Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist

by Patrick Moore

  First, one should point out that the ocean is not acidic, it has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. A pH of 7 is neutral, below 7 is acidic, above 7 is alkaline. Researchers have reported in scientific journals that the pH of the seas has gone down by 0.075 over the past 250 years, “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of −0.075).”[94] One has to wonder how the pH of the ocean was measured to an accuracy of three decimal places in 1751 when the concept of pH was not introduced until 1909.[95]

  It turns out that just as with climate science in general, these predictions are based on computer models. But oceans are not simple systems whose components can just be plugged into a computer. First, there is the complex mix of elements and salts dissolved in the sea. Every element on Earth is present in seawater and these elements interact in complex ways. Then there is the biological factor, tens of thousands of species that are consuming and excreting every day. The salt content of seawater gives the oceans a very large buffering capacity against change in pH. Small additions of acidic and alkaline substances can easily alter the pH of freshwater, whereas seawater can neutralize large additions of acidic and alkaline substances.

  One of the most important biological phenomena in the sea is the combining of calcium, carbon, and oxygen to form calcium carbonate, CaCO3, the primary constituent of corals and shells, including the skeletons of microscopic plankton. The formation of calcium carbonate is called calcification. All of the vast chalk, limestone, and marble deposits in the earth’s crust are composed of calcium carbonate, which was created and deposited by marine organisms over millions of years. The carbon in calcium carbonate is derived from CO2 dissolved in seawater. One might therefore imagine that an increase in CO2 in seawater would enhance calcification rather than destroy it. It turns out this is precisely the case.

  As is the case with terrestrial plants, it has been thoroughly demonstrated that increased CO2 concentration in the sea results in higher rates of photosynthesis and faster growth. Photosynthesis has the effect of increasing the pH of the water, making it more alkaline, counteracting any minor acidic effect of the CO2 itself.[96] The owners of saltwater aquariums often add CO2 to the water in order to increase photosynthesis and calcification, a practice that is similar to greenhouse growers adding CO2 to the air in their greenhouses to promote the faster growth of plants. The vast bulk of scientific literature indicates increased CO2 in the ocean will actually result in increased growth and calcification, as opposed to the catastrophe scenario pushed by the NRDC, Greenpeace, and many other activist organizations.[97] [98]

  A long list of scientific publications that support the view that increased CO2 in seawater results in increased calcification can be found on the CO2 Science website.[99] A paper by Atkinson et al., published in the journal Coral Reefs, states that their finding “seems to contradict conclusions ... that high CO2 may inhibit calcification.”[100]

  “Ocean acidification” is a perfect example of a contrived catastrophe scenario. The average person does not have a grasp of the complexities of marine chemistry and biology. The activists simply coin a new, scary term like “acidification” and then effectively extort money from people who are concerned for the future. And all this emphasis on the dangers of CO2tends to divert people from thinking about the real dangers to coral reefs like destructive fishing methods and pollution from sewage.

  Our little house by the Sea of Cortez in Cabo Pulmo in southern Baja, Mexico, looks out over a National Marine Park that contains the only large coral reef on the west coast of the Americas. Pulmo Reef is a popular dive site, known for its rich abundance of reef fish, many of which school in the thousands. It was after a dive on the reef during our first visit to Cabo Pulmo in 1999 that Eileen and I decided to make a base there. Since then we have dived and snorkeled on the reef many times each year.

  In September of 2002 a tropical storm brought torrential rains that dumped over 20 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period. It must have been a once in a 100-year event as the flooding was the worst the locals could remember. A lens of freshwater about 20 feet deep spread out over the reef as a result of the runoff from the mountains. This killed all the coral, as coral cannot live in freshwater. Only the corals below the 20-foot depth of the freshwater layer survived.

  For a few years after the event virtually no living coral could be seen in the shallower waters. The reef turned white and became covered in green algae, which in turn resulted in an explosion of sea urchins where there had been very few before. By 2006 the reef began to recover noticeably with nodules of new coral becoming established. Coral polyps from the deeper regions of the reef were recolonizing the shallow waters. The sea urchins died out and fish returned in greater abundance. Today the reef is in full recovery as the coral is now growing substantially each year. It may take another 20 years or more to recover completely, and will only do so if there is not another torrential rainstorm.

  I imagine some people who believe we are causing catastrophic climate change would suggest we were responsible for the torrential rains that killed part of the reef. I don’t believe we can be so certain, especially as such events have been occurring since long before humans began emitting billions of tons of CO2each year. And regardless of the storm’s cause, it is comforting to know that the reef can recover despite the dire predictions of the early death of coral reefs worldwide.

