Pope Francis plans to deliver an encyclical on climate change this summer. To pave the way and outline the Pope’s positions, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding a workshop on the topic, April 28 in Rome. The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Heartland Institute will be there.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, director of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and an author of the draft encyclical, says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that “our planet is getting warmer.” Christians have a duty to help the poor, “irrespective of the causes of climate change,” and address what Pope Francis apparently believes is an imminent climate crisis. The encyclical will likely present global warming as “a critical moral issue” and set the stage for a new climate treaty.
That raises serious questions, which I have addressed in many articles – and which prompted Dr. E. Calvin Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation to write an open letter to Pope Francis. The articles and letter reflect our years of studying climate change assertions and realities, and the ways climate-related restrictions on energy harm poor families far more than climate change will.
At the most fundamental level, too many IPCC reports and the apparent new papal position represent the rejection of Judeo-Christianity’s illustrious tradition of scientific inquiry, which has brought monumental improvements to our understanding of nature and creation – and to humanity’s once “nasty, brutish and short” lives on this planet.
As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman explained, we begin with a guess about a law of nature. Then we compute the consequences that would result if our hypothesis is correct – and compare actual observations, evidence and experimental data to the predicted consequences.
If the hypothesis and predictions are borne out by the observations, we have a new rule. But if the hypothesis “disagrees with the experiment, it is wrong,” Feynman says. That is honest, genuine science.
Alarmist climate science is precisely the opposite. That distorted version of science began with the hypothesis that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels cause global warming. It served as the basis for computer models that assume rising CO2 and GHG levels will cause planetary temperatures and sea levels to soar, and hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts to increase in number and intensity. The models predicted many such “scenarios” over the coming decades.
But Earth stopped warming 18 years ago; no major hurricane hit the USA for a record 9-1/2 years; seas are rising at barely seven inches per century; and even IPCC experts agree that long-term trends in weather disasters are not out of historic norms and are not attributable to human causes. The CO2-driven global warming disaster hypothesis and models do not reflect reality and are obviously wrong.
So alarmists began talking about “climate change” and blaming extreme weather events on human emissions. They assert that terrible things are happening at unprecedented levels, when they are not. Worst of all, they say we must slash hydrocarbon energy use that has brought once unimaginable health, prosperity, living standards and life spans to billions of people, after countless millennia of crushing poverty, malnutrition, disease, and death before age 40. Those fossil fuels still represent 85% of the world’s energy – and they are essential if the rest of humanity is to catch up and improve their lives.
Denying humanity the use of still bountiful hydrocarbon energy is thus not simply wrong. It is immoral – and lethal. It is for this reason, and only this reason, that climate change is a critical moral issue. No one has a right to tell the world’s poor they cannot use fossil fuels to improve their lives, or to tell others they must reduce their living standards, based on speculation and fears about a manmade climate crisis.
As Dr. Beisner notes, “Alongside good science in our approach to climate policy must be two preferential options: for humanity and, among humanity, for the poor.” This does not mean pitting humanity against nature, any more than to pit the poor against the rich. It means any effort to protect the environment must be centered on scientific truth and human well-being, and in particular the well-being of the poor, because they are more vulnerable, and less able to protect themselves. Climate alarmism does not do that.
Over the past three decades, fossil fuels helped 1.3 billion people get electricity and escape debilitating energy poverty – over 830 million because of coal. China connected 99% of its population to the grid and increased its steel production eight times over, mostly with coal, energy analyst Roger Bezdek points out.
Abundant, reliable, affordable motor fuels and electricity empower people and support mobility, modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights and refrigerators, job creation, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing, safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives. In conjunction with property rights and entrepreneurship, protected by laws enforced by limited, responsive, responsible governments, fossil fuels will continue transforming lives and nations the world over.
They will also enable people to respond and adapt to future climate changes and extreme weather events, floods and droughts, heat waves, new “little ice ages” and other disasters, natural or manmade. More plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would enhance wildlife habitats and food production.
However, 1.3 billion people (the population of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe combined) still do not have electricity. In India alone, more people than live in the USA still lack electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 730 million (equal to Europe) still cook and heat with wood, charcoal and animal dung. Hundreds of millions get horribly sick and four million die every year from lung and intestinal diseases, due to breathing smoke from open fires and not having clean water, refrigeration and safe food.
Imposing fossil fuel restrictions and renewable energy mandates – in the name of stabilizing planetary climate that has never been stable – would perpetuate Third World poverty, disease and death. In developed nations, it would reduce living standards, affect everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do – and cause thousands to die during cold winters, because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly.
It would be a needless tragedy – an unconscionable crime against humanity – if the world implemented policies to protect the world’s still impoverished and energy-deprived masses from hypothetical manmade climate dangers decades from now, by perpetuating poverty and disease, and killing millions tomorrow.
