Zongbo Shi, University of Birmingham and William Bloss, University of Birmingham
The pandemic caused governments around the world to introduce lockdowns in early 2020, temporarily closing workplaces and emptying roads and public spaces. As economic activity slowed, so did emissions of air pollutants. Almost a year later, the effect that all this had on the air we breathe is becoming clear.
The most straightforward way to determine the effects of lockdown on air quality is to compare measurements before and after the date that the lockdown began. Earlier studies used this approach and reported big reductions in some pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). One study claimed that NO₂ emissions fell by up to 90% in Wuhan (the Chinese city where COVID-19 is believed to have emerged) at the peak of the outbreak.
But this comparison is misleading. The weather also affects levels of pollution by, for example, dispersing emissions from cities. More fossil fuels are burned for heating during the winter compared with the spring too, and the pollutants formed tend to react differently in the atmosphere under different conditions of sunlight and temperature, causing air pollution levels to vary between seasons. These factors obscure the influence of a single event on air pollutant concentrations.
Our new analysis examined air pollution levels during spring 2020 in the northern hemisphere and adjusted them to remove the effects of weather and seasonal changes. This allowed us to isolate the impact of lockdowns alone on air quality in 11 cities: Beijing, Wuhan, Milan, Rome, Madrid, London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles and Delhi.
Doing this is important, because if people overestimate the benefits of the lockdown on air quality they could underestimate the scale of the air pollution challenge in the world’s cities and fail to take the radical action necessary to bring urban air quality within healthy limits. Globally, air pollution is linked to nearly seven million premature deaths each year.
Ozone up, NO₂ down
Our study looked at levels of NO₂, ozone (O₃) and fine particles, such as soot (smaller than 2.5 micrometres; also known as PM2.5). NO₂ is emitted from vehicle exhausts, power station chimneys and gas boilers. Ground-level ozone, unlike that in the protective layer in the stratosphere 20 km above the earth, is an air pollutant that forms when hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) react in sunlight. Fine particles are emitted from a range of sources in industry, traffic and agriculture, and are small enough to be inhaled directly into the lungs. They can also be formed in the atmosphere from gasesous pollutants. All of these pollutants are harmful to human health and cause a range of heart and lung conditions.
Across all of the cities we studied, NO₂ levels fell during lockdown, but the effect was smaller than levels measured before and after would suggest. In Wuhan for example, measured NO₂ concentrations fell by 47% between the second and fifth week of lockdown, but some of this was due to weather and seasonal changes that would have happened anyway. The lockdown alone accounted for 34%.
Measured changes in NO₂ were highest at sites located closest to roads. But NO₂ levels fell by less than the overall change in traffic would suggest. That’s because the number of heavily emitting vehicles on roads, such as diesel-powered freight trucks, fell only slightly compared to commuter traffic.
Ozone levels actually increased at most locations during lockdown, by as little as 2% in some places but up to 30% in others. This was largely because traffic emissions of nitrogen oxides would usually have removed some of this ozone by reacting with it.
Lockdown caused levels of PM2.5 to fall in most of the cities we studied, as primary emissions from road traffic and other sources fell. But high concentrations of PM2.5 were still recorded during lockdown, particularly in Beijing, London and Paris. One possible reason is that weather patterns caused pollution from regions with lots of heavy industry to drift over cities. Another is that the changing chemical nature of the atmosphere during lockdown caused more gaseous compounds in the air to convert to these fine particles.
A window to the future
The lockdowns were an inadvertent global experiment that produced cleaner air for many millions of people. The reductions in NO₂ alone will have brought widespread health benefits and, had these continued, would have allowed most cities to meet air quality guidelines set by the World Health Organization. But this will have been offset by increases in ozone, and many of the changes are smaller than we originally thought – highlighting how great the challenge of cleaning up our air is. A systematic approach to controlling air pollution, tailored to each city and considering all pollutant types, would deliver the greatest health benefits.
In some ways, lockdowns allow us to see into the future. The changes in NO₂ in UK cities during lockdown reflect what is expected between 2027 and 2030, as emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles are phased out by electric alternatives.
While carbon dioxide (CO₂) mixes in the atmosphere on a global scale and can endure for several hundred years, pollutants like NO₂ last a day or so in the air and remain close to their source. The lesson to take from lockdown is that aggressive action to eliminate sources of CO₂ – an international effort to tackle a global issue – will also bring immediate benefits for air quality and health in your neighbourhood.
