Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
If the headline seems puzzling, try the article that follows it. We’re taken back to the imaginary world of atmospheric ‘blankets’, forgetting to mention that the methane content of our air is less than 2000 parts per *billion* (= 2 per million).
If the headline seems puzzling, try the article that follows it. We’re taken back to the imaginary world of atmospheric ‘blankets’, forgetting to mention that the methane content of our air is less than 2000 parts per *billion* (= 2 per million). – – – Most climate models do not yet account for a new UC Riverside discovery: methane traps a great deal of heat in Earth’s atmosphere, but also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat, says Phys.org.
Annual mean near-surface air temperature response to methane, decomposed into (a) longwave and shortwave effects; (b) longwave effects only; and (c) shortwave effects only. Credit: Robert Allen/UCR
Greenhouse gases like methane create a kind of blanket in the atmosphere, trapping heat from Earth’s surface, called longwave energy, and preventing it from radiating out into space. This makes the planet hotter. [Talkshop comment – according to what empirical evidence?]
“A blanket doesn’t create heat, unless it’s electric. You feel warm because the blanket inhibits your body’s ability to send its heat into the air. This is the same concept,” explained Robert Allen, UCR assistant professor of Earth sciences.
In addition to absorbing longwave energy, it turns out methane also absorbs incoming energy from the sun, known as shortwave energy. “This should warm the planet,” said Allen, who led the research project. “But counterintuitively, the shortwave absorption encourages changes in clouds that have a slight cooling effect.”
This effect is detailed in the journal Nature Geoscience, alongside a second finding that the research team did not fully expect. Though methane generally increases the amount of precipitation, accounting for the absorption of shortwave energy suppresses that increase by 60%.
Both types of energy—longwave (from Earth) and shortwave (from sun)—escape from the atmosphere more than they are absorbed into it. The atmosphere needs compensation for the escaped energy, which it gets from heat created as water vapor condenses into rain, snow, sleet, or hail.
“Essentially, precipitation acts as a heat source, making sure the atmosphere maintains a balance of energy,” said study co-author Ryan Kramer, a researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Methane changes this equation. By holding on to energy from the sun, methane is introducing heat the atmosphere no longer needs to get from precipitation.
Additionally, methane shortwave absorption decreases the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. This in turn reduces the amount of water that evaporates. Generally, precipitation and evaporation are equal, so a decrease in evaporation leads to a decrease in precipitation.
“This has implications for understanding in more detail how methane and perhaps other greenhouses gases can impact the climate system,” Allen said. “Shortwave absorption softens the overall warming and rain-increasing effects but does not eradicate them at all.”
Credit: airbus.com If the headline seems puzzling, try the article that follows it. We’re taken back to the imaginary world of atmospheric ‘blankets’, forgetting to mention that the methane content of our air is less than 2000 parts per *billion* (= 2 per million). – – – Most climate models do not yet account for […]
The federally-chartered regulator responsible for managing fisheries in the oceans of New England acknowledged that offshore wind farms could pose a threat to the local marine wildlife, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A federal fisheries council acknowledged that some power cables for offshore wind turbines could harm certain fish, according to a letter seen by the DCNF.
Multiple recent studies have demonstrated that a variety of commercially popular fish can be negatively impacted by their exposure to magnetic fields emitted by high voltage direct current cables, which can confuse their ability to navigate and in some cases leave them exposed to predators.
“We were previously aware of this study and agree that it has concerning implications for the possible effects of high voltage direct current cabling on larval behavior and resulting predation rates,” Thomas Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), said in a January 18 letter.
The federally-chartered regulator responsible for managing fisheries in the oceans of New England acknowledged that offshore wind farms could pose a threat to the local marine wildlife, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Thomas Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), noted the “concerning implications” of a study by researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, which found that the high voltage direct current (HVDC) power cables used by some offshore wind farms emitted magnetic fields that could hinder the ability of haddock larvae to navigate, according to a January 18 letter obtained by the DCNF. The negative impact on both the haddocks’ speed and ability to navigate could result in increased “predation” of affected fish.
Offshore wind farms typically utilize one of two cables to transport power back to shore, known as high voltage alternating current (HVAC) and HVDC, with the former preferred for short-range projects within roughly 30 miles of shore and the latter preferred for more long-range projects, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Multiplerecentstudies have demonstrated that a variety of commercially popular fish can be negatively impacted by their exposure to magnetic fields emitted by HVDCs, which can confuse their ability to navigate and in some cases leave them exposed to predators. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: As Whales Were Washing Up Dead, Enviros Quietly Sounded The Alarm On Offshore Wind)
Captain Jerry Leeman, who heads the fishing vessel Teresa Marie IV, sent a copy of the Norwegian haddock study to Nies in a January 9 letter. Noting the similarities between cod and haddock, he expressed concern that any proposed offshore wind projects off the Gulf of Maine would require cables to be routed through cod spawning grounds, which could expose them to predators and fishers alike, depleting the population.
