CO2 -- I am not a scientist nor an expert on climate history or biology...

[Darren Dirt]

...but the former president of Greenpeace is.


http://technocracy.news/index.php/2015/10/30/former-president-of-greenpeace-scientifically-rips-climate-change-to-shreds/


(quote)
...
A well-documented record of global temperature over the past 65 million years shows that we have been in a major cooling period since the Eocene Thermal Maximum 50 million years ago. The Earth was an average 16C warmer then, with most of the increased warmth at the higher latitudes. The entire planet, including the Arctic and Antarctica were ice-free and the land there was covered in forest. The ancestors of every species on Earth today survived through what may have been the warmest time in the history of life. It makes one wonder about dire predictions that even a 2C rise in temperature from pre-industrial times would cause mass extinctions and the destruction of civilization. Glaciers began to form in Antarctica 30 million years ago and in the northern hemisphere 3 million years ago. Today, even in this interglacial period of the Pleistocene Ice Age, we are experiencing one of the coldest climates in the Earth's history.

Coming closer to the present we have learned from Antarctic ice cores that for the past 800,000 years there have been regular periods of major glaciation followed by interglacial periods in 100,000 year-cycles. These cycles coincide with the Milankovitch cycles that are tied to the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit and its axial tilt. It is highly plausible that these cycles are related to solar intensity and the seasonal distribution of solar heat on the Earth's surface. There is a strong correlation between temperature and the level of atmospheric CO2 during these successive glaciations, indicating a possible cause-effect relationship between the two. CO2 lags temperature by an average of 800 years during the most recent 400,000-year period, indicating that temperature is the cause, as the cause never comes after the effect.

Looking at the past 50,000 years of temperature and CO2 we can see that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature. This is as one could expect, as the Milankovitch cycles are far more likely to cause a change in temperature than a change in CO2. And a change in the temperature is far more likely to cause a change in CO2 due to outgassing of CO2 from the oceans during warmer times and an ingassing (absorption) of CO2 during colder periods. Yet climate alarmists persist in insisting that CO2 is causing the change in temperature, despite the illogical nature of that assertion.

It is sobering to consider the magnitude of climate change during the past 20,000 years, since the peak of the last major glaciation. At that time there were 3.3 kilometres of ice on top of what is today the city of Montreal, a city of more than 3 million people. 95% of Canada was covered in a sheet of ice. Even as far south as Chicago there was nearly a kilometre of ice. If the Milankovitch cycle continues to prevail, and there is little reason aside from our CO2 emissions to think otherwise, this will happen gradually again during the next 80,000 years.

...Coming back to the relationship between temperature and CO2 in the modern era we can see that temperature has risen at a steady slow rate in Central England since 1700 while human CO2 emissions were not relevant until 1850 and then began an exponential rise after 1950. This is not indicative of a direct causal relationship between the two. After freezing over regularly during the Little Ice Age the River Thames froze for the last time in 1814, as the Earth moved into what might be called the Modern Warm Period.

The IPCC states it is "extremely likely" that human emissions have been the dominant cause of global warming "since the mid-20th century", that is since 1950. They claim that "extremely" means 95% certain, even though the number 95 was simply plucked from the air like an act of magic. And "likely" is not a scientific word but rather indicative of a judgment, another word for an opinion.

...Coming to the core of my presentation, CO2 is the currency of life and the most important building block for all life on Earth. All life is carbon-based, including our own. Surely the carbon cycle and its central role in the creation of life should be taught to our children rather than the demonization of CO2, that "carbon" is a "pollutant" that threatens the continuation of life. We know for a fact that CO2 is essential for life and that it must be at a certain level in the atmosphere for the survival of plants, which are the primary food for all the other species alive today. Should we not encourage our citizens, students, teachers, politicians, scientists, and other leaders to celebrate CO2 as the giver of life that it is?

It is a proven fact that plants, including trees and all our food crops, are capable of growing much faster at higher levels of CO2 than present in the atmosphere today. Even at the today's concentration of 400 ppm plants are relatively starved for nutrition. The optimum level of CO2 for plant growth is about 5 times higher, 2000 ppm, yet the alarmists warn it is already too high. They must be challenged every day by every person who knows the truth in this matter. CO2 is the giver of life and we should celebrate CO2 rather than denigrate it as is the fashion today.
...
(/quote)


I wonder if any of the above is going to mentioned, let alone scientifically rebutted, in Paris at the end of this month.

But that would mean challenging a loudly-voiced myth. The very act of challenging any agenda/assertions strongly pushed by TPTB is now shouted down instead of examining the basis of the challenge.

