Dear True Environmentalists: Fight Corporate Criminality, not Atmospheric Gases

by Denis Rancourt / October 3rd, 2019

Published at Dissident Voice. 

Dear true environmentalists: I am with you.¹

Corporate pollution and releasing of toxic substances should be treated as a criminal act, with full power to seize assets for reparations, actual reparations, not just punitive fines.

I would apply the same standard of prosecution to the “medical”/pharma² and agri-food industries,³ also.

However, the planet and biosphere are not at risk of imminent collapse, and certainly not from CO2.
The “imminent collapse” fabrication serves powerful manipulators, and necessarily diverts us away from attaining actual democracy and fairness.  In the words of Chomsky:⁴

For example, suppose it was discovered tomorrow that the greenhouse effect has been way underestimated, and that the catastrophic effects are actually going to set in 10 years from now, and not 100 years from now or something. Well, given the state of the popular movements we have today, we’d probably have a fascist takeover—with everybody agreeing to it, because that would be the only method for survival that anyone could think of. I’d even agree to it, because there just are no other alternatives around right now.

Rather than accept fascism or totalitarianism, corporate and finance criminality can best be fought from a position of realistic perspective regarding the end of the world, sober analysis of means regarding leverage for change, and focused political targeting against corporate rule without accountability.

History of imbedded doomsday narratives

All societies are dominance hierarchies, and all large, human dominance hierarchies have hired high-priests that construct and maintain the State doomsday narrative. These high-priests constantly instruct us on required beliefs and behaviours that minimize the deleterious effects of the alleged impending catastrophe. The behavioural instructions fan everything from diet, to hygiene, to dress code, to physical activity, to work ethics, to attitudes and morals, to child rearing, to political positions, to deference to experts, and so on.

It would be delusional to believe that this structural feature of society is any different than it ever was. In present Western society, the high-priests are the “scientists”, which include the medical doctors and all the “experts”.

This does not mean that science itself is not a valid and rigorous method to test and eliminate hypotheses and theories. It only means that establishment scientists are hired high-priests, notwithstanding the rare exceptions that prove the rule. It also does not mean that scientists never tell the truth. It only means that establishment scientists never harm or rebel against the dominance hierarchy, except by accident or solely in appearance.

These days, there is an industry of scientists that indulge in generating, testing and ameliorating ever more creative doomsday predictions, which are hoped to be of utility to the bosses. The said utility is often termed “societal relevance”. As an eminent example, we have the theory of a “tipping point” towards irreversible total collapse of the ecosphere, often referred to as a “species mass extinction”. The notion of a tipping point has also been advanced for planetary climate, wherein, in the absence of any non-human cause, one crosses into a global climate regime of constant extreme weather and flooded continents.

Whereas past planetary transformations have been related to game-changers, such as the advent of photosynthesis, the calming of tectonic (volcanic) activity, and so forth, and whereas the known recurring climate catastrophe of ice ages is believed to be driven by variations in solar insolation, the new “tipping points” spontaneously occur from the gradual changes of increased modern human or industrial activity, including: habitat destruction, burning of fossil fuel, population growth, and dispersal of toxic substances.

The new “tipping point” theory is not unlike the deluge of the Old Testament, which followed an accumulation of human depravity, except that no god is postulated, and building the Ark requires a centralized and globally restructured economy, handled by overarching elite private institutions, of course. War, disease, hunger … are all defeated under the same umbrella, death itself eventually.

The accompanying calls from establishment icons are often shrill.  In the words of Prince Charles, in 2009:⁵,⁶

If we do nothing, the consequences for every person on this earth will be severe and unprecedented – with vast numbers of environmental refugees, social instability and decimated economies: far worse than anything which we are seeing today … We have 100 months left to act.

While the leader of the most warring nation on earth, President Barack Obama, concluded in his 2015 State of the Union speech:⁷

No challenge  poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.

The role of scientists

The scientists follow and are often not more contained than Prince Charles or President Obama:

Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of harm to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of people with the rest of the biosphere using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are damaging their ecological life support systems is overwhelming. We further agree that, based on the best scientific information available, human quality of life will suffer substantial degradation by the year 2050 if we continue on our current path. Science unequivocally demonstrates the human impacts of key concern: Climate disruption – more, faster climate change than since humans first became a species. …⁸
We maintain that humanity’s grand challenge is solving the intertwined problems of human population growth and overconsumption, climate change, pollution, ecosystem destruction, disease spillovers, and extinction, in order to avoid environmental tipping points that would make human life more difficult and would irrevocably damage planetary life support systems.⁹
But today, for the first time, humanity’s global civilization—the worldwide, increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded—is threatened with collapse by an array of environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’, facing what the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems. The most serious of these problems show signs of rapidly escalating severity, especially climate disruption. But other elements could potentially also contribute to a collapse: an accelerating extinction of animal and plant populations and species, which could lead to a loss of ecosystem services essential for human survival; land degradation and land-use change; a pole-to-pole spread of toxic compounds; …¹⁰
The loss of biodiversity is one of the most critical current environmental problems, threatening valuable ecosystem services and human wellbeing. A growing body of evidence indicates that current species extinction rates are higher than the pre-human background rate, with hundreds of anthropogenic vertebrate extinctions documented in prehistoric and historic times.¹¹

In fact, there is no science of a “tipping point” for earth biodiversity or for earth climate. No such testable theory has been elaborated. The entire notion of “tipping point” is hypothetical and tenuous. It is a product of bias to presume that a large and complex system (planet) would be susceptible to “tipping” rather than extraordinarily stable against internal superficial changes.  A recent paper describes how one might begin to define concepts or measures that would allow even discussing the topic of “tipping point” intelligently, for realistic ecological systems.¹²

Furthermore, even among scientists, still getting their bearings, there is persistent disagreement as to whether species extinction rates are higher in recent decades. A critical review concludes:¹³

Net species gains or losses should be assessed with respect to common baselines or reference communities. Ultimately, we need a globally coordinated effort to monitor biodiversity so that we can estimate and attribute human impacts as causes of biodiversity change. A combination of technologies will be needed to produce regularly updated global datasets of local biodiversity change to guide future policy. At this time the conclusion that there is no net change in local species richness is not the consensus state of knowledge.

