AN IRRATIONAL FEAR OF
CARBON
Author: Robert D. Brinsmead
August 2008
We appear to have entered a new age of unreason…It is from this, above
all, that we really need to save the planet. Nigel Lawson
It is widely believed that the
carbon emissions of our modern industrial civilization will cause catastrophic
global warming. It is called anthropogenic [man-made] global warming
(AGW). Media headlines and political
chatter have become obsessed with carbon. There is endless talk of carbon emissions,
carbon pollution, carbon footprint, carbon offsets, carbon rationing, carbon
tax and carbon trading.
We need a new word to encompass all
this alarmism about carbon. The word that readily suggests itself is carbophobia. It means “an irrational fear of
carbon.”
The obsessive fear of carbon, carbon
emissions, and carbon dioxide is totally irrational.
In the first place, carbon was
forged in the unimaginable heat of the supernovae to become the fourth most
common element in the universe and the most common of all non-gaseous
elements. There are more carbon
compounds than the compounds of all other elements combined. Every organic
compound is composed of carbon. This means that all life is carbon-based.
There are vast stores of carbon in
the earth, most of it in the form of carbonated rocks and organic material from
all forms of life that have died to make
decomposing vegetation, humus, coal and other fossil fuels. The ocean too
contains vast amounts of carbon stored in sediments, shells, corals. The ocean
contains about ninety times more carbon dioxide than is found in the
atmosphere. [See Appendix 3(c)]. Besides all this
carbon in the earth (the lithosphere), oceans and rivers (the hydrosphere) and
in the air (the atmosphere), there is a great amount of carbon stored up in all
the living plants and creatures on earth (the biosphere). This includes the micro-organisms in the soil
and in the oceans. This micro-life makes up more than two thirds of the world’s
biomass.
As any good text book on biology
will tell us, all life on this planet is carbon-based. Every living thing,
whether plant or animal is composed of carbon compounds. The building blocks
for life are made of carbon. The dry matter of plants, whether giant trees or tiny grasses, is
more than 90% carbon. The entire
animal kingdom is also composed of carbon. Every organ, nerve, and the
trillions of cells right down to our
The world of living things is an
amazing dance of living carbon.
The entire lithosphere, hydrosphere,
atmosphere and biosphere is therefore saturated and permeated with carbon.
Carbon is among the most ubiquitous substances on this planet. It is irrational
nonsense to claim that something as ubiquitous as carbon has become a threat to
either life or the environment. For every living thing,
whether plant or animal, can only exist by absorbing carbon from the
environment and by emitting carbon into the environment. Neither life
nor the ordered existence of this planet as we know it could continue to exist
without this continuing vital exchange and circulation of carbon and carbon
dioxide between lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere.
In the light of these fundamental
facts about the cosmic order and life itself, the fear of carbon, carbon
emissions and carbon dioxide is totally irrational. By the very nature of
carbon’s ubiquitous presence around us and in absolutely everything we do,
including the thinking processes of our brains and the breath by which we
speak, every form of organic carbon has to be both life-friendly and
environmentally friendly. Fear of carbon
emissions is as irrational as a fear of life itself. The current obsession
about our carbon footprint is as irrational as an obsession with our own
shadow. In the words of that prince of climatologists, Richard Lindzen (MIT), it has become “a tsunami of insanity.”
Plants and animals don’t make
carbon. Plants must absorb carbon from the environment in order to grow and
produce food for the animal kingdom, but plants can’t absorb carbon out of the
ground or from the sea because it does not exist there in a form that they can
use.
The only place
plants can source their carbon is from the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is absorbed through
the stomata on the leaves of plants. Using the sunlight in the process called photosynthesis, plants convert the carbon dioxide into plant
structure and growth. At the same time, the plant expels the oxygen for the use
of the animal kingdom. Whilst the roots of the plant absorb water and essential
minerals such as calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and iron from the soil, carbon
dioxide is the basic food of all plant life. A plant’s dry matter is more than
90% processed carbon dioxide.
The cow eats the grass which is
processed carbon dioxide. When our children eat steak, they are energized by
processed carbon dioxide, and their growing bodies are composed of processed
carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is the gas of life.
It is the plant food that sustains the whole web of life. Carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless, and entirely
non-toxic. Along with water and oxygen, carbon dioxide makes up the three most
basic essentials of life.
Since planet earth and all life on
it are saturated and permeated with carbon, and since the whole chain of life
must start with plants deriving their food from carbon dioxide, becoming carbophobic is completely irrational. To speak of
either carbon or carbon dioxide as a pollutant is a serious misnomer. Carbon
and carbon dioxide are as compatible and as necessary to life as water and
oxygen.
