The AGW mania has historic precedents
None of them ended well
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory is a modern mania. Widespread beliefs in nonsense (my definition of “mania”, which is a synonym for “delusion”) has many historical precedents.
Organized religion has been home to manias for centuries.
Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all based on the montheistic belief there is only one god, and are rivals for the allegiance of the faithful. In the 11th century, Christian leaders sent knights on crusades to limit the expansion of the Muslim religion which was growing rapidy throughout the Eastern Mediteranean and to reclaim the “Holy Land” now hosting the State of Israel. To the extent each religion denied the legitimacy of its rivals, in the eyes of that religion the members of its rivals must necessarily have suffered from some form of mania underlying their heretical beliefs. I always found the Christian belief there is only one god odd, since the First Commandment acknowledges the possible existence of other gods in its language - “though shalt have no other gods before me”. In, Exodus in the Torah, the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai and inscribed by the finger of God on two tablets of stone kept in the Ark of the Covenant. Presumably, God thought there were other gods hanging around when he inscribed the First Commandment into one of the tablets he gave Moses, if you buy the Torah as an accurate account of history.
The mania of belief in one form of god or another persists today and has billions of people of faith committed to prayet to one or another god. The conflict between the religious belief that climate catastrophes are “God’s will” and AGW theory has yet to be resolved by theologians to anyone’s satisfaction. Both cannot be correct.
Calling religious beliefs a “mania” is no doubt controversial. Fortunately, there are plenty of others to discuss.
The Aztec civilization existed from about 1300 to 1500. Aztec’s believed their gods controlled rainfall and rain was critical to their survival. Some Aztec intellectual no doubt created the idea, the Michael Mann of that time, that if only the Aztec’s could please the gods they would be rewarded with rainfall. The solution - sacrifice children to the gods, and based on the belief that the children’s tears were analagous to rainfall, torture the children before sacrificing them. The practice existed for centuries but the historic record shows no rainfall benefit but evidence of the remains of many children killed by the Aztec’s in a vain pursuit to alter nature. A 1521 report from Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who witnessed this grisly ritual, put the number of children sacrificed at over 80,000.
The Incas must have imported this insane idea since in the 1600’s the Inca practice of capococha involved sacrifice of children (even babies) and teenagers, believed at that time to prevent famine, drought or disease. Archeologists have unearthed plenty of remains of those sacrificed and the historic record is complete that this gruesome practice persisted. Once again, an entire society believed it could control nature. The Aztec and Inca manias gave credence to the words of Francois-Marie Arouet (born in 1647 and writing under the pen name Voltaire) who said: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
The early Greeks had a less destructive but no more effective set of beliefs - they thought you could alter temperature by chopping down trees or plowing fields.
In 1374, hundreds of people literally danced themselves to death in what was called the Deadly Dancing Mania of the Middle Ages. This historic episode followed a period of famine, crop failures and floods of Biblical proportion and people believed these weather catastrophes were caused because the gods were punishing humans for sins.
The Salem witch trials which began about 1692 are another example of a society so deluded by a mania they murdered innocent women on the basis they were “witches” and responsible for all manner of problems following a smallpox epidemic. As absurd as this belief was then, it infected many otherwise sensible Americans of that era.
Today, we have a mania called known as AGW, already a belief held by millions of people who claim AGW is proven by science. That claim is nonsense. AGW has become a religious belief and the so-called “science” that supports it is little more than repetitive linear regressions of imperfect data in a complex, chaotic climate system. The AGW religion claims that the vast majority of climate scientists believe the AGW theory is valid. That claim itself is without foundation. It is based on a 2013 paper by Cook et. al. that reviewed the abstracts (not the actual papers) of thousands of climate studies and made the claim by ignoring abstracts that “took no position” on AGW. Table 3 from the Cook paper discloses that 19,098 of the authors of papers whose abstracts were reviewed either rejected, were uncertain or took no position on whether AGW was valid, a stunning 65% of the 29,286 authors reviewed.
Cook’s public position that 97.1% of climate “experts” supported AGW theory was carefully crafted to fuel support for the theory. Cook was careful to label the authors “experts” and not “scientists” to avoid criticism since many of the papers were written by persons without scientific credentials of any kind. That did not stop left wing media from reporting that 97% of scientists supported the AGW theory (as if it were a vote), leading even George Strathy, the Chief Justice of Ontario, to conclude in his reasons for judgment dismissing Ontario’s appeal of the federal “carbon tax” legislation at paragraph 7: “There is no dispute that global climate change is taking place and that human activities are the primary cause.” Justice Strathy seems to have made that finding of fact on no evidence, apparently relying on the “scientific consensus”.
The political motive for Cook’s paper is evident in his concluding paragraph where he states: “The public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW is a necessary element in public support for climate policy.” His paper did nothing to advance climate science and was written and intended for the express purpose of rallying public support for government policies regarding climate.
A detailed review of Cook’s paper by David Legates et. al. reduces the 97% consensus to 0.3% to 0.5%.
