Dr. Patrick Moore sent me this last week, and after reading it, I agree with him in his initial note to me that
This is probably the most important paper I will ever write.
Moore looks at the historical record of CO2 in our atmosphere and concludes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. He notes:
A 140 million year decline in CO2 to levels that came close to threatening the survival of life on Earth can hardly be described as “the balance of nature”.
Now, with 400ppm in the atmosphere, the biosphere is once again booming (see figure 8 below). He also points out how environmental groups and politicians are using the “crisis” of CO2 increase to feather their own nests:
A powerful convergence of interests among key elites supports and drives the climate catastrophe narrative. Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; scientists and science institutions raise billions in public grants, create whole new institutions, and engage in a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; businesses want to look green and receive huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as large wind farms and solar arrays. Even the Pope of the Catholic Church has weighed in with a religious angle. Lost in all these machinations is the indisputable fact that the most important thing about CO2 is that it is essential for all life on Earth and that before humans began to burn fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was heading in a very dangerous direction for a very long time. Surely, the most “dangerous” change in climate in the short term would be to one that would not support sufficient food production to feed our own population
A link to the full report follows. I highly recommend it as a sensible and practical take on the issue. – Anthony Watts
Executive Summary
This study looks at the positive environmental effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a topic which has been well established in the scientific literature but which is far too often ignored in the current discussions about climate change policy. All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere. As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth.
This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation. It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments. The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees. Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.
Introduction
This extremely positive aspect of human CO2 emissions must be weighed against the unproven hypothesis that human CO2 emissions will cause a catastrophic warming of the climate in coming years. The one-sided political treatment of CO2 as a pollutant that should be radically reduced must be corrected in light of the indisputable scientific evidence that it is essential to life on Earth.
There is a widespread belief that CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy are a threat to the Earth’s climate and that the majority of species, including the human species, will suffer greatly unless these emissions are drastically curtailed or even eliminated.
1. This paper offers a radically different perspective based on the geological history of CO2. CO2 is one of the most essential nutrients for life on Earth. It has been approaching dangerously low levels during recent periods of major glaciation in the Pleistocene Ice Age, and human emissions of CO2 may stave off the eventual starvation and death of most life on the planet due to a lack of CO2.
2. This is not primarily a discussion of the possible connection between CO2 and global warming or climate change, although some mention must be made of it. There has been a great deal of discussion on the subject, and it is hotly contested in both scientific and political spheres.
There is no question that the climate has warmed during the past 300 years since the peak of the Little Ice Age. There is also no question that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and all else being equal, the emissions would result in some warming if CO2 rose to higher levels in the atmosphere. Yet, there is no definitive scientific proof that CO2 is a major factor in influencing climate in the real world. The Earth’s climate is a chaotic, non-linear, multivariant system with many unpredictable feedbacks, both positive and negative. Primarily, this is a discussion about the role of atmospheric CO2 in the maintenance of life on Earth and the positive role of human civilization in preventing CO2 from trending downward to levels that threaten the very existence of life.
End Points
We should ask those who predict catastrophic climate change, including the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, some pressing questions regarding the outcome if humans had not intervened in the carbon cycle.
- What evidence or argument is there that the global climate would not revert to another glacial period in keeping with the Milankovitch cycles as it has done repeatedly during at least the past 800,000 years?
- What evidence is there that we are not already past the maximum global temperature during this Holocene interglacial period? • How can we be certain that in the absence of human emissions the next cooling period would not be more severe than the recent Little Ice Age?
- Given that the optimum CO2 level for plant growth is above 1,000 ppm and that CO2 has been above that level for most of the history of life, what sense does it make to call for a reduction in the level of CO2 in the absence of evidence of catastrophic climate change?
- Is there any plausible scenario, in the absence of human emissions, that would end the gradual depletion of CO2 in the atmosphere until it reaches the starvation level for plants, hence for life on earth?
These and many other questions about CO2, climate and plant growth require our serious consideration if we are to avoid making some very costly mistakes.
LINK TO FULL REPORT: THE POSITIVE IMPACT OF HUMAN CO2 EMISSIONS ON THE SURVIVAL OF LIFE ON EARTH (PDF)
Moore – Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions
![Dr-Moore-Photo-2010-120x180[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/dr-moore-photo-2010-120x1801.jpg?quality=83)
Dr. Patrick Moore is a Senior Fellow with the Energy, Ecology and Prosperity program at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He has been a leader in the international environmental field for over 40 years. Dr. Moore is a Co-Founder of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. Following his time with Greenpeace, Dr. Moore joined the Forest Alliance of BC where he worked for ten years to develop the Principles of Sustainable Forestry, which have now been adopted by much of the industry. In 2013, he published Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout – The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, which documents his 15 years with Greenpeace and outlines his vision for a sustainable future.
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Dr. Moore. Thank you for a well written exposition of the benefits of CO2.
http://oi65.tinypic.com/erets1.jpg
He’s probably not a credentialed climate scientist.
“He’s probably not a credentialed climate scientist.”
What nonsense! What is a “credentialed” climate scientist? Most I know are political activists and know little about how the climate system works and are woefully ignorant of atmospheric or related science.
I think Jean was joking!!
Hi Patrick: If she is then my mistake and apology.. BUT….you know this is a typical response from those who disagree with the environmental religion of AGW….”you’re not credentialed or qualified to comment or write papers about “climate science””. I see it all the time.
I meant agree with the environmental religion of AGW….:)
Yes, I was joking. (and Jean Parisot was definitely not a girl – http://www.badassoftheweek.com/valette.html )
It’s okay, Chuck – living in Oregon, I’m conditioned to expect that sort of thing too.
.
I would agree. But the threat to flora during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was greater than Moore says. Because the partial pressure of Co2 reduces with altitude, plants at high altitude were severely starved of CO2 (just as we are starved of O2 at high altitude). The result of this was a widespread extinction of flora throughout the Gobi Desert, which became a Co2 desert instead of a moisture desert. And became a shifting-sand desert, instead of steppe grasslands. And the resulting dust storms from this new Co2 desert covered the northern ice sheets in dust, lowered their albedo, and allowed them to absorb more insolation and melt. Thus the interglacial was able to progress, and warm the planet.
My paper on this theory has been approved by Geoscience Frontiers, a peer-review science journal, and will be published in July. And as an aside, the paper demonstrates that Co2 is a minor player in the saga of the ice age cycle.
However, I would disagree with Moore that we were on the brink of another ice age. Because orbital eccentricity is currently at a minimum, the Milankovitch cycle has a very small amplitude. And so there is no deep Great Winter (Milankovitch insolation minimum), to drive the climate into an ice age. So it is likely that the world would have remained climatically stable, whether we produced emissions or not. (And the main warming emissions we are emitting are dust and soot, not Co2. Chinese smog and soot darkens the ice sheets, and melts the ice sheets.)
Looking at the orbital cycles, the next (mild) Great Winter capable of initiating an ice age does not happen for another 60 kyr. And the next really deep Great Winter which would most certainly initiate an ice age is in 200 kyrs time. So we happen to be in a very stable climatic period. And we could easily stave off the (mild) cooling in 50 kry time, by spraying soot on the ice sheets. The effects of albedo changes on climate are orders of magnitude greater than the paltry effects of Co2.
