There is a wild debate in the skeptic community on whether CO2 plays a role in climate changes over time and if so how much. I am going to avoid getting embroiled in that discussion because no one knows, including the IPCC, which starts with the basic assumption that it does, that we understand the forcing and proceeds from there. They back into the forcing in their models which are seriously flawed with very poor understanding of the clearly important factors of water in all its forms in our atmosphere and in the role of the sun and oceans. Even with seriously contaminated surface observation data, their models are failing miserably even just a decade or two into the runs.

There was a very similar divisive argument in the meteorological community in early to middle part the last century as Dr James Fleming of Colby College documented in the book “Historical Perspectives on Climate Change”. The pertinent chapter was on the web and can be found here. This was before models and was based on theory as the write-up documents.

As a Synoptic Meteorologist and Climatologist over the years I have let the data do the talking.  The data says that CO2 plays little or no role in climate change - which is cyclical and relates far better with the cycles in sun and ocean.

When correlating CO2 with temperature trends in various periods of cyclical warming and cooling the last 110 years we find a negative correlation from the late 1800s to 1917 (-0.35), positive from 1917 to 1940 (+0.43), negative during the WWII and post WWII boom from 1940 to around 1975 (-0.40), positive from 1975 to around 2000 (+0.36) and negative in the short period to 2009 (-0.56).

Enlarged here.

The Russian scientists Klashtorin and Lyubushin (2003) found a similar alternating pattern comparing GLOBAL temperature trends and World Fuel Consumption. They found a +0.92 from 1861 to 1875, a -0.71 from 1875 to 1910, +0.28 from 1910 to 1940, -0.88 from 1940 to 1975, +0.94 from 1975 to 2000.


Enlarged here.

In the paper they projected a reversal post 2000 which has verified. This on again, off-again correlation suggests that CO2 is not the primary climate driver. Since the solar TSI and ocean multidecadal cycles are much better correlated, they are more likely candidates.

Enlarged here.

CO2, The Gas of Life

As opposed to be a pollutant or an agent of harm, CO2 is a blessing, a plant fertilizer that has supported an agricultural revolution. Nurseries use CO2 to boost plant growth in greenhouses, pumping it in at levels maybe 3 times ambient levels.

Just the increase in the last century has improved crop yields as shown by NASA greening studies and the UN’s own graph.

Enlarged here.

Yes better hybrids, better crop practices, fertilizers, insect and disease control as well as irrigation has helped, but CO2 has played a key role. This can be shown by isolating on CO2 and keeping other factors constant as shown in the following two studies:

Enlarged here.

Enlarged here.

More CO2 means more plant growth. Yale professor Robert Mendehlson testified to congress in 2000, climate change as projected then by IPCC would result in benefits of up to $23B/year to agriculture and forestry

CO2 enriched plants are more drought resistant and have lower water irrigation needs. CO2 benefits crops under moisture stress most! This eases water supply issues in semi-arid regions and in Mediterranean climates like California, an added benefit. Ironically California greenies are all too anxious to negate that benefit under the delusion they are saving the planet.

We should be rewarding producers of CO2 not taxing them out of existence. Taxing them becomes a value-added tax as it affects of prices of all goods and services on the way to consumers. It is a highly regressive tax, hurting the poor and middle class the most. 

But we know the real motive is not to save the planet but to address or generate revenues to pay for other issues that the administration favors.

NOAA’s Lubchenko when she was president of AAAS in 1999 said:

“Urgent and unprecedented environmental and social changes challenge scientists to define a new social contract...a commitment on the part of all scientists to devote their energies and talents to the most pressing problems of the day, in proportion to their importance, in exchange for public funding.”

The government has delivered to the tune of $79B so far to support the big lie.

We hear this week, the UN with the administration’s help is said to be seeking to tax the world $100B/year for 10 years to help fight climate change (a George Soros idea). That is $1 trillion the next decade - a redistribution to a totally corrupt and ineffective global organization.

The right US move would be to kick their collective corrupt butts out of New York City and turn off the spigot. And get off the carbon kick. Address real issues like the economy and jobs. Your wacky enviro friends may not appreciate it but the vast majority of real Americans would. 

See the excellent summary ECO-FRAUD here.

