Water Vapor is the Villain, not carbon dioxide.

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Dec 2018

An unscrupulous climate scientist could try to wave away the objections of a chemist by saying that the world is not a beaker.  The world is not a beaker, but the beaker and the world follow the same physical laws, and insofar as the world is a beaker, it must obey the laws as a beaker does.

Of all the con jobs offered by climate alarmist is the one that says carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is going to drive up the earth’s temperature by three to five degrees by the end of this century.    The major climate models do not, in fact, say this.  They actually say that water vapor is going to be the villain driving up temperature.

The purpose of this article is to explain simply why this mechanism can’t happen, and won’t happen; and all it takes to understand why is some pretty basic knowledge of some chemistry and engineering.

The mechanism of global warming of the climate models is that higher carbon dioxide content in the air will in turn cause more water vapor to be present in the atmosphere.  And it is the higher absolute humidity that is going to trap more of heat that would otherwise radiate into outer space at night, not the carbon dioxide.

Why water vapor?  Water vapor is a far more effective absorber of infrared radiation than carbon dioxide is.  Carbon dioxide, a linear molecule, has only one mode of absorbing infrared radiation, asymmetric stretching, and it occurs in a narrow band around 2350 wavenumbers.  Molecular bending causes strong, broad absorption to begin at 667 cm-1 and extend into the far infrared.  The water molecule is V- shaped, is capable of hydrogen bonding, and it has three strong and broad absorption bands. (3750 – 3150, 1400 – 1100, and 800 – 600 cm-1)

As explained previously, those who speak of carbon dioxide and water vapor as “greenhouse gases” don’t know how greenhouses work.  Carbon dioxide and water vapor are added to the greenhouse atmosphere to promote plant growth, not for their heating effect.  Plants need carbon dioxide and water for photosynthesis, a process which converts these two chemicals into plant matter using the light from the sun to power the transformation.

Somehow, more atmospheric carbon dioxide is supposed to cause more atmospheric humidity, sufficient to multiply several fold the magnitude of the heat trapping effect of carbon dioxide.  So the earth isn’t going to turn into a hot, wind-swept desert, but into a humid jungle by the end of the century.  The trouble is, the water content of the atmosphere has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, or indeed, the other gases of the atmosphere at all.  The vapor pressure of water depends only on temperature of the liquid.  There is no chemical interaction between carbon dioxide and water in the gas phase that would tend to increase the amount of water in the air.

When cold air passes over warm ocean, fog tends to result.  The warm water pumps more water vapor into the atmosphere than it can hold at its current temperature, and so the water condenses as fog.  The fog “burns off” when the air warms up and the relative humidity drops below 100 percent.  When warm air passes over cold water, little humidity tends to pass into the atmosphere, though if the air gets chilled enough, fog, rain or snow can result.

All that matters is the temperature of the ocean and the temperature of the atmosphere over it.  Relative humidity and absolute humidity interacting.  The other gases in the atmosphere play no role.  For the absolute humidity of the atmosphere to rise permanently, it would require the oceans to warm permanently, and by several degrees to produce a noticeable effect.  Warmer ocean water would by itself warm the atmosphere above it.  Think of a permanent El Nino effect.  This isn’t going to happen by some feedback loop that defies Le Chatelier’s principle.

The results are observable in the climate models.  The best of them predicted twice as much warming as actually occurred since 1998.  The feed-back didn’t happen. 

The oceans are the earth’s great reservoir of heat, as well as of atmospheric humidity.   Unlike on Venus, the earth’s atmosphere is small in mass relative to the oceans and to the planet itself.  Because it consists primarily of nitrogen, the atmosphere possesses internal moderating mechanisms that prevent run-away temperature changes – quite apart from the moderating effect of the oceans.  The moderation of average atmospheric temperature is quite robust.

