Climate alarmists have abandoned the scientific method

Two new replies to this letter added on January 30, 2020

by Ed Berry

The Daily Inter Lake, Kalispell, Montana, published my opinion letter today here. I post it below.

The international meeting in Madrid that was supposed to finalize the rules for the Paris agreement on climate change should never have occurred. The idea that human emissions increase global temperature and that curtailing human emissions will somehow decrease global temperature is an illusion that rejects science.

From the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, to the Earth Summit in June 1992 and thereafter, climate alarmism was born, raised and promoted in politics, not science.

In 1972, Maurice Strong founded the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). His lifetime goal was to transform the UN into a world government. In 1978, Professor Bert Bolin of Sweden and his tiny band of meteorologists proposed the rise in atmospheric CO2 causes a rise in temperature. In 1985, Strong made Bolin’s climate theory a key part of UNEP.

In 1987, Strong managed the UN Brundtland report that warned human CO2 could raise global temperatures, harm agriculture, “raise sea levels, flood coastal cities and disrupt national economies.” The report called for a major global effort to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

In 1988, Strong formed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC’s goal is NOT to find the true cause of climate change but to convince you that human emissions cause climate change.

IPCC is a marketing organization, not a scientific organization.

In 1990, IPCC’s report claimed human CO2 caused global warming. It warned we must reduce our CO2 emissions by 60 percent to save the planet. Thereafter, environmentalists morphed into climate activists because IPCC’s climate claims supported their environmental agenda.

In 1992, Strong, chaired the UN “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Strong declared,

“We need a system of global governance through which nations can cooperate and deal with issues they cannot deal with alone. The ultimate example is climate change.”

“We may get to the point, where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”

The cause of climate change is a subject of theoretical physics, not of ecology. Ecology makes three invalid assumptions: “natural” is good, the climate is fragile, and human influences are bad. Physics makes no such assumptions.

For example, IPCC’s 2013 report claims incorrectly,

“With a very high level of confidence, the increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning [is] the dominant cause of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.”

“The removal of human-emitted CO2 from the atmosphere by natural processes will take a few hundred thousand years (high confidence).”

IPCC’s claim “With a very high level of confidence…” reverses the scientific method. No one can prove a theory is true. Science can only prove a theory is wrong.

IPCC and climate alarmists have abandoned the time-tested scientific method. They exclude evidence that proves their theory is wrong. This is “confirmation bias” and it contradicts the scientific method.

In true science, proof that a theory is wrong prevails over all opinions, consensus, and so-called evidence used to support the theory.

The proof is simple.

Simple inspection of IPCC’s 2013 report shows IPCC made gross errors in its calculation of the human carbon cycle. IPCC’s gross scientific errors are the basis of all climate alarmism. You do not need a Ph.D. in physics to understand IPCC’s errors. If you can balance your checkbook, you can understand IPCC’s errors.

Anyone who understands high-school physics and math can, with a little instruction from me, calculate the true human carbon cycle. It is not rocket science. It is something every science teacher should learn and teach.

The answer, easily calculated, shows all human carbon emissions from 1750 through 2019 have added only 1 percent to the carbon in the carbon cycle. Meanwhile, nature has added 3 percent, likely due to natural warming since the Little Ice Age. Human emissions have increased atmospheric CO2 by 31 ppm while nature has increased it by 100 ppm. Since we can’t control nature, all climate treaties are worthless.

If human emissions stopped in 2020, then by 2100 only 8 ppm of human CO2 would remain in the atmosphere. There is no “climate emergency.” We will not be “boiled frogs.”

—Ed Berry is a certified consulting meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society, and CEO of Climate Physics, LLC. He lives in Bigfork.

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The Daily Inter Lake, Kalispell, Montana, published this personal attack to my above opinion letter on January 30, 2020.

Twisted physics used to prop up political agenda

BY JERRY ELWOOD AND ROBERT KORECHOFF

Mr. Berry’s opinion article (Inter Lake, Jan. 6) is one of several he has published in which he attempts to convince the reader that, contrary to the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the vast majority of climate scientists, human activity is not the cause of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Mr. Berry’s claims that the IPCC is a “marketing organization, not a scientific organization,” that the “IPCC and climate alarmists have abandoned the time-tested scientific method,” and that “they [IPCC] exclude evidence that proves their theory is wrong” are indeed extraordinary. So where is his evidence for these claims? The answer is he provides none. In contrast, all IPCC assessment reports are based on results published in recognized, peer-reviewed scientific journals. Further, all IPCC reports have been subjected to extensive peer review by subject matter experts.

Even more remarkable is Mr. Berry’s claim that all that is required to reach his conclusions regarding the IPCC studies is high school physics and math plus a little instruction from Mr. Berry. Mr. Berry has written a paper based on his so-called high school physics model of the global carbon cycle and showed it agreed with observational data. We have carefully reviewed Mr. Berry’s paper and found it contained faulty and inappropriate assumptions, incorrect math and physics, and a complete misunderstanding of what the observational data represents. But most egregious of all his errors was the fact that the physical quantity calculated by his “physic model” (concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere) was different from that represented by the observational data he used to “verify” his model. In simple terms, his model calculates the number of apples in an orchard while the data he used to justify the correctness of his model counts the number of oranges. This is the type of error that would embarrass any freshman physics student. One of us (Robert Korechoff) met with Mr. Berry last March and pointed out these issues. At that time, he had no explanation regarding the inconsistency between his model (number of apples) and the observational data (number of oranges) and said he would look into the problem. What he did was to ignore these inconvenient errors in his work and submit his paper to a “pay for publication” journal. Contrary to his claims in his opinion article, it is Mr. Berry, not the IPCC, who does not understand the scientific method and has twisted his physics model to produce a result that agrees with his particular political and ideological agenda.

—Jerry Elwood lives in Kalispell. Robert Korechoff lives in Bigfork

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My reply to Elwood and Korechoff that I sent to the Daily Inter Lake

By Ed Berry

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims human emissions caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750 or above 280 ppm. This unproven IPCC claim is the foundation of all political efforts to reduce human carbon emissions.

I wrote (Inter Lake, Jan 6) that this IPCC claim fails fundamental physics. True physics shows that nature added 100 ppm to 280 ppm to bring the natural level to 380 ppm, and human carbon added 31 ppm to produce today’s level of 411 ppm.

Yes, I can teach this physics to good high-school students in 5 hours, and to science teachers in one hour.

Following my opinion letter, came the expected attack by Dr. Elwood and Dr. Korechoff (Inter Lake, Jan. 30). Their attack makes four errors as follows:

First, they think attacking the messenger is science. They addressed me eight times as “Mr. Berry.” True scientists address me as “Dr. Berry.” True scientists critique the message but are polite to the messenger.

Second, they think “authority” is science. It matters not if “the vast majority of climate scientists” support IPCC’s invalid claim or if “all IPCC reports have been subjected to extensive peer review by subject matter experts.” Consensus and votes don’t count in science. All advances in science overturn a consensus.

Third, they think they, an ecologist and an engineer, know more about my profession of theoretical climate physics than I do. They could not pass a test on my 1965 PhD thesis – that revolutionized cloud physics and is referenced in scientific papers and textbooks.

Fourth, they think their unwritten, undocumented, unspecific claim – that my two preprints contain fundamental physics errors – is science. If they were competent, they would put their claims on edberry.com. They won’t because then I and 57,000 monthly readers would prove their claims are junk.

I offer to present a one-hour overview of climate physics to any group that arranges a suitable time and place. Who is for real climate science? Anybody?

• Ed Berry is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society and CEO of Climate Physics, LLC. He lives in Bigfork.