Green agitators working on the climate ‘blacklist’ site DeSmog have “scoured hours of online footage” and concluded that many journalists and presenters working at GB News are a tad sceptical about claims that the ‘climate emergency’ is rapidly approaching the point of no return and only the collectivist Net Zero project holds out any hope of averting imminent catastrophe. Needless to say, the Guardian is all over this scandalous outbreak of sceptical journalism. The Green MP Caroline Lucas notes the “truly toxic misinformation” on GB News, adding: “Ofcom cannot allow these statements to go unchallenged and un-investigated”.
DeSmog found that 16 of the station’s 31 presenters “attacked” U.K. climate policies last year, including the ‘Net Zero 2050’ target. The Guardian noted that 10 of the presenters made statements rejecting or challenging “widely accepted scientific findings” about how humans are affecting the climate, and the role the climate crisis plays in extreme weather events.
The latter comment is interesting. Attributing individual bad weather events to long-term changes in the climate is pseudoscience, and such claims invariably rest on computer models contrasting our atmosphere with wholly imaginary ones. Any data these models spit out fail to qualify as science since they are based on opinions that cannot be tested or falsified. The former economics professor and science writer Roger Pielke is particularly scathing about the attribution of extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming, which has rushed to fill the alarmist space vacated by global warming running out of steam over 20 years ago. “I can think of no other area of research where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by researchers in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits”, he observed.
Neil Oliver, whose Saturday monologue is a social media hit, is singled out for criticism. On December 30th, he is said to have asserted that polar bears are “doing fine”, and the ice in Antarctica is getting thicker every year. In fact, polar bears are doing fine with surveys suggesting their numbers are at recent highs. Extra food in the Arctic and a ban on hunting has helped the recovery. Meanwhile, a recent paper in Nature (Singh and Polvani) notes that over the last seven decades, the Antarctica sea ice area has “modestly expanded” and warming has been “nearly non-existent” over much of the ice sheet. In November, Oliver criticised green policies by suggesting they were part of a “hellish potpourri of policies guaranteed to condemn hundreds of millions to death by poverty, death by starvation”. DeSmog characterises the statement as a “conspiracy theory”, although the less hysterical might regard it as a fair comment on a potentially disastrous political agenda.
Weather attribution propaganda reached a high point on July 19th last year in the U.K. with news that the temperature topped 40.3°C for 60 seconds half way down the runway at RAF Coningsby, home to Britain’s Typhoon jet fighters. GB News host Calvin Robinson, referring to the short heatwave surrounding the claimed record, accused the Met Office of “alarmism”. Around this time, Nana Akua noted that: “If we [humans] only generate 3.5% of carbon dioxide and the rest of it is natural, then surely the CO2 is not the reason for the climate changing because it’s such a small proportion?” DeSmog accuses her of “challenging the science consensus”, while Lucas in the Guardian clutches pearls and states that climate denial is “deeply dangerous”. Of course, Akua is simply identifying the dubious scientific assumptions that lie at the heart of the unproven hypothesis that humans have caused all or most global warming since the mid-19th Century by burning fossil fuels.
DeSmog only looked at the Net Zero and climate reporting record of GB News, but over on the rival station Talk TV, similar appalling levels of investigation and scepticism are flourishing. If DeSmog is looking to add to its ridiculous blacklist of climate sceptics, it will be spoilt for choice. Julia Hartley-Brewer, Richard Tice, Mike Graham, Kevin O’Sullivan and Dr. Renee Hoederkamp are names that spring immediately to mind, and there are many more. What is happening, of course, is that when journalists are employed on media that allows them to do what they do best – ask questions, inquire, debate – a more nuanced and interesting story often emerges. The Net Zero collectivist project is backed by decades of virtue signalling and the false claim that the science surrounding climate change is ‘settled’. As scientists learn more about the complex natural influences that have major impacts on long-term climate, attributing all or most of the recent changes to humans looks more implausible by the day.
Some media companies are also aware that scepticism about Net Zero and the climate catastrophisation that promotes it is gaining ground in the wider population. Last month, the Daily Sceptic reported that climate scepticism was on the rise throughout the world, as populations start to grasp the effects of the looming Net Zero disaster. A recent poll conducted by a group within the University of Chicago found that belief in humans causing all or most climate change had slumped in America to 49% from the 60% level recorded just five years ago. Last year, a major Ipsos survey covering two thirds of the world’s population revealed that nearly four in every 10 people believe climate change is mainly due to natural causes.