CO2 is Beneficial to Plant Life
Elevated levels of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere are an enormous benefit to plant life. Over the last 100 years,
the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by about 30%. As those
CO2 levels have accelerated in recent years, agriculture has flourished and
food production has increased. This is not a matter of conjecture, nor is it an
unproven hypothesis. It has been demonstrated again and again in hundreds of
experiments. (See <http://www.co2science.org>)
Indoor tomato growers raise the fruit yield of their tomato plants 40% simply
by raising the carbon dioxide levels in their greenhouses to about 900-1,000 ppm - three times the level of C02 in the outdoor
atmosphere. This is achieved with carbon
dioxide emissions derived from burning fossil fuel. These 40% productivity
gains are achieved without using any additional water, and with absolutely no
ill effect on those who work long hours within these greenhouses. The CO2
levels in these indoor greenhouses are about the same as the CO2 levels in an
average office. Many indoor plant nursery operators also spike the air of their
greenhouses with elevated levels of carbon dioxide to accelerate plant growth
and to increase root mass.
Roger Revelle,
the grandfather of our modern greenhouse science and also the famed mentor to
Al Gore, said: “Increased CO2 in the air acts like a fertilizer for plants ...
you get more plant growth. Increasing CO2 levels also affect water
transpiration, causing plants to close their pores and sweat less. That means
plants will be able to grow in drier climates.” (See Appendix 3(b), p. 193)
A legion of recent experiments have
demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that a CO2 enriched atmosphere promotes
plant growth, increases agricultural production and promotes a greener planet.
CO2 enrichment also ameliorates drought by enabling plants to survive with less
water and in harsher conditions. The evidence is also written large in the
geological record how a green and lusher earth once flourished when the
atmosphere was enriched with ten to twenty times more C02 than it enjoys today,
and without causing any harm to earth’s biodiversity.
If we want to know how a dry
continent like
Data gleaned from NASA satellites
show that in the last twenty years the earth has greened by 6.2%. (Laurence
Solomon, Earth is on a Roll, National
Post,
One would think that with all this
evidence for CO2’s greening benefits, the Greens and their fellow travelers would be talking C02 up instead of talking it
down, or worse, being paranoid about it.
The bottom line is that they are biased against something else far more
passionately than they are biased toward the greening of the earth. They are biased against economic growth,
industrial activity and human technology. They hate the affluence and
creativity of a free economic system. They long for the day when they can dance
on the grave of capitalism. Most of all, they are biased against people being
free to be productive and prosperous in a free enterprise way of life. They
believe that humans are the cancerous pathogens of the earth whose freedom and
prosperity has to be drastically curtailed. The only future these eco-activists
see for mankind is to worship at the neo-pagan shrine of Mother Nature in some
sort of return to a primitive, ecotopian past.
Communism was sheer paradise compared to this.
Doing the CO2 Numbers
The irrational fear of our carbon
emissions, our carbon footprint and carbon dioxide may be illustrated further
by looking at the real numbers in CO2 science [See Appendix 1(m) and 2(j)]
Over the last century, it is
generally agreed that C02 levels in the atmosphere have risen from 0.0280% to
about 0.0380% of the atmosphere – or from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm. In round
figures, that means that for about every 3,000 molecules of air, there is
currently only about 1 molecule of carbon dioxide. It is debatable whether
humans alone are totally responsible for these rising CO2 levels, but even if
they are, climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer estimates “It
takes a full five years of human greenhouse gas emissions to add 1 molecule of
CO2 to every 100,000 molecules of air.” This is hardly a large enough number to
get excited about.
The oceans regularly release into
the atmosphere more than half of the world’s carbon dioxide, just as it
produces about 80% of the world’s oxygen. To start with, the oceans contain
about 90 times more carbon dioxide that the atmosphere. (Sorokhtin et.al. However,
some scientists put the figure at being nearer to 50 times) For
the purposes of illustration, we might depict the great oceans of the world,
covering 71% of the earth’s surface, as a giant carbonated drink. When it
becomes warmer it degasses or gives off more CO2, and when it becomes cooler it
absorbs more carbon dioxide back into its great reservoir.
Rather than carbon dioxide raising temperatures, a
lot of scientists now say that the reverse is true.
“It is global warming that triggers higher levels
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.”
