Possibly the 'Best Thing you will ever Read' on Global Warming

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by James Delingpole
October 2017
from Breitbart Website

István E. Markó (1956 - 2017)
Those who were privileged to study with István Markó

celebrated his pedagogic talent and his ability

to captivate and enthrall the novice chemistry student.

Those who met him in other contexts

would highlight his legendary story-telling skills

and charismatic eloquence.

On July 31, 2017, István Markó

unexpectedly passed away at the age of 61.

Part 1

The Science

October 28, 2017

Maybe the biggest of all the lies put out by the global warming scaremongers is that the science is on their side.

No it isn't. And if you're in any doubt at all you should read this interview with the brilliant scientist István Markó.

It tells you all you need to know about the science of global warming.

Dr. Markó, who sadly died earlier this year aged only 61, was a professor and researcher in organic chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium's largest French-speaking university.

More importantly for the purposes of this interview, he was one of the world's most outspoken and well-informed climate skeptics, who contributed to several articles on the subject for Breitbart News.

Before he died, he gave an extensive interview to the French journalist Grégoire Canlorbe. Here are highlights of the English translation.

As you'll see, he doesn't pull his punches...

CO² is not - And has never been a poison

Each of our exhalations, each of our breaths, emits an astronomical quantity of CO² proportionate to that in the atmosphere (some >40,000 ppm); and it is very clear that the air we expire does not kill anyone standing in front of us.

What must be understood, besides, is that CO² is the elementary food of plants.

Without CO² there would be no plants, and without plants there would be no oxygen and therefore no humans.

Plants love CO² - That's why the planet is greening

Plants need CO², water, and daylight.

These are the mechanisms of photosynthesis, to generate the sugars that will provide them with staple food and building blocks.

That fundamental fact of botany is one of the primary reasons why anyone who is sincerely committed to the preservation of the "natural world" should abstain from demonizing CO².

Over the last 30 years, there has been a gradual increase in the CO² level.

But what is also observed is that despite deforestation, the planet's vegetation has grown by about 20 percent. This expansion of vegetation on the planet, nature lovers largely owe it to the increase in the concentration of CO² in the atmosphere.

There have been periods where the CO² concentration was many times higher than now. Life thrived.

During the Jurassic, Triassic, and so on, the CO² level rose to values sometimes of the order of 7000, 8000, 9000 ppm, which considerably exceeds the paltry 400 ppm that we have today.

Not only did life exist in those far-off times when CO² was so present in large concentration in the atmosphere, but plants such as ferns commonly attained heights of 25 meters.

Reciprocally, far from benefiting the current vegetation, the reduction of the presence of CO² in the atmosphere would be likely to compromise the health, and even the survival, of numerous plants.

To fall below the threshold of 280 or 240 ppm would plainly lead to the extinction of a large variety of our vegetal species.

Animals need CO² too. And by the way – forests are not the 'lungs of the earth'…

In addition, our relentless crusade to reduce CO² could be more harmful to nature as plants are not the only organisms to base their nutrition on CO².

Phytoplankton species also feed on CO², using carbon from CO² as a building unit and releasing oxygen.

By the way, it is worth remembering that ~70 percent of the oxygen present today in the atmosphere comes from phytoplankton, not trees.

Contrary to common belief, it is not the forests, but the oceans, that constitute the "lungs" of the earth.

It is not true that CO² has a major greenhouse effect - Reports of its influence have been exaggerated

It is worth remembering here too that CO² is a minor gas.

Today it represents only 0.04 percent of the composition of the air; and its greenhouse effect is attributed the value of 1. The major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor which is ten times more potent than CO² in its greenhouse effect.

Water vapor is present in a proportion of 2 percent in the atmosphere.

Those facts are, in principle, taught at school and at university, but one still manages to incriminate CO² alongside this learning, in using a dirty trick that presents the warming effect of CO² as minor but exacerbated, through feedback loops, by the other greenhouse effects.

