Month: November 2021

David Stockman: Resist the GreenMageddon, Part 1

Posted on by Ron Clutz

This post is the first of five to alert readers to a compilation of the scientific case against the claims of IPCC supporters and anti-fossil fuel activists. David Stockman provides the evidence and the arguments against the IPCC policy framework in a series of five essays published at International Man under the title The GreenMageddon and What It Means for You. I will state the five themes he develops in his essays, along with some excerpts and images to illustrate the main points. Here is an overview followed by the first theme.

Overview

With COP26 now underway, it’s not too soon to start clanging the alarm bells—not about climate catastrophe, of course, but about the stupidest act of the assembled nations since Versailles, when the vindictive WWI victors laid the groundwork for the catastrophes of depression, WWII, the Holocaust, Soviet tyranny, the Cold War and Washington’s destructive global hegemony, all of which followed hard upon the next.

Politicians and their allies in the mainstream media, think tanks, lobbies and Big Business (with its cowardly sleep-walking leaders) are fixing to do nothing less than destroy the prosperity of the world and send global life careening into a modern economic Dark Ages.

And worse still, it’s being done in the service of a bogus climate crisis narrative that is thoroughly anti-science and wholly inconsistent with the actual climate and CO2 history of the planet.

1. During the past 600 million years, the earth has rarely been as cool as at present, and almost never has it had as low CO2 concentrations as the 420 ppm level that today’s climate howlers decry.

In fact, according to the careful reconstructions of actual earth scientists who have studied ocean sediments, ice cores and the like, there have been only two periods encompassing about 75 million years (13% of that immensely long 600 million year stretch of time) where temperatures and CO2 concentrations were as low as it present. These were the Late Carboniferous/Early Permian time from 315 to 270 million years ago and the Quaternary Period, which hosted modern man 2.6 million years ago.  You might say, therefore, that the possibility of a warmer, CO2-richer environment is a case of planetary “been there, done that”.

And it is most certainly not a reason to wantonly dismantle and destroy the intricate, low-cost energy system that is the root source of today’s unprecedented prosperity and human escape from poverty and want.

But that’s hardly the half of it. What actually lies smack in the center of our warmer past is a 220-million-year interval from 250 million years ago through the re-icing of Antarctica about 33 million years ago that was mainly ice-free.

As shown by the blue line in the chart below, during most of that period (highlighted in the brown panels), temperatures were up to 12C higher than at present, and Mother Earth paid no mind to the fact that she lacked polar ice caps or suitable habitats for yet un-evolved polar bears.

Global Temperature And Atmospheric CO2 Over Geologic Time

Moreover, the science behind this isn’t a matter of academic armchair speculation for the simple reason that it has been powerfully validated in the commercial marketplace. That is, trillions of dollars have been deployed in the last century in the search for hydrocarbons, based on immensely complicated petroleum engineering research, theory and geologic models. Oil drillers weren’t throwing darts at a wildcatter’s wall but were coincidentally proving these “facts” of climate history are correct, given that they led to the discovery and extraction of several trillions of BOEs (barrels of oil equivalent).

Consequently, it is solidly estimated by industry experts that today’s petroleum deposits were roughly formed as follows:

    • About 70% during the Mesozoic age (brown panels, 252 to 66 million years ago) which was marked by a tropical climate, with large amounts of plankton in the oceans;
    • 20% was formed in the dryer, colder Cenozoic age (last 65 million years);
    • 10% were formed in the earlier warmer Paleozoic age (541 to 252 million years ago).

Indeed, at the end of the day, petroleum engineering is rooted in climate science because it was climate itself that produced those economically valuable deposits.

And a pretty awesome science it is. After all, billions of dollars have been pushed down the wellbores in up to two miles of ocean waters and 40,000 feet below the surface in what amounts to an amazingly calibrated and targeted search for oil-bearing needles in a geologic haystack.

Yet during the Cretaceous, CO2 levels actually went down while temperatures were rising sharply. That’s the very opposite of the Climate Alarmists’ core claim that it is rising CO2 concentrations which are currently forcing global temperatures higher.

Moreover, we are not talking about a marginal reduction in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Levels actually dropped sharply from about 2,000 ppm to 900 ppm during that 80 million year stretch. This was all good for hydrocarbon formation and today’s endowment of nature’s stored work, but it was also something more.

To wit, it was yet another proof that planetary climate dynamics are far more complicated and ridden with crosscurrents than the simple-minded doom loops now being used to model future climate states from the current far lower temperature and CO2 levels.

It is surely one of the great ironies of our times that today’s fanatical crusades against fossil fuels are being carried out with not even a nod to the geologic history that contradicts the entire “warming” and CO2 concentration hysteria and made present energy consumption levels and efficiencies possible.

That is to say, the big, warm and wet one (the Mesozoic) got us here.

True global warming is not the current and future folly of mankind; it is the historical enabler of present-day economic blessings. Yet, here we are on the eve of COP26, manically focused on reducing emissions to the levels required to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels.

If your brain is not addled by the climate change narrative, the very term rings a resoundingly loud bell. That’s because there have been on the order of 20 distinct “ice ages” and interglacial warming periods during the Pleistocene, the latest of which ended about 18,000 years ago and from which we have been digging out ever since.

In contrast to today’s climate models, Mother Nature clearly did not go off the rails in some kind of linear doomsday loop of ever-increasing temperatures and without any hectoring from Greta, either. Actually, Greenland got all frozen up and thawed several more times thereafter.

Needless to say, the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago is not the “preindustrial” baseline from which the Climate Howlers are pointing their phony hockey sticks. In fact, other studies show that, even in the Arctic, it was no picnic time for the polar bears. Among 140 sites across the western Arctic, there is clear evidence for conditions that were warmer than now at 120 sites. At 16 sites for which quantitative estimates have been obtained, local temperatures were on average 1.6 °C higher during the optimum than they are today.

Say what? Isn’t that the same +1.6 degrees C above current levels that the COP26 folks are threatening to turn off the lights of prosperity to prevent?

In any event, what did happen was far more beneficent. To wit, the warmer and wetter Holocene Optimum and its aftermath gave rise to the great river civilizations 5,000 years ago, including the Yellow River in China, the Indus River in the Indian subcontinent, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Nile River civilizations among the most notable.

Stated differently, that +1.6 degrees C was reflective of the climate-based catalyzing forces that actually made today’s world possible. From the abundances of the river civilizations, there followed the long march of agriculture and the economic surpluses and abundance that enabled cities, literacy, trade and specialization, advancement of tools and technology and modern industry—the latter being the ultimate human escape from a life based on the back muscles of man and his domesticated animals alone.

As it happens, when one of the previous “preindustrial” warming eras (the Roman Warming) was coming to an end in the late 4th century AD, St. Jerome admonished the faithful “never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Yet that’s exactly what the assembled nations will be doing at COP26.

 

Trudeau: Let’s Limit How Far You can Drive

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Brad Salzberg writes Trudeau Considers Restricting Distance of Vehicle Travel For Canadian Citizens.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

During the recent COP26 summit, Justin Trudeau hosted a carbon pricing conference showcasing Canada’s carbon policy. He referred to it as “one of the most stringent and ambitious in the world.”

In terms of a domestic carbon program, no emission reduction mandates had thus far been established beyond an agreement between Alberta and Ottawa to limit output at 100 megatonnes per year. Canada emits roughly 730 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. The Trudeau government has now mandated a specific 100-megatonne reduction for our oil and gas sector by the year 2030.

This in itself is not a surprise. What should make the ears of Canadians perk up is one of the proposed restrictions to accomplish the goal. Among other current considerations in the Liberal government’s proposal, we discover the following, as reported by the Calgary Sun this week:

“Limit personal consumption of hydrocarbons by individual Canadians, in terms of allowable miles travelled by motor vehicle, train or air.”