Speaking about the likelihood of climate bill being passed by Congress in 2010, Al Gore told a conference call of supporters tonight that, “this battle has not been successful and is pretty much over for this year.” Gore bitterly denounced the Senate and federal government stating several times, “The U.S. Senate has failed us” and “The federal government has failed us.” Gore even seemed to blame President Obama by emphasizing that “the government as a whole has failed us… although the House did its job. [emphasis added]”

Gored urged his listeners to take the “realistic view that they had failed badly.” Gore said that “Comprehensive legislation is not likely to be debated” and that a “lame duck debate” is a “very slim possibility indeed.” (N.B. We thought, because Gore told us, that “the debate” was over.)

Gore said “the government was not working “as our founders intended it to” and laid more blame at the feet of fossil fuel interests who conducted a “cynical coordinated campaign” with “unprecedented funding” and “who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars just on lobbying.” He criticized “polluters” for “dumping global warming pollution into the atmosphere like it was an open sewer.” You mean like your own zinc mine classified as a toxic waste dump that in its last year of operation under Gore in his own words “pollution releases from the mine in 2002 placed it among the ‘dirtiest/worst facilities’ in the U.S.” That is true pollution unlike CO2 which has enabled an agricultural revolution that has fed tens of millions of the world’s people.

Gore blamed the skeptics for “attacking science and scientists.” “They [the skeptics] did damage and cast doubt,” Gore said.

Asked why the alarmists were ineffective in addressing Climategate, Gore bitterly blamed a “biased right-wing media… bolstered by professional deniers.” Gore claimed the Wall Street Journal published 30 editorial and news articles about Climategate and “not a single one presented [his] side of the science.”
Icecap Note: What about the mainstream media which whiffed on any coverage of climategate and the failed greenhouse science. As Itachner, a commenter to the story wrote: “The ultimate in chutzpah. Al complains about 30 editorials from the WSJ. What about the 30,000 one-sided stories and editorials from the NYT, the Wash. Post, the entire British press and the major TV networks? No Al, the reason your side lost is because like Lincoln said, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The next Nobel peace prize should go to the guy who exposed the climategate emails. He’s my hero.”

Speaking .about the post-2010 prospects for a climate bill, Gore tried to boost morale by stating that “the battle is not over” and that “we [alarmists] have no choice but to win the battle.” Gore said that “reality is [the alarmists] ally” and then, among other things, blamed recent flooding in Nashville and the Russian heatwave/forest fires on global warming.

He concluded by observing that “it is darkest before dawn” and “we have not yet begun to fight.”

In a warm-up discussion before Gore addressed the call, National Wildlife Federation chief Larry Schweiger referred to the skeptics as “enemies” and that he hoped the alarmists would “outlive the bastards.” See story and comments here.

ICECAP NOTE: Mr. Gore we have just begun to fight.

The Montreal Protocol to ban freons was the warm-up exercise for the IPCC.  Many current IPCC players gained fame then by stampeding the US Congress into supporting the Montreal Protocol. They learned to use dramatized, phony scientific claims like “ozone holes over Kennebunkport” (President Bush Sr’s seaside residence in New England). The ozone crusade also had business opportunities for firms like Dupont to market proprietary “ozone-friendly” refrigerants at much better prices than the conventional (and more easily used) freons that had long-since lost patent protection and were not a cheap commodity with little profit potential.

I was the Director of Energy Research at the US Department of Energy at the time, and I knew very well that the data to support the treaty was not there.  Ever since Dobson’s first expeditions to Antarctica in the early 1900’s, we had known that ozone levels were always low over the Antarctic, but we had no real idea of what the natural fluctuations were. As far as we know, there has always been an ozone hole over Antarctica, with a size that varies from year to year.  The size of the hole has hardly changed since 1990, as you can see from NASA’s site.

I don’t know what the current status is, but two or three years ago, some researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology remeasured the rate of ozone destruction by the key chlorine oxide, and they found a number about 6 times smaller than the one promoted during the freon-ban crusade. Even the establishment value was really not big enough cause substantial ozone depletion.  The ozone hole over Antarctica involves high-altitude “ice” particulates, made from a witch’s brew of water, nitric acid, chlorine etc. It is not clear if freon has made any difference to this.  The behaviour of these ice crystalsmay be more determined by the stratospheric temperature and the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, all changing with time at the poles.  At any rate, stratospheric freon and its breakdown products are steadily diminishing, but little is happening to the ozone hole.

