Rapid lifestyle changes during early COVID-19 pandemic had no impact on climate change

Household carbon footprints did not significantly change during the first state of emergency in Japan

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

Research News

IMAGE
IMAGE: RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO EXAMINED HOW LIFESTYLE CHANGES DURING THE COVID-19 STATE OF EMERGENCY AFFECTED THE CONSUMPTION HABITS AND ASSOCIATED CARBON FOOTPRINTS OF JAPANESE HOUSEHOLDS. THE CARBON FOOTPRINTS… view more CREDIT: IMAGE BY YIN LONG, FIRST PUBLISHED IN ONE EARTH DOI: 10.1016/J.ONEEAR.2021.03.003

Despite the rapid and significant changes in consumption patterns witnessed during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese households maintained their normal levels of greenhouse gases emissions. The “anthropause” — reduction of human activity due to the pandemic — made headlines last summer, but factory shutdowns and broken global supply chains did not translate into the adoption of eco-friendly lifestyles for the average household.

“During the early COVID-19 period, we could witness lifestyle changes happening around us fast, so we decided to explore the environmental impacts of these lifestyle changes. Some other research at that period was showing that the production-side greenhouse gases emissions decreased, but when assessing the emissions from the consumer side we noticed that they did not change so much compared to 2015 through 2019 levels,” said Project Assistant Professor Yin Long from the University of Tokyo Institute for Future Initiatives. Long is first author of the research recently published in One Earth.

Experts say that around the world, half of a nation’s carbon footprint is due to the consumption of goods and services by individual households. A carbon footprint is a measure of both the direct and indirect greenhouse gases emissions associated with growing, manufacturing and transporting the food, goods, utilities and services we use.

Researchers considered in this study approximately 500 consumption items and then tracked the carbon emissions embedded in all the associated goods and services. Eating out, groceries, clothing, electronics, entertainment, gasoline for vehicles, as well as home utilities were all included.

“The real beauty of it is the consistency of the long-term data collection in these government statistics, even during the COVID-19 period, which allows us to compare it with historical patterns” said Associate Professor Alexandros Gasparatos, an expert on ecological economics who led the study. Gasparatos holds a dual appointment with the University of Tokyo and the United Nations University in Tokyo.

The monthly carbon footprints of household consumption for the period January to May of 2020 were compared to the carbon footprints of the same months from the previous five years. In Japan, COVID-19 diagnoses began increasing in February and the first nationwide COVID-19 state of emergency was declared from mid-April to mid-May 2020.

The research team’s analyses revealed that the 2020 carbon footprint of all households, both aggregate and across different age groups, largely remained within the range of 2015 through 2019.

The carbon footprint of the emissions associated with eating out decreased during the state of emergency, but emissions from groceries increased, especially due to the purchase of more meat, eggs and dairy. Emissions associated with clothing and entertainment decreased sharply during the state of emergency, but rebounded rapidly when the emergency measure ended.

“This kind of natural experiment is telling us that the very quick and consistent change in lifestyle during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic did not materialize into significant and sustained changes in the carbon footprints of households,” said Gasparatos.

The nonbinding state of emergency declarations by the national and local governments in Japan requested that people limit social gatherings, dining out in groups and nonessential travel between prefectures. Compared to the legally enforced lockdowns in other countries, researchers say Japan’s minimal impositions are likely a better model of the lifestyle changes that eco-conscious households might make voluntarily.

“If we see lifestyle change as a strategy to achieve decarbonization, our results suggest that it might not automatically translate into environmental benefits. It will require a lot of effort and public education focused on the most emission-intensive household demands, such as private car use, and space and water heating,” said Gasparatos.

“We saw that factories shut down when COVID-19 happened, but consumer demand stayed the same, so factories reopened to satisfy those demands. As written in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, consumers and producers should share responsibility for achieving sustainable lifestyles,” said Long.

