“The climate profession needs a serious reboot.”
The above fronted my repost of Michael Shellenberger’s article, “Caught Pushing an Apocalyptic Scenario They Knew Couldn’t Occur, Climate Scientists Are Now Claiming Their Policies Prevented It.” His article came with the subtitle, “Clique of stealth activists, including the former head of the National Academies of Science, claimed a high-emissions future was possible long after it had been falsified.”
Noel Cass
Attracting more than a thousand impressions, my repost led to 50 comments, several belonging to Noel Cass, a research fellow at University of Leeds. Cass describes his work here:
I am a researcher focussing on the social and political aspects of energy systems and everyday life. I have researched areas including environmental audits of organisations, tourism and travel, everyday life and travel practices, public engagement with renewable energy technologies, the ethical implications of nuclear power and options for radioactive waste management, the social exclusion implications of transport policies on congestion and climate change, climate change policy in local authorities in the UK, the energy demands of the built environment, later focussing on office building designs, and the implications of changing office work practices.
Bradley/Cass Exchange
Does Noel Cass question climate alarm and/or UK energy policies that drive up rates while having no effect on global climate? No! Our exchange follows:
Cass: So, when the Montreal Convention stopped ozone destruction, does that make it a ‘scam’ to point out that coordinated international cooperation and environmental protection legislation averted catasrophe? If we hadn’t started to rein in emissions from the 90s, things would be a lot worse now. And incidentally, the positive feedback loops we are still facing will likely make climate change runaway and catastrophic anyway.
Bradley: Your analogy fails because CO2 is not a pollutant (criteria pollutants are) and climate mitigation policies are futile, wasteful, and do not affect global or local climate change. Adaptation with energy affordability and reliability is the imperative.
Cass: No, it applies, because climate change also needs coordinated international legislation to ban chemicals from the atmosphere. Mitigation is essential, if we continue fucking the planet up then adaptation will simply get more expensive and imposible. You turn off the taps before mopping the floor. All mitigation policies and behaviour changes and demand reduction strategies – EVERY SINGLE ONE – saves GhGs and reduces how fucked our children, grandchildren and descendents’ lives are, or if they can even exist. Your institute sounds like a waste of energy and oxygen.
Bradley: No, CO2 is not a pollutant. Climate model scenarios showing harm are not demonstrative because such models are causality-deficient and not testable. CO2 Science is real science–and indicative to CO2 being a positive externality.
Bradley: Also note the abject failure to regulate CO2 versus the results of the Montreal Convention. Hint, hint….
Bradley: Also, control your anger and emotions. Stop being vulgar. You sound like Betsy Rosenburg, who I criticize here.
Humility, Please
After my replies, Cass added a ‘funny’ motif without a substantive response. His disappearance is par for many alarmists who cannot refute the criticism and rest on confirmation bias of the intellectual elite and political class. He knows he is right and that the rest of us are wrong and driven by bad intentions. Wrong. His life work is, arguably, misdirected. And if he were to question the governmental energy paradigm, he would probably lose his job. He is emotionally committed, as shown by his vulgarities.
A comment by David Jordan put his own critic (and others like Cass above) on notice.
Your rhetoric is amusing to the majority of people who are astounded at the ego trips of the climate change sector. Just because you believe your cause is just – does not mean that your opinion is superior to everyone else. Climate science is a grouping – not a specialist science and climate scientists are not the Kings and Queens of science. You might all want to learn some humility instead of lording over everyone. Science is a contest of ideas and if climate scientists cannot take the heat – stay out of the kitchen.
What a shame that the UK is ruining its economy and exploiting its citizens for the symbolism of Net Zero. It is (past) time for the victims to stand up to the elites. The emperor has no clothes.