[Mr. Analog]

The world has been hotter and cooler, long before (and likely well after) humanity

What we're coping with right now though is trying to understand the impact of 200 years of rapid industrialization and the related changes to the environment. Understanding how changes in the environment and how it could affect our lives is something we need to dedicate some effort to so that we can adapt and grow as a species

You can't reverse or deny change, the point is understanding what the impact of it is and consider what new opportunities there are from that learning.

Too many people put focus on "reversing" AGW but that's not important or even possible, the point is to look pragmatically at what changes we can expect and how we can adapt to them.

... but that's just me

[Tom]

IMO, the Earth doesn't really give AF. Many species will be hard up, including us. Do we want that? I don't.

If we actually try to reduce our impact as a whole, we might reduce the pain we suffer.

[Mr. Analog]

I don't know if there will be any pain, but there will be changes. Growing seasons and what latitudes support what crops will change, people will migrate to better climates.

We might get seasons between winter and construction even!

[Thorin]

When people bring up CO2 as the Big Bad Evil Monster Greenhouse Gas That Will Kill Us All, I ask a few pointed questions:

1. What's the number one greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and how much of the greenhouse effect is it responsible for?

Spoiler

H2O gas, aka water vapour, around 50% according to Schmidt's 2010 study.

[close]

2. What's the number two thing in the atmosphere that causes the greenhouse effect and how much is it responsible for?

Spoiler

H2O liquid, aka clouds, around 25% according to Schmidt's 2010 study.

[close]

3. Remember when we were complaining that the ozone layer was being depleted?  Is it a greenhouse gas?

Spoiler

it's the #4 or #5 greenhouse gas (depending on who you talk to)

[close]

4. Can you tell me what ended the Precambrian period and whether it was good or bad for life on Earth?

Spoiler

huge volcanic outgassing of CO2 (atmospheric CO2 was estimated to rise up to 140,000ppm, compared to 400ppm today), which led to warmer conditions, which led to multicellular life; without all that CO2 we wouldn't exist

[close]

There are many other problems entangled with the human production of CO2, mostly around byproducts that really do foul up the air.  For instance, diesel when burned creates a lot of particulates, which is basically a very fine soot that can get in your lungs and act like concrete once it gets in there.  Not fun, to think that we could be breathing in air that basically concretes our lungs over time.  Gasoline, when burned, theoretically just creates water vapour and carbon dioxide.  In reality, though, it also creates sulfuric acid and nitric acid which then cause acid rain (see http://www.petroleum.co.uk/how-hydrocarbons-burn), plus when gasoline doesn't burn properly but instead vents to the atmosphere in its raw form the chemicals cause strong smog (see http://www.aa1car.com/library/evap_system.htm).

I have no problem with people wanting to find ways to burn less hydrocarbons, to avoid these side-effects.

I agree with you, Mr. Analog, if there are changes it would be nice to try and predict the changes to make it easier to adapt.  If low-lying islands are going to disappear (we have some in Nova Scotia (I think?) that are expected to get swamped), that would be nice to know for people living there.  It's not going to happen overnight, though.  The big problem is that the computer models keep getting updated because they keep being proved wrong due to incomplete data.  So, should we trust computer models that keep being wrong?  Or should we gather more data before declaring our belief strongly in one thing or another?

[Tom]

I don't know if there will be any pain, but there will be changes. Growing seasons and what latitudes support what crops will change, people will migrate to better climates.

We might get seasons between winter and construction even!

I doubt many people will be able to migrate. You'll just be stuck in a new arid desert, flooded coast, or an area that gets many more insane storms.

The changes are likely to hit relatively quickly. It won't be easy for people to adapt to. It took decades for people to even consider it an actual valid argument rather than the ravings of some lunatics. In a few more decades we'll probably be another half a degree warmer, have more wild storms, and larger temperature deltas.

[Mr. Analog]

I don't know if there will be any pain, but there will be changes. Growing seasons and what latitudes support what crops will change, people will migrate to better climates.

We might get seasons between winter and construction even!

I doubt many people will be able to migrate. You'll just be stuck in a new arid desert, flooded coast, or an area that gets many more insane storms.

Please refer to the European border crisis, now imagine that on a much larger (yet slower) scale

[Tom]

I don't imagine most people (specially the poor-er people) will (or can) move till it becomes a natural disaster. I don't know what that is if it isn't pain.

[Darren Dirt]

There was a 30-year period of warming from 1910-1940, then a cooling from 1940 to 1970, just as CO2 emissions began to rise exponentially, and then a 30-year warming from 1970-2000 that was very similar in duration and temperature rise to the rise from 1910-1940. One may then ask ?what caused the increase in temperature from 1910-1940 if it was not human emissions? And if it was natural factors how do we know that the same natural factors were not responsible for the rise between 1970-2000.? You don?t need to go back millions of years to find the logical fallacy in the IPCC?s certainty that we are the villains in the piece.

