A worldview that has been adopted over the past few decades in most developed countries promotes, or at least implies, the following ideas: (1) human beings, through their use of fossil fuels, have created a situation whereby climates around the globe are changing for the worse and will lead to a catastrophic future for the people of the world; (2) human beings can remedy the situation by reducing the net emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere to zero (a condition known as Net Zero), achieved primarily by eliminating the use of fossil fuels and making a near-complete transition to renewable energy sources; and (3) human beings have the ability to limit the spectrum of climates around the world, thereby making our climatic future not only predictable but benign - we can indeed “save the planet”.

It is my contention that all three of these ideas possess highly questionable aspects which must be considered before the entire human race commits itself to an uncertain and possibly disastrous future.


The Reality – Or Not – of “Global Warming” / “Climate Change”.

The first question to ask is: Are global temperatures really increasing? The answer to this question is almost certainly “yes”. The next question is: What is causing this increase? Until the last couple of centuries, the answer was that increases or decreases in temperatures were due either to earth processes or extraterrestrial events such as a meteorite impacts. Humans were thought to have had no significant influence on climate. The earth is currently in an interglacial period. Since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago the earth has been warming, and will continue to do so until the next glacial advance, whether human beings are here or not.

A few decades ago, however, a new question was raised: Is human activity a significant contributor to the temperature increase? The answer appears to be “maybe” or “maybe not”. While it is true that human civilization and industrialization has increased the quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is not clear that the increased amounts of CO2, methane, and water vapor are raising temperatures in direct proportion to their amounts.

So, if the temperature is increasing, how fast is it increasing and will it continue? The answer to this question is a bit more problematic. It is not a simple matter of measuring temperature at one location and coming back a few decades later and measuring again. The buildup of more roadways, parking lots, buildings, and other products of greater human population density and activities tends to result in temperature measurements that are higher than what would be measured in the original environments. This necessitates estimating temperatures rather than relying on direct measurements.

Estimates of future temperature increases are just that – estimates (or should I say “guesses”). They are derived from data models. Of the dozens of models generated so far, most rely on presumed effects of increasing greenhouse gases, notably CO2. Many models assume that increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere will result in increased temperatures. Others take the position that the effect of CO2 has already saturated and there will be little effect as more CO2 is added. It is difficult to know what is correct without doing one’s own investigation and being able to see into the future.

Some proponents of increased global warming rely on the concept of consensus to support their position. My own reaction to this is that consensus and science are completely different approaches. Science is not the same as consensus. Science depends on demonstrable, repeatable results. Consensus is “everybody” believing the same thing, whether it makes sense or not. History is replete with instances where most of the “experts” stood together on a position, only to be shown to be wrong when further evidence was obtained. (Think of the conflict 400 years ago between Galileo and the Catholic Church. The consensus supported the idea of a geocentric universe while Galileo supported the idea of a heliocentric universe. The Church enforced its view by finding Galileo guilty of heresy and sentencing him to house arrest for the remainder of his life. As it turned out, both views were incorrect but the at least Galileo’s heliocentric concept correctly described the configuration of the solar system and was moving in the direction of the modern-day view of the universe.) The current consensus supporting human-induced climate change is based on cherry-picked models and cannot be definitively demonstrated. Given the political climate (yes, that choice of words was intentional) surrounding climate change and Net Zero, one must ask whether the current consensus is based more on dispassionate and objective assessments or on belief, political views, and professional standing/funding.

Another question to be considered is whether rising temperatures are a good thing or a bad thing. While higher temperatures due to higher CO2 levels might raise sea levels and modify climates around the world, they could also increase the amount of usable farmland (especially in the northern hemisphere) and increase crop yields on land already in production. Higher temperatures in the past have produced periods of increased human achievement during the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm Periods.


Are We Actually Moving Toward A Renewable Energy Future?

Regardless whether humans are responsible for global warming or not, the fact is that most of the energy used today is derived from finite sources. For the long term, it is imperative that energy sources be developed that are either renewable or present in such quantities that they can be considered inexhaustible. This calls for a more than a roadmap that spells out the path(s) from beginning to end for renewable energy generation, including contingencies such as irregular supply. It calls for a functional system that demonstrates the process.

