My Observations at COP-20, Lima, Dec. 2014
It’s unfortunate that Pope Francis now also joined the church of climatology [1]. However, many of his followers in the Catholic realm will doubt that this is a command by St. Peter. 
A few weeks ago I returned home from attending the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP-20, at Lima, Peru. This mega-event gave me the impression of a clerical synod by a world-encompassing religious community. There were many nice people from all corners of the world whom I had cordial conversations with. They all meant the best for planet Earth.
However, the main problem of this event was that 99.9{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the attendees viewed the most important nutrient for all life on earth (carbon dioxide, CO2) as a hazardous substance. That view was shared even by the attending farmers who should profit from better harvests [2] due to improved CO2 fertilization.
I asked approximately 50 people from 25 countries several questions and talked to many more. Only 5 people (10{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of those I asked) knew even the order of magnitude of CO2 in the atmosphere (0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}). The others answered “I really should know that but cannot answer the question.” None knew that the mean global temperature has remained constant over the last 10 years and has not been increasing for 18 years (in contrast to predictions from models by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC). Among those I asked, some claimed that the temperature had risen anywhere between 0.1 and 10.0 (!!) degrees – that’s not a lie. None knew that the global sea-ice extent recently reached the same values as have been observed at the beginning of the 1980s (the extent has increased in the Antarctic and slightly decreased in the Arctic).
These were the people that negotiated about the so-called 2 C degree (warming) limit. I concluded that 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of those negotiating there had no understanding of the matter whatsoever. Instead, they fully trust and follow the “scientific authority” of the IPCC.
The IPCC representatives also claimed that the world had already “used up” two thirds of the carbon budget increase to stay within that 2 degree limit. Unfortunately, the scientific knowledge of the IPCC functionaries and disciples is so limited that they do not even recognize the contradiction with some of their other claims. According to the IPCC, since the beginning of the industrial era, the global mean temperature has increased by 0.8 C with about one half of that due to human activity. Furthermore, the IPCC claims to have physical evidence that the relative potential for the temperature increase follows a logarithmic function of greenhouse gas concentrations. If that were true, then we are at most one third along the way to the 2 degree limit (not two thirds).
However, that does not sound the alarmist bell sufficiently loud. So, the IPCC allows itself such contradictions in several claims to drive home to their believers the message of an impending apocalypse.
It is really regrettable that the Pope and his advisors fall for that perfidious game as well.
What gave me hope and pleasure though was meeting in person with former Apollo-astronaut, physicist Dr. Walter Cunningham. In terms of climate change, the two of us and perhaps another ten out the estimated 25,000 attendees who came to the COP-20 event and/or side events had the same opinion.
Translated, on request by the author, from German by Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser
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