Climate change is natural

Over the last 12,000 years, what we have witnessed is an oscillation between warm and cold periods, thus periods with rising and declining sea levels.

Incontestably, sea and ocean levels have been on the rise since the end of the Little Ice Age that took place approximately from the beginning of the 14^th century until the end of the 19^th century. At the end of that period, global temperatures started to rise.

That being said, the recorded rise is 0.8 degrees Celsius and is, therefore, nothing extraordinary. If the temperature goes up, ocean water obviously dilates and some glaciers recede.

This is something glaciers have always done, and not a specificity of our time.

Don't worry about shrinking glaciers. We've been here before…

In Ancient Roman times, glaciers were much smaller than the ones we know nowadays.

I invite the reader to look at the documents dating back to the days of Hannibal, who managed to cross the Alps with his elephants because he did not encounter ice on his way to Rome (except during a snow storm just before arriving on the Italian plain).

Today, you could no longer make Hannibal's journey.

He proved to be capable of such an exploit precisely because it was warmer in Roman times.

Sea level rise is normal

Sea levels are currently on the rise; but this is an overestimated phenomenon.

The recorded rise is 1.5 millimeters per year, namely 1.5 cm every ten years, and is, therefore, not dramatic at all. Indeed, it does happen that entire islands do get engulfed; but in 99 percent of the cases, that is due to a classic erosion phenomenon ^[1] and not to rising sea levels.

As far as the Italian city of Venice is concerned, the fact it has been faced with water challenges is not due to any rise of the lagoon level and is just the manifestation of the sad reality that "the City of the Doges" is sinking under its weight on the marshland.

Once again, the global sea and ocean levels are rising; but the threat effectively represented by that phenomenon is far from being tangible. I note that the Tuvalu islands, whose engulfment was previously announced as imminent, not only have not been engulfed, but have seen their own land level rise with respect to that of waters around them.

[1] The island shores are eroded by the persistent pounding of the ocean waves. This is perceived as 'sinking' or as 'sea level rise,' but the upward creep of the waters is due to island soil being washed away.

The polar ice caps are fine too

Still another phenomenon we tend to exaggerate is the melting of the polar caps.

The quantity of ice in the Arctic has not gone down for 10 years. One may well witness, from one year to the other, ice level fluctuations, but, on average, that level has remained constant.

Right after the Little Ice Age, since the temperature went up, the Arctic started to melt; but the ice level in the Arctic finally settled down.

Besides, ice has been expanding in Antarctica over the last 30 years and, similarly, we observe in Greenland that the quantity of ice increased by 112 million cubic kilometers last year.

On a global scale, glaciers account for peanuts, with most of the ice being located in Antarctica and so on.

Extreme weather events are actually decreasing

From storms to tornados, extreme events are going down all around the world and, when they occur, their level is much lower, too.

As explained by MIT physicist Richard Lindzen, the reduction of the temperature differential between the north hemisphere and the equatorial part of our planet makes cyclonic energy much smaller:

the importance and frequency of extreme events thus tend to decrease.

Recent warming is modest - Much smaller than the alarmists' various computer models predicted

If you look at satellite data and weather balloon measurements, you then note that the temperature rise around the world is relatively modest, that it is much lower than the rise that is predicted for us by authorities, and that these predictions rely on calculations that are highly uncertain.

This is because the simulation inputs cannot take into account past temperatures, for which there is no precision data,^[1] except by subjectively adjusting x, y, z data that are not always known.

The recent temperature spikes measured by satellites and balloons are part of a classic natural phenomenon which is called El Niño.

This short-term phenomenon consists of a return of the very warm waters at the surface of the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

The heat thus liberated in the atmosphere pushes up the global temperature and CO² plays no role in that process.

Claims by alarmist 'experts' that 2016 was that 'hottest year ever' are pure balderdash

The World Meteorological Organization – another emanation of the United Nations and which is also, like the IPCC, an intergovernmental forum – declares 2016 the year the warmest of history.

