Europe’s Top Climate Scientist Loses It: Claims Mankind Now Undergoing Climate-Related “Collective Suicide Attempt”…Rapid “Mass Extinction”!

Outgoing director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) believes mankind, through its activities, is headed for a “mass extinction” event and an anthropogenic calamity comparable to a geological scale asteroid hit.

Outgoing Potsdam Institute director Hans-Joachim “John” Schellnhuber tells German national daily that mankind has run out of time and faces “mass extinction” and calamity of geological proportions. Photo: PNAS.

In an online article titled Climate Change Like An Asteroid Strike appearing in Germany’s national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), journalist Alex Rühle reports on the outgoing director of Germany’s alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Prof. Hans-Joachim “John” Schellnhuber.

Prof. Schellnhuber, widely known in Germany as the Climate Pope, is considered in Europe as the leading climate science authority and the architect of the Master Plan for transforming global society – dubbed The Great Transformation – which aims to make global society climate compatible by applying draconian, surrealistic measures. Moreover the plan calls for all of it to happen in just a matter of a couple of decades!

A number of critics have characterized the whole idea as detached from economic reality and dystopian.

Risks mounting “by the hour”

Schellnhuber is also the father of the “2°C climate target”, a warming he claims that the world must never exceed, lest it’ll tip hopelessly into a state of rapid, irreversible climatic collapse.

The SZ article reports how the outgoing Schellnhuber believes the planet is in fact approaching the climatic catastrophe at “a crazy speed” and that the risks “are mounting quasi by the hour”.

The alarmist Potsdam Institute professor has been known for a number of shrill comments made in the past, but in this most recent SZ article, Schellnhuber’s shrillness arguably reaches a whole new level that shoots beyond the realms of reason.

Rapid, epic disaster of geologic dimensions

Now that Schellnhuber is stepping down as director of the Potsdam Institute after 25 years as its director, he reflects back, telling the SZ how he feels about the overall public “disinterest with regards to the consequences of climate change” that has taken hold globally.

In Schellnhuber’s view, world leaders are moving far too sluggishly to avert what he sees is a climatic disaster of epic geological proportions, and compares it to earlier calamities which the earth witnessed tens of millions of years ago.

100 times faster than Permian–Triassic extinction event

The Potsdam director tells the SZ that the globe’s temperature today is rising at a rate of 5°C per century! – or “100 times faster than during the time of the Permian–Triassic extinction event” which occurred some 250 million years ago and is believed to have wiped out 90% of all land life on the planet at the time.

According to Rühle, Schellnhuber compares today’s climate change to the “largest mass extinctions in the history of the earth.”

Comparable to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event!

If one mass extinction event was not enough to illustrate what in Schellnhuber’s mind is climatically in store for humanity, the former PIK director piles on with yet another geological catastrophe to describe the course on which he claims man has put the planet on. He tells the SZ:

What man is doing today is similar to the asteroid strike known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.”

According to the SZ, Schellnhuber says, “We’ve shirked our responsibility much too long”.

He then compares the situation to a sinking ship that urgently demands top priority:

If we don’t get climate change under control, and if we can no longer keep the ship afloat, then we won’t need to think about distribution of income, racism and good taste any longer.”

Embarrassing climate science even more

Luckily Schellnhuber’s dire claims are very much in dispute and considered extreme outliers, but do provide much fodder to the media. If anything is certain, it is that Schellnhuber is definitely not leaving his post a minute too soon. His most recent claims are an embarrassment to science.

67 responses to “Europe’s Top Climate Scientist Loses It: Claims Mankind Now Undergoing Climate-Related “Collective Suicide Attempt”…Rapid “Mass Extinction”!”

  1. RCS

    How does someone as deranged as Schellnhuber occupy the position he does? Is it likely that sanity will return following his departure? I’m not holding my breath.

    1. sunsettommy

      I think he is mentally disturbed, since he is past the hyperbole propaganda stage, falling straight into the Twilight Zone.

      It was around 2C warmer early in the Holocene, yet the world hummed along without big disasters.

