Part 2. Global Warming

Global Warming Or Climate Change?

What is Greenhouse Effect?

Effect of Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

Carbon dioxide is a benign, non-poisonous, odorless and colorless gas. It is essential to plant and, consequently, animal life and has always occurred naturally in earth’s atmosphere. Ever since humans knew how to measure CO₂ levels, it has been around 0.04% by volume in earth’s atmosphere. Fossil records indicate CO₂ levels fluctuated significantly due to natural causes, most of which remain unknown to us, reaching as high as 0.7% and as low as just below 0.03%. For example, some of the highest levels were detected in ice age periods.

Why is there so much talk about CO₂?  Good question. Let us look at the physics.

It is important to emphasize that carbon dioxide is not a sinister gas that has some mysterious heating properties. In fact, CO₂ holds less heat per pound than each of the other main constituents of the atmosphere. And at 0.04% by volume, CO₂ TOTAL content is only about 6 pounds in every 10,000 pounds of atmosphere. With that in mind, an objective scientific observer would easily discount the contribution of 6 pounds of one gas to the heating and cooling of 10,000 pounds of earth’s atmosphere. The average scientific person knows that the laws of physics dictate that it is physically impossible. There would be no need to even consider a global warming question.

Unfortunately, global warming has never been about objective science. Please read on!

As recently as 2018, if you looked up the meaning of greenhouse effect in any scientific reference you would get “heat retention by the gases in an atmosphere”. This definition had been the gold standard agreed upon ever since the term Greenhouse Effect was coined many decades ago. For reasons that will become clear later in this section, the definition has been reworked.  Greenhouse effect is now attributed only to gases which heat up faster in the presence of infrared waves (an invisible part of light rays). Carbon dioxide is one of those! This, sadly, is the sort of subjectivity and manipulation that have been going on in the climate change research community. The fact is, heat retention by all gases in the atmosphere is what regulates the temperature of our planet earth. Instead of arguing about the validity of the revised definition of greenhouse effect, let us assume it is valid and see where it takes us.

We will say that on a given day, CO₂ absorbed and retained an extensive quantity of infrared rays because it is a “greenhouse gas” such that its temperature rose by 10 degrees C above all other gases in the atmosphere. First, we will look at the implications through a simple example you can do in your own kitchen. Then we will do the science and math thing.

Here is Your Kitchen assignment: Find a large pail or pot, large enough to hold 10 quarts or 10 liters of water. Fill the pail with 10 liters (or quarts) of tap water. This represents the atmosphere. Total CO₂ content is 0.04% of that, which is about ¾ of a teaspoon. To be precise, the portion produced by humans is 1/10th of that or less than 3 eye drops. What “climate scientists” are saying is this: if you were to add 3 eye drops of warmer water to those 10 liters of tap water in the pail, the temperature of the 10 liters will become significantly higher.

Another way to look at this is to do the assessment by weight. Even if we were to accept the unproven claim that 10% of the CO₂ in the air is generated by human activities, it means CO₂ emissions by human activities is 0.61 pounds in every 10,000 pounds of atmosphere.

Put another way, what “climate scientists” are saying is: a little over half a pound (10 Ounces) of carbon dioxide can overheat 10,000 pounds of atmosphere. This is a physical impossibility according to every single law of physics in the annals of science.

Now then, the obvious conclusion we observed so far has, of course, to have its numeric validation by the laws of physics. And for that we must include the scientific proof. In the Physics Box below, if you are so inclined, you can see the calculations. But sometimes numbers, specially those with so many zeros, do not crystalize the physical meaning fully. That is why we provided the “kitchen” example above.

The calculations in the box below are rudimentary but they nonetheless provide a reasonably accurate and reliable order of magnitude of what CO₂ may do to earth’s temperature. A rise of 0.0005 degrees C for every degree it heats above the rest of the atmosphere because of infrared absorption. And that is due to all the CO₂ in the air. The portion produced by human activities, say 10%, would raise the temperature of our atmosphere by 0.00005 degrees C for every one degree C CO₂ becomes hotter than the rest of the surrounding air.

If you find this a ridiculously low effect compared to what the so called “climate scientists” are saying, you are right. And you are in good company. Dr. John Clauser, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in Quantum Theory, researched the current global warming models and conducted his own calculations in 2022. He came to the conclusion that the effect being published by climate scientists is exaggerated by a factor of 200. That is an amplification (fudge factor) of 20,000%.

Please think about that.

Effect of Water Vapor In The Air

If you live in a cold region, have you ever wondered why it is warmer on a cloudy winter day than on a sunny day? The scientific reason is that clouds, which are a form of water vapor, hold gigantic amount of heat. Water vapor in the atmosphere can reach over 4% by volume, 100 times the volume of CO₂. It too absorbs the infrared heat in the sun rays and is a greenhouse gas even by the new greenhouse gas definition. How does the effect of water vapor influence the man-made global warming debate?

