The Man in the Street

I met a man in the street today. Actually, it was the manager of the block of units that I'm staying in and we met on the footpath just outside the entrance to the units. I was going out, he was coming in. Only a couple of minutes earlier I'd been reading Marc Morano's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change" and so it was ironic that the manager asked me about how I coped with Monday's weather.

Monday in Brisbane was very, very hot. Normally I would have stayed indoors but on that particular day I needed to accompany my brother to hospital for an appointment with the oncologist who had supervised his course of radiotherapy. It was truly the hottest day I'd ever experienced in Brisbane and I lived in the city for the first twenty four years of my life.

So how hot was it on Monday, December 16th 2019? ABC News reported that:

Brisbane had been expected to hit 39 degrees Celsius, but the CBD hit 41.2 °C at 1:40pm on Monday, equalling the city's hottest December day on record originally set in 1981. 

So 41.2 °C is the hottest temperature Brisbane has ever recorded. Well, Wikipedia states that:

The city's highest recorded temperature was 43.2 °C (109.8 °F) on Australia Day 1940 at the Brisbane Regional Office.

This is an interesting discrepancy. What's going on here? The Wikipedia article quoted from earlier goes on to say that:

The highest temperature at the current station (is) 41.7 °C (107.1 °F) on 22 February 2004.

To make sense of these conflicting records , I was fortunate to come across this interesting site created by Jennifer Marohasy in which she writes:

There is intense interest in climate change as a cause, but perhaps not enough interest in the quality of the data underpinning all the rhetoric. If we really care about this issue of global warming then we will want to know exactly how much temperatures have really warmed over recent decades. So, we will need to know the equivalence of temperatures now measured using electronic probes with temperatures previously measured using mercury thermometers. 

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology measures temperatures from electronic probes that have not been calibrated relative to the mercury thermometers that were once used. Further, the Bureau makes adjustments to temperatures after they have been measured, recorded and archived in the creation of the new official temperature series, known as ACORN-SAT. These homogenised series are then used to calculate national and global averages. 

Mark Huxley Akin (Huck) has suggested that we just get on and start constructing regional climate indices based on real and unadjusted/unhomogenised temperature series. 

Specifically, he has suggested we use “a good sample of well-sited stations with long histories”, using the analogy of the Dow Jones Average. He writes: 

No one ever tries to establish an impossible-to-define ‘average stock price’— including many stocks of doubtful provenance — and nobody cares. These pre-selected indexes of certain representative stocks, that are then followed over a long time-span, tell investors what they really want to know: how the market moves over time, relative to itself. 

Figure 1: Thermohygrograph 

It is the case that for some Australian locations there are long consistent records through much of the twentieth century. For example, temperature data recorded at Brisbane (station number 40214) are currently publicly available from January 1887 to March 1986. This is one of the longest continuous high quality temperature records for anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere with measurements taken using the same mercury thermometer at the same place every day (although the Glaisher stand was replaced with a Stevenson screen in 1896). 

Problems begin, however, around the late 1980s, when there are site moves and equipment changes. In the case of Brisbane, in order to continue any index beyond 1986, it is going to be necessary to join different temperature series and yet there is no data to quantify the equivalence of the measurements from electronic probes, mercury thermometers and also thermohygrographs (see Figure 1) — that were also used at Brisbane.

This is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the Bureau "makes adjustments to temperatures" so we are not really seeing the raw data. Secondly, temperatures began to be measured differently in the late 1980s. She goes on to report that:

Since 1996 the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been transitioning away from the use of traditional mercury thermometers to electronic probes in automatic weather stations for the measurement of maximum temperatures. This is a major change in equipment — a major change in how temperatures are measured — yet when this change occurs the Bureau keeps the same station number and just continues to add to the previous record. 

This is in contravention of its own policies that clearly state that a new station number should be assigned, and that there should be at least three years (preferably five) of overlapping/parallel temperature recordings at the same location.

This parallel data exists for a limited number of stations, but the Bureau has so far not made the data accessible. Much of it is currently held by the Australian National Archive as manual recordings into observation books. The numbers need to be digitised so that we can see whether or not the measurements from the electronic probes are comparable to the measurements from the mercury thermometers.  