Just eight years ago, Pope Benedict XVI warned that any proposed “solutions” to global warming and climate change must be based on solid evidence, and not on computer models, unsupported assertions and dubious ideology. He suggested that concerns about man-made emissions melting ice caps and causing waves of unprecedented disasters were little more than fear-mongering. He argued that ecological concerns must be balanced against the needs of current and future generations of people.
Pope Francis apparently does not share his predecessor’s view about climate change fears. However, if he is truly committed to advancing science, the poor and creation, he should reject climate chaos claims unless and until alarmists can provide solid evidence to back up their assertions and models.
He should recognize that the issue is not global warming or climate change. It is whether human actions now dominate climate and weather fluctuations that have been common throughout Earth and human history – and whether those actions will cause dangerous or catastrophic changes in the future. Science-based answers to these questions are essential if we are to forecast future climate and weather accurately – and safeguard poor families, modern living standards and environmental quality.
Dr. Beisner has posted his letter to Pope Francis, for others to endorse this commonsense approach.
It is unwise and unjust to adopt policies requiring reduced use of fossil fuels, unless it can be conclusively shown that doing so will stabilize Earth’ fickle climate and prevent future climate disasters, Dr. Beisner concludes. “Such policies would condemn hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings to ongoing poverty.” We therefore respectfully ask Pope Francis to advise the world’s leaders to reject those policies.
The IPCC can not make their models match the past, let alone the future.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. So I guess being in the 95% Confidence interval is how “can not make their models match the past, let alone the future” is defined in CFACT world. One doesn’t even need to bring models in to know the greenhouse effect is real, and that human activity is increasing it, but models are the best way to know how to try to prepare ourselves for what is ahead.
@ cshorey and Anon Anon: Maybe both of you have to take a step back and examine what the earth temperature rise has been since the ice age. I believe nearly everyone agrees that the earth has been warming. Now if we can agree to that, we should look at the next step. Would both of you agree that the earth has been warming on a average basis since 500 years ago? How about 300 years ago? How about 150 years ago and also 75 years ago? If you can agree to all those time spans, then the only question is has earth been warming faster in the last 75 years that at any other time in history? To shed some light on that question involves climate scientists and their models and also on observational evidence. One thing is certain is that the models used by the climate scientists have not been able to predict warming as the result of increasing CO2. That became evident in the last 18 years and counting where warming has not occurred even though CO2 levels were already high by the AGW standards and where CO2 levels continued to increase. Maybe we should look at other observational evidence.
The Tornio River in Finland gives some observational evidence about the earth’s climate. This river has been monitored and data collected from1693 to 2000 on the earliest ice breakup each year. I believe it is credible since neither climate scientists nor skeptics were around when the data first began in 1693. The data shows that indeed the earth has been warming on an average basis for 307 years. Of course, the AGW groups have indicted that this warming is proof of CO2 and humans as the cause. If that is true, then there should show increased warming due to the increase in CO2 during the industrial era of about 1940 to the present. However, the graph presented shows a straight line of continued warmth. There is no inverted “Hockey Stick” to indicate accelerated warming during the industrial era. Therefore there is no proof that CO2 and humans are a significant cause of increased warming. The significant cause of warming is due to natural forces while CO2 and humans being only an insignificant factor.
You forgot that the changes since the last ice age were caused by increased solar input in the Northern Hemisphere in the summers due to our orbital parameters. This minor solar input then went through the feedbacks of the climate system to get us where we have been for 10,000 years. The earth doesn’t care what forces it’s climate, it just responds. Now the greenhouse effect, which has too much evidence to really deny in a sane manner, is the forcer and the climate is changing to a new equilibrium state. The change period will not be pleasant as weather patterns change and seas rise.
All you are saying is that natural forces have been warming the earth since the ice ages. We all can agree to that. Next, you say that CO2 is the the main force. If CO2 is the main force, then the earth should be warming and it hasn’t for at least 18 years while CO2 has been higher than the climate scientists say is unnatural for the earth. Plus, it has risen to higher levels during this same 18 years and with no verifiable evidence of warming. Sorry, but your argument doesn’t meet actual observation.
