Greenpeace Co-Founder: "Why I am a climate skeptic."

[sean miguel]

March 20, 2015
[Editor’s Note: Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas. Watch his presentation about this piece at the video player to the left.]

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.

IPCC Conflict of Interest

By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

Political Powerhouse

Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Human Emissions Saved Planet

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Celebrate Carbon Dioxide

The IPCC’s followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding the world. Let’s celebrate carbon dioxide.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/03/20/why-i-am-climate-change-skeptic

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

^ is that true?? Any botany experts here please weigh in.

 

[D-rock]

^ is that true?? Any botany experts here please weigh in.

The last I heard to counteract the CO2 emissions the US alone puts out by using plants we would have to somehow come up with a new forest the size of Texas, and do that every year. It's probably worse now. If plants could just chew up all that carbon they would be by now. The idea that as present the natural environment can continually curtail what we are doing with greenhouse gases on a reasonable timescale for us is kind of ridiculous. If anything the the absorption of those gases and heat by the oceans has been a more powerful balancing factor, and something we have lucked out with so far, except, for one, that is having some bad negative effects itself on the oceans, and two, that won't last forever or even that long, and when the oceans reach a saturated breaking point then it's going to be even worse than before.

 

[sean miguel]

The last I heard to counteract the CO2 emissions the US alone puts out by using plants we would have to somehow come up with a new forest the size of Texas, and do that every year. It's probably worse now. If plants could just chew up all that carbon they would be by now. The idea that as present the natural environment can continually curtail what we are doing with greenhouse gases on a reasonable timescale for us is kind of ridiculous. If anything the the absorption of those gases and heat by the oceans has been a more powerful balancing factor, and something we have lucked out with so far, except, for one, that is having some bad negative effects itself on the oceans, and two, that won't last forever or even that long, and when the oceans reach a saturated breaking point then it's going to be even worse than before.

^is that true?

so this isn't?

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

What I'm asking is, are those numbers he's provided accurate? Because he's being very specific there.
From what I understand, he's saying that more CO2 would lead to higher crop yields? Is that correct? Which would be a solution for food shortages would it not? But that would contribute to too many people breathing on this earth which is a problem for some. Am I right?

 

[GodsEmbryo]

As can be read on the website of Greenpeace International (source), Patrick Moore was not co-founder of Greenpeace as is proven by his application letter (source). And he was not for more than 40 years active as an environmentalist. He was a leading figure with Greenpeace Canada and worked with Greenpeace International between 1981 and 1986. After that he changed course and became spokesman for the polluting industries. So his claims about a conflict of Interest is kind of hypocrite.

It's correct that the IPCC's mandate focuses on human-induced climate change:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1988 to assess scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information that is relevant in understanding human-induced climate change, its potential impacts, and options for mitigation and adaptation.

However, it also says:

WGII's (the working group) mandate for the TAR (Third Assessment Report) is to assess the vulnerability of ecological systems, socioeconomic sectors, and human health to climate change as well as potential impacts of climate change, positive and negative, on these systems. This assessment also examines the feasibility of adaptation to enhance the positive effects of climate change and ameliorate negative effects.

(source)

Clearly indicating that it's not about a apocalyptic scenario they are looking for.

To understand human-induced climate change, all kinds of climate change (and that includes the natural causes) are studied. Some excerpts from a random scientific article illustrate this:

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations12. This is an advance since the TAR’s conclusion that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”. Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns (see Figure SPM-4 and Table SPM-2). {9.4, 9.5}

[... ]It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have
taken place. [...]

[...] The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone [...]

[...] It is very unlikely that climate changes of at least the seven centuries prior to 1950 were due to variability generated within the climate system alone. A significant fraction of the reconstructed Northern Hemisphere interdecadal temperature variability over those centuries is very likely attributable to volcanic eruptions and changes in solar irradiance, and it is likely that anthropogenic forcing contributed to the early 20th century warming evident in these records. [...]