^ this is the kind of thing that is rarely talked about, especially in the media, and thus known by very few average members of the public. The popular myth of "the facts are in, there's no more debate" is the reason why guys like this former president of Greenpeace can not stay silent anymore, and try to encourage at least some real honest open debate about this issue including stuff like the stuff quoted above. I especially mean the 30 years of cooling during 1940-1970 -- I don't recall the history books talking about global summits to push increases in CO2 emissions to make sure we didn't all endure another ice age...

Heck, Thorin's post above asks some simple questions that a junior high student would certainly be willing to either ask or look into the answer... and yet an adult can't do the same in the scientific community... 

...The big problem is that the computer models keep getting updated because they keep being proved wrong due to incomplete data.  So, should we trust computer models that keep being wrong?  Or should we gather more data before declaring our belief strongly in one thing or another?

Most of the computer models that are mentioned in the MSM are a single outlier out of dozens of  contradictory models. The only ones promoted by the media are those whose conclusions support The Narrative.

Same is true about a lot of other areas of study, sound bites and sensationalism are what sells and thus what makes the headlines. Complex truths and subtle relationships go over the heads of most of the audience that consumes the media, so they are either completely absent or else are distorted and summarily dismissed with great ease (as straw man arguments typically are)... It's like innoculation of the alternative viewpoints that go against the status quo -- now it becomes a lot tougher to even begin a discussion of the issue because Joe Public thinks the damn issue is already settled according to the experts etc.

[Mr. Analog]

Is it a factual statement though?

Where did the former president of Greenpeace get his facts, if we are to hold those as true.

[Darren Dirt]

Is it a factual statement though?

Where did the former president of Greenpeace get his facts, if we are to hold those as true.

I acknowledge that speech is really long, so it's hard to convince anyone to actually read through it I admit.

But it's definitely not just a bunch of random crap he made up on the spot. Look at the audience he was in front of: the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London. Surely those engineers would not sit silently if he was making up complete BS. Especially considering his background.

He clearly researched history, not just blindly accepting the status quo (which is what his former Greenpeace buddies would do, which is why he left Greenpeace! Because there was no room for facts or science or rational examination of the facts!)

I am sure the sources of his facts are easily findable, but I'm not the one to list them. But for example his reference to The Hockey Stick and its eventual revelation as a bunch of distorted BS = one example of something that is well known even in the MSM but of course the average member of the public has no idea of the follow-up events in this issue, they just know what Al Gore said in a movie once, etc. He also mentions multiple models, most of which do not show we are currently warming (compared to 1970-2000).


Bottom line is this is a complex issue with many variables, so there is no simple black and white measurement of cause-and-effect in this issue, but the MSM is promoting the myth that there actually is. And look at the past in science, plenty of theories had gotten cause mixed up with effect, and folks like the Greenpeace guy here in 2015 are pointing out that CO2 is one example easily seen -- historically its increase FOLLOWS an increase in temperature, not the reverse. And also based on history most likely it will decrease after a drop in temperature (of course, if there is a measurable drop right now vs. 15 years ago I am sure the MSM will say it is proof of the success of these global initiatives :sigh: ). And beyond historical numbers he also gives reasons why it makes sense why that happens (biology/geology reasons).

Anyway, it seems honest truth-seekers can have a simple look at some objective measurements from the historical past (including the last few dozen decades), OR they can rely on the predictions of the unknown future based on complex computer models that seem to all disagree with each other. I know which of these 2 choices I would lean towards if I was seeking truth in general. But at the very least I would hope that the former option would be allowed to be more heavily promoted in the MSM... Let the masses know it's actually not a cut-and-dry issue case closed.


(I mean, do most people even know that less than 100,000 years ago there was 1km+ of ice on top of most of North America? IMO the average person takes for granted the apparent stability of climate that we have right now in this period of history, yet do not know that even a couple hundred years ago there is on record major drops as well as major increases in temperature worldwide -- way before the industrial age. There's definitely some cyclical stuff going on here, you've got sunspot cycles, and earth tilt cycles etc. which might all be factors far stronger than CO2.)

