As part of their return to paganism, leftists are determined to save Mother Earth from the parasite that is humankind.
According to the leftists, our parasitism comes from the fact that beginning with the Industrial Revolution and with accelerating speed as we built First World economies on fossil fuels, we poured so much CO2 into the atmosphere that we literally changed Mother Gaia’s climate. [emphasis, links added]
Even worse, we did so in a way that primarily affects marginalized people of color, women, and the gender confused.
But what if the evidence shows that the Industrial Revolution and subsequent fossil-fuel reliance didn’t trigger a massive CO2 increase? Well, we may find out.
Health Physics sounds like a new-age magazine dedicated to the health-giving properties of vegan or bug diets. It’s not, though.
Instead, it’s a peer-reviewed medical journal founded in 1956 to study radiation safety and radiation’s role in healthcare. So, while I can’t vouch for its quality, I can vouch for its serious, not foolish and trendy, nature.
In February 2022, Health Physics published a little-noticed study that recently received so much attention, the publisher removed the paywall behind which the article previously hid. [CCD covered this study when it was first published in Jan 2022 but is worth reiterating.]
The article’s title is mind-numbing: “World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018).”
The three authors are all academics in the field of radiology with ties to the University of Massachusetts Lowell (something I figured out here.)
According to the study, it is true that CO2 began to increase a bit with the Industrial Revolution. However, the increase in CO2 because of human fossil fuel use has been negligible and could not have caused the climate to change.
Here’s the authors’ abstract:
After 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution, the anthropogenic fossil component and the non-fossil component in the total atmospheric CO2 concentration, C(t), began to increase. Despite the lack of knowledge of these two components, claims that all or most of the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been due to the anthropogenic fossil component have continued since they began in 1960 with “Keeling Curve: Increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuel.” Data and plots of annual anthropogenic fossil CO2 emissions and concentrations, C(t), published by the Energy Information Administration, are expanded in this paper.
Additions include annual mean values in 1750 through 2018 of the 14C specific activity, concentrations of the two components, and their changes from values in 1750. The specific activity of 14C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO2, which is devoid of 14C, enters the atmosphere. We have used the results of this effect to quantify the two components.
All results covering the period from 1750 through 2018 are listed in a table and plotted in figures. These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component.
We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. (Emphasis mine.)
There are two actual, stubborn facts to note. First, the Earth’s climate has been changing without pause since it came into being. Indeed, the Earth is incredibly dynamic.
I live near the South Carolina coast. Although I’m several miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, there is sand everywhere. That’s because my neck of the woods used to be the bottom of a primeval ocean.
In the same way, the Sahara Desert was once a verdant primeval forest. The Earth’s climate changed, and humans adapted because that’s what they do.
Second, plants need CO2. I happen to know some (legal) marijuana growers who pump CO2 into their indoor crop to facilitate its growth. More CO2, not less CO2, is good for human beings.
That leftists are so terrified of something that makes food more, rather than less, available for people across the planet tells you everything you need to know about their long-term agenda for humankind.
The favored people will live in comfortable enclaves with good food of the type routinely served at World Economic Forum gatherings.
The rest of us will be at the mercy of painfully hot or cold weather and survive on a diet of bugs and lab-grown sludge.
Read more at American Thinker
I aver this study is flawed because atmospheric CO2 cycles completely out of the air every 6 years or so and is replaced by CO2 from the other carbon sinks, like the oceans, the soils, the biosphere.
Dave Burton is correct when he says, “Well, CO2 is a strong GHG, but there’s already so much of it that additional CO2 has only a slight warming effect.” The warming effect of CO2 is a declining logarithmic curve. When people say that CO2 is a weak green house gas, they are referring to increases from the current concentration.
The important point is what this tells us. If additional carbon dioxide is not going to have a lot of impact, then there is no reason to make big sacrifices to lower our emissions.
