Guest post by John Coleman
There is a story I heard that I keep thinking about. It really underlines the problem I have in trying to counter the bad science behind the global warming scare predictions. So here is the story:
A group of over 200 environmentalists were in an auditorium listening to a symposium about climate change, i.e. global warming or climate disruption. One of the speakers asked, “If I could instantly produce a genie with a magic wand to stand here before you today. And if, that genie could wave his magic wand and voila….carbon dioxide would no longer be a greenhouse gas that produced uncontrollable global warming….How many in this room would be happy, satisfied and pleased?” Two people out of two hundred hesitatingly raised their hands. Of the others, some smirked, some laughed and some yelled out, “No, no. Hell no.”
I cannot testify that this event actually occurred. But, I heard it as though it was a truthful report. In any case it haunts me because it demonstrates what I perceive to be something akin to the actual state of affairs in our efforts to quiet the Algorian scare predictions about the consequences of global warming. There are large segments of the population that believe the global warming pronouncements. They have heard them over and over again from people they trust and respect, in school, on television, in the news and in their communities.
They have become “believers”, not unlike those who believe in a set of religious beliefs. All good Democrats believe in global warming, after all, it is the science of one of their key heroes, former Vice President and Senator Al Gore. And all good environmentalists are aboard the global warming band wagon. And, for all of them, the Agenda is what is important. Their Agenda is to eliminate fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine from our civilization. The carbon dioxide, CO2, thing is simply the means to the end. And if the means is not true; who cares. It is only the Agenda that is important. To all of these people, my effort to debunk the CO2 greenhouse gas science is irrelevant.
When I present my scientific arguments in a speech, their common reaction, “so what” and they ask me, even if you are right, isn’t the change to clean energy still the best move for our society? When I make my argument in response, that I also favor alternate energy, but that it will be thirty to fifty years before it can replace fossil fuels as the primary source of power for our civilization and that alternate energy in its current state of development is not economically viable, they doubt my facts. They have heard the hype and bought the dream without stopping to absorb the reality.
Next, when they realize they have not persuaded me to join their point of view, they challenge me with “And, what if it turns out that you are wrong and Al Gore is right? Your argument could cost us everything as climate change makes the Earth unlivable. So let’s just eliminate the greenhouse gases as insurance.” I argue back that the insurance will financially destroy us, wreck our way of life and that because I am right about the science, the move to alternate energy will not make an iota difference in our climate.
At this point, they dismiss me a stupid, old heretic.
My only option is to keep trying. That is why I make the new videos like the one posted on February 22nd. But, I am frustrated and not optimistic about penetrating our scientific institutions and organizations that are in the control of their well paid scientists and persuading them to reconsider the role of carbon dioxide and accept climate reality. What are the odds they will “see the light” and abandon their richly rewarding global warming positions? Nil, I fear.
It appears, as of now, victory, if it were to come, would be on a political level, not a scientific one. Just as “the climate according to Al Gore” has become the Democrat Party mantra, “global warming is not real” has become the rally call of the Republican Party. As a Journalist (I am a member of the television news team at KUSI-TV) I try hard to avoid taking political positions. For instance, I pass on invitations to speak at political events even when handsome stipends are offered.
So I keep focused on the bad science behind global warming. If my team (There are over 31,000 scientists on my team) can make headway in correcting the science, then I will be happy to let the politics, environmentalism and alternate energy movement fight the policy battles without me.
John Coleman
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Watch John’s video that accompanies this essay here at his web site
From comments, here is the link to the story about the group of 200 environmentalists that showed such a poor show of hands:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/analysis/transcripts/25_01_10.txt
Joel:
You must be kidding. Utterly useless wind turbines have destroyed millions of acres of wildlife habitat and countryside worldwide; nowhere have they produced any actually useful power at all, nor have they reduced CO2 emissions (even assuming that were important). Likewise the hideously expensive solar.
Curly florescents are monstrously polluting to produce and to dispose of. Hybrid cars at best simply move the pollution elsewhere, their low efficiency compared to gasoline or diesel means they require still more energy to be produced, and mining the huge quantities of rare earth elements needed for their batteries is covering Chinese farmland with a particularly vicious toxic waste.
Get serious.
Werner Brozek says:
February 27, 2011 at 2:40 pm
“R. Gates says:
February 27, 2011 at 5:48 am
During periods of the snowball earth, which lasted millions of years,
As most the of water vapor had been condensed out of the atmosphere
that CO2 from then causing further warming in a positive-feedback manner.”