###

Research Article

Yin Long, Dabo Guan, Keiichiro Kanemoto, and Alexandros Gasparatos.15 April 2021. Negligible impacts of early COVID-19 confinement on household carbon footprints in Japan. One Earth. DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.003

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.003

Related Links

Gasparatos Lab: http://www.gasparatos-lab.org/

Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI): https://ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

From EurekAlert!

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R Moore
May 10, 2021 11:12 pm

Is this a joke? The worldā€™s temperature got colder by UAH satellite readings.

Derg
Reply to  R Moore
May 11, 2021 3:29 am

No kidding and last year the freeways were less congested. Now we are stop and go again.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  R Moore
May 11, 2021 4:41 am

Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up!!!!! šŸ˜‰

Scissor
Reply to  R Moore
May 11, 2021 4:47 am

Peering out the window this morning, I ask myself, “Why did I put the snow shovels away?”

Jphn
May 10, 2021 11:31 pm

In UK the pandemic means we have been given a life an death decision to make.

https://wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/news/latest-data-mhra-blood-clots-associated-astra-zeneca-covid-19-vaccine/

Carrie
Reply to  Jphn
May 11, 2021 12:55 am

Yawn.

guidoLaMoto
Reply to  Jphn
May 11, 2021 1:07 am

This probably isn’t the place to discuss this, but you know what they say about a little bit of knowledge—The rate of blood clots after the CoV vax is literally 1 in a million…imposed on a basic background rate of 3 per 1000 per yr in the unvaccinated….Can we deduce that you’re still wearing a mask too?.

Reply to  guidoLaMoto
May 12, 2021 1:28 pm

Then why have they stopped using Zeneca in some places?

Reply to  Jphn
May 11, 2021 6:05 am

The odds of dieing from CV19 are far far greater. It’s no surprise that the most vulnerable group , 70+ years old, are also the ones who can remember killer diseases either directly or by the fear their parents had of illnesses like Measles,Polio, Diptheria, Whooping Cough and Tetanus. My grandmothers were both adults during the Spanish Flu pandemic so they had a respect for Flu and treated that as a potential killer.
Personally I had a close encounter with the Grim Reaper thanks to Scarlet Fever

commieBob
May 10, 2021 11:52 pm

Unless you’re going to reduce people to absolute poverty, everyone consumes about the same amount of ‘stuff’ to stay alive. Most people would be surprised to learn that they use fewer pounds of ‘stuff’ than did their grandparents. Economists call it dematerialization.

Between 1977 and 2001, the amount of material required to meet all needs of Americans fell from 1.18 trillion pounds to 1.08 trillion pounds, even though the country’s population increased by 55 million people. Al Gore similarly noted in 1999 that since 1949, while the economy tripled, the weight of goods produced did not change.

What it means is that there is no environmental penalty for making people prosperous enough that they can care about the environment. It puts the lie to Malthus and all his slimy successors.

Surprisingly, people don’t consume that much more ‘stuff’ than they actually need and that’s what’s demonstrated by the Japanese data in the story above.

Reply to  commieBob
May 11, 2021 7:21 pm

Means humans are not a global warming “control knob”. Our small impact on climate is mostly due to building things and infrastructure that hold heat longer than grasslands and forests. It seems impact from CO2 is barely detectable.

May 11, 2021 12:03 am

Experts say that around the world, half of a nationā€™s carbon footprint is due to the consumption of goods and services by individual households.”

You know what that means, don’t you?

David Bunney
Reply to  Ralph Dave Westfall
May 11, 2021 1:17 am

Green tyrant overlords! Absolute poverty; carbon ration cards for food, transport, heat and material goods… social credit score to prevent anyone from pointing out that this is all unnecessary evil tyranny!

Chaswarnertoo
Reply to  Ralph Dave Westfall
May 11, 2021 1:43 am

We are the ā€˜carbonā€™ they want to reduce.

