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UNITE! Info #165en: 3/4 The big "greenhouse" hoax (1)
[Posted: 22.02.02]

[Continued from part 2/4]

AN OCEANOGRAPHER LOOKS AT THE NON-SCIENCE OF
GLOBAL WARMING, by Robert E. Stevenson [ctd.]


IPCC SOUNDS THE ALARM

Before the Rio Summit took place, in the summer of 1992, it
was necessary to have an "official" document of the effects
to be experienced from the "human influence on the global
climate". This document was dutifully produced by the IPCC in
1990, from a group of about 200 of the most "competent pro-
fessionals" from member countries of the U.N.

Chaired by Dr. Bert Bolin, renowned meteorologist, this group
included such other stalwarts as Sir John Houghton of the
United Kingdom, Thomas Wigley from the U.S. National Oceano-
graphic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and a lot of
other scientists of good repute.

[Note: Under "Houghton on Sin" (6 Feb 2002), John
Daly at www.john-daly.com links to a recent speech,
and comments i.a.:

"Sir John Houghton from Britain, is the co-chairman of
the IPCC (Scientific Group 1, which assesses the
science of climate change), and the lead author of the
IPCC reports to governments on global warming. In this
document, "The Christian Challenge of Caring for the
Earth", Houghton equates environmental neglect (as he
interprets it) to 'sin'...."

For an assessment of the IPCC as a whole too, that do-
cument indeed is interesting reading. Daly concludes:

"It is especially galling that climate skeptics have
been pilloried and abused for years by environmenta-
lists and IPCC scientists comparing them to 'Creatio-
nists'. Yet it now appears from Houghton's article
that the top man in the Global Warming industry may
himself be a leading Creationist."

- RM]


There were also a number of panel members who probably had
clear conflicts of interest, such as Merylin Hedger, climate
policy officer of the Worldwide Fund for Nature. Scientific
truth could be expected from scientists as Bolin, Houghton,
Wigley and the like. One might question the input from mem-
bers who were environmental advocates and had, therefore,
vested interests other than scientific truth.

Well, the 1990 IPCC report stated that in the past century
(1) CO2 had risen by more than 30 percent, (2) average tem-
peratures worldwide had risen by 1.2º to 1.5º Celsius, and
(3) sea level rose by 50 to 60 centimeters.

Then they predicted that we could expect (1) CO2 would grow
by another 50 percent, (2) atmospheric temperatures would in-
crease by 3º to 4º Celsius, and (3) sea levels could rise up
to six meters, as the polar icecaps melted with the global
warming - all by the year 2050.

A good choice of timing: Who of these clowns would be around
in 2050 to be faced with their predictions?


'WORKING GEOPHYSICAL SCIENTISTS' RESPOND

I must say, also, that the "working geophysical scientists"
- the oceanographers, the meteorologists, the atmospheric che-
mists and physicists, and the basic climatologists - were all
caught by surprise by the vast publicity that spread through
the media and popular press from what were clearly *specula-
tions* - speculations that were publicized even though there
was no suitable scientific research to support the claims.
But, how was the public to know that? Furthermore, it seemed
that journalists, editors, and publishers, as well as the
electronic media, had turned overnight from reporters into ad-
vocates.

Reputable scientists disagreed that an atmospheric crisis was
at hand. Nils-Axel Mörner, from Stockholm University, at a
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science in New York, scorned the prediction of rising sea le-
vels. He noted that there was simply not enough water in mid-
latitude glaciers to cause such a rise (of several meters),
and that a 4º Celsius increase in temperature (the modelers'
claim for the year 2050) might result in sea level rising 4
inches [10.2 cm]. Mörner got no play in *The New York Times*
the next day, or elsewhere.

Robert Stewart, from Victoria University in Vancouver, British
Columbia, had given a keynote address at the joint Oceanogra-
phic Assembly, Acapulco, Mexico, in August 1988, on the condi-
tions around the world that influence changes in sea level.
Considering every possible factor, he noted that eustatic sea
level had been rising at a rate no more than 1 millimeter per
year for the past two centuries, and there was no natural or
anthropogenic circumstances likely to change that rate for the
next century.

