Against 'Climate Change,' Week Two.

Here are the contributions from the second week of our Against “Climate Change” series:

Enemies of the People: Greta Thunberg

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Our Editor, Michael Walsh:

Heisenberg's Revenge

In honor of the widening fronts in the war against "climate change," the-Pipeline.org takes pride to announce that the remainder of this month will be devoted to further analysis and refutation of this malicious hoax, which feeds off irrational fear in order to impose severe lifestyle restrictions on the people of the West -- who, after all, created the technology that has made our current prosperity possible. Such prosperity, however, is intolerable to the philosophical and lineal descendants of the Frankfurt School, who have made it their mission since the end of World War II to dismantle the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian first world and force the rest of the planet to return to to ignorance, superstition, and savagery.

Having failed to destroy us with the Covid Hoax (even the loathsome Facebook nazis have given up on it), the Left has now moved "climate change" front and center as the international left's preferred soul-sapping means of destruction. Based on the small (in the cosmic scheme of things), 140-year-old sample of randomly gathered temperature data, jealous and vengeful cultural Marxists have decided to extrapolate from cherry-picked, manipulated, and massaged data to convince a gullible and trusting public that the world is coming to an end any day now, unless we act now. Like sleazy used-care salesman, they employ scare and pressure tactics in order to get you to work against your own best, self-preservative instincts and willingly destroy infrastructure, cripple food production, kill sea life, and incinerate forests. 

The key to their successful sowing of confusion can be found in the Heisenberg Principle, which states: "we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle's position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa." In popular understanding, this terms of physics is expressed thus: the act of observing a thing changes its behavior and the closer it is observe, the more its nature becomes unclear. Or, if you stare at the word "cat" long enough, you can convince yourself that "cat" is misspelled.

The same is true of the "science" of "climate change." No one from the ancient Greeks to the mid-Victorians would have seriously entertained the notion of "man-made climate change" were it not for the relatively recent invention of rudimentary means of measuring temperature and forecasting the weather. Armed with this little bit of knowledge, we have now created -- in our own minds -- the dangerous thing called "climate change." Take that, Aristotle!

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From Richard Fernandez:

Terraforming the Earth to Save the Planet

What exactly happens when governments engage in "climate change mitigation" and how is it different from "geoengineering"? The distinction is almost entirely in their connotations. The former conjures up images of preserving nature, the latter giant engines reshaping the earth. In reality climate change mitigation and geoengineering are often indistinguishable from each. Take their respective approaches to controlling "greenhouse gases."

The E.U. says: "Mitigating climate change means... cutting greenhouse gases from main sources such as power plants, factories, cars, and farms... Reducing and avoiding our emissions requires us to reshape everything we do — from how we power our economy and grow our food, to how we travel and live, and the products we consume." Geoengineering's approach to exactly the same CO2 problem is given by the International Energy Agency (IEA). "Direct air capture (DAC) technologies extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere. The CO2 can be permanently stored in deep geological formations, thereby achieving carbon dioxide removal (CDR)... The captured CO2 can also be used, for example in food processing or combined with hydrogen to produce synthetic fuels."

They both use engineering techniques to manipulate the same physical quantities at the same scale. Both require "us to reshape everything we do," and necessitate government intervention in the form of monitoring and regulation. As DW notes, the trend is to roll the two together. "Is geoengineering set to become mainstream climate policy? Relying on emission reductions alone isn't enough — the political will required to lower emissions to the degree necessary simply isn't there. They think geoengineering might end up being our only choice. Despite being risky, they say the danger posed by not trying geoengineering is greater than trying it."

A Harvard publication points out that geoengineering may be needed to prevent the acidification of the oceans. The idea is to counteract this by filling the seas with CO2-eating plankton. "Ocean fertilization is the best studied ocean geoengineering method and may be able to reduce both ocean acidification and global warming... Iron is the main ocean fertilizer under consideration, and this process would be much cheaper and faster than planting more trees on land."

Almost by definition, only a planetary master plan will do the job. The Europeans, who seem to be the most forthright on this, make no bones about demanding control of everything to save the world. "Global cooperation is essential for all climate change mitigation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement ensure cooperation across borders to tackle climate change and ensure a sustainable future." We're way beyond planting a tree in your backyard. They'll control the chemistry and biology of the oceans.

But there's more. Have you heard of solar radiation management (SRM)? This approach aims to cool the earth by reflecting a portion of the incoming sunlight back into space, reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. One proposed method involves injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions. Nothing is off-limits.  Where does the mitigation end and where does the geoengineering begin?