Perhaps worryingly for the BBC and the Guardian with their steadily shrinking audiences, the Chicago survey found climate scepticism increasing more rapidly in left-wing Democrat circles than among Republican. In addition, support for human-caused climate change fell by 17% among young people aged 18-29.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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If 16 of 31 presenters expressed sceptical views that sounds pretty balanced to me. Lucas would be quite at home in North Korea it seems.
Well done GBN.
Keep attacking.
Rishi Sunak:
Oh, hold on a second… no, that was only about whether a man in a dress is a woman. (About as much as a woman in trousers is a man). You’re not allowed to offer an opinion on anthropogenic climate change or attempts to avert it.
I’m rather worried: I can’t find my unicorn repellent spray. I know it works ‘cos I’ve never been attacked by unicorns.
Elephants are masters of camouflage. They paint their toenails red so they can hide in cherry trees. Unsurprising then that I have never seen one.
Anyone who says something as monumentally stupid as ‘challenging the scientific consensus’ as if this were a bad thing needs to be ignored or heartily ridiculed.
Isn’t genuine science based on continually challenging the consensus? How else do we progress? Everything is ‘settled’ at some point in time, until it no longer is. After Fauci’s ‘settled science’ you’d think they’d be embarassed to parrot the same nonsense again so soon after, but nope.
What really bugs me about this climate cult, is how they have no plan B. Let us pretend that they are actually correct and we are all going to face weather armageddon – what happens if (when) their attempts to regulate the temperature as if they were turning the central heating up and down completely and utterly fail? Even if they genuinely believe the climate scam, any sensible person would say plan A is to prevent it, but we need a plan B to deal with the rising sea levels, the unavoidable droughts and floods, etc. etc. should our wonderful net-zero plan A somehow not work, no matter how many lives we destroy as sacrifice to the weather gods.
On a side note, I always liked Neil Oliver in his history programmes, who’d have thought he’d become such a hero in the battle of common sense against the current insanity. I agree with him 100% that the current policies will lead to hundreds of millions of deaths and destroyed lives. The climate cultists have learned nothing from the corona scam – only looking at their perceived benefits and completely ignoring the inevitable, humongous costs.
If Nana Akua noted that: “If we [humans] only generate 3.5% of carbon dioxide and the rest of it is natural, then surely the CO2 is not the reason for the climate changing because it’s such a small proportion?” then she clearly has totally misunderstood the basics of climate change or even the carbon cycle. We generate 3.5% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere but that is almost all the excess CO2 once you allow for CO2 that is absorbed. The result is that all the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100 years is anthropogenic which amounts to almost 50%.
So what?
Chris offered Nana Akua as an example of someone was wrongly accused of spreading misinformation. This statement (if she did say that) is utterly mistaken – I am sure any of the sceptical scientists (Lindzen, Happer, Curry etc) would agree with me – so surely it counts as misinformation?
I have no idea whether what she said was accurate or not. I’m not keen on the term “misinformation”. In general it is used to try and discredit people without getting to actual arguments.
‘Misinformation?’ If the speaker means lies, or lying then say so. I refuse to use the vocabulary of 1984.
Absolutely
We must resist the corruption of language
that’s 3.5% of a total of around 0.05% – it’s insignificant.
There is a double confusion here. I assume the 0.05% refers to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? This figure is just irrelevant. All that means is there is an awful lot of non-greenhouse gasses up there as well. What matters is the actual amount of GHGs which, while much smaller than the quantity of non-GHGs, is still over 3,000 gigatonnes of CO2.
In any case this is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The 3.5% figure is a percentage of the CO2 entering the atmosphere from human sources (most of which is balanced by processes which naturally remove CO2 – the carbon cycle).
It is a pity that science and particularly thermodynamics are not your best subjects. Then there is the maths and statistics. Correlation between two things does not mean anything unless they have a common factor. According to your ideas, when the atmospheric CO2 was at 6000 ppm, the temperature should have been about 500 degrees centigrade. It was not, it was a little warmer than today but plant growth (hence coal and oil) were fantastic, and animals grew to huge sizes. If we got to 6000 ppm, life would be again very extreme in growth, but would that actually finish of the world? It didn’t before so the answer must be no. Correlation between CO2 and plant growth is very strong and seen in a laboratory, and most food growing indoors around the world (deliberate increase in CO2 to 600 ppm or more). Why would 1.5 degrees be dangerous, because I am interested to hear your reason, and the actual science behind it?
