The Holocene Climate Optimum was a period of time 8000-5000 years BP (before present) where temperatures were from 1 to 2 degrees C warmer than today is. Even after all of the “unprecedented warming” that we have seen in the last 100 years we are still cooler than the height of this time period.
So the obvious question is: Why is this time period called the Climate Optimum when it was up to 2 degrees warmer than today AND we are also told by the same climate scientists that 2 degrees of warming would result in catastrophe?
The simple answer was that climate scientists a long time ago decided to call every hot part of a certain time period the “optimum.” This is because a hotter Earth is a better planet for life which includes humans. If you look at the definition version of optimum, this is fairly consistent:
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Most life on this planet would be happy to be warmer in other words and scientists tend to know this. The warmest period of time will always be the most favorable time period for levels of growth, reproduction and of course success. But what happened in the last 30 years is that some scientists (who decided to become activists instead of scientists) have decided that a hotter planet is going to be catastrophic instead. From Wikipedia discussing this topic (from IPCC no less)
Limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2°C over the pre-industrial average has, since the 1990s, been commonly regarded as an adequate means of avoiding dangerous climate change, in science and policy making
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
And so scientists have instead insinuated that any warming over 2 degrees C must be dangerous. Where is their proof of such disasters? Well herein lies the rub. We are given vague descriptions of sea level rise sending coastal communities to the bottom of the sea. This conflicts with recent sea level data that show no change since 100 years ago in the rise from the end of the Little Ice Age. Then are often contradictory claims of weather events becoming worse even when the data over the last 100 years does not support such claims. Than we are told that people will die in droves if it gets any hotter as well. This fear-mongering often times results in a loss of focus. Without actual proof that warming on our planet WILL result in said catastrophe, it is all conjecture. Until the science proves for one that CO2 is a dominant player in the planet’s climate, any such claims are rather premature anyway. But we hear them anyway because some scientists abandoned common sense and the scientific method and double down on logical fallacy after logical fallacy.
The only answer I really want to know from this:
Why in the world is 2 degrees C of warming (over pre-industrial levels) going to be catastrophic when by all accounts warming leads to less deaths from freezing (which causes human casualties far in excess of extreme warmth.)? And if that is indeed the case, why should ordinary citizens pay MORE for power through cap-and-trade schemes and wind power boondoggles?
It just boggles the mind that the same people who label something an “optimum” temperature also call that same temperature “catastrophic.” This is almost like double-speak in a way if you think about it. What are these scientists really after? A frozen wasteland of a planet to call their new optimum? Perhaps the Holocene Climate optimum should be renamed “Holocene Bad times” or perhaps the Holocene pessimum. H/T: Suffolkboy
BenfromMO 