The politicians calling the shots in many developed countries around the world are setting arbitrary deadlines for a transition to a mostly electric world by severely limiting or outright cancelling the use of non-renewable energy sources for many applications. This includes a transition of ground transportation systems from internal combustion engines to electric as well as a transition of household heating and cooking to all-electric. Unfortunately, the proposed renewable electricity-generating systems are nowhere near able to replace the non-renewable systems in use now. There are critical gaps in the approach by which the renewable systems can come on-line. The politicians in charge are gambling with lives and well-being of millions (if not billions) of people through these forced transitions, while at the same time hoping for miracles to magically appear that will fill the critical gaps.

The principal problem with the proposed schemes for renewable electricity generation is the fact that the primary sources of energy to be used, solar and wind, are low-density, intermittent resources. The technologies that currently power the lion’s share of our electricity production and transportation – oil, coal, and natural gas – are what is known as dispatchable. That is, the power generated from them can be increased or decreased to accommodate energy demand at any given moment. Solar and wind, in contrast, are NOT dispatchable. They only produce energy when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. When the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing, a dispatchable (read: fossil fuel) energy source is usually necessary to provide continuous energy. If fossil fuel backup is to be precluded and renewable sources are to be used exclusively, a solution in the form of a storage system will need to be developed that will enable solar or wind energy, in excess of that needed at any given moment, to be acquired and stored until utilized at a much later time.

The irregularities associated with wind and solar do not result just from diurnal (daily) variations but also from seasonal variations as well. The energy production from both solar and wind varies based on the time of year. Any storage scheme would need to store very large amounts of energy during times of excess availability and release it several months later. There are three types of storage systems usually mentioned in connection with intermittent renewable systems: batteries, “green hydrogen”, and pumped storage. Unfortunately, none of these solutions has been successfully demonstrated in a renewable energy system on the scale of a small town or island, and definitely not on a much larger scale where they will certainly be needed. While there have been experiments to evaluate renewable energy systems in isolated environments (the best known is El Hierro in the Canary Islands), none has been able to provide a totally reliable supply of energy based on renewable sources. At El Hierro, forty to fifty percent of the annual electricity requirements need to be supplied by backup diesel generators.

In their haste to propel America and the rest of the developed world into the energy future, the political powers-that-be have jumped the gun with respect to the readiness of replacement systems for non-renewable energy systems. There is no demonstration facility for the establishment of totally renewable energy systems. There is no doubt that it will be necessary to make a transition to cleaner power generation sooner or later, but it is beyond reckless to do so before the new processes have been demonstrated on a workable real-world scale.


Does It Matter If Humans Are Influencing Climate?

An important question to ask is, assuming human activity is a significant contributor to increasing temperatures and climate change, does it really matter? The bottom line is that, throughout its existence, the earth has done things to itself that human beings can’t even dream of doing. Extreme episodes have occurred that have seriously modified short- or long-term conditions. They will continue to occur, regardless of a human presence. Climates around the world in pre-industrial, and pre-human, times were generated by the earth itself (and the occasional meteorite impact). Human beings had no significant input to climatic processes. While human beings in the present time may now be influencing climate, the largest contributors to extreme climatic conditions will still be those resulting from earth’s geophysical behavior, which is generated in large part by plate tectonic position and movement, orbital perturbations, and volcanic activity.

Climate is never going to be stable with respect to space or time. Temperatures will rise or fall. Precipitation will rise or fall. Islands and coastal areas will be inundated – or left high and dry – due to rising and falling sea levels. Glaciers will advance and retreat. Arable regions will grow and shrink. Regardless of human input, climate around the world will always be changing. It always has - long before humans roamed the earth – and always will.

We won’t be able to control the climate changes resulting from earth processes around the world. The absolute best we will be able to do as we strive toward Net Zero is to return to the climatic context that existed in the pre-industrial world. We will still be at the mercy of the vagaries of earth processes. If we wish to eliminate, or at least moderate, the effects of all climate change it will be necessary to gain control of the various aspects of climate worldwide. If we can’t control climate, then natural climatic variations can, and most likely will, overwhelm most, if not all, of our efforts and render them ineffective. “Saving the Planet” will prove to be a simplistic concept and an impossible undertaking.