Reality check

There is a large structurally imbedded industry of doomsday narrative. In addition, individuals are reared in a dominance hierarchy and therefore constantly seek messaging about fitting in. The result is that we adopt the State religion. Even if the State is occupied by an exploitative elite, we continue to uphold and follow any State religion that has been sufficiently implanted.

In this case, the State religion is that we are cared-for by mother earth but that our bad behaviour is poisoning mother earth and that we are therefore all at risk, unless we adopt the new stringent conditions that should be imposed globally. Non-believers should be rooted out and isolated. We should demand that all our peers and our representatives do what is proscribed by the State religion.
Meanwhile corporate criminality, while dressed in the colours of the State religion, will continue at an accelerated rate, and our minds and bodies will continue to be occupied.³

I say no. To escape this trap, we must realize that the planet is, well, a planet, with huge response capabilities; that the planet is far more resilient and robust than we imagine.

Habitat destruction and industrial practices are grotesque, and these cause real and significant harm to human communities and ecosystems — more so even than actual wars in the present era … although not more so than so-called economic sanctions and exploitative nation financing.  In contrast, “warming” itself cannot hurt the biosphere or humans, nor is the planet at risk of “collapse” from all the criminal practices. That is fabricated nonsense.

Our joint efforts should be on justice, attaining actual democracy, the elimination of criminal behaviour, extortion and exploitation, enforcement of reparations, enforcement of corporate transparency and accountability…

The problem is human behaviour against humans and nature, organized by an occupied dominance hierarchy, and the solutions are political; nothing to do with CO2, methane or anything else in the atmosphere.

1. “Questioning Climate Politics: Denis Rancourt says the ‘global warming myth’ is part of the problem” by Dru Oja Jay, The Dominion, 11 April 2007. []
2. “Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis” by Denis Rancourt, Research Gate, December 2015, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1304.7129. []
3. “GEO-ECONOMICS AND GEO-POLITICS DRIVE SUCCESSIVE ERAS OF PREDATORY GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING: Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, and anti-racism as State doctrines” by Denis Rancourt, Research Gate, April 2019, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26897.89449. [] []
4. “Undertanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky”, by Noam Chomsky, edited by Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffet, The New Press, NY, 2002; at page 388, in Chapter 10 “Turning Point – Based on discussions in Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland in 1994 to 1996 and 1999”, ISBN 1-56584-703-2. []
5. As quoted in “Apocalypse Now! Fear and Doomsday Pleasures” by Erik Swyngedouw, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Volume 24, 2013 – Issue 1, pages 9-18. []
6. “Climate change must be tackled before global poverty, says Prince Charles” by Andrew Alderson in Santiago, The Telegraph, 10 March 2009. []
7. “Obama: No greater threat to future than climate change” by Madison Park, CNN, 21 January 2015. []
8. “Introducing the Scientific Consensus on Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support” by Anthony D Barnosky et al., The Anthropocene Review, 2014, 1: 78. []
9. “Avoiding collapse: Grand challenges for science and society to solve by 2050, by Anthony D. Barnosky, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Elizabeth A. Hadly, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 4: 000094, doi: 10.12952/journal.elementa.000094. []
10. “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” by Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. (2013) Proc R Soc B, 280: 20122845. []
11. “Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction” by Ceballos et al., Sci. Adv., 2015, 1: e1400253. []
12. “Unifying Research on Social–Ecological Resilience and Collapse” by Graeme S. Cumming and Garry D. Peterson, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Review| Volume 32, ISSUE 9, P695-713, September 01, 2017. []
13. “Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity” by Andrew Gonzalez et al., Ecology, 97(8), 2016, pp. 1949–1960. []

Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association. He has published more than 100 articles in leading scientific journals, on physics and environmental science. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. Denis can be reached at denis.rancourt@gmail.com. Read other articles by Denis.

La géoéconomie et la géopolitique entraînent des époques successives de globalisation prédatrice et d’ingénierie sociale

https://lesakerfrancophone.fr/la-geoeconomie-et-la-geopolitique-entrainent-des-epoques-successives-de-globalisation-predatrice-et-dingenierie-sociale

L’influence des conditions géopolitiques et économiques globales sur le tissu des sociétés nationales et sur la psychologie individuelle est le plus souvent sous-estimée par les commentateurs civils, notamment en ce qui concerne les sociétés occidentales dites « libres et démocratiques ». Les militaires, en revanche, ne sous-estiment pas l’importance des facteurs commerciaux et économiques généraux sur le tissu même d’une société et sur la psychologie de ses citoyens, du moins dans les pays en développement ciblés. ²

Cet article a deux objectifs principaux.

Le premier est de démontrer dans quelle mesure le système financier global détermine la réalité nationale et régionale dans la vie et la sécurité des populations, y compris aux États-Unis et dans le monde occidental en général, en mettant l’accent sur les deux principales transformations de l’après-guerre, qui ont débuté en 1971, après l’annulation des accords de Bretton Woods, et en 1991, après la dissolution de l’Union soviétique.

Le second est de décrire le changement tectonique en cours qui a suivi la dissolution de l’Union soviétique en 1991 en des termes plus larges qu’on ne l’envisage habituellement, et comment ce changement motivé et coordonné a été chronologiquement accompagné par : une accélération spectaculaire de la « globalisation » commerciale et financière, et une campagne sans précédent d’ingénierie sociale des classes moyennes supérieures occidentales, visant à faciliter une exploitation opportuniste des nouvelles circonstances globales, par les États-Unis et l’élite globale, qui a abouti par contrecoup aux Gilets jaunes, au Brexit et à Trump… (Dans un sens, « les Russes l’ont fait. »)


Pour un « résumé des points clés » avec description des données socio-économiques à l’appui, voir la section Conclusion.

Can't leave scientists alone with science

By Denis G. Rancourt, PhD


(This article was first published on my climate blog.)


If the generalized global warming fever and "climate change" hysteria has taught societal observers anything it is that you cannot leave scientists alone with science.

The scientific enterprise is embedded, and scientists are manufactured service intellectuals.

Two outcomes are possible.

In the first extreme scenario, those scientists that are mainly responsible to recruit young minds and to fabricate the illusion of research freedom are given freedom within the framework of professional advancement based solely on peer-reviewed publication output. The result is irrelevant gibberish, as any institutional analyst would predict.

In the other end-point scenario, research funding is tied to professional advancement and is determined by government agencies and corporate interests. The outcome is again precisely as would be predicted: the research output exactly satisfies the contractual conditions.

