5 minute read

Attempt to analyze the current discussion on climate protection in Germany

Reinhard Storz, marine engineer

May 25, 2023

If you see on TV these days, essentially, young people who are glued to the streets to speed up measures to prevent serious environmental damage, or calls in the town of Rösrath near Cologne, where I live, to declare a climate emergency, ask one inevitably wonders whether what is being demanded is necessary or justified. Where do the young people get the information that leads them to believe that they are the last generation and that nothing will come after them.

As far as I know, the vast majority of information on current climate change and its likely negative consequences comes from statements by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.

Its pronouncements are generally regarded as reliable scientific knowledge, internationally recognized and rated as beyond any doubt. And so no fellow citizen, politician, journalist, etc. has reservations about passing on these statements. The result is that the press, radio and television are brought up to date with the latest findings on climate change according to the IPCC.

As far as the current situation with its panic effects, not only among the young people in Germany who are glued to the streets and are ready to go to prison in order to accelerate what they see as urgently needed government and society measures to combat climate change.

However, as a naturally suspicious person, I wonder how justified is this behavior?

How reliable is the information that leads to these serious reactions? Is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change actually an impartial scientific body or is it possibly partisan?

In order to be able to form an objective judgment on this question, one must know the following:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a political body of the United Nations, not a scientific organization. It was founded in 1988 as a subsidiary of the IMO (UN Meteorological Organization based in Geneva) and the UN Environmental Protection Agency (UNEP based in Nairobi) with the aim of informing the world population about the future risks of climate change.

Here is an original text for the purpose of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in English:

The IPCC was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options.

Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/

For information on the previous link:

The information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change runs through the International Meteorological Organization of the UN in Geneva.

We recognize:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is by no means an independent scientific body.

On the contrary, it is a political association that, with the help of policymakers, i.e. people who have influence, such as politicians, journalists, etc., use scientific assessments/assessments to warn the world population of the consequences of climate change and countermeasures, as well as options for adapting to the consequences.

So far, in my eyes, at first glance a commendable goal, of which there is nothing fundamental to criticize.

But you don't see the hidden problem until you get into the details.

Then you realize that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change primarily evaluates those scientific publications that predict future catastrophic conditions.

The fact that there are numerous publications with contrary results is not mentioned because it is not suitable to cause fear or panic in the population.

As a current example of such questionable behavior, an excerpt from the IPCC Assessment Report AR6:

There it says as follows:

I just highlighted the important sentence. Otherwise it's easy to overread it. It can be found on page 6 of the Synthesis longer Report. There it is reported:

Observed increases in well-mixed GHG concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by GHG emissions from human activities. Land and ocean sinks have taken up a near-constant proportion (globally about 56% per year) of CO 2 emissions from human activities over the past six decades, with regional differences (high confidence).

In 2019, atmospheric CO 2 concentrations reached 410 parts per million (ppm), CH 4 reached 1866 parts per billion (ppb) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) reached 332 ppb 11 . Other major contributors to warming are tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) and halogenated gases.

Concentrations of CH 4 and N 2 O have to levels unprecedented in at least 800,000 years (very high confidence), and there is high confidence that current CO 2 concentrations are higher than at any time over at least the past two million years.

Reading this text published by the IPCC, one can easily conclude that only 56% of the CO2 emitted annually is absorbed. If nothing more is emitted, only 56% of zero, i.e. nothing, would be absorbed. But of course that's nonsense.

I assume that the self-cleaning of the atmosphere is controlled by the partial pressure. The plants have no idea where and how much is emitted or absorbed by the CO2 of whatever origin.

And percentage calculation is also foreign to them.

They use the amount of CO2 in the air that is present in their environment. This consists of the 280 ppm that were already present through natural processes and an additional 135 ppm from human activities, for a total of 415 ppm at present (2023). And from this sum they take their part through their breathing.

It would be more plausible to express these proportions in terms of tonnes of CO2 that are removed annually from the CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere by natural processes, then one would not erroneously focus on the proportion of annual emissions.

Let's assume that the CO2 emissions caused by us would be zero in the coming year 2024. Then at 415 ppm the plants would experience the same partial pressure as they did the year before and absorb the same amount of CO2 as they did the year before, barring dead times in the atmosphere.

Consequently, the avoidance of 44% of the CO2 emissions worldwide is enough to bring the temperature increase to a standstill and to decide in peace how the temperature can be lowered with what means and how far one wants to lower it at all.

Far more than the otherwise required financial resources could be saved in this way.

Because the more CO2 you want to separate, the higher the costs, not only in absolute terms but also specifically.

First of all, savings are made where it is possible with simple means. But as soon as the socalled "low hanging fruits" are harvested, prices do not rise linearly but presumably with an e-function.

Developing countries are already complaining that everything would be much more expensive than initially thought. One would not be able to afford the climate protection measures agreed in Paris. Their costs would stand in the way of a positive development of their national economies. As a result, the rich countries of the world would have to reimburse them for the costs.

My impression is that we still have quite a few demands to make.

In 2 places in the AR6 text I found a reference to the mentioned 56% of the emission of annual natural capture of CO2 from the atmosphere and in a third place in the IPCC publications on AR6 I found a graphic related to this.

These facts are only included in the long versions. I did not find this important information in the English summary for policymakers. Not even in the German translation. Such facts, which in my opinion would be suitable to take away the fears of fellow human beings and to avoid panic reactions, are not spread as far as possible. My conclusion: We are successfully kept stupid as a people.

Reinhard Storz

This article is from: