Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertiliser derived from fossil fuels. This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides “will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat”. They add that eliminating Net Zero fertiliser will create “worldwide starvation”.
In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”.
The battle over nitrogen fertiliser is being hard fought by green activists who argue for massive reductions in its use and more organic methods to be mandated. This can extend to fanaticism, as marked by the Guardian’s George Monbiot who argues for an end to dependence on farming. The ground for less choice and food is also being prepared in academia. Recently, three barking academics operating through the University of Leeds suggested World War II rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Also harking back to the days of spam and when spivs controlled parts of the supply chain was the actress Joanna Lumley, who has suggested a return to a points distribution system and a form of wartime rationing.
Back on Planet Reality, the authors publish the graph below showing a “remarkable” increase in crop yields after the widespread use of nitrogen fertiliser began around 1950.
The authors make a general point that any present or future Government actions that omit analysis of the disastrous consequences of reducing fossil fuels and CO2 to Net Zero for low income people, people worldwide, future generations and the United States, “is fatally flawed science and appalling government policy”.
Happer and Lindzen state that they are career physicists who have specialised in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades. These are said to be integral to atmospheric climate science. In their opinion, all Net Zero regulations are scientifically invalid. In summary they state the science is based on fabricated data that omit figures that contradict their conclusions, for example, on extreme weather. In addition, climate models “do not work”, while IPCC findings are “government opinions, not science”. Furthermore the “extraordinary” social benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels are omitted, and any science that demonstrates there is no catastrophic risk of global warming is ignored.
Numerous examples are supplied. The authors quote Professor Steven Koonin, a former Under-Secretary of Science for President Obama, as noting in his recent book Unsettled, that, “observations extending back over a century indicate that most types of extreme weather events don’t show any significant change”. Koonin is said to show “multiple egregious examples” of both fabricating data and omitting contradictory data on extreme weather in the U.S. Government Fourth Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) of 2017. The report claims that there were marked changes in temperature extremes across the U.S. The number of high temperature records set in the past two decades “far exceeds” the number of low temperature records, it claims.
John Christy is a professor of atmospheric science and the Alabama State Climatologist. He complied the graph below showing the percentage of US weather stations that exceeded 100°F at nearly 1,000 stations across the country.
Koonin summaries the evidence on extreme temperatures by noting: “The annual number of high temperature records set shows no significant trend over the past century, nor over the past 40 years”. Happer and Lindzen observe a downward trend in high temperatures over nearly 100 years, while CO2 emissions have risen, and “respectfully suggest” that every agency analysing heat waves and high temperatures “has the scientific obligation to apply the scientific method to contradictory facts and avoid fabricating facts”.
Koonin notes that the CSSR graph with its alarming heading is a “textbook example of fabricating data”. The CSSR chart does not provide temperature data but the “unusual ratio” of record highs to lows. It is “shockingly misleading”, he says. These things matter, concludes Koonin. The false notion of more frequent U.S. high temperatures is likely to “pollute” subsequent reports. It should also matter to those who proclaim the “unimpeachable authority of assessment reports”, including the media, which give voice to such misleading conclusions.
The authors are distinctly unimpressed with the work of the United Nations IPCC. They note the process of compiling reports is governed by two rules – all Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are approved line by line by member governments, and these SPMs override any inconsistent conclusions scientists write for IPCC reports.
Late last year, Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary for Global Communications at the United Nations, told a World Economic Forum ‘disinformation’ seminar that “we own the science” around climate change. We think the world should know it, she continued, so we partnered with Google to ensure only UN results appear at the top. Happer and Lindzen quote the late Nobel physics laureate Richard Feynman who said: “No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles.” They add: “The legitimacy of scientific content is determined by the scientific method. None of the IPCC SPMs, models, scenarios and other findings asserting that dangerous climate warming is caused by CO2, greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel is valid science; they are merely the opinions of IPCC governments.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic‘s Environment Editor.
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Isn’t this what the globalists want?
YES
I expect that the West will prostrate itself, and the rest of the world will go on paying lip service to it.
Well we know well enough how it will go. During the first phase of the war in the Ukraine (2014-2022), there was a story in, I think, the Telegraph about desperate people in Eastern regions scratching coal from illegal open-cast mines so they would be able to heat themselves. When it comes to life and death, nobody will care tuppance about “net zero” – and the CCP seemingly doesn’t care anyway.
Why should anybody care about net zero? It’s all lies and BS.
