Prophet Of Climate Doom Schellnhuber Warns Planet Is “In The Race Of Its Life” …”Moon Stations On Earth”!

Spiegel 31 Oct 2015This week’s print edition of Der Spiegel features an interview with Prof. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, the Director of the climate doomsday Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and advisor to Pope Francis.

Hat-tip: Reader Stefan B.

8°C of warming

When asked if society is headed for trouble, Schellnhuber warns that if we continue burning fossil fuels as before, then “we will end up with 4 or even 8°C of warming” and that “we will find ourselves in an extremely dangerous world“.

Only 20% chance humanity will save itself

In the interview he says that “on bad days I get really depressed” and that humanity finds itself in the “race of its life“. He tells Spiegel that the planet is going to take some hard hits, but that it still isn’t too late to avert total damage. Throughout the interview Schellnhuber’s pessimism at time takes on weird, surrealistic dimensions. In his book, Spiegel writes, Schellnhuber sees only a 20% chance the world will succeed in putting the brakes on climate change.

State must intervene

In the interview Schellnhuber harshly criticizes the UN climate process, describing the conferneces as Kafkaesque events that keep postponing the rescue of the world. He says we have to wonder “if there is any intelligent life on the planet“.

He sees little chance of curbing the fossil fuel industry quickly enough, yet holds out hope that divesting from fossil fuel companies might do the trick:

If for example some influential investors pulled their money out of the coal, oil and gas industry because they felt it no longer had a future, then we would get an avalanche dynamic that could cause the old system to quickly implode on itself.”

Wow! And all the human casualties resulting from that scenario be damned, Schellnhuber seems to be saying.

Throughout the interview Schellnhuber calls on the state to use its might to massively intervene in the free market and industry, e.g. especially the automotive industry. He hopes that governments will soon require carmakers to meet punishingly high emission standards and in this way force them to produce electric cars instead.

In the interview Schellnhuber tells Spiegel that (when he isn’t flying all over the world to places like Australia in a jet) he gets around in an i3 by BMW. Sounds pricey. He tells Spiegel he wonders why people still drive the dirty cars powered by combustion engines.

Worse than thought 5 or 10 years ago

When asked if scientists have been too shrill with their warnings and if he is perhaps being too alarmist, Schellnhuber responds:

Precisely because I, as an expert, know that we have very little time to stop a global tragedy, I have to raise my voice. […] Unfortunately the situation looks more dramatic than what we perceived it to be five or ten years ago.”

Here Schellnhuber claims already the West Antarctic Peninsula has already begun to collapse.

When asked if he tends to jump on the alarmist prognoses that suit his concept regarding storm frequency, Schellnhuber denies that he does, but adds, “but my physical intuition tells me that storms, especially in connection with thunderstorms, will be more severe all over the world if more energy gets pumped into the atmosphere. Nature will decide who is right.”

Schellnhuber also tells Spiegel he does not see any global temperature pause whatsoever in the temperature datasets. But he does admit the globe cooled for awhile after 1945 and that no one knows why.

Moon stations on earth

At the end of the interview Schellnhuber piles on the global warming doom hyperbole, warning that a world that is 7 or 8 degrees warmer will be almost uninhabitable and that “we will be building moon stations on earth“, citing today’s Persian Gulf and its completely artificially climatized urbanization – and with “bizarre medical consequences“. He adds:

Even though in Abu Dhabi where the sun shines the whole year, the residents there suffer from a massive lack of exposure to light. Nowhere else on earth are there so many people with vitamin D deficiency, which leads to rickets and other things.”

At 65, it’s time for Schellnhuber to also have himself checked for possible Vitamin deficiencies, and to go into retirement. He’d do science a big favor.

Image: Cropped from Spiegel October 31, 2015 print edition.

 

28 responses to “Prophet Of Climate Doom Schellnhuber Warns Planet Is “In The Race Of Its Life” …”Moon Stations On Earth”!”

  1. mike restin

    “If for example some influential investors pulled their money out of the coal, oil and gas industry because they felt it no longer had a future, then we would get an avalanche dynamic that could cause the old system to quickly implode on itself.”

