Human CO2 Hysteria:
Spending billions on a non-existent problem
By Dr. Tim Ball Monday, April 27, 2009
“From error to error one discovers the entire truth.” Sigmund Freud.
The Issue
The US Congress is currently discussing the Obama climate change strategy and Cap and Trade. One part of the plan says, “Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.”
The term “greenhouse gas emissions” is either deliberately misleading or indicates complete ignorance of the science, or both. What they really mean is CO2, yet it is less than 4% of greenhouse gases and the human portion a fraction of that. Why do they want it reduced?
It is not a pollutant and not causing global warming or climate change. Reducing it is completely unnecessary and harmful for the plants and will cost trillions. They propose energy alternatives that are potentially more dangerous because they don’t work and can replace only a fraction of existing energy sources. This pattern of identifying the wrong agent of change, blaming humans, and proposing inadequate replacements at great cost is not new. We saw very similar events and sequences with claims that Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) was destroying the ozone layer.
The Pattern
Many cite the Montreal Protocol as a template for dealing with global warming because it supposedly resolved the ozone crisis. It didn’t! It’s a template not because it worked but because it was completely unnecessary, cost a lot of money and created other problems. It is also a template for understanding the deception that human CO2 is causing global warming. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) were blamed for atmospheric ozone destruction without evidence and natural processes were ignored.
They said CFCs would remain in the atmosphere for up to 100 years. Recovery of the ozone would take a very long time. They were wrong!
Today the failed predictions are essentially ignored although some scientists continue to seek the truth. Recently, University of Waterloo physics and astronomy professor, Qing-Bin Lu published a paper showing that cosmic rays are a major factor in the extent of the so-called ozone hole.
The issue has faded and only lingers in the massive sales of sun blockers. When I ask people what happened to the ozone issue, they invariably pause for a moment and say, “Yes, whatever happened to that?” The answer is there was no problem and the variations in ozone were perfectly natural.
A major tenet of the environmental paradigm is that almost all change is due to human activity. Once a change is determined it triggers a search for the human cause without consideration of natural change.
Measurements of ozone in Antarctica by the British Antarctic survey team in the early 1980s determined levels were lower than measures taken in 1957. I recall the press reports on this event and James Lovelock, the British scientist who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, warning against overreaction, but he was ignored.
Later they said he was wrong. In fact, he was right but it didn’t matter. It was an issue that fit environmental hysteria and was quickly deemed an unnatural change and the search for a human cause began. In 1974, Sherwood and Molina provided what they were looking for. In lab experiments they determined chlorine as the active ingredient in chlorofluorocarbon that destroys ozone. An unproven hypothesis became a fact and science was sidelined. As Richard Lindzen said about global warming and CO2, the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.
The Facts
There are no holes in the ozone, there were none when it became a political issue in the 1990s and there are none today. This is not an issue of semantics, but an important fact in the relationship between scientific accuracy and the public perception and political reaction. The amount of ozone in the ozone layer varies considerably in different regions, at different altitudes and over time. The so-called “ozone hole” is a region in the ozone layer generally located over Antarctica in which the ozone level is the lowest during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Even at this time the thickness of the ozone layer is approximately 1/3 of the global average. It is an area of thinning due to natural causes.
Ozone is produced when portions of ultraviolet light (UV) strike free atmospheric oxygen. This splits the oxygen (O2) into single oxygen (O) molecules that combine in threes to create ozone (O3). This occurs in the ozone layer from approximately 40 km down to 15 km. Height and depth of the layer varies with latitude and season. Ozone amounts vary at different altitudes, but only decreases were reported in the media particularly those over Antarctica. The system is self-correcting because as more ultraviolet penetrates deeper into the atmosphere it confronts more free oxygen. By 15 km above the surface over 95% of the UV has been expended in the creation of ozone.
A major cause of changes in the size and extent of the Antarctic ozone hole are the intense wind patterns and circulations associated with the extensive Antarctic high-pressure zone and the surrounding wind pattern known as the Circumpolar Vortex. A second factor is Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) that forms when gases including water vapor sublimate directly to crystals because of the intensely low temperatures (-70°C and below) and pressures over the South Pole. But just as evidence against CO2 is ignored the environmentalists and politicians pushed ahead while deriding and demeaning those who wanted all the facts on the table.
Parallels
From the beginning it was assumed incorrectly that the level of ultraviolet (UV) is constant - a point I made to a Canadian Parliamentary Committee. If ultraviolet radiation creates ozone and is then considered constant, you are forced to assume any variation in levels have another cause. This parallels the effective exclusion of the sun as a major cause of global warming or climate change. Sherwood and Molina’s 1974 work provided the human cause and CFCs became the sole focus, just as the IPCC reports have made human CO2 the sole focus.