K.O. Emery and David Aubrey, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, verified Stewart's ananlysis in their 1991 publi-
cation (*Sea Levels, Land Levels, and Tide Gauges*, Springer-
Verlag), a *tour de force*, in which they analysed every tide
gauge location and its tidal curves worldwide for the century
from 1880 to 1980. In those 100 years, eustatic sea level had
risen 11 centimeters - about the rate at which juvenile water
enters the Earth's ocean water cycle, at a snappy 1 millimeter
per year.

Bob Balling, from Arizona State University, a world renowned
and respected climatologist (who does not get invited to the
IPCC) had the following to say at a 1994 meeting of Doctors
for Disaster Preparedness in Tuscon:

From 1979 to 1990, and during the time of the most
rapid buildup in atmospheric concentrations of green-
house gases, the satellite-based temperature measure-
ments have shown a planetary warming of only 0.001º
C (including data from 1991 and 1992 would lower this
value because of the cooling effects from the nume-
rous aerosols produced by Mt. Pinatubo).

Most of the numerical models of climate suggest that
the warming (given the known increase in equivalent
CO2) should be of the order of 0.3º C over the same
period of time. The satellite data indicate virtually
no warming at all, and certainly do not support the
claim of accelerated warming in recent decades.

From the global evidence, along with mounds of hemi-
speric and regional evidence not covered here ... I
firmly believe that the observed changes in planetary
temperature are not consistent with expected changes
given the known increases in the atmospheric concen-
tration of various greenhouse gases. Most of the ob-
served warming occurred before the bulk of the green-
house gases were added to the atmosphere (in the de-
cades of the '20s and '30s).

The amount of warming has been too low to be consis-
tent with catastophic predictions. Many other factors
other than the rise in CO2 concentration account for
the trend and variations in planetary temperature. In
addition, this warming has not occurred in the right
places to be consistent with the models (for example,
the Arctic region). Furthermore, most of the warming
has occurred at night, which is not a greenhouse ex-
pectation.

Very simply, the climate record over the last century,
or decade, is not pointing in the direction of a
greenhouse apocalypse.

These comments by Bob Balling were echoed by scientists around
the world.

In addition, many scientists "jumped" on the computer models.
The model problems of the 1980s were, and still are today,
that the models suffer from a bad case of holding too many
things constant. Variations in sea-surface temperature, the
effects of clouds, deep-ocean convection and circulation, and
Lorenz' "butterfly effect", are either ignored, held constant,
or even entered backwards. If clouds are entered, the assump-
tion is that they will produce warming when, in fact, all sa-
tellite data indicate that clouds cool rather than heat the
Earth.

Several reliable research scientists using and studying mo-
dels, including Michael Schlesinger, from Oregon State Univer-
sity at Corvallis, pointed out that "You have every right to
be sceptical [of today's models], but it is the best we can
do [at this time]. Our ability to detect global warming is
near zero." Mike was one of about two dozen who responded with
similar caution. Several of them were in federal government
laboratories; in NOAA and NASA, and who, after a few months of
such reaction were heard from no more. And, as you might ima-
gine, their responses never reached the popular media.

Scientists not under the direct control of federal agencies,
or dependent on federal funding, continued to provide and pub-
lish data that provided a contrary view to that of the IPCC,
WMO, environmental NGOs and federally "captured" scientists.

One of the more telling blows came from highly regarded scien-
tists at the University of Oslo. After a detailed study of
stable carbon isotope ratios of all carbon compounds that con-
tribute CO2 to the atmosphere, from 3,000-year old Antarctic
ice cores, and evaluating Dave Keeling's data from the Mauna
Loa, and other Northern Hemisphere stations, Dr. T.V. Segal-
stad, from the University of Oslo, determined that:

At least 96 percent of the current atmospheric CO2
comes from non-fossil-fuel sources; that is, natural
marine and juvenile [volcanic] sources. Hence for the
atmosphere CO2 budget, marine degassing and juvenile
degassing (from volcanic eruptions) are far more im-
portant, and the burning of fossil-fuel and biogenic
materials much less important, than hitherto assumed.


[Note 26.02.02, after this was first posted:

Upon some reflection, I find that the matter with the
carbon-12 / carbon-13 isotope ratios does *not* really
show that only a very small proportion of the current
atmospheric CO2 comes from the burning of oil, natural
gas and coal.

