This is an exchange between a lettered scientist from academia and the author, a lowly (but free thinking) private sector engineer, about atmospheric CO2, climate change, and whether they are related, or are harmful or beneficial. Specifically, it is in response to the Bully for Global Warming section posted earlier in this blog. The names are changed to protect the guilty.
The scientist writes:
My dear dear Howard, no one is denying that temperatures were much warmer in past eons. That is not the point. The point is the rate of change in climate, which can not reasonably be attributed to anything but an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere (which even your favorite skeptics can’t deny) from fossil-fuel burning. Your friend the (real) scientist, Crista
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My dear, dear Crista: You miss the point of my blog completely. All I am saying is that any increase in global temperatures from any cause whatsoever is much more beneficial to life including man than detrimental. So why should we make such a huge effort to stop something that is beneficial?
All that effort is accomplishing is to divert vast amounts of money into the hands of politicians who, by the way, dole out small parts of their spoils to academia. These politicians could care less about real dangers, even menaces, to the planet which are considerable. I even wonder if the emotional attachment of so many to the AGW phenomena is because they haven't the guts or intellect to face the real problems which are far more dangerous. Or do they just like the money?
A threat and a menace are not the same. A threat may be weak or empty and thus can be ignored. A menace on the other hand must be dealt with or catastrophe will result. Menaces come in many sizes, and AGW, even if it is real, may pose a threat, but it is an extremely tiny menace by any measure when compared with the real menaces we face. The global warming movement with its growing and soon to be massive transfer of wealth from the private sector to governments, is a real menace to the well being of most ordinary citizens of the free world, particularly America.
Lets get some definitions straight about global warming, climate change, and anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and climate change. To deny the reality of global warming or climate change is ludicrous. The Earth has been in a long term warming period since the last ice age more than ten thousand years ago and has varied widely long before. Though there have been many ups and downs in the average temperature over those years, the general trend has been upward. This is nothing new! Overall climate is always in a state of flux for many reasons. What has yet to be proven to my satisfaction, is that human activity, specifically the production of atmospheric carbon dioxide, is the sole or main cause of the increase of recent years.
For all intents and purposes, when the phrases global warming or climate change are used they mean anthropogenic global warming or climate change, and no other kind. Anecdotal evidence and consensus opinions, even of scientists, definitely does not cut it with me. This is especially true when politicians and the media jump on the band wagon. They are almost always wrong, but they certainly do make money selling an unsuspecting public on their dire predictions. That global warming is happening is a fact that could easily change to global cooling at any time. That it is caused by human activity is a fallacy clearly proven by the hard science of math, physics and chemistry. Show me the hard science that proves otherwise and I’ll jump on the bandwagon. Until then, I remain a firm skeptic.
I disagree entirely with the statement that the present “rate of change in climate, which can not reasonably be attributed to anything but an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from fossil-fuel burning.” That rate is still quite slow compared to past dramatic climate changes and is certainly more likely caused by known factors other than by AGW.
My only favorite skeptic is my own mind. I pay only passing attention to others of any kind. Unlike those in the closed world of academia, I am not beholden to the prejudices and agendas of grant committees, peers, or political/financial benefactors. I am free to search where I want, say what I want, and write what I see and understand without fear of damage to my prestige, my career, or my financial condition. No one has a hold on me of any kind. Any supposed factual statements, calculations, or proofs I offer are subject only to correction by better or more accurate statements. calculations or proofs. Incidentally, consensus opinion are just that, opinions. They are not hard science. My opinions? Ideally, they carry as much weight as anyone's. Realistically, they only carry as much weight as that of those who agree with them .
No, I am not a (real) scientist, but I am a (real) PE (professional engineer) who spent a great deal of time in training, study, and application of the gas laws (PV=NRT etc.) These gas laws lie at the very heart of the theory of AGW. Their factual accuracy cannot be denied. They are hard science, not consensus opinions. Their application would prove conclusively the range of temperature change increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does and would cause. Why is it that this mathematical and physical proof is never used, conducted, or mentioned? The answer is quite simple. It would counter all of your "consensus understanding of human-induced, global climate change, which is a robust hypothesis based on well-established observations and inferences." In plain English, the majority opinion. If you, Crista, or anyone else can provide me those calculations, and they are accurate, not skewed, I will immediately change my opinion and my writing.
In an older part of this same blog titled Earth Hour and under the heading, Some practical information about the processes acting on our atmosphere, there is some information about these gas laws and some calculations that are written in non technical terms. If they are in error, prove it. I have written to many organizations and even a few institutions of higher learning asking for the math and physics that proves AGW has anything but a negligible effect on atmospheric temperatures compared with the ten other factors (listed) that have well studied effects. I have applied the physics and done the math and was asking for confirmation or contradiction. While I received several references to published articles (all of which had statistical and anecdotal information, but no math or physics) and several comments suggesting I “leave such questions to the professionals,” I received not a single response with any answers to my physics or math questions or to my comment about the grossly erroneous greenhouse analogy that has become so firmly ensconced in the minds of the public. I did respond rather pointedly to those who wrote, “leave such questions to the professionals,” saying things about credentials being suspect and not seeing the forest for the trees. I also said that if they didn’t have the answers to my physics and math questions, they should admit it. Fat chance!
Crista, perhaps one of your colleagues could apply some real physics and math and refute or confirm the paragraph I mentioned.
“Show me the beef!” I don’t care about the sizzle.
Howard
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Howard, Yes, there is some potential good to come from climate change, but on balance it will not be good, based upon everything that I have read and studied. I don’t really want to debate this with you; the attached is a report from the US Climate Change Science Program that I worked on, released this summer. I think it is useful information that is based upon many years’ worth of solid research. Take it or leave it; it is what it is. Happy birthday, by the way. Crista.
NOTE: The publication is Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, A State of Knowledge Report from the US Global Change Research Program. It is an impressive 188 page (8.5" x 11") document with a lot of interesting and some disturbing information. It contains no information about any math or physics studies related to the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere. I believe this is a glaring error of omission that makes all of the scientific conclusions in the book suspect.
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Crista: I printed out and read the publication mentioned in your last email. It is very interesting and informative. However, I question some of the conclusions and explanations of the reasons for what is happening. I personally think that there are many other known and certainly some unknown causative factors that make for climate change, none of which seem to ever have been considered or studied and are certainly not even mentioned in that report. There is a list of some of these in a previous section of this blog.
You stated, "Yes, there is some potential good to come from climate change, but on balance it will not be good, based upon everything that I have read and studied." Have you ever read any reports from research into the positive effects of a warming planet? I doubt you have because the vast preponderance of research effort has been focused on the detrimental effects. I know of no publication of the results of any research into the positive effects. In fact, other than the comment added to my blog by level head and a few of my own comments over the years mostly described in the section, Bully for Global Warming in this blog, I know of nothing positive about global warming/climate change ever mentioned or implied by anyone. That includes academia. the media, politicians, even those passionately against the whole AGW thing.
Was your comment about potential good an abstract statement or have you read reports describing the possible benefits of Global Warming. I would sure like to read them if there are any. I am certain the media’s well established penchant for only reporting bad things is a huge factor driving all these negative reports and studies while ignoring any positive ones. Positive factors just don’t sell newspapers or TV news programs. If you would care to learn about some really drastic cases of this highly skewed junk science, check out John Stossel’s book, Give Me a Break.
Another thing that troubles me. I mentioned to you the lack of any math or physics confirmation of the grossly misnamed greenhouse effect or use of the term greenhouse gasses in virtually all anthropogenic climate change reports including the one you mentioned. That is very difficult for me to accept or understand. The gas laws are firmly established science backed by math, physics and chemistry. The use of those laws to confirm the theory of AGW are essential at least to my acceptance of the theory. I would think that kind of confirmation would be paramount in the minds of all (real) scientists. Why the concerted effort to ignore or hide such calculations or dismiss them as irrelevant?
I am not arguing with you, but I do have the right to question when I do not see things as others do, even experts like yourself, who sometimes are in error. The history of science is liberally peppered with established theories that new insights have overturned. I also realize much of my explanations and ideas are suspect to the lettered (experts) because I have few letters after my name (BS is all) to prove I know what I’m speaking of, but so what? The math and physics speak for themselves.
Why is it that none of the lettered and published experts will provide me with any kind of math or physics to prove the actual magnitude of the effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere?
Recent searches led me to another website with a commentary by Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The article can be read at: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4338343.html. In the article, Professor Keleman said, “It is equally essential to emphasize that alleged problems with a few scientists' behavior do not change the consensus understanding of human-induced, global climate change, which is a robust hypothesis based on well-established observations and inferences.“ Consensus understanding? Does that now replace hard science proofs of the physical sciences? Do we now use well-established observations and inferences as the defining basis for science while avoiding math and physics? Direct me to the math, physics and chemistry proofs of AGW and I will become an ardent supporter. Until such time I will remain extremely skeptical especially since the math and physics calculations I have applied define a very different reality.
And why is their no research into the beneficial effects of a warmer climate regardless of cause? There are tons of research into the negative effects. Where are all those studies balancing the negative. What about my friend’s comments about what my essay didn’t mention?
