Another New Paper Shows Temp Changes come first: BEFORE CO2 rises
Warmists have entirely mistaken the direction of the causal arrow
This is taken from a very long paper, so we have reproduced the most important parts of it. It will likely be ignored by the mainstream media and politicians. The full paper can be seen via the see more here link
The scientific and wider interest in the relationship between atmospheric temperature (T) and concentration of carbon dioxide ([CO2]) has been enormous
According to the commonly assumed causality link, increased [CO2] causes a rise in T.
However, recent developments cast doubts on this assumption by showing that this relationship is of the hen-or-egg type, or even unidirectional but opposite in direction to the commonly assumed one.
These developments include an advanced theoretical framework for testing causality based on the stochastic evaluation of a potentially causal link between two processes via the notion of the impulse response function.
Using, on the one hand, this framework and further expanding it and, on the other hand, the longest available modern time series of globally averaged T and [CO2], we shed light on the potential causality between these two processes.
All evidence resulting from the analyses suggests a unidirectional, potentially causal link with T as the cause and [CO2] as the effect. That link is not represented in climate models, whose outputs are also examined using the same framework, resulting in a link opposite the one found when the real measurements are used.
The mainstream assumption of the causality direction [CO2] → T makes a compelling narrative, as everything is blamed on a single cause, the human CO2 emissions. Indeed, this has been the popular narrative for decades.
However, popularity does not necessarily mean correctness, and here we have provided strong arguments against this assumption.
Since we have identified atmospheric temperature as the cause and atmospheric CO2 concentration as the effect, one may be tempted to ask the question: What is the cause of the modern increase in temperature?
Apparently, this question is much more difficult to reply to, as we can no longer attribute everything to any single agent.
We do not claim to have the answer to this question, whose study is far beyond the article’s scope.
Neither do we believe that mainstream climatic theory, which is focused upon human CO2 emissions as the main cause and regards everything else as feedback of the single main cause, can explain what happened on Earth for 4.5 billion years of changing climate.
Nonetheless, as a side product, in the Appendices to the paper, we provide several indications of the following:
The dependence of the carbon cycle on temperature is quite strong and indeed major increases of [CO2] can emerge as a result of temperature rise. In other words, we show that the natural [CO2] changes due to temperature rise are far larger (by a factor > 3) than human emissions (Appendix A.1).
There are processes, such as the Earth’s albedo (which is changing in time as any other characteristic of the climate system), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the ocean heat content in the upper layer (represented by the vertically averaged temperature in the layer 0–100 m), which are potential causes of the temperature increase, unlike what is observed with [CO2], their changes precede those of temperature (Appendix A.2, Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4).
On a large timescale, the analysis of paleoclimatic data supports the primacy of the causal direction T → [CO2], even though some controversy remains about this issue (Appendix A.5).
In terms of the carbon cycle (point 1 above), several physical, chemical, biochemical and human processes are involved in it. The human CO2 emissions due to the burning of ‘fossil fuels’ have largely increased since the beginning of the industrial age.
However, the global temperature increase began succeeding the Little Ice Period, at a time when human CO2 emissions were very low.
To cast light on the problem, we examine the issue of CO2 emissions vs. atmospheric temperature further in the Supplementary Information, where we provide evidence that they are not correlated with each other.
The outgassing from the sea is also highlighted sometimes in the literature among the climate-related mechanisms. On the other hand, the role of the biosphere and biochemical reactions is often downplayed, along with the existence of complex interactions and feedback.
This role can be summarized in the following points, examined in detail and quantified in Appendix A.1.
Terrestrial and maritime respiration and decay are responsible for the vast majority of CO2 emissions [32], Figure 5.12.
Overall, natural processes of the biosphere contribute 96 percent to the global carbon cycle, the rest, four percent, being human emissions (which were even lower in the past [33]).
The biosphere is more productive at higher temperatures, as the rates of biochemical reactions increase with temperature, which leads to increasing natural CO2 emission [2].