My, my– Canada is certainly filled with surprises these days. Last week delivered another zinger:
“Deliberately coughing at someone during the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a criminal assault.”

Applying our math skills, that’s two examples of unprecedented forms of draconian social measures in the past two weeks. Not that mainstream media will present it as such. In both cases, the information was ever-so-casually tucked into news articles on a larger theme.Let us understand the potential what is being proposed. There may come a time when the distance Canadians can travel in their vehicles includes a hard cap on mileage. Not only would this apply to their personal vehicle, but also to the time they spend idly reading a newspaper while riding a bus.

All of which conjures up a collective yawn from legacy media. As a result, they will likely never juxtapose this “progressive” policy with what Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms has to say about the matter.

6. (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.

(2) Every citizen of Canada and every person who has the status of a permanent resident of Canada has the right:

to move to and take up residence in any province; and
to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province.

What would occur in a case where Charter-based mobility rights were violated by Trudeau’s restriction on distance of travel?

A simple question it is. The answer, of course, is nothing at all. Just as it applies to current Charter breaches that result from Covid mandates.

Result: a loss of personal freedom. Predicted extend of exposure from establishment media? Nothing.

Witness as Canada continues to morph into a reasonable facsimile of authoritarian nations of the world.

Footnote:  See also Uh Oh Canada

 

 

The Creed for Pawns

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jeremy Carl lays out the catechism of beliefs required to be a US citizen, indeed a world citizen these days, in his American Mind article I Believe.   See how many boxes you can check to see if your citizenship passes muster. Excerpts in italics.

An affirmation of the national creed.

□ I believe Joe Biden, the Democrats, and the media. I have always believed them.

□  I believe them when they said they fortified the election, and I believe them when they said anyone wanting to look at whether they fortified the election was a racist and a conspiracy theorist. I believe that mass ballot harvesting and ballot curing are signs of the great health of American democracy. I believe that it is impossible for poor people to get voter IDs, and it is a mystery to me how India has had voter IDs for every voter since 1993.

□  I believe that, although just 44,000 votes in three states had to have switched in order for Trump to have won the election, there is zero chance that fraud could have provided Biden with his margin of victory.

□  I believe them when they say that it is totally normal for a Presidential candidate to conduct the latter stages of a general election campaign from his basement, and that it is ordinary for the media not to question that decision.

□  I believed them when they said that vaccinated people cannot get and spread COVID. And I believed them when they said vaccinated people can get and spread COVID. I believe that it was only because of the science, and not because of the interventions of the teachers unions, that tens of millions of kids were out of school for all of last year. I have no doubt that Randi Weingarten is primarily motivated by her desire to do right by my kids…strike that: our kids.

□  I believe them when they say our response to COVID was guided solely by the science. I believe that the public health establishment is non-political and interested only in tending to our common weal. They did not fund gain-of-function research in a lab in Wuhan.

□  I believe the science is settled.

□  I believe that natural immunity is a fraud and distraction. It is normal to attempt to mandate vaccination of children for a disease that mostly kills very old and very sick people.

□  I believe, along with more than 1,300 physicians and public health officials who agree, that racism is such an important crisis that Black Lives Matter protesters can gather for protests and riots with official sanction during the peak of a pandemic, but that someone attending their grandfather’s funeral or staying at a loved one’s bedside is an imminent danger to public health.

□  Like Joe Biden, I believe that white supremacist terrorism is the greatest threat to the U.S. security today. I believe that Michael Brown said “Hands up, don’t shoot” and that Jacob Blake is a good dad who was shot for no reason.

□  I believe millions of people of African and Asian descent have immigrated to America over the last 60 years despite knowing that America is systemically racist, and I believe they are owed something for their struggle.

□  I believe that there is no such thing as illegal immigration because no human being is illegal. I believe that migration to the country has nothing to do with President Biden’s open borders regime and their repeal of Trump-era border policies. I believe that stopping construction on the border wall, repealing “Remain in Mexico,” and expanding “catch and release” have nothing to do with increased entry to the United States.

□  I believe that Ilhan Omar absolutely did not commit marriage fraud and immigration fraud while marrying her brother.

□  I believe the “great replacement” is a racist conspiracy theory and that the white population of America will become marginalized through a natural process that should be celebrated.

□  I believe we didn’t leave one American citizen behind in Afghanistan and that there was no more strategic way to withdraw without leaving our enemies tens of billions of dollars of our military equipment.

□ I believe in the importance of our sacred norms and institutions, which is why I support Democrat plans to pack the Supreme Court, make DC and Puerto Rico states, and eliminate the electoral college. I believe the Senate is unjust and must be abolished.

□  I believe that billionaires are a threat to democracy unless they are billionaires who opposed Trump in which case they are heroes.

□  I believe that Joe Biden is mentally acute and that his persistent refusal to take cognitive tests or spontaneous questions from the media is only a sign of his supreme confidence in his abilities.

□  I believe that every January 6 defendant was intent on committing insurrection and none were prompted in any way by federal agents. And I believe it is totally normal in America for judges to demand political recantations before releasing people from pre-trial detention.

□  I believe that Donald Trump said that Nazis were “very fine people” and that he encouraged people to inject themselves with bleach.

□  I believe George Floyd is an American hero. American heroes often have eight criminal convictions and held a gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman during a home invasion. I believe the decision to memorialize him with statues in our major cities is the sign of a healthy body politic.

□  I believe that everyone in America always celebrated Juneteenth, frequently in secret and in fear, and that a majority of Americans were lying when they said they knew little or nothing about it.

□  I believe that it’s totally beneath comment that, in a country founded and governed overwhelmingly by white Protestants for its first 200 years, that the President has a 25-person cabinet without a single white person of Protestant origin.

□  I believe that Twitter is the free speech wing of the free speech party and that there is nothing at all dangerous to our democracy about banning the sitting President of the United States from using his preferred method of communicating with voters.

□  I am aware it is totally normal for social media and other influential outlets to suppress a potentially major story about the corruption of the son of a Presidential candidate, along with that candidate’s possible involvement in that corruption, in the days before a Presidential election.

□  I believe that Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Liz Cheney, the Lincoln Project, and other never-Trumpers opposed Trump solely because of their dedication to patriotism and integrity,

Especially the Lincoln Project.

 

We Can’t Vaccinate This Pandemic Away

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Dr. Robert Clancy writes at Quadrant We Can’t Vaccinate This Pandemic Away.  The author is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the University of Newcastle Medical School. He is a member of the Australian Academy of Science’s COVID-19 Expert Database.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Thirty frontline doctors in Australia recently treated over 600 patients with COVID-19. The treatment strategy was ivermectin (IVM) with doxycycline and zinc. Five patients required admission to hospital for progressive symptoms. There were no deaths. In a similar number of contemporary Australian patients not treated with IVM, 70 were hospitalised and six died.  See Ivermectin Proven Successful in Australia

This is consistent with world data bases: 31 randomised controlled trials show 62 per cent benefit with IVM, and seven meta-analyses recorded a reduction in death of between 57 and 83 per cent. Experienced clinicians have moved on to combine IVM with additional drugs, usually a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as doxycycline, and zinc, which has viricidal activity.

A logical conclusion would be that these results demand attention. With “freedom day” in NSW expected to be followed by increases in COVID-19 infections and hospital admissions, an IVM roll-out would be a logical outcome. That this has not happened may well prompt the question ‘Why is that so?’ The mainline press, which continues in its refusal to report and interrogate the evidence, also fails the public by presenting IVM as the antichrist of the medicine cabinet. A complex set of events has come together. These events and how they affect COVID-19 management and patient outcomes form the basis of this article.

1. Bureaucrats Usurped Medical Choice from Doctors and Patients

FIRST, as patients were being treated with IVM in Sydney and Melbourne with the impressive results mentioned above, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) made an extraordinary move to shut down the prescribing of IVM by frontline doctors for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. The TGA has form, as it made a similar ruling on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the other re-purposed off-patent drug shown to be effective in treating COVID-19. Importantly, the reasons given by the TGA to justify its decision were not correct.

