See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT.

Previous post.

Some interesting consequences about the nature of the soul here, which we flesh out later (get it?). Also, more proof that Equality is not part of the system. 

Chapter 44 That distinction among things did not result from the diversity of merits or demerits (alternate translation)

1 IT remains now for us to show that the distinction among things did not result from different movements of the free-will of rational creatures, as Origen maintained in his Peri Archon. For he wished to refute the objections and errors of the early heretics, who strove to prove that the different nature of good and evil in things is owing to contrary agents.

But on account of the great difference which he observed both in natural and in human things, which difference apparently is not preceded by any merits,–for instance that some bodies are lightsome, some dark, that some are born of pagans, some of Christians,–he was compelled to assert that all differences to be found in things have proceeded from a difference of merits, in accordance with the justice of God.

Karl Popper, the master mind who described and made readily available to us the modern scientific method has a great piece on pre-scientific and pseudo-scientific theories in his lecture:
Science as Falsification

“These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it …”

The best answer to most of the claims by climate activists and their political allies is simply: so what?

“Climate change is real,” they say. So what? Gravity and sunrise are also real. That doesn’t mean we cause them or we would be better off without them. Climate has been changing since the origin of the atmosphere billions of years ago. 

But, “manmade climate change is a fact,” they respond. So what? It is obviously warmer in urban areas than in the countryside because of manmade impacts. But the only place where carbon dioxide (CO2) increase causes a temperature increase is in computer models preprogrammed to show exactly that. All records show that temperature increase precedes CO2 increase.

All that should matter to public officials is whether our CO2 emissions are in any way dangerous. Since they are almost certainly not, the $1 billion spent every day across the world on climate finance is mostly wasted.

Today, a negative correlation is observed in the amount of rainfall in north-western Africa and north-western Europe. If a humid winter climate prevails in north-western Europe, the climate in north-western Africa is dry. Due to melting ice sheets, this correlation was reversed in the early Holocene period; this resulted in both regions being humid respectively dry at the same time. Radical climate change occurred. The researchers have published their report in the current edition of Nature Geoscience.

I found a previously undiscovered version of 1999 NASA US temperatures, and made an updated animation of NASA’s US temperature fraud. Note that the old version is in degrees F.

NASA used to show about 1 degree F cooling from the 1930’s to the mid-1990’s, now they show warming.

Drought is a natural hazard that climate models have predicted will increase in the future in consequence of CO₂-induced global warming. One way to gauge the validity of such predictions is by examining long-term historic trends in drought to see if there is anything unusual about their occurrence over the past few decades, during which time climate alarmists claim the Earth has experienced unprecedented global warming due to rising atmospheric CO₂ emissions.  And that is exactly what the seven member research team of Biet al. (2015) did in assessing drought variability for southwest China over the past three-and-a-half centuries.

To accomplish their objective, Bi et al. analyzed 39 tree ring cores obtained from 23 Picea likiangensis trees growing on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (27.14°N, 100.23°E), located at the southern part of the Hengduan Mountains, southwest China, to reconstruct a historical spring season Palmer Drought Severity Index (PSDI) for this region.

A group of adventurers, sailors, pilots and climate scientists that recently started a journey around the North Pole in an effort to show the lack of ice, has been blocked from further travels by ice. 

The Polar Ocean Challenge is taking a two month journey that will see them go from Bristol, Alaska, to Norway, then to Russia through the North East passage, back to Alaska through the North West passage, to Greenland and then ultimately back to Bristol. Their objective, as laid out by their website, was to demonstrate “that the Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks back so far now in the summer months that sea that was permanently locked up now can allow passage through.”

There has been one small hiccup thus-far though: they are currently stuck in Murmansk, Russia because there is too much ice blocking the North East passage the team said didn’t exist in summer months, according to Real Climate Science.

Roger Harrabin has been up to his tricks again, with another idle piece of desperately one sided propaganda: 

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded worldwide, and the 14th straight month that global heat records were broken, scientists say.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says global sea temperatures were fractionally higher than for June last year while land temperatures tied.

Its global temperature records date back 137 years, to 1880.

Most scientists attribute the increases to greenhouse gas emissions.

They also say climate change is at least partially to blame for a number of environmental disasters around the world.

