Groupthink = A group of people
share a particular belief that is
not based on a proper evidence.
They believe they are right,
and prefer to associate
with people having the same belief.
As a result,
in their 'world',
they see
a consensus
on that belief.
Most people they know
share the belief,
or are too polite to disagree,
perhaps because the belief
is very popular
( most people don't want to
state an unpopular opinion )
and/or they don't want to
start an argument with
a friend.
A belief that's not based
on data and evidence,
is a subjective belief,
that can't be defended
with a fact-based debate.
A subjective belief can only be
defended with logical fallacies,
such as an appeal to authority,
or claiming a consensus on the
belief ( so it must be true ).
When someone is not
convinced by the appeal
to authority, leftists resort
to changing the subject
( unusually polite leftists ),
and/or ridiicule and
character attacks.
There are varying levels
of hostility towards anyone
daring to question the belief.
The belief that adding
carbon dioxide to the air
would cause global warming
started in the 1800s.
The belief that extra CO2
COULD BE dangerous,
began in the late 1950's,
starting with oceanographer
Roger Revelle ( Al Gore's
favorite scientist ), and a
relatively small group
of scientists he organized.
At the time, predictions of the
climate 100 years in the future
was not considered to be
real science.
In the late 1980s, the belief that
a rise in CO2 levels WOULD cause
dangerous warming became
popular.
The first report of the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), in 1990,
and the 1992 Rio ‘Earth Summit’,
described a coming global
warming crisis as an
international scientific
"consensus".
Before that time, a "consensus"
was not considered to be
real science.
At Kyoto Japan, in 1997,
there was the first UN agreement
to slow down the rise in the
global average temperature.
Unfortunately, that would require
the richer nations to reduce the
CO2 emissions ... that made them
the richer nations !
The poorer "developing" nations
could continue increasing their
CO2 emissions, with the time
limit being until their economies
caught up with the rich nations,
which could take many decades,
if it happened at all.
The poorer nations included
over one billion people in China,
and about one billion people in India.
The richer nations reduced their
own growth of CO2 emissions,
partly by shipping manufacturing
production to China, and other
"poor" Asian nations.
To make global warming alarm
seem to be based on "science",
government bureaucrat
believers began changing
historical temperature data,
and created the junk science
"Hockey Stick Chart", falsely
claiming global temperatures
had been steady for
thousands of years, and
then suddenly began rising
in the 20th century.
I began reading climate
science articles and studies
in 1997, twenty years after
I began working in product
development for a major
auto manufacturer.
I wondered if our products
were causing environmental
problems.
In my first hour of reading,
I realized there had been
global cooling from 1940
to 1975, which caused
a small group of "scientists"
to predict a coming ice age.
They got a lot of attention,
and other scientists noticed
that scary climate predictions
got global attention ( and they
probably helped get government
study grants too ).
I remember the coming
ice age articles in
TIME and NEWSWEEK
magazines from 1975.
By 1997 the "problem"
was claimed to be
dangerous global warming,
50 to 100 years in the future,
based primarily on computer
model projections.
There were no accurate
predictions of the climate
50 to 100 DAYS in the future,
so predictions of 50 to 100
YEARS in the future,
were not persuasive.
I kept reading
climate science,
at least one article
or study a week,
usually more,
guided mainly by
a reading list called
"The Week That Was",
at www.SEPP.org,
which I still read every
week, 22 years later !
The SEPP reading list,
with links to climate
articles and studies,
now includes a very good
climate newsletter,
written by SEPP President,
Ken Haapala.
In 2007, I wrote a
long feature article
on global warming
in my economics
and finance newsletter,
ECONOMIC LOGIC,
for subscribers.
My next article was
not until seven years
later, in 2014.
Not much had changed
from 2007 to 2014
-- I was a "climate change
crisis is coming skeptic"
in 2007, and in 2014 too.
What was different in 2014
was the quantity of wild
"studies" and articles predicting
various coming catastrophes.
There seemed to be a contest
for telling the scariest climate
change "campfire story".
We'd been adding a lot of CO2
to the air since the Great
Depression ended --
for 74 years at the time,
from 1940 through 2014,
yet there was no bad news
from the extra CO2,
much less a crisis !
One ECONOMIC LOGIC reader
asked me about a recent "scary
study", which appeared to be wild
data-free speculation.
I read it, plus several other coming
climate catastrophe "studies",
and decided to launch a new
climate science blog to summarize
the climate reading I was doing
every week since 1997.
Climate change hysteria has
ramped up even more after
2014.
Challenges to the "consensus"
are ignored, or rejected and
suppressed.
When I leave a comment on
a climate skeptic website,
I get more readers looking
at my climate science blog.
When I leave a comment on
a "climate alarmism" website,
it gets deleted within 24 hours.
The consequences of
Climate Groupthink
have been counterproductive
and expensive government
policies -- boosting the cost
of energy, and making the
electric grid less reliable.
The lack of real science
knowledge can be stunning.
The UN’s recent declaration
of the eminent extinction
of one million species,
for one example, is nothing
more than a computer game fantasy.
Millions of species that don't exist
are predicted to exist in the future,
by a computer game, and then
one million of the "new" species
are claimed to become extinct
in the future, according to the
same computer game !
British Prince Charles,
who was never very bright,
recently declared that
“We have 18 months
to save the world.”
Complete nonsense, of course
but the leftist mass media loved it.
Groupthink allows a leftist mob
to sell the big government
socialism they have always wanted.
All they need is government
bureaucrat "scientists" with
their computer games, and
worst case scenarios.
Skeptics are attacked with
ridicule, character attacks,
and sometimes attacks
on their scientific careers.
Leftists claim they care about
climate change, yet don't bother
to learn anything about climate
science.
Leftists love any
wild guess predictions
of the future climate,
which claim
100% bad news ahead,
and reject studies of
past climate change,
which has been
325 years of
100% good news.
The future climate
is a fantasy.
Leftists love fantasy.
The past climate is reality.
Leftists hate reality.
There is no reason to believe
the world will stop using
fossil fuels.
The primarily leftist-biased
media has chosen to be a
cheerleader for the coming
climate change catastrophe
fantasy, misleading the public.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) is a
political organization, preferring
worst-case scenarios plugged into
unvalidated computer models,
making wrong climate predictions
for over 30 years ... so far.
The IPCC is leftist groupthink,
not real unbiased science.
And this blog
is an antidote
to the leftist politics,
and junk science,
"foundation" of the
smarmy climate
change cult.
Richard Greene
June 22, 2019
Bingham Farms, Michigan
BS 1975
MBA 1977
TBW** since 1983
** trained by wife