I advocate for 800ppm CO2 for better C3 plant growth to support more human and animal life on our planet. Based on reading about 300 CO2 enrichment — C3 plant growth scientific studies since 1997. They typically CO2 enriched to 600 to 800ppm. I know greenhouse owners typically CO2 enrich to 1000 to 1500ppm, so that range is probably better than 800ppm, but the studies I read rarely exceeded 800ppm. … CO2 is the staff of almost all life on our planet. Above 400ppm (now at 420ppm), CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas, as determined by accurate spectroscopy measurements in laboratories. Data are located in MODTRAN and HITRAN databases. 800ppm CO2 will harm no one.
This whole Global Warming/Climate Change scam has been going on
since the 1990’S just about the same time as that Save the Rain
Forest Scam but back in the 1970s it was Global Cooling and a New Ice Age was coming and liberal rags like Time and Newsweek was giving it Top Coverage
Andrea Widberg has been a consistently good writer at American Thinker but she failed this time, It is a common conservative myth that very little of the CO2 in the atmosphere originated from manmade CO2 emissions. In fact, the entire +50% increase of atmospheric CO2 since the mid-1800s, from 280ppm to 420ppm in 2023, was from manmade CO2 emissions Those emissions are estimated at about +250ppm of CO2. In fact, the atmospheric CO2 level increased by +140ppm. Where did the other 110ppm of manmade CO2 go? It was absorbed by nature (oceans, land and plants)
There are only two players in the CO2 game: Man and Nature.
Man added a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere, Nature absorbed about half of it
That’s the end of the story.
People who falsely claim manmade CO2 did not cause the +140ppm CO2 rise, or only caused a small percentage pf it, are misinformed. They are NEVER able to explain where the 250ppm of manmade CO2 emissions went, if not into the atmosphere. And they are NEVER able to explain what else would have caused a +140ppm rise of atmospheric CO2. Most important is these science deniers make it very difficult to refute the false claims of a coming climate crisis, by attacking the small portion of climate science that leftists get right.
What would today’s CO2 concentration be if we never burned fossil fuels? You don’t know, because you can’t know.
You’re right.
It would be about 280 ±10 ppmv.
If, despite the CO2 shortage, we were nevertheless at current temperatures, it’d be more like 290 ±10 ppmv.
Dave Burton knows.
The TMOSPHERIC CO2 level varied between about 180ppm and 280ppm in the 800,000 year Vostok, Antarctica ice core climate reconstruction.
For the past five years, science deniers ignore my two question challenge about why the +250ppm of manmade CO2 emissions did NOT increase atmospheric CO2, and what did increase atmospheric CO2 if NOT those manmade CO2 emissions. Evading those two questions is only proof that conservatives can not refute the claims made by about 99.9% of scientists living on our planet (that humans added +50% to the 1800s CO2 level). When you oppose 99,9% of scientists, you MUST provide an alternate, logical explanation. Conservative science deniers have failed to do this for the past five years, that I know of. … My goal for the past 25 years has been to refute climate change scaremongering. Conservatives who can’t understand the most basic climate science — where CO2 came from — undermine that effort. We are losing the climate propaganda war. We can never win that war by mindlessly claiming leftists are 100% wrong about climate science. They may be 90% wrong, but they are not 100% wrong. When conservatives attack the 10% that leftists get right, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
I completely agree, except that I object to calling people who irrationally deny that adding CO2 to the atmosphere increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere “conservatives.” I’m the most conservative person I know, and you have it on my authority that true conservatives value honesty, humility, and rationality. In fact, IMO, the single most important core “conservative value” is simple honesty, and an absolute dedication to the Truth… even (or especially!) when that means admitting error.
“Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.” – M. Scott Peck, “The Road Less Traveled”
Irrationality, and stubbornly refusing to learn when that means admitting error, are not “conservative” characteristics.
“If an honest man is wrong, after being shown his error he either stops being wrong or stops being honest.” – unknown (related by Andre Bijkerk)
Scripture teaches that God hates that which is false. So there are very few circumstances under which lying or defending lies is justifiable.
