A thesis becomes political ideology
By Klaus MuellerEpoch Times German Staff
May 31, 2007
A campaigner dressed as a polar bear in Grosvenor Square near the U.S. Embassy as part of global protests calling for world leaders to act urgently on climate change. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)
Are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions the cause of global warming? In Germany, a scientist may still perform critical analysis to prove or disprove this assumption, though time is probably running out. The desired results have already been determined.
Looking Back at Environmental Modeling
Until a few decades ago there was no discussion about global warming, on the contrary, 32 years ago in Newsweek magazine (U.S.), an article warned about the imminent danger of an ice age. Most scientists were convinced until the mid-seventies that a new ice age was approaching.
In his 1976 book The Cooling, Lowell Ponte, writer and journalist wrote: "This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."
A Hidden Agenda?
What is causing the current global warming? CO2 is a word that is constantly repeated. Most politicians and the media leave no doubt about the CO2 problem.
However, the problem arises when opposing opinions are suppressed, or even denounced because of a hidden agenda. This occurs when a large manipulative campaign is launched, based on such an agenda. Why are dissenting scientists being threatened and/or losing funding?
Gordon Brown, the aspiring future British prime minister, announced recently the importance of establishing a "new world order" to fight global warming. He also declared that the U.N. should make global warming a priority of its international mission (BBC 1/19/2007).
Dr. Myles Allen from Oxford University warns: "It is ludicrous to suggest that the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro-managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."
Politicians rarely offer opposing opinions. An exception to the rule is Czech President Klaus who stated to the Hospodářské Noviny on February 14, 2007, regarding the CO2 debate, "This is a wrong myth and I think that every sincere individual and scientist would agree with this … but, it is certain that this environmental activism is the modern reincarnation of communism."
Carbon Dioxide and Nature
Prominently, CO2 is food for plants and a fertilizer that is stirred up by the air. It is not-toxic. Rising CO2 rates since the beginning of the industrial revolution helped produce, for example, an increase of 61 percent in wheat harvests and increased vegetable production by about 51 percent (Idso et al. in 2003). Likewise, it was found that with rising CO2 rates, plants are more stress-resistant and need less water. Thus, seven billion people can be fed today.
The "Hockey Stick Chart": Much-disuputed now, it was the basis for many anti-C02 opinions. (IPCC)
Manipulation or Statistical Error—The Hockey Stick Graph
The current hypothesis is actually an outcome of the so-called "hockey stick" graph, which is the result of Michael E. Mann's scientific investigation of global warming.
This graph appeared for the first time in 1998 in Nature magazine, and was published in 2001 in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. It is suggested that the steep rise in temperature was caused by higher concentrations of CO2 due to industrial development.
Other scientists, especially Professor McIntyre of the University of Guelph in Toronto, demonstrated that this graph is based on wrong data assumptions and incorrect selection of statistical procedures.
Warming as Factor or Fertilization
There is one reason that the bristlecone pines is a questionable indicator of global warming. The above-mentioned carbon dioxide fertilization during the last century caused accelerated growth of the bristlecone pines. Therefore, the main reason for the increase in the number of bristlecone pines is CO2 fertilization and not global warming.
In the aforementioned "hockey stick" graph, the medieval global warming between 950 and 1450 was ignored completely. Yet, it still was published without this data in the 1996 U.N. report.
In 2006, Mann admitted for the first time that his graph was inaccurate for the period before the year 1400 and that this phase was not represented quite correctly. Nevertheless, politics won't allow further deliberation concerning this issue.
Global Warming Deception - Part II
Fact or Fiction, An Inconvenient Truth
Increasing temperatures in Greenland? During the 1920's and 1930's it was much warmer than today...(Chylek et al.)
"For all intents and purposes, politics is to keep the populace alarmed, so they demand safety measures. They are bombarded by an endless array of imaginary hobgoblins..." H.L. Mencken, publicist and author 1880-1956.
"By far the most terrifying movie you will ever see," ad line for Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth.
False Assertions
Building a vision of horror requires powerful pictures. Let's begin with the now almost snow free Mount Kilimanjaro, the silent stone witness of glacier melting caused by carbon dioxide (CO2 1 ). Unfortunately this is far from the truth.
The melting of the glaciers began before 1880, when the CO2 content, due to early industrialization, had barely increased from 280 to 290 ppmv (a millionth of a part in volume.) Therefore, CO2 is not the culprit. Actually, the glacier was reduced from 20 square kilometers to 12 square kilometers between 1880 and 1910. Since then the acceleration of melting, despite rising CO2 levels, slowed down until 2004 when it was a mere 4 square kilometers. (Kaser et al. 2004)
The glaciers seem to be no more than a remaining phenomenon of a past colder period.