Actually wally, that is only part of what I’m saying. Now if CO2 is the main direct forcer (and the physics that proves this is the same physics that makes heat seeking missiles work . . . and they work), then we expect to be storing heat energy in the Earth’s climate system. Looking with satellites at the top of our atmosphere we see more heat in than out which leads to an imbalance of about 4 Hiroshima bombs of energy per second. The last part I’ll give you before I ask you to go do some homework on the details is this: the energy for Earth’s climate system could go into heating the atmosphere (the only parameter you mentioned – and even your supposition of no heating there for 18 years in simply wrong), but it can also go into making the wind blow, melting glaciers in mountains, melting ice caps at the polar continents, melting sea ice, warming the land itself, and with the last part comes your homework. That heat can also go into our oceans and it is now up to you to figure out the mass of the oceans and the heat capacity of water vs. the mass of the atmosphere and the average heat capacity of air. If you do the math right, you will ditch the absurdly ignorant “it has not warmed in 18 years” canard. Who do you think started that idea and how do you feel about having been duped by it?
Then for Pete’s sake explain and stop the ducking and weaving.
I know you, Brin, might think that as I have asked you to do this assignment as well when you pulled the “hasn’t warmed” gambit before. When you show that you are making an effort to learn, I’ll be glad to help you further.
You have failed to explain anything, instead you duck and weave bringing in evermore complications in a effort to bamboozle us.
If I were to say, You are correct and I now see the error of my ways, I would still not understand why it all happens. I would only hold an opinion formed by others like your self. This might be added to the consensus of the uninformed who are unable to understand or explain.
You write as though you have some understanding, but when it comes to the crunch you demonstrate only bluff. I worked for the Institute of Aviation Medicine with the cream of cutting edge doctors, engineering and Government scientific personnel. Any one of them could explain aspects of their work clearly and succinctly with no prevarication. I have reluctantly come to my conclusion that you are a sham.
No! It is not up to me to do home work where there is none to do. Instead, you do your homework. You are stating that the earth hasn’t shown any warming in 18 years as a false statement. You really haven’t proven that. Next you seem to be implying that the oceans have been absorbing the heat rather that it showing up as earth temperature rise. The problem you have is that you are only partially correct. Of course, the oceans absorb heat. However, so does the earth and both do so together. They do not absorb heat independently. If the earth warms, the oceans do like wise and when the earth cools, the oceans also cool. Get out your slide rule and figure it out. That is your next assignment. Have fun!
Minor input, have you no understanding at all of energy?
Non-sequitor, when were you last checked? I’m getting worried. Trust me, if we were put in a room and given a test on energy, you’d have to explain that there was a conspiracy when you do so much worse. I know you Brin. I’ve read everything you posted to me. I am completely convinced you have a few screws loose and are a Google PhD. You have information at your fingertips and you confuse that with knowledge. I can’t explain things to you because you are just too ignorant on too many things. You explain energy to me? You still can’t differentiate refraction and absorption. You fail my class for sure.
You are unable to explain so it would seem you’re only a blowhard troll.
The green house effect is real and human activity is increasing it? That is the talking point and the dogma. But, since the earth is not warming, and since there has been dramatic climate change long before humans did anything, so what?
It is not just talking points and dogma. We can actually measure the exact wavelengths of EMR absorbed and see that they are not leaving the planet like they used to. But since the earth is warming, and you have confused a smaller warming in the atmosphere recently and think that means no warming in the climate system as a whole says you have not quite got the right definition of the climate system, nor do you seem to have the current information on this. Sorry Bob, that wasn’t an argument that can stand up in peer review.
I understand refraction and keep asking for an explanation of the mechanism.
How does it allow heat in, warming the earth, but not allow it to escape at the same rate?
If you have understanding, please explain it in your own words. Not links to others opinions, your own words that you can argue.
Absorption, not refraction. The mechanism is in the quantum mechanics involved in absorption and emission of photons of EMR. If the wavelength of the photon absorbed can be transformed by thermal processes then one type of photon can come into the earth’s system, get transformed, and find it has a serious game of absorption and emission in the greenhouse gasses before it can get back to space. If you need more, I suggest going to a physics professor to discuss in depth the concept of emissivity.
Please explain the exact mechanism. Why does a ball roll down hill? Gravity is not the whole mechanism. At rest on a level plane the C of G is over the center of pressure. On a slope the forces change as the C of G
Explain to me that you understand the difference between refraction and absorption/emissivity. I think the burden is definitely on you here.
No, you made a scientific claim and need to support it. Refraction is because the speed of light changes through mediums other than the void, gravity probably also contributes to the bending. Frequency increases and the angle of refraction of any radiation depends these changes and is best illustrated with drawings. Refraction bending reverses of course as it re radiates. Now absorption by CO2 at 400 parts per million is a minuscule amount. I am unconvinced by broad statements please explain why you understand it to be significant and how much energy is involved as a slow release and exactly how it works and is connected to man made global warming. We are apparently concerned that CO2 has increased by a small percentage, sounds rather like the square root of bugger all.
No, you made an unscientific claim and I am asking that you show me you understand the difference between refraction and reflection first. I don’t get paid teaching you. And if you’re worried about small numbers of increase, try a similar increase in iron concentration in your body and tell me how it works for your “system”. Will you claim you are unchanged when you’re body dead too?