No need for you to feel “scientifically challenged” anymore; there is an App for nearly everything now. It appears that one of the easiest ways to become a “scientist” (concerned or not, my personal view) is to join the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). That group has already millions of members (so it claims) and you are most welcome to join. No experience or other credentials required — if anything, just a few dollars from your wallet. 

Really; I’m not kidding. The UCS is just one of several so-called “widely recognized scientific bodies” that pretend to know what’s good for you and everyone else on earth. And it’s so easy to join and to become another one of their many “scientists,” concerned or not. You can endorse any of their many campaigns by adding your name, address and contact (email) information, and (may also add) a small donation to support their latest outcry over what is being claimed to ail the world.

The correction of intellectual error is often an arduous task.  At the beginning of what is now known as science Galileo Galilei took on such a challenge and we are quite familiar with his story.  It would seem that we should have learned to not place a great deal of confidence in human reason when the subject of our inquiry involves the natural world or universe.  However, the most recent case involving continental drift and Alfred Wegener discloses that even modern scientists have a great tendency to cling to intellectual reasoning over empirical observation.

To anyone familiar with the history of science and the scientific hypothesis known as the greenhouse effect of certain atmospheric gases, it should be no surprise that I will likely face opposition similar to that faced by Galileo or Wegener as I attempted to disclose the fact that this popular hypothesis is based upon a fundamentally incorrect assumption.

This unstated assumption is that sensible heat can be transferred from a colder body to a warmer body, from a volume of the colder, generally upper, atmosphere to a volume of warmer, generally lower, atmosphere or from the colder atmosphere to the warmer earth’s surface that generally exists during midday.

For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today. 

Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and cryology, and also includes human behavior by both responding to and affecting human activities. Current concerns over climate change have further pushed climate science to the forefront of scientific inquiry.

What should we be teaching college students?

It is indisputable that significant climate change is a never ending condition: Earth’s climate, due to internal and external forces, is inconstant and variable across regions.

Chinese researchers determined that non-CO2 forcings are the principal causes of majors swings in a climate’s temperature, be it cooling and warming. They also determined that the modern 20th century warming, which doomsday alarmists attribute solely to the trace gas CO2, is well below the confirmed warming that took place in earlier, pre-industrial periods.

A new 368-year tree ring temperature reconstruction has established that regional (China) summer temperatures were warmer than they are now (2012) during the mid-1600s and early 1700s, and that the temperature variations can be linked to variations in solar activity, volcanic forcing (cooling), and natural oceanic-atmospheric oscillations (AMO/PDO).

The authors are intent on pointing out that it is “noteworthy that 20th century warming was not very obvious in our reconstruction.”  This “noteworthy” finding is mentioned four different times in the paper.

The lack of a conspicuous 20th century warming — and the warmer periods during the 1600s and 1700s — are clearly shown in the summer temperature graph below:

NOAA claims global temperatures are the hottest ever, based on some rather spectacular junk science. NOAA doesn’t actually have any temperature data over most of the land surface.

201606.gif (990×765)

They never had any data from most of the southern hemisphere.

This article is part of an occasional series exploring the possibility (or rather the necessity) of a sociological analysis of climate catastrophism. Others can be found at

https://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/category/sociology-of-climate-change/

It argues 1) that the key criterion for identifying the social class which has propelled climate catastrophism to centre stage (the green blob; the chattering classes, Guardianistas, the “right on” generation – define them how you will) is university education and 2) an explanation is required of how such a weak (woolly, vague, unconvincing) idea as environmentalism (“we live on a fragile planet”; “we need to recycle/conserve/cycle to work to prevent the sixth great extinction” etc.) has conquered the world. Both ideas I have lifted from the work of Emmanuel Todd, a French historian (pictured) and demographer I have often referred to in different posts. I’ve added an appendix describing Todd’s work, which is of great interest outside the narrow bounds of an analysis of climate catastrophism.

A new study published Monday found no link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and asthma, despite numerous claims a link did exist in media coverage of the study. 

USA Today, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and CBS News all claimed the study directly linked fracking to asthma, when the authors of the study openly state they have no data to show fracking causes asthma or make symptoms worse.

The data shows counties with the most asthma have little to no fracking. The study was directly funded by a foundation with close ties to an environmental movement — the official position of which is anti-fracking.