This is true whether one is patenting a genetically modified organism, or approving a new "non-addictive" pain medication, or developing a next-generation delivery system for nuclear warheads.

The on-going episode of global warming "science" has illustrated a structural flaw in this otherwise functioning state-science system: If scientists are given career-enhancing supra-national political instruments to create exaggerated relevance of their work in driving a globalist agenda, then they will take the opportunity and run.

Such runaway irrelevance is already known to occur on its own within a career-centered science network (the so-called Gold Effect). [1]. With the climate scare example, we see that the phenomenon is highly amplified when there is a strong corporate or institutional and propaganda-supported driver.

Usually, societal observers and ordinary citizens would not notice. In this case however, the shrill alarmism that has been generated, propagated by the mainstream media, and condoned by the science establishment, is stratospheric. The independent-thinking blogger can detect the tenuous nature of the claims of everything from imminent human species extinction to continental flooding to engulfing forest fires to unprecedented mega-storms to war-causing droughts, and so on. [2].

You can't leave scientists alone with science. Thankfully, in this case, the propaganda runaway has caused the insanity to be palpable, influential domestic forces are not buying in, and a large segment of the middle-class is not swallowing it; species extinction or no species extinction, bumblebee migration or no bumblebee migration.

The heroes in this story -- in this unique and historic example where a large segment of society has correctly perceived a widespread profiteering construct -- are the bloggers and vloggers, the domestic industrial interests that resist finance globalization, the USA political networks that reject global governance, and, of course, the exceptional scientists that refused to compromise intellectual integrity and publicly said so.

All of this, in circumstances where the relevant planetary physics is straightforward, if anybody cared. [3].


Endnotes

[1] See the description of the Gold Effect in:  Rancourt, D.G., Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis, Research Gate (December 2015), 25 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1304.7129

[2] My critical review of the global-warming "science" of forest fires may be one of the best illustrations of how bad the science is, as I document the "runaway" recorded in the scientific literature: Rancourt, D.G., Anatomy of the false link between forest fires and anthropogenic CO2, Research Gate (May 2016), 18 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2059.6087

[3] Rancourt, D.G., Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect, my climate blog (June 2011), http://climateguy.blogspot.ca/2011/06/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html

Denis Rancourt's articles and interviews on climate are listed HERE.
Links to all my articles are HERE.

Who is Daniel J. Levitin?

By Denis G. Rancourt, PhD


Who is Daniel J. Levitin, and why is he saying false things about me?

Mr. Levitin is a university professor, a psychologist, and the author of the 2016 book "Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-truth Era".

Wikipedia states the following about Mr. Levitin's book: "His interest in writing the guide [was] to help people develop techniques to distinguish factual information from that which may be distorted, out-of-date, unscientific or in error".

Therefore, Mr. Levitin presents a goal of wanting to be factual and accurate, and of not misleading.

In an article he penned on April 4, 2017, entitled "It’s time to stop letting so-called “experts” comment on subjects they know nothing about", Mr. Levitin had this to say about me:

Scientists like myself are partly to blame here. When one of our own goes on TV or in front of the press and starts making false claims, we don’t stand up and denounce them. We figure it’s not our personal problem. But it is. In this age of overwhelming untruth, pseudo-expertise is a problem that has to become every individual’s responsibility.

Nowhere is this more clear than among the climate-change deniers—almost entirely pseudo-experts—who contradict ample scientific evidence and lend support to devastating public policies. The list of leading climate-change deniers includes Denis Rancourt, who holds a PhD in physics and is an expert in magnetic field theory; Freeman Dyson, another physicist; Harrison Schmitt, a geologist; and Myron Ebell, who has a master’s in political theory and no advanced research degree. What about the people who hold PhD’s in—you know—climate science? Among this group, according to a number of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, 97% agree or more that climate change is real and man-made.

Thus, Mr. Levitin makes false statements and misleads by omission, as follows.

I will mostly leave aside Mr. Levitin's device of casting scientific questioning of CO2-alarmism as "climate-change denial" because that is simply wrong for an intellectual alleging to be concerned with truth. Everyone agrees that there are transitions beween different regional and global climate regimes in the history of our planet. Here is proof that I certainly do: "Anatomy of the false link between forest fires and anthropogenic CO2".

Mr. Levitin states that I am "an expert in magnetic field theory" (sic). I know what a "magnetic field" is. I know what a "theory" is. But I don't know what "magnetic field theory" is. There are "field theories" in several areas of physics, but "magnetic" is not one of them. If it is, then I don't know about it, so I could not possibly be an expert in it as asserted by Mr. Levitin.

If Mr. Levitin had taken the care to examine my public Google Scholar page, he would have immediately noticed that my most cited paper is in an area of theoretical spectroscopy, which is evidence of my ability to understand resonant scattering of infrared radiation from so-called greenhouse gases. He would have noticed that my second most cited paper is in environmental science "Nanogoethite is the dominant reactive oxyhydroxide phase in lake and marine sediments", in which I was the research director. And he would have noticed that many of my most cited papers are in environmental science, including carbon cycling in sediments and soils, related to aquatic sediments, soil evolution, environmental bacterial reactions, hydrothermal fluid input into sea water, and so on.

Alas, Mr. Levitin did not see or chose not to mention any of that, but instead characterizes me as a "physicist" (solely on the basis of my 1984 PhD) in the fictitious area of "magnetic field theory". In contrast, Mr. Levitin characterizes himself on his website as a "scientist, musician, author and record producer", quite a universal man despite having obtained his PhD in one specialized field.

I think that Mr. Levitin was trying to make the incorrect point that I am not qualified to comment about climate, and that I should not be a "leading climate-change denier". Well, the only way to establish whether I am qualified to comment about climate is to examine the substance and scientific value of my actual work about climate.

But wait. Is Mr. Levitin qualified to judge my calculations about the physics of radiation balance applied to the planet earth? Did Mr. Levitin dismiss my calculations on the basis that they were made public and discussed openly with leading climate scientists rather than published in a scientific journal: "Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect"?

If Mr. Levitin dismisses scientific work by an appeal to authority (of scientific journals), or by an appeal to majority view (his quoting of the "97% consensus"), is that not in opposition to his book about the need for independent thought?