“Thank you for your January 9 letter … . We were previously aware of this study and agree that it has concerning implications for the possible effects of high voltage direct current cabling on larval behavior and resulting predation rates,” Nies said in a January 18 letter. “While most projects off the Atlantic coast are planning for alternative current transmission cables, this is not uniformly the case, and we are uncertain about the types of cables that might be used for projects in the Gulf of Maine.”
The NEFMC is a federally-chartered group responsible for “conserving and managing fishery resources” off the coasts of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, according to its website. The council has 18 voting members, one of which is the regional administrator of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, a federal agency responsible for ocean conservation nationwide, and the remainder of which are state officials or appointees confirmed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“To be clear, we do not manage all activities in the Gulf of Maine – we manage many fisheries in the Gulf of Maine. The Council does not have a formal role in offshore wind permitting or regulation,” Nies said in a statement to the DCNF, noting that the regulator could only make definitive statements about approved projects. “We do comment to BOEM on wind projects to indicate our concerns as they relate to resources under our jurisdiction, based on our expertise in fisheries science and management.”
The NEFMC’s Submarine Cables Policy, which manages the cables that take offshore wind power to land, explicitly recommends an “early and often” approach to consultation with federal and state agencies to “ensure” that New England cable projects are constructed in a sustainable manner. While there is no explicit mention of high voltage cables, the policy forbids cables being placed “to the extent possible… in sensitive and important fish habitats,” such as spawning grounds.
AT SEA – JULY 07: Wind turbines generate electricity at the Block Island Wind Farm on July 07, 2022 near Block Island, Rhode Island. The first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States, the structures are located 3.8 miles from Block Island, Rhode Island in the Atlantic Ocean. The five-turbine, 30 MW project was developed by Deepwater Wind and began operations in December, 2016 at a cost of nearly $300 million. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
“The Council has not taken a position on the relative environmental effects of HVAC and HVDC cables,” Nies said in a statement, referring the DCNF to the agency’s Submarine Cables Policy. “Our policy focuses primarily on careful cable routing and burial, as well as appropriate monitoring and communication.”
While there are currently no active offshore wind projects in Maine, the state government received approval in January to move forward with a grant to deploy a dozen floating offshore wind turbines, according to the Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM). The BOEM is also currently heading a series of meetings to gauge private interest in offshore wind projects in the region, and the state government launched the Maine Offshore Wind Initiative in 2019 to promote the industry in the state.
“At this time, the draft Call Area is very extensive and covers a large area of the Gulf of Maine,” Nies told the DCNF, regarding the potential impact of projects in Maine. “Presumably some of these locations would be best serviced by HVDC cabling given the distances from shore.”
Roughly 16 million pounds of haddock, worth approximately $20 million, were fished commercially in the U.S. in 2021, according to NOAA.
Offshore wind projects have faced scrutiny from some environmental activists recently amid a rash of unexplained deaths of whales and dolphins on the east coast. The Biden administration in late February announced plans to accelerate federal investments in offshore wind projects, even as New Jersey environmentalists criticized the administration for dragging its feet in investigating offshore wind as a potential cause of the unexplained marine deaths.
Politicians ignoring the overwhelming emissions from China and India are bullying us on CO2.
Look at this graph:
If CO2 is the threat to the world we are told it is, What country is putting the lion’s share of the Co2 in the air? CHINA. Look closely at what has been happening in the US.
We are in the lower to middle part of the pack and along with the European Union have decreased Carbon emissions the fastest. Only we did it without the Paris accords hanging over our heads until the bullying Biden Administration got in.
That’s right, they are bullies. They hammer us constantly about our role and lead us on the path of self-destruction. In what world is it logical to allow your greatest competitor to build 2 coal plants a week, while you attempt to convert to a system doomed to fail that depends on that same competitor to supply the very ingredients needed for that transition, which by a mean of estimates would amount to close to 300 trillion dollars by 2050.
Never mind they are ignoring water vapor and the role of the oceans in the warming of the planet. via natural sources and the lag linkage to co2 jumps to the Super El Ninos.
That’s a completely different argument, that this is almost all naturally driven.
But assuming it is not, why do we have people bullying their own country?
What is it that they stand up to China on?
Covid?
Trade?
Child Labor?
Certainly not this, And quite the opposite given the verified data that the US is lowering emissions and is not nearly the contributor as China to whatever man-made co2 climate disaster they are dreaming up. It’s almost as if China has something on people that are in power. Why else would they do this?
And now that Greta Thunberg is out of her formative teenage years, would someone in the European Union have the guts to stand up to her bullying given the EU is also decreasing and like the US, at the expense of the standard of living.
But how in the world, if you simply look at these charts do you justify the bullying of your own people?
You know it’s likely our fault. We are softer and we do not actually look at the facts. So it is easy to fall prey to all this. But remember if there is prey, it leaves the door open for the predator, In this case, people seeking to take all that has made this nation great and destroy it, Because deep down inside, they believe in the authoritarian rule as they have in China is what mankind needs. And if its co2 that is being used as the instrument then even there, when it comes to the US, it is simply bullying of their own people while they let China do whatever it wants.