Source: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis

Another scientific article illustrating that not only human-induced climate change is studied:

Volcanic carbon dioxide vents show ecosystem effects of ocean acidification

And that it would only be a computer model is nonsense as well. Once more a simple search on scientific articles proves otherwise:

Causal attribution of recent biological trends to climate change is complicated because non-climatic influences dominate local, short-term biological changes. Any underlying signal from climate change is likely to be revealed by analyses that seek systematic trends across diverse species and geographic regions; however, debates within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveal several definitions of a 'systematic trend'. Here, we explore these differences, apply diverse analyses to more than 1,700 species, and show that recent biological trends match climate change predictions. Global meta-analyses documented significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade. We define a diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial 'sign-switching' responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends. Among appropriate long-term/large-scale/multi-species data sets, this diagnostic fingerprint was found for 279 species. This suite of analyses generates 'very high confidence' (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.

Source: A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems

In other words, Moore's claim that the IPCC is only looking for an apocalyptic scenario, that it's only focusing on human caused climate change, and that it's only a computer model, is something he pulled out of his ass.

He further states:

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

The numbers he's using are actually correct, but he's abusing them as scare tactics.

The optimum CO2 level for plants is indeed about 1500 ppm and is used to make plants grow better. You can calculate it for your greenhouse if you want as illustrated on this forum on how to grow weed (a lucky hit I swear ) (here), buy CO2cartridges or whatever (here) etc. Lower levels do not necessarely kill plants. He claims that the CO2 level was 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and if this got lower it would become too low to support life. However he does not mention that the numbers have been lower before for millions of years. And maybe they have been decreasing from a certain point 150 million years ago, but from the late Pliocene (3.6–2.58million years ago) they have been increasing from roughly 150ppm to 170-190ppm to 270ppm before the Industrial Revolution :

Plant responses to low [CO2] of the past

[...] Beginning with the rise of vascular land plants through modern times, atmospheric [CO2] reached maximum values of 3300–3600 ppm during the early Devonian (Berner, 2006), possibly dropped as low as 150 ppm during the late Pliocene (Tripati et al., 2009), and consistently ranged between 170 and 190 ppm during glacial maxima of the past million yr (Petit et al., 1999; EPICA, 2004; Brook, 2005; Tripati et al., 2009; Fig. 1). Since CO2 is a major substrate for photosynthesis, such extreme changes in the availability of this resource likely had profound effects on plant productivity, community structure, and evolution through time. The LGM that occurred 18 000–20 000 yr ago represents a fascinating time when low [CO2] likely constrained the physiological functioning of C3 plants. (Polley et al., 1993a; Dippery et al., 1995; Sage & Coleman, 2001; Ward et al., 2005; Lewis et al., 2010). During that period, [CO2] dropped to 180–190 ppm (Petit et al., 1999; EPICA, 2004), which is among the lowest concentrations predicted to have occurred during the evolution of land plants (Berner, 2003, 2006; Tripati et al., 2009). [...]

source

In fact, this is what he DID NOT mention (from that same scientific article):

[...] Following the LGM, [CO2] gradually increased to 270 ppm just before the Industrial Revolution, and has been rising rapidly in recent decades as a result of expanding industrialization (IPCC, 2007b). Currently, [CO2] is 392 ppm (recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii; http://www.CO2now.org), a value that may not have occurred since the mid-Miocene (14–16 million yr ago; Tripati et al., 2009). Thus, modern [CO2] values are more than twice the minimum concentrations that occurred during the LGM and c. 45% higher than pre-industrial values. [CO2] is expected to continue rising in the future, potentially reaching 1000 ppm by 2100, depending on the carbon emissions scenario that actually occurs (IPCC, 2007b).

Just to repeat what is written, for millions of years it has been lower than the number he has given (280ppm) slightly INCREASING over time to roughly 280ppm, yet he claims if it goes down 280ppm it would become to low to support life?

A final point I'd like to make:

Climate myth: CO2 is plant food

I rest my case your honor