I & I Editorial BoardRemember the bratty but fabulously worshipped Greta Thunberg thundering “How dare you” in front of the United Nations, in a screeching speech in which she claimed “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction”? The adults swooned at her feet, not just at the U.N. but at every stop she has made on her never-ending, neurotic speaking tour. But did anyone fact-check her? They should have. She was wrong.
Then 16, several years before she caught the next trend and became a Palestinian justice warrior, Thunberg told the General Assembly in 2019 that “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
And then there are the forever-aggrieved vandals who named themselves Extinction Rebellion, because, they say, they are on “the right side of history” by trying to stop the Anthropocene extinction. But the name also gives these hysterics license to disrupt, destroy, nag, bully, assemble mobs, and act without regard for human life, because who wouldn’t go to those lengths to stop a mass extinction?
But a mass extinction is not what we’re experiencing, according to a University of Arizona study published earlier this fall.
“Over the last 500 years, extinctions in plants, arthropods, and land vertebrates peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since then,” says the University of Arizona news.
That 100 years coincides with the era in which we have supposedly been overheating our planet by burning fossil fuels. They also contradict the results of “prominent research studies” that “have suggested our planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction,” which is “rapidly accelerating.”
The authors analyzed “rates and patterns of recent extinctions” over the previous five centuries, and were surprised to find that “past extinctions did not strongly predict current risk among groups.” In fact, “extinctions varied strongly among groups, and were most frequent among mollusks and some tetrapods,” while being “relatively rare in plants and arthropods.”
As it turns out, “recent extinctions were predominantly on islands” and “were most frequently related to invasive species.”
The mass extinction fears that the snarling doomsday cult is constantly screaming about are based on extrapolations from academics’ previous research. It isn’t fake science, but it’s not a trustworthy approach, either. After looking carefully at the evidence, the authors of the University of Arizona study “caution against extrapolating” extinction patterns “into the future.”
Maybe this study is in error and will be retracted sometime in the future. But that wouldn’t mean that the alarmists were right. Instead, it would solidly confirm that real science never stops probing, never rests on its findings, never abandons its curiosity, and always has room for debate. Skeptics should always be welcome to the discussion.
Eco-zealots, meanwhile, live in another world, where their narrow minds and their perpetual, feral anger have made them not just wrong but dangerous, too.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Maybe it would be a great solution to transport those eco-zealots to another world, soon. I hear SpaceX is going to have their rocket to Mars launching in a few years; they may make great passengers.
“Real science” never stops probing? Too bad “real science” wasn’t probing when the COVID “vax” was mandated by employers and the government.
I guess “real science” was taking off those years.
As I recall, any Real Scientist, Doctor, Nurse, or Medical Researcher who uttered the least question about The Clot Shot was immediately ‘disappeared’ from all social media, dismissed from their job, locked out of their lab, and every effort was made by ‘the Authorities’ to SHUT THEM UP!
Wasn’t it just a few decades ago that similarly cultish eco zealots were preaching just the opposite that we were entering another ice age?
What is next on their agenda?
It’s not surprising that the climate alarmists are, yet again, diametrically opposite to reality.
The easiest lie to tell is an inversion of reality, a flipping of causality. The alarmists needn’t invent entirely new physics to explain and describe their claims, and most people are too scientifically-illiterate to discern between reality and flipped-causality inverted-reality anyway.
They are diametrically opposite on their claim that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration will hamper coral and mollusk calcification… it actually increases calcification rate:
https://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/1gsv82i/corals_and_mollusks_were_being_lied_to/?rdt=62203&sort=new
And in fact, the entirety of AGW / CAGW is predicated upon their misuse of the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation in their Energy Balance Climate Models, using the Idealized Blackbody Object form of the S-B equation upon real-world graybody objects. That form of the equation assumes emission to 0 K and thus artificially inflates calculated radiant exitance of all calculated-upon objects… and that conjures “backradiation” from thin air.
https://www.patriotaction.us/showthread.php?tid=2711
IOW, they have, in their misuse of the S-B equation, flipped thermodynamics on its head… they are, yet again, diametrically opposite to reality.