For the earth’s atmosphere to experience serious, long-term changes in condition, which we might call climate change or global warming – the earth’s ocean in contact with the atmosphere must increase in temperature by several degrees.  That isn’t going to happen by a feed-back loop involving atmospheric carbon dioxide.

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Vincent J. Curtis is a research scientist and occasion free-lance writer.

Ford isn't Trump, Ontario isn't America

Vincent J. curtis

14 Dec 2018

RE: Appointment of Ford friend Ron Tavener to be head of OPP

(N.B.  Mr. Tavener is presently a senior member of the Toronto Police Department)

The Spectator calls for a review of the appointment of Ron Taverner as head of the OPP.  The grounds for a review are that Taverner is a family friend of Premier Ford, and it is suspected that Ford interfered in the appointment process “for his own political benefit.”

(Let's analyze that briefly.  Why wouldn't a Premier appoint someone for political benefit?  If the appointee screws up, then the "benefit" redounds against him, doesn't it.  I've never heard of an appointment made because it hurts the Premier.  Of course a politician is going to appoint a qualified person whom he knows.  The whole premise smacks of unaware partisanship against Ford.)

Ford emphatically denied involvement, but let’s assume he made the appointment personally.  In our constitutional system, who can review the Premier’s appointment?  Not the Lieutenant Governor, for Ford would have acted in her name.  An unelected, unaccountable judge?  Do you believe in democratic government or not?

The staffing of the OPP is routine administrative business of the Ontario government.  Ford’s Conservatives were elected to run that government, and they will be accountable for their actions and choices in the next election.  Why the call for an undemocratic review of a decision made by the leaders whom we chose democratically to make that decision?

Save the legislature itself, our constitutional system has no authority higher than the government, as was suddenly discovered when the Notwithstanding Clause was invoked.  Nothing has the authority – nor should it - to arbitrarily revoke or review a routine administrative decision of the government, other than by law, and certainly not in the ad hoc fashion advocated by the Spectator.

Ford isn’t Trump, and Ontario isn’t America.  Our constitutions are different.  In ours, the government has the right, the responsibility, and the authority to govern.  And the people periodically review who staffs the government.

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Hurricanes and Global Warming

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Dec 2018

One of the prospects of global warming held forth to frightening people is increasing severity and frequency of storms, particularly of hurricanes.  Superficially, it makes sense that if there is more heat in the atmosphere there will be more power packed into weather events like storms.  But the people who offer such prospects reveal gaps in knowledge about how hurricanes work and how they originate.

Simply put, hurricanes, to take the extreme example, cannot be more severe or more frequent than they have been.  They cannot be more severe because hurricanes are not driven by the transformation of the heat latent in the permanent gases of the atmosphere: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide.  They do not originate on account of the latent heat of the permanent gases.

Let me explain.  A philosopher would describe a hurricane as a form in the matter of the atmosphere.  A mechanic would describe a hurricane as an engine that transforms the latent heat of atmospheric moisture into rain and kinetic energy, i.e. wind.  When water vapor condenses into rain, the latent heat of vaporization is released, and what this heat does is power the winds of the hurricane.  A reason why hurricanes form over tropical waters is that warm, moist air over the tropical ocean possesses enough absolute humidity  to drive a storm of hurricane size and power.

There is relative humidity and absolute humidity.  Relative humidity refers to the amount of moisture in the air relative to the saturation point, when condensation in the form of fog, frost, or clouds occurs.  Absolute humidity refers to the actual amount of water vapor in the air, and warmer air is able to hold more water as vapor.

When hurricanes pass over land, they rapidly lose strength because their supply of warm, moist air is cut off.  Less moisture, less condensation, less heat available to drive the winds.  Likewise, if a hurricane diverts northward but remains over the ocean, the Gulf Stream can sustain it for a while, but as the disturbance encounters cooler air farther north, there is less absolute humidity, and therefore less latent heat of condensation available to convert into rain and wind.