  Figure 9. Global and Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone energy 1979 to 2010. Since the peak during the 1990s, the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones has diminished considerably.[101]

  Storms, Hurricanes, and Severe Weather Events

  Everyone likes to talk about the weather and climate activists are no exception. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused so much devastation to New Orleans and the surrounding regions, Al Gore gave a rousing speech in which he predicted hurricanes would continue to become more frequent and more severe as global warming intensified.[102]

  Since that speech the intensity of global hurricanes has diminished by about half from the peak years of 1993 and 1998. Still, on the cover of his 2009 book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Al Gore had four fake hurricanes airbrushed onto a photo of the earth from space.[103] [104] He continues to push the fear of hurricanes when it has become clear there is no longer any basis for such concern. In fact, scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center predict that global warming will result in not more but fewer hurricanes.[105] Al Gore must be aware of this.

  Figure 10. Graph showing that sea level was 120 meters (nearly 400 feet) lower at the height of the last glaciation.[106]

  Sea Level Rise

  There is conclusive proof that increased CO2levels will be good for plants both on the land and in the sea. If increased CO2does make the world warmer, it will almost certainly make it wetter, which will also be good for plants and most animals, including us. Then what is so bad about global warming anyway, whether it is natural or caused by humans? The prospect that sea levels will rise in a warmer world is the main drawback as this would threaten the infrastructure we have built in low-lying coastal areas.

  The seal level has fluctuated a great deal during the Pleistocene, as ice sheets have advanced and retreated and as temperatures have risen and fallen. At the height of the last glaciation, which ended 18,000 years ago, the sea was about 120 meters (nearly 400 feet) lower than it is today (See Figure 10). There was relatively rapid glacial melting and subsequent sea level rise between 15,000 and 6000 years ago as large, lower elevation ice sheets melted and disappeared. During the past 6000 years, the rise has been slower but steady. In recent times the sea level has risen by about 20 centimeters (8 inches) per century.[107]

  Clearly human activity was not responsible for the end of the last glaciation, subsequent warming, and the retreat of the world’s glaciers during the past 18,000 years. To date we have no indication that the rate of sea level rise is increasi
ng, whether by natural causes or by our impact on climate. Many predictions of future sea level rise have been based on computer models. In its 2007 report the IPCC predicted sea level would rise between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches) during the next century. The low end is entirely reasonable as this is about equal to the present rate. The high end is three times the present rate and would require a considerable amount of warming during this century. As yet there has been no warming in this century and sea level rise has not been increasing.

  If the sea were to rise nearly two feet as the IPCC suggests in its extreme case, there would be disruptions to infrastructure and related activities. While natural ecosystems would adapt with little difficulty, coastal infrastructure would definitely be impacted negatively, especially our wharfs, buildings, farms, and industries. It wouldn’t matter whether or not the sea level rise was due to natural or human causes.

  The 120-meter (400-foot) sea level rise during the past 18,000 years did not damage the environment and was not a significant factor in human survival. We have managed to cope with the 20-centimeter (8-inch) rise over the past century. But we have built vastly more coastal infrastructure over the past century than we have in all of human history, and we will continue to do so during the next century.

  What should we do about this? Is it wise to assume we are the cause of sea level rise and then to end the activities we think are responsible? Or would it make more sense to plan for a sea level rise of, say, 30 centimeters (12 inches) over the next century. If we are not the cause of sea level rise, which I believe is likely, then there is not much we can do to stop it anyway. If we plan for continued sea level rise at 50 percent above the present rate, we could avoid all or most damage by thinking ahead. We could build the dykes a little higher, not develop suburbs in areas that are susceptible to sea level rise, and generally plan our infrastructure to withstand sea level rise. How could that cause more negative impacts than an 80 percent or larger reduction in fossil fuel use worldwide in the next decade?

  I repeat my assertion that we should make an effort to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and switch to alternatives where this is technologically feasible and reasonably cost-effective. But anything approaching an 80 percent reduction in fossil fuel use over the next decade or two would do more to destroy our civilization than any plausible impact of climate change, even if we were responsible for it. Yet that is what many climate activists, including Greenpeace and Al Gore, are calling for. I believe there are more practical and logical steps that can be taken to find a balance between our environmental, social, and economic priorities. I believe it would be possible to reduce fossil fuel use by 80 percent over the next 50 to 75 years, but we must consider the economic and social cost of doing so.

