What if there is no Catastrophic Risk from Man-made Global Warming ?
What if Man-made CO2 emissions are not the “Climate Control Knob” ?
What if Man-made CO2 emissions really are a non-problem ?
But what if there is a real Global Cooling Catastrophe in the offing ?
It is the propaganda of Catastrophic Global Warming / Climate Change alarmists that has illogically conflated Carbon Dioxide, the beneficial trace gas that sustains photosynthesis and thus all life on earth and which may cause some minor warming, with real and toxic pollutants to create the “Great Global Warming Scare / Climate Change Scare / Climate Emergency / etcetera”, with their “we are all going to fry in the next few years” narrative”.
The temperature progression of Greenland Ice Cores, (during the Holocene interglacial above), shows that each high point in the past of our current benign epoch:
- Optimum
- Minoan
- Roman
- Medieval
- Modern
has been colder than its previous high point.
For the last 3 millennia, since 1000BC, cooling has been progressing at a rate considerably higher than during the earlier Holocene epoch that encompassed its highest temperature at the Holocene Climate Optimum.
As the Holocene epoch is now some ~11,000 years old, experience of recent previous interglacials shows that, on a geological time scale, it could well be ending quite soon. It is therefore much more likely that the Holocene will continue to cool at at least its current millennial rate, as it has done for the past 3000 years, unless it terminates much more suddenly like earlier interglacials.
As a result of the failure to appreciate elementary arithmetic, physics and biology, the Western world has been forced to indulge in a massive guilt trip about its industrialised civilisation, with endless predictions of impending global overheating catastrophes. But instead it is likely that modern Holocene warming during the 20th century and particularly just at the end of the 20th century is:
- beneficial to the biosphere and Man-kind
- within normal limits
- sadly may be not now even be occurring at all
- may soon be coming to its end on a Geological time scale.
The probability is that any current global warming is not primarily Man-made and in any case it could be not be influenced by any remedial action, however drastic, taken by a comparatively small part of the Global population, the developed Western democracies.
So that prospect should be greeted with unmitigated joy.
If it is so:
- all concern over CO2, as a man-made pollutant can be entirely discounted.
- it is not necessary to degrade the Western world’s successful capitalist economies to no purpose.
- if some warming were happening it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for the biosphere and mankind.
- any extra CO2 has already increased the fertility of all plant life on the planet.
- if it is occurring at all, a warmer climate within natural variation, would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for the biosphere and for human development, as has frequently been well proven to be BENEFICIAL in the past.
- a warmer climate would now be especially beneficial for the underdeveloped world.
The role of Atmospheric CO2
Apart from accepting and emphasising the role of water vapour and clouds in the “Greenhouse Effect” these notes use conventional Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC), wisdom to calculate the temperature effect of CO2. Any realistic climate policy should be based on the following points on recognising the role of natural atmospheric CO2 and Man-made CO2 emissions:
- The warming “Greenhouse effect” is essential to all life on earth, without it amounting to ~+33°C, planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.
- The greatest part of the Greenhouse effect, (~90% – 95%) arises from water as vapour and clouds in the atmosphere.
https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
- The major role of water as vapour or clouds is fully acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.
- Nonetheless the IPCC only concentrate their alarmist views on Man-made CO2 emissions. This is hardly surprising, after all the adverse role of Man-made CO2 emissions and their supposed impact on climate is built into the IPCC mission statement and mandate.
- Instead atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is the very stuff of life and any higher concentrations would be beneficial.
- The world needs its atmospheric CO2 for the survival and fertilisation of all plant life.
- Atmospheric CO2 is essential for PHOTOSYNTHESIS in plants, it thus supports all life on earth
- At about half the current atmospheric concentration of CO2, plant Photosynthesis falters and the world soon dies.
- In comparison with its Geological past the World is still in a period of CO2 starvation, because most of the CO2, once at least 10 times more abundant in the atmosphere when plants evolved, has since been sequestered by microscopic life in the oceans as limestone, Calcium Carbonate.
- Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide CO2 is therefore beneficial and in no way pollutant.
At ~180ppmv, CO2 concentrations came close to the fatally low level, (~150 ppmv), during the last ice age, 110,000BC – 10,000BC. As Colder oceans absorb more CO2 and ocean life sequesters it as limestone. That lethally low level of atmospheric CO2 could well be exceeded in any coming Ice Age.