      1. SebastianH

        Please be so kind and link to something that shows the early Holocene temperatures were indeed more than 1 degree Celsius higher than at the beginning of the industrialisation. Thank you.

        1. Kenneth Richard

          https://notrickszone.com/2017/08/21/10000-to-5000-years-ago-global-sea-levels-were-3-meters-higher-temperatures-4-6-c-warmer/
          10,000 To 5,000 Years Ago, Global Sea Levels Were 3 Meters Higher, Temperatures 4-6° C Warmer

          1. SebastianH

            10,000 To 5,000 Years Ago, Global Sea Levels Were 3 Meters Higher, Temperatures 4-6° C Warmer

            It is kind of amazing with how much certainty you assert this. All by just reversing a thermal expansion equation to get temperature from sea level …

            How very scientific.

          2. Kenneth Richard

            All by just reversing a thermal expansion equation to get temperature from sea level

            The scientists publishing the papers wrote that temperatures were 4-6 degrees C warmer than today in the Early Holocene. I’m just citing what they wrote.

          3. AndyG55

            Seb, as usual, has no counter . EMPTY!!

            There are large amounts of evidence that the first 3/4 of the Holocene was significantly warmer than now.

            Stop being a CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER, seb.

        2. Kurt in Switzerland

          Seb,

          Have you never read a study on glacial extent or tree line (altitude and/or latitude) comparing the early- to mid-holocene with modern climate?

          1. John F. Hultquist
          2. SebastianH

            Have you never seen the graphs that picture the holocene maximum at most 1 degree about the pre-industrial times?

            We are not talking about temperature at specific places … it’s about global average temperatures.

          3. Kenneth Richard

            Have you never seen the graphs that picture the holocene maximum at most 1 degree about the pre-industrial times?

            I’m sure he’s probably seen the images of the discredited Marcott et al., 2013 graph, yes.

            We are not talking about temperature at specific places … it’s about global average temperatures.

            Global average temperatures are a sum of the temperatures at specific places.

          4. AndyG55
    2. tom0mason

      It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

    3. dennisambler

      “Is it likely that sanity will return following his departure?”

      No, because he is replaced by Edenhofer and Rockstrom. Edenhofer uses the thing for Socilist redistribution policies and Rockstrom is a UN “Sustainability” wonk from the Stockholm Institute.

  2. Steve Borodin

    This is in the same category as: “Antarctica will be the only habitable continent by 2020”. Deranged!

    1. toorightmate

      Antarctica is habitable now – IF you get a few trillion of government subsidies.
      JUST LIKE THE RENEWABLE ENERGY BUSINESS IS “VIABLE” – with a few trillion of government subsidies.

      1. SebastianH

        Just like the fossil fuel industry has been viable, just needs trillions of subsidies per year. And those subsidies don’t go towards a goal of making energy consumption a bit more sustainable …

        1. AndyG55

          “just needs trillions of subsidies per year”

          WRONG, and getting totally desperate.

        2. John F. Hultquist

          Show a tally of taxes paid by the energy producers.

          You will never get “subsidies” properly defined in your head so there is no sense in going that direction. Taxes paid is less amenable to contortions.

          1. John F. Hultquist

            I forgot to say – – I’ll wait.

          2. AndyG55
          3. SebastianH

            About 5 trillion $ in subsidies per year for fossil fuels.

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867

            It’s a paper, thus science.

          4. AndyG55

            roflmao.. seb faceplants yet again

            Read what you post first , seb

            Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy in 2013, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%

            Undercharging for global warming WTH ???
            So basically fabricated numbers, anyway, they should be rewarded if they caused any warming, and certainly rewarded for releasing CO2. That is benefit to all life on Earth.

            Air Pollution ???
            another fabricated number.

            broader vehicle externalities
            What the heck is that.. FABRICATED !!

            general consumer taxes
            do they mean tax rebates , that all businesses get??

            These are NOT subsidies, they are spurious made up numbers. Figments of the AGW fossil fuel hatred.

