Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
December 7, 2009 is a date that will live in infamy. Not only in memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the day the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
The 52-page EPA Endangerment Finding can be summarized simply. The agency concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases emitted by US industry and vehicles were causing dangerous global warming. The EPA stated that these gases “…threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” The agency relied on studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations, the U.S. Global Climate Research Program, and the National Research Council.
That ruling is bizarre. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is an invisible, odorless, harmless gas. It does not cause smoke or smog. The rising visible plumes from the smokestacks of a power plant are not CO2. That’s condensing water vapor. We can’t see carbon dioxide.
The EPA ruling failed to include nature’s largest greenhouse gas, water vapor. Scientists estimate that 75 percent to 90 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds. As any eighth-grade chemistry student learns, burning hydrocarbon fuel produces both carbon dioxide and water vapor. When natural gas (methane) is burned, two water vapor molecules are produced for each carbon dioxide molecule. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas produced by human industry, the EPA should declare water a pollutant by its own logic.
Rather than being a pollutant, CO2 is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food, a compound essential for plant photosynthesis. Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 cause plants to grow faster and larger. Wheat, orange trees, pine trees, hardwood trees, prairie grasses, and even poison ivy thrive in higher levels of CO2.
Plants grow larger root systems, produce more seeds and vegetables, and bloom larger flowers with more CO2. Tree wood density increases. Plants grow better in poor soil and drought conditions with higher levels of atmospheric CO2. In fact, if we wanted to put one compound into the atmosphere that would be great for the biosphere, carbon dioxide is that compound. Yet, almost every university and company now tracks the size of its “carbon footprint” and tries to reduce carbon emissions.
But isn’t it true that too much of anything can be bad for the environment? Yes in the case of real pollutants such as carbon monoxide or lead, but carbon dioxide is a harmless compound that is common in nature. The 2007 IPCC Carbon Cycle Model estimated that the atmosphere contained 750 billion tons of carbon in the form of CO2 with an additional 38,000 billion tons of carbon dissolved in the oceans. Mankind adds a comparably small 6 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year.
The current atmospheric level of 394 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide is actually somewhat on the low side. Dr. William Happer of Princeton University points out that atmospheric CO2 reached several thousand ppm in past ages. Geological evidence shows that life flourished during those past times of high CO2.
Over 190 nations are currently gathered in Doha, Qatar, attempting to negotiate a global treaty to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. Future generations will regard the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
mbw:
Your post at December 9, 2012 at 10:25 pm says in total
I rephrase your quotation so its true meaning is clear.
By comparing simulations from 20 different computer models to satellite observations, Lawrence Livermore climate scientists and colleagues from 16 other organizations have found that tropospheric and stratospheric temperature changes are clearly indicative of the opinions which the modellers built into their models.
Richard
That ruling is bizarre. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is an invisible, odorless, harmless gas. It does not cause smoke or smog. The rising visible plumes from the smokestacks of a power plant are not CO2. That’s condensing water vapor. We can’t see carbon dioxide.
———–
A basic misunderstanding followed by copious statements of the obvious.
The misunderstanding arises due to the distinction between normal language and legal language. The normal language has it that a pollutant is an impurity. The legal language borrowed that word and transformed it by giving a legal definition that is an operational definition as a substance causing harm. The normal language definition probably can’t be used in a legal sense since it is too hard to define purity.
The green mischief makers have reimported the legal definition back into normal language
A) cos they don’t understand the legal defintion
B) possibly for propaganda purposes.
The EPA are stuck with implementing the law according to the legal definition not the normal language definition. Tough!!
But isn’t it true that too much of anything can be bad for the environment?
———
Yes. Without exception.
Too much water and you drown.
Too much fertilizer, you know plant food, runoff and your water ways die.
To much sewage, you know plant food, and you get sick.
Too much oxygen, you know for respiration, and you die, painfully.
Too much nitrogen and you die.
Too much salt and you die.
Too much fat and your arteries flog up and you die.
Too much sugar and you get diabetes and you die.
Too much vitamin D and you die.
So distinguishing between CO2 as being OK in excess, while only pollutants are dangerous in excess is not possible.
I don’t have infinite amounts of time and when I have invested time in explaining the scientific issues with things that you quote, it seems to do little good anyway. If you want to know what is wrong with Lindzen and Choi, read the critique of it at Spencer’s website or the comments on it that were published in GRL. As for Idso, take as an example his Experiment #3: Here are some questions that a real skeptic might ask about it: Do we really expect an oscillation with a timescale of months could be used directly to determine the equilibrium climate sensitivity in the naive way that he does it when we know that there are relaxation timescales that are much longer than this? [For those who understand simple differential equations, the answer is NO.] Why do climate models that have much larger climate sensitivities nonetheless reasonably reproduce the seasonal cycle?…Do we really expect a method that would fail so miserably in diagnosing the climate sensitivity in a climate model to miraculously do better in the real world? In fact, why do careful studies that look at the seasonal cycle in nature vs climate models in fact conclude that the climate sensitivity is much higher ( http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3865.1 )?
