Gregory Wrightstone
Author of Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You To Know
A federal rule mandating the use of certain refrigerants has substantially boosted the price of air conditioning and increased the risk of fire – only to reduce global temperature by an amount too small to measure.
Imposed by the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), beginning this year, the rule forced the replacement of a hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant known as R-410A with others that are less potent as greenhouse gases, which climate alarmists falsely claim will overheat Earth.
However, a new report by the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Va., calculated the atmospheric warming from continued use of R-410A to be “0.044 degrees Celsius in 100 years, which is … absurdly small” and too little to be measured or felt. The amount of warming averted by replacing the refrigerant with other greenhouse-gas hydrofluorocarbons was calculated to be an infinitesimal 0.03 degrees Celsius, according to the report titled “Chill Out: AC Refrigerants Cause Negligible Warming.”(RELATED: Climate Change Concern Plummets In Big Cities, Poll Finds)
Widely used in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems since 2010, R-410A was considered an economical, nonflammable refrigerant that posed less of a threat to damaging Earth’s ozone layer than hydrofluorocarbons it had replaced – itself a concern advanced by alarmists with dubious scientific support.
It turns out that the chemicals replacing R-410A are more expensive and flammable, raising issues of both cost and safety. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ben Lieberman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute quotes an industry source:
“This (Biden administration) mandate has increased costs by $1,500 per system on average,” says Martin Hoover, president of Atlanta-based Empire Heating & Air Conditioning. Mr. Hoover says the higher price is due to both increased equipment prices – systems had to be redesigned for the new refrigerants – and higher labor costs, since these refrigerants are more flammable and require additional precautions during installation. To make matters worse, an EPA-compliant green refrigerant that many equipment makers use … is in short supply, and prices have risen substantially.”
Regulations, “combined with nonregulatory factors such as higher materials costs and rising wages for service technicians, have dramatically increased the cost of buying and installing a new system,” Lieberman reports. Replacing 15-year-old heating and air-conditioning equipment costing around $5,000 at the time of installation would cost today as much as $14,000, according to his industry source.
In issuing the replacement order, the Biden EPA made much of the fact that hydrofluorocarbons, at a molecular level, are more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary bogeyman of the climate industrial complex. But compared to CO2, hydrofluorocarbons are orders of magnitude less prevalent in the atmosphere, their concentration being measured in parts per trillion rather than per million for carbon dioxide.
The upshot is that amount of hydrofluorocarbon in the air is too small to matter, irrespective of its warming potential – molecule for molecule – relative to CO2, which itself has only a minor influence on global warming.
A bright spot in this is that the Trump EPA has proposed an extension for using R-410A beyond the end of this year as long as supplies last. Some have suggested repealing the Biden administration ban on the refrigerant to give relief to the estimated 5 million to 6 million American homeowners who purchase air conditioners each year.
In comments prepared for the EPA, the Competitive Enterprise Institute urged the agency “to do as much as possible to mitigate … consumer damage.”
In his analysis of the refrigerants’ warming effect, the CO2 Coalition’s Dr. Frits Byron Soepyan concluded: “(T)he selection of the refrigerants for air conditioning systems should be based on both the safety and the needs of the consumers, rather than on a purported environmental benefit.”
This is especially true when the supposed “benefit” has proven to be nonexistent.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia; and author of “Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know” and “A Very Convenient Warming: How modest warming and more CO2 are benefiting humanity.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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Refrigerants neither make surface thermometers hotter, nor make any measurable difference to stratospheric ozone levels. Two things are needed for stratospheric ozone production – oxygen (about 20% of the atmosphere), and UVC, or more intense, light (plenty available in sunlight).
Ozone spontaneously decays, and is promptly replaced because the decayed ozone is no longer preventing the UVC from reaching more O2 molecules.
Just another misguided attempt to destroy civilisation by the ignorant and gullible – a little like trying to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and kill all mammalian life on the planet.
Wrong! CFCs make a considerable difference to stratospheric ozone levels.
As shown in the graph below CFCs are carried up in the atmosphere due to the motion of the atmosphere (it’s known as the homosphere up to ~100 km where turbulent mixing keeps the composition constant irrespective of molecular weight). Once they reach above ~15 km the presence of UVC radiation starts to break up the CFC molecules generating Cl atoms which can break down O3 molecules in a cyclic reaction which regenerates the Cl molecule thus it remains in the stratosphere for several years, each one destroying thousands of O3 molecules. The figure below shows the measured concentration of CFC-11 vs altitude:
The Ozone hole in the Antarctic is due to the unique conditions during the south polar winter.
During the Antarctic winter the air over the pole is isolated by the polar vortex causing temperatures to drop down below ~80ºC. Under these conditions polar stratospheric clouds are formed which provides a solid surface for chemical reactions. On the surface of the PSC particles chlorine containing compounds such as ClONO2 collect and are broken down into more reactive forms such as Cl2 which collect on the surface. When the sunlight returns the atmosphere warms up and the PSC particles evaporate and the Cl2 released is rapidly broken down into Cl radicals which rapidly destroys the Ozone via the cyclic reactions thus destroying about 70% of the O3 in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica in the spring.
Since only CFCs in the stratosphere can react it will take a long time to reduce their levels in the atmosphere to insignificant levels.
Phil, you wrote –
Not really, because ozone is continuously created from oxygen by energetic UV. No matter how much is “destroyed”, it makes no difference. Ozone “destroys” itself all the time anyway. You are probably gullible and ignorant to believe people who promote the “CFC Make Big Ozone Hole” alarmist myth.
You obviously believe that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter as well!