I quote: “What your very good essay doesn't much focus on is the tremendous increase in plant growth that has already been afforded by the increase in carbon dioxide. This is generally calculated to be in the range of 15% to 40%, depending on the species (and whether it's a C4 or C3 type of photosynthesis) -- which means at minimum about a 1/7th increase in plant productivity. This means in turn that something like a billion humans are being fed by the EXTRA crop growth from carbon dioxide. So the contributions of Man, through fossil fuel, land use changes and agriculture are having a very positive effect. Just think of the harm -- the starvation -- if the extra carbon dioxide could be instantly made to go away, as the catastrophists apparently wish. It is not a pretty scenario at all.”
Oh yes, that report you recommended and that I downloaded is quite a testimonial to the environmental change and damage man has and is continuing to wreak on the planet. You will get no countering claim from me about those. My concern is that all this attention to a questionable cause moves us substantially away from directing research and corrective effort to the far more obvious problems cited in that report. Actually, nowhere in the report did it mention the most obvious cause of human damage to the environment, overpopulation. Of course, that little problem is unpopular because politicians have not found a way to turn it into cash in their pockets as they have global warming/climate change. The same could be said of the positive effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and a warmer climate. Where are the studies of these? Surely there are some intelligent individuals, even scientists, who could mount well-based research into the positive effects. Why is there no such research or even suggestions?
Howard
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Bully for Global Warming and a Warmer Climate
Climategate? - Warmergate? The truth about many of the scientists behind the global warming hoax has finally arrived. It's the Piltdown hoax (1912) of the 21st century—big deal. It’s meaningless anyway because of two facts. First, There are at least ten factors known to affect climate more than atmospheric CO2. Altogether, they make the CO2 effect virtually meaningless. Second It’s so easy to see that a warmer climate benefits all life on Earth a six ear old could understand it.
Another thing! Aren’t the global warming fanatics looking at it backwards? Don’t they have one very important fact upside down? Despite all that has been said on both sides, Anthropogenic Global Warming, if it were real and its effect substantial, could be the best thing to happen to Earth in many millennia and infinitely more good than bad. If they knew this, would the doomsayers of global warming ever mention it? Of course not. It would immediately derail their gravy train.
In fact, global warming of any kind is infinitely beneficial to virtually all kinds of life on the planet. A simple proof: how much vegetation grows on Greenland now? How much vegetation (and all the fauna it supports) will grow there when the climate warms enough to melt all the ice. Think Michigan during the ice age with a mile of ice covering the entire state and look at it now. There is no arguing with those facts by anyone but a complete idiot. (synonym for liberal)
It is obvious that in the bigger picture and over the long range, global warming would be quite advantageous for life on earth, even humans. The benefits would far outweigh the losses. It would certainly be a lot better than another ice age. Of that there is no doubt. So I say, quit wringing your hands and crying of doom. Global warming just could be one of the best things to happen since the last ice age ended.
Burn that oil. Burn that coal. Pump out that CO2! Let’s heat up the planet and head for the beaches. How about palm trees in Labrador, oak forests in northern Alaska or a seaside villa on the warm shores of Greenland? Sounds pretty great to me.
While there will definitely be many winners, there are bound to be a few losers. Sorry, New York and LA, but you’ll have to move a bit inland like quite a few other coastal habitats. I’m really sorry about Florida, but no change is ever all good. Besides, the lush semi tropical shores of Labrador will be habitat for former Florida flora and fauna while the lowlands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and the rest of the southern states all the way to the West Coast will be lush tropical paradises. That’s certainly a much prettier picture than that painted by the doom sayers of the church of horrible global warming. I’d certainly like to hear a response from some of their members. Al, Eat your heart out!
The one glaring error the believers in detrimental global warming make is that it is detrimental. The fact is it would be almost entirely beneficial to mankind and to all life on the planet, and substantially so. Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news. Up to a point, the warmer our planet gets, the more life it supports and the more variety that life has. The cooler, the less life and the fewer species. All fossil records support that reality as far back as the Permian period, 500 million + years ago.
We have very good evidence that a warmer earth has far more benefits than negatives. For obvious reasons, global warming advocates never consider that very significant fact. It is well known from several sciences including botany, zoology, and paleontology that most all life has fared much better during warm periods on the planet than during colder periods. The amount and diversity of life were severely diminished during the ice ages, expanded as the glaciers receded, and were much greater during periods warmer than the present. As the borders between tropical weather and temperate as well as temperate and arctic on our planet move toward the polar regions, the number and variety of life increases as temperate areas gave way to tropical and arctic gave way to temperate. This is a well-established fact.
Just compare the number and variety of life as it now exists in the tropics, in the temperate zone, and in the arctic. Imagine what would happen if the tropics expanded and the arctic zone shrunk. Would that be beneficial to life or detrimental? Obviously it would be beneficial. I’ll wager few people ever even considered that fact.
A case in point in human experience: The Vikings established a thriving community of farms, villages and churches in Greenland that lasted for at least 500 years during the medieval warm period that was somewhat warmer than today. There is even evidence they established colonies in North America (Vinland?) during the same period. Then, when the “little ice age” happened and arctic weather moved south over Greenland, they starved and disappeared leaving their fields, homes and churches where they stood. Greenland has for all practical purposes never been resettled.
Suppose the worst claimed by the gurus of global warming actually happened and sea levels rose a hundred feet. At the same time the tropics would expand 500 to 1,000 miles, and the temperate zones would move poleward about the same distance, Should this happen, huge areas of Canada and Siberia, among others, would become much more hospitable to life of many kinds—temperate forests and fertile farmlands. Since it is well known that warmer periods brought wetter weather patterns, many deserts would become lush and green. Talk about a green revolution—that would be a real one! Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas valleys could become tropical jungles. The same could happen to the deserts: the Sahara, the Gobi, and even the Australian. Wouldn't that be a kick? Who knows, Greenland might even become green and habitable. One thing for sure, the Arctic ocean would become an open shipping lane. The overall benefit to life on the planet would be huge. So we would lose some land and a few cities along the coast and many islands would shrink or disappear, big deal! Since it would happen gradually, the people and much of their property could easily be moved elsewhere.
Oh yes, the polar bears and penguins. Those cute little birds and those big, soft and cuddly bears so painted by the brush of the media to appeal to children. Actually they are both predators (as are we humans, even children). Penguins kill and eat millions of poor little fishes, and polar bears? They kill and eat many seal pups every year. Just think of those poor, cute little seal pups being brutally slaughtered and eaten. Also, they would gladly kill and eat you if given the opportunity and they were hungry. Of course, they much prefer tasty seal pups. Should the planet warm substantially, the environment of their habitat would change and they would probably go extinct. Sad, isn’t it?
Of course the expanded tropics would become habitats for many individuals of hundreds of new species, many just as lovable as penguins and polar bears. Think more cute little monkeys and colorful new birds in lush jungles teeming with life. Think also about the manatees, armadillos, big cats, alligators, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, spiders, and thousands of other creatures you never see in the arctic. They would be found in countless numbers in temperate areas that replace arctic tundra and permafrost as well as in the tropics that replace temperate areas. Compare those habitats with the cold bleak arctic of snow and ice and maybe one creature in hundreds of square miles.
And how about this for you or me, a sunny, warm beach with palm trees and colorful birds compared with a frigid, windswept snowy plain. Or even farmland on ground once covered with a mile of ice in Greenland. That same ice once covered almost all of Canada and most of the northern United States and Europe. Global warming removed that ice and turned that land into woods, farms, vineyards, and varied wild habitat? Considering those known and obvious facts does global warming seem so terrible now?
Remember those foreboding warnings about nuclear winter, with the cold killing everything? How about the same thing caused by volcanic eruptions or a huge meteor strike. Contrast that with a CO2 summer where the arctic ice melts and everything gets warmer. Palm trees on Labrador, temperate forests on Greenland and tropical rivers crossing the Sahara. Long range, that is what global warming would produce. It has in the past and will in the future.
After realizing these facts, maybe Al Gore will write a new book titled, “A Beautiful Truth” that will tell the facts about global warming. Oh, but that just wouldn’t work with his liberal agenda, would it? The new American politics trumps facts, science, and all other forms of truth. Shades of the old Soviet Union.
Another thing! Aren’t the global warming fanatics looking at it backwards? Don’t they have one very important fact upside down? Despite all that has been said on both sides, Anthropogenic Global Warming, if it were real and its effect substantial, could be the best thing to happen to Earth in many millennia and infinitely more good than bad. If they knew this, would the doomsayers of global warming ever mention it? Of course not. It would immediately derail their gravy train.
In fact, global warming of any kind is infinitely beneficial to virtually all kinds of life on the planet. A simple proof: how much vegetation grows on Greenland now? How much vegetation (and all the fauna it supports) will grow there when the climate warms enough to melt all the ice. Think Michigan during the ice age with a mile of ice covering the entire state and look at it now. There is no arguing with those facts by anyone but a complete idiot. (synonym for liberal)
It is obvious that in the bigger picture and over the long range, global warming would be quite advantageous for life on earth, even humans. The benefits would far outweigh the losses. It would certainly be a lot better than another ice age. Of that there is no doubt. So I say, quit wringing your hands and crying of doom. Global warming just could be one of the best things to happen since the last ice age ended.