You have shown us you have no idea, and are unable to explain why CO2 causes heating of the
planet. This was an opportunity that you have failed to use!
I was prepared to allow you had a scientific knowledge, it seems you are only half baked student at best.
You just showed you can’t follow the discussion. Remember, you don’t even know the difference between refraction and absorption. So I guess we should just pity your ignorance. When you show you are trying to learn the basics, then you can be given more time and respect.
Uh.
Not quite there yet. Keep trying. What is refraction? What is absorption? Have you figure that very important part of this science out yet?
Of course I know, you are unable to furnish any explanations, only offer your own belief as a substitute.
Nope, not the difference between refraction and absorption. F –
Nonsense again. Nothing is proven, we have a perpetual climate change driven most likely by Sun spot activity. We know a greenhouse works, but you have never been able to explain why its so, or show that our thin layer of atmosphere is in anyway like a greenhouse caused by human activities.
A consensus believer incapable of explanations.
Heartland is going to see the Pope? I don’t think the Pope likes Mamon as much as Heartland.
Did Paul Driessen take into account the new paper published in Nature Climate change? It shows that 75% of very hot periods are due to AGW and that 18% of heavy precipitation events are. And both are going to increase over the next century. Huh? Makes Paul look a bit ignorant on this subject and its framing.
Please to consider the source for the article in “the new paper”
It was Nature Climate Change. That is considered one of the most reputable peer reviewed journals on the subject. Your comment implies you think it is suspect and biased, so could you please provide the evidence that this is the case? You also imply that there are better sources. Would you like to propose one and we can do a reliability compare and contrast?
You support these views and offer no explanations of the how, and why it works. A fervent believer, which demonstrates a total faith but not science.
You mean like you just did claiming a massive conspiracy?
Shall I accept coincidences instead? If folk arrange to discuss any plan and how to achieve its ends, is this not a conspiracy? You need to read up on proven and documented political history perhaps. Until you understand Common Purpose you remain ignorant.
If you preset your mind to a conclusion, coincidence can be forced all to easily through selective bias. As I said above, the end conclusion of your concept of a total world conspiracy involving climate scientists falls apart with the least amount of thought on the subject. You would have to hold a gun to scientists heads to get them to all agree to say something they knew was wrong. On the other hand, those who don’t like the conclusions of science either have to accept it or prove it with science, not puffed up conspiracy theories.
Just give the mechanism for CO2 being the cause of warming please! It seems any diversion should be used to avoid you doing this?
It’s wasted on you until you can show you can understand the difference between refraction and absorption. If you are still confused on that simple matter, how could I ever explain how the mechanism works? It depends on absorption and emission and so far you have only responded to such saying you know what refraction is. So you see, it is like teaching math to a dog – pointless. Until the dog learns to count, how can I even start?
Cop out once more.
Ever read the Catholic Insight expose on the Frankfurt School? A brilliant bit of writing? It is reproduced by a good many sites on the internet.
Timothy Matthews – Catholic Insight March 2009
Western civilization at the present day is passing through a crisis which is essentially different from anything that has been previously experienced. Other societies in the past have changed their social institutions or their religious beliefs under the influence of external forces or the slow development of internal growth. But none, like our own, has ever consciously faced the prospect of a fundamental alteration of the beliefs and institutions on which the whole fabric of social life rests … Civilization is being uprooted from its foundations in nature and tradition and is being reconstituted in a new organisation which is as artificial and mechanical as a modern factory.
Christopher Dawson. Enquiries into Religion and Culture, p. 259.
Most of Satan’s work in the world he takes care to keep hidden. But two small shafts of light have been thrown onto his work for me just recently. The first, a short article in the Association of Catholic Women’s ACW Review; the second, a remark (which at first surprised me) from a priest in Russia who claimed that we now, in the West, live in a Communist society. These shafts of light help, especially, to explain the onslaught of officialdom which in many countries worldwide has so successfully been removing the rights of parents to be the primary educators and protectors of their children.
The ACW Review examined the corrosive work of the ‘Frankfurt School’ – a group of German-American scholars who developed highly provocative and original perspectives on contemporary society and culture, drawing on Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber. Not that their idea of a ‘cultural
What’s your point?
The paper explains the motivation behind what seems to be a Liberal or Democrat common purpose. One needs to read and accept that the Frankfurt School agenda is real, springs from a desire to spread communism world wide and intends to destroy the Western culture. This was started between WW1 and WW2 in 1926. Many of the aims can be ticked off as completed now.
But what in the world does that have to do with nature? We are talking about a natural phenomenon here, and this thread starts with a new paper on climate impact attribution. You echo chamber folks are talking past the point and to no one who cares in my case.