We now know the original assumption of constant sunlight and therefore constant ultraviolet radiation is incorrect. As a NASA Report explains,
Though UV solar radiation makes up a much smaller portion of the TSI than infrared or visible radiation, UV solar radiation tends to change much more dramatically over the course of solar cycles.
The change is as high as 200%.
Just as the IPCC and bureaucracies in all national governments were established to deal with CO2 so bureaucracies were established, laws passed and punishments determined for anyone caught using CFCs. It took on draconian proportions. The Montreal Protocol and the United Nations produced the designation of Ozone Destroying Chemicals (ODC). There was no attempt to determine if chlorofluorocarbons or any of the other ODCs were actually causing ozone depletion at any level in the ozone layer. It was and is sufficient to show this occurs in very artificial laboratory conditions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by identifying CO2 as a pollutant and toxic substance is now replicating this.
Action and Reaction
A substitute product, hydrofluorocarbon (HCFC), was produced and became the standard especially in automobile systems. I couldn’t understand why Dow representatives at the Canadian Parliamentary hearings did not protest the bad science. I later realized they had the replacement in hand.
Now the Montreal Protocol calls for the reduction of HCFC use by 65% by 2010 and 99.5% by 2020. The Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada ((HRACI) says, “The most widely accepted replacement option for HCFCs is the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Ammonia is also a replacement option in the large commercial air conditioning and refrigeration sectors. These refrigerants do not deplete the ozone layer and can replace both CFC and HCFC uses.” The irony of ammonia as a major replacement is that CFCs were
There was no need to replace CFCs. Despite general acceptance of the claim CFCs were creating a hole in the ozone layer some scientists continued to question the issue and show it was not correct. Just as with the science of CO2 this had no effect.
Ramifications
Energy is essential to our standard and quality of life that the attack on CO2 is specifically designed to undermine.
The attack on CFCs undermines another technology that dramatically improved the quality of our lives. CFCs were introduced as an inert gas for refrigeration to replace ammonia. It tackled the serious problem of food spoilage. In developing nations it is estimated that 60% of all the food produced does not make it to the table. The figure is 30% even for developed nations. The reduction in loss is due to reduced losses in the field and during transportation but particularly in storage.
As a result when the Montreal Protocol was proposed, India and China’s position was identical to their position with Kyoto and other attempts to restrict their development and improvement of standard of living. They said you’ve reduced your losses through refrigeration now we want to reduce ours. You produced this product and now want to ban it claiming it is an environmental hazard. We suggest you reduce your levels and let us increase ours to achieve the same benefits. The answer was no! As a result India and China refused to sign the Montreal Protocol just as they are not part of Kyoto and oppose any other form of restriction.
Nurtured by environmental hysteria and the determination to show all changes in the natural world are due to human activity, the claim CFCs were destroying ozone jumped directly from an unproven hypothesis to a scientific fact. All the other ingredients were at hand; the big greedy corporation; the dangerous product; refrigeration that improved quality of life at the expense of the environment; and the fear factor of increased skin cancer, especially among children.
The political juggernaut was set in motion as fearful people demanded political action. Most of these actions did not and could not deal with the problem. In fact, they produced real and potential problems because the research and testing was pushed aside. Dow already had a replacement for CFCs, which subsequently were problematic. Other companies turned production of sun blockers into a multibillion-dollar industry even though their product didn’t, until a couple of years ago, deal with those portions of ultraviolet radiation that are harmful to the skin. Claims of increases in skin cancer failed to take into account the increase in life expectancy or such anomalies as the lowest levels of skin cancer occurred in Colorado, the state with the highest levels of ultraviolet radiation due to altitude. They also neglected to warn people that humans require ultraviolet radiation to produce vitamin D in the body. Inadequate levels lead to various diseases including bone problems such as rickets in children and scrofula, a form of tuberculosis.
There are still no holes in the ozone but the area of thinning over Antarctica continues to vary due to natural conditions. The claim is still made that the actions invoked by the Montreal Protocol saved the day. Even a brief look shows this is not correct. What it shows is a smaller example of spending billions of dollars, deeply disrupting people’s lives and economies, to solve a nonexistent problem. It provides the modus operandi of exploitation for political purposes in this era of environmental hysteria that parallel the CO2 situation. Now Obama and the US Congress are considering spending trillions and passing legislation that will deeply disrupt every aspect of people’s lives and economies to solve another non-existent problem. It confirms the adage that, “Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.”
CFP ToolsShare (5) Reader Feedback Subscribe Print friendly Contact Us |
 | Dr. Tim Ball Most recent columns
Copyright © 2010 CFP
Tim Ball on ClimateGate“Dr. Tim Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Ball employs his extensive background in climatology and other fields as an advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition, Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.” Dr. Ball can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) |
