From Dr Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog
Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Today, the Washington Post is reporting the EPA Administrator is considering recommending to the White House that the EPA’s 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding be rescinded. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why this might be a good thing to consider.
The Science
The science of human-caused climate change is much more uncertain that you have been led to believe. The globally-averaged surface temperature of Earth seems to have warmed by 1 deg. C or so in the last century. The magnitude of the warming remains uncertain with a 30% range in different thermometer-based datasets, and considerably weaker warming in global “reanalysis” datasets using all available data types. But whatever the level of warming, it might well be mostly human-caused.
But we don’t really know.
As I keep pointing out, the global energy imbalance caused by increasing human-caused CO2 emissions (yes, I believe we are the cause) is smaller than the accuracy with which we know natural energy flows in the climate system. This means recent warming could be mostly natural and we would never know it.
I’m not claiming that is the case, only that there are uncertainties in climate science that are seldom if ever discussed. The climate models that are the basis for future projections of climate change are adjusted (fudged?) so that increasing CO2 is the only cause of warming. The models themselves do not have all of the necessary physics (mostly due to cloud process uncertainties) to determine whether our climate system was in a state of equilibrium before CO2 was increasing. (And, no, I don’t believe the warming caused the oceans to outgas more CO2 — that effect is very small compared to the size of the human source).
As most readers here are aware, for many years I’ve been saying the science of “climate change” has been corrupted by big government science budgets, ideological worldview biases, and group-think. Even my career has depended upon Congress being convinced the issue is worthy of big budgets.
It is almost impossible for new science to be published in the peer-reviewed literature that in any way runs counter to the current narrative which states that humans are causing a “climate crisis” from our CO2 emissions, a natural consequence of fossil fuel burning. That “peer review” is now at the hands of climate scientists whose research careers depend upon continuing government funding. If the “problem” of global warming were to be much less than previously believed, funding for that research could dry up.
The most alarmist science papers are the ones that get all of the press, which then get exaggerated and misrepresented by the news media. As a result, the public has a very skewed perception of what scientists really know.
As Roger Pielke, Jr. has been pointing out for many years, even the IPCC’s official reports do not claim that our greenhouse gas emissions have caused changes in severe weather. Every severe weather event in the news is now dutifully tied in some inferential way to human causation, but with public opinion of mainstream news outlets at an all-time low, fewer and fewer people take those news reports seriously. Severe weather has always existed, and always will. Storm damages have increased only because of increasing infrastructure and everyone wanting to live on the coast.
And about the only clear long-term change I’m aware of is a 50% decline in strong to violent tornadoes since the 1950s.
But you would never know of any good climate news if your main source of information is Al Gore’s books, your favorite environmental think tank (that you contribute to so you can get their yearly calendar), or the mainstream media.
Costs vs. Benefits
If there was no cost to replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy, I might be a little more supportive of regulations which choose winner and losers, rather than letting the marketplace decide. But everything humans do requires energy, and so human flourishing depends upon abundant and affordable energy. We in the developed world might have excess wealth to spend on pricey new forms of energy (although our rapidly increasing national debt argues we don’t have excess wealth to squander), but most of the world’s poor continue to struggle to pay for energy we have in relative abundance… if they even have access to it.
The 2009 Endangerment Finding
The Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 falls under the EPA’s Clean Air Act, and so EPA would need to regulate it if it was considered a threat to human health and welfare.
But this “threat to human health and welfare” business cuts both ways.
For example, I could argue that most human deaths are premature, and those premature deaths are dominated by what we eat (or don’t eat). The incidence of obesity and related illnesses continues to rise. So, given the threat of food to human and welfare, why not just outlaw food? Food is a threat to human health and welfare, too.
Clearly we don’t do that because food is necessary for life. But so is CO2. CO2 is required for photosynthesis, which in turn is required for food chain on land and in the oceans. NASA-based satellite measurements since the 1980s have documented global greening from increasing CO2. It has been estimated global agricultural productivity has increased by trillions of dollars from crops growing better (with more drought resistance) in a CO2-enriched atmosphere.
I’ve read the technical support document for the 2009 EF. It is full of gloom and doom. Any benefits to more CO2 are downplayed while costs are trumpeted. Its authorship appears to have been heavily influenced by environmental activists, most of whom have their own agendas. Much of the science in it now sounds more like Al Gore’s original alarmist book Earth In The Balance (which referenced me, but couldn’t get my science contributions right) than a balanced assessment of the science of climate change.