This is the way our world will eventually die of atmospheric CO2 starvation in some future glacial period.
Increasing CO2 concentration, mainly arising from slightly warmer oceans outgassing CO2, has been promoting plant growth throughout the planet and has been reducing the water needs of plants. According to NASA, ~15% extra green growth across the planet is already attributable to the relatively recent beneficial increase in CO2 concentration.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Man-kind as a whole contributes only a small amount of the CO2 to the Carbon cycle, (~3% per annum), and any extra atmospheric CO2 is rapidly absorbed by the oceans and the biosphere, (with a half-life probably as short as ~5 years).
Atmospheric CO2, whether Man-made or mostly naturally occurring, is not a pollutant. If any extra CO2 were to have some minor warming effect, it would be all to the good.
See Patrick Moore 2016 Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
However added CO2 from Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is unlikely to be sufficient to avoid the adverse cooling effects of the coming end of Holocene interglacial.
The diminishing warming effectiveness of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
In spite of the hysterical propaganda, there is not a direct straight-line relationship between CO2 concentration and global temperature. In spite of the UN IPCC propaganda, atmospheric CO2 concentration is not a control knob on Global temperature.
The effectiveness of CO2 as a warming Greenhouse gas rapidly diminishes logarithmically as its concentration increases. The consequence of this logarithmic diminution mean that all further CO2 induced temperature increases can now only be:
- absolutely marginal
- that there is no chance of any Catastrophic Global warming from increased atmospheric CO2, whether Man-made or not.
In other words there cannot be “an enormous Climate Emergency” caused by further increases in Man-made emissions of CO2.
This logarithmic diminution effect is caused by the overlapping energy wavelengths between greenhouse gasses and water vapour in the atmosphere. As a result at the current level of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere at ~400 ppmv, the effect of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas is close to being fully saturated.
An analogy of the CO2 diminution effect with increasing concentrations, can be pictured as if one was painting over a window with successive layers of white paint. The first layer will still be fairly translucent, but subsequent layers will progressively reduce the translucency until the window is fully obscured and thereafter any further paint layers can make no further difference to the fact that the window is already fully obscured.
A concentration of atmospheric CO2 greater than 200 ppmv, equivalent to ~77% of CO2’s Greenhouse effectiveness, is essential to maintain plant life and thus all life on earth. Plant life would be entirely extinguished with CO2 levels at ~150ppmv.
CO2 is not causing global warming
At the current CO2 level of ~410 ppmv, ~87% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas is already exhausted: only 13% of the warming effectiveness of CO2 remains even up to 1000ppmv.
These calculation show that there is now so little of greenhouse potential of CO2 remaining that there is now no possibility of ever reaching the “much feared” +2.0°C : +1.5°C temperature rise or more predicted by alarmists.
When compared with CO2, Water Vapour and Clouds play a much more significant role in the Greenhouse effect. Methane and other warming Greenhouse gasses play an even less important and only make a very marginal contribution to the Greenhouse effect.
The range of published scientific views on the significance of atmospheric Water on the Greenhouse effect ranging from 98% – 75% is shown below. The further residual CO2 warming available across this range of assertions up to a concentration of 1000 ppmv or some 2.5 times the present CO2 concentration.
So from now on increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can only lead to very limited further warming and certainly not to any catastrophic and any dangerous temperature increase.
These calculations therefore show that Climate Sensitivity to the doubling of CO2 concentration 410 – 820 ppmv range from 0.17°C to 0.33°C.t ow.
Logarithmic diminution operates as follows:
- 77% of the CO2 greenhouse effect of CO2, 0 – 200 ppmv, is essential to sustain plant life and thus all life on earth.
- Extra atmospheric CO2 rapidly and very effectively fertilises plants, enhancing growth and reducing water demand
- Even if it is assumed that all the increase from 300ppmv – 400ppmv is Man-made, it could have only given 4.2% of the net Greenhouse effect, (aside from water and clouds), thus a likely temperature rise of between 0.07°C – 0.14°C
- A possible immediate future rise from 400ppmv – 500ppmv could only give a likely rise of between 0.05°C – 0.11°C
- A later rise of CO2 from 500ppmv – 1000ppmv, were it to occur, can only give an additional further rise of between 0.17°C – 0.33°C
- This ignores the IPCC statement that accepts that only 50% of the present CO2 increase is Man-made, which would reduce the range of Man-made temperature increase by CO2 values by half.