Of course, “backradiation” is physically impossible… energy does not and cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient, per 2LoT in the Clausius Statement sense. Remember that all action requires an impetus, that impetus will always be in the form of a gradient of some sort, all spontaneous action is down the slope of that gradient, with the highest probability of action being down the steepest slope of that gradient.
That wholly-fictive “backradiation” is then claimed to cause the “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)”, which is claimed to cause the atmospheric temperature gradient of ~33 K and thus the surface temperature of ~288 K… except that atmospheric temperature gradient (and thus surface temperature) is caused by the Average Humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate:
We know the planet’s emission curve is roughly analogous to that of an idealized blackbody object emitting at 255 K. And we know the ‘effective emission height’ at that temperature is ~5.105 km.
High Humidity Adiabatic Lapse Rate:
3.5 K km-1 * 5.105 K = 17.8675 K atmospheric temperature gradient + 255 K = 272.8675 K surface temperature
Average Humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate:
6.5 K km-1 * 5.105 km = 33.1815 K atmospheric temperature gradient + 255 K = 288.1815 K surface temperature
Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate:
9.8 K km-1 * 5.105 km = 50.029 K atmospheric temperature gradient + 255 K = 305.029 K surface temperature
Thus, water vapor has a negative feedback of from 16.8475 K to 32.1615 K, depending upon water vapor concentration of the atmosphere. Keep in mind that the alarmists claim that water vapor is the most effective “greenhouse gas (due to backradiation)”… yet again, diametrically opposite to reality.
In fact, far from the most effective “greenhouse gas (due to backradiation)” that the climatologists claim, water vapor is such an effective net atmospheric radiative coolant that it acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense) below the tropopause… diametrically opposite to the claims of the climatologists.
The refrigeration cycle (Earth) [AC system]:
A liquid evaporates at the heat source (the surface) [in the evaporator], it is transported (convected) [via an AC compressor], it gives up its energy to the heat sink and undergoes phase change (emits radiation in the upper atmosphere, the majority of which is upwelling owing to the mean free path length / altitude / air density relation and the energy density gradient) [in the condenser], it is transported (falls as rain or snow) [via that AC compressor], and the cycle repeats.
That’s kind of why, after all, the humid adiabatic lapse rate (~3.5 to ~6.5 K km-1) is lower than the dry adiabatic lapse rate (~9.81 K km-1).
ASIDE:
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You will note that the dry adiabatic lapse rate is due to the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics… the dry atmosphere consist ~99.957% of N2 (a homonuclear diatomic), O2 (a homonuclear diatomic) and Ar (a monoatomic). We’ve removed, in this case, the predominant radiative polyatomic (H2O) which reduces Adiabatic Lapse Rate.
Remember that an actual greenhouse works by hindering convection of energy out of the greenhouse.
In an atmosphere consisting of solely monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics (ie: no polyatomic radiative molecules), the atoms / molecules could pick up energy via conduction by contacting the surface, just as the polyatomics do; they could convect just as the polyatomics do… but once in the upper atmosphere, they could not as effectively radiatively emit that energy, the upper atmosphere would warm, lending less buoyancy to convecting air, thus hindering convection… and that’s how an actual greenhouse works, by hindering convection.
For homonuclear diatomics, there would be some collisional perturbation and thus some emission in the atmosphere, but by and large the atmosphere could not effectively emit (especially at higher altitudes, because the chance of collision decreases exponentially with altitude).
Thus the surface would have to radiatively emit that energy (which is currently ~76.2% of all energy removed from the surface via radiation, convection and evaporation) instead… and a higher radiant exitance implies a higher surface temperature per the S-B equation.