What this has to do with my comments? I was discussing how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the lack of significance of the presence of huge amounts of non-greenhouse gasses, and the proportion of CO2 that is the result of anthropogenic processes. I made no mention of correlation between CO2 levels and temperature (or thermodynamics come to that). I can discuss that if you like, but I don’t see how you can conclude that my grasp of statistics or thermodynamics is weak when they haven’t featured in the discussion.
“. I made no mention of correlation between CO2 levels and temperature”…
By default you did as you quite obviously think an increase in CO2 causes increased temperature. If it doesn’t then what are you worrying about?
Yes. In common with sceptics such as Judith Curry and Roy Spencer I think an increase in CO2 causes increased temperature (the key question being “how much?”). However, the discussion of correlation is complicated because there are many other things that affect global temperatures on different timescales and with different magnitudes. For RE to dismiss my knowledge of statistics when I hadn’t even mentioned this complicated subject seemed unreasonable.
Judith Curry says that she thinks CO2 may cause a little bit of warming if all things in earth’s climate are equal but goes on to say that all things in earths climate are “not equal”.———– So, it looks like you actually agree with her despite calling her a “sceptic”. There are indeed many parameters in climate that are not understood very well and some not understood at all, which means bureaucrats trying to control the temperature of the whole planet by focusing on just the one parameter (CO2) is not scientific and many suspect is political. Because although CO2 is indeed classed as a greenhouse gas that might cause a as Judith Curry says “a little bit of warming”, it is also something else. It is the one gas that can be directly tied to Industrial Capitalism. And that is what this is really about. —–(In my opnion). But isn’t it great that we can all voice those opinions rather than have them silenced on mainstream news channels, with GB News refreshingly being one of the very few that allow any challenges to the official version of reality as regards climate and renewables etc etc. —-Which is precisely why Green politicians like Lucas and the Guardian BBC and Independent etc don’t like that idea, as it interferes with their activist agenda
Generating excess CO2 is – until we’ve managed to control nuclear fusion in order to create elements from other elements – way beyond human means. All CO2 released into the atmosphere was originally taken from it. Coal, to use the simplest example, is fossilized plant matter which – at some point in time in the past – was living plants pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen back to it.
You are right – I should have said additional CO2 in the atmosphere not excess.
This is what you should have said:
Climate change is routinely claimed to be largely controlled by greenhouse gases, especially CO2.
This was concluded, in part, by the strong relationship between CO2 from Antarctic ice core bubbles and local Antarctic temperature trends.
While CO2 mimics Antarctic temperatures very well, ninety percent of Earth’s surface temperature trends do not demonstrate a positive correlation to CO2 during the Holocene.
Arctic and Northern Hemisphere temperatures become cooler during increasing CO2 levels.
Tropical proxy temperatures don’t seem to be influenced by CO2.
Model simulated temperatures which are strongly influenced by CO2 do not accurately history match Holocene global proxy temperatures and tend to largely reflect Antarctic trends.
The fact that CO2 correlates well to Holocene temperatures for only the Antarctic, or <10% of our planet’s surface, yet CO2 is considered as the dominant influence on climate change is a scientific dilemma.
Why anyone would think that rising levels of co2 in the atmosphere increases global temperatures is a mystery?
CO2 in the atmosphere = 0.038%. Nature itself produces about 96% of this. The rest, i.e. 4%, is produced by humans. That is 4% of 0.038% = 0.00152%.
Historical ice core data reveals that atmospheric co2 levels rise post global temperature rises. We are being forced to believe the opposite is true by an apocalyptic, fear based agenda. If co2 doubled it would hardly matter. Plants and trees would love it though. The people driving this narrative are either misguided or are supportive of something more sinister – human depopulation.
.
Oh God – how many times do I have to explain two things:
0.038*0.04 is a meaningless calculation.
There are sceptical points that demand respect – saturation and Dansgaard–Oeschger events for example, but the stuff that is being bandied about here is absolutely wrong at a basic level.