An equally interesting question, which Mr. Levitin might consider pondering moving forward, is "How many in the alleged '97%' understand and can practice the physics of planetary radiation balance?" Although, my evidence is anecdotal, I would confidently assert "not many".

More importantly, Mr. Levitin misleads his readers by omission. He concentrates on climate "deniers" that he incorrectly implies are not qualified to comment, but he leaves out any mention of the many "deniers" who are well-established formally-trained climate scientists. Here are examples of a few from many he could have mentioned:

• Judith Curry (Georgia Institute of Technology)
• Richard Lindzen (MIT)
• Hendrik Tennekes (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute)
• Nir Shaviv (Racah Institute of Physics)
• Craig D. Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change)
• Roger A. Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado Boulder)
• Yuri Izrael (Russian Academy of Sciences; a vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001-2008)

I would suggest to Mr. Levitin that he reset his ability to seek and communicate truth. If he has some time, he could practice by analyzing the arguments recently (March 29, 2017) presented to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology:



Denis Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, on physics and environmental science, and writes social theory articles. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism, and a regular contributor to Dissident Voice. His articles and interviews about the science and politics of climate linked here.

Climate stupidity and human survival

By Denis G. Rancourt

This article accompanies a 2-hour public lecture I gave at the University of Ottawa on March 27, 2015, entitled "The science and geopolitics of climate change": VIDEO-LINK-Part-1, VIDEO-LINK-Part-2. The physics calculations of Earth's radiation balance described in Part-1 of the talk are from this paper: Rancourt, D.G., "Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect", archive.org (3 December 2011). Links to my articles and interviews about climate are HERE.

The human animal has an instinct to identify potential dangers and to warn others. It is a built-in survival mechanism of any animal that lives in a group. And it is a strong and constant activity, re-enforced by environmental stressors.

This plays out on several time scales, from the immediate in the case of a potential physical assault, to the weekly in checking the weather forecast, to seasonal in preparing for winter, to life-long in planning for inevitable aging, to leaving good things for our grandchildren...

It is in our fiber to look ahead and to plan ahead, especially in the face of foreseeable or detected dangers.

The whole process can spin out of control when the danger is difficult to perceive yet could be lethal. Think of baboons who are on the lookout for a stalking lion. The slightest shadow movement can make them scream and run for the trees. It's a tense and highly volatile situation.

At this stage in our evolution we are faced with a pathological extension of our collective survival reflex, which is entirely fabricated by our high priests (government funded scientists and talking heads).

If these high priests were not here to tell us that the atmospheric concentration of the minor constituent CO2 is increasing, and that "global mean surface temperature" has increased by some 0.5 C in the last 100 years, then we would never know about these imperceptible causes of our certain eventual collective death as a species.

The priests explain that our certain extinction will occur from a rising sea level and changing regional climates. That these changes will cause mass migrations, ecosystem collapses, agricultural failures, famines, and disease. They also inform us that those who will suffer most are the most vulnerable inhabitants of the planet, as though this were a new feature of the effects of natural disasters.

Therefore, they urge, we must tax carbon emissions, apply cap and trade, and create a global carbon economy to limit CO2 in the atmosphere. And who better to coordinate it all than the World Bank, IMF, and such, given their stellar records in managing equitable development on this little rock. (Or is that economic enforcement of US regime supremacy?)

Forgive me for saying, but this all sounds rather nutso to me.

Nothing could be more like a religion than this crazy movement. We are expected to accept that an essential and growth-limiting plant nutrient (CO2: [1]) is a toxic pollutant, that the world will be destroyed because of our collective and intrinsic wickedness of emitting CO2, via floods no less.   

Take a deep breath (exhale if you dare) and allow me to state a few facts that might help put things into perspective.

The planet has been teeming with life for billions of years.

During that time, the global mean temperature has almost always been some 10 C higher than in the present geologic anomaly [2], in a manner uncorrelated with CO2 concentration [3]. That is the history of this same planet that we live on. During that time, the CO2 concentration has typically been 10 times higher than today's value, and it has rarely been as low as modern values, nor has it ever been lower than modern values.

There is no reason to believe that humans would not fare well on an Earth that is 10 C warmer, never mind 1 or 2 C. Land value would increase in the polar regions, and there would be intense reforestation and forest densification of the equatorial regions, with little possibility for controlling growth where it is hot and humid.

From what we know of our planet and the history of its biosphere, warming is not going to kill us off any time soon. None of the known mass extinctions (a relative term) in Earth's history can be reliably attributed to "sustained warming", whereas ice ages that have occurred recently (during human presence on the planet, in the last 1 M years) are expected to correspond to periods of decreased planetary life density, but saw mammals and human populations completely adapt. Basically, neither warming or cooling can kill us by any know mechanism ever observed. If anything, the opposite of "killer warmth" is observed on today's Earth, where both human populations and living biomass are concentrated near equatorial latitudes:

Therefore, we still have much time left to achieve human extinction by much more direct means than warming (or cooling) of any kind. We also have a lot of time and occasions to practice accommodating mass migrations caused by our wars and economic violence, in order to prepare for the "climate migrations".

Somehow there seems to be more public-opinion, political, and lobbying effort in implementing and developing the instruments of a global carbon economy than in developing the instruments to prevent wars of aggression, to cope with the consequences of natural disasters, to stop displacing and dispossessing local inhabitants, to enforce the Geneva Conventions, to stop the wholesale destruction of entire nations (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran...?), to respect international law, ... not to mention reparations to the survivors of recent slavery, genocide, dispossession, and crass exploitation.

Rather than widespread vehement and actuated insistence on democratic control of local resources and institutions, based on individual realities on the ground, instead we have a sizable yet ineffective population of vocal do-gooders enthralled in spasmodic incantations against atmospheric CO2 emissions, as part of a Gaia-inspired religion perverted by the Christian concept of original sin; all of which de facto supports the carbon globalization schemes engineered by the US regime to attempt to constrain their emerging competitors and extort a development tax.

When has "globalization" ever been about justice, or about anything other than economic predation? When have good-will global efforts ever had any significant positive impact? [4]

Why pollute local struggles and liberation of the individual with tenuous claims about imperceptible dangers? And why put so much energy into insisting that the danger from CO2 is real? This seems like a classic example of seeking an overarching religious belief "solution" to real local problems that one cannot or will not confront.

