We’re publishing a guest post by journalist Chris Morrison questioning whether rising CO2 levels really will lead to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. Should we instead be worrying about the risks of falling levels of CO2?
Phew what a relief – along came humans just in time to rescue planet Earth by releasing a portion of carbon sequestered in the ground to finally put the brake on the carbon dioxide famine that was threatening to wipe out all living life forms.
Implausible? Well, the hypothesis is unproven, although it is promoted by many eminent scientists. But then the suggestion that small increases in atmospheric CO2 are leading to runaway global heating and climate breakdown is also an unproven scientific hypothesis supported by many eminent scientists.
What is certain is that the science is not yet settled, despite the increasingly successful efforts of neo-Marxist green activists, useful idiot journalists, here today-gone tomorrow politicians and grant-hungry, self-identifying ‘scientists’ to whip up a ‘climate emergency’ that can only be addressed by a massive increase in state intervention, control and power.
Earlier this year Steven Koonin, an Under-Secretary of Science in the Obama Administration, published a book titled Unsettled in which he noted that “the science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what our actions will have on it”.
He also noted that “rigidly promulgating the idea that climate change is ‘settled’ (or is a ‘hoax’) demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, retarding its progress in these important matters. Uncertainty is a prime mover and motivator of science and must be faced head on.”
Behind the current climate hysteria is the suggestion that placing more CO2 into the atmosphere by humans burning fossil fuel will cause global temperatures to rise since the gas traps the sun’s heat reflected from Earth. It is true that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, but only within certain bands on the infrared spectrum. This has led some scientists, notably Professor William Happer of Princeton University, to suggest that CO2 becomes “saturated” once it reaches a certain level. Most, if not all, the heat that is going to be trapped will have already been radiated back by the CO2 molecules evenly distributed in the existing atmosphere.
This suggestion certainly explains why there is little or no correlation between temperatures and CO2 levels on a current, historical or geological timescale. CO2 levels have risen steadily over the last 100 years despite temperatures rising from 1910-40, falling until around 1980, (remember the global cooling scare?) rising briefly for 20 years and then plateauing for the last two decades. Further back, CO2 levels seemed to have remained fairly constant through the warmings of 6,000 years ago and the Roman and Mediaeval periods. The subsequent ‘little ice age’ also registered no significant CO2 change. Since about 1820, temperatures and CO2 levels started to nudge upwards long before any human input could have been significant. Looking back further into geological time reveals little obvious pattern across nearly 600 million years. A massive jump in temperature in the Permian period occurred as the CO2 level fell. During the time of the dinosaurs, temperatures showed a fall as CO2 rose and then jumped higher as CO2 trended down.
The atmosphere is a chaotic place. Water vapour is also a greenhouse gas and is far more plentiful in the atmosphere than CO2. The natural carbon cycle along with countless other influences means it is probably beyond reasonable measurement. Climate models have been around for 40 years making guesses about global warming that are politically correct, but almost certainly factually wrong. Koonin is unimpressed with their efficacy, noting that they struggle even to replicate the past. In the absence of clear answers from climate science, almost all net zero political policy is based on the outputs of unreliable models.
CO2 accounts for just over 400 parts per million (ppm) of the atmosphere and some climate models assume global temperatures will rise by up to 6C if levels double. It is just that – an assumption. Given that it is actually a guess and some evidence that the greenhouse effect drops significantly once a base CO2 level is reached, the hypothesis is unproven and certainly not ‘settled’ with any credible, peer reviewed science.
What do know however is that hundreds of millions of years of life on Earth have drawn down much of the easily available carbon that existed in former times. Life has thrived during this period but gradually carbon has been sequested by dead plant matter and animals in coal deposits and various rocks including limestone and marble. Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the original founders of Greenpeace, notes that 99.9% of all carbon that has ever entered the atmosphere has been captured in this way. Over 500 million years, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has fallen from 15,000 billion tones to just 850 billion today. The scale of carbon captured in this way is not disputed by other scientists who suggest 90% of carbon has been locked up over geological time.
The level of atmospheric CO2 is at an all-time geological low. If it goes much lower, say to around 180 ppm, plant and human life starts to struggle. But in just the last 40 years the small uptick in CO2 has led to an estimated 14% extra vegetation on the Earth, alleviating food shortages and famine in many parts of the world. It is unsurprising that Moore is relaxed about more CO2 in the atmosphere. Dr. Roy Spencer, the former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA, also notes that plants benefit from higher levels of CO2, adding “it is amazing how little there is in the atmosphere”.