After much effort, I obtained parallel data for Mildura – as thousands of photographed records. Manual transcribing of some of the data has established that the current electronic probe at Mildura often records 0.4 degrees Celsius hotter — for the same weather. The first electronic probe at Mildura actually recorded cooler. So, the custom-built probes installed sequentially at Mildura have different time constants. It was only possible to establish this after the parallel data was provided to me, and I began an analysis of some of the manually transcribed data. 

We know that since 1996 the temperature record for the Brisbane airport (station number 040842) actually represents measurements from an electronic probe, not a mercury thermometer. We don’t know what the time constant is for this probe. We do know that there is parallel data available from 14 February 2000; that is temperature measurements taken from a mercury thermometer in the same shelter (Stevenson screen). 

We know that there have been four different probes used at the Brisbane airport site, as shown in Table 1. The Bureau has not published the time constants for these probes. Depending on the time-constant, a probe may be much more sensitive to temperature change than a mercury thermometer and thus record warmer temperatures for the same weather.

Again, there is much of interest here. The parallel data has not been digitised and is difficult to access. Such data would show how much the new temperature-measuring method differs from the old. In the case of Mildura's data, the new method is 0.4 °C hotter. Figure 1 shows a graph, taken from the same website, of the variation in Brisbane's mean maximum temperatures from 1887 to 1985:

Figure 1

Reading what she's written, it's apparent that temperature measuring is not as straightforward as we might think. The ways of measuring temperature change and the measurements, certainly nowadays, are homogenised and adjusted anyway. We've seen that the Bureau of Meteorology contravenes its own policies regarding keeping parallel data sets during temperature-measuring changeovers. In short, it's a bit of a mess and probably deliberately so.

Anyway, to get back to the man in the street. His comment to me about the heat was that he'd read of a scientific study that stated that by 2050 there would be no winters in Australia. Presumably, that would mean that the summers would be so hot we would have to abandon the continent or go underground as the inhabitants of Coober Pedy do. Clearly, the incessant media propaganda has worked on him. The day before I'd spoken to a woman who was a firm believer in climate alarmism and felt that Gaia was angry with humanity for our abuse of the planet. That got me thinking about how this Gaia myth came about but that's the subject of another post perhaps.

Students Strike for Climate Action

'No other way': Student climate activist Greta Thunberg's strike call

This was the heading of a news article in the Brisbane Times of March 13th 2019. The article goes on to state:

Students have no choice but to close their books and walk out on their classes to make their demands for serious climate action heard, says Greta Thunberg, the Swedish student who has started a global movement. 

On Friday, as many as 55 separate protests are expected in Australia by about 40,000 students as part of the School Strike 4 Climate campaign. That number is about twice that of a similar action in November, with about 100 nations likely to take part this time around. 

In comments to the Herald ahead of this week's event, Ms Thunberg said she would be staging her now customary Friday strike, bringing the number of days she has boycotted classes to 42 since she began last year. 

"The plan was to school strike for three weeks [in the run up to Swedish elections]," she said in an email. "But at the end of that I wanted to go on. So then I started Fridays For Future ... The emissions are still going up so nothing has been achieved really."

A master stroke on the part of the Global Elite, who are behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) alarmism, is to get the youth of the world to support the cause. Little Greta Thunberg is doubtless well-intentioned but an unwitting dupe nonetheless.

Figure 1: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

AGW alarmism is a clever way to pressure nations to conform to global standards that will rein in greenhouse gas emissions and promote the use of "green" energy alternatives. How could any reasonable country not agree to cooperate in the battle to combat the threat of man-made global warming? It's the same with "free trade" agreements that do nothing to foster free trade but instead force countries to adhere to policies that favour multinational corporations, even to their own detriment. The common agenda is to diminish the power of individual nations even further so that the reality of a world government can be realised.