We are also asking why the direction of public thinking is changing course, and who might be manipulating it. Only a confirmed lefty might consider it irrelevant.
Oh, like when vested fossil fuel interests fund the Heartland institute to pay for scientific opinion from non-experts in the NIPCC?
I have no vested interests at all and only seek truth! You are perpetuating half truths and damned lies for what I assume to be political purposes.
If you seek the truth, you won’t find it up a conspiracy pyramid that can’t stand under it’s own weight. In your supposed truth, all climate scientists have given up the very nature of being a scientist and agreed to be corporate and government stooges. That may be true for Roy Spencer, Pat Michaels, Michael Lindzen, Fred Seitz and their like, but every climate scientist I have known only get money from their salary and grants which must be spent on research which must be reported back to the grant funding agency. Your “truth’ is ILLUSION.
Your opinion only and I don’t share it. Turkey’s do not vote for Thanksgiving.
Global Warming is good. Just ask any climate scientist.
The global cooling being pushed by the geoengineering crowd is a death sentence for millions — possibly billions.
Try growing crops when the Holocene suddenly ends. Cold climate means far less rain, more deserts, and mass starvation as civilization comes to a crashing halt. The interglacial (warm) periods of the current Ice Age have lasted, on average, 10,000 years.
Only a psychopathic few would push for global cooling. Perhaps they think they can control the fallout from this deadly policy. With their money, perhaps they think they can survive the demise of our retail world. Some say they’re planning for a new Feudalism. Is the Pope working with the Rothschilds and Rockefellers on this?
The Devil’s in the details here. The geoengineering “crowd” doesn’t really exist, but scientists have looked into this and the going consensus is that the effects may be negative and unpredictable, and permanent or long lasting. We certainly don’t think Global Warming is good though. Either way you are pushing a system out of equilibrium and that’s what is of concern. The sum of economic studies definitely says AGW will have a total negative impact on our economy. A hurricane Sandy in 100 years with a possible 1m of sea level rise does not result in less economic disruption.
You did not mention CO2 or the nasty carbon once?
Is this an escape route from any explanations, and how we are now be held to be responsible for all the Global poor and needy?
Vast numbers are currently invading Europe through Africa with the active encouragement of those favouring the One World Order?
“We will now have a moral duty to uplift all, impoverishing our selves will be the new consensus perhaps. Communism has finally arrived Globally, look out for the next population reduction called for in UN agenda 21.
You did not mention Roy Spencer or Al Gore. You did not mention a negative population growth rate in Europe that influences migration to fill jobs. BTW, climate scientists I know usually have to be told what Agenda 21 is. I had to look it up the first time I heard it used in this insane manner. Seems the climate scientists just aren’t aware of your grand conspiracy. Seems it doesn’t exist. Now move on.
Move on? No you need to wake up.
Oh, so you do think there is a conspiracy where scientists give up their very nature in order to serve politics. Interesting. I already knew you were, um, mistaken.
Again do show me where exactly rather than a general assertion.
You made the conspiracy claim, I don’t need to show evidence because I didn’t make the claim. I just followed your claim to its nutty conclusion. I always enjoy our discussion Brin, in an odd way, as I watch tell your tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Brin is an example of why I find CFACT’s reasoning and intelligence to be in question. If a young person is thinking about joining this group, they should take their reputation and run in the other direction.
The Frankfurt School existed for a well documented reasons, they were proud of their intent and its all been placed in the public domain. Hardly my conspiracy theory as they published the evidence and I gave you a good expose by a Catholic source. Now if politically you agree with their aims I can understand your stance, whilst disagreeing with it. On the science you keep saying I am out of the tree. Why not do us all a great favor and tell us your own understanding instead of making ill considered attacks.
Their conspiracy is rather grand.
Straw man. Nobody is arguing for cooling.
Global Warming is simply radical lib agenda to enhance ‘State Control’! Putting the ‘State authority over God’s authority.
Actually it is science started with people like Jean Baptiste Fourier, John Tyndall, Samuel Langley, and Guy Caldendar. I don’t think they gave a crap about your conspiracy theory when they laid down the basics of this science. I think you should look into the true history of climate science as you are way off.
Conspiracy theory? Of course, its only a long series of coincidences with no planning at all, so that’s that folks. A consensus has been reached.
So you think whenever a person becomes a climate scientist they are taken into a back room and told how to march? You think a scientist is a robot and not an fiercely independent spirit? You think scientists are willing to say “I agree with them”, when we know that fame and fortune come in science through saying “I don’t agree and here is why”. But if you do that, you have to have a good case. CFACT has a horrible case.
Give us the explanation then.
Easy, you’re a bit off in many ways.
