(This IBD Editorial was sent to me by the authors)
By WILLIE SOON, ROBERT CARTER AND DAVID LEGATES
This is a response to “Why Can’t We Innovate Our Way To A Carbon-Free Energy Future?“, a “Perspective” by Bjorn Lomborg that ran in this space a week ago.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It,” is right about the need to focus on critical health and economic priorities. But he is wrong about human carbon dioxide emissions causing what is now being called “global climate disruption.”
By demonizing the gas of life, in league with Al Gore and Bill Gates, Lomborg commits several serious scientific errors. As independent scientists, with broad training in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and geography, we know CO2 is not a pollutant, and the notion of “carbon-free” or “zero-carbon” energy is inherently harmful and anti-scientific.
If nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, helium or any other nontoxic gas is pumped into a chamber containing air and a growing plant, the response is barely measurable. By contrast, if more CO2 is added, the plant and its root system benefit enormously, displaying enhanced growth and more efficient use of available water and nutrients.
Far from having detrimental effects, carbon dioxide has decidedly beneficial impacts on plants, aquatic and terrestrial alike, and a new study connects enhanced plant productivity to greater bird species diversity in China. How, therefore, can anyone conclude that human carbon dioxide is a pollutant that must be eradicated?
These facts erect a formidable barrier for “zero-carbon” advocates. By insisting that no human CO2 should be emitted, they are promoting continued suboptimal growth of food plant species in the face of impending global food shortages — and poorer functioning and less diversity in the global ecosystem.
Zero-carbon activists respond to these facts by asserting that human CO2 emissions cause “dangerous global warming.” They are wrong about this, too.
If rising atmospheric CO2 levels drive global temperatures upward, as they insist, why is Earth not suffering from the dangerous “fever” that Al Gore predicted? Instead, after mild warming at the end of the twentieth century, global temperatures have leveled off for the past decade, amid steadily rising carbon dioxide levels.
Lomborg’s claim that we need to “cure” so-called “unchecked climate change” is thus fallacious and contradicted by reality. Reducing human CO2 emissions will likely have no measurable cooling effect on planetary temperatures.
His insistence that we prioritize expenditures is spot-on when applied to genuine environmental and societal problems. However, it is irrelevant when the problems are mythical — or devised to advance ideological agendas. Moreover, even if human impacts on the global climate can actually be measured at some future date, humans currently lack the scientific and engineering understanding and capability to deliberately “manage” Earth’s constantly changing climate for the better.
Most certain of all, atmospheric carbon dioxide is not the “climate control knob” that anti-hydrocarbon alarmists assert, and it is irresponsible for Lomborg to claim his socio-political agenda will provide a low-cost solution for the global warming “problem.”
The scientific reality is that even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been unable to demonstrate a cause-and-effect scientific connection between rising human CO2 emissions and dangerous warming.. To support global limits on CO2 emissions, in the absence of real-world data showing clear cause and effect, is scientific and policy incompetence on the highest order.
Imagine a drug company seeking FDA approval for a new drug, based on an analysis that says simply: “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective. We have no clinical data to support this, but can think of no reason actual results would contradict what our computers predict. Moreover, failure to license the drug will be disastrous for patients suffering from the targeted disease.” Failing to demand actual dose-and-response studies, before licensing the drug, would be gross negligence on FDA’s part.
Between 2007 and 2009, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped approximately 10%, to their lowest level since 1995, largely because of reduced energy consumption during the recession. Similar CO2 emission reductions occurred in Britain, Germany, France and Japan.
Have their climates gotten better or less dangerous? Are they now a better place, for having a lower intensity carbon energy diet? Have global temperatures been statistically unchanged since 1995 because, or in spite of, Chinese and Indian carbon dioxide emissions increasing far more than the aforementioned countries reduced theirs?
These are practical, not rhetorical questions. As far as we can see, the only direct effect of decreasing CO2 levels via expensive renewable energy programs has been to cost more American and European jobs than would otherwise have been the case during the global economic recession.
The central issue is not whether rising CO2 levels will cause a warmer planet. The fundamental concern is whether globally warmer temperatures are factually worse (or better) for human societies — and more (or less) damaging to the environment — than colder temperatures (like those experienced during the ice ages and Little Ice Age).