    “Wow! And all the human casualties resulting from that scenario be damned, Schellnhuber seems to be saying.”

    They must do what they must do.

    To paraphrase Bob Dylan:
    You don’t count the dead
    When right’s on your side

    – See more at: https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.HDlry8KG.dpuf

  2. diogenese2

    In his comments on Vitamin D deficiency the Professor is probably referring to this;

    http://www.arabianbusiness.com/vitamin-d-deficiency-in-uae-residents-one-of-highest-in-world-579490.html

    He seems to overlook the fact that in a society where the strict dress code insists on almost no (male) and definitely no (female) exposure of the skin to sunlight is permitted, Vit D deficiency is a racing certainty!
    I fear that the Prof. has now completely lost his reason with the impending collapse of his lifes imperative.
    From Papal advisor to the dementia ward within a year, oh the tragedy – it makes “King Lear” a comedy (which – in part- it is).

    1. PeterK

      I know a person who has some mental issues, but all in all, most of the time you can still reason with her and carry on a genuine conversation on many topics.

      With Schellnhuber, I’m of the opinion he is past any reasonable discourse and needs to be committed because of his mental instability to reality and the here and now. He seems to suffer from something very serious and lives in a dream world where only a small minority reside.

      Perhaps this globull warming mantra will become an epidemic and by 2050 there will be very few sane people left in this world.

  3. Graeme No.3

    Vitamin deficiencies? Psychiatric assessment more likely.

    As for retirement, why should he bother? Look at Paul Erhlich with 50 years of being wrong but still going and lauded as a prophet by the gullible. Or David Suzuki who will be 80 next year while he makes a packet of money from his “knowledge” of what is wrong ( joannenova.com.au/…/david-suzuki-bombs-on-qa-knows-nothing-about-the- climate/‎ ).

    The sillier their pronouncements the more the gullible think they are right. As proof I point at your resident troll who should change his name to SISYPHUS in honour of the pioneer of pointless but renewable energy.

    1. Stephen Richards

      I thought that said SYPHYLUS just for one second. His illness certainly has those symptoms.

  4. illy

    “Even though in Abu Dhabi where the sun shines the whole year, the residents there suffer from a massive lack of exposure to light. Nowhere else on earth are there so many people with vitamin D deficiency, which leads to rickets and other things.”
    Only women wearing burka suffer vitamin D deficiency in Abu Dhabi or elsewhere. That is because of Sharia, not Global Warming.

  5. JJM Gommers

    If and a big if it, temperature, would tend to go up, it can easily be solved by geoengineering. There is no hurry to do something at the moment. So Schellnhuber statement serves another agenda or he is completely besides the truth.

  6. Curious George

    I find myself in an extremely dangerous world already. Professor Schellnhuber shares the planet with me. I would prefer logical and honest cohabitants.

  7. John F. Hultquist

    I’m sure his grandchildren love him but this man is crazy.
    Where did he get the “20% chance” thing.
    When a person just makes stuff up it is called fiction.
    And electric cars run on power (stored in a battery) produced by carbon based fuel. The little solar and wind power that exists was created by the use of carbon based fuel.
    A biographer could make a living (or not) by documenting the lives of people such as HJS and establishing when and what caused the tipping point into crackpottery. Or maybe he was born this way.

  8. DirkH

    Soon all that’s left of humanity will be a few breeding couples in the Arctis.

  9. DirkH

    His mention of Vit D deficiency led me to check it, I found this; interestingly the article claims a link between Vit D deficiency and autism in newborns.
    http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/health/uae-has-high-prevalence-of-vitamin-d-deficiency-1.1307392

    1. DirkH

      And related: Nobody in the EU will get any Vitamin D from using a tanning bed – as they are required to have UV B filters.

      So, yes – Eurocrats want you to die.

    2. David Appell

      Basically, if you live above 40 deg N latitude, you cannot get enough sunlight to create the Vit D you need.

      In Oregon, doctors recomment everyone take Vit D as a matter of course.