MJPenny
Reply to  Ralph Dave Westfall
May 11, 2021 10:23 am

Doing the math we need to get rid of twice the worlds population to reduce the human population’s carbon footprint to zero.

Reply to  MJPenny
May 11, 2021 10:49 am

Nonsense. All humans have to do is exterminate 10% of the worlds termites to bring their carbon footprint to zero. It will create jobs everywhere. Win-win.

dk_
May 11, 2021 12:36 am

“..emissions from groceries increased, especially due to the purchase of more meat, eggs and dairy”
“If…lifestyle change as a strategy to achieve decarbonization, our results suggest that it might not automatically translate into environmental benefits. It will require a lot of effort and public education focused on the most emission-intensive household demands, such as private car use, and space and water heating”
“As written in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, consumers and producers should share responsibility for achieving sustainable lifestyles,ā€

To paraphrase: Reformation of the most successful societies to combat climate change requires reeducation of consumers, who with producers are responsible for failing to meet U.N. sustainability goals, because they insist that they eat, stay warm, and exercise free travel using private property.

The Gulag was established as a pattern for reducing diet and reliance on heating, clothing, and shelter through reeducation. Political repression as required by the climate change emergency. Remember next time you see angry Greta, screeching Occasio-Cortez, or fatuous Mann.

Carrie
May 11, 2021 12:50 am

Our energy consumption went up. We worked from home, baked more, watched more TV and played more video games. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, oh and I ordered loads of stuff from Amazon which was delivered, in the most part, the next day, heaven!

Reply to  Carrie
May 12, 2021 1:34 pm

I drove downtown a lot less, haven’t paid for parking, expensive fast-food lunches, and in fact took a car completely off the road, saving insurance and licencing to. Oh, and a ton of gasoline. Your energy consumption must have went down if you include commuting.

Chris Hanley
May 11, 2021 12:52 am

The different emission patterns for different age cohorts may reflect the fact that many or most Japanese 25 -55 year olds work where the energy is supplied by the employer while older people are at home.

Notanacademic
May 11, 2021 12:59 am

Sorry a little off topic, can someone please tell me the difference between a lateral flow test and the PCR test. I know a little about PCR tests being useless with high CT, but I know nothing about the LFT. Any information will be very much appreciated.

David Bunney
Reply to  Notanacademic
May 11, 2021 2:38 am

Wrong thread

Notanacademic
Reply to  David Bunney
May 11, 2021 2:51 am

Apologies.

fretslider
May 11, 2021 1:05 am

So being placed under house arrest is in fact a rapid lifestyle change?

David Bunney
May 11, 2021 1:39 am

I am surprised by calculations of low impact on CO2 emissions. In the UK and EUrope during several months; private transport was nearly zero with people not commuting to offices, nor visiting friends and family nor going on holiday. Electricity demand was running for a period between 20% and 40% lower than normal at times as industrial demand as well as office, factory and shops heating/cooling/lighting loads disappeared during the complete lockdown. We also had a global shutdown in air travel during this period and no ferries; fewer trains etc. Okay goods transport levels remain constant, people still need to eat and to heat or cool their homes and some transport is essential…

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721001819

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/emissions-changes-due-lockdown-measures-during-first-wave-covid-19-pandemic-europe#:~:text=The%20largest%20decreases%20in%20European,fuel%20(%2D10.3%25)%20emissions.

What is equally interesting is that you look at the remote atmospheric CO2 concentration measurement traces that major lockdowns and changes in human emissions made no impression on the upward march of the graphs – maybe the carbon cycle and imbalance is more to do with other natural sources of CO2???? If human emissions were the dominant factor surely we would see a slight down-tick during lockdown!
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

As others have pointed out the globe has been cooling at this same time and at a time with less particulate emissions you would according to AGW theory would expect that to create warming (due to reduced cooling).

