Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt, a former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, has officially bailed out of the man-made global warming movement, calling it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon’.
He writes this in an essay on science trust issues plus adds this powerful closing passage about climate science:
And there is a thorough critique of the science as band wagon trumpeting and interested self-deception [4]. Climategate only confirms what should be obvious to any practicing scientist: That science is a mafia when it’s not simply a sleeping pill.
Now he thinks that fossil fuel burning isn’t a problem of significance based on the scale. Excerpts below.
Is the burning of fossil fuel a significant planetary activity?
by Denis G. Rancourt
This essay was first posted on the Activist Teacher blog.
After all, the Earth is a planet. Is even the presence of humans significant on the rough and diverse thin surface of this planet?
We certainly make every effort to see ourselves as significant on this spinning ball in space. We like to point out that the lights from our cities can be seen from our extra-atmospheric “spaceships” at night and that we have deforested continents and reduced the populations of large wild mammals and of fishes but is all this really significant in the planetary web known as the biosphere?
INSIGNIFICANCE OF FOSSIL FUEL BURNING ENERGY RELEASE
The present (2010) historic maximum of anthropogenic (caused by humans) fossil fuel burning is only 8% or so of global primary production (GPP) (both expressed as kilograms of carbon per year, kg-C/y). GPP is the rate at which new biomass (living matter) is produced on the whole planet. And of course all biomass can in principle be considered fuel that could be burned with oxygen (O2) to produce CO2 gas, H2O water, energy, and an ash residue.
This shows the extent to which anthropogenic energy production from fossil fuel burning is small in comparison to the sun’s energy delivery to Earth, since biomass primary production results from the sun’s energy via photosynthesis.
…
In summary, the total amount of post-industrial fossil fuel burned to date (and expressed as kilograms of carbon) represents less than 1% of the global bio-available carbon pools.
More importantly, bio-available carbon is a minor constituent of the Earth’s surface environment and one that is readily buffered and exchanged between compartments without significant consequences to the diversity and quantity of life on the planet. The known history of life on Earth (over the last billions of years) is unambiguous on this point.
…
This ocean acidification side show on the global warming science bandwagon, involving major nation research centers and international collaborations, is interesting to compare with the 1970s-1980s hoax of boreal forest lake acidification. [1][2]
More importantly, scientists know virtually nothing about the dynamic carbon exchange fluxes that occur on all the relevant time and lengths scales to say anything definitive about how atmospheric CO2 arises and is exchanged in interaction with the planet’s ecological systems. We are barely at the point of being able to ask intelligent questions.
…
For left progressives to collaborate with First World governments that practice global extortion and geopolitical wars in order to pass carbon schemes to undemocratically manage and control the developments of non-First-World communities and sovereign states is obscene, racist, and cruelly cynical.
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I am sure all the carbon lifeforms, you know those that depend on Photosynthesis or Cellular Respiration for their lives.
What we know, you can write a paper, what we don’t know would fill many giant libraries.
Yes! Thank, You.
We need to hear this more often.
The green agenda has the same purposes and goals than the promotion and enforcing of land reform all over the world: To avoid the formation and promote the disappearance, of local elites who could endanger the power of the international speculative elite.
I fear this is nonsens. Dangerous nonsens. It is rather simple…take the global fossile fuel consuption and calculate theoretically how much CO2 that will produce. The simple chemical equation is sufficiant. Then calculate the volume of the earth atmosphere…also not a very difficult exercise. Then it is very easy to calculate the concentration impact of that fossile fuel burning. OK no ocean absorption… and no other phenomena…But even then it is very obvious that fossile fuel burning HAS a impact on the atmospheric CO2 concentration….whatever references and diploma’s that professor may have.
“For left progressives to collaborate with First World governments that practice global extortion and geopolitical wars in order to pass carbon schemes to undemocratically manage and control the developments of non-First-World communities and sovereign states is obscene, racist, and cruelly cynical.”
There are members of that liberal elite that fear healthy, happy, prosperous ,
dark skinned people. This is refreshing…
Excellent, great to hear some sense from a highly respected scientist.
