This is a follow-up to my last commentary about how a social influencer found the light regarding the Climate Change issue — after she had fully bought into the alarmist narrative for many years...
My statements on climate modification are drawn from Dane Wigington's website geoengineering.org which has a treasure trove of info including government documents. My research into science and health always seem to yield knowledge that the majority of society is oblivious to. My statements posted here on this subject are meant with good intent. I, like John and readers on this forum, care about society/humanity.
In my opinion, we can not have a discussion on climate change without including the climate modification (geoengineering) that is being carried out to the detriment of the planet. The seeding of the atmosphere and clouds with substances that contain aluminum,barium, and strontium has been verified by rain, air and soil samples. RF energy can and has been used by transmission into the atmospheric layers to charge the air which will be carried on the jet stream. The patent office has well over 100 patents for weather modification covering approximately a 100 year period. Any readers interested in this subject will find much info on the website: geoengineeringwatch.org with Dane Wigington. These methods were just used to create the recent "bomb cyclone" that hovered over the northeast just recently. I would love to hear what Alter AI has to say about this subject! Thank you John for your service to humanity!
Thomas: I am unaware of any scientific evidence that geoengineering was "just used to create the recent 'bomb cyclone' that hovered over the northeast just recently." I'd be interested to see that.
You’re entitled to your opinion Thomas as indeed am I. For my part, your proposition claiming geo engineering to that extent beggars belief & in the absence of empirical evidence proving your hypothesis, I remain sceptical.
What will become of sequestering CO2? A lot of money has been "invested" in that process of ripping up people's property without permission to put in underground piping. Is that still happening? Anyone?
Was Bill McKibben a part of the Club of Rome or hired by them? If we try to find the origin of the concept of global climate change, I think we will also find the origin of the concept of global pandemics. I think the word, "global" is the key word. Then, we should look to see if the originators of globalism, global control or "the new world order," are using fear tactics through the deployment of fake science relative to climate change and pandemics for the purpose of having humanity relinquish sovereignty to them.
Are people happier in 2000 than in 1900? If not, the cause isn't modernity, it's the rise of socialism. Igor Shafarevich concluded in "The Socialist Phenomenon" that socialism is a death cult.
"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a nice little boat to park beside your happiness."
— Danny Reagan in the "Blue Bloods" TV series.
But a boat is just a hole in the water that you throw money into.
"Unfortunately, the independent, objective, and thorough parts are simply not true."
Many of them are, in fact, quite good and scientifically accurate. One problem is that the "Summary for Policymakers" must be, according to the IPCC charter, reviewed, line by line by the board consisting of two politicians from every one of the UN's 192 member countries. The "Summary for Policymakers" is usually all the policymakers read, and it frequently inverts the conclusions of the Scientific Assessments. Sometimes the lead author of a Scientific Assessment chapter or volume does that to the delegated sub-authors' works before they get to the IPCC board.
Frederick Seitz, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events which led up to this [1996] IPCC report." Why? Fifteen important passages had been deleted from the document, after having been approved by all 28 contributing authors.
Keven Trenberth inverted Chris Landsea's analysis of the time series of hurricane damages and intensities.
"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
– Thomas Jefferson, commenting to William Roscoe on the founding of the University of Virginia, 27 December 1820
"It doesn't matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true."
--- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
CO2 is not only beneficial, it's essential. Its atmospheric concentration has been decreasing on a nearly straight trajectory from 2,500 ppmv about 150 million years ago to 350 ppmv in 1750. It reached 180 ppmv during the last six ice ages. Below 150 ppmv, plants start to die, and then so does everything else except some bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Where is it going? Marine plants and creatures worked out, about 150 million years ago, how to combine it with calcium to make bones, armor, and teeth. When they die they sink to the bottoms of the oceans and their bones, armor, and teeth become essentially permanent limestone.
Extrapolating the decline shows that Gaia's suicide would have been complete in about eight million years, but for the dawn of the Industrial Age, which has postponed her suicide for another eighteen million years.
If we really care about the long-term prospects for life on earth, we should be burning coal and making cement as fast as we can.
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy? A Comprehensive Quantitative System Engineering Study of the Relationship between Climate, Science, and Technology." Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations allow readers to verify I didn't simply make up stuff.
