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No Climate Emergency

Roger B
This doesn't seem to appear in the Daily Mail or the BBC, I wonder why:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/29/scientists-tell-un-global-climate-summit-no-emerge/

There is no climate emergency
A global network of 500 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate
science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should
openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while
politicians should dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation
to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation.
Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with
natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no
surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.
Warming is far slower than predicted
The world has warmed at less than half the originally-predicted rate, and at less than half the rate to
be expected on the basis of net anthropogenic forcing and radiative imbalance. It tells us that we are
far from understanding climate change.
Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. Moreover,
they most likely exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the
fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is
beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global
plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.
Global warming has not increased natural disasters
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and
suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, CO2-mitigation measures are as
damaging as they are costly. For instance, wind turbines kill birds and bats, and palm-oil plantations
destroy the biodiversity of the rainforests.
Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly
oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches
emerge, we will have ample time to reflect and adapt. The aim of international policy should be to
provide reliable and affordable energy at all times, and throughout the world.

https://clintel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ecd-letter-to-un.pdf


At last some people talking sense. After the relatively rapid rise of around 1°C between 1975 and 2000 in the Northern Hemisphere the temperatures have been relatively flat.

f95f77dc1ad4c0ab15046a656ee22cae-huge-hadcrut.jpg

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/figures/Figure11.png


We certainly need to reduce our consumption of finite resources and reduce our impact on the planet but focusing on CO2 is not the way to do it. Let's start with real pollutants that are directly harmful.


Best regards


Roger
  • 0

    Simon Barker:


     


    Adding a lot of very low energy density renewable energy sources (which is the current direction as most of the virtue signalers want their feed in tariffs and subsidies) may not actually be the right way to go.



    The current trend for feed in tariffs is rapidly downwards.  If you stick a few solar panels on your roof now, you will get no feed in tariff at all.  If you are lucky, you might find a supplier who will pay a few pence per kWh for any electricity you export.  The subsidy for wind turbines is similarly going downwards.

     




     

    You're not looking where the money is. The big players are all doing very well. They have nice a 'contract for differences', a guaranteed market for their expensive electricity, no need to pay for their interconnection infrastructure and get even more money to shut down to protect the grid.


    Best regards


    Roger
  • 0

    Luciano Bacco:
    OK!  I'm going to post anymore anything of this kind: I stop here!




     

    You have stumbled into the little enclave for climate change deniers.  They only want to hear things that support their existing beliefs.  Anything else will be soundly rejected, using "evidence" from other climate change deniers.  That's the way all conspiracy theories work.
  • 0
    No Simon. You are greatly mistaken. Read the paper on  the real emission spectrum of the atmosphere and you will begin to understand. It is not Carbon Dioxide that is causing the climate to change, it is many other factors including the Sun. Why is China never mentioned, and why are you not protesting there? Is our 1.5% going to make any difference? I am sure that as an Engineer you understand that?
  • 0
    As per the words of Max Ehrmann's Poem, penned in 1920, called Desiderata (Things desired) in the sixth stanza he writes as follows: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars: you have a right to be here. And whether it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should"  I am confident that our Earth is following the same grand scheme, albeit apparently somewhat analytically 'chaotic' and unpredictable - at least in the short term. Therefore, if the Earth is indeed largely a self regulating system (e.g. as per the writings of James Lovelock et al), then whatever happens to our global climate in each 100 year period of study (say) is largely way beyond human control. Our Sun has sun spot cycles with both 11 and 33 year periodicity that have a major impact on our climate and with these and other phenomena such as irregular Coronal Mass Ejections that occasionally are directed towards our planet, we can see that natural, global timescales are inherent to the system and at least an order of magnitude greater than the lifetime of any political party in Government.


    Clearly we need to properly identify those things we can control, such as food supply, air polution, water quality, the release of plastic and other waste into our envronments, plus the control of the spread of disease etc whilst accepting that there are other things that are way beyond our control. Engineers ans Scientists know, from first hand experience, that mathematical models of any system are only useful over a limited range of values and so it is with climate forecasting and the supposed influence of green house gasses etc on our climate system. Therefore we must be prepared to adopt radical behavioural change, to surrender our lovely motor cars whether ICE, Hybrid, Hydrogen or BEV, give up the hour long cummutes to and from 'work' in order to simply sit in front of a remote centralised office suite of VDUs each day, take to our feet, 'get on our bikes' and create and use effective local transport systems and by so doing, enjoy the socio-economic benefits of much improved respiratory and cardio vascular health as a result. 


    Greta T may not have realised that she needs to petition the Sun to get the level of control she insists is within our greedy grasping hands. Good luck with that young lady!
  • 0
    So, I've finally located a relatively short wikipedia technical explanation of how the CO2 forcing happens through the atmosphere that gets beyond the 'it's a blanket' platitudes that are over-simplistic and easily attacked (that tech-know-group.com paper..).


    Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild's_equation_for_radiative_transfer#Origin_of_the_greenhouse


    The extra detail that is not normally discussed is the mechanism by which the apparent "one way mirror" actually happens, where the absorption and emission spectra occur at different (differential) places in the non-equilibrium atmosphere. Have a read.


    That all said, If we are "the developed world" then we need to show the 2nd and 3rd world (as per various definitions) that the CO2 reduction is possible, otherwise we sound like the three monkeys seeing no evil, etc.