          5. yonason (from my cell phone)

            Oh yeah, sciencedirect is my go-to site for all things sciency. //sarc//
            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237397000285

            …not the first screwy article I’ve seen there.

      2. tom0mason

        toorightmate 16. May 2018 at 11:56 PM

        Of course nobody can find where Western nations have subsidized fossil fuels use to the tune of trillion, if this were true they would link to the documentation. But they have nothing.

        1. yonason (from my cell phone)

          In fact, it’s been posted a number of times that the only subsidies of real energy are made in third world countries, not in The West. Seb should know that by now, so either he hadn’t bothered to read the material or he’s deliberately ignoring it because it contradicts the falsehoods he’s pushing.

          Here AGAIN is one link on it, for seb to not read, ignore or forget.
          http://euanmearns.com/the-appalling-truth-about-energy-subsidies/

          By now a lot of readers are aware of seb’s inability to tell the truth when it shows how wrong he is.

  3. Kurt in Switzerland

    Wow. Poor fellow.

    One worries about his mental health.

    There exists zero evidence that his draconian plans for restructuring society would even have a measurable difference on climate, now or at some point in the future.

    The societal correction will come one day: unfortunately, it will likely be too late for Schellnhuber to atone for the destructive “Climate Policies” resulting from his doomsday predictions.

    1. oldbrew

      Don’t worry about him. He just wants to be in the headlines, like the rest of the alarmists.

    2. Henning Nielsen

      He has a most arrogant, superior smirk on his face. Looks like that “Home Alone” movie kid, only much older.

      1. yonason (from my cell phone)
    3. SebastianH

      Look at how ad homs are suddenly perfectly ok with you guys 😉

      We get it, you guys don’t like Schellnhuber and it’s far easier to attack a person than finding that one thing where climate scientists got it wrong to disprove the whole AGW thing. Sometimes I have the feeling skeptics aren’t even trying to achieve this …

      1. Kurt in Switzerland

        Seb,

        Allow me to correct that for you:

        We get it, you guys adore Schellnhuber and it’s far easier to fawn over a person than finding that one thing where climate scientists got it right, in order to raise the credibility of the whole AGW thing [above the level of religious belief]. I have the feeling warmists aren’t even trying to achieve this …

        1. yonason (from my cell phone)

          Ad Hom is when you mock a person to discredit his ideas, which you are unable to show are wrong. As far as I’m concerned, once his ideas have been shown to not only be wrong, but are obvious garbage, he’s made himself fair game for the mockery he has earned and deserves. So, once again, seb’s criticism is baseless nonsense.

  4. Brian Steere

    Catastrophic psychology as opened by Velikovsky and others from study of the mythic records of antiquity, is ‘unconscious’ patterns reenacted as a result of the framing and structuring of the development of subjective or split into segregated consciousness.

    Survival and alignment under the beseeched power to mitigate or escape pain and loss under terror operates the world we co-create by reacting as if it is true. Masking feared truth is the lie and the father of it.

    Invested identities are asserted and defended as if real. We may note this in ourselves readily. Corporately invested and manipulated identity operates the ancient terror as negative self interest – on a global scale. We do not need a cometary cataclysm because we are quite capable of doing this unto ourselves – and more disturbingly, compelled to do so through negative or fear-defined identity or self definition.

    A priest class operates to protect society from fear by narrative displacement in the belief that people cannot bear the truth. Our own mind has its own version of self protective self narrative; a narrative continuity that is revealed to operate rules of narrative control in terms of currently accepted self definition.

    Without the adversity, enemy, or threat, the priesthood or control mentality becomes redundant and interprets this event as adversity, enemy, or threat to core sense of power over and against chaos. This is so fundamental that no expense, no sacrifice, and no sense of moral integrity can be afforded. This is the god of sacrifice. This is the god of terror. This is the necessity to hide or mask truth from awareness by presentation of appeasement to share in power over feared chaos upon which and from which all ‘meanings of the world’ pay tribute – or serve as reinforcement.