Many respectable scientists all around the world
are now saying the same thing. A recent publication, Global Warming and Global Cooling – Evolution of Climate on Earth, written by a team of American and Russian
scientists is an example of this. [See appendix 3(c)]
It may sound impressive to say that by burning
fossil fuel, humans pour about 7-8 billion tons of carbon emissions into the
atmosphere every year, until that is put into the context of Mother Nature’s
far greater volume of emissions. Besides the enormous C02 emissions from the
oceans that are many times larger than all human emissions, the world’s cattle
and sheep produce more greenhouse gas than the entire human transport system,
counting planes, boats, trucks and cars. The termites and the microbes chomping
on decaying vegetation exceed the human output of carbon emissions. Altogether,
humans contribute only about 3 to 4% of all carbon emissions into the
atmosphere. 3% of 0.0380% = 0.0011%= the human contribution to the atmosphere.
Whether, or not, the human contribution might be 4% is not worth arguing about
because that would merely raise the human contribution to the atmosphere to 0.0015%
or another 4 molecules per million.
If by way of illustration we express the
percentages in monetary terms, it would be like saying that the total CO2
content of the atmosphere is as small as $1 in every $3,000, whilst the human
contribution is the equivalent of only 3 or 4 cents in every $3,000. If an
80-story building is used to represent a graph of the atmosphere, the human
contribution would take up only as much as the floor covering on the ground
floor.
The stock response to this comparatively very tiny
human contribution was given by Professor David Karoly
in a nationally televised
There is an ongoing vital exchange of carbon from
lithosphere to hydrosphere to atmosphere and to biosphere that keeps itself in
balance. Oceanographers tell us the oceans keep the CO2 in the atmosphere in
balance with the oceans. [See Appendix 1(i),(k) and 3(c)] Carbon is not being created or destroyed in
this process of exchange. It is only being recycled and circulated, yet this is
the means by which all things live. As for the carbon emissions from the earth,
from the sea and from all living things, what goes up must come down, and what
goes around must come around. Our own carbon footprint will balance out with
everything else when the shovel thumps the ground on top of us, whilst the
priest intones, “From carbon to carbon; from carbon compounds to carbon
compounds.” Along with every other form
of life, we borrow the carbon only to give it back to be used again in the
great carbon cycle.
C02
and Global Warming
It is an astonishing thing that the world is now being panicked by an
irrational fear of carbon. This ubiquitous, life-sustaining element is being
demonized as a pollutant that threatens to destroy our civilization through
global warming. If civilization is under any kind of threat, however, it is not
because of climate change, for that has been the norm on this planet for
millions of years. The real threat to human wellbeing is from this irrational
panic to stop climate change by carbon restrictions and cutbacks. An orgy of
self-induced poverty will have no more effect on the climate than the
self-mutilations of primitive nature worshippers doing a rain dance. As Bill Kininmonth, former head of
It is generally agreed that over the last century, world temperatures
have warmed by 0.6 degrees Celsius. Both the rate and the degree of this
100-year warming are entirely within the range of normal variability. About
half of this warming occurred from 1910 to 1940 when human carbon emissions
from the burning of fossil fuel were relatively low.
In a recent revision of the temperature data, NASA had to concede that
the hottest year on record in the continental US was not 1998 as formerly
reported, but 1934. The revised and corrected data also shows that six of the
ten hottest years on record were between 1920 and 1940. Evidence has also
surfaced that the melting of the Arctic ice was just as extensive during the
1920’s and 1930’s as it has been in recent years.
Going further back into history, there was the well known Medieval Warm
Period from 900 -1200 CE. At the beginning of this warm period, Eric the Red
sailed the open seas of the
Going further back into history, the
The greatest warm period in human history is known as the Holocene
Optimum which coincided with the beginnings of agriculture, human settlements
and civilization.
Over the last half-million years of geological time there have been four
ice ages lasting on average 100,000 years, and four warm inter-glacial periods,
each lasting on average about 10,000 years. Geologists tell us that the warm
inter-glacial period that preceded the last Ice Age was about 5 degrees warmer
than now. And the polar bears survived!
It should be obvious that none of these warm periods in the past,
including the most recent one from 1920 to 1940, were caused by humans burning
fossil fuels. Global warming in our time has been within the range of normal
variability. Isn’t it reasonable to expect that those things that caused
climate changes in the past are causing climate change today?