The main TGA concern stated was that IVM would confuse the public and lead to hesitation to be vaccinated. That, too, is incorrect. Doctors overwhelmingly support vaccination against COVID-19. The combination of safe and effective IVM with a vaccination programme will enhance viral clearance, reduce disease severity, reduce hospital admissions and reduce deaths. However, groupthink quickly led to professional bodies such as the AMA uncritically accepting the TGA policy. Even the Australian Academy of Science weighed in with political support for the TGA’s decision, doing so without any evaluation of the science.

Then came the coup: the regulatory body responsible for registration of doctors, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, warned that prescribing, dispensing, or even publicly discussing IVM, “compromised expected standards of practise”, leaving open disciplinary measures which have since resulted in doctors having their licences revoked. A crescendo of intimidation has ensued, all based on a failure to interrogate the data and understand the clinical circumstance, with perhaps a touch of group hysteria thrown in.

The conclusion to be taken from these collective authoritarian decisions is that medical choice is no longer the prerogative of the doctor-patient relationship in Australia. Bureaucrats for any reason can decide and enforce medical issues without discussion with relevant medical experts. This is a problem throughout the Western world, but perhaps there is a light in the tunnel. Nebraska’s attorney general recently ruled that the prescription of IVM for COVID-19 is a matter for the doctor and patient, not government.  See Nebraska AG Frees Doctors and Patients to Use HCQ and IVM

2.  Evidence for Early Treatment is Stronger and Critiques Discredited

THE SECOND development is a changing balance in evidence relevant to early treatment. Negative critique has been rebutted, and support has become stronger.

First, there has been a rebuttal of a misleading “Cochrane report“. Traditionally, a Cochrane is considered the highest bar for drug efficacy, and the outcome of a Cochrane has profound influence on acceptance. The existing Cochrane report on IVM was ambivalent. . . Recently, a group of respected non-aligned epidemiologists in the UK reviewed the Cochrane report and found it wanting. They showed defects in method, an exclusion of data points and studies, and a failure to include substantive regional and national experiences where IVM had been successfully adopted.

Not to be dismissed, IVM naysayers took a new tack: play the man (or the woman), not the ball. Their trick is to label IVM studies that do not fit their viewpoint as “fraudulent” while disparaging IVM’s medical supporters as, among other insults, “New Age quacks”. The value of the naysayers’ critique, indeed their motivation, has been challenged in detail (see IVMMETA.com), failing on numerous counts that include an absence of evidence and misinformation.

The mainline press welcomed claims supporting the anti-IVM narrative, with the BBC News plumbing new lows in journalism by combining false conclusions with bias that included misrepresentation of a highly regarded epidemiologist. A recent Sydney Morning Herald article was little better, distorting the science with ideology and bias. The reporter involved has not responded to a request to host a debate on the topic. They never do!

Second, and more positive, is the accumulation of evidence supporting the benefit from early treatment. Two recent and compelling studies further support the value of both IVM and HCQ , the latter having been “cancelled” after being cited by Donald Trump as a potential treatment. All this came despite a meta-analysis of 32 early-treatment studies showing 64 per cent protection.

The first of those is a WHO study in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state (230 million people). Medical teams visited 98,000 villages, providing kits (similar to those used in the Australian study) containing IVM for the treatment of those with COVID-19. Within five weeks, new cases had dropped by 97 per cent. Meanwhile in another Indian state, Kerala, with eight per cent the population of Uttar Pradesh, IVM was not used and as many as 31,000 COVID cases were recorded per day. Similar results are reported in areas of Peru, Mexico and elsewhere.

The second recent study treated 8,300 French patients with HCQ. There was a 93 per cent reduction in mortality. A meta-analysis by the same authors included 32,000 patients from five countries and showed early HCQ treatment reduced mortality by 69 per cent.

The inevitable and unavoidable conclusions to be drawn are that Cochrane negativity can no longer dominate an honest argument about IVM’s use and, further, that the medication must be accepted in Australia as a safe and effective treatment capable of reducing the expected post-lockdown load on health systems.

3.  Merck Pill is Inferior IVM Substitute: Less safe, less effective and Expensive

THE THIRD development has been the frenetic response by media and government to an orchestrated campaign by pharmaceutical giant Merck promoting its re-purposed antiviral agent, Molnupiravir, before significant data assessment has been completed. Merck is now joined by Roche and Pfizer with their versions of re-positioned “wonder drugs”. All have limited and conflicting data yet make extravagant claims. These antivirals are less effective than IVM and none have acceptable safety profiles. However, we see the Australian government making extraordinary claims and committing large sums to acquire these unproven oral therapies.

Who can be advising government to allow such dubious claims and acquisitions at the expense of IVM and the Australian taxpayer?

The charge of hypocrisy and cynicism must first be directed at Merck, but also at “the experts”, Dr.Tony Fauci, governments and, of course, the media. Merck stated IVM had no clinical value mere days before receiving a US$300 million grant to develop Molnupiravir. Available data suggests it provides eight-fold less protection than that found for IVM in the Australian study. Merck acquired Molnupiravir, originally developed by Emory University, after it failed against other RNA virus diseases. Questions about undisclosed data remain to be answered. The drug is a “son of Remdesavir”, a RNA polymerase inhibitor that failed randomised controlled trials (RCT). The Australian government has bought 300,000 courses of Remdesivir (the US government pays US$1,000 per course). This is beyond logic, certainly not based on science. As the TGA prevented doctors prescribing IVM because it would reduce vaccination rates, the question is simple: How will the TGA draw a distinction between Merck’s Molnupiravir and IVM?

The elephant in the room for Molnupiravir is safety. The drug creates lethal mutants to terminate virus replication. Cell biologists express concern that some live mutants with resistance to vaccines are released into the environment. DNA mutations also occur, which could lead to disturbed growth and cross-generation transmission of genetic changes.

The TGA will now have to wrestle with pressure from Big Pharma and government to register a drug with scant clinical data and untested safety concerns after denying the Australian public a cheap, safe and more effective treatment with IVM.

4.  Realizing the Limitations of Genetic Vaccines

THE FOURTH issue is the recognition that genetic vaccines have limited value. While doctors support the current vaccine roll-out, reported “danger signals” must be clarified. Both the DNA-vector vaccine (AstraZeneca) and mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) behave as predicted by biology relevant to airways’ protection (something not understood by the vast majority of “experts”): short duration of protection limited to control of systemic inflammation, with little impact on infection of the airways.

Israel was used as a laboratory for the Pfizer vaccine. Six months after vaccination, there was essentially no protection against infection or mild disease, although protection against severe disease remained at 85-to-90 per cent. Thereafter came a rapid and progressive loss of protection against more severe disease. Infected vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects have similar viral loads and transmission capacity. Immunity following natural infection is better and more durable than that induced by vaccination, so there is no sense in immunising those who have had COVID infection in the preceding six months.

In an Australian context, by New Year 2022, it is estimated about two million vaccinated Australians will have lost protection against infection and mild disease. Infections will increase as borders are opened and we re-enter the international community.

Our lockdown policy has limited the acquisition of natural immunity. Although we can expect high levels of infection with less severe disease, pressure on hospitals will increase. The experience of Israel and Iceland, each with high vaccination rates of 85 per cent or more, provides a possible scenario for Australia. In Israel, with a population of less than 10 million, the “third wave” continues, with 1500 new cases and 30 deaths a day (at the time of writing). More concerning are reports of high COVID mortality in older vaccinated subjects in some jurisdictions. Variants such as the further-mutated Delta variant in the UK will continue to appear, with unknown infectivity, response to current vaccines and pathogenicity. Perhaps of greatest concern is the observation in the UK, and now in Sweden, that older vaccinated individuals have a higher incidence of COVID infection than those who are unvaccinated. At the same time others are describing a state of immune deficiency following vaccination with genetic vaccines.