Bjorn Lomborg, Al Gore and Bill Gates need to consider the likelihood that, driven by changes in solar activity and ocean circulation, Earth will cool significantly over coming decades. Damaging the global economy with ineffectual carbon dioxide controls, in a futile quest to “stop global warming,” looks stupid now.
Viewed later, with hindsight, it will be judged outrageously irresponsible.
• Soon studies sun-climate connections at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
• Carter is an emeritus fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs and chief science advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition.
• Legates is a hydroclimatologist at the University of Delaware and serves as the state climatologist of Delaware.
This editorial appeared at Investors Business Daily – here
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Spot on! We don’t need knee jerk reaction , we need careful consideration which so far has mostly been lacking in the climate debate.
WILLIE SOON, ROBERT CARTER AND DAVID LEGATES have understated the example case of “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective.” by omitting the compulsion for everybody to take the drug as a preventative measure and failing to mention the program had been altered to give the desired result, and, when that failed, the manipulation of the raw data.
Good stuff. This is an important paragraph from it, and captures the gross dereliction of duty on the part of governments such as that of the UK which has enacted financially and socially crippling legislation on the back of the say-so of an organisation, the IPCC, demonstrably in the hands of politically-motivated activists:
‘Imagine a drug company seeking FDA approval for a new drug, based on an analysis that says simply: “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective. We have no clinical data to support this, but can think of no reason actual results would contradict what our computers predict. Moreover, failure to license the drug will be disastrous for patients suffering from the targeted disease.” Failing to demand actual dose-and-response studies, before licensing the drug, would be gross negligence on FDA’s part.’
The fact that the exposure of the hockey-stick, a chart given iconic status by the IPCC, was down to volunteer sleuths is a testament to our remaining freedoms and to private enterprise, but it is also a testament to the failure of climate science, and of governments, to conduct due diligence over such an important item.
Explaining the science in a simple and easy to understand manner is the key to eventual victory. The less people understand about climate the easier it is to make them believe the misinformation.
Arguning the benefits of higher CO2 (even if accurate) isn’t going to win the battle. Getting people to understand will. Keep it simple.
I have tremendous respect for Bjorn Lomborg no matter what he thinks after he’s done reading this. He has the courage to say what he thinks is true regardless of the politics of the environmental movement. I hope he can modify his view as he considers these facts.
Innovations to reduce the output of carbon need not be purely technical, they can also be managerial. There is a good example of this in Britain reported in today’s Daily Mail.
Councils to stockpile bodies to cut the cost of cremations
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325033/Councils-stockpile-bodies-cut-cost-cremations.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz13rIUbHyd
Instead of burning the body immediately after the funeral service some local authorities are thinking of stockpiling the bodies so that they can all be burned in one go. The reason given is that will be much more efficient and it is obviously very important for crematoria to take action to cut their carbon footprints.
You cannot get away from climate change even when you are dead! I’m sure all the Brits on this forum will be proud that we lead the world in this field!
Perhaps the local authorities got the idea of stockpiling the bodies because it will soon be Guy Fawkes’ Night. On November 5th people all over Britain light bonfires and let off fireworks to commemorate the failure of the first great international terrorist plot. Guy Fawkes and a small group of Catholics managed to place a huge number of barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of Parliament and planned to blow up the whole building during the State Opening of Parliament by the King.
The plot was discovered almost at the last moment. If it had succeeded it would have been far more devasting, in relative terms, than Al Qaeda’s 9/11 atrocity since the latter left the US government intact but the Gunpowder Plot would have wiped out the King, most of the aristocracy and members of parliament and the bishops. In other words almost the whole of the rulling class would have been wiped out in one go.
How long will it be before somebody suggests closing down the crematoria completely and keeping all dead bodies until November 5th so that they can all be disposed of in one go every year?
“Common sense is far too uncommon.”
Not sure who first said that (I found many sources) but it certainly applies. As does the Crazy Eddie theory concerning AGW. (From the Mote in God’s Eye). Alas, I doubt these three will get much coverage. Doom and Gloom sell more newspapers.
LOL, I lived to see that – the lunatics calling another lunatic our for not being a lunatic enough….