You say it is wrong to be discussing certain issues, like the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and whether it can or cannot cause dangerous warming. But do you think it is the proper role of Ofcom to decide what can and cannot be discussed on TV? I can list many false claims by alarmists. I can point to the Hockey Stick Graph eg which was clearly exposed as misinformation, yet it for years appeared on mainstream news. I see everyday on BBC and SKY the claims that all manner of floods droughts and storms are as a result of climate change. These are “Opinions”. So why is the opposite opinion to be classed as “misinformation?
I am not saying it is wrong to discuss certain issues. I am just saying I don’t want to get distracted from the question we were debating which was about how much CO2 is in the atmosphere and how much of that is anthropogenic. If others want want to debate other aspects of climate change that’s fine by me (and none of my business anyway).
On another occasion I am happy to discuss all sorts of aspects of climate change but if you try to cover them all at once I find it just a mess. In fact I will respond to your request for evidence above as that comes up regularly.
It is actually you who is trying to cover everything at once. You are entering into arguments about CO2 and what it will or will not do to climate. But this article is specifically about how proponents of global warming and those who insist that NET ZERO is essential (but mostly only in wealthy western countries) regardless of the massive cost, impracticality, and the lowering of living standards etc should dictate what can and cannot be discussed. This issue is not just about science (or modelling pretending to be science) and so questioning NET ZERO and it’s implications for the poorest in society, or the price and effectiveness of heat pumps, electric cars, wind turbines etc etc etc cannot be censored by green politicians because they don’t like their dogma challenged.
“The people driving this narrative are either misguided or are supportive of something more sinister – human depopulation.”
Human depopulation. Exactly.
Co2 causing “climate change.” FFS!
I’d be worried if the climate didn’t change.
I think MTF clearly demonstrated here he/she has totally misunderstood the basics of climate change, carbon cycle, gas physics and even simple arithmetic. So according to MTF 3.5% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere becomes between ‘almost all’ down to possibly 50% of the excess CO2 So of the total CO2 in the atmosphere, between about 93 to 96.4% is absorbed. By what ? if MTF means the oceans, then solubility is governed by Henry’s law which your claim ignores.
“So of the total CO2 in the atmosphere, between about 93 to 96.4% is absorbed. “
Nope. About 95% of the CO2 that currently enters the atmosphere each year is absorbed. That is not the same as 95% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Imagine a deep bath that has a tap permanently on that is filling it and a leak which leaks more the deeper the bath. Before the industrial revolution the bath had filled up the point where the leak outflow matched the tap inflow and so the level, although deep, was constant. (Ice cores show CO2 levels were pretty much stable at around 280ppm for the last 10,000 years).Then we turned the tap up a bit. Result is the water level begins to rise. There will come a point where the leakage increases to match the new tap flow but this takes time (hundreds of years in the case of CO2) and the bath may have to be a lot fuller to make the outflow match the inflow – especially if we keep turning the tap up.
Clearly turning the tap up by 3.5% is not the same as increasing the water level by 3.5%.
The Vostok ice core data, one of the longest datasets, recorded four glaciated intervals and five “interglacials” including our current interglacial, the Holocene.
In both of the previous interglacials, temperatures were up to 2°C warmer than today. That’s 3.6°C warmer than the “pre-industrial temperature”, far above the impending terror temperature of 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial that is today’s scare story.
There were modern humans around for both of those hot spells, along with most modern life forms. It wasn’t an “existential crisis”. It wasn’t a crisis at all.
It was a warm time.
And humans also existed through the glacial periods.
In total, humans have seen a swing of +2°C warmer than today’s temperature to -9°C cooler than modern times … a very wide swing.
The Vostok data indicates that the world has been warmer than today, both earlier during this interglacial as well as in every one of the previous interglacials in the record.
Maybe CO2 had something to do with the temperature swings, maybe not, but it is barely conceivable that human activity during previous interglacials had anything to do with those temperatures whatsoever.
There is no actual evidence that human activity is having any effect today, the link between CO2 and temperature rises remains unproven.
And you want to impose socialist fascism on the world on that basis.