Accept reality.
It does make a difference, it’s chemical kinetics, when you add a new mechanism of removal the steady state value goes down!
The big ozone hole is not a myth, it didn’t exist in the 50s and 60s then started to appear in the mid-70s ultimately leading to a total reduction of Antarctic O3 concentration of 70% by 1994. Fortunately the concentration is recovering and is now about double the minimum value in 1994.
You’re the one who needs to accept reality!
Phil, you might be able to describe stratospheric ozone creation in the total absence of UVC – say over the Antarctic for 6 sunless months, but I doubt it. Go on, try it, or admit your ignorance.
The “ozone hole” is just nature at work, chaos in action. You believe otherwise, don’t you? That’s because you’re gullible and can’t think for yourself.
“Phil, you might be able to describe stratospheric ozone creation in the total absence of UVC – say over the Antarctic for 6 sunless months, but I doubt it. Go on, try it, or admit your ignorance.”
Why would I want to do that, it has nothing to do with anything I posted?
“The “ozone hole” is just nature at work, chaos in action. You believe otherwise, don’t you?”
No it is not, I know otherwise!
“That’s because you’re gullible and can’t think for yourself.”
No it’s because I understand photolysis and chemical kinetics!
I don’t know – why ask me?
Oh yes, and I’m supposed to believe you, am I?
You just refuse to explain them. I don’t blame you for trying to avoid looking ignorant and gullible.
Carry on.
I don’t know – why ask me?”
You wanted me to describe stratospheric O3 production in the absence of UVC, something I know doesn’t happen and have never mentioned!
“Oh yes, and I’m supposed to believe you, am I?”
“You just refuse to explain them. I don’t blame you for trying to avoid looking ignorant and gullible.”
I don’t refuse to explain them, I just didn’t want to bore everyone with things they don’t understand. Here’s the explanation:
Breakdown of O2
O2 + UVC → O + O
Ozone production
O + O2 M → O3 + M
Destruction of O3 in the absence of CFCs
O3 + UV → O2 + O
O + O3 → 2O2
The balance of production and destruction causes a steady state concentration to be reached. However, since both creation and destruction of O3 requires light there is no change in the absence of light.
Effect of CFCs
CFCs cause the catalytic destruction of O3 which is much more efficient than the natural destruction so the steady state concentration is lower.
CFC + UV → Cl (breaks C-Cl bond)
Cl + O3 → ClO + O2
ClO + O → Cl + O2
Effectively O3 + O → 2O2 and the Cl is recycled to remove another O3 and keeps on doing so until it is removed by some other reaction, usually after removing hundreds of thousands of O3 molecules.
Over the poles, in particular the South Pole, Polar Stratospheric Clouds form due to the extremely low temperatures (less than -78ºC), which provides a catalytic surface upon which reactive forms of chorine form greatly enhancing the destruction of O3, which leads to the Ozone hole formation when the sunlight returns.
Do you understand now?
That is false. Ozone has a relatively short half-life and decays in the Winter when there is no light. Before the vortex forms, decayed ozone is replenished by the Brewer-Dobson circulation. When that is cutoff, the net decay increases, and then accelerates when catalytic destruction initiates.
The half-life of O3 at the temperatures in the stratosphere is ~3 months in the absence of UV, in the temperatures over the Antarctic it’s even longer, significant decay starts when sunlight returns.
You seem to be missing the point. Assuming that you are indeed an expert in photolysis and chemical analysis, it is a non sequitur. There has never been any concern about ozone in the stratosphere being anything other than a proxy for the acknowledged potential danger of UVC. But where are the confirmatory measurements for the surface UVC flux?
Years ago I built a computer model based on TOMS data to estimate the surface UV. What I found was that even outside Antarctica, there was a slow drift upwards of the UV flux in the Winter, when the values were quite low and of little concern. By the time that the sun got high enough above the horizon that the flux might be of concern, the circumpolar vortex had broken up and the ‘hole’ had been infilled with the elevated ozone concentrations, and at lower latitudes, the UV levels had leveled off at levels lower than what life had evolved to live with in the tropics.
It was appropriate to be concerned in the beginning, but it was never followed up with a surface UV monitoring program. Now, everyone equates low ozone with danger, when it hasn’t been confirmed by actual measurements.
The Dobson spectrophotometer used to measure the O3 levels uses surface UV measurements!
However, it is a spot measurement, looking at the sun on the horizon over a 3-hour period as it is setting. It is a ratio of UVB to UVA, not a measure of the UVB absolute flux. That is, it is not a map of surface flux on a horizontal surface.
The ` hole was there as soon as it was measured .
It is well understood to be caused by the absence of sun over the polar night causing the lack of production any O3 .
That is why it only occurs over the Poles , an NOWHERE where people actually live . Dixy Lee Ray discussed this in Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense? 30 years ago .
“The ` hole was there as soon as it was measured”.
No it was not, there was no hole detected for the first 25 years of measurement! As I pointed out in the detailed explanation above it is not caused by the lack of sun.
Can you cite a source for that claim? I have read that Dobson measured the hole in the 1950s, although I haven’t found a source for that.
I cited it earlier you will find a reference to it here: https://www.nature.com/articles/315207a0#preview
You are choosing your words very carefully, for disingenuous reasons. The NASA graphs that I cite above show that you have cherry picked your low point. Furthermore, the concern as always been about the potential biohazards associated with low ozone concentrations. Where is the evidence that the UVC fluxes at the surface have done any harm? Where are the blind penguins or Leopard Seals with melanomas?