So either something is wrong or corrupt in the measurement and reporting; something is wrong with all their theories and hypothesis or if they are right then we are going to have to remove people’s rights to have food, heat, transport, water, material goods of all kinds and ask them to go quietly die somewhere in a way which doesn’t create a large positive feedback of CO2 release from decomposition….

dk_
Reply to  David Bunney
May 11, 2021 3:23 am

“remote atmospheric CO2 concentration measurement traces” Don’t we only measure CO2 concentration globally from Hawaii (at substantial altitude, over an active volcano)?

“way which doesnā€™t create a large positive feedback of CO2 release” I still recommend that, to save us all, thermogeddonite death cultists voluntarily consign themselves to an ocean depth of >1km, and preferrably row themselves out. I’ll be grateful, and they will have done something for climate change, somethin for the environment, and for everyone’s peace of mind.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  David Bunney
May 11, 2021 4:54 am

As I have said before, Manmade Global Warming (aka Climate Change) is nothing more than the latest in a long line of horror scary stories started back in 1945 when the last world war ended!!! It is considered by some of us to be the grand-daddy of ALL scary stories, nuclear holocaust, bio-chemical fallout/holocaust, a mixture of both, global cooling, followed by global warming!!! I wonder as the Earth is probably in a cooling trend due to reduced Solar activity, despite Solar activity not having any affects on Climate except in the geological past, it stopped having such affects around11,500 years ago at the end of the last ice-age, what the alarmists have up their sleeves for the next scary story??? Or perhaps they will be very eco-friendly, & simply start recycling the old scary stories they hope everyone will have forgotten about??? Who knows?

dk_
Reply to  Alan the Brit
May 12, 2021 3:37 pm

I’d go for 1914, 1890, or even 1860, 1819, or possibly the French Terror ca. 1789, but I will stipulate your 1945 in order to vehemently agree with your intent.

Reply to  David Bunney
May 11, 2021 7:02 am

Hi David, you are on the right track – the huge decline in fossil fuel consumption during the Covid-19 lockdown had no impact on atmospheric CO2 increase – more evidence that Ed Berry’s latest book and paper are correct – see below.

My friend Ed says the increase in atmospheric CO2 is primarily natural, not man-made. The smartest people I know think he is correct.

Atmospheric CO2 changes lag temperature changes at all measured time scales. (MacRae, 2008). Humlum et al (2013) confirmed this conclusion.
 
Kuo et al (1990) and Keeling (1995) made similar observations in the journal Nature, but have been studiously ignored.
 
Think about that: Kuo was correct in 1990, and for 31 years climate science has ignored that conclusion and has been going backwards!
 
Climate Sensitivity to CO2 is a fiction ā€“ so small, if it exists at all, it is practically irrelevant.
ā€œThe future cannot cause the past.ā€ Here is the proof, from my 2008 paper:
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.18/offset:0.17
 
In the modern data record, the lag of atmospheric CO2 changes after atmospheric temperature changes is ~9 months. This is an absolute disproof of the CAGW hypothesis, which states that increasing CO2 drives temperature. “The future cannot cause the past.”
 
In my 2019 paper below, I explained why the lag is ~9 months ā€“ it is basic calculus, the 90 degree (1/4 cycle) lag of the derivative and its integral, which is the ~3 year ENSO period.
 
My 2008 paper remains very important. My 2008 conclusion was duplicated and expanded by Humlum et al in 2013, for which I am grateful.
 
My 2008 paper has been cited by Ed Berry in his 2020 book and related paper, which is at the cutting edge of climate science.
ā€œCLIMATE MIRACLE: THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS – NATURE CONTROLS CLIMATEā€
amazon.ca/Climate-Miracle-climate-crisis-controls-ebook/dp/B08LCD1YC3/
 
“CARBON CYCLE MODEL SHOWS NATURE CONTROLS CO2 LEVEL”
edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/preprint3/
 
All warmists and most skeptics argue about the magnitude of climate sensitivity to increasing CO2, and whether the resulting CO2-driven global warming will be hot and dangerous or warm and beneficial. Both groups are probably wrong, because global cooling is happening now, even as CO2 concentration increases.
 
