A Thought-provoking Definition
The basic purpose of science is to ask and attempt to answer questions. Seldom is the answer obvious or simple. The Earth’s climate is the final visible result of a large number of complex nuclear, chemical, geological and astronomical forces. It is beyond the scope of an editorial or short sound bite to describe these forces and their interactions to a scientifically illiterate public.
Science is not the only subject where there is limited public knowledge. There seems to be little understanding of human history. Throughout history, the discovery of fire has been recognized as the greatest factor in the development of civilized society. To generations connected to the earth’s real physical struggles, the benefit of fire is unquestioned. To those who have ‘evolved’ free of lives most basic demands, it is important that we remind ourselves of the necessity of combustion.
The greatest initial benefit for mankind from fire was light in the dark and warmth in the cold. This was soon followed by the cooking of food, which reduced disease transmission, improved digestibility and refined tastes. That was soon followed by fired clay pottery and sanitation of water thru boiling.
Sometimes limestone rock surrounded the fire pit, and when heated, produced cement. This led to mortar, stucco, concrete and better bricks. Fire allowed us to refine and mold metals, and to clear vast areas of existing vegetation so that humans could cultivate crops. Fire gave us the first method controlling epidemics by burning infected bodies, possessions, even villages. Fire was also man’s first weapon of mass destruction.
When harnessed to steam engines, fire freed us from the drudgery of muscle work and the uncertainty and inefficiency of sail. Fire lifted the first balloons, which gave mankind the gift of flight. When liquid fuels were developed for internal combustion engines, there was an unimaginable increase in the individual’s production capability. This ‘force multiplier’ has had a tremendous impact on everyone’s life.
Think of the countless lifetimes it would take in walking or horse riding to duplicate the travels of the average person in a modern society. Think of the countless hours of drudgery in your life if every blade of grass and board of wood was cut by hand. And yet, that has always been mankind’s duty, until the twentieth century. Then there was a weird coincidence of events.
First, tractors freed millions from the horse drawn plow to live in a post-agrarian society. As industrialization efficiency improved most physical labor could be replaced with managerial and bureauctic employment. Large portions of the population were for the first time in history freed from most daily contact with the harsh conditions previously required to exist on this planet. They were now empowered to manage and dictate the behavior of those still bound by nature.
Then in the last century two other forces developed to reinforce this absurd and detached evolution in life style. Progressivism developed at the beginning of the twentieth century to employee this newly freed population in the utopian dream that mankind’s energies could now be planned and controlled by expanding government bureaucracy.
Failure of these plans, in many places and at many times, in the last century have not deterred the still fervent belief that the perfect autocracy is soon to be achieved. Those freed from the dictates of nature were now the masters and overseers of those still bound by the forces of nature. The mid century Nihilist philosophy of ‘values are baseless and nothing is knowable’ would stem from these same detached minds.
Educators embraced both movements and indoctrinated the rapidly expanding population of detached minds. These great minds were now free from having to make any sense and from needing the correct answer. The ultimate expression of this detached and completely unrealistic movement is the current pseudo-science of the climate debate and the villianization of combustion.
Funny that it only takes a few generations of luxury brought by combustion to renounce the benefit of combustion. Carbon dioxide is a benign molecule that is essential to life molecule. The one word that describes each of us the moment when we quit producing carbon dioxide is DEAD. And now these great, detached minds are telling us that to solve a non-existent problem we must be taxed and completely controlled on our use of combustion.
No level of control by these freed minds will provide the expected outcome so the rules will be ever changing and ever increasing. The only way a bureaucrat can get a raise is to create new opportunities within the bureaucracy. Buildings full of government cubicles are not going to solve our problems. It is time to realize that this cancer has mastastized and get prompt treatment.
Global warming, which was modified to global climate change to accommodate the current cooling cycle, is the worst ‘science’ since the world was flat. Prolonged exposure to CO2 levels fifty times higher than normal have no measurable side effects and yet the EPA has just declared that CO2 is a toxic substance.