At best, that seems completely dotty……
Ok, you have stated your opinion. Is Neil Oliver also allowed an opinion? Or is he only allowed the government approved opinion? Because this article is not about what is true or isn’t true regarding this issue. It is about whether people can have an opinion about what is true or not. Once you start deciding and regulating Truth then you asking for trouble. We do not live in a scientific dictatorship and infact as someone once pointed out “In matters of science scepticism is the highest calling and blind faith the one unpardonable sin”.
It is, of course, you that has totally misunderstood the basics of climate change and the likely effects of ‘net zero’
Net Zero proponents regularly report that extreme weather is more severe and frequent because of climate change while the evidence shows no increase – and, in some cases, a decrease – in such events.
Computer models supporting every government Net Zero regulation and the trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables and electric cars, trucks, home heating, appliances and many other products do not work.
Scientific research and studies that do not support the “consensus” narrative of harmful man-made global warming are routinely censored and excluded from government reports such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Climate Assessment.
Conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that contradict the narrative of catastrophic global warming from fossil fuels are rewritten by government bureaucrats for public reports to support the false narrative of Net Zero.
The many benefits of modest warming and increasing carbon dioxide are routinely either eliminated or minimized in governmental reports.
Eliminating fossil fuels and implementing Net Zero policies and actions mean the elimination of fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides that will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat. Many would starve.
The adoption of Net Zero is the rejection of overwhelming scientific evidence that there is no risk of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2.
I am sorry but there is a limit to the number of issues to be discussed at once. Let’s confine the discussion to misunderstandings about CO2 levels and the carbon cycle.
Let’s not confine the discussion at all.
On this site, censorship of any kind is heartily disliked.
Climate change is routinely claimed to be largely controlled by greenhouse gases, especially CO2.
This was concluded, in part, by the strong relationship between CO2 from Antarctic ice core bubbles and local Antarctic temperature trends.
While CO2 mimics Antarctic temperatures very well, ninety percent of Earth’s surface temperature trends do not demonstrate a positive correlation to CO2 during the Holocene.
Arctic and Northern Hemisphere temperatures become cooler during increasing CO2 levels.
Tropical proxy temperatures don’t seem to be influenced by CO2.
Model simulated temperatures which are strongly influenced by CO2 do not accurately history match Holocene global proxy temperatures and tend to largely reflect Antarctic trends.
The fact that CO2 correlates well to Holocene temperatures for only the Antarctic, or <10% of our planet’s surface, yet CO2 is considered as the dominant influence on climate change is a scientific dilemma.
But, for the rest of us, it is nonsense on stilts.
On this site, censorship of any kind is heartily disliked.
Not by everyone – I have been told in quite colourful language this is not site is not for me because of my views. However, I am not censoring you. I don’t mind what you write. I am just suggesting it is unproductive to to debate too many issues at once.
Tell you what – if you agree
Then that subject is closed and we can move on to CO2 temperature correlation in the holocene.
‘I am sorry but there is a limit…’ is a proposed censorship in anyone’s language; socialist fascism.
Nevertheless you have quite rightly, and courageously, disregarded those who have improperly suggested that this site is not for you.
This site is quite definitely for you and I will not be alone in wishing that there were more dissenting views on here.
My record for downticks is well into the two hundreds; a badge of honour. Can you match it?
With regard to climate change, no subject can be closed because the evidence continues to grow. There is no such thing as ‘settled science’.
‘This is where you make your bloomer’ (Bertie Wooster).
By all means move on, but remember, please: climate change is unpredictable; nothing is settled.
Imposing a totalitarian socialist (socialist fascist) programme on that basis is, quite frankly, batshit crazy…..
She is not noting. She is asking a question…..which you have not answered….
I was quoting Chris Morrison
Around this time, Nana Akua noted that: “If we [humans] only generate 3.5% of carbon dioxide and the rest of it is natural, then surely the CO2 is not the reason for the climate changing because it’s such a small proportion?”
(my underlining).
Obviously such a question implies that the 3.5% is somehow relevant. I have explained why it is not. My answer is that CO2 is an important reason for climate changing (“the” reason implies it is the only reason, climate scientists do not say that).
I’m sure Mr Morrison is delighted that you believe him to be infallible but, I’m afraid, no-one concerned with ‘climate change’ is infallible, not even the Pope and certainly not the Archbishop of Canterbury.