Since UVC is absorbed by O2 if there was a significant amount reaching the surface we’d probably all be dead! UVB is the concern which leads to skin cancers etc, waiting for significant increases at the surface before taking action would have been a disaster given the half lives of the CFCs in the atmosphere.
I misspoke. I should have said “UVB,”
That isn’t all that the circumpolar vortex does. Normally, the Brewer-Dobson circulation delivers tropical stratospheric ozone to Antarctica. However, during the time that the vortex is active, the tropical ozone can’t cross into the interior to replace the ozone that has been broken down. Thus, the ozone levels outside the vortex become the highest on Earth, providing above-average shielding for UVC arriving obliquely, and contribute to the rapid recovery when the vortex breaks up. Note that the sun is never directly above the so-called ‘ozone hole.’ During exceptionally warm years, the the vortex is weak, or breaks up early, and the so-called ‘ozone hole’ is significantly smaller than most years. Recently, the size and ‘depth’ of the ‘ozone hole’ has not been much different than what it was shortly after the Montreal Protocol was put in place, despite claims that might lead one to conclude that the protocol is solving the ‘problem.’ I’m of the opinion that the ozone depletion has been blown out of proportion, not unlike the claims about global warming.
See the tables at the bottom-left here: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Since you seem to have more than a passing acquaintance with the concern about ozone destruction, can you point me to any study that actually measures the change in surface UV that results from lowered ozone concentrations in Antarctica in the Spring?
Clyde, the quote was from Phil, so I assume your comment was meant for that particular ignorant and gullible person.
Yes. I don’t know how it got addressed to yo.
As pointed out above, UV at the surface is what the Dobson spectrophotometer uses to measure the O3 concentration!
Well, that’s not going to work too well, is it? The instrument measures the intensity of UV at the surface. Assuming that it tells you anything other than that is an exercise for the ignorant and gullible.
Just like measuring the temperature of thermometers in boxes in sunlight, and assuming it tells you anything about the surface temperature of the Earth.
You believe anything that supports your mad cult beliefs, don’t you?
Actually judging by your comments here you are the one who has “mad cult beliefs’! The UV reaching the surface has to pass through the stratosphere where it is absorbed by O3, as the O3 is diminished the surface UV reading goes up.
Nonsense. The O3 was created by the UV. Doesn’t your vast knowledge of “kinetic chemistry” tell you that? Or do you believe that O3 just magically appears, created by nature to soak up harmful UV?
You’ll probably complain if I point out that “the UV reaching the surface” obviously hasn’t been “absorbed by O3”, so I won’t.
How charitable am I?
I was responding to Clyde Spencer’s comment about the Dobson spectrophotometer used on the surface to measure the depletion of Ozone. It works by measuring what portion of a UV-B frequency has been absorbed by O3, this is calibrated against known concentrations of O3. UV-C on the other hand is absorbed by O2, breaking it up into Oxygen atoms which then react with O2 to form O3. Given the high concentration of O2 in the atmosphere UV-C does not reach the surface. A portion of the UV-B light does reach the surface, which depends on the amount of O3 above, the more O3 the less UV-B.
As far as the kinetic chemistry is concerned I posted the kinetic mechanism earlier including the role of UV light.
You should stop embarrassing yourself with such nonsense posts.
There are no “known concentrations of O3”. It’s all guess and hand waving.
why should I take notice of a nutter? Would you?
“There are no “known concentrations of O3”. It’s all guess and hand waving.”
For the purpose of calibrating the spectrophotometer “known concentrations of O3” are created in the lab. Also ozonesondes are regularly launched from the South Pole and chemically measure the O3 concentration vs altitude, those results agree with the Dobson spectrophotometer measurements.
Data from a few days ago:
Data during recent O3 minimum:
Data during more extreme minimum:
“why should I take notice of a nutter? Would you?”
No I don’t, I just post the facts so that people on here who are not familiar with the subject aren’t misled by you!
And not in the upper atmosphere, where they exist – in constantly varying proportions, depending on density, altitude, sunlight, and free 02 availability.
As do I. I’m happy to let others make up their own minds.
“And not in the upper atmosphere, where they exist – in constantly varying proportions, depending on density, altitude, sunlight, and free 02 availability.”
And most importantly on the concentrations of Cl and Br and the presence of UV radiation.
The graphs I included are actual measurements of O3 in the atmosphere the integral of which with height agrees rather well with the measurement of total O3 measured using the Dobson spectrophotometer on the surface.
So which is correct?
CFCs make a considerable difference to stratospheric ozone levels.
Unproven. The chemical reactions and transport of CFCs—and their constituent molecules as they break down—from the surface to several kilometers up in the atmosphere and their effect on ozone is complex, as you illustrated. Though their effect on ozone has been measured in laboratory experiments, their effect on high altitude ozone, postulated to reduce it and increase the size of the “ozone hole,” has not been seen over several decades of observations. Measurements of atmospheric ozone, CFCs, and ozone hole size don’t show a clear correlation.
Like so much that happens in the atmosphere, there are lots of factors involved, some that haven’t been taken into account, that may produce different effects than predicted.
The recovery is slow because of the decades long half lives of the CFC species ( see the graphs I posted above).
What recovery is that? UV and O2 produce ozone. Are you gullible and ignorant enough to believe otherwise?
As far as I know, the Sun didn’t suddenly disappear, nor did O2 in the atmosphere.
But the catalytic agents in the atmosphere that greatly increase the destruction of O3 are slowly decreasing causing the increase in the Antarctic O3 in the ozone hole.