At this stage it is unclear as to whether this “deficiency” of the immune response is limited to the antibody response to COVID virus. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has done “Immunology 101”, as enhancing antibody (ie antibody that promotes infection, rather than limits it) is well recognised in RNA virus infections, and “antigen excess causing a downregulation of immunity” is a basic tenet of immunology. Forgotten by most, is that genetic vaccines cause a large and unregulated amount of antigen (ie the spike protein) to be synthesised within the cells of the body, and the immune response will be a function of those unknown dynamics. These facts and the concerns they raise should be front and centre for regulators as they examine data to make decisions in regard to booster shots. The duration of protection following boosters is completely unknown, as is whether genetic vaccine boosters distort the immune system with net suppression. Are we setting ourselves up for monthly boosters, higher incidence of infections, more serious adverse events, or even more concerning immune outcomes. We just do not know!

If ever there was a need for a safe , cheap effective oral therapy, now is it.

Protocols including IVM or HCQ + nutrients fill the need for early home treatment.

 

Climate Delusional Disorder (CDD) 2021 Update

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.

2021 Update comes from Brendan O’Neill writing at Spiked Climate Derangement Syndrome.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.   Let’s Go, Brendan!

It’s the hysteria about climate change that poses the greatest threat to humanity.

The first thing to note about Climate Derangement Syndrome, whether it’s coming from the posh road-blockers of Insulate Britain, Clarence House or the Church of England, is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. This eco-hysteria single-handedly shatters the myth that contemporary environmentalism is a science-driven movement, merely concerned with acting upon the warnings contained in graphs and models drawn up by climatologists. Show me the piece of scientific research that says a gang of boys will rape your mother if we don’t achieve Net Zero by 2030. Where’s the peer-reviewed study that pinpoints the moment when slaughter, rape and genocide will occur if our governments fail to cut back on fossil fuels?

Of course no such studies exist. These malarial visions of future horrors spring from the realm of fantasy, not science. They are the misanthropic prejudices of the depressed middle classes, not scientific projections. They emerge from the well of existential dread in which the contemporary elites wallow, not from cool, calm modelling. And the truth is that this has long been the case with climate-change alarmism. ‘Science’ is the garb thrown on what in reality is the End Times foreboding of this new millennium’s morally at-sea elites. ‘Climate change’ is the all-encompassing idea of doom through which the Western bourgeoisie expresses its sense of moral, political and economic exhaustion.

All the recent talk of doomsday and genocide captures the extent to which the issue of climate change has been catastrophised to an extraordinary degree, how it has been transformed:

  • from a perfectly manageable problem into an apocalypse modernity brought upon itself;
  • from a scientific theory about mankind’s impact on the planet into certain, unquestionable proof of the folly of the industrial era;
  • from one challenge among many facing humankind in the 21st century into an indictment of the entire human species.
  • In short, from a technical conundrum into a God-like revelation of the wickedness of greedy, industrious mankind.

Climate Derangement Syndrome is at root a revolt against modernity. It is a reactionary, Romantic, nostalgic cry of angst against the incredible world of production and consumption mankind has created over the past 200 years. This is why some at COP26 openly denounced the Industrial Revolution. First came Greta Thunberg, the prophetess of doom of contemporary environmentalism. She angrily denounced the British government as ‘climate villains’. The UK, she said, is largely responsible for the horrors of climate change – this ‘more or less… started in the UK since that’s where the Industrial Revolution started, [where] we started to burn coal’.

It was the Industrial Revolution that dragged the populace away from the brutal, back-breaking serfdom of the land into the mad, teeming cities of London, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow. It revolutionised how we worked, how we lived, how we conceived of ourselves. It was the cradle of solidarity and struggle and demands for voting rights, employment rights, educational rights. It is not a coincidence that life expectancy was depressingly short for all of human history until the Industrial Revolution, when it started its stunning and steady rise. Without this revolution, most of us would still be tied to the land, never venturing further than the farm fence, unable to read, dead by 35. That’s the idyll eco-regressives fantasise about? These people are as historically illiterate as they are pseudo-scientific.

The COP26 mockery of the Industrial Revolution – more than that, the depiction of that revolution as the starting pistol of the coming climatic genocide – shines a harsh light on what is motoring today’s green hysteria. Not steam or coal, that’s for sure.

No, it’s the elites’ loss of faith in modernity and in the human project more broadly. This is why climate-change hysteria is a far larger problem for humankind than climate change itself.

As Bjorn Lomborg recently explained on spiked, climate change is a ‘middling problem’. It is the derangement over climate change, the painting of it as an End Times event we probably deserve, that truly disrupts and undermines our civilisation. With its misanthropic disdain for human behaviour and aspirations, with its revisionist treatment of the birth of modernity as essentially a crime against Mother Earth, with its incessant demands for reining in economic growth, and with its censorious branding of anyone who questions any part of the regressive green agenda as a ‘climate-change denier’, climate-change alarmism is an express menace to growth, democracy, freedom of speech and the right to dream of an even more prosperous future for all.

Prince Charles is right that we need to get on a ‘war footing’. Not against climate change, though. Rather, against this ceaseless diminishment of humanity’s achievements and the baleful, untrue claim that modern man is a plague on the planet. This manmade apocalypticism threatens to upend the remarkable civilisation we have created far more than a bit of carbon does.

Background on Climate Delusional Disorder

WebMD tells What You Need to Know about this condition.  Delusions and Delusional Disorder. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Delusions are the main symptom of delusional disorder. They’re unshakable beliefs in something that isn’t true or based on reality. But that doesn’t mean they’re completely unrealistic. Delusional disorder involves delusions that aren’t bizarre, having to do with situations that could happen in real life, like being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve mistaken perceptions or experiences. But in reality, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.

People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner. This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders, who also might have delusions as a symptom of their disorder. But in some cases, people with delusional disorder might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted.

What Are the Complications of Delusional Disorder?

  • People with delusional disorder might become depressed, often as the result of difficulties associated with the delusions.
  • Acting on the delusions also can lead to violence or legal problems. For example, a person with an erotomanic delusion who stalks or harasses the object of the delusion could be arrested.
  • Also, people with this disorder can become alienated from others, especially if their delusions interfere with or damage their relationships.

Treatment most often includes medication and psychotherapy (a type of counseling). Delusional disorder can be very difficult to treat, in part because those who have it often have poor insight and do not know there’s a psychiatric problem. Studies show that close to half of patients treated with antipsychotic medications show at least partial improvement.

Delusional disorder is typically a chronic (ongoing) condition, but when properly treated, many people can find relief from their symptoms. Some recover completely, while others have bouts of delusional beliefs with periods of remission (lack of symptoms).

Unfortunately, many people with this disorder don’t seek help. It’s often hard for people with a mental disorder to know they aren’t well. Or they may credit their symptoms to other things, like the environment. They also might be too embarrassed or afraid to seek treatment. Without treatment, delusional disorder can be a lifelong illness.

An example of CDD

H.Sterling Burnett and James Taylor write at Epoch Times United Nations Misleads About Food Production and Climate Change. Excerpts in italics with my bolds

There is no better way to describe the arguments contained in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) new report, “Climate Change and Land,” released just in time to influence discussions at the United Nations’ 68th Civil Society Conference. Citing anecdotal evidence instead of hard data, IPCC’s new report paints a dark, disturbing picture about the current and future state of crop production and food availability.

“Climate change, including increases in frequency and intensity of extremes, has adversely impacted food security and terrestrial ecosystems as well as contributed to desertification and land degradation in many regions,” the report claims.