As shown in the physics box below, 1 cubic foot of water vapor holds as much heat as 1 cubic foot of carbon dioxide. It means if the water vapor volume in the air changes by 0.04%, the effect is equal to changing the TOTAL CO₂ content by 100%. And that is not all. Let us say it is true that humans generate 10% of the total CO₂ in the air, or 0.004%. What this means is, if water vapor content in the air increases by 0.004% this small change has the same warming effect as all the CO₂ humans produce!! To be clear, this is a change from say, 2.0 % to 2.004% in water vapor volume in the air. Of course water vapor content fluctuates by way more than that every minute! Please think about that.

Relative humidity is a measure of water vapor in the air, but it is not equal to it. To put it in perspective, if the relative humidity in your area changes from 55% to 55.5% at 20 C (68 F) it means the water vapor volume changed by a lot more than 0.004%. It also means the corresponding change in the warming by the water vapor in your area far exceeds the warming by ALL the man-made CO₂. This is what objective consideration of the laws of physics yields.

Effect Of Other Gases In The Atmosphere

Nitrogen and Oxygen make up at least 95% of the atmosphere by volume. Yet, they are consistently excluded from the models of “global warming science”. To justify this, global warming advocates first revised the definition of greenhouse effect to make it attributable only to gases more efficient in absorbing infrared radiation; then proceeded to convince the public that only greenhouse gases affected the temperature of the atmosphere. By inference, such definition allows the exclusion of the effect of nitrogen and oxygen on the heating and cooling of earth. It is a scientific travesty because if 95% of the atmosphere did not retain the vast majority of the sun’s heat, we would all be dead! Without atmosphere, earth’s temperature would fluctuate by over 300 degrees C (570 F) between day and night.

The scientific truth is, our atmosphere, composed mainly of Nitrogen and Oxygen and water vapor, conducts heat in more than one way. For example, direct conduction (like the pot on a stove’s heating element) and thermal convection (like in a convection oven). As the sun heats the surface of earth, all gases in the lower atmosphere absorb heat from earth’s surface and prevent it from overheating. As the day goes on, the atmospheric gases come to possess gigantic amounts of heat because of their sheer abundance, thousands of times more than the heat retained by CO₂. The process is reversed at night and the atmosphere supplies heat back to earth’s surface and protects it from excessive freezing. The role of CO₂ in all this is very minor, not because it holds no heat but because of its scarcity in earth’s atmosphere. The setting-aside of the remainder of the atmosphere by the global warming community is rather embarrassing because on the one hand, the advocates say CO₂ traps so much heat, which is then absorbed and retained by the rest of the atmosphere, making the “globe warmer”. On the other hand, the same advocates say the rest of the atmosphere has no capacity to absorb and retain heat and therefore it plays no role in regulating the temperature of earth, only CO₂ does that. Please think about it and make your own judgement. You don’t have to be a scientist to see it does not compute.

As you can see, the science itself is simple and obvious and contradicts the notion of man-made global warming. Why then do so many “experts” say human activity is destroying the planet with CO₂ emissions? There has to be a reason that is not based on the laws of physics, A human reason must be coming from that world of ideology and politics we discussed in Part 1 of this series (the triangle angle story). To shed some light on that, let us step outside the dry world of science for a moment and look at some human factors that may help answer the question. 

Birth Of The Global Warming Movement

The idea of potential global warming started in the late 19th century. A Swedish chemist by the name of Svante Arrhenius published a paper titled “The Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground”. Among many scientific errors in the paper, it stated “the view that the atmosphere regulated the temperature of earth must be abandoned”. As proof of this grossly erroneous claim, the author asserted that the temperature of the moon, which has no atmosphere, “was found to have a mean effective value of 45 degrees C”. This of course is absolutely false. The Fact is, temperature of the moon surface fluctuates between plus and minus 170 C, approximately, that is from +338 to -274F; and this is specifically because it does not have an atmosphere to regulate its temperature. In essence, the subject paper started by ignoring the effect of 99.96% of the atmosphere on earth’s temperature. In spite of this incredibly huge error, the idea of global warming due to human production of CO₂ was born. One should mention another fact about the author of that paper. Mr. Arrhenius was in charge of the Nobel Prize committee considering the award of the prize to Albert Einstein. He refused to give the prize to Einstein. In his view, the theory of relativity and the famous E=mC² were not worthy of a Nobel Prize.

