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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You can’t power an industrial economy on wind, anyone who believes so is either corrupt, mad or stupid.
Didn’t we try that in the past?
Yup. There is a good reason that coal then oil tool off and windmills and sailing boats got relegated.
You cannot run a country on wind and that is why as well as the wind we have the Smart Meter to ration energy use. ——–Energy is the new currency. Carbon taxation is the new wealth redistribution tool.
Clearly the intention is to make sure that we are no longer an industrial economy.
Net Zero Means Powerless Defenceless –
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
12.000 Bird choppers in the UK coving an area almost the size of West Sussex. 500 dead large birds per chopper every single year. Producing at best 15% of our energy needs. They are not Gaia friendly. Capacity is at best 50% given wind intermittency and the poor quality of battery storage. Per Chopper:
There are not enough rare earth elements to power a wind grid to sustain our economy. Not enough in the entire world and you need to move gigatonnes of tender Gaia’s skin to get at them. All done with hydrocarbon (clean, abiotic) power.
There is not enough land (must be flat, in a wind zone etc). Each MW eats up 50 acres of space (most farms are 3 MW to 5 MW in size). To treble wind production you would have to carpet the equivalent of Kent, Surrey and the Sussexes with the Bird manglers. It is insanity, not ‘green’. The Choppers are placed on farmland or once wild areas. This is not eco-friendly.
Follow the money. Lots of millionaires in the supply chain of the Bird Eaters.
I hear in Germany the Red Kite is virtually wiped out. —Birds of prey are always looking down. They don’t see the blades coming.
Used to see lots of birds of prey in the hover in Caithness when driving down the A9. Haven’t spotted one in ages now, but the area has been industrialised with turbines.
In many areas in Scotland the formerly beautiful landscape has been ruined by bird choppers. Who would want to go hill walking in apparently remote areas if these areas have disfiguring structures, concrete and roads all over them, and you have to listen to woop woop turbine noise instead of wildlife and the breeze?
When you return from holiday and are emitting all the “dreadful CO2” you look down at Scotland and it is starting to look like a giant pin cushion.
I didn’t think the models were GIGO, I thought they were just GO
All these scams such as ‘green energy’, electric vehicles, HS2, Cv-19 ‘vaccine’ etc should be filtered out by honest and wise politicians to whom we cede responsibility to make decisions on our behalf. They in turn are answerable to the PM who we trust will be a wise and pragmatic leader. Where are they? They’re certainly not to be found in Westminster.
Without the above, any pseudo-expert, fake, charlatan, flanneler, cheat or phony (yes, Ferguson, I’m looking at you) can hold sway and stuff us all.
The Simpsons monorail episode comes to mind. Sinking our money into inadequate solutions to a made-up problem.
Those who claim to ‘follow the science’ clearly don’t understand the scientific method.
I keep wondering where all the British green jobs are. Minus 3000 in Port talbot is the only relevant statistic I can think of.
It’ll be minus 6000 in Port Talbot by the time the knock-on effects of destroying the steel plant there play out.
Indeed, as I have been pointing out since this criminal and sad announcement.
No need for coal, much of which used to come from a relatively local open cast colliery (Felin Fran, near Merthyr – although I think that is now our of action), nor any iron ore, which arrives by sea via the local docks, or else by train from other ports. Quite a while back, when there was another steel plant at Llanwern, east of Newport, all the iron ore arrived by sea at Margam, which can handle the large ships, and a large chunk of it was hauled by train from there to Llanwern.
Worth observing that the Met Office uses 1991 to 2020 for long term average sums at present. Incidentally, another story that undermines the concept of “Net Zero” is the latest delay to the Hinkley Point C project – now delayed to 2029 at the earliest.
“[Hydrogen] Highly explosive, low kinetic energy compared with hydrocarbons” surely chemical or potential energy, not kinetic?
We know the drill by now and that is to destroy our economy, our society and our way of life. None of this surprises me. What really does surprise me though is the level of abject ignorance demonstrated by MPs. You would have thought that the people actually representing us would have some inherent ability to discern, to weigh information, to be curious, to have some innate intelligence… Apparently not. They, almost as one body, seem to possess no curiosity, no outrage (when the only steel furnace is about to be extinguished), no ability to discern or to look further than the end of their paychecks and expenses and the possibility of jumping on a gravy train here or there, usually funded by some billionaire or other, to endlessly pontificate on matters on which they are not fit or able to speak about. As a whole, bar a very few, they have let us down badly. They give credence to organisations like the CCC because they’re just too lazy to do any digging into the subject themselves or they’re too cowardly to sabotage their careers by speaking out. These are the best in the land?? How the F did they end up where they are? Perhaps it is us who are the lazy ones in not skewering their nominations to be MPs to forensic examination in the first place. One thing I know, from the council politics down here in the shires, is that only those people who know the game and tow the line will be put forward onto the ballot – basically they’ve already been corrupted before they’ve taken one step through the doors of Westminster.
