Climate Change & Politicians

OPPS-30 Is Climate Change political? The rhetoric and the propaganda most certainly are. But the data is as apolitical as you can get. Since we first started recording CO₂ levels at Mauna Loa in the late 1950s, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have continued their slow, steady rise independent of where on the political spectrum leadership is characterized (on both sides of the 49^th parallel). Not even the COVID-19 lockdowns stopped that relentless climb, even though the realized emission reductions were far more effective than any of the expensive, unnecessary renewable projects implemented to date.

#climatechange #delaythegreen #globalwarming #showusthedata

The planet’s atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are obviously changing independent of our leadership (Republican or Democrat in the US, Conservative or Liberal in Canada). That trend will continue regardless of whether Trump or Biden win in the US or Poilievre or Trudeau win in Canada. The same goes for the rest of the elections slated for this year around the world. The trillions spent to date and the wasted hundreds of trillions of our children’s futures yet to come will make no measurable impact on temperatures at the end of the century.

For those that believe “Global Warming/Climate Change or Crisis/All CO₂, All the Time (ACO₂AT)” is an existential threat, you should consider voting for Donald Trump. His administration reduced emissions (3.0%) at twice the rate of Obama’s 1.5%. You might also want to factor in the 1.6% INCREASE under Biden’s Administration. Those are noticeable differences and are worthy of consideration. With respect to Canada, Poilievre’s climate change policy will likely have more impact on emissions than Trudeau’s Hike the Carbon Tax, regulate investment/business out of Canada, cripple the cheap, reliable base load energy our infrastructure processes require and extravagant debt dependent, inflation enhancing green subsidies approach. The Liberal approach will not reduce CO₂ emissions. They will just export those emissions to other countries with poorer emission, environmental, ethical, and societal policies.

That does not let the Conservatives (and Poilievre) off the hook. While their policies (Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage (CCUS), Liquid Natural Gas exports, pipeline access to new markets and energy efficiency/conservation) may reduce emissions, the economics of the whole program are still questionable. CCUS will reduce emissions, but the costs are still astronomical, and the benefits are questionable at best. Carbon Sequestration is technically feasible. The hydrocarbon industry has been injecting CO₂ in reservoirs for decades to increase oil recovery through both miscible and immiscible Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes. The additional oil recovery provided the economic justification for the high upfront implementation costs. Any produced gas can be technically reinjected. I have practical experience in acid gas reinjection as the lead engineer on Co-enerco Resources Ltd.’s early 1990s Zama Project in Northern Alberta. The waste gas (80% CO₂, 20% H₂S) was reinjected back into a depleted reservoir for strictly disposal purposes. At the time there was very little information on disposal projects. So, for those that are interested and/or need to appeal to an authoritative source, I have written and published a peer reviewed paper describing the project. The paper can be accessed here or officially sourced through the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) archives. For what it is worth, I am comfortable with my carbon footprint.

My apologies for the sidetrack, but based on my experience, CCUS is a better way to waste our children’s money than wind, solar, EV, batteries, 15-minute ghettos, lockdowns, faux meat, insect protein, etc. But in the end, the money will still be wasted. To get back to the Conservative climate platform, LNG will reduce CO₂ emissions by replacing some of the hundreds of coal-fired power plants being built by China, India, and others. And despite Trudeau’s inability to see a business case, there is one there. Canada will be making money while reducing global emissions. That should be the priority, in my opinion, with a lot more emphasis on making money to fund our own social programs. Pipeline access will also reduce our (and global) emissions. Canada has more than enough reserves to supply all our oil and gas needs. There should be no need to import oil or gas. For those that are not aware, pipeline emissions are virtually zero. A far cry better than the pollution spewed by the oil tankers currently supplying Eastern Canada. On a global basis, hydrocarbon demand is still rising (not falling). That barrel of oil, molecule of gas, tonne of coal will be produced somewhere but very likely with higher emissions if they are not produced here. The more we produce, the lower the global emissions.

Sadly, our political realities have been corrupted. All parties have had to pander to the simplistic, ideological, unscientific All CO₂, All the Time (ACO₂AT) narrative because the general public is suffering from relentless, propaganda induced mass formation psychosis. People are starting to wake up, but far too many are still embroiled in that hypnotic slumber. This is a political post, but the comments are based on empirical data. For those that care to, you can go review my CSS-53 – CO₂’s Moneyball Moment post to review empirical data showing CO₂’s minor, inept effect on our current climate. Not surprisingly, given CO₂’s inept consequences, our ability to affect climate through emission reductions suffers from the same ineptness. If CO₂ is not having a measurable effect on climate, our emissions reductions will also have no measurable effect. A summary of CSS-53 is laid out below.

• CO₂ is not the primary temperature driver in Greenland or Antarctica (the home to almost 100% of our land ice and the coldest places on earth).
• Humanity’s ability to add CO₂ to the atmosphere will end centuries before the average Greenland and Antarctica temperatures get anywhere near the melting point or a level that would cause major Sea Level Rise.
• CO₂ does not correlate to and has virtually no effect on Sea Level. Nor should it. The ocean temperatures drive atmospheric temperatures. Atmospheric temperatures do NOT drive ocean temperatures.
• Temperatures fluctuated significantly over the Holocene while CO₂ remained virtually flat. Obviously, there are other natural forcings that have not ceased to exist just because we are adding CO₂ to the atmosphere. Any significant (but not necessarily dominating) human impact would have occurred post-1950 since 86%+ of our emissions have occurred since 1950.

