John,
“However, I am challenging the legitimacy of such an exclusion”

But I didn’t make the exclusion. The catastrophe narrative is emergent; the world made this narrative via emotive selection.

“It is all very well providing an impressive list of examples in which catastrophe has clearly been equated with certitude,”

Which list happens to include over many years, presidents, prime ministers, high ministers, the UN elite, religious leaders, NGOs, rafts of other authorities and orgs and influencers etc. Cumulatively, there is massive influence from their many years long propagation of a high certainty of imminent global catastrophe. It is not just ‘all very well’ to point this out, it is *the* critical feature of the domain.

“…but that doesn’t prove that catastrophe has to be equated with certitude in order to qualify as a catastrophe narrative.”

The propagation of the catastrophe narrative from all the above impressive A-listers and others in no way precludes all sorts of other narrative, which nevertheless in a two word summary is not ‘catastrophe narrative’ if its main principle isn’t one that we’re certainly doomed, absent drastic action. Some of these other narratives, whether still subject to some bias or not, will even have some influence. But the narrative elephant in the room is nevertheless the catastrophe narrative, and there is not a stronger influencer list that could possibly be assembled for its propagators; until the exception of the current US admin this includes most of the highest / most powerful authorities there are. And whole rafts of subsiduary authorities too.

“I thought I was making a constructive contribution when I pointed out that there is a fine tradition of eschatological thinking…”

Per above, I have never not acknowledged any such narratives, or indeed their (comparatively little) influence compared to the catastrophe narrative as propagated by the impressive authority list above. These just don’t happen to be particularly pertinent to the post or indeed the main domain drivers. If this is merely about semantics, it seems so, well we have to call the critical consensus narrative something, and its difficult to think of two better words.

“I think such statements qualify as a catastrophe narrative…”

This level of inclusiveness ultimately leads to promoting everything that happens to include any view of, or indeed any inclusion of the word catastrophe / catastrophic, or indeed any equivalent language, to the bucket of catastrophe narrative. So then we’d need a different term to describe the (emergent) massive influence narrative elephant that is propagated by the impressive A-list above, because this is the uniting cultural consensus narrative that is the most critical feature of the social phenomenon, and hence must be ID’d separately to the noise.

“I don’t think such disagreement warrants any theories on your part that assume a lack of intellectual attention on mine.”

I haven’t proposed any ‘theories’, or assumed any lack of intellectual attention on your part. I said you seem to have gotten the wrong end of the stick on this post, which happens frequently in complex domains due to all sorts of reasons but misunderstandings / mismatch of terms and positions is the most frequent, and indeed I pointed out that this may be due to my not having provided the appropriate / best context (why I pulled in mention of the other post that might supply more).

I don’t really even know what you’re saying in your last para, however…
“You appear to assume that ‘catastrophe narratives’ embody certitude…”

There is manifestly a ‘catastrophe narrative’ from all the exampled authorities that does embody certitude. It is the linking narrative of the culture of catastrophism. This in no way rules out hosts of other narratives, which nevertheless are not the linking narrative of the culture of catastrophism, and happened not to be important to the post or a big key feature of the domain.

“I maintain that such embodiment is increasingly commonplace but does not have to be taken as definitive.”

As noted, the given examples with certitude cover the twenty first century, and there is more before; propagation by more authorities and more types of authorities, and with move diversity of variants (which always happens to evolving cultural narratives) is quantitative, not qualitative. Memes of imminent climate catastrophe have lurked within human society essentially forever, and take on the cloaks of current times / issues, including that of existing authority, be this science or religion. It is frequently noted that climate doom due to cooling not warming briefly achieved high propagation in the seventies, and indeed some of its proponents transitioned smoothly from cooling to warming as the latter gained more popularity.

“Are you now saying that you never said that catastrophe narratives necessarily embody certitude in order to qualify?”