Believing that the world was flat didn’t change the planets shape. Believing that carbon dioxide is a toxin does not make it a toxin. Believing that a change of several parts per million of a simple, naturally occurring, and three-atom molecule is going to impact the climate is delusional. The forces that will be the only beneficiary of carbon control are now controlling the only information allowed in the debate of these new laws, taxes and regulations.
The fix is in because the loyal opposition is a little too loyal to the same puppet masters. As we all know, fire can be our friend or foe. But it is not something that government can or should have complete control over. We are being offered a great restriction in our freedom in exchange for the creation of a new government revenue stream. We must resist these forces tampering with the cornerstone of civilization. We must demand genuine climate change debate.
I refuse to follow the Neo-Maoist leadership and their lemming like propaganda network. Typical of ‘New Think’ is the ‘New Speak’ term for those of us counterrevolutionaries who oppose the AGW indoctrination. We are labeled ‘deniers’ when in fact we are ‘deniees’….those who are denied a right to express our informed opinions in this declared settled debate. Central planning can dictate, but they have no answers.
Society would not exist without science or combustion. And yet, science has proven easy to corrupt and combustion easy to demonize. It is time for those of us with some level of residual cognitive ability to rebel against this oppressive mind control system. I chose to follow in the footsteps of Patrick Henry. I will man the barricades against the AGW fraud until my last CO2 ladened breath.
First published: June 20, 2009 by climaterealists.com
About the author: Joseph A Olson PE is co-author of the ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’ the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory. Retired Texan engineer and impassioned science writer, Joe Olson PE is a respected innovative thinker with over 100 major civil engineering and climate-related articles to his name. Olson has been a guest on many radio shows including coasttocoastam.com where he is an adept advocate of the traditional English scientific method, impressing listeners/viewers with his wide-ranging knowledge.
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Joseph Olson
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Hydrocarbons occur naturally throughout the Universe, and existed on Earth a billion years before the dinosaurs. Carbon based energy systems are force multipliers for humanity, and the CO2 byproducts of combustion are photosynthesis multipliers. There is a direct, linear relationship between plant growth and CO2 concentration up to 1600 PPM. Hydrocarbons are byproducts of Earth’s internal fission of Uranium, Thorium and the Bridge and effect on all metallic series elements.
“Fossil Fuel is Nuclear Waste” at CanadaFreePress
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James McGinn
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This is excellent. Very well written. I think it is the first time in a year that I read an article on this website from start to finish. Big thumbs up!
James McGinn / Genius
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Allan Shelton
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Excellent Joseph.
Thanks for that wonderful synopsis.
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Barry
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Great article,big thanks. I too will man the barricades of this world destroying idiotic idea of co2 being toxic and controlling the climate. How stupid society has become to believe that a life giving molecule is now toxic. Try living without it.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Joseph PE,,
You began: “The basic purpose of science is to ask and attempt to answer questions.”
I, a scientist, must strenuously disagree with your statement and state: THE BASIC PURPOSE OF SCIENCE IS TO OBSERVE!!! For until one has observations about what is one asking and attempting to answer? A dream???
I have made a bone-head mistake by concluding that Einstein was a theorist because he never seemed to try to test his ideas that which he reasoned. What I had not observed was that he began with two experimental observations that anyone could see if they actually did what he proposed his two observers did. And I never had any problem imagining the real situation he described before he began to analyze these two different observations. Nothing could be simpler.
However, as he began to analyze these two different observations he had to begin to make assumptions (something which he did not know). One problem he knew was that bodies fell very rapidly. So he and we have to imagine that both observers would seem to have actually seen the same thing. The dropped body would be seen to fall directly downward. But he knew from Galileo’s experiments that bodies did not fall instantaneously when dropped from much greater heights than that being observed in his imagined experiment. He knew that the speed of light was much faster than the speed of sound (lighting and thunder). So he initially assumed that light must have a finite speed which he also assumed was constant just as he assumed the speed of sound was also constant. Just as he assumed as a first approximation that there was not any influence of atmosphere upon the accelerated rate at which the body dropped. My point is that he consciously knew he was making these possible approximations based upon prior knowledge.
