Climate spring

A couple of days ago, I opined that there was change afoot in the world of climate science, and was taken to task by one of my commenters for saying so. However, Roger Pielke Jnr reckons that there is a full-scale collapse coming, although he thinks it's more in the area of climate policy than climatology per se. Still, it's interesting to get some outside confirmation that we are entering a new era for the funny world of climatology.

The political consensus surrounding climate policy is collapsing. If you are not aware of this fact you will be very soon. The collapse is not due to the cold winter in places you may live or see on the news. It is not due to years without an increase in global temperature. It is not due to the overturning of the scientific consensus on the role of human activity in the global climate system.

It is due to the fact that policy makers and their political advisors (some trained as scientists) can no longer avoid the reality that targets for stabilization such as 450 ppm (or even less realistic targets) are simply not achievable with the approach to climate change that has been at the focus of policy for over a decade. Policies that are obviously fictional and fantasy are frequently subject to a rapid collapse.

When Obama was elected, Nature called on us all to rejoice and said that the president-elect represented "new hope for climate policy". How right they were.

Comments

[Kit]

Recently I attended a series of physics lectures, unrelated to GW, and the speakers were using GW as the butt of their jokes (such as describing climatology as the para-normal). Weak jokes but I was shocked to hear them. So even the science maybe about to collapse.

[Pogo]

I'm a retired physicist - many of my erstwhile colleagues expressed an opinion that could be summed up as "most 'climate scientists' were little better than witch doctors who'd hit upon a brilliant marketing strategy".

[mondo]

There is a poll current at ABC Radio in Australia at http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/

Is Global Warming to blame for the current heat wave in Australia - Yes, No, or Global Warming is a Myth.

Interesting outcome. After 15,603 votes (quite a large number for such a poll in Oz), 93.8% of the respondents have said that Global Warming is a Myth.

And the ABC is notorious for its leanings on such matters - think BBC.