I will give a link to the peer-review paper, when the final version is formerly published. And thanks to Mike Palmer for mentoring this complex and time-consuming project.
Ralph Ellis.
Ralph, I look forward to it.
I would like to engage with you further on this, especially the vagaries of the Milankovitch Cycles. Are the most recent 4 glaciation cycles, as seen in the Vostok ice cores, typical of the past 2.5 million years or are there other patterns of cycles? I have read there have been 22 documented glaciations of various intensity. Do they all follow the 100,000 yr. pattern? What constitutes the requirement for a Great Winter? Has it to do with the alignment of the 3 cycles? It is not easy to find details on this subject so I would appreciate any direction you could send me in. pmoore@ecosense.me.
Dr Moore-
Here’s the newest, really interesting study on Co2-Insolation related glacial inceptions.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7585/full/nature16494.html
From the abstract-
“Using an ensemble of simulations generated by an Earth system model of intermediate complexity constrained by palaeoclimatic data, we suggest that glacial inception was narrowly missed before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The missed inception can be accounted for by the combined effect of relatively high late-Holocene CO2 concentrations and the low orbital eccentricity of the Earth7.
Additionally, our analysis suggests that even in the absence of human perturbations no substantial build-up of ice sheets would occur within the next several thousand years and that the current interglacial would probably last for another 50,000 years. However, moderate anthropogenic cumulative CO2 emissions of 1,000 to 1,500 gigatonnes of carbon will postpone the next glacial inception by at least 100,000 years8, 9. Our simulations demonstrate that under natural conditions alone the Earth system would be expected to remain in the present delicately balanced interglacial climate state, steering clear of both large-scale glaciation of the Northern Hemisphere and its complete deglaciation, for an unusually long time.”
Yes, I know…simulations…model…intermediate complexity….all nasty words. But it’s interesting. I take it as them saying that the bullet you want to say we dodged with Human Emissions might not actually have been fired yet…
>>Patrick
>>would like to engage with you further on this, especially
>>the vagaries of the Milankovitch Cycles.
Sure, I will send details.
What appears to have been missed before, is that interglacials only occur every four or five Great Summers (Milankovitch maximums), and are therefore either every 85 or 105 kyr apart. In addition, the Great Year has a cycle that varies from 15 to 27 kyr. So any Fourier harmonic analysis of these highly variable ice age or Great Year cycles are sort of doomed to failure. As has been demonstrated in many papers – they end up looking at completely the wrong correlations.
The ice age cycle is variable because orbital eccentricity enhances the Great Year – both the Great Summer and the Great Winter – over the 100 kyr eccentricity cycle. Which is one reason why ice ages appear to have a roughly 100 kyr cycle. In addition to this, the other main driver of interglacial warming is CO2 REDUCTIONS ! These CO2 reductions are direcly proportional to temperature, and so another driver of interglacials is ice sheet growth, and thus sea temperature reductions, and thus CO2 reductions, and thus CO2 desert production.
Whatever the strength of the Great Year, an interglacial cannot occur until CO2 deserts have been formed, and dust storms have covered the northern ice sheets in dust. Only now can an eccentricity-enhanced Great Summer get enough leverage on the reflective ice to generate an interglacial. And it takes about 80 kyr before the ice sheets are latge enough and the temperatures and CO2 low enough, that CO2 deserts are formed. Thus any enhanced Great Summers before this time are ignored by the climate and do not produce warming.
In addition, the eccentricity cycle has an extended minimum every 400 kyr. This produces weak Great Summers and Great Winters, meaning that the interglacial warming can be extended – because there is no strong Great Winter to force the climate into its glacial mode. We happen to be in an eccentricity minimum at oresent, with weak Great Years. And so the interglacial can be extended either naturally or via human intervention (by spraying soot on the northern ice sheets).
So there is a simple (complex?) interaction of a dozen variables, which control the ice age cycle. Which is probably why this cycle has to be solved and explained by a thought experiment, rather than a mathematical analysis.
Ralph
eccentricity, obliquity, precession, ice sheets, cold temperatures, oceanic solubility, CO2 reductions, flora decimation with altitude, CO2 desert production, dust production, ice albedo reductions, insolation absorption, ice sheet melting.
>>Aphan
>>Here’s the newest, really interesting study on
>>Co2-Insolation related glacial inceptions.
Which appears to explain very little (in the abstract). Apart from confirming my assertion that we are not due to have another ice age for at least 50 kyrs. (Do you have the full paper, non-paywall?)
Firstly, this paper only appears to relate to the Holocene.
Secondly it does not explain interglacials, which is the most difficult aspect of ice age modulation reasoning and explanation.
Thirdly it merely assumes that CO2 is the primary climatic warming agent. But where is the evidence for this? CO2 increases are also coincident with oil production increases, but this does not mean that CO2 aids oil production.
Fourthly, their fig 1 makes it look as if we are in an eccentricity maximum, when we are actually in an eccentricity minimum.
So what does this paper explain, exactly? Apart from ‘CO2 keeps us warm’ and in an interglacial. (Which it does not – the present interglacial is likely being maintained by European, then American, and now Chinese dust and soot emissions.)
R
ralfellis:
http://sci-hub.bz/10.1038/nature16494
>>Gnomish
That link comes up with a Russian site if indeterminate nature.
What does it do?
R
gawd.. never mind, then. why freakin bother.
last time i get you past a paywall, lazy person.
Sorry, Gnomy, would you click on a site you cannot read?
uh… how do you suppose i find wonderful things like paywall busting site named sci hub?
you could google that, but nooooo
or you might have noticed the rest of the URL which by no coincidence is the DOI number for 10.1038/nature16494, but noooo
instead what do you do? you lose out cuz lazy and scared.
so lie to yourself that you were exercising discretion – but the real phenomenon is unadulterated lame.
i have an allergy to that. it offends the hell out of me. excuses are not coin and no apology changes anything.
such individuals don’t deserve favors and i don’t give second chances.
learn the lesson or not. i won’t bet on a loser twice.
grow some or go crawl back in.
I would change some of the wording.
I am afraid “nadir” is too obscure for many people.
Well done. There is no doubt that plants have been evolving toward more effective CO2 removal for tens of millions of years. Not just C4 plants, but other cellular structural changes, such as CAM. This is not new, people have been studying photosynthesis for quite a while. Evolution is a matter of survival over long time periods.
Another excellent Patrick Moore post
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/21/moores-law-co2-good-climate-change-bunk-greens-follow-religious-fundamentalism/#more-111768
Good for you bw.
CAM plant metabolism is often overlooked, but many commercially important crops use this mechanism.
And not just pineapples.
Also, most plants are not restricted to one or another mechanism, but can utilize multiple metabolic pathways depending upon conditions.
It seems likely that the genes exist in many plants to activate unused mechanisms when the need presents itself.
We know very little of the extent to which epigenetic changes can and do occur in pants and animals, but who is going to be surprised to learn that life is far less fragile than many suppose?
What has happened after every single major cataclysmic upheaval?