In the same vein, CO2 (a radiative polyatomic) is the most predominant net atmospheric radiative coolant above the tropopause; and the second-most predominant net atmospheric radiative coolant (behind water vapor) below the tropopause.
https://i.imgur.com/b87xKMk.png
The image above is from a presentation given by Dr. Maria Z. Hakuba, an atmospheric research scientist at NASA JPL.
https://i.imgur.com/gIjHlCU.png
The image above is adapted from the Clough and Iacono study, Journal Of Geophysical Research, Vol. 100, No. D8, Pages 16,519-16,535, August 20, 1995.
Note that the Clough & Iacono study is for the atmospheric radiative cooling effect, so positive numbers at right are cooling, negative numbers are warming.
IOW, radiative polyatomics are net atmospheric radiative coolants… it is the monoatomics (Ar) and (to a lesser extent) homonuclear diatomics (N2, O2) which are the true ‘greenhouse gases’ (in the strict ‘actual greenhouse’ sense, not in the fake “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)” sense of the warmists). Yet again, they are diametrically opposite to reality.
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That 6.5 K km-1 is the Average Humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate. That 33.1815 K temperature gradient and 288.1815 K surface temperature is what the climatologists try to claim is caused by their “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)”… except it’s not. It’s caused by the Average Humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate, and that has nothing to do with any “backradiation”, nor any “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)”, nor any “greenhouse gases (due to the greenhouse effect (due to backradiation))”.
The Adiabatic Lapse Rate is caused by the atmosphere converting z-axis DOF (Degree of Freedom) translational mode (kinetic) energy to gravitational potential energy with altitude (and vice versa), that change in z-axis kinetic energy equipartitioning with the other 2 linearly-independent DOF upon subsequent collisions, per the Equipartition Theorem. This is why temperature falls as altitude increases (and vice versa).
In short, the climatologists have misattributed their completely-fake “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)” as the cause of the atmospheric temperature gradient which is actually caused by the Adiabatic Lapse Rate and its associated gravitational auto-compression (the blue-shifting of temperature as one descends a gravity well in an atmosphere).
We cannot have two simultaneous but completely different causes for the same effect (one radiative energy… the wholly-fictive “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)”; and one kinetic energy… the Adiabatic Lapse Rate). If we did, we’d have double the effect. One must go. And the one which must go is the mathematically-fraudulent “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)”.
That leaves only the Adiabatic Lapse Rate. And we can calculate the exact change in temperature gradient (and thus surface temperature) for any given change in concentration of any given atmospheric gas.
For instance, the “ECS” (ie: the change in Adiabatic Lapse Rate) of CO2 is only 0.00000190472202445 K km-1 ppm-1 (when accounting for the atoms and molecules which CO2 displaces).
This means the sum total effect of the atmospheric CO2 concentration change from pre-industrial times (~280 ppm) to present (~430 ppm) is 0.0014585408902 K.
And from that ~1/1000th K change in temperature, multiple trillion dollar scams have been spun.
A sizable, portion of the “extinctions” were specific Island birds being wiped out by house cats and their feral cousins. Cat ladies did it.
Back in the 196’s or 70’s it was all this Doom & Gloom stuff we got from them and the Earth was suppose to be Dead by now it looks t o me like the Earth isn’t as Fragile as we have been told by the Eco-Freaks
The predictions that we’re beginning and era of mass extinctions is based on faulty logic. It goes like this.
Whenever scientists thoroughly explore X hectares of Amazon jungle, they discover N new species that were previously undocumented. Therefore whenever X hectares of Amazon rainforest are destroyed, N species go extinct.
I’ll recast this to illustrate the flaw. Whenever I go into a UK pub, I encounter N new last names that I’ve never met before. A McDonnahey, a Flaggenbottom, a MacCrory. Therefore whenever a UK pub burns down, N family surnames go extinct.
And of course the trouble is that despite pubs burning down, all those weird last names stubbornly remain in UK phone books.