[Mr. Analog]

All I'm questioning are his sources and where those facts came from

I also can't ignore his decades-long relationship with a political organization, which leads me to question his partiality on the matter (right or wrong)

[Darren Dirt]

All I'm questioning are his sources and where those facts came from

I also can't ignore his decades-long relationship with a political organization, which leads me to question his partiality on the matter (right or wrong)

I trust his partiality more because of his history:

Why then did I leave Greenpeace after 15 years in the leadership? When Greenpeace began we had a strong humanitarian orientation, to save civilization from destruction by all-out nuclear war. Over the years the ?peace? in Greenpeace was gradually lost and my organization, along with much of the environmental movement, drifted into a belief that humans are the enemies of the earth. I believe in a humanitarian environmentalism because we are part of nature, not separate from it. The first principle of ecology is that we are all part of the same ecosystem, as Barbara Ward put it, ?One human family on spaceship Earth?, and to preach otherwise teaches that the world would be better off without us. As we shall see later in the presentation there is very good reason to see humans as essential to the survival of life on this planet.

In the mid 1980s I found myself the only director of Greenpeace International with a formal education in science. My fellow directors proposed a campaign to ?ban chlorine worldwide?, naming it ?The Devil?s Element?. I pointed out that chlorine is one of the elements in the Periodic Table, one of the building blocks of the Universe and the 11th most common element in the Earth?s crust. I argued the fact that chlorine is the most important element for public health and medicine. Adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health and the majority of our synthetic medicines are based on chlorine chemistry. This fell on deaf ears, and for me this was the final straw. I had to leave.

When I left Greenpeace I vowed to develop an environmental policy that was based on science and logic rather than sensationalism, misinformation, anti-humanism and fear.

Sure those could just be words, but anyone who has done serious study of "political movements" and activism groups etc. knows that is a common evolution of the organizations -- it becomes an echo chamber of their own worldview, no alternatives allowed, no critical thinking or scientific analysis welcome.

So if he left because of that, his integrity as a rational scientist is proven... And I am sure other skeptics like yourself have looked into the numbers he quotes in his speech, and the Keeling curve of CO2 concentration, and the Milankovitch cycles etc... and of course if any/all of that is easily proven as bunk or distortion of facts then I would like to know that for sure.


(at the very least, to quote his own speech, when he is talking about a colleague who changed his mind because of FACTS: "it takes courage to change your mind after investing so much of your reputation on the opposite opinion")

[Mr. Analog]

...or he's an industry shill who works for a marketing company

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/06/27/who-founded-greenpeace-not-patrick-moore/

http://greenspiritstrategies.com/blog/

[Darren Dirt]

...or he's an industry shill who works for a marketing company

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/06/27/who-founded-greenpeace-not-patrick-moore/

http://greenspiritstrategies.com/blog/

He is not hiding the fact that he works for companies in the energy industry -- we all have to work for somebody to eat.


You can claim his motivations are to support/defend polluters, fine. That doesn't alter the truth or falsehood of the facts he brings up, nor negate the importance of just the questions that he raises.

And he has given similar speeches like that to the mechanical engineers, I am sure those facts he brings up could easily be proven made-up BS if that is what they were. He had also put his professional credibility on the line at a Senate hearing in February of 2014 -- and again, the questions he raises about recent historical facts are very reasonable, and go unanswered bu the IPCC

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/25/greenpeace-co-founder-no-scientific-evidence-of-man-made-global-warming/2/

Climate scientists, however, have been struggling to explain why global surface temperatures have not risen in the last 17 years and why atmospheric temperatures have been flat for the last decade.

?From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of [0.5 degrees Celsius] over that 30-year period,? Moore said. ?Then there was a 30-year ?pause? until 1970. This was followed by an increase of [0.57 degrees Celsius] during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature.?

?This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time...

Again, cause and effect might be getting mixed up here. If the claim is "increasing CO2 emissions directly causes (results in) a measurable increase in global temperature" then you would not expect to have a 10+ year period of time where there was an unquestionable increase in CO2 emissions resulting in NO increase in temperature (and possibly a slight decrease).

Basic science. You put out a cause-and-effect theory based on past experience knowledge observations etc, and you test that theory, and if you can cause a recurrence of the cause and you get the expected effect then it supports the theory (and requires further testing to confirm clarify etc.) BUT if you get the opposite of the expected effect then your theory is in need of major modification to say the least.


And that is just one aspect of the myth being promoted by the MSM. That is not even taking into account how much CO2 has historically been present over the last few hundred years, or millions of years, what is "optimal" based on what CO2 actually is, how it impacts life (especially plant life, and thus all other life), etc.

All the particulates in the air, smog, etc. as a result of polluters, that's not CO2. But most people are "see it so I believe it" when it comes to this, I think. There is a major confirmation bias, too, when it is a hot day or more tropical storms one season -- but they ignore some extreme cold winter periods etc. (or they blame that on global warming too). This planet has a long history, longer than just 50 or 150 years -- humanity has been around for a much longer time too, and has gone through some pretty hot and pretty cold times -- but nothing compared to millions of years ago (apparently. I wasn't there.)