I think it is important to note that CO2 has gone below 200ppm on numerous occasions during the Pleistocene, probably more that we have records for as ice cores go back only 800,000 YBP. So all terrestrial plant life has been tested by low CO2 over many millennial cycles, providing the opportunity for selection of traits that confer survival under lower CO2 than during the deep historical record.
Regardless, though, of the discussion of possible future climate states, CO2 was in an apparently inevitable decline for a very long time and unless a miracle occurred, would continue to be sequestered into the deep sediments as CaCO3. I am simply postulating the humans are that (secular) miracle, bringing a balance back to the global carbon cycle.
Sounds to me like carbon capture at source is vital to ensure we can fertilize the planet into the future and save humanity.
gaining media traction – well done
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/greenpeace-co-founder-argues-rising-emissions-are-/
I’m very surprised and skeptical that there has been a decrease in vegetation surrounding most of the Arctic. If anything, these are the areas that should have seen the biggest increase in primary productivity over that time span.
I notice that most of the US east coast (on the map) is 0 percent growth. I am quite sure that Pennsylvania and other areas of the Appalachians have grown at least 10% during the last 20-30 years. I know of areas that have become overgrown with vegetation in this eastern US area. I guess it could be because of development, but PA has lost population.
Oops, looks like PA has grown in population by about a million. 11.86 M in 1980 to 12.79 M in 2014…
I know that Philadelphia has list a lot of it’s population, from over 2,000,000 to around 1,500,000.
( and there are many more trees in Philly since 1980) – just a hunch.
I agree, same for the Arctic where we are being told by other sources that it is greening too.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-studies-details-of-a-greening-arctic
Should open a dialogue with CSIRO in Australia who have produced the global greening map.
The imbeciles and liars at Hot Whoppers are predictably in a spittle-flecked fury about it:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/10/climate-disinformer-patrick-moore-talks.html
“Spittle flecked fury”. My new favorite phrase. 🙂
Bruce, that is how one knows when one is over the target…the flak, and flecks, increase dramatically.
I think Dr. Moore has navigated to a position likely to come under intense fire…which means he is right on the mark.
Bravo Dr. Moore!
Hate, it’s what she does. “Sou”, aka Miriam O’Brien has nothing else left in her life as far as I can tell.
“Sou” sure is obsessed with you and all of us at WUWT.
I can see a future when all the fossil fuels are exhausted that man starts grinding rocks to extract CO2 to pump it into the atmosphere so that plants don’t die…..
I believe that is entirely plausible. At the average rate of decline over the past 140 million years, only 34,000 tons of C as CO2 would be required to maintain CO2 at a stable level. Even today cement manufacture emits 5% of human C emissions as CO2 of 10 billion tons/yr so about 0.5 billion or 500,000 tons. So we are already converting more than 10 as much CaCO3 into CaO and CO2 as would be necessary to stabilize the atmospheric level. Not to worry!
Patrick Moore-
“At the average rate of decline over the past 140 million years, only 34,000 tons of C as CO2 would be required to maintain CO2 at a stable level. ”
Are you sure? Math check!
“The natural CO2 flux to and from oceans and land plants amounts to approximately 210 gigatons of carbon annually. Man currently causes about 8 gigatons of carbon to be injected into the atmosphere, about 4% of the natural annual flux.” – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/02/most-of-the-rise-in-co2-likely-comes-from-natural-sources/#sthash.6BmXdrfq.dpuf
A gigaton=1 billion tons, so 8 gigatons equals 8 BILLION tons. That is MUCH, much more than 36,000 tons of carbon. And if cement production emits 5% of human emissions every year, that’s not “0.5 billion, or 500,000 tons” Dr. Moore (if emissions are 10 gigatons instead of 8) that’s 0.5 billion or 500,000,000 tons (rather than just Five Hundred Thousand tons, you need three more zeros…Five Hundred Million tons)
In order to maintain the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, we’d have to be able to consistently make sure the Earth and it’s carbon systems CONTINUALLY produce and absorb 202 gigatons (202 billion tons) of carbon every year, AND humans would have to continue to put 8-10 gigatons (8-10 billion tons) into the atmosphere along with it. I don’t know where you got 34,000 tons, but I’d like to see your math. 🙂
As you have repeatedly pointed out Dr. Moore, all by itself, Earth was been putting less and less Co2 into the atmosphere for the past 140 million years. So if the previous rate of decline remains constant, we’d have to put a little more, and a little more, and a little more into the atmosphere over time to compensate for the rate of decline. Right?
“but I’d like to see your math.”
I presume it goes
140M yrs ago, CO2=2500ppm = .0025*12/30*5e+18kg=5000Gtons C
Now CO2=400*12/30*5e+18kg=800Gton C
Decline rate=(5000-800)e+9/(140e+6)=30000 tons C/year
Maybe he reckons more than 2500 ppm back then.
Nick-
Here’s YOUR math-not Dr. Moore’s, which I’d like to see.
“I presume it goes
140M yrs ago, CO2=2500ppm = .0025*12/30*5e+18kg=5000Gtons C
Now CO2=400*12/30*5e+18kg=800Gton C
Decline rate=(5000-800)e+9/(140e+6)=30000 tons C/year”
You seem to have missed those extra 3 zeros too. Unless you want the stable level of CO2 to be different than today’s level. Because human yearly contribution is 10G, and Nature’s is approximately 200G. That equals 210G a year. To maintain today’s level, would require 210 G year without a decline rate, and humans contribute 10 G a year. Not 10 tons, not 10,000 tons. Not 30,000 tons. 10,000,000,000 metric tons…WITHOUT any rate of decline added onto Nature’s portion.
Oh, and we’d have to be able to control Nature’s output as well. Which is 200 times more than ours. To be “stable”. Cake!
“To maintain today’s level, would require 210 G year”
Well, that’s what is called reductio ad absurdum. CO2 has been changing only slowly for millions of years. If maintaining that requires a source of 210 Gtons per year, then where is it coming from?
It’s the usual fallacy. “Nature’s is approximately 200G”. Not sure whether you mean source of sink, but the absurd follows either way. Nature’s net contribution has to be small, and isindeed probably about 34,000 tons negative. Your 200Gtons consists mainly of photosynthesis/respiration, and seasonal ocean exchange. They have to balance in the medium term. The respiration/decomposition source is necessarily of recently reduced (by photosynthesis) C. And the sea exchange is mainly seasonal. What is absorbed in winter is outgassed in summer. The temperature is cyclic, and so is the CO2 flux.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure PM’s arithmetic is as I suggested, and is sound.
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf
Nick, we’re talking MUCH bigger numbers. And maintaining the “status quo” of our climate indefinitely -stabilizing it at it’s current levels. According to this chart, my numbers were way of…as in WAY too SMALL.
From the IPCC 2001 report- Global Natural and Anthropogenic Sources and Absorption of Greenhouse Gases in the 1990s- http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf
“CO2-Annual in the Atmosphere”
Source-Nature-770,000 MILLION metric tons
Source-Human-23,100 million metric tons
Total-793,100 Million Metric tons
Absorption-781,400 Million Metric tons
793,100 million metric tons-793,000 million metric tons=
ANNUAL INCREASE in Gas (CO2 in this case) in the Atmosphere-11,700 Million Metric tons”
(of course the IPCC and the federal government could be complete and utter fools who cannot estimate or add or subtract accurately-so take it up with them if these particular numbers are “absurd”)
We’re not talking thousands Nick, or hundred thousands, or even millions. We’re talking hundred thousand millions.