Zongbo Shi, Professor of Atmospheric Biogeochemistry, University of Birmingham and William Bloss, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Birmingham
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
All those microwave burritos greatly impacted indoor air quality, however.
Those of us who own wooded acreage and have wood stoves, have been burning more wood to keep warm during the colder months as we quarantine at home. The small number of families who do this probably doesn’t add very much pollutant, but it illustrates some of the complexity of trying to account for air pollution changes during the lockdown.
Unfortunately you are wrong, Germany alone has 15 Mio wood stoves, and the polution effect often is greater than by cars.
Use of wood and coal stoves in residential areas
“According to the Federal Association of Chimney Sweepers around 11.7 Mio so called “single-room firing systems” are installed in Germany. They also reported that the number of traditional coal stoves is decreasing, the number of modern wood and coal burning stoves and featured fireplaces is on the increase. The Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry reported that 27% of German households have such stoves in addition to a central heating system. […]
Heating with wood, even if properly performed, causes significantly greater air polluting emissions than other fuels like oil or natural gas. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that short-term pollution with fine dust and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) might occur in some residential areas, especially under inversion weather conditions when a large number of wood burning stoves and fireplaces are in use and . Air emission measurements commissioned by the UBA showed that wood combustion exhaust gases are a significant source of fine dust pollution in residential areas.“
Wood burners should have health warning, scientists say
“Wood-burning stoves should be sold with a health warning because of the potentially lethal pollution particles they emit into homes, scientists have concluded.
The burners can triple the number of damaging particles in a room, and should not be used around children or the elderly people, researchers say.”
Wood burners usually emit very little of anything into a home. When it says “triple the “damaging particles”, in whose house? Many times, the majority of indoor air pollution (IAP) comes from outdoors.
Most household air pollution (HAP, defined as IAP from sources inside the house) is from cooking, smoking, candles, human skin, eroding clothes, floor dust, mould, bacteria, paint fumes and other non-obvious sources.
So when reading “triple” I wonder what the baseline is. Homes are not really clean environments unless there is a lot of air filtration taking place. Cooking creates a lot of PM2.5. Think about frying and what is not captured by the fan hood.
The warning not to use wood stoves around children and elderly is silly. No one should be using a wood stove that leaks smoke into the house. And everyone should be around the warm hearth when the alternative is chronic underheating.
I have a modest modern simple wood stove in the workshop. There is nothing special about it. It leaks zero into the room. It is WETT certified and tested to CSA B415.1(2015, currently under revision). So is everything else sold and installed in Canada.
In Germany they have modern “kakelofens” which in the USA are called “masonry heaters”. Fabulous things – no leaks. Check the Masonry Heaters Association for design ideas. They are the future, not the polluted past.
What happend, my answer disappeared…
It was showing wood stoves, 17 Mio alone in Germany, growing,
Once again, The Conversation provides us with measurements and calculations with no associated bounds of uncertainties! They present numbers as though they are known to exactly one-percent and have no potential error or uncertainty. How do we know that these are reliable and not just hand-waving estimates?
How can the aveage citizen know anything with a propaganda press. How clean do we need our air to be to live? For obvious reasons I no longer trust the Governments seated at the UN and especially the country that hosts that Shiteshow. Therefore I don’t trust Government funded science nor the Propaganda Ministry that shills for them.
How can the average person measure for themselves, the month to month and year to year improvement or put another way when the air pollutes to the brink that we all drop dead from breathing it? This latter is what they need us to believe so that we turn over all control to the Central Authoritarian Hobgoblin creator/slayers.
Who are we at war with today, Eastasia or Eurasia, Mr. Orwell.
Really? How about less pollution allowed more UV to get to ground level and create more ozone, or something like that?
On the other hand, if ozone is removed by nitrogen oxides, that suggests that ozone occurs naturally rather than being a pollutant.
Being a skeptic, I wouldn’t take anything these guys say at face value.
Further, they speak of NO2 but not NO3 which is far more of a problem. NO is formed by burning anything with N in it, like wood. Shell advertises that their gasoline has “nitrogen added”. Cars make NO, NO2 and NO3 because there is compression. Stoves cannot make NO3 burning wood.
Then there is “thermal NOx” which is created above 1200 C which is why they mention natural gas creating NO2 (not NO3 unless it goes into an engine, or is very high temperature above 1530-ish). Power stations are carefully controlled so as not to make much thermal NO2 or 3.