Burn that oil. Burn that coal. Pump out that CO2! Let’s heat up the planet and head for the beaches. How about palm trees in Labrador, oak forests in northern Alaska or a seaside villa on the warm shores of Greenland? Sounds pretty great to me.
While there will definitely be many winners, there are bound to be a few losers. Sorry, New York and LA, but you’ll have to move a bit inland like quite a few other coastal habitats. I’m really sorry about Florida, but no change is ever all good. Besides, the lush semi tropical shores of Labrador will be habitat for former Florida flora and fauna while the lowlands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and the rest of the southern states all the way to the West Coast will be lush tropical paradises. That’s certainly a much prettier picture than that painted by the doom sayers of the church of horrible global warming. I’d certainly like to hear a response from some of their members. Al, Eat your heart out!
The one glaring error the believers in detrimental global warming make is that it is detrimental. The fact is it would be almost entirely beneficial to mankind and to all life on the planet, and substantially so. Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news. Up to a point, the warmer our planet gets, the more life it supports and the more variety that life has. The cooler, the less life and the fewer species. All fossil records support that reality as far back as the Permian period, 500 million + years ago.
We have very good evidence that a warmer earth has far more benefits than negatives. For obvious reasons, global warming advocates never consider that very significant fact. It is well known from several sciences including botany, zoology, and paleontology that most all life has fared much better during warm periods on the planet than during colder periods. The amount and diversity of life were severely diminished during the ice ages, expanded as the glaciers receded, and were much greater during periods warmer than the present. As the borders between tropical weather and temperate as well as temperate and arctic on our planet move toward the polar regions, the number and variety of life increases as temperate areas gave way to tropical and arctic gave way to temperate. This is a well-established fact.
Just compare the number and variety of life as it now exists in the tropics, in the temperate zone, and in the arctic. Imagine what would happen if the tropics expanded and the arctic zone shrunk. Would that be beneficial to life or detrimental? Obviously it would be beneficial. I’ll wager few people ever even considered that fact.
A case in point in human experience: The Vikings established a thriving community of farms, villages and churches in Greenland that lasted for at least 500 years during the medieval warm period that was somewhat warmer than today. There is even evidence they established colonies in North America (Vinland?) during the same period. Then, when the “little ice age” happened and arctic weather moved south over Greenland, they starved and disappeared leaving their fields, homes and churches where they stood. Greenland has for all practical purposes never been resettled.
Suppose the worst claimed by the gurus of global warming actually happened and sea levels rose a hundred feet. At the same time the tropics would expand 500 to 1,000 miles, and the temperate zones would move poleward about the same distance, Should this happen, huge areas of Canada and Siberia, among others, would become much more hospitable to life of many kinds—temperate forests and fertile farmlands. Since it is well known that warmer periods brought wetter weather patterns, many deserts would become lush and green. Talk about a green revolution—that would be a real one! Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas valleys could become tropical jungles. The same could happen to the deserts: the Sahara, the Gobi, and even the Australian. Wouldn't that be a kick? Who knows, Greenland might even become green and habitable. One thing for sure, the Arctic ocean would become an open shipping lane. The overall benefit to life on the planet would be huge. So we would lose some land and a few cities along the coast and many islands would shrink or disappear, big deal! Since it would happen gradually, the people and much of their property could easily be moved elsewhere.
Oh yes, the polar bears and penguins. Those cute little birds and those big, soft and cuddly bears so painted by the brush of the media to appeal to children. Actually they are both predators (as are we humans, even children). Penguins kill and eat millions of poor little fishes, and polar bears? They kill and eat many seal pups every year. Just think of those poor, cute little seal pups being brutally slaughtered and eaten. Also, they would gladly kill and eat you if given the opportunity and they were hungry. Of course, they much prefer tasty seal pups. Should the planet warm substantially, the environment of their habitat would change and they would probably go extinct. Sad, isn’t it?
Of course the expanded tropics would become habitats for many individuals of hundreds of new species, many just as lovable as penguins and polar bears. Think more cute little monkeys and colorful new birds in lush jungles teeming with life. Think also about the manatees, armadillos, big cats, alligators, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, spiders, and thousands of other creatures you never see in the arctic. They would be found in countless numbers in temperate areas that replace arctic tundra and permafrost as well as in the tropics that replace temperate areas. Compare those habitats with the cold bleak arctic of snow and ice and maybe one creature in hundreds of square miles.
And how about this for you or me, a sunny, warm beach with palm trees and colorful birds compared with a frigid, windswept snowy plain. Or even farmland on ground once covered with a mile of ice in Greenland. That same ice once covered almost all of Canada and most of the northern United States and Europe. Global warming removed that ice and turned that land into woods, farms, vineyards, and varied wild habitat? Considering those known and obvious facts does global warming seem so terrible now?
Remember those foreboding warnings about nuclear winter, with the cold killing everything? How about the same thing caused by volcanic eruptions or a huge meteor strike. Contrast that with a CO2 summer where the arctic ice melts and everything gets warmer. Palm trees on Labrador, temperate forests on Greenland and tropical rivers crossing the Sahara. Long range, that is what global warming would produce. It has in the past and will in the future.
After realizing these facts, maybe Al Gore will write a new book titled, “A Beautiful Truth” that will tell the facts about global warming. Oh, but that just wouldn’t work with his liberal agenda, would it? The new American politics trumps facts, science, and all other forms of truth. Shades of the old Soviet Union.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Earth Hour
Earth Hour is a great idea except that most of the effort is aimed at an extremely minor problem while ignoring the many major environmental problem plaguing us and especially the one overriding menace so very few ever mention.
I do not agree that there is overwhelming evidence that carbon dioxide produced by human use of fossil fuels is bringing about actual global warming that portends any great danger to humanity. Neither do I agree with those who deny any possible negative effect. The factual gulf between these two extreme opinions exists only in the minds of those holding them amplified by the emotionally charged media frenzy and political fervor. In my opinion, “Global Warming,” that has recently been morphed into “Climate Change” by a cabal of financial and political benefactors of this questionable “fact”craze is, at its worst, a very minor problem. This is especially true when comparing it to many other very real problems and menaces facing humanity.
The almost spiritual global warming movement is gaining great numbers of ardent and vocal followers. Many of these are blind disciples who have absolutely no clue about the realities of climate change, the physics of the atmospheric “greenhouse” gases or whether there is even the possibility of many of the claims put forth by the high priests of global warming. This has been driven to virtually universal acceptance as an absolute fact because it serves the political, social, cultural and/or economic agendas of its proponents.
Perhaps it is a present day version of the Piltdown Man hoax foisted off on unsuspecting scientists and the public almost a hundred years ago in 1912. That hoax took forty years to be completely discredited. In 1923 Franz Weidenreich, an anatomist, reported that the skull was a modern human cranium and the jaw of an orangutan whose teeth were filed down. It took scientists thirty years to concede that he was correct. Like most of us, scientists hate to admit error on their part. Many of us cling to dogmatic positions long after an error is discovered and reality has become quite certain. Politicians and religious leaders are particularly so infected. History provides countless examples. Some were extremely damaging like the murder of Huss and the imprisonment of Galileo.
In spite of all this there is one really good thing about the global warming movement. No matter how far it is from reality it certainly has garnered the attention of the public, of the media, of governments, and of influential people. This brings attention to the overwhelming needs of our planet for serious concern, care, and attention. In spite of self-serving politicians and others who are in it for the money or power, some of the money and some of their efforts do have positive results. Fortunately, there are many dedicated people, mostly in the trenches, who are working tirelessly to prevent the destruction of our fragile environment. Tom Friedman writes about some of these people in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. These people are at their best when they educate the public at all levels how protecting the wild environment makes sense economically as well as aesthetically. How a forest with all its interacting wildlife intact is so much more valuable long term than the short-lived products made from the cutting of that forest. How ocean fisheries can produce protein food sustainably with proper management rather than the uncontrolled slaughter that has destroyed and continues to destroy a valuable but diminishing resource. We can do to the earth what Easter Islanders did to their island home and so destroy ourselves, or we can protect and sustain the valuable wild diversity on our small planet home.