Than, because I have actually made the analysis that Einstein first made about his proposed simple system, I know how simply it was to get to E = mc^2 where c is the the assumed speed (very fast) speed of light. And I know that if the speed of light is not absolutely constant, any minor variation does not really change the consequences of this simple equation. And I know there is nothing theoretical about what Einstein practically reasoned from observations he and everyone could see (via imagination) were real.
Now I will illustrate the problem which results if we do not begin our analysis without noting everything that can actually be seen (observed).
Svante Arrhenius, a chemist with some notable achievements, observed how clouds limited the transmission of visible solar radiation to the earth’s surface but we can observe that he neglected to notice the influence of nighttime overcast cloud upon the decrease of air temperatures during the nighttime when it should have been no problem to see the difference between the change of temperature during the nighttime when the sky was clear and when the sky was overcast with a continuous layer of cloud. Therefore he ignored the observed influence of cloud upon the transmission of the infrared radiation being emitted continuously from the earth’s surfaces to space during both the nighttime and daytime.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry,
At another posting you commented: “They [the Chinese] don’t seem to believe that co2 is a problem but then I don’t think the IPCC does either as this whole climate scam was never about the climate. The original idea was to simply convince the western world to pay a carbon tax to be redistributed to poor countries.”
The ORIGINAL IDEA commonly know as the GREEN HOUSE EFFECT OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE was conceived by Svante Arrhenius and published in a 30+ page essay in 1896. His idea has become accepted as the TRUTH by a vast majority of the SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY of the present.
The fact is that the IPCC has accepted, for whatever reason, what this majority of the SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY has accepted as the TRUTH.
I have waited for more then a hour to allow you, or others, to comment again about my comment to Joseph Olson PE For while I was composing my comment, you and others had commended Joseph for what he had written.
Since you, or the others, have not responded I must conclude that you all consider it not critically important to refute WRONG IDEAS of SCIENCE whenever possible.
Have a good day, Jerry
Have a good day, Jerry
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Joseph Olson
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Heinous Arrhenius was proven wrong by Knut Angstrom in 1896, first for not excluding IR absorbing water vapor, and after rerunning his experiment for using faulty IR measurements supplied by Samuel Langley. See my article “Strange Tale of the Green House Gas Gang”
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Barry
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Hi Jerry I wasn’t ignoring you I’m just not always on here. Yes I am refuting the idea of warmer earth being warmed further by a cooler atmosphere. That said I am aware that sometimes because of certain wx phenomenon such as over riding warm fronts and temp inversions the air can indeed be warmer than the earth. But in general the temp decreases with altitude so I don’t understand how a colder object can ever heat an already warmer object which would go against the laws of thermal dynamics. Cold warming hot has never been observed to my knowledge nor have I ever observed it in everyday life. I am however uneducated so all I have is life experience and that of others with more knowledge than myself. I do follow the work of J Postma. I know that the IPCC didn’t invent the idea of co2 warming the earth but they are the main political driving force behind it at this point in time. Have a good day
Barry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Barry,
Thermodynamics deals with the conservation of energy (momentum) not kinetic energy (heat). Since there is no transfer of mass a small fast moving object can transfer energy (velocity) to a slower larger object.
It happens all the time when a fast moving air (n2 or O2) molecule (heated by uv radiation) strikes a much larger water droplet (heated by infrared radiation).
In the coming grand solar minimum the Earth will cool, even though the sun’s output of visible and infrared light hasn’t changed, because with less uv heating the atmosphere, it will not add heat to the Earth.
Herb
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Herb Rose
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Hi Barry,
Here’s some simple physics questions that demonstrate cold > hot.
Calculate the momentum and kinetic energy of a 1 gram object with a velocity of 100 m/s and a 200 gram object with a velocity of 10 m/s.
The objects are traveling in the same direction and on the same path. The 1 gram object has an elastic collision with the 200 gram object. Calculate the momentum and kinetic energy of the two objects after the collision.
Herb
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geran
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Herb, you’re still making the same mistake. The energy transfer of a molecular collision is not “heat”. Two molecules in a system colliding does not increase the temperature of the system.