I must confess I am not up on “snowball earth” and confused that with ice ages. Sorry about that!
However if water vapor had condensed, it would seem to me that there would be no clouds which could cause a lot of reflection of sun light, so would the sun not burn down hard and rapidly cause water to melt and evaporate? That assumes that the distance to the sun was not much different than now. As for the positive feedback from CO2, most agree there is some effect, but the CAGW people have hugely overblown the impact. And even the IPCC talks about the logarithmic effect of added CO2, or the law of diminishing returns for added CO2. However I may have to study snowball earth to be sure of things.
_____
During the several snowball earth periods water vapor was reduced greatly in the atmosphere, and thus the atmosphere was cool and dry. Cloud cover was reduced but ice cover (as land glaciers and sea ice) was greatly increased, and this ice would have increased the earth’s albedo greatly. One only needs to look at the middle of Antarctica where it is very cold and very dry to get a sense for what much of the earth was like during this period. Now, there may have been some places near the equator where there was some open water (some call this the slushball earth), but even at then, the general hydrological cycle of the earth was much reduced, meaning that water vapor was not present in any great amount in the atmosphere to aid in the general greenhouse warming. Some event, or even series of events, eventually increased CO2 enough to kickstart enough GH warming and the hydrological cycle to get more water vapor back into the atmosphere and then, through positive feedback processes, more ice melted and the earth pulled out of the snowball period. The point here is that CO2, even though just a “trace” gas according to AGW skeptics, was the key player in pulling the earth out of the snowball period because it is a noncondensing GH gas, and though less potent then water vapor, can still exhibit GH gas properties by remaining in the atmosphere for long periods when water vapor has long been squeezed out.
@-JimF says:
February 27, 2011 at 5:37 pm
“Maybe, however, it is dangerous in the other direction, where it becomes such a miniscule part of the atmosphere that a great quantity of lifes’ various forms cannot survive. Think about the decline – the massive sequestering – of CO2 that the earth has undertaken in the last half billion years. ”
Life has evolved adaptions to lower CO2 such as the C4 plants and CO2 storage systems. There are reasons why atmospheric CO2 cannot fall to zero, but even if it did plants could still use the CO2 generated by their own respiration for photosynthesis. The ‘danger’ of low CO2 is spurious given the adaptability of life and the timescales over which the carbon cycle alters the partitioning between air, sea and rock.
But I am still curious on what basis you dismiss ANY and ALL risk of global warming from the rapid anthropogenic rise in CO2 given the physical properties of the gas.
izen says:
“Its a consequence of the fact that in some circumstances with a finite resource individual exploitation of that common resource has collective consequences that are only optimized by collective action – enforced by coercion if necessary.
See any discussion of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ for the basic principle. Societies that enforce such collective regulation reach better outcomes with superior utilization of resources so are more successful.
Sometimes it pays to be sheep…..unless some fool is overgrazing the available pasture!”
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Frugality with finite resources is often hailed as the only sane and, of course, moral option.
If the only benefit derived from frugality is the deferral of the day of dearth from one generation to a subsequent one, then it is unnatural and futile.
If we dismiss, as I do, the notion that the use of fossil fuels is befouling the Earth for us and our progeny, and if we are convinced that that resource is absolutely finite, then what could be the rationale for depriving our great-grandchildren of it through our profligacy, rather than our grandchildren?
The argument that we might take advantage of our windfall to discover its replacement can have merit, but a moralistic indignation at selfishness, by itself, is no basis for coercion of individuals.
Your sheep are a poor analogy, since pasture is only temporarily finite and so, rationing is a sensible approach.
izen says:
February 27, 2011 at 10:28 pm
“Life has evolved adaptions to lower CO2 such as the C4 plants and CO2 storage systems. There are reasons why atmospheric CO2 cannot fall to zero, but even if it did plants could still use the CO2 generated by their own respiration for photosynthesis.”
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Can you elucidate the mechanism by which plants might transport CO2 against its concentration gradient from air to chloroplast? Of course, I don’t mean ‘the air’ because you said there wouldn’t be any, so let’s say ‘from the roots’, where some respiration is going on.
And how would they grow bigger? And how would baby plants ever happen?
Is this all on the same planet where the water heats the air, which then heats the water, which then heats the air?