    Of ourselves we cannot give up the false, while actively embodying a false agenda as if true – except in some token sacrifice that works to limit loss rather than embrace the true. But we can accept the true as the revealing and releasing of the false by pausing from reactive thinking and attending presently.

    Re-integrative movement of being is they un doing of splits we make real and die by. The apocalypse is thus transformed to a great revealing which is indeed its original meaning. We may well be greatly disturbed but love of truth is being With what is instead of seeking to manipulate, determine or assert it to be different. I cannot speak to the mind in the spin of its own thinking, but only to a like willingness to listen.

    Reaching beyond ourselves as we think and judge to be, for a better quality of experience – regardless the current conditions (or definition-reactions that make our experience) is easier when we recognize that our thought is corrupted – and we must needs listen with commitment to self-honesty, regardless the ‘resistances or persecutions’ of conflicted self interest.

    1. SebastianH

      And what do you call the beviour of skeptics which close their eyes and ears and loudly sing “la la la la la, nothing is happening, and if it would happen we can’t be the reason for it happening, and if we were the reason what’s happening is not bad at all”?

      1. AndyG55

        “nothing is happening”

        What is happening that is provably not part of natural variability?

        You still have ZERO proof even for the very basis of the AGW farce.. ie CO2 warming

        Come on seb. Here is your chance.

        And please, no unsupportable AGW mantra yapping, and no mindless analogies.

      2. dennisambler

        “nothing is happening, and if it would happen we can’t be the reason for it happening, and if we were the reason what’s happening is not bad at all”

        You seem finally to have got the science about right…

    2. tom0mason

      Brian Steere 16. May 2018 at 8:42 PM

      Well written showing that skeptics are very aware and sane, unlike so many AGW advocates.

  5. Brian Steere

    This is so fundamental that no expense, no sacrifice, and no sense of moral integrity can be afforded. (To get in the way).

  6. yonason (from my cell phone)

    I’m seriously considering replacing the Ipecac in my medicine cabinet with his photo.
    https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/ipecac-syrup-oral-route/description/drg-20064363

  7. AndyG55

    This is the sort of stuff the resident AGW-apostle worships. !!

  8. Bitter&twisted

    Good riddance to insane rubbish.
    How on Earth did this idiot get a professorship?
    History wil not be kind to this false prophet.

  9. Patrick healy

    Is this not the same lunatic who wrote Pope Francis deranged Global Warming Encyclical
    It’s no wonder “my” church is in dire straits.

  10. Steve

    Does he walk around the streets with an “end is nigh” sign around his neck ?

  11. AndyG55

    OT, Great post over at WUWT

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/16/a-question-that-gives-pause-if-solar-and-wind-are-so-cheap-why-are-they-making-electricity-so-expensive/

    in one of the comments

    “Germany has calculated that it needs 95% spinning backup of conventional energy (e.g. natural gas turbines) to support their wind power schemes – it would make much more economic sense to just scrap the wind power and use the gas turbines

    Then

    “The true factor that reflects the intermittency of wind power Is the Substitution Capacity*, which is about 5% in Germany – a large grid with a large wind power component. Substitution Capacity is the amount of dispatchable (conventional) power you can permanently retire when you add more wind power to the grid. In Germany they have to add ~20 units of wind power to replace 1 unit of dispatchable power. This is extremely uneconomic.

    1. AndyG55

      Everybody.. and I mean EVERYBODY should read the comments in that WUWT thread.. There are some really REALISTIC comments that show just how idiotic the wind/solar scam really is.

      Perhaps some people would then stop their brain-washed support and non-thinking shilling for these unreliable, costly, environmentally destruction junk supplies.

      Maybe even start to comprehend and eventually accept the economic IRRATIONALIITY of the whole wind/solar farce.

      “The issue is that a gas powered plant can only sell electricity for say 80% of the time. 20% of the time it is unable to sell electricity because this is being provided by wind or solar. But of course, a company makes its profit not on the first 80% of the goods that it sells, but rather on the last 5 to 20% of the goods it sells.”

