Physics is the law. Everything else is a recommendation - Elon Musk

Anthropogenic Global Warming is no more than a recommendation, unfortunately a dangerous one

As a student of law (recently completed a Master’s Degree in Securities Law at Osgoode Hall Law School) I observed that in democracies, elected officials spend all of their time enacting new laws and heaping them on top of existing laws, rarely repealing any of them. A labyrinth of inconsistent and overlapping laws and regulations results, almost incomprehensible to laymen and likely incomprehensible to most lawyers. Canada’s original Income Tax Act was a few pages, intended as a temporary measure enacted to fund World War I. Now it is over 3,000 pages and has spawned a cottage industry of tax accountants, tax lawyers, and tax advisers all pretending they have enough insight to guide citizens to “optimize” their tax exposure resuting in the necessity of a federal Tax Court to adjudicate disputes over the interpretation of the confusing legislation and equally confusing tax advice these highly paid professionals peddle. At the end of every case, a judge or in the case of an appeal a panel of judges (with some dissenting from time to time) issue a judgment and some ordinary citizen is deemed to have known and understood the law from the outset. It is a clumsy system but better than any alternative developed in any jurisdiction anywhere so far in history. Like all laws of man, tax laws can be broken and there may be consequences even if the breach is inadvertent.

Elon Musk quipped that “physics is the law, everything else is a recommendation”. A great turn of phrase and incontrovertible. From Aristotle to Archimedes to Michaelangelo to Einstein and beyond, mankind has explored its universe to uncover the underlying forces that shape it. Gravity, magnetism, properties and states of matter, electricity, and relationships between mass and energy have not only been dsicovered but also proven. F=ma, E=mc^2 and PV=nRT are formulae known to every student of physics and chemistry and disputed by none of them.

For about 50 years, beginning with leftist advocacy led by the late Maurice Strong (once CEO of PetroCanada and indisputably a Communist despite his capitalist success), a “movement” has emerged disguised as science that promotes the concept that trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere can control Earth’s surface temperature and will, if unchecked, rise to a level where catastrophic warming will occur. This theory is known as Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). It is aphysical nonsense, grounded in political science, and at best a “recommendation” since it is inconsistent with laws of physics, which are not optional. Its promotion by leftists is driven by the belief that only a global authoritarian socialist government can take action to solve a global problem of catastrophic proportion and that worldwide Communism is the benefit.

These dreams are overt about their aims. There are numerous examples of the proponents of climate ideology openly admitting their concern is redistribution of wealth and income and not any concern about the environment. One of them, former Liberal Minister of Environment in Canada, the late Christine Stewart gave it voice
As reported in Forbes Magazine:

“In 1988, former Canadian Minister of the Environment [Stewart], told editors and reporters of the Calgary Herald: “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.””

Even IPCC leaders echoed the same thoughts.

Earth’s atmosphere is a mass of gases, largely nitrogen and oxygen with trace amounts of other gases including carbon dioxide (CO2). It has a mass of 5.146e18 kilograms, more or less (the variability reflecting the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere at a particular point in time). Like all masses, it has defined properties, one of which is its specific heat capacity. Specific heat capacity is the amount of energy (expressed in joules) required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of the mass by one degree centigrade. The specific heat capacity of air is 1,004 joules.

What is a joule? A joule is a measure of energy in the SI system defined to be “equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force, equivalent to one 3600th of a watt-hour”. A “watt” is thus one joule per second.

For reasons of simplicity, so-called “climate scientists” like to use the term “watts per square meter” of Earth’s surface to measure the energy reaching Earth from the Sun. AGW theory claims that energy is increased by the effect of rising levels of atmospheric CO2, most often measured as parts per million of volume. The Earth has a surface are of 512 million square kilometers. Watts per square meter can readily be converted into joules for any given amount of time, and the appication of those joules of energy to the mass of atmosphere can be expressed as the temperature of that mass or, more importantly, changes in the temperature of that mass resulting from increases in the quantum of watts per meter squared of energy applied.

For any given mass, the change in temperature arising from application of more joules of energy follows the formula:

Delta T in degrees Centigrade = (added joules of energy/mass in kilograms) / specific heat capacity. There is no doubt the relatonship is linear since all elements of the equation are first order.