- This also ignores the assumption made in IPCC Climate models that there is massive positive and escalating feedback from further increasing CO2 emissions: even if such massive positive feedback were proven, any warming from continuing CO2 emissions would still remain marginal as a result of the logarithmic diminution effect.
Alarmists have stated that levels of +2.0°C – +1.5°C to be catastrophic and sadly they have convinced most of the Western world’s politicians. It was admitted, in the Climategate emails, by the alarmist scientists at the University of East Anglia that the previous worst case value of +2°C was arbitrarily “pulled from the air“.
Economically any increase up-to a further +2°C would be beneficial. Global temperatures would then approach the very abundant period of the previous Eemian interglacial epoch 110,000 years ago, when hippopotami thrived in the Rhine delta.
https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/12/1/4/4804315
It is now likely that the impact of any rise in CO2 concentrations on global temperature is not only marginally insignificant but also immeasurable, even at its greatest IPCC assessed effectiveness.
And in fact any temperature rise could well be beneficial.
The future of Man-made CO2 emissions
To bring India and the Developing world, (some 4.1 billion people, ~44% of the world population), up to the current level of development of China, as represented by its present level of Chinese CO2 emissions/head, over the coming decades their CO2 emissions are bound to escalate by a further 33 billion tonnes per annum, (in effect doubling current Man-made CO2 emissions). This progressive and inevitable increase in CO2 emissions is being promoted and supported by the Chinese “Belt and Road programme” with at least 700 new Coal-fired power stations in construction or in now the pipeline.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/speculating-about-future-global-co2-emissions-quantifying-futility/
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/global-man-made-co2-emissions-1965-2019-bp-data/
So faced with this inevitable escalation throughout the developing world, the political belief of Western Nations that they are able to limit Global temperature by the elimination of their relatively small and diminishing proportion of CO2 emissions from their own use of fossil fuels can now only ever have marginal, immeasurable and entirely self-harming effects.
https://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises
Therefore, any de-carbonisation efforts by Western Nations are misguided, irrelevant, self-harming and futile.
Fossil fuels are a gift of nature. They are like a battery of energy created by sunlight several million years ago. Their use has enabled all the civilised development throughout the World. They will continue to support the growth in prosperity of the Developing world.
Fossil fuels are not running out. For example there are 300 years’ worth of Coal at the maximum previous extraction rate available in the UK alone. Fracking developments can occur almost anywhere worldwide.
Nonetheless there is a true Climate Catastrophe in the offing
That coming catastrophe is the exact opposite of the Climate alarmists with their:
“we are all going to fry in twelve years narrative”.
This prospect presages a scary future for Man-kind and the biosphere and it may well arrive in the comparatively near-term:
- According to relatively recent Ice Core records the last millennium 1000 – 2000 AD was the coldest of our current Holocene interglacial.
- Since ~1000 BC, before Roman times, the world has already been cooling progressively at ~0.14°C / millennium, ~20 times the earlier rate.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/holocene-context-for-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming/
- But, as can be seen, in the rapid Recovery from the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, when temperature increased at a rate of ~+2.5°C / millennium, ~20 times the present rate of temperature diminution, the World’s Climate can change suddenly and much more radically , just as it did at the end of the Eemian interglacial.
- The World could meet a similar falling temperature cliff at the coming end of our present Holocene epoch, this century, next century or this millennium.
- The modern short pulse of beneficial Global warming stopped with diminishing Solar activity, some 20 years ago and recent global temperatures are now stable or declining.
- The warmth of the Holocene epoch has been responsible for all man-kind’s advances, from living in caves to microprocessors. At 11,000 years old, our present congenial, warm Holocene interglacial epoch should be coming towards its end.
- Therefore it is reasonable to think that our world is likely to revert soon, (in geological time), into another period of true glaciation, again eventually resulting in mile high ice sheets over New York for some 100,000 years.
However there is a possibility of respite for the medium term: the planetary mechanics in this Holocene interglacial are uniquely different to the previous interglacials of the last 1,000,000 years. Remarkably, as the earth’s orbit currently has a very low eccentricity, this Holocene interglacial could well persist much longer than the previous norm of ~11,000 years before the world’s descent into another truly catastrophic ice age.