Knowing that 2016 is supposedly hotter by 0.02°C than 2015 and that the margin of error on this value is 0.1°C, we see the absurdity of this statement.

For those who don't understand, this means that the variation in temperature can be of +0.12°C (global warming) or -0.08°C (global cooling).

In short, we can't say anything and WMO has simply lost its mind.

No, 'climate change' hasn't led to an increase in tropical diseases

Climate-related diseases are relatively rare; and even malaria does not directly depend on the climate, but rather on the way we enable the parasite to reproduce and the mosquito to flourish in the place where we are located.

If you find yourself in a swampy area, the odds you will get malaria are high; if you have drained the system and you no longer have that wetland, the odds you will catch the disease are very low.

In the end, automatically blaming the resurgence of some disease on climate change comes down to removing the personal responsibility from the people involved:

such as denying that their refusal of vaccinations, for instance, or their lack of hygiene, may be part of the problem.

Again, CO² is greening the planet. And that's a good thing. So stop demonizing it!

Present deserts, far from expanding, are receding; and they are receding due to the higher quantity of CO² available in the air.

It turns out that greenhouse operators voluntarily inject three times as much CO² in the commercial greenhouse as it is present in the atmosphere.

The result we can observe is that plants grow faster and are bigger, that they are more resistant to diseases and to destructive insects, and that their photosynthesis is way more efficient and that they, therefore, consume less water.

Similarly, the rise of CO² level in the atmosphere makes plants need less water so they can afford to colonize arid regions.

Part 2

Politics, Economics, Arnie…
October 31, 2017

Dr Markó, who died earlier this year, was professor and researcher in organic chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium's largest French-speaking university, as well as a Breitbart contributor and a brilliant and outspoken climate skeptic.

Part II deals with the 'politics' and 'economics' of global warming:

The 'science' on global warming has been hijacked by left-wing politics

To begin, I believe in science: I mean that I believe in the possibility of objectively knowing reality through science.

I believe that there are truth and falsehood, that science allows us to distinguish between the two, and that truth must be known; that scientific knowledge must be placed in the hands of the population.

I also believe in freedom.

I believe that every man is entitled to lead his life and to manage his goods as he sees fit, that he is the only possessor of himself, and that statist socio-economic control is as morally reprehensible as it is harmful in its social, economic, and environmental consequences.

The people are being taken for a ride

I note two things distressing me:

firstly, the population is increasingly misinformed scientifically

secondly, the media and governments take advantage of this to propagate a theory that is doubtful, namely that of anthropogenic warming, and to promote coercive measures on its behalf

Few people take the time to get vital information about the actual CO² footprint; and few people, more generally, are still interested in science.

I deeply regret that our Western societies have succeeded in cultivating such mistrust of science:

such a reluctance to have confidence in its capacity to know the world objectively and to transform it positively.

Anthropogenic Global Warming theory is not real science

The theory of anthropogenic warming claims to be scientific; but if people accept this theory, if they hold it to be true, it is clearly not out of interest for science.

Such a fragile theory, in view of the CO² facts I have presented to you above [see Pt I of the interview], could never have been accepted by people who truly care about science; and who possess a deep understanding in that field.

It's about religion and self-hatred

In my eyes, there are two main reasons - or if you prefer, two main types of feelings - that make people let themselves be seduced by the theory of anthropogenic warming so readily.

In the first place, the Catholic religion is in decline in the Western world; and what I call ecologism comes to replace it.

In the second place, Westerners have a pronounced taste for self-flagellation; and the theory of anthropogenic warming provides justification for that tendency, possibly anchored in our Judeo-Christian heritage.

So, on the one hand, we have religious feelings:

faith in a new system of thought, which is ecologism, the veneration of a new divinity, which is benevolent and protective Nature.

On the other hand, we have a feeling of guilt, expressed in our conviction that, if the climate warms up, it is our fault; and that if we do not immediately limit our CO² emissions, we will have sullied and disfigured our planet.