No. I’m saying I never ruled out whole hosts of other narratives related to the domain or to the wider consideration of the concept of catastrophe, and I don’t believe there is anywhere in the posts that does this. I have even pointed out some of said concepts within AR5WGC. We have to name the high certainty of imminent global catastrophe something, because this is the critical narrative of the domain, and the ‘catastrophe narrative’, per the opening lines of the first post, is not only the most reasonable name, it is via ‘CAGW’ also the inherent meaning of the ‘C’ element that ties to catastrophe in the ‘catastrophe narrative’. ‘CAGW’, whether deployed appropriately or inappropriately does not refer to properly bounded and specific catastrophe scenarios or discussions (e.g. on risk management or much else). Skeptics use this to refer to the narrative elephant in the domain, aka certain doom without drastic action (and related phenomena such as ‘followers’). I hadn’t grasped until now that this seems to just be about semantics (if indeed my grasping is correct); if you want to call it ‘doom narrative’ or whatever instead to distinguish it from every other potential angle on catastrophe, then fine, but this neither ties to ‘CAGW’, or to the obvious fact that the most common word via which the catastrophe narrative (in the sense used in the post) is expressed in those many quotes, is ‘catastrophe’, so it may not catch on.

Trite and truculent.

http://www.wyattonearth.net/

Here’s a 2018 report on Pacific corals, which, although giving lip service to computer modeling of future impacts of climate on corals, acknowledges that “[c]oral reefs in the Pacific are dynamic and recovery is likely to occur comparatively rapidly as long as local pressures and disturbance are well managed.” (in Executive Summary)

Apologize if there are duplicate posts but here is the link I should have posted on Pacific reefs: https://www.icriforum.org/news/2018/09/just-released-status-and-trends-coral-reefs-pacific

Andy,

“But I didn’t make the exclusion. The catastrophe narrative is emergent; the world made this narrative via emotive selection.”

There you go again. You are treating ‘catastrophe narrative’ as an expression that is somehow self-defining. It isn’t. It is a phrase that you borrowed for the purposes of your post and you chose to define it in a way that helped you make your point – a valid point, I’ll grant you, but not the only point of interest. If you extend the definition, other interesting points emerge. For example, the point that, whilst the majority of climate scientists probably think the extreme scenarios are unlikely, they still might think them plausible enough to invoke the precautionary principle. Oh, but I am forgetting that this involves an extension of the definition of ‘catastrophe narrative’ to include what you believe to be nothing more than background ‘noise’. Maybe you should be telling that to UNESCO and the authors of the London Declaration, the Rio Declaration, the EU Communication on the PP, and the many mainstream scientists who do not buy into the catastrophe narrative, as you define it, and yet would still happily invoke the precautionary principle in order to rule out even the possibility of catastrophe.

I’m sorry, but I refuse to continue this debate on the premise that you get to decide how words should be used. You are not Humpty-Dumpty. If you want an acronym that best matches the narrative to which you refer, try ‘CCAGW’ – Certain Catastrophic Anthropogenic Warming. In the meantime, I’m happy enough to continue using CAGW in the sense implied by its initials, i.e. with no assumption of certitude. It is a meaning that is at least consistent with your ‘elephant’ narrative, whilst also applying to the mouse narrative used by many mainstream scientists.

Praying for the stadium wave: the return of the cold phase of the AMO:

It’s a Cargo Cult.

That reminds me of a Buddhist axiom:

There is no such thing as evil, only misplaced good.

John,

I’m not sure why you seem to see this as so important. It seems like a minor semantic issue to me, excepting the acronym usage (at end) which is already established and not likely to change.

“If you extend the definition, other interesting points emerge.”