And, I notice that you are are not able to provide any specific criticism of any of the discussion or papers in the section of the IPCC report that I referenced.
“Andy says: December 10, 2012 at 2:44 am
Since all lifeforms emit co2 all lifeforms must be polluters. …”
Do we not sh*t? Do we not have regulations on what to do with it? In the hunter gather days this was not a big issue. Now we spend billions on this problem.
@richardscourtney
Altering a quote to suit your bias is not an argument.
D Boehm says:
In other words, as usual, you are unable to defend your cherry-picked data, so you are going to change the subject. (And, even though you can’t defend the data that you have shown, if the past is any guide, that will not stop you from showing it again in the future.)
mbw:
Your post at December 10, 2012 at 6:09 am says in total
@richardscourtney
Yes, and that is why I don’t do it.
Making baseless allegations reveals that you don’t have an argument.
Richard
joeldshore:
I reply to your arm-waving post at December 10, 2012 at 5:22 am in the same manner as that post.
You ask me
I answer: I have rebutted them several times including on WUWT so go and look it up.
(See, anybody can play your childish games.)
When you have something worth the bother of refuting it then I shall. Until then I am content to expose your evasions.
Richard
All,
The article should read 21st century. Sorry to be so careless.
richardscourtney says:
I guess you are hoping that people won’t notice how you have avoided my substantive comment on Idso’s paper. I’ll give you another one: Take his experiment #4 where he looks at the total greenhouse effect vs the total thermal radiative flux. Even others who have made this argument, like Monckton and Willis Eschenbach know that the correct number to use is not the total thermal radiative flux but the net top-of-the-atmosphere radiative effect of greenhouse elements (greenhouse gases + clouds), which is about 100-150 W/m^2 rather than Idso’s 348 W/m^2. [Monckton tends to favor the 100 W/m^2 value and Willis the 150 W/m^2 value, which depends on the interpretation of the Trenberth and Kiehl paper where the radiative effects of the greenhouse elements are calculated.]
And on top of that, what all of these arguments get wrong is the fact that they are in fact circular: They assume that all of the greenhouse gases (and clouds) in the atmosphere are forcings and not feedbacks, so in other words, there are no positive feedbacks in the climate system; to make this less abstract, they assume that the only way to get water vapor into the atmosphere is to put it there rather than that you can get it into the atmosphere by increasing the temperature and thereby increasing evaporation and the amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold at saturation. (The one feedback that they do seem include is a well-known negative feedback, the lapse rate feedback, which is included since it is not really a radiative feedback of the same type as the others but is just reflecting the difference between the magnitude of the warming at the surface and the warming at the altitude where most of the radiation escapes to space. No wonder that the result that Monckton and Willis obtain is at or somewhat below the value for the climate sensitivity in the absence of feedbacks!)
duncanmackenzie says:
December 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm
blah blah blah.
might as well blame nixon – no reasonable reading of the clean air act would have allowed them to avoid declaring co2 a pollutant.
iirc, the finding they made was the mildest outcome they had available.
_________________________________
No it was not.
I will let an EPA scientist speak for himself.
The EPA ignored the science and went with the IPCC otherwise know as “The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert“ a teenager who got a failing grade on 21 chapters
eyesonu says:
December 8, 2012 at 6:17 pm
This is indeed bizarre. Make that scary. The time is rapidly approaching that the federal governments and their supported institutions will no longer be respected as valid enterprises. The results may be shocking to all. This is really scary.
_______________________________________
Yes it is scary.
If we do go into a cooling trend and food resources become scarce and expensive there will be a lot of finger pointing and unfortunately for the politicians they are in the front lines because they listened to the $$$ whispering in their ears instead of looking at ALL the facts and passed the appropriate laws. Therefore they are going to be held accountable.
joelshore says:
“In other words, as usual, you are unable to defend your cherry-picked data, so you are going to change the subject. ”
Wrong as usual, chump. I pointed out that the planet — the ultimate Authority — is proving you wrong. You just don’t like the fact that your globaloney nonsense conflicts with the real world.
joeldshore :
I am replying to your fatuous post addressed to me at December 10, 2012 at 8:08 am.
