The Most Stupid Claims About Climate Change & Covid-19
I was prompted to write this after seeing two online newspaper articles linking climate change to virus epidemics. Some of the claims are truly absurd, and I have reproduced the relevant paragraphs and commented on them.
The first article was from The Intelligencer on April 8th, entitled ‘The Coronavirus Is a Preview of Our Climate-Change Future’.
It begins:
‘COVID-19 is not a climate-change pandemic – as far as we know, nothing about the emergence or spread of the coronavirus bears the recognizable imprint of global warming. But if the disease and our utter inability to respond to it terrifies you about our future staring down climate change, it should, not just as a “fire drill” for climate change generally but as a test run for all the diseases that will be unleashed in the decades ahead by warming. The virus is a terrifying harbinger of future pandemics that will be brought about if climate change continues to so deeply destabilize the natural world: scrambling ecosystems, collapsing habitats, rewiring wildlife, and rewriting the rules that have governed all life on this planet for all of human history.’ (Emphasis added)
All the diseases that will be unleashed by a warmer climate? This is known how exactly?
‘In the future, we may have to reckon also with diseases we believed we already defeated, since in addition to bringing about pandemics of the future, global warming will revive plagues of the past. There are now, trapped in Arctic ice, diseases that have not circulated in the air for millions of years — in some cases, since before humans were around to encounter them. Which means our immune systems would have no idea how to fight back when those prehistoric plagues emerge from the ice.’ (Emphasis added)
So we may have to deal at some point in the future with diseases we thought we had eradicated. Okay fine, but what about diseases that humans have never encountered? The claim is they exist in Arctic ice, but if humans have never seen them…how does anyone know they exist?
‘But there are things we do know for sure about how climate affects some diseases. Malaria, for instance, thrives in hotter regions, which is one reason the World Bank estimates that by 2030, 3.6 billion people will be reckoning with it — 100 million as a direct result of climate change.’ (Emphasis added)
It is assumed the world will continue to warm, and it is estimated that almost a third of the entire human population will be affected by Malaria in ten years time. The figure of 100 million has nothing to support it in the article, so cannot be taken as anything more than someone’s assumption, probably from a computer model, and we know how inaccurate they are.
It continues.
‘The more we pave over and log and deforest the natural world, disrupting stable ecosystems and turning those organisms living happily within them out into the human world, the more diseases, and pandemics, we’ll produce. That is what it means to be living entirely outside the window of climate conditions that enclose all of human history — everything we have ever taken to be stable about our relationship to the planet is thrown into chaos. That chaos will confront us, again and again, with undiscovered disease.’ (Emphasis added)
Another assumption is that there might be many millions of presently-unknown diseases lurking in eco-systems, all itching to be released as the world warms. I look out of my window and I do not see anything that suggests we are ‘…living entirely outside the window of climate conditions that enclose all of human history…’. I see the natural world, that’s it.
The article then turns to bacteria.
‘Perhaps scariest are those that live within us, peacefully for now. More than 99 percent of even those bacteria inside human bodies are currently unknown to science, which means we are operating in near-total ignorance about the effects climate change might have on the bugs in, for instance, our guts — about how many of the bacteria modern humans have come to rely on, like unseen factory workers, for everything from digesting our food to modulating our anxiety, could be rewired, diminished, or entirely killed off by an additional few degrees of heat.’ (emphasis added)
Perhaps? Could be? More assumptions.
I cannot stress this too strongly. If bacteria, or anything for that matter, is unknown to science, HOW DO WE KNOW THEY EVEN EXIST??
The article can be seen here nymag.com [1]
The second article is from that bastion of accurate reporting; The New York Times. It’s article on April 15th as titled ‘Think This Pandemic Is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming’, which starts by bemoaning the fact President Trump refused to allow climate-related policies in the virus stimulus package.
