Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
Skeptics are winning the battle to reject CO2 as the only cause of warming, but losing the war to the misrepresentation of CO2 as a pollutant.
Some people generally know there is something wrong with claims of human created global warming or climate change, but governments, business, industry, mainstream media and AGW advocates succeed in the push for reduction of CO2 as a pollutant without protest from the public. All this despite massive and completely unnecessary costs.
Political advocates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set out to demonize CO2. They successfully shifted away from global warming to climate change and on to pollution when the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis began to fail. Influential AGW proponents like James Hansen thought skeptics were winning the climate debate so he began talking about coal “death trains”. Obama’s “carbon pollution” is scientifically wrong but works by frightening the public. His attack on the coal industry gets little opposition outside of coal producing States. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proceeds with Supreme Court blessing as they limit a “harmful substance”.
It’s increasingly ineffective to explain what is wrong with the climate science. It is necessary to show that the switch to falsely calling it a pollutant became necessary to perpetuate the goal of eliminating fossil fuels. Most people don’t make the link and are turned against CO2 as a pollutant by the effective PR campaign.
Competing with PR experts.
Mr. Justice Burton’s October 2007 ruling on the showing of Gore’s docudrama An Inconvenient Truth in the classroom wrote,
The context and nub of the dispute are the statutory provisions described in their side headings as respectively relating to “political indoctrination” and to the “duty to secure balanced treatment of political issues” in schools,
This is the battle as the counterattack by promoters of AGW proceeds. People who question the hypothesis and science, especially as manifest in the IPCC Reports, are attacked as skeptics and deniers, who are framed as apparently willfully lying for a political agenda paid for by coal and oil companies. The public is told not to believe these deceivers because of their funding, the debate is over, the science is settled and failure to support immediate political action makes them intransigent and complicit in pollution of the planet. Gore’s movie was a major part of the deception. It was a successful piece of propaganda produced in Hollywood, a world center for telling stories to the public. Justice Burton wrote in his judgment,
I viewed the film at the parties’ request. Although I can only express an opinion as a viewer rather than as a judge, it is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film. It is built round the charismatic presence of the ex-Vice-President, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming. It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film, albeit of course not party political. Its theme is not merely the fact that there is global warming, and that there is a powerful case that such global warming is caused by man, but that urgent, and if necessary expensive and inconvenient, steps must be taken to counter it, many of which are spelt out.
No wonder the public are confused. Any responses to Gore’s movie relying solely on science are seriously challenged. I’ve been involved in this debate often. One example involved helping a group of retired scientists set up Friends of Science. They chose a purely scientific approach science partly because of being from Calgary and Alberta a center of fossil fuel production, but also as scientists they wanted facts and logic. They do a good job, but mostly for those who understand science.
The simplistic deceptions of PR have been a major and effective tool. DeSmogBlog was the brainchild of James Hoggan, Board Chairman of the David Suzuki Foundation and President of a PR firm. In a December 2011 email to Michael Mann, DeSmogBlog writer Richard Littlemore says:
(as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science).
Mann’s 2004 email to CRU Director Phil Jones confirms the PR connection of CRU/IPCC science. Confronted by challenging questions, they apparently developed a defensive mentality:
I’ve personally stopped responding to these, they’re going to get a few of these op-ed pieces out here and there, but the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing [sic] the PR battle. That’s what the site (Realclimate) is about. By the way Gavin (Schmidt) did come up w/ the name.
To overcome the combination of political PR and falsified climate science, people need to know answers to the basic questions of journalism; who, what, when, where and why it was done. Only “what” is addressed by explaining the science.
Stage of Evolution In Unveiling Misuse of Climate Science
Mahatma Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” I’ve experienced all phases so far in the climate issue and believe we’re in the “fight” stage. For AGW proponents this involves grabbing headlines that backfire, such as John Holdren’s video that claimed the cold (polar vortex) is due to warming, or playing the “victim” card when evidence, like the hockey stick, is already known to the public. Paradoxically, it is counterproductive for those AGW proponents fighting because it accelerates the final stage. A comment after a presentation is “I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know enough to know.” Extreme and illogical claims help the public move to the final stage. However, critical issues common for the public, like fear and lack of knowledge, must be recognized and addressed first. Global warming deception creators effectively exploited both, as people are learning. Now people are asking other questions and they raise other concerns. Who did it, how, and why?
The switch to climate change from global warming accompanied an increase in the claims of CO2 as a pollutant. PR agents through Gore and others convinced the world it was and President Obama reinforces it with the term ”carbon pollution”. This illustrates why attempts to help the public understand the science of climate change is unworkable. CO2 continues its hold because the public believes it is a pollutant. This happens because a majority proudly avoids science; can’t believe a small group could influence and fool the world; or that scientists would be subjective and political.
The person who understood these issues leaked the emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). From over 220,000 emails only 1000 were selected for a strategic release to undermine advancing the political agenda at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 in Copenhagen. That selection takes knowledge of the science, the participants and their activities, but more important what the public would understand. Focus was on malfeasance, including references to science with words like “hide” and “trick” used by the participants. Even now very few understand the science or statistics of the hockey stick. The emails provide a picture of vindictiveness, defensiveness, and malicious personal attacks that most could understand were problematic. Apparently the whistleblower knew that the COP makes decisions based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings. Most of the people at the CRU were also effectively in control of the IPCC so disclosure dammed both. Most COP participants are bureaucrats, politicians and NGOs so disclosures required that they were the same as those for the public.
The Time For Explanations
After challenging the prevailing wisdom of a simplistic ongoing global cooling trend in the 1970s I became more opposed to the simplistic trend prediction of global warming after the 1980s. From the start I made public presentations of what was wrong with the science to hundreds of groups and learned quickly what people knew and understood.
The pattern followed Gandhi’s pattern and public response changed as events altered how they were listening. It paralleled phone-in radio programs, which had 99 percent hostile calls through the 1990s. I learned that when I was on Greenpeace and others would line up people to call in. The solution was to bypass the first 20 calls. Nowadays there are rarely more than one or two hostile calls or emails about CO2 as a greenhouse gas, but most express concern about CO2 as a pollutant.
I waited a few years to publish my book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science because the public was not ready. Most are still not ready for a pure science expose. I believe they are ready now for a different approach as the pattern changes once again, but that also means they are asking different questions. Now they want to know who orchestrated the deception, how was it achieved, and most important what was the motive.
This is just one more step in the effort to counteract the anti – CO2 industry. It will be difficult because so many people are involved in perpetuating the “CO2 is a pollutant” myth.
Who knew and who just participated?
My template for the book was the basic objectives of the CRU whistleblower. This means there is not enough detail to satisfy any specialist group or special interest group, but enough to help the public understand what was done and why. It is a generalist book about the corruption and misuse of a generalist discipline – climatology for a political agenda. Very few people involved knew little about what was going on, and there were millions. A brief list of most participants direct or indirect who created the myth of CO2 and will oppose its debunking follows;
1. The Core Group of scientists mostly at or linked to the CRU at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The leaked emails explain everything you need to know about this group. They knew what they were doing as reference to the “Cause” identifies. They developed a classic case of Groupthink.
Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (p. 9). Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.
This group was closely linked to the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) Hadley Centre as they are today; witness the data sets produced by HadCRUT. The connection to America was through former CRU director Tom Wigley and CRU graduates like Benjamin Santer.
2. The group assembled by Maurice Strong to control the political and science agenda of global warming for the political agenda through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This included bureaucrats of every national weather office through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) who selected national scientists for the IPCC. Chief among these were UKMO, Environment Canada (EC), and NOAA. Most of them had no idea what was going on, but it was a nice secure bureaucratic job. Most knew the perils of stepping out of line. Three EC employees told me after a presentation in Winnipeg a few years ago that they agreed with me, but dare not say so. Direct participation in IPCC was as Richard Lindzen explained,
IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the number
It is no small matter that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as ‘the world’s leading climate scientists.’ It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.
Once a bureaucracy is established or assigned a task it almost guarantees it is not going to solve the problem. Rather, it will evolve to perpetuate its own existence. In the case of climate, bureaucratic science experts confronted politicians who dared to question. Once the nations weather office adopted the IPCC position it became national policy. Then all other branches of government were required to do their planning based on this official climate position.
3. Maurice Strong resurrected the Non-government Organizations (NGO) for the 1992 Rio Conference. Of the 8,375 attendees at the recent COP 19 in Warsaw 3,031 were NGOs. Why wasn’t business and industry given such a prominent place?
4. Whenever business or industry was involved they only participated because they could benefit. They were open to government largesse and guarantees and worked to support politicians who practiced “crony capitalism”. One of the most dramatic self-serving meetings occurred in 1997 at the White House between President Clinton, VP Gore, and CEOs Ken Lay of Enron and Lord Browne of BP.
5. A change in research funding evolved almost coincident with emergence of global warming. Universities stretched for income realized they could reasonably add a fee for services, which was built into the funding application. The mantra for advancement changed from ‘publish or perish’ to ‘bring funding or perish’. Academics from all disciplines learned how to enter keywords to trigger a positive result in request for funding. In the 1990s I joked about seeking a connection between climate and AIDS to almost guarantee funding.
6. Tacit support through silence was a major strength exploited by those pushing the IPCC agenda. Many were bullied into silence partly because they watched those who dared to ask questions vilified and marginalized. The silence of this group facilitated the claims of consensus.
7. The mainstream media, more than any other group failed society and worse became a platform and promoter of the deception. The US Founding Fathers believed a free press was essential to exposing deception or attempts at control. Two publications were central to the failure, the New York Times and the Guardian. Complicity of their involvement and compromise of journalistic principles were exposed when reporter’s names appeared in the leaked CRU emails.
It was a child who said the emperor had no clothes – the adults recoiled in horror expecting retribution. Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It is very difficult to identify evil when you don’t understand the subject, it is a deliberate delusion and it is wrapped in the cloak of saving the planet and the children.
Failed predictions, cold weather and illogical responses were amplified by the “child” replacement, the Internet. Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” The Internet provided the ideal medium for democratizing information. Web pages like WUWT provided a forum for millions to question challenge and do what the media should have been doing. They significantly assisted in the exposure of CO2 climate science, but AGW proponents moved on to pollution.
Skeptics won the CO2 climate battle but are losing the CO2 is pollution war. Massively expensive, debilitating but completely unnecessary taxes, rules and restrictions will continue until the public understands that CO2 is not a pollutant. This will take a long time as too many people with power like President Obama or in powerful positions like bureaucrats in national weather agencies and thereby all areas of government are invested in maintaining the falsehood.
Appropriate Quotes detailing the challenge:
Voltaire:
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
Epictetus:
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Tolstoy:
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
Yes, how many times do we have to say “CO2 is not a pollutant”?
I do not see those that do call it a pollutant curtailing their exhaling.
🙂
Simple fact, without CO2, all life on earth would cease to exist.
Keep reporting the truth about the global warming disaster!
Wayne
Luvsiesous.com
I think that the public in general hears “Carbon Dioxide”, and thinks “Carbon Monoxide”.
I wonder if anyone has complained to a fellow comversaionalist that “You are breathing
that noxious CO2 my way” . Of course, anyone that stupid likely is unaware of what people are exhaling. Better than simply saying CO2 is not a pollutant would be to say that “CO2 is necessary for all life forms. Reduction of atmospheric CO2 brings on the risk of massive reduction in crops and mass starvation.”
Is comment really necessary?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20RSS%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20AndCO2.gif
They are bound and determined to fulfill Malthus’ predictions. And one way is to deprive plant life of CO2.
CO2 is involved in the process of human respiration. It helps to saturate the blood with oxygen.
Photosynthesis!!!!!!
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-finds-plant-growth-surges-as-co2-levels-rise-16094
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
Geez. Ever wonder why War and Peace was so long?
So every time we exhale we are polluting. How long before the government mandated exhalation tax?
We need a new front to talk about here in North America. We need to emphasize bio-sequestration that takes place. The fact is that North America is the largest CO2 Sink in the World. We sequester all our CO2 emissions both natural and man made. And also sequester a goodly amount blowing in on the prevailing “westerlies”, the winds blowing from China and Eurasia.
We profit from that too. We convert that CO2 into increased biosphere which we then harvest for lumber, meat, fiber and grain to feed the World, as well as ourselves.
Mr. Idso needs more voices raised in this exercise which underlines that CO2 is not a pollutant.
There’s the general public, and there is conservatives. We as skeptics can help consolidate our strength among conservatives by joining the #1 conservative blog in the US, hotair, as a commenter.
Because Hotair is having open registration for new commenters tomorrow from 9am to 4pm eastern time. After that, registration is closed again. They haven’t allowed any new commenters since a single day in 2011. So tomorrow will be our only opportunity to join hotair in perhaps years. Please help!
It would be awesome to have more of us from wuwt on board hotair. Because with our position solidified among conservatives, we can then branch out to Independents, and hopefully, at some point, Democrats. So join hotair! Here is the hotair post on it: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/05/get-ready-for-open-registration-tomorrow-at-hot-air/
Tim Ball:
Thankyou.
It seems sensible to again link to the excellent paper on the corruption of climate science which Richard Lindzen published in 2008. A revision he published in 2012 is here.
It is a shocking read and it names responsible individuals.
Richard
“The poison of CO2.”
The carbonic anhydrases (or carbonate dehydratases) form a family of enzymes that catalyze the rapid interconversion of carbon dioxide and water to bicarbonate and protons (or vice versa), a reversible reaction that occurs rather slowly in the absence of a catalyst.[1] The active site of most carbonic anhydrases contains a zinc ion; they are therefore classified as metalloenzymes.
One of the functions of the enzyme in animals is to interconvert carbon dioxide and bicarbonate to maintain acid-base balance in blood and other tissues, and to help transport carbon dioxide out of tissues.
The most effective argument against CO2 “pollution” is to point out the well established fact that elevated CO2 in greenhouses is used to accelerate plant growth and that the extra CO2 of the industrial period is producing about 15% more food for the planet.
Most forms of life depend on eating plants to survive. And those that don’t eat those that do.