The assertion that Freon leaks at the surface caused destruction of ozone in the stratosphere was junk science on stilts. Freon is heavier than air; so most of it that leaked ended up in the soil, where it was consumed by bacteria within days. If it weren’t for the assertion that catastrophic global climate change could occur from manmade carbon dioxide emissions, it would have remained the most consequential scientific hoax since Piltdown Man.
I looked up the densities, and you are right. Got any links to more information about how that related to destroying high level ozone?
It’s common sense. This: CClF2CCl2F can not percolate miles up through an atmosphere made up of this: N and O2. Because why? Gravity. Sure they will mix and blow around but because of its mass it will sink to the ground. Actually it sinks to the ground rather quickly.
Also, if it were in any significant concentration it would turn into phosgene gas on the stove or fireplace and kill us all outright.
If it destroys ozone why isn’t it sprayed in cities like LA where temperature inversions cause an excess of ozone? Because it will fall to the ground and fill the storm drains.
Sure, I got that much. I was thinking more of some explanation for why it got the blame for the ozone hole.
Greed & politics.
When the patent for Freon developed by DuPont expired, other manufacturers could produce it without infringing on DuPont’s intellectual property rights.
DuPont was losing a significant market share. Miraculously, concerns regarding ozone depletion appeared & ignorant politicians got the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that led to the eventual phase-out of CFCs, including Freon.
Just by chance, DuPont had patented a new range of ‘environmentally friendly‘ refrigerants & overnight DuPont regained its monopoly.
Neat trick !!!
And the person in charge of the Montreal Protocol? The same person jointly responsible for setting up the forerunner of the IPCC, Maurice Strong.
Good grief! I even found a WUWT article saying so from last year!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/03/06/the-ozone-hole-and-lower-stratospheric-temperature/
My apologies for doubting you.
‘Just by chance, DuPont had patented a new range of ‘environmentally friendly‘ refrigerants & overnight DuPont regained its monopoly.’
Bingo. It also turns out that systems using the new refrigerants operate at much higher pressures than those using Freon, meaning that consumers also needed to change out their equipment.
Yup, Danfoss & Carrier also made fortunes.
Uuuhmmm….if your version of “common sense” were true, we should be able suck the CO2 molecules (MW=44) off the ground, especially in Antarctica. Instead CO2 is well mixed at 400 ppm from bottom to top of the troposphere. It has to do with statistical thermodynamics, entropy, phase envelopes, Gibbs free energies, partition functions. For which a degree in Chemical engineering will give you enough common sense.
Sorry, but not true. Gases diffuse, regardless of gravity. Even particulate matter is suspended indefinitely against the force of gravity. Brownian motion, explained mathematically by Einstein in 1905, supporting his Nobel Prize winning photoelectric effect paper of the same year (IMSMC).
Just to confuse the issue, hydrogen (and other gases) actually escapes to space due to the Jeans Effect, overcoming gravity completely.
Yes it’s 3 times heavier than air but apparently “it drifts into the stratosphere, where UV light breaks it down, releasing chlorine atoms that destroy ozone molecules”
Totally believable if you throw “correlation does not equal causation” out the window and practice climate science ™.
I was disappointed you missed the bit where they magically stay up there for 26 years … true story apparently 🙂
The lower portion of the atmosphere (up to about 100km) is known as the homosphere because its composition does not depend on the molecular weight of the component gases.
See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosphere
I remember when I was an auto mechanic in the 1970s and doing car air conditioning work – when done filling a system with Freon R-12 and having a partial can left over, we’d just let it vent (not much other choice) and you could see it rolling across the ground, at ground level (well you could see the fog it created by cooling/freezing the moisture in the air as it expanded suddenly).
I was always skeptical, how could this “stuff” that is obviously so much heavier than air, ever get up into the upper atmosphere? I think around that time may have been my awakening, to always look skeptically at what the “authorities” and “experts” say…
Various incorrect comments about Freon heavier than air so it falls to the ground….
Envision it this way….…the velocity of a gas molecule is given by the formula
Vrms= SQRT [3xRxT / M] where
Vrms=Meters/Sec but actually varies over a range needing a root mean square statistical calculation to obtain the correct energy content when adding up all the little molecular kinetic energies, 1/2 m V^2 each
R= Ideal gas constant (8.314 J/(mol·K))
T= Temperature in degrees Kelvin
M= molecular weight in Kg/Mol
those O2 and N2 molecules (with M 32 and 28 respectively) are bouncing back and forth between each other pretty quickly…let’s approximate it as around 2/3 the speed of sound….now if you have a few Freon 12 molecules in the mix with a M of 121…well for the same temp, it turns out from the above formula those Freon 12 molecules are only travelling about half as fast as the N2 and O2 molecules….and the many high speed impacts from those fast O2 and N2 molecules are more than enough to bounce the Freon 12 molecules all the way to the stratosphere, bit by bit, admittedly popping them say about half as far with each hit compared to collisions with fellow N2 and O2 molecules .
Now….If you should get a bunch of the Freon 12 molecules together at a low enough temperature (about -30 C for Freon 12), they will attract each other, become liquid and lay in puddles on the ground or in your water glass….with only the occasional O2 and N2 molecule having enough speed to dislodge the odd Freon 11 molecule allowing it to evaporate slowly….kinda like water in a glass.
If you squirt high pressure liquid Freon 12 from a refrigerant storage tank through a valve, it will cool to -30, cool the surrounding air….turn the moisture in the air into fog, about 1/3 of the Freon 12 will remain as -30 liquid and fall to the ground….but after taking a while to transfer heat, it will all become gaseous and evaporate into the air and migrate randomly into the atmosphere….leaving one with the impression that it is heavy and falls to the ground….but after a while it evaporates and floats away….like your girlfriend’s perfume….