The scarce resources/Limits to Growth myth

To begin, those who convey the idea that the finite character of resources renders infinite growth impossible, leave out of account the ability of the human being to innovate in our technology, to enrich our knowledge of nature, and to enhance our extraction strategies.

Let us take the case of this finite resource that is petroleum:

one notices, firstly, that new reserves are regularly discovered

secondly, that the depleted oil reserves, (originally tapped by conventional drilling) are exploited by more advanced methods which improve the yield and recovery rate of remaining, formerly unrecoverable oil

and thirdly, that the "peak oil," which Malthusians constantly say is about to be reached, is constantly postponed.

On the other hand, humankind devises recycling methods that let us glimpse the possibility, in a more or less surrealist future, to build growth on perpetually and integrally recycled resources.

Stop whining about 'mass consumption' and 'industrial progress' - They have made us wealthy, healthy and free

To blame mass consumption and industrial progress as such leaves me perplexed, were it only because it is waste, not consumption itself, which is the real problem.

As much as the struggle against waste seems to me to be well-founded and necessary, the struggle against the "consumer society," which happened to inspire a certain terrorism, seems to me irrelevant.

I recall that it is notably mass consumption derived from the industrial exploitation of fossil resources that have liberated Western society from poverty and from a whole series of tasks that previously degraded him.

The victory of medicine, which is so often praised, would never have been possible, without the chemistry of fossil resources.

It is the chemical and industrial advances in pesticides, insecticides, and fertilizers that have enabled us to master our environment.

The Soviet dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn railed against the way industry and mass consumption have destroyed our spirituality and made us mad - This is rubbish

Solzhenitsyn's criticism seems to avoid denying the economic and sanitary benefits of "progress."

That is, it seems to focus on the psychological consequences. But even from that point of view, one easily exaggerates the deleterious effects associated with scientific and technological development and the resulting material comfort and mass consumption.

Pathological behaviors, such as addiction, are the work of a minority of consumers: they are therefore exceptional and accidental; and not a sort of congenital disease of "consumer societies."

As to the idea that having a comfortable life would create in us a moral desert, that it would make us greedy and heartless, this notion does not stand up to scrutiny either.

It is enough to note to what extent people in opulent societies give to charitable organizations of all kinds.

Ironically, Asian societies, which have remained faithful to their spiritual traditions, today cultivate a much greater respect for science and technology than that which prevails in the secularized West.

It is therefore false to claim, as Solzhenitsyn seems to do, that the spirituality of people atrophies as their way of life is more centered on science and technology.

The real problem with improved material comfort is this - It has made people soft and forgetful of how hard-won our achievements are

There are indeed psychological drawbacks that I think can be legitimately attributed to material comfort.

Over generations it gradually disposes people who take their comfort for granted, to lose sight of the inhospitable and dangerous world in which they live.

Blinded by the ease of their standard of living, and the facilities stemming from their scientific, industrial, and technological advancement, Westerners have finally forgotten a fundamental law: this world gives nothing without effort.

Again, the reason we are able to inhabit this planet in conditions that are so favorable to our health and to our hygienic wellbeing, as well as to our economic and demographic development, is that we have rendered our environment hospitable.

We are far too sentimental about Nature - Which is cruel and harsh

Gaia does not take us under her protection; nor is she that delicate and innocent goddess, offended by blood and toil, raped by factories, mines, and urban groups, which ecologists celebrate.

I mentioned above the colonization of deserts by plants thanks to the greater amount of CO² available to them.

Colonization genuinely comes from Nature itself, not the human being; it is not so much that humans "invented" colonization, or industry, commerce, war, or even infanticides; we only inherited those behaviors from Nature.

If the reader does not take me seriously on infanticides, let him think of the polar bears that do not hesitate to kill their own offspring and to take their heads away for the evening meal.

Wind energy is an economic and environmental disaster

The wind industry, over which ecologists swoon, produces highly unpredictable output, depending on the intensity of the wind.

Even under good atmospheric conditions, wind delivers too little electricity to be a profitable industry on its own.

