Scientist reacts to YouTube climate change comments

hello my name is Simon Clark and I am both a youtuber and a climate scientist I have a PhD in atmospheric physics from the University of Exeter and I make videos on a variety of topics in climate physics now when you make videos like that you tend to get some quite interesting comments in the you know discussion so I thought in this video I could look through some of the recent comments I've received and talk through some of the points they're being raised how many scientists drive less and fly less name what they know secondly your scientist dr. Adams said the influence of the Sun on climate is not so much I think he needs to be examined the data for disclosure I'm no scientist well thanks for making that very clear this is in response to a video that I did with dr. Adam levy climate Adam on YouTube you should check him out and in that we're talking about global cooling and what they're asking is that the sun's influence on the climate is apparently not very much no what we were saying in that video is that the sun's influence on the climate changing is not very much because the sun's output has not changed significantly I already know now what the comments section of this video will be and it will be saying that they we're entering into a global solar minimum and that it's sunspot activity and I can say with absolute confidence that that is not the case that is not a view that is held by scientists in any high esteem as for how many scientists derive and fly less as a result of knowing what they know about climate change a great deal of them a great many scientists that I know for example don't drive very much they will actually cycle to work they will attempt to not fly as much as possible I try and fly as little as I possibly can I've been vegetarian for nearly 10 years because I want to try and live in my carbon impact in short scientists do change their behaviors as kind of practicing what they preach I guess climate changed is caused by climate manipulation yes we've been manipulating the climate causing it to change because of carbon emissions you might be new here very quick comment here shut down climate and in shut down climate that would be good shut down China and India problem solved I think this is quite a common misconception that I see in my comments that the developing world is the part of the world which is responsible for most of the emissions and we certainly hear a lot of rhetoric around China in particular however the fact is that 10% of the world's population the richest 10% accounts for 50% of the world's emissions and that's because our lifestyles here in the developed West very carbon intensive compared to the lifestyles of people in for example China and India but of course is a snapshot at the moment that's not something which is going to be continuing to the because both of those countries are incredibly large they are also developing socially and having expanding middle classes and they are getting still bigger there is a whole complicated argument to be had about the nature of industrialization in the developing world and the fact that the West was allowed to industrialize and emit lots of carbon in doing so but now we're saying to the developing world that no you can't do that and that's a complicated discussion to be had I just like to say that there are technologies available now that negate the need to emit lots of carbon in particular when looking at rural electrification in places like Africa for example we currently have technologies based on renewables which will electrify most of the people that have not yet received electricity access for very little carbon costs and for the record those low carbon costs are anyway possible because the investment of developing nations China is basically the entire reason that we can have a cheap reliable photovoltaics so China is the reason that the solar energy is looking as cheap and as promising as it currently does so whether or not we want to shut down China in India I I wouldn't recommend it who is this guy Al Gore's brother I see a lot of comments from this particular user for the record know what happens a global warming its climate change now isn't it generally when a hypothesis fails to accurately predict a phenomenon it's because the hypothesis isn't good now you're a really cool for questioning when questioning is supposed to be the backbone of science better not question climate change lest you be guilty of heresy well to answer those users question global warming and climate change are not the same thing global warming refers to the global average increase in temperatures that we see when we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere climate change is if you like the knock-on effect of trapping all that extra energy in the system so that can result in areas of being hotter than the average warming but also colder than the average warming as well as changes in things like precipitation and circulation patterns so they're not the same thing as to whether a hypothesis fails to accurate predictive phenomenon it's not good it's just as well that global warming's hypothesis that radiative forcing due to anthropogenic carbon increases the level average temperature that's been borne out so I'm yeah good job basic science by the way these videos that I make on climate tend to get swarmed by a lot of users and BOTS in some cases who drop dislikes on them for basically talking about science so if you're enjoying this video so far and finding an indication or then do pop that like down there it does make a pretty big difference someone here has just posted the ideal gas law Wikipedia what on earth you trying to say you obviously don't understand full solar forcing all the solar capital cycles just trying to communicate there are solar cycles and cycles in the Earth's orbit around the Sun which have been accounted for by climate scientists for decades if only this user was around then maybe we could have got it done a little bit faster I'll draw the parent they understand all them two millimeters per year Wow quick run for the hills this is in reference to the global average change in sea level actually it's a fair bit more than that it's actually at the moment I think more like 3.1 millimeters per year that is the average and it's getting faster and faster that's actually what the whole video is about perhaps if this commenter actually watched it they might have used the right figure in grasped that concept that obviously doesn't sound terribly scary however you have to remember that a small change vertically and if you're talking about just a couple of centimeters of change over for example a decade maybe by the end of the century that's a lot of land laterally away from the coastline which is going to be flooded because you notice there's a lot of this land is very gently sloping so a small vertical change will result in a large error of coastline loss that's not actually the big issue here the big issue is the fact that it raises the average level of the sea which then means that errors which are susceptible to coastal flooding extend way further inland when you get stuff like storms storm surges happening then a lot far larger areas are gonna be affected and also areas which are densely populated so much as it doesn't sound like very much of a change per year first of all it's getting faster and faster secondly we're looking at the change over the whole century which could be in worst case scenario a couple of meters and thirdly the areas that we're talking about being affected are densely populated and could have some really catastrophic effects so run for the hills not actually the worst advice you could give maybe in a couple of decades though I want global warming the more the better I want to plant coconut trees and tropical for in my garden taking this comment of face value that's not really gonna be your principal concerns yes changes in global temperature and global climate will result in different species of plants animals migrating and being able to grow different species where you previously weren't able to do so however I think people are far too flippant in many cases about potential outcomes of climate change obviously this stuff is in the future we cannot say with certainty any particular event will happen but we think it is very likely that we will see a huge amount of force migration as a result of climate change because of rising sea levels in places like Bangladesh that would displace tens of millions of people velocity migration away from areas that become drought prone that have had their resources exhausted or because they can't grow particular crops in a region anymore another consequence would be the clustering of extreme events because at the moment when we get a particular extreme weather event it's often a very long time until the next extreme event what's going to be a particularly big problem in the future is when you get one and then almost immediately another you're already reeling from a disaster such as an extensive drought or an extensive hurricane or a heat wave as we saw in Europe relatively recently how on earth do you respond to that disaster happening again in short order the fact is it will put an overwhelming strain on the response to these situations so when we talk about climate change having these impacts yes there is potentially some benefits to be had if you want to grow pineapples in your garden in the middle attitudes but on the other end of the spectrum we're dealing with some pretty heavy consequences and I think that should be borne in mind well I think that's enough for one day looking through comments I hope that you enjoyed this journey that we went on together I hope that it was educational and maybe even a little entertaining also by the way if you think that the videos that I make on this subjects are important if you think more people should be seeing them and I should be making more of them then consider supporting me on patreon they'll be a link down there in the description you get access to videos a day early you get some patreon exclusive behind-the-scenes type of content and it makes a real difference to how I can make videos so if you think this is important please do consider supporting if you did enjoy the video please feel free to pop it alike you can also subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more videos like the ones these people have been commenting on and if you'd like to see me do more of this kind of thing then also let me know down in the comments and I could happily record some more videos like this one thank you again for watching and I'll see in the next one you

Channel: Simon Clark

Views: 822,469

Keywords: climate change, climate deniers, climate scientist, reacts, reacts to comments, comments, global warming, climate skeptics, real scientist, scientist, IPCC, simonoxphys, simonoxfphys, dr simon clark, drsimonclark, youtube comments

Id: Nb84nmXNBqg

Length: 8min 58sec (538 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/notdrivel]

Appropriate response for developing countries. 👌