“CO2 is not a bad gas,” says Valentina Zharkova, a Professor at the Northumbria University in Newcastle, U.K. On the contrary, she points out, every garden centre uses it in its greenhouses to make plants lush and green. “We actually have a CO2 deficit in the world, and it’s three to four times less than the plants would like,” she notes, adding that the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has been at much higher levels throughout our planet’s history than it is now.
In fact, over the last 140 million years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing and only now slightly starting to rise. It is currently around 420 parts per million (ppm), or 0.042%. 140 million years ago, it was estimated at 2,500 ppm (0.25%), or about six times higher. And it also meant a greener and more biodiverse world. If CO2 were to fall below 150 ppm (0.015%), it would already mean the extinction of vegetation and all other life. We came close to that during the last glacial maximum when it was at 182 ppm (0.018%).
Zharkova says that the fact that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are now increasing is a good thing. “We don’t need to remove CO2 because we would actually need more of it. It’s food for plants to produce oxygen for us. The people who say CO2 is bad are obviously not very well educated at university or wherever they studied. Only uneducated people can come up with such absurd talk that CO2 should be removed from the air,” says Zharkova.
The Sun – a natural driver of climate change
In fact, Professor Zharkova can go on at length about what CO2 does or does not do in nature and how it behaves, but she does not actually study it directly as a scientist. Zharkova is an astrophysicist originally from Ukraine. She graduated in mathematics from Kiev National University and did her PhD at the Main Astronomical Observatory in Kiev, Ukraine. She has worked and done research at various U.K. universities since 1992 and has been a Professor of Mathematics at the Northumbria University since 2013, teaching key Maths and Physics modules.
However, her research has focused on the Sun and she can confirm that, unlike CO2, the Sun plays a major role in Earth’s climate change. So much so, in fact, that Zharkova’s research suggests that we have entered a colder period, or essentially a little ice age, in the next 30 years, as the Sun’s activity weakens in the context of global warming.
In other words, there is not a question of Zharkova – or any other scientist who is justifiably sceptical about the omnipotent power of the CO2 molecule to warm the air – denying climate change. On the contrary, climate change and the cooling or warming of temperatures are very real, she asserts. For example, Zharkova points out that in Scotland, where she has lived for many years, the weather was much warmer 2,000 years ago. “The Romans were growing grapes and making wine in Scotland at that time, for example,” she says.
However, between 1645 and 1715, for example, the period known as the Maunder Minimum, when the Sun’s activity weakened particularly sharply, the weather in Europe became much colder. Britain’s major rivers – such as the Thames and Tyne – could be skated on, and the Dutch canals regularly froze over. Alpine glaciers widened and absorbed large areas of arable land, and the ice mass expanded strongly southwards from the Arctic. Temperatures across the planet were much lower – in Europe and North America, for example, up to 5° to 7°C colder in places. This is a huge change.
Zharkova estimates using some previous research that on average – which of course means potentially much larger changes from region to region – the Earth’s temperature will fall by one degree Celsius over the next 30 years, and not rise, as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns us.
She explains that such abrupt changes depend on the cycles of solar activity. When the Sun is less active, its decreasing magnetic field causes a decrease in irradiance. Less solar radiation means less heat. According to Zharkova, such a change occurs every 350-400 years (grand solar cycle or GSC), and she says we entered one of the Grand Solar Minima (GSM) separating GSCs in 2020. This GSM will continue until 2053 after which in cycle 28 the solar activity will return to normal.
Would not recommend a solar panel investment
So, for the foreseeable future, according to Zharkova, we should not be thinking in terms of global warming, but of a significant cooling, such as that occurred in the 17th century, which will, of course, have a direct impact on our way of life. Take energy, for example, where, under the banner of the ‘green transition’ and move to ‘Net Zero’, the aim is to replace today’s energy production capacity with renewables such as solar panels as we move away from fossil fuels. According to Zharkova, in times of declining solar intensity, it is not worth naively hoping that solar panels will be able to produce any significant amount of energy. “I have only compassion towards the people who have invested in solar panels,” Zharkova says. When you consider that in the low period of solar activity, we can expect winters to get longer and that in northern Europe it may even snow in June, as it did in the 17th century, the prospects for solar panels are not very good. “During the Maunder Minimum, there were years when there was no summer at all – there was a short spring, then autumn and winter again. And if you’ve got snow on your solar panels or cloudy skies, they’re useless,” she says. We can also expect colder weather to put wind power generation under pressure – there are plenty of examples of wind turbines freezing and stalling.
