Climate Change -what do we know?

Climate Change – what do we know?

Without going back into pre-history, without going back hundreds of thousands of years to that sort of time that only specialists, Paleo-Climatologists, can deal in, what do we know about Climate Change in relatively recent times?

Certainly we know that there have been warm periods and cold periods. I am not even going to use the words ‘glacials’ and ‘inter-glacials’ as such terms are unfamiliar to the common man. But even a person with a modicum of education knows that there have been great ice ages and wonderful warm periods.

So I will start with the Roman Warming from 250BC to 450AD. This was indeed a remarkable warm period and we can see the evidence today in the magnificent buildings by both Greeks and Romans. We can see the Coliseum in Rome, the amphitheatres at Arles and Nimes and the amazing aqueduct, the Pont du Gard, in the south of France. In Athens we can see the Parthenon, and doubtless there are many other remains scattered all around the Mediterranean that showed the great advances of civilisation during this warm period, that was at least 2° higher than today.

This was followed by the Dark Ages, a bitterly cold period of crop failure, famine, disease, war, depopulation and expansion of ice.

In turn the Mediaeval Warm Period followed this from 900 – 1300AD. At this time the Vikings populated Greenland, which was some 6° warmer than today. In Europe it was a time of building of monasteries, universities and the great Cathedrals.

Then occurred the Little Ice Age with a decrease in solar activity. It was desperately cold, with crop failures, famine and the plague. The Vikings on Greenland died out.

From 1850 onwards till 1998 the Earth grew warmer, as we all emerged from the Little Ice Age. Even now we are still colder than the Roman or Mediaeval Warm Periods, let alone the Holocene Maximum that goes farther back.

From 1998 to the present day there has been stasis or cooling, as per the Hadley Centre part of the Met office, and further cooling is projected for the next 20 years, as Global Warming suffers a blip.

So what can we deduce from this short potted history of recent Climate? One thing is clear beyond peradventure that Climate is always changing. It always has changed and it always will. We can no more stop Climate Change than we can stop the movement of the tectonic plates, or the eruption of submarine volcanoes. We know that in the course of time the South of England will sink, while Scotland will rise; we know that the Gaeranger Fjord in Norway will have a tsunami as the sides collapse. We know or can guess that a large part of California will break off at the San Andreas Fault and float off into the Pacific Ocean. We know that volcanoes will erupt erratically and the dust will obscure the sun and lead to cooling. And as to the sun, that great source of heat and light, we know that man cannot control for one moment the solar winds or the presence or absence of sunspots.

Furthermore we can see that warm periods are especially beneficial for mankind, whereas intense cold periods are greatly to be feared.

Immense forces of Nature are at work, which we humans with all our Science but dimly understand. In spite of this politicians all round the world have latched on to an unproven hypothesis of an obscure Swedish scientist that a very minor gas, Carbon Dioxide, can actually trap heat and cause Global Warming. In view of the immense forces of Nature it is truly amazing that such a hypothesis could have gained almost universal credence. It is even more strange when one looks at the universally agreed composition of the atmosphere: -

78% Nitrogen
21% Oxygen
0.95% Water Vapour
0.0385% Carbon Dioxide

When one arranges the figures in this way one can see easily how small a part is played by Carbon Dioxide, which for some reason has been picked upon as the villain of the piece – which is totally ludicrous, as CO2 is part of the food chain. Without CO2 plants would not grow, and without the process of photosynthesis that plant life carries out, we humans and all the animal kingdom would not have the oxygen with which to breathe.

Where does Carbon Dioxide come from? In the first place some 40% comes from all the animals, which includes us humans, just by the act of exhaling. We breathe in oxygen and we exhale Carbon Dioxide. Some 57% comes from the oceans and the earth. As the sun shines on the waters streams of CO2 enter the atmosphere. Likewise there is out gassing from the earth and rocks. So we can see that 97% of carbon dioxide is purely of natural origin. That leaves only 3% that is man-made by the combustion of fossil fuels.

So then let us take 3% of 0.0385% (sometime called 385 parts per million) and what do we arrive at? The anthropomorphic portion of CO2 is 0.001155% of the atmosphere. Built around these figures an alarmist edifice has been created that completely ignores two facts. The first is that in the afore-mentioned potted history, the temperatures have been much higher than those of today. The second is that CO2 in the atmosphere in times past has been sometimes ten, nay twenty-five times greater than today. We ignore the history of our planet and the history of climate change at our peril.

But let us look at those figures once again. If, as the alarmists would have it, that global warming is posing a great danger and that we are facing unprecedented climate change, and that this has been caused by a recent increase in carbon dioxide emissions, then what is their solution? It is quite simply to cut the man-made, anthropomorphic, emissions of CO2.

Let us suppose that they are right for a moment. Not even Kevin Rudd or Gordon Brown would imagine that they could blanket the oceans. Not even Al Gore or Senator Kerry or even President Obama would seriously suggest that to save the planet half the population of the earth’s animal kingdom, that includes us humans, should be eliminated. No, so what is left?

Let us suppose then by universal edict that the whole world industry was shut down, with no more coal-fired furnaces, no motor cars, no aeroplanes, no electricity and no laptop computers – just suppose that that could happen and that all and every source of man-made carbon dioxide emissions were cut off, and we all returned to simply cultivating our back gardens for food, just what would be the result?

The maths are quite simple: subtract 0.001155 from 0.0385 and we arrive at 0.0373. What does that mean? If we put this in parts per million it means a reduction from 385ppmv to 373ppmv. It means hardly any difference at all!! It means quite simply that enormous efforts of time and money are being spent on trying to eliminate a trace of a trace! The fact is that Great Nature produces Carbon Dioxide in an abundance that cannot be matched by man. So that if we were to sacrifice everything that we have gained in manufacturing and technology it would make not one jot of difference.

No wonder that the vast majority of the world’s scientists rejected the Kyoto Protocol - some 17,000 initial signatories of the Oregon Petition, which I understand is now up to 23,000. Please note that this is a far greater number than that UNO’s politically controlled and motivated IPCC!

How is it then that so many people have been persuaded that something must be done to prevent Climate Change? It is very simple really, if one can understand the meaning and the role of the Pharaohs. We have today in this world a number of ‘Pharaohs’. Typically they are politicians, who are skilled at suggestion and at manipulating people. They are skilled at mass propaganda and will seize ruthlessly the means of mass communication, and deny it to those who dissent. Democracy is an illusion fostered by these demagogues.

Is it not typical that the failed Presidential candidate, Al Gore, is in the van of them, aided and abetted by another failed candidate, Senator Kerry? They are not scientists, they are power hungry Pharaohs. With respect, or as much respect as I can muster, the same goes for Gordon Brown, who is charging off to Copenhagen; to Kevin Rudd who won a landslide victory promising to commit Australia to the Kyoto Protocol, irrespective of whether or not it would ruin the Australian economy. As for Berlusconi his control of the media is legendary. And so we can go on.

All over we have these power hungry moguls, who have little or no science, who have suggested to otherwise intelligent people that they must tackle climate change. Can anything be more risible, more patently absurd than these miniature demagogues strutting the world stage and playing God?

What is even more ridiculous is that the Skeptics are accused of ‘denying Climate Change’! On the contrary Skeptics document climate change and know that climate change is inevitable. To quote Professor Ian Plimer, to whom I am indebted for his book “Heaven+Earth”, ‘that’s what climate does’.


Anthony Bright-Paul
September 26th ‘09