In the 20th century there also was no uniform temperature increase associated with a simultaneously strong CO2 increase. Mirroring other areas, the temperatures in Greenland's capital city Nunk/Godhab were higher between 1920 and 1940 (first graph). Afterwards, the temperatures dropped worldwide until about 1975. Despite huge manufacturing levels before and after the war, CO2 did not reach new highs. However, as discussed in Part I, scientists were warning of an approaching ice age until 1975.
Deforestation and Humidity
It has been proven that the melting of glaciers began more than 100 years ago. This change was caused by drier air streams, causing less precipitation to feed the melting glaciers and ice. This is the result of a global deforestation. The earth had 70% more forested areas than now.
Contrary to "An Inconvenient Truth," Nairobi was never free of malaria. (WHO)
Gore's movie also claims that Malaria did not exist in Nairobi and only started due to warming in recent years. Between 1920 and 1940, malaria outbreaks in Nairobi were nothing special and quite common.
The re-emergence of malaria is less connected to CO2 than to the increased use of the insecticide DDT. Flies which transmit malaria are developing a greater resistance to DDT, because it was not applied or targeted correctly.
Background–Medieval Warming
Records tell of a warming stage when temperatures were 1.5 and in some cases even 3 degrees Celsius higher than now between 950 and 1450 in Europe. Even, the non-existent winter of 2006/2007 was nothing compared to those years when cherry trees blossomed around Christmas.
Greenland would not have been called "green land" by its discoverers and settlers, the Vikings, if they had not found green pastures and meadows. Even the Bermuda Triangle was about 1 degree Celsius warmer 1,000 years ago.
Cause and Effect
CO2 causes global warming according to the United Nations report and Al Gore's movie claims. Is this for certain? Not at all.
Many scientists don't agree with this contention. The global warming theory claims that increasing CO2 concentration results in increased temperatures. Gore's movie presents a temperature curve covering the last 650,000 years and depicts 4 previous warming stages but glosses over important facts—each of those warming stages was warmer than today, even though there were lower CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. There is another decisive factor, first temperatures increased then CO2 increased, exactly the opposite of today's CO2 theory.
Research reveals that the increase of CO2 concentration always follows a rise in temperature and not the other way around, as currently promoted.
The Human Factor
How does man actually fit into the production of CO2? Much more important than man are volcanic eruptions and CO2 releases from the oceans. People being the main cause of increasing CO2 levels is frankly one of the biggest myths of the current myth-rich science.
Before the industrial revolution, CO2 accounted for 288 ppmv. In the year 2000, total CO2 increased to 369 ppmv, but the part caused by humans accounted for only two to four percent of the increase. The remaining 96-98 percent increase was caused by nonhuman activity.
Are Storms Increasing in Number and Intensity?
The German weather service "Donnerwetter.de" carefully examined seven different subjects relating to climate change and wrote the following concerning storm and weather cycles:
"Again, the subject of increasing storms and associated intensity… Actually the number of storms and hurricanes [in Europe], from a historical perspective has been very low during the past few years. While there were around 40 hurricanes in 1550, the number dropped to 20 during the 18th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries the number fluctuated between 10 and 20 hurricanes. During the last few years it was quite calm. Especially after 1995 the number of hurricanes dropped notably. The allegation is clearly wrong!" [1]CO2, as defined by the Farlex dictionary, is a heavy odorless colorless gas formed during respiration and by the decomposition of organic substances; absorbed from the air by plants in photosynthesis.
Global Warming Deception - Part III
A Greenhouse Without Glass
A cloud-filled night sky could predict a warming trend, while clear nights bring a cooling trend.
This is the third in a series of three articles. Please also read Global Warming Deception—Part I and Global Warming Deception—Part II
During the last century an Austrian politician and dictator was supposed to have said that a lie becomes believable if repeated often enough.
How often have we all heard or read the mantra "Greenhouse Effect?" It has become our constant fear-inducing companion and has metamorphosed into one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.
In retrospect, in considering the CO2 fraud, the most absurd of all absurdities is the so-called Greenhouse Effect—because it defies any basis in physics and is thus easily discredited.
The Traditional Greenhouse Theory
This theory assumes that the temperature inside a greenhouse, within its glass walls, rises when the sun's heat waves pass through the glass, heating the air. The heated air rises to the roof where it is prevented from escaping, thus warming the space. This represents the greenhouse effect theory in a nutshell.