An excellent explanation!
I remember in a Physical Chemistry class many years ago about molecular diffusion the professor had a TA release some perfume into the corner of the lecture theatre and asked us to raise a hand when we smelled it. It didn’t take very long for everyone to have raised their hands!
0.03°C is how much the temperature rises when you go down a flight of stairs (Boyle’s Law).
Co-incidentally if we magically dumped all the energy man has ever produced since we mastered the use of fire into the Earth’s Oceans, we would also cause a similarly massive 0.03°C increase in oceanic temperature.
All frightfully alarming /sarc off
In New Zealand, a fire was caused by using propane as a refrigerant. I don’t think anyone was held to account, but I think the people who forced the change away from CFC’s were to blame.
https://youtu.be/IOxT5Shh_E4
The only reason they don’t blame refrigerants for the ozone hole is because the.”Zeitgeist” has changed to global warming.
That’s where the money is these days.
Science is a weathervane,gone with the wind.
Back in a 1993 Newsweek article titled “Is The Ozone Hole In Our Heads?” which mentioned ozone depletion crisis’ critic Dr S Fred Singer four times, the money quote about the need for a switchover in advocacy – perhaps an outright telegraphing of the certainty of that switchover – was as follows:
In other words, science-based criticism from guys like Fred Singer needed to be shut down by any means possible. I covered this problem in more depth at my Aug 2017 GelbspanFiles blog post “We Have to Stop These People …. somehow” regarding the attacks against Dr Singer. The Newsweek reporter of the above ozone article is the same one who later in 2007 wrote the virally repeated “Global Warming Deniers Well Funded” article, in which she dutifully regurgitated the notorious (and as it turns out, never implemented) “reposition global warming” ‘industry memo’ phrase as a means of advising the public to never listen to ‘industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists.’ That memo is the heart of the accusations in the majority of the current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits, e.g. as seen in Hawaii v BP, filed in May 2025. Notice in my screencapture of the Newsweek “Deniers” article quote, the reporter taps Naomi Oreskes for an opinion about science consensus. In Oreskes’ own Friends of the Court briefs filed on behalf of the plaintiffs in the ExxonKnew lawsuits, she repeats that same accusation about the “reposition” memo. She’s been enslaved to that accusation from 2008. It’s the literal best that mob has ever had to indict skeptic scientists of spreading disinformation, and it is totally without merit.
Great find, sir.
First time I hear about that,
and it shows that certain people within those circles are not just useful idiots,opportunists and presstitutes but very well aware of the real longterm agendas hiding behind those environmentalist/humanist plans and how to strategically defend the new realities from heretics.
( Mike Benz has a nice video of how these type journalists are being trained by the Atlantic Council(the School of the Americas for journalists) by former CiA bosses)
Btw- I’m not 100% sure but I think it was Newsweek
that switched within the same year from ice age to AGW.
They started the year (1982 or 1983) with “Ice Age will kill us all”
and at the end of the summer it was global warming to do it.
Sadly I can not find the link anymore
Let me know (there’s a contact email address at my GelbspanFiles blog when you dig for it) if you do somehow spot which old Newsweek editions where that switch was featured. Here at WUWT back on April 22, 2023, they reproduced my day-earlier GebspanFiles blog post concerning my then-rather recent find of Congressman Al Gore spewing the first of his global warming bit in 1983. He must not have been all that effective at that time frame because the first I actually remember was Senator Gore making a big production number out of it via James Hansen’s Senate hearing in the summer of 1988.
It would be quite entertaining to spot with more precision when that switcheroo was first prominently floated as a trial balloon ….
Sxyxs:
I just queried Copilot & Grok. Below is Grok’s summary:
[Grok*: 12/10/25]
Summary of the real timeline (no same-year flip in either magazine):
Science News: March 1, 1975 – famous “Ice Age Cometh?” cover
Time: June 24,1974 – “Another Ice Age?” article (inside, not cover)
Neither magazine ran an ice-age cover/story and then a global-warming cover/story in the same year.
Both began running significant global-warming articles within 2–4 years (by 1977–1979).
So the urban legend of a single magazine dramatically flipping from “ice age” to “global warming” in the same year or even the same magazine issue simply didn’t happen — not in Time, not in Science News, and not in Newsweek.
[end Grok*]
The switch of meme from cold to warming started after ~ 1975 or so.
The Grenfeld Tower fire 10 years ago was started when the butane refrigerant in a refrigerator leaked and exploded when the door was opened started a fire which spread to thin insulation cladding the building. Nearly 100 people died.
Refrigerant byproducts were a great source of fraud in the European ETS scheme around 2010.
The manufacture of HCFC’s created a byproduct that had hundreds of times more potent warming potential than CO2 so abating the byproduct earned the abaters hundreds of times more carbon credit payments than abating CO2. So the industrious Chinese realized there was big money to be had if you made more of the byproduct and then destroyed it. The scheme to do this reaped 46% of the ETS payments from the EU before the EU caught on, outlawed HCFC’s and stopped paying for the byproduct’s destruction.
One of their “green” alternatives was butane that led to the Grenfell tower fire that killed nearly 100 people a few years later.
We should still be using Freon which never caused any issues.
Junk Science. Making the world a more dangerous place at great expense.
“The upshot is that amount of hydrofluorocarbon in the air is too small to matter, irrespective of its warming potential – molecule for molecule – relative to CO2, which itself has only a minor influence on global warming.”