All of which begs the question – shouldn’t we be talking about the risk of falling levels of CO2? The cost of net zero is almost unimaginable and the potential for economic and societal disruption on a global scale is the stuff of nightmares. Removing 85% of the world’s energy by banning fossil fuels within just 35 years and replacing them with unreliable and expensive renewables is pure fantasy. Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to do it?
Koonin’s book is important. The author still holds that CO2 is a potential danger. At one point he seems to accept that water vapour has saturation qualities but he is less keen to attribute those properties to CO2. At another, he suggests doubling CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a 3C rise in temperature, a suggestion that lies at the heart of erroneous model forecasts. He draws attention to past abundant life on Earth in atmospheres with up to 10 times current CO2 levels. But he explains that they were “different plants and animals” – which as a “dinosaur ate my homework” excuse will just have to do.
But the book is the work of an intelligent scientist who realises that the days are drawing to a close when all debate on the science backing net zero can be crushed by saying it is settled. As with many independent commentators, he is particularly contemptuous about attempts to keep the hysteria alive by cherry picking bad weather events. It might take the mainstream media led by the BBC, Sky and the Guardian a little longer to come around, but expecting citizens to accept massive changes to their ways of life on the basis of patently false doomsday predictions only works for so long – as we’re starting to see with Covid. Just before his death, Clive James discussed climate scares and noted that after a while people switch over to watch Games of Thrones, “where the dialogue is less ridiculous and all the threats come true”.
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Pandemic Treaty is legalised tyranny. Sadly, puppet Sunak has already got his fountain pen out, itching to sign.
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Another whackjob nutbar conspiracy theory coming true.
Just a cockup however.
No evil, demonic, fascist intent.
Just hard working experts saving the world.
Experts. Who approve mRNA shots in 6 month old babies. Those guys?
Really? So you are content that the WHO could mandate that you take whatever medical treatment they demand? Bodily autonomy is perhaps THE core human right – the state STOPS at my skin. The WHO agreement will throw this away. Maybe you like being a slave? For that is what this will make you.
I’d rather assumed he/she(?) was taking the p***.
Are we now on daily login?
That happened to me a while back. Seemed to happen more with my phone for some reason. Touch wood it’s all back to normal as it’s a pain in the arse, but at least now we don’t have to click on multiple pictures of dodgy fire hydrants or traffic lights! lol Morning to you, btw. 🙂
Seems fairly random to me. Sometimes go for weeks without logging in, others times I need to log in more often.
I have to sign in most days.
Excellent piece from Prof Fenton et al, supporting what we sceptics have been banging on about since the start. Flu never did disappear did it? But now the sneaky b’stards want those deemed ”high risk” to rock up for a double-whammy of Covid plus flu jab. Insane!
”Despite the similarity of the symptoms of flu with those of SARS-CoV-2 it was, at least initially, the infection fatality rate for SARS-CoV-2 that differentiated it from the flu – its novelty was dependant on its perceived elevated lethality. However, over time the infection fatality rates for SARS-CoV-2 have converged on that for the flu and now the deadliness of one is indistinguishable from the other. Why then do we, three years later, do we consider SARS-CoV-2 to be more novel than flu or any other respiratory viral infection?
Given that the symptoms of both overlap to an extent which makes each completely indistinguishable from the other based on clinical presentation, legitimate questions have been raised as to the circumstances that led SARS-CoV-2 to be identified as a novel virus in the first place.
Given we cannot trust PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2, why should they be accepted as proof of the absence of flu? The evidence suggests that influenza and SARS-CoV-2 do not significantly interfere with each other, and given no false positives for flu were reported at all, how else can we explain the disappearance of flu except by changes in the PCR testing process?
These are no doubt controversial conclusions but, given the evidence, a reasonable question to ask is: Was covid-19 disease actually entirely new, or is it simply caused by misattributing flu, or the myriad of other causes of respiratory illnesses, as SARS-CoV-2? Or is there some other unknown mechanism that generates one or the other or indeed both?”
https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/peek-a-boo-flu
SARS-Cov-2 was obviously a cure for flu 😁
‘What governments should do’
Britain’s government should bring back the Common Cold Unit and put Professor Carl Heneghan in charge of it.