CO2 is LIFE ON EARTH , not a “pollutant”.
One thing we can all be watchful for is when someone is saying,
“we must cut back on carbon pollution”
when they are discussing CO2 emissions.
It would be helpful if we correct them every time we get the opportunity.
Co2 is a antipollution. It’s worse than we thought.
http://youtu.be/P2qVNK6zFgE
Well Done!
Girls ❤ Carbon IMAGE
Trees ❤ CO2
It has been political from the start and that is where we need to fight.
Two weapons:
First plants were at starvation level: (Forget mentioning the difference in CO2 levels during glaciation and interglacials. If they ask mention the new 2012 paper Can we predict the duration of an interglacial? that says without high levels of CO2 we are due to head back into the deep freeze…NOW – keep it simple)
Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California
That title has three trigger words, Carbon, Starvation and Trees.
…
Then mention the increase in Carbon has ALREADY spurred plant growth especially in deserts. (Deserts are another trigger word)
Study Finds Plant Growth Surges as Carbon Levels Rise: Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments
Finally food on the table.
From CO2Science: Studies on the economics of crops has all been negative but they are based on models. Actual field studies are positive. (They LIED)
Co2 is a pollutant. It’s worse than we thought!
CO (carbon monoxide) occurs naturally in the body (at low levels) and regulates cell growth. Cancer researchers are using CO to control tumor growth and reduce the effects of chemo.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20131204/BIDMC-study-shows-carbon-monoxide-may-have-a-role-to-play-in-treating-cancer.aspx
Carbon pollution is real. We must act now!
Co2 is a toxic gas. We must act now!
In doing a quick web search, I was surprised to see how many CAGWers have made posts around the web claiming increased CO2 isn’t good for plants. Very surprising !! When you see the details, their arguments quickly fall apart / are easily dissected, however, it shows that the CAGWers / CIPs (Carbon Is Pollution) aren’t going down without a fight, including the premise that CO2 is a pollutant. Still a long battle ahead for the truth to prevail ….
Greg says: @ February 5, 2014 at 12:55 pm
The most effective argument against CO2 “pollution” is to point out the well established fact that elevated CO2 in greenhouses is used to accelerate plant growth and that the extra CO2 of the industrial period is producing about 15% more food for the planet….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree as you will see if my other comment ever gets out of moderation but as the people at CO2Science said:
“…Several analyses have been conducted to estimate potential monetary damages of the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. Few, however, have attempted to investigate its monetary benefits….
The incorporation of these findings [their paper based on field studies] into future SCC studies will help to ensure a more realistic assessment of the total net economic impact of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations due to both negative and positive externalities. Furthermore, the observationally-deduced benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on crop production should be given premier weighting over the speculative negative externalities that are projected to occur as a result of computer model computations of CO2-induced global warming. Until this is done, little if any weight should be placed on current SCC calculations.”
(link is in other comment)
In other words they tried to spike our guns by saying Yes But the rise in temperature due to CO2 wipes out any gains… Only there hasn’t been a rise in temperature are real droughts.
Take better care of the production of O2, for example, by growing algae.
This is quite easy in my opinion. All known life on earth is based on three atoms: oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. Human body contains 18% of carbon. http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blbodyelements.htm.
Carbon dioxide passes also a more detailed analysis with flying colors: UNECE GHS criteria can be used for assessing hazards of any chemicals. The assessment results into hazard pictograms, which are glued on the back of chemical transporting trucks etc. Even 100% carbon dioxide assessment doesn’t merit any of these pictograms in normal temperature and pressure. http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/danger/publi/ghs/ghs_rev04/English/06e_annex2.pdf
EU has enacted UNECE GHS and has considered carbon dioxide harmless. It’s even added on a very short list of chemicals, which have been exempted from the widest red tape of REACH regulation (annex IV). http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:2006R1907:LATEST:EN:PDF.
Naturally, this doesn’t prevent Obama to claim carbon/carbon dioxide to be pollutant. But by riding this horse, he risks underestimating his electorate and, thus, undermining his own credibility.
We aren’t fighting the wrong fight.
There is more than one fight, and we need to engage on all of them.
Co2 is a dangerous trace gas whose effect is logarithmic not linear.
Maybe the battle is shifting but it is still the same “war.” There have been several groups of people that came together to use “global warming” as a grandstand to either persuade others to follow their lead, or failing that, to force their agenda via whatever means they could muster. It is possible to believe that GHGs contribute to atmospheric warming without also thinking of CO2 as a pollutant. Those that want to redistribute wealth, such as the UN, have lost the “global warming” battle, so they have just moved on. “Sustainability” might work, so they try that. “Pollution” might work, so try that. The groups come together, disagree, reform and move on.
In the USA, the president does have various executive powers. He and his advisers currently believe they have more ability pushing the “pollution” theme than some of the other (more democratic) levers. There is not much to be done about this. Work to explain to the voters that they voted unwisely. Good idea. Are they paying attention to this sort of thing? Not much. Which do you think will be more on voter’s minds, (a) CO2 is not a pollutant, or (b) we can make history by electing the USA’s first woman president?
John F. Hultquist says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Which do you think will be more on voter’s minds, (a) CO2 is not a pollutant, or (b) we can make history by electing the USA’s first woman president?
____________________
There I was, having such a nice day…
dihydrogen monoxide is a pollutant!!!
Anytime I hear the trendy words “carbon pollution” I immediately categorize the speaker as:
1) Ignoramus
2) Charlatan
An I don’t think, for one minute, that the current President of the United States is ignorant.
So, sadly, that leaves but one choice…
Thank you Dr. Ball
This is the part that is hard for scientists and engineers to understand. It is political
(Mods I changed e-mail addy to see if WordPress would quit plying football with my comments. So far it is wordPress 20, Combs 3)
Two other sage quotes:
All individual observations are biased by our individual expectations. – Some wise man
We can only make decisions designed to please ourselves in one way or another. – Some other wise man
When the President and his cronies say “carbon pollution”, it is a lie.
When the President and his cronies refer to CO2 as a pollutant, it is a lie.
When the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, it is a lie.
At any rate this whole climate change thing is based on a lie, that’s what I hate about it.
Somehow there must be a way to get the word out to the general public.
Gail Combs says at 1:19 pm: link is in other comment
Remember that I think we get two free links in each comment before it goes into moderation, if that is your concern. Also, Gail, this gives me an opportunity to press you in particular to join Hotair (the #1 conservative blog in the US) tomorrow because you would be a great asset on the skeptic “team” when hotair posts on climate.
It’s important to join hotair because conservatives in America make up the juggernaut leading world opinion against the warmist lunancy. Conservatives elsewhere haven’t quite got up to speed like in the US, but they are following in our lead. WE are the bellwether. But there are still some laggard conservatives like Christie that are in league with the leftists on climate. That’s why it’s important that we fully consolidate our strength among conservatives in the US by more of us from wuwt joining hotair.
AND TOMORROW IS THE ONLY DAY WE HAVE to join hotair. As I said, not since a day in 2011 have they opened up registration to new commenters, and tomorrow it happens again for just a few hours, get details: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/05/get-ready-for-open-registration-tomorrow-at-hot-air/
Arthur says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:35 pm
dihydrogen monoxide is a pollutant!!!