There is a high probability that the mainstream debate is wrong – a waste of decades of vital time, tens of trillions of dollars of green energy nonsense and millions of lives. Vital energy systems have been compromised, damaged with intermittent, unreliable wind and solar generation ā€“ a debacle.
 
Cheap abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of humanity – it IS that simple. The green sabotage of our vital energy systems, whether innocent or deliberate, has cost lives and could cost very many more.
 
Scientific details here:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY June 15, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
 
Repeating, “The future cannot cause the past.”
 
Regards, Allan

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
May 11, 2021 10:11 am

Nor can the future even cause the present!

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
May 11, 2021 10:55 am

The future cannot cause the future either because each and every moment in the universe is unique. Think about it. You can’t even look at it without changing it.

Reply to  David Bunney
May 12, 2021 1:43 pm

I think you’re totally correct. CO2 graphs barely noticed covid19 in spite of the imposed vacation. Similar situation to the Great Recession of 2008. This unintended test of CO2 emissions and atmospheric response may help reveal some interesting science, with the likelihood that Gaia can absorb whatever amount of CO2 humans can make, and the CO2 ppm’s will only depend on how warm the oceans are (but also probably a bit on how the biosphere in the water and on land is doing).

May 11, 2021 2:14 am

1. Rapid lifestyle changes during early COVID-19 pandemic had no impact on climate change
2. Household carbon footprints did not significantly change during the first state of emergency in Japan

Non sequitur! Conflating those two statements results in the extremely dubious implication that changes in Japanese household carbon footprints would have a measurable impact on “climate change”.

dk_
Reply to  StuM
May 11, 2021 3:37 am

I wonder how one says “that does not follow” in Japanese.
Why might anyone imagine that, without suspended animation, changes in activity would actually mean changes in emissions? Why would working and interacting in public, or not, cause them to eat and drink more, or less? What theory might explain that productive economic activity is somehow different than “normal” life, when that life depends on productive activity?
This is more of the narrative that consumption is only luxury for the rich — Marxist doctrine of envy for the ignorant, resentful, and those who are easily led.

May 11, 2021 2:55 am

Because The Lie, the Really Big One that is soooo big and fantastical that it must in fact, Be True

Quote:”emissions from groceries increased, especially due to the purchase of more meat, eggs and dairy

Because, ‘behind closed doors’, people will do ‘what people do’
People will do what they are genetically programmed to do, they will follow their instinct and eat a diet that they evolved to eat.

They will use the money they saved by not going to over-priced expensive pretentious snob-infested interfering nosey-parkering politically-correct see-to-be-seen eateries and follow their own instincts
They will eat, behind closed doors, fat, animal protein and salt

The emissions scarenario comes has many facets:

  • Cows create methane – yes, but when eating what’s for them junk & rubbish
  • Green fields have lower albedo than arable fields – perfect and easily disproved nonsense
  • Cows use a lot of water – rain that would have fallen anyway
  • Arable land has higher yeild. Yes, but only if you consider Sugar to be a food fit for humans. Rampant obesity, cardio-diseases, cancer & Alzheimer say not. What the Japanese actually ate during lockdown also says as much

Cows seemingly waste vast amounts ## of what grows in a permanent/perennial pasture field.
In doing so, they are actually trapping/storing carbon in the soil but most importantly ‘for the climate‘, that ‘wasted’ food‘ is storing water in the soil.