On all sides it is acknowledged that
the climate system is incredibly complex. There are a lot of vast things that
influence climate - like the vastness of the oceans, glaciers, polar ice, water
vapour and clouds carrying billions of tons of water from place to place. Then
beyond this earth, our climate is driven by the vast energy of the sun with its
radiance, magnetic fields, sun spots, solar flares and solar winds. Then there
are the variations in earth’s orbit around the sun as well as the well known
variations in the tilt of its axis, all playing a vital role in past climate
changes. Last but not least, cosmic rays are high-energy particles that have
streamed out from disintegrating supernovae. It has been estimated that a
change in the number of cosmic rays that penetrate the earth can influence the
formation of low clouds and change temperature of the earth.
It seems that the anthropogenic
global warming (AGW) school has pushed to one side all these big-ticket
influences on the climate to focus almost exclusively on mankind’s puny
contribution of one additional molecule of carbon to every 100,000 molecules of
air every five years - as if that is now making a bigger impact on the climate
than all the forces of nature put together, including that mighty nuclear
reactor in the sky that is a million times bigger than our entire earth.
The real enemy in AGW alarmism is
not carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide is simply a proxy for human activity. From
the beginning, environmentalism has been driven by a deep seated antipathy
toward the human species, the so-called “cancer of the earth.” This ideology is
using carbon control as a means of controlling human activity.
It is estimated that since 1990, $50
billion has been spent trying to prove that rising CO2 levels is the main cause
of global warming. For all this, it has never been proved. AGW has never been verified by any measurable
empirical observations in the real world. Anyone who says it has been proved is
either ignorant or a liar. No scientific body has ever claimed it has been
proved, not even the International Panel
of Climate Change (
Says John Coleman, founder of
Weather Man in the US, a person with 40 years of practical experience in
meteorology: “It [AGW] is the greatest
scam in history…I am telling you that Global Warming is a non event, a manufactured
crisis and a total scam…I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists,
many of them PhD’s who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy
is based on bad science and is not valid.”
Dr. David Evans (a former consultant
of the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999-2005) writes in The Australian,
Believing in man-made global warming is like
believing in the existence of God or any other article of faith. Matters of
religious faith are not open to scientific verification or falsification,
otherwise they would not be articles of faith. This is why AGW advocacy is now
widely recognized as being a secular religion.
AGW advocates, however, do point to
three lines of evidence to support their belief-system. These are (1) the
correlation between rising levels of CO2 and rising temperatures, (2) the
heat-trapping properties of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and (3) general
circulation models (GCM’s) projecting future global
warming as a result of rising CO2 levels.
The Correlation Argument
Al Gore has based his global warming
narrative on the correlation between rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and
rising temperatures. He invokes the mantra, “As CO2 levels go up, temperature
goes up.” This simple mantra has proved
to be seductively simple. It is easy to understand. It plugs into a very old,
yet a still widely-felt pessimism about humans destroying the world. Gore
presses the buttons of human guilt, the greatest of all handles to mass human
manipulation.
The Gore mantra is a fallacy for
three reasons.
(1) In the first place, it is a well
known scientific axiom, especially invoked in evidence-based medicine, that correlation
does not prove causation
(2) In the second place, the
correlation between rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures is not a good
one. For instance, after World War 2, industrial carbon emissions grew rapidly,
but temperatures declined for the next thirty years. World temperatures have
made no advance since 1998, and since 2001 they have fallen, yet CO2 levels
have continued to rise by another 5%.
(3) In the third place, by the year
2003 scientists all over the world had proven quite conclusively, especially
from ice-core research, that temperatures always rose
before CO2 levels rose, and sometimes by several hundred years. As the renowned
Russian geographer, Andrea Kapitsa puts it, “The Kyoto theorists have put the
cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers high levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way around…We found that the level of
CO2 had fluctuated greatly over the period but at any given time increases in
air temperature preceded high concentrations of CO2.” (The Hindu,
These facts about cause and effect were well
known when Al Gore published An
Inconvenient Truth, yet he still pushed his discredited mantra, “As CO2
levels go up, temperature goes up.” Why
let the facts get in the way of a top selling mantra that gave him such an
enormous handle on human guilt?
The oceans contain many times more
carbon dioxide than the atmosphere [See Appendix 3(c).] Just as the oceans
produce about 80% of the world’s oxygen, they apparently produce more than half
of all CO2 emissions. When the oceans are warmed by greater solar activity and
other great natural forces, they give off more C02 - just as a warmed
carbonated drink loses its fizz more quickly than a cold one. Conversely, the
oceans absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere as they cool down.