Who are his colleagues? Who will he convince? Up to this point, the AGW empire has remained intact; only a few flecks of paint have been chipped off. If more scientists come out to speak the truth, that could change. Rancourt’s brave words will only help if others who respect him for his past work are influenced.
Lets hear it for Denis Rancourt. It is time for others to speak out. I think his statement: “More importantly, scientists know virtually nothing about the dynamic carbon exchange fluxes that occur on all the relevant time and lengths scales to say anything definitive about how atmospheric CO2 arises and is exchanged in interaction with the planet’s ecological systems. We are barely at the point of being able to ask intelligent questions.” is right on the money. Something I have believed and said myself many times. Something many readers here have as well.
It is not just because we agree with Dr. Rancourt that he is correct though. If one truly adheres to the scientific method and its philosophical principals no other conclusion is possible.
From one scientist to another, good on you brother.
De Rode Willem says:
September 20, 2010 at 8:54 am
“I fear this is nonsens. Dangerous nonsens. It is rather simple…take the global fossile fuel consuption and calculate theoretically how much CO2 that will produce. The simple chemical equation is sufficiant. Then calculate the volume of the earth atmosphere…also not a very difficult exercise. Then it is very easy to calculate the concentration impact of that fossile fuel burning. OK no ocean absorption… and no other phenomena…But even then it is very obvious that fossile fuel burning HAS a impact on the atmospheric CO2 concentration….whatever references and diploma’s that professor may have.”
I fear this is “nonsens” as, though one may calculate the amount of CO2 added, the resultant “concentration” and “impact” are quite a different story due to all of the other variables operating to increase and decrease the resultant concentration. The the impact which that has upon climate is another huge leap due to all of the other variables affecting climate.
Nonsense, indeed!
Ah…. another sane voice crying in the wilderness. I don’t know about Canada, but if he were in the US he just stepped off the funding marry-go-round. He looks too young to retire.
You know science is on the fast track to self destruction when theories, postulates, opinions and research approaches that deviate the slightest bit from current theory are no longer even considered acceptable ‘cocktail party conversation’ by the “consensus”. I guess that’s all we can expect from government funded (controlled?) research.
WUWT recently asked what the Warmist’s next name would be after ‘Global Climate Disruption’ would fail. And there were many good replies.
But in reality history will define the whole climate change debacle as the first truly “corrupt social networking phenomenon” primarily associated with the internet. Climate change is not a clearly defined conspiracy theory, it is exactly what Rancourt describes above, a corrupt social phenomenon gaining legs via like minded
apocalyptic scientists seeking each other out over the internet. The corruption only getting exhibited later when the collective groupthink quickly excluded those that begged to differ with their cult.
The only name left for this true Warmist sect is ‘Global Apocalyptic Climate’.
I liked and encouraged getting a handle on smog and pollution and am thankfull for the environmental cleanup push that has resulted in such improvement. I think now that the environmental movement has been hijacked by the control freaks and those who think they are so much smarter than the rest of us. My lowest iq test was 128, low in comparison to most of the posters on this site yet quite adequate to follow the ideas espoused, and I resent the idea that I need my actions of an environmental nature regulated!
De Rode Willem says:
September 20, 2010 at 8:54 am
… “it is very easy to calculate the concentration impact of that fossile fuel burning.” …
You do not even need to do the calculations yourself, they have been done for you.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on these figures. But I don’t suppose we will.
De Rode
Yes, human burning of fossil fuels have put more CO2 into the atmosphere. But it is trivial compared to natural sources. Fortunately, natural sinks (biomass), absorb 99.+% of natural plus human CO2 emmissions. What you are ignoring is that our oceans, which cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, is the largest source and sink of CO2 – far exceeding all other sources, including human produced CO2!
Time is on the skeptics side. None of the AGW computer models have been close over the past 12+ years. The longer we can prevent the AGW crowd from squandering untold trillions of dollars on worthless remedies, which hurt our economies and daily lives while having zero impact on our Earth’s climate, the better off all humans will be over the coming century!
AGW is a scam, the largest and most destructive ever foisted on humanity!
Bill Yarber
@johnmcguire:
The “environmental cleanup” has essentially consisted of shutting down manufacturing in the U.S. and shipping it to Asia.