And btw, China is doing what is best for their country, as they should. The problem is the people running our nation are also doing that, and at the expense of their own country. And when it comes to co2 emissions, you can’t argue with the facts.
The way to counter this: EDUCATE YOURSELF. Go look at the facts. Then vote accordingly for whoever is closest to the idea that this is one nation UNDER God and all are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The agenda of the co2 bullies sets itself above your liberty and ability to pursue happiness.
Look at this graphic
If CO2 is the threat to the world we are told it is, What country is putting the lion’s share of the Co2 in the air? CHINA. Look closely at what has been happening in the US.
We are in the lower to middle part of the pack and along with the European Union have decreased Carbon emissions the fastest. Only we did it without the Paris accords hanging over our heads until the bullying Biden administration got in.
That’s right, they are bullies. They hammer us constantly about our role and lead us on the path of self-destruction. In what world is it logical to allow your greatest competitor to build 2 coal plants a week, while you attempt to convert to a system doomed to fail that depends on that same competitor to supply the very ingredients needed for that transition, which by a mean of estimates would amount to close to 300 trillion dollars by 2050.
Never mind they are ignoring water vapor and the role of the oceans in the warming of the planet. via natural sources and the lag linkage to co2 jumps to the Super El Ninos.
That’s a completely different argument, that this is almost all naturally driven. But assuming it is not, why do we have people bullying their own country? What is it that they stand up to China on? Covid? Trade? Child Labor? Certainly not this, And quite the opposite given the verified data that the US is lowering emissions and is not nearly the contributor as China to whatever man-made co2 climate disaster they are dreaming up. It’s almost as if China has something on people that are in power. Why else would they do this?
And now that Greta Thunberg is out of her formative teenage years, would someone in the European Union have the guts to stand up to her bullying given the EU is also decreasing and like the US, at the expense of the standard of living
But how in the world, if you simply look at these charts do you justify the bullying of your own people? You know it’s likely our fault. We are softer and we do not actually look at the facts. So it is easy to fall prey to all this. But remember if there is prey, it leaves the door open for the predator, In this case, people seeking to take all that has made this nation great and destroy it, Because deep down inside, they believe in the authoritarian rule as they have in China is what mankind needs. And if its co2 that is being used as the instrument then even there, when it comes to the US, it is simply bullying of their own people while they let China do whatever it wants.
And btw, China is doing what is best for their country, as they should. The problem is the people running our nation are also doing that, and at the expense of their own country. And when it comes to co2 emissions, you can’t argue with the facts. The way to counter this: EDUCATE YOURSELF. Go look at the facts. Then vote accordingly for whoever is closest to the idea that this is one nation UNDER God and all are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The agenda of the co2 bullies sets itself above God, limits lifem curtails liberty, and by doing so your ability to pursue happiness.
Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others” which you can purchase at the CFACT bookstore.
His new book The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate war can be found here. phonyclimatewar.com
Hoffman explained that China is offering African nations the opportunity to build up their electric grids via reliable fossil fuels, while the United States and western nations only offer opportunities to “transition” to unreliable wind and solar power.
CFACT’s Gabriella Hoffman appeared on Fox & Friends First to expose the hypocrisy of the Biden Administration’s Net Zero policies in regards to Africa and China.
Hoffman explained that China is offering African nations the opportunity to build up their electric grids via reliable fossil fuels, while the United States and western nations only offer opportunities to “transition” to unreliable wind and solar power. This further weakens the United States’ position in challenging China globally.
What’s more, is that the Biden Administration continues to turn a blind eye to the terrible working conditions of rare earth mining in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where child and slave labor under minimal safety regulations are a regular practice. This is used in order to obtain the minerals needed to build the electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries that are so essential to the “green” transition.
Biden’s energy policies have caused energy costs to rise across America, from natural gas to electricity, costing Americans more than $2,300 since entering office in January 2021.
Biden’s energy policies have caused energy costs to rise across America, from natural gas to electricity, costing Americans more than $2,300 since entering office in January 2021.
Over the Past Two Years:
Overall residential electricity prices increased by 17 percent
Industrial electricity prices rose 34 percent
Home heating oil prices increased by 88 percent
Oil prices rose 61 percent
Natural gas prices rose 51 percent
The price of gasoline rose by $1.15 per gallon, or 46 percent
Energy prices have continued to rise under President Joe Biden’s radical energy and climate agenda. In 2021, household electricity prices rose 8 percent. Electricity price increases accelerated even more in 2022, and have now risen 17 percent since December 2020, the last month before Biden took office.
Even with substantial 2021 price increases for all major energy sources, the price for each major energy source ended 2022 even higher than its 2021 closing price.
During the past two years, overall electricity prices rose 17 percent, industrial energy prices increased by 34 percent, home heating oil prices rose an incredible 88 percent, conventional oil prices rose by 61 percent, natural gas prices for residential consumers increased by 51 percent, and gasoline prices had risen $1.15 per gallon by the end of 2022.