Additionally, a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration makes the biosphere more productive via the so-called carbon fertilization effect, thus resulting in greening of the Earth [34,35], i.e., amplification of the carbon cycle, to which humans also contribute through crops and land-use management [36].
In addition to the biosphere, there are other factors that drive the Earth’s climate in periodic and non-periodic way.
Orbital parameters of Earth’s revolution change quasi-cyclically in a multi-millennial scale (variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of Earth’s orbit), as interpreted by Milanković [37,38,39,40,41], and changes in the orbit geometry influence the amount of insolation.
The non-periodic drivers of the Earth’s climate variability include volcanic eruptions and collisions with large extraterrestrial objects, e.g., asteroids. An important climate driver is water in its three phases [33].
Another apparent factor is solar activity (including solar cycles) and the solar radiation (im)balance on Earth (e.g., albedo changes; see [33] and Appendix A.2). Notably, a recent study [42], by assessing 20 years of direct observations of energy imbalance from Earth-orbiting satellites, showed that the global changes observed appear largely from reductions in the amount of sunlight scattered by Earth’s atmosphere.
ENSO and ocean heating, both of which affect temperature, are examined in Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4, respectively. The results of Appendix A.2, Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4 are summarized in the schematic of Figure 13.
Changes in all three examined processes, albedo, ENSO and the upper ocean heat, precede in time the changes in temperature and even more so those in [CO2]. Generally, the time lags shown in Figure 13 complete a consistent picture of potential causality links among climate processes and always confirm the 𝑇→[CO2] direction.
https://principia-scientific.com/another-new-paper-shows-temp-changes-before-co2/
*************************************************Conservative State Files First-in-the-Nation Lawsuit Against BlackRock Over Deceptive Climate Policies
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Monday sued the investment company BlackRock for deceptive practices.
“BlackRock has said two things that can’t both be true,” Skrmetti, a Republican, told The Daily Signal in an interview Monday. “The first is that they’re taking investors’ money and investing it purely for the purpose of maximizing the return on investment. But they’ve also put out statements saying that they’re committed to net-zero [carbon emissions to combat] climate change by certain dates.”
“They’ve made lots of statements about working to use all of the assets under their management to further the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and both of those can’t be true,” he added.
In the suit filed in Williamson County Circuit Court, Skrmetti alleges that BlackRock violates the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act by engaging in deceptive practices regarding its so-called environmental, social, and governance goals. BlackRock has helped lead the movement to force climate alarmism goals on companies in the name of ESG. These goals often involve pledging to alter business practices to decrease or offset carbon emissions in the name of helping the environment, even though science on carbon emissions destroying the climate is far from settled.
In 2020 and 2021, BlackRock joined the climate alarmism groups Climate Action 100+ and the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, committing to use the weight of all assets under management to advance many environmental, social, and governance goals and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Yet BlackRock operates many non-ESG funds, claiming that such funds “do not seek to follow a sustainable, impact, or ESG investment strategy.” The company further claims that there is “no indication” that non-ESG funds will adopt an ESG investment strategy.
Although BlackRock claims these funds don’t advance its ESG goals, it has adopted a companywide commitment to ESG goals and aggressively urged climate goals on other enterprises it invests in. As a shareholder in many other companies, BlackRock carries considerable weight and has pushed them to make climate-related commitments.
“BlackRock’s pledge as a member of [the climate groups] is to force companies to disclose targets for net-zero emissions for environmental and political reasons (limiting warming to well below 2°C), without regard to materiality to the particular company’s financial performance,” the lawsuit argues. “BlackRock makes no mention of this commitment to non-material factors when explaining its portfolio company disclosure expectations to fund investors.”
The lawsuit cites many instances where BlackRock used its influence over companies it invests in—including Chevron, United Airlines, and Walmart—to push climate-related shareholder proposals. Yet BlackRock claimed in a December 2022 statement responding to state attorneys general that the company doesn’t “dictate to companies what specific emission targets they should meet or what type of political lobbying they should pursue.”