And you act like an ignorant troll with little intelligence, is that your best shot?
It is funny because even the head of CFACT admits he does not know but he likes to point out “inconsistencies” that other bloggers have found with cherry picked data.
Pope Francis is making a grievous mistake entering the debate on fossil fuels causing catastrophic global warming due to live-giving combustion gases carbon dioxide. History has not forgotten the Church’s 17th century involvement with science caused the Inquisition in 1633 to force Galileo Galilei to recant the Sun was the center of our universe instead of the Earth. Galileo was held in house arrest until his death in 1642. The consequences of the Church’s actions may have set astronomy back a few years; but did not lead to calamitous future for the planet. In 1992 the Vatican formally announced its mistake in condemning Galileo.
April 22 was Earth Day that was hijacked by environmental
groups who want to use it to promote their agenda of forcing the abandonment of
the earth’s abundant, inexpensive, and geographically distributed fossil fuels
of coal, oil, and natural gas. Their reasoning is carbon dioxide from using
fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming (climate change). Nothing
could be further from the truth.
Abundant energy is needed for achieving Earth Day’s goal. It takes energy to produce clean water and dispose of sewage. Fossil fuel energy is preferable for transportation than animals used in the past that despoiled roads. Fossil fuel supported energy is far cleaner and healthier for heating and cooking than wood and dung used in the past. Electricity is preferable for lighting than whale oil or candles use centuries ago. The list goes on and on.
Environmental groups, and now Pope Francis, want to replace fossil fuel energy sources with solar, wind, biomass (wood), ethanol from corn, other biofuels, etc. as future energy sources.
These energy sources are too expensive for developing nations. In addition,
these energy sources require vast land areas in order to produce significant amounts
of energy. This requires destroying millions of square miles of forest land that cleans our air and water, creates oxygen, helps cool the planet, and provides recreation.
Thus Pope Francis want to turn upside down the original goals of Earth Day and leave the planet poorer, less healthy, drudgery for a lifestyle, and lacking creature comforts. If these goals are achieved, a day will come when the Vatican will renounce Pope Francis’s intervention into the global warming debate as was done on Church’s treatment of Galileo.
James H. Rust, Professor of nuclear engineering (retired
Georgia Institute of Technology)
Sums the situation up well.
Except he forgot to incorporate environmental externalities on the market system as applied to renewables vs. fossil fuels, and has not taken into account that renewables cost and technology is not a static point, and has not hit a wall, and so should be better funded so it can compete with fossil fuels, as the renewables have less negative externalities in the end.
Nonsense. Gridwatch shows live data on the UK and French power grid loads and generation sources. Our load is currently 35Gw and Wind is supplying only 1.55Gw. It is rare to see a real contribution from wind and the cost is uneconomic. Not one would have built without massive bribes passed off as subsidies. Solar again produces only 12% of its capacity in Dec, Jan, Feb. This only in daylight hours and requiring inefficient quick response gas generators running as back 24/7. You also lose 28% of energy in transmission losses radiated as heat. That looks like 10 Gw towards your global warming!
You could not run an electric train with such inefficient high cost energy.
Poppycock, you forgot it is not a static issue as I already said. You were shown the error of your argument before you made it.
Do show me where?
Economics is not static and I have to show you that. Maybe I should refrain from suggesting where you should look if you don’t see it as obvious.
Don’t give me links give me facts. If you are unable I suppose you don’t have them.
I didn’t give you a link, and it is a fact that economics is not static.
No argument there, the economics of renewable energy however is far from viable or even sensible. Grid losses are 28% in the UK on energy thats many times more expensive than fossil fuels. We have no way to store it in meaningful quantities and idiots insist we must save the planet.
The so called fact you produce is almost as useful as a chocolate tea pot. Do you need to be condescending all the time? You still use only one short sentence and no explanations. It may be your idleness but it may also be that you are unable to explain in which case are you really a teacher?
Atmospheric temperatures are rising.
Ocean temperatures are rising.
Oceanic pH is decreasing.
The cryosphere is melting.
Sea level rise is accelerating.
The Arctic is warming faster than the tropics.
Nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime.
Winter temperatures are rising faster than summer.
The tropospere is warming and expanding.
The stratosphere is cooling and contracting.
The only plausible explanation is that the climate is warming sure to the greenhouse effect.
The only plausible source of the excess greenhouse gasses is our burning of fossil fuels.
The rest of the article is crocodile tears.
Without an explanation and authentic data what you say is unproven and unsupported opinion. More is required to convince us.
Over 97% of climate scientists and virtually every major scientific organization agrees.
The data are readily available to the public. Try NASA, NOAA, or Real Climate for starters. The Royal Society and AAAS also have good information.
