Two CO2 climate change myths

CO2 does not “trap heat” in the atmosphere and the increase in CO2 is not a buildup of our emissions. In fact these are two pseudoscientific myths that appear frequently in alarmist press reports and teaching materials. Neither one is true.

The science is quite different. It is actually pretty complex, which is why the climate change science is so widely debated.

No heat is trapped by CO2 in the air

CO2 both adds heat to the atmosphere and removes it, so it certainly does not trap it there. CO2 is a secondary greenhouse gas (GHG), with water vapor being the primary GHG. What being a GHG means is two different things, as GHGs both add and remove heat in the atmosphere.

It all begins when the sun’s incoming energy heats the surface of the Earth. Some of that energy is then given off as infrared light, which is usually called “long wave radiation” or LWR. A lot of this LWR simply passes through the atmosphere and goes out into space, where it is gone forever. But some of it is intercepted and absorbed by GHG molecules.

These energized molecules then give off this absorbed LWR energy to the rest of the air as heat. (Heat is not a substance; rather it is just molecular motion.) So at this point we can say that the CO2 has heated the air and this is as far as the alarmists go. What they do not mention is that when this heat energizes other GHG molecules, they give off LWR, thereby removing the heat.

So the energy comes into the air as LWR and becomes heat, then it goes out again as LWR, and is gone. No heat is trapped in this process. There is always some heat in the air as this process goes on, but it is like people coming into a store, then standing in line waiting to be served, then leaving. No one is trapped.

Once we see that no heat is trapped, we can ask whether adding CO2 necessarily increases the amount of heat (and the temperature) in the air. Thanks to the complexity of the climate system, the answer turns out to be not necessarily. Moreover, satellite observations tell us that there has been no CO2 warming since records began about 40 years ago.

The CO2 buildup is not made up of our CO2 emissions

It is pretty well established that the amount of CO2 in the air is increasing. It is usually said that this is because we are dumping a lot of CO2 into the air and a lot of it is staying there, building up year after year. This is more or less the standard concept of pollution, which the alarmists constantly invoke, but that is nothing like what is happening with the CO2 increase.

What the alarmists consistently fail to mention is that our emissions of CO2 are tiny compared to those that occur naturally. In fact natural processes both emit and absorb something like 25 times what we emit (the actual amount is not measured). This vast natural flow of CO2 into and out of the air is called the “carbon flux.” It is part of the carbon cycle that sustains all life on Earth.

The point here is that given this huge carbon flux, pretty much any CO2 that we emit is gone in just a few years. Something like 25% of the CO2 in the air is absorbed every year by natural processes, including the CO2 that we put there.

What this means is that the CO2 increase in the air is not made up of our CO2 building up. Our CO2 may or may not be causing the increase, someway or another, but it does not make up the increase. Let me say this again simply, the CO2 increase is not our CO2.

In sum, when you see articles complaining about heat trapping CO2 pollution filling the air, none of it is true. The increase in CO2 is not a buildup of human emissions and it is not causing the atmosphere to heat up.

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Global warming effects: Taps may dry up in India, claims study

A stupid prophecy if ever there was one.  Global warming would cause the oceans to evaporate off MORE, leading to MORE rain.  Shrinking rainfall indicates COOLING

New Delhi: A new early warning satellite system has revealed that India along with Spain, Morocco and Iraq faces the risk of shrinking reservoirs that can lead to taps going dry.

It has highlighted poor rains in 2017 to show the shrinking of the Indira Sagar dam in Madhya Pradesh and the Sardar Sarovar reservoir in Gujarat that supplies drinking water to millions.

Shrinking reservoirs could spark the next "day zero" water crisis, according to the developers of a satellite early warning system for the world's 500,000 dams, the Guardian reported on Thursday.

Cape Town grabbed headlines on "day zero". It launched a countdown to the day when taps would be cut off to millions of residents as a result of a three-year drought. Drastic conservation measures have forestalled that moment in South Africa.

However, dozens of other countries face similar risks from rising demand, mismanagement and climate change, said the World Resources Institute (WRI).

The US-based environmental organisation is working with Deltares, the Dutch government and other partners to build a water and security early warning system that aims to anticipate social instability, economic damage and cross-border migration.