The oceans are thousands of times
larger than the atmosphere and they contain the capacity for a
much greater heat energy. [See Appendix 1(k)] Saying that the
temperature of the oceans is driven by a CO2-warmed atmosphere is like saying
that the temperature of a great water tank could be raised by the contents of
an eye-dropper, or that that the elephant’s temperature could be determined by
the temperature of the flea on its head.
AGW theory is wrong because it turns
the effects of global warming into the cause of global warming.
The Greenhouse Argument
Carbon dioxide is one of the
greenhouse gases with infrared bands which trap some of the heat that would
otherwise escape into space. The heat that is trapped in this way is then
radiated back to earth. This part of the GW science is not under dispute. What
is under dispute is whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions rather than the
sun and other natural influences have now become the major driver of climate
change.
There are several very basic facts
that tend to get lost in the fog of carbophobia.
(1) In the first place, without
these very maligned greenhouse gases, this planet would not be a liveable
place. Its average temperature would be about minus18 degrees Celsius. Due to the greenhouse effect, the average
temperature of the world is a benign 15 degrees Celsius. We might think of the
greenhouse gases in terms of being a very beneficial blanket of insulation that
is wrapped around the earth. Its main effect is at the cold end of things. As
the renowned physicist Freeman Dyson puts it, its major effect is “mainly in
the arctic rather than in the tropics, mainly in mountainous regions rather
than in lowlands, mainly in winter rather than in summer, and mainly at night
rather than in daytime. The warming is real, but it is mostly making cold
places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” (Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place
of Life in the Universe)
(2) In the second place, water
vapour makes up about 95% of all greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide accounts for
only 3.6% of the greenhouse gases. The rest is methane at 0.9% and a few other
gases such as nitrous oxide that don’t even amount to 0.5% of the greenhouse
gases. Even though carbon dioxide has
stronger heat-trapping properties than water vapour, it still plays a very
subsidiary role to water vapour. Whatever effect greenhouses gases have on
moderating climate extremes, 90% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water
vapour (See Dr. Roy Spencer’s WeatherQuestions.com).
When the air is dry and the skies
are clear during our South East Queensland/
To take another illustration, after
a very hot day in a dry desert region, the nights can turn bitterly cold very
quickly. Yet near the coast where the humidity is high, the nights remain balmy
and pleasant after a hot day. What makes this difference between the desert and
the coastal environment is the same greenhouse gas called water vapour. The
total carbon dioxide content of the air plays a very subordinate role to water
vapour. If the CO2 content of the air was halved or doubled, it would not make
any significant difference to those chilly nights or balmy evenings. This being
the case, the tiny human CO2 contribution, being only about 0.117% all
greenhouse gases, would make even less difference to those chilly desert nights
or balmy coastal evenings.
The oceans, the termites, the micro-organisms
and the rotting vegetation will continue pouring billions of tonnes of carbon
emissions into the atmosphere. The debate is not about the effect of all these
“natural” carbon emissions. It is about the tiny human contribution of CO2
reckoned to be 0.0011% of the atmosphere in general or 0.117% of all greenhouse
gases in particular [See Appendix 3(j)
p. 87]. No one argues that the naturally occurring components that account for
almost 99.9% of all greenhouse gases are dangerous to the planet. What the CO2
panic merchants are saying is that this 0.117% of the greenhouse gases is going
to cook the planet. The only over-heating, however, is with the global warming
hysteria. “You could go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling
carbon dioxide,” said Reid Bryson PhD, a man who is still widely considered to
be the father of scientific climatology in
“We live in an invisible atmospheric
sea of water vapour, Earth’s primary greenhouse gas,” says the eminent UAH
climatologist and now best selling author on climate, Roy W. Spencer Ph.D. “Al
Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere every day. What he probably
doesn’t know is that Mother Nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main
greenhouse gas – water vapour – into the atmosphere every day, and removes
about the same amount every day…the Earth’s greenhouse effect is dominated by
water vapour.” (WeatherQuestions.com –
June 2008)
Why then all this political beat-up
and public paranoia about greenhouse gas?
It’s harmless water vapour, Stupid! As for the small amount of CO2 in
the greenhouse mix, it just augments what the water vapour does - like
insulating the earth so that it is not as cold in the winter, or at night, or
towards the poles as it otherwise would be without the greenhouse gas.
The main effect
of any extra CO2 in the atmosphere is not raising the temperature, but
enhancing plant growth and increasing food supply.
“Carbon dioxide is not even a little
bit bad. It is wholly beneficial…There are no deleterious consequences of
higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels are wholly beneficial.” [Dr. David Archibald, Appendix 1(l)]
The Climate Modelling Argument
The main evidence in support of AGW
is drawn from the projections of General Circulation Models (GCM’s). These are climate modelling programs that use
super-computers to calculate what effect man’s carbon
emissions might have on the climate over the next 50 or 100 years.
