The crucial point, he argues, is that there is now no chance of us avoiding a perilous, all-pervasive climate breakdown. We have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heatwaves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. “A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” McGuire insists.
Firstly, the prediction is ludicrous. Insane. Not backed by any science at all. Those RCP models – they include the tipping points already.
Secondly, if it’s already inevitable then our current actions are clear. Fire up the coal fired plants so we get as rich as possible as soon as possible so we’ve the wealth to get through it. If it’s all going to happen anyway then mitigation doesn’t work, does it? So we need to be rich to be able to adapt.
That is, the man’s spouting idiot tossery.
1988, “If we don’t do something now in 30 years places like the Maldives will be under water”.
1989, UN = “Eleven years left to save the planet or else it’s too late”.
Plus, another use of doublespeak: “oceans are destined to become warm and acidic“.
The oceans are alkaline. Adding CO2 makes them closer to pure water, but that doesn’t sound scary does it?
“The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book”
Ah, I see. Nobody ever sold many copies of a book called “no great emergency, nothing to see here”
Well yes. If it’s unavoidably going to get hotter, we need more air conditioning don’t we?
McGuire’s brain must have been frazzled by his trade speciality – volcanology
Interesting that he managed to publish a paper in 1900 according to his UCL info page
Sometimes Wikipedia is infuriatingly biased, but sometimes a tiny little bit of sanity and humour creeps in.
I found this on Bill McGuire’s Wiki entry –
“McGuire has written several academic and catastrophist popular books..”
“emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards”
Do I detect the teeniest tiniest personal interest here?
I know Bill, and I like him, but that is not to say that he isn’t a complete idiot …
Dear Mr Worstall
“… and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic.”
If the ‘acidic’ is supposed to come from dissolved carbon dioxide, it cannot be warm as well. Dissolved gases are driven out of solution by rising temperatures.
““A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” McGuire insists.”
Mr McGuire is probably right on this: governments are becoming more hostile towards their livestock with each passing year.
When did that become a substitute for than?
DP
@Anteros, July 31, 2022 at 1:35 pm
Sometimes Wikipedia is infuriatingly biased
Indeed:
Pcar, as you have demonstrated a knowledge on the subject, William Connolly may be a name familiar to you in the realm of ‘making stuff up on Wiki’.
@Addolff
William Connolly: rings a bell, but empty. Green Peace/FoE?
I corrected a wikipedia article several years ago with facts and references, within a few hours it was deleted and vitriolic responces – I didn’t respond. Next day more of same and I was banned
WP useful for some topics, but anything political, covid, green, mmt, ‘social science’… not worth looking at as Left bias invalidates
The MSM & WikiP believers need to open their eyes and keyboards
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