Fifteen years hence, we now know much more. None of the scary scenarios originally predicted have actually come to pass, or at a minimum they were greatly exaggerated. Ten-year deadlines to “do something” about the “climate crisis” have come and gone… a few times. Even the IPCC (which only allows alarmist-leaning scientists to participate) has admitted it is unlikely we will experience significant changes in severe weather by the year 2100 that can be tied to increasing CO2.
It makes sense to now reconsider the Endangerment Finding.
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About a month ago, Francis Menton had a guest post here arguing the EF rescission from a legal view. His part one of three is essentially also Dr Spencer’s argument. Combine the two and I suspect you have the core of Lee Zeldin’s supposed recommendation (nothing official yet).
It will result in another Lawfare Battle Royale. Well worth the fight.
But the best fix is to sweep 2026 midterms, then permanently fix CAA legislatively.
The real basis for Net Zero is political and not scientific. “Trust the Science” was an effective tool used to program the citizens of the West into accepting energy induced poverty. Thus more science is not the answer to the problem. The answer is defunding the global warming community which is a tool being used to destroy the West. We must somehow re-educate our citizens so that they understand that they have the right exist and prosper due to their own efforts. They need to realize that they are not the cause of the failures of others and that equality through shared poverty is not a solution.
And let’s not forget Alan Carlin’s comments on the EF’s technical support document issued one week after the EF was issued in 2009. He had a number of salient points on both the science and the process.
“But we don’t really know.”
Good point. Yes, the endangerment finding of 2009 needs to be withdrawn.
And there are things we have now fifteen years later that help us re-assess the issue:
In my view, these scientific products ought to make it more apparent now to more climate investigators that the attribution of any portion of the reported warming to incremental CO2, CH4, N2O has been based on assumptions and framing all along. No good reason remains to be concerned about a dangerous outcome.
Learn more about natural cycles. Adapt and protect, whichever direction the climate trends take us. That’s all we need to do.
Thank you for listening.
Learn more about natural cycles.
Yes please.
We have ice core data from Antarctica, Greenland, the Tibetan Platea and the high Andes.
We have sea floor sediment cores from most oceans and inland seas/lakes.
It would be great to have all of this basic data collated in the one place so that a true picture of our climate for the past 1-2 million years can be summarised for our benefit.
How about the IPPC – International Panel on Past Climate.
Example – ocean tidal cycles. Keeling and Whorf 2000 PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.070047197
“IPCC has admitted it is unlikely we will experience significant changes in severe weather by the year 2100 that can be tied to increasing CO2.”
THat though makes me imagine what technology will be like in 2100.
For ref that’s now vs pre World War 1, and progress has not been linear.
I can add prohibition has never worked on anything booze, drugs, nukes so you are up against history. Then imagine you spent the money being wasted on attempting to control CO2 emissions on technology.
Very nice Dr. Spencer. Your post was very measured with no hyperbole, that is refreshing. I do not support wind and solar as a replacement for fossil fuel and nuclear. They can’t come close to competing with either fossil fuel or nuclear. We need to concentrate on energy generation that actually works not things we wished worked. To my knowledge no one has shown that added CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming. That is what the CAGW crowd is claiming yet no one can show that it is true. All rules, laws and regulations based on this unproven and unlikely claim must be rescinded.
Thank you for a well thought out view. I am amazed that few others mention that in over 15 years we have seen none of the predictions of doom. We have however, learned a lot about the huge benefit of increasing CO2. I would like to see a good economic study of the value increasing agriculture production as a function of CO2 increase. Un like future climate, we know very well the response of a wide range of CO2 increases on productivity.
Jimmie Dollar
“But whatever the level of warming, it might well be mostly human-caused.
But we don’t really know.”
…which is fine; even if all of the warming since 1900 has an anthropogenic origin, which I don’t believe for a minute it has (not all of it, anyway), the warming has been slow, low (below model projections), and beneficial. Just look at the global greening and skyrocketing agricultural production of recent decades, and the decline in severe weather events. There is no coming climate extinction-level event, and there’s certainly no justification for wasting trillions of dollars and euros, hitting consumers with outlandish utility bills, and destroying the market economy to fight an environmental phantom.