When EPA was preparing the Endangerment Finding, opponents of it correctly pointed out that CO2 emissions from ICEVs "hardly matter." EPA rejected that factual argument. Then they DIDN'T regulate emissions of the much more powerful greenhouse gas water vapor — generally one more molecule of water than of CO2 for each molecule of fuel burned — because — wait for it — wait for it — "It hardly matters."
The political science of climate change has contributed directly to the squandering of trillions of dollars in "green" wind turbines and solar panels to save a warming planet from bursting into flames. Has anyone else noticed that daily weather data used to include record highs and lows and the years they were recorded? Or that the average mean global temp wasn't adjusted when so many of the Russian met stations were dismantled due to lack of money? Or that even now temps are taken in heat sinks within urban areas. Meanwhile, in the US, antiquated sewage lines break, spewing raw sewage into our rivers, bridges collapse, transmission infrastructure becomes inadequate, roads deteriorate, and real energy solutions are ignored. This was all a part of the imperialists globalization plan to deindustrialize the US. Critical thinking can happen organically, as that social influencer and former climate alarmist demonstrates. And main stream media is being overthrown by internet news sites, social platforms and blogs. (Thank you, John.) This is very encouraging, and I really, really hope that the tide is turning.
John...another good assessment. It would be interesting to ask people if "greenhouse gases" are bad...the answer, no doubt, would be...YES. The next question would be...what percent of greenhouse gases water is...the answer, no doubt, would be "zero" when, as I recall water vapor is about 98% of greenhouse gases. So, if alarmists want to lower greenhouse gases, which is crazy, they should conclude that we have to eliminate water vapor. I guess the alarmists would support a "Geen Dome" over the oceans to capture evaporating water instead of a "Golden Dome" to catch incoming missiles:)
You are very right, the resources wasted on net zero could have fixed a lot of problems that were critical to fix but the resources were wasted on Green projects that caused much harm and no good.
Consistent with your argument comparing carbon dioxide to water, it is also noteworthy that the only two products of hydrocarbon combustion (fossil fuel combustion) are CO2 and H2O, both of which are imperative for life on Earth - ALL LIFE. I would argue further that carbon is the backbone of ALL LIFE ON EARTH, being the basis of organic chemistry and therefore of biochemistry. CO2 is the ONLY bioavailable form of carbon for Nature to incorporate into the Carbon Cycle - the cycle of Life. What a wondrous plan and elegant design! Certainly not something we should allow to be bastardized by charlatans, political ideologues, and ignoramuses.
Dr. Rancourt: I have no issues with your dissertation about the Climate issue, and would recommend it for any readers who would like a more technical discussion.
Hi John. Thanks for reviewing the basics for us. The reminders are useful. About Bill McKibben...thanks for reviewing his history. I have wondered about his being brought into the Middlebury College community as a writer in residence and wonder if there is more going on with this. The college is run by a number of intelligent people. I think it is unlikely McKibben's invitation to teach his "Climate Change" ideas stops with him. There is, I feel, more that the college is attempting to get out of their hosting him and his ideas and I wonder if it has to do with the college's endowment and the wealthy people the college wishes to attract to invest in the college. Usually these things at least have shadows that dog them that tend to create their own alternative universes, in this case the currently popular and well funded encampment of "Climate Change" adherents. The amount of money held by alarmists and alarmist organizations is staggering and that is informative. Once I attended a religion convention held at Middlebury. As happened, at lunch I wound up at the headliner speaker's table. There were a dozen of us sitting around the table, 10 students, the speaker and me. Conversation bubbled bright around the table. At one point, following a thread started by the speaker, I said, "we could all be dreaming this [reality]" and the speaker wholeheartedly agreed. My next comment didn't go over so well...or did it? I simply suggested the college have a course on the psychology of belief. Silence settled among the students. I had suggested that belief might be a psychological phenomenon, that what is believed might not actually be real. Stories are made up and, what's more, links tying such stories and reality are tenuous. One of my problems with religion and other examples of imaginary super beings and their exploits is that the self appointed leaders are conferred absolute power over their believers and that power famously corrupts. Belief is powerful and, yet, it is "only" belief. A more reliable alternative is science, how it works and why it is critically important. This brings us back to "Climate Change". Critical Thinking about this will lead each of us, at some point, to back away from the issue to view it from a neutral place and in a larger context. From there one can only be impressed by both the apparent need for belief and its power over believers. I have no antidote to offer but I do sometimes stand in awe of this remarkable aspect of the human condition. One of the gifts of Critical Thinking is that it offers the practitioner the opportunity to step back once in a while to look around and simply remark: wow! What one sees is stunning.