It’s great that the absurdities about refrigerants are being exposed here. But the CO2 Coalition should also re-calibrate its own assertions about CO2. A more physically valid assessment would be that the influence of incremental CO2 on “warming” or on any trend of any climate variable cannot be distinguished from zero.
This is because the static radiative effect is massively overwhelmed by dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation. The modelers know this. It cannot be otherwise, and make any sense at all about the atmosphere’s operation we can all see for ourselves.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=sharing
I’ve already paid out thousands for this refrigerant scam. I want reparations now!
I’m even more annoyed at the scam than that, because my ground-source heat pump uses R-22. And it is a direct-transfer system, which means the R-22 circulates through the copper pipes in the 100-foot-deep wells in the ground. And it can’t be flushed out and replaced with a different refrigerant. Mostly because no other refrigerant’s oils are compatible with the oil that is already in the system. And mixing incompatible oils will create an unusable sludge in the pipes and the pump. Grrr….
According to AI I asked, Butane did NOT cause the Grenfell fire. The refrigerant was found not responsible. The culprit was a small electrical fire that escaped out a window and ignited the cladding.
“Did butane leaking cause the Grenfell fire?” was the question I asked.
“According to AI” !!!
DON’T EVER ACCEPT ANYTHING FROM ‘AI’ WITHOUT VERIFICATION FROM OTHER SORCES
Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.
I asked …
Who demonstrated the incandescent light bulb (filament in a glass envelope) ?
GPT-4o mini
Thomas Edison is the inventor most famously associated with demonstrating the incandescent light bulb, specifically the version with a carbon filament enclosed in a glass bulb.
Key Milestones
1879: Edison successfully tested his version of the light bulb, which lasted up to 1,200 hours.Joseph Swan: Around the same time, Swan independently developed a similar bulb and had demonstrated it in Britain. He eventually collaborated with Edison in the U.S. to further develop the technology.**
So I asked
Who first demonstrated the incandescent light bulb (filament in a glass envelope) ?
GPT-4o mini
Joseph Swan was the first to demonstrate the incandescent light bulb with a carbon filament in a glass envelope. His public demonstration occurred in 1878 in Newcastle, England.
Key Details
Carbon Filament: Swan used carbonized paper for the filament, effectively creating an early version of the incandescent bulb.Subsequent Collaboration: Though Swan was first, Thomas Edison later improved the design and achieved commercial success, leading to his more well-known association with the invention.Both inventors played crucial roles in the development of the incandescent light bulb, but Swan holds the distinction of the first demonstration.
**
To save a long, drawn-out interrogation, I asked …
what did James Bowman Lindsay demonstrate in Dundee 1835 ?
.
GPT-4o mini
In 1835, James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated an early version of the incandescent light bulb in Dundee, Scotland.
Key Aspects of His Demonstration
Incandescent Light: Lindsay’s device used a carbon filament that produced light when an electric current passed through it, a concept that would later be foundational to incandescent lighting.Public Display: He showcased his invention to the public by lighting up a room with his apparatus, demonstrating the potential for electric light before the more widespread developments by Edison and Swan.**
So it first gave the popular myth instead of the facts !!!
***
Notes:
“Lindsay’s device used a carbon filament” … NO, it was platinum.
Swan patented his lamp in 1878, 11 months before Edison.
Edison purchased the patent for ‘his electric lamp’ from Canadian inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans & then claimed it as his own in 1879.
James Bowman Lindsay was the first to demonstrate in 1835
So AI was totally inaccurate all the way on a simple question.
Researcher beware.
I did a similar interrogation on CO2 v Water vapour as the climate control knob, managed to get it to confirm that Water Vapour was the main gas & CO2 was a bit player.
A few days later, I asked again & it came back with CO2 as the main, no mention of water until forced
I asked why it had previously confirmed water vapour & it replied, “I am unable to answer that question”
Wish I’d taken a screenshot.
1save:
Yes! On anything you don’t already have a good idea of the answer, ask the AI the question, then I have it critique its’ own answer at a college level. I’ve done this with free versions of Gemini, Copilot & Grok. All three do a nice “Steel Man” on either side of a topic, but you have to ask [or confront; one of them called it “adaptive transparency”].. You have to catch it lying.since they are trained on the most common consensus, even if it knows the answer is misleading or wrong. Very sad!
Oh, and tell it NOT to use Wikipedia.
You obviously meant “verification from other sorcerers . . .
The Biden Administration, what a disaster! Democrats sent us their best, proof Democrats shouldn’t be in charge of anything.
We did not know about the ozone hole until the mid-1980s. In 1985 some scientists in Antarctica measured reduced ozone. In 1986 a satellite found the hole. It could have formed in 1984, or been there for millions of years. There is no way to know. I have tried to find data on how much refrigerant gas exists at the ozone layer. No data. If someone can prove me wrong about that, I’d love to see the data. All the freon and later panic is based on speculation, not data.
Julius, the Antarctic plateau receives no ozone creating sunlight at all for 6 months. During the other 6 months it receives what could be described as bugger all.
Hence, a slight shortage of ozone. Just simple physics, not appreciated by simple people, not to mention gullible and ignorant “climate” cultists.
Actually it’s quite complex chemistry, unfortunately ‘gullible and ignorant cultists’ such as yourself keep spouting incorrect information!
Here’s the original paper showing that from the 1950s onwards the October O3 was ~300, then in the mid 70s until 1984 it dropped precipitously to below 200. Subsequent measurements showed it reaching a minimum of 73 in 1994.
https://www.nature.com/articles/315207a0#preview
A “slight shortage of ozone” being as much as a 70% drop!
Which cannot even describe, being ignorant of such things.