Yep. Even if all of the warming has been anthropogenic, we’ve only made it slightly warmer than The Ice Age Cometh….
Science News March 1, 1975
Those “observations” are not really observations. They are figments of some dishonest persons imagination.
I know you know that. But others do not, so I’m speaking to them.
This was an excellent interview of Prof Gordon Hughes, Edinburgh Uni, Economics.
It clearly highlights the impossible costs of Nut-Zero!
Scrap it. Electronic fuel ignition took care of smog. We don’t need to regulate apparitional adversaries. The entire thing about global climate change is to put more control of everything into the hands of a few. And the few don’t actually care about the environment. At all.
Better ignition, fuel management, and catalytic converters. It did take awhile, so committing to any technology is a risk.
Wind and solar have inescapable intermittency problems. So they are a bad risk.
“As I keep pointing out, the global energy imbalance caused by increasing human-caused CO2 emissions (yes, I believe we are the cause)”
I hope you aren’t implying that adding CO2 to air makes the air hotter. That woukd plainly be a figment of the imagination, with no physical basis at all.
The “global energy balance” is just nonsense jargon when used by “climate scientists”.
Real scientists believe the Earth is losing energy at the rate of about 44 TW, based on measurement – admittedly sparse.
Continuously losing energy is called cooling, not warming.
If you can come up with a single verifiable physical reason why an Earth-sized globe of white-hot rock, which has progressively cooled for about four and a half billion years, should get hotter all by itself, I would be interested to know.
Is your “belief” superior to my “belief”, perhaps.
I believe the reference was to increasing CO2 being human caused. A little, some, most, all is what we do not know.
Sparta,
CO2 is irrelevant, unless you are silly enough to believe that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter!
Nuclear subs run 10-12,000 ppm CO2 inside. Presumably it is safe enough for people in charge of nuclear missiles to maintain their rationality.
When humans burn “fossil fuels”, CO2 and H2O at the very least are produced. The more you burn, the more you release – just putting back into the atmosphere what was originally taken out to form the “fossil fuels”.
Is there supposed to be a problem with putting gases back into the atmosphere they came from?
Nobody can come up with a rational explanation. Sounds like “popular delusions and the madness of crowds” to me. What do you think?
“The globally-averaged surface temperature of Earth seems to have warmed by 1 deg. C or so in the last century. The magnitude of the warming remains uncertain with a 30% range in different thermometer-based datasets”
They say it has warmed over 1°C since 1970. Total change 1970-2024 incl:
Hadcrut 1.116°C, GISS 1.089°C, NOAA 1.060°C
That is the time since GHG rise became quite large. The variation is less than 10%, not 30%.
“The climate models that are the basis for future projections of climate change are adjusted (fudged?) so that increasing CO2 is the only cause of warming.”
Arrhenius in 1896 gave a pretty good projection of the warming to be expected if CO2 was added to the air. ECS 4°C.doubling. At that stage it hadn’t happened, but scientists have been repeating the projection since. We did add the CO2 to the air and it warmed accordingly. Arrhenius did not use a GCM.
Nick,
“Arrhenius in 1896 gave a pretty good projection of the warming to be expected if CO2 was added to the air”
You really are silly enough to believe that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter? Really?
Have you ever met anybody who has managed to perform this miracle? Of course you haven’t – you’re just another religious fanatic!
Arrhenius never performed such an experiment. Like his views on racial superiority and the promotion of ethnic cleansing, his opinions were just that – opinions.
Best you find another authority – try the faker, fraud, scofflaw and deadbeat Michael Mann, perhaps. He has equally bizarre opinions.
“ECS 4°C.doubling.” ….. roflmao..
ECS is essentially ZERO.
ECS is a pseudo scientific expression that was created to sound impressive but is otherwise meaningless.
“We did add the CO2 to the air and it warmed accordingly”
Nope !
The air did not air from 1980-1997 or from 2001-2015.. cooled from 2017-2023.4
There is no evidence that CO2 has caused any warming in the atmospheric temperature data…. none whatsoever.
Especially when you consider that in was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today, but there was much less CO2 in the air then than there is today.
There is no correlation between temperature and CO2 levels if temperature history is taken into consideration.