“Warming compounded by drying has caused yield declines in parts of Southern Europe. Based on indigenous and local knowledge, climate change is affecting food security in drylands, particularly those in Africa, and high mountain regions of Asia and South America,” the report continues.

Here, climate alarmists in the United Nations are doing nothing more than “pounding the table,” hoping fear will drive the public to demand “climate action now!”

Of course, the fake news media eagerly amplified the alarmist report. For example, an Aug. 8 NBC News headline reads, “Climate change could trigger a global food crisis, new U.N. report says.” Many other major media outlets published similar stories.

The biggest problem is the report’s thesis and “facts” are totally wrong—and that’s quite a problem!

For instance, the United Nations’ own data shows farmers throughout the world are setting new production records virtually every year. In fact, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports new records were set in each of the past five years for global cereal production, which is composed of the Big Three food staples: corn, wheat, and rice.

Indeed, World-Grain.com reports in 2016 world cereal production broke records for the third straight year, exceeding the previous record yield, recorded in 2015, by 1.2 percent and topping the record yield in 2014 by 1.5 percent. These facts should not surprise anyone because hundreds of studies and experiments conclusively demonstrate plants do better under conditions of higher carbon dioxide and modestly warmer temperatures.

The ongoing record crop production perfectly illustrates the difference between the Climate Delusion perpetrated by IPCC and other government-funded alarmists and what is actually happening in the real world. To make the news gloomy, IPCC’s report nefariously engages in semantic tricks to give readers a false impression of declining global crop production. The report cites anecdotal evidence crop yields are declining in “parts” of Southern Europe, ignoring copious data showing crop yields are rising across the globe, including throughout Southern Europe.

Instead of highlighting this welcome development, IPCC focuses on what it claims are yield reductions in some small regions of Southern Europe. Readers who are not paying close attention will be led to believe, incorrectly, that crop yields are declining throughout Southern Europe. In reality, the exact opposite is true!

IPCC claims “indigenous and local knowledge” indicates food production is declining “in drylands” in Africa, Asia, and South America. However, such indigenous and local knowledge does not trump objective data, which are readily available to IPCC’s authors and show crop yields are increasing throughout Africa, Asia, and South America as a whole, including in dryland areas.

Tragically, IPCC’s misleading claims result in people who dare to point out crop production continues to set new records being accused of “denying” climate change and attacking science. Climate change is real and record crop production is in fact consistent with it. In fact, record crop production is partly due to climate change.

This is just the latest example of the ongoing Climate Delusion, as radical environmental activists, government bureaucrats, socialists, and a biased news media, looking to transform U.S. society, repeatedly make ridiculous climate claims with no basis in real environmental conditions. They hope the constant drumbeat of authoritative-sounding claims will fool people into stampeding politicians to give governments more power over the economy to combat the false climate crisis.

Fortunately, we can avoid this fate. Factual data showing the truth about global food supplies and other climate conditions are readily available to anyone willing to search the internet. Let’s hope the public accesses the facts. Enacting policies that restrict the use of abundant energy supplies will rob people of choice and harm the economy. This won’t hurt the global elite, but it will result in everyone else living poorer, more precarious lives.

See also Alarmists Anonymous

COP Ignorants Pushing Wrong Agenda

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Some reflections by Dick Storm at his blog Glascow, COP-26 Eltists and Special Interests Promote China First, America Last.  Why?  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Because savvy engineers were not successful in educating the public and politicians on the true facts.

Well, that is at least one reason we have such a mess of energy policy now.

Once a “War on Carbon”, Has now Morphed into a “War on Freedom”, “War on our Rights”, “War on Capitalism” and an assault on much of What “We the People” Have Worked Hard For. The clowns in Scotland are spending our tax dollars and restricting our freedoms as best they can. Essentially putting China and the rest of the world first, America last. All on our dime.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

America has been a leader by example in reducing carbon. The U.S.A. has reduced our carbon emissions by over 50% since 2005. How? By releasing the power of free markets and American innovation. At the end of President Trump’s term, America was energy independent. He did that in four years only to have Joe Biden reverse his policies.

The War on Fossil Fuels is not new and the intentions have always been to raise energy costs so that “Green Power” will become competitive. Yes, the intentions of President Biden, John Kerry, Al Gore and the rest of the Green Extremists (Reminder, the War on Coal started in the Clinton-Gore Administration. Obama just continued and accellerated anti American energy policies Clinton-Gore began) The war on carbon is intended to make Exploration, Development, Production and use of oil, gas, coal and even nuclear, more expensive and harder to use.

All of this as the world’s people still depend on Fossil Fuels and nuclear together for almost 90% of our total energy. How can our leaders be so ignorant and insensitive? Well, back in the 1990’s when bill Clinton started the “War on Coal”, I did my best to educate the public and the students of public schools and several Colleges on energy and electricity generation. I am proud of my efforts, small as they seem in the grand scheme of things. There is still a need for Energy Engineers to become active in PR for Energy!

Series on World of Hurt from Climate Policies

In support of such educational efforts, here are a series of four posts showing how wrong-headed are climate policies which are actually anti-energy and anti-human. Below are links to articles providing numerous charts exposing how hurtful are these policies, along with one example for each theme.

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 1

This is a beginning post toward infographics exposing the damaging effects of Climate Policies upon the lives of ordinary people.  And all of the pain is for naught in fighting against global warming/climate change, as shown clearly in the image at bottom.  This post presents graphics to illustrate the first of four themes:

  • Zero Carbon Means Killing Real Jobs with Promises of Green Jobs
  • Reducing Carbon Emissions Means High Cost Energy Imports and Social Degradation
  • 100% Renewable Energy Means Sourcing Rare Metals Off-Planet
  • Leave it in the Ground Means Perpetual Poverty

Part 1: Zero Carbon will Decimate US Workforce

EID (Energy in Depth) atudy shows renewable energy transition pushed by climate activists will result in a net 3.8 million lost jobs.

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 2

Part 2: California Exemplifies Ruination from Self-imposed Climate Policies

By blocking domestic production through permit denials, California is playing a shell game with emissions. Overall use of petroleum products has held steady but shifted from energy produced within the state – where the industry is subject to U.S. environmental regulations and supports local workers and companies – to overseas.

California isn’t reducing its dependence on oil; it’s just adding a higher carbon footprint to get it.

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 3

Part 3: Wind and Solar Infrastructure Consumes Rare Metals Far Beyond World Supplies

This graph shows the annual metal demand for the six most critical metals, compared to the annual production. The dotted line represents present-day annual production.  

Conclusions
• Future annual critical metal demands of the energy transition surpass the total annual critical metal production.
• An exponential growth in renewable energy production capacity is not possible with present-day technologies and annual metal production. As an illustration: in 2050, the annual need for Indium (only for solar panel application) will exceed the present-day annual global production twelvefold.

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 4

Part 4 The War Against Carbon Emissions Diminishes Efforts to Lift People Out of Poverty

How Climate Policies Keep People Poor

Note that the vision for 100% access to electric power was put forward by the African Development Bank in 2016.  (Above slides come from The Bank Group’s Strategy for The New Deal on Energy for Africa 2016 – 2025).  Instead of making finances available for such a plan, an International Cabal organized to deny any support for coal, the most available and inexpensive way to electrify Africa.

This is an organized campaign to deny coal-fired power anywhere in the world, despite coal being the starting point in the development pathway for every modern society, and currently the success model for Asia, and China in particular.

 

 

IPCC Data: Rising CO2 is 75% Natural

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A previous post reprinted later below raised the question Who to Blame for Rising CO?  It provided synopses of three studies challenging the IPCC orthodox explanation that humans are the cause by burning fossil fuels.  This post brings the research up to date with a 2021  publication by Edwin Berry.