Another serious concern, Zharkova says, is that food production will come under pressure in Europe as the weather gets colder and harvests could become stale. This means that better conditions for food production will have to be sought in southern Europe or even in Africa. In the north, more energy is needed to produce food, to heat homes and for all other activities. According to Zharkova, there is no getting away from fossil fuels now, which are a reliable source of energy, under such conditions. “If people survived in [the cold period in] medieval times, we should survive better because we’re better equipped. We have a little bit more energy resources if they are used wisely,” Zharkova says.
Global warming is also a reality
But Zharkova says a cold period of a few decades is a short episode compared to the current long warming trend. While the colder decades are due to the Sun’s declining activity, the warming is also due to the Sun as it is moving closer to Earth. Again, there is nothing unexpected about a change in the position of the planets and the Sun in space, relative to us. This too has happened repeatedly over a long history. It happens because of the gravitational pull of the big planets, and as the Sun moves closer to Earth, it raises the air temperature here. According to Zharkova, this solar cycle lasts for 2,100-2300 years and it is known as Hallstatt’s cycle of solar radiation. The current cycle will come to an end at around the year 2600, and although there will be another low period of solar activity, or GSM (2375-2415) during this period when it will be colder again, there will be a steady warming over the following five centuries. Based on her calculations, Zharkova estimates a temperature rise of 3.5°C by 2600. “Of course, we won’t be living here then, but our legacy will live on and people will be able to check and say that the blonde woman here was telling the truth about the Hallstatt’s cycle,” she jokes about herself.
According to Zharkova, in the overall context of the CO2 climate change narrative, it is important to understand that humans are actually bystanders in this process of change. “Whatever we do on Earth, we can’t change the orbit of the Sun and the big planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus,” she explains. “We can’t do anything about it.”
“Like the Spanish Inquisition”
However, it is precisely the fact that this process is natural that the mainstream climate science currently denies, and the only acceptable cause of climate change is the increase in the proportion of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. According to Zharkova, one does not bother with such “little things” as the Sun. In fact, she points out, that it has also been scientifically shown that the increase in atmospheric CO2 does follow the increase in temperature, and not the other way round, but this is another point that the proponents of anthropogenic climate warming refuse to take into account. “So this gives you an idea of how uneducated and unprofessional these people are who say that CO2 will lead to a rise in temperature,” Zharkova notes. “They are trying to silence anyone who questions their flawed models,” she adds.
Zharkova herself has experienced such attempts of silencing and persecution. She cites the example of a recent retraction in March 2020 of one of her scientific articles (Zharkova et al., 2019) by the Editor Rafal Marszalek of Nature Scientific Reports under pressure from the proponents of anthropogenic global warming, as she had mentioned in the article that the brightness of the Sun can change depending on where exactly the Sun is relative to Earth. Since you can logically argue that this could also affect the Earth’s climate, the paper had to be retracted. She is no longer welcome to publish in Nature, although she has done so several times in the past.
This retraction threat is the case, she says, for anyone who questions man-made global warming and explains climate change in any other way. “They are acting like the Spanish Inquisition did during the Maunder Minimum,” Zharkova says about the proponents of anthropogenic global warming, with her characteristic humour, and jokingly refers to them as the CO2 mafia.
A year later after the retraction in April 2021, Zharkova published a book chapter proving with the official ephemeris of the Sun-Earth distances provided by the official sides of NASA and Paris-Meudon Observatory, France that these Sun-Earth distances change exactly as they mentioned in the retracted paper. She says it proves that the Sun, its activity and its position in the orbit are the natural source of any climate change on Earth and other planets.
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Well done to Hannes Sarv and the Daily Sceptic for publishing this article on the outstanding work of Professor Zharkova.