According to the
Scepticism about the accuracy of
these scenarios is first of all based on the general inability of computer
generated models to project future climate. The climate system is far too
complex and chaotic, the variables are too many, the unknowns (we don’t even
know what we don’t know!) are too many to model climate with any degree of
reliability. For these reasons, modelling the climate 50 years into the future
would have no more accuracy than trying to model the Stock Market 50 years into
the future. The models can’t even tell us with any degree of accuracy what the
weather will be doing 5 days ahead, to say nothing of 50 years head. Numerous
and substantial research papers have put paid to the notion that computer
generated climate models are a reliable guide to whether the earth will warm up
or cool down over the next century.
Besides all the variables that are
not fed into the computers, there is the problem of the mathematical
assumptions that are fed into these computer generated models.
The fine print of the
We will leave aside the minor
reasons to critique these
The central issue is the matter of “positive feedbacks.”
There are now a growing number of
climate scientists and physicists from all over the world who refute the
central
When we look at way the real world
works, we see that nature is generally biased toward feedbacks to maintain
normalcy. The climate system is like a giant thermostat. There are natural
checks and balances, just as there are checks and balances at work in the human
body to maintain its optimum well-being. As CO2 levels cause more warming, this
causes more evaporation, but evaporation itself cools the surface of the
earth. More evaporation will produce
more water vapour which in itself is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, but this
extra water vapour produces more cloud cover and more precipitation to complete
the stabilizing circle. As for the heat-trapping high clouds, Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer (both recognized specials in cloud
research) have shown that high clouds respond to trapped heart with an Iris
Effect whereby they open a vent by which the heat escapes into space.
These feedback mechanisms do not
multiply the modest heat trapping effect of CO2, but do the reverse. It’s
called “negative feedback.” Similar
counter-balancing mechanisms are seen when melting around the edges of the
glaciers in
With the
debunking of “positive feedbacks” to CO2 forcings,
the AGW case collapses.
AGW Not Happening
AGW alarmism has morphed into a very
typical apocalyptic crisis cult. It is certainly the greatest one
sweeping the world at the moment. There has never been an apocalyptic crisis
cult that could sustain its apocalyptic hysteria beyond a few short years. This
one will be no exception. To borrow some famous imagery from Albert Sweitzer, apocalyptic cults reach a desperation point
wherein they throw themselves on the wheel of history to force it to turn in
order to bring to pass their intensively desired predictions. Then the wheel of
history turns and crushes them.
Putting it another way, apocalyptic
movements end up being destroyed by their own predictions. AGW apocalyptic has
made very specific predictions how world temperatures would rise in lockstep
with the rise in human carbon emissions. The wheel of history is turning, and
the predictions are not happening.
Whilst CO2 levels have continued to
rise, world temperatures have been in stasis since 1998 and have even begun
falling since about 2002. Since 2007 they have fallen enough to wipe out half
the warming gains of the last century. NASA’s 3,000 Aqua Satellites report that
the oceans have cooled since 2003. Nature,
the prestigious international journal, has reported that changing ocean
currents may now keep the warming process on hold until at least the year 2015.
If some of the solar physicists are right, especially the Russian ones,
changing levels of solar activity will soon plunge the world into a 21st
century cooling cycle regardless of human CO2 emissions or anything done to
reduce them.
Neither the cooling of recent years
nor the projected cooling to come has been flagged in any of the
computer-generated climate models. These have all projected a continuous rise
in global warming in accordance with the mantra, “As CO2 levels rise, the temperature will rise.” It is not happening. There has
never been any scientific proof for AGW anyway, but now that the temperature readings out there in the
real world are making it more and more obvious that the apocalyptic predictions
based on computer models are just plain wrong.
Apocalyptic has a 100% failure rate.
The more it becomes obvious that CO2
levels do not cause any significant global warming and that the computer
generated climate models are wrong, the more desperate, unreasonable and
shrilly the global warming advocates have become. The spin doctors are ranting
on how the temperature charts from the world’s four tracking stations do not
mean what they obviously mean. The apocalyptic alarmists sex up the imminent
danger, and even as world temperatures continue to fall, they rave on with even
greater zeal that global warming is hastening on at a more frightening pace
than ever. The climate, however, is not heading for any tipping point as the
alarmists have kept saying. It is only the AGW crisis cult that has reached the
tipping point. It is now a runaway train that cannot be stopped by any evidence
at all. It is heading toward is own self-generated train smash according to the
classical apocalyptic models in the past.