Bogus Hockey Stick charts are not temperature history. They are temperature data frauds, created to obscure the real temperature profile of the data and hide the previous warming periods in history
In my opinion the data sets simply show the bias of their curators not a physical reality. I base this opinion on the fact that they are endlessly adjusted by those very curators.
As I recollect, all the studies of CO2 increases causing an increase in air temperature were done using the “Standard Atmosphere”, which has zero humidity. Not really air in the real world.
“They say it has warmed over 1°C since 1970. Total change 1970-2024 incl:
Hadcrut 1.116°C, GISS 1.089°C, NOAA 1.060°C
That is the time since GHG rise became quite large.”
It warmed at the same magnitude and reached the same level of warmth back in the 1930’s. That was a time when GHG was quite small.
The Early Twentieth Century warming, and the warming of today from the late 1970’s to today, was equal in magnitude and equal in the amount of warmth, but the Early Twentieth Century had much less CO2 in the air than there is today, yet it was just as warm then as now, so the connection between CO2 and warming is not as clear as you make out. Something other than CO2 caused the warming of the Early Twentieth Century. You know, the period of time the Temperature Data Manniplators bastardized/cooled to hide this fact.
If it was just as warm in the past with much less CO2 in the air than today, then that blows up the Human-caused/CO2-caused Climate Change narrative. The original temperature data shows that indeed, that is the case. So the Dishonest Temperature Data Mannipulators knew they had to change the temperature profile to erase past warmings and make it appear that today is the hottest time in human history, in order to successfully promote the Human-caused Climate Change narrative, and that’s exactly what they did, and now people like you can pretend their bastardized Hockey Stick Charts represent reality.
You are living a lie, Nick. It was just as hot in the recent past as it is today. Less CO2 then. No correlation with temperatures. A smart guy like you ought to be able to see that.
Have you seen this Nick?
Arrhenius used a 1 dimensional model.
Arrhenius also recanted a lot during the early days of the 20th century.
Literally nobody cares outside your queer circle. Trump is going to defund and dismantle your idiotic fantasy catastrophe. The end.
To me, the most devastating evidence debunking the theory of AGW from CO2 is the last 300 year climate record showing a gradual, steady warming since the Maunder Minimum in the early 1700’s, well before the 20th century increase in CO2 levels.
Also, if we review the global temperature record from ice core analysis since the Minoan Warm Period to the present, including the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and the Maunder Minimum, it looks like a sine wave with a 3 degree centigrade amplitude, suggesting a global macrocycle, with us now in the Modern Warm Period, along the rising portion of the sine wave, independent of CO2.
Arrhenius’s “atmosphere” was totally unrealistic and in no way represented the Earth’s atmosphere..
He couldn’t even get his formulas correct dimensionally.
His prophecy was basically a junk conjecture based on erroneous non-science.
All climate models have been WRONG ever since.
August Krogh was critical of Arrhennius’ work. The only reason I know about him is that Krogh became a Nobel Prize winning expert on osmoregulation which asks similar questions. I have to wonder if he found the ocean/atmosphere too complicated. What is amazing and seems overlooked is all the gas work done long ago. I have a reference for Brodbelt,1796, on gas in swordfish bladders. I haven’t found yet and it may not be not as precise, but there was a lot more in the latter 19th century. Mendel’s work on genetics was back in 1865 but wasn’t recognized for decades. We have been doing a lousy job with history and now apparently getting worse.
. Krogh, A. 1904. The abnormal CO2 – percentage in the air in Greenland and the general relations between atmospheric and oceanic carbonic acid. Meddelser om Grönland. 26(7):409-434.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of The Atmosphere!
Shown in the chart (See below) are plots of temperatures at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001.
In 1922, the concentration of CO2 in air was ca. 303 ppmv (0.59 g of CO2/cu. m.) and by 2001 it had increased to ca. 371 ppmv (0.73 g of CO2/cu. m.), but there was corresponding increase in the temperature of the air at remote arid desert. The reason there was no increase of
the air temperature is quite simple: There is too little CO2 in the air.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is currently
426 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air contains 0.84 g of CO2 and has
a mass of 1.29 kg at STP. This is an increase of 15% from 2001. This small amount CO2 can heat up such a large mass of air by only a very
small amount if at all and is no threat to human health and welfare.
The CO2 endangerment finding by EPA is a fabrication and a lie. Hopefully, President Trump will put and end to the greatest scientific fraud since the Piltdown Man.
