Bryce in WSJ: Five Truths About Climate Change

Robert Bryce has a must-read-at-once-and-blog-about opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, where he states Five Truths About Climate Change. Here are the five truths (excerpts):

1) The carbon taxers/limiters have lost. Carbon-dioxide emissions have been the environmental issue of the past decade. .... Here's a reality check: During the same decade that Mr. Gore and the IPCC dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5%. ....
2) Regardless of whether it's getting hotter or colder—or both—we are going to need to produce a lot more energy in order to remain productive and comfortable.
3) The carbon-dioxide issue is not about the United States anymore. Sure, the U.S. is the world's second-largest energy consumer. But over the past decade, carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. fell by 1.7%. ... Meanwhile, China's emissions jumped by 123% over the past decade and now exceed those of the U.S.
4) We have to get better—and we are—at turning energy into useful power. .... Nearly all of the things we use on a daily basis—light bulbs, computers, automobiles—are vastly more efficient than they were just a few years ago. ....
5) The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere.

Take that! The stupid tree-hugging people who wanted to cut emissions to save of from "the climate catastrophe" lost, and the rest of humanity won! Anyhow, whether there is a problem or not, we still need more energy. That is still much more important than any alleged climate threat. Other countries are  increasing their emissions, so why would we have to do anything? Devices are becoming increasingly more energy efficient, so we are going to want more devices and hence more energy in the future and cannot reduce emissions even if we wanted to. Finally, if Einstein - who was a bloody genius - can be wrong, why would we believe anything that those pesky climate scientists say? Or any scientists for that matter.
The whole thing reminds me about the discussion of pros and cons of slavery (before it was abolished). Now, I know that what I'm about to write might seem a bit politically incorrect, and I want to emphasize that I'm not advocating slavery (though I think it is important that we are allowed to discuss the issue). That most people think that slavery is wrong today is besides the point - we are considering the perfectly valid perspective of slave owners in the past. So here are five truths about slavery, as they might have been seen during the first half of the 19th century:

1. The abolitionists have lost! There are actually more slaves that 10 years ago!
2. We are going to need more slaves in order to remain productive and comfortable
   
3. Slaves are not just about the United States. Other countries, like Russia, have them too.
4. We are getting better at breeding and using the slaves.
5. Newton has been proven wrong so the science is not settled about slavery. (I couldn't write "Einstein" here, because he wasn't born yet.)

Note that the above are not my personal views: they are just intended to illustrate the soundness of Bryce's five points by means of a historical analogy. And as a matter of fact, the alleged slave problem eventually solved itself, without the need for any "slave taxes" or any world governance. The explanation is simple: during the second half of the 19th century, industrialism made slavery obsolete. The former slaves became happy employees. And if there really is a climate problem, I'm sure that it will also soon be solved by itself, without any "carbon taxes" or world governance.

However, if we would try to reduce emissions, it would likely destroy industrialization, and we would have to resort to slavery again. So to be against Al Gore is actually to be against slavery!

Salby demolishes AGW theory

From that excellent blog Climate Etc, I have learned about a new paradigm-shifting scientific article by climate professor Murry Salby from Macquarie University. Well, strictly speaking it is a pod cast from a talk Salby gave at a policy forum of the Sydney Institute, so we cannot see Salby's graphs and other data, but nevertheless, it is important enough to warrant a discussion. Heck, the less data the more to discuss!

The Earth’s carbon cycle is not a topic on which I have any expertise. Therefore, I instead give you carbon cycle expert Andrew Bolt's summary of Salby's results:

Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.
But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are – the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa – which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages.

Wow.

Wohohow!

Yippiyayayayay!

Wobedobedoboo!

If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science. And I see no reason why it shouldn't hold up. It is sufficiently important that we should start talking about these issues. We can certainly do that without any graphs and other data. That just makes the discussion so much more open-minded and skeptical!

In the unlikely event that Salby turns out to be wrong, I can always write a post about that. If I can find the time.

Here are a couple of points we can discuss:

• Is it temperature that is driving CO2, and not the other way around?
• Does this mean that human CO2 emissions are insignificant? That they neither influence the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (or elsewhere) nor the temperature?
• Will the Team ever admit that they faked the hockey stick? Will there ever be reconciliation between skeptics and fraudsters? How long time should Michael Mann from Penn State serve in the State Pen?
• Why is Al Gore buying seaside real estate?

Here is some of my favorite data. As can be seen from this graph, CO2 and temperature are uncorrelated, and hence CO2 cannot drive temperature. This is an argument we skeptics always have made, and now we have been vindicated.

This graph on the other hand shows how well temperature and CO2 correlate. This is evidence that temperature is driving CO2.

Of course, the alarmists will try everything to wreck Salby's argument. For your benefit, this is how they can be countered. Think of the atmosphere as a bank account, and carbon dioxide as money.

The alarmist says: we know that human activities emit carbon dioxide. Yes, even more carbon dioxide than the increase in the atmosphere.

We answer: There are many people who deposit and withdraw money from the account. If the balance of the account goes up, how could be possibly tell that is was because a certain person made a deposit? Especially if we don't know how much each person deposits and withdraws? It is completely impossible. Same thing about carbon dioxide. There are many processes that add to or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But, says the alarmist, where does the human carbon dioxide go? Does it just disappear?