She is not noting, she is asking a question….the clue is in the question mark…
You may have answered but you have not evidenced your answer.
What does ‘an important reason’ mean? Climate has always changed. Has it changed for ‘important reasons’ or, quite simply, for various reasons, many of which, like the great cosmos itself, are unknowable??
And you have not evidenced your answer because the evidence simply does not exist.
But what evidence is there that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate? By evidence I don’t mean models full of assumptions.
Have you tried simply Googling “evidence for climate change”? There is an absolute mass of stuff out there. I just came across this page from the Royal Society which addresses a lot of the issues raised here. I haven’t had time to read it in detail but it looks good and the Royal Society is a pretty respectable source. I don’t see any reference to models (although there may be some reference in the detail)
Models are not evidence.
The Royal Society: How do scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities?
‘Calculations using climate models have been used to simulate what would have happened to global temperatures if only natural factors were influencing the climate system. These simulations yield little surface warming, or even a slight cooling, over the 20th century and into the 21st. Only when models include human influences on the composition of the atmosphere are the resulting temperature changes consistent with observed changes.’
Me: How do scientists know that their models have included every possible influence on climate?
‘They don’t’
‘The dominant model is the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)’
‘Prof. Koonin devotes an entire chapter in his book (Unsettled) to “Many Muddled Models,” pp. 77- 96. As personal background he notes that he has been “involved with scientific computing for my entire career,” publishing his first paper in 1974 on computer modelling.’
‘He asks, “How good are our climate models? And how much confidence should we have in what they say about future climates?” Id. pp. 77-78. Applying the basic test of the scientific method – do the climate theoretical models’ predictions work – with observations, he demonstrated that they do not.’
‘John Christy, PhD, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama, analyzed the previous version of CMIP5. He demonstrated that its 102 predictions also failed miserably when tested by observations,’
‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with science’ Richard Lindzen, William Happer, CO2 Coalition 23 Feb 2023
CMIP is not a model. It is a project to coordinate and compare leading models (about 30 for CMIP 6) The quality of the models’ predictions is of course much debated. It is a fairly technical discussion. Here is quite a good account.
Pedantry
‘An important goal of CMIP is to make the multi-model output publically available in a standardized format.’
CMIP provides climate projections in a multi model context.
So it is providing climate projections based on a multi model output….but it isn’t a model……
Your ‘good account’ is six years old.
Here’s a ‘good account’ from earlier this year:
‘….the CSSR of the 4th National Climate Assessment has more than 250 citations to the CMIP model.
The CSSR explains: “Here, the primary resource for this assessment is more recent global model results and associated downscaled products from CMIP5.”
To be used as science, the models must pass the simple and profound test of the scientific method:
Do they work?
Do they reliability predict temperatures and other climate variables or not?
As demonstrated next, they do not.
Thus CMIP and dependent models should not be used in support of any present or future government regulation or action…..’
‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science’, Lindzen, Happer, CO2 Coalition Feb 2023
The problem is that the whole atmosphere is involved in climate control. O2 and N2 are also greenhouse gases (albeit a weaker effect than molecules with atoms of different atoms). However since they constitute 99% of the gases in the atmosphere they are crucial. Add in the effect of water and the energy transfers involved in change of state ie evaporation and condensation, the system is far more complex than a simple CO2 = global warming. The sources of the increase in CO2 have been looked at and <50% come from fossil fuels. We are doing lots of harmful things to the planet – emitting CO2 isn’t one of them. Unfortunately by concentrating on the absurd idea of net zero carbon (which would mean no life given we are carbon based life forms) industry can continue damaging/polluting the environment as usual and no-one challenges it.
O2 and N2 are also greenhouse gases (albeit a weaker effect than molecules with atoms of different atoms).
Have you got a reference for that? It contradicts everything I have ever read. Anyhow it is not to do with having different atoms (O3 is a GHG). It is to do with having a molecular structure that vibrates when hit by IR.
In a spirit of helpfulness:
Van Wijngaarden has authored several important papers with William Happer on the warming effects of major greenhouse gases including methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas:
‘“The Earth’s atmosphere already has a lot of CO2 which causes the absorption at 667 cm-1 to be saturated. Doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm will increase the temperature by about 1 C. Saturation means the temperature increase depends on the logarithm of the CO2 concentration change. To get an additional 1 C warming, CO2 would need to double again from 800 to 1600 ppm. At the present rate of increase of 2 ppm/year, it would take about 2 centuries to double CO2 to 800 ppm.”