Average Household Paid $2,300 More in Additional Direct Energy Costs
After two years of Biden’s energy policies, the average U.S. driver spent at least an extra $650 per year in higher gasoline costs, and $231 in higher electricity costs over the past two years. Households that use natural gas spent an extra $780 over the past two years, on average, and those using home heating oil paid a whopping $1,725 extra.
Since Biden entered the Oval Office, the average American household has suffered under the burden of approximately $2,300 in higher direct energy costs.
Additionally, these higher energy prices have been baked into the costs for all goods and services, especially food prices, and substantially contributes to inflation. With those costs in mind, it’s clear the Biden administration’s energy and climate policies have cost the average U.S. household—directly or indirectly—much more than $2,300.
Predictable Result of Biden’s Continued Assault on Domestic Energy
Rapidly rising energy prices are no accident. They are the predictable result of Joe Biden’s war on affordable and reliable energy. The Biden administration has implemented dozens of policies since he took office that have increased energy costs. In 2022 alone, Biden pushed the following policies:
Slow walking oil and gas leasing plans, missing legal deadlines by months
Threatening new windfall taxes on oil companies
Issuing the lowest number of energy production leases since the 1940s
Repeatedly canceling legally required oil and gas lease sales
Passing the first direct federal tax on methane emissions
Doubling rental fees on onshore leases
Increasing and introducing new fees associated with leasing
Increasing onshore royalty rates by about 36 percent
Reinstating the Hazardous Substance Superfund Financing Rate on crude oil and imported petroleum
The onslaught of policies that undermine U.S. energy independence shows no sign of abating anytime soon. For example, in March 2023, President Biden banned oil and gas production on millions of acres of federal land and on the U.S. outer-continental shelf.
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.
While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
The latest rebuttal of IPCC CO2 hysteria comes from Peter Stallinga in his 2023 publication Residence Time vs. Adjustment Time of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere.
One of the major points in discussion of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) scenario is the time the added carbon dioxide (CO2) stays in the atmosphere. In an extensive study, Solomon concluded that the residence time of carbon atoms in the atmosphere is of the order of 10 years [1], see Table 1. Such a short time would undermine the prime tenet of AGW, since a molecule of CO2 will not have time to contribute to any greenhouse effect before it disappears to sinks where it cannot do any thermal harm.
However, some claim that the residence time (the amount of time a molecule on average spends in the atmosphere before it disappears from it) is not relevant for this discussion; what matters is the adjustment time (or relaxation time or (re)-equilibration time), the time it takes for a new equilibrium to establish, the time constant seen in the observed transient, and, allegedly, these two are different. In a recent work, Cawley explains it as [3]
… natural fluxes into and out of the atmosphere are closely balanced and, hence, comparatively small anthropogenic fluxes can have a substantial effect on atmospheric concentrations.
In the current work, we use these exact two concepts, with turnover time called residence time. We also focus on first-order systems mentioned here by the IPCC. We discuss the difference between residence time on the one hand, and adjustment time on the other hand, and test the hypothesis that the adjustment time can be longer than the residence time by mathematical methods. After having addressed this core point, we perform a calculation based on the available data to see how they fit.
2. Residence Time and Adjustment Time (Methods, Data, Results and Analysis)
Figure 1. Two-box model of the carbon dioxide cycle. The top box represents the atmosphere, with a total carbon dioxide mass of 3403 Gt. Humans add 38 Gt per year to the system. Nature adds Fn+ and takes away Fn− to a sink represented by the bottom box. That sink has a total CO2 mass equal to S. The residence time in the atmosphere, τa is well known and estimated to be 5 years, the residence time in the sink τs is not well known.
In what follows, we will use a simple two-box first-order model, see Figure 1. The atmosphere has a mass of carbon dioxide equal to A. CO2 molecules can be captured into a sink and this occurs at a certain rate, a fraction of the molecules being trapped per time unit. Each individual molecule has a certain probability to be captured over time. In other words, a molecule has a residence time τa in the atmosphere (also sometimes called the ’turnover time’), which is the reciprocal of the rate, ka. Likewise, in the sink, there is a carbon dioxide mass equal to S, where molecules have a residence time τs; an individual molecule has a certain probability over time to be released by the sink into the atmosphere, or a rate ks.
Humans add an extra flux into the atmosphere labeled Fh. On the basis of this, we can determine the adjustment time τ of the atmosphere in terms of the residence times. This requires solving a simple mathematical differential equation; we do not have to worry at this moment about the thermodynamics and explain why the reaction constants are what they are. The questions we ask are, if we add an amount of carbon dioxide ΔA to it:
What are the new equilibrium values of A and S?
How long does it take to establish this new equilibrium?
