For the last several years it has been claimed that some 98% of legitimate scientists believe it is a major need to reduce CO2 output so as to stop the world from getting warmer. When Trump visited the pope 4 yers ago, the pope would not speak to him expect to hand him his anti-global warming letter he’d written, “Laudato Si” and to tell Trump to get on board to stop global warming. Trump said he would read the letter.

I’m not a fan of science established by Papal dictate based on an informal poll of experts, especially here where the minority includes some of the greatest minds of the 20th century, and the poll is taken by Al Gore’s science expert, but that’s where we are when it comes to science and politics. I also find it that the pope blames the US for global warming but not China when the the majority of CO2 came from China, a country committed to increasing its use of coal. But be this as it may be — the pope doesn’t blame China for imprisoning Catholics either, most recently the editor of Hong Kong’s most widely read newspaper.

So I thought I take a step back to look at the desirability of making the world colder. Is a colder world a better world? Sad pictures of polar bears are presented in favor of the colder world, but for all I know, polar bears prefer it warm. Their numbers are increasing.

If we had a global climate adjustment knob somewhere, a magic knob allowing you to make the world warmer or colder by turning it right, or left, I doubt the consensus would be to turn the knob left. There is no real logic to cold being good, but there is a line in “Hey Jude”: “…It’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder.” And Svente Arrhenius, one of the great scientists of 100 years ago, said he preferred a warm earth to a cold one to avoid disease and starvation. When the climate turns colder, the result is disease and famine as crops fail and animals freeze. It’s not an option that I’d think most people would prefer. given my choice, I would prefer things a little warmer.

I should also note that our ability to fine tune the climate is not what we’d think. The world climate is chaotic, and there is no reliable knob. Historically, the most common setting is ice-age, and that’s a setting that most people really don’t like.

Robert Buxbaum, February 20, 2021.