Using the term catastrophe narrative, already aligned to ‘CAGW’, by no means rules out any of the other interesting (or indeed mundane) points within the debate, including that which you mentioned. And indeed I myself introduced some text on such regarding mainstream science usage. If you think I’ve ruled out any such points, quote the section of the post which does this. No post covers all aspects of the debate, especially in a limited word count, and there’s no reason why it should. Such points happen not to be germane to the post, except to note that indeed they aren’t ruled out, which footnote 15 exactly does in relation to all the main other catastrophe concepts within AR5WGC, which itself covers the bulk positioning of climate science (so inclusive also of related disciplines and concepts, for instance that ‘catastrophe loss’ is a common term in the insurance industry sucked into WG II / III), and of which none amount to a high certainty of imminent global catastrophe.

“…the many mainstream scientists who do not buy into the catastrophe narrative…”

I took great pains throughout to point out that mainstream science and scientists do *not* buy into the catastrophe narrative, even if it’s simultaneously the case that the majority do not actively object to its propagation by authority. And any amount of reasonable discussion about catastrophe possibilities is not propagation of a false meme about the certainty of catastrophe, which meme clearly requires a name. Narratives that explore various low-probability possibilities inclusive say of specific catastrophes (e.g. increased hurricane frequency or ice shelf loss) and / or policies regarding same or whatever, do not have ‘catastrophe’ as their principle defining feature. To call such ‘catastrophe narrative’, instead of say ‘precautionary principle’ narratives or ‘worst case probability’ narratives or ‘cascade’ narratives all related to climate, or similar naming, would unduly weight the emphasis on catastrophe anyhow (yet which weight is entirely appropriate for the actual catastrophe narrative). However, as long as the narrative elephant that is propagated by the whole authority list remains clearly and separately identifiable, given this is the principle feature of the social phenomenon of (indeed) CAGW, precise terminology wouldn’t matter excepting that the domain has already acquired some usages…

“If you want an acronym that best matches the narrative to which you refer, try ‘CCAGW’ – Certain Catastrophic Anthropogenic Warming.”

See footnotes 27 to 29 that note alternative proposed names and issues thereof, which I covered. But notwithstanding this coverage, regarding de-facto domain usage…

“In the meantime, I’m happy enough to continue using CAGW in the sense implied by its initials, i.e. with no assumption of certitude.”

By all means carry on. However, this is simply not the sense in which the vast majority of the domain (on either side) uses or perceives the term.

Brian – oceanic basalts are formed as a result of the loss of pressure involved in the convective uplift of hot mantle (lherzolite). The heat released to the surface from the cooling of mid-oceanic basalt is however only one component of the convective process. A second component involves the exothermic hydration reaction of mantle material with cells of downward convecting sea water. Could you please address this!!

speaking of cults.

30,000 people flew to Poland to argue that somebody else needs to reduce their carbon footprint.
http://cop24.gov.pl/news/news-details/news/basic-facts-about-the-cop24-conference-in-katowice/

And to remind everyone that carbon taxes to fight climate change are really popular everywhere except in the American Republican Party.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2018/12/02/rioting-in-paris-yellow-vests-violence-vandalism-and-chaos-hits-tourism/#19a09d3f36ac

I’m sorry. I don’t think I know enough to answer your question. I don’t know if anybody has raised the scenario you describe in the literature. I must add that as far as I know there is very little knowledge of underwater volcanism at deglaciations, and that while the LIA and a glacial termination might have some similarities, the scale appears to be very different.

[…] evening with our Stoatness. I also happened to have a look at Climate etc., where Judith is promoting a new paper by Peter Tangney, a Lecturer at Flinders University (you can download a copy from […]

Andy, if scientist do not buy the castastrophic narrative, why was RCP 8.5 made up? And which scientists are stressing that we are “right on track” on the RCP 8.5 path, although the fundamental assumption of RCP 8.5 is impossible technological standstill ?

“The stadium wave is a term that refers to a hypothesis of multidecadal climate variability describing climate behavior as a network of synchronized ocean, ice, and atmospheric indices, through which a signal propagates sequentially in an ordered lead-lag relationship – hence, the allusive term, “stadium wave”.

