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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Well that’s a surprise.
Broadly the same sentiment as your previous post haha!
My natural immunity has so far protected me from my symptomatic fiance (double jabbed previous infection), her symptomatic father (double jabbed no known infection), my symptomatic boss (boosted, no known infection), a raft of symptomatic underlings/colleagues (all boosted, infection status unknown).
Time for a new fiance?
They might not want to read this,
mRNA vaccines produce huge amounts of Spike protein and for two months! « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)
“Not only does this show Pfizer and Moderna lied for profit, but that they were assisted by Professors of Microbiology etc who went on TV and swore these injections were safe. It also shows the failure of all the regulatory agencies who should have been demanding this data before they would even consider approving them.”
Having had Delta* last summer meant I didn’t get Omicron* this winter when all around me did, so this would appear to be true.
*whatever that means.
Dunno, it’s all Greek to me.
Wow I got a downvote for my little quip. Would the downvoter care to explain?
I suspect that the ‘downvoter’ is probably a macro set to vote all comments down on sites which are targetted for political reasons….
Getting to look that way!
Would be interesting to know what differences there are, if any, in the subsequent levels of immunity to omicron between:
I suspect we will never know because it might reveal an inconvenient truth.
You beat me too it
I just logged in to ask the question. The chart makes no mention of whether any of these people had been vaxxed or whether all of them had only had a prior infection.
The reason I want to know relates to that little sentence in the virus surveillance report that refers to N antibodies waning over time in jabbed people compared to people who had only had antibodies from infection only. Indeed, probably not a coincidence this isn’t mentioned.
Exactly.
My thinking is that the people with the best immunity to omicron will be the ones in the first group, because they have broad-spectrum immunity to all of the proteins.
The people with the next best immunity will be the ones in the second group (they will have had the same protection as the first group but the vaccine may have subsequently harmed their immune response to omicron)
And the people who are in the third group will have the poorest immunity, or none at all, to omicron, because their immune system has been tuned to repeat the same response to omicron as it did to the original Wuhan spike contained in the vaccine.
This is the critical question which every study is conspicuously evading. Their evasion gives me a gut feeling of the likely result. Saying that, if anyone comes out and says it they will get censored, get attacked by so-called fact-checkers to nitpick the minutiae, and likely lose their careers.
If I was betting, I’d put my money on groups 1&2 having more of an immune system left.
Has Chris Martenson looked into it? There may be usable stats. from the UK, Israel or Sweden, i.e. the three countries he thinks have published the best raw data.
An interesting report from the CDC (who normally follow the narrative) compares those groups vs hospitalisation by Delta. Skip down to the graph at the bottom of the page first ’cause it’s a very dry read!
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm
It’s your lucky day:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8621742/
Unfortunately, it looks like taking a vaccine after having had COVID harms your hard-won immunity:
“In this cohort of vaccinated subjects, 43% (n = 25/58) of the participants no longer exhibit NAbs activity 180 days after the administration of the first dose of BNT162b2 [6]. This is a very interesting observation since even those who were seropositive at baseline, i.e., a documented previous infection to SARS-CoV-2, seemed to lose their neutralizing capacity (n = 7/18, 39%)“
(shout out to Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org for highlighting this)
“I suspect we will never know because it might reveal another inconvenient truth”. That high Cholesterol doesn’t cause heart attacks
Isn’t it all just a cold?
Depends what you mean by “it’
I keep asking the question “what is COVID” and can’t get a clear answer.
A. Covid is a means to an end
Exactly. I had ‘something’ over Christmas which I considered to be like a heavy cold. It felt like a cold, the sympoms were that of a cold so as far as I was concerned that is exactly what it was. No doubt had I ‘tested’ it may well have indicated that I had ‘it’ but I saw no reason to do so. Far too many people have used these flawed tests as a diagnostic tool to proudly announce ‘I have got/had the covid’. I find this attitude ironic in its own right as many seemed to be quite happy to have joined the ranks of being infected with Covid. Hardly the behaviour one would associate with a ‘deadly pandemic’.
Covid is COVert ID
Thought it was Certificate Of Vaccine IDentification
Of course it does. Anyone with a functioning brain knew that. Plus I have first hand experience that my immune system is better than the concocted vax cr@p designed and funded by the likes of Fauci, Gates and co.
2 years of dystopian social experiments to arrive right back where we always were: the immune system deals with colds very well.
Who would have thought that a natural system developed by evolutionary process over hundreds of thousands if not million of years works better than a medical treatment developed by a pharmaceutical company over a few months.
Just had my antibodies tested and I’m still significantly positive – 225 U/ml – 22 months after my mild case of Covid in April 2020. Kinda hard to logically justify getting vaccinated yet my international travel is severely restricted as a result. Following the science? I think not.
I tried to get an antibody test, when it arrived it appeared to be no more than a standard LFT (£25). Also signed up to the NHS antibody study but won’t hold my breath over a response from them. Any pointers on how to get an antibody test independently?
I just asked my GP! I told them I’d get vaccinated if I tested negative, and have the slight advantage that I’m a retired consultant – so they probably want me off their back.
Are you sure it was an LFT antigen? My antibody test looked like one, but you needed blood (worked in the same way). I got it done at a private doc in London. Look online. There are loads available. It was not very expensive.
You can buy them online from most major UK chemists and various other suppliers. Cost around £50.
You do have to milk quite a lot of blood out of a finger though.