"Climate justice" needs to be "justice". The comfortable-middle-class fetish for carbon co-opts the analysis, defuses the thrust for defending identity-tied interests, and sends legitimate demands straight into the atmosphere. Or, at best, it is simply irrelevant to real struggles.

In the main population, if all the fanatics that are screaming that the sky is falling would scream to stop the war machine that occupies every corner of the globe, then we could start moving away from the real manufactured disasters that wash over the planet continuously, which don't require satellite spectrometers to detect.

Instead of asking whether we can detect warming, whether intense weather events are actually more frequent, whether species extinction rates can reliably be measured, and so on, why not address the obvious: Humans are exploiting and terrorizing other humans, human conditions are constantly being attacked, and natural habitat is being destroyed for corporate benefit by eliminating local sovereignty.

Why turn to sanitized and intractable up-in-the-air questions when injustice and actual destruction is all around us? And why oh why pretend that humans can manage global carbon fluxes, manage the radiation balance of the planet, and control climate?

It's a planet!

If we are going to have a global religion, why not believe that justice leads to both short-term and long-term safety? Not justice that is planned and given to us, but justice that we acquire through struggle and liberation.

On the other hand if you must be irrelevant and must have your carbon fetish, then at least put it into a planetary perspective [5]:

• The present (2010) rate of fossil fuel burning (0.8 x 10^13 kg-C/y) is 8% of global primary production (GPP)
• The latter plant growth (GPP) uses only 0.07% of solar light striking the planet
• Thus, fossil fuel burning represents 8% of 0.07% = 0.006% of solar energy rate of input (the sun is a sun and the Earth is a planet...)
• The CO2 production from the burning of fossil fuel is approximately equal to that from human and domestic animal breathing
• The combined biomass of humans and domestic animals is 0.04% of Earth's living biomass
• Ants have transformed the planet's surface and its ecology far more than have humans
• The total amount of fossil fuel burned to date (historically to 2010) by humans is 3.7 x 10^14 kg-C, less than half of the carbon contained in the atmosphere as a minor constituent gas
• Dissolved CO2 in the oceans is 50 times more than the total amount in the atmosphere
• Living and dead biomass-carbon (in soils, sediments, plant-cover, etc.) is probably much greater than carbon as CO2 in air and water
• Thus, the total post-industrial fossil fuel burned to date represents less than 1% of the planet's global bio-available and exchangeable carbon, not to mention geological sources
• As such, atmospheric CO2 is readily exchanged with and buffered by compartments of labile carbon that are much larger than the atmosphere, via flux mechanisms that science is barely beginning to understand (e.g., [1])

Endnotes

[1] Keenan et al., "Increase in forest water-use efficiency as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise", Nature 499, 324-327 (18 July 2013); Donohue et al., "Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe's warm, arid environments", Geophysical Research Letters 40(12), 3031-3035 (28 June 2013).

[2] Wikipedia article, "Geologic temperature record", accessed May, 2015, see "Overall view". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

[3] Rothman, D.H., "Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99(7), 4167-4171, (2 April 2002). http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full

[4] Rancourt, D.G., "Some big lies of science", Activist Teacher (8 June 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html

[5] Rancourt, D.G., "Is the burning of fossil fuel a significant planetary activity?", Activist Teacher (21 August 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/08/is-burning-of-fossil-fuel-significant.html ; Rancourt, D.G., "CO2 emission from fossil fuel burning is not more than from breathing", Activist Teacher (22 August 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/08/co2-emission-from-fossil-fuel-burning.html


Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, including in the area of environmental science, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. 

Climate science is a "Zombie science"

By Denis G. Rancourt

Dr. Bruce G. Charlton recently (2012) wrote an informed and polemical book entitled "Not even trying... The Corruption of real science". In this book, Dr. Charlton defines what he calls "Zombie science".

I submit that Dr. Charlton's definition of a "Zombie science" eminently applies to today's climate science. I predict that today's climate science enterprise will, in some future, be universally adopted as a textbook example of Zombie science by historians of science, who will emerge in a next generation of honest academics.

Here is the definition of Zombie science given in the on-line version of Dr. Charlton's book:

When a branch of science based on incoherent, false or phoney theories is serving a useful but non-scientific purpose it may be kept-going by continuous transfusions of cash from those whose non-scientific interests it serves.

For example, if a branch of pseudo-science based on a phoney theory is nonetheless valuable for political purposes (e.g. to justify a government intervention such as a new tax) or for marketing purposes (to provide the rationale for a marketing campaign) then real science expires and a ‘zombie science’ evolves.

Zombie science is science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like real science.

But in fact the zombie has no life of its own; it is animated and moved only by the incessant pumping of funds.

*
Real science is coherent – and testable (testing being a matter of checking coherence with the result of past and future observations).

Real science finds its use, and gets its validation, from common sense evaluation and being deployed in technology.

Real science is validated (contingently) insofar as it leads to precise predictions that later come true; and leads to new ways of solving pressing problems and making useful changes in the world.

But zombie science is not coherent, therefore cannot be tested; its predications are vague or in fact retrospective summaries rather than predictions.

*
In a nutshell, zombie science is supported because it is useful propaganda; trading on the prestige which real science used-to have and which zombie science falsely claims for itself.

Zombie science is deployed in arenas such as political rhetoric, public administration, management, public relations, marketing and the mass media generally. It persuades, it constructs taboos, it buttresses rhetorical attempts to shape opinion.

Furthermore, most zombie sciences are supported by moral imperatives – to doubt the zombie science is therefore labelled as wicked, reckless, a tool of sinister and destructive forces.

To challenge zombie science is not merely to attack the livelihoods of zombie scientists (which, considering their consensus-based power, is itself dangerous) – but opens the attacker to being labelled a luddite, demagogue, anti-science, a denialist!

For all its incoherence and scientific worthlessness, zombie science therefore often comes across in the sound bite world of the mass media as being more plausible than real science; and it is precisely the superficial face-plausibility which in actuality is the sole and sufficient purpose of zombie science.

In contrast to objective reality, the warmist spin is spectacular.

Climate science is overwhelmingly supported by the establishment and by global finance which is hard at work installing a  multi-trillion-dollar carbon economy for its profit and to assist in extortion via a development tax against any regime that insists on economic independence. The public opinion battle appears to have been largely won. Valiant resistance is tolerated as a quaint demonstration of freedom of expression in the US. All other civil and societal sectors are aligned, by virtue of the mega-snow-job that equates ecological destruction with CO2 gas (a growth limiting plant nutrient), as opposed to its actual causes. (The cause of ecological destruction is ecological destruction!)