“No outrage”???—-Correct, but plenty of outrage if we want to process illegal aliens in Rwanda who chucked away their documents. Plenty of outrage if someone swears at a Muslim. Plenty of outrage if Braverman uses a perfectly good word that appears in the dictionary—“Invasion”. Plenty of outrage if a father does not want a man that has suddenly decided he is a woman in his daughters toilet. ——Yes outrage is very selective for the parasite class of UN lackeys pandering to pretend to save the planet politics who don’t give a jot whether it impoverishes us all and is actually doing that RIGHT NOW. Just take a look at your energy bills. Just ask people in Port Talbot.
Why would they (establishment, career party politicians) change when the people continue to go out and vote for them time and time again no matter how incompetent, disinterested or morally corrupt they undertake their role.
The most important commodity is ENERGY.———— Price and availability of energy is directly tied to prosperity, good health and life expectancy. The one billion people in the world that don’t even have electricity and the other 2 billion that only have enough to power a fridge will testify to that. So why are our politicians seeking to take away cheap reliable energy and replace it with expensive unreliable energy? ——-Hey Jim Dale answer that question will you? For anyone who does not know who this idiot Dale is, then tune into GB News where he is the resident climate change activist. Well Dale won’t answer that question because he thinks if a Mars Bar goes up 1p it is all because of “Climate Change”. He will claim the cocoa beans got wet or some other squirmers excuse. But enough of silly activist weathermen. ——-Why do government want to remove cheap reliable energy? ——Do they have evidence that the CO2 from the coal and gas is causing or going to cause dangerous changes to the climate? NOPE. The Chinese and Indians who emit 40% of that CO2 don’t think so and continue to use reliable affordable coal. They are using more coal than we did since the beginning of time, so there cannot be a climate apocalypse heading in past Jim Dales house now can there? —So WHY? ———-Because of UN politics. The Politics of Sustainable Development that says the prosperous west has used up more than its fair share of the fossil fuels and we are to leave it in the ground. Eco Socialism with climate as the plausible excuse and we all fall for it. Ask your friends and family. They will almost all think that the climate is changing and it isn’t the same as when they were young. They think they can look out of their bedroom window and see climate change. They see storms on the telly and think “Wow Greta was right”——Wakey wakey people you are being manipulated. —-Look at your electric bill and if you thought that was bad “You ain’t seen nuthin yet”
The good thing about CLS’s Royal Society report was that they looked at 37 years of weather data and considered the impact of variable weather on electricity supply from renewables (see image from their report below). That’s what’s blown the CCC out of the water.
But the RS report had a big weakness in that it didn’t consider the impact of variable weather on energy demand. It turns out that back-to-back low wind years like 2009-11 are also colder than normal so demand for heat is higher. Once we’re all using heat pumps (!), that demand will have to be met with electricity, so we’ll need even more storage than RS calculated. So, the RS has blown themselves out of the water too.
It’s like a green circular firing squad.
The costings in the RS report were a total fantasy too.
Covered in depth here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/royal-society-large-electricity-storage-report.
Perhaps you could use wind power to manufacture gas, oil and coal.
Not really. The first large-scale practical application of a steam engine was using the Newcomen atmospheric engine to pump water out of collieries. This superseeded horse-powered pumps, not wind-powered ones.
Aside: Why haven’t the netzeroes thought about horse-powered dynamos for electricity generation so far? Horses not being sufficiently renewable because they fart?
They never used to give it a name when it was a bit blustery. I agree that the climate in this country has deteriorated very rapidly but I think the reasons are entirely deliberate and man-made and not a by-product. Just look at how many measures have been introduced recently in order to reduce the worldwide harvest and thus reduce worldwide population. They will carry on un until about 7 billion are dead and they are convinced of their righteousness.
I agree that the climate in this country has deteriorated very rapidly but …
How does climate “detetiorate?”
It might help persuade the zealots that they are on shaky ground if they were forced to relinquish all items that they own that are dependent on fossil fuel, in particular oil. All plastics? No more Nespresso? No phones, tablets or desktops? A large proportion of their wardrobes? It would be interesting to determine exactly what they would have to do without…
It’s like being in a recurring nightmare. Doesn’t matter how much the obvious lie is exposed the zombies keep moving in the same direction towards destruction of our country.