The Globalist push for Net Zero, as well as mass invasion from Third World countries, seems a deliberate attempt to exterminate as many people as possible in the coming Ice Age. The wiser invaders will soon be fleeing back to their own warmer ancestral homelands, before the ice reclaims the British Isles.
As one of the loudest voices in the AGW scam, AL Gore when VEEP had a net worth of $1.5m US. He now sits on a fortune of $350m US and fronts a $19bn investment company. The rewards are simply too high for these con-artists to relinquish control. Check out The Motley Fool at http://www.fool.com or Google Behind Al Gore’s $19 Billion Investment Firm.
It’s very chilly outside today in this part of the UK where I live. It has been cold here for the last seven months, my heating bills have been enormous. They promised us global warming. Another broken promise, the bastards.
Cold, windy, wet here too but according to the UK Met Office Britain has just had a mini April heat wave – well parts of Britain.
No heat wave in the North West.
You might have noticed that climate activists will point to floods or droughts somewhere in England as evidence of climate change. But if I say it has been colder where I live they will quickly reply with something like this —-“Where you live is not the planet”. ———So how come floods or droughts where they live is evidence of climate change but cold where I live isn’t? —–They will then try to say that their floods or their droughts are increasing. —–But the problem with this is that data reveals no such thing. ——–Climate activists can get away with saying almost anything about climate because weather and climate is so variable, and you can at any time see storms, floods, droughts etc on your TV set beamed from all corners of the globe. This gives the general public the impression that indeed climate must surely be changing for the worse. ——But that is all it is—an impression.
Even when there is arson during a heatwave they will blame climate change saying how it has made the ground more dry.
There was a documentary about exploring the underground in various cities. They were in Paris (above ground) They came to this bridge from 1700s I think and it had a water level from the 1800s and has not reached the marker since.
They called it the mildest March on record according to the BBC.
This has been going on for months. According to the usual suspects, all of the last ten months were record-breakingly hot. It seems the climate changers are now in 100% big lie mode and just keep repeating “It’s hot, unbearably hot, it’s hottest, no hottetest!” despite it absolutely isn’t.
So far, there was exactly one day this year where I could sit in my garden in a T-shirt and do some of the usual before-day stuff (putting shoe polish onto my boots, to be precise). A second one was mild enough for me to do that while wearing an open jacket. I’ve been able to dry my washing in the garden for exactly three times this year so far. That’s decidedly more pleasant than many other years I can remember but a far cry from the two summerly Aprils I also remember.
It is probably easier in the UK than in most countries to fall for climate crisis dogma. No two Aprils are the same. Sometimes in rains for ten days, sometimes it blows a gale for 2 weeks, sometimes you get 5 warm sunny days like you were in the middle of July. So when people switch on their TV news they can easily assume that everything is changing when in fact it has always been like this in the UK. I remember when I was 17 a friend and I wanted to play golf. We went out every single day in June to play and every single day it rained. I don’t think that has happened since. It is called “Natural Variability”.
That’s not only in the UK. There’s a German saying Der April, der macht was er will (April does whatever it do will) I have, however, experienced exactly two complete Aprils in my life, one of them in the UK, where the weather was dry and warm throughout, while the present heat wave is more of the kind which makes one uncomfortable even when wearing a winter jacket (beween 11pm and 1am). That a temperature average is some tenths of a degree higher or lower than another doesn’t make a perceptible difference.
As I already wrote in another comment: It seems the climate changers have given up on the weather in Europe and just keep labelling it as unusually hot regardless of how it actually is. They’re basically just using their control of the MSM to drown out reality. It’s high time for climate trans-change, ie, it’s getting hotter all the time despite isn’t, anyway. Who would dare to begrudge a bunch of Swiss wrinklyboomers to self-identify as being badly affected by heat waves which only exist in their imagination? That would surely be oppressive, toxic, white, male, heterosexual and whatnot.
We were supposed to be benefitting from global boiling but I would be happy if we could at least get near to a simmer. I have done my best during my life to pump CO2 into the atmosphere but despite all the promises so far I would consider my return decidedly in the negative.
Is somebody telling porkie pies about all this “boiling?”