    PS previous dayjob was all about how IR homing missiles seek out the hot CO2 plumes of aircraft, with the rocket science following behind, so the physics well proven.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    Malcolm Davies:

    As per the words of Max Ehrmann's Poem, penned in 1920, called Desiderata (Things desired) in the sixth stanza he writes as follows: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars: you have a right to be here. And whether it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should"  I am confident that our Earth is following the same grand scheme, albeit apparently somewhat analytically 'chaotic' and unpredictable - at least in the short term. Therefore, if the Earth is indeed largely a self regulating system (e.g. as per the writings of James Lovelock et al), then whatever happens to our global climate in each 100 year period of study (say) is largely way beyond human control. Our Sun has sun spot cycles with both 11 and 33 year periodicity that have a major impact on our climate and with these and other phenomena such as irregular Coronal Mass Ejections that occasionally are directed towards our planet, we can see that natural, global timescales are inherent to the system and at least an order of magnitude greater than the lifetime of any political party in Government.


    Clearly we need to properly identify those things we can control, such as food supply, air polution, water quality, the release of plastic and other waste into our envronments, plus the control of the spread of disease etc whilst accepting that there are other things that are way beyond our control. Engineers ans Scientists know, from first hand experience, that mathematical models of any system are only useful over a limited range of values and so it is with climate forecasting and the supposed influence of green house gasses etc on our climate system. Therefore we must be prepared to adopt radical behavioural change, to surrender our lovely motor cars whether ICE, Hybrid, Hydrogen or BEV, give up the hour long cummutes to and from 'work' in order to simply sit in front of a remote centralised office suite of VDUs each day, take to our feet, 'get on our bikes' and create and use effective local transport systems and by so doing, enjoy the socio-economic benefits of much improved respiratory and cardio vascular health as a result. 


    Greta T may not have realised that she needs to petition the Sun to get the level of control she insists is within our greedy grasping hands. Good luck with that young lady!     


    Thank you Malcom for your support but I have now decided to reduce drastically my presence in this Forum and continue  managing only my Blog where I can have a full freedom of expression- someone warned me that I' m out of  place there! Good luck to everyone!

    My Blog:
    https://professionalengineeringukandothertopics.wordpress.com/




     

  • 0
    Philip

    I am very happy to argue the science with you but you need to realise that the whole "CO2" thing is completely at odds with quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and the only reason why this is not fully understood by "climate scientists" is simply that they are not scientists! Computer models are not science. In fact all the gasses in the atmosphere have exactly the same thermal properties in principle although the numbers may be different, and the only reason why they did not realise this in the 19th century is that the instrumentation to see it was not available. Raman spectroscopy is the thing which you need to study, you will see that all substances radiate and absorb heat, in various bands depending on the exact atomic structure. This is not just CO2 but Oxygen, Nitrogen and Argon, the main constituents of the atmosphere. Some of these are not detectable with thermoelectric instruments but are with Raman spectroscopy. Thermodynamics says everything radiates and absorbs heat depending only on temperature, as does quantum theory, and the frequency where this happens is an atomic or molecular property. There is nothing at all special about CO2. If you have any questions about this I will attempt to answer them on the forum.


    Regards
  • 0
    davezawadi‍ "says everything radiates and absorbs heat depending only on temperature, " Is not quite as true as you believe, because of the missing transmission factor, and the lack of equilibrium in the system. While the emission and absorption match, what we have is energy bypassing (going through) the CO2, and then the energy can't get back out because of the thermal balances at the ground absorber which changes the spectral profile.


    Much of the climate debate ends up as "whataboutery" and finger pointing to divert attention from our own problems. We can also point at SF6, or Methane, or 'them over there' (all 'valid', but not actually the point).


    I've added a note that I just wrote for myself which has some reference to blog posts I found reasonably easy to read. If we can't solve our problems, we will have to pay others - not an ideal situation.


  • 0


    Humans make decisions emotionally and then justify them rationally (video link below by Dr Karlyn Borysenko explains this process).  As I watched this video, I thought about the climate emergency discussion where much of the discussion follows this pattern, with hyperbole and extreme statements used to elicit an emotional response. Factual information that's available is used to rationalise wherever you end on the spectrum of positions (normally one of the ends). This causes division and tribal alignment which is clearly evident in much of the discussion and communication on this subject (Climate Emergency).

    As engineers, we should be able to use the rational part of the brain. We should be objective in addressing problems, to look at all the facts, the data (including completeness and integrity), to determine the boundary conditions, to develop alternative solution options, establish risk profiles which allow quality based decisions to be made, to arrive at achievable solutions, with acceptable cost benefit analyses which have stakeholder support and acceptable residual risk.

    An important part of this process is to listen, engage and understand the viewpoints and concerns of all stakeholders, to maintain respect for their concerns and behave with integrity in addressing them. 




    The attached youtube video link from Dr Karlyn Borysenko explains human decision process and gives an insight as to how better alignment can be achieved   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A1mg6pDnRg 
    •  

  • 0
    This is probably the finest discussion of the whole subject I have yet seen.
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/29/on-cambridge-university-post-modernism-climate-change-oppenheimers-razor-and-the-re-enlightenment/

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