Over 40 years of wrong predictions…

What CO₂ has to do with climate change

Interview with Ueli Gubler, Engineer HTL

(15 October 2021) For some time now, the topic of “global warming” has had a massive influence on our direct life reality – be it in the form of incentive taxes, energy regulations and even our diet. The goal of all political measures is a massive reduction of CO₂ emissions in order to prevent global warming.

The UN and international bodies such as the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC) are calling on governments in an alarmist way to convert our society and economy to become “CO₂ -neutral” as quickly as possible. The global transformation is in full swing.

However, the measures are not being adopted at any rate. A national CO₂ bill was rejected by the Swiss population in June 2021. The climate expert Professor Reto Knutti then warned in an almost threatening manner that a global catastrophe could only be prevented if experts like him were believed and drastic measures were adopted (Infosperber.ch, 22.08.2021).

Behind this statement is the hypothesis that our CO₂ emissions are too high and that we are the one’s accountable for global warming. But hardly anyone understands what the exact correlation is supposed to be.

“Swiss Standpoint” had the opportunity to talk to expert Ueli Gubler^* about the scientific implications.

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Swiss Standpoint: Mr. Gubler, you have been dealing with questions of climate prognosis for decades. What prompted you to become more deeply involved with the climate issue?

Ueli Gubler: It were the contradictory forecasts, which were corrected again and again. Especially the statement by Hans von Storch and Lennart Bengtsson (two renowned German climate experts), who resignedly admitted in 2013 and 2014 that there was a fundamental error in the models. Bengtsson criticised his guild for sweeping the findings that contradict anthropogenic [man-made] climate change under the carpet.

Again and again I was struck by the inaccurate prognosis about our future climate. I had then started to look into this complex of themes more intensively:

For more than 40 years, climate researchers have been coming up with forecasts that have almost all proved to be wrong. The American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, for example, warned before the United Nations in New York as late as April 1974 that if the burning of fossil fuels continues to increase, the temperature will drop to 0°C by 2015,¹ which would be tantamount to an ice age. From 1980 onwards, there have been warnings of warming – and more recently they are merely termed extreme events.

Moreover, it is surprising that many climate researchers, like Bengtsson, only begin to give account critically once they retire. That speaks volumes.

Furthermore, there is the reporting on CO₂: all chemical substances have certain properties. Only CO₂ is said to have an abundance of properties which then lead to the most diverse extreme events. That is an unsubstantiated assertion.

And – for us human beings, the worst 100 years were not a warm period, but global cooling between 1350 and 1450.

Official climate experts blame the rise in the earth's temperature on man-made CO₂ emissions. Why is that?

The current global warming began after 1850, after the so-called “Little Ice Age” [14^th to 19^th century] – a very cold period with many crop failures and famines. The question is therefore, would the current warming be more moderate without burning fossil fuels? That is the question at issue. Objectively, the question should be, “what percentage is attributable to natural warming and how much to man-made warming?” “Politicised” climate research insists that exclusively humans are accountable. If natural factors were also included, it would wreak havoc to the climate movement.

What do you mean by “natural” sources of CO₂ emissions?

Annually there is an exchange of CO₂ between the atmosphere and plants of about 100 gigatons of carbon (not CO₂).² Plants absorb CO₂ and release it again during decay or incineration. An analogous exchange of a similar magnitude takes place between the atmosphere and the oceans. Warm water gases out CO₂ – cold water absorbs CO₂. Active volcanoes also emit large quantities of CO₂.

How should we envisage the gas CO₂?

CO₂ is an invisible, odourless, tasteless and non-toxic gas. The media convey it to us as a toxic gas. The question is, why do they do this? The proportion of CO₂ in the air is only 0.0004 or 400/millionth. Or using an illustrative example: if a half-litre bottle contained the entire gas content of the Earth’s atmosphere, then just one drop of it would be CO₂. Or in other words: a half-litre bottle holds 10,000 drops. If each drop were to represent a part of the air, only 4 of them would be CO₂ and of these only one would be man-made CO₂.

How is CO2 supposed to be causing global warming?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been trying to answer this question for 30 years – without success! It maintains 30 climate models that produce different results with different assumptions. This proves that nothing has been proven. They developed the so-called “greenhouse gas effect theory” and are trying to reach their goal with this model. In the best case, 29 models are correct and one is wrong – in the worst case, all models are wrong.

How do the model calculations work?

The history of the earth and the climate provide no evidence that there is a causal relationship between the CO₂ content and the earth’s temperature. This is the secret of the various model calculators.

The central initial question that both climate alarmists and climate sceptics accept is: “by how much will the earth warm if the CO₂ content doubles?” The answer is the so-called “climate sensitivity”. The assumptions vary between 0.24°C and 6°C – i.e. by a factor of 25!

The question about the doubling of the CO₂ content is a tough one. It assumes an exponential increase in CO₂ to achieve linear warming. In other words, each additional CO₂ produces a smaller effect than the one that preceded it. It is the same logarithmic law as for noise.³ The workings of the greenhouse gas effect cannot be expounded her. Only this much: there are still many open questions, from the actual theory to the number and weighting of the individual factors.

Is it possible to determine a global temperature increase, and how high is it?