___________________
No! Because even when the message was about Global Warming, instead of Carbon Pollution, none of the “concern ninnies” knew what you were talking about. They’re still clueless.
The battle is lost anyhow.
How to believe in some kind of scientific truth?
There is no such a thing in the real world. It just doesn’t exist.
Keep your eyes on the administrations, the local, national and international bureaucrats, there industrial partners, the corruption … they have won the game/the war by lengths already.
Anything new under the pale moon light of enlightenment?
Peter
Enough worrying about carbon pollution, the real priority should be hydrogen pollution.
Just look at this scary image of hydrogen pollution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/epa-may-delay-climate-rules-for-new-power-plants/2013/03/15/28e9d37e-8cda-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html
I believe, that you, like many scientists, have been incredibly naive. Science isn’t the issue here; it’s simply a matter of making people believe what you want them to believe. Government has experience with this, using the manipulation of the masses brought to a fine art by Edward L. Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays got Americans to eat bacon, join a war they had no interest in in europe, got women to smoke cigarettes, despite a societal taboo against it, (by conflating the right to vote and the pervasive influence of fashionable upper class young people that were paid to smoke cigarettes and be photographed by newspapermen smoking at a prearranged moment at a massively attended suffragette demonstration. The next day,adventurous young women were smoking and the taboo was lost in a flood of liberation and talk of cigarettes as ‘torches of freedom’. Bernays also engineered the fluoride program
as a brilliant solution to the dumping of fluoride wastes and offering a way for Monsanto and Alcoa and DuPont, among the guiltiest of all corporations for widespread poisoning of the environment and their workers and the public at large.Fluoride, one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, was essential for mining aluminum, and uranium and plutonium.They used endless amounts of money to create propaganda and appeals to authority along with cover-ups, destruction of evidence and silencing of witnesses, to sidestep the flood of fluoride litigation that would make the lead controversy look like a Sunday school picnic. Scientists and MD’s have always gone along with these heinous plans, why you sound surprised, beats me. I have been on this site for 6 years and my observations about the political naivete of science people are confirmed every day. It will take more than well meaning hand wringing to change anything in this country. I suggest the brilliant video series ‘Century of the Self’,available freely on the internet and you will learn a lot.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but long-lasting psychological stress is damaging to human health. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265254.php. As a precautionary measure doom prognosticating AGW proponents should be X-rated and GHS08 classified, category 1, with signal word DANGER.
davidg:
Your post at February 5, 2014 at 2:12 pm provides a long list of excellent Red Herrings.
However, I write to offer some advice.
When attempting to troll it is most effective to dangle at most three Red Herrings. This is most likely to start a serious side-track of the thread. Dangling more than three Red Herrings can lead to people grabbing more than one, and the deflections of the thread soon disappear because they compete with each other.
Richard
Eric Simpson says: @ February 5, 2014 at 1:49 pm
Gail Combs says at 1:19 pm: link is in other comment
Remember that I think we get two free links in each comment…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Even my comment without any links went to moderation.
And yes I will try to remember to join tomorrow.
These people who think co2 is a pollutant ought to be forced to farm in a bubble purged of the stuff. Lets see how long they last. Co2 literally puts food on your plate.
Most members of the public cannot conceive how little free co2 we have. I tell them to hold one arm outstretched and hold the other out to the elbow. That is 1.5 metres.
Then tell them to note the thickness of their thumbnail. 0.6mm – 0.04% of 1.5metres.
Epictetus:
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
==============
It might take some convincing, even hard earned lessons, but I think impossible goes a step too far.
I’ve done it many, many times. Maybe even today.
Sometimes you don’t realize it till later.
Once you’ve been given time to think about it (a propagandist’s nightmare ), doubts may arise.
I take exception to: Epictetus.
Jimbo says CO2 is a dangerous trace gas. Maybe his name should be Dumbo, because he didn’t learn anything in 7th grade science! CO2 is not dangerous at all, it’s an essential trace gas!! No life without CO2! More CO2 = more life. Are you really that ignorant or are you just lying for the sake of it? Our nuclear subs have nearly 10k ppm of atmospheric CO2 aboard. If it was dangerous maybe the submariners would have shown damage after all these years.
It is a wonder that, since our own human windpipes and car tailpipes exhaust water vapor into the atmosphere, water vapor has not been id’d as a ‘major pollutant’ as its ‘greenhouse’ capabilities far far exceed those of harmless old CO2. Or maybe I shouldn’t give them the idea?
Eric Simpson says @ February 5, 2014 at 1:49 pm
“But there are still some laggard conservatives like Christie that are in league with the leftists on climate.”
Don’t leave out the flipflopper Mitt Romney, who is now “believes in” climate change after being against it … of course that could change tomorrow. Which way is the wind blowing?
glen martin says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:12 pm
“Just look at this scary image of hydrogen pollution.”
Here’s a scarier image of “hydrogen pollution”:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qoSjsjj9Clk/Ua4LOTFCe_I/AAAAAAAAAeg/VRxvQPN3DRw/s1600/Hindenburg%2Bdisaster.jpg
I’m not a troll, I am a bona fide skeptic and am just trying to get some of the people to lift their eyes above their blinders momentarily, that’s it.
None of the last 20 years of the all out climate propaganda campaign would add up if it was only a question of science, none of the billions being spent to ensure that one message is getting out. “Only we can save you from the Climate Armageddon to come. None of the spying, none of the destruction of the American way of life that was the envy of the world, that most people can no longer remember.Unfortunately for them, the internet has exposed them as what they are. Calling the facts I exposed red herrings only points at your own motivations, which must be dark, indeed. Are you seriously denying my point? Then you are ignorant of the history of all these things. I am not.
Maybe Jimbo should use quotes or sarc tags for Pete’s sake.
People are rejecting both dihydrogen monoxide and hydroxyl acid pollution fiercely, if asked about it, therefore the case is hopeless.
Carbon dioxide is not listed among pollutants in the Clean Air Act, but was put into that category by EPA as an executive measure, after the Supreme Court has authorized them in 2007 to do so after Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.
Once it was done, all rules and regulations related to “air pollutants” became applicable.
In order to gain authority over the substance, they were required to demonstrate “it endangered human health and welfare” and that’s what they purported to do.
At this stage I believe the only way to stop them is by specific legislation, which
1. Prohibits government agencies to use the expression “carbon pollution” when “carbon dioxide pollution” is meant.
2. Requires explicit scientific proof of each and every effect on “human health and welfare” listed by EPA. Computational climate models, if not fully validated against observational data, are disqualified. Validation should be demonstrated by independent &. public audit.
(a) Rising global temperatures: They are not rising in the last 17 years.
(b) Rising sea level: Rate of sea level rise is decelerating.
(c) Changes in weather and precipitation patterns: There is no observational evidence to it, beyond the fact weather is supposed to change all the time, which it does anyway, even with no anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission whatsoever.