I would teach the evolution of the concept that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant. It is really fascinating. It started with particulates, evolved to Sulfer Dioxide, then to Nitrous Oxides, and finally to Carbon Dioxide. The environmentalists loved their jobs too much. They couldn’t stop with total success! They had to keep inventing more problems to solve.
Those of us in energy production made fun of them. We didn’t have a clue how to stop them from the insanity. Our joke was, “ROX, SOX, NOX, and now COX! What’s next?”
The joke was ROX was particulates! That started it all, the smoke! Every step just changed the solution and cost power industry Billions and basically obsoleted the previous solution.
One day the story will be properly researched. CO2 was just a different twist that had no solution! It cost America Trillions!
The sad part is both the Left and Right benefit from debating the subject. Both benefit in failing to reach a conclusion! Trump put a stop to the debate by merely saying the truth. Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant. It never was!
I think the critical point that needs to be addressed is, does CO2 cause global warming? I asked myself the question is there a correlation between CO2 and the earths temperature? I then went looking for evidence to test that hypothesis. I have found, to my satisfaction, that there is random correlation between CO2 and temperature and I didn’t have to look at a very long time period to come to that conclusion. 8000 years ago, CO2 was approximately 250 ppm and the temperature was 3°C higher. Since that time CO2 is increased to 425 ppm and the temperature has gone down. But it hasn’t been a straight line between those two periods. There was a Roman warm period followed by the dark ages which was cooler, the mediaeval warm period followed by the Little Ice Age, and we started coming out of the Little Ice Age long before humans burnt fossil fuels which adds CO2 to the atmosphere. The other question I ask, is A warmer world worse than a colder world? I live in Canada and I can tell you I’ll vote for a warmer world and I don’t want to waste a cent a futile attempt on trying to prevent, even if I could, the world from getting warmer! Another question I ask is, does an increase in CO2 enhance food production and biomass, and if it does, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Given that life on earth as we know it would be extinguished if CO2 drop below 150 ppm because plants would be starved of what it needs to grow which is CO2. But in the depth of the last Ice Age which was only 15,000 years ago there was only 180 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is very close to the point where we’re almost all plants would be extinguish.
As far as thermodynamic balance is concerned, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is nearly saturated. Svante Arrhenius observed in 1896 that the thermal response of the atmosphere is in logarithmic, not linear, proportion to the CO2 concentration. In 1971, when he was merely an acolyte in the Coming Ice Age cult, the late Stephen Schneider computed (with S. Ichtiaque Rasool) that the "DOUBLING sensitivity" is about 0.8°C. They concluded "even for an increase in CO2 by a factor of 10, the temperature increase does not exceed 2.5°C" and therefore "no matter how much coal we burn we cannot prevent the coming ice age." How did we get from that to "the ADDITIVE sensitivity of 100 ppmv is more than 2°C?" Stephen Schneider became the High Priest of the Global Warming cult. In an interview with Discover Magazine, which is mysteriously missing from their archive but preserved in Detroit News, he said "So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." That's not a real scientist's attitude.
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy? A Comprehensive Quantitative System Engineering Study of the Relationship between Climate, Science, and Technology." Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations allow readers to verify I didn't simply make up stuff.
A common argument is "feedbacks." Increasing CO2 warms the atmosphere, which increases evaporation from oceans, which warms the atmosphere, …." But increasing atmospheric water vapor increases clouds.
"Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming – or global cooling."
– Roy Spencer, PhD.
Nobody does, or can, understand the thermodynamic effect of clouds. This monster is explained in Appendix A in my book. As a consequence, none of the climate models work. When started with 1975 data, they all "predict" much more warming (the Russian INM-CM4 model less than the others) than actually happened.