NB: The chart was obtained from the late John Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.John-Daly.com. From the home page, scroll down to the end at click on:
“Station Temperature Data”. On the World Map click on a country or region to obtain the charts of temperature from the weather stations located there.
NOAA, GISS etc surface temperatures are based on totally UNFIT-FOR-PURPOSE tainted urban fabrications. Ocean data before 2005 was sparse or non-existent for much of the ocean.
There is no possible way they are representative of the real temperature of the surface of the planet.
We only have reasonable atmospheric data since 1979, and anyone who thinks they can show any CO2 based warming using that data needs to be able to say how much CO2 warming, and provide the measurements to back it it up.
Actual physics as shown by Tom Shula shows there is none.
And that increase is from the end of the Little Ice Age, hardly some Arcadian climate.
It would make as much or more sense to get rid of the EPA which has turned into a vehicle of corruption funneling billions of tax payer dollars into the schemes of Green Fanatics and Insitutions. We need to stop this theft.
Hear hear. The EPA did valuable work in the 70s and 80s cleaning up the the air and water. But, it has grabbed extra-Constitutional power, essentially becoming a “fourth branch” of the government. Show it the door, and tell it not to let it hit them on the way out.
If anyone studies the dynamics of Antarctica, I mean really studies it in depth and totality of the literature, it is very difficult to ascribe the changes to AGW. The studies drip with natural variability. And yet the public narrative reinforces the view that the threat from that continent is all because of global warming. Time will bring out the truth.
Submission to EPA February 2, 26 re
“UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY EXECUTIVE ORDER, January 20, 2025″
“Regarding Legality and Applicability of the Administrations findings, “Endangerment and Cause r Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act” requested in UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY, EXECUTIVE ORDER January 20, 2025
Climate uncertainty is quantified in: Curry, Judith. “Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response.” Anthem Press, 2023. ISBN: 97817852781671.
After 2022 report Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Surface Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed Congress funded the high quality U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). That does not show worrying warming.
See: https://wattsupwiththat.com/u-s-surface-temperature/
Published scientific evidence now quantitatively shows that global Temperature (T) PRECEDES Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 Lags Temperature and does not drive it.
In your revision of the Endangerment Finding of Dec. 2009, please include explicit review of Prof. Demetris Koutsoyiannis’ 43 papers (plus 30 books, presentations etc) quantifying this, as listed and posted at: https://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/search/?authors=koutsoyiannis&tags=climate ;
and Listed under Demetris Koutsoyiannis at Scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=OPA_BScAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Prof. Koutsoyiannis quantitatively shows that global Temperature precedes CO2, thus nullifying the 2009 EPA endangerment finding. e.g., see:
D. Koutsoyiannis, The relationship between atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, Science of Climate Change, 4 (3), 39–59, doi:10.53234/scc202412/15, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, Relative importance of carbon dioxide and water in the greenhouse effect: Does the tail wag the dog?, Science of Climate Change, 4 (2), 36–78, doi:10.53234/scc202411/01, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, When are models useful? Revisiting the quantification of reality checks, Water, 17 (2), 264, doi:10.3390/w17020264, 2025.
D. Koutsoyiannis, Refined reservoir routing (RRR) and its application to atmospheric carbon dioxide balance, Water, 16 (17), 2402, doi:10.3390/w16172402, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, Stochastic assessment of temperature – CO₂ causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 21 (7), 6560–6602, doi:10.3934/mbe.2024287, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, Net isotopic signature of atmospheric CO₂ sources and sinks: No change since the Little Ice Age, Sci, 6 (1), 17, doi:10.3390/sci6010017, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, and C. Vournas, Revisiting the greenhouse effect—a hydrological perspective, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 69 (2), 151–164, doi:10.1080/02626667.2023.2287047, 2024.
D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, Z. W. Kundzewicz, and A. Christofides, On hens, eggs, temperatures and CO₂: Causal links in Earth’s atmosphere, Sci, 5 (3), 35, doi:10.3390/sci5030035, 2023.
D. Koutsoyiannis, T. Iliopoulou, A. Koukouvinos, N. Malamos, N. Mamassis, P. Dimitriadis, N. Tepetidis, and D. Markantonis, In search of climate crisis in Greece using hydrological data: 404 Not Found, Water, 15 (9), 1711, doi:10.3390/w15091711, 2023.