Some practical information about the processes acting on our atmosphere
Here is some physical data no global warming proponent ever acknowledges. First of all, and most important, the term “greenhouse” as applied to atmospheric gases is a gross misnomer. The actual process by which atmospheric gases retain heat energy and therefore cause the temperature of air to rise follows a very complex group of physical laws that are very different from what happens in an actual greenhouse. These laws involve the physical structure of the molecules of the various gases and how they resonate and/or rotate when they absorb infrared radiation or heat. Each molecule both absorbs and emits radiation at different rates for different wavelengths and at different temperatures, yielding varying amounts of absorbed, radiated and retained heat energy. The only way we can measure these effects is to do so collectively using a significant amount of mixtures of various gases. These mixtures include a wide variety of those gases including water vapor. A glance at the data from one of the latest research studies on this phenomenon reports, “Recent improvements in the spectroscopic data for water vapor have significantly increased the near-infrared absorption in models of the Earth's atmosphere.” The full report is available at:
http://www.agua.org/crossref/2006/2005JD006796.shtml
Another report titled, Water and Global Warming, says, "Water is the main absorber of the sunlight in the atmosphere. The 13 million million (that's 13 trillion!) tons of water in the atmosphere (~0.33% by weight) is responsible for about 70% of all atmospheric absorption of radiation, mainly in the infrared region where water shows strong absorption. It contributes significantly to the greenhouse effect ensuring a warm habitable planet, but operates a negative feedback effect, due to cloud formation reflecting the sunlight away, to attenuate global warming. The water content of the atmosphere varies about 100-fold between the hot and humid tropics and the cold and dry polar ice deserts." The full article is available at:
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
There is another article on the effects of CO2 at:
http://brneurosci.org/co2.htm
Any global warming from the effects of CO2, if indeed it exists or poses any danger at all, is grossly distorted relative to the facts at hand. Most of the data used to show global warming are at best statistical and at worst, anecdotal. Both of which provide great opportunities for opinions (and agendas) to mitigate the resulting data. We know for certain that addition to the atmosphere of any gas will contribute that gas’s infrared absorption and radiation properties with all their complexities. Actually, all gases in the atmosphere have some “greenhouse” effect. This includes, nitrogen (75.0% - 78.08%), oxygen (20.11% - 20.95%), argon (0.89$ - 0.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.035% - 0.038%). The percentages in parentheses are of air at sea level. Ranges are shown because air also contains a variable amount of water vapor (from 1- 4% ±0.25%) and trace amounts of other gases. Each gas has a complex rate of infrared absorption, transmission, and emission at various infrared frequencies. Atmospheric water vapor is from 20 to 120 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and has about 25 times the net temperature effect of the same amount of CO2 depending on various conditions. Bear in mind that net effect is the difference between energy from the Sun coming in that heats the atmosphere and energy from the atmosphere going out into space. Energy in is radiant energy from the sun being absorbed by atmospheric gasses and Earth surface materials. It includes that convected from surface materials of the earth into the atmosphere. Energy out is that radiated from the surface that freely radiates into space and is not absorbed by those gasses on its way out through the atmosphere as well as energy emitted by atmospheric gases out into space. Taking the varying amounts of each in the atmosphere into account results in a range for heat retention of water vapor between 500 and 3,000 times that of CO2. This number varies with temperature, altitude, location and water vapor content. All told it is an extremely complex system with many variables. If all factors are considered in their proper proportions and even if the amount of CO2 doubled, it would have a negligible effect on average global temperature.
The warmer air becomes, the more water vapor it can hold. Remember the weatherman’s favorite “dew point” predictions? When the temperature lowers to that point, the air can hold no more water vapor so it condenses out as “dew” or rain in the big picture. Using the same rationale as the global warming folks use for CO2, increasing amounts of water vapor would cause a much larger increase in atmospheric temperatures than CO2 resulting in still warmer air and still more water vapor. Shouldn’t this lead to a runaway greenhouse effect? Wouldn’t this drive atmospheric temperatures higher and higher until the oceans boil and all life is extinguished? Obviously this has not happened so something about these assumptions must be wrong for water vapor and CO2 as well.
Water vapor adds another major factor to the mix. That is the heat of vaporization or condensation of water. A tremendous amount of the sun’s radiant energy evaporates water all over the earth. All of that energy enters the atmosphere in water vapor. The warmer the ocean or wet land, the more energy goes into evaporating water into the air. When all this water vapor condenses out as rain, that energy is released and the air warms. This is the driving energy that causes the air to move and creates windstorms, tornados and hurricanes. For all practical purposes, the CO2 content of the air has zero effect on the amount of energy that goes into the atmosphere or heats the air when water condenses.
One huge factor that man has affected greatly is the water vapor that green plants give off and particularly dense rain forests. Our continuing decimation of all types of rain forests is removing a huge source of water vapor that formerly entered the air. One example of this effect was used incorrectly as an example of global warming, which it was not. The disappearing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are not an effect of global warming. Studies have shown that the cutting of the forest around the base of the mountain substantially reduced the amount of water vapor in the air flowing up the mountain. The result was that both the rainfall and snowfall on the higher slopes have been reduced dramatically. This is one correct example of where human activity has interfered with nature. Deforestation worldwide has done far more damage to our environment and effected climate far more than even tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could do. It alone could arguably be responsible for any temperature increase over the last hundred years as a reduction in the amount of water vapor would reduce cloud cover resulting in less of the sun’s energy reflected away. Why don’t we do something about that?
Whatever the effect of carbon dioxide, it is so small in comparison as to raise questions about the real amount of the danger it poses. Certainly it is not the degree of danger claimed by the high priests of global warming. I seriously question the validity of the often quoted phrase, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists support the theory that man’s use of fossil fuels is bringing about catastrophic global warming.” In the first place, the worldwide destructive clearing and burning of rain forest results in putting far more net carbon dioxide into the air than all the vehicles in the entire world. Second, shrinking rain forests mean less water vapor is released into the air. This could in turn mean less rain and snow where the air over land is drier. The questions remain, does the evaporation from the oceans increase and make up for this loss, and what effect does the drier air have on cloud cover and the resulting reflection of the sun’s energy away from the earth? All of these interacting variables have much larger net effects on global temperatures than CO2. Because of this, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists” may have no real clue about the degree of effect that CO2 might have on atmospheric temperatures leading to global warming. Obviously it is much smaller than that of water vapor.
To explain why I make this statement, I have quoted biologist Edward O. Wilson. A Pulitzer prize winner, Wilson is an experienced and admired biologist and author of numerous books. He may have given us a clue as to why “many scientists” may not be good judges of climate change and of global warming or just how dangerous it is. In his book, The Creation, an Appeal to Save Life on Earth, he speaks about “scientists,” who they really are, and why the “scientific method” works. The following is a revealing quote from the eleventh chapter, Biology Is the Study of Nature. The italics in the quote are my comments.
The quoted section begins:
I will offer now an account of the concept and practice of science and in particular biology, the discipline most immediately relevant to human concerns.
I hasten to add I do not mean scientists. Most researchers, including Nobel laureates, are narrow journeymen, with no more interest in the human condition than the usual run of laymen. Scientists are to science what masons are to cathedrals. Catch any one of them outside the workplace, and you would likely find someone leading an ordinary life preoccupied with quotidian tasks and pedestrian thought. Scientists seldom make leaps of imagination. Most, in fact, never truly have an original idea. Instead, they snuffle their way through masses of data and hypotheses (the latter are educated guesses to be tested - global warming?), sometimes excited but most of the time tranquil and easily distracted by corridor gossip and other entertainments. They have to be that way. The successful scientist thinks like a poet, and then only in rare moments of inspiration, if ever, and works like a bookkeeper the rest of the time. It is very hard to have an original thought. So for most of his career, the scientist is satisfied to enter the figures and balance the books.
Scientists are also like prospectors. Original discoveries are the gold and silver of their trade. If important, they can buy collegial prestige, and with it wider fame, royalties, and academic tenure. Scientists by and large are too modest to be prophets, too easily bored to be philosophers, and too trusting to be politicians. Lacking in street smarts, they are also easily fooled by confidence artists and sleight-of-hand tricksters (and global warming promoters?). Never ask a scientist to test the claims of paranormal phenomena. Ask a professional magician.
The power of science comes not from scientists but from its method. The power, and the beauty too of the scientific method is its simplicity. It can be understood by anyone, and practiced with a modest amount of training. Its stature arises from its cumulative nature. It is the product of hundreds of thousands of specialists united by one commonality of the scientific method. Few scientists know more than a small fraction of available scientific knowledge, even within their own disciplines. But no matter: their fellow scientists are continuously testing and adding other parts, and the entire body of scientific knowledge is easily available. The invention of this remarkable engine of testable learning was the one advance in human history that can be called a true quantum leap. But it attained its preeminence relatively late in the geological life span of humanity, and only after human intellect had traveled a long, tortuous path dominated by tribalism and animated by religion.
Let’s try to establish a rough chronology. Millions of years ago there was only animal instinct. Then, probably at the man-ape level, the rudiments of materials culture were added. With still higher intelligence there followed a sense of the supernatural, whereupon demons, ancestral ghosts, and divine spirits peopled the human mind. Without science there had to be religion, in order to explain man’s place in the universe. Born of dreams, its images were enshrined in the culture by shamans and priests. The gods made man. Those that lived in surrounding Nature gave way to gods of sacred mountains, in distant places, and in the heavens. Somewhere and somehow back in time, these divine humanoids had created the world, and now they governed man. Humans in their evolving self-image, rose above Nature to follow the gods as children and servants. Tribes led unwaveringly by their personal gods were united and strong. They defeated competing tribes and their false gods. They also subdued Nature, erasing most of it in the process. Their destiny, they believed, was not of this world. They thought of themselves as immortal, no less than demigods.