Concerning the burning of biogenic materials, the iso-
tope ratio argument above holds, but not concerning
the burning of (the main) chemical fuels (as oil, na-
tural gas and coal are more suitably called, instead
of "fossil", a not in itself incorrect term since it
really only means "coming from rocks", but an unsui-
table one since, to many, it does suggest a "biologi-
cal" origin - "fossils" of course are petrified an-
cient plants and animals).

Segelstad no doubt proceeded from the assumption, long
prevalent among scientists and still today the one you
always see in the media - for reasons of reactionary
propaganda, which wants to make people believe that
oil and natural gas (at least) are relatively scarce
on earth - that the chemical fuels have a *biological*
origin. But, as has been clearly proven, in the last
decade above all, they are *not* biogenic, not even to
some smaller part. They all stem from giant amounts of
hydrocarbons in the earth's mantle which were there
when the planet was formed and which are continually
seeping upwards. On this, see e.g. Info #26en or
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/ (homepage
of professor Thomas Gold, Cornell University, USA).

Carbon (C) in nature consists mainly of the isotope
C-12 but to a small part (some 1/1000) of a heavier
one, C-13, (and to an even much more marginal part of
the radioactive isotope C-14, used in dating etc).

Now plants, as has long been known, for some reason or
other "dislike" C-13, and only or practically only
pick up such CO2 from the air which has C-12 in it.
This makes the carbon in plant material somewhat -
very marginally, of course - lighter than that found
elsewhere in nature, and the CO2 produced when such
material is burned marginally lighter than other CO2
too.

What Segelstad found, in 1992 (etc), was - as far as I
understand this - that only a very small proportion of
the CO2 in the atmosphere was such lighter CO2. And he
concluded, thinking that the burning of oil, natural
gas and coal must result in lighter CO2, that the con-
tribution from such burning "must" be quite small.

But, since the burning of these chemical fuels will
actually result in normally-heavy CO2, this conclusion
is not correct. The isotope ratio investigations do
*not* show whether practically all CO2 in the atmo-
sphere comes from natural sources (as some other fin-
dings indicate it does) or not.

These particular investigations thus, in contrast to
what the author of this article thought too, are real-
ly no blows at all against the "greenhouse" hoax -
which remains soundly refuted anyway.

Probably, the incorrectness of the "isotope ratio" ar-
gument, as pointed out above, will not be pointed out
by any "greenhouse" propagandists in "defence" of their
"theory". These propagandists, being muppets of ultra-
reaction, will want to keep maintaining that oil etc
have "biological" origins, since it's also important to
the main reactionaries to have people in general be-
lieve that "oil is scarce". For the same political rea-
sons which lie behind the "greenhouse" hoax, those per-
sons absolutely don't want people to know that oil, na-
tural gas and coal all have cosmic (deep-gas) origins
and are all very plentiful on earth.

The fact, mentioned above, that hydrocarbons (mainly
methane) are continually seeping upwards from the
earth's mantle and are reaching the atmosphere from
many locations on the planet's surface (not only from
volcanoes and certain earthquakes but from some con-
tinously active methane geysers at the bottom of the
Pacific Ocean, for instance) has a certain relevance
for the "greenhouse" question - probably a rather
large one, though I don't know *how* large.

Methane of course is a "greenhouse" gas too. And after
a while, most of such methane which reaches the atmo-
sphere, including that seeping up from the mantle,
will get oxidized, producing more CO2 - "natural"
such. So the correct theory of the origins of oil etc
(orginally advanced by Mendeleev in 1877 and acted on
in practice in several countries today such as Russia,
China and Vietnam, where much "deep-gas" oil, very
clearly non-biogenic such, is being pumped up from
depths of, say, 7,000 meters, in chrystalline, non-se-
dimentary rocks) also points to one source of natural
CO2 which is probably quite important. In this way, it
also provides a further argument *against* the false
"manmade global warming" theory.

- RM]


This statement is from a paper that Segalstad presented at the
1992 Chapman Conference in Hawaii, on "Climate and Volcanic
Aerosols". Over the next two years, he and his colleagues at
the University of Oslo continued their evaluation of the car-
bon isotope ratios on thousands of additional samples from the
atmosphere and stratosphere around the world. Segalstad pub-
lished an update in 1994 showing that the ratios did not
change from those determined in 1992. By this time, even David
Keeling, at Scripps and Mauna Loa, agreed that the major con-
tributions to atmospheric CO2 come from natural sources.