NO and NO2 are interchangeable in the air on a daily basis. Sunlight drives the conversion and at night the reaction reverses so they are treated as a single thing, even though most starts as NO. They are inseparable for air quality purposes.
When shutting down a city like Delhi, did people stop cooking with wood, charcoal and LPG? No. So those sources of air pollution continued. The NO3 is what should have gone down except for the heavy (diesel) engines which have high compression and temperatures. That converts atmospheric N2 to NO3. That issue is mentioned in the article. The trucks kept running.
Vegetation creates a lot of PM2.5. Think of the “Blue Mountains” in the USA. That blue haze is PM2.5 pollution emitted by pine trees. Humans sources can’t come close to the pollution emitted by the Eastern Forests.
The Eastern Forests are expanding rapidly because of CO2 increase and abandoned farms, absorbing something like 80% of all USA emissions. Maybe that’s why the world is not warming to match the climate models
Great
More ozone from electric cars but no NOX to neutralise it
More ozone related illnesses
pull the wrong leaver get a surprise
we are an inter related system but still they look at the silos
“… The lockdowns were an inadvertent global experiment that produced cleaner air for many millions of people … The changes in NO₂ in UK cities during lockdown reflect what is expected between 2027 and 2030, as emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles are phased out by electric alternatives …”.
As NO2 concentrations above the recommended annual mean maximum 40 µg m-3 or 20 ppb are mainly in large cities it’s nuts to replace the entire vehicle fleet for a concentrated local problem.
Garbage, Through and through. Garbage
1) Quote“(ozone) is an air pollutant that forms when hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) react in sunlight“”
Wrong wrong wrong.
Ozone and NOx are very strong oxidising agents.
Thus, Ozone and NOx will attack hydrocarbons and oxidise them – making water, CO2 and N2 – the ozone and NOx will thus disappear.
Also, nitrogen and oxygen are not comfortable bed-fellows.
For both of them, 2’s company, 3’s a crowd
NOx and Ozone spontaneously fall apart – especially if ‘nudged’ by strong sunlight
Ground level Ozone is created by the same process that makes Stratospheric Ozone, UV light reacting with ordinary (diatomic) Oxygen
And Ozone is capable of attacking Nitrogen to create NOx.
But cars/traffic/agriculture DO NOT make Ozone
2) Quote“measured NO₂ concentrations fell by 47% between the second and fifth week of lockdown. pollutants like NO₂ last a day or so in the air””
What? Surely most ‘days’ are 24 hours long, not 5 weeks long.
3) Quote“”pollutants like NO₂ last a day or so in the air and remain close to their source.
sources in industry, traffic and agriculture“”
Please define ‘close’
How much industry & agriculture goes on in city centres?
Oh wait, you tell us..
Quote””weather patterns caused pollution from regions with lots of heavy industry to drift over cities””
Drift usually implies a slow movement, more than ‘a day or so’
4) Quote“”high concentrations of PM2.5 were still recorded during lockdown, particularly in Beijing, London and Paris“”
So now you say that the traffic did not cause The Pollution????
5) Quote “the changing chemical nature of the atmosphere during lockdown caused more gaseous compounds in the air to convert to these fine particles””
What is this ‘changing nature’?
Are you actually saying that less of your gaseous pollutants caused more pollutants?
Also, sloppy wording.
The gases might produce aerosols – maybe of water combined with NOx to make something akin to Nitric Acid
But are ‘particles’ not usually solid things – classically soot – and not liquids
6) Quote“traffic emissions of nitrogen oxides would usually have removed some of this ozone by reacting with it“”
Oh hello – you agree with me at my Point (1)!!!
7) Quote“”All of these pollutants are harmful to human health and cause a range of heart and lung conditions“”
‘All of them’ – are you not just talking about 2 pollutants (O3 and NOx) What are ‘all‘ the others?
Certainly, breathing in droplets of Nitric Acid is not a Good Idea = but what are these ‘heart conditions’
8) Quote“”NO₂ levels fell by less than the overall change in traffic would suggest. That’s because the number of heavily emitting vehicles on roads, such as diesel-powered freight trucks, fell only slightly compared to commuter traffic.“”
Quote””changes in NO₂ in UK cities during lockdown reflect what is expected between 2027 and 2030, as emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles are phased out by electric alternatives“”
In conjunction with those 2 quotes, look at his bar-chart – especially London with THE lowest pollution levels of anywhere.
It is cars = commuter vehicles that are ‘going electric’
Mister, you are talking self-contradictory gibberish
9) Quote””measured NO₂ concentrations fell by 47% between the second and fifth week of lockdown, but some of this was due to weather and seasonal changes that would have happened anyway.””
