Is the Phrase "Delusional Belief" Redundant?

EnergyTribune
The human brain is set up to believe things it cannot prove. Beliefs can be either religious or secular. The religious term for this phenomenon is "faith". The coldly [psycho] logical term [given that most human beliefs are wrong] is "delusion." Looking at the belief in climate catastrophe, it has become clear from inspection that such a belief is an act of quasi-religious faith, and a delusion.

Well known and respected French scientist and engineer, Christian Gerondeau, takes a closer look at this particular delusional belief in "Climate, the Great Delusion."

Christian Gerondeau, a well-known French scientist and engineer, with more than ten books to his credit, has just published in English one of the most devastating, lucid and convincing books on the climate debate. It is a short book, just about 150 pages, and it comes at the heels of the French edition of the book, which made the best-seller list there under the title CO2: Un Mythe Planétaire.

...Gerondeau, a former scientific adviser to French Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas, poses just five simple questions in this book. And it would be great if all reasonable people, on either side of the global climate debate, pause for a minute to contemplate them. (Unless of course the polarizing, highly ideological and acrimonious debate of the last few years, has poisoned everyone’s minds. Personally, I admit that I have grown to have little tolerance for climate alarmism but I still have enough of an inquisitive mind to be persuaded otherwise in the climate science.)

Gerondeau does not take a real position nor does he seem to care much about the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. But he deflates both sides on the effects of emissions, mine included, as actually irrelevant. His questions:

Question 1: “Is it possible that mankind would leave any oil, natural gas or coal that would be economically exploited in the planet’s underground?”

Question 2: “Is it possible to stop mankind’s use of oil, natural gas and coal resulting in the release of CO2 when burned?”

Question 3: “Is it realistic to try to prevent the continued increase in the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere?”

For all three questions, the answer is an unequivocal no. For obvious economic reasons even if the developed world gets together, as attempted first in Kyoto and last year in Copenhagen, to put mandatory limits or stops on carbon emissions, the developing world headed by China and India, and not just them, will continue to burn fossil fuels. The overall production of CO2 and its concentration in the atmosphere will not change from its current trends. Gerondeau, like me, has grave doubts of the feasibility of sequestration and he goes further to say that the current official wish in Europe and the United States to halve CO2 emissions by 2050 from the current level and therefore to a quarter of the current trends is just “wishful thinking”.

What is his take on the future of the planet becomes clear with the next two questions.

Question 4: “Will CO2 emissions continue indefinitely?”

Question 5: “Are we heading for disaster?”

Again the answer to both questions is a no. Since most emissions are the result of burning fossil fuels, their peak will bring about the eventual exhaustion of these fuels and their emissions. He thinks this will happen by the end of the twenty first century. For the catastrophe Cassandras he has this to say. “In the distant past, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been… twenty times what it is today and life on earth was not harmed. No serious examination backs the apocalyptic predictions we are fed daily about the consequences of the inevitable increase in the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere. We are told so many obvious falsehoods… which have no basis in scientific truth that is hard to trust those who express them.”

In a methodical and classic engineering and scientific mode, Gerondeau continues in the rest of his book to demolish myth after myth in stunningly simple and, at times witty, prose. _EnergyTribune

Religious believers do not take kindly to the demolishing of their cherished beliefs. Hence the recent PNAS blacklist of heretical scientists, who lack sufficient faith.

Heretics tend to step on sensitive toes, and can expect fierce retribution for their ability to resist groupthink delusions. And yet, what else can a heretic do, when he sees through the flimsy artifice of unfounded beliefs and delusions?

Humans are made to believe. They cannot help that. But they can choose not to believe the most absurd and counter-productive delusions, which would lead to irreversible economic decay if the proposed prescriptions of the orthodoxy (eg cap and trade) were ever put in place.

...hidden within the Cap-and-Trade bill is a provision prohibiting homeowners from selling their homes unless they completely retrofit their homes to comply with energy and water efficiency standards. The costs will, for many, make it impossible to sell their home.

A Wall Street Journal editorial stated that “The whole point of Cap-and-Trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas…These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station, but in every manufactured good, from food to cars…Americans should know that those Members (of Congress) who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history.”

There no scientific or economic justification for the passage of Cap-and-Trade legislation. The President knows this. The Democrats in Congress know this. It’s more than just a tax. It is a nation killer. _Source_via_TomNelson

See catastrophism. See catastrophism fall. See catastrophism run for the hills before it is tarred, feathered, and burned for the destructive foolishness that it is.