Along the way, commencing in Europe in the seventeenth century, a radical alternative self-image emerged. Art and philosophy began to disentangle themselves from the gods, and science learned to operate with full independence. Step by step, often opposed by the followers of Holy Scripture, science constructed an alternative world view based on a testable and self-reliant human image. Doubling in growth every fifteen years during most of the past three and a half centuries, it has looked into the heart of living Nature, finding there a previously vast and autonomous creative force. This image has subsumed religious rivalries and reduced them to intertribal conflict. Science has become the most democratic of all human endeavors. It is neither religion nor ideology. It makes no claims beyond what can be sensed in the real world. It generates knowledge in the most productive and unifying manner contrived in history, and it served humanity without obeisance to any particular tribal deity.
End of quote.
There is one certainty about the global warming movement. It has become a “cause celeb” and generated huge amounts of cash, mainly for politicians in the form of numerous, varied and punishing new taxes, cap and trade agreements, and expensive regulations. These taxes and the hundreds of global warming organizations constantly soliciting donations have turned it into a huge, self-perpetuating cash cow for its promoters and benefactors. This will guarantee its continuation long after it is proven untrue or at best, overblown far beyond any real danger.
One menace that is far more dangerous to life on Earth
In this writer's opinion there are numerous other far more dangerous menaces facing humanity than global warming in its worst case scenario. I will briefly mention just one of those, population. Considering our exponentially expanding population and our steadily diminishing resources one would think concern for this would be paramount in the minds of all thinking people. This is certainly the most serious and overriding one of several score of serious menaces we are facing right now. It alone is the driving force of many of our problems and especially those related to the environment and food supplies. Will we continue concentrating our attention on things like global warming and the next American idol or soccer champion while major problems fester and grow with little comment or attention? Like Nero, the West fiddles as the world burns.
The growing shortages and rising prices of food are bringing attention to the fact that something is going drastically wrong. Unfortunately, most reports condemn those involved in the food industry they see as responsible for rising prices. They make no mention of population growth, the very real reason for the shortages bringing about rising prices. The same could be said for many other of our rapidly disappearing resources. It seems politicians and the media are far more interested in using invented menaces as tools to promote their own agendas rather than in finding solutions to real and dangerous ones.
“We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.”
This real and present danger is a far greater threat to life on Earth than global warming at its worst.Some practical information about the processes acting on our atmosphere
Here is some physical data no global warming proponent ever acknowledges. First of all, and most important, the term “greenhouse” as applied to atmospheric gases is a gross misnomer. The actual process by which atmospheric gases retain heat energy and therefore cause the temperature of air to rise follows a very complex group of physical laws that are very different from what happens in an actual greenhouse. These laws involve the physical structure of the molecules of the various gases and how they resonate and/or rotate when they absorb infrared radiation or heat. Each molecule both absorbs and emits radiation at different rates for different wavelengths and at different temperatures, yielding varying amounts of absorbed, radiated and retained heat energy. The only way we can measure these effects is to do so collectively using a significant amount of mixtures of various gases. These mixtures include a wide variety of those gases including water vapor. A glance at the data from one of the latest research studies on this phenomenon reports, “Recent improvements in the spectroscopic data for water vapor have significantly increased the near-infrared absorption in models of the Earth's atmosphere.” The full report is available at:
http://www.agua.org/crossref/2006/2005JD006796.shtml
Another report titled, Water and Global Warming, says, "Water is the main absorber of the sunlight in the atmosphere. The 13 million million (that's 13 trillion!) tons of water in the atmosphere (~0.33% by weight) is responsible for about 70% of all atmospheric absorption of radiation, mainly in the infrared region where water shows strong absorption. It contributes significantly to the greenhouse effect ensuring a warm habitable planet, but operates a negative feedback effect, due to cloud formation reflecting the sunlight away, to attenuate global warming. The water content of the atmosphere varies about 100-fold between the hot and humid tropics and the cold and dry polar ice deserts." The full article is available at:
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
There is another article on the effects of CO2 at:
http://brneurosci.org/co2.htm
Any global warming from the effects of CO2, if indeed it exists or poses any danger at all, is grossly distorted relative to the facts at hand. Most of the data used to show global warming are at best statistical and at worst, anecdotal. Both of which provide great opportunities for opinions (and agendas) to mitigate the resulting data. We know for certain that addition to the atmosphere of any gas will contribute that gas’s infrared absorption and radiation properties with all their complexities. Actually, all gases in the atmosphere have some “greenhouse” effect. This includes, nitrogen (75.0% - 78.08%), oxygen (20.11% - 20.95%), argon (0.89$ - 0.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.035% - 0.038%). The percentages in parentheses are of air at sea level. Ranges are shown because air also contains a variable amount of water vapor (from 1- 4% ±0.25%) and trace amounts of other gases. Each gas has a complex rate of infrared absorption, transmission, and emission at various infrared frequencies. Atmospheric water vapor is from 20 to 120 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and has about 25 times the net temperature effect of the same amount of CO2 depending on various conditions. Bear in mind that net effect is the difference between energy from the Sun coming in that heats the atmosphere and energy from the atmosphere going out into space. Energy in is radiant energy from the sun being absorbed by atmospheric gasses and Earth surface materials. It includes that convected from surface materials of the earth into the atmosphere. Energy out is that radiated from the surface that freely radiates into space and is not absorbed by those gasses on its way out through the atmosphere as well as energy emitted by atmospheric gases out into space. Taking the varying amounts of each in the atmosphere into account results in a range for heat retention of water vapor between 500 and 3,000 times that of CO2. This number varies with temperature, altitude, location and water vapor content. All told it is an extremely complex system with many variables. If all factors are considered in their proper proportions and even if the amount of CO2 doubled, it would have a negligible effect on average global temperature.
The warmer air becomes, the more water vapor it can hold. Remember the weatherman’s favorite “dew point” predictions? When the temperature lowers to that point, the air can hold no more water vapor so it condenses out as “dew” or rain in the big picture. Using the same rationale as the global warming folks use for CO2, increasing amounts of water vapor would cause a much larger increase in atmospheric temperatures than CO2 resulting in still warmer air and still more water vapor. Shouldn’t this lead to a runaway greenhouse effect? Wouldn’t this drive atmospheric temperatures higher and higher until the oceans boil and all life is extinguished? Obviously this has not happened so something about these assumptions must be wrong for water vapor and CO2 as well.
Water vapor adds another major factor to the mix. That is the heat of vaporization or condensation of water. A tremendous amount of the sun’s radiant energy evaporates water all over the earth. All of that energy enters the atmosphere in water vapor. The warmer the ocean or wet land, the more energy goes into evaporating water into the air. When all this water vapor condenses out as rain, that energy is released and the air warms. This is the driving energy that causes the air to move and creates windstorms, tornados and hurricanes. For all practical purposes, the CO2 content of the air has zero effect on the amount of energy that goes into the atmosphere or heats the air when water condenses.
One huge factor that man has affected greatly is the water vapor that green plants give off and particularly dense rain forests. Our continuing decimation of all types of rain forests is removing a huge source of water vapor that formerly entered the air. One example of this effect was used incorrectly as an example of global warming, which it was not. The disappearing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are not an effect of global warming. Studies have shown that the cutting of the forest around the base of the mountain substantially reduced the amount of water vapor in the air flowing up the mountain. The result was that both the rainfall and snowfall on the higher slopes have been reduced dramatically. This is one correct example of where human activity has interfered with nature. Deforestation worldwide has done far more damage to our environment and effected climate far more than even tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could do. It alone could arguably be responsible for any temperature increase over the last hundred years as a reduction in the amount of water vapor would reduce cloud cover resulting in less of the sun’s energy reflected away. Why don’t we do something about that?
Whatever the effect of carbon dioxide, it is so small in comparison as to raise questions about the real amount of the danger it poses. Certainly it is not the degree of danger claimed by the high priests of global warming. I seriously question the validity of the often quoted phrase, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists support the theory that man’s use of fossil fuels is bringing about catastrophic global warming.” In the first place, the worldwide destructive clearing and burning of rain forest results in putting far more net carbon dioxide into the air than all the vehicles in the entire world. Second, shrinking rain forests mean less water vapor is released into the air. This could in turn mean less rain and snow where the air over land is drier. The questions remain, does the evaporation from the oceans increase and make up for this loss, and what effect does the drier air have on cloud cover and the resulting reflection of the sun’s energy away from the earth? All of these interacting variables have much larger net effects on global temperatures than CO2. Because of this, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists” may have no real clue about the degree of effect that CO2 might have on atmospheric temperatures leading to global warming. Obviously it is much smaller than that of water vapor.
To explain why I make this statement, I have quoted biologist Edward O. Wilson. A Pulitzer prize winner, Wilson is an experienced and admired biologist and author of numerous books. He may have given us a clue as to why “many scientists” may not be good judges of climate change and of global warming or just how dangerous it is. In his book, The Creation, an Appeal to Save Life on Earth, he speaks about “scientists,” who they really are, and why the “scientific method” works. The following is a revealing quote from the eleventh chapter, Biology Is the Study of Nature. The italics in the quote are my comments.
The quoted section begins:
I will offer now an account of the concept and practice of science and in particular biology, the discipline most immediately relevant to human concerns.