D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, A. Christofides, and Z. W. Kundzewicz, Revisiting causality using stochastics: 2. Applications, Proceedings of The Royal Society A, 478 (2261), 20210836, doi:10.1098/rspa.2021.0836, 2022.
D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, A. Christofides, and Z. W. Kundzewicz, Revisiting causality using stochastics: 1.Theory, Proceedings of The Royal Society A, 478 (2261), 20210835, doi:10.1098/rspa.2021.0835, 2022.
D. Koutsoyiannis, and A. Montanari, Climate extrapolations in hydrology: The expanded Bluecat methodology, Hydrology, 9, 86, doi:10.3390/hydrology9050086, 2022.
D. Koutsoyiannis, Rethinking climate, climate change, and their relationship with water, Water, 13 (6), 849, doi:10.3390/w13060849, 2021.
D. Koutsoyiannis, and Z. W. Kundzewicz, Atmospheric temperature and CO₂: Hen-or-egg causality?, Sci, 2 (4), 83, doi:10.3390/sci2040083, 2020.
The analysis by Wallace , Christie et al concludes that they invalidated the EPA Endangerment finding three lines of evidence with their statistical analysis of the 14 temperature data sets . If no one has shown there work to be in error The EF should be abandoned.
So do I.
The growth in urban areas, deforestation and other human activities must affect temperatures, especially when many weather stations are within this concrete jungle.
CO2? Not so much that we need to worry about it.
UHI affects LOCAL temperatures, and skews the temperature record. That is all.
Bruce, UHI affects local temperatures. If included in a dataset of temperatures, the average changes. The average can’t drop or stay the same, can it? Adding higher numbers makes the average increase.
Saying UHI makes no difference is like saying an individual thermometer reading should be discarded because it only measures at one location – local.
Enough UHI, then you have NHI (national hear islands) – and so on.
You can try and abolish man-made heat as irrelevant, but it’s not going to go away.
“concrete jungle“
Along with lemmings going over a cliff and one’s head in the sand, this concrete jungle phrase ought to be in a digital filter so as to never appear in a published manner.
Note that Roy Spencer’s UAH temperature estimates never rely on concrete.
Fact: In the history of the planet, there is not a scintilla of evidence that a rise in CO2 has ever caused warming.
Fact: CO2 rises have always followed warming.
Of course, it probably has some slight, beneficial warming effect that we can’t measure. And?
It is ridiculous for man to worry about our added CO2, which has been nothing but beneficial.
We should rather, rejoice in it.
“Fact: In the history of the planet, there is not a scintilla of evidence that a rise in CO2 has ever caused warming.”
Absolutely correct.
It’s pure speculation to claim that CO2 is causing the current warming.
Tom, exactly. Nobody has ever managed to make air hotter by adding CO2 to it.
Anybody who claims otherwise is either a fool, a fraud, or supremely gullible.
One more thing. Sincere best wishes to Dr. Spencer as retirement approaches.
“Even my career has depended upon Congress being convinced the issue is worthy of big budgets.”
Let that sink in.
What will Dr. Spencer eventually be willing to express more openly in retirement? Will he end up saying that the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the “greenhouse gas” issue made the climate models the instruments of a circular exercise all along? We’ll see what happens.
From the article: “But whatever the level of warming, it might well be mostly human-caused.”
This is not supported by the available temperature data. It was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today, according to the historic temperature record. the magnitude of the warming was just the same as today, and the level of warming was just the same as today. The difference between then and now? Answer: There was much less CO2 in the air in the Early Twentieth Century than there is today, so something other than CO2 accounts for the earlier warming.
Assuming CO2 caused all the warming today is assuming too much.
It might well be is an expression of opinion or conjecture, not of fact. He was unwilling to totally disavow all human causation.
Tom,
Making CO2 involves making heat. Humans make a lot of heat by producing CO2 (and H2O). Heat affects thermometers. CO2 and H2O do not.
That’s just a fairytale for the stupid and the gullible.
I can not think of a better way to destroy the Western economies and strengthen the Eastern economies that Net Zero for us now and no regulations for them at this point in time. Coincidence or miscalculation……I think not !
And lest we forget the abhorrent depravity of Alarmist thinking, remember this?
For True Believers, this was never about science. They only pretended that it was.