Fossil Fuel is “Green Energy”

co2

We have today one of the most astonishing examples of a regression in scientific education.  It used to be common knowledge and taught in schools at all levels that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a vital, airborne plant food, but it is currently being condemned as being a “pollutant” because many people have come to believe, due to a massive disinformation campaign, that higher levels of this plant food would be harmful to the biosphere.  So pervasive, so effective is this ongoing disinformation campaign that it is now considered by many to be a moral imperative for humanity to abandon the use of its primary source of energy—burning hydrocarbons—because doing so produces CO2.

Let me say that again.  So pervasive, so effective has been the campaign that has demonized CO2—the gas that feeds the biosphere—that it is now generally accepted that humanity has a moral obligation to limit its production of it, even if doing so would cause a profound regression in global economic development!  They say that they have “science” on their side but do they?  Let’s review what science “knows” and what it doesn’t.

Science knows that plants using the energy present in sunlight through a process called photosynthesis combine carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) to form carbohydrates (CH2O) and expel free oxygen (O2)—the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe.

What does the word “carbohydrate” mean?

Carbo – refers to carbon

Hydrate – refers to water

The chemical formula is well known and is often taught in elementary or middle school.

CO2 + H2O + photons → [CH2O] + O2

co2-chart

This is a chart of what science knows about historic, optimal and current levels of atmospheric COin parts per million. The dark green line at 4,000 ppm is where the CO2 level have been in the Earth’s distant past when plant growth was much more robust and dense forests covered much of the Earth’s surface. The light green line at 1200 ppm is where the CO2 level needs to be for optimal plant growth.  The bottom yellow line at 400 ppm is the current atmospheric concentration of CO2.

True scientific knowledge is based on empirical experimentation and extensive scientific experimentation has demonstrated that ~1200 ppm is the optimal CO2 level for robust plant growth.  So well-established is this knowledge that owners of greenhouses spend a lot of money pumping CO2 into their greenhouses to achieve CO2 concentrations in excess of 1000 ppm in order to augment the rate at which they can grow their produce.  Never the less for some odd reason many people have come to believe that it is a moral imperative to keep CO2 levels from returning to that level.

Not being satisfied with just stopping the return of CO2 levels to that would be optimal for robust global plant growth, these same people even insist that humanity should develop CO2 sequester methods to decrease the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere!  Let me repeat that.  There are people in this world who, even though CO2 levels are ~300{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} lower than optimal levels for robust plant growth, insist that humanity should develop methods of artificially reducing the atmospheric concentration of this vital airborne plant food.

“Unless we are able to rapidly turn that around and return [CO2 levels] to below 350 ppm this century, we risk triggering tipping points and irreversible impacts that could send climate change spinning truly beyond our control.” 350.org

This is in spite of the fact that we have already seen an expansion in global biomass just from the increase in the CO2 levels that occurred during the 20th century.

globe

This image, produced by Boston University/R. Myneni, shows in color the percent change in leaf area over the last 35 years because of the increase in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration from ~350 ppm to ~400 ppm over that period—the darker the green the higher the percentage of foliage.  These people want to reverse this “greening” of the planet because they say that they care about the biosphere!!??

Why, you should rightly ask, do these people, who fashion themselves as being environmentalists, want to inhibit the Earth’s ability to grow plants at an optimal level?  What do they have against robust plant growth?  They operate on the premise of two beliefs, two unproven (some say disproven) scientific hypotheses: 1) the first belief is in a scientific hypothesis called “climate sensitivity” that postulates that a doubling of atmospheric levels of CO2 will cause a 2-4 °C increase in the average global temperature; 2) the second belief is the strange notion that a 2-4 °C increase in the average global temperature would be a bad thing.  Based on these two beliefs they say that in order to save the biosphere we have to prevent CO2 from returning to levels that would be optimal for robust plant growth!!??

Let’s look at the first of these two beliefs—“climate sensitivity”—again keeping in mind that CO2 levels will have to double twice from pre-industrial levels (quadruple) in order for atmospheric levels to return to the optimal level for robust plant growth.