As Director of Energy Research, I argued strongly for better measurements to be sure we understood the science well enough to support the Montreal Protocol.  I did manage to get a new network of UVB sensors deployed to measure year-to-year changes of ground-level UVB. The existing network was an embarrassment to the alarmists since it showed stable to decreasing UVB levels.  I thought that this might be analogous to the urban heat island problems that so vex ground-based temperature measurements.  Suburbs had grown up around the old network, so there was the possibility that air pollution was increasingly attenuating UVB. The new DOE network had real rural sites, as far as possible from urban smog.  These activities really infuriated Al Gore, who had me fired as soon as possible after becoming Vice President.

The Montreal Protocol may not have been necessary to save the ozone, but it had limited economic damage. It has caused much more damage in the way it has corrupted science. It showed how quickly a scientist or activist can gain fame and fortune by purporting to save planet earth.  We have the same situation with CO2 now, but CO2 is completely natural, unlike freons. Planet earth is quite happy to have lots more CO2 than current values, as the geological record clearly shows.  If the jihad against CO2 succeeds, there will be enormous economic damage, and even worse consequences for human liberty at the hands of the successful jihadists.

See this report on the Nature story of the collapse of the ozone hole consensus here.

What if CO2 molecules went on strike?  Would they talk like this?

Climate experts, politicians, environmentalists and assorted green organizations have been beating the daylight out of CO2 for decades, charging it with a litany of crimes against Mother Earth - heating the atmosphere, melting ice caps, raising sea levels, acidifying oceans, driving polar bears to extinction and generally making a mess of things on the planet.

As the hobgoblin of the green movement, CO2 has taken it on the atmospheric chin. But what if CO2 had its own atmospheric lobby and could fight back? Perhaps we might see a story like this one in the news.

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ORLANDO, Fla. - Faced with growing criticism, the CO2-molecule lobby said today that it will no longer take the heat for earth’s climate change, and has launched a campaign to restore its blackened reputation.

“It’s time to clear the air about the benefits of CO2,” announced chairman Nate Carbo at today’s Alliance of CO2 Molecules (ACO2M) tropospheric conference held high above Walt Disney Resort. “CO2 molecules have been the climate fall guy for years. We’ve been unfairly charged with crimes against humanity. Now we’re going to fight back with all our molecular energy.”

Chairman Carbo said ACO2M’s executive panel has drawn up a list of grievances that it will send this week to CO2 critics at the White House, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), EPA, Climate Research Unit (CRU), NASA, Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) and major environmental organizations. A copy of the preliminary draft, received earlier today, makes the following 10 demands:

1. Stop calling CO2 molecules a pollutant - Plants depend on CO2, and they’ve been CO2-undernourished since the Jurassic period (an era plants refer to as “photosynthesis heaven") when our molecular presence was nearly five times higher than current levels. Not surprisingly, the CO2-famished plants of today are green with envy. (Note: The world’s plant life is solidly behind our organization in backing this demand. They’ve given ACO2M the power of attorney to represent all earth vegetation in a lawsuit against Carol Browner and the scientists at the EPA, which recently declared CO2 a pollutant.)

2. Tell Michael Mann to shut up - There is no hockey stick-shaped warming in the atmosphere (in fact, the earth is cooling now), and if there was, it wouldn’t be CO2’s fault. Why don’t you blame the sun for a change? We CO2 molecules have been around this earth long enough to remember the gloriously comfortable days of the Roman Warm Era and Medieval Warm Period - a time when there were no cars, factories and power plants. Back then, humans were growing vineyards in England and raising crops in Greenland. Now their descendants want a one-way ticket to the beaches in Rio. We don’t deserve credit or blame for climate change.

3. End discrimination - CO2 is the whipping boy for every major climate disaster. We get blamed when it’s hot and screamed at when it’s cold. But the big yellow ball in the sky never takes the heat. Why? We CO2 molecules get our hind atoms scorched every time the sun spews another sunspot or solar flare. But, oh no, it’s always CO2 gas that gets fingered for imaginary global warming. Please look at the blast furnace overhead for a change.