The latent heat of the permanent gases of the atmosphere play no role in this because the heat they contain is not transformed in any permanent way, as water vapor is converted into rain.  But could a change in the ratios of the permanent atmospheric gases increase the amount of absolute humidity?

The answer is no, for two reasons.  The first is that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide is infinitesimal.  The second, and more important reason, is that the limit of absolute humidity is determined by the vapor pressure of water, which is governed by temperature, not the atmosphere above the liquid.

The intensity of a hurricane is determined by the atmospheric pressure in the eye of the storm; the lower the pressure, the higher the wind speed in the eyewall.  Atmospheric pressure is determined by gravity and the mass of the atmosphere above.  The force of gravity on earth isn't going to change on account of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Atmospheric mass is not going to change appreciably by a minute addition of carbon.

Hurricanes originate as “convective instabilities” in the atmosphere.  They are the product of the effect of the heating of the sun on the tropical waters between West Africa and the Caribbean Sea.  This is a complex phenomenon, but the heat capacity of the atmosphere over those waters is not going to be changed significantly by infinitesimal changes in the carbon dioxide content, and besides that the heat capacity of carbon dioxide is not substantially different from that of nitrogen, the primary constituent of the atmosphere.

Heat capacity refers to the amount of heat required to raise an amount of the substance by one degree in temperature.  Since the heat from the sun, and the temperature of the ocean waters will be unchanged, the origin of hurricanes as convective instabilities will remain robustly the same.

Hence, there is no need to worry about increasing numbers or intensity of hurricanes particularly, or storms generally.  The power of these do not come from the conversion of the latent heat of carbon dioxide gas.

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Vincent J. Curtis is a research scientist and occasional free-lance writer.

Alberta welcomes climate improvement

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Dec 2018

RE: Close Canada’s oilsands (by Thomas Walkom, The Hamilton Spectator of this date)

Spoken like a true Central Canadian: Ontario has a problem, and the solution is to devastate Alberta’s economy.  Thomas Walkom is probably too young to remember the National Energy Policy of Pierre Trudeau.  Ontario had a problem with soaring gasoline prices, and the answer was to devastate Alberta’s economy for years by having a “made-in-Canada” oil price.  Alberta still remembers the NEP.

The present Central Canadian problem is a fetish about climate change, and Walkom recommends shutting down Alberta’s oilsands projects, which employ scores of thousands of people and provide the Alberta treasury with billions of tax dollars.  After complaining about the environmental impact of oilsands exploitation, he then argues that resistance is futile because the world is “awash with cheap shale oil.”  Shale oil and gas are obtained by fracking, a process once loudly condemned by environmentalists but now embraced in this case.

When it comes to climate change, Walkom and many others need to take a Valium.  Even Walkom’s World is going to need fuels and lubricants.  For its part, Alberta would welcome climate improvement.

By analogy, Walcom would argue that Ontario’s wine industry should be shut down because its products are not of the quality and cannot command the prices of French or California vintages.  The market is large enough for Ontario wines, and for Alberta bitumen, if they can be brought to the right market.

Once again a Central Canadian problem is solved by devastating Alberta.

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Climate change shouters are afraid.

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Dec 2018

RE: Ford’s climate plan falls short (Hamilton Spectator of this date)

Today’s media is full of leather-lunged, talking points shouting alleged experts.  They work like radios: all talk and never listen.  One such expert is Mark Winfield, a professor of one of those “-studies” courses who faithfully regurgitates the party line on climate change.

The accusation is that the Ford government’s climate change strategy is inadequate to stem the problem.  This is like complaining that tiny Luxembourg lacks an adequate strategy to defeat the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany.  Ontario’s and Canada’s contribution to the problem – assuming it exists – is so tiny by their own measure that it is simply foolish to speak of a Canadian or Ontarian strategy to defeat climate change.

This point has been made before, and given quantitatively.  It is significant that the emperor is not listening to the whispering that he is wearing no clothes.  The professional fearmongers lack an answer, and they know it.