      1. Penelope

        But Andy, they don’t CARE about economics. They are saving the planet remember. Many warmists cannot be reached by logic, science or economics.

        Some, to be sure, have a religious attachment to environmental propaganda. But I think that most are simply in love with the illusion of their white-hatted selves as saviors of the planet.

        Your facts simply cannot compete with their fraudulent, gilded identity.

        It’s like Brian Steere says above, “Invested identities are asserted and defended as if real.”

    2. SebastianH

      AndyG55, that WUWT post is the definition of a nonsense post and it should have been quite easy – even for you – to recognize this.

      Why nonsense? Because he completely ignores that countries like Germany subsidize renewables over a long period of time and that fee is being paid by electricity customers on top of their regular bill. That and inflation is the main reason why the price is so comparatively high (compared to say what German customers paid at the start of this century). The price of electricity itself is pretty stable: https://energy-charts.de/price_avg.htm?year=all&price=nominal&period=annual

      Everybody.. and I mean EVERYBODY should read the comments in that WUWT thread.. There are some really REALISTIC comments that show just how idiotic the wind/solar scam really is.

      The comments there are just a continuation of the posting … at best they show how “idiotic” skeptics really are.

      “The issue is that a gas powered plant can only sell electricity for say 80% of the time. 20% of the time it is unable to sell electricity because this is being provided by wind or solar. But of course, a company makes its profit not on the first 80% of the goods that it sells, but rather on the last 5 to 20% of the goods it sells.”

      This comment author would be surprised if he finds out the real capacity factor of gas powered plants in Germany: https://energy-charts.de/percent_full_load.htm?source=gas&year=2018

      So this begs the question by how much exactly the price of electricity from a power plant that already is only running 20-30% of the time is going to change if it doesn’t run further 5 percentage points of time. Want to take an educated guess? Or will you go with the comment author and claim that the power plant can’t make a profit anymore? 😉

      1. AndyG55

        Poor seb, still in your little fantasy land of la-la economics. and zero comprehension.

        “if he finds out the real capacity factor of gas powered plants “

        But those plant COULD run at 85% capacity 24/7 if required. Something wind and solar CAN NEVER DO.

        That is what you seem incapable of understanding.

        The fact that they are forced to make-way for unreliable supplies is what cost so much money, because the HAVE to be kept operational. It is forced inefficiency.

        Your complete LACK of any sort of economic understanding is totally bizarre, and totally expected.

        1. SebastianH

          But those plant COULD run at 85% capacity 24/7 if required. Something wind and solar CAN NEVER DO.

          1) no they can’t, there is no demand for this
          2) they were build with knowing how much electricity they’ll need to generate on average, nothing wrong with a fossil fuel power plants running having a capacity factor of 30% or less

          The fact that they are forced to make-way for unreliable supplies is what cost so much money, because the HAVE to be kept operational. It is forced inefficiency.

          In theory maybe, but I gave you the link to the average electricity prices … are they increasing?
          https://energy-charts.de/price_avg.htm?year=all&price=nominal&period=annual

          Your complete LACK of any sort of economic understanding is totally bizarre, and totally expected.

          *sigh* … the bizarre thing here, are your replies.

          1. AndyG55

            “1) no they can’t, there is no demand for this”

            Poor seb, Intentionally talking rubbish, yet again

            Do you really DENY that, if needed, these plants could run at 85% 24/7.. seriously ???

            Do you DENY that there isn’t demand sometimes.

            “nothing wrong with a fossil fuel power plants running having a capacity factor of 30% or less”

            So long as you don’t expect them to stick around.

            Would you take a job, your only job, where you were “on call” 24/7 but only got paid for say 2 hours a week ??

            And when they are gone, so has the 95% back-up needed for wind and solar.

      2. AndyG55

        LOL, perhaps you should have looked at some of the other graphs, saved yourself another faceplant !

        lignite per unit.. sitting often well above 80% capacity, even a 91% in there

        nuclear up to 98.7

        hard coal being restricted, average looks like around 50%

        Wind off shore, doing quite well, average around 40% that’s all that it can do.