4. Quit passing the buck - Frankly, we CO2 molecules feel betrayed. Not all of us emanate from cars, factories and burning wood piles. Many of us are sent on our tropospheric journey when humans breathe. Humans are breathing CO2 factories, but you never want to acknowledge your gaseous contribution. So if you’re truly serious about reducing the percentage of CO2 molecules, stop breathing and talking. (We’ve discovered, by the way, that CO2 emissions - and our molecular numbers - rise dramatically whenever Chicken Little eco-dummies like Al Gore take the microphone.)

5. Apologize to trees and other vegetation - Most of you spend lots of time and money tending your garden, caring for plants, trimming trees and manicuring your lawn. Your yard is a source of pride, and you brag about it to neighbors. So why in Heaven do you want to reduce its precious CO2 supply ‘ nature’s sustenance? Shame on you! If you discover a brown patch in your St. Augustine tomorrow, consider it payback.

6. Urge Al Gore to take an oath of silence - The former VP is a charlatan and disgrace. All his flashy multimedia presentations cast us as some sort of global warming satan. But our molecular membership has never been responsible for rising temperatures. Look carefully at CO2 and temperature charts. When you superimpose them, you’ll find CO2 shuffling along hundreds of years after temperatures have risen. No wonder the enemies of CO2 show the charts separately. Telling the truth is just too inconvenient. (Note: Some of our normally friendly gas molecules want to lock Gore in a greenhouse for 30 days. But we warned them it might trigger a plant protest.)

7. Stop ignoring water vapor - We hate to rain on your parade, but water vapor is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas. Yet it rarely gets mentioned in all the sky-is-falling rhetoric about global warming. At slightly less than four percent, CO2 is the small fry on the greenhouse-gas scale, along with methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and a few other trace gases. The big Kahuna, water vapor, is responsible for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect, and keeps your climate cozy and warm. Without its insulating effects, life on earth would be unbearably cold. We’d like to see you try to ban water vapor!

8. Stop fudging data - We’ve had to watch from afar as Professor Phil Jones, Dr. Michael Mann and other so-called climate scientists have manipulated temperature data to make CO2 look like the most harmful molecule on the planet. After reading a few of their CRU e-mails, we now know that they’ve warmed the earth more with their cooked research and phony models then we could ever do as a lowly CO2 gas. They’ve done a great disservice to plant life on earth with their incessant attacks on a blameless group of molecules whose atmospheric presence is a piddly 385 parts per million. If these hucksters truly desire redemption, they should shut up about climate change and exhale frequently for the good of the redwoods.

9. Protect earth’s food supply - When it comes to sustaining life, we CO2 molecules are high on the list of essential gases. If you succeed in carrying out your CO2 ethnic cleansing plan, you’ll hurt all vegetation. (Trees and plants don’t react well when deprived of their favorite atmospheric meal.) A CO2-depleted world will stunt plant growth, reduce crop yields and lead to famine and starvation. You want that on your tree-hugging green conscience?

10. Listen to honest scientists - Most of the climate experts predicting greenhouse doom are either on the government payroll, knee-deep in research grants or supplying the scientific rationale behind legislation designed to extort money from consumers in the form of carbon taxes. They have a vested interest in scaring the bejeebers out of people about the wickedness of the CO2 molecule - one of the most good-natured elements in the atmosphere. Their gloomy forecasts and high drama are full of hot air - pure junk science. They should be out on the street looking for work instead of receiving awards and more grant money.

The CO2 Alliance’s list of demands is not open to negotiation, said Greta Carbo, president of the League of Carbon Dioxide, a CO2-friendly lobby group with close ties to AC20M. In her opening speech last night, she called the anti-CO2 movement “dangerously extreme” and “a threat to all life on earth.” She said her group expects a White House response to its demands by early next week.

“We’ve stood by for decades while pseudo-scientists, self-serving politicians and the hysterical green movement bad-mouthed earth-friendly CO2 molecules for simply floating around and minding their own business. We’re tired of the fright-mongering. It’s time to set the record straight.”

ACO2M’s executive panel also announced today that it has scheduled talks next week with the Organization for the Protection of Plant Life on Earth (OPPLE) to discuss ways to counter the eco-alarmists’ anti-CO2 message and educate humans about the many benefits of carbon dioxide.

“This is serious business. We need to expose the lies, hysterics and rigged climate models driving the greenhouse scare campaign. Humans need to hear the truth about CO2. Their lives, and their children’s lives, depend on it,” Carbo said.