It is glaringly obvious that carbon "logic" is a major emerging instrument of global control and fortified exploitation that, like US dollar standing in the purchase of strategic resources, will be backed with military might. Yet, "deniers", including dedicated top scientists, are targeted as pure evil, being paid by destructive interests.

The holy apparatus of "peer review" is advanced as a truth detection instrument, where it is objectively known to be an establishment opinion imposition structure, which was rejected as such by none other than Albert Einstein, and which did not exist when science made virtually all of its greatest advances.

The climate models are opaque and not testable, and when the "predictions" from these models fail dramatically, multiple clouds of spin erupt from both the modellers and those who generated the "measurements". Most historic climatologists are intimidated into sheepish silence. Government scientists mostly tow the line. Official politically contrived reports (IPCC, etc.) fall over themselves to declare a CO2 crisis, year after year.

By contrast, simple and rigorous physics calculations conclusively show that other factors are orders of magnitude more important than CO2 in determining mean global surface temperature. The "other factors" (land use, water management) are made subservient to the CO2 gospel. 

I mean, it should be thoroughly embarrassing to all professional climate scientists. How can they be so silent?

And there are armies of opportunists. The ecologists cite imperceptible global warming rather than denounce direct habitat destruction, which would put them into harsh conflict with immediate "economic interests". Green energy and environmental remediation (carbon storage, etc.) charlatans are only too happy to accept funding for bogus and unsustainable technologies. And on and on.

When global finance has a project that aligns with global geopolitical interests, present First World civil society and all professional employees are, in turn, easily aligned. At least for now, dissidents will continue to be mobbed by hoards of zombies.

***

Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He practiced various areas of science (environmental geochemistry, soil science, spectroscopy, condensed matter physics, materials science) which were funded by a national agency, has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. His articles and views about climate science include: LINK.

Wrongheadedness of scientific consensus fetishism in climate politics

By Denis G. Rancourt


It pains me to have to write this. It would pain me more to let it go without some kind of a fight.

In this post, I pick up a recent "blowhard" peer-reviewed experts' article [1] published by a most prestigious publisher and show that its two presumed-established starting assumptions -- that global warming is directly perceivable in increasing extreme weather events, and that there is a scientific consensus on global warming -- are at best groundless, and wrong, if the evidence matters at all.


Consider a recent article published in Nature Climate Change, entitled "The relationship between personal experience and belief in the reality of global warming" [1]. The authors of the paper lament:

Moreover, despite widespread agreement among climate scientists that human-caused climate change is occurring only two-thirds (66%) of Americans adults correctly understand that 'global warming is happening', and nearly half of these are only 'somewhat sure' (42%) or 'not at all sure' (5%) of their answer; moreover, only a third believe that they or their families will be harmed.

The authors go on to tentatively explain this US phenomenon as:

Current theories of cognitive science suggest that learning about abstractions requires analytical information processing, which involves cognitive effort-- a scarce commodity, which people expend sparingly.

Given the degree of certainty that these authors possess in complex areas that my own feeble (and scientifically trained) mind has difficulty evaluating, I decided to look up their main supporting references. After all, the reviewers at the Nature publications are no slouches when it comes to insisting that one cite the most reliable sources.

For their introductory statement:

Climate change is affecting every region by increasing the frequency and/or intensity of heat waves, droughts, precipitation, floods, hurricanes, and forest fires, and through impacts on ecosystems and species, including human health.

our authors cite Karl et al. [2], which is the 2009 Report of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The latter Report is a large collaborative efforts to review the relevant published articles in order to draw conclusions (sound familiar?). This Report's 2nd key "finding" is:

Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow. Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow.

In making this finding, the 2009 Report prominently relies on Kunkel et al. [3]. My survey of the data presented by Kunkel et al. shows me that the data itself is highly uncertain in two regards:

1. It has broad statistical distributions, having widths that are greater than any theoretical (i.e. regression fitted) trends, and 
2. It is subject to large systematic and uncontrolled uncertainties arising from the historical changes in measurement coverage (number of stations, geographical coverage, local climate effects, and so on), and methods.

Indeed, the chapter by Kunkel et al. is full of objective disclaimers such as:

• "However, the heat waves of the 1930s remain the most severe in the United States historical record back to 1895."; 
• "There is less confidence in data prior to about 1950."; 
• "The data used to examine changes in the frequency and severity of tornadoes and severe thunder storms are inadequate to make definitive statements about actual changes."; and so on.

So we see how the definitive statement of our authors [1] that "Climate change is affecting every region by..." is anchored in some rather complex and tenuous real data buried several levels deep into government-funded review reports. The lead authors making the said claim work for a "Centre for Climate Change Communication". What do you expect them to say? And do they have the expertize to critically appreciate measured field data and statistical uncertainty theory? (I do.)

Our authors' [1] underlying assumption (in opposing 'personal experience' and 'belief') that global warming can be seen and experienced is, well, ludicrous. My own contribution to this public debate is illustrated in this media video: [4].


"Widespread agreement among climate scientists"

Next, I examine our authors' [1] claim that there is "widespread agreement among climate scientists that human-caused climate change is occurring", by examining their source: Anderegg et al. [5].

I have been critical of the scientific bandwagon artifact in global warming publications since my February 2007 essay "Global Warming: Truth or Dare?" [6][7]. The renowned late historian of science and technology David F. Noble provided a historical perspective on the "peer review" process and on the funding of science professionals, as an antidote to the excesses of "this new orthodoxy [which] is an exaggerated reverence for science" [8].

Furthermore, the said scientific bandwagon artifact has been formally described as the "Gold Effect" and is thus a well known phenomenon in the sociology of modern science [9]:

The Gold Effect is the phenomenon in which a scientific (often medical) idea is developed to the status of an accepted position within a professional body or association by the social process itself of scientific conferences, committees, and consensus building, despite not being supported by conclusive evidence. The effect was described by Professor T. Gold in 1979.^[1] The effect was reviewed by Drs. Petr Skrabanek and James McCormick in their book Follies and Fallacies in Medicine.^[2] The Gold Effect is used to analyze errors in public health policy and practice, such as the widespread use of cholesterol screening in the prevention of cardiovascular disease.^[3]

In their book, Skrabanek and McCormick describe the Gold Effect as: "At the beginning a few people arrive at a state of near belief in some idea. A meeting is held to discuss the pros and cons of the idea. More people favouring the idea than those disinterested will be present. A representative committee will be nominated to prepare a collective volume to propagate and foster interest in the idea. The totality of resulting articles based on the idea will appear to show an increasing consensus. A specialised journal will be launched. Only orthodox or near orthodox articles will pass the referees and the editor."