I hasten to add I do not mean scientists. Most researchers, including Nobel laureates, are narrow journeymen, with no more interest in the human condition than the usual run of laymen. Scientists are to science what masons are to cathedrals. Catch any one of them outside the workplace, and you would likely find someone leading an ordinary life preoccupied with quotidian tasks and pedestrian thought. Scientists seldom make leaps of imagination. Most, in fact, never truly have an original idea. Instead, they snuffle their way through masses of data and hypotheses (the latter are educated guesses to be tested - global warming?), sometimes excited but most of the time tranquil and easily distracted by corridor gossip and other entertainments. They have to be that way. The successful scientist thinks like a poet, and then only in rare moments of inspiration, if ever, and works like a bookkeeper the rest of the time. It is very hard to have an original thought. So for most of his career, the scientist is satisfied to enter the figures and balance the books.
Scientists are also like prospectors. Original discoveries are the gold and silver of their trade. If important, they can buy collegial prestige, and with it wider fame, royalties, and academic tenure. Scientists by and large are too modest to be prophets, too easily bored to be philosophers, and too trusting to be politicians. Lacking in street smarts, they are also easily fooled by confidence artists and sleight-of-hand tricksters (and global warming promoters?). Never ask a scientist to test the claims of paranormal phenomena. Ask a professional magician.
The power of science comes not from scientists but from its method. The power, and the beauty too of the scientific method is its simplicity. It can be understood by anyone, and practiced with a modest amount of training. Its stature arises from its cumulative nature. It is the product of hundreds of thousands of specialists united by one commonality of the scientific method. Few scientists know more than a small fraction of available scientific knowledge, even within their own disciplines. But no matter: their fellow scientists are continuously testing and adding other parts, and the entire body of scientific knowledge is easily available. The invention of this remarkable engine of testable learning was the one advance in human history that can be called a true quantum leap. But it attained its preeminence relatively late in the geological life span of humanity, and only after human intellect had traveled a long, tortuous path dominated by tribalism and animated by religion.
Let’s try to establish a rough chronology. Millions of years ago there was only animal instinct. Then, probably at the man-ape level, the rudiments of materials culture were added. With still higher intelligence there followed a sense of the supernatural, whereupon demons, ancestral ghosts, and divine spirits peopled the human mind. Without science there had to be religion, in order to explain man’s place in the universe. Born of dreams, its images were enshrined in the culture by shamans and priests. The gods made man. Those that lived in surrounding Nature gave way to gods of sacred mountains, in distant places, and in the heavens. Somewhere and somehow back in time, these divine humanoids had created the world, and now they governed man. Humans in their evolving self-image, rose above Nature to follow the gods as children and servants. Tribes led unwaveringly by their personal gods were united and strong. They defeated competing tribes and their false gods. They also subdued Nature, erasing most of it in the process. Their destiny, they believed, was not of this world. They thought of themselves as immortal, no less than demigods.
Along the way, commencing in Europe in the seventeenth century, a radical alternative self-image emerged. Art and philosophy began to disentangle themselves from the gods, and science learned to operate with full independence. Step by step, often opposed by the followers of Holy Scripture, science constructed an alternative world view based on a testable and self-reliant human image. Doubling in growth every fifteen years during most of the past three and a half centuries, it has looked into the heart of living Nature, finding there a previously vast and autonomous creative force. This image has subsumed religious rivalries and reduced them to intertribal conflict. Science has become the most democratic of all human endeavors. It is neither religion nor ideology. It makes no claims beyond what can be sensed in the real world. It generates knowledge in the most productive and unifying manner contrived in history, and it served humanity without obeisance to any particular tribal deity.
End of quote.
There is one certainty about the global warming movement. It has become a “cause celeb” and generated huge amounts of cash, mainly for politicians in the form of numerous, varied and punishing new taxes, cap and trade agreements, and expensive regulations. These taxes and the hundreds of global warming organizations constantly soliciting donations have turned it into a huge, self-perpetuating cash cow for its promoters and benefactors. This will guarantee its continuation long after it is proven untrue or at best, overblown far beyond any real danger.
One menace that is far more dangerous to life on Earth
In this writer's opinion there are numerous other far more dangerous menaces facing humanity than global warming in its worst case scenario. I will briefly mention just one of those, population. Considering our exponentially expanding population and our steadily diminishing resources one would think concern for this would be paramount in the minds of all thinking people. This is certainly the most serious and overriding one of several score of serious menaces we are facing right now. It alone is the driving force of many of our problems and especially those related to the environment and food supplies. Will we continue concentrating our attention on things like global warming and the next American idol or soccer champion while major problems fester and grow with little comment or attention? Like Nero, the West fiddles as the world burns.
The growing shortages and rising prices of food are bringing attention to the fact that something is going drastically wrong. Unfortunately, most reports condemn those involved in the food industry they see as responsible for rising prices. They make no mention of population growth, the very real reason for the shortages bringing about rising prices. The same could be said for many other of our rapidly disappearing resources. It seems politicians and the media are far more interested in using invented menaces as tools to promote their own agendas rather than in finding solutions to real and dangerous ones.
“We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.”
Arnold Toynbee
Some time ago I went to my family physician for pains in my knees and back. After the examination and his recommendations I asked a simple question, “Doc! What’s happening to me?” His simple, straightforward answer said it all with great accuracy, “You’re wearing out.” Let me say that is just what the human species is doing to our world, we’re wearing it out and far beyond its ability to heal or repair itself. Deterioration is accelerating and will continue to do so until and unless something stops the insanity that is population growth. Nothing else will work! Nothing! We can cry all we want about disappearing species and growing extinctions, but the fact is simply that human reproductive success and over achievement is leading inexorably to the obliteration of all competing species, and much quicker than we think. Look at what has happened in the last one hundred years as we became more efficient at catching wild food and destroying wild habitat. Life on the earth will not handle another hundred years like the last. The greatest extinction of species since the Permian is not over. It is just beginning!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe the climate change we should be concerned about is global cooling.
Climate is an extremely complex system that we have been studying for a long time up to and including the age of the supercomputer and computer modeling. Still, we have hardly touched the surface as can be attested to by the accuracy of our current weather forecasting. For example, in spite of all our technology, predictions of the frequency, location, and path of any hurricane are fraught with pure conjecture. We can't even hope to predict the intensity of any hurricane season. Witness the 2006 season. It was predicted to be one of the worst ever. Instead it turned out to be one of the mildest, the opposite of the predictions of some of our weather scientists and their supercomputer modeling. How about your local weather forecaster? How often does he miss the mark predicting just a day ahead?
The world's climate system is infinitely more complex than a single hurricane season. It moves in cycles and eddies that run from seconds to millennia. About forty years ago some climate pundits feared we were heading into global cooling and needed to prepare for a drier, cooler time with lower sea levels. According to many scientific studies of past frigid periods we are past due for the onset of the next ice age. Hubert Lamb of the UK Met Office dominated the 1961 UN meeting on global cooling. A founder of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, he was one of the world's top climate scientists. He warned that people had become complacent about climate at a time when population growth, cold, and drought could seriously damage their food supplies. (The Norse in Greenland perished of starvation after five hundred successful years when the Little Ice Age destroyed their crops.) In historic times the climate has veered from warmer than the present, the Medieval Warm Period, to the much colder conditions of the Little Ice Age from which we may still be emerging. Evidence shows that much of the Sahara and the Middle East held lush vegetation and crop land ten thousand or so years ago while northern Europe and America were covered with up to a mile of ice.
Many scientists and climatologists have been predicting the onset of a new ice age. Based on past climate cycles from warm ages to ice ages and looking at the major factors that influence just how much energy the Earth receives from the sun, the most likely scenario is change to a much colder, ice-age climate, and soon. Anecdotal evidence of climate change that is far more damaging than global warming is being considered by climatologists who are not overwhelmed by the global warming crowd. Indeed, there are several very real happenings that do not support global warming. Many are anecdotal, but the overwhelming evidence paints a very different picture than the one touted by global warming proponents.
I recently visited Alaska and spent a day in Glacier Bay. While there I learned some interesting facts, mostly from a recent publication about the glaciers. Since the mid 1700s Alaskan glaciers have been known to be steadily receding. Early explorers found glacier ice all the way to the mouth of what we now call Glacier Bay. There were maps in the book with lines showing the dates of glacier terminuses from the 1700s to 2007. All the glaciers were shown to have steadily receded until the early 1990's. Since that time all of these glaciers have advanced steadily. In recent years, average global temperatures have dropped. I also learned that arctic sea ice has been increasing rapidly since 2004. Recent tests show arctic ice to be thicker than it has been for many years. I wonder why the media has not made the public aware of these facts? Sure, this is anecdotal, but so is the earlier information about melting arctic ice.
Over the past two winters (2008-2009), anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snow cover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. Already this winter, December 2008, has seen some of the coldest and most severe winter weather ever recorded.