Before injection of 100 into the atmosphere, the atmosphere-sink system was in equilibrium at 100 each, with the residence ‘times’ in both atmosphere and sink 1000 iterations. At each iteration A/τa is moved from atmosphere to sink and S/τs moved from sink to atmosphere. As can be seen, the observed adjustment time (relaxation time) of the system is 500 iterations, as predicted by Equation (9). After 500 iterations, the surplus quantity in the atmosphere relative to the new equilibrium has been reduced to 1/e, a level indicated by a horizontal dashed line. Further, a half-life can be defined, a time at which half of the transient amplitude has passed, t1/2=τln(2)= 347. This is indicated by a dotted line. (b) The adjustment time τ, as a function of the sink residence time τs, normalized by the atmospheric residence time τa. The dot indicates the value of the plot in (a), τs=τa, resulting in τ=τa/2 .
As can be seen, the adjustment time is shorter than the atmospheric residence time for all values of the sink residence time, with, for large τs, the adjustment time τ approaching the atmospheric residence time τa.
“individual carbon dioxide molecules have a short life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere. However, when they leave the atmosphere, they are simply swapping places with carbon dioxide in the ocean. The final amount of extra CO2 that remains in the atmosphere stays there on a time scale of centuries.”
Their flawed reasoning is that the adjustment time (relaxation time) is the massperturbation in the atmosphere divided by the flux balance, and, so goes the reasoning, while fluxes can be great (and the residence time short), the balance is close to zero and the relaxation time can then approach infinity.
3. Scenarios
We can now do a more detailed analysis based on the available data.
Table 2. Carbon dioxide facts, with the natural outflux Fn− derived from the mass in the atmosphere and the residence time. Other important parameters, influx Fn+, sink mass S, and sink residence time τs are less well known and should be considered adjustable.
The residence time in the atmosphere can be estimated quite well from the above-ground atomic bomb tests [1], which makes us happy that these at least served the purpose of advancing atmospheric science, if nothing else. The best estimate is about τa= 5 years [9]. Other references mention different times, with the IPCC mentioning the shortest (4 years) in their 5th Assessment Report (p. 1457 of Ref. [4]), showing that this value is not settled yet; we will use 5 years in this work.
The equilibrium amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is open for debate, but, for this purpose, we might use the consensus value of 280 ppm (A∗= 2250 Gt). To estimate the amount of CO2 in the sink is very difficult. However, there seems to be a general view that it is fifty times more than in the atmosphere,S=50A=113,400 Gt (relatively unchanged since pre-industrial times). Using the combination of these values does not allow for consistent bookkeeping, as the reader can easily verify. Something has to yield. In what follows, we will try out some scenarios based on specific assumptions.
3.1. Scenario: Pre-Industrial Atmosphere Was at Equilibrium
First we assume that the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm was indeed an equilibrium value with influx equal to outflux in the absence of human flux, as we are wont to believe, but that the mass in the sink S and the residence time τs in the sink are unknown.
Figure 4. Above-ground atomic-bomb explosions produced a lot of 14 C that stopped in the 1960s. From a fit (dashed line) of data from 1965, we find an adjustment time of τ = 14.0 a, and an amplitude of ΔA = 740, with a final value of A′∞ = 30. This enables stating that the sink must be at least 24 times larger than the atmosphere. Data from Enting (blue) found in a work of Perruchoud [11] and Nydal et al. [10] (green), extracted with WebPlotDigitizer [12].
It seems that the idea of the pre-industrial level stable at 280 ppm (with Fn+=Fn−at 280 ppm) is untenable. It seems very likely that the sink was already off-balance and emitting amounts of carbon dioxide at the beginning of the industrial era and the increase in the atmospheric CO2 at any time in human history is not solely due to human activity.
This would also explain the large pre-Mauna-Loa values found with chemical methods summarized by Beck [13] and Slocum [14]. For instance, values of 500 ppm have been observed around 1940. Ignoring these facts, on the other hand, would be equivalent to throwing entire generations of scientists under the bus.
[Comment: CO2 higher concentrations prior to 20th century are also indicated by use of plant stomata as paleo proxies for CO2 estimations.]
3.2. Scenario: The Sink Is Fifty Times Larger Than the Atmosphere
Next, we adopt the assumption that the sink at this moment really has 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, in other words, S=50A= 170,000 Gt, and release the restriction that the atmosphere was stable at 280 ppm; in pre-industrial times there can have been a flux imbalance.
We see indeed a tremendous outgassing from the sink in pre-industrial times. The system was far from equilibrium, with an imbalance being a net influx of F∗n+−F∗n−= 207 Gt/a. Where, at the moment, there is a net natural flux of 18 Gt/a out of the atmosphere, in pre-industrial times, in this two-box first-order model with a sink 50 times larger than the atmosphere, there was a net natural influx of 207 Gt/a.
Somewhere, we must have passed the equilibrium value and, considering the above numbers, this value must be rather close to today’s concentration of 420 ppm.
3.3. Scenario: Residence Time in the Sink Is Much Larger Than in the Atmosphere
If we only assume that the residence time in the sink is much larger than in the atmosphere, τs≫τa, then we can get a good idea of what has happened to our anthropogenic contribution to the carbon in the atmosphere, Fh, based on the two-box model.