The world already has a world banking system which provides a huge restraint on what individual nations can and can't do but a global political system has not yet been realised. The latter is the goal of the Global Elite who are determined to achieve it by fair means or foul. With control over the world's finances by this elite, a global financial crisis and the bankrupting of nations may well be engineered to hasten the process. Predictively, the banksters, politicians and mainstream media will be supportive but disturbingly, the children of the world may also be on side as they embrace what they see as a New World Order. The Old World Order, dominated by nation states, delivered only:

• endless conflict and refugee crises
• trades wars that caused financial instability
• failure in combatting the catastrophe of man-made global warming
• lack of protection to minorities (religious, ethnic, sexual etc.)
• dictators who eschewed the democratic process
• travel restrictions
• unemployment and underemployment

The promise of a world free of all this is alluring to a generation who sees only a dystopian past and is blind to an even more dystopian future. The same forces that produced the former and busy building the latter. The problem comes down to the failure of the educational system to promote an awareness of how perceptions are manipulated. In the case of global warming, every heat wave and every record high temperature is highlighted in the media whereas every big freeze and every record low is either ignored or, when it's too blatant to ignore, explained away as an anomaly. This propaganda, waged daily over the years, forges a perception that the world is becoming a hot box.

Figure 2: Are You Being Manipulated?

In school, children are not taught that the news they receive is filtered by policies put in place by the media owners. For example, news articles in general will be supportive of vaccinations, Israel, man-made global warming and gender diversity. News that is not supportive will simply be ignored. Propaganda is defined as information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicise a particular political cause or point of view. Why on Earth should they trust what the media and politicians tell them? The latest episode of James Corbett's Propaganda Watch mentions Greta Thunberg and the indoctrination of children regarding a climate apocalypse:

A very detailed analysis of what is really going on behind climate alarmism can be found here: THE MANUFACTURING OF GRETA THUNBERG – A DECADE OF SOCIAL MANIPULATION FOR THE CORPORATE CAPTURE OF NATURE [ACT VI – CRESCENDO]. To quote from the conclusion to Act VI of this article:

The final act of this series is dedicated to Greta Thunberg and the youth she has inspired across our fragile planet. The upper echelons of power have every intention to capture and channel this energy – and use it to maintain the current power structures. They are already in the process. 

We have reached the Brave New Moment where there is no longer a distinction between our “movements” and the corporate forces that have been created to further our oppression and servitude – all in compliance to economic growth and capitalism for the world’s ruling class. All of this to be achieved on the backs of the most vulnerable – our youth. Hegemonic forces are salivating over the global waves of youth mobilisation demanding action on climate change. 

The paradox is this – the youth are their vehicle. Their resistance sequestered and redirected directly back into the very system that will destroy the same future they march to save. When children from even the wealthiest of families (monetary wealth being the epitome of “success” in the West) are part and parcel of an epidemic of depression in our society – we need to question why we would do anything that would prop-up a failing system that benefits so few – at the expense of so much.

The author of this article, Cory Morningstar, is a climate activist with the following bio:

Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on "Wrong Kind of Green", "The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch". Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.

I was surprised to discover that she appears to be a believer in man-made global warming and that the world is heading toward climate catastrophe. Having realised that the power elite are firmly behind and in control of the environmental movements, she doesn't take the extra step and question whether global warming is a media-driven psyop: psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behaviour of governments, organisations, groups, and individuals. Nonetheless, she has at least seen through the NGO-ization of the climate change activism and its focus on profits and the continued exploitation of the planet.

The Cost of Renewable Energy

The Jerusalem Post is proving an interesting source of information about is going on in Israel and how that country is reacting to what is going on in the world. However, in today's online edition, the following advertisement caught my eye:

Advertisement in The Jerusalem Post (online edition)
on Friday, February 8th 2019.

What is being advertised is a book, Dumb Energy by Norman Rogers, available on Amazon at only A$6.79. There is a free summary available and that's what I had a look at. A couple of paragraphs in particular caught my attention:

For certain scientific groups, green ideas and global warming alarmism are the geese that lay golden eggs. The golden eggs are not just money, but also prestige. Scientists, particularly climate scientists, benefit from global warming alarmism. They are reluctant, individually or as a group, to express skepticism or to critically examine the theories behind global warming alarmism. Peer pressure to conform is so great, that to contradict the group think is heresy, and likely professional suicide. Global warming has transformed climate scientists, formerly nerdy grinds toiling in an obscure corner of academia, into celebrity scientists. The pull of stardom and money has corrupted the scientific work. The statements that all climate scientists agree, or that predictions of global warming are absolutely solid – those things are propaganda.

