U.N.: We Have Just 12 Years to Prevent Global Warming Catastrophe

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

UN: We have just 12 years to prevent global warming catastrophe
Fallacies in the climate change story
Fallacy #1 in climate change story: Ignoring war
Fallacy #2 in climate change story: Technology

UN: We have just 12 years to prevent global warming catastrophe

China’s largest open-pit coal mine is in Inner Mongolia and is estimated to contain 1.7 billion tons of coal. It has an estimated life of 75 years. (MiningGlobal)

According to a new report issued on Monday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change scientists are saying that the world is approaching climate change catastrophe much faster than climate change scientists have said in the past.

In the past, the climate change scientists were saying that the temperature of the earth would increase by 3 degrees by 2100, if nothing changes. They said in the past that we have to cut carbon emissions so that the temperature of the earth would only increase by 2 degrees. But according to Monday’s report, even a 2-degree increase leads to world catastrophe.

Typical media headlines read, “UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning” and “Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn” and “Trump ‘poses the single greatest threat’ to our climate, bombshell UN report makes clear.”

What to do? The BBC World Service interviewed Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat and a key architect of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement. Figueres was asked what people should do now, and she listed “four things that we all can do”:

Give up eating meat. “The production of animals leads to climate change.”
Transport: use public transportation, or walk or ride a bike. “Transport is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases. and we all need to make a better job at that.”
Investors: you have a “huge responsibility” to invest in supporting low carbon products and services.
Politics: You can vote for politicians that support climate change policy.

Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Treaty because, among other things, it allows China, the biggest polluter in the world, to continue polluting while imposing enormous financial burdens on the United States and Western Nations.

The principal purpose of the Climate Change Treaty is to specify money payments from “developed countries,” like the United States, to “developing countries” like Costa Rica. Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican diplomat, so we can assume that Costa Rica will benefit financially from the treaty, and she may even personally benefit financially from the treaty. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CNN and Vox and Mining Global

Fallacies in the climate change story

Climate change treaty supporters like to claim that anyone who disagrees with them is denying established facts.

So let’s assume that all the climate change assumptions are true:

Global warming is occurring.
Global warming is caused by increased carbon emissions.
Increased carbon emissions are caused by human activity.
If nothing changes, then the earth’s temperature will increase by 3 degrees by 2100.

Let’s assume that all of this is true. Then there are still major fallacies in the climate change argument.

There are two major flaws in the climate change argument that I have pointed out on several cases to climate change advocates. They do not make any attempt to respond. If they had a response, they would respond.

Fallacy #1 in climate change story: Ignoring war

The climate change scientists say that if nothing changes, then the earth’s temperature will increase by 3 degrees. We are assuming that is true, but the climate change scientists are failing to take into account things that will certainly change.

First, there is war. There were two world wars in the last century, as well as numerous other massive wars (Russian civil war, Spanish civil war, Cambodian civil war, Rwandan genocide, etc.) on every continent, and in every region.

The 20th century was not unique. In every century for millennia, there have been massive wars on every continent in every region, such as China’s Taiping rebellion, Africa’s Mfecane, India’s sepoy rebellion, the 30 years war, 100 years war, and so forth.

It is certain that there will be massive wars, including one or two world wars, before 2100. A world war in the 21st century could kill 20-50 percent of the population through nuclear war, ground war, starvation, and disease. Since we are assuming that carbon emissions are caused by human activities, that means that carbon emissions will be reduced by 20-50 percent.

Many climate change scientists will not even consider this, but it completely blows away their theories. If you don’t believe me, then ask them about it, and see them duck the question.

Fallacy #2 in climate change story: Technology

There are probably hundreds of thousands of companies, big and small, around the world, developing solutions to carbon emissions, because everyone knows that a working solution will make billions of dollars. In the United States, emissions are down to their lowest point since 1991, thanks to many new technologies, including everything from fracking to better windmills to better batteries.

Several years ago, when thousands of East Anglia e-mail messages by climate change scientists were hacked, I did a search for the word “Singularity,” and it never appeared once. Even if one rejects that the Singularity will occur, there will still be nanotechnologies, materials technologies, advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, and lots of new technologies that will tackle the emission problem.

So go ahead and ask climate change scientists how new technologies will affect their climate change predictions. What they will answer is: Climate change is 100 percent certain, and world war is 100 percent impossible, and new technologies are irrelevant.

At the start, I said we would assume that all the climate change scientist conclusions are true, including the one that says that if nothing changes, then the earth’s temperature will increase by 3 degrees.

Well, we have identified two changes that are certain and will affect their conclusions: technology and war.

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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, climate change, Christiana Figueres, Costa Rica
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