(d) Changes in ecosystems, habitats and species diversity: The only hard proof we have in this respect is effect of carbon dioxide on increasing foliage cover across warm arid regions. To show this trend puts vulnerable citizens at risk may be a mighty challenge for regulators.
(e) More heat waves and drought: No empirical data supports this claim.
(f) Worsening smog (also called ground-level ozone pollution): Oh, hoo. Carbon dioxide has nothing to do with tropospheric ozone chemistry. Carbon monoxide has, but it is an entirely different substance, a deadly poison, as opposed to carbon dioxide, which has no effect on humans whatsoever in environmental concentrations.
(g) Increasing the intensity of extreme events, like hurricanes, extreme precipitation and flooding: No proof exists to this proposition. Global ACE is on the decline.
(h) Increasing the range of ticks and mosquitoes: As there is no warming, one is forced to believe that carbon dioxide alone can do that, which is nonsense.
If the reasons stated by EPA to put carbon dioxide into the “pollutant” bin are found to be invalid, that is, if it is found to have no provably discernible effect on human health and welfare, that label should no longer be used in government documents.
That’s what legislators can do. However, I am clueless if scientific bodies like NAS (created during the War Between the States by Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863 to investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art whenever called upon by any department of the Government) are not doing their job.
davidg:
OK. You are not a troll.
At February 5, 2014 at 2:12 pm you made your first post on WUWT. It provided a long list of excellent Red Herrings
You followed that with three more posts in the following 27 minutes.
Two of those posts attacked Jimbo who was the most frequent poster on WUWT in 2013 and the other accused me of having “dark motivations”.
But you are not a troll. You say you are
Sorry for my misunderstanding.
Richard
davidg says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:35 pm
“just trying to get some of the people to lift their eyes above their blinders momentarily, that’s it.”
===================
I have to disagree with your premise that readers / posters on this blog are politically blind. There are countless posts & comments on this blog that show a deep understanding that the issue of CO2 & CAGW is strongly political – I think this post by Dr. Ball falls firmly into that category.
This is first and foremost a science blog, not a political blog. The politics of the situation are undoubtedly delved into deeply elsewhere on the web. I think that many commenters / posters would say that the general public doesn’t have a good understanding of the science and when the science isn’t understood, it makes it easier for a psuedo-scientific agenda to be pushed & bought by an unsuspecting public. We can’t solve all the problems of the world but we can certainly try to better educate the public on the science of the subject, in hopes that the political wool won’t be pulled over their eyes. That’s how we are hoping to help lift the blinders of the public vs pure political arguments. It may not be the full answer in combatting the situation but it is part of the solution.
I still don’t understand how the scientific organizations were brought into line: The American Physical Society, The American Institute of Physics, The American Chemical Society, The American Geophysical Union, The Royal Society — they all have plunked down officially, determinedly, persistently, and outspokenly for the garbage science of AGW. Tim, you didn’t address that issue. What’s your take on it?
The APS, etc., clearly didn’t do it for money. The supportive comments by leaders of these institutions ring with sincerity. Their published analyses are full of equations and physics that pretend to a complete explanation of the response of the terrestrial climate to GHG emissions: relentless heat. They believe what they’re saying.
Nevertheless, all it takes is a straight-forward analysis to discover that AGW so-called science is a crock. Every one of these scientific organizations has failed its mission of science. I don’t understand how that happened, or how it happened so quickly. The kindest rationale is that they are each and all run by incompetents. Maybe there’s a density theory of science organizations, which shows that the lightest-weight scientists always rise to the top of any institutional hierarchy.
davidg says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:25 pm
******************************************
Easy on Jimbo, he’s transparent enough…
Except for the dark business of what is happening to Gail Combs’ missing comments…
Pat Frank says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm
“The APS, etc., clearly didn’t do it for money. The supportive comments by leaders of these institutions ring with sincerity. Their published analyses are full of equations and physics that pretend to a complete explanation of the response of the terrestrial climate to GHG emissions: relentless heat. They believe what they’re saying. ”
Assuming the leaders of the organisations are not bought and paid for, there is always the Peter Principle.
Pat Frank:
At February 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm you ask Tim Ball
I strongly commend that you spend the time waiting for Tim Ball to answer by reading the answers to your questions provided by Richard Lindzen which I linked in my above post at February 5, 2014 at 12:43 pm.
To save you needing to find it, I copy the link to here
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf
Richard
Jimbo says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:04 pm
……
Thanks for those references to global benefits of CO2. I was about to go on a search for such material. Hope I can return the favor in the future.
Thanks, Gail. Change the debate, folks. Whenever the term “carbon pollution” is used, ask what is wrong with diamonds raining down from above. Or, did they really mean carbon dioxide. Others want to confuse black soot, coal and diamonds with CO2.
The public often get confused between carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, but they affect the human body very differently.
CO is very toxic gas and highly flammable. It reacts violently with water and can form explosive mixtures with it.
CO2 is none of these and the lungs just help pass it through the body with no harm. Humans breath out 4% CO2 and even though CO2 is safe at current and expected future trends it does become toxic around 5%. Humans have nothing to worry about because CO2 levels will never reach anywhere near 50,000 ppm in future generations. The most CO2 levels have been over hundreds of millions of years are around 7,000 ppm. Future maximum CO2 levels are expected to be much lower than this, with even 800 ppm in doubt, due to not sure if there is even enough fuel to burn for this target. At current rates it would take about 180 years to reach this goal.
Call CO2 an “essential nutrient” or “plant food”.
“The concentration of the essential nutrient CO2 is being steadily restored to more productive levels.”
“The increase in the essential plant food CO2 is projected to cause $9.8 trillion in agricultural benefits by 2050.”
Ref: The Positive Externalities of Carbon Dioxide: Estimating the Monetary Benefits of Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations on Global Food Production Craig Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 21 October 2013
Berényi Péter
Re: “Carbon dioxide is not listed among pollutants in the Clean Air Act, but was put into that category by EPA as an executive measure, after the Supreme Court has authorized them in 2007 to do so after Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.”
Note that the Supreme Court did NOT “authorize them in 2007.”
See the 5:4 majority opinion in MASSACHUSETTS v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
The EPA did not follow its own internal rules for object evaluation. E.g. when Alan Carlin discovered the CO2 evaluation was in process, he quickly reviewed a wide range of information, but EPA superiors refused to consider that contrary evidence. See: Carlin Economics and Science: Publications
Note particularly p5:
This is a fraud on the working people of the world. It will collapse of its own weight in a manner similar to Enron or WorldCom. All the re-branding and re-classifying will only delay the inevitable. The only way to prevent this collapse is to restrict access to information and communication. That horse left the barn with the explosion of the Internet.
So cheer up. You simply cannot “fool all the people, all the time”. Most of the people inclined to believe this “speculation”, based on “appeal to authority”, have realized it is not a “imminent threat”. It won’t take much to move that sentiment into outright anger, over being lied to.
Ghandi did not say this –
Mahatma Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
It was an American Trade Union Leader about 30 years before him. I’m sick to death of people not knowing that
I have figured out some very complex things in my life, such as C++ pointers and what the heck the teacher means when she says “thus proving the Limit”, but I still don’t understand what “The medium is the message” means. I guess some things in life will just have to remain a mystery.