Dr. Lurtz If you remove all technology the carrying capacity of Earth is about 1,000,000 people. They would plow with wooden plows pulled by horses/oxen. Any shaped thing would be either pottery or carved wood. No metals. Metals are the result of technology mining. The only salt would come from earthen dyked saltwater evaporation ponds, etc.
I think it would be somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times that. Two pieces of evidence:
This chart claims it was 200 million in 0 A.D, and 400 million in 1,000 AD.
People who study the American Indians used to believe that the population of what is now the U.S. was 1 million in pre-Columbian times, but now they believe that it may have been as great as 6 million. If the entire land area of the earth were as suitable for living as the U.S., this would correspond to a world population of 90 million. Of course, it’s not, but if the 200 million and 400 million above are in the right ballpark, that doesn’t matter – it “less than matters.”
I don’t think you can object to this by saying that metals were in use long before 0 AD, because they were not in use for relevant purposes (e.g., the plow) by some overwhelming majority of the people.
Dr. Lurtz The American Indian migrated south every year to stay warm and have food.
That can’t be true as a general matter. For example, the Wampanoag didn’t leave the Pilgrims and go south. The Pilgrims themselves said that the Indians’ houses were warmer than houses in England.
Pamela Gray I too am socially liberal (damn the ban against stem cell research, damn the effort to make abortion illegal and uninsurable, damn the Marriage Act and all that), but fiscally conservative. For some, that is difficult to imagine.
Not for an informed person. “Conservative” in “fiscal conservative” doesn’t mean the same as when it stands alone. There’s no limit to how liberal a fiscal conservative could be. In fact, a fiscal conservative could be of any political stripe whatever. “Conservative” by itself means the kind of thing Edmund Burke was talking about.
R. Gates However if water vapor had condensed, it would seem to me that there would be no clouds which could cause a lot of reflection of sun light, so would the sun not burn down hard and rapidly cause water to melt and evaporate?
It’s true there would be no or few clouds, but this wouldn’t melt the ice faster, because in the absence of atmospheric water vapor not so great a surface temperature would be needed for the earth to radiate as much as it receives from the sun. You’ll have to read up on the greenhouse effect.
@-Oliver Ramsay says:
February 27, 2011 at 11:44 pm
“Can you elucidate the mechanism by which plants might transport CO2 against its concentration gradient from air to chloroplast? Of course, I don’t mean ‘the air’ because you said there wouldn’t be any, so let’s say ‘from the roots’, where some respiration is going on.
And how would they grow bigger? And how would baby plants ever happen?”
I take your point that a closed cycle of carbon use within the plant would preclude growth, an external source is required for growth, reproduction and system wastage.
But C4 and CAM plants already concerntrate/store CO2 as simple organic acids which gets round the problem of transport against a concerntration gradient.
Because biological systems all respire and generate CO2 and volcanic/tectonic processes are unlikely to stop in the next billion years I think that plants will have ample time to adapt to very low CO2 levels ~10ppm
But many aquatic plants can derive the carbon they use in photosynthesis from bicarbonate in solution, this would perhaps be a way that land plants could evolve to get their carbon fix from the roots.
izen Life has evolved adaptions to lower CO2 such as the C4 plants and CO2 storage systems. There are reasons why atmospheric CO2 cannot fall to zero, but even if it did plants could still use the CO2 generated by their own respiration for photosynthesis.
That’s like saying that an animal could survive by eating only its own bodily wastes.
izen says:
“But C4 and CAM plants already concerntrate/store CO2 as simple organic acids which gets round the problem of transport against a concerntration gradient.
Because biological systems all respire and generate CO2 and volcanic/tectonic processes are unlikely to stop in the next billion years I think that plants will have ample time to adapt to very low CO2 levels ~10ppm”
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I suspected you would invoke C4 plants, but it really doesn’t hold up. C4 photosynthesis is extravagant of energy and is not what those plants do for the most part. As for CAM plants, I wouldn’t want to be waiting for them to provide me with a crop of food.
It’s encouraging that you think elements of the natural world could adapt to drastic changes in their environment.
“Oliver Ramsay says:
February 28, 2011 at 7:31 am
izen says:
I think that plants will have ample time to adapt to very low CO2 levels ~10ppm”
It’s encouraging that you think elements of the natural world could adapt to drastic changes in their environment.”
Wow!! If plants can adapt to a reduction of 40 fold in the CO2 level, then why is it not equally likely that life can adapt to a 40 increase in CO2? Then what are we worried about?