Justice Strathy’s related finding that human activities are “the primary cause” is devoid of merit, but demonstrates the persuasive power of widespread hysteria leading to “consensus”. While “consensus” may be valuable in rallying support for government action, it has no place in actual science. Nobel laureate Richard Feynman captures the difference between consensus and science succinctly.
In the case of AGW, all predictions published by the IPCC without exception have been wrong, joining the predictions published by Al Gore that were the basis of his fame and the foundation for the millions of dollars he made promoting AGW.
To evaluate whether AGW is a sound foundation for policy is not complex nor arcane. The theory is unproven and likely unprovable. Whether it makes sense to adopt it as an actual threat to humanity takes judgment and common sense, something lacking in Ottawa and Washington. The laws of physics provide some help. The key questions are as follows:
Do higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2 contribute to warming?
The answer is YES, but not in any material amount. CO2 is correctly labeled as a “greenhouse gas” and interacts with Long Wave Infrared Radiation (LWIR) leaving Earth at a wavelenght of 15 microns. Satellite spectography shows a gap between the expected an actual LWIR reaching space in the 15 micron band confirming that something has interrupted that LWIR from escaping to space, and it is a resonable inference that is CO2. The spectography also shows that the interference with CO2 reaching space in the 15 micron band is close to saturation, and no matter what level of CO2 is present in the atmosphere, 15 micron LWIR heading to space can never be reduced by CO2 or anything else to less than zero. Any added “warming” is limited to the LWIR not already interrupted in its journey, and that is minimal - less than 2 watts per square meter as I read this chart.
Source: Research Gate
Full combustion of all natural gas on Earth would produce CO2 equivalent to about 20 ppm of atmosphere and full combustion of all coal another 600 ppm. Fossil fuels in total have the potential to add 760 ppm to atmospheric CO2 if all known reserves of each fossil fuel were completely burned.
If all existing fossil fuels were subjected to complete combustion, would the amount of CO2 released increase atmospheric levels by enough to materially impact climate?
The answer is NO not only because interrupton of LWIR in the 15 micron band by CO2 is close to saturation now, but also because the amount of CO2 released by combustion of all fossil fuels known to exist is relatively small when expressed in terms of atmospheric concentration and the fact that 70% of CO2 released by fossil fuels does not remain in atmosphere but is withdrawn by other processes.
For interest, there are 1.7 trillion barrels of known oil reserves, and complete combustion of a barrel can produce only 433 Kg of CO2 (laws of chemistry). The earth’s atmosphere has a mass of 5.148e18Kg.
The CO2 from 1.7 trillion barrels of oil if completely burned amounts to 143 ppm of atmosphere by mass (1.7 x 433)/5.148 =143). That is not enough to materially alter global temperature on anyone’s theory let alone AGW.
Application of the laws of chemistry to natural gas and coal is similarly straighforward and need not be repeated here. Existing natural gas subjected to complete combustion would produce CO2 equivalent to 20 ppm of atmosphere and coal 600 ppm of atmosphere, both by mass.
At current rates of consumption, 35 billion barrels of oil are consumed annually. About one third of all oil consumed is used for non-burning applications like plastics, lubricants, asphalt, etc. It should be obvious that oil alone poses no risk of global warming.
Current fossil fuel usage has been estimated to produce 35 gigatons of CO2 annually, or about 7 ppm of atmosphere, but atmospheric CO2 increases have averaged about 2 ppm. The difference is CO2 removed from atmosphere by other processes, in particular photosynthesis (necessary for life on Earth). It would take 108 years to consume all existant fossil fuels, which could add no more than 216 ppm to atmospheric CO2 at current rates. That is not enough to matter a whit to global temperature.If AGW theory were correct, would it matter to global temperature?
The answer is NO. Even accepting AGW at face value and using the published estimates of energy being blocked from escape to space from a doubling of CO2 concentrations by the climate alarmist crowd (3.77 watts per square meter), that level of energy is capable of warming atmosphere by only 0.3 deg. C., a trivial amount. I have covered the physics and mathematics supporting this calculation in a separate article.
The Twittersphere is full of nutcases pushing the AGW scam, most emphasizing the risks of rising sea levels (SLR) as the worst outcome. Many claim sea levels have been rising at an accelerated rate for over a century and coastal cities like New York will be under water if we don’t drive Teslas. Here are some hard data on SLR.
Palm Beach, Sydney:
Fort Denison:
For those of my friends who beleive in man-made climate change, get therapy before your head blows up. No one should believe in anything that as a prerequisite requires them to have a belief. AGW is a political movement, no more and no less. History will record it as a period of mass hysteria.
The destructive policies of Biden, Trudeau and other left wing leaders will not alter global temperature, but will shift economic power to China, India and Russia who have the common sense to recognize that AGW is nonsense but pay lip service to the theory to encourage United States, Canada and Europe to destroy their own economies in a vain attempt to alter nature while China, India and Russia expand using cheap and reliable fossil fuels. If common sense does not return to our governments at the ballot box, we will wake up one day to find ourselves in a second rate economy studying Mandarin, Russian and Hindi and wondering what went wrong.