When Gandhi got to the fighting part, weren’t bullets involved?
Matt G, sympathies with your general point, but CO (carbon monoxide) does not react violently with water and does not form explosive mixtures with it.
Tom Harris has an article in Today’s “The Vancouver Sun” :
Opinion: Climate rhetoric undermines rational decision-making
Obama’s State of the Union address employed language tricks to bolster global warming scare
– – –
He also picks apart the usage of the word carbon.
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Opinion+Climate+rhetoric+undermines+rational+decision/9469309/story.html
@Patrick Guinness Frank
Well, I guess hydrogen produced in the water-gas shift reaction can get pretty explosive.
@Matt G
It is not only the “public”, EPA also does it. According to them public health risks of “carbon pollution” include “worsening smog (also called ground-level ozone pollution)”, which is ridiculous if “carbon” is meant to stand for “carbon dioxide”. On the other hand, if “carbon” is an umbrella term for both gases, it may make sense, but in that case it is regulation which is incomprehensible.
I just checked with the Quote Investigator site, http://garsonotoole.com . It hasn’t investigated this quote yet. You should send an e-mail requesting a ruling, and giving a your source for your attribution, to garsonotoole@gmail.com . Once he rules in your favor, this erroneous attribution won’t so often be made.
It beggars belief that anyone could seriously claim CO2 is a pollutant. There is a deliberate cynical attempt to confuse the issue by referring to ‘Carbon’ pollution and avoiding the term CO2. A lot of people will make the association with carbon monoxide, as MarkW said. It also brings the images of the big industrial chimney stacks belching out plumes of dirty, black sooty carbon pollution, like the ones we see in the dodgy photos of steam silhouetted against the sky. I think it is easy to explain the benefits of CO2 versus the speculation of any negatives there might be, to anyone who cares to raise the issue. Significantly,it’s essential to life on earth, and as a driver of the global climate, it’s very insignificant. Even if it does keep us a little bit warm, better to live with a greenhouse effect than an icehouse. What’s wrong with these people? They want to Freeze and starve us all to death.
V’ger believed the humans aboard the Enterprise to be carbon pollution. An infestation to be eliminated. Those that forget the lessons of the future are doomed to repeat them in the past.
good catch:
Obama is crusading against emissions of one specific compound of carbon, namely carbon dioxide. Ignoring the oxygen atoms and calling CO2 “carbon” makes about as much sense as ignoring the oxygen in water and calling it “hydrogen.”
========
garymount says:
February 5, 2014 at 4:35 pm
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Opinion+Climate+rhetoric+undermines+rational+decision/9469309/story.html
Tanya Aardman says:
February 5, 2014 at 3:54 pm
It was an American Trade Union Leader about 30 years before him.
=========
name? I often quote other people. It doesn’t mean I didn’t say it. It just means I didn’t say it first. I expect if you truly examine every important quote, in nearly every case somebody else actually said it first. The attribution is to the person who made it sound important.
David L. Hagen says:
February 5, 2014 at 3:42 pm
Berényi Péter
“Re: “Carbon dioxide is not listed among pollutants in the Clean Air Act…”
I’m sorry, I read your post, but the EPA, The Supreme Court, and the President of the United States has labeled CO2 as a pollutant. They sometimes refer to it as Carbon, or Carbon Pollution…
Pat Frank says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm
I still don’t understand how the scientific organizations were brought into line:
===========
follow the money. if you pay people $1 million to only have one eye, one arm, and one leg, within a very few years your will have thousands of people with only one eye, one arm, and one leg.
Warning.
Has the EPA ever considered the threat they are posing to the American Way of Life?
Where would the United States of America be without two of the major constituents of daily life, beer and bread?
Neither can be manufactured without producing significant volumes of that horrid noxious gas known as CO2. Are the voters in the United States to be left without say in this matter?
Are the Americans ready to be deprived of beer, bread and all other fermentation products?
A few years ago I suggested a bumper sticker:
CO2 Is Good for Plants, Good for the Earth, and Good for You!
Maybe it’s time to print some up.
Tim Ball: I appreciate your arguments and agree entirely, but I hope your book will lay out the history in a more systematic fashion. Here, you seemed to be jumping around; but maybe I was just being impatient.
Eric Simpson: Re HotAir: I followed Ed Morrissey there, when he closed his excellent Captain’s Quarters blog and joined the HotAir staff (they opened registration for CQ fans). I occasionally post there, but I’ve found that the volume of comments, and the prevalence of one-liners, is not conducive to meaningful discussion. For conservative talk, I prefer PowerLine. Steve Hayward there is, of course, a WUWT devotée.
/Mr Lynn
“dammed both” No rivers involved, Tim. Damned both, dang it.
To all Defenders of the Atmosphere:
You’re all exhaling 40,000 ppm carbon pollution! Stop it, hypocrites!
Walter Allensworth wrote:
I’m not buying that one. He doesn’t care whether it’s scientifically true/accurate/honest or not — he’s willfully ignorant at best. It suits his goals at the moment. Is he stupid? Hard to tell. Is he shrewd? Little doubt; he’s getting what he wants, or what he’s been told what he wants all his life. Affirmative action in the USA is a dangerous, destructive thing, with the best intentions, of course.
Most of the US Supremes (the court, not the old girl group) seem to be savants in the technicalities of US law, with large missing pieces in general knowledge, huge gaps in basic science knowledge, and little “common sense”.
How do you undermine a hole?
If I add pulverised brown coal or lignite to my light , sandy soil , in order to increase the exchange capacity , will that also be “carbon pollution”?
Why has there not been a massive class action law suite against the EPA for mislabeling a beneficial trace molecular gas costing the economy billions? Seems like it could be the easiest court room victory in history.
Wide public belief that carbon dioxide is a pollutant is a product of the failure of elementary school science education, which should have taught everyone that carbon dioxide is essential to plant life and therefore to everything that depends on plant life.
Still, it is mind boggling that something so grossly irrational should be accepted unquestioningly by anyone, especially anyone with even the least education.
Dear Sir, CO2 is vital requirement for the growth of corn etc. The more CO2 in the air the greater the yield of wheat. see http://www.threeuroprobe.org/ 2012 – 015 The Great Global Warming Fraud.
Mick G
Chad; The problem is too much education! These people have been educated way beyond their intelligence.
“Those that can, learn. those that can’t must be taught.” pg
2 other commonly trotted out mis-directions are:
– humans are adding xxGT of CO2 to the atmosphere without specifying that this is about 3% of the total and that Nature adds the other 97%, making our contribution miniscule in the scheme of things and
– starting with comments about CO2 then morphing to ‘carbon’ as if they are the same thing.
i find it very hard to understand why the people who post here have zero understanding of what is happening. The world is getting more heat retained. Why ? the result is ?. Now please people thing it is not about you it is about your grand grand kids. Yes u do not give a care about us but just think about those in 40 to 70 years onward. Do you care? that is my question
davidg says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:25 pm
Jimbo says CO2 is a dangerous trace gas. Maybe his name should be Dumbo….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jimbo is being sarcastic. Click on the links provided.