"No matter how beautiful your theory, if it doesn't agree with reality it's wrong."
— Nobel Physics Laureate Richard P. Feynman
Enironists and their models do not incorporate long-term cycles into their alleged reasoning. For example, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has a period of thirty to forty years. The oceans require about 800-1,000 years to "turn over." Maybe that cycle explains how Romans grew grapes at Hadrian's wall and olives in the Rhine valley 2,000 years ago, and Vikings grew barley and raised sheep in Greenland — both of them without driving automobiles or burning coal to make electricity.
The oceans are carbonated drinks, open a warm and cold carbonated drink, of course there is correlation between temperature and the CO2 in the atmosphere, experiment with your carbonated drinks. The CO2 in the atmosphere is a function of CO2 in the oceans and temperature. Other factors matter but CO2 going from 300 to 400 parts per million added only one molecule of CO2 to ten thousand molecules of Atmosphere, that cannot be the primary driver.
Many environists (no mental in the middle) claim that increasing oceanic CO2 causes acidification that is harmful to coral, clams, etc. They don't understand buffer solutions, which are even taught in high school chemistry classes: When a weak acid is added to a solution that contains a strong base, the pH hardly changes. Oceans are buffer solutions.
I start to evaluate this question with a mass balance. If we look at just the Earth’s temperature changes over one day, we find the real answer. The mass of Earth’s dry air multiplied by 0.24 BTUs per pound per degree F gives us the answer. Then, just multiply by the number of degrees the weather changes in 24 hours.
So, we then know the effect of weather on a daily basis. Next we multiply by 365 days per year. The rest is simple. Compare the number to the total energy humans generate in a year. The answer shows that human beings have no effect on this subject at all! Depending on the day, the answer jumps around between 25,000 and 50,000 years of human activity to one year of GOD’s design. We are essentially insignificant. I find that to be comforting.
Remember, this is just the energy of the dry air changes. Next we can look at the wet in the air…water. Or, how about the centrifugal forces of the rotation? The whole idea that man is screwing up this planet ecologically is insane. Actually, we do our professional screwing up with politics and fake science.
I particularly appreciated the clarification regarding what a real practitioner of science actually is.
Also called to mind is a question regarding the use of the term "fossil fuels," which has long been considered to mean that petroleum is the result of rotting dead dinosaurs piling up, and thus a finite and depletable resource. But is this even true? Or is it a continuing geological process, though perhaps a very slow one?
Christopher: You're welcome. There are two views about the origins of fossil fuels: biotic and abiotic. For example, most Russian scientists are abiotic.
On the serendipitous heels of posting the question, my feed this morning included a post relevant to that very question... the upshot of which imo was that petroleum, coal, and natural gas production have involved a geologic and biologic process of naturally-occuring solar energy and carbon capture (no huge taxes or technology projects required) through epochs of past climates both warmer and colder. So, probably an infinitesimal amount of rotting dinosaurs, and more related to sea plankton and organic seabed sedimentation - all of which emitted far greater than current industrial levels of CO2 and other gasses considered climate warming (and more of a result of than a cause). Certainly little need for modern alarm. I shall continue to drive my gas-guzzling SUV and mow my expansive yard with confidence.
Christopher: TY for the good article. My Newsletter has several other good commentaries about getting rid of the Endangerment Finding. We are now going into a time where there will be extensive litigation...
And who/what will be the sources of truly scientific evidence? Will the judge be scientifically minded enough to process the information presented? And always...follow the money.
My statements on climate modification are drawn from Dane Wigington's website geoengineering.org which has a treasure trove of info including government documents. My research into science and health always seem to yield knowledge that the majority of society is oblivious to. My statements posted here on this subject are meant with good intent. I, like John and readers on this forum, care about society/humanity.
Thomas: TY for your support. FYI I went to <geoengineering.org> and it not only would not load, it said that the domain was for sale...
OK, I eventually found the site. It is <geoengineeringWatch.org>. I then read the site person's bio (<https://geoengineeringwatch.org/ads-resources/dane-wigington/>). Unfortunately he has zero Science credentials. That says to proceed with caution...
