” – Quote from the abstract of a new paper in Nature communications earth & environment looking at the issue from an economics point of view:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02743-x.pdf
Jiang, J., Shi, S. & Raftery, A.E. Mitigation efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and meet the Paris Agreement have been offset by economic growth. Commun Earth Environ 6, 823 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02743-x
A: generating now >950 papers per week
Jeopardy Q: What’s a total waste of fucking time by tens of thousands of incompetents not fit for purpose?
Maybe you’d value them more if you understood them.
So you, Mo Yunus, are lecturing other on “the total waste of time” of the mass production of the useless texts by the “incompetents “? ;-)
You see the irony, right?
“2025 is the first time we reach a 3-year average global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C in one or more data sets!”
Nah, let’s wait 27 more years before acknowledging reality.
– Killian:
“2025 is the first time we reach a 3-year average global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C!
Nah, let’s wait 27 more years before acknowledging reality.”
– Every denier and their mother in 2001:
“2001 is the year that the 3-year average global temperature anomaly was 0.21C BELOW the +0.61C from 1998.
Nah, let’s wait 27 more years before acknowledging reality that the global warming ended in 1998”
– Every denier and their mother in 2014:
“I have been telling this for over a decade now but you never listen: the so-called global warming has ended in 1998: 2014 was another year that the now 16-year average global temperature anomaly was BELOW that from 1998.
Nah, let’s wait 14 more years before acknowledging reality that the “global warming” has ended.”
Killian, to whom is the quote attributed and where was it presented? Which dataset(s) has/have reached “a 3-year average global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C“?
Meanwhile, Berkeley Earth’s September 2025 Temperature Update, published 23 Oct 2025, began with:
https://berkeleyearth.org/september-2025-temperature-update/
Geoff Miells: “ Killian, to whom is the quote attributed and where was it presented?”
That’s your question? Where he got the facts 9(“3-year average global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C“) whose accuracy NOBODY challenged?
And not the main reason for his post – Killians dismissing the need for longer time-series to be able to make statement about CLIMATE trends ?
And not why your fellow denialist is so similar in his methods and style, to your purported anti-thesis – the deniers?
the similarity in methods: taking a short term period (here 3 years) as undisputable statement on the climatological (i.e a 30-year average) trend:
– deniers taking 3 (or 16) colder years as a proof that the climate is no longer warming
– Killian taking 3 warmer years as a proof that the climate is warming faster than anybody but the doomers have predicted (Killian’s “I have been telling you that for more than a decade now, but you never listen”)
the similarity in style Nah, let’s wait 27 more years before acknowledging reality
Those similarities don’t bother you at all?
Piotr: – “That’s your question?”
Yep. Please stop attempting to misread anything more than that.
Piotr: – “Where he got the facts 9(“3-year average global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C“) whose accuracy NOBODY challenged?”
Perhaps you should re-read my post again. I think this is another example of you misreading and misrepresenting way more than what has been posted.
I think this is another attempt to bully, misrepresent and character assassinate, among a litany of many here by Piotr at RC.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/10/unforced-variations-oct-2025/#comment-840478
Geoff Miell,
The statistic being waved is the ‘3-year average above’ not the ‘third year above’.
And that ‘3-year average for 2023-25 will almost certainly be above +1.5ºC above pre-industrial. This will be entirely due to the “bananas!!” temperatures seen since summer 2023 which pushed the 2023 anomaly up to +1.48ºC and set 2024 up at +1.60ºC (ERA5 SAT numbers).
So through 2025, the annual anomaly would have to drop to below +1.42ºC for the ‘above +1.5ºC’ to be avoided. The Jan-Oct 2025 anomaly is going to be +1.48ºC (ERA5 SAT), requiring Nov-Dec to average below +1.12ºC. That looks very unlikely.
Note that Nov-Dec 2022 averaged +1.03ºC so the present rolling 36-month average is still sub-1.5ºC and, if the “bananas!!” do not ramp up again, this short ‘above +1.5ºC’ period will be but a prelude to its future arrival.
Killian, sure but it isn’t the present multi-decadal trend. You are stating that GHGs are not what has been causing the warming (aka “cherry picking”). I’ve found it weird but not ironic over the years that both Opposing Teams do the exact same thing.
Barry E. Finch: “Killian, sure but it isn’t the present multi-decadal trend.”
Barry, Killian’s WHOLE purpose was to claim that having 3yr average we don’t need the 30-yr trend:
“Nah, let’s wait 27 more years before acknowledging reality.” [(c) Killian]
Barry E. Finch: ” I’ve found it weird but not ironic over the years that both Opposing Teams do the exact same thing.”
I think it is the other way around – it is ironic (that the doomers can’t see their similarities of their methods to those of the deniers), but not weird at all, in fact – anticipated: ” les extrêmes se touchent “, an ideological. sociological, psychological convergence.
Data Doesn’t Do Denial [nor fake skepticism, nor luckwarmerism]
https://www.earthday.org/data-doesnt-do-denial/