Keep the masses ignorant and they’ll believe anything.
Do you think it is a coincidence that the scientific and mathematical comprehension skills of UK school children has been steadily falling down the world rankings for decades?
(Who needs scientists and engineers anyway when you can get Indians and Chinese to produce everything for us!) /sarc.
davidg says: @ February 5, 2014 at 2:35 pm
I’m not a troll….Calling the facts I exposed red herrings only points at your own motivations…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Richard Courtney lives in the UK and is a ‘Socialist’ he is not an American and has a different view point on politics compared with conservative Americans. He also has a tremendous store of scientific knowledge and makes valuable contributions.
May I suggest you read E.M. Smith’s comment (He is an economist) “Evil Socialism” vs “Evil Capitalism” and the article America’s Ruling Class
Since I will get booted into moderation for another link, may I suggest you look at Jo Nova’s Climate Coup – The Politics:
joannenova (DOT)com(DOT)au/2012/03/climate-coup-the-politics/
As both you and Dr Ball said we are fighting with Masters of Propaganda. Speaking of which look into Ms. DeLauro (D-CT) husband, Stan Greenburg. Like Maurice Strong he is one of the behind the scenes guys with a lot of power.
One of his consulting firms is Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Greenberg provides strategic advice and research for leaders, companies, campaigns, and NGOs. His political work has included serving as lead pollster and strategist to the campaigns of President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and South African president Nelson Mandela… for politicians in over 60 countries.
“…He is also a strategic consultant to the Climate Center of the Natural Resources Defense Council on its multi-year campaign on global warming….”
“..Greenberg has been described as “the father of modern polling techniques,” “the De Niro of all political consultants,” and “an unrivaled international ‘guru’.” Esquire Magazine named him one of the most important people of the 21st century. The New York Times writes that Greenberg “acts as a sort of people’s truth squad,” while Republican pollster Frank Luntz says “Stan Greenberg scares the hell out of me. He doesn’t just have a finger on the people’s pulse; he’s got an IV injected into it. He’s the best.”…”
Greenberg writes for the Democratic Strategist, formed the Democracy Corps, and is linked to the London School of Economics (Fabian) Third Way philosophy.
You might want to read: “Globalization and Middle Class Prosperity” by Greenberg
(www DOT)thedemocraticstrategist(DOT)org/archives/premiere/greenberg.php
Pat Frank says: @ February 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm
I still don’t understand how the scientific organizations were brought into line…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually it was fairly easy.
The guy who actually runs the scientific organization is NOT a Scientist. He is an administrator possibly from HAAaavard Business School (in Boston, home of the foremost Marxist Scholars in the world) or the Fabian London School of Economics. Scientists are generally politically naive and besides the rank and file members were never asked their opinion in the matter it was just announced. Not to mention Survey shocker: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement… studies reveal that 5 percent to 7 percent of faculty openly identify as Republicans.
As Dr. Ball pointed out the battle is political.
As Pascal Lamy a French socialist, former EU bureaucrat and Director-General of the World Trade Organization, pointed out:
In the 1930s World Leaders ” agreed that the road to peace lay with building a new international order, an approach to international relations that questioned the Westphalian, sacrosanct principle of sovereignty — rooted in freedom, openness, prosperity and interdependence.”
Lamy also pointed out the formation of the United Nations, World Bank, IMF and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT ==> WTO) were the result of this agreement.
His key statements that apply today are:
“The reality is that, so far, we have largely failed to articulate a clear and compelling vision of why a new global order matters — and where the world should be headed…
…climate change negotiations are not just about the global environment but global economics as well — the way that technology, costs and growth are to be distributed and shared….
Can we balance the need for a sustainable planet with the need to provide billions with decent living standards? Can we do that without questioning radically the Western way of life? “
As a result of this agreement among World Leaders we got the First Earth Summit in 1972 run by Maurice Strong (Socialist living in China after Food for Oil scandal at the UN).
The trial balloon Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, Vienna, 22 March 1985 followed by the Montreal Protocol (1989) to ban Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) (IT WORKED, let’s go for the gold!)
This was followed by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) and the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1997)
Everything was tripping along nicely until China threw a monkey wrench into the works at Copenhagen. [How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room – Mark Lynas] Clinton had already give China US technology and gotten them into the WTO. Because Clinton had the DOE relax security at US weapons labs it allowed Wen Ho Lee, a Chinese physicist assigned to Los Alamos, to illegally transferred data on nuclear warheads to his private computer files and thence to China. So why should China want to curtail their economic growth? They already had all the technology [aka bribes] from the USA they wanted. Now the Chinese are thumbing their nose at the USA as they claim more territory and try to oust the dollar as the World Reserve Currency even going so far as to set up a rival bank to the IMF/World Bank. (search BRICS Development Bank)
We also got ‘Harmonization of Laws’
In June of 2007, The European Union and the United States announced the signing of a Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration at a summit in Washington. President Bush described the agreement to the press as “a statement of the importance of trade”and claimed that it was “a commitment to eliminating barriers to trade” and “a recognition that the closer that the United States and the EU become, the better off our people become.”
The United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law is worth browsing through.
AussiejB:
At February 6, 2014 at 1:09 am you write
You are joking, aren’t you?
This entire thread is about “what is happening”.
There is no evidence – none, zilch, nada – that “The world is getting more heat retained”.
Global Average Surface Temperature Anomaly (GASTA) shows no change (i.e. no warming and no cooling) discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence for at least the last 17 years; RSS says 24.5 years. In other words, global warming stopped at least 17 years ago. And the climate models failed to indicate this cessation of global warming.
Nobody can know if the present stasis in global warming or cooling will end with warming or cooling. But we do know that constraining fossil fuels will impoverish and kill many people. All human activity requires adequate energy supply. People die without sufficient energy to grow crops, to build housing and equipment, to make and use tools, to make products, and to move products from where they are made to where they are needed. Fossil fuels and nuclear power are the ONLY sources of sufficient energy supply to meet present needs. The industrial revolution happened – and human population exploded – when the energy in fossil fuels became available to do work by use of the steam engine.
This provision of energy to do work by use of fossil fuels released people from the limitations of windpower, solar power and the power of the muscles of animals and slaves. And that is why human population exploded with the industrial revolution. There is no possibility that return to wind, sun, animals and slaves could sustain the existing human population.
And human population continues to grow. It is conservatively estimated that human population will grow by another 2.6 billion before starting to decline around the middle of this century. Those additional billions need additional energy supply to survive, and that means more use of fossil fuels because nuclear power only produces electricity and not everything can be operated from the end of a wire; e.g. agricultural tractors can’t. Constraining the use of fossil fuels would kill more than 2 billion people – mostly children – and would be slaughter on a scale which by comparison would make insignificant the combined activities of Pol Pot, Stal1n and H1tler.
The Precautionary Principle says we should not constrain use of fossil fuels with the resulting certain death of billions of people – mostly children – merely because computer games with no predictive skill suggest that global warming may happen.
But there are people who lack care for “our grand kids” so want to constrain the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. We oppose them.
Richard
“This provision of energy to do work by use of fossil fuels released people from the limitations of windpower, solar power and the power of the muscles of animals and slaves.”