This is Newton's Law of Cooling, which depends on some type of limiting boundary (the glass greenhouse) to operate. At night, natural heat loss occurs by convection and conduction through the glass, also according to Newton's Law.
The Swedish Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius built a greenhouse in 1896 to predict future ice ages. He proposed that the heat buildup in a greenhouse was based on the concentration of CO2, which he believed enveloped heat. Almost all scientists, particularly leading German scientists from the Kaiser Wilhelm-Max Planck Institute, as late as 1970, considered this random speculation.
Using Arrhenius' model, all greenhouse operators could merely add additional CO2 to their greenhouses and they could turn off or use smaller space heaters during the cold seasons!
However, scientific treatises and scientifically "correct" colleagues at the "Club of Rome" have since revisited this theory, bringing it back to life.
Greenhouse Reality
The so-called and actually perceivable greenhouse effect in a real greenhouse can thus only be attributed to a lack in air exchange (convection). Replacement of warm air by cold air does not readily happen. That is the reason a greenhouse cools down slower than the surrounding area, thus behaving exactly according to Newton's Law. That's all there is!
Besides, a greenhouse effect presumes a closed system, which simply does not fully exist in a greenhouse and certainly not with planet Earth. There is no definable border from the Earth to the cosmos—in the final analysis both are part of the same system.
That is why the "natural Greenhouse Effect" does not exist.
Water Vapor or CO2?
According to research, water vapor accounts for two-thirds of the ongoing heat absorption on Earth. Just like a blanket of clouds. Nevertheless, according to calculations by the U.N.'s IPCC, (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) this process is not happening. Since the IPCC panel deems the effect of water vapor simply too difficult to calculate and predict, they must call on other culprits, foremost CO2, but also CO, ozone and fluorocarbons.
To be blunt, it appears that two-thirds of the hypothetically assumed Greenhouse Effect's factors are not taken into consideration. Since they do not appear in any calculations, they make for an easy conclusion by anyone with a sound mind.
CO2—Catching Minos in a Shark's Net
Why is it that CO2 or other gases cannot contribute to heat absorption? CO2 does have the potential to store heat, but there is another consideration which collapses the reasoning behind the CO2 Greenhouse Effect. There is this law of physics: liquid or solid bodies, i.e. oceans, clouds and earth, emit and absorb energy via a spectrum of rays. Gases such as CO2 can only selectively absorb or emit energy, a fact easily verifiable in any elementary chemistry textbook.
Based on the aforementioned facts, the Greenhouse Effect does not exist; neither in a garden greenhouse nor on Earth. To put it more directly—even if the atmosphere consisted of 100% CO2, the Earth's atmosphere would be unable to heat up as claimed; it is impossible according to the law of physics. So, that leads to another principle of physics.
The ABCs of Physics
Certain elements are heavier than air, and others are lighter than air. Some elements rise, like a helium balloon at a carnival, having a molecular weight of 4. Others descend, such as CO2 which has a molecular weight of 44, while air is only 29. That means CO2 naturally concentrates near the ground, where plants can derive nourishment.
By contrast, in the upper atmospheric regions where CO2 is accused of wreaking havoc, the CO2 concentration lowers to under 10 ppmv (parts per million by volume). These findings were discussed extensively in the 1980s in the journal Nature when it was still possible to publish such research results.
In a nutshell, the CO2 shell Arrhenius had postulated does not exist. CO2, for all intents, does not exist in the atmosphere where people imagine the Greenhouse Effect to be.
What is CO2's significance in the atmosphere?
As discussed in a prior article, CO2 constitutes a mere 0.038 percent of the atmosphere. Human CO2 production accounts for a mere 3 percent of the total CO2. Then what influence would we notice if worldwide CO2 levels were reduced by 10 or 20 percent? Such a reduction would have no effect whatsoever, since given the Earth's age, the portion of CO2 is uniquely low; during other Earth ages it was much higher. Actually, during the carbon era, our Earth saw a value as high as 6,000 ppmv. Yet life continues.
Entitled to Know Reality
The environmental political debate for a reduction of CO2 is a distant Utopian goal. In actuality, for over a decade, hysterics about climate changes have brought no practical solutions. An actual reduction is actually undesirable, but the menacing specter has to be kept alive.
All this continues, despite the 2003 Berlin Ministry of Ecology's pronouncement regarding CO2, "…such scenarios are not prognoses, but merely a broad spectrum of assumptions for future developments and their accompanying influences affecting global climate." They conveniently left the back door wide open.
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