Mar
Sun Rising Over Global Warming - Carbon Dioxide Debate
This article will expand on topics mentioned in Part One; 'Flight Shaming is Illogical | The Ethics of Air Travel'. The core of the argument against flying is the assertion that it is bad because of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. I want to challenge the public perception of CO2 and the consensus among so-called scientists that the warming of the Earth is largely caused by human activities and CO2 emissions. There is a reason why "scientists" persist in saying the global temperature is rising due to human emissions of CO2 and why CO2 is the great villain of global warming alarmists, and I will cover this in the next article. Part Three in this series of environmental articles will attempt to unravel the climate change crisis agenda, but for now I want to focus on CO2 and its role in global warming. You might want to digest this information if suffering from environmental guilt (also known as eco anxiety) and/or are considering offsetting CO2 emissions from a flight. In this article I will bring to the fore something that is curiously missing from the global warming debate, linking to an event that happened in the mid-17th century. Buckle up folks, the global warming debate is about to heat up!
Greening of the Earth
CO2 is the building block for all life on Earth and that without its presence in the global atmosphere at a sufficient concentration this would be a dead planet. Plants will die at CO2 levels below 150 parts per million (ppm) and thrive at higher levels. This is why many greenhouse growers enrich the air with CO2. Increasing the CO2 level to 1,000 ppm in a greenhouse will increase the photosynthesis by about 50% over ambient CO2 levels (416 ppm). An increase in plant growth and biomass is happening globally because CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 416 ppm since the mid-eighteenth century. The greening of the globe ultimately means greater crop production area and forest expansion. Whether you believe humans are responsible for the increase in CO2 levels or not, scientists at NASA confirm there has been a massive greening of the Earth, which is a good thing. CO2 will be absorbed by extra plant growth and in the process of converting it into useful products such as wood, will also release oxygen into the air. The Sahara has greened by 700 Km2 over the last three decades. That’s an area that’s almost as big as Germany and France combined! If the added green area were effectively used for agriculture, it could produce enough food to feed the African continent. There are many more studies underpinning the good news of the greening planet. Time to recognize this fact. This greening expands Earth’s carbon sink so profoundly that it will offset many years of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. CO2 is a natural gas essential to life on Earth. Have climate activists considered what will happen to plant and animal life with significantly less CO2 in the air?
CO2 & Temperature
CO2 is the great villain of global warming alarmists but it's ridiculous to believe CO2 is a toxic pollutant or the enemy that will destroy life and bring civilization to its knees. Temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels do not show a strong correlation, and are often completely out of sync with each other over long time spans. While humans may have contributed some CO2 to the Earth's atmosphere we completely ignore natural cycles and the role of the sun. What the global warming congregation need to get their head around is that our climate is determined by the sun, not CO2. Were the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods caused by human emissions of CO2 when there was absolutely no industrial effect on nature in those times? The Modern Warm Period began 100 years before humans started burning coal and creating CO2 emissions. Scientific evidence suggests that low CO2 levels did not cause glaciers to cover huge parts of the planet Earth during the Pleistocene Epoch.