Political reasons, I suppose. And propaganda of course.
The late great Christopher Booker detailed the role of someone sympathetic to the CCP in establishing the IPCC, and I suspect that from the start the climate scare has been more a political ideology than anything else.
Perhaps what I mean above is more that people will cease to tolerate it and start ignoring anything mandated by it when their survival is at stake, or even when they are simply feeling the pinch.
Good verbatim discussion with Prof Lindzen and John Christy in this Koonin- chaired red team debate at the American Physical Society 2014.
https://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
It has been known for years that there is no climate emergency and co2 is not the main cause of temperature change.
Thanks for posting this, Rose. Is there any page or section you would particularly draw our attention to? The document is 573 pages long…
Sure, skip through to pp 314 – 318. Its a quick read, single column double spaced.
“I don’t know of a better correlation in geophysics”.
Thank you, Rose.
Another good article from Chris Morrison on this hugely important topic. There seems to be a battle going on, is the whole world going to rally behind the net-zero battle cry or are we going to see the world split into different factions on this issue. Will Russia find a ready market for Nitrogen fertiliser in North Korea, India, Pakistan, China and South America, I rather suspect it will.
When nitrogen fertiliser became available cheaply and in large quantities it is not surprising that it was applied to crops with gay abandon. There is much that could be done to develop systems to maintain production with lower better targeted inputs and avoiding ‘run-off. But the western world seems mesmerised by the need to prostrate ourselves before the net-zero God irrespective of the price we must all pay.
The Eco Nutters consider halving the global population to be highly desirable. Not the half they are in, of course.
Those advocating population reduction never want to lead the way.
I don’t know why.
“Half the World Faces Starvation Under Net Zero Policies”
So what? Apparently the people of tomorrow are more important than us!
Yes but that starvation is already underway. Prosperity is directly tied to the cost of energy, and globalist politics of the UN/WEF are trying to price us out of using it. Now the wealthy west might be feeling the pinch a little bit, as we see energy bills skyrocket to pay for all the turbines and smart meters etc etc, and it is mostly only our poorest people that are heading into energy poverty but imagine if you live on a dollar a day and have to burn dung for heat and cooking and are being told you cannot have coal and gas because you need to save the planet how that must feel? People today are dying young of preventable diseases after a short life of back breaking labour. Over one billion of them don’t even have electricity and that is a diabolical disgrace. The Ukraine situation has somewhat diverted attention away from the green impoverishment that is underway as governments all over the western world seek to take away affordable energy and replace it with unreliable expensive energy. People might be under the impression that it was the Ukraine war that forced energy prices up and that once that war is over then everything will return to normal. But it won’t be a return to “normal”. It will be a return to the “New Normal” of year on year rises in energy prices since we signed the Climate Change act in 2008. It will see perfectly good cars removed from our roads and us all coerced onto busses that mostly don’t exist. People will be hounded out of aeroplanes, and as with all things green, first comes the nudge, then comes the PUSH. The “New Normal” sees brainwashed dreamers gluing themselves to the road and to buildings clamouring for their own impoverishment because they have swallowed hook line and sinker the manufactured crisis of climate change. The “New Normal” will see the best central heating system we ever had (gas) removed and we will be fobbed off with silly heat pumps. The “New Normal” will continue to see our own governments pander to globalist politics of the UN rather than to the people who voted for them all under the false pretences of “saving the planet”, and as Richard Lindzen said a few years ago. “It seems peculiar to me to base policy on something for which there is no evidence”. ——–But who needs evidence when you have propaganda and a bought and paid for media.
The ban of fertiliser went so well in Sri Lanka after all! What a far happier and enthusiastic place it created!
Do we never learn?
Do you have to be one of the two top world scientists to work this one out?
“Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertiliser derived from fossil fuels.”
Do the authors honestly think that governments are not aware of this? It is a problem to be solved not a cost they are prepared to take.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca815
There will be countries that will have plenty of fertiliser though isn’t there?…Russia and China to name two.
There are many reasons why they are are on the USA’s hate list…this is just another.
The US relies on fertiliser imports even though it is a huge producer itself.
China is the largest producer, and Russia is the largest exporter…nearly half the worlds potash is sourced from Russia and Belarus…and making fertiliser is a gas-heavy production…something else Russia has a lot of…and can sell to ‘friends’…
Like so much that is happening now the reality of the situation favours other sensible countries…who haven’t completely lost the plot….….