Global Warming As Environmental Cause

Environmental groups embraced the idea that industrial expansion was producing too much CO₂ which was going to heat up the atmosphere and trigger global warming and dire conditions for the planet. The idea provided a fresh platform for the anti-industrial movement. It was a time when acid rain was dying as a flagship cause for the movement. Environmental groups such as Green Peace, were running out of causes in the 1980’s. Whaling had stopped; seal hunting had stopped and after the Exxon Valdez incident, there were no more tankers to intercept and get coverage on the news. Global Warming as a “cause” was thus established. There were no scientific evidence whatsoever supporting the claims except for the aforementioned incorrect conclusion by Mr. Arrhenius. Many people in the scientific community were recruited, and many volunteered, being enticed by research grants, to work out some scientific credibility to man-made global warming hypothesis. Researchers developed and tried many models. In spite of extensive reworking of the models, none could yield results matching real life. Reliable temperature records over many years were showing no evidence of correlation between CO₂ rise and global temperature increase, none.

The Cow Factor

The biggest obstacle to global warming “models” was the incredibly small amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, a fact that is fudge-proof. To this day, all global warming models fail to produce proper scientific evidence that human production of CO₂ is making our planet warmer. When it became obvious that the earth was not warming at all, in spite of exaggerated attention given to CO₂ emissions, they looked for other “greenhouse gases” that could be blamed on human activity. Prominent among those was Methane. Cows passed so much methane, they said, that their effect on global warming was even greater than CO₂ emissions. Once cattle farmers stopped laughing, they got worried thinking maybe they would have to pay a “Methane Tax”. Thankfully, physics say Methane is significantly lighter than air and it would dissipate in the upper atmosphere shortly after the cows relieved themselves. At high elevations, methane plays an insignificant role in the heat exchange between earth and the lower atmosphere which is the critical layer affecting surface temperature. This is a very good thing because methane is the chemical name for natural gas; the same highly flammable gas we use to heat our homes and cook with in gas stoves and barbecues. Blaming the poor cows for producing too much of it is both comical and tragic.  It is comical because, if true, it means potentially a bunch of cows could self-ignite in hot weather! It is tragic because as you read this, a teacher could be indoctrinating your child that cows are bad for the environment.

The “Climate Change” Solution

The final blow to the global warming predictions came when the “globe” did not warm and in fact average temperatures cooled a little over the 20-year period between 1988 and 2008. This was ironic because the global warming researchers were the ones who had gone out of their way to formulate an average temperature for earth, hoping to detect a warming trend to support their claims. The plan backfired when the numbers showed a cooling trend. First, the global warming “scientists” said it was a “pause” in earth’s warming because of China (you can always blame China). They said China burned too much coal that had so much sulphur and the sulphur had a cooling effect, which counteracted the warming caused by the CO₂ greenhouse effect. A tongue twister (and physically untrue). The China coal-sulphur claim was published by a renowned institute in August 2011 and I still have the original article.

After some embarrassing chatter among global warming “scientists” about the failure of their predictions, chatter that was publicized accidentally on the internet and caused a scandal, they came up with a catch-all slogan to explain away why the earth was not warming. The dubious and very clever slogan of Climate Change was born. The slogan was so clever it was a ticket out of jail for all the “global warming scientists” who were handcuffed by the lack of any measurable warming across the globe. It also enabled a hysterical modern-day Inquisition. Dare to say if there is global warming, how come it is -20 degrees C in Edmonton on April 2, 2020, and wham! The response comes swiftly: that is why we call it climate change! And, of course, there is the insinuation that you are a “climate change denier” and hence, not in any particular order, backwards, too conservative, old fashioned, anti-civil liberties, anti-environment, anti-human rights, anti great horned owl, anti polar bears and anti cute penguins.

By introducing the new slogan of Climate Change, Global Warming “science” has become a license to speak from both sides of your mouth and not only get away with it, you get applauded. One side of the mouth says: there is too much CO₂ and cow fart produced, which are greenhouse gases that will warm our whole planet and eventually destroy life on earth. The other side says: oh, by the way, if it happens to get colder somewhere, it is because global warming by heat from the greenhouse effect will not actually warm the whole planet, it may warm some random places at random times; and make it colder at random places at random times, including the same places it sometimes makes warmer. Are you kidding me? We need to pause and interject some real science before our brains explode. Please remember, climate doomsday campaign has succeeded because of the apathy among the general public towards science and a disdain for physics and math. We need to take a brief detour back to the laws of physics.

