The Epistle of Q — Chapter 138

And people wonder why we have less faith in scientists than some would like us to have.

This is not a rant. I am sitting in my study in a post-Christmas mood of joyous reflection. Reflection based in no small part on the happiness I have at being alive. Moreover I feel good about my chances of getting out of 2020 alive. But why is this?

Well I could say that Santa was good to me, but unless you have watched the Christmas Chronicles, you still might be a doubter. My best gifts were provided to me via technology. These were the FaceTime conversations with kids and grandkids. Given the Covid-19 restrictions I felt it would probably be best not to drive to Fernie (BC) or fly to Arizona. Would have enjoyed doing so, but the technical options weren’t all that bad. As well, there was some delightful alternatives for social gathering – one home in the bubble invited others, two at a time. Old friends (also in the bubble) came over for Christmas dinner. And Christmas Eve was spent at the condo on the mountain, complete with great food, egg nogs, and on Christmas Day, eight runs on the Triple Chair… This coming week there will be the final short table at the Miradoro and then an early dinner at the Sumac Ridge Winery. All of this certainly has made the concluding moments of 2020 quite acceptable. But this isn’t my biggest cause for celebration.

1: The snow is still here. Remember David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, said British kids would only have pictures of snow by now. Furthermore, Dr. Viner said that if snow did come it would cause chaos as people would no longer know what to do about it. Well, snow plows still are plentiful throughout the northern hemisphere, including Scotland where they continue to stand at the ready. Closer to home, Glacier National Park (USA) was to lose all its glaciers by 2020 (and this was predicted as recently as 2009). A sidebar to this: the Park is now taking down its signs that were stating the 2020 demise (seems the signs disappeared long before the glaciers did). Another big prediction appeared in the Vancouver Sun (February 20th, 2001) when another scientist stated that the snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro would be gone in 2020. Last picture I saw this year showed plenty of snow on the mountain – now in fairness I should add that scientists now are saying that the snow inside the glaciers is diminishing. But diminishing is different than total disappearance and I would have thought in 2001, scientists knew that difference. Was there a wee tendency to exaggerate back then to scare us into buying their prognostications?

2: The EPA (USA) predicted in 1986 a two foot rise in the ocean waters around Florida by 2020 and even produced a map that showed all the lands that would be inundated. According to recent figures, I believe the rise is four inches, which is I would think substantially less than twenty-four inches – maybe in the neighbourhood of 17% of the projection. Isn’t that a statistically significant difference that makes the original science somewhat questionable?

3: There was a great deal of concern about Islands in the Pacific Ocean back in 2000. Here the claims were that their economies would be ruined through climate change by 2020. Greenpeace, never one to exaggerate according to Dr. Suzuki, stated that the economies of seventeen small islands including Tuvalu, which would be most impacted, would be totally degraded. According to a government statement from the Ministry of Finance, in 2019 Tuvalu was enjoying the sixth consecutive year of economic growth. Maybe growth is ruining people and that’s what Greenpeace meant. And if so we should stop donating to Greenpeace, because it’s ruining them (or at least their ability to predict)!

4: The Pentagon no less predicted in 2004 in a briefing to President Bush that climate change would destroy the U.S.A. In fact this would include rioting and nuclear war in addition to extreme water and energy shortages. Furthermore this would be a bigger threat than terrorism and Britain would resemble Siberia. Just who were the scientists that the Pentagon was employing and who were they trying to scare?

5: A British paper in 2013 headlined a story that Arctic ice would be gone by 2020, although in fairness they also said that there was a range to their prediction that 2040 might be the end date although they warned that sooner was more likely than later. This was all based on a study led by James Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Centre. Now I haven’t been north of 60 for a couple of decades, but recent news reports indicate that there is still a great deal of ice in the north. The ice sheet may be less than it was in 1981, but certainly not nearly as much as we were told by scientists would be the case.

6: There are other interesting predictions that I will just refer to as I draw this post-Christmas chapter to a close. James Hansen of NASA stated in 1987 that the world be +3C warmer by 2020. That got a lot of people’s attention. Unfortunately for his credibility the reality is +0.44 of a degree Celsius. Another report in 1978 said that because of the continued use of fossil fuels CO2 levels would double by 2020 – reality is that the overall increase is not 200% but 23%. In a report to the Copenhagen Conference in 2009 it was also stated that China was committed to reducing their CO2 emissions by 40% or even more while India promised a reduction of at least 20%. Once again the reality is somewhat different: China has actually increased emissions by 85% and India by 150%.

And where is Canada is all this. Well, the federal government is determined to single-handedly change the world and it’s climate even though our contribution is perhaps 2% and even though most of the predictions, as noted above, are no where near reality. So let me suggest that the scientific community should perhaps take on a more reasonable New Year’s Resolution: quit trying to scare us into submissive change, and instead start acting like scientists and with a good dose of skepticism help us better understand the entire nuances about climate behaviour.

a) How much does the sun impact what happens on earth?

b) What really can Canada do, as long as China and Indian along with the USA continue to add copious amounts of CO2, to maintain a vibrant economy to help underwrite useful changes in our transportation, home energy processes, and industrial systems?

The age of scare has not only been unrealistic, I think it has been unethical. So now would be a good time, as we come out of the pandemic in 2021, to start talking straight, start being real educators, and start being more scientific.

As always,
g.w.