‘Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. The reason is that it absorbs radiation at many more wavelengths than CO2 and the atmosphere contains nearly 100 times more H2O than CO2 molecules.’
‘The question is, how will atmospheric water vapor change if there is a small temperature increase caused by CO2 doubling.’
‘Observations made using high altitude balloons and satellites do not show significant increase in water vapor over the past 50 years.’
‘It is unfortunate that many climate researchers do not question the climate models especially when the observations conflict with predictions.’
‘I do not question the sincerity of the modelers, but an accurate climate model is very challenging.’
William Kininmonth was the head of Australia’s National Climate Centre. Kininmonth uses the MODTRAN computer program to demonstrate that the contribution of carbon dioxides to the greenhouse effect is minimal. He discusses the importance of energy flow by ocean currents:
‘“The characteristics of recent climate change and its cause are clear. The tropical oceans have warmed, not as a result of additional atmospheric carbon dioxide but most likely because of a reduction in the transport of heat, as ocean currents slow. The warmer tropical oceans have raised the temperature of the tropical atmosphere in turn, in particular through the medium of deep equatorial convection clouds. Additional energy flowing from the warmer tropical oceans has been transported by the winds to enhance polar warming, especially in the winter months.’
“Put another way, recent warming is probably simply the result of a fluctuation in the ever-changing ocean circulation; carbon dioxide must be recognized as a very minor contributor to the observed warming and one that is unlikely to prolong the warming trend beyond the peak generated by the natural oceanic oscillations.’
“There has been much speculation that the recent warming trend will generate extreme weather events dangerous to humankind. The evidence is not compelling.’
September 2022
Yes I was surprised when I first came across this. A quick check in the scientific literature shows this is the case and has been known for more than half a century. See https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2012GL051409
The point is that climate/weather systems are very complex. We really do not understand the process. Partic as current models ignore the relationship between the life on this planet and the atmosphere. Included in the GAIA hypothesis is the idea that if you want to find life on other planets, look at the gases in the atmosphere. We know that the climate of rainforests is largely determined by the rain forest itself. Remove the rain forest and the climate will change. Nothing to do with CO2.
I know that O3 is also a GHG but the science I was originally taught was that the molecular structure which produces resonance in the IR part of the spectrum mainly occurs in molecules of different atoms. Reading the paper I’ve linked to shows that as usual it’s more complicated than that. A fascinating read.
Thanks for the link. It is interesting but I think not very significant. According to the paper it is about 15% of the CH4 effect (which itself is only about 20% of current absorption) and of course it is nor rising. The paper was written in 2012 so presumably that 15% has already dropped.
I disagree that we really do not understand the process. We know a lot about the broad determinants of climate if not the detail.
The level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere in the past has been higher than currently, based upon the levels the last few hundreds of millions of years.
The level of CO2 has been fluctuating naturally for hundreds of millions of years.
Sure – but that is on timescales of millions of years where other massive slow-moving fundamental factors come into play like the strength of the Sun and the position of the continents. On timescales relevant to us – the level of CO2 has hardly changed over the last 10,000 years until now. We know this for certain because it has been directly measured in bubbles in ice cores. See https://berkeleyearth.org/dv/10000-years-of-carbon-dioxide/
The climate has always been changing. Surprise, surprise: it still is….but there is nothing remotely resembling a ‘climate emergency’:
‘In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.’
‘A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming’ The European Physical Journal 13 Jan 22
‘….historical droughts from 1400 to 1480 and from 1770 to 1840 were much longer and more severe than any of those in the 21st century, when modern global warming began.’
‘Science under attack’ 22 Aug 22
‘We analysed long-term variability and trends in meteorological droughts across Western Europe using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Precipitation data from 199 stations spanning the period 1851–2018 were employed, following homogenisation, to derive SPI-3 and SPI-12 series for each station, together with indices on drought duration and severity. Results reveal a general absence of statistically significant long-term trends in the study domain…….In general, drought episodes experienced in the last two or three decades have precedents during the last 170·years, emphasizing the importance of long records for assessing change.’
