By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~
Ever since she splashed into view I have wondered about Greta Thunberg’s reasoning. Her quoted statements, blasting the world for not doing the impossible, have given no clue where she is coming from.
Now, thanks to some detailed published statements of hers, from the World Economic Forum in Davos, I have my answer. It turns out she is hotly embracing not one, but two, howling fallacies. No wonder she sounds nuts.
To begin with, she cites the IPCC report on climate change from 2018, which claims we have only a few years left to act if there’s a 67% chance of keeping the global temperature rise from now to below 0.5 degrees C. (She, like everyone else, talks about a rise of 1.5 degrees, but the IPCC says that 1.0 degrees has already happened, which she knows.) If she said a half a degree people might laugh.
She says this is “not an opinion”, that it is THE science. Which is the first fallacy. What the IPCC writes is of course just an opinion and a highly contested one at that. It is nothing but model-based speculation, which is contradicted by real evidence.
But hey, lots of alarmists buy the IPCC stuff and they are not yelling that our planetary house is on fire. Getting to that point is Thunberg’s second, and far bigger, fallacy. She has decided that another half degree of global warming is the threshold to catastrophe.
Mind you she gives no actual reasons here. It appears to be a pure leap of faith. She mentions in passing some apparently dreadful things like tipping points and unknown feedbacks, but nothing specific. The IPCC certainly does not suggest any such hidden cataclysmic triggers.
She even says, “Either we prevent temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees (Celsius), or we don’t. Either we avoid chain reaction of unravelling ecosystems, or we don’t.” It sounds like one follows from the other but it doesn’t.
This is the first I have heard of a chain reaction of unraveling ecosystems, especially one triggered by tiny warming (just half of what we supposedly have already seen.) I am sure the IPCC has never mentioned this demon or we would all have heard of it.
So there it is. She starts with the questionable IPCC and then simply leaps into the abyss but she calls it, “THE science”. There is no science here. In fact, there is no reasoning that I can see. In logic this is called argument by assertion.
The IPCC report merely addressed the relatively mundane question “What is the difference between 1.5 degrees of total warming (0.5 to come) and 2.0 degrees?” This question arises because the Paris Accord includes both targets. It says we want to hit 2.0 but get below it toward 1.5 if possible. In no case is 1.5 a target.
Given that 2.0 is the basic target, it is perfectly clear that 1.5 is not the threshold to catastrophe. In fact the report says that while holding to 1.5 is better, the difference is small. This is why the UN has not proposed dropping the 2.0 degree target. All of which contradicts Greta Thunberg’s claims. The report she cites simply does not support her outlandish position. No wonder the CLINTEL people say there is NO emergency.
To recap, there are two fallacies in her reasoning. Let’s call them the IPCC fallacy and the Thunberg fallacy. The IPCC fallacy is thinking that humans control global temperature. The Thunberg fallacy is thinking that a mere half degree of future warming is the threshold to catastrophe, to the point of threatening human existence. Unfortunately her followers have embraced her delusion.
The IPCC fallacy is well established and widespread, including among many scientists. It is the basis for the Paris Accord. It is moderate in its way. The Thunberg fallacy is new and nuts. In fact it is tearing the alarmist community apart, which is fine by me. Although like all forms of madness, the Thunberg fallacy bears watching, lest it get out if control.
Greta Thunberg and her followers are calling for rapidly rebuilding the global energy system, while also completely restructuring the world’s economic, social and political systems. All this turmoil in the name of limiting future global warming to one half a degree. It does not get any crazier than that.
David Wojick contributes Posts at the CFACT site. He is a journalist and policy analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy.
Read more excellent articles at CFACT http://www.cfact.org/
JCscuba
Mon 01/27/2020
She is a sick young woman with many mental and physical disorders that I covered here.
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gds44
Mon 01/27/2020
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
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oldbrew
Sun 01/26/2020
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
People will be more than sorry if they allow these fanatics to have their own way.
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nickreality65
Sun 01/26/2020
All of this is moot and past time to be mute. Carbon dioxide and the other GHGs are responsible for nothing relevant to warming the atmosphere, climate or weather.
By reflecting away 30% of the ISR the terrestrial albedo, sustained by the atmosphere, makes the earth cooler than it would be without that albedo/atmosphere. Remove the atmosphere and the earth receives 30% more kJ/h getting warmer not colder and becomes much like the moon in complete refutation of the greenhouse effect.
Because of the non-radiative heat transfer properties of the terrestrial surface BB LWIR radiative energy upwelling from the surface is not possible. There is zero “extra” energy for the GHGs to “trap.”
The surface is warmer than ToA per Q = U A dT same as the insulated envelope of a house.
If the above statements are correct the greenhouse effect does not exist.
Zero GHE, Zero GHG warming, Zero CAGW.
It’s that simple.
It’s all science.
It’s all over.
Nick Schroeder, BSME CU ‘78
Colorado Springs, CO
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Chaswarnertoo
Mon 01/27/2020
See also Connolly and Connolly, radiosonde data. No greenhouse effect exists.
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Lawrence Morra
Sun 01/26/2020
Anytime I see this kids face I think how is a Twilight Zone kind of world we have going where a little parrot with absolutely ZERO qualifications obviously working for the leftist agenda NWO communist demons of our adult world who have this child spewing nothing but repetitive data as though she is someone that knows what she is talking about and yet she has absolutely nothing, I mean nothing to say or anything to base her childish wild conjectures about Global Atmospheric Science on, or for that matter any area of scientific knowledge that follows at least the simple axiom of deductive logic and quantitative deep research analysis of tried and proven factual evidence! This is so boring and actually stupid that this amount of media hype and time is given to this asinine BS in our societies or public consciousness when we all should be putting all of our attention on things that matter and not this entire continuous dribble being spewed by a punk kid via the corrupted politically biased MSM! Please shut her up and the whole damn leftist propaganda machine; I’m already sick of them all long ago and was never impressed or fooled by any of it!
But thank you for pointing out once again how ridiculous and idiotic this kid and her backers are!
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arfurbryant
Sun 01/26/2020
Great comment.
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Lawrence Morra
Sun 01/26/2020
Thank you! I could be off a bit or went off a bit, but I don’t think so really! Many things are not what they appear to be and some things are exactly as crazy as they appear to be! Living in an upside down PC, Over the Top, Lost in Space Society! I grew up in a much better world and it might have gotten a bit tough or course at times but we learned how to navigate in the real world better that way and not whine or look for someone to fix things for us all the time! Like my Dad would say you have to grow up sometime and toughens you up to go through the ups and downs; and especially learned that the world didn’t revolve around me, and not everyone is a winner for just showing up! Learned that rewards and opportunities came to those who were willing to put in the effort and work for them!
This Greta I believe has to already have a messed up head and I can only imagine what difficulties she will have in the future.
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willingwheeling
Sun 01/26/2020
Reblogged this on Willing Wheeling.
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