If you go out and get vaccinated you could damage your immunity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8621742/pdf/viruses-13-02329.pdf
“Other studies, including one from Qatar, found vaccine immunity waned much more quickly than natural immunity. Natural immunity is topped up by repeated exposure to the same or similar viruses, which sometimes results in mild illness but, as the results from Qatar show, rarely progresses to anything serious.”
Except if you’ve been jabbed, then ADE kicks in, forever……..
Of course, but they have to keep telling The People that they aren’t wearing emperors’ new clothes.
What the people really need is a rude awakening from their naked sleep walking.
Either that or electroshock therapy.
There are none so thick as those who will not unthick
‘I’ll keep wearing mask as it’s right thing to do’
Wales’ economy minister Vaughan Gething has said he will keep wearing a face mask because “it’s the right thing to do.”
The requirement to wear them in indoor public places apart from shops, public transport and health and care settings will be removed from 28 February.
Maybe it IS the right thing for him. Is he pug ugly and ashamed of his face?
It’s not a face any human being would want to look upon, that’s for sure.
And it’s another of the Effnicks that now seem to be ruling our lives.
Ah “Because it’s the RIGHT thing to do” was a Gordon Brown mantra which translated to “I’m now going to **** you over”.
I know
…ffs
This. But watch a curious anthropological phenomenon: the Common Man find out… admit it openly, and STILL not accept we were right.
Tis a conundrum indeed…
“In this cross-sectional study of unvaccinated US adults, antibodies were detected in 99% of individuals who reported a positive COVID-19 test result, in 55% who believed they had COVID-19 but were never tested, and in 11% who believed they had never had COVID-19 infection. Anti-RBD levels were observed after a positive COVID-19 test result up to 20 months, extending previous 6-month durability data.”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788894
More vindication of long lasting immunity following infection. However, another paper also looked at whether getting vaccinated after infection resulted in now waning protection. Well.
” even those who were seropositive at baseline, i.e., a documented previous infection to SARS-CoV-2, seemed to lose their neutralizing capacity (n = 7/18, 39%) [6]. (Figure 3B)”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8621742/
Lest we forget, Covid is COVert ID
Omicron parties all round.
Yet again scientists the world over spend God knows how much money, time and effort just proving that your Granny was right all along.
I see the phantom downticker has been busy downticking every single post again. Hilarious. Undoubtedly doing his/her/its bit to fight for The Science™.
It’s like having a tiny pebble in your shoe.
Not really – we need do nothing to get rid of Phantom Downticker.
Mrs FS and yours had Covid 18 (seriously) in December, 2018 and we were really ill but with all flu related illnesses we recovered but it took to the following April till we were completely “over it”
Lockdown lovers, please take note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoKaOkqnW9c&ab_channel=Milad%27sView
Canadian Army Major Stephen Chledowski speaks out against tyranny in Canada.
Urgent message five hour ago
I have a few lefty friends and you have to understand that this clinging represents a desire that this situation might lead to a more statist way of doing things. Somehow they can overlook the fact that this has been the biggest transfer of wealth upwards in known human history.
We have a couple of old lefty friends in North Oxford, wife best mate of my wife for 40 years. When my wife suggested the virus was a lab leak, “best friend” ended their “friendship”. She must be feeling pretty stupid now, tho’… my wife’s daughter visited them a few months back, and was told by wife NOT to tell her subby she hadn’t been jabbed.
That’s deranged.
That is deranged given that the lab leak hypothesis was eminently plausible from the start given the research being conducted just down the road from the meat market. Of course you have to consider that this in itself might’ve been part of the plot. For example, very quickly after that Chinese province became ground zero this pathogen seems to have spread to Qom in Iran, the holy city of Shia Islam.Of course many establishment old fogeys were killed off. Qom is rather isolated and has virtually no Chinese coming in or out.
Ah well, never mind: we all have a cross to bear!
When was the last time you heard anyone on television or in the mainstream who tried to improve your general health. It is a joke. The very cadence of their speech leads one towards ill health. Health, holiness, wholeness. It is as if it was never there at all.
We know!
Can we move on and discuss how to stop the forced vaccination of innocent children with an experimental Gene Therapy that can cause myocarditis, blood clots, strokes and eventually AIDS?
And here is the proof :-
https://www.authorea.com/users/455597/articles/552937-innate-immune-suppression-by-sars-cov-2-mrna-vaccinations-the-role-of-g-quadruplexes-exosomes-and-micrornas
One thing interests me. HOW does this respiratory disease spread?
We have ASSUMED that it spreads via aerosols being inhaled, but to provide a safe environment we need to know much more than that.
There was a recent challenge study on unvaccinated people with no imunity, which showed that some people were MUCH harder to infect than others – that finding alone ruins all the studies on the effectiveness of lockdowns and masks, since they assume that all people are equally at risk.
We need to have detailed studies showing how virions enter the body and what levels are needed to precipitate illness – studies showing how air moves in enclosed spaces considerable detail – studies on a host of practical things like that. The UK used to have a Cold Research Centre for doing just this work – what has happened fto the output from it?
Not sure it ever really existed, suspect it was cover for Porton Down doing biological research…..
There is no blockage to these spreads look at the outbreak in Antarctica. The biochemical model has its uses but it explains very little. That was a period of major download for many people.
Apparently there are twenty different epitopes that antibodies can attach to. The variants may have changes to the epitopes, but there are still multiple epitopes that current antibodies can attach to. Which is why virologists and immunologists are not too concerned about variants.