According to Clive Best’s analysis, our Holocene epoch is unique coinciding with low orbital eccentricity. As a result our beneficial warm Holocene epoch could well continue for a further 12,000 years, prior to the serious descent into true glaciation.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=7344
The state of Western Europe’s coastline can be seen below, with much lower sea levels only 16,000 years ago and this gives an idea of how a coming new glacial age will look in due course.
To give some context about Ice Ages this video provides an animation of the Northern Hemisphere ice ages for the past 400,000 years.
Nonetheless in the immediate term, it seems likely that a even minor reduction in Solar output could still radically influence World Climate with periodic, quite devastating Little Ice Age like periods, similar to the period 1300-1850. That Little Ice Age following the prolific Medieval Warm Period caused enormous human suffering and the deaths of millions. It ended only 150 years ago.
https://electroverse.net/category/crop-loss/
The prospect of even moving in a cooling direction is something truly concerned about, both for the biosphere and most certainly for the well-being of Man-kind’s population approaching 9 billion.
Even if our beneficial Holocene epoch does persist beyond 12,000 years, some immediate cooling now seems probable in the near term, (this century), as a result of the state of the current Solar cycle.
- The weather gets worse and more violent in colder times, simply because of the greater energy differential that arises between the poles and the tropics.
- Cold fatally reduces agricultural productivity.
- Such short term Cooling is already becoming evident and affecting agricultural productivity in Northern latitudes.
The Real Climate Crisis Is Not Global Warming, It Is Cooling, And It May Have Already Started
Historic Midwest Blizzard Has Farmers “Expecting Massive Crop Losses”
And so trying to limit the “warming effect” of Man-made CO2 emissions in the Western world will do nothing to ameliorate a coming immediate minor Cold Climate Catastrophe nor the later inevitable descent into full glaciation. Any “Climate Action”, were effective at all, could only enhance the cooling effect that has already been evident for the last 3 millennia.
Conclusion
There is no Man-made Global Warming Climate Emergency.
Spending any effort to avert Global Warming, for solely emotional and childish reasons, without:
- rigorous scientific debate
- true financial due diligence and realistic cost benefit analyses
- full engineering due diligence for any proposed technical solutions
- let alone at WORLD GDP scale costs, (measured in trillions),
trying to stop the UK’s 1% or the EU’s 10% or the capitalistic West’s <30% of something that has not been happening for 3,000 years has to be monumentally ill-advised.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/global-man-made-co2-emissions-1965-2019-bp-data/
It should be understood that the real reason for “Green” thinking is to bring Energy and Economic catastrophe to the capitalist Western world.
An excellent way to undermine Western economies is to render their power generation unreliable and expensive. That objective of Green thinking is progressively being achieved by government policy throughout the Western world.
Green thinking and its induced policies should be regarded as a continuation of the “Cold War”.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-2019/the-plot-against-fracking/
“Unlike most conspiracy theories about Russian meddling in Western politics, this one is out there in plain sight. The head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the Russians, as part of a sophisticated disinformation operation, “engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations — environmental organisations working against shale gas — to maintain Europe’s dependence on imported Russian gas”.
The Centre for European Studies found that the Russian government has invested $95 million in NGOs campaigning against shale gas. ….. The US Director of National Intelligence stated that “RT runs anti-fracking programming … reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom’s profitability.”
Russia, China and India are indeed mocking the way Western governments have been induced by their “Green thinking and their Virtue Signalling” to promote their policies of abject self-harm at great national cost and to unlikely perceptible benefit. Such actions are supported by Western “useful idiots”, (Lenin’s term). Lenin rightly held them in utter contempt.
The developing and Eastern worlds are certainly not going to be meekly following the deranged example of the “virtue signalling” West.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05062019-china-and-india-will-watch-the-west-destroy-itself-oped/
The context in Spring 2020
In spite of all the noisy Climate Propaganda of the past 30 years, in Spring 2020 the world was faced with a different but very real economic emergency arising from the political reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That Emergency, with the world facing global economic breakdown as well as the immediate death of many elder citizens, should put the futile, self-harming and costly Government mandated attempts to control future climate into stark perspective. This real pandemic Emergency and the self-harming reactions to it clearly shows how irrelevant concerns over probably inconsequential “Climate Change” in a distant future truly are.
edmhdotme 