So, in the 1990’s the total amount that NATURE emitted, in CO2, into the atmosphere, ANNUALLY (which I believe still means 1 year even in climate science) during the 1990’s was “770,000 million metric tons” or 770,000 PLUS 6 more zeros= 770,000 million=770,000,000,000 (ten zeros together) And humans emitted, in CO2, into the atmosphere, ANNUALLY in the 1990’s-23,100 MILLION metric tons=23,100 (plus 6 zeros) or 23,100,000,000.
Now, 770,000million metric tons converts/equates to 770Gigatons. And if that is how much CO2 was put into the air in the 1990s, PER YEAR, to create the climate of the 1990s, and we wanted to “maintain” or “stabilize” our climate at those levels-we’d have to be able to MAKE SURE that NATURE continued to contribute 770,000million metric tons to the atmosphere every year, and that humans continued to contribute 23,100 million metric tons to the atmosphere. Every year.
But apparently NATURE has been slowing decreasing the amount of Co2 it emitted into the atmosphere over the past 140 million years, because it used to contribute…ON IT’S OWN, enough CO2 every year to create what you are assuming was 2500 ppm in the atmosphere. That’s more than 600 times more CO2 than Nature AND humans contribute every year combined right now. (400 ppm)
Also, I noted your equations were not “equal”…you made 2500 ppm =.0025
“140M yrs ago, CO2=2500ppm = .0025*12/30*5e+18kg=5000Gtons C”
But did NOT convert 400 ppm=.0004…”Now CO2=400*12/30*5e+18kg=800Gton C”
I hate math. Loathe it. Suck at it. Avoid it whenever possible. But even I’m not stupid enough to mistake 23,000 tons for 23,000,000,000 tons.
I had thought the numbers for the manufacture of cement, concrete… and gypsum as well… were higher than 5% of the total.
Aphan: You keep telling Dr. Moore and Nick Stokes their math is wrong. But it looks to me like your math is what is messed up.
Using atmospheric science, I compute at 2500 ppmv CO2 you have 39.548Kgm^-2CO2. At 400 ppmv you get 6.327Kgm^-2CO2. Using the molecular weight fraction of 12/32 those reduce to 14.831Kgm^-2C and 2.373Kgm^-2C respectively. With the area of earth being 5.1e14m^2 and using the appropriate conversions
( 1Kg = 1.10231e-3 tons) you now get 8,336.7 GtC and 1,330.4 GtC for 2500ppmv and 400ppmv respectively.
So now 8,336.7GtC – 1,330.4GtC = 7,006.3GtC/140 million years = 50,045 tons of carbon per year reduction.
While I come out about 20,00 tons per year carbon larger than their computations, the order of magnitude is the same, so Dr. Moore and Nick Stokes did the computation correctly with their methods and you are way off the mark.
I can;t seem to Reply to the individual Replies to my Post above.
I used 2500ppm and 280ppm (pre-industrial), not 400 ppm. This leads to 34,000 tons C net loss per year over 140M yrs. Not very much in the scheme of things, but net negative nonetheless.
One must differentiate between stock and flows of C and CO2. Yes, the annual flux is much greater than the human emissions. But the C in annual flux is already in the carbon cycling between the atmosphere, ocean surface, plant growth and death, and soil carbon. Our fossil fuel emissions are adding NEW carbon to the cycle, carbon that was lost to the cycle for hundreds of millions of years. Our cement production is returning carbon to the global cycle that was locked in carbonaceous rocks, CaCO3, during the past 500M yrs.
So I calculate that just our CO2 emissions for cement production are more that 10 times as much as would be required to maintain CO2 at a stable level. There is every reason to believe we will increase CO2 to 800-1000 ppm eventually. This will possibly double biomass production and spread forests to land that is now grassland and tundra.
Hi Patrick: In my calculation of this because everyone claims CO2 is a “well mixed” constituent in the troposphere, I computed a mixing ratio of the grams of CO2 to a kilogram of dry air at one earth atmosphere of pressure, which is 3.825 grams CO2 to a kilogram of dry air for 2500 ppmv. Likewise, if you’re using 280 ppmv or a pre-industrial concentration of CO2, then there are .4284 grams of CO2 to a kilogram of dry air.
The mass then under one atmosphere for each amount thereafter reduced by the molecular weight fraction of 12/32 gives 8,336.7GtC for 2500ppmv and 933.7GtC for 280 ppmv.
So that gives me 8,336.7GtC – 933.7GtC = 7,403GtC/140 million years = 52,879 tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere per year.
My numbers are larger than yours primarily because I don’t think CO2 is as “well mixed” in the atmosphere to a zero pressure which I assumed. If you clipped off 200 millibars of total pressure or so from the total atmospheric mass, the numbers would be closer to yours but I didn’t venture to guess at what pressure the mixing of this constituent from the surface stops.
At any rate, carry on, good work and it looks like Aphan needs to work on his math skills a bit more and comprehend better what your point was in using these figures.
Chuck,
Sorry about the delayed response…getting kids ready for camp. Love summer!
First, Dr Moore did not say we’d need 34,000 tons IN ADDITION TO what humans are now emitting. He said “at the average rate of decline over the past 140 million years, only 34,000 tons of C as CO2 would be required to maintain a stable level”. He has since clarified that the “stable level” he was talking about was 280 ppm (preindustrial).
He also said “Even today cement manufacture emits 5% of human C emissions as CO2 of 10 billion tons/year so about 0.5 billion or 500,000 tons.”
MATH issue-
Now, 5% of 10 billion (or 10 Gt is 0.5 billion (half of one billion), but 1 billion is equal to a thousand millions or numerically 1,000,000,000. Half of that would be five hundred million or numerically 500,000,000. Do you see a difference between 500,000 tons (which Dr Moore stated) and 500,000,000 tons (as correctly representative of 0.5 billion) or is it just me?
Now, after clarifying which CO2 level he was referencing-280 ppm, pre-industrial, and not 400 ppm today,he states-“This leads to 34,000 tons C net loss per year over 140M yrs. Not very much in the scheme of things, but net negative nonetheless.”
Now, let’s examine his logic-
Silly assumption #1 – we can calculate with some degree of accuracy just how much CO2 we’d have to add to the atmosphere every year to “stabilize” the CO2 in our atmosphere at the 1880 rate of 280 ppm by simply estimating how much CO2 the Earth was “naturally” injecting into the air 140 million years ago, and divide the difference between that amount of CO2 and the 1880’s rate of CO2 equally by 140,000,000! Easy peasy this Earth’s CO2 system is!
Silly assumption #2- based upon our math above, the world has been losing exactly 34,000 tons of CO2 EVERY YEAR, not more, not less for 140 million years, so we’d only have to put THAT specific amount of CO2 into the atmosphere every year to stabilize it.
