“Annual growth in atmospheric CO2. Data from Mauna Loa.”
Finally, the anti-science crowd at WattsUpWithThat and I finally agree on something: “The rate of atmospheric CO2 growth has been increasing,” as WUWT writes in a post Thursday accompanying the above graph. But in a bizarre, error-riddled, and callous piece even by WUWT standards, they insist that this is a good thing.
Indeed, these two sentences by Willis Eschenbach that Anthony “shout them down” Watts posted may be the single most uninformed assertion ever made on WattsUpWithThat [put on your head vises]:
The claim is often made that the poor will be the hardest hit by warming. As someone who has never been poor, but often broke, I can assure you that’s nonsense.
Claim? Nonsense?
I realize that Watts and Eschenbach reject the 99.9% of the scientific literature that disproves pretty much everything they post on a daily basis. But I think you’d be hard pressed to find even “mainstream” deniers who’d agree with that assertion.
Obviously the poor have the fewest resources with which to adapt to the multiple catastrophes from unrestricted CO2 emissions — catastrophes that Watts and Eschenbach are cheering on in this ill-informed post. The poor often live in the places that are most vulnerable to warming. Bangladesh, anyone? (See JPL bombshell: Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050).
And the poor lead the most marginal, undernourished existence that is vulnerable to probably the biggest threat of climate change for most of humanity — food insecurity (see Half of world’s population could face climate-driven food crisis and S. Korean President: “There is an increasing likelihood of a food crisis globally due to climate change”).
But it’s not enough for the extremists of WUWT to deny climate science, now they have to deny the suffering of its largest group of victims.
Memo to Eschenbach and Watts: Being occasionally “broke” in a rich country ain’t nothing like being poor in a poor one.
Why would Watts publish a piece agreeing with a central scientific point I’ve been making only to make such an absurd argument?
By way of brief background, I just ran a post on a new draft analysis not written by climate scientists, “Evidence for super-exponentially accelerating atmospheric carbon dioxide growth.” At first WUWT tried to ignore the central point of the analysis and focus on some sloppy wording about population trends and an error in a footnote, none of which were germane to the CO2 conclusion.
But I spoke to a co-author who explained to me it was a first draft and was happy to make some fixes, so I updated my post (courtesy of the “anti-science crowd,” as I noted — that was WUWT). And there was a sort of positive outcome in that WUWT finally felt obliged to examine and concede the whole point of the post and the original analysis.
To understand their basic thesis, we have to get past their terminology. What does “super-exponentially accelerating” mean?
Well, it means that the growth rate is increasing. Why didn’t they say that? Hey, they’re climate scientists. Their motto seems to be “don’t educate, obfuscate”.
Uhh, no, the authors aren’t climate scientists. That was clear from my post, had WUWT read it, or the masthead of the study itself, had WUWT bothered to look, “A.D. Husler and D. Sornette Department of Management, Technology and Economics.”
So finally, WUWT posted the top figure above and admitted, “yes, the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth has been increasing.” Now here is where WUWT makes its biggest blunder (emphasis in the original):
Both Joe Romm and the authors of the paper seem to think that this is a Very Bad Thing„¢. Let’s stop a moment and consider what the numbers really mean. We know what the population numbers mean. But what does a “super-exponential acceleration” in CO2 growth mean in the real world?
Consider that at some point not long after 2050 the world population will stabilize. The population of a number of countries has already stabilized (or is dropping). Suppose (as seems quite possible) that atmospheric CO2 rates continue to rise after the population has stabilized. What would that mean, rising atmospheric CO2 growth rates at a time of stable population? What would be happening in the real world to cause that?
Simply put, it would mean that the growth rate of energy use per capita was increasing. Whoa, can’t have that, speeding up the rate at which people get more energy.
Ahh, how the master anti-science rhetoricians like to immediately equate CO2 with energy.
Actually this WUWT post contains two major blunders. First, of course, CO2 isn’t energy.
Second, the CO2 growth rate can rise faster even if the growth rate of CO2 per capita was not increasing. How? The CO2 sinks could saturate, of course, land and/or ocean — potentially even turning into sources. And, relatedly the carbon-cycle amplifying feedbacks could accelerate.
Of course, it’s not like there’s any evidence that could be happening now or anytime soon — assuming you don’t believe in science that is:
- NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100
- Science: Second ‘100-year’ Amazon drought in 5 years caused huge CO2 emissions. If this pattern continues, the forest would become a warming source.
- Science: Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth
- Nature review of 20 years of field studies finds soils emitting more CO2 as planet warms
- Science: Global warming is killing U.S. trees, a dangerous carbon-cycle feedback
- Nature: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”: “Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
And of course we have these:
- The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
- The destruction of the tropical wetlands
- Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees “” thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
- Wildfires
- Nature on stunning new climate feedback: Beetle tree kill releases more carbon than fires
- The desertification-global warming feedback
And let’s not even worry about this at all:
- Science: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting: NSF issues world a wake-up call: “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”
So it is entirely possible that the CO2 growth rate in the coming decades will rise faster than the growth rate of energy or CO2 per capita.
And so WUWT’s false choice is debunked: “Joe Romm and the authors of the paper think that’s a bad thing. They think the unknown distant future dangers of CO2 outweigh today’s desperate need for energy for the poor people of the planet “¦ which means most of the people of the planet.” Not.
Sadly, the dangers of CO2 aren’t unknown nor are they distant. And every major independent study — including a big one by the once-staid and conservative International Energy Agency — shows that one can stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide while the poor countries develop (see “Introduction to climate economics: Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost” and Must read IEA report: Act now with clean energy or face 6°C warming. Cost is NOT high).
For Watts and Eschenbach, the only thing the poor need is energy, no matter how much pollution is generated, because for them, like so many anti-science, pro-pollution advocates in rich countries, pollution has no cost. It does not harm and might even be good for the poor.
The poor, however, need much more than energy — they need food, and potable water, an ocean without ever widening dead zones, and land that isn’t flooded or parched. In short, they need a livable climate, as do we all.
By rejecting that truth, the extremist deniers would seek to destroy even the basic consensus that if we callously keep doing little or no mitigation at least we must provide adaptation support for the poor (since presumably that money to would come at the expense of delivering more CO2-spewing energy).
WattsUpWithThat wants to condemn countless future generations to needless impoverishment. Well, they’ve made a small first step into reality by conceding that “The rate of atmospheric CO2 growth has been increasing.” Someday they’ll acknowledge that humans are warming the planet, that failing to act risks multiple catastrophic impacts, and “the poor will be the hardest hit by warming.”
Of course, by then it will probably be too late to help hundreds of millions of the poorest, most vulnerable people. But hey, WUWT can sympathize, since they’ve been broke a few times.
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