Figure 3. (a) Yearly global CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels. (b) Cumulative emissions (integral of left plot). The yellow curve is the remainder of the anthropogenic CO 2 in the atmosphere if we assume a residence time in the sink much longer than the 5-year residence time in the atmosphere; in this case τs=50τa was used. (Source of data: Our World In Data [8]).
Figure 3 shows the yearly carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere (left panel; data source: Our World In Data [8]). The total amount so far emitted is 1696.5 Gt. The right panel shows the cumulative emissions, ∑yeariFh(i). If at every year we apply the fluxes according to Equation (1), then we can see at each year how much of the anthropogenic CO2 is still in the atmosphere. The right panel of Figure 3 shows this for τs=50τa.
We see that only 202.3 Gt of the total injected 1696.5 Gt is still in the atmosphere.
In these years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 ppm (2268 Gt) to 420 ppm (3403 Gt), an increment of 1135 Gt. Of these, 202.3 Gt (17.8%) would be attributable to humans and the rest, 932.7 Gt (82.2%), must be from natural sources.
In view of this, curbing carbon emissions seems rather fruitless; even if we destroy the fossil-fuel-based economy (and human wealth with it), we would only delay the inevitable natural scenario by a couple of years.
3.4. Scenario: Abandoning Constant Residence Times
We have seen here how the first-order-kinetics two-box model results in conclusions contrary to data. We could, of course, change our model. We could abandon the idea of first-order kinetics (where flux is proportional to mass), but that would be problematic to justify with physics.
We could also add more boxes to the system, distinguishing the sinks, or differentiating between deep ocean and shallow ocean, dissolved carbon dioxide gas, CO2 (aq), and dissolved organic carbon (sea-shells), or between CO2 disappearing in the oceans and being sequestered in biological matter on land, etc.
However, we expect the most likely improvement to the model to come from abandoning the idea that the residence times τa and τs are constant.
They, in fact, are very much dependent on temperature. As an example, the ratio between the two that tells us the concentrations (and, thus, the masses) between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and in the sink, if we assume this sink to be the oceans, is governed by Henry’s Law, and this concentration ratio is then dependent on temperature.
When including such effects, we might even conclude that the entire concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is fully governed by such environmental parameters and fully independent of human injections into the system. A is simply a function of many parameters, including the temperature T, but not Fh. It is as if the relaxation time is extremely short and any disturbances introduced by humans, or by other means, rapidly disappear, rapidly reaching the equilibrium determined by nature.
This fits very nicely with the recent finding that the stalling of the economy and the accompanying severe reduction in carbon emissions during the Covid pandemic had no visible impact on the dynamics of the atmosphere whatsoever [15]. The result of that research, the hypothesis that the carbon dioxide increments in the atmosphere were fully due to natural causes and not humans, fits the experimental data very well, and the hypothesis that humans are fully responsible for the increments can equally be rejected scientifically. This then also agrees with the conclusions of Segalstad that “The rising atmospheric CO2 is the outcome of rising temperature rather than vice versa” [16].
The pre-industrial atmosphere might indeed have been in equilibrium, and we are currently also in, or close to, equilibrium. That seems to us to be the most likely scenario.
Once we admit the possibility of non-anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, we can start finding out what they might be. Examples such as volcanic sources, planetary and solar cycles spring to mind. It might well be that the climate puzzle is solved in such areas as the link between solar activity and seismic activity and climate [17].
This is, however, not the focus of this work. We conclude here by summarizing the major findings of this analysis using a first-order-kinetics two-box model:
(1) The adjustment time is never larger than the residence time and is less than 5 years.
(2) The idea of the atmosphere being stable at 280 ppm in pre-industrial times is untenable.
(3) Nearly 90% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide has already been removed from the atmosphere.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was started by a criminal yet this is who governments point to for justification of country destroying climate policies.
The “Climate Crisis” is the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on Australians.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was started by a criminal yet this is who governments point to for justification of country destroying climate policies.
The question is, are the people who go along with the scam fools, or complicit?
From a speech to the Australian Parliament.
First published on the One Nation website on 24 March 2023.
Robert Bryce reports on the wealthy and shadowy push against domestic use of natural gas in his substack article The Dark Money Behind The Gas Bans. Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds and added images
The big-money donors behind the gas bans are hiding their identities, and their funding, behind an extensive dark money network.
Last Tuesday, Rewiring America announced that it has hired Georgia politician Stacey Abrams to help the group “launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric.”
In a press release, Abrams, who will hold the title of “senior counsel” said she is “excited to join Rewiring America to share the benefits of electrification and ensure families get their fair share. I look forward to working together as we build the tools that will transform everyday Americans from energy consumers to energy moguls.”
Stacey Abrams and Saul Griffith. Photo credits: Gage Skidmore (L) and Jeff Kubica.
Abrams, a Democrat who served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 11 years, ran for governor of Georgia two times but failed in both attempts against Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams famously refused to concede in the 2018 race and claimed the election was “stolen.”