  Pacific Islands and Sea Level Rise

  Climate change activists have made great fanfare about the possibility that many island states, such as the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Maldives, will be inundated and disappear due to rising sea levels caused by human-induced climate change.[108] The government of the Maldives has made the case that rich, carbon-emitting industrial nations should provide financial compensation for the loss of their countries. None of the projections of sinking island states has taken into account the fact that most of them are built on coral reefs and atolls and that coral reefs are alive. A recent survey of 27 Pacific Islands, comparing aerial photographs from up to 61 years ago with current photographs, demonstrated that 23 islands maintained the same land area or increased in size, while only four islands suffered a net loss in size. [109] [110] During this period there was a rise in sea level of 2 mm per year. This indicates that the coral is able to grow as fast or faster than the rising sea, and that coral islands grow as a result of coral breaking off and forming reefs that in turn catch more coral and grow in size. Many of the coral islands in the tropics have existed for thousands of year, while during that time the sea has risen by hundreds of feet. It is therefore likely that yet another doomsday scenario regarding the impact of climate change is wildly overblown and may actually have no impact even if the sea does continue to rise.

  The “Trick” to “Hide the Decline”

  The most quoted email among the thousands released from the Climatic Research Unit, which led to the “Climategate” crisis, was one from the CRU’s head, Phil Jones, referring to “Mike’s Nature trick…to hide the decline.”[111] [112] Mike is Michael Mann, the creator of the infamous and, to many, discredited hockey stick graph. Nature is the science journal that shows a marked bias in support of human-caused climate change. The “trick” was to discard tree-ring data that did not fit the true believer’s bias, data that showed a drop in temperature in recent decades. These climate scientists clearly colluded to hide the data that showed the decline and to substitute data that indicated unprecedented warming over the past 50 years.

  In response to the “Climategate” emails the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee held hearings to determine if Phil Jones and his staff at the Climatic Research Unit had done anything untoward. They concluded that “trick” and “hide the decline” were “colloquial terms used in private emails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.”[113] [114] This is an obvious whitewash, because whether or not they are colloquial terms, “trick” means “trick” and “hide the decline” means “hide the decline.” The committee did not provide an explanation of what it thought the terms meant in a “colloquial” context. It is amazing what deceptions can be perpetrated in broad daylight by people in responsible positions.

  Another “independent inquiry” conducted by the University of East Anglia, where the Climatic Research Unit is housed, and supported by the Royal Society, concluded with the statement, “We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit.”[115] The inquiry was headed by Lord Oxburgh, who has deep personal and financial interests in climate policy. He is the chair of a multinational wind energy company and the chair of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association.[116] Missing from the inquiry’s report is the fact that the inquiry did not examine the “Climategate” emails or consider evidence from anyone other than the CRU staff. In this report the “trick” “to hide the decline” was not even mentioned; never mind the many other indications of impropriety that were contained in the emails.[117] Phil Jones himself clearly requested that his colleagues delete previous emails containing damaging information.[118]

  The Enigmatic Dr. Lovelock

  James Lovelock is one of the most insightful and at the same time most enigmatic of scientists. He is certainly one of the leading experts on atmospheric chemistry. Earlier passages in this book have shown Lovelock to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of civilization and the earth’s environment. In an interview in 2006, he stated, “We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma…Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable…a broken rabble led by brutal war lords”.[119] [120] Nice visuals! Cue James Cameron! I feel a Hollywood blockbuster coming on. Yet recently, in the wake of the “Climategate” scandal and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit, Lovelock has had some change of heart.

  Speaking at the London Science Museum in March 2010 Lovelock said, “It is worth thinking that what we are doing in creating all these carbon emissions, far from being something frightful, is stopping the onset of a new ice age…. If we hadn’t appeared on the earth, it would be due to go through another ice age and we can look at our part as holding that up. I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing.” This sounds surprisingly like the line of thinking I challenged him with during my visit to his home in 2002. His other colleagues have undoubtedly raised similar points, that there is a possibility we are a positive force rather than an entirely negative one.

  It is c
lear Lovelock was rattled by the revelations in the thousands of leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit. During his first interview after the “Climategate” scandal he stated, “Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I’m not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It’s the one thing you do not ever do.” And he was surprisingly warm toward skeptics, allowing, “What I like about skeptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: ‘Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?’ If you don’t have that continuously, you really are up the creek…If you make a [computer] model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it’s a model and think of it as the real world.”[121]

  Some of his recent statements are chilling. Lovelock contends that, “We need a more authoritative world…even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”[122] If we are indeed preventing a new ice age, then why is it like a war, and why must we suspend democracy? Perhaps Lovelock just can’t make up his mind which it is, catastrophe or salvation. In any case he provides good reason why brilliant scientists who have been cloistered in labs and research institutes most of their lives should not be running the government.

  Conclusion

  From the 1980s until very recently a widespread alarmist view has developed regarding future climate change. The United Nations, most national academies of science, the majority of political parties, the mainstream media, many scientists, and virtually all environmental activist groups have come to believe that if human emissions of CO2 continue at present levels the global temperature will soar, resulting in untold destruction to civilization and the environment. This has caused many countries to consider, and even to adopt, policies to reduce fossil use to levels that could cripple their economies.[123]