Ignorance is scarier than climate change

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Sept 23

RE: Nukes are less scary than climate change.  Op-ed by Rama Singh, Professor Emeritus in Biology at McMaster University.  The Hamilton Spectator 14 Sept 23.

The article by Rama Singh shows that even university professors, when speaking outside of their field of expertise, can sometimes be no better than the rank amateur.  His comments about the scariness of climate change make a case in point.

He says, quiet contrary to the facts, that global temperatures are “rising fast and are the result of the burning of fossil fuels…”  Insofar as global average temperature is concerned, the best measurements available are those from satellites, and they show no fast rise, globally.  Temperatures seemed to have roughly plateaued since 1999, and even the “hottest summer on record” was exceeded in temperature in February, 2016.

So, temperatures aren’t rising dramatically and consistently.  As for the burning of fossil fuels being the cause of global warming, this canard is readily discredited, but is nevertheless held up out of a need to believe it in the climate science community.  Much of their funding depends upon this belief.  The fact is, there is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature.  And it’s not simply that CO2 is one effect offset by others; the greenhouse effect of CO2 is maxed out at about 100 ppm concentration.  Adding more doesn’t contribute to the capture of more IR radiation.

Lastly, Professor Singh says that global warming is bad.  Well, what’s his evidence for that?  Is the climate we currently have the best possible?  What about that of 1979? Or of 1936? Or the Holocene Climatic Optimum? Serious thought hasn’t been given to this question of what makes climate change necessarily all for the worse?

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