The Battle for the Truth about Climate Change

Anybody who declares that we must fight changes of climate thereby also declares that they are scientifically illiterate. Anyone who declares that we must fight climate change is also linguistically illiterate.

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Now Matt Ridley has done a great service to humanity by showing graphically that the increase of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide has led to a worldwide greening (see graph above).

http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-global-warming-versus-global-greening

He has used scientific data from Zhu and Mynemi that shows how the increases in Global Emissions of Carbon Dioxide have lead to a very welcome greening of the Planet. However he still declares defiantly that he is a Luke-warmer and that Carbon Dioxide warms the atmosphere.

I wonder if Matt would kindly explain how and by what means Carbon Dioxide warms the atmosphere. What in the first place does he as a writer and journalist mean by the word ‘atmosphere’? Once he has defined atmosphere it would be interesting indeed to see how this trace gas is supposed to warm the atmosphere in any way whatsoever.

We know already that even the most committed Warmists will not declare that Carbon Dioxide generates heat, and I am sure that Matt would not declare that, for that would be the height of stupidity. So he is left with only two options. There is the classical Warmist argument that Carbon Dioxide traps heat. Heat is defined as the transfer of kinetic energy from one system to another. Surely he has not fallen for that hot potato! How does one trap a transfer?

The final option of the Warmists is Back-Radiation. Yup! I grant you that there are eminent Physicists with whom I have corresponded, who declare that Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs outgoing Infrared and radiates every which way including downwards, ‘thus making the Lower Atmosphere hotter than it would otherwise be’.

These are the words of an eminent Physicist, who was prominent on an excellent series on the BBC. However her arguments were repudiated by Dr Philip Bratby, who said effectively that while radiation is emitted by all molecules at all temperatures in all directions there is only a net radiation (hence heat flow) from hot molecules to cold molecules. As long as there is a temperature gradient heat is transferred upwards by radiation through the atmosphere and none is transferred downwards. (This argument by two Physicists can be seen in full in my book ‘Climate for the Layman’ in one of the last Chapters, entitled ‘If You want Crap Science’.)

So where does Matt Ridley stand in this matter? Is there yet another way to warm the atmosphere that I wot not of? Since he has done such a splendid lecture to show the benefits of emissions of Carbon Dioxide, – how in fact the Skeptics are the true Greens, while the political Greens can be more correctly called Greenbacks, relying heavily and almost totally on vast funding, and whose so-called Green policies would only lead to a brown and dead world – can he now explain his stance on Global Warming of the atmosphere?

The Powers that be have given mankind coal and oil and gas in great abundance, the combustion of which also produces carbon dioxide, just as we humans with every exhalation produce Carbon Dioxide. The enemies of mankind however seek to confuse people by not distinguishing between smoke pollution and the clear gas of life Carbon Dioxide and the Carbon cycle. Of course we must renew our efforts to scrub smoke and to encourage the use of smokeless fuels, but in no way must we reduce the emissions of Carbon Dioxide into the Atmosphere which has led to a greening of the Globe, so ably demonstrated in his lecture by Matt Ridley.

Of course we must fight against pollution and for clean air, but in no way must we be confused into thinking that the clear gas Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant – only scientific, historical and linguistic illiterates think that way.

Anthony Bright-Paul

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