Herb Rose
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Hi Geran,
I think we need to discuss what you mean by “system”. Is a system the objects receiving energy from one source e.g. the N2 and O2 in the atmosphere being heated by uv or the surface of the Earth being heated by visible light and ir or is it a combination?
When a meteor burns up in the atmosphere is it another way the sun adds energy to the Earth’s system using gravity instead of radiated energy?
The energy system of the Earth comes from different energy sources that combine to produce our climate. Different parts of the system absorb different types of energy, which then combine to form the whole system, which then radiates that energy into space as electromagnetic radiation.
What I am trying to show is how the N2 and O2 are absorbing x-ray and uv radiation from the sun and transferring that energy to the Earth which is absorbing energy coming from the sun in the visible and infrared spectrum. The low mass but high velocity gas molecules are able to transfer energy to high mass low velocity objects on the Earth even though the gas molecules have less kinetic energy than the object they are striking. When the amount of uv coming from the sun decreases the atmosphere will not be adding this energy to the Earth system.
Herb
geran
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In your example, the “system” is the two masses. The average kinetic energy is not increased by a collision. You are confusing mechanical energy transfer with “heat”.
Herb Rose
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Hi Geran.
Do the math. A 1 gm at 100 m/s strikes a 200 gm at 10 m/s.
Before collision MV1= 100 ke1 = 5000. MV2 = 2000 Ke2 = 10000 Avg ke =7500
After collision MV1 =.10.5 ke1 = 55 MV2 = 2100 ke2 = 11025
Avg ke = 5540
Herb
geran
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Herb, your “before” values are correct, but your “after” values are incorrect. You either don’t know how to solve it, or you made a math error. But if you understood physics, you would recognize instantly that you made a mistake. In an elastic collision, kinetic energy is conserved.
Herb Rose
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Hi Geran,
Yes my calculations were wrong. When I redid it the velocity of the 1 gram object was -.79 m/s(went backwards) giving it a kinetic energy value of .32. The velocity of the 200 gram object increased to 10.9 m/s giving it a kinetic energy value of 1188. This means the combined kinetic energy of the two object rose from 11500 to 11881.32. Did I make another error?
Herb
Herb Rose
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Correction: the kinetic energy for the 200 gram object after collision is 11881 not 1188.
Herb Rose
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Correction: The ke for the 200 gram object after collision should be 11881.
geran
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After collision, KE1 = 3128.76, KE2 = 11871.24
Total is 15,000, as it should be.
Herb Rose
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Hi Geran,
Thanks for helping me learn that kinetic energy does equalize.
I do, however, think that the source of energy for the objects does affect the system. Because the “colder” object is able to transfer energy to the “hotter” object it is no longer in equilibrium with its energy source and will absorb more energy from that source. The process will repeat until a new equilibrium is reached.
I think this is the problem for those who believe geothermal energy affects the climate. The energy from the sun raises the temperature/energy of the surface of the Earth above the equilibrium point from geothermal energy. Before the Earth’s surface can lose/radiate any geothermal energy it must first lose/radiate the absorbed solar energy.
Thanks again,
Herb
geran
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Herb, you don’t understand physics or thermodynamics. You have “opinions”. You seem to love sharing your “opinions”. The problem is that when your “opinions” conflict with the laws of physics, you go with your “opinions”.
You were sure that colliding molecules “proved” cold could warm hot. You even provided an example, with numbers. But, you didn’t know enough physics to solve your own example. Your “opinions” were wrong, and now you are still attempting to hold to your “opinions”.
That is how pseudoscience starts.
Herb Rose
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Hi Geran,
After the collision the object with less kinetic energy had lost energy (5000>,3128) the object with more kinetic energy had gained kinetic energy (10000>11881). Yes I will keep my opinion that cold can add heat to hot, you continue your belief in dogma.
Herb
geran
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That transfer of energy is not “heat”. There was no increase in average kinetic energy, as I showed. You don’t understand physics and thermodynamics.
Your false statements, now trying to attack me, further demonstrate your willingness to distort the facts.