Thus, in the light of what is known about the sociology and funding of the modern science enterprise, and in the light of the gargantuan financial interests at play in global warming politics [10], it is difficult to view the work of Anderegg et al. [5] as anything else other than either remarkably naive or remarkably crass. Let's see...

First, Anderegg et al. acknowledge, based on their own data, that there is not a scientific consensus on the the IPCC primary conclusion that "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming of the Earth's average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century".

Second, they view this absence of a scientific consensus as a problem in need of a solution [5]:

Because the time line of decision-making is often more rapid than scientific consensus, examining the landscape of expert opinion can greatly inform such decision-making.

And their "solution" is to give little weight to the voices of scientists with which the majority of scientists do not agree (using their particular ad hoc "credibility" criterion) [5]:

This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.

Who are these "contrarians"? Anderegg et al. [5] consider that, based on their study of 1,372 researchers, the "contrarians" are climate scientists who have published at least 20 scientific articles in climate science. Anderegg et al. find that their "contrarians" have typically each published between 20 and 250 articles about climate science.

But Anderegg et al. [5] find that the "contrarians" comprise only 1 researcher of the top 50 climate researchers, and only 3 researchers of the top 100 climate researchers. Here Anderegg et al. rank researchers according to the number of climate publications, and they ascribe number of climate publications (listed by Google Scholar) as equivalent to "expertise".

Are the top researchers those who have published the most papers? How many papers did Albert Einstein publish? (Very few.) Several researchers studied by Anderegg et al. published as many as 300-900 papers. These are astronomical numbers of publications that can only arise when one is head of a large and well-funded research group in which the group director puts his/her name on every paper. By comparison, consider that a modern Ph.D. program typically leads to only 3-5 substantive papers authored by the Ph.D. candidate. One does not publish 900 peer-reviewed papers by expressing "contrarian" interpretations, in a world where, by definition, most reviewers are not "contrarians".

More realistically, although not stressed in their article [5], Anderegg et al. show in their Figure 1 that 63 of their 270 climate scientists that published between 20 and 50 climate papers were "contrarians". That is, 23% of climate scientists who published 20-50 climate papers were "contrarians". Clearly not a consensus. In science, such a proportion of "contrarians" is more correctly qualified as an active and hotly debated field. Only government-funded review panels (made up of the government-funded "top" scientists) would have one believe differently.

How can we evaluate the "credibilities" of the "contrarians"? Anderegg et al. [5] argue that they "have likely compiled the strongest and most credentialed researchers in CE [convinced by the evidence] and UE [unconvinced by the evidence] groups", and that credibility is reliably measured by number of climate papers and number of times climate papers are cited by other scientists.

Anderegg et al. [5] find (their Figure 2) that the top 50 "contrarians" (UE) have only between 20 and 250 papers each (with one exception at 650 papers), whereas the 50 top warmists (CE) have between 300 and 900 papers each. To me this simply means that the most highly funded climate researchers all advance that they are convinced by the evidence that "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming of the Earth's average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century". This impeccable correlation between apparent degree of funding and interpretation of the evidence would merit some research. Never mind...

Anderegg et al. [5] go on to explain that citation number further confirms that the "contrarians" have low credibility, however the actual data of Anderegg et al. show, instead, and again, an active and hotly debated field: The single most cited paper for each of the "contrarians" is cited an average of 105 times, compared to 172 times for the warmists. When one considers that there are fewer "contrarians" and that they are apparently less well funded, one has to be somewhat impressed that their papers are cited so frequently. One can justifiably argue that their citation numbers constitute evidence, in the demographic and economic circumstances, that their papers are scientifically "better".


Conclusion

The good news is that the common sense of the American people is alive and well. It is remarkable that in an "advanced democracy" the population does not entirely fall prey to the science of service "experts", fed to it by most of the establishment. Americans excel at self-defense against manipulative intellectualism.

Those, like our authors Myers et al. [1], who follow Anderegg et al. [5] in suggesting that scientists be ignored and that "the debate is over", based on the larger publication numbers of those scientists expressing the dominant view, are calling for a return to the dark ages. Science is not an exercise of representative democracy. Although polluted by politics, and led by money, science, in principle, is a search for truth that only works if there are "contrarians", and if those "contrarians" have a voice and an influence.

Yes, "contrarians" can be incompetent attention seekers, but they are also talented and principled scientists. Warmists can be scientifically mediocre funding seekers, and they can also be simply wrong.

Personally, I am baffled that any trained scientist with some knowledge of field measurements (i.e., measurements in the field), Earth systems, and statistical analysis could be "convinced by the evidence" that "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming of the Earth's average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century". Especially in the further light of recent analyses of the failures of all climate models regarding the "non-warming" of the last 20 years [11]. This week's hot air from the IPCC changes none of this.

Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals and many social commentary essays. Several of his papers are highly cited in environmental science (link). His self-published 2011 paper "Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect" has been downloaded more than 1000 times (link).

References

[1] Myers, T.A. et al., The relationship between personal experience and belief in the reality of global warming. Nature Climate Change, 2 December 2012, DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1754. http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/~huardda/articles/nclimate1754.pdf

[2] Karl, T. R., Melillo, J. M. & Peterson, T. C. (eds) Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/climate-impacts-report.pdf

[3] Kunkel, K.E., P.D. Bromirski, H.E. Brooks, T. Cavazos, A.V. Douglas, D.R. Easterling, K.A. Emanuel, P.Ya. Groisman, G.J. Holland, T.R. Knutson, J.P. Kossin, P.D. Komar, D.H. Levinson, and R.L. Smith, 2008: Observed changes in weather and climate extremes. In: Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate: Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands [Karl, T.R., G.A. Meehl, C.D. Miller, S.J. Hassol, A.M. Waple, and W.L. Murray (eds.)]. Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.3. U.S. Climate Change Science Program, Washington, DC, pp. 35-80. http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-3/final-report/sap3-3-final-Chapter2.pdf

