Green campaigners encounter consumer scepticism

Electric cars are not selling well to individual buyers. Few people want to buy a heat pump. Green campaigners insist these products are essential to save the planet. They plan further taxes subsidies, regulations and bans to force people to buy things they do not want or cannot afford. To succeed the green revolution needs to be a popular revolution with people wanting its products.

There are various strands to scepticism which Green campaigners need to take seriously. Shouting back at people that they are climate deniers is no way to win them over and is usually wrong. Let us first look at the science.

I know of no one who denies carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas or who denies manmade carbon dioxide is increasing. Most accept climate  has changed a lot in the past and is likely to carry on changing. The issues many have with the “settled science” include

1. Green scientists do need to explain to the wider audience what caused the warm periods and ice ages before mankind appeared. How will these  same forces which must still be around affect our temperatures going  forward?

2. In historical times before industrialisation and the adoption of coal,oil and gas as prime energy sources  by people what caused global warming and cooling? Could these forces still be around?

3. How does variation in solar intensity, solar flares and other changes in our main light and energy source affect past earth temperatures.? What are the forecasts for sun activity going forward? Will this make us warmer or colder?

4. Why do wind and current  patterns shift? What is the forecast for these going forward, as they can have an important impact on weather in different countries and continents.

5. What is the role of water vapour and what changes are likely in its pattern in future? Water vapour is another very common greenhouse gas.

Future temperature levels will be the result of the interplay of the past natural forces that produced climate change with the manmade additions to  greenhouse gases. To persuade more people to join green campaigns they will need persuasion that manmade CO 2 will be the deciding variable in future temperatures. This is presumably based on the thesis that past natural forces like solar activity and seismic activity will not be dominant forces or that their net impact will be neutral in ways that it was not in previous eras.