Silly assumption #3- The reason we’d only have to put exactly that amount of CO2 into the air is because we can assume that the Earth’s natural CO2 emissions STOPPED/halted/froze exactly where they were in 1880, and did not continue dropping further, and have not risen even a fraction, and thus we’d only have to put 34,000 tons of additional CO2 into the atmosphere to keep the planet at exactly 280 ppm CO2.
Silly assumption #4- You can talk about tons of CO2 and tons of C as if they are the exact same measurement. 1 GtC= 1 billion tons of Carbon 1 GtC= 3.76 GtCo2
But let’s assume illogically that the rate of CO2 ppm in the atmosphere was dropping exactly 30,000 tons a year, every year, for the past 140 million years. Was that because the Earth was ejecting/emitting less Co2 into the atmosphere every year, or because the land/oceans were absorbing more? Or both? How did Dr Moore calculate all three and determine that the solution was we just need to add 30,000-50,000 tons to the atmosphere? THAT is the math I want to see. Why? Because according to the IPCC and “experts” the Earth currently absorbs 17 Gt Co2 a year MORE than it produces on it’s own!!! 17 BILLION tons (not 30,000). So I just don’t see where “ONLY 30,000 tons of C as Co2 ” could stabilize anything!!!
http://www.brighthub.com/environment/renewable-energy/articles/121086.aspx#imgn_10
Oh, and Chuck, I’m a “she”, not a he. 🙂
Aphan: The 4 “silly assumptions” you cite are all based upon your misunderstanding of what it is Moore was implying when he used 34,000 tons as an annual reduction in atmospheric CO2 over the last 140 million years.
You don’t seem to comprehend that this number is merely the DIFFERENCE between the 2500 ppmv and pre-industrial concentration of 280 ppmv divided by 140 MILLION years. It merely points out that with all of the widely varying instantaneous values found in other parts of the geological record that if one were to draw a linear trend line through the other variations, that it would show a very slow decline of atmospheric CO2 over 140 million years PRIOR to the beginning of the industrial revolution that equals around 34,000 tons of carbon per year.
So if NOTHING ELSE CHANGES moving forward in time, based upon where nature was prior to the industrial revolution, over another long period in the earth’s record, it would only take this amount of future carbon emissions to stabilize the LONG TERM loss of atmospheric CO2 that was being caused solely by nature. That’s easy to accomplish and Moore already answered you that CURRENT emissions are far greater and are causing atmospheric CO2 to rise, even with increased ocean sink rates.
What is also obvious is that the current ocean uptake of increased emissions is what it has always been, based upon a reversible chemical equation that involves the ocean temperatures and the partial pressure equilibrium of CO2 in the atmosphere and undisolved CO2 in the oceans. Moore points out that current emissions and simple carbon models point to an eventual stabilization of atmospheric CO2 between 800-1000 ppmv. The ones I saw suggest stabilization below this value, but there is some guesswork in all of this.
The main point is as suggested in this work is that there is no reason to be concerned about human CO2 emissions of CO2 causing either “climate change” or ocean acidification and the increase in atmospheric CO2 is actually beneficial to plant life and humans as a consequence.
So in your claims of math error you are comparing apples to oranges and don’t seem able to separate short term variations that vary greatly compared to long periods in the record such as calculated over 140 million years that are linear and their relevance to the discussion.
Chuck
You said to Patrick-“@ur momisugly Patrick: I just realized I put in an oxygen value vs. CO2 in the denominator that I used in my computations above to convert CO2 molecular weight to carbon. So instead of 12/32 it should be 12/44.”
I’m glad you admitted that you had the wrong value in your equation. The 12/32 value is wrong, but because of the incorrect way you are still presenting your numbers, your equations were/are still written as converting Carbon into what you assumed was CO2, not the other way around-CO2 into carbon.) If I can’t trust your math or your ability to identify/calculate well known molecular weights-I certainly won’t automatically accept your opinions as accurate.
CO2’s molecular weight is 44, carbon’s is 12, so when converting CO2 to carbon you divide 44 by 12 which is written- 44/12. To convert carbon to CO2 you divide 12 by 44, which is written 12/44. One ton of Carbon=3.67 tons of CO2.
One ton of Carbon=3.67 tons of CO2
And it is not “apples and oranges” to point out to a man that 500 MILLION apples is several truckloads more apples than 500 THOUSAND apples. But apparently no one wants to admit that. Fine.
CW said to me-“You don’t seem to comprehend that this number is merely the DIFFERENCE between the 2500 ppmv and pre-industrial concentration of 280 ppmv divided by 140 MILLION years.”
I totally comprehend it, and it is why I commented early on that his hypothesis was based on presenting a highly smoothed (artificially equal) trend. YOU don’t seem to comprehend that my argument is with the premise was that we could “easily” stabilize the climate by adding 36,000 tons of C as CO2 into the atmosphere annually! 1) it would be anything except “easy” and 2) according to the experts of the IPCC (cough) without ANY human emissions currently the Earth’s yearly carbon cycle has at least a 17Gt deficit-meaning the planet pulls 17 Gt more per year out of the cycle than it puts into it. 17 Gt of carbon converts into a whole $%## of a lot more CO2 than just 36,000 tons.
http://images.slideplayer.com/24/7421021/slides/slide_16.jpg
If those numbers are even close to actual (and everyone with any degree of informed science on this matter knows that number is the just an average/median ESTIMATE with enormous margins of error on both sides of it) then JUST to stabilize the CO2 in the air right now, minus all human emissions, we’d have to inject at least 17 Gt of carbon, OR 69 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere every year just to balance the carbon in/carbon out cycle of the Earth alone!! But everyone here who knows anything about the current “estimations” of CO2 and Carbon emitted/cycled through the system by the planet alone knows that the “estimated” human contribution could fit within the error margins of those estimates multiple times!!! And if the best calculations have an error range that encompasses multiple GIGATONS- a measly 36,000 tons of CO2 per year couldn’t possibly come close to changing anything.
CW-“So if NOTHING ELSE CHANGES moving forward in time, based upon where nature was prior to the industrial revolution, over another long period in the earth’s record, it would only take this amount of future carbon emissions to stabilize the LONG TERM loss of atmospheric CO2 that was being caused solely by nature.”
Ahhh…and there we have the world’s most enormous and anti-scientific qualifier of all time-IF NOTHING ELSE CHANGES. Every single geological piece of evidence we have of this planet’s history demonstrates that as far as Earth goes-EVERYTHING CHANGES, ALL THE TIME.
I like Dr. Moore. Really. I respect him and agree with almost everything he’s saying currently. I’m not the least bit concerned that rising CO2 levels are going to cause dangerous (or even uncomfortable) global warming or ocean acidification or anything else. It simply cannot do either of those things.
Which is why I’d like Dr Moore to respond to the question/issue that both myself and Tom Homer brought up early on. Upon what scientific evidence does Dr Moore base his opinion that 1) the increased CO2 since the Industrial Era can be totally attributed to humans without 2) proof that Earth’s C or CO2 yearly inputs to the carbon cycle are either still dropping or halted so it could only be human emissions and 3) that additional CO2 in the atmosphere has the capability to heat or re-heat or even remotely affect the surface temperatures of the planet when all it CAN do is slow down the rate at which the Earth COOLS itself and we don’t even know for what length of time it currently does slow that rate.