The latest Senate energy bill, quietly unveiled last week, looks like sweet compromise on radical measures like cap and trade, but buried within is a bitter poison pill that will could be swallowed in a vote that may come this week.

Unlike the 1,200-page House of Representatives energy bill, which passed last year, this scaled-down proposal does not call for an 83-percent reduction in greenhouse gases (or any reduction in greenhouse gases) and contains no mention of a cap-and-trade scheme. Also contrary to the House bill, this one does not provide a family of four earning up to $55,000 with a monthly stipend—deposited directly into their bank accounts—to offset higher energy costs. It also does not supply three years of unemployment benefits at 70 percent of former wages—plus job retraining and relocation—to those whose jobs are shipped overseas, as prescribed in the House bill.

Instead, at a glance (which is the way most in Congress ever seem to examine legislation), this bill appears rather easy to take. Most of its 357 pages are devoted to sections entitled “Oil Spill Response,” “Reducing Oil Consumption,” “Improving Energy Security,” and “Protecting the Environment.” There’s even a portion devoted to further grill BP via subpoena power. With sugar-coating like this, the sixty votes necessary to pass seem possible.

However, beneath the glaze, there’s a clot of overpowering government spending and social engineering.

For example, electric vehicles are pushed via the bill’s “Promoting Electric Vehicles Act of 2010.” No surprise here, particularly since the government has a 61% stake in General Motors and Chevy’s electro-mobile, the Volt. Besides this Act allowing the feds to spend $25 million on new electric cars for their official fleet, there’s an astounding electric car welfare program. Section 2116 explains that 400,000 such vehicles will be virtually given away at low cost—or perhaps no cost—to people living in “selected communities diverse in population” and “demographics.”

Additionally, pages 264-265 require that any new construction or remodel of an existing structure must include the installation of proper hookups for charging an electric vehicle. So even if you have no intention of owning such a car, adding that extra bedroom will require you to spend additional money to install battery-charging infrastructure in your garage.

The bill also heralds the coming of the “Batteries For Tomorrow Prize.” The first person to build a car battery that runs 500 miles on a single charge will win a taxpayer-funded reward of $10 million.

And there’s bait to entice truck owners to switch from traditional petroleum to natural gas. Section 2002 describes federal rebates, ranging from $8,000 for large pickups to $64,000 for heavy-duty Class 6 trucks weighing 26,000 pounds, available for those who install the equipment to make the fuel swap. And government grants (not loans) of up to $50,000 are available for gas stations to install natural gas refueling pumps.

And then there is the section of the Senate bill dedicated to the new federal building code. Originally rolled out in the House’s energy plan, the code—which supersedes all state and local measures and is thoroughly detailed in my book, Climategate—now has a name: “The Home Star Retrofit Act of 2010.” This Act places a hard squeeze on every property owner to spend thousands of dollars in environmental compliance upgrades in a time of economic stringency and falling home prices.

Federal dollars will be paid to those who decrease their energy usage. With the Smart Meters being installed across the country (mandated in the 2005 energy law and capable of recording your energy usage minute by minute), the government will be able to accurately determine your carbon footprint. To entice you to reduce your footprint, rewards of $3,000 will be given for a 25-percent reduction in energy consumption, and $1,000 more for each 5-percent reduction achieved—up to a maximum of $8,000. A similar plan is proposed for water consumption.

Additionally, federal rebates of up to another $8,000 per home are available for upgrading doors, windows, insulation, roofs, water heaters, air conditioners, etc.

Even with the government kickbacks, if you’re still unable to afford all of the upgrades, Section 3015 declares that Fannie Mae will be the official lender to rovide you with a “Home Star Efficiency Loan.” This means taxpayer sponsored Fannie will be taking on even more debt.

As one who has written extensively about the ideological machinations of the environmental movement and its leaders, I can tell you that this Senate bill is everything they wished could have been packed into the original House proposal.

If the Senate bites on this legislation, an airsickness bag will be required. The bill will go to committee, be conjoined with the massive House plan, and be presented to a lame duck Congress who will ram the bad medicine down our throats.

We need to hound the Senate now. Tell them to keep this poison pill away from their lips.

Brian Sussman is a former television meteorologist and the author of Climategate: a veteran meteorologist exposes the global warming scam. He hosts the morning show on KSFO, 560AM, in San Francisco.