  • Water that retains heat
  • Water that otherwise would raise sea-levels
  • Water that cools – thus preventing what I call ‘Rural Heat Oceans

### Cows are bona-fide actual sugar eaters. Also, they are not stupid.
Thus, in a wide open field, pasture, prairie, savannah or continent, they will selectively pluck and consume only the leaves off the grass plants.
The leaves are the ‘sugar factories’

What they leave behind are the stalks of the grass plants. The nutrient free impossible to digest ‘fibre’ ***
Then, they have perfectly designed feet for mashing that stalks and fibrous stuff into the ground.
Even more, they bury it under cow pies so as to ensure no-one else eats it, aprt from, all the bugs worms bacteria and fungi.
i.e All the things which dominate Life on Earth and by a VERY wide margin and in doing so, control the climate.
They are ‘ Gaia’

*** See how crazy our doctors have become – they constantly hammer home the message that ‘fibre’ is good for us to eat.
Only termites and fungi can make any sense of fibre. Nutritionally that is

It gets worse:
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/environment/climate-change-chief-calls-for-food-import-controls

UK folks will recognise the guy
John Seldom Glummer, who and as Minister for Food & Farming, fed A Beefburger to his young daughter.
On camera, on TV at the height of the UK outbreak of Mad Cow Disease (aka BSE) ### in order to demonstrate his personal conviction that UK food is ‘good’

He is, after a fashion, still claiming that but has now decided to go on a trade war with the folks who supply 50% of UK food,
i.e. The nutrient free tasteless mush that everyone eats and makes them ill and causes them to die.
Read= Co-morbidities

But at least it keeps them alive, after sorts, while in reality turns them into paranoid and easily frightened/led taxpaying zombies

‘Tax Paying’ being the operative here.
He wants to tax imported animal product.
He will gain traction.
Because the zombies (general population) have been frightened and lied to in such an extent that they will go along with it and UK Gov is bankrupt, needs the money.

Always needs The Money.
Watch out for your pockets and paychecks peeps, Joe is gonna need some money soon……

Reply to  Peta of Newark
May 11, 2021 3:13 am

###
It was quite bizarre, in a yes-and-no way to UK farmers & vets that during the UK outbreak of BSE, a similar sized outbreak of ‘Mad Cows’ was going on in France

Except that in France, the cows were all diagnosed as suffering from ‘Staggers’
Staggers being a ‘brain & nervous-system’ problem which presents the exact same outward symptoms as Mad Cow Disease/BSE.

Hence why UK farmers ‘knew’ in a yes/no way. They knew what the French were actually getting up to.

Humans have similar disorders – as became named ‘variant-CJD’, but we also get Parkinson’s and Alzeimer’s.

Now then, here is a little something for the Alert and Skeptical Reader:
‘Staggers’ as presented in cows is, very simply, a severe dietary deficiency of Magnesium (Mg)

Cows normally get their Mg from eating (the Chlorophyll in) green grass.
If the soil is deficient (highly eroded) and they are put under stress from whatever source/form, they will succumb to staggers

Do you think there’d be much or any Mg in an ear of corn or a head of wheat?
Esp if it was grown or eroded soil.
Would that explain a few things we all see going on around us ***

Because we, would/could or should, get our Mg from eating cows

*** Now go figure
PS Adding some Epsom Salt to your diet may, will probably, help with your figuring.
It can’t do any harm – maybe is a real reason folks liked to visit a ‘health spa‘ and to ‘take the water
The most significant ingredient in any genuine spa-water being: Magnesium Sulphate
Humans have visited spa for millennia. Peace has been known to break-out between warring factions, so as the divergent parties could both still enjoy/visit/partake of, The Spa Waters

Were they/we going to spa for physical health reasons, or mental health reasons?
As the Japanese are effectively doing in their lockdown, eating that bit extra Mg

Did Spa Water promote some/many/all the things the climate alarmists want: i.e. peace love and happiness.
Is there anything intrinsically wrong with that?

Ron Long
May 11, 2021 3:01 am

This report totally misses the point. Their charts show a clear inflection point when quarantines and lockdowns started, so saying “stayed in the range” is a deliberate attempt to torture the data into supporting your viewpoint. The point they missed is that world-wide CO2 levels continued their regular rate of change, suggesting that human activity is neither the control knob for atmospheric CO2 content nor climate change.