It is interesting to note here that the onsets of previous climate changes have not been gradual, but quite sudden in relative terms. The native people who live near the mouth of Glacier Bay in Alaska once lived several hundred miles north of their present home. At about the same time, the Norse in Greenland were being wiped out by crop failures from the onset of the Little Ice Age. These Alaskan native legends describe an advancing glacier moving south “as fast as a running dog.” There are tree stumps and other evidence exposed when the glaciers receded to their current terminus showing the glaciers once had receded far beyond their current position during the medieval warm period that ended about a millennium ago.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does show clearly that more powerful factors could now be cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans—and most of the crops and animals we depend on—prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
The truth of the matter is that we are affecting the climate by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. That's roughly the same kind of truth as the fact that pouring a bucket of water into lake Erie will raise the lake level. That is about the same order of rise that can be attributed to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. We have very little definitive knowledge of how much effect raising or even doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will have in the long run. Other than using the calculations noted earlier in this article, we certainly are unable to hazard more than an intelligent guess as to what or to what degree the effect might be relative to other factors. The following are known to affect climate and average world temperatures as much or more than any increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide:
1. The wobble of the earth's axis increases or decreases the retention of energy from the sun. (22,000-year cycle)
2. The eccentricity of the earth's orbit increases or decreases the energy we receive from the sun. (12,000-year cycle)
3. The variation of energy output by the sun. (1,400-year cycle)
4. Variations in snow cover—snow reflects heat.
5. Variations in cloud cover—clouds reflect heat.
6. The variation in cosmic rays causes a variation in cloud cover. (No known cycle)
7. Dust and sulphate in the air can absorb or reflect heat.
8. Ocean temperatures and circulation.
9. Volcanic activity (For instance, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines brought on several years of cooler temperatures.)
10. Winds—as winds increase, dust from dry farmland and deserts, enters the air. (Gobi desert dust sometimes reaches as far as our west coast.)
It is also important to know that the first three are all very complex variables with many secondary effects on the temperature of the earth. For example: they all affect the power of the “solar wind.” This powerful force affects our planet strongly and varies widely on an almost hourly basis. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles or plasma ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It varies widely in its power and occurrence sometimes in very short periods of time—days or even hours. Though the earth is protected from direct exposure to this energy by its magnetic field, some of this energy does reach the surface. The effects it has on our atmosphere and climate are unknown. The noticeable effects include auroras which are relatively harmless and magnetic or EMF disturbances which can have devastating effects on electronic equipment including computers, communication equipment, and navigation systems. These solar “storms” have even disrupted electric transmission shutting down large sections of the power grid. These forces can also strip away portions of our atmosphere forming a “tail” pointing away from the sun in much the same manner as a comet’s tail. It is thought that Mars once had water and an atmosphere similar to earth’s, but it was mostly stripped away by solar wind over millions of years. Though the actual effect on the temperature if earth is unknown, the solar wind could be a major and irregular modifier of atmospheric energy and thus climate.
The rest of the factors are also varying and can be interdependent yielding an extremely complex mix of variables needed to produce any valid computer simulations. The effects of changes in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere on global temperature are probably smaller than those of any of the other factors. Records from ancient ice cores that show the CO2 content of air to be much smaller during previous ice ages. Global warming proponents say this is proof that lower CO2 levels cause lower air temperatures and higher CO2 levels bring about higher air temperatures. Actually it is far more likely that temperature variations are the cause of changes in CO2 levels rather than the result. This is evidenced by the fact that the ups and downs of CO2 levels follows those of temperatures. Effects always follow behind causes, they never precede them.
So you folks who purchased all those carbon credits and donated all that money to various global warming cause organizations can kiss that money good bye. I’m certain it is long gone with nothing to show for its passing. Perhaps when the ice sheets begin advancing you can join a new “global cooling” movement and pay for carbon debits to help warm the planet.
An unusual conclusion
After all the research of information about energy and fuels used to write my book, A Convenient Solution, it is this author’s conclusion that there is one best possible solution for practical, affordable energy and its use. In addition to its huge economic benefits to our nation, it would answer all the real or imagined concerns about CO2 caused global warming. I would urge those in power to consider doing everything required to make such a system a reality. That total system involves electric vehicles, EV’s and plug in hybrid electric vehicles, PHEV’s powered mostly by electricity from batteries charged from an electric grid supplied by geothermal power.
“GEOENERGY” is the most abundant and widest spread source of energy on the planet, yet it is rarely addressed. It is virtually inexhaustible, economically available, nonpolluting, noncarbon dioxide emitting, and grossly underutilized. A geothermal power plant costs about the same as a coal-fired plant of the same capacity and has a smaller footprint. Once built, no fuel system is required so maintenance is the only ongoing cost. It is potentially the least costly form of power generation available and certainly has the lowest environmental impact. It is an environmentalist’s dream come true. Its use requires drilling for heat almost exactly like drilling for oil, a well-developed technology. Why so few people ever mention it is a mystery. The development of geothermal energy to replace retiring coal plants and provide the necessary increase in electric generating capacity could be the best way for our future. With technology that is presently just beginning to grow, improvements in cost and performance could easily make it the best and most economical domestic source of electric power. This would satisfy complaints of both the global warming and anti nuclear crowd at least as far as generation of electric power is concerned. On the world stage, GEOENERGY is practical in most areas of the globe. It is especially available in Africa and could be a major factor in curing that continent’s serious ills.
For more information on climate goto http//hjgulfstream.blogspot.com
Saturday, March 21, 2009
NASA's Global CO2 Surveyor from Feb 9, 2009 Aviation Week
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My son recently sent me a copy of an article in Aviation Week about NASA’s global CO2 surveyor satellite that unfortunately didn’t achieve orbit and was destroyed. I could not find any links to the article, so I attached it to the email sent to most of my family and friends. In the article I found some interesting statements that prompted the following response:
Dear Mike:
I often become suspicious of the veracity and the political motives of articles published by some “scientists” when those articles contain statements that are patently false or at least misleading. I also view as suspect the common assumption made that CO2 generated by human activity is a major factor in and causes catastrophic global warming. This one assumption runs counter to conclusions from many long studied and well known factors that affect climate. The following paragraph is from that article. It caught my eye because one little sentence in italics, the basis for the accuracy of the entire project, is untrue.
“Carbon dioxide molecules aren’t measured directly; the instrument tabulates the absorption of sunlight by CO2 and molecular oxygen molecules before and after sunlight is reflected off the Earth’s surface. Since each molecule has a unique infrared signature, they can be singled out and counted. There are two detectors for CO2 because it is easier to spot near the Earth’s surface at 1/61 microns and in the atmosphere at 2.06 microns. The molecular oxygen A-band channel acts as a survey control because its presence in the atmosphere is constant.”
In rebuttal I offer a substantiated quote from my book, A Convenient Solution, and an article I published in 2007. The full article on global warming can be found at http://gulfstream.blogspot.com/ Should you want to read the section in my book it is available on the web at http://acsexcerpts.blogspot.com/
From page 47 of the book: With the exception of hydrogen, all gaseous, liquid, and solid fuels produce carbon dioxide when burned in any energy process. In addition, the production of hydrogen by any means other than by electrolysis, using energy from nuclear, wind, water or tidal power plants will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from both the energy and the raw materials used to create the hydrogen (coal-fired power plants for instance). It is interesting to note that for each pound of carbon oxidized to carbon dioxide, four pounds of oxygen are removed from the atmosphere. For every thousand tons of CO2 added to the atmosphere, eight hundred tons of oxygen are removed. In all the concern about CO2 there has never been a single mention of that fact.
The obvious conclusion is that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is not a constant as stated in the article in Aviation Week.
It should be interesting to note that I do not agree with those who say atmospheric CO2 has a catastrophic effect on climate or with those who argue it has absolutely no effect. It is just that the amount of that effect, though real, is so small as to be insignificant compared to other, well known factors. In just the same way, pouring a bucket of water into Lake Erie raises the lake level. I do not think shore dwellers need to fear that will flood their homes. This puts me solidly against global warming proponents in government who use it to gain power and as a huge cash cow of tax revenue. In addition there are literally thousands of groups using proven tactics to frighten the public into compliance donations, and mindless support.
From my article on global warming: Any global warming from the effects of CO2, if indeed it exists or poses any danger at all, is grossly distorted relative to the facts at hand. Most of the data used to show global warming are at best statistical and at worst, anecdotal. Both of which provide great opportunities for opinions (and agendas) to mitigate the data we can obtain. We know for certain that addition to the atmosphere of any gas will contribute that gas’s infrared absorption properties with all its complexities. Actually, all gases in the atmosphere have some “greenhouse” effect. This includes, nitrogen (75.0% - 78.08%), oxygen (20.11% - 20.95%), argon (0.89$ - 0.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.035% - 0.038%). The percentages in parentheses are of air at sea level. Ranges are shown because air also contains a variable amount of water vapor (from 1- 4% ±0.25%) and trace amounts of other gases. Each gas has a complex rate of infrared absorption and emission at various infrared frequencies. Water vapor has from 30 to 90 times the temperature effect of CO2 depending on various conditions.