It begins by saying
That so-called “substantive comment” was pure drivel and unsubstantiated assertion. I hope people will read it so they can see why I did not waste time on it and, therefore, (unlike you) I draw attention to it by citing where “people” can read it and I quote it. It is at December 10, 2012 at 5:22 am and it says
Idso provides 8 (yes, EIGHT) different experiments and they each provide a similar result.
You ask a question about his Experiment #3. Then assert – with no evidence – that the answer is “NO”. That is merely facile assertion which cannot be considered to be “substantive comment” by any stretch of imagination. And your answer is plain wrong as this paper explains
http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf
It concludes that
Your so-called “substantive comment” then follows that with a series of assertions that models don’t agree with Idso’s measurements. I agree, they don’t. This is strong evidence that the models are wrong because models need to agree with empirical measurements if they are to be accepted.
You laughably claim you made “substantive comment”. I considered it to be unworthy of an answer because anybody could see it was merely arm-waving. But I have now rebutted it because you have insisted that I did.
Your recent post continues
Idso’s method gives very similar results to his other seven experiments and to the results obtained by Monckton and Willis Eschenbach (except that Eschenbach has very recently done a different analysis which provides an even lower climate sensitivity: see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/10/an-interim-look-at-intermediate-sensitivity/ ).
And you conclude your post saying
There is no circular argument.
The empirical values of climate sensitivity measure what happens in reality so they include effects of all the feedbacks both positive and negative. Your assertions concerning feedbacks demonstrate that you don’t have a clue about the subject.
Joel, I know it is difficult for you now that your superstitious belief in discernible AGW is being refuted by multiple lines of scientific evidence, but your desperate attempts to cling to your belief are making you look ridiculous. I suggest that you would do better to abandon the superstition.
Richard
Buzzed says:
December 9, 2012 at 5:54 pm
D Böehm: You don’t get the nature of empirical science. You cannot prove cause and effect like in mathematics. Rather one considers the preponderance of the evidence. It is very likely that human CO2 and other GHG emissions have caused the observed warming both of the lower atmosphere and oceans while cooling the stratosphere. The pattern is so far as anyone knows best explained by the greenhouse effect. …
________________________________
Wrong
The oceans are 70% of the earth’s surface. CO2 IR radiation has virtually no effect.
Graph from Colorado.edu
Graph Read what it says at the bottom.
Graph Absorption Coefficient vs Ocean Penetration depth
The wavelengths of CO2 IR re-radiation are between 13.5 and 16.5 microns, and this radiation can only penetrate 5 to 10 microns deep into the ocean. This is much less than the boundary layer where evaporation takes place (500 microns), and that is the only thing the infrared radiation can do; help to evaporate water.
The Sun’s energy can penetrate to 100 meters deep. Sunlight on the water surface at the equator is only 3% reflected. 97% reaches to 100 meters deep and is converted into heat. Two thirds of this energy escapes from the surface via water evaporation. The water evaporation is dependent only on the temperature of the water and independent of the temperature of the atmosphere. In addition, the evaporation temperature is dependent on various material properties, pressure, flow rates and convection (basically gravity).
This is one of the alligators climastrologists keep trying to shove under the rug.
LazyTeenager says:
December 10, 2012 at 4:19 am
———–
A basic misunderstanding followed by copious statements of the obvious.
The misunderstanding arises due to the distinction between normal language and legal language. The normal language has it that a pollutant is an impurity. The legal language borrowed that word and transformed it by giving a legal definition that is an operational definition as a substance causing harm.….
_________________________________
So by THAT definition the EPA should be banning Water.
From CDC
There is a heck of a lot more VALID evidence showing harm with regards to water than there is CO2.
@Gail Combs
Swimming pools are in fact regulated for safety reasons. The EPA is required by law to base its CO2 regulations on mainstream scientific opinion. If you disagree with mainstream scientific opinion that’s your prerogative. Argue with the National Academy of Science.
mbw:
At December 10, 2012 at 5:49 pm you say
I suspect you are right when you say, “The EPA is required by law to base its CO2 regulations on mainstream scientific opinion”. And I am assuming you are right because – not being an American – I have no reason to doubt it.
“Scientific opinions” always represent vested interests and they all need to be evaluated. Only considering “mainstream scientific opinion” can have disastrous consequences.
As an example of this need, I point out that if such a “law” had existed in the UK in the 1930s then we in the UK and you in the US would probably now be speaking German. It was only possible to build the radar defences necessary to win the Battle of Britain by ignoring “mainstream scientific opinion”.
