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.
====================================
Here’s a video interview:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
OT
Oh the irony!!!!
Don’t these people ever ask why those artifacts are there in the first place?
Dr. Rancourt, thank you for having the courage to challenge “consenus”. As a student of Physics it makes me proud to see a professional Physicst take on the consensus establishment and push for a real scientific examination. Great work.
Jackie says:
September 20, 2010 at 9:15 am
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.
I see the internet as the only thing showing skepticism. It’s the only outlet where information flows freely. AGW got its start in the 80s. The internet didn’t really get going until late 90s (yeah, I was on the internet much earlier, but…)
Maybe that’s what you meant, but if so, it owuld’ve been more clear to say ‘But in reality history will define the whole climate change debacle as the first truly “corrupt social networking phenomenon” primarily debunked via internet.’
Being true that huge areas of our planet have been modified in some way by humankind (devastated is not the word because things in Earth are always changing, there are no absolute references on earth), it’s also true that we can feel how weak we are.
We all know that if something would wipe us from the earth surface (let’s say a total extinction triggered by a 20km-wide comet hiting us), it surely would take only a few centuries for natural forces to remove most evidence of what the humankind once was … centuries in Earth are like minutes in our lives.
Earth is not at risk for now … humankind always was and always will be.
Natural forces are FAR more powerful than our primitive society. Earth receives from the Sun 10,000 times the energy we are capable to produce … this number is the best indicator of our real ‘power’ … not even being close to be a Type I civilization in the Kardashev scale, the smallest among ‘advanced civilizations’.
AGW is a way to give scientific support to the idea that humankind has a central role in everything and that someone has to control that ‘power’ (and be paid for that). The exact same way that the acclaimed geocentric model from those prestigious greek scientist did that dirty job a thousand years ago for the Middle Age political institutions.
Humankind is not central to anything.
Real scientist have a deep knowledge of History of Science, because if you don’t know the past events you will for sure repeat the same mistakes. But today we are being flood with thousands of self-acclaimed scientist that don’t know anything about Ptolomy, Aristotle, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler … they just will say, write or do whatever can boost their monthly income or their political power … they don’t care about what really the Science is about … if they did, they would very, very, very careful about backing an idea that closely mimics the worst mistake in Science history.
To all the scientist that claim that it’s obvious that the Earth won’t survive to the humankind … I will say that it’s also obvious that the Sun revolves on the sky around us … once a day !!! … do you agree ? … think about it !
Regards.
Frightening philosopher:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-warming-alarmist-calls-for-eco-gulags-to-re-educate-climate-deniers.html
Enneagram says:
September 20, 2010 at 10:16 am
Years ago (early 1970’s) National Lampoon put out plastic albumns. On the second of their records was a song titled “Deteriorata”.
You are a fluke of the Universe
you have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
the Universe is laughing behind your back.
That is the refrain.
The anti-human idea is getting very old indeed.
There’s an old saw that if you see 100 surgeons with a complaint of abdominal pain you will receive a recommendation for surgical intervention 70% of the time. If you see 100 internists you will receive a recommendation 70% of the time for medical intervention. If you see 100 pathologists you will receive a 100% assurance that they will be able to tell your next of kin what killed you.
Take 100 lawyers and tell them that if they can “prove” global warming damages to a jury they will be able to split a $20 billion dollar award. Take another 100 lawyers to serve as defense attorneys and tell them that each will earn $1 million if they can can successfully defend the case. Guess who will win?
In both scenarios it is not the etiology of the abdominal pain nor the veracity of the claim for damages due to AGW that matter. It’s money that matters. Surgeons don’t make any money by not performing surgery. Internists don’t make any money by referring patients to surgeons. The group of lawyers that stand to win $20 million each will almost certainly prevail over the group that is only promised $1 million each.
Climate scientists serve their masters. Their masters are governments who WANT to be able to tax CO2 and control energy and the economy. Duh… Is there any wonder why the vast majority of university based and government agency based “scientists” arrive at the same conclusions?
I have a great respect for surgeons and internists and even lawyers (particularly those who have argued on my behalf). But I don’t delude myself into thinking their views are the product of truth and altruism. I know many surgeons who are quick to recommend against surgery as an option and a lot of internists who are the fastest surgical referral in the West. I even know one attorney who specializes in criminal defense who could make a LOT more money if he practiced personal injury law. He practices criminal law because he believes in what he does and this is more important to him than money (although he is a tightwad).
