CO2 is not a bogeyman – and here’s the proof

WE ARE constantly told, and the majority of people have come to believe, that global warming is mostly caused by increases in CO₂. Solid scientific evidence shows this is the wrong way round and that the case is, in fact, quite the opposite. It is warming that is increasing CO₂. 

Thankfully there are still people who can tell us the truth but we must listen to them and stop chanting the mantra that ‘we all want a carbon-free planet.’ We really don’t.

Following David Wright’s excellent piece in this paper on November 6  I can summarise and simplify the evidence given to us by Professor William Happer in the short video David recommends at the end of his article.  

First, remember CO₂ doesn’t warm anything. The sun warms and the presence of CO₂ inhibits this warmth from radiating away into space. It’s called our atmosphere. Without it we die. The issue  revolves around the heat radiated back into space from the surface of our planet. Greenhouse gases trap this heat. So surely more greenhouse gases trap this heat more. Or do they?

The graph below blows away that idea. This lovely smooth curve was derived by quantum physicist Max Planck in the 1900s. It shows on the left or vertical axis the power of the radiation in waves per centimetre. The horizontal axis shows the frequency of that radiation. (Don’t worry too much about the units.) The area under the blue line represents the total power (heat) that goes back out into space. It represents what would be the situation if there were no greenhouses gases at all. However there are numerous greenhouse gases and so there are other lines less smooth because of variability. These other gases inhibit radiation and lessen the radiation going out to space some more. (The area under those jagged curves is now less than the first area.) These factors were discovered a little later by Karl Schwarzschild and they take into account water vapour, ozone, methane and of course CO₂. In this diagram they are shown to reduce the heat energy radiated away by about 30 per cent.

That big dip is the effect of C0₂. (The green line represents a situation with no CO₂ at all.) CO₂ contributes to keeping the planet warm. With much less of the greenhouse gases the planet would be much colder and not suitable for our sort of civilisation, and without any CO₂ we would have no food to eat either. The current stable situation we find ourselves in is represented by the area under the black jagged curve. So does more CO₂ threaten to make it warmer – too warm?

What is interesting about this graph therefore is the effects (mathematically calculable) that changes (increases) in the CO₂ content might have on the amount of heat radiated back or conversely the amount not radiated back and hence warming. The black line is the current CO₂, the green one is without CO₂ and the red one is the effect of doubling CO₂. As you can see the red line is virtually coincident with the black line. Some CO₂ makes a big difference but doubling it doesn’t make any difference, or at least too small to measure and certainly too small to be worrying about.

So as not to appear biased there then follow other curves from other places on the globe all with differing ambient temperatures but all showing the same effect. (Please note that the computer models and the hard data are shown side by side to illustrate how accurate the modelling is in this case.) Doubling CO₂ has virtually no effect on warming. What it will have an effect on is crop yields – a very beneficial effect. They would be increased considerably were CO₂ to double, the opposite being equally true with less CO₂ reducing crop yields. So, more food with increased CO₂ and less without it.

Do I see a pattern here? Isn’t it the Climate Crisis fanatics who also want us to eat less meat and are happy to plaster our arable fields with wind farms and glass solar panels? Then with less energy available from their expensive and inefficient systems, we have the call coming from a confused and misled government to make it virtually illegal to live in a house that doesn’t comply with the latest edicts on insulation and heating efficiency. (Temporarily pushed back, but heat pumps and compulsory insulation are coming, believe me.)

I recommend everyone to read or re-read David Wright’s piece and  listen carefully to William Happer’s explanation of the situation. In it he illustrates many areas where the ‘consensus’ science simply doesn’t hold up and the simple physics does. You can follow along with the actual calculations if you are so minded. On a lighter note, he also explains a great deal about meteorology, and how air temperatures shift about with altitude, not to mention a pocket book explanation of how you might create a Star Wars-style weapon too – he was involved in the early stages of that with President Reagan!

CO₂ is not the problem: quite the opposite. We really have to start the pushback on this – every one of us. Until CO₂ has been lifted out of this equation we are going nowhere and our arguments will be forever diluted and ignored. We have to snap out of this.