So overwhelming is the evidence that the only people who aren’t convinced are the people who are ideologically opposed to finding a solution
Instead of just holding the opinion consensus, try explaining why you hold your view. Use your own understanding so we can discuss it.
The materials I referred to lay out the case quite well. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
You might also have a look at the UK MET, NCDC, NSIDC, or the Pentagon report that outline the security threats that climate change poses.
If you want something more hands on try Wood For Trees. Real Climate has a page of nifty interfaces ever you can delve as deep as you’d like.
Then come back and tell us why everyone in the world but you is wrong.
This only leads to others who share your own opinions and viewpoint. If you understand the science then please explain the mechanisms involved. I explain everything I put my trust in. I don’t doubt climatic changes but don’t accept flawed theories.
Why should I explain what others have explained far better than I can?
You say the science is flawed, but you won’t say how.
Given the overwhelming trend of the data, there really is no scientific case to be made.
Given your response to jameshrust, it would seem that your problem is that you fear a future in which we take climate change seriously.
As with so many things in life, pretending it doesn’t exist will make it worse. Courageously confronting it, on the other hand, is the best way to preserve the opulent way of life to which we have become accustomed and uplift the poor of the world so that they too can participate.
I have said this many times previously concerning the Carbon foot print being a cause of Global Warming. CO2 is released by heating cold water. The bubbles escape into our atmosphere increasing the level of CO2 by a very few parts per million. A cause is heating water, and its effect is more CO2. How in logic or science can we reverse an effect to now be the cause. CO2 does not cause the heating. How is this reversal explained? The increase in temperature occurs before CO2 levels increased by some 180 years backed up by the Ice Core extracted samples in the late 1980’s
CO2 is both an effect and a cause of warming. That is to say there is a feedback effect: warming oceans mean more CO2 means more warming means more CO2 …
Feedback effects are quite common. More chickens mean more eggs mean more chickens. ..
You yourself identified a feedback in your other post to me today:more energy means more wealth means more energy. ..
So, how does the cycle get started? Prior to the industries revolution changes in the Earth’s orbit changed the amount of heat entering the system. Hence the cycle was started by warming, and we exist CO2 to lag warming.
Since the industrial revolution, we have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere So this time the cycle started with CO2 and we now expect warming to lag CO2.
Dealing with man made warming, I want to understand the precise mechanism. Positive feedback needs a very tight control or it will rapidly go into overload, like an amplifier feeding an in-phase signal back to the input, we have all heard PA systems howling as this occurs. I can’t think of anything in nature that tolerates a no control positive feedback. Negative feedback gives stability to all systems. Had more CO2 led to more heating surely the climate system would have failed before it got off the ground. CO2 and increased green plant life is an effective negative feedback born out by research where the increase in temperature led to an increase in CO2, this seems to be locked into plant life until it dies releasing its CO2 which we agree on. Its the action of CO2 at this point, I see it as plant sustenance so lets start planting trees as replacements and additions. I live in 2.5 acres and plant trees that I also use as fuel. I have also designed and built a solar powered water bore hole system so might be considered mindful of nature.
I like your chicken analogy, the negative feedback is both energy as food, with man and foxes higher up the food chain.
Exactly how is CO2 acting like the glass on a greenhouse, this seems very unlikely. I have a science and engineering background and feel an explanation without links should be made. When explanations are dubious folk tend to hop from one area to another saying, well that explains it so there. The consensus says so.
CO2 at 400 parts per million makes it a rare gas, concentrations have been greater in the past, temperatures higher and graphs overlaid with the Sun’s activity suggest a correlation in these cycles. This is how I see it, the Sun is the source of all our energy past preset and future. No where else, and when the System dies all energy will be radiated back into space raising temperatures by an amount so small as to be impossible for us to measure.
Perhaps Internationalism (Communism) might be our saving feedback control, but I see small as beautiful instead.
Small Is Beautiful
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase “Small Is Beautiful” came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr. It is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as “bigger is better”.
Yes. Positive feedback teens to be unstable and negative feedback trends to be stable. The closest example of a runaway feedback I know of is Venus, where surface representing are high sought to melt lead.
But real systems have multiple feedbacks, some positive and some negative. The climate is such a system.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There is no question on that point. A greenhouse gas is simply a gas that is transparent to optical wavelengths but not to infrared.
This is a fact that follows from the physical properties of CO2, and is confirmed by spectrographic studies. Without links I cannot prove this to you. All I can suggest is that you obtain a canister of CO2, a spectrometer and a super computer.
Given that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, how is it that the climate speed any stability at all? Well there are both positive and negative feedbacks. Further there are other basic inputs, such as the Sun. Without providing links or references, all I can say is that you will need to recreate at least a hundred years of research into surface temperatures, oceanic beat content, glacial extent, solar activity, thermodynamics and convection, radiative transfer, isotopic analysis and many other subjects.
