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Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Dr Martin Spencer: The Futility of Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Setting aside concerns about hurricanes, tornados, forest fires and changes in sea level, (which happen for a variety of different reasons), there is only one climate change factor that matters to humanity and that is Carbon Dioxide, CO2.

At present 83% of the world’s energy sources emit CO2, so today’s modern economy depends critically on energy sources that produce this gas.

According to NASA1:

“The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is currently at nearly 412 parts per million (ppm) and rising. This represents a 47 percent increase since the beginning of the Industrial Age, when the concentration was near 280 ppm, and an 11 percent increase since 2000, when it was near 370 ppm.”

If we study the greenhouse effect of this gas we realise that CO2 obeys a Law of Physics called the Beer-Lambert Law2 which describes how all gases absorb electromagnetic radiation (i.e. heat). This law states that, as the concentration of a gas increases, the ability of the extra molecules to absorb heat decreases rapidly according to a logarithmic curve. In other words its effect as a greenhouse gas decreases really really rapidly. (A logarithm is the inverse of an exponential, so if we think of an exponential increase as being a really really big increase, then a logarithmic decrease is a really really big decrease.)

 

Intuitively this makes sense, because the first few molecules of CO2 absorb the most heat and as you add more CO2 the extra molecules have less and less effect as there is less radiation left for them to absorb.

During the period covered by the NASA statement above, the earth has warmed about 1.1ºC.

If, for the sake of argument, you assume that all of that 1.1ºC was due to CO2 (which it clearly wasn’t as there were many other contributing factors), then we can predict, using the Beer-Lambert Law that when the concentration of CO2 increases another 47% to over 600 ppm the temperature will rise such a small amount that it will be almost unmeasurable. An example of this is in the figures quoted by NASA, where the CO2 has increased 11% since 2000 yet there has been almost no measurable warming over that time.

Thus there is nothing to worry about from CO2.

This is extremely important for the following reasons:

        For civilization to continue to thrive, the world’s economy must continue to flourish and it can only do so by continuing to emit lots of CO2.

        A thriving economy will provide the resources for the world to deal with catastrophic events of nature, no matter what the reason is for their occurrence.

        More CO2 in the atmosphere will make plants grow faster and help us to feed the world. (Already the extra CO2 has resulted in plants growing 18% faster than they used to.)

Thus the world needs to stop its crusade to limit CO2 emissions and use all those resources to solve urgent, well defined, problems for which we have proven solutions, and stop wasting billions on projects like windmills and solar farms.

References:

1 https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law

Dr. Martin Spencer studied Theoretical Physics at Yale University and has been interested in the physics of Climate Change since he was made aware of the controversies surrounding it by Augie Auer, the Atmospheric Scientist.

3 comments:

DeeM said...

Perhaps Dr Spencer could explain this to James Shaw and Jacinda using terms like "really, really big decrease" so they can anchor their alarmist brains around exciting words, which might allow them to understand the actual physics behind CO2 as a very weak greenhouse gas.

It would probably be a complete waste of time because Jacinda would stop listening after "really, really, big" and then tangentially connect it to man-made global warming instead, with lots of frowning and head-shaking.

James would have to confirm it with Greta first who would chew him out and tell him to grow a pair. He'd then check what mataurangi Maori had to say on the physics of greenhouse gases and likely find that CO2 is actually a malevolent taniwha that can only be banished by paying huge amounts in climate reparations to iwi and paying a royalty on air.


KiwiBuzz said...

Anybody who claims to have any expertise in ClimateScience should know these simple facts. When you add to that the fact that world temperatures follow the Southern oscillation index (the El Nino effect), awioth a lag of four months, it makes it all the more unlikely that human beings have any significant effect on the climate.
http://www.bryanleyland.co.nz/global-temperature-prediction.html

All the evidence says that man-made global warming is the biggest hoax in the history of the world.

Anonymous said...

Just an aside, Jacinda's carbon taxes are (supposedly) to induce motorists to move to electric and reduce our Co2 emissions. Some of this money goes towards a subsidy on electric cars such as Tesla, MG, B.Y.D. Great Wall, which are made in China where they are rapidly increasing their Co2 emissions. Does anyone know anywhere in the Universe where this might make sense.