The graph above summarizes Dr. Berry’s findings.  The lines represent CO2 added into the atmosphere since the 1750 level of 280 ppm.  Based on IPCC data regarding CO2 natural sources and sinks, the black dots show the CO2 data. The small blue dots show the sum of all human CO2 emissions since they became measurable, irrespective of transfers of that CO2 from the atmosphere to land or to ocean.

Notice the CO2 data is greater than the sum of all human CO2 until 1960. That means nature caused the CO2 level to increase prior to 1960, with no reason to stop adding CO2 since.  In fact, the analysis shows that in the year 2020, the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 level is 33 ppm, which means that from a 2020 total of 413 ppm, 280 is pre-industrial and 100 is added from land andl ocean during the industrial era.

A new carbon cycle model shows human emissions cause 25% and nature 75% of the CO2 increase is the title (and link) for Dr. Edwin Berry’s paper accepted in the journal Atmosphere August 12, 2021.  The pre-print version is available at Ed Berry’s website providing all the details and opportunity to ask questions.  Respecting his request not to post content from the paper, I provide some of his comments on threads at his blog in order to indicate the thrust of his analysis and findings.  Excerpts are in italics with my bolds.

Here is IPCC’s and climate alarmism’s core theory. It has 3 connected parts. Notice the separation of “natural carbon emissions” and “human carbon emissions”:

  • Natural carbon emissions remained constant after 1750.
  • These constant natural emissions support a CO2 level of 280 ppm.
  • Human carbon emissions caused all the CO2 increase above 280 ppm.
Data proves IPCC’s core theory is wrong.

In the figure above, the black dots show the CO2 data. The small blue dots show the sum of all human CO2 emissions. Notice the CO2 data is greater than the sum of all human CO2 until 1960. That means nature caused the CO2 level to increase. Therefore, IPCC’s core theory is wrong.

Don’t worry that the sum of human CO2 becomes greater after 1960 because the sum is not a valid argument anyway. It omits the flow of human CO2 out of the atmosphere.

The solid blue line shows the true effect of human CO2. In 2020, the human-caused increase in CO2 is 25 percent and the natural-caused increase in CO2 is 75 percent of the total increase.

The key point is the data have proven IPCC’s core theory is wrong.

The logic of my paper is simple. It has four steps:

1. It uses IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data.
2. It computes deductively the resulting true human carbon cycle.
3. This true human carbon cycle disagrees with IPCC’s human carbon cycle
4. Therefore, IPCC’s human carbon cycle is wrong.

IPCC’s human carbon cycle — the basis of all IPCC’s climate claims and climate models — contradicts IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data.  My proof of IPCC’s error is independent of outside data and is deductive. My model asserts two things about the CO2 cycle.

1. Human carbon derived from carbon fuels adds new carbon to the fast carbon cycle. (More precisely, it moves carbon from the slow carbon cycle to the fast carbon cycle.) My model keeps track of this added carbon. As of 2020, human carbon has added about one percent to the carbon in the fast carbon cycle.

2.Once this new carbon is added to the fast carbon cycle, it behaves physically and chemically exactly like all the other carbon in the fast carbon cycle.

The purpose of my model is to use IPCC’s black numbers for its natural carbon cycle to calculate the turnover times for the six nodes. Then, using these turnover times, my model calculates how human carbon, introduced annually into the atmosphere according to data, flows to the land, surface ocean, and deep ocean.

We don’t expect my calculations for human carbon to agree with IPCC’s numbers for its human carbon cycle because IPCC numbers assume the core theory is true, and my numbers assume IPCC’s natural carbon cycle is true.

My model does what the IPCC should have done but didn’t. My model calculates how the level changes with time using the same physics found in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. These calculations show human carbon flows so fast from the atmosphere that only 33 ppm is still in the atmosphere in 2020.

This is the most accurate calculation anyone has made for the effect of human carbon on atmospheric CO2. Given this result, nature had to add 100 ppm to the atmosphere as of 2020.

Source :NOAA

Background from previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

Blaming global warming on humans comes down to two assertions:

Rising CO2 in the atmosphere causes earth’s surface temperature to rise.

Humans burning fossil fuels cause rising atmospheric CO2.

For this post I will not address the first premise, instead refer the reader to a previous article referencing Fred Singer. He noted that greenhouse gas theory presumes surface warming arises because heat is forced to escape at a higher, colder altitude. In fact, temperatures in the tropopause do not change with altitude (“pause”), and in the stratosphere temperatures increase with altitude. That post also includes the “meat” of the brief submitted to Judge Alsup’s court by Happer, Koonin and Lindzen, which questions CO2 driving global warming in the face of other more powerful factors. See Courtroom Climate Science

The focus in this piece is the claim that fossil fuel emissions drive observed rising CO2 concentrations. IPCC consensus scientists and supporters note that human emissions are about twice the measured rise and presume that natural sinks absorb half, leaving the other half to accumulate in the atmosphere. Thus they conclude all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is from fossil fuels.

This simple-minded conclusion takes the only two things we measure in the carbon cycle: CO2 in the atmosphere, and fossil fuel emissions. And then asserts that one causes the other. But several elephants are in the room, namely the several carbon reservoirs that dwarf human activity in their size and activity, and can not be measured because of their complexity.

The consensus notion is based on a familiar environmental paradigm: The Garden of Eden. This is the modern belief that nature, and indeed the climate is in balance, except for humans disrupting it by their activities. In the current carbon cycle context, it is the supposition that all natural sources and sinks are in balance, thus any additional CO2 is because of humans.

Now, a curious person might wonder: How is it that for decades as the rate of fossil fuel emissions increased, the absorption by natural sinks has also increased at exactly the same rate, so that 50% is always removed and 50% remains? It can only be that nature is also dynamic and its flows change over time!

That alternative paradigm is elaborated in several papers that are currently under vigorous attack from climatists. As one antagonist put it: Any paper concluding that humans don’t cause rising CO2 is obviously wrong. One objectionable study was published by Hermann Harde, another by Ole Humlum, and a third by Ed Berry is delayed in pre-publication review.

The methods and analyses are different, but the three skeptical papers argue that the levels and flows of various carbon reservoirs fluctuate over time with temperature itself as a causal variable. Some sinks are stimulated by higher temperatures to release more CO2 while others respond by capturing more CO2. And these reactions occur on a range of timescales. Once these dynamics are factored in, the human contribution to rising atmospheric CO2 is neglible, much to the ire of alarmists.

Ed Berry finds IPCC carbon cycle metrics illogical.

Dr. Ed Berry provides a preprint of his submitted paper at a blog post entitled Why human CO2 does not change climate. He welcomes comments and uses the discussion to revise and improve the text. Excerpts with my bolds.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims human emissions raised the carbon dioxide level from 280 ppm to 410 ppm, or 130 ppm. Physics proves this claim is impossible.

The IPCC agrees today’s annual human carbon dioxide emissions are 4.5 ppm per year and nature’s carbon dioxide emissions are 98 ppm per year. Yet, the IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in carbon dioxide since 1750, which is 30 percent of today’s total.

How can human carbon dioxide, which is only 5 percent of natural carbon dioxide, add 30 percent to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide? It can’t.

inflowresultipcc-2

This paper derives a Model that shows how human and natural carbon dioxide emissions independently change the equilibrium level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This Model should replace the IPCC’s invalid Bern model.

The Model shows the ratio of human to natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals the ratio of their inflows, independent of residence time.

fig5.carbonflows

Fig. 5. The sum of nature’s inflow is 20 times larger than the sum of human emissions. Nature balances inflow with or without human emissions.

The model shows, contrary to IPCC claims, that human emissions do not continually add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but rather cause a flow of carbon dioxide through the atmosphere. The flow adds a constant equilibrium level, not a continuing increasing level, of carbon dioxide.

systembalanceb-665x255-1

Fig. 2. Balance proceeds as follows: (1) Inflow sets the balance level. (2) Level sets the outflow. (3) Level moves toward balance level until outflow equals inflow.

