1984 Redux: October 2024

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered the baseline Greenhouse Gas by which all others are measured.

Current levels of CO2 released into the atmosphere are seen as a major danger to Global Warming and human activity is being blamed.

To save the planet, Climate Change scientists and activists target the so-called ‘fossil fuels’ of wood, coal, petroleum and natural gas used for heating homes and industrial factories, road transportation, etc.

Yes, their use all generate CO2 into the atmosphere, and as atmospheric CO2 is deemed the key threat to overheating the planet, their elimination is, consequently, a key environmental goal.

But such a line of thinking fails to recognize two (2) key facts:

CO2 is essential to all life on the planet. It is a key requirement for photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb CO2 from the air, mix it with water from their roots and use sunlight as a catalyst to produce from this mixture the sugars they need for their growth and health -- releasing as a resultant waste gas oxygen (O2).

YES. The oxygen we humans -- and all land and sea animals – need to live.

All trees, shrubs, grasses and flowering plants on land and shallow water sea grass[i], kelp and seaweed[ii] all cannot survive and thrive without abundant CO2.

This symbiotic relationship or ‘exchange’ between all plants and all animals is what makes our planet alive with greenery and animals – including us humans.

This photosynthesis process is taught today in elementary grade 4 or 5 classes,^{^[iii]} but Climate Change activists seem to have forgotten this lesson.

2 2. CO2 accounts for a mere 0.0423% of our atmosphere as of 2024[iv] -- and any increase should be welcome.

For example, in the Amazon, scientists worried about the deterioration of the tropical forests due to drought, are installing CO2 generation machines to help these tree become health again and grow.^{^[v]}

As the above chart indicates, the estimated net atmosphere CO2 gain over the decade from 2011 to 2020 was 18.7 billion tons.

And while such an increase would seem alarming, remember that CO2 is just 0.0423% of our atmosphere as of 2024 (as noted above).

The chart and its projected figures stress the role of fossil fuels (34.8) and human activity as the overwhelming culprit.

But here too, new research requires some rethinking.

The ubiquitous lowly earthworm is a major CO2 producer.

A study published in 2021 found that they increase CO2 emissions from soil by a whopping 33% and the far more harmful nitrous oxide (N2O)--which is 300 times more powerful greenhouse gas over 100 years compared to CO2^{^[vi]} -- by 42%.^{^[vii]}

At present, no studies have been done as to their impact on the release of CH4 directly or by the bacteria they breed but that too is likely.

Yet earthworms and their burrowing are key to aerating soil and making it ‘healthy’, so the above emissions are seen as ‘natural’ and part of the Earth’s system of soil revitalization. I.e., not subject to criticism or concern.

So, the above CO2 budget chart needs correction and future ones need to add to the ‘natural’ emitters of CO2 and at least N2O, the ubiquitous earthworm.

The resultant estimates and projections would be far different, a more equal balance between human activities and ‘natural’ one.

World Population

Today, computer models calculate the World's population at just over 8 billion people, compared to just 2 billion in 1927 and just 1 billion in 1804 - near the start of the Industrial Revolution. ^{^[viii]}

And today some 56% of the world’s population, 4.4 billion,^{^[ix]} reside in cities of brick and concrete which consequently become warmer, Urban Heat islands. ^{^[x]}

Consequently, it is expected that temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius will become the norm not only in Equator areas but also beyond the wider zone from the Tropic of Cancer down to the Tropic of Capricorn: where currently 40% of the world’s population reside.^{^[xi]}

The above are expected to soon result in a future of massive and prolonged drought, desertification of farmland, super-heated atmosphere and making the planet no longer habitable for humans.

But the fixation on a 2 ½ century timeline of human activity and rising temperatures -- the Climate Change crisis -- needs rethinking.

Overpopulation is, in fact, on the decline as argued by DarrellDarrell Bricker and John Ibbitson

Bricker and John Ibbitson in their book, Empty Planet: the shock of global population decline (2020), and as more recently argued in the Globe and Mail, Sat. Feb 3, 2024, page O6-O7 and further updated In Globe and Mail, Thursday, October 17, 2024 A7 article “Birth rates are declining, and not just in places you’d expect”.

The latest update covers new data on the rapid decline in births in India, Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and even the Muslim world in Indonesia, Turkey, Jordan and sub-Sahara Nigeria, Namibia, and South Africa.

Fertility rates are quickly dropping across the entire Industrial World and now the Developing World. Rising female autonomy and education, contraception, delayed marriage, the quest for a better lifestyle and elevated city life costs are pressures leading most couples to 'downsize' their reproduction to just one of two children.