The article states:
‘Pandemics like the coronavirus may occur more often when climate change is unabated. Warming and changing weather patterns shift the vectors and spread of disease. Heavily polluting industries also contribute to disease transmission. Studies have linked factory farming – one of the largest sources of methane emissions – to faster-mutating, more virulent pathogens. The same corporations that exacerbated the climate crisis are literally helping to create deadlier diseases, more quickly, in a world that keeps changing how they spread.’ (Emphasis added)
A study can ‘link’ something to something else, but that is not proof, it is an assumption. When the human form of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) was first identified and named New-Variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, it was ‘linked’ to BSE, but it took 20 years of diligent research to prove BSE had crossed the ‘species-barrier’ into humans.
For reference, CJD is a rare, but known, naturally-occurring human disease, hence why the BSE version was named new-variant.
Viruses may occur more in a warmer world, another assumption, one that is probably wrong, as most known infections fare less well in warmer climates. I stress known, as with anything, you cannot assess the impact of unknown ones, unless your aim is to present supposition as fact, with the intention of frightening the public into accepting ever more government regulation.
The article continues:
‘Similarly, the same populations that are bearing the brunt of the health and economic effects of the coronavirus are the same populations that bear the brunt of fossil fuel pollution — which, in turn, makes them more vulnerable to serious complications.’ (Emphasis added)
‘It’s like we are watching a preview of the worst possible impacts of the climate crisis roll right before our eyes.’
Another assumption that industry is somehow contributing to the spread and virulence of the Covid virus in America, though what the ‘fossil fuel pollution’ is, is not described. The Guardian in Britain also recently blamed ‘factory farming’ for making the Covid virus worse, though provided little in the way of evidence.
The article concludes by saying the only way to ‘save’ the USA from both the ‘climate crisis’ and the Covid virus is to implement the Greed New Deal, and dispense with the current leadership, meaning Socialism is the only way out.
The article can be seen here www.nytimes.com [2]
On April 22nd, the BBC website carried a piece titled Climate change: World mustn’t forget ‘deeper emergency’. The telling quote is this:
‘The links between climate change and the coronavirus have also been highlighted by many observers and experts in the field.’
I am sure it will come as no surprise to see the article does not name any of these people, nor does it explain what these ‘links’ are. The reader is intended to take it as proven fact. It can be seen here:- www.bbc.co.uk [3]
This kind of fear-mongering reporting drives me up the wall, I cannot see any reason for it other than to deliberately misinform the public and create a fear of the natural world. No wonder there has been a significant increase of cases of what has been termed ‘eco-anxiety’.
Climate Change Dispatch carried an appropriate comment in one of their articles a few days ago; ‘For alarmists, there can never be enough hysteria in the world and if there isn’t something real to panic over, apocalyptic forecasts of mass destruction will always suffice.’
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Chris
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Much of the present deforestation is due to those trying to “stop” climate change.
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Dev
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A good expose and example of the cherry picking that AGW skeptics are often accused.
“I cannot stress this too strongly. If bacteria, or anything for that matter, is unknown to science, HOW DO WE KNOW THEY EVEN EXIST??”
Precisely! there is no method of direct observation for bacteria & virus particles. All observations are indirect and based on assumption coloured by historical dogma that ignores pragmatic evaluations such as Koch’s postulates or even the bastardized Rivers postulate in the same way that the Woods experiment wrt the GHE was ignored and displaced by more politically advantageous models and again mirrored throughout climate science.
We have always been inflicted with a top down authoritarian state whatever its guise that has induced and fed this mechanism!
Re: covid. Given the 80% false positive test results and the lack of any real figures demonstrating understanding of the extent of spread which is likely far greater than is reported & which impacts the percentage outcomes, as Ioannidis explains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvWaxuurzQ&feature=emb_title the global mortality rate is similar to a flu year presently with no differentiation of other causes,
It seems incomprehensible and abhorrent that the lives, incomes and economies of much of the world is being sacrificed for what amounts to be a normal flu season as borne out by the facts, & still the hysteria remains. The true power of television programming! Its for our own good!
Where is the dividing line? the number of deaths that would warrant the economic devastation that the lockdown presents?
All for a mortality rate of 200K out of ~7Billion?
What’s that 0.002% mortality resulting in the total destruction of the global economy and well-being of the majority on the planet. Are we living in idiocracy?
That’s not humanitarianism. it is precisely the opposite! That’s intentional co-ordinated incompetence of the highest order with a predetermined solution waiting in the wings. The facts are clear.