Indeed, even 100% (a small amount disappearing) is to be expected over the Antarctic during 6 sunless months.
“Which cannot even describe, being ignorant of such things.”
Well you may be ignorant of chemical kinetics, I’m not!
“Indeed, even 100% (a small amount disappearing) is to be expected over the Antarctic during 6 sunless months.”
Except it didn’t happen in the 50s, 60s and early 70s! And it doesn’t happen when it’s sunless. The chlorine and bromine chemical catalytic reactions that destroy ozone need sunlight. Hence, the ozone hole begins to grow as the sun is rising over Antarctica at the end of the winter.
The ozone hole begins to grow in August and reaches its largest area in depth from the middle of September to early October.
Which you refuse to describe – because you are ignirant, and trying to save face.
What didn’t happen?
Ozone production in the stratosphere requires sunlight and oxygen. The amount and distribution depends on both, dictated by chaos. The stratosphere height above the South Pole varies chaotically, and receives no direct sunlight for 6 months due to the Earth’s orbital inclination – opposite to the North Pole, of course.
You can boast about being ignorant and gullible, but facts don’t change. You believe that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter, but it is simply not true.
Which you refuse to describe – because you are ignirant, and trying to save face.
No I have described aspects of the chemical kinetics and have described it but not in great detail because I don’t want to bore everyone!
What didn’t happen?
What you described, the major decay of the O3 concentration didn’t happen then and doesn’t happen now in the absence of sunlight, what you don’t understand is that the decay of the O3 also requires UV light, whether Cl and Br are present or not!
“Ozone production in the stratosphere requires sunlight and oxygen. The amount and distribution depends on both, dictated by chaos. The stratosphere height above the South Pole varies chaotically, and receives no direct sunlight for 6 months due to the Earth’s orbital inclination – opposite to the North Pole, of course”.
Nothing to do with chaos. The decay of the O3 starts when the sunlight returns, much more so when CFCs are present.
Don’t appear more stupid than you have to. Ozone is unstable, and decays naturally, 2 O3 -> 3 O2 in simple form. No sunlight required.
Here’s the Google AI version –
I agree with the AI. Maybe your “chemical kinetics” is wrong?
“Don’t appear more stupid than you have to. Ozone is unstable, and decays naturally, 2 O3 -> 3 O2 in simple form. No sunlight required.”
No it decays via the mechanism I have shown, look up Chapman mechanism on your AI. Its half life at the temperatures present in the stratosphere is ~3 months in the absence of UV.
The catalysts which drive the reaction referred to by your source are the Cl and Br radicals I referred to above.
You apparently don’t understand what your AI source is saying, my chemical kinetics is correct!
Your attachment to reality is tenuous. I’m right, you’re wrong, so sad, too bad.
I’ll meet you half way and say that a half-life in darkness of 3-months is metastable — not stable (long-lived) or unstable.
Clyde, ozone spontaneously decays – AI states
“In dry air at room temp (20°C), half-life is ~30-40 mins, but drops to minutes at 40°C; in water, it’s much quicker (e.g., ~20 mins at 20°C).”
On the other AI hand –
On the third (natural) hand unstable ozone decays to O2 – all of it. You can disbelieve the following, but I accept it as fact –
commercial supplier.
OK. The key point as far as the Antarctic Ozone Hole is concerned is that the O3 doesn’t decay in the dark but starts to do so when the sunshine returns:
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/meteorology/figures/ozone/to3mins_2025_toms+omi+omps.pdf
In light of your answer, if you will pardon the pun, I think that we need to revisit some of your claims.
You initially said, “The half-life of O3 at the temperatures in the stratosphere is ~3 months in the absence of UV, in the temperatures over the Antarctic it’s even longer, significant decay starts when sunlight returns.” You followed that up with, “…, what you don’t understand is that the decay of the O3 also requires UV light.”
You claimed that ozone is stable and only is destroyed in the presence of UVC. My analysis of the graph you supplied points out that the ozone concentration declines about 50% in 3 months, during the time that the solar illumination is at a minimum. Ozone also notably increases slightly between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice.
It seems to me that the loss of ozone is correlated most strongly with the existence of a strong circumpolar vortex in the Winter that prevents the Brewer-Dobson circulation from replacing depleted ozone.
Your description of the graph doesn’t match with what I see. The 50% decrease occurs when the solar illumination returns and increases not when it’s at a minimum. Also as you point out the ozone concentration actually increases slightly when the sunlight disappears.
At the Summer Solstice (late-December), the ozone concentration is at its maximum, as is the intensity and extent of solar illumination. From there, it reaches a local minimum about 30 DU lower at the Autumnal Equinox (late-March) with reduced coverage and duration of solar illumination. The ozone concentration increases about 20 DU in late-June to early-July, reaching a secondary peak shortly after the Winter Solstice. The concentration then falls precipitously (almost linearly) until the Vernal Equinox in late September. Is that not what you see?
I’m not denying that photocatalytic destruction occurs. I’m just suggesting that it actually plays a minor role that is overshadowed by the Circumpolar Vortex that helps create very low temperatures and excludes tropical stratospheric ozone transported by the Brewer-Dobson circulation. In fact, during warm years, the destruction is minimal.
What is missed is the geometry of the situation where the sun is NEVER directly above the so-called hole and during the Fall-Winter-Spring seasons the incoming UVC has longer slant ranges, meaning that there is more absorption and scattering, and the surface foot-print is larger, meaning the intensity is lower per unit area. Also, the oblique illumination means that the incoming light often (if not usually) is forced to pass through the anomalously high ozone concentrations outside the circumpolar vortex before reaching the ozone-depleted region and subsequently the surface.