And this is below the minimal 'replacement rate' of 2.1 children per couple, and well below the 2.6 replacement rate that was the rule when plague and war regularly raged into the 20th century.

China's decades long one child government enforced policy has ‘hit the wall' as its population is now shrinking^{^[xii]} despite government efforts to promote two child families going forward.

Its population began to decline in 2022 and in 2023 it shrunk by 2 million people. And it is projected to have only half its current population by the end of the century.

Japan too started shrinking in 2010 and is shedding 800,000 people a year!

Similarly, Italy ‘s population has shrunk by 179,000 in 2023 and Greece is expected to have it population drop by 18%^{^[xiii]} by 2050!

Even Africa’s population growth overall has been a modest 2.3 to 2.4 in the last four years.[xv]

And Indonesia, Malaysia and India’s population growth (including immigration and emigration) is now 0.7, 1.1 and 0.88 respectively.[xvi]

As for here in Canada, government statistics record an ever dwindling fertility rate since 2009: hitting just 1.47 in 2019 to and an even lower 1.40 in 2020.^{^[xiv]}

Only the USA of major countries is seeing a steady, if slow, increase in its recent fertility rate: from 1.781 in 2021 to 1.784 in 2023. But such numbers pale when compared to the American fertility rate of 1958 at 3.582 and which remained above 3.1 until 1964 – after which it began to rapidly decline to below the replacement 2.1 figure.^{^[xvii]}

So, a radical Thanos (Marvel studio’s Avengers: Endgame (2019) solution is not needed.

Drought and reductions in water levels

This is another Climate Change concern linked to the new record of extra warm weather in 2023.

Reduced Pacific to Atlantic water levels at the Panama Canal have reduced shipping in this key world passageway.^{^[xviii]}

And cross Europe, major rivers and lakes are shrinking due to a super ‘hot’ 2023 and resultant drought.^{^[xix]}

But these reduced water levels have revealed in Italy long 'lost' structures from the Middle Ages: a brick house and fortifications and even a bridge from the era of Emperor Nero,^{^[xx]} i.e. mid- 1st century CE.

In Spain, a pre-historic Stonehenge type stone circle dating to c. 5000 BCE has become visible again.^{^[xxi]}

And in Spanish Mallorca archaeologists have discovered a man-made stone bridge 30 metres underwater that dates back some 6000 years.[xxii]

In China, 600 year old Buddhist statues have emerged on an island in the Yangtze river.^{^[xxiii]}

And in Texas’ Dinosaur Valley State Park, dinosaur footprints going back 113 million years have now been revealed.^{^[xxiv]}

So these structures and footprints reveal that the water level ‘norms’ of the Modern Era are in fact ‘new’ and much higher than during the Middle Ages, Ancient times and pre-historic times.

All part of the ongoing oscillations in the planet’s precipitation patterns and water level cycles.

In brief, it is not a linear rise that fits the Climate Change apocalypse mindset.

And CO2 – and human activity --is not the culprit that it is made out to be.

The real greenhouse Climate Heat generators

Meanwhile, no one focuses on the single most powerful and abundant greenhouse gas – WATER VAPOUR (H20).

All atmosphere component percentage calculations are for “dry air”.

But water vapour (H2O) accounts on average for 2%, and rises in tropical, humid locations to 4%.^{^[xxv]} The water vapour figure, according to Emeritus Professor Rene Moreau, in fact rises to 5% and “it is clear that the most important contribution to the greenhouse effect comes from water (about 75%).”^{^[xxvi]}

It is, in fact, broadly recognized as the planets most powerful and major greenhouse gas!^{^[xxvii]}

So why no outrage?

The ‘defense’ for not attacking H2O is that it is essential to all life on Earth, and any H2O molecule that enters the atmosphere will drop back to Earth as rain, snow or hail in an estimated span of just 9 days.^{^[xxviii]}

But the 9 day ‘drop cycle’ misses the key point that massive new water vapour is continuously being generated by normal sun triggered evaporation from the oceans, rivers, streams and even glaciers and mountain ice caps, and from even human and other animal sweat.

During hot periods, i.e., summer, far more water vapor rises from such sources than during other seasons: increasing the Greenhouse Effect for months.

Especially during strong El Nino years as the past few (See previous blog on El Ninio and La Nina.) and long and large wildfire seasons all over the planet in the summer that not only burning trees, etc. but acting as giant furnaces causing massive water evaporation into the air.[xxix]

[i] The Complete Guide to Understanding Seagrass | World Resources Institute (wri.org) “Globally, seagrasses store 19.9 billion tons of organic carbon … global seagrass area is estimated at 160,000 km², other estimates based on distribution models suggest the true area could be closer to 600,000 km²— an area almost the size of France.”