[4] Peter Lavelle (host), Cross Talk: Franken-Climate, Russia Today, 2 November 2012. http://youtu.be/mf1a94SyNmg

[5] Anderegg, W. R. L., Prall, J. W., Harold, J. & Schneider, S. H. Expert credibility in climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 12107-12109 (2010). http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

[6] Rancourt, D.G., Global Warming: Truth or Dare?, Activist Teacher, 27 February 2007. http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2007/02/global-warming-truth-or-dare.html

[7] Rancourt, D.G., Some Big Lies of Science, Activist Teacher, 8 June 2010. http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html

[8] Noble, David F., Regression on the Left, Climate Guy, 30 May 2007. http://climateguy.blogspot.ca/2007/05/regression-on-left.html

[9] Wikipedia. Gold Effect. 27 September 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Effect

[10] Noble, David F., The Corporate Climate Coop, Activist Teacher, 1 May 2007. http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2007/05/dgr-in-my-article-entitled-global.html

[11] Fyfe, J.C. et al., Overestimated globalwarming over the past 20 years, Nature Climate Change, vol. 3, September 2013, pages 767-769. http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf

Denis Rancourt's physics paper about planetary warming has been downloaded more than 1000 times

Denis Rancourt's radiation physics paper of 2011 has been download in its free-access pdf form more than 1000 times from the non-profit site archive.org:

Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect

This paper is arguably the clearest and most accessible, yet rigorous, paper to describe the fundamental physics (radiation balance) of Earth's surface temperature phenomenon. It corrects textbook errors about interpretation, and obtains the actual mean surface temperature from first principles, using only known physical constants.

It may be the most downloaded physics paper about the Earth's surface temperature.

One physicist web commentator said:

Have you seen DGR in action ?

A recent post on ICECAP is a real winner: Jun 05, 2011 Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect By Denis G. Rancourt, Former physics professor, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

Follow the link to a 22 page article which is a tour de force of simple physics demonstrration. DGR's presentation puts me in mind of Pauling or Feynman lectures in my Caltech days. At least cruise over the hard stuff and savor the commentary. This guy is a keeper prof who got sideways with authority at U of Ottawa and was canned. My kinda guy!!!

Hunter Paalman
Walnut Creek, CA

Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball on the politics and professional ethics of global warming agitation

On July 12, 2012, CHUO 89.1 FM (Ottawa) The Train's Denis Rancourt interviewed Professor Dr. Tim Ball, climatologist, about climate science and the politics of global warming. Fascinating history of the climatology profession... Dr. Ball is being sued for defamation in regard to his criticisms of other climate professionals. The lawsuits are on-going and Dr. Ball is committed to getting to the truth and justice.

This is a remarkable interview where you can hear what it is like to respect the memory of decades of acquired scientific knowledge, as opposed to re-defining reality for careerist goals.

 LINK TO RADIO INTERVIEW

Activist Teacher authors most downloaded free-access scientific article about planetary warming physics

This article has now been downloaded 500 times.

It is the most downloaded free-access (open-source) scientific article about planetary warming physics.

One reviewer said:

"Follow the link to a 22 page article which is a tour de force of simple physics demonstrration. [Denis Rancourt's] presentation puts me in mind of Pauling or Feynman lectures in my Caltech days. At least cruise over the hard stuff and savor the commentary. This guy is a keeper prof who got sideways with authority at U of Ottawa and was canned. My kinda guy!!!"

Hunter Paalman
Walnut Creek, CA

It was first posted on Climate Guy (link) on June 3, 2011, and is available in full pdf version at archive.org here:

Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect

(And direct link to PDF file HERE.)

Abstract – I describe the basic physics of planetary radiation balance and surface temperature, using the simplest model possible that is sufficiently realistic for correct evaluations of predicted surface temperature response sensitivities to the key Earth parameters. The model is constrained by satellite absolute integrated intensity and spectroscopic measurements and the known longwave absorption cross section of CO2 gas. I show the predicted Earth temperature for zero atmospheric resonant absorption of longwave radiation (no greenhouse effect in the otherwise identical atmosphere) to be –46 C, not –19 C as often wrongly stated. Also, the net warming effect from the atmosphere, including all atmospheric processes (not just greenhouse forcing), without changing anything else (except to add the removed atmosphere) is +18 C, not the incorrect textbook value of +33 C. The double-layer atmosphere model with no free parameters provides: (a) a mean Earth surface temperature of +17 C, (b) a post-industrial warming due only to CO2 increase of δT = 0.4 C, (c) a temperature increase from doubling the present CO2 concentration alone (to 780 ppmv CO2; without water vapour feedback) equal to δT = 1.4 C, and (d) surface temperature response sensitivities that are approximately two orders of magnitude greater for solar irradiance and for planetary shortwave albedo and longwave emissivity than for the atmospheric greenhouse effect from CO2. All the model predictions robustly follow from the straightforward underlying assumptions without any need for elaborate global circulation models. The same longwave optical saturation that provides such a large radiative warming of the planet surface also ensures that the warming effect from increasing CO2 concentration is minimal. I conclude with suggested implications regarding warming alarmism, errors by sceptics, research funding, and scientific ignorance regarding climate feedbacks.

Changes to the June 3, 2011, article: Small clarifications were added and several typos were corrected in the December 3, 2011, pdf version.

A detailed peer-review of the article is available HERE.

Denis Rancourt's latest analysis of global warming physics posted to Climate Guy

Last month physicist Denis G. Rancourt embarked on an examination of the radiation physics behind "global warming" and called for peer review of his work: HERE, HERE, HERE.

All this has lead to his most recent report posted on Climate Guy on June 3, 2011:

Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect

This is a careful exposé of the basic physics underlying the dominant climate science narrative regarding so-called global warming. It is written in such a way that any student of science can follow the physics without needing to rely on authority or faith for any part of the argument.

The physical model and its predictions show that CO2 fetish warming alarmism is not justified by the relevant radiation physics informed by modern satelite spectroscopic measurements.

How scientists operate -- example

How do scientists operate? How do they attempt to influence each other? How do they protect their intellectual interests? Do they use intimidation? Paternalism? Do they mob challenges from outside their chosen field?

Consider this example from the area of climate science, involving some of the top establishment scientists in the field...

Read their mail...

HERE

RELATED POST:
David F. Noble's critique of "peer review"