The fundamental view upon which the stadium-wave hypothesis is built is that over long timescales, “parts” of a system organize into a network of interacting sub-systems resulting in collective behavior. Intra-network interactions yield positive and negative feedbacks, together generating an oscillatory behavior.” Marcia Wyatt

Science is built on patient collection of data and inspired theorizing. The longest physical record by far is Nile River height – stage in hydrological terms – measured for more than a millennia. Nile river flow is influenced by sea surface temperature in both the Pacific and Atlantic revealing global teleconnections.

Flow variations are not random – they do not sum to zero. Flow changes as shifts between flow regimes and variance – extremes – amplify with time.

The stadium wave is about the teleconnections of Earth subsystems. The term originated in a study by Marcia Glaze Wyatt, Sergey Kravtsov and Anastasios A. Tsonis – it is an allusion to a ‘wave’ that ‘cycles’ around athletic stadiums. The science is based on constructing a network between physical indices – e.g. https://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/all/ – that individually act as chaotic oscillatory nodes with periodic variability ranging from decades to millennia. The idea I understand was given impetus by a post here by Tomas Milanovic.

https://judithcurry.com/2011/02/10/spatio-temporal-chaos/

The collective wave both adds to and counters global surface warming – adding some 50% to surface warming over the last 40 years. It is not periodic but perhaps ergodic – emerging from the ‘structured randomness’ of Dimitris Koutsoyiannis. This latter term being a euphemism for deterministic chaos.

“From the smallest scales to the largest, there exists an apparent conundrum: nature is both simple and complex. From apparent disorder, order emerges. This elegance in nature lies at the heart of my research interests.” Marcia Wyatt waiting for the stadium wave

But as Gwyn Prins & Steve Rayner note in “The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy” – it is not about science. It is tribes telling themselves and others stories superficially in the dispassionate idiom of science. Some more superficial than others obviously.

“Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical. Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values.49 Nor is that to be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to
pretend that they are.

A hot debate about contested social and ethical values is thus being cloaked in terms of a systematic assessment of scientific information.50 In reality, the climate debate is a contest over what values are going to shape global society into the future. Daniel Sarewitz has written on the perils of “scientizing” debates about values.51 In such a proxy political debate, if care is not taken, the scientist may trade on the authority which is conferred by the prestige of science in pursuit of political ends. If taken to
an extreme, this may threaten the legitimacy of science in the layman’s eyes. If the public comes eventually to the view that scientists have lent their status to over-heated statements in support of a political cause no matter how right and proper, it could contribute significantly to a rupture in public trust and hence to a further period of “quiescence” in the Downs’ Cycle.”

So they have got the science wrong and the implicit policy objectives are horrendous? To quote JCH’s singular contribution to the discourse – lmfao.

They are planting 6 million trees apparently. OK.

Hans, I am not defending (or attacking come to that) mainstream science at all, but within the AR5 Working Group Chapters, nothing points to a high certainty of imminent (decades) global catastrophe, which the catastrophe narrative as propagated by all the listed authority sources, does claim. Even regarding RCP8.5, which is *not* likely within AR5. Mainstream science with any scenario or output does not support the imminent global catastrophe that all the leaders and many others claim that it does support (absent drastic action). So the narrative fails even by its own terms, i.e. even without any skeptic challenges or legitimate questions such as yours regarding the viability of specific assumptions.

Only prosperous people can afford environments.

https://watertechbyrie.com/2015/10/04/biological-abundance-and-economic-growth/

Given the dismal state of both, the “politics of climate expertise” is a multi-faceted oxymoron.

funny thing about planting the trees- on the one hand, they incentivize planting the trees to pull carbon out of the atmosphere for decades and decades. And they incentivize cutting the trees down and burning them for heat and electricity because it’s “renewable”.

So the carbon from Poland summit won’t actually leave the atmosphere, it will be continuously drawn into wood and burned right back into the sky.

I wonder what the air quality of New York City will be like when they’re burning millions of trees in the power plants and fireplaces. Who cares, right? We’re environmentalists!