Over the weekend, Bill McGuire, an Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London, set X/Twitter afire with the following tweet, which foresees the “culling of the human population” as the “only realistic” way to address climate change — a tweet which he later deleted:
The issue of “overpopulation” has long been present in the climate science community, but is rarely discussed in public in the stark terms employed by McGuire. [emphasis, links added]
Yes, I put the word “overpopulation” into scare quotes because it is not a meaningful analytical concept but it is one with a lot of symbolic baggage.1
I don’t want to be too harsh on McGuire as he simply articulated what some in the climate science community actually believe and had the unfortunate experience of committing a Kinsley gaffe. The view that climate change is really about overpopulation is not that uncommon among climate researchers.
Let’s go back in time.
Writing in 1990, only two years after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created and two years before the Rio Earth Summit, atmospheric scientist and president of the National Academy of Engineering, Robert M. White2 warned that,
The climate warming issue has also become a surrogate for other agendas. . . [Proponents argue that] because population growth is at the root of the environmental pressures being experienced by the world, prospects for stabilizing the climate and arresting the deterioration of the habitability of the planet are hopeless, argue the proponents, without population control.
Indeed, writing just one year later, the late Stephen Schneider suggested several strategies for addressing climate change including “curtailing population growth” and
“in developing countries they involve forsaking fossil fuels as a basis for development, as well as dramatic slashing of population growth rates as a strategy for addressing climate change.”
Concerns about “overpopulation” inevitably involve stoking fears of too many poor people who are going to overrun those of us who live in wealthy countries.
Today that can be seen in the common tropes about climate-determined migration. The concept of “overpopulation“ is historically laden with racism and colonialism.
More recently, renowned climate scientist Michael E. Mann suggested that “the natural carrying capacity of the planet … is maybe a billion people.”3
The notion of “carrying capacity” is itself a Malthusian tell — a seemingly scientific metric often used to justify population policies or control based on a hard planetary limit.
Sayre (2008) observes the concept of “carrying capacity”:
“It is unclear whether the concept of carrying capacity has any content at all without the idealism, stasis, and numerical expression that have clung to it throughout its history. What is clear is that it is a very dull tool for understanding the complex interrelations of humans with the face of the earth.”
Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes was far more explicit when she recently lamented, “Eight Billion People in the World Is a Crisis, Not an Achievement. More people will not solve the problem of too many people.”
And along the same lines, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, explicitly connects his “planetary boundaries” concept to the work of neo-Malthusians Dennis and Donna Meadows of the Club of Rome (Limits to Growth).
Once you start looking, you will see that neo-Malthusianism is disturbingly common among prominent climate researchers. The notion of population management is never far behind — almost always focused on poorer countries.
The Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC in 2014 included an Easter egg for neo-Malthusians and degrowthers (shown below), by singling out population and economic growth as factors underlying increasing greenhouse gas emissions while ignoring the other two factors of the Kaya Identity (and far more important for decarbonization) — energy intensity and carbon intensity.
Following the release of the IPCC AR6 in 2021, Simon Lewis of University College London argued that the IPCC had changed course from the views expressed in AR5 and was no longer emphasizing population growth:
Such dangerous misunderstandings are no longer present in the summary report. Seven years on, these old “blame the poor” arguments increasingly seem like a relic of a previous age.
Of course, the IPCC does not always speak with one voice.
In a response to Lewis, Philip Cafaro, of Colorado State University, argues (for the “overpopulation project”) that the IPCC AR6 “censored” its conclusions on population growth and suggested that Lewis deserves a place in hell for his views — demonstrating continued disagreement about neo-Malthusianism and the vitriol that sometimes accompanies these issues.
In 2021 Suzanne Schultz, of Goethe University, observed more generally of the climate discussion:
“the transnational neo-Malthusian knowledge elite, which has been firmly anchored in the think tanks, institutions and networks of the population establishment for decades, is currently once again making its voice heard in the debate on climate change”
Neo-Malthusian sentiments have deep roots. The January 1972 issue of The Ecologist outlines a manifesto — emphasizing overpopulation and degrowth — which has reverberations a half century later.
The opening lines could easily have been written today:
“if current trends are allowed to persist, the breakdown of society and the irreversible disruption of the life-support systems on this planet, possibly by the end of the century, certainly within the lifetimes of our children, are inevitable.”
Many aspects of its “blueprint for survival” can also be seen today in demands of environmental activists, including within the climate science community, such as to “just stop oil.”