The world is not worse off because of invisible unprovable pathogenesis of viral particles.
The world is incalculably worse off because of governments, politicians and other authoritarians and the lemmings that follow them.
If we had an education system rather than an indoctrination system, the outcome would be populations that require no governance.
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Andy Rowlands
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Thanks Dev. In my opinion this whole thing stinks. I rather suspect that as the globalists and eco-fascists had tried and failed to get us to shut the world down to ‘save the planet’, someone somewhere came up with the idea of a ‘killer virus’ and achieved in two months what they had failed to do for the last 20 years. As for the end result, it would seem to be the introduction of vastly increased government control of the population, with the eventual aim of turning us all into good little Communists.
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Dev
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The whole thing stinks. Wholehearted agreement!
The take away for me would be to create a working comparative analogy.
The current UK mortality rate attributed to covid is ~20k out of 67million which is (0.0298%) or 0.03% of the entire population.
If we equated the UK to a factory with 1000 workers.
Even if 30% fell sick for a couple of weeks and only 1 died it would be completely ludicrous beyond belief to shut the factory down putting everyone reliant on an income at risk and that of the infrastructure provided by the factory itself. Other factories would think the factory owner to be bereft of all/any common sense.
Rolled out globally the same analogy is even worse.
I know the figures are not representative but it rams home the utter stupidity if this whole situation.
I wonder what the lawful ramifications are of a parliament with an absent PM being controlled by the bought and paid for idiots controlling policy! now that the illegitimate coronavirus bill in in place and set to run for 2 years and if history is to be judged accurately – will be permanent.
I believe that the bill, based on the misrepresentation of the covid figures, will in time be deemed unlawful, esp when the gross conflict of interests, courtesy of what can only be described as bribery and corruption by the gates foundation of these key government officials.
They really have pulled a fast one and I wont hold my breath for any realistic coverage by any msm outlet.
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Bevan Dockery
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The most Stupid Claim of all time must be the Greenhouse Effect, namely, that atmospheric CO2 causes global warming. The UN IPCC 5th Assessment Report shows twice as much energy per square metre radiating down from the sky, the Greenhouse Effect, as arriving from the Sun. This is a straight out lie. The UN IPCC has been lying to us since inception, followed by the Greens, Extinction Revolution and the socialist left.
All life knows that the Sun heats the Earth’s surface but the human race has chosen to believe otherwise simply because the authorities said so. Yet a walk in the open air soon shows us the truth. Stand in the shade with the open sky above and you will not feel any warmth arriving from the sky, just the local ambient temperature everywhere. Objects in the shade are cool, having the local ambient temperature, showing no sign of any heating from the Greenhouse Effect. Objects out in the Sun are warm on that part receiving the sunshine. Obvious proof that there is no Greenhouse Effect except in a garden greenhouse.
How we all came to accept the false Greenhouse Effect must go down in history as the greatest confidence trick ever imposed on mankind. Get outside and check it out.
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Andy Rowlands
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I completely agree with you Bevan, the whole ‘climate change’ thing is a scam on a level unprecedented in human history.
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JDHuffman
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It’s the nearly complete perversion and corruption of science. We see it in the physical sciences, with AGW, the “big bang”, life on other planets, etc. Now we see it in the medical sciences.
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James McGinn
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James McGinn:
With humans where there is drama there is attention. And attention garners money, rewarding the creators of drama. And now we have the internet providing a low cost, friction free method to deliver the drama, the attention, and the reward.
JDHuffman:
It’s the nearly complete perversion and corruption of science. We see it in the physical sciences, with AGW, the “big bang”, life on other planets, etc. Now we see it in the medical sciences.
James McGinn:
It’s not new. Regardless of whether we label it corruption, perversion, or simply misthinking, false narratives have always been a big part of science. The internet has made it easier to reach the multitude of brain-dead science believers. But there is nothing novel about the stupidity we see in AGW and Coronavirus:
The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329
James McGinn / Genius
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jerry krause
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Hi James,
Finally found the reasoning which you maybe have been refuting these many years about dust devils that maybe has been applied to tornadoes.