Ole Humlum proves that CO2 follows temperature also for interannual/decadal periods.

Humlum et al. looks the modern record of fluctuating temperatures and atmospheric CO2 and concludes that CO2 changes follow temperature changes over these timescales. The paper is The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature OleHumlum, KjellStordahl, Jan-ErikSolheim.  Excerpts with my bolds.

From the Abstract:
Using data series on atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures we investigate the phase relation (leads/lags) between these for the period January 1980 to December 2011. Ice cores show atmospheric CO2 variations to lag behind atmospheric temperature changes on a century to millennium scale, but modern temperature is expected to lag changes in atmospheric CO2, as the atmospheric temperature increase since about 1975 generally is assumed to be caused by the modern increase in CO2.

In our analysis we used eight well-known datasets. . . We find a high degree of co-variation between all data series except 7) and 8), but with changes in CO2 always lagging changes in temperature.
Highlights
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature. ► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature. ► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature. ► Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980. ► Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.

Summary

Summing up, monthly data since January 1980 on atmospheric CO2 and sea and air temperatures unambiguously demonstrate the overall global temperature change sequence of events to be 1) ocean surface, 2) surface air, 3) lower troposphere, and with changes in atmospheric CO2 always lagging behind changes in any of these different temperature records.9

A main control on atmospheric CO2 appears to be the ocean surface temperature, and it remains a possibility that a significant part of the overall increase of atmospheric CO2 since at least 1958 (start of Mauna Loa observations) simply reflects the gradual warming of the oceans, as a result of the prolonged period of high solar activity since 1920 (Solanki et al., 2004).

Based on the GISP2 ice core proxy record from Greenland it has previously been pointed out that the present period of warming since 1850 to a high degree may be explained by a natural c. 1100 yr periodic temperature variation (Humlum et al., 2011).

Hermann Harde sets realistic proportions for the carbon cycle.

Hermann Harde applies a comparable perspective to consider the carbon cycle dynamics. His paper is Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere. Excerpts with my bolds.

From the Abstract:

Climate scientists presume that the carbon cycle has come out of balance due to the increasing anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion and land use change. This is made responsible for the rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over recent years, and it is estimated that the removal of the additional emissions from the atmosphere will take a few hundred thousand years. Since this goes along with an increasing greenhouse effect and a further global warming, a better understanding of the carbon cycle is of great importance for all future climate change predictions. We have critically scrutinized this cycle and present an alternative concept, for which the uptake of CO2 by natural sinks scales proportional with the CO2 concentration. In addition, we consider temperature dependent natural emission and absorption rates, by which the paleoclimatic CO2 variations and the actual CO2 growth rate can well be explained. The anthropogenic contribution to the actual CO2 concentration is found to be 4.3%, its fraction to the CO2 increase over the Industrial Era is 15% and the average residence time 4 years.

Fig. 1. Simplified schematic of the global carbon cycle. Black numbers and arrows indicate reservoir mass in PgC and exchange fluxes in PgC/yr before the Industrial Era. Red arrows and numbers show annual  anthropogenic’ flux changes averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. Graphic from AR5-Chap.6-Fig.6.1. 

Conclusions

Climate scientists assume that a disturbed carbon cycle, which has come out of balance by the increasing anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion and land use change, is responsible for the rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over recent years. While over the whole Holocene up to the entrance of the Industrial Era (1750) natural emissions by heterotrophic processes and fire were supposed to be in equilibrium with the uptake by photosynthesis and the net ocean-atmosphere gas exchange, with the onset of the Industrial Era the IPCC estimates that about 15–40% of the additional emissions cannot further be absorbed by the natural sinks and are accumulating in the atmosphere. The IPCC further argues that CO2 emitted until 2100 will remain in the atmosphere longer than 1000 years, and in the same context it is even mentioned that the removal of human-emitted CO2 from the atmosphere by natural processes will take a few hundred thousand years (high confidence) (see AR5-Chap.6ExecutiveSummary). Since the rising CO2 concentrations go along with an increasing greenhouse effect and, thus, a further global warming, a better understanding of the carbon cycle is a necessary prerequisite for all future climate change predictions.

In their accounting schemes and models of the carbon cycle the IPCC uses many new and detailed data which are primarily focussing on fossil fuel emission, cement fabrication or net land use change (see AR5-WG1- Chap.6.3.2), but it largely neglects any changes of the natural emissions, which contribute to more than 95 % to the total emissions and by far cannot be assumed to be constant over longer periods (see, e.g.: variations over the last 800,000 years (Jouzel et al., 2007); the last glacial termination (Monnin et al., 2001); or the younger Holocene (Monnin et al., 2004; Wagner et al., 2004)).

Since our own estimates of the average CO2 residence time in the atmosphere differ by several orders of magnitude from the announced IPCC values, and on the other hand actual investigations of Humlum et al. (2013) or Salby (2013, 2016) show a strong relation between the natural CO2 emission rate and the surface temperature, this was motivation enough to scrutinize the IPCC accounting scheme in more detail and to contrast this to our own calculations.

Different to the IPCC we start with a rate equation for the emission and absorption processes, where the uptake is not assumed to be saturated but scales proportional with the actual CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (see also Essenhigh, 2009; Salby, 2016). This is justified by the observation of an exponential decay of 14C. A fractional saturation, as assumed by the IPCC, can directly be expressed by a larger residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere and makes a distinction between a turnover time and adjustment time needless.

Based on this approach and as solution of the rate equation we derive a concentration at steady state, which is only determined by the product of the total emission rate and the residence time. Under present conditions the natural emissions contribute 373 ppm and anthropogenic emissions 17 ppm to the total concentration of 390 ppm (2012). For the average residence time we only find 4 years.

The stronger increase of the concentration over the Industrial Era up to present times can be explained by introducing a temperature dependent natural emission rate as well as a temperature affected residence time. With this approach not only the exponential increase with the onset of the Industrial Era but also the concentrations at glacial and cooler interglacial times can well be reproduced in full agreement with all observations.

So, different to the IPCC’s interpretation the steep increase of the concentration since 1850 finds its natural explanation in the self accelerating processes on the one hand by stronger degassing of the oceans as well as a faster plant growth and decomposition, on the other hand by an increasing residence time at reduced solubility of CO2 in oceans. Together this results in a dominating temperature controlled natural gain, which contributes about 85% to the 110 ppm CO2 increase over the Industrial Era, whereas the actual anthropogenic emissions of 4.3% only donate 15%. These results indicate that almost all of the observed change of CO2 during the Industrial Era followed, not from anthropogenic emission, but from changes of natural emission. The results are consistent with the observed lag of CO2 changes behind temperature changes (Humlum et al., 2013; Salby, 2013), a signature of cause and effect. Our analysis of the carbon cycle, which exclusively uses data for the CO2 concentrations and fluxes as published in AR5, shows that also a completely different interpretation of these data is possible, this in complete conformity with all observations and natural causalities.

Background

CO2 Fluxes, Sources and Sinks

Obsessed with Human CO2

Not Worried About CO2

Climate Lobby Crushed Debate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Tim Black writes at Spiked How the climate lobby crushed debate.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Anyone who dissents from stringent climate policies will be branded an enemy of The Science.

COP26 is an extravaganza of ideological conformity. From the 30,000 delegates and heads of state sequestered in the ‘blue zone’ to the NGOs, academics and green businesses exhibiting in the public ‘green zone’, the message is the same. There is nothing to debate anymore. The climate catastrophe is coming. Now is the time for action.

Similar sentiments abound outside COP26, where the protesters are gathered. There the likes of young eco-millenarian Greta Thunberg also claim that the end is nigh, that the time for debate is over. Or as the Swedish teenager herself put it during a protest on Sunday, there’s no need for any more of this ‘blah, blah, blah’.