The behavior of gases in response to factors such as heat and pressure is governed by a set of laws of physics called The Laws of Thermodynamics. It is a mouthful but don’t let the name scare you! Those are laws of physics that engineers use to design a wide range of objects, from jet engines to popcorn makers. The second law of thermodynamics is a bit of a mind teaser but luckily, one of its simplest manifestations is this: if a warm gas meets a cool gas, heat will flow only from the warm gas to the cool one, making it warmer; but heat never flows from a cool gas to a warm one. In other words, the atmosphere can never get cooler when you introduce a warm gas into it. This means if the small proportion of CO₂ in the air absorbs heat from the sunrays due to its greenhouse effect, it can never make the rest of the atmosphere cooler. Therefore, the claim that heat absorption by CO₂ makes some regions of the globe cooler is in absolute contradiction with the laws of physics. Yet this is precisely the reason Global Warming Crisis is now called Climate Change. Please judge for yourself.

Politics Of Climate Change

Sadly, we humans are fallible. We all crave recognition. Some get it through hard work and perseverance and some seek it through the path of least resistance. For some, a cause to identify with is an attractive way to enhance self-worth and resolve lingering identity issues. That is why seemingly normal people join weird cults. The recognition one gets is intoxicating. Global warming movement and its clone, Climate Change, appeal to our tendency to do good and perhaps more importantly, to be seen as doing good. One only has to witness the craze surrounding that young lady from Sweden to see the point. There is an element of glory when one speaks on behalf of the “good”. It is part of being human, especially in civil societies. Conversely, we are afraid of being associated with evil.

Supporters of man-made climate change movement have given themselves the exclusive ownership of the noble cause of protecting the environment. If you didn’t go along with all their claims you were an enemy of the environment. Doubting and questioning man-made global warming puts you squarely on the side of evil and isolates you. No one wants to be branded that way. It has come to the point where if you say cows are not harmful to the atmosphere, it is like saying Charles Manson was a good man.

At the center of all this is the simple question: is man-made climate change a correct scientific theory whose math can be proven by the standard pre-requisite physical measurements? Just asking the question should not – must not – make you evil.

Climate change has become the new political chic. If you are a politician, say a few words about climate crisis and you are on the front page the next day; no matter what kind of gibberish you throw out there. If you are a celebrity whose career (and/or looks) had seen better days, blame the industrial pigs for releasing CO₂ in the air and you’re back, baby! You may even get an award for that. If you are a researcher and want your grant application guaranteed approval, just mention you want to show that man-made climate change is killing something. Objective environmental research no longer counts.

People say they are moving to California because the weather is nice there. Some parts of the USA have Mediterranean Weather. The weather in North Dakota can get very cold in the winter. If you are not happy with the cool summers in Edmonton, people tell you that’s Edmonton weather! They can also say that’s Edmonton climate but it sounds odd. The point is, we tend to use the word weather exclusively where the word climate may also serve the purpose; because using weather is the natural way to speak. In global warming circles, however, the word climate has an aura of superficial sophistication and endows a status of social elitism on those who utter it. Every politician has a climate policy but they wouldn’t be caught dead saying they had a weather policy. Isn’t it exactly the same thing? Every environmental demagogue demands to know what their government is doing about “climate”. Do they mean they want to know what the government is doing about weather? Why is it chic to demand a “climate policy” and ridiculous to demand a “weather policy”? As someone who is reading this, you wouldn’t have gone so far in this article if you weren’t someone who possesses a degree of critical thinking. So Please think about that.

The worst part is, climate change has morphed into a behemoth political and financial machine worth trillions of dollars. Large sums of money and too many careers are on the line. So much so that it seems mandatory nowadays for any article or documentary dealing with nature to blame man-made climate crisis for something. Objective scientific scrutiny of the man-made climate change claims is all but choked to death. Scientific facts are re-fabricated on the go to suit the popular mood and, worse yet, to appease the climate change Mafia. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no one is entitled to their own facts. Facts remain true regardless of who accepts or disputes them; and whether or not they are popular. Earlier in this Part we used straight-forward mathematics to prove that Carbon Dioxide generated by human activities can never affect the temperature of earth’s atmosphere. That IS a scientific fact and not an opinion. When the former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the USA decreed CO₂ to be a “noxious” substance, she should have been condemned for abuse of authority, or at least scolded by the scientific community who ought to know better. Carbon Dioxide a noxious substance? Is that a fact? Did she by any chance have a pop or carbonated water with her lunch that day, made bubbly with “noxious” CO₂? Did no one have the courage to tell her that CO₂ is an essential substance to life and without it all green plant matter on earth dies and eventually all animals, including us humans?

Polluting the air we breathe or the water we drink is reprehensible. So is the destruction of habitats that other living things depend on. We must all stay on guard to protect our environment from polluters. Falsifying science to justify politically or ideologically motivated environmental movements is just as reprehensible as the polluting act itself.

What You Can Do