A dissenting view on global climate change

The Evolution of an Energy Contrarian

“…The numbers (whose source I do not remember), as well as the projected outcomes, are amazingly close to what is currently promoted as scientific consensus, with which I and my colleagues in the anti-alarmist camp now strenuously disagree (22). The 1971 paper, in every other way, exudes technological optimism.…”

“…Based on these inputs and my reading of the relevant literature, I have made my own rather inexpert contributions to this critical debate (22,42,43). First, I do not find the evidence convincing that the global temperature variations of the recent past are traceable to human activities, rather than being random variations typical of those experienced during the current (Holocene) interglacial period.…”

“…There is also evidence that the temperature increase has taken the form of an environmentally benign rise in minimum and nighttime temperatures. Second, I interpret the analyses of paleoclimatic data in the literature cited in my articles above (22,42,43) as suggesting that past variations of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations have had negligible impact on global temperature changes; rather, these variations were apparently a consequence, not a cause, of the many large and often very rapid temperature fluctuations during the past 250,000 years. Third, I challenge the consensus prediction that a doubling of the CO 2 -equivalent concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would cause a 1.5…”

Prediction with expert advice applied to the problem of prediction with expert advice

“…There has long been a near consensus among climate scientists that anthropogenic climate change is both likely occurring, and likely to pose grave risks. Despite this near consensus, there are of course dissenters (for example, Linden, 1993). Given the lack of consensus among the public (McCright & Dunlap, 2011), it is clear that many people do not take the scientific near-consensus to be trustworthy.…”

How to Justify a Pragmatic Position on Anthropogenic Climate Change

“…Nevertheless, it is already apparent that the most likely long-term solution to carbon-emission-free and inexhaustible (i.e., sustainable) energy sources are technologies such as wind, photovoltaic, and solar-thermal power, and electrolytic hydrogen produced from these sources as the dominant transportation fuel and potential energy storage medium. I have not always been a pragmatist on the issue of anthropogenic climate change and published many articles attacking the alarmist positions typified by the “Policymaker Summaries” of the 1995 and 2001 Scientific Assessment Reports of IPCC. ,,− However, in 1971, I published an article in which I noted that “dangerous climate changes would probably occur because of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” if growth in fossil fuel combustion continued unrestrained. This was followed by a major effort to develop the concept of a “hydrogen economy” at the Institute of Gas Technology under sponsorship of the American Gas Association. , The basic motivation was that at that time U.S. natural gas supplies appeared to be extremely limited and that it might be possible to replace natural gas with hydrogen in the existing transmission, distribution, storage, and end-use systems.…”