Herbert
Reply to  Ron Long
May 11, 2021 4:07 am

Ron,
In Australia, the CSIRO State of the Climate Report 2020 says this-
ā€œDespite the slowdown In fossil fuel emissions of CO2 from early 2020 associated with the Covid -19 pandemic there will be negligible impacts in terms of climate change.
Atmospheric CO2 continues to rise and fossil fuel emissions will remain the principal driver of this growth throughout 2020 and likely beyond.ā€
Further in the same section-
ā€œHowever atmospheric CO2 is still increasing ( from 410 ppm in 2019) and reduced CO2 emissions due to Covid-19 will likely reduce CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere by only about 0.2 ppm throughout 2020.
This is about 10% of the recent CO2 growth of 2 to 3 ppm per year and at most 20% of the year to year variability (~1 ppm) due to fluctuations in the natural carbon cycle.
The effect on greenhouse gas emissions from CoVid-19 related emissions reductions will therefore be barely distinguishable from natural variability and negligible in terms of the mitigation needed to stabilise the climate.ā€
Note the last passage!
On the one hand,Greenhouse Gases are officially ā€˜the control knob of the climateā€™ ( Lacis 2010) but suddenly ā€œnatural variabilityā€ and ā€œthe natural carbon cycleā€ are in play.
And they have no way of knowing nor do they explain how much natural variability is involved.
Willis Eschenbach has posted here on this conundrum for climate science.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Herbert
May 11, 2021 10:21 am

ā€œHowever atmospheric CO2 is still increasing ( from 410 ppm in 2019) and reduced CO2 emissions due to Covid-19 will likely reduce CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere by only about 0.2 ppm throughout 2020.

When the transient 18% reduction in the Spring is integrated with the emissions for the whole year, it is not surprising that the effects can’t be observed in the cumulative total. However, when the rate of change is unaffected during the Spring run-up, before the NH photosynthesis sinks kicks in, it does raise serious questions about the assumptions of the role of human emissions!

Reply to  Ron Long
May 11, 2021 4:21 am

That “clear inflection point” is also clear in all of the 2015-2019 data. Hardly surprising as the weather starts to warm up from March onwards.

Coeur de Lion
May 11, 2021 3:57 am

I assume they mean carbon dioxide. Plus 2 ppm a year for 30 years. No change in the weather Latest UAH has global temperature same as 1991.

dk_
May 11, 2021 4:01 am

I’m sure that there must be a standardized definition for a carbon footprint,and units and methods of precise measurement, as a basis for comparison. Otherwise, the whole report would be absolute nonsense.

Bruce Cobb
May 11, 2021 4:18 am

The Center for Climate Control (CCC) estimated that the reduction in the carbon footprint of households was “less than 100%”. When asked about their figure they snapped back that they couldn’t micromanage every single activity that people do.

goracle
May 11, 2021 4:50 am

Climate models are GIGO. CO2 (and other GHGs) does not drive everything. One day it’s “because weather” and another day (when the observation doesn’t match the model prediction) it’s “because climate”. Snowy winters are climate change but less snowy winters are also climate change. WTH??? What will it take to stop the madness that “CO2 drives everything”? Remove funding… although not sure how when a large % of kids (the next lawmakers) have been indoctrinated into worshipping at the altar of the climate change false God.

May 11, 2021 5:51 am

The measured rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is at least 99% from year-to-year increases in natural emissions. It is practically impossible to detect any man made “footprint” contributing to this measured rise.