‘Long-term variability and trends in meteorological droughts in Western Europe (1851–2018)’ Royal Meteorological Society 22 June 20
The fake ‘climate emergency’ is simply another excuse to implement totalitarian socialism: socialist fascism.
‘For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State.’
‘The Fascist State organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the judge, but the State only.’
‘The Doctrine of Fascism’ Benito Mussolini 1932
Let’s rewrite that last bit.
‘Net zero organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the judge, but net zero only.’
Hmmm……..
Climate catastrophe only exists in the modelling and then it requires feedbacks to produce more water vapour (the more potent greenhouse gas). A quick look at the modelled predictions and the real outcome shows that they are wildly overstating any warming effect of human CO2 emissions.
Keep buggering on Chris!
How come no one ever talks about the Sun?
Bloody awful newspaper.
Since Jan 2015….
I have. Also about the Earth’s shifting magnetic field, axial wobble, El Nino and volcanic eruptions. Also deforestation in the Amazon basin and Himalayas and the vanishing of the Aral Sea thanks to water diversion. All of these may be very large contributors to climate change but we don’t know how large; anyway there’s not much we can do about the first four, but no-one seems to be doing anything about the others.
The only thing you need to know is that man, in his infinite wisdom and hubris, controls the climate and the planet. Anything else is Wrong think.
It just astonishes me how many people unquestionable accept the climate alarmism. You don’t have to dig deep beyond MSM BS to see all the holes in it. I loose no sleep over climate change, but the attempts to shut up dissenters is actually much more alarming.
“Ofcom cannot allow these statements to go unchallenged and un-investigated”.
Is Ofcom a scientific body and what real world knowledge does it have that does not include the repeated assertions of the climate change revolutionaries?
And, would Ofcom agree with the following?
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth”
A. Einstein
“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking”
George S. Patton
” It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”
Jacob Bronowski
“Don’t pay attention to ‘authorities,’ think for yourself.”
Richard Feynman
“Thinking is so important, my lord”
Baldrick
“Yes, we’re all individuals”
A Crowd
What so many journalists and others cannot understand is that just because a view is widely held doesn’t make it right. 40 years ago it was widely believed that the right treatment for acute back pain was bedpost. Research proved that was not true and an earthquake occurred in musculoskeletal practice. Same here; once one has data one can overturn false prophesies.
Last few days has been 19°c and sunny. Overnight it has rained. I’m terrified, it must be that climate change they’re telling us about
But in science you question everything. Or you are not indulging in science. Matters of science are not decided by a show of hands from government funded data adjusters and bureaucrats with an agenda. We do not live in a Scientific Dictatorship, much to the frustration of Green (Red) politicians. Uniformity of thought and Groupthink have no place in science. ———-But as regards the media, you don’t get much more one-sided viewpoints on climate than those that appear on BBC and SKY News. SKY even have their “Climate Show”, a more absurd jumble of misinformation masquerading as ultimate truth it is hard to imagine. They even have this little mock up digital thermometer ticking away in the background purporting to show the steady rise in “global temperature” (whatever that is supposed to mean) because of fossil fuel use. They question NOTHING and have simply become climate change activists. ————-But the climate models that often are referred to as “science” have little predictive value, which is probably why they have all been totally wrong so far. There are no experts or scientists who know what the climate is going to be doing in 50 or 100 years time and the models they call “science” are evidence of NOTHING. They don’t even include many of the parameters known to be part of climate because they are poorly understood, and others are simply guessed at. Yet globalist politicians seeking to control the whole of the worlds economy, wealth and resources want to use those models as the excuse for their agenda and get very upset should any journalist question any of their junk. ——–If it were not for GB news the UK Public would be left with only propaganda on their screens. ——“Ah, yes science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact” —Mark Twain.
The Guardian and the BBC should be ashamed of their positions on net-zero. They are not based on science, just on government propaganda and lies from other organisations that are financed by the net-zero agenda. Thank goodness, we have some journalists and media presenters who have the courage to tell the truth. I just hope more people will listen to them and understand what is going on, and also have the courage to spread the truth. Unfortunately, there seems to be very few UK politicians in this group and none with the courage to speak up for the truth, with the notable exception of some of those in the Reform or Reclaim minor parties who hopefully will one day overcome the stupidity of our major parties. Where is an effective Guy Fawkes when we need him?