In my opinion, we can not have a discussion on climate change without including the climate modification (geoengineering) that is being carried out to the detriment of the planet. The seeding of the atmosphere and clouds with substances that contain aluminum,barium, and strontium has been verified by rain, air and soil samples. RF energy can and has been used by transmission into the atmospheric layers to charge the air which will be carried on the jet stream. The patent office has well over 100 patents for weather modification covering approximately a 100 year period. Any readers interested in this subject will find much info on the website: geoengineeringwatch.org with Dane Wigington. These methods were just used to create the recent "bomb cyclone" that hovered over the northeast just recently. I would love to hear what Alter AI has to say about this subject! Thank you John for your service to humanity!
Thomas: I am unaware of any scientific evidence that geoengineering was "just used to create the recent 'bomb cyclone' that hovered over the northeast just recently." I'd be interested to see that.
You’re entitled to your opinion Thomas as indeed am I. For my part, your proposition claiming geo engineering to that extent beggars belief & in the absence of empirical evidence proving your hypothesis, I remain sceptical.
What will become of sequestering CO2? A lot of money has been "invested" in that process of ripping up people's property without permission to put in underground piping. Is that still happening? Anyone?
Was Bill McKibben a part of the Club of Rome or hired by them? If we try to find the origin of the concept of global climate change, I think we will also find the origin of the concept of global pandemics. I think the word, "global" is the key word. Then, we should look to see if the originators of globalism, global control or "the new world order," are using fear tactics through the deployment of fake science relative to climate change and pandemics for the purpose of having humanity relinquish sovereignty to them.
Brenda: Re Bill - not to my knowledge, but it could be.
Are people happier in 2000 than in 1900? If not, the cause isn't modernity, it's the rise of socialism. Igor Shafarevich concluded in "The Socialist Phenomenon" that socialism is a death cult.
"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a nice little boat to park beside your happiness."
— Danny Reagan in the "Blue Bloods" TV series.
But a boat is just a hole in the water that you throw money into.
"Unfortunately, the independent, objective, and thorough parts are simply not true."
Many of them are, in fact, quite good and scientifically accurate. One problem is that the "Summary for Policymakers" must be, according to the IPCC charter, reviewed, line by line by the board consisting of two politicians from every one of the UN's 192 member countries. The "Summary for Policymakers" is usually all the policymakers read, and it frequently inverts the conclusions of the Scientific Assessments. Sometimes the lead author of a Scientific Assessment chapter or volume does that to the delegated sub-authors' works before they get to the IPCC board.
Frederick Seitz, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events which led up to this [1996] IPCC report." Why? Fifteen important passages had been deleted from the document, after having been approved by all 28 contributing authors.
Keven Trenberth inverted Chris Landsea's analysis of the time series of hurricane damages and intensities.
"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
– Thomas Jefferson, commenting to William Roscoe on the founding of the University of Virginia, 27 December 1820
"It doesn't matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true."
--- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
CO2 is not only beneficial, it's essential. Its atmospheric concentration has been decreasing on a nearly straight trajectory from 2,500 ppmv about 150 million years ago to 350 ppmv in 1750. It reached 180 ppmv during the last six ice ages. Below 150 ppmv, plants start to die, and then so does everything else except some bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Where is it going? Marine plants and creatures worked out, about 150 million years ago, how to combine it with calcium to make bones, armor, and teeth. When they die they sink to the bottoms of the oceans and their bones, armor, and teeth become essentially permanent limestone.
Extrapolating the decline shows that Gaia's suicide would have been complete in about eight million years, but for the dawn of the Industrial Age, which has postponed her suicide for another eighteen million years.
If we really care about the long-term prospects for life on earth, we should be burning coal and making cement as fast as we can.
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy? A Comprehensive Quantitative System Engineering Study of the Relationship between Climate, Science, and Technology." Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations allow readers to verify I didn't simply make up stuff.
When EPA was preparing the Endangerment Finding, opponents of it correctly pointed out that CO2 emissions from ICEVs "hardly matter." EPA rejected that factual argument. Then they DIDN'T regulate emissions of the much more powerful greenhouse gas water vapor — generally one more molecule of water than of CO2 for each molecule of fuel burned — because — wait for it — wait for it — "It hardly matters."