BlackRock also claimed that its role “is to help [clients] navigate investment risks and opportunities, not to engineer a specific decarbonization outcome in the real economy.”
As for ESG funds, Skrmetti’s lawsuit cites this claim by BlackRock: “The global aspiration to achieve a net-zero global economy by 2050 is reflective of aggregated efforts; governments representing over 90% of GDP have committed to move to net-zero over the coming decades.”
However, only 15% of countries that have made a net-zero commitment have enshrined such commitments in law, and only 10% of global emissions would be covered by legally binding pledges, according to Tennessee’s lawsuit. The lawsuit lists 14 statements that BlackRock could have added as disclosures to make that statement less deceptive, such as noting that no country in the world has implemented policies that will prevent the world climate from increasing 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Climate Action Tracker.
BlackRock also has presented contradictory claims about whether ESG goals align with positive financial outcomes.
BlackRock has said that its “focus on climate risk and energy is about driving financial outcomes for clients,” but the company also has admitted that sustainability metrics “do not provide an indication of current or future performance nor do they represent the potential risk and reward profile of a fund.”
Contrary to BlackRock’s claims, ESG-guided funds don’t yield higher returns on investment, according to the lawsuit. It cites a 2019 study finding a “statistically significant negative relation between ESG investing and investor returns.”
“BlackRock’s acts and practices concerning the marketing or sale of products and services, as alleged herein, are deceptive to consumers and other persons in Tennessee,” the lawsuit states.
Skrmetti asks the circuit court to find that BlackRock violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, that the court order BlackRock to cease making misrepresentations, that it order BlackRock to “restore the money or property lost as a result of the alleged violations of law,” and that it order BlackRock to give up its “ill-gotten gains.”
Skrmetti asks the court to fine BlackRock a civil penalty of $1,000 to Tennessee for each violation of the law, and that “all costs, including discretionary costs, in this case be taxed against BlackRock.”
BlackRock is the leading exchange-traded fund provider in the world, with $9.4 trillion in assets under management.
Although some states have passed laws to restrict the use of ESG goals in making investment decisions, Skrmetti’s lawsuit represents the first civil enforcement action against BlackRock for ESG deception.
“Ultimately, this is a case about the truth, and the biggest takeaway for me at the end of the day is we can get clarity for consumers,” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal in the interview. “If you’re going to make decisions about how companies should have to behave to do business, those are decisions that ultimately have to flow from the people, and this is part of, I think, a broader effort on the part of some elites to make sure that the American people don’t have that kind of oversight over their economy.”
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Woke Duke Energy Jacks Up Electric Rates to Pay for ESG, Zero Carbon Mandates
Duke Energy has thrown consumers under the proverbial (electric) bus to make their operations carbon neutral by 2050. As a result, electricity prices in North Carolina may increase by 19% over the next three years.
The company’s president, Lynn Good, receives more than $20 million annually in compensation financed in part by ensuring that consumers lower their carbon emissions.
Following the 2021 enactment of the Energy Solutions for North Carolina Act, the vertically integrated Duke Energy is attempting to decarbonize the Tar Heel State by 70% by 2030 and fully decarbonize by 2050. This misguided initiative will force everyday families to subsidize a complete overhaul of the state’s power grid at a total cost approaching $160 billion.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission report and Chapter 4 of Duke’s 2023 Carolinas Resource Plan encourage the exploration of using dynamic rate designs in order to raise prices just when consumers need to use power the most. Essentially, the plan would increase the prices for power in the dog days of summer and the depths of winter. Even everyday activities such as cooking dinner, watching a TV show, or doing the laundry in the late afternoons and evenings could be subject to rate increases.
Duke’s exclusive focus on environmental, social, and governance nonsense has led it to shut down 56 coal-powered generators since 2010. The company has abandoned meritocracy and has mandated that a quarter of its workforce be women and people of color, irrespective of ability. Additionally, it wants to reduce customer energy consumption by 24,000 gigawatt hours and lower peak summer demand by 7,000 megawatt hours by 2025.