What exactly is an “independent scientist” supposed to mean here? And what exactly is “broad training” supposed to mean? That you know a little bit of eahc without actually knowing any of them or what?
News flash – if you were so concerned about plant growth, you should advocate for humans starting a massive program for decreasing the oxygen content in the atmosphere. Because oxygen happens to be a poison for plants and they would grow so much better without it screwing up 1/3 to a half of their photosynthesis efforts.
I won’t even comment on the fact what is revealed about the intellect of the author by his inability to understand that the problem with CO2 is that by a long, unfortunately much longer than the ability to grasp such things that the average ignoramuses let loose on the pages of this blog possesses, it will end up harming plant growth in large areas of the globe by decreasing the water supply to plants….
AGW is an untested hypothesis, that’s correct. The problem is that it will be tested only once and when this happens it will be too late to do anything about it. We don’t happen to have another planet to play with, you know. Elementary rick management tells us that we should try to avoid climate change at all costs – the same people who whine about the uncertainty in climate science buy insurance policies against events that happen with probabilities of less than a percent.
The government practices that follow from the approach advocated by these authors will not reward selected investors with a transfer of great amounts of tax payer money. So, while this is nicely reasoned and well written it is not apt to dissuade anyone with a financial interest in the CAGW movement. Likewise, this essay has to be rejected by those wishing to establish a political legacy based on a massive shift of the USA experiment from liberty to a controlled people.
Human body consist of 75% carbon (without water). Carbon-free anything is nonsense. You can as well try to get rid of hydrogen.
An once again, do not substitute carbon for carbon dioxide. It has so much common as chlorine gas with sodium chloride.
Oh my, I have polluted my soup with chlorine!
Thank you for the post. The politics of AGW has dominated the world for far to long. A dose of reality is long over due. But I expect that the MSM and the U.S. government will continue with the alarmist tripe.
So do schizophrenics. And we lock them up so they don’t do any harm to the rest of us
[REPLY – Who else do you propose to lock up “so they don’t do any harm to the rest of us”? ~ Evan]
And, as usual, the mods are playing the “I’m so offended that I’m not letting this through” game…
[REPLY – Or maybe it was an act of kindness for your own good? I, however, being a liberal at heart, am cruel and ruthless enough to approve your posts. ~ Evan]
REPLY: GM, your posts are going through, cut the crap. – Anthony
There is no legitimate reason to tamper with a building block of life, other than for a means of absolute power & control.
Both the action of targeting C02 and the results of that action are inherently dangerous to those societies thusly weakened.
The struggle of nations did not end at the turn of the Century, nor will it be so easily dismissed by utopian notions of the misguided.
Bjorn Lomborg, Al Gore and Bill Gates need to consider the likelihood that, driven by changes in solar activity and ocean circulation, Earth will cool significantly over coming decades. Damaging the global economy with ineffectual carbon dioxide controls, in a futile quest to “stop global warming,” looks stupid now.
Viewed later, with hindsight, it will be judged outrageously irresponsible.
“Precautionary Principle” that, Mr. and Ms. Environmental Protection Agency! The EPA is out of control, operates unscientifically, and needs to be abolished.
In his first two books Bjorn Lomborg did not deny the existence of warming, just urged moderation and common sense in reacting to it. He got pummeled heavily and even a book called “The Lomborg Deception” was written about him. Apparently he has seen the light, given up his protestant ways, and sworn his allegiance to the one and only true religion of global warming. Would be interesting to know how much Friel’s book did to bring him into the fold.
Everyone who is as detached from reality as Lomborg. It takes clinically insane people to produce the kind of nonsense the likes of Julian Simon and Lombrog have come up with.
That kind of nonsense would be harmful if we had media, politicians and a general population that had at least some rudimentary critical thinking ability and scientific literacy. But we don’t so it provides a justification for our continued acceleration forward on the path to collective self-destruction.
P.S. We also lock up people for crimes against humanity. Simon and Lomborg are firmly in that category.