The political science of climate change has contributed directly to the squandering of trillions of dollars in "green" wind turbines and solar panels to save a warming planet from bursting into flames. Has anyone else noticed that daily weather data used to include record highs and lows and the years they were recorded? Or that the average mean global temp wasn't adjusted when so many of the Russian met stations were dismantled due to lack of money? Or that even now temps are taken in heat sinks within urban areas. Meanwhile, in the US, antiquated sewage lines break, spewing raw sewage into our rivers, bridges collapse, transmission infrastructure becomes inadequate, roads deteriorate, and real energy solutions are ignored. This was all a part of the imperialists globalization plan to deindustrialize the US. Critical thinking can happen organically, as that social influencer and former climate alarmist demonstrates. And main stream media is being overthrown by internet news sites, social platforms and blogs. (Thank you, John.) This is very encouraging, and I really, really hope that the tide is turning.
John...another good assessment. It would be interesting to ask people if "greenhouse gases" are bad...the answer, no doubt, would be...YES. The next question would be...what percent of greenhouse gases water is...the answer, no doubt, would be "zero" when, as I recall water vapor is about 98% of greenhouse gases. So, if alarmists want to lower greenhouse gases, which is crazy, they should conclude that we have to eliminate water vapor. I guess the alarmists would support a "Geen Dome" over the oceans to capture evaporating water instead of a "Golden Dome" to catch incoming missiles:)
Don Runkle
Don: Yes, most people have little understanding of things like greenhouse gasses — and this is leveraged by scare specialists...
You are very right, the resources wasted on net zero could have fixed a lot of problems that were critical to fix but the resources were wasted on Green projects that caused much harm and no good.
Alex: Yes we can be spending our limited resources MUCH more wisely.
Thanks John. Well done, as usual.
Consistent with your argument comparing carbon dioxide to water, it is also noteworthy that the only two products of hydrocarbon combustion (fossil fuel combustion) are CO2 and H2O, both of which are imperative for life on Earth - ALL LIFE. I would argue further that carbon is the backbone of ALL LIFE ON EARTH, being the basis of organic chemistry and therefore of biochemistry. CO2 is the ONLY bioavailable form of carbon for Nature to incorporate into the Carbon Cycle - the cycle of Life. What a wondrous plan and elegant design! Certainly not something we should allow to be bastardized by charlatans, political ideologues, and ignoramuses.
Russ: TY for your support and good observation.
Hi John,
Thank you for these explanations about the climate change narrative.
Please take a look at this:
Rancourt, D. G. (2026). Opinion: Geopolitical Context of the Embattled Climate Racket. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18284772
https://denisrancourt.substack.com/p/opinion-geopolitical-context-of-the
Dr. Rancourt: I have no issues with your dissertation about the Climate issue, and would recommend it for any readers who would like a more technical discussion.
Hi John. Thanks for reviewing the basics for us. The reminders are useful. About Bill McKibben...thanks for reviewing his history. I have wondered about his being brought into the Middlebury College community as a writer in residence and wonder if there is more going on with this. The college is run by a number of intelligent people. I think it is unlikely McKibben's invitation to teach his "Climate Change" ideas stops with him. There is, I feel, more that the college is attempting to get out of their hosting him and his ideas and I wonder if it has to do with the college's endowment and the wealthy people the college wishes to attract to invest in the college. Usually these things at least have shadows that dog them that tend to create their own alternative universes, in this case the currently popular and well funded encampment of "Climate Change" adherents. The amount of money held by alarmists and alarmist organizations is staggering and that is informative. Once I attended a religion convention held at Middlebury. As happened, at lunch I wound up at the headliner speaker's table. There were a dozen of us sitting around the table, 10 students, the speaker and me. Conversation bubbled bright around the table. At one point, following a thread started by the speaker, I said, "we could all be dreaming this [reality]" and the speaker wholeheartedly agreed. My next comment didn't go over so well...or did it? I simply suggested the college have a course on the psychology of belief. Silence settled among the students. I had suggested that belief might be a psychological phenomenon, that what is believed might not actually be real. Stories are made up and, what's more, links tying such stories and reality are tenuous. One of my problems with religion and other examples of imaginary super beings and their exploits is that the self appointed leaders are conferred absolute power over their believers and that power famously corrupts. Belief is powerful and, yet, it is "only" belief. A more reliable alternative is science, how it works and why it is critically important. This brings us back to "Climate Change". Critical Thinking about this will lead each of us, at some point, to back away from the issue to view it from a neutral place and in a larger context. From there one can only be impressed by both the apparent need for belief and its power over believers. I have no antidote to offer but I do sometimes stand in awe of this remarkable aspect of the human condition. One of the gifts of Critical Thinking is that it offers the practitioner the opportunity to step back once in a while to look around and simply remark: wow! What one sees is stunning.