The classic counterexample is:
“Fräulein, are you harboring any Jews?” (because God hates murder)
Arguably another might be:
“Honey, do I look fat?” (because God hates divorce, too)
The bottom line is that, except in the very rarest of extraordinary circumstances, conservatives are supposed to stick to the truth.
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” – Albert Einstein (presumably paraphrasing Luke 16:10)
Dave, honesty is virtuous. Conservatives lose elections to liars. The EPA declared CO2 a pollutant and tens of millions of voters accept that (lie). When you say publicly that we’re “guilty” of contributing 140ppm CO2 to the “existential threat” , the socialists are going to club us with it. Thanks
You’re exactly right, Richard.
The Skrable paper upon which this article is based is 100% wrong. Oddly, it sometimes seems to be paywalled, and other times not. Anyhow, I found the paper, and all five of the “comment on” papers responding to it in the same journal, and put them all on my web site, here:
https://sealevel.info/Skrable2022/
I have a video for you…
https://principia-scientific.com/the-best-climate-clip-ive-ever-seen/
Allan, Ive just forwarded this clip to Australia’s energy minister, Chris Bowen.
I also sent the cllp featuring Mark Mills “The energy transition delusion” -Inescapable mineral realitites.
It would be better to send the Youtube link. Anyone savvy about the climate issue who sees that principia-scientific URL will dismiss it as crackpottery, because everything they produce is codswallop.
They did not produce this video, they just linked to it, and it’s actually quite good. So it would be a shame if Mr. Bowen deleted your email without watching the video because he mistakenly thought it was by the Principia-Scientific crackpots.
Hi Allan,
I wrote about this video here. https://climatechangedispatch.com/greenland-ice-cores-show-temps-were-much-warmer-4000-years-ago/
Cheers, Tom
The link takes you to a file directory listing. Also, please explain the far higher levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution that goes back millions of years. Or the higher levels of CO2 than now during past Ice Ages? CO2 is a weak GHG and is being used as a boogeyman to implement global system change. It is literally blamed for everything.
TR wrote, “The link takes you to a file directory listing.”
You are correct. The https://sealevel.info/Skrable2022/ link goes to a file folder containing the final paper, the preprint, the five “comment on” responses, and a few other odds and ends. The five responses are well worth reading.
TR asked, “Also, please explain the far higher levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution that goes back millions of years.”
I believe you’re asking why, over millions of years, the CO2 level has declined. The answer is Life. We are carbon-based life forms, as are all plants and animals, and all the carbon in carbon-based life comes, directly or indirectly, from CO2 in the atmosphere. Much of that carbon is returned to the atmosphere, e.g., when plants and animals rot, but some is not. Some is sequestered for the long term in trees and peat bogs, or the very long term in calcium carbonate shells and bones which sink to the bottom of the ocean.
TR asked, “Or the higher levels of CO2 than now during past Ice Ages?”
I assume you mean during the last glacial period. We know from ice cores that CO2 levels vary about 90 ppmv over glaciation cycles. People who’ve done the math have estimated that about half of that was probably due to the change in ocean water temperatures: cold water absorbs gases, and warm water releases gases. That leaves the question of the other half, and there are a couple of different published hypotheses which might explain it. One is that advancing ice sheets bury (and prevent from rotting) a lot of carbon in the form of vegetation and soil.
TR wrote, “CO2 is a weak GHG and is being used as a boogeyman to implement global system change.”
Well, CO2 is a strong GHG, but there’s already so much of it that additional CO2 has only a slight warming effect. The best evidence is that the warming is benign, and the CO2 is highly beneficial, especially for agriculture.
So CO2 is like manna? comes down to Earth and feeds us. I believe that Earth is the source of CO2 and the atmosphere merely redistributes it. The more the better.
Can we please stop using the word “greenhouse” ? A greenhouse is a structure. Carbon dioxide at .04% of the atmosphere is not a structure, or a membrane or a blanket. I say that the CO2 molecules above us, encountering a small fraction of light energy from more than one direction, share that energy to its neighbour molecules. It’s a hand off, a lateral. The net flow of heat radiation out to space does not reverse.