Human v Natural Sources of CO2
We constantly hear about human sources of CO2 emissions but what is rarely mentioned is natural sources such as decomposition and the ocean-atmosphere interface. It turns out that natural emissions dwarf human sources of CO2 emissions according to data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - 30 times the amount of carbon humans emit. Termites produce more than twice as much CO2 as all the world's smokestacks! Interestingly, in this government paper it states, "The only pollutant of concern from termite activity is CH4." "Termite activity also results in the production of carbon dioxide (CO2)." "These CO2 emissions are part of the regular carbon cycle, and as such should not be included in a greenhouse gas emissions inventory." The report is dismissing CO2 altogether, yet the official narrative states that CO2 is the major cause of global warming. It's a question of whether you believe human emissions of CO2 are "driving the climate" despite contributing less than 4% of total CO2 emissions. For the current CO2 narrative to be true (e.g. the world is warming up due to human emissions of CO2), human emissions of CO2 (4%) must be controlling the other 96% of CO2 in the atmosphere (natural emissions). And remember, CO2 is a trace gas in the atmosphere (0.04%). By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, and 0.04% carbon dioxide. The IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in CO2 since 1750 (from 280 ppm to 416 ppm, an increase of 136 ppm), which is approximately 30% of today’s total. How can human emissions of CO2, which is around 4% of total CO2, cause 30% of today’s atmospheric CO2? Even if you bear in mind that when humans produce CO2, we don't take any out of the atmosphere, so most of it stays in the atmosphere. The IPCC science is interesting because it omits nature’s CO2 emissions (96% of the data) and claims nature has been a net carbon sink since 1750. Large volcanic eruptions alone can inject significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Look-up how much CO2 Mount Etna - an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy - adds to the atmosphere each day. The IPCC have ignored the role of the ocean in emitting CO2 and vice versa. The oceans contain 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. Increased solar irradiance (high sunspot maxima) warms the Earth’s oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Even If I accept that most of the rise of CO2 from 280 ppm to 416 ppm was caused by humans, there is nothing to be alarmed about if you understand the science. In terms of vegetation, the planet probably hasn’t had it this good for about 1000 years! If all human emissions were stopped today, and nature stayed constant, the natural level would still be close to 400 ppm.
Follow The Sun
The Sun rules the climate and in the long-run CO2 levels are an effect, not a cause of changes in climate / temperatures. Even without any research does it make sense that a trace gas (0.04% of the atmosphere) is the main “control knob” of weather extremes and climate? Global warming alarmists conveniently ignore that big ball of fire in the sky that could fit 1,300,000 planet Earths inside of it. They ignore the fact that the temperature on other planets in our solar system generally correlates with the distance from the Sun. The Sun's radiation is by far the greatest source of planetary warming. Any warming on Earth is caused by increased solar irradiance, not CO2 emissions. Look up to the sky see what's really driving fluctuations in the Earth's temperature and consider wild jet-stream behaviour in relation to the world's weather and climate. We are at the mercy of the sun and solar cycles. Solar activity determines the formation of clouds which are by far the most active and influential "greenhouse gas." Greenhouse gases include water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) and other gases.
Global Warming
Global warming is a natural phenomenon which heats the globe in cycles – much like how Ice Ages have cooled Earth throughout history. Instead, we are told we are experiencing catastrophic global warming as a result of human activity. Over the past 2,000 years, the Earth has seen: the Roman Warm Period; the Cooler Dark Ages; the Medieval Warm Period; the Little Ice Age; and the Modern Warming Period (gradual 300 year warming). The Modern Warm Period began around 1710, at the nadir of the Little Ice Age. The current Modern Warm Period is no different from the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. The global Medieval Warm Period was just as warm, or even warmer than today, when CO2 level was much lower (115 ppm less than it is currently). This study shows East Antarctica was 5-6°C warmer than it is today, spanning the Roman to Medieval Warm Periods. If you believe increasing CO2 equals global warming then why were CO2 levels much lower during the Medieval Warm Period? Conversely, why were CO2 levels sometimes higher during major glaciations / ice-ages? The proof that CO2 does not drive global warming is shown by previous glaciations. If the popular doom-merchant view is accepted, then there should have been runaway global warming when CO2 was more than 4000 ppm. Instead, the Earth was generally cold during the Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago. Even if we faced decades more of net warming, we must recognise natural cycles warm and cool the Earth. We should be thankful we are currently in an interglacial period with the Earth enjoying a relatively warm and stable climate. The alternative is living in an ice-age! People seem to forget global warming is actually beneficial to humans and civilisations have flourished during warmer periods such as the Viking colonisation in Greenland. This study provides evidence that the ice melted in Greenland and the island was once covered with green tundra. Global warming alarmists like to use polar bears as an icon of pending doom but their numbers have been stable or slightly improved. Polar bears didn't die-out during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods.