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Alberta is screwed

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Dec 2018

RE: Alberta workers need help.  (Hamilton Spectator of this date)

Alberta is screwed.  Jason Kenney, leader of the Alberta Conservative party revealed that Alberta was getting $12.50 for a barrel of oil when the world price was $52.50 – a $40.00 per barrel discount.  This isn’t sustainable.

From the moment that the Obama administration blocked construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the government of Canada should have ordered the construction of a pipeline to the BC coast so that oil could be sold to China and Japan.   That wasn’t done.

Oil workers can’t live off unemployment insurance, and no amount of retraining is going to find them other jobs in Alberta.  They simply aren’t there.  In the nearish term, what is needed is a program to move the displaced workers to Ontario where the economy is more diverse and more dynamic.  The quality of the worker for Ontario industry will be as good as any in the world.

In the longer term, Alberta is going to have to refine its own oil, at a pace of a million barrels a day.  Finished fuels and lubes possess greater value value-added than crude oil.  There will still be the problem of shipment to markets east and south, and railroads will need to be expanded in capacity simultaneous with the construction of the refineries.  All this needs a co-ordination and concentration of effort between provincial and federal governments and within the federal government particularly.

There are few Liberal votes in Alberta.  Let’s see if that matters to Trudeau.

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Another French Revolution

 Vincent J. Curtis

4 Dec 2018

Another French Revolution is breaking out, and for similar reasons as previous.  An out of touch royalist is imposing oppressive taxes on the peasantry for the good of the nation.  The peasants are unimpressed by the claims of moral superiority and necessity.

As I’ve said before in respect of a Canadian carbon tax, any tax of a rigour sufficient to “change behaviour” would lead to an outbreak of violence.  Some “behaviors” are an all-or-nothing affair, like driving to Toronto to work; and only a tax severe enough to make work in Toronto uneconomic could change that “behavior.”

Well, French President Macron swallowed all the climate change kool-aid and imposed taxes on fuels severe enough that driving to work and driving for work are now becoming uneconomical.  A proposed future increase on carbon fuels sparked rioting in Paris.  Protests by Macron that he is putting the working and middle classes out of work for the good of the world fails to impress the rioters, who still have to pay the rent and put food on the table.

The Canadian carbon tax is also an exercise in virtue-signalling.  It won’t change behavior in the manner desired because it won’t be rigorous enough.  M. Trudeau is not as far out of touch as is le Président de la République française.  Still,….

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Ford attacked for inadequate climate strategy

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Dec 2018

RE: Ontario’s new environmental plan falls woefully short (Hamilton Spectator editorial 1 Dec 2018)

It is absurd to say that the Ford government’s plan to fight climate change is woefully short of “what is really needed.”  It is absurd to say that Canada or even Ontario needs a strategy to combat climate change.  Neither Canada nor Ontario can do anything that will alter the progress of climate change.  Our contribution to the problem is so trivial that nothing we do will have any detectable impact on the climate.

Canada contributes 1.5 % of the world emissions of carbon dioxide, and Ontario contributes about a third of that.  If Ontario disappeared, the reduction of expected global temperature increase by the year 2100 would be 0.015 of a degree – an amount too small to be measured reliably.

The most important things Ford can do for the future of Ontario is to get the provincial budget right, and to encourage economic expansion.  The tax and spend plan that the Spectator criticizes works to make Ontario’s large industries more energy efficient, and therefore more competitive.

Financial incentives by government to promote certain things are nothing new.  That is the thought behind carbon taxes.  Ford’s plan is not exactly boilerplate conservativism, and it must grate on Liberals that Ford is waving the climate change flag while helping big industry by Liberal means.

To complain that it doesn’t do enough to combat climate change is ridiculous.

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A skeptical chemist’s view of global warming

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Nov 2018

I propose to set forth my objections to the fear-monger surrounding the issue of run-away global warming.