Your pseudoscience is more important to you than truth.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry,
This morning, for the first time I can remember, I measured the sky temperature to be warmer (several degrees F) than the atmospheric temperature being measure by weather station, than the temperature I measured with the same IR thermometer with which I measured the sky temperature, and the temperature of the grass (soil?) surface. It is too early for the results of the atmosphere sounding (launched at 4am) to be posted. But I expect the sounding data to confirm that there was a non-equilibrium atmospheric temperature gradient inversion measured by the temperature sensor of the soundings instrument package.
Much of the reasoning I read never acknowledges this non-equilibrium condition which commonly is formed during the nighttime..
Have a good day, Jerry
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Barry
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Morning Jerry, it’s an odd thing the wx,and although I have a basic understanding of metrology there are things that still surprise me. One of the reasons I am not a co2 believer is that in such a chaotic system to think that there is one thing that controls it all is lunacy. In the physical world it’s the equivalent of saying a Diesel engine output is based on the ambient temp regardless of any other inputs ( turbo, engine size, compression ratios,etc etc) . At 62 and not being educated I’ve had to depend on common sense my whole life and it has always served me well. I probably have never followed what is easy or popular just because it’s easy or popular. I think if everyone asked two questions of everything the world would be a better place WHY! And WHY NOT!
Have a great day
Barry
Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry,
You are right that education has nothing to do with one’s achievements. R.G. LeTourneau failed the 7th grade and had no formal education after that. However he invented and manufactured the first modern earth moving machines and other ‘big’ things because he had learned to read and to da arithmetic.
He had a practical sense which allowed him to attempt to do things not done before. Which others like Caterpillar considered made no common sense. Look him up!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry,
I forget so quickly. I had intend to tell you how Galileo began his book which he demanded to be written in Italian (the language of the common people) and not in Latin (the language of the educated people.)
He bega as translated to English by Crew and de Salvio in 1914: “The constant activity which you Venetians display in your famous arsenal suggests to the studious mind a large field for investigation, especially that part of the work which involves mechanics; for in this department all types of instruments and machines are constantly being constructed by many artisans, among whom there must be some who, partly by inherited experience and party by their own observations have become highly expert and clever in explanation.”
Have a good day, Jerry
geran
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“First published: June 20, 2009…”
And still perfectly relevant over 11 years after. That says a lot right there.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Geran,
Yes, “That says a lot right there.”
And again I did not observe the obvious. When will I learn???
Have a good day, Jerry
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Joseph Olson
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My first post at ClimateRealist.com was “Leap of Faith for Climate Savants” on May 7, 2009. All my research was done on a 56K modem that took an hour per megabyte to download. Checking Nexus after my “Thought Proviking” article, I was shocked to see a Japanese translation with +300 Japanese Facebook shares. The hidden power of Truth on the uncensored web.
I am eternally grateful to Climate Realist host GABRIEL RYCHERT for maintaining this in archive.
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JaKo
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Thank you Joseph!
This was so well thought out everyone should applaud you effort!!!
Now, I wish someone (don’t you want to volunteer, sir?) could “reprocess” this article’s narrative into this more urgent “covid-1984” upgrade of the CAGW.
The exactly same “forces” (puppet masters) are behind this latest scam, so it should apply the same way; and, further, stop the so called “vaccination” with this experimental concoction — OTOH, aren’t the great, but detached minds “…free from having to make any sense and from needing the correct answer” the best candidates of this Malthusian depopulation?
Cheers, JaKo
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Joseph Olson
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my updated “Earth’s Missing Geothermal Flux” to be posted soon, a 2021 torpedo into the green new deal canoe
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Andy Rowlands
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A quite excellent and well-written article. As relevant now as when it was written.
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T.C. Clark
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The modern story of where the man made global warming prediction originated was by Dr. Roger Ravelle…..the man Al Gore claims was his mentor. Dr. Ravelle did write a letter to every member of Congress when he was nearing his death and warned them not to take drastic steps to curb man made CO2 but to proceed cautiously. Al Gore said the doctor must be suffering from senility and Al has of course pursued his money making racket with zeal. In regard to science…..scientific knowledge is the only difference between civilization now and say 2000 years ago….time travel is not possible but if someone from today could time travel back to the Roman period, he could teach them a great deal since their knowledge was pretty crude.
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