Global Cooling
In periods of high sunspot maxima, there have been periods of global warming. Whereas, extended periods of low sunspot activity lead to global cooling. We have just had two consecutive years of record-setting sun spotlessness which will lead to a noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature. Quote from a NASA article linking periods of low solar activity to spells of global cooling, "From 1650 to 1710, temperatures across much of the Northern Hemisphere plunged when the Sun entered a quiet phase now called the Maunder Minimum. During this period, very few sunspots appeared on the surface of the Sun, and the overall brightness of the Sun decreased slightly. Already in the midst of a colder-than-average period called the Little Ice Age, Europe and North America went into a deep freeze: alpine glaciers extended over valley farmland; sea ice crept south from the Arctic; and the famous canals in the Netherlands froze regularly - an event that is rare today". The Earth has experienced an ongoing cycle of cooler periods dating back millions of years, and there's no reason to think history will not repeat itself. Climate science rather than climate speculation through computer modelling suggests we have now entered another cooling phase which occurs about every 400 years called the Grand Solar Minimum (GSM).
Grand Solar Minimum
Grand Solar Minimum's (GSM) do not necessarily mean ice-ages but historical records show prolonged periods of colder temperatures during these solar cycles. One upshot of our descent into the GSM is the intensifying of cosmic rays. This will increase cloud cover and accelerate storm formation, erratic rainfall, flash flooding, hail, snowstorms, etc. This means some areas on Earth are going to experience heavy precipitation and flooding as we enter deeper into the GSM. The GSM can also cause drought, heat waves and wild fires due to the shifting jet streams and changing wind patterns. Look and you will see the fingerprints of the GSM. There has been record-setting cold and snow and ice throughout the world this past winter. The State of Texas in the United States went into a deep freeze. A 'snow apocalypse' battered Moscow in Russia, with temperatures dropping well below freezing. Britain experienced its coldest night for a quarter of a century, with the temperature falling to minus 23C in Braemar, northeast Scotland. Snow fell for the first time in 50 years in the Aseer region of Saudi Arabia, confusing camels. Winter storms blanketed large swathes of the Middle East in snow, from Jordan to Syria and Libya to Lebanon. Global cooling could be the real "climate emergency" as it is a greater threat to human habitation on Earth. It is worth considering what impact the GSM and wild weather could have on habitats, farming, food availability and power supplies. It is worth noting the only people that were prepared for the power outage and winter storm in Texas were the "preppers". The predicted negative effects of global warming (e.g. societal/migration consequences) similarly apply to the GSM and global cooling.
Sunblock
You may be asking yourself "why haven't I heard about the GSM before" and the simple answer is solar predictions destroy the current scientific and cultural narrative of 'climate change' in the form of warming. More precisely, anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). AGW is grounded in political ideology, not science, and this will be covered in the final article of this series. The question I am asking myself is how those peddling the false premise (e.g. the Earth is currently warming due to human emissions of CO2) get out of the mess they have made for themselves? In order not look like fools by the end of this decade they will either have to admit their climate models were incorrect or come-up with a dastardly plan. The radical plan to artificially cool Earth's climate offers an escape route, even if they do not do it on a large-scale (but the media report it as a large-scale intervention to counteract climate change). Claim solar geoengineering was a success for something that happened naturally. Genius. I do not want to give David Keith or Bill Gates any ideas! Although this is a better idea than spraying millions of tons of particles around the planet to create a massive chemical cloud. This is a scary proposition with dire consequences for life on Earth. Geoengineering (weather modification) has been going on for decades such as 'Operation Popeye' - the cloud seeding operation during the Vietnam War. You can create everything from heat waves to monsoon weather with this technology. Can you see how it could be used to prop-up the global warming narrative? There is a wedding company in the UK that uses geoengineering to guarantee 'fair weather and clear skies' for £100,000. However, this is a whole other ball game compared to the Bill Gates proposal of spraying particles into the atmosphere to block the sun.