@ur momisugly Patrick: I just realized I put in an oxygen value vs. CO2 in the denominator that I used in my computations above to convert CO2 molecular weight to carbon. So instead of 12/32 it should be 12/44.
That’s part of the reason why my result was higher. So just plugging in the correct fraction and using your 2500 ppmv and 280 ppmv pre-industrial, over one earth atmosphere of pressure, I now get a reduction of 38,461 tons of carbon per year over the 140 million year value. Much closer.
And the difference between this new value and your 34,000 ton per year value is no doubt due to their not being the same mixing ratio of CO2 to dry air at the top of atmosphere as I stated and that mixing ratio probably terminates at the top of the troposphere.
Aphan: You’re still not getting this. You are clinging to a background reduction in CO2 caused by nature before the industrial revolution began and you’re comparing very short time frames over the geological record in this modern period that are considered “noise” with many varying contributions making the larger atmospheric CO2 swings, including human emissions. Very short time “noise” is not a comparative to this problem. And so yes, to insure that atmospheric CO2 did not continue its very slow decline as it was doing pre-industrial at 280 ppmv, that is all we would have to burn to stop the decline in the natural record.
You say: ” I totally comprehend it, and it is why I commented early on that his hypothesis was based on presenting a highly smoothed (artificially equal) trend. YOU don’t seem to comprehend that my argument is with the premise was that we could “easily” stabilize the climate by adding 36,000 tons of C as CO2 into the atmosphere annually! 1) it would be anything except “easy” and 2) according to the experts of the IPCC (cough) without ANY human emissions currently the Earth’s yearly carbon cycle has at least a 17Gt deficit-meaning the planet pulls 17 Gt more per year out of the cycle than it puts into it. 17 Gt of carbon converts into a whole $%## of a lot more CO2 than just 36,000 tons. ”
Your claim is wrong. According to the IPCC chart you present ( which has to be CO2 because we are not emitting 106Gt of CO2 per year ) there is an atmospheric SURPLUS of CO2 of 12Gt per year. Atmospheric CO2 is increasing due to fossil fuel burning. So you are claiming that if we stopped all fossil fuel burning that the oceans would continue to absorb 338Gt of CO2 per year. This means you’re stating that the partial pressures between the boundary of the ocean and atmosphere would not change. Sorry, but that’s quite impossible. The atmospheres partial pressure would drop rather dramatically if this were so and the oceanic absorption would quickly drop as well and may even reverse leading to some outgassing of CO2 from the oceans. So there is no way you can assert and be correct that you would need 17Gt of CO2 to “stabilize” the current atmospheric concentration with the oceans. You need to read up on this because your static comparisons won’t work in the real world. The uptake equation by the oceans is reversible and dependent upon ocean temperatures as well as the partial pressure across the atmospheric/ocean interface.
As far as the math goes, yes, there was an error ( or possibly just a typo) in Moore’s stating 1/2 billion tons was 500,000 tons. To me this is irrelevant because it was not used in any calculation he made. As for me, the lesson learned is not to click the post comment button before double checking your computations. But mine are correct using the weight fraction of 12/44 which I knew and which corrects the answer to 38,461 tons of carbon or -38,000 tons rounded down. Slightly more than Moore’s answer but the reason for this I have already explained.
Chuck-
“Your claim is wrong. According to the IPCC chart you present ( which has to be CO2 because we are not emitting 106Gt of CO2 per year ) there is an atmospheric SURPLUS of CO2 of 12Gt per year.”
I’m going to try to get you to SEE my point one more time. I cannot believe that you still cannot grasp it.
The chart is from the IPCC in 2001. There is “SURPLUS” on the chart is because humans are adding 29 Gt of carbon to the atmosphere!!!! Which is why I said “2) according to the experts of the IPCC (cough) without ANY human emissions currently the Earth’s yearly carbon cycle has at least a 17Gt deficit”. According to that 2001 IPCC chart, WITHOUT human CO2, the Earth SUCKS UP 17 GT more CO2 than it produces by itself. It fills that deficit by absorbing 57% of the CO2 that humans emit….which leaves the remaining 43% of human CO2 as “surplus” CO2 every year. Which is why CO2 concentration in the atmosphere today are GROWING.
Here are some more recent/updated totals.
http://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming.asp#_ftn36
“10.216 billion tons of anthropogenic carbon emitted annually as CO2 × 3.67 molecular weight of CO2/carbon = 37.5 billion tons of anthropogenic CO2 emitted per year
37.5 billion tons of anthropogenic CO2 emitted per year / 770 billion tons of natural CO2 emitted per year = 4.9%
37.5 billion tons of anthropogenic CO2 emitted per year × 43% of anthropogenic CO2 remaining in the atmosphere = 16.1 additional tons of CO2 in the atmosphere each year”
Read this part slowly. 57% of anthropogenic CO2 gets ABSORBED by the Earth’s carbon cycle (because there is a deficit between what the Earth produces AND absorbs on its own-so it CAN absorb that much of our CO2 contribution…leaving just 43% of our emissions in the atmosphere as “surplus”. Right? What is 57% of 37.5 billion tons of anthropogenic Co2 emitted every year? 21.3 GT (even higher than the 17 GT from the 2001 chart!!)
SO…if the Earth’s CO2 budget was balanced, then ALL of the CO2 we are emitting every year would be “surplus” in the atmosphere. But it’s NOT. Only 43% of it is surplus. So in order to BALANCE the Earth’s CO2 budget right now, at 400 ppm, humans would have to ADD at least that 57% of their current CO2 emissions to the atmosphere!
That means that humans would have to add at least 21.3 Gt of CO2 every year…not 36,000 tons!
“As far as the math goes, yes, there was an error ( or possibly just a typo) in Moore’s stating 1/2 billion tons was 500,000 tons. To me this is irrelevant because it was not used in any calculation he made. ”
It is COMPLETELY relevant TO MY POINT which is that he’s wildly INCORRECT in claiming that stabilizing” the CO2 levels would be “relatively easy” and that “just 36,000 tons” of CO2 would cover it!! He’s not JUST grossly wrong about the difference between 500,000 tons and 500,000,000 tons, he’s ALSO grossly wrong about 36,000 tons of CO2 filling the GAP/DEFICIT created by the PLANET all by itself-which is currently 21.3 Gt….not 36,000 tons.
21.3 Gt of CO2= 5.8 Gt of Carbon, which is also nowhere NEAR 36,000 tons of Carbon either.
“As for me, the lesson learned is not to click the post comment button before double checking your computations. ”
Maybe you need to learn the lesson of understanding what someone’s exact point is before clicking on the post comment button and responding with “atmospheric science” calculations that only prove that you are as wrong as Dr. Moore is on how much CO2 we’d have to add to balance/stabilize CO2 levels. THAT was the math I originally questioned-quote-
(Dr. Moore)“At the average rate of decline over the past 140 million years, only 34,000 tons of C as CO2 would be required to maintain CO2 at a stable level. ”
(Me) Are you sure? Math check!”