We reply: Haven't you heard about taxes? Money disappearing nobody knows whereto? It is the same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, argues the alarmist: Where does the added carbon in the atmosphere come from then? It is also increasing in the oceans and the biosphere.

We reply: Economic growth. Capitalism and free markets generate more money. Same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, grovels the alarmist, if a temperature increase of less than one degree C increases CO2 from 280 to 380 ppm, then the CO2 concentration during ice ages (around 6 degrees colder than now) must have been negative. That is impossible!

We reply: there is noting strange about negative numbers. Have you ever heard about debts? The kind of thing that your reckless liberal over-spending policies are causing all the time? Same thing with carbon dioxide. During the ice ages, there was a carbon dioxide debt. That's why there were not trees growing on the ice. Trees need carbon dioxide.

That should make the alarmists shut up, one can hope. Unfortunately, they don't really understand economy, so they may not get it after all.

Quote of the Millennium

Over at Whats Up With Watts, I found the following wonderful quote from Australian arch alarmist Tim Flannery:

Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.

Reading that quote, any sane person has to ask himself: if it takes up to a thousand years for Earth to cool after our CO2 emissions, what is the bloody point of cutting those emissions? It simply doesn't make sense! It just has to be a scam! As Anthony Watts comments:

Crikey! So much for the “think of the grandchildren” argument used by Dr. James Hansen.

This reminds me of an encounter I had with another Gaia-worshipping tree hugger a while ago. I and some friends had gone to an ancient oak forest near where I live, bringing our chain saws. We wanted to make a really big  bonfire to celebrate Man's Dominion Over Nature Day, and we thought that those oaks would make the perfect fuel. However, after we had felled a few of the oaks, a man came up to us and called out:
"What are you doing? Why are you felling those oaks?"
I responded: "We want to make a bonfire."
He said: "But this forest is protected. You cannot do that!"
I responded: "I don't think that we are doing any harm to those oaks. It is only natural for them to burn."
He cried: "Are you mad? It will take many centuries for oaks like those to grow back again!"
Whereupon I replied: "Centuries? Are you telling me that even if I and my merry friends stopped cutting down oaks right now, it would take many centuries for the forest to grow back?"
He said: "Yes! We would have to plant new oaks to replace those lost, and they grow very slowly."
So I laughed at the poor imbecille: "Why should I stop cutting down these oaks if it doesn't make a difference until after many centuries?"
Whereupon I and my friends continued to fell oaks.

The moron who had harassed us with his idiotic nature-worshipping ramblings apparently felt so humiliated by the crushing intellectual defeat he had suffered that he had phoned the police as a petty act of vengeance, but that's a different story.

Nos ardere quercus

Update: also see Bishops Hill and Steven Goddard. And here is a cartoon by Josh:

And what the heck has felling trees got to do with diminishing forests?

Ken Ring on CO2

New Zealand space scientist and long-range weather and earth quake forecaster Ken Ring explains that carbon dioxide molecules are heavier than air molecules and fall to the ground.

Venus is hot!

A number of brilliant blog scientists have recently disproved the drug-induced theory that Venus is hot due to carbon dioxide. Yes, Carl Sagan was high on drugs when he came up with the theory, just like he was high during most of the recording of the TV show Cosmos (as one can notice). There are also good reasons to suspect that the artist Botticelli was high when he made his famous painting of Venus (to the left). Like those flowers floating around in the air.

Here I will propose a new and revolutionary theory about why Venus is so hot. The explanation starts at Earth. Look at the authentic photograph to the left (from the blog science blog Whats up With That). It depicts a weather station positioned in a car park covered with asphalt. It is well know that asphalt makes a place much warmer - asphalt alone can probably account for at least 65% of the alleged warming of Earth during the past century. Yet only a small portion of Earth is covered by asphalt. The situation on Venus is different: the entire planet is covered by asphalt. That is enough to increase the temperature on Venus by many hundreds of degrees Kevin! Venus is like one planet-wide car park from hell!

But what about the carbon dioxide? When asphalt (which mainly consists of carbon hydrates) gets hot, it gives away carbon dioxide. So the high temperature is the cause of the carbon dioxide, not the other way around, just like on Earth (remember the ice cores). As usual, the climate scientists have confused cause and effect.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

Correlation - what correlation?

The graph to the left shows the global temperature according to NASA (in degrees Kevin, red line) and the CO2 measurements (parts per millions) from Manua Loa (a volcano)!

The temperature is really completely flat, while the CO2 is going up a tiny tiny bit.

This simple graph disproves two of the most egregarious lies of the IPCC cabal: (1) it is getting warmer and (2) the warming is due to CO2. There is clearly no correlation between temperature and CO2! The increase in CO2 is instead caused by the medieval warming period: as we know from the ice cores, CO2 lags 800 years behind temperature.

Using the current CO2 levels as a proxy for past temperatures, we can also conclude that it was about 100 degrees warmer 800 years ago, a period of great prosperity when they built the great cathedrals in Europe, Richard Lionheart (to the right) defeated the islamofascists, Chinese fleets sailed around the Arctic ocean and the Inca and Aztec civilizations were at their peaks. If 100 degrees Kevin was so good for humans 800 years ago, why should we worry about a couple of tens of degrees during the 21st centuries? Only the bedwetting ninnies and nincompoops of the IPCC watermelon (green outside, red inside) fruit sallad could object, because they hate humankind!

Ceterum censeo IPCCem esse delendam!