New Climate Book Review
Reviewed by Gerry Walmisley
Counter-blaste is not a typo. The title makes use of the title of a paper published by James VI of Scotland and England (1604) in which he roundly condemned the use of tobacco on a number of grounds. His views were 400 years too early and ignored until the last 50 years, but that is often the fate of pioneers. This excellent, readable and well researched book could easily be described as the ‘missing’ Global Warming text.
While there have been numerous books explaining various aspects of this alleged scenario, Dr Duncan brings together all of the principal narratives and hypotheses in a manner that is easy to understand and unequivocal in its argument. Retired Dean of Science of Canterbury University with a PhD in biology and statistics he is eminent in his field and well placed to add critical commentary.
As he points out nature abhors a straight line and his detailed and straightforward analysis of data so often quoted shows that by applying good statistical science the straight lines disappear and are replaced by curves that continually point to a global cooling by the mid-21st Century.
Dr Duncan’s book vigorously analyses the many claims that we are all going to perish from a few degrees more of warming and examines in detail the many models put forward to support the global warming hypotheses.
This is a book that should be read and understood by politicians worldwide who are pouring billions of dollars to somehow counter a natural process. Rather than being a ‘denier’ Dr Duncan acknowledges that the climate is changing and has always done so.
He traces the history of the Holocene and in particular the emergence from the 500 year ‘Little Ice Age’ that ran from approximately 1350 to 1850. During this time the earth became very cool, crops died and approximately half the population of Europe perished from starvation and disease.
Life was nasty, brutal and short. Emerging from the Little Ice Age we have seen a warming trend which is thankfully continuing, although showing all the signs of tapering off over the next 30 years or so.
The book is divided into a number of chapters that examine each climate ‘myth’, the origins of the myths and the invariable secondary gains made by those who promulgate them. His analysis of the role of influencers who seize on and promulgate spurious science is succinct and thoughtful.
As a biologist Dr Duncan focuses on crop yields and the impact on farm yield over recent history. It is true that increased CO2 encourages plant growth but Dr Duncan balances this against the decreasing cropping seasons, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.
He points out that we are actually close to being in a carbon drought and that at around 150 ppm plants cease to photosynthesise and die.
If plants die, all life dies and yet we have the absurdity of governments pursing a zero carbon agenda – whatever that may mean.
Dr Duncans excellent review of the drivers of change and the political and social sequalae that arise from what can only be seen as a ludicrous and doomed attempt to somehow reduce atmospheric carbon.
As if any amount of money is going to alter the natural history of our planet and somehow miraculously save us from extinction by doing the very thing that will contribute to our extinction by reducing CO2.
CO2 is optimum at around 800ppm, twice that of present levels and when at that level the earth flourished and mighty forests and rich vegetation covered the planet. As we try to deplete the levels of the very substance that feeds so much of the planet we are doomed to create droughts, lower crop yields and inevitable starvation among third world countries initially and then spreading to first world countries as crops fail and supply to market reduces.
Unlike many other books that discuss the pros and cons of climate change, Dr Kelly’s covers a broad perspective in language that a non-scientist can easily understand. His numerous graphs and excellent statistical analysis categorically and unequivocally demonstrate the climate fraud for what it is.
Bold emphasis added
Editors note: the word of Cherwood & Craig Idso suggests the optimum level of CO2 is not 800ppm, but 1200ppm.
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Tom Anderson
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What Dr. Duncan says is right, but like most well-founded rebuttals of the CAGW it evades the conjecture’s critical defective/missing physics of CO2’s radiant activity.
Only the surface of Planck’s hypothetical blackbody absorbs the entire radiant spectrum.
The Earth’s atmospheric gases, like all other matter, interact with radiant emissions only in spectral bands that precisely match each absorber’s molecular energy levels. Quantum mechanics requires energy levels to be separated by integer quantities.
A receiving molecule can absorb only a photon emitted at a light/energy/temperature that exactly matches the integer distance between the molecule’s energy levels, or one that is a multiple of it.
Energy transfer shows up in two ways.
First a position within the energy-emitting spectrum (e.g., solar) shows a “drop-out emission line when an atom or molecule somewhere in the spectrum emits a photon of that point’s given “positional intensity” Its light/energy/temperature relate directly to the location’s frequency. A drop-out line appears when the energy falls to a lower level. The emitted photon has an “Einstein A” coefficient mathematically identifying the energy.
Second, somewhere in the universe an atom or molecule with an “Einstein B” coefficient of energy corresponding to the emitted energy has the probability of receiving and absorbing the photon. If the photon’s whole-integer energy, or a multiple of it, exactly matches the integer difference between the target molecule’s energy levels, and the molecule absorbs the photon, it gains the emitting molecule’s energy. That raises it from its original ground energy level to a the higher integer level determined by the emitted photon’s exact multiple of the absorbing molecule’s quantum number.
Nowhere except for blackbody surfaces is there “wholesale” emission and absorption of radiant energy. For elements or molecules it is in spectral bands at quantum-determined wavelengths/frequencies/temperatures. CO2’s overwhelming spectral absorption band peaks at the 15-micron wavelength, which by Wien’s Displacement Law is at 80°C. (“Minus” 80.) The next most active band, 9.6 microns (29°C), is among the 8-12-micron emissions through the window to space. (Salby states they warm the ozone layer.) Satellite images of atmospheric and terrestrial radiation show all of this plainly.
Argument that skips CO2’s critical temperature is off on the wrong track, merely mimicking CAGWH.
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Frank Blunt
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So in plain simple English that the untrained brain can understand Tom this means what ??? That atmospheric CO2 heats nothing and possibly cools ???
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Tom Anderson
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Dropped a “-“. Should be -80 degrees C.
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Tene Mente
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Read Michael Chricton’s book: state of fear.
https://www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Michael-Crichton/dp/0061782661
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Steve Costello
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Nice review, thanks. Please indicate where the book can be bought.
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Gerrard Alexander Walmisley
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This book can be purchased from http://www.trosspublishing.co.nz.
Note that I have no pecuniary interest in this publication by my great friend and colleague, Kelly.
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