In Rancourt we have just such an outlier. To him the truth means more than ideology. I’m sure he’ll pay dearly for his convictions. But are his convictions so radical? I don’t think so. Man has a long history of inflating his importance and significance and ultimately, his influence on the planet.
You should check the background of “skeptics” that WUWT promotes. Rancourt was a U Ottawa physics professor, he was fired for breaking the rules. He is a anarchist who expresses contempt for fellow leftist professors. He writes at globalresearch.ca, a pseudo-academic, anti-globalization, anti-Israel, 9/11 conspiracy site. Even though there is some good science in his global warming articles, it is marred by radical political rants.
Professor makes his mark, but it costs him his job: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article970280.ece
His blog: http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/
It is nice to hear someone stand up for what they truly believe. In my opinion the discovery of Viking remnants coming to the surface is only proof that the world is just on some sort of a long cycle of heating and cooling. Obviously coal burning power plants did not exist when the Vikings were around and their weaponry and tools ended up on the ground level. If the thawing is revealing them wouldn’t that mean it used to be warmer and then got colder since the ice was over top, correct? Maybe we are going back to the climate of the Vikings, maybe this is also why they were so successful as sea going marauders, maybe the sea level was higher then allowing better access. I think the thing to truly worry about with burning fossil fuels is cancer, not global warming.
De Rode Willem
September 20, 2010 at 8:54 am
I fear the lefties are liars, dangerous liars. The paleontologist record demonstrates that the earth is far more stable the you destroyers of life try to portray. The little bit of CO2 that mankind is liberating, gets incorporated into life. All of the carbon in fossil fuel, after all was living matter. Why do you greenies hate life so much?
“REPLY – Differing views are permitted here”
Lame. Would you post an article claiming that the earth is flat?
REPLY: World RC allow anyone other than from the team to make a guest post ? Yes, your comment is lame. -Anthony
GregL
September 20, 2010 at 9:56 am
“If she weighs the same as a duck she must be a witch.”
“Burn here!”
With lefty logic like that, no wonder we are in trouble.
BTW, that whole isotope ratio thing has enough holes in it to drive a herd of methane emitting buffalo through it.
Dr Rancourt has said things which support a view I have long held, which is the rationalists on the AGW debate should try to avoid turning the matter into a left right debate as there will be no winners.
If you are on the left or right of politics and have no concern for the environment and where possible minimising mankind’s impact then my view is that you would be an extremist or opportunist.
What many of the alarmists do not realise is that Mr Watts , Mr McIntyre, Dr Robert Carter and many more are all concerned for the environment.
Well done Dr Rancourt you have articulated what many people have been saying for years on this and other rationalist web sites.
Important post, and much respect is due to this scientist with integrity – but this story (and vid) has been on the net for a couple of months now. Why is it being posted on What’s Up just now?
Climate Depot describes Dr. Denis Rancourt as a “Left-wing Env. Scientist …..”
Here are some more left-leaning climate dissenters. These links come in handy when Warmist commenters attack you as a rabid right-winger (which I’m far from). As for accusations of oil funded I just point them to Pachauri and Glorioil. :o)
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=B87E3AAD-802A-23AD-4FC0-8E02C7BB8284
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45269
@Rancourt
I read the wider indictment (some big lies of science) and was interested in hearing more of your take on acid rain. It that problem was inflated then it was the environmentalist movement that caused any recent warming by meddling with S02 content of fossil fuel emissions. SO2 is pretty effective at global cooling so when we burn fossil carbon without scrubbing out “pollutants” we get a balance of greenhouse gases and anti-greenhouse particates. Efforts to lower SO2 emission are ongoing with global phase-in of ultra-low sulfer diesel which will of course continue to help warm the planet. Not that warming the planet is a bad thing, mind you, it’s just that environmentalists inadvertantly caused it by insisting that particulates be removed from emissions. For that matter environmentalists encouraged the fossil fuel industry by another ill-advised 60’s and 70’s movement to limit construction of nuclear power plants.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Hadn’t heard of this guy before but he seems pretty far out there. Want some odd quotes from his famous climate change paper of 2007? Mostly he rails against global finance, corporations, shadow governments, etc. which he believes are really behind the global warming myth, in order to detour envu=ironmentalis away from their real interests.
“a planet that has seen a dozen or so ice ages since human kind has appeared”
“Humans have thrived in … environments (which) show mean temperature differences of as much as 50 C or more.”
“If it where not for the global greenhouse effect, the planet would on average be 33 C colder and inhabitable.”
