YET ANOTHER EMINENT CLIMATE SCIENTIST JOINS THE SCEPTICS

Gradually, the ice seems to be melting – if not at the polar caps, then at least in the climate debates: for the first time, a widely recognized expert has changed camps. Lennart Bengtsson , the Swedish climatologist, meteorologist and former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, has now joined the GWPF’s academic advisory council. Bengtsson’s arguments do not sound like the radicalism of old age. Rather, he exhorts his colleagues to be more prudent and empirical. For the uninitiated, this approach may be comforting, because the climate debate has long been a highly complex issue. Now, for the first time, an expert like Bengtsson admits that he and others like him fare little better: how the world’s climate will develop in coming years and decades remains pure speculation. --Hans Jörg Müller, Basler Zeitung, 7 May 2014  We urgently need to explore realistic ways to address the scientific, technical and economic challenges in solving the energy problems of the world and the associated environmental problems. I think the best and perhaps only sensible policy for the future is to prepare society for adaptation and change. In 25 years the world will have nine to ten billion people. This will require twice as much primary energy as today. We need to foster new science and technology. We need a more open approach, especially here in Europe, which includes the issues of nuclear energy and genetic engineering, in order to supply the growing world population with energy and food. --Lennart Bengtsson, Spiegel Online, 5 May 2014 My main conclusion from reading the U.S. National Climate Assessment Report is this: the phrase ‘climate change’ is now officially meaningless. The report effectively implies that there is no climate change other than what is caused by humans, and that extreme weather events are equivalent to climate change. Any increase in adverse impacts from extreme weather events or sea level rise is caused by humans. Possible scenarios of future climate change depend only on emissions scenarios that are translated into warming by climate models that produce far more warming than has recently been observed. --Judith Curry, Climate Etc., 6 May 2014 Attempts to stem sea level rises by reducing CO2 levels in order to “combat” global warming are a complete waste of time says a new report by two of the world’s leading oceanographic scientists. Over the last 150 years, average global sea levels have risen by around 1.8 mm – a continuation of the melting of the ice sheets which began 17,000 years ago. Such modest rises, argue oceanographer Willem P de Lange and marine geologist Bob Carter in their report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, are far better dealt with by adaptation than by costly, ineffectual schemes to decarbonise the global economy. --James Delingpole, Breitbart London, 7 May 2014