Similarly, the looming apocalypse which motivates the need for societal transformation has been moved from 2000 to when the world crosses various temperature thresholds.
The Honest Broker is written by climate expert Roger Pielke Jr and is reader-supported. If you value what you have read here, please consider subscribing and supporting the work that goes into it.
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My email to Bill McGuire:
To: w [dot] mcguire [at] ucl [dot] ac [dot] uk
Title: The Cull…
Greetings, Bill.
I’m going to be blunt with you, because your belief in a poorly-told and easily-disproved climate fairy tale has caused you to slip a cog. Cull people? Many steps too far. Allow me to educate you before your brand of ‘final solution’ catches on again and we end up with Holocaust 2.0.
If you’re not mortally embarrassed by your behavior after reading the below, you didn’t understand it. Reread it until you are and you do.
The AGW / CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, due to CO2) hypothesis has been disproved. It does not reflect reality. Keep in mind that everything written below hews to the fundamental physical laws, whereas AGW / CAGW implies rampant violations of the fundamental physical laws.
So, we have this email primer, then we have a more in-depth post:
https://www.patriotaction.us/showthread.php?tid=2711
… and at the bottom of that post is a paper which goes far deeper and disproves AGW / CAGW via multiple avenues.
The mathematical disproof of the AGW / CAGW hypothesis is trivial. The climatologists claim that AGW / CAGW is caused by their purported “greenhouse effect”, which is due to “backradiation”. Disprove “backradiation”, and their “greenhouse effect” falls, and with it, all of AGW / CAGW.
There are two forms of the S-B equation:
https://i.imgur.com/QErszYW.gif
[1] Idealized Blackbody Object form (assumes emission to 0 K and ε = 1 by definition):
q_bb = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4)
= 1 σ (T_h^4 – 0 K)
= σ T^4
[2] Graybody Object form (assumes emission to > 0 K and ε < 1):
q_gb = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4)
Climatologists misuse the S-B equation, using the idealized blackbody form of the equation upon real-world graybody objects. This essentially isolates each object into its own system so objects cannot interact via the ambient EM field, it assumes emission to 0 K, and it thus artificially inflates radiant exitance of all calculated-upon objects. Thus the climatologists must carry these incorrect values through their calculations and cancel them on the back end to get their equation to balance, subtracting a wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow from the real (but too high because it was calculated for emission to 0 K) ‘warmer to cooler’ energy flow.
The S-B equation for graybody objects isn’t meant to be used by subtracting a wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow from the real (but too high because it was calculated for emission to 0 K) ‘warmer to cooler’ energy flow, it’s meant to be used by subtracting cooler object energy density from warmer object energy density to arrive at the energy density gradient, which determines radiant exitance of the warmer object. This is true even for the traditional form of the S-B equation, because temperature is a measure of radiation energy density, per Stefan’s Law.
That wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow is otherwise known as ‘backradiation’. It is nothing more than a mathematical artifact due to the misuse of the S-B equation. It does not and cannot exist. Its existence would imply rampant violations of the fundamental physical laws.
Temperature is equal to the fourth root of radiation energy density divided by Stefan’s Constant (ie: the radiation constant), per Stefan’s Law.
e = T^4 a
a = 4σ/c
e = T^4 4σ/c
T^4 = e/(4σ/c)
T = 4^√(e/(4σ/c))
T = 4^√(e/a)
where:
a = 4σ/c = 7.5657332500339284719430800357226e-16 J m-3 K-4
where:
σ = (2 π^5 k_B^4) / (15 h^3 c^2) = 5.6703744191844294539709967318892308758401229702913e-8 W m-2 K-4
where:
σ = Stefan-Boltzmann Constant
k_B = Boltzmann Constant (1.380649e−23 J K−1)
h = Planck Constant (6.62607015e−34 J Hz−1)
c = light speed (299792458 m sec-1)
σ / a = 74948114.502437694376419756266673 W J-1 m (W m-2 / J m-3)
The traditional Stefan-Boltzmann equation for graybody objects:
q = ε_h σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4)
[1] ∴ q = ε_h σ ((e_h / (4σ / c)) – (e_c / (4σ / c)))
Canceling units, we get J sec-1 m-2, which is W m-2 (1 J sec-1 = 1 W).
W m-2 = W m-2 K-4 * (Δ(J m-3 / (W m-2 K-4 / m sec-1)))
[2] ∴ q = (ε_h c (e_h – e_c)) / 4
Canceling units, we get J sec-1 m-2, which is W m-2 (1 J sec-1 = 1 W).