A prototype is due to be rolled out later in 2018, but a snapshot was unveiled on Wednesday that highlighted four of the worst-affected dams and the potential knock-on risks.

Tensions have been apparent in India over the water allocations for two reservoirs connected by the Narmada river. Poor rains last year left the upstream Indira Sagar dam a third below its seasonal average.

When some of this shortfall was passed on to the downstream Sardar Sarovar reservoir, it caused an uproar because the latter is a drinking supply for 30 million people. Last month, the Gujarat government halted irrigation and appealed to farmers not to sow crops.

Spain has suffered a severe drought that has contributed to a 60 per cent shrinking of the surface area of the Buendia dam over the last five years, the Guardian report said.

All the dams are in the mid-latitudes, the geographic bands on either side of the tropics where climate change is expected to make droughts more frequent and protracted. As more reservoirs are scanned, the WRI expects more cases to emerge.

"These four could be a harbinger of things to come," said Charles Iceland of the WRI. "There are lots of potential Cape Towns in the making. Things will only get worse globally, as water demands increase and the effects of climate change begin to be felt."

Gennadii Donchyts, senior researcher for Deltares, said the reservoir-monitoring service will steadily grow in size as information is added from Nasa and European Space Agency satellites that provide resolutions of between 10 and 30 metres on a daily basis.

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'Longest winter of my life': Edmonton breaks record with historic cold stretch

It’s the never-ending winter. Or at least it feels like that in Edmonton.

The city’s winter-weary residents may be forgiven for griping about the lingering chill this year after they broke their record for most consecutive days of temperatures at or below freezing.

On unlucky Friday, April 13, the temperatures dipped to a low of -2 C with a wind chill of -6 C, according to Environment Canada. It marked the 167th consecutive day of minimum temperatures at or below 0 C, which means Edmonton hasn’t seen an overnight temperature above the freezing mark since Oct. 29, nearly six months ago.

Edmontonians have endured 167 consecutive days with minimum temperatures at or below 0 C.

That’s according to weather historian Rolf Campbell who shared a chart on Twitter with historical data from the city’s coldest stretches. The previous record was set in 1974 to 1975 when Edmonton endured 166 consecutive days of temperatures at or below the freezing mark.

Resident Adam Morris wasn’t alive back then, so for him, this winter’s stubborn cold is unprecedented.

“This is the longest winter of my life,” he told CTV Edmonton on Friday.

Despite the weather, Morris attempted to get into the spring spirit by hitting some balls at the Victoria Driving Range in the city’s River Valley.

“It felt great getting out to swing some clubs,” he said.

Kevin Hogan, the head golf professional at the range, said the business chose Friday as its opening date two weeks ago.

“Bring toques and mitts and when you start hitting some balls you’ll warm up pretty quick,” he recommended.

Other residents tried to find spring indoors at a local garden centre filled with flowers.

“We came today to feel the life, to see all the flowers and spring’s on its way,” one visitor said.

Despite the optimism, it could be a while yet before seasonal temperatures return to Edmonton with Environment Canada predicting a continuation of chilly overnight lows for the coming week.

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Famed US lawyer burns himself alive to protest global warming

Obviously a nut but it does show how Warmist screams of doom can be harmful for people with marginal psychological functioning

High-profile US gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate David Buckel, 60, has self-immolated in a public park in a grisly protest against humanity’s destruction of the planet.

His charred remains were found just after sunrise on Saturday (Sunday Australian time) in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City.

Hours before his death, Mr Buckel emailed a copy of his suicide note to several media outlets. In it he urged the world’s residents to protect the planet, The New York Times reported.

“Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather,” he wrote. “Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

Mr Buckel also insisted in the email he was in “good health to the final moment”.

In a handwritten note left near his body, Mr Buckel said his suicide was a “protest” and added: “I apologise to you for the mess.”

Mr Buckel was the lead attorney in a case involving Brandon Teena, a transgender man murdered in the US state of Nebraska. He won the lawsuit, resulting in a county sheriff being held liable for failing to protect Mr Teena. Hilary Swank won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the transgender man in the 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry.

He was also the strategist behind same-sex marriage cases in New Jersey and Iowa, and helped set a precedent that US schools have a duty to prevent anti-gay bullying.