      1. DirkH

        “Basically, if you live above 40 deg N latitude, you cannot get enough sunlight to create the Vit D you need.”

        What’s wrong with you, David. Haven’t you ever heard about a thing called “SUMMER”.

        1. Colorado Wellington

          Dirk, it was a shortcut for:

          “… if you live in a dwelling above 40 deg N latitude, …”

          Climate alarm soldiering is an indoor job. Only the bosses and a few underbosses fly to Bali, Rio or the glaciers. Look at his picture. He knows what he’s talking about.

    3. DirkH

      My Schellnhuber-induced Vitamin D research reveals another interesting fact: When you do go out in Summer to replenish your Vit D, you better not bath or shower too much over the next 2 or 3 days as it is formed in the skin layers and takes some time to get absorbed.

      Fact or fantasy? Do your own research. Some serious-looking pages in German say so. This one for instance:
      http://www.zentrum-der-gesundheit.de/vitamin-d-bildung-stoerung-ia.html

      As a meat eater I cannot suppress my Schadenfreude over the Vegans who miss out on all kinds of nutritional sources for Vit D:
      http://www.jameda.de/naehrstoffe/vitamin-d/

  10. David Appell

    Schellnhuber is an idiot for proclaiming there is a “20%” chance of humanity surviving (if that is indeed what the translation says).

    No one knows such a number to more than +/- 100%.

  11. Colorado Wellington

    Schellnhuber lost the plot. The Norwegians can’t wait to have fun again:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42R5L7RtSvw

  12. David Johnson

    Schellnhuber really is away with the fairies

  13. DirkH

    O/T Low Carb beats Low Fat diet in terms of weight loss, researchers publish in the Lancet.
    German article:
    http://www.heilpraxisnet.de/naturheilpraxis/diaeten-versuchsreihe-low-carb-schneidet-besser-ab-als-low-fat-2015103148417
    linking to engl publication:
    http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587%2815%2900367-8/ppt

  14. geran

    How about Schellnhuber, Obama, and the pope, all move to the Moon? Seems like that might help mankind somewhat….

  15. Kurt in Switzerland

    Time to put Schell’n to pasture…

  16. Bernd Felsche

    Schellnhuber sees only a 20% chance the world will succeed in putting the brakes on climate change.

    I put that chance at close to 0%. But then I have neither the necessary hubris nor arrogance to think that I know well enough how climate works and have just a tiny appreciation of the scale of the energies involved in natural climate change.

    The real danger to society is that Schellnhuber’s death-cult insanity is contagious in the guilt-ridden, prosperous society of the western world. The people who have not been inoculated by personal struggle and hard work fail to appreciate the effort that it’s taken to achieve prosperity; and instead of promoting a paths to similar prosperity for all; feel guilt that others do not have it.

  17. DennisA

    He is promoting his new book:
    https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/201eselbstverbrennung201c-schellnhubers-blick-aufs-ganze

    “11/02/2015 – From the pioneer days in barracks to the Pope in the Vatican, from the first mathematical equations to cutting edge computer simulations – for three decades, the physicist and political advisor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber has been exploring climate change as a challenge for humanity.

    Account of the state of research, life story, eco-manifest: all this is his major upcoming book on the climate crisis.

    A few weeks prior to the UN Climate Summit in Paris, his book now addresses a wider public.

    “The title ‘self-combustion’ is a double provocation”, explains Schellnhuber.
    “Indeed, humanity is on the way to unintended self-combustion, if we do not immediately turn to the path of sustainability.”

    He promises Hell and Damnation if we do not turn towards the True Path, the Schellnhubris path.

    1. DirkH

      Self-Combustion – or any combustion – is unlikely in the warmunist scenario. The warmunist scenario is driven by positive water vapor feedback.
      “When relative humidity approaches 100 percent, condensation can occur on surfaces, leading to problems with mold, corrosion, decay, and other moisture-related deterioration.”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_humidity

      IF combustion is possible, it means the warmunist theory is wrong, and positive water vapor feedback hasn’t occured.

  18. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #204 | Watts Up With That?
  19. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #204 | Daily Green World

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