The Wuhan lockdown started Jan 23, when the sun would have been rising and getting stronger in early spring-time.
So absolutely true.
Stronger sunlight containing more UV will not only promote the self destruction of NOx but also create more Ozone that will also attack/destroy the NOx – taking itself down in the process.
Nothing to do with traffic, industry, agriculture, lockdown..
Also in springtime, plants and trees will be starting to grow and producing their own Volatile Organics. Smells basically.
And what can be the only significant reason for them indulging this very energy & resource intensive activity is to scavenge (ground level) Ozone before it attacks & damages them.
Yes, Ozone really is hideous stuff
Thus we maybe see how improved fuel efficiency in vehicle engines can genuinely have made the pollution problem worse.
Higher efficiency engines, as per described by Carnot, must burn their fuel at higher temperatures.
But doing so creates vastly more NOx than in older colder engines. = Whammy #1
Whammy #2 comes from less unburnt fuel coming out of the engines and what does try to escape down the tail-pipe, is now ‘cleaned up’ by catalytic converters
But that escaping unburnt fuel would have mopped up not only the small amount of NOx the engines made but also any Ozone (created by sunlight) that there was around.
Exactly as plants and trees do when they make ‘nice smells’
Clean, high efficiency engines are what created and exacerbated this NOx issue
Isn’t that just The Craziest Thing?
the world has gone completely mad
I don’t have a problem with the data. I have a problem with conclusions, drawn by these people, from the data. There are many possible conclusions that can be drawn. They only conclude by preconceived ideas.
I am afraid that is probably the most useful summary on offer.
Good comments, Peta. The whole focus of their report is to say the atmospheric system is more complex and chaotic than we realized, but don’t worry, we know for sure that CO2 is a pollutant and we need to get rid of it.
CO2 is not a pollutant by any stretch of the imagination or the physics of weather.
@Peta of Newark
Thank you very much for theses complementaries informations. This kind of post is what i love the most about this website. I can leave today with a full list of subjects i will explore that i was unaware thanks to your post.
As with human health, the environment is a complex system, and what effect we have on it is also complex. Linking one sole cause to one sole effect does not make sense. Your mention of springtime and VOCs is good– limonene, a very common plant terpene, has health benefits in its normal state, but decomposes into formaldehyde, which is toxic.
And they want to link the lockdown with an environmental benefit, yet… “acute lack of rainfall in the second half of 2020” in Turkey has led to a water crisis in 2021.
Last summer where I live in the U.S. (above the 45th parallel) was unseasonably cool, and we had a very mild wildfire season (excluding the freak wind event that caused our Sept. fires).
It’s also interesting to note the recent work (lost the link) showing that snowpack today in the Alps is no different than historic levels since the last ice age, or the recent work (again lost the link) showing that predicted sea level rise did not happen.
I try to not come to “conclusions” based on interpretation of information, but rather aim to let the facts, the information, be the conclusion.
Thanks for steering toward facts.
Peta
I wonder if there is a typo here:
“But are ‘particles’ not usually solid things – classically soot – and not liquids”
Did you mean
“But are ‘particles’ usually solid things – classically soot – and not liquids”
Particles arising from poor combustion are frequently condensed volatiles so qualify as liquids. They are sticky and agglomerate to create giant dendritic particles with from several hundred to thousands of tiny spheres.
Transfer the other points. The article contains many errors and was obviously not checked by someone familiar with atmospheric air quality chemistry and physics.
Working on high radio towers, I was often delighted over the Christmas period, when, for a few days, our industry closed down for annual maintenance. The layer of yellow-grey gook would disappear until the first week in January, when it would suddenly reappear in its full (dys)glory. It really takes very little rest for the planet to recover.
Maybe we should just reinstate the Sabbath as a day of rest for everyone, then the Greenies can go out and experience life outside mommy’s basement once a while…
And maybe it will become acceptable again for the climate to change, as it has for millions of years.
Globally, air pollution is linked to nearly seven million premature deaths each year.
Sigh. And the stuff what makes the pollution saves many, many, many times that, every year.
“Globally, air pollution is linked to nearly seven million premature deaths each year.”
Yes, linked how? Caused? There are many forms of “linkage”.
Don’t worry. Premature by what? A day, A week, A month, A year?
They are careful not to tell you what premature is.
This article should have never been presented here.
A piece of junk.