Appendix: Other MasterResource/LinkedIn Posts
Betsy “Code Green” Rosenberg: Emotional Climatism (September 3, 2026)
Should “Deniers” Participate in Climate Debates? (Manfredi Fiorillo says No) June 1, 2026
Climate/Energy Debate: Tom Trounce Goes Low (June 8, 2023)
Colin Hunt Goes Nuclear (March 14, 2023)
An Exchange with Michael Webber (UT- Austin) on the February 2021 Texas Blackouts (February 15, 2023)
“Cognitive Dissonance” and Climate Change: A Takedown (February 7, 2023)
A Typical Exchange with a Climate Alarmist/Forced Energy Transformationist (October 25, 2022)
An Exchange on Climate Alarmism/Forced Energy Transformation (August 31, 2022)
Fossil Fuel Subsidies Historically Considered (December 8, 2021)
Paul Bryan on Steven Koonin: Cancel Culture at Work (October 6, 2021)
In and Out of LinkedIn Jail (November 17, 2022)
Rob, this screed against Joel Crass is apropos a cartoon of you ranting at your image in a mirror. This defines you as I have witnessed just a few hours ago:
“His disappearance is par for many [deniers] who cannot refute the criticism and rest on confirmation bias of the [arrogant] elite and [oligarch-wanna-be] class.”
But a stiff CEO wouldn’t understand for your hubris, arrogance, delusional self-image.
Yours is a pathetic sisyphus treadmill akin to mental masturbation, repeatedly spewing baseless ‘ad hominem’ negativity lacking positive constructive citations and “receipts.”
I’d like you to ponder explaining your self description “classical liberal” in context with the multi-million dollar web of dark money nefarious activity you engage in.
CEO level positions demand better than your crafty word salad, embarrassing flaccid ejaculations meant to demean and bully—having the opposite effect exposing your inability to back up your libelous smear. You are a pubic discrase. Anybody reading this blog can see through the bluster. CEO CON INDEED! A daily blogger at best.
I don’t see any constructive outcome of accepting your request to connect on LinkedIn. Explain your web of dark money that I exposed on your Betsy diatribe and I will consider hearing you out 🙏
I assume you are referring to Noel Cass rather than Joel Crass (your “cartoon”?).
Your comment is a “rant” — and grotesque with your ‘masturbation’ analogy.
If your comment (screed?) is real, I rest my case and offer the open-minded reader a third example (you) of a troubled mentality. Scholarship please!
Rob those of us who are altruistic AND steeped in the science of climate breakdown know that the most vulgar part of our very real #Climatecrisis is the obscene profits being reaped every day—especially since trump’s war of whim—by the fossil fuel industry and their well-paid PR shills. You’ve never answered whether you have kids but if you do, imagine how you’d feel about someone or industry that was harming your children, knowingly, while being paid well to do so. You wouldn’t feel any emotions? If not you’re missing a heart & conscience!!
Wrong on all counts, but I will repeat my rebuttal. First, you seem to think that good intentions make you correct. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, what you do not give me, and assume you are well-intentioned. Two quotations from Milton Friedman: ““One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” And ““Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” Climate mitigation policies, increasing energy costs and reducing reliability, is anti-consumer and contradicts “social justice”. And for what? No appreciable effect on global climate.
Second, I know physical climate science as well as you, probably better. (I have a long history of working with the former head of the Texas A&M Meteorology Department, Gerald North). And I also understand CO2 Science, which proves the benefits of CO2 via laboratory conditions (real science, vs. climate models). I also specialize in the history and outcomes of government intervention into energy markets, which is where climate policy has done a lot of damage.
Your following statement is vague and shrill: ” …the most vulgar part of our very real #Climatecrisis is the obscene profits being reaped every day—especially since trump’s war of whim—by the fossil fuel industry and their well-paid PR shills.” Please stay on the arguments and leave your emotions and politics at the door.
Finally, as I have said before, I have children and grandchildren and totally reject your false, below-the-belt conclusion. Again, read the opening two quotations.