Walter Horsting
May 11, 2021 6:18 am

The Covid Industrial complex
https://youtu.be/2uZzoznjjKg

PANDA (Pandemics ā€“ data and analysis) has been outspoken with regards to the policy-makersā€™ reaction to Covid-19, lockdowns and other approaches to the virus. Nick Hudson, co-founder of PANDA, spoke at the inaugural BizNews Investment Conference in March 2021. His keynote address as well as the Q&A afterwards with BizNews founder Alec Hogg can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbndNMzliYm0yZWRDQkxDX3plQVNlWTRjckZ1Z3xBQ3Jtc0tuVXpiTm5VVzVRX3ZlRjJqeE9rUklvcnFmRVVkMHBUZzlNN3pVcHJWUnYzX0hMdlRuLWRKTjhDNl9maEdJWDhVSFdZZUVqOGJ5VldXdTZ6SDZweUlmdndxUEVXeGlraXh4MmFwd3ZCSW1IM0VvbUlRcw&q=https%3A%2F%2

532180407

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbVdiTzZhaU52czRpcGlIbG1iRlgwdEVkWW9pUXxBQ3Jtc0trbUprcVNTVVFPOWZ0RkRrMWxKZEZnVG9KRXZLRTZZNE9QcWhKV1kzeUh0SzhicWhhRm5yUVhkS2d0MEh4QTBVb2x4VDEtUkttTG5jbmI0SWZhQmJHd1JkcjNNaF9sWmUybmpnYzRMMlVnUHVqS1FRTQ&q=https%3A%2F%2

532172876



2hotel9
May 11, 2021 6:22 am

One more time, for all the environtards who are too dense to get it the first 100 times. Climate changes, constantly, always has and always will. Humans are not causing it to change and can not stop it from changing. Too bad the educated morons are too stupid to understand these two sentences.

Raven
May 11, 2021 6:25 am

Christiana Figueres, head of the UN climate change response that led to the Paris Agreement said:

“Covid-19 has shrunk the 10 years the world had to address climate change to no more than 18 months, according to the United Nations lead negotiator for the Paris Agreement.”

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/post-covid-podcast/story/2018748032/after-the-virus-the-environment

This article is from May 2020 so at best, the world comes crashing down by this November.
That gets me out of Christmas shopping at least.

Reginald R. Muskett, Ph.D.
May 11, 2021 8:21 am

Fake research (a.k.a. Fake Science) becomes … Woke research (a.k.a. Woke Science). They should lobby Mr. Fauci, the Million Dollar Bureaucrat (NIAID, NIH) for a few percent of the 10s of millions he signed off on (with NSF and Columbia Univ. and their 501(c)(3) org money launder) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the weaponized SARS-CoV-2 and variants (the ‘field test’ is not over yet). Hahahaha! šŸ˜€ [sarcasm]

May 11, 2021 10:04 am

How much of this has to happen before the masses realize climate change policies, like carbon taxes and unreliable wind and solar power, have nothing to do with emissions or their supposed climate impact?

Clyde Spencer
May 11, 2021 10:05 am

As written in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, consumers and producers should share responsibility for achieving sustainable lifestyles, …

Are they suggesting that producers should forego profit and cut production, creating shortages in things people want or need?

Were it not for consumer demand, the drug cartels would go out of business. The consumer has ultimate responsibility for what gets produced, and culpability for any environmental damages resulting from production and use.

High Treason
May 11, 2021 2:01 pm

It should be clear that when any major news story has to include “climate change” it is propaganda. The narrative must be continually plugged to prevent people questioning the absurdity of the narrative. Like COVID, it is the imaginary invisible enemy/ bogey man to keep us living in fear and be willing to relinquish our hard won freedoms.
Of course, questioning the narrative is a big no-no. This is always a sign that there is something those promoting the narrative do not want revealed-it will totally destroy the narrative-expose the whole thing as a fraud.

Earthwell
May 13, 2021 2:47 am

I don’t agree with you. I think it brings some negative impact indeed….. That is also the reason why many car markers use hybrid-in engine. To reduce the emission, many people choose to buy low-emission cars. Thus, ford ranger raptor sets in…..