Check the “linkage” source documents. It is “attributed” with models based on opinions and other models. And also check the WHO’s definition of “premature death”.
What then is the “cause” of all post-mature deaths? What does the model say about that, hmmm?
Clearly an attempt to explain away the lack of fall in global CO2 levels by saying ‘ah, but NO2 didnt fall as much as you think!’.
Pathetic.
“Doing this is important, because if people overestimate the benefits of the lockdown on air quality they could underestimate the scale of the air pollution challenge in the world’s cities and fail to take the radical action necessary to bring urban air quality within healthy limits”
This is insane, the problem is people overestimate the BENEFITS of lockdown, what about the underestimating the COSTS?, which is what the MSM is being doing for almost a year now.
I know this is a BS study to push the agenda, but I couldnt make myself read past that
Wow, what a surprise, sarc. Someone realised that the original report seriously undermined the religion so took steps to ‘adjust’ the data and, of course, the report is now far more pessimistic. By now I’d be more surprised if any of these reports actually had a grain of truth in them; not scientific, just political activism.
wtf?
[Another is that the changing chemical nature of the atmosphere during lockdown caused more gaseous compounds in the air to convert to these fine particles.]
im sorry but since when did gas vapours etc manage to turn into particles?
Gas vapours do in fact condense into aerosol particles (wet ones) but not the way the author thinks. They obviously read something they didn’t understand. Volatile organic compounds often condense. “Gases” do not. Atmospheric particles evolve rapidly during transport. If you measure PM2.5 “at source” you get some number. Moving 1 km downwind you get a completely different picture (size distribution). They bump and clump then dump on the ground.
Vehicles are a major cause of them lofting again – so-called fugitive dust. Dust from the ground frequently dominates all pollution readings. In Beijing the air quality varies seasonally and is strongly influenced by the Gobi Desert. Even in S Korea it causes yellow air.
quote;
Doing this is important, because if people overestimate the benefits of the lockdown on air quality they could underestimate the scale of the air pollution challenge in the world’s cities and fail to take the radical action necessary to bring urban air quality within healthy limits.
unquote. my emphasis.
Rejected.
Author should be sacked. Author’s employer should be sacked. Referees should be sacked. How can such blatant bias be allowed in any academic institution?
“Lockdowns don’t work”
https://www.rt.com/news/512137-lockdown-ineffective-coronavirus-restrictions/
(only as a government control mechanism)
Looking at the raw data in the UK at most sites you couldn’t see where the lockdown started
I’m tired of reading about studies where the researchers decided what outcome they wanted ahead of time, then made sure their results matched
And do not understand the mechanisms they try to discuss.
STANFORD STUDY: LOCKDOWNS HAVE NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT IN REDUCING COVID-19, MAY EVEN SPREAD IT
‘we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures’
Thu Jan 14, 2021
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/stanford-study-lockdowns-have-no-significant-effect-in-reducing-covid-19-may-even-spread-it
STANFORD, Connecticut, January 14, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – A new study compiled by experts from Stanford University, has found that severe lockdown restrictions, such as stay at home orders and closure of businesses, have no “clear, significant benefits” in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and may in fact increase infection rates.
National or state-wide lockdowns have been the ‘go to’ tactic by governments since the emergence of COVID-19, yet new research reveals that such drastic and draconian measures are, at best, not effective.
My comment: This paper seriously understates the downside of destructive Covid-19 lockdowns. The lockdowns were and are a costly disaster, estimated to be 10 to 100 times more harmful than the illness. Lockdowns did little if any good and enormous harm. Deaths from the lockdowns now exceed and in the future will greatly exceed deaths from the Covid-19 illness. I told you so on 21&22March2020.
LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS DEMAND COVID-19 VACCINATION BEFORE RETURN TO CAMPUS
A coronavirus vaccine requirement, Superintendent Beutner asserted, would be ‘no different than students who are vaccinated for measles or mumps.’
Thu Jan 14, 2021
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/los-angeles-schools-demand-covid-19-vaccination-before-return-to-campus
LOS ANGELES, January 14, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner said on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines will be mandatory for in-person students once they become available.
A coronavirus vaccine requirement, he asserted, would be “no different than students who are vaccinated for measles or mumps,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Speaking in a prerecorded briefing, he compared staff, students, and others receiving the COVID-19 shots to those who “are tested for tuberculosis before they come on campus. That’s the best way we know to keep all on a campus safe.”