Rewiring America is part of the NGO-industrial-corporate-climate complex that, as I reported here last month, is now spending some $4.5 billion per year to promote anti-industry policies. While their agendas vary, the anti-industry NGOs are generally trying to:
♦ mandate increased use of weather-dependent renewables, ♦ hinder (or stop) hydrocarbon production, ♦ prevent the construction of new hydrocarbon infrastructure, ♦ mandate building electrification, and of course, ♦ ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses.
As I explained in January, Rewiring America’s mission to electrify everything, ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses, (and gas stoves), is part of a years-long, lavishly funded campaign that is being bankrolled by some of the world’s richest people. But here’s the pernicious part: the big-money donors backing Rewiring America, and other groups pushing the gas bans, are hiding their identities behind a dark money network of NGOs that are purposely obscuring their funding and the groups they are bankrolling.
Although it is impossible to know exactly how much dark money is being shuffled among groups like the Windward Fund, Rewiring America, and others, my tally shows that just four of the dark money NGOs behind the gas bans have combined budgets of about $820 million. Thus, as you can see in the graphic below, by themselves, those four anti-industry groups are spending about 83% of the amount that is being spent by the top 25 NGOs that support traditional energy sources.
Indeed, despite claims from legacy media outlets about the influence of the hydrocarbon sector, the truth is undeniable: the overwhelming majority of the money, media coverage, and momentum in the debate over energy policy and climate change is on the side of the anti-hydrocarbon and anti-nuclear energy NGOs.
And one of their top priorities is banning the use of natural gas in homes and businesses.
On its website, Rewiring America cites Griffith’s 2020 book, which is also called Rewiring America, in which he claims “we can still address the threat of climate change, but only if we respond with a massive war-time mobilization effort to transform the fossil fuel economy into a fully electrified one, run on wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.”
Note the lack of any mention of nuclear energy. Also unmentioned: attempting to run the economy on weather-dependent renewables would require paving vast tracts of rural America with obscene numbers of noisy, 600-foot-high, bird- and bat-killing wind turbines and endless oceans of landscape-ravaging solar panels. Also unmentioned: attempting to electrify everything would require doubling or tripling the amount of electricity produced in the country, an effort that would require mining, smelting, and fabrication of staggering amounts of copper, steel, aluminum, and other metals. Also unmentioned: nearly all of the alt-energy supply chains depend on China.
Has Griffith or Rewiring America been lobbying federal officials? If it has, the group has not registered to do so. A search of federal lobby records for the U.S. House of Representatives shows no record for Griffith or Rewiring America. A similar search of lobby registration for the U.S. Senate turned up no records.
Windward’s flood of cash is not coming from foundations. Instead, most of it is coming from super-rich individuals.
The first listing on Schedule B of its 990 shows a donation of $59 million from an unnamed person. Other individuals kicked in sums of $24 million, $20 million, $16 million, $14 million, $13 million, $10.5 million, $10 million, $10 million, $9 million, $6 million, and $6 million respectively. Thus, more than two-thirds of the Windward’s 2021 revenue came from about a dozen unnamed plutocrats. Windward’s 990 also shows that it is giving grants to dozens of small climate-focused NGOs around the country.
Energy Foundation lists more than 100 staff on its website. Its board members include Gina McCarthy, who was a climate advisor to President Biden. Before that job, McCarthy headed the Natural Resources Defense Council, the giant anti-nuclear NGO that shamelessly cheered about its role in the premature closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York.
In an ironic statement, given the amount of dark money that is being deployed by the anti-industry industry, McCarthy claimed, “Now it has moved from denial, but the dark money is still there. The fossil fuel companies are still basically trying their best to make sure that people don’t understand the challenge of climate.”
There is much more to be written about the dark money that is driving the anti-industry industry, the unaccountable parasitic force that employs thousands of lawyers, strategists, pollsters, and fundraisers, who are pushing policies like natural gas bans. I will close this piece by recounting a claim Abrams made in the press release put out by Rewiring America last Tuesday.
She said that families across the country are living “too close to the economic edge,” and that “few understand how much money they can save with a little help to upgrade their homes and vehicles.”
Hogwash.
Banning natural gas and forcing consumers to buy EVs will impose regressive energy taxes on consumers. In addition to the high cost of replacing existing appliances with electric ones, the cost of operating an all-electric home is higher than that for a home that uses natural gas. As for EVs, good luck finding a Tesla in the barrio. An average EV now sells for about $66,000. That’s Benz and Beemer territory.
Last March, in the Federal Register, the Department of Energy published its annual estimate for residential energy costs. As you can see in the graphic above, on a per-Btu basis, electricity costs about 3.5 times more than natural gas. The fuel is, by far, the cheapest form of in-home energy, costing less than half as much as fuels like kerosene, propane, and heating oil. That point was bolstered again last October when the Department of Energy published its Winter Fuels Outlook, which predicted that heating with electricity this winter would cost about 46% more than heating with natural gas.
The DOE’s numbers make it clear that Rewiring America’s agenda of forced electrification will result in higher energy bills for consumers. And low- and middle-income Americans will pay the biggest price because they will be forced to spend a larger percentage of their disposable income on energy than wealthy consumers.