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Here’s Rich Trzupek:

Re: 'Climate Change,' Nobody Knows Nothin'

The public policy discussion around the issue we have come to call "climate change" boils down to a two word question: who knows? When discussing the issues of the day people tend to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about motivations. Motivations matter of course. If someone is deliberately and knowingly spreading falsehoods, it’s valuable to understand why they are doing so. But, at another level motivations don’t matter. Science is about honest results. It doesn’t care whether those results were obtained by a rogue or a hero.

So let’s put aside the question of why people say what they say and spend a little bit of time considering what they say. It’s not so much that people who discuss "climate change" claim to be experts themselves. Quite the opposite is true. It’s incredible how many people in a position to influence public policy don’t understand even a modicum of climate science. Instead, most people rely on that group of "influencers" who are the bane of modern times: “the experts.”

Before we examine what the experts think they know let's consider those aspects of climate change about which almost everybody agrees. Everyone agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Everybody agrees that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been rising since the dawn of the industrial era. Everyone agrees that mean global temperatures have risen a bit in the course of the last century, though there is much disagreement about how significant that rise is in the grand scheme of things. For while it is true that increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can bump up the atmosphere’s ability to retain heat a bit, it’s equally true that increases in atmospheric temperature tied to other causes (e.g.: solar activity) tend to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

These facts are fairly well known to everyone, no matter what one thinks about the severity of climate change and the need for humans to attempt to change it. There are other facts that aren’t in dispute but are rarely talked about. For example, everyone agrees that China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and that greenhouse gas emissions from China continue to increase. Everyone agrees that emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States have been steadily dropping for over twenty years and in all likelihood will continue to do so whether even more draconian measures are taken to further reduce those emissions. Most on the left don't like to talk about the relative importance of China and the United States in the "climate change" debate but the data is pretty damned clear.

Back to that initial question: who knows? Who really understands the way climate models work? The answer is very few people. Of those there are climatologists such as Gavin Schmidt who are certain that the models are virtually infallible and correctly predict catastrophe. There are other climatologists like Judith Curry and Roy Spencer who have their doubts. I don't know any of these people personally, but I know they are all academics and many academics tend to fall in love with their work and to disregard the opinions of those who disagree with them, especially if the critic doesn’t sport their particular academic credentials. I sometimes think a course in hubris is a necessary part of obtaining a PhD.

Because I understand dispersion modeling, a simpler but still complex form of atmospheric computer modeling, I'm in a better position than most to discuss the validity of climate modeling data. There are three important things to remember when we consider climate modeling data. One, there is not just one model yielding one result, there are many dozens of models some of which agree and some of which don't. Two, carbon dioxide concentration is but one of dozens of data fields that are entered into climate models. The degree to which tweaking this or that field can alter results is mind-boggling. Three, the models predicting catastrophe have consistently overestimated the magnitude of climate change.

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Clarice Feldman:

Where's the Beef?

Apart of its continuing effort to make our lives less convenient and pleasant President Biden represented by “climate czar” John Kerry has signed a global agreement with 12 other countries to place farmers under new restrictions to reduce emissions of methane gas, all in the name of fighting "climate change." This would effectively reduce cattle and other agricultural production, raise the cost of food, and deprive farmers (already beset with supply chain disruptions, drought and increased loan interest rates) and the communities which service them of a substantial portion of their living and lead to starvation for many.

Perhaps this is the unspoken solution of Kerry’s belief that the world has too many people in it. “U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry told AFP that the world's population will not be tenable in 2050, when it is projected to hit nearly 10 billion, but refrained from asking Americans to give up steaks.” But aside from dancing around the issue in his interview, saying he didn’t mean people should give up hamburgers and steaks, he just signed on to an agreement which for most Americans would lead to just that result.

As the reaction in the Netherlands shows, such a move is so unpopular that Congress would never agree to it and it has a very dubious basis in science no matter how often the climate alarmists and their grifting supporters claim otherwise.

[W]e could not find a domestic livestock fingerprint, neither in the geographical methane distribution nor in the historical evolution of the atmospheric methane concentration. Consequently, in science, politics, and the media, the climate impact of anthropogenic [greenhouse gas] emissions has been systematically overstated. Livestock-born GHG emissions have mostly been interpreted isolated from their ecosystemic context, ignoring their negligible significance within the global balance. There is no scientific evidence, whatsoever, that domestic livestock could represent a risk for the Earth’s climate.

In fact, cattle raising improves the environment because proper grazing management “helps restore soil health and creates a sink for atmospheric carbon and nitrogen."

When forage is digested in the rumen–or the fermentation vat of the ruminant digestive system–methane is produced. The misconception is cattle emit methane mostly through flatulence. However, most methane is actually expelled through belching. As part of nature’s carbon cycle, plants require carbon dioxide to complete the process of photosynthesis. Over time, the methane cattle expel in the atmosphere breaks down into carbon dioxide and water, which can be used by plants. Plants store carbon in their growth above ground (the grazeable forage) and below ground in their often-extensive root system. This builds soil quality over time and helps keep the land productive.