My comment: What??? Schoolchildren should NOT be vaccinated, especially with the experimental Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. The risk-to-reward is far too high – high risk of immediate and future complications and no reward – schoolchildren have essentially no risk of dying from Covid-19. In Alberta to ~1Dec2020, the risk of dying from Covid-19 for the under-65 population was 1 in 300,000 – a total of 13 deaths in a population of ~4 million.
By 18Dec2020 ~3% of those vaccinated with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine had adverse reactions severe enough that they were “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional”.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-19/05-COVID-CLARK.pdf excerpt from slide 6 of 8:
V-safe Active Surveillance for COVID-19 Vaccines Dec 14 Dec 15 Dec 16 Dec 17 Dec 18*
Registrants with recorded 1st dose 679 6,090 27,823 67,963 112,807
Health Impact Events** 3 50 373 1,476 3,150
Based on the above data, ~3% of those vaccinated had the following symptoms:
*Dec 18, 5:30 pm EST
**unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional
To ~1December2020 in Alberta, there was a 1 in 300,000 chance of dying from Covid-19 for those under 65 years of age.
By 18Dec2020 ~3% of those vaccinated with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine had adverse reactions severe enough that they were “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional”.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-19/05-COVID-CLARK.pdf slide 6 of 8:
So why would anyone in the under-65 low-risk population take the Pfizer vaccine?
This is a brilliant video by Dennis Prager. It applies to the USA and also to Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and much of continental Europe.
47 minutes.
VIDEO: DENNIS PRAGER—‘THIS IS THE REICHSTAG FIRE, RELIVED’
By Jan Jekielek January 14, 2021
https://www.theepochtimes.com/video-dennis-prager-this-is-the-reichstag-fire-relived_3657503.html
______________________________
I published this note last September and earlier:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/01/the-real-cost-of-lockdowns/#comment-3076487
“Globalized Socialism”, well actually it is “Global Totalitarianism” – closer to the old hereditary Absolute Monarchies. Think North Korea, Cuba and China.
“Socialism” is just the nice-sounding term used by the wolves to sell their dictatorship to the sheep.
Read 20th Century history: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao – all “Socialists” – but actually all Absolute Dictators who killed about 200 million people, mostly their own citizens!
Can we not learn from history? Do we really have to do this again? Apparently we do.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/16/greenland-melting-likely-increased-by-bacteria-in-sediment/#comment-3163983
[excerpt]
Following is Ole Humlum’s latest, received today.
http://www.climate4you.com/
[excerpt]
“5: There is no perceptible effect on atmospheric CO2 due to the COVID-related drop in GHG emissions. Natural sinks and sources for atmospheric CO2 far outweigh human contributions.“
The significance of Humlum’s observation cannot be overstated – it strongly supports Ed Berry’s latest book and paper, as described below.
Conclusion:
The Great Covid-19 Lockdown Fraud, which has been linked by leading globalists to the Great Global Warming / Climate Fraud (“To solve the very-scary Covid-19 Fraud we have to solve the very-scary Climate Fraud” and similar specious nonsense) has demonstrated that both very-scary schemes are FALSE! The lockdown is now known to have caused 10 to 100 times more harm to humanity than the Covid-19 illness. If there was any truth to the warmists’ fundamental hypothesis that increasing fossil fuel combustion is the primary driver of increasing atmospheric CO2, we should have seen a relative decline trend in atmospheric CO2 during the Lockdown and WE DID NOT! This is more evidence to support Ed Berry’s hypothesis that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is primarily caused by nature, not the combustion of fossil fuels.
So if we follow the warmists nonsense hypo and eliminate fossil fuel production, shut down our vital energy systems, kill off a large part of humanity and have the survivors live like cavemen, then atmospheric CO2 will NOT be significantly reduced – and we will destroy our prosperity and our lives for nothing – for a failed, false, nonsense hypothesis concocted by a gang of globalist fraudsters.
Even if Ed Berry’s hypo were false, which is improbable, the warmist hypothesis fails on two further points:
1. Atmospheric CO2 changes lag atmospheric temperature changes by approximately 9 months in the modern data record. The future cannot cause the past.
2. Even if one accepts that “the future CAN cause the past”, the calculated sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 is far too low (~1C/doubling) to cause dangerous warming.
The global warming fraudsters have no credible arguments left – their very-scary global warming / human-made climate change crisis is cancelled.
I would expect to see the drop in co2 emissions in the mauna lua graph. If it’s not there, then maybe there is another source of CO2?