So, if you are right then your country would benefit from amending “the law” because government agencies need to evaluate evidence (n.b. not opinions) when formulating policy actions.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
To most scientists, it would be obvious that if you try to get a system to oscillate at time scales that are much shorter than the typical timescale for relaxation, you will not get the full response. For example, why do you think that the temperature does not drop to zero when the sun goes down every night even though the external radiative forcing goes away? Why do you think that the air temperature drops and rises more rapidly with the diurnal cycle than the temperature of the water in a swimming pool?
The paper you cite has nothing to do with this discussion but is just an unrelated example of some economists deluding themselves by looking at things that they don’t understand. It is completely irrelevant to the current discussion.
No…The models do agree the measurements that Idso discusses. The models in fact produce a similar seasonal cycle to what is seen in nature. The question, however, is whether Idso’s completely unjustified method of diagnosing the climate sensitivity from this empirical data in the real climate system is a good one.
And, that is where models come in: If we look at this diagnostic method in the simplified world of a climate model, and this method successfully diagnoses the climate sensitivity, then if we are lucky and the real world doesn’t produce additional complications that screw that up, the method may do a good job diagnosing the climate sensitivity in the real world. However, if the method can’t even diagnose the climate sensitivity in a climate model (where that sensitivity can be determined easily), it is very unlikely that it will magically do a better job in the real world.
It is strange to me that someone who considers himself a skeptic would accept a diagnostic method as being reliable on the basis of zero evidence (and simple physical principles arguing against it). It seems that you are willing to believe just about anything that gives you the result that you want.
If, by similar (in comparison to Monckton and Eschenbach) you mean within a factor of three.
Willis, by his own admission, is not looking at an equilibrium climate sensitivity (hence the word “intermediate”). Most people wouldn’t call what he is looking at a climate sensitivity at all.
Let me make this really simple: To get the climate sensitivity, you have to take the response to greenhouse gases (an increase in the surface temperature by 33 K) and divide by the forcing. Yes, the temperature response includes the effects of all feedbacks. But, the question is, what do you use for the forcing? You can’t just use the radiative effect of all of the greenhouse gases because that assumes that all of those gases are forcings…and hence not feedbacks. I.e., it assumes that if you warm up the atmosphere, it does not increase the amount of water vapor that it holds (which is ridiculous because if you lower the temperature enough in our current state without changing the concentration of water vapor, you end up with a supersaturated atmosphere). So, in fact, it assumes that the water vapor feedback is exactly zero, which means you are assuming your conclusion. (It also assumes that the cloud feedback is exactly zero and that the ice-albedo feedback is exactly zero.)
For people like yourself who don’t seem to have a clear scientific understanding of what forcings and feedbacks are, I have come up with a simple analogy that may help, the so-called “Bill Gates feedback” that I discussed here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-820816 and here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-820890
Harrison’s chronometer was another one that “mainstream scientific opinion” tried to suppress, and he himself had to fight for many years for acknowledgement and the reward due him for his accomplishment.
joeldshore:
This is a response to your twaddle at December 11, 2012 at 4:44 am which I provide purely to demonstrate to others that I have read it. Your post is another example of your irrelevant nonsense which is not worth the bother of my refuting it.
And your post I am answering is a response to my rebuttal of your previous tripe which I said was not worth the effort of rebutting. But you insisted that I answer it so I did with the result that you got egg on your face.
As illustration of why your recent rubbish is not worthy of response I cite its including this
NO!
The paper is an analysis of temperature time series by experts in data analyses.
Your words (which I cite) in rejection of it are precisely the same kind of ignorant stupidity which enabled the disaster of Mann’s ‘hockey stick’.
The authors of that paper have more expertise to analyse global temperature time series than all the total of self-proclaimed climatologists in the world.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
Yes, I understand how actual scientific reasoning and analysis is completely irrelevant and foreign from your point of view but I decided to include it for those who are capable of understand such things.
joeldshore:
Thanks for the laugh you gave me with your post at December 11, 2012 at 8:19 am.
As you have repeatedly demonstrated, you are incapable of “scientific reasoning” and you don’t understand it when it is presented to you. Indeed, that is why I merely illustrated your lack of ability instead of wasting more time on another detailed explanation of your many errors: there are limits to how many ‘pearls’ I am willing to ‘caste before swine’.
Are you trying to outdo Perlw1tz as the most comical poster in the history of WUWT?
Richard
Do we not sh*t? Do we not have regulations on what to do with it? In the hunter gather days this was not a big issue. Now we spend billions on this problem.
So you equate Sh*t to co2 as a problem. Good on you, you spoke before reading all of my statement. Manure of all kinds are a vital part for both evolution and ecosystems. Love it when the emotionally charged people equate things to make an argument and still shoot themselves in the foot.