Scientific Consensus
Some people come back with the classic rebuttal, "yes, but 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change," but there is no basis for the claim and it has been debunked by numerous scientists and the media, including the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. If you look at the data (from a John Cook paper published in 2013) less than 2% of scientists explicitly stated that human activity is causing at least 50% of global warming. That is quite different from 97%! I am not too bothered about what the majority of scientists say, it's a gravy train and they wouldn't receive funding if they told the truth. Many scientists who promote the climate change crisis receive perpetual government grants! The IPCC could be appointing scientists to come up with data to make the science fit the policy. Scientific evidence contradicts the IPCC view that the world is warming up due to CO2 emissions. It is not true that the majority of scientists go along with the official narrative. The problem is media bias; you are not hearing from the thousands of scientists that disagree with the official narrative. There are over 31,000 American Scientists - over 9,000 with PhDs - on this one website alone who reject the hypothesis of significant human-caused global warming. How can you dismiss such evidence as wild speculation or a crazy conspiracy theory? The information I have presented here can be validated by current solar observation, previous observation of sun cycles for 400 years and ice-core samples stretching back millions of years.
Perception
The science is far from settled. I believe global temperatures would have risen without the industrial revolution. There is no observational evidence that proves global warming is caused by CO2 (a natural gas and plant food), or CO2 has any observational effect on climate or weather. CO2 has a minuscule effect on climate. Climate science shows that we were living in a modern warming period and are now entering a cooling period. Caused by the sun going into a ‘lockdown’ - a 400 year low in solar activity. It strikes me as odd that some people I know in the United Kingdom are more worried about "warming" than people say in Mali or other countries close to the equator, where it's normally really warm. Even odder than worrying about a little warming is believing a natural gas at 0.04% of the atmosphere is more influential than the sun. They believe this because governments, educational establishments, green activists and mass media manipulate public opinion. Control perception and you control reality. Much like European scholars and educated people during the Middle Ages convinced everyone the Earth was flat! Will people in the future look back at this time in history with equal bewilderment?
Fraudulent Data
It is a shame to see so many well-meaning people in Extinction Rebellion, the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, etc., being misled and swayed by climate propagandists. How many climate activists have actually looked at the evidence? They are certainly not aware that temperature data from weather stations has been manipulated to produce the desired results. It's not hard for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create a strong warming trend when they have been adjusting the data. The long-term upward trend in alleged U.S. annual average temperature is almost entirely an artefact of the adjustments, which hide the fact that the 1930's were warmer than last two decades. If you look at the average temperature at USHCN stations from 1900 to 2020 you can clearly see there is nothing unusual or unprecedented about the world's current level of warmth. NOAA has created the illusion of ever-rising temperatures to match the increase in CO2 by lowering previously measured temperatures to show cooler weather in the past, and raising more recent temperatures to show warming in the recent present. It should be noted there are fewer weather stations in the U.S. than previously and some observers argue cooler weather stations (e.g. at higher altitudes, etc) have been eliminated in order to inflate the warming trend. Go to NOAA’s national temperature data page yourself and enter 2005 to 2021 (select USCRN). What do you notice? The U.S hasn't been warming during this period. This is not an increasing graph and the average temperature is falling.
Vital Signs
NASA scientists say it will be another five to six years before they can say who was right or wrong about the current solar cycle. Perhaps they should ask NOAA. Although this press release doesn't admit it, their predicted sunspot number and radio flux data appears to show a ‘full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum running from the late-2020s to at least the 2040s. Another clue is the money pouring into Africa for agricultural purposes. Africa is predicted to be the new food basket of the world. Why do you think China has built large farms and accelerated agricultural development across Central Africa? Isn't there supposed to be drought and devastation in this region of the world because of climate change? This article points towards the imminent danger of food shortages in the future but caused by what? The truth is China has been proactive in guarantying their food supply. China is also turning Australia into a bread basket and is the largest foreign stakeholder of Australian water. It is feasible we could see increasing tensions between countries as they attempt to control food growing regions if Earth experiences another cold snap. The agricultural industry will be severely affected by terrestrial cooling and extreme weather (crop losses, reduced grain yields, etc). In a desperate effort to keep the fraudulent narrative intact I've seen articles in the media arguing that global warming caused the unusually cold weather in Europe and elsewhere this past winter. Do you believe record-breaking cold and snow was caused by anthropogenic global warming? Winter storms that USA Today News described as "historic and crippling?" To keep this global warming agenda on track the media has previously downplayed or buried cold weather changes, now they are saying global warming is responsible for freezing temperatures and harsh winter weather. The shifting sands of the media landscape in order to maintain the dominant media narrative of blaming "climate change" on human activities and greenhouse gases. The driving force of spurious demands for carbon taxes and deindustrialization of our economies to prevent global warming. The UN, Al Gore, and others effectively want to blame (and tax) humanity for the effects of a 400-year weather cycle. Taxed despite humans only contributing a tiny fraction of CO2 to the atmosphere (4% of 0.04% of the atmosphere).