Yep I don’t heat my house I just pump co2 in, sure enough it “forces” all the water vapour to create a super hot green house.
It seems that 54 years ago my A’ level geography teacher was correct after all!
W.r.t. to investment in solar panels, it depends on the structure of the financial deal to promote their use. Do your own sums based on what is on offer now, but a decade ago I went for a 20 year deal, which has almost broken even financially now. What really matters weather wise is how much cloud cover there is during daylight hours, and as the panel efficiency deteriorates with rising temperature, colder weather is a bonus as long as the sky is clear.
That said, she is broadly correct. In the real world, there is nothing unusual about ‘climate change’. What is novel is the use of the term “Climate Change” as a political tool, for various reasons; not necessarily in the best interests of the general public.
Respectfully do solar panels actually cover their own face if not subsidised at our latitudes?
“… a decade ago I went for a 20 year deal, which has almost broken even financially now.”
You mean which I and others have paid for via our taxes and energy bills. Let me have your bank details and I’ll set up a standing order, cut out the middle man and save you the inconvenience of renewing the panels.
Is there anything else I can do for you; pay your grocery bills perhaps?
The whole of NET ZERO is paid for by us all. ——Estimated in the trillions. Yet government have the audacity to call it an “investment”.
Interesting to see that your “20 year deal” is just now breaking even. So depending on what age a person is they could purchase solar panels and find that by the time they are 73 years old they will need new ones. But they might think that it isn’t worth it as they will lose money should their demise come around unexpectedly.
Yes, keep looking at the sun, it’s the only energy source that we have in the long term and it’s going to be on a less energetic period for the next 20-50 years or so.
Where is the clown mtf to shill for billionaires taking cars off ordinary ppl?
How could anyone imagine the Sun which only provides 98% of Earth’s heat energy could have any significant affect on the climate system rather than a minuscule percentage of a trace gas in the atmosphere, in cahoots with Daisy the cow?
This woman risks being dragged away to the CLIMATE GULAG. I say no let’s have her on GB News at the same time as the silly climate activist Jim Dale. Or will OFCOM not allow it? Why are activists like Dale and McCarthy given a free ride every other day to spout one sided climate hysteria based on their severe dose of confirmation bias, yet no one with expertise with a different world view ever seems to appear? —–It is left to the likes of Eamonn Holmes or Isabel Webster to ask these climate crisis junkies questions, but with respect they don’t know very much about the issue of energy or climate, because if they did they would interrogate these people. It requires knowledge to interrogate and most TV presenters demonstrate a distinct lack of any kind of understanding of the issue.
Well Jacob Rees Mogg had three climate hysterics including Stanley Jonson and wiped the floor with them all. It is not that hard when you have historical data to back you up. I noticed they couldn’t refute anything he said so they just changed the subject. I looked for the video on Youtube but is not there, maybe because they worried it might get vaporised by the YT Stasi.
Ok to be fair there are few presenters like Mogg who can interrogate the alarmists. Nana Akua does well and takes no nonsense from them, and sometimes Bev Turner of the daytime presenters, but most don’t know the issue well enough.
The link to the book chapter is a dud with a stray space character encoded at the end.
Here’s the corrected link
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/75534
Well, if true the global media establishment have their work cut out to continue gaslighting people into thinking the temperature is going up when really it’s going down. Perhaps they’ll just make people think that descending temps are extreme weather
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Cold is Hot. Diversity is our Strength. Stealing is Justified. Stop the Economy to Save the NHS….
They will move seamlessly into telling us it’s our fault it’s getting colder. Ocean currents being switched off by our reckless behaviour etc. It’s climate “change” so anything goes.
The attached map is the Koppen-Geiger Climate Classification Map, which shows there are 30 different climates on Earth. Which one of these has changed and to what? Can we stop talking about Earth’s Climate as a singular as that makes no sense. How do you average climate characteristics and what is the average of Tropical, Arid, Temperate, Continental and Polar? And if you average the extremes such as Polar and Arid you don’t get Tropical.
Thank goodness there are some physicists left who are around to tell us sensible scientific information about CO2.
Well done Professor Valentina Zharkova. My deepest grateful thanks to you.