The most important factor in the warming of the earth is the energy output of the sun.  If the sun went dark, it would not take long for the earth to assume a temperature approximating that of outer space.  The sun is where all the heat comes from. The difference between summer and winter and between day and night serve as examples of the power of the sun.  We can call the energy output of the sun the first order factor of the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere.

 All the anthropogenic global warming hypotheses assume that the energy output of the sun is absolutely constant.  This is a radical and unwarranted assumption.  The earth has experienced several ice ages, and periods of great warmth, as when the dinosaurs roamed the planet.  In the 20^th century alone, the 1930s were a period of extraordinary heat, and the earth’s temperature cooled between 1940 and 1970 – setting off a ‘coming ice age’ scare.  None of these things had anything to do with man or carbon dioxide.  The sun is the first order factor of the earth’s atmospheric temperature, and all second and higher order factors react to it.

Let’s assume for the moment that absolute constancy holds, at least for brief periods of time.  We look then at the second and third order factors that affect global atmospheric temperature  .If the assumption that global temperatures are affected by atmospheric carbon dioxide is true, what can we expect as carbon dioxide increased in concentration? As a first approximation, we would expect global average temperature to increase linearly as follows: ΔT = mΔC, where ΔT is the increase in temperature, ΔC is the increase in carbon dioxide concentration, and m is the rate of increase.  With all other factors being held constant we should expect to see a consistent, linear increase in temperature with increase in carbon dioxide.  But we are not seeing anything like that, and so all other factors cannot be constant.  Factors other than carbon dioxide must also be playing a role – a more important role - in increasing global temperatures.

Let’s look at another factor.  The ideal gas law is as follows: PV=nRT, where P is pressure, V is volume, n is the quantity of gas, T is absolute temperature, and R is a constant.  Since n, the quantity of the atmosphere, is constant, and atmospheric pressure is constant, any increase in temperature would result in an expansion of the volume of the atmosphere.  The atmosphere consists of nitrogen to the extent of 78 percent, and nitrogen is subject to the Joule-Thompson effect.  This means that an adiabatic expansion of a volume of nitrogen will result in a decrease in temperature of the gas.  Anyone who has cracked open a cylinder of compressed nitrogen will have seen the valve and outlet of the cylinder get covered in frost - this is the Joule-Thompson effect in action.  Any expansion of the earth’s atmosphere due to an increase in temperature would see an offsetting response as a result of that expansion.  Since nitrogen comprises 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere while carbon dioxide comprises only 0.04 percent, the moderating effect of nitrogen is extremely powerful as compared to a heating effect of carbon dioxide.

The atmosphere of Venus consists of 96 percent carbon dioxide.  Any likening of the earth turning into a Venus fails to observe the large differences in compositions between the two atmospheres.  In addition, Venus has about thirty times the amount of atmosphere that earth does.  Where Venus has atmosphere, earth has oceans, and the oceans have a far greater capacity to absorb heat and moderate temperature than the earth’s atmosphere does.  The earth is nothing like Venus, and the earth’s atmosphere can’t experience run-away temperatures without a dramatic change in solar output.

Carbon dioxide is ominously referred to as a “greenhouse gas,” and people who make this observation don’t seem to know much about greenhouses.  Carbon dioxide is added to a greenhouse to increase the bulk of the plants, not to heat the place.  Plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis to grow and develop; more CO₂, bigger plants.  The heat felt in greenhouses is produced by the glass, not the gas.

My old university residence had common rooms that used to get very hot on the coldest of winter days under a bright winter sun.  Ordinary window glass traps most infra-red radiation, and the bright sun shining on the dark carpet and furniture of the common room produced a lot of infra-red radiation.  The trapping of heat in a greenhouse relies on plain window glass being opaque to most infra-red radiation.  Greenhouses work by trapping infra-red radiation with ordinary window glass, not with carbon dioxide, which absorbs at a specific frequency of infra-red.