The warmer air becomes, the more water vapor it can hold. Remember the weatherman’s favorite “dew point” predictions? When the temperature lowers to that point, the air can hold no more water vapor so it condenses out as “dew” or rain in the big picture. Using the same rationale as the global warming folks use for CO2, increasing amounts of water vapor would cause a much larger increase in atmospheric temperatures than CO2 resulting in still warmer air and still more water vapor. Shouldn’t this lead to a runaway greenhouse effect? Wouldn’t this drive atmospheric temperatures higher and higher until the oceans boil and all life is extinguished? Obviously this has not happened so something about these assumptions must be wrong for water vapor and CO2 as well.
Water vapor adds still another factor to the mix. That is the heat of vaporization or condensation of water. Tremendous amounts of the sun’s radiant energy evaporates water all over the earth. All of that energy enters the atmosphere in water vapor. The warmer the ocean or wet land, the more energy goes into the air. When all this water vapor condenses out as rain, that energy is released and the air warms. This is the driving energy that causes the air to move and creates windstorms, tornados and hurricanes. For all practical purposes, the CO2 content of the air has zero effect on the amount of energy that goes into the atmosphere or heats the air when water condenses.
One huge factor that man has affected greatly is the water vapor that green plants give off and particularly dense rain forests. Our continuing decimation of all types of rain forests is removing a huge source of water vapor that formerly entered the air. One example of this effect was used incorrectly as an example of global warming, which it was not. The disappearing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are not an effect of global warming. Studies have shown that the cutting of the forest around the base of the mountain so reduced the amount of water vapor in the air flowing up the mountain that both the rainfall and snowfall on the higher slopes has been reduced dramatically. This is one correct example of where human activity has interfered with nature. Deforestation worldwide has done far more damage to our environment and effected climate far more than even tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could do. It alone could arguably be responsible for any temperature increase over the last hundred years as a reduction in the amount of water vapor would reduce cloud cover resulting in less of the sun’s energy reflected away. Why don’t we do something about that?
Whatever the effect of carbon dioxide, it is so small in comparison as to raise questions about the real amount of the danger it poses. Certainly it is not the degree of danger claimed by the high priests of global warming. I seriously question the validity of the often quoted phrase, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists support the theory that man’s use of fossil fuels is bringing about catastrophic global warming.” In the first place, the worldwide destructive clearing and burning of rain forest results in putting far more net carbon dioxide into the air than all the vehicles in the entire world. Second, shrinking rain forests mean less water vapor is released into the air. This could in turn mean less rain and snow where the air over land is drier. The questions remain, does the evaporation from the oceans increase and make up for this loss, and what effect does the drier air have on cloud cover and the resulting reflection of the sun’s energy away from the earth? All of these interacting variables have much larger net effects on global temperatures than CO2.. Because of this, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists” may have no real clue about the degree of effect that CO2 might have on atmospheric temperatures leading to global warming. Obviously it is much smaller than that of water vapor.
My son recently sent me a copy of an article in Aviation Week about NASA’s global CO2 surveyor satellite that unfortunately didn’t achieve orbit and was destroyed. I could not find any links to the article, so I attached it to the email sent to most of my family and friends. In the article I found some interesting statements that prompted the following response:
Dear Mike:
I often become suspicious of the veracity and the political motives of articles published by some “scientists” when those articles contain statements that are patently false or at least misleading. I also view as suspect the common assumption made that CO2 generated by human activity is a major factor in and causes catastrophic global warming. This one assumption runs counter to conclusions from many long studied and well known factors that affect climate. The following paragraph is from that article. It caught my eye because one little sentence in italics, the basis for the accuracy of the entire project, is untrue.
“Carbon dioxide molecules aren’t measured directly; the instrument tabulates the absorption of sunlight by CO2 and molecular oxygen molecules before and after sunlight is reflected off the Earth’s surface. Since each molecule has a unique infrared signature, they can be singled out and counted. There are two detectors for CO2 because it is easier to spot near the Earth’s surface at 1/61 microns and in the atmosphere at 2.06 microns. The molecular oxygen A-band channel acts as a survey control because its presence in the atmosphere is constant.”
In rebuttal I offer a substantiated quote from my book, A Convenient Solution, and an article I published in 2007. The full article on global warming can be found at http://gulfstream.blogspot.com/ Should you want to read the section in my book it is available on the web at http://acsexcerpts.blogspot.com/
From page 47 of the book: With the exception of hydrogen, all gaseous, liquid, and solid fuels produce carbon dioxide when burned in any energy process. In addition, the production of hydrogen by any means other than by electrolysis, using energy from nuclear, wind, water or tidal power plants will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from both the energy and the raw materials used to create the hydrogen (coal-fired power plants for instance). It is interesting to note that for each pound of carbon oxidized to carbon dioxide, four pounds of oxygen are removed from the atmosphere. For every thousand tons of CO2 added to the atmosphere, eight hundred tons of oxygen are removed. In all the concern about CO2 there has never been a single mention of that fact.
The obvious conclusion is that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is not a constant as stated in the article in Aviation Week.
It should be interesting to note that I do not agree with those who say atmospheric CO2 has a catastrophic effect on climate or with those who argue it has absolutely no effect. It is just that the amount of that effect, though real, is so small as to be insignificant compared to other, well known factors. In just the same way, pouring a bucket of water into Lake Erie raises the lake level. I do not think shore dwellers need to fear that will flood their homes. This puts me solidly against global warming proponents in government who use it to gain power and as a huge cash cow of tax revenue. In addition there are literally thousands of groups using proven tactics to frighten the public into compliance donations, and mindless support.
From my article on global warming: Any global warming from the effects of CO2, if indeed it exists or poses any danger at all, is grossly distorted relative to the facts at hand. Most of the data used to show global warming are at best statistical and at worst, anecdotal. Both of which provide great opportunities for opinions (and agendas) to mitigate the data we can obtain. We know for certain that addition to the atmosphere of any gas will contribute that gas’s infrared absorption properties with all its complexities. Actually, all gases in the atmosphere have some “greenhouse” effect. This includes, nitrogen (75.0% - 78.08%), oxygen (20.11% - 20.95%), argon (0.89$ - 0.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.035% - 0.038%). The percentages in parentheses are of air at sea level. Ranges are shown because air also contains a variable amount of water vapor (from 1- 4% ±0.25%) and trace amounts of other gases. Each gas has a complex rate of infrared absorption and emission at various infrared frequencies. Water vapor has from 30 to 90 times the temperature effect of CO2 depending on various conditions.
The warmer air becomes, the more water vapor it can hold. Remember the weatherman’s favorite “dew point” predictions? When the temperature lowers to that point, the air can hold no more water vapor so it condenses out as “dew” or rain in the big picture. Using the same rationale as the global warming folks use for CO2, increasing amounts of water vapor would cause a much larger increase in atmospheric temperatures than CO2 resulting in still warmer air and still more water vapor. Shouldn’t this lead to a runaway greenhouse effect? Wouldn’t this drive atmospheric temperatures higher and higher until the oceans boil and all life is extinguished? Obviously this has not happened so something about these assumptions must be wrong for water vapor and CO2 as well.
Water vapor adds still another factor to the mix. That is the heat of vaporization or condensation of water. Tremendous amounts of the sun’s radiant energy evaporates water all over the earth. All of that energy enters the atmosphere in water vapor. The warmer the ocean or wet land, the more energy goes into the air. When all this water vapor condenses out as rain, that energy is released and the air warms. This is the driving energy that causes the air to move and creates windstorms, tornados and hurricanes. For all practical purposes, the CO2 content of the air has zero effect on the amount of energy that goes into the atmosphere or heats the air when water condenses.
One huge factor that man has affected greatly is the water vapor that green plants give off and particularly dense rain forests. Our continuing decimation of all types of rain forests is removing a huge source of water vapor that formerly entered the air. One example of this effect was used incorrectly as an example of global warming, which it was not. The disappearing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are not an effect of global warming. Studies have shown that the cutting of the forest around the base of the mountain so reduced the amount of water vapor in the air flowing up the mountain that both the rainfall and snowfall on the higher slopes has been reduced dramatically. This is one correct example of where human activity has interfered with nature. Deforestation worldwide has done far more damage to our environment and effected climate far more than even tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could do. It alone could arguably be responsible for any temperature increase over the last hundred years as a reduction in the amount of water vapor would reduce cloud cover resulting in less of the sun’s energy reflected away. Why don’t we do something about that?
Whatever the effect of carbon dioxide, it is so small in comparison as to raise questions about the real amount of the danger it poses. Certainly it is not the degree of danger claimed by the high priests of global warming. I seriously question the validity of the often quoted phrase, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists support the theory that man’s use of fossil fuels is bringing about catastrophic global warming.” In the first place, the worldwide destructive clearing and burning of rain forest results in putting far more net carbon dioxide into the air than all the vehicles in the entire world. Second, shrinking rain forests mean less water vapor is released into the air. This could in turn mean less rain and snow where the air over land is drier. The questions remain, does the evaporation from the oceans increase and make up for this loss, and what effect does the drier air have on cloud cover and the resulting reflection of the sun’s energy away from the earth? All of these interacting variables have much larger net effects on global temperatures than CO2.. Because of this, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists” may have no real clue about the degree of effect that CO2 might have on atmospheric temperatures leading to global warming. Obviously it is much smaller than that of water vapor.
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