This jiggering of data is endemic in climate propaganda. Even manmade CO2 is much too low to cause global warming.

These results negate claims that the increase since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO₂ represented 23 percent of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77 percent in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO₂ due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0 percent in 1750 to 12 percent in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming.

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From Peter Smith:

'Climate Change': the 'Science' is Chutzpah

Extraordinary happenings in Oz. Reminiscent of Chinese Communist Party forced confessions; these Aussie confessions apparently occurred spontaneous as a result of self-reflection. Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese and his lackey "Climate Change" minister Chris Bowen individually apologized profusely for kidding Australians that on their watch electricity prices would decline by $275. State premiers Daniel Andrews and Mark McGowan and their public health running dogs issued a groveling collective apology for putting Australians through unnecessary hell to combat a mild viral infection. Hmm? Might, possibly, be making this up.

Five or six of us meet each Friday morning for coffee and to change the world. We are all on the conservative side of the fence. To give you an idea, I was castigated a good number of years back for even suggesting that there was one chance in a thousand that the climate alarmists were right. Since then, à la Cool Hand Luke, I’ve got my mind right.

Someone circulated a blog by Bud Bromley (“CO2 is not the cause of global warming”) published in 2019. I responded supportively: the "science" is crap and therefore everything that follows is fruit of the poisonous tree. Overlooking my inverted commas around the word science, one of our number, agricultural scientist, Professor Emeritus Ivan Kennedy, took exception.

So far as I have been able to find, there is no science which is crap; only speculative supposition based on laboratory measurements of the degree to which CO2 absorbs quanta of infrared energy at specific frequencies or wavelengths. Modelling using such speculation is not testable because it makes no quantitative predictions; simply general assertions. We need climate science that makes testable predictions. Don't criticize the science, criticize the lack of it.

Sufficient to say that our common experience bears out what Professor Kennedy said. If the so-called climate science had produced testable predictions, it would have long since been debunked. The absolute key to its longevity, its ability to keep the money coming in, is to not make testable predictions.

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And Christopher Horner:

The EPA's Continuing 'Climate' War on Energy

The environmentalist agenda has created extreme disarray in American public policy, with the help of often-careless lawmakers, opportunistic bureaucrats and litigants, sometimes working together, and mischievous judges, all in the name of combatting "climate change." It's a recipe for success for the spectacularly funded opponents of the resource sector to impose an agenda that neither the public nor their elected representatives ever approved.

Yet even the black clouds of Canadian forest mismanagement cannot obscure certain rays of sunshine. Perhaps the most significant of these occurred a year ago, when the United States Supreme Court handed down its opinion in West Virginia v. E.P.A., overturning the Obama-Biden “Clean Power Plan.” That regulatory monstrosity capped greenhouse gases from electricity production with the express purpose of forcing “generation shifting,” from coal to so-called renewable sources. It was an administrative overreach which proved to be the rule’s undoing.

As it was being challenged at the Court, the Biden administration pleaded that they leave it be, since a replacement was already in the works. Thankfully, the Court gave the matter a look. The 6-3 majority in West Virginia did not, as Justice Kagan’s dissent insisted, install guardrails via the announcement of a new doctrine. Instead, the Court splashed bright neon paint on guardrails that had been there all along, even if they were often ignored.

The decision was a robust affirmation of what is known as the Major Questions Doctrine. It stated that “[c]apping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day.’” (Emphasis added.) However, when an agency undertakes “decision[s] of such economic and political significance, i.e., how much coal-based generation there should be over the coming decades,” courts should employ a "raised eyebrow" test.

That is, on questions of this magnitude “penumbras formed by emanations” won’t cut it. In this case the justification was an obscure section of the Clean Air Act of 1963, rarely used but now purportedly an authorization for the Executive branch to instruct Americans how they might purchase their electricity. Thankfully the Court's majority remembered the wisdom of their departed colleague Antonin Scalia, who once said in a relevant case that Congress “does not... hide elephants in mouseholes.”

This ought to spell trouble for the "climate" agenda long-term. Going forward regulatory policies intended to massively shift the nation away from fossil fuels should trigger this review for clear authorization by Congress. Unfortunately Clean Air Act cases by statute first go to the D.C. Circuit Court which was expanded under President Obama. This process prolongs Supreme Court resolution and gives the permanent bureaucracy time to do a great deal of damage before the Court can step in, assuming it does.

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Thanks for reading, and we’re not done yet — as announced about, our Against “Climate Change” project continues this week. So keep an eye on The Pipeline!