The bottom line though, is that we are both talking about the behavior of the problematic proxy for surface UV and not the actual surface UV flux, which is also affected by other things such as clouds, solar elevation, distance from the sun, and volcanic aerosols. More importantly, where is the evidence that the lowered ozone concentration has had ANY negative biological effects in Antarctica?
“At the Summer Solstice (late-December), the ozone concentration is at its maximum, as is the intensity and extent of solar illumination. From there, it reaches a local minimum about 30 DU lower at the Autumnal Equinox (late-March) with reduced coverage and duration of solar illumination.”
At that time, based on the sonde data, 18 March, the measured O3 was 306DU, and the temperature was about -50ºC not cold enough to form PSC.
“The ozone concentration increases about 20 DU in late-June to early-July, reaching a secondary peak shortly after the Winter Solstice.”
At which time there is no incoming UV and on 15 July the O3 was 297DU but the temperature had dropped to ~-90ºC allowing PSC to form.
“The concentration then falls precipitously (almost linearly) until the Vernal Equinox in late September. Is that not what you see?”
By 24 September the O3 has dropped to 186DU and the temperature has risen to ~-80ºC and above and with the increasing UV and released Cl radicals the photocatalytic reactions the O3 is rapidly depleted.
“I’m not denying that photocatalytic destruction occurs. I’m just suggesting that it actually plays a minor role that is overshadowed by the Circumpolar Vortex that helps create very low temperatures and excludes tropical stratospheric ozone transported by the Brewer-Dobson circulation. In fact, during warm years, the destruction is minimal.”
I disagree, I think photocatalytic destruction plays a dominant role, for about 20 years until the mid 70s there was no hole and CFC concentrations were extremely low, I find it hard to believe that the circumpolar vortex never occured during that period! The low temperatures allow the formation of PSCs which greatly increase the breakdown of the CFCs which is a reason why the Antarctic O3 is depleted more than the Arctic.
“Lack of evidence is not evidence against something.” I agree that it is unlikely that the circumpolar vortex never occurred previous to the 1970s. There has never been a mechanism proposed that would explain why the Brewer-Dobson circulation-disruption would suddenly begin in the late-1970s. In fact, I have never seen anyone remark about the anomalous high values outside the vortex. I would also say that is it also unlikely that there were never areas of ozone depletion prior to the 1985 publication of the ‘discovery’ in Nature in 1985.
The size and shape of the so-called ‘Ozone Hole’ is notoriously variable, just like the Antarctic shelf ice. The cutoff point for the ‘hole’ edge is arbitrary. There was only one (maybe two) Dobson Spectrophotometer during the period that you claim there were no ‘holes.’ Dobson took sporadic measurements when the sun was above the horizon, with cloudless skies for at least 3 hours before sunset. The first satellite Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer wasn’t launched until after the usual late-September/early-October occurrence of the annual minimum in 1978.
An ‘Honest Broker’ would acknowledge that there is no evidence to support a claim for a previous lack of what we now call an “Ozone Hole,” based on the observations of a single, fixed location, spectrophotometer limited to observations when the sun was above the horizon with clear skies. It is not unlike a geologist doing a core drilling, and missing a quartz vein rich in gold by one foot, and declaring that there was no gold in the district.
However, more to the point, I asked you a direct question: “… where is the evidence that the lowered ozone concentration has had ANY negative biological effects in Antarctica?” You ignored the question. Why is that?
Presumably that’s a rhetorical question. I’m guessing it’s because he doesn’t understand what he babbles about. After all, he’s ignorant and gullible enough to believe that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter!
“An ‘Honest Broker’ would acknowledge that there is no evidence to support a claim for a previous lack of what we now call an “Ozone Hole,” based on the observations of a single, fixed location, spectrophotometer limited to observations when the sun was above the horizon with clear skies.”
The technique that first observed the formation of the ‘Ozone Hole’ in the late 70s and its continued development since did not detect any such depletion for 25 years prior! That is certainly evidence that such a hole didn’t exist or was far smaller during those years, indicating that something other than the vortex was responsible for it( although as I pointed out before the low temperatures are an important factor in creating conditions that favour the catalytic breakdown of O3).
So this ‘honest broker’ acknowledges that there is evidence for a previous lack of an Ozone Hole, would it be good to have more complete data, sure. The growth of the hole in the 70s was verified by the NASA satellite data, unfortunately the drop in the O3 that they measured was thought to be an instrument error until the British Antarctic Survey paper indicated it was real!
“However, more to the point, I asked you a direct question: “… where is the evidence that the lowered ozone concentration has had ANY negative biological effects in Antarctica?” You ignored the question. Why is that?”
Fortunately there are no land dwelling animals on the antarctic mainland under the main part of the Ozone hole to suffer such effects, the animals that live in the vicinity do so on the sea ice on the coastline mostly during the summer and spend a lot of their time in the water. As far as I know no-one has tried to examine the eyes of Emperor penguins to search for problems. There certainly have been concerns about human skin cancer in neighbouring regions such as New Zealand. If such a hole developed over the Arctic that would be a different matter, fortunately action was taken early enough to forestall such an event.
What is the patent situation for R410-A and it’s replacement? I was once told that the patent situation affected the decision to switch from freon to another fluid (the source was a personal conversation with a retired refrigeration engineer but I may have had the details wrong).
I had an issue with my AC this Summer and asked for a quote for replacement and was given a range of $6,000 to $16,000. I was astounded that they couldn’t estimate it closer than that. At my insistence, they were able to repair the the existing unit for about $4,000.