I would teach the evolution of the concept that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant. It is really fascinating. It started with particulates, evolved to Sulfer Dioxide, then to Nitrous Oxides, and finally to Carbon Dioxide. The environmentalists loved their jobs too much. They couldn’t stop with total success! They had to keep inventing more problems to solve.
Those of us in energy production made fun of them. We didn’t have a clue how to stop them from the insanity. Our joke was, “ROX, SOX, NOX, and now COX! What’s next?”
The joke was ROX was particulates! That started it all, the smoke! Every step just changed the solution and cost power industry Billions and basically obsoleted the previous solution.
One day the story will be properly researched. CO2 was just a different twist that had no solution! It cost America Trillions!
For leftists, having a problem is much more profitable than having a solution. For their mode of "work," if they solve a problem they're out of a job.
The sad part is both the Left and Right benefit from debating the subject. Both benefit in failing to reach a conclusion! Trump put a stop to the debate by merely saying the truth. Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant. It never was!
Paul: Thank you for your good insights.
BTW, the existence of God is the conclusion of real Science. We can have a chat about that sometime.
I think the critical point that needs to be addressed is, does CO2 cause global warming? I asked myself the question is there a correlation between CO2 and the earths temperature? I then went looking for evidence to test that hypothesis. I have found, to my satisfaction, that there is random correlation between CO2 and temperature and I didn’t have to look at a very long time period to come to that conclusion. 8000 years ago, CO2 was approximately 250 ppm and the temperature was 3°C higher. Since that time CO2 is increased to 425 ppm and the temperature has gone down. But it hasn’t been a straight line between those two periods. There was a Roman warm period followed by the dark ages which was cooler, the mediaeval warm period followed by the Little Ice Age, and we started coming out of the Little Ice Age long before humans burnt fossil fuels which adds CO2 to the atmosphere. The other question I ask, is A warmer world worse than a colder world? I live in Canada and I can tell you I’ll vote for a warmer world and I don’t want to waste a cent a futile attempt on trying to prevent, even if I could, the world from getting warmer! Another question I ask is, does an increase in CO2 enhance food production and biomass, and if it does, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Given that life on earth as we know it would be extinguished if CO2 drop below 150 ppm because plants would be starved of what it needs to grow which is CO2. But in the depth of the last Ice Age which was only 15,000 years ago there was only 180 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is very close to the point where we’re almost all plants would be extinguish.
As far as thermodynamic balance is concerned, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is nearly saturated. Svante Arrhenius observed in 1896 that the thermal response of the atmosphere is in logarithmic, not linear, proportion to the CO2 concentration. In 1971, when he was merely an acolyte in the Coming Ice Age cult, the late Stephen Schneider computed (with S. Ichtiaque Rasool) that the "DOUBLING sensitivity" is about 0.8°C. They concluded "even for an increase in CO2 by a factor of 10, the temperature increase does not exceed 2.5°C" and therefore "no matter how much coal we burn we cannot prevent the coming ice age." How did we get from that to "the ADDITIVE sensitivity of 100 ppmv is more than 2°C?" Stephen Schneider became the High Priest of the Global Warming cult. In an interview with Discover Magazine, which is mysteriously missing from their archive but preserved in Detroit News, he said "So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." That's not a real scientist's attitude.
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy? A Comprehensive Quantitative System Engineering Study of the Relationship between Climate, Science, and Technology." Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations allow readers to verify I didn't simply make up stuff.
A common argument is "feedbacks." Increasing CO2 warms the atmosphere, which increases evaporation from oceans, which warms the atmosphere, …." But increasing atmospheric water vapor increases clouds.
"Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming – or global cooling."
– Roy Spencer, PhD.