In relation to the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, it is a little more than one degree. However, the rate of increase has fluctuated over the last 150 years. Climate alarmists are concerned about the current pause in warming. This is called a hiatus (pause).⁴

According to the greenhouse gas theory, the earth’s natural target temperature is 14.88°C.⁵ Curiously, it has never been reached for the last 150 years. With much fanfare, the highest temperature ever measured was announced in 2016: 14.83°C. A lot of things don’t add up! The world target temperature has never been reached during the industrial age!

Are there other factors besides CO2 that influence the climate?

Eighty years ago, the geoscientist Milutin Milankovic calculated a cycle named after him. He took into account that the earth’s axis “wobbles” (once in 25,000 years). Furthermore, the earth’s axial tilt fluctuates between 22.5 and 24.5 degrees in 40,000 years. Thirdly, the earth’s orbit around the sun is not constant.

Four cycles are known from the sun itself, which affect solar activity. These affect the ocean currents, which go through a cycle of about 60 years. This is known as the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean oscillations. There are other factors that are being discussed and new ones are being added all the time. These are massive factors influencing the heat balance of our planet. The climate models do not take all this into account, or only to a small degree.

A heretical question: is it possible that climate fluctuations occur independently of CO₂ levels?

Yes, a look at the history of the earth and the climate shows that both the CO₂ content and the earth’s temperature fluctuated massively. However, neither a correlation nor a causal relationship can be discerned.

Earth and climate history provide no evidence that there is a causal link between the CO2 content and the Earth’s temperature.

Again and again, pictures of glacier retreat in Switzerland are shown to document man-made climate change. But now we also read that Switzerland used to be glacier-free?

The answer must be limited to the current warm period between the last, the fourth and the presumably coming fifth ice age. In October 2020, the Morteratsch glacier released a 10,000-year-old larch trunk at 2200 metres. This proves that it must have been 2°C warmer back then. The Glacier Research Institute Tyrol and the University of Bern have reconstructed the ups and downs of the forest boundaries on the basis of such findings. There are about four epochs during which Switzerland was completely or almost completely free of glaciers. It is striking that the coming and going of human cultures has a lot to do with the climate. Generally speaking, a connection can be drawn: when the weather was nice and warm, people did well. Seen in this light, it is not understandable that there are people who wish for the glaciers to return. We would then no longer be able to feed the population.

When you look at the many results from official “climate research”, some of which are very questionable, you ask yourself who decides which research and which research results are taken into account for policy advice?

Quite a few climate researchers criticise that funds for research only flow if proof of anthropogenic climate change⁶ seems promising in the application. In the opposite case, the researchers would lose their jobs.

Results are always presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Does the IPCC do its own research?

It is a political council that does not conduct research itself. It was founded in 1988 with the task of proving anthropogenic climate change. It has not yet succeeded in doing so. Moreover, solar and ocean researchers criticise that their findings are not included in the recurring “state of the art” reports. Only what could provide proof is admitted.

What do you criticise about the current climate debate?

That there is no climate debate at all. Anyone who dares to ask critical questions is immediately labelled a “climate denier”. Any attempt at a discussion is nipped in the bud.

What do you think realistic climate research could look like?

After more than 40 years of grossly erroneous predictions, climate research should come to a halt. The same applies to politics. But both will hardly be able to do so, because they have come to a deadlock.

There is no reason to continue to persistently exclude any faculty, e.g. solar, ocean and glacier research.

Besides, before giving the economy and society a “chemotherapy”, one should make sure that it works. Even if it does have an effect, the measures will fizzle out because Switzerland only accounts for 1‰ of global CO2 emissions. The leading countries China, the USA and India will not follow suit. Should Africa also wake up economically one day, it will certainly not stifle the economic momentum with the hardly affordable “renewable” energies.

Mr Gubler, thank you for these interesting insights into the current climate debate.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)

* Ueli Gubler, engineer HTL, freelance journalist, gets to the bottom of assertions and conjectures. As an engineer, he takes a close look at certain physical laws and figures.

1 The natural greenhouse effect causes the average earth temperature to be around +14°C. The “natural value” is determined by models. Their results vary between 56°F [13,3333° C.] and 58°F [14,4444°C.].
cf. https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/abs_temp.html (cf. also wikipedia https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globale_Erw%C3%A4rmung#Der_wissenschaftliche_Konsens_zum_Klimawandel

2 One must pay attention to whether one is talking about CO₂ or the carbon (C) it contains. In the CO₂ cycle, we usually only talk about carbon (C). The reason for this is that fossil fuels are part of the CO₂ cycle. Only when they are burnt do they become CO₂. One kilogram of carbon becomes 3.6 kg of CO₂.

3 In order to achieve a linear increase in noise pollution, the noise at its source must increase by the square. If 30,000 people shout “goal” in a football stadium, it is not 30 000 times louder than one shouting “goal”. For the first doubling it takes 2 people, for the next already 4, for the next already 8, for the next 16, for the next 32 and so on. This is called exponential, in this case logarithmic (2nd power). The braking distance of a vehicle increases with the same regularity (double speed = four times the braking distance, triple speed = 9 times the braking distance).

4 Hiatus: since the year 2000, the temperature has no longer risen in parallel with CO₂ emissions. All climate experts puzzle over this. Their models did not foresee this (see von Storch and Bengtsson above). The term hiatus is used in this context.

5 cf. footnote 2

6 Anthropogenic climate change means man-made climate change due to burning fossil fuels. This contrasts with natural climate change, which climate experts cannot explain, e.g. the four ice ages during the last 400,000 years.