I couldn't agree more with that statement but later I came across the following:

Renewable energy and its companion global warming alarmism have become a religion. There is a great danger that it will become an established religion forced on the people by the government and an elite establishment. Important believers include dignitaries such as Jerry Brown, the governor of California and Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and former mayor of New York. This is not a quiet religion. The believers don’t meditate. This is an angry religion.  

This got this me thinking. Previously, I had tended to regard the push for renewable energy sources as basically positive, not fully realising how closely this push is linked to its "companion", global warming alarmism. This led me to investigate a possible link between the rise of renewable energy sources and the rising price of electricity. I came across an article in THE CONVERSATION from January 2nd 2018 titled: A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills. The article looked at the rising cost of electricity bills in Australia. The following section I found particularly relevant:

Up until the late 2000s the market kept chugging along. Then two things happened. First, consumers started using less electricity. And second, the Renewable Energy Target (RET) was ramped up, pushing more supply into the market. 

Demand down and supply up meant even more oversupply, and continued low prices. But the combination of low prices and low demand put pressure on the finances of existing fossil fuel generators. Old generators were being asked to produce less electricity than before, for lower prices. Smaller power stations began to be mothballed or retired. 

Something had to give, and it did when both Alinta and Engie decided it was no longer financially viable to keep their power stations running. Far from being oversupplied, the market is now struggling to meet demand on hot days when people use the most electricity. The result is very high prices. 

A tight demand and supply balance with less coal-fired generation has meant that Australia increasingly relies on gas-fired generation, at a time when gas prices are astronomical, leading to accusations of price-gouging. 

Put simply, Australia has failed to build enough new generation over recent years to reliably replace ageing coal plants when they leave the market. 

Is it renewable energy’s fault that coal-fired power stations have closed? Yes, but this is what needs to happen if we are to reduce greenhouse emissions. Is it renewables’ fault that replacement generation has not been built? No. It’s the government’s fault for failing to provide the right environment for new investment.

The rising prices are a complex issue and the article does a good job of analysing the various components that make up an electricity bill have risen over the previous years. Nonetheless, it's clear that renewable energy initiatives have played a significant part in driving up prices. Of course, it's taken as a given that coal-fired power stations must be closed and that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced.

Getting back to the Dumb Energy summary, the author makes an interesting point when he notes:

The propagandists for wind and solar use fake photography to give the impression that smokestacks of conventional fossil fuel plants are belching toxic black smoke. This outright fakery says a lot about the ethics of the Sierra Club and similar organisations. The picture is an example that appeared on the Sierra Club website. The smokestack is actually belching harmless water vapour. When the water vapour or steam hits the cool air, it condenses into a white cloud. By photographing with the sun behind the smoke stack, the white cloud of water droplets can be made to appear black. It is revealing that, in the photo, there is no “smoke” immediately above the stack before the water vapour has mixed with the cool air sufficiently to condense. 

I don't know if that's true or not but its clear that the propaganda regarding man-made global warming and the need to develop renewable energy sources is driving up the price of electricity. There are few government's in the world that would challenge the core tenets of The Church of Climatology. The Trump administration has done so but that may prove more helpful in the long run to the global warming alarmists who can now put global warming deniers and Trump together in the same basket.

If it's true that carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to overheat, then of course a reduction in our dependance on fossil fuels makes sense. It's worth paying more for electricity in order to save our planet from possible catastrophe. If it's not true then why are we being led to believe that it is? Is there a hidden agenda? Cui bono? It's easy to suspect a profit motive because there is big money involved in alternative energy but, as with global elite initiative, the key issue is control. To quote from Natural Climate Change:

So where does the passion in support of the man-made global warming hoax originate? Freedom First Society believes that the best explanation for the widespread propaganda is that the “crisis” hoax supports an immense power grab. High-level internationalist insiders have selected the global warming scare as one pretext to help them drive forward their revolutionary “new world order.” In particular, they seek to persuade independent nations to submit to world government, cleverly controlled by an elite few from behind the scenes.

Incidentally, my research showed up an interesting site that curates news articles about climate change: TWTW (The Week That Was). I've signed up to receive their newsletter.