Climate scientists for decades have estimated that without any atmosphere Earth’s surface temperature would approximate 18 degrees below zero Centigrade, rather than the actual temperature which is approximately 15.9 degrees Centigrade, the 33.9 degree difference reflecting what is now called the “Greenhouse Gas Effect” or
GHG effect. The so-called GHG Effect is attributed to an estimated 240 watts per square meter of energy retained in atmosphere owing to the presence of water vapour, CO2 and methane - the so-called Greenhouse Gases (GHG’s).

The billions spent through the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have repeatedly claimed each doubling of the level of atmospheric CO2 by volume will manifest itself in an increase of 3.77 watts per square meter of Earth’s surface of retained energy, with a plethora of estimates of how much Earth’s surface temperature would rise as a result, the so-called “equilibrium climate sensitivity” or ECS. While those estimates are all over the map, I have yet to see one of the contributing reports to the IPCC that merely applied the laws of physics and calculated ECS as follows:

ECS is equal to [(243.77/240) x 33.9]- 33.9 = 0.53 deg. C.

Stated simply, each doubling of CO2 levels adds 0.53 deg. C to Earth’s surface temperature if you accept that each doubling adds 3.77 watts per square meter of energy. I don’t accept that as an established fact despite its prevalence in IPCC reports since it is unsupported by empirical data and inconsistent with recent studies that find the ability of CO2 to interact with outgoing long wave infrared radiation (LWIR) is saturated at atmospheric levels above 300 ppm by volume.¹ But assume it was an established fact, what does that imply?

Current levels of CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa are approximately 420 ppm by volume in atmosphere. A doubling to 840 ppm by volume would manifest itself in a rise in Earth’s surface temperature of 0.53 deg. C and a further doubling to 1,640 ppm by volume in a rise of 1.06 deg. C. Both of these data points are less than the COP28 target to keep Earths’ surface temperature increases below 1.5 deg. C based on “transitoning away from fossil fuels”.

Climate alarmists argue that combustion of fossil fuels added approximately 35 gigatons of CO2 to atmosphere annually for the past decade. 5.146 gigatons comprises 1 ppm of atmosphere by mass and 1.44 ppm by volume. 35 gigatons is equivalent to 9.8 ppm of atmosphere by volume [(35/5.146)x1.44 = 9.8]. Measured levels of CO2 have risen by only about 2 ppm by volume on average over that decade. At the current pace of fossil fuel use, it will take 210 years for atmospheric levels of CO2 to double and 420 years for those levels to double a second time.

Despite many claims to the contrary, Earth has plenty of fossil fuels. At current use rates, oil & gas and coal will last for centuries. This is fortunate since fossil fuels are cheap, reliable and harmless despite they hype supporting so-called “renewables”.

Proponents of NetZero in the leftist governments of world democracies have a bad case of suicidal tendencies. They claim catastrophic consequences if humans don’t stop using oil, gas and coal. But the simple arithmetic points to calamity from Net Zero itself, not from excess use of fossil fuels but from failure to use them.

Why? With about 35 gigatons of fossil fuel sourced CO2 entering atmosphere annually, equal to about 9.8 ppm of atmosphere by volume [(35/5.146)*1.44 = 9.8] yet measured atmospheric CO2 concentrations rising by only about 2 ppm by volume annually, it is plain and obvious that other processes (primarily photosynthesis) are removing CO2 at a rate of about 7.8 ppm by volume every year. Absent fossil fuel emissions, CO2 levels would be falling and with 40 years would fall from 420 ppm to about 108 ppm by volume [(420 - (7.8*40) = 108] and would continue to fall to below 50 ppm by volume within 50 years.

Biologists have long since learned that plant life requires a minimum of 50 to 170 ppm CO2 in the air surrounding the plants to live, the CO2 being food for the plants. At 108 ppm, most plant life dies off. Without plant life there can be no human life. NetZero is a greater threat to humanity than “global warming” since no amount of adaptation can replace the vital role plants play in creating the oxygen we breathe and contributing to the life of all the forms of food we eat.

AGW is not only aphysical, it is a dangerous delusion. I have little concern about its effects since mankind’s vain attempts to curb fossil fuel use will fail or, if they enjoy any material success, will lead to a catastrophic decline in CO2 which will manifest itself within a relatively short time in geological history and the AGW theory will be abandoned by all except those nutters in white sheets waiting on the roof of their homes for the Rapture.

1. Dieter Schildknecht, Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere, Cornell University, August 2020