In a small 1967 book, ‘Watching for the Wind’ James G. Edinger, a professor at UCLA, had in a chapter titled ‘the ups and downs’ a diagram of a dust devil to explain the mechanism by which it is formed (page 63). And the diagram does not represent any dust devil I have observed. And he obviously was teaching his students what I read in his book.
The issue (mechanism) involved in the natural observed formation and behavior of the dust devil is a most fundamental in all of atmospheric science. How is that for a claim. I plan to generally describe what is commonly observed, given the general conditions necessary for a dust devil to ever develop. Which must begin with our ability to simply measure surface temperatures. Which, the inexpensive thermal IR thermometer introduced to me by JD Huffman has only become commercially available in (maybe) the last decade or less.
So meteorologists and other atmospheric sciences can claim that there missunderstanding is not their fault because this instrumental was not available to them. But this is not true for the NOAA SURFRAD project has been measuring the upwelling IR from the surface. The problem has been that I have read that many here at PSI have argued that this measurement could not be converted to a temperature and even the NOAA scientists who designed the SURFRAD project tended to agree.
And I have recently suggested that JD use his IR thermometer to measure the temperature of an ice cube.
Have a good day, Jerry
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JDHuffman
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Exactly Jerry. An inexpensive IR thermometer can read the temperature of both the ground and an ice cube.
Amazing technology.
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James McGinn
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Jerry:
The issue (mechanism) involved in the natural observed formation and behavior of the dust devil is a most fundamental in all of atmospheric science. How is that for a claim.
James:
Interesting. The smaller water droplets under warm conditions (deserts) are hard, like specks of dust.
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jerry krause
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Hi James,
Even smaller than cloud droplets which behave as specks of solid matter are the atoms and molecules which comprise the majority of the atmosphere’s matter. And yes, it is very interesting.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Jerry:
Finally found the reasoning which you maybe have been refuting these many years about dust devils that maybe has been applied to tornadoes.
James:
Water possesses hidden structural capabilities. These structural capabilities are a consequence of water’s inverse relationship to sheer and tensional forces that underlie these structural properties (we can also describe it as being three-dimensional surface tension [see non-Newtonian fluids for another example of this phenomena]).
When you see a vortice (tornado, dust devil, water spout) you are seeing direct evidence of structural capabilities. Gases do not possess any structural capabilities whatsoever. So, these phenomena are the result of a non-Newtonian capabilities of water that is in the air. These capabilities are hidden to science due to a conceptual error that was introduced by Linus Pauling way back in the 1950s.
I will be putting out a video soon (possibly before summer) that will fully expose and resolve the erroneous thinking that currently prevents us from understanding the emergence of the structural capabilities of vortices, without which we cannot understand vortices as the delivery mechanism of the low pressure energy of storms.
Solving Tornadoes / Woke Meteorology
https://anchor.fm/james-mcginn
James McGinn / Genius
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jerry krause
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Hi James,
The formation of ‘dust devils’ requires very a very dry ‘dusty’ condition.
Have a good day, Jerry
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jerry krause
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Hi James,
You wrote: “These capabilities are hidden to science due to a conceptual error that was introduced by Linus Pauling way back in the 1950s.”
What specifically was Pauling’s conceptual error. Surely you must be able to describe it us who are less than a Genius. And by the way, how did a Genius consider that the formation of a ‘dust devil’ was related to water’s unique properties?
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Jerry:
You wrote: “These capabilities are hidden to science due to a conceptual error that was introduced by Linus Pauling way back in the 1950s.” What specifically was Pauling’s conceptual error. Surely you must be able to describe it us who are less than a Genius.
James:
You and I have already been down this path, Jerry. We got nowhere. My conclusion from previous conversations with you is that your ignorance of QM is an obstacle that even my genius cannot breach.
Why Meteorologists Will Not Discuss or Debate Their Convection Model of Storm Theory
https://anchor.fm/james-mcginn/episodes/Fifth-Episode-Why-Meteorologists-Will-Not-Discuss-or-Debate-Their-Convection-Model-of-Storm-Theory-e9a20l
James McGinn / Genius
Solving Tornadoes / Woke Meteorology
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jerry krause
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Hi Andy,
Awhile back you asked me to keep you posted as to the MOSAiC Expedition that has been occurring in the Arctic Ocean since late September 2019. At (https://follow.mosaic-expedition.org/) the daily progress of the MOSAiC Expedition is not only reported but also Fridjof Nansen’s expedition (to freeze a ship in the Arctic ice in order to drift to the North Pole) begun in 1893 is also reported as he recorded in his diary.