I was NEVER arguing about the difference in the amount of CO2 between 2500 ppm and 400 ppm!!! I was arguing about that difference (36,000 tons or close to it-doesn’t matter) NOT BEING ENOUGH to add back into the CO2 budget to stabilize it, because at this point, there’s a much, MUCH bigger NATURAL deficit (21.3 Gt) happening!!! If humans “only” added 36,000 tons of CO2 to the pre-industrial-“Natural” level of CO2 that was occurring then, the CO2 budget TODAY would STILL be falling by 21Gt of CO2 every year.
And I’m done trying to explain a concept so obvious that a child in a sandbox trying to fill a hole (with a teaspoon) that I’m continually digging (with a shovel), could easily grasp.
Aphan: You continue to deny that what you’re doing is mixing the long term, pre-industrial average rate of decline by nature in atmospheric CO2 and the subsequent computations of stability that Moore and I did with much larger source/sink numbers in the current industrial record that are short term that include human emissions of CO2 and claiming removing the human emissions requires that in order for the atmosphere and oceans to reach an equilibrium requires that we emit 57% of the current human emissions, or according to your updated numbers, 21.3Gt of CO2.
This continues to gloss over the relevant chemical equilibrium equation I pointed out that would require that oceanic absorption of CO2 MUST decrease if emissions are reduced. Right now there is no equilibrium partial pressure between the ocean and atmosphere. The ocean is in catch up mode to equilibrium, a part of which is owed to warmer temperatures over the last century plus increasing human emissions. If human emissions stopped tomorrow, you would not need anywhere close to 21Gt of CO2 emissions to create a new equilibrium between the oceans and atmosphere. You are completely ignorant about this subject but more importantly, your claims are wrong.
My math computations using atmospheric science and those by Moore are correct about pre-industrial equilibrium requirements to stabilize atmospheric CO2 by creating emissions of around 38,000 tons per year to stop the noted gradual decline of this amount. We can say this with confidence because of the length of the natural record and large swings in between. This is a 140 MILLION year average decline. Your claiming this doesn’t matter is more proof you are in over your head.
The rest of your rant is emotional drivel which I’m not into. If Dr. Moore wants to add to your potential education, I’ll leave it up to him to blog with you, but at this point we are done.
What are we grinding the rocks with? ie-where is the energy coming from the grind the rocks?
Humans? Expending the energy to grind rocks will require more calories, meaning food production, more eating of plants and animals. Where is the food production energy coming from? Are we burning plants to create it? Seems counter productive. Eating animals that eat plants? Also counterproductive. Why don’t we just blow open volcanoes or open cracks in the Earth to the core? 🙂
Just drill deeper. By that time there will be other good forms of cheap energy. I don’t know now but in 200 years there will be new forms of energy – i am sure. just ask me again then lol.
J Philip Peterson, not just deeper, but further afield.
There is a great deal more buried fossil fuels that most suppose is the case.
And we currently have no way to economically produce the vast amounts of carbon fuel in methane clathrates and in permafrost, but that could easily change in the future.
It is perfectly possible to burn CaCO3 with solar energy. Much CaCO3 is in the form of chalk, not that I am advocating burning the While Cliffs of Dover, at least not until the situation requires it to maintain CO2 above a certain level. We could also use nuclear energy to process CaCO3 and convert it into CaO and CO2. There is enough nuclear fuel for tens of thousands of years.
Opening cracks in the Earth to the core would e more difficult! And we might find the core has cooled to the extent it is no longer a reliable source of CO2.
An outdoor humorist, Pat McManus, once wrote, in effect, that, “When I was a kid there was no such thing as “pollution”. We just called it “dumping stuff in the crick”‘.
Dr. Patrick Moore strikes me as one who was (and is) honestly and sincerely concerned about “dumping stuff in the crick”.
But when “the cause” was suborned for political gain at the expense of honesty, he backed out.
Bravo Dr. Moore. Regarding CO2 and the greening of the planet, there is one part of the idea that adding CO2 in the atmosphere causes a certain quantum of warming that is simply, unequivocally, untrue. Proponents of warming unwittingly, I suspect, assume ‘ceteris paribus’ conditions (meaning all other factors held constant). With greening, along with being a sink for CO2 is also a sink for energy – which is taken out of circulation. That is to say, that from the sterile equation for warming due to CO2 must be subtracted the energy ‘sunk’ in new living matter.
I wish people who are out doing the fieldwork would not let themselves be constrained in their collection of data by theory alone (if the theory turns out to be substantially incorrect, then field expenses have been poorly used). Even warmists have big doubts and have turned to throwing stones instead of doing science. An example for fieldwork: I suspect that in the fringing greening around arid regions, soil moisture is rising and temperatures are moderating -it would be good to have this data, although not welcomed by doomsters.
As a geologist starting in the late 50s, a field geologist not only mapped rock formations but, simply because he was there, he roughly estimated where meaningful, timber, pulpwood, the head on rapid sections of substantial streams, wild life sighting frequency and the like. Also, each day’s field notes were headed by cloudiness (eg 5/10ths low or high cloud) wind strength and direction, last and first frosts, rain (sometimes snow), etc. Although conscientiousness on the amount of this extra data collected probably varied considerably in those days, I would bet that geologists aren’t doing any of this now. I do know that if someone wanted to know what the weather was like in the taiga and tundra in the early days, they could get a pretty good idea from archives of old field notes. I even sketched a huge rock painting that was on a granite bluff about 50m long and and 20m high on the west shore of Karsakuwigimac Lake. It was so faint that it looked like iron staining up close but out a few hundred feet from shore you could see patterns – caribou horns, suns, arrows, etc. It was very old judging by the condition of some known to be several thousasnd years old and better perserved. This is now underwater with further development of Churchill River/Southern Indian Lake hydro projects.
Allow me to be a bit sceptical about a couple of points.
1. I haven’t really seen any evidence that CO2 has much effect on climate. A lot of hot air (to coin a phrase) from the alarmist side, but a lack of experimental evidence (Really, how difficult would it be given the billions of dollars slopping around Climate Science, for a group with a real lab to simulate conditions in the atmosphere and actually measure the greenhouse effect of CO2 – and then to measure how that would allow more water to remain as vapour and not form clouds?). So, IMHO “saving the day” by burning fossil fuels to increase atmospheric CO2 really won’t do much, if anything, to avoid the next glacial period. And that will achieve all the alarmist’s ends for them through mass starvation (quite possibly preceded by some rather unpleasant wars), and reduce human population to less than a billion. You read it here first!
2. Evolution by natural selection has resulted in a stunning diversity of life forms in environments that often seem hostile to life forms. If CO2 were to go below 150 ppm, it would be quite normal for new kinds of plant life to appear that tolerate low-CO2 air. Not “the end of life” but another chapter in an ongoing saga of evolution. In fact, it would be remarkable if that didn’t happen. I can’t get worked up about a new apocalypse when I try to convince my small (and shrinking) circle of friends that the old apocalypse won’t be happening.
Dr. Moore, you really are to be congratulated on seeing through the excesses of the mutated ecology movement, but I would ask you not to swing too far to the opposite pole. Try the middle ground.
