John Carter,
Thank you for your questions (I’ll insert numbers to make it easier to respond):
Q1. Of this group, how many – about what percentage – are in agreement with the “theory” that long lived anthropomorphic changes to the atmosphere is already significantly affecting the climate right now, and is likely to increasingly affect it in the future.
Q2. Of this group,how many – about what percentage – are not in agreement with the scientific theory that long lived anthropomorphic changes to the atmosphere is already significantly affecting the climate right now, and is likely to increasingly affect it in the future.
Q3. More importantly, what are the reasons for the belief that changing the atmospheric concentrations of long lived greenhouse gases to levels not collectively seen on earth in at least several million years would nevertheless not significantly be affecting the climate right now, nor are likely to do so even more in the future?
Q1 and Q2 ask two questions in the one sentence. These need to be split into two sections. My guess is that a high proportion of climate scientists “are in agreement with the “theory” that long lived anthropomorphic changes to the atmosphere … is likely to increasingly affect [the climate] in the future.” However, I suspect the proportion who “are in agreement with the “theory” that long lived anthropomorphic changes to the atmosphere … is already significantly affecting the climate right now” would be much less.
Regarding Q3, from a policy perspective whether or not GHG emissions will change the climate is not really what is relevant. What is relevant is the impacts of any changes. Will the projected changes to the climate be net beneficial or a net damage. There is a natural human tendency to think the worst and to project the worst case and then spread doomsday scenarios. I am far from persuaded that increasing CO2 concentrations is a bad thing for the planet.
The climate changes abruptly, not as the smooth projections the Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) assume.
We have no idea about the magnitudes, rates of change, direction of change or the probability of when the next abrubt climate change may occur.
We don’t know if CO2 emissions are net beneficial or net cost, but we do know that policies that raise the cost of energy are damaging in many ways (including to future generations’ ability to deal with bad situations that occur in the future).
The last point is possible the most important of all,,yet it is the one that the Climate Cultists have never come to grips with.