Embrace CO2 and Temperature
There is conclusive evidence that CO2 does not drive global warming and there is no correlation between global temperature and atmospheric CO2. Furthermore, CO2 is beneficial to life on Earth and is not a problem as a greenhouse gas. If you consider what is truly influencing our climate, combined with how plants function, we should be embracing CO2, not villainizing CO2 or attempting to lower CO2 levels. We’re going to need this natural greenhouse gas if we are now indeed on an unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop. All these global warming alarmists should take a deep breath, exhale some carbon dioxide, and actually focus on the real pollutants that are plaguing our environment and health. Society has been collectively misled into believing that global CO2 and temperature are too high when they are not. We should be grateful for our relatively stable climate and the warming that began around 1710. This put an end to the "Frost Fairs" that were held on the River Thames and the Little Ice Age. Humans are a tropical species and are better equipped to deal with warmer rather than cooler temperatures. Even if the climate computer models are correct, a small rise in global temperatures is preferred to a sharp cooling of the planet. This would be disastrous for human civilization. Another reason to be thankful for warm temperatures concerns the Covid-19 virus, which spreads more virulently in colder climates, much like the common cold and influenza. This partly explains why some of the warm countries in Asia and Africa have been somewhat spared from the scourge. Now there's a case for global warming! I hope you found this article helpful in understanding how the apocalyptic predictions of anthropogenic global warming has been completely over-blown, along with corresponding villainization of CO2. The woman in the image above is probably a really nice person but needs to wake-up and smell the coffee.
Insightful Quotes
“It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, Co-founder of Greenpeace
"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation
"We should replace employment taxes with a pollution tax system, principally CO2. I really believe that would help our economy, our competitiveness." - Al Gore
"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore... We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy." - IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010
"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." - A passage in "The First Global Revolution," a report by the Council of the Club of Rome
"The greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on the environment and global warming." - Ron Paul
"The threat of environmental crisis will be the international disaster key that will unlock the New World Order." - Mikael Gorbachev
“All weather on Earth, from the surface of the planet out into space, begins with the Sun." - NASA
"I don't like being called a denier because deniers don't believe in facts. There are no facts linking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming there are only predictions based on complex computer models." - David Bellamy
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." - Carl Sagan
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." - Sir Francis Bacon
"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." - Mark Twain
"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." - Mahatma Gandhi
"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." - Aldous Huxley
"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." - Jim Morrison
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - John Lydon
Published in March 2021
Glenn Sutton
Added 12th May 2024
I agree with most of the article, certainly the sentiment. There is an agenda here and it is “control” through any means of the populace. It’s hardly surprising then that that great bastion of socialist clap trap is leading the charge. The United Nations, once a force for good is now nothing more than the haunt of rampant socialist cronyism. As to the green agenda, perhaps they should be more focused on the “real” issues facing nature and in turn humanity itself, namely the overfishing of our oceans and destruction of vast swathes of the South American rainforests. I couldn’t give a fig about the supposed CO2 problem which has caused a net 30% greening of the planet over the past 40 years! Sadly truth is a precious commodity in the world we live in today.