How much could you possibly know about the climate crisis when you 1) don’t even acknowledge this existential threat?!? 2) all you do is tout the wonderfulness of Co2 while ignoring all the negative impacts 3) and leave my politics at the door?? Guess you don’t understand who politicized climate change in the first place, your science challenged party! Why are all climate deniers republicans or libertarians?? Its a physical issue and your fossil fuel friendly polluting party has remained woefully in the dark (ages🔥) if you do have kids and grandkids why don’t they understand science? Have they been brainwashed or are Texas schools not teaching the truth? As my friend Doug Grandt revealed you are paid to lie by tainted Koch, etc. billions to distort reality. THAT is whats truly vulgar.! Both of us were trained by VP Gore 20 years ago and I’ve been interviewing climate scientists and environmental experts for 3 decades. What were you doing 3 decades ago? A flack for the disgraced Enron? I rest my case.
I will once again answer you Betsy with a respectful tone and assume you are well intentioned. Please show me the same respect.
First, Statism is the ‘existential threat’, not physical climate change. This is where economics and political economy come into the analysis. There are pluses and minuses to the human influence on climate, and the opportunity is for wealth-is-health free markets to ameliorate the negative and capitalize on the positives. Alex Epstein calls this ‘climate mastery.’
Your repeated ad hominem and emotional anger make you look more and more fringe. This is why I am documenting your excesses, which you do not seem to be able to shake.
No, I have not been ‘brainwashed’–I know the arguments at a high level on both sides of the debate–and have since the 1990s with a track record that you know very little about.
I have repeatedly asked you whether you were taught by any critics of climate alarm/forced energy transformation at Cal Berkley or the Al Gore training sessions. You refuse to answer because … there were none! So a critic can accuse you of being ‘brainwashed’ with such a one-sided education.
When will Democrats favor consumers against higher energy prices from climate policies? Social justice? Climate exaggeration and inferior energies are not in the interest of anyone but those of the Climate Industrial Complex.
Why should I respect anyone who is being paid (handsomely I’m sure) to lie, spin, distort the actual science (not your science fiction) to the public for decades, as the climate crisis worsens by the day?!?
As for your question about my education at Cal I studied journalism and psychology not environmental science which wasn’t really a thing at the time. My psych classes taught me about projection which you and yours have mastered: accusing us of what you are guilty of, its SO obvious! Climate Industrial Complex? No such thing but nice projecting there! Journalism taught me how to pursue facts and report the truth in an unbiased way. It wasn’t until years later after learning about “global warming” from the best scientists that I took Gore’s Climate Reality training. Nearly everything he/they predicted has come to pass only much sooner and faster!
But maybe you haven’t noticed all the record breaking “weather” trends, hard to imagine given the stats and lived reality for millions. But somehow you and your small but vocal tribe know more than 99.9% of experts.
So how do YOU explain all the unprecedented extreme events if not from all the greenhouse gasses being spewed into the atmosphere? Thats not rocket science.
Any more questions or are we done here?
Just once again, ad hominem attacks (which I have repeatedly asked you to end) and a vague appeal to authority.
Your ‘cinch’ argument on recent weather events begs the question of causality–and weather events outside of this summer. Science is not based on anecdotal evidence but on time-series data and the causality behind it. Also, too-quick conclusions such as concerning the Napal flood backfire–and did in your case. Exaggeration backfires, a reason for alarm fatigue among the general public on this and other neo-Malthusian issues.
So the answer is “no” regarding any formal education on the weak points of climate alarm and forced energy transformation? On knowing the benefits of CO2 enrichment? On the perils of political solutions and global governance? A critic can conclude that you are too emotionally involved and just don’t want to dare be optimistic about future climate in a free society. Again, Statism is the ‘existential threat,’ not physical climate change.
Betsy, you are wasting your time with this HIGH FALUTIN’ C.E.O. of a Nothing Burger Blog.
An argument in an empty room is the SOUND OF SILAGE to the whoards of unfolloweres.
Can’t ewe see them not cuming to his defiance? (excuse the intensional typoes and jabs)
I have been blocked from replying Rob’s retorts he thought were his coups de grâce … fin!
Remember the aphorism about the tree falling in the words. There is no audience here.
Just the echoing sound of silence ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ∞
“I have been blocked from replying Rob’s retorts…. No blocks that I know of. Your rest of your comment is non-substantive.