To recap to this point: the sun is where all the heat comes from.  The oceans are the great second order moderator of heat on earth’s surface, due to their capacity both to absorb heat from and release heat and moisture to the atmosphere.  The third order moderator is the atmosphere itself, being composed largely of nitrogen and not being all that massive, especially as compared to the oceans.

The greatest variable in atmospheric composition is humidity, and water vapor absorbs at specific frequencies in the infra-red region as carbon dioxide does.  Carbon dioxide is a minor constituent.  To the extent that carbon dioxide absorbs (and emits) infra-red radiation at a specific frequency, the global warming hypothesis requires a linear increase in atmospheric temperature, neglecting the moderating effect of nitrogen, and holding all other factors constant.  But we aren’t seeing simple, linear increases with ΔC.  Other factors must, therefore, be playing roles, and those factors are all more powerful in their effects than carbon dioxide.

Significant, prolonged changes in global temperatures must be due to natural variation in the first order – the sun.  Smaller changes of shorter duration can be due to changes in the second order – the oceans.  In the third order, nitrogen, by absorbing or releasing heat when expanding or contracting, tends to offset the effects of small changes in the first and second orders. (Another example of Le Chatelier’s principle in action, and explains why small changes do not result in run-away outcomes.)

Like water vapor, carbon dioxide doesn’t just absorb infer-red radiation – it releases it too.  At best, the potential effect of carbon dioxide is to delay, but not prevent, the release of heat to outer space, and is too small and too easily offset by nitrogen, and by the oceans to be that consequential.

To this scientist, the experts who speak most fearfully of run-away global warming are making unwarranted assumptions about all the important factors, the first being solar output.  They exhibit no understanding of how a greenhouse works.  They exhibit no knowledge of the thermodynamics of real gases, or heat capacities.  They don’t seem to understand the establishment of a new equilibrium.  Their fears of run-away temperatures confirm to me their lack of important knowledge.  They simply ignore (or worse – cover up) the failings of their theory.

Finally, they are unscientific.  A time versus temperature graph does not establish a cause-effect relationship between time and temperature, or anything else.

On the other hand, the politics of global warming are obvious and satisfying to many, especially on the left.  A lot of people have made good money playing prophets of doom.  The sheer politicization of what should be a scientific curiosity indicates to me that politics is the predominant factor in all the fearmongering.  The stench of politics hangs over climate science like a sign of something rotten.

I hope this article serves as an antidote to fears of man-caused run-away global warming.

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Vincent J. Curtis is a Canadian research scientist and occasional free-lance writer.

The hokey hockey stick

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Nov 2018

When people think if global warming, most think of the hockey stick graph.  This graph, produced by Michael Mann from a study of tree rings, shows essentially constant temperatures from 1000 A.D.  to 1950, followed by an sharp increase upwards.  This hockey stick graph is claimed to show the evil effects on global temperature of the industrialization of the western world, particularly of the United States.

To the discerning eye, the graph seemed odd.  It failed to show the medieval warm period (950 – 1250) and the little ice age (1300 – 1850), which are well known and well documented phenomena.  The business of calibrating the thickness of a tree ring to an average annual temperature seemed to make dramatic assumptions about other growth factors, such a sunlight, rainfall, species of tree, and local accidents of fertilization.  In addition, trees only cover about 15 % of the world’s surface.  The oceans cover about 70 percent of the surface; there are no trees in the Antarctic, the Arctic, and the great deserts of the world; and the question of representativeness arises.

Then there is the problem of accuracy of measurement.  Tree rings are irregular in shape, vary greatly in thickness around the tree, and, most importantly, the boundary of a ring is not sharp.  The black hash mark on a wide-range mercury thermometer enables an observer to read temperatures reliably to within half, or maybe a quarter of a degree.  Yet the hockey stick graph confidently showed temperature to hundredths of a degree!

