As the West fitfully weakens industrial civilisation by trying to eliminate oil, coal and natural gas as energy sources, the scientific basis for Net Zero is based more on ‘general agreement’ than hard data.
Authored by John Staddon: Climate scientists nevertheless sound optimistic about the progress that’s being made in destroying society’s carbon energy base.
There are of course criticisms of the idea of a carbon-dioxide-induced apocalypse, largely supported as it is by general circulation (i.e., whole-earth) planetary models. There are too many different GCMs all with too many free parameters (aka ‘fudge factors’), as well as wildly divergent readings of historical climate records: Are violent climate events really more frequent, and how does weather actually relate to climate? The popular press cries havoc, but the data are not so clear. The looming economic costs of a Net Zero target are leading to some political pushback. Nevertheless, the recent jury acquittal of nine Extinction Rebellion vandals shows that passionate belief in the imminent dangers of CO2 is not limited to activists.