In the 70s it was global cooling, in the 90s it was global warming, now it’s climate change. What will it be next? The climate changes. I think that we can all agree on that. Climate is bigger than weather. Either way, it’s cyclical. Throughout history, the world has gone through warming and cooling periods without humans. Why is it getting so much attention now? Alarmist would have us think that the Amazon forest is ablaze like never before when it’s not. They would have you think that storms are more devastating and numerous when they are not.
There is a narrative out there that humans are causing climate change. Maybe we are, but to what extent and how are we affecting it. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem. If we throw money at it we can solve it. However, where will this money come from? If one takes the media and politicians at face value we should all be freaking out that humans (and cows) are the problem and causing climate change, which is causing more storms, which are also increasing in intensity. Which in turn causes more devastation and death. Horrible problems to have and things to be concerned about if they were happening like they are saying. According to AOC, the world will end in twelve years if we don’t do anything about it. I saw a PBS video that said even if we stopped all carbon (i.e. carbon dioxide) emissions it would take 50k to 100k years to get to a base zero or “climate normalcy”. I can’t see that we could do anything now that would really affect the outcome in twelve years, but that’s just me.
In a recent daily email that I receive (that I subscribe to) there was a comment that read, “A scientist told Bloomberg climate change likely had a role in the [wet spring season].” A scientist, one scientist, said climate change likely had a role? Is this how we are getting our information now? One scientist said maybe? At a quick glance, it sounds believable, but looking closer and some critical thinking makes one to balk at it.
I will be the first to say I am not an expert. However, I have not heard from any actual experts either. I’m just Joe Plumber trying to understand this world. I have heard from talking heads distilling the information and commenting on what experts have said or wrote in a report, even from a so-called science guy. He’s a nostalgic kid science show host. I’ll admit I watched him and enjoyed his show. However, I do not enjoy him acting and speaking like he’s a real scientist, and the MS media eat it up.
I have done some research myself on the interweb and found very plausible reasons for climate change that are human-related and some that aren’t and none relate to carbon dioxide (CO2), but you won’t hear about it in the news. Could it be that the CO2 is correlated to climate change and not the cause of it? I have really tried to be objective with my research and article links at the bottom. Try to keep an open mind.
Let’s start with our air, what’s in it? The five major elements are nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, argon, and other trace elements. If you look almost anywhere CO2 isn’t even quantitatively large enough to make it out of trace elements. The break down in rounded numbers is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, 1% (up to 4%) water vapor, and .04% CO2. (I know that is it over 100%, that’s why I said rounded numbers.) These numbers do fluctuate based on topography, distance to water, vegetation density, etc, but the average for the world is stated above.
The gases in the air that absorb heat are called greenhouse gases and they include CO2, water vapor, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. For these other greenhouse gasses, the percentage in our atmosphere is this: methane .00017%, nitrous oxide .00003%, ozone .000004%, and fluorinated gases smaller still. What we call ozone is O3 (three oxygen atoms stuck together and it occurs naturally in the upper atmosphere called the stratosphere. The ozone protects life from the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. Fluorinated gasses are man-made and break down O3. They were a big deal and were banned in the US in the 90s. This was a good move. Water vapor has more to do with the greenhouse effect in our atmosphere than CO2. But why would we do anything about water vapor? Life needs water. Those who are observant have noticed that cloudy nights can keep the heat of the day in, but a cloudy day can keep the heat of the day out.
From EPA website
Now, if I were to tell you that CO2 levels in 2017 were at 405 parts per million, you might say, “That’s high!” or you could ask, “Is that high?” At 405 parts per million that’s is only .04% of our atmosphere. That is 4/100th of a penny. How can something with that insignificant amount in our atmosphere have such a hold on peoples thoughts, discussions, studies, fears and wallets as CO2? CO2 is pumped into actual greenhouses, up to 4 times as much as is in our atmosphere, to help plants grow quicker and healthier. Some of this is due to the concentration of plants and the use of CO2 in the plants’ photosynthesis process. CO2 is not a toxic gas, as some would have us believe. We need it for life on this planet. It’s good that plants need a lot less CO2 than we need oxygen.