Some funny things started to happen.  Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph showed that the sampling and the way Mann handled the data would have produced a hockey-stick graph regardless of the input data.  Then, Mann’s original raw data set was “lost” and all that was available to other researchers was Mann’s processed data set.

Then it became clear that Mann had used not tree-ring data for the twentieth century temperatures but thermometric data instead.  The thermometric data showed an increase in temperature – while the tree ring data showed a decrease in temperature!  Mann used the thermometric data on the grounds that it was more reliable, even if the graph is lacking in consistency.

Mann’s hockey stick graph is insufficient on which to base wide-ranging political or economic decisions, for it demonstrates nothing scientifically.  In the first place, it offers no cause.  Nobody has duplicated Mann’s work.  Even more important is the failure to detect the two large natural variations in global average temperature; the medieval warm period and the little ice age.  Had these been plotted on Mann’s graph, the increase shown from 1950 could be inconveniently interpreted as another example of natural variation.

Mann’s graph, which demonstrates no cause-effect relationship, has been seized upon for political purposes, and raises the question of whether it was created to feed into a political narrative that had been fermenting since the late 1980’s.  An admission of natural variation of global average temperature would vex the narrative that immoderate economic success by the United States in particular was endangering the future of the world.

Between 1940 and 1970, global average temperatures fell, which gave rise to the global cooling scare of the 1970s.  The extinction of the dinosaurs was claimed to have been caused by the global cooling caused by a meteor impact, and a “nuclear winter” was feared as a result of a war caused by Ronald Reagan.  After it became clear that global temperatures were warming again, Dr. James Hansen of NASA in 1988 advanced the global warming caused by American industrial activity hypothesis.  Since 1998, however, satellite measurements of average global temperatures has shown no increase – a twenty year pause in global warming.

The utter politicization of the global warming issue has poisoned “climate science.”  As revealed in the climategate emails, legitimate scientists who wanted to study natural variability were driven out of the field by sordid means to protect the political narrative.

Real science doesn’t offer opinions.  It doesn’t fear contradiction.  Climate science has to dissociate itself from the hockey stick graph, from rampant data manipulation, and from far-fetched forecasts of catastrophe that cannot be scientifically demonstrated.

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Vincent J. Curtis is a Canadian free-lance writer.

Is our time running out due to climate change?

Vincent J. |Curtis

25 Nov 2018

Re: Our time for action is running out. (Hamilton Spectator 24 Nov 2018)

The article by Dr. Henry Brouwer is just the sort of fulmination that you would expect from someone new to a problem and filled with left-wing talking points.  A little homework would explain why governments are reluctant to act as he requires and why people are not as panicked about climate change as he thinks they should be.

In early 1996, in the wake of the Kyoto Treaty, I observed in the Spectator that the effect of accepting the global warming hypothesis would amount to requiring the crippling of western economies or the massive substitution of nuclear power for coal burning electrical generation.  The environmentalists of Kyoto weren’t contemplating expanding nuclear power, and no politician, whatever he promised, would allow the crippling of his country’s economy – especially on so tenuous a claim as global catastrophe.  Global catastrophe has be forecasted before.

The goal of crippling western economies is present in the Paris Accord.  It permits unlimited increase of carbon dioxide emissions by China and India, which together emit 37 percent of the total emissions already.  Asking why China and India get a pass draws accusations of racism for requiring these backward economies to be held back as western economies remain advanced.

And there it is.  The climate change game is indistinguishable from an effort to bring the great economic and cultural success of the west down a few pegs – the anti-anti-communist response to the immoderate success of the west after the discrediting and then the downfall of the Soviet empire and Marxist system.

Space prevents my going into detail of how the climate change game was discredited, but many people understand that it was.

Lip service by politicians will continue as long a climate change remains a shouting issue, but no politician would accept the crippling of an economy while he is responsible.  Likewise, ordinary people aren’t going to accept hardship today to prevent something that might or might not occur eighty years from now.

Sorry Marxists.

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