It is an axiom in science that a hypothesis cannot be used to prove itself.  That is, just because a scientific hypothesis exists does not mean that it is true.  The “scientific method” requires that a hypothesis be verified by testing it in the real world.  Ergo, the hypothesis that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels (from 280 ppm to 560 ppm) will cause an increase of 2-4 °C in the “average global temperature” cannot be tested empirically until it actually happens, which at CO2’s current rate of increase will not occur for another 80 years.  Scientists living at that time can then retake the “average global temperature” and see what it is.  (This, of course, depends upon whether or not you accept the validity of the concept of “average global temperature”, which has been debated.)

Since we will then only have one data point—one doubling of CO2 levels—that reading will be meaningless, not only because you cannot draw a valid scientific conclusion based on only one data point, but because there are many natural forces that combine to determine what the surface level air temperature will be over time.  To say that changes in surface level air temperature over time are exclusively the doing of changing CO2 levels is scientific malpractice.  Beyond that, valid science requires that an experiment be repeated for verification.

Thus CO2 levels will have to double again to 1120 ppm, which by the way is the optimal level for robust plant growth, before another temperature reading can be taken in order to test empirically a second time the effect of doubling the concentration of CO2 on the “average global temperature”.  CO2’s current rate of increase is ~2 ppm/year.  At that rate the concentration of atmospheric CO2 for optimal plant growth will not occur until after the passing of 7 centuries!

Let me state the obvious, no one living today can know the actual effect of doubling the atmospheric concentration of CO2 in the real world (as opposed to flawed computer models) because 1) everyone living today will be long dead 700 years from now and 2) there is no way to separate the effect of CO2 levels on the “average global temperature” from all of the other many forces that effect the “average global temperature” over time.  Thus the “climate sensitivity” hypothesis will never progress beyond a belief, a mathematical hypothetical.  The fact that many people believe that this particular hypothesis is valid is not empirical evidence that it.  Since “climate sensitivity” is an untestable hypothesis it is what we call pseudoscience.

Know this.  If anyone writes or says that they know that increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 causes “global warming”, be aware that they are speaking from ignorance—they are “blowing smoke”.  That being said, as mentioned many people believe that CO2 causes “global warming”.  The difference between knowing and believing is the difference between science and religion.  The IPCC even tacitly admits this because it has classified the various assertions present in its last Assessment Report on a “confidence scale”.  Two of the synonyms for “confidence” are “faith” and “belief”.  Their “confidence scale” therefore is simply an expression in how firm their “faith” is in their assertions.  The degree of “faith” that a scientist has in his own theories has never been considered scientific evidence.  In fact, so pervasive is the tendency of scientists to be over confident in the truth of their own assertions that the scientific method requires hypotheses be repeatable and repeated by independent investigators.  If these independent investigators do not get the same result as the originator of the hypothesis then the hypothesis is falsified, even if the originator refuses to abandon it.  This is the current situation that exists with regard to the assertions made by the IPCC about CO2 causing “global warming”.  Independent investigators have tested their assertions and found them to be wanting.  Never the Less the IPCC continues to cling desperately to their beliefs.

To continue, let’s talk about the mistaken notion that the average global temperature is currently optimal and that a warmer Earth would be “catastrophic”.

co2-chart

This is a chart of the Earth’s historical “average global temperature”.  Over the course of the past 600 million years the “average global temperature” has never been warmer than 22 °C nor cooler than 12 °C even though CO2 oxide levels have been as high as 7,000 ppm during the Cambrian Period within the Paleozoic Age.  As you can see the current “average global temperature” at 15 °C is near the bottom of this range, because technically we are still in an Ice Age.

timeline

During this same 600-million-year period there have been five major extinction events none of which correlate with the “average global temperature”.  Some occurred when the “average global temperature” was down around 12 °C and others occurred when the “average global temperature” was up around 22 °C.  The claims therefore that an increase in the “average global temperature” will necessarily result in a sixth mass extinction are completely unfounded.  Beyond that, there is a complete lack of historical evidence that a warmer planet will in any way threaten the health of the biosphere seeing as how historically some of the most robust ecosystems have flourished during periods when the “average global temperature” was at its maximum of 22 °C.

equator

In conclusion, CO2 is good for the Earth’s biosphere and so is a warmer Earth.  Not only is the optimal level of CO2 for robust plant growth 200-300{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} higher than what it is today, life thrives in the summer and in the lower latitudes because of the extra warmth present then and there, while almost everything goes dormant or dies during the winter and at the poles.  Thus if the UN were to succeed in its two misguided goals of 1) lowering CO2 levels and 2) cooling the planet, that would be deadly.

 

 

 

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