Nor does it do to dismiss the effects of CO2 on the basis that is concentration is small. That is simply non scientific. The proper scientific approach is to calculate and to measure the real effect, nor simply to assume that a small concentration means an insignificant effect. Without links all I can suggest is working out the equation of radiative transfer and solving it, which will require a super computer.
The correlation between solar output and climate is poor unless CO2 is taken into account. Thar late Ordovician saw CO2 concentrations over ten times what we have now; yet it was an ice age. Why? Because solar output war much lower.
As for solutions, I don’t know. Maybe small is beautiful. Maybe a tax plus dividend with something held back to promote decarbonization. Perhaps something else.
I agree that discoveries are usually made as Newton stated, He was one of the giants.
Venus, I have heard about the (I think it was) Planke effect and the reasoning put forward was Venus’s very high surface temperature where this effect occurs, it can not happen when we cool to less than cherry red as I understood it, this ruled out the Venus effect here.
“I am very jaundiced. . .”
This I think is the nub of the gist of the problem.
I get it. I really do. I feel the same way actually. Those of us who are doing OK feel like we’re being asked to sacrifice our little bit of prosperity for some nebulous “greater good, ” which seems to translate into the good of the elites and which don’t solve the problem anyway.
What more can I say? Don’t let the political difficulties tempt you into disbelieving the science.
But I believe in science Ralph, experiment, observation and conclusions may be drawn to test the theory. Instead we get ever more complicated new “facts” thrown in from different areas but no explanation of why the mechanism is so. The political aspect has urgent agendas that are suspect in themselves many seeming to fit the Hegelian Dialectic of creating crisis to justify ambition. Many of the “facts just don’t fit the Earth environment, like the cherry red temperature on Venus, this was required to explain the CO2 heating effects. The fact that CO2 encourages vigorous green plant propagation, as I saw very recently on the Mount Etna slopes. Also we have had no measurable warming at all for 18 years that had been computer model predicted.
OK I have said it myself one may not cherry pick points on a fluctuating graph to prove a point or take the decision to buy into the stock market. Very long term cycles are involved, to long for any precise data to be extracted and the decision to dismantle our entire civilisation expecting wind power and photocells to step in is a failed idea from the word go.
Thank you for the discussion, you used some good points.
As for doing OK we manage, like the USA our industry has been systematically dismantled by lefties who are often only useful idiots. The move is being driven towards a One World Government. I believe that is the only driving force now.
Glad you got something from it. All the best.
I do not see how a cause can also be the effect and vice versa. Perhaps if you explain exactly how you understand it works we might get somewhere?
How is the water heated?
Taking two glasses of tap water place one in the refrigerator and the other in a warm place. Bubbles of gas are released within a few minutes in the warming glass and the cold one has non. This shows the cause is heat, and the effect is the release of the dissolved gas. In nature the heating of our oceans is solar radiation. All of our energy is from our Sun. A cause and its effect must not be reversed in logic or science to enable a theory to be proved.
Ralph do you wish to save our planet, or uplift the world?
Currently our carbon taxes buy credits from low carbon economies, using this wealth these counties then buy manufactured goods and fuel. This produces even more carbon as low carbon economies are turned into carbon producers. The tax is counter productive at best, and most certainly fraudulent by intent.
Climate variations I most certainly take seriously, we must live with nature’s cycles rather than fight them. I deplore waste, untruths and con men.
We both deplore waste, untruths and con men.
But I dispute that we are facing merely natural changes. The science is perfectly clear that it is anthropogenic and while we can no longer stop it, we can mitigate it by prudently decarbonizing our economy.
I also dispute that we have to choose between uplift and mitigation. In fact I think the two need to go hand in hand.
But, and this is really the main point, you are here asking the right questions and making relevant points.
My view is for the bulk of evidence. AGW is real, and you are nuts.
Really, because I insist on questioning dubious theories.
This blog was set up by those doubting the wisdom of rushing into non viable technologies to solve what may well be a non problem. Your contribution might have attempted fostering more understanding, instead you have never explained your understanding. Obtuse and arrogant seem to fit your stance.
This blog was set up by the Fossil Fuel industry to cast doubt and slow the inevitable not engage in intelligent discussion.
So why not destroy it with a rational explanation of the mechanism of Global Warming if that what you believe?
The information is out there my friend.
A cop out my friend if ever.
It is not a cop out at all there is such an abundance of information to be had. Stretch beyond this blog.
I do, but my view is scientific and the Sun drives our climate. Looking at believers tortuous theories is not convincing. Why not explain why you believe?
Ah, Flat Earth Society 101. Chatting with you is like goofing around on the FES board.