“Nothing is more fervently believed
than that which is not known.” (Montaigne)
It seems that the AGW belief-system
is so entrenched that it cannot be falsified by any kind of evidence. This is
what qualifies it as being a religion rather than a science. Articles of faith,
whether about the existence of God, angels, devils, heaven or hell, are not
open to proof or falsification by scientific evidence – otherwise they would no
longer be articles of faith. AGW is not a science, but an article of faith. It
has been said that you cannot reason people out of something if they have not
been reasoned into it.
Like the Japanese soldiers who were
still holed out in the jungles of
The Issues at Stake
“The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led
to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.” H.L. Menchen
As we wait for the inevitable train
smash, we need to do all we can and use
all the influence we can to stop this AGW fraud, swindle, hoax, delusion and
hysteria from wrecking the economy and sending us back to a primitive existence
where we must take cold showers in the dark. The right to use cheap sources of
energy is the foundation of a decent standard of living, and the only means by
which the developing world can escape from dehumanizing poverty.
Wrecking the economy will only be
the start of the damage done by carbophobia. Carbon
trading schemes under any guise will do more than cost us dearly for no impact
at all on the climate. Carbon trading will open the door to massive
manipulations, rorts, fudging, anomalies, political vote buying, cheating,
fraud and bureaucratic meddling.
As we have already seen, carbon
consumption and carbon emissions enter into every facet of botanical and
biological life. The entire biosphere is composed of carbon, absorbs carbon and
emits carbon. Our human bodies are composed of carbon and are energized by
carbon. Our very brains are energized by a form of carbon called glucose, and
even our thought processes are dependent on a trillion cells, nerves and
synapses that are composed of carbon molecules. Everything we consume is
carbon-based. This not only includes the food we eat, but all the goods and
services we consume as well - whether that is a new pair of shoes, a holiday
excursion or a night of entertainment at the footy. On the supply side of
things, whatever food we grow, goods we manufacture or services we provide
involves the output of carbon emissions.
If carbon is not consumed and emitted, no life
could continue on this planet. Carbon is totally indispensible to the entire
life cycle, not to mention our economy, standard of living, culture and all
aspects of our personal living. Nothing lives without carbon emissions, and
absolutely everything we do causes carbon emissions. Even if we stop breathing
altogether – for even breathing causes carbon emissions – the burial or
cremation of our bodies will cause carbon emissions.
Isn’t taxing human carbon emissions
a brilliant idea, a heretofore undreamed of power bonanza for politicians and
bureaucrats?
Giving to any government the power
to monitor, control or put a tax on carbon emissions is giving that government
the power to monitor, control and tax any or every aspect of human life it may
choose to invade. Let’s not be fooled by being told by politicians and
bureaucrats that their carbon trading scheme will merely start with a few big
carbon emitters, whilst the farming sector or other sensitive sectors of the
community will be left out in the first stage of this thoroughly anti-human
process. Once we accept the principle that carbon should be monitored,
controlled and taxed, we open the door to the most invasive kind of
bureaucratic meddling, and to all the carbon pimps, snoops, cops and narks who
want to stick their noses into every aspect of the way we live, whether it is
the kind of car we drive, our holiday destinations, our pleasure boat, or even
the food miles accrued in our choice of food.
The thought-police will not be far
behind this freedom-threatening horde of carbon cops, whether these are
appointed by the government or by self-appointed busy-bodies snooping on our
carbon emissions. The very concept of carbon trading is a threat to personal
freedom and civil liberties. It has the potential to go far beyond anything
contemplated by the tyrannies of old fashioned Communism. It will open the door
to a new Dark Age, not just of civil but also of religious totalitarianism.
Prime Ministers and politicians have already said that AGW is a moral issue,
thereby turning it into an obnoxious religious crusade in which the government
can become involved.
Leaders of the AGW movement like
James Hansen (the scientific adviser to Al Gore) and David Suzuki have already
suggested that climate heretics and deniers should be put on trial for crimes
against humanity or thrown into jail. The spirit of McCarthyism already stalks
the Universities to deride, intimidate and even to dismiss the academics who do
not fall into line. Sceptics are regularly being abused and lampooned in our
Parliamentary debates. It is reminiscent of Lysenkoism
which suppressed scientific freedom in
The AGW cult’s real war, however, is
not really against carbon emissions and global warming. It is a war against
humanity itself. It is a war on human prosperity and the human right to enjoy a
decent standard of living. It is a war
against the poor, who will suffer the most from carbon control, restrictions,
cutbacks and costs. Especially will it
be a war on the poor in the developing world. It will freeze them permanently
into their miserable subsistence lifestyles with no chance of escape. Most of
all, this is a war on human freedom on a scale that goes beyond anything
heretofore attempted in human history. It has the potential not just to wreck
the economy but to destroy civilization itself.