Little to disagree with on the science and the insignificance of man on the face of this planet, but I think Dr. Rancourt has misunderstood the political significance and intent behind carbon trading.
As constructed, both the UN and the EU systems are designed to move both production and capital from the developed First World to the less developed world as part of the loony left’s utopian egalitarian dream that I would have thought he would actually be in favour of…
I don’t have a problem with raising up the Third World but I really don’t want to do it by destroying what we have built over decades here in the developed world and that is precisely what capping and/or taxing CO2 production out of existence is doing.
It is actually the developed states, and their peoples, which are being undemocratically managed and controlled – not the other way round…
Is even the presence of humans significant on the rough and diverse thin surface of this planet?
Hmm… Seems like he meant this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one.
That’s enough right there to put him firmly in the “nutcase” category. Humans have devastated the natural order of things over most of the globe. With the possible exception of the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps, there isn’t a square mile of land that hasn’t been seriously affected by human action, going back at least two thousand years and probably more than fifteen thousand.
This we know already!
Seemingly insignificant additions to atmospheric CO2 as causative of increasing temperatures through ‘feedback’ is where the real argument lies. On this, Dr. Denis Rancourt says;
“There is no justification beyond conjecture for the “amplification hypothesis”.”
If Dr. Rancourt can nail that one then he can save mankind from the folly that he so accurately (IMHO) describes.
Well, I can top that: I will officially bail out from the US Supreme Court.
OK, I have never been a member, but that doesn’t take away the
significance of my action.
Denis G. Rancourt is a physicist
“His most cited works are in the area of Mössbauer spectroscopy where he
developed a spectral lineshape analysis algorithm” (Wikipedia).
He is engaged in various disputes over university pedagogy since 2005
and a climate sceptic since 2007. What’s the news here?
Dr. Denis Rancourt gives a very nice summary of what I have expected all along. If we can get by all the CAGW nonsense, maybe we can get back to tackling real environmental and energy issues.
johnmcguire says:
September 20, 2010 at 9:17 am
I agree with you John, clean up the smog and other pollutants. Below is a link to a UN blurb stating that we have successfully turned the corner on the ozone hole, and it should close by 2048.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1313599/Ozone-layer-longer-disappearing-return-strength-2048.html
I think it’s successes such as the above that frighten the scare mongers the most, the issues we all largely agree on (sustainability, bio-diversity, pollution) are being addressed, and they have only CO2 left to control the agenda.
Nice to read Dr. Rancourt putting his neck on the line for sanity. All the best for his future funding.
Depressing. Everywhere I’ve been I’ve seen cronyism, nepotism, power politics, manipulated data, fudged data, invented data, ignored data, intractable cognitive dissonance, and con games. Whistle blowers are punished. Somewhere there must be some exceptions — maybe aeronautical engineering? Airplanes sometimes stay up in the air, somehow.
One hundred parts per million in 100 years, roughly.
Wow, we sure know how to make a splash, don’t we?
The conclusion that human CO2 emissions contribute insignificantly to CO2 accumulations is defective. The human effect is the result of both emissions and removals due to the carbon cycle. The author claims to know nothing about removals due to the carbon cycle. So lets just look at the empirical evidence.
CO2 concentrations are going up. Humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Because of isotope ratios, we know that human fossil fuel sourced CO2 is accumulating.
Conclusion: global warming is our fault.
We contribute 8% of the whole of GPP on earth by burning fossil fuel. It’s an interesting way to reverse the argument. If anthropogenic sources are part of the whole, then they can’t be adding anything to the whole! Good thing we came along, otherwise the earth would forever only have 92% of the carbon it’s supposed to have!
I was hoping to find evidence that 1) CO2 levels were not increasing and 2) that the additional increase wasn’t man-made. The reality is that atmospheric CO2 has been increasing (and measured) and it’s not natural (evidenced by isotopic C fractionation).
It’s true that CO2 in the atmosphere was much greater in the past, but we don’t live in the past. It’s also thanks to those CO2 rich time periods that we enjoy the fuel (dutifully sequestered all these millions of years) that we have been using over the past 200 years, and probably use up in the next 100 or so more.