I’m not a climatologist but I do think about the climate. Climate is a regulator of the biome and all the fungi, plants and animals in the woods that surrounds me. And, really, I can hardly help but think about climate. It has been forced on me by an American media who would have me think of little else but climate during interludes between constant coverage of the nefarious President Trump.

PART ONE HERE

All discussion of climate bifurcates rapidly into two schools, I think: 1) Educate yourself and apply reason or 2) Leave it to experts. If option two appeals to you, then there’s little for you here. Our media seem torn on this matter though. They offer endless climate “education” but one wonders why would they bother teaching about the climate when their audience is not capable of comprehending any of it and should just leave it to experts anyway? Could it be that, in reality, the purpose of most climate writing is to slander non-believers, confirm the righteousness of their followers, and supply ammunition for attacks against climate heretics?

And it’s this form of climate “education” that sometimes elicits a backlash from otherwise mild-mannered writers, such as myself.

So, again, I’m a non-expert but I am firmly in the aforementioned, “Educate oneself and apply reason” camp.  I think civilizations become very dark and dangerous places when we depart this ideal. It’s how we get group-think, mobs, cults and socialism.

And if I’m not going to simply imbibe the explanations handed down by experts, then I’m going to have questions. I’ll share some of my primary questions here, the things that just spring quickly to mind, but I’m not going to assume any answers. I’d just like to share a few of the things that roll around in my head when I’m confronted with something that feels like dogma, sounds like Big Brother and often smells like Teen Spirit.

Along with choice thoughts on climate, please enjoy a photo montage of recent mushrooming in the Pennsylvania forest.

The first of these questions shouldn’t even bear mentioning, but does:

The climate echo chamber of the media fore-warns of increased hurricanes, floods, tornadoes desertification, loss of photogenic animals, more rainy days, catastrophic sea level rise and a future not worth living for. Why does climate prognostication always seem to focus on those things people most fear? There have to be things we would find rather nice about a two degree C rise in average temperatures (ask any Canadian outside of Ottawa). Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about these?

Why the constant call to leave the thinking to experts? Does this raise suspicion for anyone else?

What are social justice types, organized labor, and outright socialists doing in a movement ostensibly all about earth science, the climate and ecosystems?

It seems likely that students only enter the field of climatology to aid in the currently glamorous climate crusade. How does this skew the science from the outset?

We hear much about corporate contributions to Republican politicians and right-leaning think tanks. This is ostensibly a problem because these figures and entities have been “bought.” But how much is climate science skewed by the billions available from government and corporate sources?

There seems to be a desperate need for conformity within climate research. How is this possible or desirable when evaluating the interplay of almost infinite variables?

Weather forecasts are built through the use of statistical models. Climate forecasts are also built through the use of statistical model runs. Weather forecasts are not highly accurate beyond about 5 days. Why would we trust models that try to merge thousands of variables, predict chaos and give us forecasts for the next 40,000 days or so?

Where does the passion come from in climate media and climate education? Is that a feature of disinterested science?

What use does the term “climate denier” serve? Isn’t this a sign that we’re dealing with social issues and politics rather than earth science?

Why don’t we hear about the environmental flourishing  (predominately, reforestation) taking place around the globe currently in this age of purported climate doom?

Why do climate advocates typically forget to discuss the time frame when discussing warming? Isn’t that essential to any discussion of whether the planet is warming? Are we talking about over the last week, the last decade or the last hundred thousand years?

Why would the left push so hard for continued and escalating global warming research and abatement funding unless it tended to enrich them?

Nothing is so normal on this planet as a changing climate. Shouldn’t environmentalists become worried if they were to find that the climate is not changing?

The sun is the primary source of energy for all that moves on our planet. Why would climate advocates want to minimize discussion of the sun?

The temperature of the earth has been warming since the last glacial maximum. We must remember that we’re not debating warming per se but what degree of that warming man is responsible for. We don’t know what the temperature of the earth is “supposed to be” right now. How can we possibly know how much of that unknown is anthropogenic?