The last three points go to the heart of the current alarmist narrative. If you see an article, scientific paper, or opinion piece on climate change and/or its energy relationships, you will notice they appeal to the simplistic, unscientific All CO₂, All the Time (ACO₂AT) driver narrative, the models/experts say, and the most current extreme weather event. But,

• There is no empirical CO₂/Temperature dataset that shows CO₂ driving the climate on any statistically significant historical time scale (a very basic Scientific Method requirement).
• Every climate projection and attribution study are dependent on computer models that have been self-acknowledged to “run way too hot” and use unrealistically high emission scenarios (like ssp3-7.0 and ssp5-8.5). Current emissions are less than the ssp2-4.5 scenario. Those same models that intentionally ignore the much stronger solar and ocean forcings that have totally dominated the earth’s climate for billions of years but have suddenly ceased to exist because we have contributed to the 0.01% increase in CO₂ concentration over the last 150 years.
• CO₂ is not causing more or stronger extreme weather events. The opposite is true. Global extreme weather events have been statistically flat or declining over the last century or so.

Imagine those supports as legs for the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming alarmist platform. Would you sit on that stool? One of the legs does not exist, another leg has been totally blown up from the inside, and the third leg has been broken and battered by the same natural forces that the leg is supposed to represent. The visual is attached. Additional discussion can be found in my OPPS-29 – Climate Change – “The Science” post.

• The unsubstantiated ACO₂AT narrative is being used to restrict (and ultimately deny) your access to cheap, high density, and reliable energy sources.
• The unsubstantiated ACO₂AT narrative is being used to restrict (and ultimately deny) your access to cheap, plentiful, and healthy food sources. No meat for you, enjoy the insect protein, and our apologies for those of you that starve to death as fertilizer use is curtailed.
• The unsubstantiated ACO₂AT narrative is being used to justify enforced (but untested) medical interventions, the WHO treaty (yes, climate can be declared a health emergency), animal vaccinations to reduce flatulence, etc.
• The unsubstantiated ACO₂AT narrative is being used to restrict (and ultimately deny) your freedoms (climate lockdowns (because COVID lockdowns worked so well), 15-minute cities, ESG, etc.).
• The unsubstantiated ACO₂AT narrative is even being used to promote violence by initiating mass migration and promoting conflicts throughout the world.

“Climate Change” is constantly being linked to virtually every ailment that plagues the world and humanity. And by “Climate Change”, I am using the alarmists’ ACO₂AT definition. The empirical data shows otherwise. Climate is changing (constantly), but those changes do not correlate with CO₂ on any statistically significant historical time scale. The CAGW alarmist narrative has been used for decades to push society ever closer to the unelected, unaccountable, totalitarian one world government future envisioned by the UN/WEF crowd. The WHO treaty is just the latest example, putting forward a more structured/documented/enforceable version of the control, restrictions in freedom and assaults on our rights that played out over the COVID-19 era. Fear is the totalitarian’s weapon of choice and society (for the most part), sadly submitted on command. The empirical data does not support the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) alarmist narrative. So, stop believing the fear propaganda (and not just on climate). Stop electing UN/WEF representatives as your leaders.

There is no “Climate Crisis/Emergency/Armageddon (or the next scary descriptor)”, at least not from warming. The empirical data points to cooling (which is being ignored by “the alarmist science”). Those cooling temperatures could lead to a real Climate Crisis/Emergency. That will depend on how much temperatures cool, how short growing seasons get and how long our leadership continues to ignore the empirical data, adding more unsustainable debt to our children’s future (wasting capital fixing a problem that does not exist). Ultimately, the real crisis will be the totalitarian control that will be forced on our children (whether the planet warms or cools) unless we turn a political corner over the next year or two. Remember the cause/solution for the Global Cooling that led to the Ice Age is Coming Scare of the 1970s is the same as the CAGW scare being pushed on us now. CO₂ was/is the problem, and we need more government and higher taxes to fix the “problem” (sacrificing our way of life and our societies to reduce our CO₂ emissions). As the planet starts cooling again over the next few decades, the narrative will shift back to the Ice Age is Coming again (CSS-54 – Global Cooling NOT Warming is in the Forecast). This time they may be right. But as with our past climatic changes, adaption is our only option. We do not and can not measurably change the climate.

Sadly, our current energy, food, medical, conflict, social, etc. policies will kill millions of people around the world. Someday we will move back towards proper scientific and economic analysis and away from ideology. How long that takes, is in the voter’s hands (Europe: this summer, the US: this fall and Canada: next year (hopefully sooner)). For our children’s and grandchildren’s future, the sooner, the better.

Here are some additional articles/papers/posts that provide further context to this discussion.

Then THEY Came For Me

Interview Links (Audio and Visual)

Wake the Woke

https://climatechangeandmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Wake-The-Woke.mp4

Zama Acid Gas Disposal/Miscible Flood Implementation and Results – JCPT February 1999 Issue

Click to access Zama-Acid-Gas-JCPT.pdf

Climate Short Story (CSS)

CSS-53 – CO₂’s Moneyball Moment

Global Cooling NOT Warming is in the Forecast

CSS-54 – Global Cooling NOT Warming is in the Forecast

CO2’s Moneyball Moment

One Page Political Summary (OPPS)

OPPS-26 – “The Science”

“The Science”

OPPS-29 – Climate Change – The Science

Climate Change – “The Science”

One Page Summary (OPS)

OPS-55 – The State of Climate Science

The State of Climate Science