Because it's full of utter, foolish, and demonstrable nonsense?
But to answer the question, the climate change "hoax" was started by hundreds, then thousands, of objective scientists who conducted careful studies of atmospheric temperature, CO2 levels, ocean temperature and pH, glacial melting, coral reef patterns, Arctic and Antarctic ice shrinkage, cloud changes, sea level rise, permafrost melt, and so on and so forth.
But of course it must be a "hoax," just like the infamous "earth rotates around the sun" hoax.
Then why not demonstrate the nonsense of the opposing views of the skeptics, Peter. We're all ears. The reason why I'm skeptical about the claimed dangerous role that CO2 emissions might have for our future climate, is because of my own critical sense of the biased manner and false certainty with which AGW issues are presented by the media and through interviews with key scientists on the issue.
I wasn't always skeptical of the dangers of human induced climate change. I used to assume that the dangers of CO2 emissions must be real, because I have a great respect for science and was impressed by certain interviews of famous scientists, such as James Lovelock who was involved in developing the concept of the Gaia Hypothesis.
However, over time, as I began to get more interested in the subject of climate change and listened to more interviews of key scientists on the subject, I began to wonder why certain key facts about a specific aspect of the subject under discussion were not mentioned during the interviews.
To give just one example out of many, if a scientists is giving a talk on ocean acidification and makes the very valid point that CO2 dissolves in the sea water to produce carbonic acid, and if we raise the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere through our emissions from fossil fuel, more CO2 will dissolve in the water and the sea will gradually become more acidic, then that is naturally an interesting point for any intelligent person interested in the subject of climate change.
However, if one listens to a 1/2 hour talk on ocean acidification, and the expert on the subject doesn't even mention what the current pH level of the oceans actually is and how much it is estimated to have changed since the industrial revolution, one begins to wonder how useful or informative or educational such an interview really is.
Many people enjoy gardening and have a basic understanding that the pH of their soil can affect the health and growth of their plants. Most plants prefer a slightly acidic soil but a few prefer a slightly alkaline soil. A pH of 7 is neutral. A pH above 7 is alkaline and a pH below 7 is acidic.
So what is the average pH of the oceans? Are the oceans generally alkaline, acidic or neutral? I had to do a search on the internet to find out. This was several years ago.
Some time later, during a conversation with an old friend who didn't have much background in science but did do some gardening and understood that adding lime to the soil made it more alkaline, the conversation turned to a recent interview that my friend had heard about ocean acidification, which he thought was quite alarming.
Out of curiosity, I asked my friend what he thought is the current, average pH of the ocean surfaces. He looked a bit puzzled, and after a pause said he guessed they are probably acidic. I wondered how many more people who listened to that interview of an expert climatologist also would have assumed that the oceans are already acidic and getting worse.
A check on the internet will reveal that the average pH of the ocean surfaces is considered to be about 8.1 and is estimated to have fallen by just 0.1 (from a pH of 8.2) during the past couple of hundred years since the industrial revolution.
However, it also seems to be the case that the pH of the oceans varies considerably depending on the location, the depth, the season of the year, the upwelling and flow of ocean currents, and so on. There's a continual change and flux of pH due to natural events which makes it virtually impossible to isolate and quantify the contribution of human induced CO2 levels to any changes in ocean pH.
There is also the contradiction in the statements that more CO2 is being dissolved into the oceans because of increased CO2 levels whilst simultaneously making the statement that increased CO2 levels is causing global warming. Warm water tends to
release CO2. A cooler water more
easily dissolves CO2 than a warm water.
The following article provides a detailed study of the situation, for those interested.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCarbon/Here are a few relevant quotes:
"If there is one place in the world where you can measure changes in the ocean carbon sink with atmospheric measurements, it is over the Southern Ocean,” says Le Quéré. “It is the place where you have the least contaminated air, so to speak.”
When Le Quéré plugged atmospheric measurements from the Southern Ocean between 1981 and 2004 into her model, she was startled by the result—something far more interesting than the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave. “The Southern Ocean carbon sink has not changed at all in 25 years. That’s unexpected because carbon dioxide is increasing so fast in the atmosphere that you would expect the sink to increase as well,” says Le Quéré. But it hadn’t. Instead, the Southern Ocean held steady, while atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations climbed. Why?
I think it’s possible that the Southern Ocean sink is slowing down,” says Sarmiento, “Le Quéré did a super job of bringing in all kinds of constraints on the model, but all of them have huge uncertainties. I’m still holding off.” Feely agrees. “In this case, modelers are leaping ahead of the observationalists. What we as oceanographers want to do is make sure that there is a sufficient amount of oceanographic data to substantiate that. You need 30 years of data before you can say anything, and that’s an incredible feat in itself.”In summary, my view is that the nature of the 'hoax' about the dangers of rising CO2 levels relate to the non-scientific presentation of uncertainty as certainty.
