“Bradley is just an old fossil fool of the fossil fuel industry.” (critic, below)
“I am not a ‘troll’ but just believe I have a superior case: that the climate models and climate alarmists are exaggerating–and all of us can be more optimistic and don’t have to ruin our earth with wind turbines and solar panels.” (My Retort)
Last week, the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) published my piece, Inside the Church of Climate. It proved popular, being picked up at WUWT and generating almost one hundred comments.
I am interested in reaching new, even opposing, audiences. I like my arguments and offer a historical view unknown to many followers of the climate debate. I believe that in any fair debate format, the non-alarmists win hands down. And I think that the fossil fuels have a very bright future, the rhetoric and greenwashing aside.
So how would the church-of-climate parishioners respond? To find out, I engaged in an open thread at RealClimate, “climate science from climate scientists.” I knew I was in hostile territory, and so the ad hominem and vitriol that came was not unexpected. (“As a career disinformation professional, Mr. Bradley, what did you hope to accomplish here? Do you really expect any of us will be swayed by your transparently mercenary opinions?” said one.)
—————————–
My start was Comment 12:
Robert Bradley: I’m with Tom Nelson above. Just don’t see the crisis at all and feel like ‘deep ecology’ has made an open scientific question dogmatic. https://www.aier.org/article/inside-the-church-of-climate/
Responses
Susan Anderson: This is a science site run by some of the world’s finest, who have both the skills and the dedication to follow evidence, describe it, and evaluate what is going on. Asserting that reality doesn’t exist is evidence of a lack of ability to use the five senses and exercise critical thinking. At this point, you don’t need “proof”, you need to get out of that hermetically sealed chamber of illusions and pay attention to the world’s weather, to toxic waste, to something – anything – beyond the horizons of the cult of blindness and delusion.
[later] Very interesting. The need to promote disinformation presents a live member of the profiteering by lies class here, much more than a gadfly. For more detail, here:
https://www.desmogblog.com/robert-l-bradley-jr
The Antiscience Movement Is Escalating, Going Global and Killing Thousands – Rejection of mainstream science and medicine has become a key feature of the political right in the U.S. and increasingly around the world
MA Rogers: In your OP that you link-to, you begin by asking the question “How many people here believe that the earth is increasingly polluted and that our natural resources are being exhausted?” Such a question does not well describe AGW which overwhelmingly concerns the impact of warming that would result from rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Yet you answer this question as though CO2 were the cause of “the earth … increasingly polluted and … natural resources … being exhausted” and, without a hint of any climatological consideration, end by quoting climate change denier Alex Epstein so as to then brand AGW mitigation as anti-libertine.
As you fail to set out any climatological argument for unconstrained CO2 emissions, you are perhaps unaware/in-denial of the impact such a policy would have on our planet and on the future for humanity. Imagine CO2 was not warming the world but cooling it. We know what happens when the world cools a few degrees centigrade and this would probably cool down the arguments that a just a few degrees centigrade would have only a minor impact on humanity and its world.
But the world is warming and the problems that would cause if we allowed it are evidently too obscure for the likes of you to comprehend.
You tells us you “just don’t see the crisis at all” and kick off your comment @12 by saying you are “with Tom Nelson” who @7 provides a link to his webpage which sets out so much nonsense that debunking it all would be a herculean task. (Mind, decapitating it is quite a simple process. This paper, Collins et al (2019) ‘Centennial‐Scale SE Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Variability Over the Past 2,300 Years’, according to the first link in the first link, supports the position of swivel-eyed denialists.)
Perhaps you should ask somebody to explain AGW to you rather than mouthing off as though you know what you’re ranting about.
Killian: Why, god, why, do you allow the trolls to troll? We are soooo far past the time when dealing with them gave a positive return. We are past the tipping point on awareness. It serves zero purpose to allow them to continue the Big Lie. The Big Lie, as we *all* know, only benefits the liar. I give you Trump as exhibit A.
Michael Sweet: All the cherry picked references in your Op-Ed piece are from before 2000. You need to update your article with current information. Cherry picking extreme quotes and saying that is the mainstream scientific position does not make sense. Are you a supporter of the insurrection in Washington since you are right wing? We are looking at trillions of dollars of damage to the US economy from sea level rise. That does not include increasing storm and flooding damage inland or drought and fire damage. Millions of people worldwide are already climate refugees. How much damage do you need to pay for before you decide it is a crisis?
Barton Levenson: Well, instead of getting your climate science from aier.org, why not try getting it from the peer-reviewed science literature, or at least from textbooks?
CC Holley: haha…Robert Bradley, of Enron fame, chimes up in support of another old fossil of the climate denying fossil fuel shill gang. Poor Bradley can only manage to earn an amoral living by supporting the dying fossil fuel industry. I suppose losers tend to gravitate to losing teams.
And the fossil fuel industry is losing.
Regardless of *belief* in science green energy is cheaper today in most of the world and these costs continue to decline rapidly. As for new generating capacity expected to go on line in the US this year 80% will be green, 4% nuclear, and only 16% natural gas. New coal is certainly dead and green is clearly on the rise.
Not only that, electric cars are without a doubt the future. Period. All major auto producers are moving in that direction regardless of government intervention (note Tesla sold over double last years first quarter volume first quarter this year with no government incentives.) Why? Because electric cars are simply better and the only impediment, cost, is declining rapidly.
As for government intervention in the *hoax* the API now endorses government backed market based solutions to the climate crisis as does the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Round Table. “The risks of climate change are real,” API’s annual report.
haha, must be some mighty good hoax for those prestigious business organizations to get on board. Bradley is just an old fossil fool of the fossil fuel industry.
Mal Adapted: Lol. As a career disinformation professional, Mr. Bradley, what did you hope to accomplish here? Do you really expect any of us will be swayed by your transparently mercenary opinions? Not counting Tom Nelson, who appears to be a volunteer science-denier.
My Retort (#27)
Lots of criticism. I could not cover everything in that one post except that “just because change is anthropogenic and not natural, that means it is bad.” The Malthusians have substituted “livable climate” as their new “depleting resource.”
Here is another post that questions the climate alarm: And one on the physical limits of renewables. On Enron, I fought against the company’s fake profit-centered climate alarmism.
Lots here–I am not a “troll” but just believe I have a superior case that the climate models and climate alarmists are exaggerating–and all of us can be more optimistic and don’t have to ruin our earth with wind turbines and solar panels.
Final Comment
I’m a climate optimist, given a classical liberal order, who marvels at the self-deception of doomsayers. It is not hard to see their exaggerations and alarm and the benefits of CO2. Surely for cheering up, if for no other reason, the parishioners should open their minds. And ring the bell of celebration. Life is not a slow-motion funeral procession.
Under virtually any humanistic standard, fossil fuels are the solution, not the problem–and wind and solar as primary energies are the real environmental enemy.