Screenshot from climate change change curation site:
http://www.sepp.org/the-week-that-was.cfm

One thing that this archive has already brought to my attention is that environmental degradation and man-made global warming are quite distinct. No one would deny that human activity has caused widespread environmental degradation. The mining, transportation and burning of fossil fuels have certainly damaged the environment but this does not mean that the use of fossil fuels needs to be totally abandoned. Any human activity has an impact on the environment.

Climate Orthodoxy

Temperatures on track for 5-degree rise
by 2100 after another hot year

Thus screamed the heading to an newspaper article that continued:

This year is on course to be the fourth hottest year on record, trailing only the three previous years, as rising levels of greenhouse gases warm the planet, the World Meteorological Organisation said. 

Up to October 31, mean temperatures in 2018 were an estimated 0.98 warmer than the average for 1850-1900, according the UN agency's provisional State of the Global Climate report. 

“We are not on track to meet climate change targets and rein in temperature increases,” said Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General. “Greenhouse gas concentrations are once again at record levels and if the current trend continues we may see temperature increases 3 to 5 degrees by the end of the century." 

The WMO report comes days ahead of a global climate summit in Katowice, Poland, where nations will discuss progress on implementing the goals of the Paris climate accord signed three years ago keep temperatures to 1.5-2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Australia's delegation will be led by Environment Minister Melissa Price.

Figure 1

https://public.wmo.int/en

So the WMO Secretary-General says "we may see temperature increases 3 to 5 degrees by the end of the century", plucking the figures seemingly out of thin air. The heading of the Brisbane Times article thus includes the upper limit of his prediction with the intended result that anybody perusing the newspaper can hardly fail to miss this unsettling prediction.

For anyone who bothers to read the article, there is the inevitable graph included in a screenshot of a tweet from a so-called "climate scientist" Gavin Schmidt, described (source) as a "climatologist, climate modeller and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, and co-founder of the award-winning climate science blog RealClimate".

Figure 2

The graph is below a photo of firefighters battling a blaze in England with the caption: Firefighters work on a wildfire on Winter Hill near Bolton, England. Extreme temperatures, particularly warm ones, have again been prominent in 2018, on course to be one of the hottest years in history.

Let's break the news article down into its components:

• overly sensational heading
• dire pronouncement from a prestigious international organisation (here the WMO)
• dramatic photograph of firefighters battling a conflagration
• suitably supporting graph from a climate scientist

I'm not attempting here to confront any details in the WMO report but just to focus on the highly biased manner in which climate news is presented by the mass media. Despite evidence to the contrary, the message being conveyed is clear: the world is getting warmer. You must believe this or else you are a climate denier who has chosen to ignore the irrefutable climate science and the climate facts as presented by the world's leading climate scientists. You must be a climate skeptic and a deluded fool.

Figure 3

As with vaccinations, there is no middle ground when it comes to man-made global warming. It's all or nothing. It is the prevailing orthodoxy to which you must adhere.

Clearly there is an agenda

Global Warming for Deeply Dumb Dummies

This latest conceptual aid from the Church of Climatology is simply hilarious. The motivation for its creation is described as follows:

For the average person, climate change is an abstract concept, an intangible truth, based on complex scientific data that is notoriously difficult to visualise.

Note the religious phraseology of "intangible truth". Like God, climate change is impossible for "the average person" to comprehend and really comprehension is not even necessary. Belief is sufficient. Something simple to meditate upon will strengthen this belief and so:

Climate scientist Ed Hawkins is trying to change this. He's been developing unique ways to make climate change easier for the general public to imagine. And his newest project has got to be one of the most beautiful and powerful climate change visuals we've ever seen.

Note that Ed Hawkins has the moniker "climate scientist" to remind us that he is a member of the clergy in the Church of Climatology. Here is Ed's creation:

As I said in a comment to one of Ed's tweets (https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins):

Ed, I used to think man-made global warming was a politically motivated myth until I saw this graphic. Now I realise how wrong I was. Even children in kindergarten can understand this. Sometimes a cynical, skeptical, adult brain can blind one to the truth. Now I see.