This focus on fake frugality over providing value can already be seen in its corporate history.
Duke announced it would pay more than $200 million to clean up its leeched toxic coal waste that spilled into ground water in Indiana, but subsequently tried to illegally and retroactively raise rates on the very consumers it harmed to pay for it. Additionally, Duke shut off power to more than half a million residents of North Carolina on Christmas Eve of 2022. No warnings were given when it took 1,300 megawatts of coal and natural gas capacity offline, ruining many family gatherings as temperatures fell to the low single digits.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned Duke and other operators in the South in its 2018 report that these power plants needed to be weatherized properly. Additionally, the largest factor leading to outages was Duke’s failure to purchase dedicated or firm gas supplies for Christmas Eve, the exact issue a 2019 report from the American Petroleum Institute addressed.
Perhaps Duke—which employs more than 26,000 people and serves almost 10 million customers with natural gas and more than 50,000 megawatts of electricity in North and South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee—should refocus its efforts on providing electricity, rather than virtue signaling.
With an annual profit of $2.56 billion in 2022, Duke has ample resources to stabilize the grid without raising rates.
Instead, the quest to decarbonize North Carolina would cost between $140 billion and $160 billion through 2050, according to the John Locke Foundation’s analysis of Duke’s various carbon plans. The plans’ overemphasis on solar and wind and on unrealistic pricing of hydrogen come at the expense of “reliable, dispatchable power plants that would decarbonize at the lowest possible cost.”
Perhaps Duke is even aware of this, as it is trying to sell off its unregulated renewables division to Brookfield Renewable, which explicitly assumes carbon pricing in its investment process, despite the cost of carbon being far from settled. However, Duke is still pushing forward with its $150 million lease of the Carolina Long Bay for an offshore wind farm that will have the same inefficiencies, ecological damage, and tourism-destroying effects as New Jersey’s.
Even if the entire United States halted all fossil fuel emissions right now, global temperatures would only decline by 0.02 of a degree Celsius by the year 2100.
Despite the math not being in their favor, Democrats have weaponized ESG by imposing corporate environmental and social policy on companies that then in turn lobby legislatures, such as North Carolina’s, for decarbonization and massive tax subsidies.
Furthermore, the Federal Reserve has been indirectly backing the ESG wokeness that has pervaded corporate America, potentially leading to another banking crisis. North Carolina should repeal its law and join the ranks of the 31 state attorneys general who stand against woke investing.
Instead of continuing down the ESG path, North Carolina should take a page from South Carolina and explore electricity market reform.
The Brattle Group’s report for South Carolina suggested making a Southeast Transmission Organization with North Carolina and other Southern states to save each customer between $115 and $187 annually. Additionally, the benefits for South Carolina adopting such competitive investment reforms could be as high as $370 million a year if the state fully participates. Other states, such as North Carolina, could also see similar benefits, and it would further stabilize every state’s power grid.
If North Carolina wants to strengthen its economy and serve its residents, the state should deregulate the electricity market and foster a business culture encouraging economic development, regardless of ideology.
Renewables projects and their storage capacities that are economically viable should be able to compete against other sources without $160 billion in state subsidies or making consumers pay for the energy transition.
Certainly, North Carolina should not support policies that make electricity increasingly unaffordable to its residents and push them into poverty.
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Climate change alarm is exaggerated, we should not demonise oil and gas: Elon Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday (Dec 16) said that oil and gas should not be demonised and that it was extremely critical to reduce carbon emissions to preserve the planet.
While speaking at a right-wing political gathering organised by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, Musk said, "I don't think we should demonise oil and gas, I think we should say look that is obviously necessary in the short term and the medium term too, and although it takes several decades to become sustainable, so I think if we just, without getting too worried about it, seek to have a sustainable energy future, gradually, then that's what will happen."
Musk said that it was important that industries began reducing billions of the carbon they take from Earth and releasing it into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
"We should not demonise oil and gas in the medium term," he said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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