Richard… the whole hypothesis of CO2 causing global warming, hence climate change has been debunked logically, experimentally, mathematically, and empirically.
Richard please show us the proof of AGW.
You completely misinterpreted the paper’s results. It’s a long paper and quite thorough. As the Earth left the Little Ice Age, previously frozen permafrost and other regions began thawing, and the oceans began warming (1.55°F since 1910), all releasing more CO2. In fact, soil releases about 9x the amount of all man-made CO2 put together. Insects even more. We will never know because we don’t have a “control planet” to test against. Sorry, Venus and Mars don’t cut it. The only one denying science is you (I hate that term, btw).
Richard Greene did not misunderstand it. We know the amount of CO2 in the air, and from that we can tell by how much the amount of CO2 in the air increases each year. We also know about how much CO2 mankind emits. Those two pieces of information are sufficient for us to deduce that “Nature” (the net sum of all natural sources and sinks) is removing CO2 from the air, rather than adding it.
That means ALL the increase is due to human CO2 emissions. If it weren’t for the human CO2 emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would be falling, rather than rising.
The most important point I can make is that humans have added a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere, and it has been 100% good news:
Greening of our planet
Better growth of C3 photosynthesis plants
Warmer winter nights in Siberia and Alaska
Warmer winters in SE Michigan where I live, with a lot less snow to shovel off our driveway!
After 25 years of climate science reading, I have identified only one problem with manmade CO2 emissions: They benefits of more CO2 are offset when modern pollution controls are not used. Hydrocarbon fuels do pollute without modern pollution controls. Only nuclear and hydro are green power sources, because they do not require hydrocarbon backup power plants like solar and wind do.
You’re entirely correct, Richard.
Interestingly, even the most important C4 crops benefit from elevated CO2. The four most important C4 crops are corn (maize), sugarcane, sorghum and millet. All four benefit from elevated CO2, under at least some common circumstances.
Here’s a paper about corn:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192310003163
Here’s one about sugarcane:
https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/pubag/downloadPDF.xhtml?content=PDF&id=32236
Elevated CO2 is especially beneficial for crops which are under drought stress, because it makes plants more water-efficient, by improving CO2 stomatal conductance relative to transpiration. C4 crops like sorghum and millet are often grown in arid regions because they are very drought-resilient. So they’re often grown in the conditions under which extra CO2 is most beneficial. Here’s an article:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2811-africas-deserts-are-in-spectacular-retreat/#:~:text=a%20survey%20among%20farmers%20shows%20a%2070,recent%20years.
Excerpt:
https://sealevel.info/Pearce2002_Africas_deserts_are_in_spectacular_retreat_screenshot01.png
I’m not a big fan of hydroelectric power, however. Nuclear is generally better. The big dams needed are environmentally disruptive, and, historically, hydroelectric dams are the most dangerous way to generate electricity.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%28worst+%7C+deadliest%29+%22dam%22+%28collapses%7Cdisasters%7Cfailures%29
The natural carbon cycle is huge and our contribution to it might be growing, but Earth is going to be fine.
The notion that the Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the end is preposterous. Reparations? No way . The Industrial Revolution started in England with the steam engine. That lead to steam ships. Every place in the world that England touched since that is better off for it. Humans should be trusted with the stewardship of Earth’s health. We’re the smartest of the animal kingdom. The mentally ill who have risen to spurious heights of influence on the Left are NOT the humans who should be anywhere near the controls. Depose them.
Sonnyhill, fully agreed, thank you!
Have you any explanations as to how the AGW scam, the worst since Soviet Communism, has gained such slavish conviction amongst educated as well as ordinary people, including President Biden?
The potential cost of inevitable failure are costing billions, risking terrible damage to the West.
The AGW scam piggybacks on environmentalism. I can remember asking a youngster, more than 20 years ago, about the three R’s. I meant reading, writing and arithmetic. She replied about Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Those were her priorities. Environmentalism is warm and fuzzy while the other stuff is hard work. They are not mutually exclusive, but hard work is for the Third World, apparently. Climatology is the front row ticket here.