Science does not tell us which are morally right and which are morally wrong solutions. We’ve been told to accept eugenics, Naziism, a severely distorted food pyramid, the eradication of Buffalo, socialism, many pharmaceuticals that led to sickness and death and Soviet methods of production all in the name of science. Will science really give the answers that are right for climate change or will social engineers make use of convenient bits of science to bring about their utopia? What does history suggest?

Why the continued anti-U.S. sentiment from the left when the U.S. leads the world in reduction of CO2 emissions? (This has much to do with shale gas.)

The U.S. pollutes far less than India, Indonesia or China and the trend lines run in a better direction. Why does the U.S. bear the brunt of climate wrath?

Socialists manifestly want to control what you eat, what you drive, how you use your money, how you protect yourself, your health care options, where you can live, what you can build and how you use your property. How much do they value an orthodoxy which allows them to control everything?

The “arguments” from the left quickly become ad hominem when challenged. Which science does this derive from?

Most  of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor which makes up 95% of greenhouse gasses. Have you ever heard this on the evening news?

About three hundredths of a percent of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide and something in the neighborhood of three thousandths of a percent is man-made carbon dioxide. Why is this perspective not primary?

Why aren’t climate advocates thrilled with the carbon emissions progress we’ve made through deep shale development?

Why won’t environmentalists embrace zero carbon emission nuclear energy, if this really is all about the climate and CO2?

When was the last time you heard the climate literati acclaim the regeneration of American forests, what this means for carbon sequestration and what elevated atmospheric CO2 means for further catalyzation of forest growth?

Why do so many of the most outspoken voices in the climate spotlight live vastly more carbon-intensive lives than the rest of us, if they really believe what they’re preaching?

Do the ubiquitous charts of emissions rather than charts of atmospheric composition better support a pre-defined narrative?

We should leave this all strictly to climatologists? The questions being addressed seem multi-disciplinary. What about others with pertinent input such as oceanographers, economists, astronomers, physicists, paleontologists, demographers, geologists, the range of biologists, dendrologists, hydrologists, and chemists?

Why has climate marketing and indoctrination shifted toward children and the captive audiences at universities?

Why the attacks on dissenters rather than welcoming debate on an endlessly multifarious subject?

Why does the left produce propaganda aimed at everyday people and then say that we should just listen to experts for the correct climate answers?

Why the emotional appeals such as skinny polar bears, native children who are losing their way of life or tying every natural disaster to the climate, if it’s actually all about science?

Why are ice losses mentioned in isolation rather than in historical context or in the context of historical total accumulated ice?

Why doesn’t the media mention the record cold that pushed Great Lakes ice thickness and coverage to near record levels in 2014 and 2015? Or the corresponding cold around the northern hemisphere during these winters (Europe certainly dealt with it as well.)?

During years of extreme North American rainfall, why is no-one interested in making the rather obvious connection between higher rainfall and cooler temperatures?

Post 2000, the “imperiled” polar bear became the mascot of the global warming movement. Why don’t we hear about the multi-decadal and circumpolar increase in polar bear numbers?

Why is it definitely not climate, just weather when we point out record-breaking cold but it’s suddenly all about climate when we experience record heat?

2019 will be a near-record cold year for the U.S. out of the last 120 years. Resorts in the American west offered skiing for the Fourth of July. How many times have you heard this?

Why do we hear about massive ice loss from Greenland but not snow and ice accrual to those same glaciers?

Why don’t we hear about the glaciers that were receding during the 1800’s, long before the atmosphere was greatly enriched with CO2?

How did the 1930’s become the hottest U.S. decade, by far, when atmospheric CO2 levels were so much lower?

Climatologists like to talk about ice loss in the arctic. Why are they so much less interested in the antarctic?

Why do the people pushing climate dogma generally hail from the worst environmental places (cities) and lecture those living in far healthier environments about why they must change their ways?

If CO2 is essential to plant growth (the more, the better) why have we been led to think of it as a pollutant?

There are infinite variables to be discussed within a climate model for the planet. Yet, people have neatly bifurcated into two opposing camps. Doesn’t this indicate that we’re dealing with politics rather than earth science?

If we perceive a bias in our media and academy in favor of anthropogenic global warming and the incumbent illiberal “solutions,” isn’t if fair to assume that evidence to the contrary would never see the light of day?

PART ONE HERE