Abrams may have found a new job at Rewiring America. Good for her. But does she really understand the economics of what she will be promoting?
The facts are clear: attempting to electrify everything will impose new regressive taxes on the poor. And no amount of spin, or dark money, can change that fact.
There are different ways of looking at the issue of human inequality. The modern Left obsesses about inequality as measured in dollars of income. But if one measures inequality based on quality-of-life, it quickly becomes clear that we have achieved great progress toward equality on the things that really count. Much of that progress is at risk of reversal from imposition of the green dream.
By the time I was born in the late twentieth century, comforts that had begun in the exclusive domain of the very wealthy had long since become widely available to most hard working people. I’m thinking of things like cars and personal travel, but also small scale conveniences like in-home washers, dryers and dishwashers. All of these things, of course, were brought to us by the widespread access and affordability of electricity and fossil fuels.
But even as the baseline human experience improved, the Left has continued to campaign on the moral abomination that is persistent “income inequality.” This is “inequality” as measured by dollars of income and ability to buy super luxuries. The rich don’t just travel, they travel via yacht and private jet. And the cities where wealth accumulates, like New York and San Francisco, are, according to their own voters, the worst offenders. Former New York Mayor de Blasio campaigned, and won, on the theme of a “Tale of Two Cities,” the “inequality that increasingly divided New York along the fault lines of fabulous wealth and grinding poverty.” Guilty New Yorkers fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
It is true that New York is home to some of the wealthiest people in the world. But it is also true that the poorest people in the city still have widespread access to decent housing with heat, plumbing, food, and transportation — things that were out of reach to most poor Americans in the 19th or even well into the 20th century. They also have widespread access to electricity, and as a result many have televisions, telephones, and modern healthcare – things that did not even exist until the 20th century.
Throughout history, “poverty” once meant something very different from what it means in America today, and the difference in quality of life between the rich and the poor was stark. Being poor often meant living in one room shacks with inadequate access to food, while being rich meant living in mansions staffed with servants to attend to one’s every need. That’s what “income inequality” once meant, and that’s what income inequality still means in many parts of the developing world. Quality of life in America only started to change dramatically after the industrial revolution and the introduction of widespread electricity and fossil fuels. And the number one thing that keeps the developing world under-developed is its limited access to those two things.
But the same politicians and voters who don’t seem to have noticed how much better the human condition has been in America in the 21st century also haven’t realized how much worse it will be if they achieve their goal of eliminating human use of fossil fuels. In fact, the dream of ending “inequality” directly conflicts with the dream of ending reliance on fossil fuels.
Laws that restrict or aim to eradicate the use of fossil fuels take direct aim at the quality of life for America’s middle and lower classes — that forgotten group existing between “fabulous wealth” and “grinding poverty.” Laws that restrict fossil fuel usage will automatically raise the cost of electricity, meaning people will have to pay more for the same level of use or immediately start cutting back. The first people to make cutbacks will be those who live on the tightest budgets, the types who will notice if their annual heating bill suddenly goes up by $500 or even $1000. This is the average American, not the 1%, and it’s already becoming a reality in Europe: a friend recently confessed to me that her extended family in Italy had moved from two apartments into one for the winter because collectively they could only afford to heat one apartment. My friend thought that was a reasonable sacrifice to make to protect the climate. Might communal housing soon become an economic necessity for many?
Here are just a few things that we currently take for granted that will quickly become difficult to afford as fossil fuels get restricted: heat and air-conditioning, driving for leisure or for any purpose outside of commuting for work, taking family vacations. If electricity becomes exorbitantly expensive, people will be forced to cut back on lighting their homes and using their appliances. Then there are even bigger questions that have yet to be addressed: how will we farm without fossil fuels? How will we run a hospital and provide life-saving care without reliable electricity? Who can say what that will do to our access to food and healthcare.
But the bottom line is: When the eggs go up to $10, the middle class notices, but the wealthy won’t. When gas goes from $2.95 to $4.05, the middle class notices, but the wealthy won’t. The lower, middle, and upper-middle classes will be making cut backs for a while before any of the rich have to do the same.
It’s amazing how quickly we could find ourselves living in a world where the vast majority of people have become poorer, in the sense of struggling to meet their basic living standard, while only a few elites have access to the things we currently take for granted. We see that already in the celebrity poster-children for climate change, e.g. Leonardo DiCaprio, who continues to fly private and summer on a yacht in the Mediterranean, unaffected by the rising costs of fuel. This is not an outlandish claim or an impossibility, rather it would simply be returning to a meaning of “inequality” we had successfully left in the past.
The beauty of our freedom-based economic order has been closing that quality of life gap between the rich and the poor, but all the progress we’ve made to lift the living standard for ordinary people could be undone with the wave of a politician’s pen. And when that day comes, the Bill de Blasios and Bernie Sanders of the world won’t be responsible for solving inequality, they’ll be responsible for creating it.
Climate Realists of Australia
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