As the effusive article reporting on Ed's creation says: This Has Got to Be One of The Most Beautiful And Powerful Climate Change Visuals We've Ever Seen. Chillingly, the observation is added that We are headed into the red. I'm not arguing with the data that was used to produce the graphic, I assume it's accurate. What is annoying is the evangelical tone employed by the zealots of the Church of Climatology. There's no objective science at work here. Those who disagree with the central tenet of the Church, namely that humans are responsible for a warming planet, are branded "climate deniers". They are on a par with "Holocaust deniers". The only ones qualified to make comment on matters of climatology are the climate scientists, the high priests of the Church.

Climate scientists who hesitate to commit to the Church or who question it's basic tenet are quickly ostracised by their peers. Professional obscurity is assured and even job loss is a possibility. There are no funds for research that does not affirm the truth of man-made global warming. Ed Hawkins, with his pretty pictures, is carving out a name for himself amongst his peers, as well as attracting widespread coverage in the mainstream media. Who can blame him. More of his silly little graphs can be found at http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2018/warming-stripes/.

The Grand Solar Minimum

According to USA Today, "Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming". The May 17, 2018 article goes on to state that:

It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts. It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month. Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. "We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt.

Despite a constant stream of such articles in the MSM, there are those to beg to differ with the prediction that our world will continue to warm. Some say that the Earth is entering a cooling phase and their claims are based on the behaviour of the Sun. They say that the Sun in entering what is termed a Grand Solar Minimum and that this will have a profound and chilling effect on global temperatures.

Who will be proved right? This 16 July 2015 article on Skeptical Science maintains that "no, the sun isn't going to save us from global warming" and goes on to say that:

Recently there’s been a flood of media stories claiming that the sun may be headed towards a quiet phase (a possibility), which could send the Earth into a “deep freeze” (a virtual impossibility). These stories appear to have originated in the biased conservative media (like the Daily Mail and Telegraph) and seeped into other media outlets (like CNN). Some media outlets, like the Washington Post, did a good job researching the story and discovering its flaws before publishing. 

The stories stemmed from a presentation at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales by mathematician Valentina Zharkova. Her research (not yet published) suggests the sun could be headed for a quiet phase like the one that coincided with a period known as the “Little Ice Age,” but doesn’t say anything about how this solar minimum would impact the Earth’s climate 

Some of the fault for raising this zombie myth from the dead lies with the Royal Astronomical Society’s press release, which mentioned the previous mini ice age without making it clear that it was solar activity but not the Earth’s climate that was the subject of the study. Some of the fault lies with Zharkova, who made comments ‘skeptical’ of human-caused global warming that were not supported by her research. 

And much of the fault lies with media outlets like the Daily Mail and Telegraph, which ran rather sensationalist stories about an impending mini ice age apparently without consulting a single climate scientist. It’s not a coincidence that the media outlets that didn’t contact climate scientists spread this myth, while the media outlets that did contact climate scientists debunked it.

Clearly, the MSM has not presented a united front in blocking the dissemination of these alternative views and the guilty parties are identified. The notion that the Sun could affect global temperatures is dismissed as a "zombie myth" and instead the claim in made that "research has clearly shown, it’s carbon dioxide that’s the temperature’s main control knob". This is an article of faith amongst "climate scientists" and is not open to rational debate.

I've just downloaded a book by John L. Casey called "Dark Winter" described as follows:

Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. In Dark Winter, author John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, NASA headquarters consultant, and space shuttle engineer tells the truth about ominous changes taking place in the climate and the Sun. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in the discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.

I'll try to ignore his White House and NASA connections and set about reading the book. I've watched an interview he gave on YouTube about his views and he was certainly presented a good argument in support of his claims. The video appears on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, uploaded 1 Jan 2018:

Valentina Zharkova is mentioned in this interview. According to Casey, we are now entering this cooling period but he doesn't believe we are entering a mini-ice-age of the sort that is associated with the so-called Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. Rather, he is of the opinion that we are entering a so-called Dalton Minimum of the sort that is associated with the late 18th and early 19th century cooling phase. He has published a more recent book called Upheaval in which he focuses on the increased volcanic activity associated with these cooling phases.

In the following 15 Jan 2018 interview with Zharkova on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, she states the cold period should only last 30 years and will not be as severe or as long as the Maunder Minimum (that lasted for about 60 years):

She is confident in her predications about the coming cold snap and urges governments to prepare for what is about to happen, rather than clinging to the myth that man-made CO2 emissions will continue to warm the planet.