Warren Buffet, who owns one of the largest wind farms in Iowa, said it without embarrassment:

"On wind power, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. This is the only reason to build them. They do not make sense without the tax credit."

The ecological balance is just as bad: onshore wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands, even millions of birds and bats per year.

As for wind turbines at sea, they kill many marine mammals, again in the utmost indifference of ecologists.

Nuclear, not renewables, is the answer

We are plagued, in Europe, by a morbid fear of nuclear power.

The Chinese, but also the Russians and the Indians, know that this fear is irrational, and that renewables that can only provide intermittent energy, are not a viable alternative.

They are developing their nuclear industry at a brisk pace and are already experimenting with the next-generation, thorium-fueled nuclear reactor.

As for the Germans and the French, and soon the Belgians, alas, they are regressing!

They are horrified by the Fukushima accident, encouraged by silly elites, and so they are destroying their wonderful energy/power generation industrial parks, becoming the laughing stock of emerging countries.

I recall that the earthquake and the tsunami of 2011 certainly caused numerous victims, about 20,000 deaths.

But no one has died because of the nuclear industrial accident as such.

The West's green ideology means we are being overtaken by the Russians, the Indians and the Chinese

In the United States, there currently happens to be an upsurge in funding for what one calls small modular units.

But China assuredly possesses leadership in the nuclear industry. They are in first place before the Russians and the Indians.

The Chinese regularly build nuclear power plants, having become masters in that field, they do so faster and faster. They are, today, in the process of devising two thorium-based nuclear pilots.

They know that its combustion results in highly radioactive products, with long life spans; but they have managed to solve that problem and find a way to obtain ultimate products that are very weakly radioactive.

Besides this, the Chinese are on the way to becoming leaders in the conquest of space.

They built their own platforms, which they managed to send into space and they also have their own launchers, which are extremely reliable, and which are much cheaper, for example, than the Ariane launchers.

If the Chinese are such high performers and so innovative, it is because, like the Indians and the Russians, they have faith in science: they have faith in the ability of science to embellish their future and to create a better world.

In Europe, there was a time when we, too, had faith in science; and faith in an evolution of our societies that would rest on science.

Today we have not only turned our backs on science, we are choked and infantilized by bureaucrats who suck the living forces of the old continent.

Ecologism is the communism of the 21^stcentury

Many persons, generally those coming from the former Eastern Bloc, let themselves be seduced by the idea that the resolution of our environmental problems would be that of global governance. In many respects, ecologism is also the communism of the 21st century.

In the same way as Islam, it occupies the place left vacant by the decline of Marxism-Leninism.

I do not know if a convergence of struggles between Islamists and ecologists will actually take shape; however, I note that we already have the equivalent, on a smaller scale, of the global ecological caliphate.

I am thinking of the European Union, which gives us a foretaste of the bureaucratic, global, and totalitarian governance that the United Nations manifestly endeavors to establish.

On Arnold Schwarzenegger wanting to punish skeptics by strapping their mouths to the exhaust pipe of a truck and turning on the engine

Having myself practiced bodybuilding in my youth, I am a great admirer of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the man and his cinematography.

But I suspect his chemical knowledge, at least what he shows of it, to be a bit light, in contrast to that of Swedish screen star Dolph Lundgren, who at least graduated in chemical engineering.

When it comes to getting an enlightened advice in politics or philosophy, I would rather trust Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Arnold expresses himself here completely ignoring that,

all greenhouse gases are not poison...!

To strap a car's exhaust pipe to the mouth of someone and to turn on the engine will only result in blowing up the lungs of the person, which does not have much to do with the greenhouse effect.

For my part, the worst 'punishments' I would wish upon a devotee of anthropogenic warming, on-screen or in reality, is to be confronted with honest information, data and figures that are not manipulated, which oblige him to recognize the vacuity of his dogma.

The Belgian martial arts expert and movie star is known for his support of Trump and for his concern for the protection of natural species.