After his lengthy legal career, Mr Buckel became deeply involved in environmental causes.

In several online videos from 2014, he spoke passionately about techniques for turning garbage into compost in inner cities.

Camilla Taylor, acting legal director at Lambda Legal, Mr Buckel’s former employer, described him as a “brilliant legal visionary”.

“This is a tremendous loss for our Lambda Legal family, but also for the entire movement for social justice,” she said in a statement.

“David was an indefatigable attorney and advocate, and also a dedicated and loving friend to so many. He will be remembered for his kindness, devotion, and vision for justice.”

Mr Buckel wanted his death to lead to increased action, according to the suicide note.

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Can The U.S. Break Russia’s Gas Monopoly In Europe?

In a statement that is sure to provoke Russian backlash, while also sending a strong message to both Moscow and European energy markets, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry said on Thursday before the Senate Armed Services committee that moving U.S. energy supplies into Eastern Europe is one of the more powerful ways to contain Russian influence.

He also agreed that Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. energy sector were "an act of war.” His comments come just a week after the U.S. Treasury Department revealed that so-called Russian government actors targeted "multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors" with cyberattacks at least since March 2016.

A report in UPI last week said that a ransomware cyberattack from the Petya or NotPetya bug targeted thousands of government and private corporate servers across the globe in 2017. The attack demanded a ransom paid in Bitcoin to release the encryption imposed by the virus that prevents users from accessing their devices. The U.S. Treasury claims the NotPetya attack was attributed to the Russian military.

"An energy policy where we can deliver energy to Eastern Europe, where we are a partner with people around the globe, where they know that we will supply them energy and there are no strings attached is one of the most powerful messages that we can send to Russia," Perry added in his remarks on Thursday.

Gas as a geopolitical weapon

The National Defense Authorization Act has said that U.S. efforts should promote energy security in Europe, stating Russia uses energy "as a weapon to coerce, intimidate and influence" countries in the region.
Related: What Trump’s Tariffs Mean For Global Oil And Gas

Perry’s comments also come as ties between Washington and Moscow reach post-Cold War lows over numerous issues ranging from Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, its continued involvement in the Ukraine, and Syria, and its purported nerve agent poisoning of what is being referred to as a Russian double agent and his daughter on British soil.

However, Perry’s message may not be as welcome as he would like in Europe. Though EU members, including an increasingly alarmed Germany, appear to be waking up to Russian influence and blatant geopolitical maneuvering, many in the EU are still equally as cautious over American motives to export its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European markets.


Additionally, challenging Russia’s dominance in European gas markets is no small feat – even for the U.S. which by the end of the decade will have as many as five major LNG exports projects operational, thus becoming the third largest LNG exporter after Qatar and Australia.

Russia's gas exports to Europe rose 8.1 percent last year to a record level of 193.9 billion cubic metres (bcm), despite rising competition and concerns about the country’s dominance of supply, the London-based Financial Times recently reported.

The report added that Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas producer, has a monopoly over Russia’s network of pipelines to Europe and supplies nearly 40 percent of Europe’s gas. However, Gazprom has been forced to lower its prices in recent years to protect its market share in the face of moves by EU member states to buy more gas from the U.S., Qatar and other producers.
Related: The Battle For China’s Growing Gas Demand

Additionally, Nordstream 2, Russia’s ambitious but controversial natural gas pipeline project, is set to be completed next year. This route will further secure Russia’s grip on European gas market share, and its accompanying geopolitical influence will be a hard task for the U.S. to dislodge.

Economic factors also come into play. As discussed last week, American LNG is at a cost disadvantage compared to Russian piped gas. Using a Henry Hub gas price of $2.85/MMBtu as a base, Gazprom recently estimated that adding processing and transportation costs, the price of U.S.-sourced LNG in Europe would reach $6/MMBtu or higher – a steep markup.

Henry Hub gas prices are currently trading at $2.657/MMBtu. Over the last 52-week period U.S. gas has traded between $2.602/MMBtu and $3.82/MMBtu. Russian gas sells for around $5/MMBtu in European markets and could even trade at lower prices in the future as Gazprom removes the commodity’s oil price indexation.

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