Discussions of global temperature measurements do not mention satellite data – “A sudden 0.5-1 C increase in mean annual temperature (not spread over 100 years) would be imperceptible to any human and indeed could barely be detected using all of the methods of the modern scientific enterprise.”
“even doubling the present atmospheric CO2 concentration, to the unattainable value of 800 ppm”
He was dissmissed from Carleton University for giviing all his students A+’s. He believes that grades are not conducive to learning physics. The university administration felt otherwise.
Rancourt and I may share some views regarding the abuse of science in support of AGW, but many of his positions are really quite far out there. I therfore hesitate to take his “conversion” seriously, and think his other views make him too easily dismissed by to most people.
Rancourt is a well known nut case. His views are not taken seriously. Anthony knows this but he correctly assumes many of his fans will swallow whatever he dishes out.
Wolfwalker you think to highly of yourself and mankind and by your statement I suspect you live in a city. I live in an area of Canada that has abandoned mining towns and after a hundred years hard to tell if anything was even there like I said only a hundred years. An old sawmill near me was abandoned and all the steel structures have collapsed and are quickly corroding and that was only 40 years with the forest taking over.. Natural microbes have taken care of a good portion of the gulf oil spill. I could go on but I think you get the idea. We need good stewardship of the earth for our survival but the earth can recover from whatever we do to it..Remember it was a molton rock at one time.
forwardenergy says:
September 20, 2010 at 12:12 pm (Edit)
It is nice to hear someone stand up for what they truly believe. In my opinion the discovery of Viking remnants coming to the surface is only proof that the world is just on some sort of a long cycle of heating and cooling.
##################################
it’s interesting to see what people take as “proof”
Suppose, for example, that I calculated the average temperature of the world from 60 locations. I’m sure we would hear an uproar that 60 stations is not enough. So, we increase that to 500,1000, 5000, 10000 and more in some instances. And as we increased the number we would note that the average changes little. Still people would argue tat 10,000 was not enough, even when those 10000 give the same answer as a satillite view of the data.
On the other hand, when a specific location in the past exhibits some proxy evidence of more warmth, people accept that as proof. Granting that specific locations ( even Many many specific locations) were warmer in the past, granting that, you still have to face the fundamental physics which says, if that past time in history had as much GHGs as Today, it would have been warmer than it was. The existence of past warming periods ( tenuously established by proxy methods with huge uncertainty bounds) says nothing of great consequence about the physics of GHGs. That is why gavin Schmidt calls criticisms of the hockey stick that show a warmer MWP ‘scientifically uninteresting” The theory of AGW doesnt strictly preclude the existence of warmer periods in the past. What it says is that the current warming we see is best explained by increased GHGs. I’ll put it another way: If you propose a theory which says that the effect of more Ghgs in the atmosphere is an earth that is the same temperature or cooler… Then that theory is disconfirmed by the last 160 years. If you have a theory that predicts higher temps from higher GHGs, then that theory is confirmed by the last 160 years.
The isotope ratios show that the rising CO2 is likely from a biologic source. This does not confirm that humans are the main source. Most CO2 from bio-sources are not human activity related, and variations in those sources are a possible source of CO2 change.
edmh says: September 20, 2010 at 10:48 am
“Just running the numbers …
• Greenhouse Effect = ~33.00 deg C
• Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = ~ 31.35 deg C
• Other Greenhouse Gases GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65 deg C
… So closing carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than 0.01deg C.”
What would happen if all the non-water-vapour GHGs were magically scrubbed from the atmosphere edmh?
CO2 has a residence time in the atmosphere of ~100 years. Water vapour has a residence time measured in days/weeks. Wherever it rained temperatures would plummet and the ability of the sun to return the lost water vapour to the atmosphere would be compromised. Welcome to snowball earth. Water-vapour on its own is not self-sustaining.
CO2 may seem an “insignificant trace gas” to some, but in many areas of life and science seemingly small concentrations have marked effects. Cyanide anyone?
All so obvious that it is terrifying that it has to be said – and even more terrifying that any so-called ‘scientist’ should suggest anything different as anything but a wild hypothesis. Beddington and his ilk will, I believe, have caused devastating damage to the credibility of scientists for many decades.
I just wonder how long it will be after this distressing scam is fully debunked before a large section of society falls for yet another apocalyptic myth?!
wolfwalker
September 20, 2010 at 9:29 am
“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.”
That’s enough right there to put him firmly in the “nutcase” category.
Grasses 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 grass action, going back at least twenty million years and probably more than fifty million.