Nobody does, or can, understand the thermodynamic effect of clouds. This monster is explained in Appendix A in my book. As a consequence, none of the climate models work. When started with 1975 data, they all "predict" much more warming (the Russian INM-CM4 model less than the others) than actually happened.
"No matter how beautiful your theory, if it doesn't agree with reality it's wrong."
— Nobel Physics Laureate Richard P. Feynman
Enironists and their models do not incorporate long-term cycles into their alleged reasoning. For example, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has a period of thirty to forty years. The oceans require about 800-1,000 years to "turn over." Maybe that cycle explains how Romans grew grapes at Hadrian's wall and olives in the Rhine valley 2,000 years ago, and Vikings grew barley and raised sheep in Greenland — both of them without driving automobiles or burning coal to make electricity.
Yes, the benefits of more CO2 has been proven, many times. The harm of more CO2 has not been proven even once.
The oceans are carbonated drinks, open a warm and cold carbonated drink, of course there is correlation between temperature and the CO2 in the atmosphere, experiment with your carbonated drinks. The CO2 in the atmosphere is a function of CO2 in the oceans and temperature. Other factors matter but CO2 going from 300 to 400 parts per million added only one molecule of CO2 to ten thousand molecules of Atmosphere, that cannot be the primary driver.
Many environists (no mental in the middle) claim that increasing oceanic CO2 causes acidification that is harmful to coral, clams, etc. They don't understand buffer solutions, which are even taught in high school chemistry classes: When a weak acid is added to a solution that contains a strong base, the pH hardly changes. Oceans are buffer solutions.
I start to evaluate this question with a mass balance. If we look at just the Earth’s temperature changes over one day, we find the real answer. The mass of Earth’s dry air multiplied by 0.24 BTUs per pound per degree F gives us the answer. Then, just multiply by the number of degrees the weather changes in 24 hours.
So, we then know the effect of weather on a daily basis. Next we multiply by 365 days per year. The rest is simple. Compare the number to the total energy humans generate in a year. The answer shows that human beings have no effect on this subject at all! Depending on the day, the answer jumps around between 25,000 and 50,000 years of human activity to one year of GOD’s design. We are essentially insignificant. I find that to be comforting.
Remember, this is just the energy of the dry air changes. Next we can look at the wet in the air…water. Or, how about the centrifugal forces of the rotation? The whole idea that man is screwing up this planet ecologically is insane. Actually, we do our professional screwing up with politics and fake science.
Patrick: thank you for the thoughful observations. It's good that you are giving this matter some serious thought.
I particularly appreciated the clarification regarding what a real practitioner of science actually is.
Also called to mind is a question regarding the use of the term "fossil fuels," which has long been considered to mean that petroleum is the result of rotting dead dinosaurs piling up, and thus a finite and depletable resource. But is this even true? Or is it a continuing geological process, though perhaps a very slow one?
Christopher: You're welcome. There are two views about the origins of fossil fuels: biotic and abiotic. For example, most Russian scientists are abiotic.
https://brownstone.org/articles/goodbye-and-good-riddance-to-the-endangerment-finding/
On the serendipitous heels of posting the question, my feed this morning included a post relevant to that very question... the upshot of which imo was that petroleum, coal, and natural gas production have involved a geologic and biologic process of naturally-occuring solar energy and carbon capture (no huge taxes or technology projects required) through epochs of past climates both warmer and colder. So, probably an infinitesimal amount of rotting dinosaurs, and more related to sea plankton and organic seabed sedimentation - all of which emitted far greater than current industrial levels of CO2 and other gasses considered climate warming (and more of a result of than a cause). Certainly little need for modern alarm. I shall continue to drive my gas-guzzling SUV and mow my expansive yard with confidence.
Christopher: TY for the good article. My Newsletter has several other good commentaries about getting rid of the Endangerment Finding. We are now going into a time where there will be extensive litigation...
And who/what will be the sources of truly scientific evidence? Will the judge be scientifically minded enough to process the information presented? And always...follow the money.
Linda: Unfortunately the Science will likely play second fiddle, as obtuse legal matters will be front and center...
Exercises of futility are so frustrating. This is why people stop paying attention and thus, the deceptions continue.