If the reader thinks this may be
overstating the case, then consider this statement by Maurice Strong, the chief
organizer of the 1992 Rio Conference, the genius behind the Kyoto Protocols and
the architect of the
“We
may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for
industrial civilization to collapse.” (Who is Maurice Strong? National Review
Will this wrecking crew succeed? No, because despite any temporary setbacks,
human history has always been a trajectory of constant improvement of the human
condition. To borrow those words of
optimism from the Civil Rights Movement, “we shall overcome.” The next generation will laugh at this
episode of carbophobia.
APPENDIX
Recommended Articles on AGW
(a) R.M. Carter The Myth of
Dangerous Climate Change
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/2007%2005-03%20AusIMM%20corrected.pdf
(b) Christopher Monckton, The Cost and Futility of Trading Hot Air
(c) James A. Peden,
The Great Global Warming Hoax
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
(d) John Coleman, Comments on Global
Warming
http://media.kusi.clickability.com/documents/Comments+on+Global+Warming02.pdf
(e) Madhav L Khandekar, Questioning
Global Warming Science: An Annotated Bibliography
http://www.fcpp.org/pdf/QuestioningtheGlobalWarmingSciencePS40March2008.pdf
(f) S. Fred Singer, Nature Not Human
Activity Rules the Climate, Published by the Heartland Institute
http://www.heartland.org/pdf/22835.pdf
(g)
(h) David Evans, The Australian, No
Smoking Hot Spot
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
(i) Lance Enderslee, Oceans are the Main Regulators of Carbon
Dioxide, Civil Engineers Australia April 2008 http://icecap.us/images/uploads/OceansandCO2EngrsAustapr08.pdf
(j) John Brignell,
In Praise of Carbon
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Carbon.htm
(k) Tom V. Segalstad,
The Distribution of CO2 Between Atmosphere,
Hydrosphere, and Lithosphere; Minimal Influence from Anthropogenic CO2 on the
Global "Greenhouse Effect".
http://www.co2web.info/ESEFVO1.pdf
(l) David Archibald, The Past and Future of Climate
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Archibald2007.pdf
(m) Monte Hieb,
Global Warming – a Closer Look at the Numbers
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
(n) Ian Plimer,
Stop Climate Change
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/PlimerNov2007.html
Ian Plimer,
The Past is the Key to the Present: Greenhouse and Icehouse over Time
http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/science/Plimer.doc
APPENDIX 2
Recommended Links to Website/Blogs
Climate Debate Daily
http://www.climatedebatedaily.com
Professor Robert M. Carter
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/
John Coleman KUSI Weatherman
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner
ICECAP
The
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/
Climate Audit
Science and Public Policy Institute
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org
Australian Climate Science Coalition
International Climate Science
Coalition
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
CO2 Science
Number Watch
World Climate Report
http://www.worldclimatereport.com
Junk Science – Publisher Steven Milloy
APPENDIX 3
Recommended Books
(a)
(b) Lawrence Solomon, The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists
Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, And Fraud
– And Those Who Are Too Fearful To Do So
(c) O.G. Sorokhtin,
G.V. Chilingar and L.F. Khilyuk,
Global Warming and Global Cooling:
Evolution of Climate on Earth
(d) Hans Labohm, Simon Rozendaal and Dick Thoenes, Man-Made
Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma
(e) William Kininmonth,
Climate Change: A Natural Hazard
(f) Thomas Gale Moore, Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry
About Global Warming
(g)Christopher C. Horner, the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global
Warming and Environmentalism
(h) S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming Every
1,500 Years
(i)
Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick, Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy
and Politics of Global Warming
(j) Marcel Leroux, Global Warming – Myth or Reality: The
Erring Ways of Climatology
(k) Edited by Patrick J. Michaels,
Shattered Consensus: The
(l) Henrik
Svensmark and Nigel Calder, the Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change
(m) Tim Flannery, The
Weather Makers: The History and Future
Impact of Climate Change
(n) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What
We Can Do About It
RDB
Web Published – August 2008
Copyright © 2008 Robert D. Brinsmead