This is essentially what all those in and around COP26 are saying. That, in effect, there is nothing to debate anymore. And so, over the next few days, Western-led policymakers, angrily cheered on by protesters, will try to decide our futures for the next few decades. They will regulate, restrict and limit. And they will be able to do so without dissent or debate.

How have we got here? How have we ended up at a point where debating climate change has become nigh-on impossible? The answer lies principally in the use and abuse of the authority of science. The standard justification for shutting down those challenging the alarmist climate-change narrative amounts, effectively, to saying ‘the science has spoken’.

This was clear in the run-up to COP26, when Mark Lynas, a long-time environmentalist campaigner and now a visiting fellow at Cornell University, published a widely reported-on study asserting that the scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate is now agreed upon by 99.9 per cent of scientists. That’s how certain The Science now is. Not just 97 to 98 per cent certain, as it used to be, but 99.9 per cent certain. ‘It is really case closed’, said Lynas. ‘There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change.’

‘Case closed.’ No ‘doubts’ and no appeal. These are revealing words. Climate change has long since ceased to be an issue to be addressed, or a set of challenges to be overcome. It is now the revealed truth, the God-like judgement around which we must organise the entirety of societal life. To question this truth is tantamount to apostasy. Hence Lynas calls for any remaining heretics to be censored, urging Facebook and Twitter ‘to look at their algorithms and policies’ to root out ‘climate misinformation’.

Indeed, those daring to question any aspect of the alarmist narrative are now routinely dismissed not as heretics, but as ‘deniers’ – a term which morally equates those who question, say, certain decarbonisation policies with anti-Semites who deny that the Holocaust happened.

Take the experience of statistician and sceptical environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg. Earlier this year he was invited to give a public lecture at Duke University, only to be met by high-profile calls for it to be cancelled from Duke professors and assorted climate activists. Duke held its nerve, and the lecture went ahead, but not without Lomborg being denounced as a ‘professional climate denier’ – and all because he questions the economic wisdom of certain aspects of climate-change policymaking.

Or take the decision of the BBC in 2018 to ban, effectively, any debate over climate change. This decision followed activists’ outcry over its 2014 decision to allow Lord Lawson, a former chancellor of the exchequer and a critic of climate alarmism, to appear on Radio 4’s Today programme. The BBC said it had got its coverage of climate change ‘wrong too often’ and told staff: ‘You do not need a “denier” to balance the debate.’

Now even those who are concerned about climate change, but who ‘downplay’, as the Independent put it, ‘the need for immediate and radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions’, are being accused of denialism. Apparently, ‘delay is the new denial’.

Indeed, influential climate scientist Michael Mann argues that anyone who inhibits the need for drastic action right this very moment, perhaps by talking hopefully of ‘adaptation’, ‘geoengineering’ or ‘carbon capture’, is just a climate denier in optimist’s clothing. ‘The greatest threat’, concludes one politician, ‘is now posed by those who purport to accept the scientific consensus, but refuse to respond at the pace science demands’.

This demented insistence that The Science has spoken, that it has even issued demands, and that all those not bowing down before it are ‘denying’ its truth, rests on a wilful misunderstanding of science and the role it ought to play in political debate.

All scientific claims should be subject to contestation, even those that many people happen to agree on. After all, there is sometimes a fine line between consensus and groupthink. The views of scientists and policymakers would surely be strengthened, not undermined, by rigorous public debate. But even if everyone takes as read that climate change is real and a problem, that is still not the end of the debate.The numerous branches of scientific inquiry that constitute climate science can tell us many things about our changing environment. They can tell us about the complex interaction of sea and air temperatures. They can tell us about the state of biodiversity in our oceans and on our land. They can tell us about mankind’s impact on the climate.

But they can’t tell us what energy policies to pursue. They can’t tell us what transport policies to implement. They can’t, in short, tell us what we ought to do. That is something only we can decide. And to do so we need to be able to challenge and question the alarmist narrative. We need to be allowed to scrutinise those peddling certain approaches to climate change. And we need to be able to do so without being likened to Holocaust deniers, banned from social media or No Platformed by the BBC.

We need, in short, to be free to debate climate change. We need more ‘blah, blah, blah’.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

 

COP Cake is Already Baked

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Pat Buchanan writes at his blog  Is Failure Baked in the Cake at Glasgow?  Excerpts in italics with my bolds. and added images.

Consider. The world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide is China, which burns half of the world’s coal and is building new coal-fired plants even as the 30,000 summiteers gather in Glasgow… Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin will even be present in Glasgow.

“Colossal Stakes as Leaders Meet to Talk Climate,” ran the headline.  They topped the lead news story in Sunday’s New York Times, the opening line of which set the tone for Glasgow: “The future is on the line.”

“As presidents and prime ministers arrive in Glasgow this week for a pivotal climate summit, the outcome will determine, to a large extent, how the world’s seven billion people will survive on a hotter planet and whether far worse levels of warming can be averted …

“Already, the failure to slow rising temperatures — brought on by the burning of oil, gas and coal — has led to deadly floods, fires, heat, and drought around the world.”

The hype is on. And the establishment media are playing their assigned role — portraying a failure at Glasgow as a guarantee of the looming apocalypse.

The theology of the climate crisis runs like this.

The planet has warmed by 1.1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. If warming rises to more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above 1900 levels, more and more terrible weather disasters will occur: wildfires, hurricanes of growing severity, droughts, coastal and river flooding, and islands sinking into the sea.

The only way to stave off “climate catastrophe” is for all nations to cut carbon emissions radically now and for the world to reach net zero emissions by midcentury.

A fast phaseout of the major emitters of carbon dioxide — the burning of coal, oil and gas to heat homes, run cars and generate power — and replacement of these fossil fuels with clean energy — solar, wind, nuclear — is a moral and political imperative.

But if such a radical transformation of national economies is the only way to avert the impending crisis, we should brace ourselves and prepare for that crisis. For there is no way the demanded changes in energy consumption are going to be made by 2030.

Consider the Facts on the Ground

The world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide is China, which burns half of the world’s coal and is building new coal-fired plants even as the 30,000 summiteers gather in Glasgow.

China was given a license in the Paris climate accord of 2015 to burn all the coal it wishes until 2030, after which it has agreed to begin reducing carbon emissions. But the idea that China can or will convert in a few decades to wind, solar and nuclear power to run the world’s largest manufacturing plant seems preposterous.

The U.S., the world’s second largest emitter of carbon dioxide, gets 81% of its energy from oil, coal and natural gas. We depend on those fuels to heat our homes, run our vehicles and power our industry.

In his Build Back Better bill, Biden inserted a provision that would have imposed annually rising taxes on carbon producers and used the revenue to reward companies that reduced their reliance on fossil fuels.  The proposal had to be pulled out, lest it drag Biden’s entire bill down to defeat. Lest we forget, Sen. Joe Manchin is from West Virginia.

India, the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is also, like China, dependent on coal. But, though its population is as large as China’s, India is behind China industrially, and the standard of living of its 1.4 billion people is below that of China.

To demand that India begin to end its burning of coal and rely more on solar and wind is to demand that New Delhi accept a future where India’s standard of living remains lower than that of China.

As for Russia, the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, it is rich in fossil fuels and the leading supplier of natural gas to Europe. But Moscow manipulates the supplies of its natural gas to its customers for reasons of both revenue and politics.

Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin will even be present in Glasgow.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and other OPEC nations depend for their national income on oil exports. If fossil fuels become forbidden fuels, what is to become of these nations?

Will they accept a future where their primary natural resource is gradually outlawed by the rest of the world? Will they be content to rely on the industrialized world to provide them with windmills and solar panels to power their economies?

The world’s losers from this Glasgow summit are likely to be the billions of people who will never know the benefits of fossil fuels that produced the Industrial Revolution and created the affluent societies of the 20th century.