While the eco-nutters in the ‘West’ seems intent on dragging us all down to penury and starvation.
To illustrate what climate realists are up against the following is a quote from today’s Financial Times “long read” article for the weekend:
” While the unprecedented speed of change in the contemporary world is remarkable, so too is the fact that the acceleration is primarily due to human behaviour and consumption patterns. Without further action to reduce greenhouse gases, there will soon be more carbon in the atmosphere than there has been for millions of years.
As the influential writer David Wallace-Wells has put it, about 85 per cent of the burning of carbon-based fuel has been carried out since the end of the second world war — while more than half has been since the first episode of Seinfeld was broadcast, or since Boris Becker won his third and last Wimbledon title.”
The title of the article;
“Apocalypse then: lessons from history in tackling climate shocks”
Needless to say my dismissive comments on the article were greeted with horror by the pro Net Zero FT and its commenters (mostly students with free subscriptions I think). As with The Times – none of the FT science or environment journalists seem to have qualifications in anything more scientific than degrees in history or English.
I think, perhaps, you are being too generous with the possible, formal, qualifications these people may have attained. But I do agree with your view that they are intellectually challenged, to put it politely.
It is very likely true that there is more carbon in the atmosphere than there has been millions of years. It is currently at 420 ppm. Ice cores go back about 800,000 years and show definitively that it never rose above about 300 ppm during that time. Before is less certain as we have to deduce levels indirectly but the evidence is that levels last exceeded current levels over 3 million years ago.
I am pretty sure Lindzen and Christy would agree with this as it’s hardly disputable. But maybe that wasn’t your problem with the article?
The earth’s climate has fluctuated quite a lot in the last million years, including warmer periods than currently.
If CO2 is a prime cause of global warming, and CO2 levels were low then, how did global warming occur back then?
Because other things cause global warming/cooling but they happen over much longer time periods – thousands of years or more, not decades. Change of sun’s brightness, changes in orbits, movement of the continents etc.
Has anyone bothered to ask the question of the zealots is the net Zero strategy designed to reduce the worlds population?, if so I suggest we start with the useless eaters who make up the WEF, the WHO, and of course the Net Zero advocates. None of the above could possibly disagree with giving up their lives to the cause, as its clearly what they believe will save the planet, my guess is that they of course never considered themselves as having to relinquish their own existence, as they believe themselves too important.
So come on Mr Gates, Schwab, Carey, etc go to Canada and ask Mr Trudeau to take you on his special pathway.
Class with a capital C.
Mass Starvation via Net Zero – psychopaths have taken over the asylum
Stand in the Park
Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
To fully understand this issue you must look at where it came from. You must look ofcourse at the science, the basics of which isn’t really so difficult. The sun sends down it’s heat and some is radiated back to space where some gets trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses. But you must also look at the politics, and because this issue is highly politicised there is a lot of misinformation flying around. It is not a black and white issue. It is not a case that their either is or there is not global warming. This idea that anyone who dares to ask simple questions on this issue is to be demonised and name called reveals that it is not simply a scientific issue. It is also a political economic and social one as well. —-If it were only about science then there would be no need to silence those asking questions, because in science you question everything or it isn’t actually science you are dealing with. Science is not decided by bureaucrats at the UN standing at a podium deciding what is true. To grasp what is going on with this issue you need to understand those UN Politics of Sustainable Development which seeks to control the worlds wealth and resources and use climate policies to do so. But don’t take my word for it. Here is what a former Lead Author at the UN said about 10 years ago—-“One has to free oneself from the illusion that climate policy is environmental policy anymore. We redistribute the worlds wealth de facto by climate policy”. ——-So what has wealth got to do with climate? —- Climate Change is official science masquerading as ultimate truth in support of a political agenda as alluded to by that UN official (Ottmar Edenhofer). —————-It isn’t ultimate truth at all.
That massy have been Christiana Figueres. The Heritage Party is totally opposed to all this.
Excellent comments on a very good article but how many people are prepared to stand up and be counted?
Oops! “That must have been…..
When they don’t have the data on their side they, in essence, fabricate the data.
Then try to censor facts.
Chemical farming is depleting the soil and producing crops lacking essential nutrients. Yes,chemical nitrogen increases yields but eventually the soil degenerates. Organic farming can increase yields if skillfully undertaken, regenerste the soil and provide nutritious food. It will not rely on Bill Gates-style centralised, distopian agochemical methods.that ithe globalists want to impose on us..