As far as I have seen and read the problem with CO2 is a theory and has yet to be confirmed as fact. Peer-reviewed studies are not science. A scientific fact is based on a body of evidence that has been repeatedly confirmed through time, observation and experimentation. Science isn’t through consensus as some have lauded. “99% of scientist agree” isn’t science. If we are going to find scientific fact, it has to be through time, observation and experimentation, not consensus.
Other ideas of human/non-human causes that may have contributed to global warming climate change that has come up in my research are urbanization, desertification, earth’s planetary rotation around the sun, the tilt in the earth’s rotation, Milankovitch cycles, and what about the activities of the earth’s core.
Large amounts of concrete and asphalt in cities absorb and hold heat. Tall buildings prevent heat from dissipating and reduce airflow. At the same time, there is generally little vegetation to provide shade and evaporative cooling. As a result, parts of cities can be up to 10ºF warmer than the surrounding rural areas, compounding the temperature increases that people experience as a result of human-induced warming. Studies show that urban areas are heating up. Las Vegas was 2° hotter this year than last. What we could do here is add exterior plants and trees to our buildings and rooftops, similar to the Boeri design.
Desertification is where once farmable/grazable land becomes desert. Cattle make the ground able to absorb more water and more rich with their hooves and their poop. Desertification has been seen to be reversed in Africa with cattle. Cattle could actually change the world if governments (and environmentalists would get out of the way) and would let the cattle graze reducing the chances for forest and prairie fires by reducing brush and undergrowth. Could the progressive programs actually be promoting global warming climate change?
Other ideas out of our control are the earth’s rotation around the sun, the tilt in the earth’s rotation, Milankovitch cycles (variations in the Earth’s orientation to the Sun), and activities of the earth’s core. I have provided links below on these topics. There is too much here to go into for an already long read. Go search for yourselves, the science is not settled.
Before we spend trillions of dollars on a “maybe the climate will change for the better”, let’s look at other “maybes” that may be contributing to climate change that would actually change everything. I know sometimes science isn’t sexy, especially testing and running an experiment again over time to see if the experiment holds true to the integrity of science and the same outcome is produced from the previous test results. Look, science has been constantly changing on what is good and bad for humans to eat. Smoking was good and doctor-approved, now it’s bad and causes cancer. Eggs were good, then bad, now they are good again. Saturated fat was bad now maybe not as bad as we thought. Our bodies are complicated, the climate is complicated, the oceans are complicated. I do not believe that we need to hyperventilate or rush to judgment on this. We don’t need to eat less meat, we don’t need population control. The inconvenient truth is that we don’t know what is causing the climate to change and if there is anything we can do about it. We should look at what we can do to adapt. The earth has warmed and cooled without humans, why is now any different?
Bottom line we need to have a larger discussion on this, and not shut down debate. We don’t need hysterics, we need debate, by scientists, not politicians or talking heads or school children. I would love to see a debate among actual scientists on the matter. I am ready to change my mind on the subject if I can hear sound science from actual experts.
~Find the good in each other and let each other know.
References (will open in a new page or tab):
PBS Space Time
NOAA Ozone
NOAA Greenhouse Gasses
NOAA 2006 Twenty Questions
Phys.org
Youtube.com PBS Hot Mess
Scientific American
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Boeri Architecture – Vertical Forest
TED talk on reversing desertification (22:05)
NatGeo Earths Inner Core
Hong Kong Observatory
USA Today – Planetary Rotation
Forbes.com – Amazon Forest
8 News Now – Global Temperature Grows
BBC – Localization can save climate change
BBC – 12 years, try 18 months
Wikipedia – Orbital effects on Climate
Wikipedia – Milankovitch cycles
NASA – Scientists ID three causes of Earth’s spin axis drift
The Week – 4 Inconvenient Truths