P.S. Thank you for your reply R. Gates.
Smoking Frog says:
February 28, 2011 at 5:05 am
“That’s like saying that an animal could survive by eating only its own bodily wastes.”
Taken as a whole, that is exactly what the plant/animal Biosphere does.
izen;
the base of the bio-pyramid, which comprises the vast majority of its mass and volume, is unicellular, and mostly eats minerals and H2O and CO2. It is in turn eaten by very small multi-cellular beasties, and from there on it’s mostly “recycling”. But the big input funnel is the bacteria and archaebacteria. Examine the very steep food chain around a black smoker for an example.
izen says:
Smoking Frog says:
February 28, 2011 at 5:05 am
“That’s like saying that an animal could survive by eating only its own bodily wastes.”
Taken as a whole, that is exactly what the plant/animal Biosphere does.
That doesn’t support your idea that plants could evolve to doing it. Even if they could, the world would be radically different. Animals would not exist, since if they did exist, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would not be so low as your argument premises. Even if, somehow, they would exist, the world would be radically different; we would not exist. Even if, somehow, we would exist, you’re talking about a change that would take so long that it has nothing at all to do with the global warming dispute, not even remotely.
@-Brian H says:
March 1, 2011 at 1:27 am
“the base of the bio-pyramid, which comprises the vast majority of its mass and volume, is unicellular, and mostly eats minerals and H2O and CO2. It is in turn eaten by very small multi-cellular beasties, and from there on it’s mostly “recycling”. But the big input funnel is the bacteria and archaebacteria. Examine the very steep food chain around a black smoker for an example.”
The mention of black smokers is a bit of a red herring, the base of the food pyramid in that case are extremophile bacteria deriving their energy from HS. They represent a very small percentage of the biosphere.
But I agree that benthic bacteria rule. They, and the communal forms (small multicellular beasties!) are the dominant system that cycles CO2+sunlight into hydrocarbons and O2 (the photosynthesists) and O2+hydrocarbons back into CO2 (the ‘Eaters’).
The land-based plants and animals which have cracked the code for cellular differentiation and large multicellular bodies are a bit of an adjunct to the main ocean biology which drives the carbon cycle and shifts gigatonnes of carbon between atmosphere and biomass.
The relationship between the two is full of feedbacks that stabilize the balance and constrain the degree and rate of change that the natural system can generate in both atmospheric CO2 and biomass.
A game-changer would be the evolution of a more efficient enzyme system than Rubisco. It is odd that several billion years of biology has not improved on the gross inefficiency of the photosynthesis pathways, that WOULD alter the balance between CO2 fixers and change the partitioning of CO2 between the atmosphere and biomass I suspect.
@-Smoking Frog says:
March 1, 2011 at 6:43 am
“…Even if, somehow, they would exist, the world would be radically different; we would not exist. Even if, somehow, we would exist, you’re talking about a change that would take so long that it has nothing at all to do with the global warming dispute, not even remotely.”
I agree.
This diversion was prompted by another poster suggesting that present atmospheric CO2 were low in the context of billion year scales on the Earth and could therefore be regarded as aberrant with the prospect of lower values posing a real threat to all life on Earth.
In my replies I was trying to make the point that present values have been arrived at over geological time that has allowed plants to adapt to such levels. Further, that significant further reductions are improbable (given the nature of the bio-carbon cycle as described above) and would be so slow that evolution would almost certainly provide further adaptions.
It would seem that once again you are supporting the points I am making… ! -grin-
No, evolution is not going to be able to compensate for further significant reductions of carbon dioxide. Plants respond extraordinarily well to the doubling of carbon dioxide in greeenhouse culture, because they are already being stressed by inadequate supplies of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to which they are unable to adapt very well. The photosynthetic process is sensitive to the amount of available carbon dioxide, and there simply are not enough biochemical pathways to serve as alternatives. The Earth’s atmosphere formerly consisted of more than 100 atmospheres in mass with carbon dioxide being more than 999,000 parts per million in concentration versus 200-400 part per million of an atmosphere with less than one hundredth the mass. Plant life dependeent upon c arbon dioxide are running out of biochemical alternatives.
If the carbon dioxide levels fall below 200 parts per million and then below one hundred parts per million, the largest extinction of species in the past 1+ billion years will necessarily occur, whether or not some minimal number of species manage to adapt with alternatives to current means of photosynthesis.