You can easily imagine the reactions of the environmental ac-
tivists upon hearing that there is no global warming, that the
activities of "humankind" have no impact on the world's atmo-
sphere or stratosphere, and that there is no scientific expec-
tation that there ever will be an anthropogenic influence on
our "universal climate".

The environmentalists expressed "horror" at such "callous dis-
regard of future generations", to quote one of them. They
fought back by name-calling: Scientists who oppose global war-
ming are simply "fringe scientists".

They also fought back by demanding more regulations than have
already been produced by local, national and international bu-
reaucracies. And, unimaginable as it might seem, the environ-
mentalists fought back with personal threats on the lives, ca-
reers and families of those of us who have scientific truth as
our fundamental agenda.

I won't bore you with details of the interplay between scien-
tists and environmental advocates that took place between 1990
and the next IPCC report in 1995. None of the geophysical da-
ta, nor the publications, nor the discussions by working sci-
entists seemed to have the least bit of impact on the IPCC/
WMO/UNEP.

In the popular media, it was "no contest"! The "advocates"
were the clear winners. In peer-reviewed scientific litera-
ture, however, the results of fine research were "blowing the
advocates out of the saddle". Since 1992, I have personally
perused more than 2,800 papers that contradict "global war-
ming". (*)

[Author's note (*), p. 59:

This total does not include the published information
in scientific journals that proves the hoax of CFCs
and ozone depletion. These papers would double the
2,800 figure.

I, along with others, are putting together suitable
documentation of this rather unbelievable story of
scientific quackery. In the meantime, we can only de-
plore the awarding of Nobel prizes to the three lea-
ding contributors, and the arrival of the federal
deadline in the United States for ceasing the produc-
tion, distribution and use of all of the CFC species.

The accompanying hazards this ban on CFCs has intro-
duced to aircraft operation, air conditioning, medical
practices and agriculture, because of a U.S. regula-
tion based on a pure hoax, begin to devastate all.

I must add, too, that the Montreal Protocol "group"
which met first in London in 1990, has become, as you
might imagine, a "permanent group". At its October
1995 meeting in Vienna, a large number of objections
were raised to the basis for the disappearance of
CFCs; noted the economic hardships such losses would
place on all developing countries; and heard requests
from several countries, notably those of the former
Soviet Union, to delay the deadline of a CFC phaseout
from 2001 to a later date. As one delegate from China
remarked, "Perhaps to 3001".]


IPCC REPORTS TO THE WORLD, AUG.-DEC. 1995

The long-awaited report from the IPCC, that all of us knew
would be greatly revised from that of 1990, was a "comedy of
errors".

In April, three months before the report was scheduled to be
released, members of the IPCC, and observers appointed by va-
rious nations, met in Maastricht, the Netherlands, to preview
and comment on the draft report prepared by the "working
staff" of the IPCC. (Of course the IPCC has a staff. Do you
really think that the "Great and Good" at the top do all their
own research, reading, delving, analysing, interpreting and
writing?)

The members were to have the draft some weeks before the mee-
ting, and then break up into working groups to address the ma-
ny chapters and items in the report. Not only did none of the
members receive the draft document ahead of time, but no co-
pies were ready for them when they arrived in Maastricht. Ne-
vertheless, during the confusion of the first few days, the
staff - whoever they are - issued a press report to the
world's assembled press, titled "Conclusions reached by the
IPCC's studies over the preceding three years". As you might
expect, this release was seen by none of the milling, assemb-
led members of the Panel.

Dr. Fred Seitz, former president of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences and former president of Rockefeller University,
among other credits, was not only unhappy; he was furious. He
returned to Washington and immediately sought audiences with
the Secretary of State and the president of the National Aca-
demy of Sciences.

The results of these meetings were letters of condemnation,
censure, you name it, to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Bou-
tros-Ghali, the United Nations Environment Programme, WMO, and
Bert Bolin, Chairman of the IPCC. The news release was retrac-
ted. Were any of the IPCC staff fired for this activity? No.

The next IPCC meeting was in Boulder, Colorado, in 1995, du-
ring the XXIst General Assembly of the International Union of
Geodesy and Geophysics, at which the "official" IPCC report
was discussed in several sessions over 8 hours. The IPCC had,
indeed, modified the predictions made in 1990. The most ob-
vious, and conspicuous, was in the change of the prediction
date from 2050 to 2100.


[Continued in part 4/4]