Then we might get more of the sense for which the Common Cold Unit was, rightly, famous:
‘It is therefore arguable that in the case of infections like coronavirus or rhinovirus colds, which are normally quickly self-limited, the best approach would be to relieve the patient’s discomfort and disability and leave their immune system to take care of the virus.‘
D.A.J. Tyrrell, Head of the Common Cold Unit, 1992
In truth the WHO has no control over us and this treaty doesn’t really change that. This is simply providing our government and other bodies with something to hide behind, should it suit them.
But certainly anything global beyond the most basic common sense e.g. ISO codes is to be treated by default as suspicious, probably evil.
Nothing to do with health and everything to do with power, control, money and (in the case of Governments) deniability.
“We were following The $cience.”
Insofar I recall this correctly, one health is supposed to mean health of humans, animals and the planet. The planet is a ball of stone with a mass of 5,972,000,000 trillion metric tons hurtling through space at a speed of 29.87 km/s and it has no health, especially none the WHO could somehow influence. That’s the good reason to reject this: It authorises the WHO to act to the detriment of living animals (humans being a primate species) if it believes this would somehow benefit the aformentioned ball of stone. What such a benefit could conceivably be is anybody’s guess.
The WHO is an evil supranational vampire body literally sucking the life out of world. The mRNA platform is a sick joke, literally, and Gates & Co should be in court.
Luckily we’ve got Jeremy ‘burner phone’ Farrar stepping up to save the world as the new WHO excess deaths czar or something. Best of British!
In other news: what’s VAIDS?
There should be a debate on a referendum after the online petition, but I doubt we will allowed a vote. There should be a referendum on any significant transfer of sovereignty. We lend our politicians these powers, they are not theirs to give away.
Great article.
And for me the biggest argument it is that supranational or national forced measures are causing massive harm at individual level, as we have seen with Covid. Public health should only ever inform, advise, support and re-assure.
On a side note One Health means something entirely different. In short it is collaboration between human-, animal-, and environmental health. These often work in silos and should work together as interventions in one area often have (unintended) consequences in other areas.
The fact that this differentiates between humans and animals should already ring a bell: Humans are a primate species. As opposed to other animals, they have the unpleasant ability of articulating their own wants. It’s better to claim to speak for polar bears because these are not going to voice contradicting opinions.
Environmental health is a completely ill-defined term. It’s based on the notion that someone knows what state a very complex system such as animal and plant life on earth, should really be in. What this someone believe to be the right state fot this complex system is then called healthy to express his deep-felt conviction that he is really omniscient and that all opinions except his own are seriously bad and must be eliminated to maintain a healthy state of affairs.
If WHO had its way we would be in lockdown over monkeypox. Our Government will sign the Treaty nonetheless. There are not enough independent minded MPs to block it. With phantom environmental emergencies to contend with too, it begs the question what are the advantages of having a population in a state of permanent fear? Ask yourself what vested interests stand to benefit? The very people that promoted the global panic in the first place
The WHO treaty will facilitate the introduction of digital IDs and CBDCs by enabling the shutdown of parts of the economy they want to destroy (small businesses) and help the parts they want go grow (global businesses). Rather than tackling inflation head on with interest rates, sparking a global recession and drawing attention to themselves the central bankers) are using mechanisms like the WHO treaty to do it under cover of fear-inducing “pandemics”. Listen to Catherine Austin Fitts:
https://theconsciousresistance.com/the-activation-23/
The WHO continues its anti-democratic agenda and is trying to change from an advisory organisation to a controlling one. It’s time we kicked the WHO into touch and set up a new organisation with a group of top scientists from like-minded countries who can advise governments with a full explanation of their advice, so governments can correctly balance health benefits against cost and other impacts. After recent events, it’s clear that science is not a single solution thing and democratic governments should have the option to use their own trusted scientists to analyse the recommendations from any organisation and make their decisions based on what is best for their country. It might also be better in the UK if ministerial appointments are decided by the education and knowledge of the minister about the subject they are supposed to be administering. Let’s not have another Hancock disaster.
There is absolutely no chance of having ministers with education and knowledgerelevant to the department they represent. The slithering serpents would not accept anyone who was vaguely qualified. Their own incompetence might be shown up.