It might be instructive to mention a handful from among the many earth-based events that have induced climatic changes. They might sound a bit extreme but they actually happened and indicate what the earth is capable of doing to itself. Two of them occurred long before the appearance of modern humans, one began before modern humans appeared and has continued up to the present day, and one occurred after the humans’ appearance. These last two had significant human impacts.

• Snowball Earth – [before 500 million years ago] Hypothesis that the earth became iced over from the poles to possibly all the way to the equator. There were multiple “snowball” episodes lasting millions of years each.

• Permian Extinction – [250 million years ago] Siberian Traps volcanic eruption lasts for over a million years, resulting in 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species going extinct. The most severe of the five major extinctions of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras.

• Quaternary Ice Age – [2.5 million years ago to present] Tectonic motion results in the closure of the Central American Seaway between North America and South America and contributes to a reduction of oceanic circulation. About this time, periodic advancement and retreat of glaciers begins and continues cyclically up to the present. At the peak of the latest glacial advance, 21,000 years ago, the location we now refer to as New York City was buried under thousands of feet of ice.

• Toba – [74,000 years ago] Volcanic eruption. Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) = 8. Creates a human population bottleneck; reduces world-wide human population from 50,000 to maybe 5000 individuals - possibly fewer. (Prehistoric population estimates vary considerably. I chose mid-range values.)
  

While not in the same class as the above four examples, the eruption of Tambora in April 1815 occurred relatively recently and was well documented by the people of the time. Tambora has been the largest volcanic eruption in recent times. VEI = 7. It produced the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816. (A less-understood but possibly more severe “volcanic winter” episode occurred starting in 536 AD.)

UPDATE:  The summer of 2023 is being reported as being hotter than expected. This is almost universally being explained as a consequence of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There is another contributor, however, that has not been publicized to any degree. In January 2022, an undersea volcano erupted near the South Pacific island of Tonga. This was an unusual volcanic event in that the eruption took place 490 feet below the ocean surface, resulting in a massive amount of water vapor (H2O) being injected into the stratosphere. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and very likely produced additional warming above and beyond that from other sources. It might be noted that the effects of the Tonga event appeared a year or so after the eruption, very similar to the timeframe for the effects of the Tambora eruption to be observed. A silver lining in this scenario is that it is believed that the increased temperatures will disappear once the water vapor dissipates from the stratosphere, but it might take a few years.


A Plausible Strategy for the Future?

The current version of human beings (homo sapiens) appeared on the earth about 100,000 years ago. Since that time, our ancestors have been confronted with changing environmental and climatic conditions created by events like those mentioned above. They had no greater ability than we do to control the earth processes that are responsible for various climatic conditions around the globe. When confronted with increasingly harsh conditions, they adapted by changing their living conditions and/or location.

While, for most of human existence, adaption consisted of altering living conditions and/or locations, modern humans have the additional option of applying technology – something humans have not possessed for most of their history. We must recognize, however, that technology has its limitations. We can still change our living conditions and location, but controlling climate around the globe is beyond our abilities, and will be for quite some time - if ever.

As I mentioned earlier, a return to pre-industrial conditions will have no effect on the earth-induced climate changes. In order to avoid drastic effects of these, the human race will need to shift away from the hubristic idea of controlling climate and toward the idea of adapting to conditions it can’t control.

One thing that needs to be done is to come up with a gradual, coordinated, well thought-out plan of adaption, rather than jumping recklessly headlong into the future. That might be the least disruptive – and most effective - avenue of approach.

A second thing that needs to be done is to determine what paths to the future are realistic and which are in the realm of fantasy and science fiction. We will, at some point, need to convert our power production to a mostly, if not totally, renewable system. To do this successfully we will need to follow those paths that actually have a chance to work. Start with small, demonstrable facilities and gradually scale up from there.

In summary, we need to develop adaption strategies and actual, workable, scalable, renewable power production capabilities.