Nansen wrote: “An observation of Capella taken in the afternoon would seem to show that we are in any case not farther north than 80o11’ and this after almost four days’ south wind. Whatever can be the meaning of this? Is there dead-water under the ice, keeping going either forward or backward?” 2/22/1894 The two days later wrote: “Observations today show us to be in 79o54’ north latitude, 132o57’ east longitude. Strange that we should have come so far south when the north or northwest wind only blew for twenty-four hours.” 2/24/1894
These two entries and Nansen wrote nothing that indicates he is aware of a couple observed (known) facts. This morning the present MOSAiC expedition reported about a specific instrument and the observations it had recently made: “Thus, we recorded enhanced mixing rates during a storm event with wind velocities peaking at 18m/s that passed us last week. The wind not only cause heavy blowing snow but also drove strong vertical mixing in the upper 70m of the ocean.”
From the link’s map, on which is shown the drift of the Polarstern, one can follow the slow drift back northward (16/4/2020) to it maximum northward drift (19/4) after which its southward drift suddenly accelerated in its previous southward direction to its present location before the ‘wind event’ began. But don’t miss the fact that the rate of drift has again slowed and has begun to turn right again. So, stay tuned to see if this slight right turn is the beginning of another ‘wind event’.
Oh! I see i have not reported what the two observed (known) facts of which that Nansen seemed unaware were (according to my opinion). Another fact is I want to see if any PSI reader could have helped Nansen. Actually, observed facts can never be an opinion.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy Rowlands
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Thanks Jerry, I shall have a look at that 🙂
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jerry krause
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Hi Andy and Readers,
Andy, even though you evidently found nothing to comment about I continue to follow the MOSAiC Expedition.
As you might know, one of my ‘oet peeves’ is the averaging of actual data that does not need further averaging. Case of the measurement of air temperature which can be continuously measured. There several ways the measured values could be measured and reported.
One is report the temperature measured on the minute. Or, report the temperature measured on the hour. Or, report the averaged temperatures measured during the previous hour. And the reporting of temperature I prefer is to report the average temperature of the previous hour plus the maximum and minimum temperature measured during the previous hour.
Now, in the case of the measure drift of the Polarstern, the latitude and longitude of its position is reported for each day. Which I assume its position to be at the same time each day. These precision of these position are generally reported to the nearest minute. So why not plot these daily positions on the map showing the drift path of the Polarstern? For we can adjust the scale of the map so we can see the detail of this extreme precision.
The distance actually traveled during each day is also reported for each day. The past two days the drift was only 3km each day. But the precise direction of the 3km drifts was not the same. But the plot on the map does not show this zig-zag. It a shows a continuous straight line from the position two days ago to this day’s position.
In my previous comment I drew attention to a previous ‘wind event’ during which the drift is pictured as a triangle. Lost is the daily information that the drift was not a triangle. What the daily zig-zag drift actually was would be easily seen as the directions of the wind during the wind event could be easily seen if the zig-zags had not been averaged into fewer straight lines.
Yes, ‘professional’ scientists with access to this detailed data have the skills to ‘draw’ their own detailed picture (image). But I have enough experience to know that the point to point plot would be a simpler process than ‘smoothing’ little zig-zag into a longer zig-zag after it is learned what the zig-zag of following day was.
And JD Huffman, you maybe believe that details such as these zig-zags are not important. But a fact is these observed zig-zags are fact and the average single line is not. And I accept the wisdom of Louis Elzevir who stated long ago: “intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.” And if one has actually massed thousands of vials to a reproducible few (3 micrograms) you would have learned that such details, which take much time, are necessary if one is to actually learn something from a result of an experiment.
Yes, I am getting discouraged by those who claim to have great scientific knowledge without paying the price of the time required to accurately define in detail the actual system being studied.
Have a good day, Jerry
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