That is it in a nutshell. Very well said Richard. I only wish more alarmists would take the time to look at the full picture.
Remember the people in the days of your life,
who
baited,
insulted,
defamed,
humiliated,
and mocked
honest men
for telling the simple unvarnished
truth.
Remember who they are.
Tell your children who they are.
Call them to you.
Show them how a defeated scammer melts down when caught scamming.
Tell you children about how hundreds of people came forward
pointing out violation of physical law,
after careless violation of physical law.
Tell them how scores of respected scientific professionals
were mocked and derided
because they resisted corrupted, fraudulent, scam pseudo-science.
Remind your children that the world is full
of greasy glad handing good-old-boys,
manic depressive entertainers,
slicksters in suits,
and con men in lab coats.
Tell them not to be naive.
Tell your children the story,
about the people who took over science
peddling the concept cold nitrogen/oxygen bath
made the entire earth warmer
than if there were no cold nitrogen/oxygen bath.
Tell them about the men who are responsible for their being taught that
“placing reflective gas between light from a fire – the sun,
and a sphere – the earth,
makes planetary heat sensors show
more energy
arriving on the surface of the earth,
than when there was 20%
more energy
arriving on the surface of the earth.
—————————-
Tolstoy:
“I know that most men,
including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity,
can seldom accept
even the simplest
and most obvious truth
if it be such as would oblige them
to admit the falsity of conclusions
which they delighted in explaining to colleagues,
which they have proudly taught to others,
and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
I’m not kidding when I say I have run into people in life and online that think they are talking about carbon MONoxide. “Of course it’s a pollutant, its very dangerous, that’s why we have detectors for it in our home….”
Seriously. These people are breeding and voting.
Tanya Aardman
Re Gandhi & Trade union. The statements were similar but not identical. Gandhi’s is disputed.
at Frank says:
February 5, 2014 at 4:24 pm
Matt G, sympathies with your general point, but CO (carbon monoxide) does not react violently with water and does not form explosive mixtures with it.
———————————————————————————————————————-
It is surprising what CO can do and how dangerous it is.
“light of recent studies describing conditions under which an explosive reaction may occur in this mixture of reactant and products: oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water vapor.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0008622387901527
Gas/air mixtures are explosive.
http://actrav.itcilo.org/actrav-english/telearn/osh/ic/630080.htm
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-limits-d_423.html
farmerbraun said @ February 5, 2014 at 7:33 pm
Dunno, but when I make compost I am converting pretty much all the cellulose into CO2 and water vapour. That’s what generates the heat needed by the thermophilic bacteria that convert the lignin into humus.
@ Matt G
From the first link you provide:
[emphasis mine]
You need to improve your reading comprehension skills. This is not a violent reaction between CO and water (H2O) as originally stated by yourself. The explosive reaction is between CO and O2.
The Pompous Git says:
February 6, 2014 at 1:30 pm
You need to improve your reading comprehension skills. This is not a violent reaction between CO and water (H2O) as originally stated by yourself. The explosive reaction is between CO and O2.
————————————————————————————————————————–
“The generation of water from residual hydrogen in the carbon is a key factor in the development of explosive conditions through a radical chain reaction in the gas phase.”
The reaction doesn’t occur without water vapor, CO and O2 does not react. Hence, the reaction between CO and H2O needs added O2 to be explosive. A violent reaction between CO and water occurs because of the natural presence of oxygen. Where anywhere on the planet in any circumstances will there be no oxygen? Nothing burns or explodes without any O2 even hydrogen. Try and make a hydrogen rocket without mix of oxygen. They have poorly worded this in the text, it is CO and water vapor that causes the explosion.
Matt G:
I suspect you may be getting confused by what happens in the water gas shift reaction.
If there is sufficient heat to generate the reaction then C, O2, CO, CO2 and H2 will coexist if there is sufficient heat to generate CO from partial combustion of carbon (C).
I explain this as follows.
Carbon (e.g. wood, coal, paper, etc.) burns in a 2-stage reaction with oxygen (O2) in the air.
Stage 1
2C +O2 –> 2.CO
This consumes heat so a fire is hard to start.
Stage 2
2.CO + O2 –> 2.CO2
This releases a lot more heat than is consumed by Stage 1 so a started fire spreads.
Partial combustion provides enough heat from Stage 2 to enable all of Stage 1 but only some of Stage 2. Thus, both CO and CO2 result. This is why partial combustion in faulty fireplaces can (and does) kill people: CO is toxic.
So, partial combustion of C can provide CO and CO2 and some extra heat. If the extra heat is sufficient and water is present then the water gas shift may occur to generate hydrogen (H2).
CO + H2O CO2 + H2
Hydrogen (H2) spontaneously explodes when in an appropriate proportion with oxygen
2.H2 + O2 –> 2.H2O
Richard
OOps
I intended
2.H2 + O2 2.H2O
Sorry.
Richard
No, it still did not work.
I will try this
2.H2 + O2 2.H2O
I will try words.
The water gas shift occurs in both directions.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
February 6, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Getting closer, good explanation and that is how I understood the explosion part. I did mean that the reaction doesn’t occur or doesn’t react with CO + O2 referring to no explosion. Not that there is no reaction at all between the two like you have shown.
This is the key reaction.
CO + H2O > CO2 + H2
and without O2 this below in not possible
2H2 + O2 > 2H20
Matt G said @ February 6, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Bullsh!t.Carbon monoxide burns with a blue flame, producing carbon dioxide. It was a component in Town Gas along with other calorific gases: hydrogen, methane and volatile hydrocarbons, that we cooked with in UKLand when I was a mere tadpole.
Unless we all recognise that AGW is but a gentle softening up for Agenda 21, we will lose the real battle and that is against Agenda 21 and its policies, which not only encompass AGW, but threaten our rights as individuals and families, self determination and even our right to exist.
I wrote a little about it at http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
But most of all read Ian Wishart’s book ‘Totalitaria’ whose research is far more in depth than mine.
His book has made a significant impact at the UN causing the revamp of their website and the removal of references to the Lucis Trust, probably their most influential NGO.
Cheers
Roger
The Pompous Git says:
February 6, 2014 at 4:06 pm
You didn’t read what I responded too with the post to Richard earlier.
“I did mean that the reaction doesn’t occur or doesn’t react with CO + O2 referring to no explosion. Not that there is no reaction at all between the two like you have shown.”
CO + O2 do react of course, but there is no reaction that triggers explosion.
*In Praise of CO2.*
What CO2
Does for you
It brews your beer
To bring you good cheer.
It leavens your bread
To keep you well fed.
It helps your plants grow
Whatever you sow.
To keep us all happy, well fed and growth unceasing
Just let CO2 keep on increasing.
*JOB, Calgary*
*February 8, 2014.*
On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Watts Up With That? wrote:
> Matt G commented: “The Pompous Git says: February 6, 2014 at 4:06 pm > You didn’t read what I responded too with the post to Richard earlier. “I > did mean that the reaction doesn’t occur or doesn’t react with CO + O2 > referring to no explosion. Not that there is no react” >