W m-2 = (m sec-1 (ΔJ m-3)) / 4
One can see from the immediately-above equation that the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation for graybody objects is all about subtracting the energy density of the cooler object from the energy density of the warmer object.
[3] ∴ q = (ε_h * (σ / a) * Δe)
Canceling units, we get W m-2.
W m-2 = ((W m-2 K-4 / J m-3 K-4) * ΔJ m-3)
You will note that σ = (a * c) / 4… the S-B Constant equals Stefan’s Constant multiplied by the speed of light in vacua divided by 4.
[4] ∴ q = (ε_h * ((a * c) / a) * Δe) / 4 = (ε_h * c * Δe) / 4
Canceling units, we get J sec-1 m-2, which is W m-2 (1 J sec-1 = 1 W).
W m-2 = (m sec-1 * ΔJ m-3) / 4
The Stefan-Boltzmann equation in energy density form ([3] above):
σ / a * Δe * ε_h = W m-2
σ / a = 5.6703744191844294539709967318892308758401229702913e-8 W m-2 K-4 / 7.5657332500339284719430800357226e-16 J m-3 K-4 = 74948114.502437694376419756266673 W m-2 / J m-3.
Well, what do you know… that’s the conversion factor for radiant exitance (W m-2) and energy density (J m-3)!
It’s almost as if the radiant exitance of graybody objects is determined by the energy density gradient, right?
Energy can’t even spontaneously flow when there is zero energy density gradient:
σ [W m-2 K-4] / a [J m-3 K-4] * Δe [J m-3] * ε_h = [W m-2]
σ [W m-2 K-4] / a [J m-3 K-4] * 0 [J m-3] * ε_h = 0 [W m-2]
… it is certainly not going to spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient.
Note 2LoT in the Clausius Statement sense:
“Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.”
‘Heat’ is definitionally an energy flux, thus equivalently:
“Energy can never flow from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.”
That “some other change” typically being external energy doing work upon the system energy to pump it up the energy density gradient, which is what occurs in, for example, AC units and refrigerators.
Remember that temperature is a measure of energy density, equal to the fourth root of radiation energy density divided by Stefan’s Constant, per Stefan’s Law, thus equivalently:
“Energy can never flow from a lower to a higher energy density without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.”
Or, as I put it:
“Energy cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient.”
My statement is merely a restatement of 2LoT in the Clausius Statement sense.
Do remember that a warmer object will have higher energy density at all wavelengths than a cooler object:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPJ94.png
… so there is no physical way possible by which energy can spontaneously flow from cooler (lower energy density) to warmer (higher energy density). ‘Backradiation’ is nothing more than a mathematical artifact due to the climatologists misusing the S-B equation.
The above completely destroys AGW and CAGW, because they are predicated upon the existence of “backradiation” (radiation spontaneously flowing up an energy density gradient) as the causative agent for the climatologists’ claimed “greenhouse effect”.
The takeaways:
1) The climatologists have conflated their purported “greenhouse effect” with the Kelvin-Helmholtz Gravitational Auto-Compression Effect (aka the lapse rate).
2) The climatologists claim the causative agent for their purported “greenhouse effect” to be “backradiation”.
3) The Kelvin-Helmholtz Gravitational Auto-Compression Effect’s causative agent is, of course, gravity.
4) “Backradiation” is physically impossible because energy cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient.
5) The climatologists misuse the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation, using the idealized blackbody form of the equation upon graybody objects, which manufactures out of thin air their purported “backradiation”. It is only a mathematical artifact due to that aforementioned misuse of the S-B equation. It does not and cannot actually exist. Its existence would imply rampant violations of the fundamental physical laws.
6) Polyatomic molecules are net atmospheric radiative coolants, not “global warming” gases. Far from the ‘global warming gas’ claimed by the climatologists, water acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle‘ sense) below the tropopause. CO2 is the most prevalent atmospheric radiative coolant above the tropopause and the second-most prevalent (behind water vapor) below the tropopause.
These people are nut cases. The countries that are reducing their birth rates are the ones most advanced economically and the heaviest users of fossil fuels. It is the poor countries, who use dung for fuel, that have the highest birth rate.
Want to cut the birth rate of these poor countries? Let them develop fossil fuel usage and develop free-market capitalism (as opposed to crony capitalism). Even China is seeing a decline in their birth rate even though they practice a form of pseudo-capitalism.
Okay we start with those band of nutcases and work all the way through the bands of useful idiots and we reach Paul Ehrlich