It is true we cannot be definitive about saving the day from the coming ice age plunge, but using the alarmists IPCC math, we can assert that and certainly that assertion has policy implications. However we can be definitive abut feeding close to a billion more people on the same amount of land and water due to the increase in CO2, and that may well be considered to be saving the day..
At the end of the last glaciation the planet came perilously close to extinction of all plants and animals because of lack of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The fixation on CO2 level needs to be put in context. Bar chart displays graphic emphasis in Figure 5 at http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
Carbon dioxide levels, ppmv
40,000 Exhaled breath
20,000 OK in submarines
8,000 OSHA limit for 8 hr exposure
5,000 OSHA limit for continuous exposure
5,000 Approximate level 500 million years ago
1,500 Artificial increase in some greenhouses to enhance plant growth
1,000 Approximate level 100 million years ago
1,000 Common target maximum for ventilation design for buildings
404 Current atmospheric level
275 Atmospheric level before industrial revolution
190 Atmospheric level at end of last glaciation
150 All plants and animals become extinct below this level.
Thanks Dan for that listing of CO2 concentrations and for linking to your monograph. I have instinctively thought that global warming and cooling was driven mainly by the sun and the oceans, but you have made that thesis explicit. I have to digest your analysis, but on first impression it is consistent with Dr. Salby’s portrayal of CO2 effects as “orders of magnitude” less than other factors, especially water and clouds.
Lets rule out shills in the pay of the nuclear industry.
My understanding of CO2 has nothing to do with the nuclear industry. I am a big supporter of nuclear energy, partly because it is clean, but for me that has nothing to do with CO2, which is not only clean, it is the basis of life. So your comment is not only ignorant, it is also derogatory and stupid.
When someone make a comment which is implicitly critical of nuclear, it is obvious, to me at least, that they are not the sort that really wants to solve anything.
If carbon dioxide was the world-ending boogeyman they want everyone to believe…if they really and truly believed this themselves, there is no way they could be antinuclear as well.
Unless they are simply and completely anti-human and opposed to a continuation of an industrial society, and of civilization in general.
Hey Redback, we are also going to rule out trolling warmistas.
Aren’t we all lucky that all this CO2 has been sequestered for us in the form of hydrocarbons … which power our lives & have enabled the extraordinary quality of life we have … and that we, in turn, can release that back to the environment & powers the lives of plant life on this planet , which is essential to all life going ahead. Thank you Mr. Moore for bringing wider attention to this fact !
A truly blessing for all ! Hopefully the alarmists can have just enough introspection to realize this.
Now that’s what I call sustainability.
While there is no arguing that Co2 can be regarded as a ‘greenhouse gas’ due to its heat latency, even Patrick More overlooks the fact that in terms of physical properties Co2 is heavier than air and always sinks to the lowest levels of the atmosphere. Co2 can hardly be found much above 10,000 feet (coincidentally the limit of plant growth) and certainly has a limited function in atmospheric heating. Even at 10,000 feet the atmosphere is near freezing and above that it gets colder by degrees while at night the heat accumulated during daylight hours is conducted into space. The ‘greenhouse effect’ is grossly over rated by climate experts.
Peter,
While huge quantities of CO2 released at once do creep near ground, smaller quantities are rapidy mixed by wind into the rest of the atmosphere and remain mixed with levels up to 30 km hardly less than at ground level. See for an explanation “Brownian motion”: even sand from the deserts travels over thousands of km by wind, while many times heavier than air…
Eventual warming effect is indeed small and needs the full air column to be measurable…
There’s no argument that co2 is good and required for plants to live. The problem is that large quantities in the atmosphere are creating global warming and that is a threat to our environment.
Regardless we will eventually run out of oil so why not start using renewables now.
The fallacy of wind turbines is revealed with simple arithmetic.
5 mW wind turbine, avg output 1/3 nameplate, 20 yr life, electricity @ur momisugly wholesale 2 cents per kwh produces $5.8E6.
Installed cost @ur momisugly $1.7E6/mW = $8.5E6. Add the cost of standby CCGT for when the wind does not blow. Add the cost of land lease, maintenance, Administration.
Solar voltaic and solar thermal are even worse.
The dollar relation is evidence of energy relation. Bottom line, the energy consumed to design, manufacture, install, maintain and administer renewables appears to exceed the energy they produce in their lifetime. Without the energy provided by other sources renewables could not exist.
Nukes will accommodate the energy demand as fossil fuels peter out in future centuries.
1. Wrong. There is no real-world evidence (models are not evidence) that the increased CO2 has or is creating global warming, much less that it is “threat to our environment”.
2. Logically fallacious argument. Oil is plentiful now, and will be for the forseeable future. That makes it the cheapest and the best fuel to use in the transportation, and to some extent, heating industries.
Dr. Moore,
I am following your work already for a long time, as I am a former worker in the chlorine/PVC industry and had a lot of fights with Greenpeace at that time (up to a court case in Hamburg, Germany).
I did see your defense of chlorine for the better applications, against the stance of Greenpeace to ban all chlorine uses. That was very much appreciated at that time.
Again, I appreciate your work on CO2 this time. A beacon of reason in a time of exaggeration and misleading…
Thanks a lot for your hard work.
Ferdinand Engelbeen
former chairman Chlorophiles
(website not maintained anymore)
SOME HISTORY – ON CO2 STARVATION:
I wrote the following on this subject on 18Dec2014, posted on Icecap.us:
On Climate Science, Global Cooling, Ice Ages and Geo-Engineering:
[excerpt]
Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current [terrestrial] life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.
As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on Earth, I feel it is my duty to advocate on our behalf. To be clear, I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms, but I really do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. They could be very nice. 🙂
Best, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-79524
[excerpts from my post of 2009]
Questions and meanderings:
A. According to para.1 above:
During Ice ages, does almost all plant life die out as a result of some combination of lower temperatures and CO2 levels that fell below 200ppm (para. 2 above)? If not, why not? [updated revision – perhaps 150ppm not 200ppm?]
When all life on Earth comes to an end, will it be because CO2 permanently falls below 200ppm as it is permanently sequestered in carbonate rocks, hydrocarbons, coals, etc.?
Since life on Earth is likely to end due to a lack of CO2, should we be paying energy companies to burn fossil fuels to increase atmospheric CO2, instead of fining them due to the false belief that they cause global warming?
Could T.S. Eliot have been thinking about CO2 starvation when he wrote:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Regards, Allan 🙂
I am acutely aware that I am not the first person to understand the threat of declining CO2 to life on Earth. But at least until now we have been one hand clapping, with little, actually no notice in the big world of ideas. I am hoping this paper will kick-off a wider discussion as it is certainly more plausible that the guff from the CAGW crowd.
Are you aware of the newly-formed CO2 Coalition http://www.co2coalition.org ? Our newly designed website will be up soon.
And it would no doubt be a long whimper, millions of years, but it would nonetheless have continued to diminish over time if we had not intervened.
If higher CO2 did not exist, we would need to produce more of it.
I learn so much from reading this website. This thread being a very good example. It is really a pleasure. Thanks to all contributors.
For those who prefer video to type, I can highly recommend
2015 GWPF Annual Lecture – Patrick Moore – ‘Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?’