        Wind onshore…18.2% roflmao !!!!!

  12. Jerry Baustian

    Re: “Prof. Schellnhuber, widely known in Germany as the Climate Pope, is considered in Europe as the leading climate science authority and the architect of the Master Plan for transforming global society”

    Why are Germans so often the architects of social transformation? Luther, Marx, Hitler and now Schellhuber!

  13. Ken Tarpley

    What a nut job. As a famous person once said “Keep it up!” The undertaker, Monty python https://youtu.be/aChRo7PrPQw

  14. Penelope

    I know of a couple of depressed individuals who seem to long for their own death, and so have latched onto the coming “doom of mankind” as a way to dignify their own longing for death. It’s a sort of megalomania, if you know what I mean.

  15. tom0mason

    Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber has always been acting as less of a scientist and more of a politician, and Marx, one of the 20th century’s most important philosopher of modern life, said —

    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

    Such remarkable insight from Groucho Marx.

    1. Stephen Richards

      A lot of people thought Groucho was a comedian

      But he was much more than that. A brilliant man

    2. Georg Thomas

      tom0mason, LOL, first I thought, this can’t be Marx! Then I realised: Ah, Groucho it is!

  16. Lasse

    He will be replaced by Rockström-so don’t jump for joy yet.
    He is a well known profile in the Alarm family.
    The problem is that he has no intention to listen to anyone-the case is closed!
    We have 1,5-4,5 degrees heating to look forward to and must act as it is 4,5 and not listen to those who are optimistic/realistic.
    http://www.stockholmresilience.org/news–events/general-news/2018-02-23-johan-rockstrom-appointed-director-at-potsdam-institute-for-climate-impact-research.html

  17. Michael Jones

    It feels cruel and undignified even to laugh at this poor guy, although it is hard not to.

    For those a little less far gone, the acid test is to see how they respond when you tell them you can provide evidence that the world ISN’T going to end. Those with some remaining sanity will be desperate to be persuaded that maybe there is something they overlooked, some hope at least. As for the rest…well we all know the answer: toddler tantrums, name-calling and personal attacks ranging from the verbal to full-on violence. You may as well have stolen their very soul. Take away their precious victimhood and there’s very little left.

  18. Rah

    Remember the phrase: “You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
    It’s obviously obsolete. And not just in the realm of climate science fiction.

  19. Tom

    How many times are they going to roll out the same nonsense? People have literally been making these claims for hundreds and even thousands of years. But the myth of overpopulation, the hysteria over man’s contribution to normal climate cycles, has them all worked up AGAIN. I remember when ozone “depletion” was going to kill us all. But actual studies show that the ozone cycles on its own as well, and man has very little influence over. Acid Rain, was also mainly natural, on and on – this is NOT to say we should not be concerned about our air quality, especially in dense urban areas, and especially the purity of our water, but man’s overreaction seems to always lead to MORE issues. I think now that our world is linked so quickly due to technology, where we see every frightening natural disaster, or unnatural disasters, we feel that we are always on the brink. Personally I think the continuing threat of a nuclear exchange should still be our greatest concern, but the world is so economically linked now, its a limited fear, less than it was in the early days of the Nuke race. Personally, I think you should work within your limited sphere of influence, try to help others, and take care of your family – God is large and in charge, and if the day comes where we must deal with the unthinkable, then we deal with the unthinkable, until then worry is useless as most peoples reaction to fear is to freeze in place, not to act. So this guy, who looks like some kind of doctor evil, and who is probably a eugenicist, should go crawl back under a rock, and let the big boys and girls deal with day to day life.

  20. dennisambler

    Maybe Hans-Joachim will retire to space…

    “Determination of habitable zones in extrasolar planetary systems: Where are Gaia’s sisters?” (Schellnhuber, co-author)

    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/afde/a3cdd91507fd68dc67e43e8843366e8e4872.pdf

  21. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #316

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