REPLY: You know, if you firmly believe these people are committing crimes against humanity, and should be jailed, at least have the courage and decency to PUT YOUR NAME TO YOUR WORDS. In a court of law, the accused has the right to face the accuser. I don’t see it any differently in a court of public opinion. Otherwise, your accusations are just worthless cowardly noise. – Anthony Watts
You posted it, thank you. I just hate it when I have to ask for it
[REPLY – You didn’t have to ask. As a matter of fact, it was stuck in the spam filter, from whence I retrieved it. A lot of posts start out there and they don’t get the “waiting for moderation” tag. So people may incorrectly assume their posts have been deleted. We do clear out the spam filter and approve the non-spam portion. You don’t have to “ask”. But there may be a slight delay. We run an open forum, here, and, if anything, err on the side of approval. Opposing views do not get such consideration at pro-AGW blogs such as RealClimate or Open [sic] Mind. ~ Evan]
In their editorial “Disputing The Skeptical Environmentalist” in Investors Business Daily we have Willie Soon, Robert Carter and David Legates saying:
————————–
I congratulate the use of unambiguous statements about climate science by independent climate scientists. They look confident in supporting their professional views.
I suggest they publically debate Bjorn Lomborg (***) on the topic who is wrong about human carbon dioxide emissions causing what is now being called “global climate disruption.”
The billing could be The Battle of the Disparate Scientists: Political Scientist meets Physical Scientists in the Climate Science Arena
***Bjorn Lomborg: M.A. in political science, 1991; Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 1994; currently Adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School 2005-present
John
“Imagine a drug company seeking FDA approval for a new drug, based on an analysis that says simply: “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective. We have no clinical data to support this, but can think of no reason actual results would contradict what our computers predict. Moreover, failure to license the drug will be disastrous for patients suffering from the targeted disease.” Failing to demand actual dose-and-response studies, before licensing the drug, would be gross negligence on FDA’s part.”
Excellent analogy!
The IPCC has been unable to explain the cause and effect relationship between CO2 and temperature, because the GRIP2 ice core data shows the CO2 increases come about 800 years after the temperature increases.
The CO2 warming scam is over!
So GM says:
GM…whoever/whatever you are… that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on WUWT–unless you’re a robot cheering for the takeover of the planet by eliminating the human species using the most inane yet transparent argument ever devised.
You know… and I offer this advice seriously… you should send a letter to your alma mater (I suspect it was one of those liberal institutions of “higher learning”) and request a FULL REFUND of your tuition money because you were robbed! Your brainwashing is on full display and we’re all laughing.
(I suspect you don’t get the connection between plant growth and what humans end up eating. I also suspect you don’t understand the carbon cycle–you know, the one where animals use oxygen and give out carbon dioxide, and where plants use carbon dioxide and give out oxygen–quite the amazing symbiotic relationship if you think about it.)
Well GM, your schizophrena comment just outed you as a troll.
Don’t feed the troll people.
I am not saying that they should be jailed – they should be laughed at and ignored as the village idiots they are. The problem is that because collectively we are even dumber than the village idiots they are, we listen to what they say and base our lives around it. Which is what allows their actions to rise to the level of crimes against humanity.
It’s a similar situation to what would happen as if the president of the United States lets his 3-year old kid play with the nuclear codes and annihilating half of the globe as a result.
REPLY: Thanks for clarifying this “P.S. We also lock up people for crimes against humanity. Simon and Lomborg are firmly in that category.”
Yeah right, lock up-jailed no similarity….since you have no honor, we’ll take the same tact with you then. Troll bin for you. Some posts that aren’t rubbish and have substance might get through, but as of now, they all go to the penalty box where we’ll see them but decide if they have any merit…but you can get yourself out if you want to join us in the open. – Anthony
I think this article is unfair to Lomborg. He is NOT supporting carbon emission cuts or wind farms or any of the other crazy green agenda. Here is a paragraph from the Investors article:
“So let’s forget about subsidizing inefficient technologies or making fossil fuels too expensive to use. Instead, let’s fund the basic research that will make green energy too cheap and easy to resist.”
I understand when people criticise his acceptance of the IPCC position over warming – personally, I find a 0.5 K position far more credible. But isn’t it great that even taking the WG1 central estimate of 3 K as his starting point, he still ends up supporting many of the same policy conclusions as warming sceptics? I’d say his approach does far more damage to the alarmist cause than any amount of haggling over scientific details that don’t significantly affect the policy conclusions. And if we follow his suggestions and end up with a more diverse range of cheap energy sources, where is the problem in that?