National overview
Climate ‘Emergency’? Not so fast
By once again obliging the United States to the Paris Agreement and by stating very clearly that ‘climate’ would be central to its policy, the Biden government joined the other intersections against a perceived ‘climate distress’. We use the word ‘crusade’ with advice, as the madness about climate resembles the medieval crusades against foreign unbelievers and own heretics. There is even a small crusade for children. Medieval crusaders would sing Deus Vult, or ‘God wants it’ – the ultimate slogan for virtues. Few leaders of medieval Europe could resist the temptation to join the crusades. The medieval elite could count on earthly rewards to add to their heavenly treasures. The enemies of God – and the little people – paid the bills. Some climate crusaders have invoked the mandate of heaven, and others use language that is all too reminiscent of millennialism. But most claim to follow a mandate of science. We are both scientists who can testify that the research literature does not support the claim of a climate emergency. There will not be one either. None of the unpredictable predictions – dangerously accelerating sea level rise, increasingly extreme weather, deadly forest fires, unprecedented warming, and so on – are more accurate than the sermons of fire and brimstone used to arouse fanaticism in medieval crusaders. True believers claim that this emergency can only be prevented by eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases include ubiquitous water vapor, methane, nitric oxide and, above all, carbon dioxide, a gas released when fossil fuels are burned to power, generate electricity and be used to make modern living facilities. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere allow sunlight to warm the earth’s surface. But they absorb from the heat radiation of the surface and atmosphere that would otherwise cool more efficiently by escaping directly to space. Greenhouse gases – and clouds – keep the earth’s surface temperature several tens of degrees Celsius warmer than it would be without them. So far, climate crusaders have refrained from polluting water vapor and clouds, making the largest contribution to global warming. Carbon dioxide, demonized as ‘carbon pollution’, is an unlikely villain. Green plants use the energy of sunlight to produce sugar and other organic life molecules from carbon dioxide and water molecules. The by-product of photosynthesis is the oxygen of our atmosphere. Each person exhales about two kilograms of carbon dioxide every day. No scientist familiar with radiation transfer denies that more carbon dioxide is likely to cause surface heating. But the warm-up would be small and benign. History actually shows that a few degrees Celsius, which prolonged the growing seasons, was good for mankind. The golden era of classical Roman civilization took place during a hot period. Cooling periods, which were accompanied by barbaric invasion, famine and plagues, were bad. Barbara Tuchman typifies periods such as “the disastrous 14th century” in her book, A Distant Mirror. More carbon dioxide will definitely increase the productivity of agriculture and forestry. Over the past century, the earth has become noticeably greener due to the modest increase in CO2, from about 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of atmospheric molecules. More CO2 has also made a significant contribution to the increased crop yields of the past 50 years. The benefits for plants of more CO2 are documented in hundreds of scientific studies. Water vapor and the clouds that condense from it make the earth’s surface at least four times hotter than carbon dioxide. Paleoclimate data show little link between CO2 and climate, suggesting that the effect of CO2 is actually marginal. Doubling the CO2 concentration alone should increase the earth’s surface temperature by about 1 C. Climate cruisers use computer models that include clouds, convective heat transfer into the atmosphere and oceans, and other factors to claim that ‘positive feedback’ increases the predicted warming to 4.5 C. or more. The direct consequences of any change are multiplied. This would violate Le Chatelier’s principle, which states: “If a fixed system is disturbed, it will adapt to reduce the change that has been made.” Crusaders would like to claim that the climate violates Le Chatelier’s principle and has ‘tipping points’. Given the much higher and changing levels of carbon dioxide that have prevailed over much of Earth’s history, it is unlikely that life would survive if such tilt points existed. No current observations or the geological record support computer-based claims that CO2 is the “control knob” for the earth’s climate. Warming, similar to or greater than the current one, has been observed many times over the past few millennia when fossil fuels have been used insignificantly. A thousand years ago, Greenland was warmer than it is today and supported Norwegian farmers who grow crops such as barley, which due to the cold cannot be grown there now. In another spasm of cruising zeal, some climate warriors want to do away with traditional farming and farming because they are sources of small greenhouse gases, such as methane from ruminant livestock, paddy, etc., and nitric oxide, mainly due to fertilizer use. . (In this context, the word “minor” must be explained: the heating per added methane molecule is about 30 times greater than the heating per added carbon dioxide molecule. Carbon dioxide molecules are added 300 times more than the atmosphere. Methane molecules. So the heating that is out every year methane is added, about ten times less than the small warming of carbon dioxide.) This could threaten the livelihoods of farmers in countries whose governments have signed the Paris Agreement. But, as mentioned above, the heating of methane is only a tenth of the modest, beneficial heating of more carbon dioxide. The crusade against methane and nitric oxide will cause a lot of pain and no profit to farmers and those who consume their products. A serious review of policy-related climate science is no longer necessary. Crusaders will go on to answer that ‘science is settled; it’s time to act! But the true science is never decided, nor is the scientific truth determined by consensus or political dictation. Agreeing with observations is the measure of scientific truth. Climate models predict two or three times more warming than observed. They are already forged. In a book soon to be published by New York University physicist and professor Steven Koonin, Unsettled, some of the problems that a high-quality review would reveal are convincingly explained. There is no emergency in the climate. Americans should not be stampeded in a disastrous climate war. The medieval crusades did far more harm than good, destroying the lives of many decent people of all faiths and leaving a bitter legacy that complicates international relations and social harmony to this day. A climate crusade that destroys economies and ultimately destroys lives will be just as bad or worse. Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor, Emeritus, in Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Fellow of numerous professional associations, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor, Emeritus, in Physics at Princeton University, a Fellow of numerous professional associations, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.